Speeches by Cane.

“I commend Cotswold district council for that work. Unfortunately, when I tried to get East Cambridgeshire district council to condemn the two-child cap, the Conservatives refused. This policy was poorly conceived from the outset and has amounted to little more than attacks—not on parents, but on vulnerable children gro…”

“Like so many Members from across the House, I welcome the Government’s decision finally to scrap the two-child limit on benefits—I just wish they had done so much earlier. The two-child limit is a cruel and unfair penalty on those in the most urgent need of welfare and support. The cap does not tackle the exploitation …”

“Yes, Chair. I am a district councillor, East Cambridgeshire District Council.”

“I congratulate the petitioners on bringing forward this important debate. The Government’s immigration White Paper has caused no end of confusion, anxiety and distress since its publication last year. To me, and to countless constituents who have contacted me because they are worried for their livelihoods, it is profou…”

“Subject to what might be discussed, I should declare that I am a civil service pensioner.”

“There has been a recent, rather prominent case, and you cannot remove a peerage other than through an Act of Parliament, so as well as removing their right to sit in the House of Lords, should there be a mechanism to remove their peerage as well?”

“Moving on to the thorny issue of disgraced peers, you committed to tackling the issue of how we remove them. What plans have you got to address that?”

“You are an historian; you like to have your documents tidy. I am an archaeologist, so I am used to digging them out, but never mind. Part of the reason for these citations is that you think expertise is the strength of the Lords and you want to explain. Normally, when you are trying to fill gaps, there is some sort of …”

“You are now publishing the new appointment citations on gov.uk, but—and it sounds like you have found this problem as well—there doesn’t seem to be a single location where you can find all the citations. Would it be useful to have a single page so that they can all be seen?”

“Some historical citations have been released. Do you think it would be useful to release all of them so that people can get a sense of why people have been appointed historically?”

“To follow up on the citations, they are basically 150 words. Does that really provide enough information about why that person has been appointed?”

“Let’s say that you manage to get the Lords down to whatever you consider a reasonable number. Do you have any plans in place for making sure that it doesn’t creep up again?”

“Once you have removed the hereditary peers, the bishops will still have their direct route in, but all the other routes will be through prime ministerial patronage. Your manifesto committed to reforming the appointments system, so what are your plans to reform it?”

“That creates a kind of arms race in the size of the House of Lords. You talked about looking at—effectively—retirement ages, but what other mechanisms do you have in mind for reducing the size?”

“Talking about appointing peers, the Prime Minister is appointing them faster than at any other time since 1999. He has already appointed more life peers than there are currently hereditary peers, so he has increased the numbers. The Government identified the size of the House of Lords as an issue; are they not keen to …”

“You mention that we are coming up to the end of this Session. If it does not get through in this Session, would you use the Parliament Act in the next Session?”

“Do you think that anything needs to be done to address that?”

“You set out last year that the Government’s first priority in reforming the House of Lords was to remove hereditary peers. That has not yet been achieved. Are you disappointed that that has not yet been agreed between the two Houses?”

“I welcome the hardship grants. I would ask that you send all MPs details of that. I am sure we have all got it in our inbox—I have at least two people in that situation. I would also like you to consider whether people could get some sort of compensation, because those two people had made financial commitments on the e…”

“There have been some reports that, in response to the Bill, some of the Lords have sought to slow down other aspects of the Government’s legislative agenda. Do you share that assessment? If so, do you think it is problematic?”