Lord Grocott (Lab)

My Lords, I will make two very brief points: one specifically aimed at the noble Lord, Lord True, and the other a more general point about the House and its procedures. The point for the noble Lord, Lord True, concerns the wording of his amendment, which says that, “the House should continue normally to sit at the customary times”. That is a long-winded way of saying it should continue in the future as it always has done in the past with no revision whatsoever. I am sure the noble Lord has not forgotten, but I remind some Members of the House, and maybe inform some new Members, that it is not so long ago since the customary times for meeting in this House involved Wednesdays for Private Members’ Bills and Thursdays for government Bills starting at 3 pm. This is a House with people, we hope, coming from all parts of the country. We did not start the business of the day until 3 pm. It was a struggle to get that change through, but we got it through. I am not aware of anyone —please stand up if I am wrong—on these Benches or any others who thinks we should revert to what was then the customary times of sitting. The other point is about the procedures of the House. The fundamental function of this House is to scrutinise legislation. That is what we do. If anyone suggests to me that we scrutinise more effectively at 1 am than at 1 pm, I would ask them to reconsider their position. I watch day after day the attendance in this House—we know the figures; we can look them up; we can check the voting figures. When the House is sitting even at 9.30 pm, there is many a time when there are only about eight, nine or 10 people in the House: two on the Government Front Bench, a couple on the Opposition Front Bench, someone in the Chair, a couple of Cross-Benchers and maybe one or two with a particular interest in the Bill. That does not compare—