Former Leader of the Lords and Lords Chief Whip to give evidence on how the coalition works
The House of Lords Constitution Committee will take evidence from former Leader of the Lords Lord Strathclyde and former Liberal Democrat House of Lords Chief Whip Lord Shutt of Greetland as they continue their inquiry into the constitutional implications of coalition government.
The Committee will also hear from Lord Adonis, who was a negotiator for the Labour party during the negotiations with the Lib Dems following the 2010 general election.
With Lord Strathclyde and Lord Shutt the Committee are likely to explore how the House of Lords responded to coalition government and whether there were occasions where government legislation came under threat due to the opposition of one the coalition parties' Peers. The Committee are also likely to ask whether the convention of collective responsibility came under strain in the Lords and how disputes between the parties were resolved. This will be the first time Lord Strathclyde will have spoken in Parliament since he stood down as Leader of the House in January 2013.
The Committee will then question Lord Adonis on a range of areas, including how well prepared Labour were for the possibility of a hung Parliament at the 2010 election, how the convention that the incumbent Prime Minister has the right to try and form a government in the event of a hung Parliament works when another party has won more MPs, and what work the Labour party are undertaking to prepare for the possibility of another hung Parliament after the 2015 general election.
The evidence session with Lord Strathclyde and Lord Shutt will start at 10.30am on Wednesday 27 November. This will be followed at 11.15am by the evidence from Lord Adonis. Both sessions will be held in Committee Room 1 of the House of Lords.
The session will be webcast at www.parliamentlive.tv and is also open to the public. Journalists wishing to attend should go to Parliament's Cromwell Green Entrance and should allow time for security screening.
