Questions to Lords Secretaries of State
12 January 2010 (updated on 22 April 2010)
In addition to oral questions to the Government which take place at the start of business on Monday-Thursdays in the Lords Chamber, Secretaries of State sitting in the House of Lords will take three further questions from Members of the Lords, once a month, from Thursday 14 January.
The monthly initiative, agreed by the House of Lords Procedure Committee, continues to see Members of the House of Lords scrutinise the activities of the Government by ensuring Secretaries of State are directly responsible for answering the additional questions.
Lord Adonis and Lord Mandelson to take questions
Currently, the Secretaries of State in the House of Lords are Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills; and Lord Adonis, Secretary of State for Transport.
Each Secretary of State will take three questions once a month on a Thursday for 15 minutes.
The sessions will display the level of expertise present in the House of Lords, with the Secretaries of State regularly taking questions from experts in the respective fields.
For this week’s questions to Lord Adonis, questions will come from:
- Lord Bradshaw - Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesman and former Chief Operations Manager at British Rail and Professor of Transport Management at Salford University between 1986 -1992: to ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will incorporate further measurements of passenger satisfaction, beyond those in the public performance measure, into future bidding processes for railway franchises.
- Baroness Hanham – Opposition Spokesman for Transport: to ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he will publish the report of the consultation on local authority special grant funding in 2010-11 for the national bus concession in England.
- Baroness Wilcox – Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s influential inquiry into Aircraft Cabin Environment: to ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his response to the recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change in its report "Meeting the UK aviation target - options for reducing emissions to 2050" about a total increase of aviation demand of 60 per cent by 2050.
The sessions will start after 11.35am on Thursday 14 January.
Lord Mandelson’s additional questions session will be after 11.35am on Thursday 21 January. The questions will be announced on Monday 18 January.
Question time: February - March 2010
Beyond the first two question sessions mentioned above, sessions have been confirmed up to the end of March as follows.
- 4 February – Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis
- 25 February – Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Lord Mandelson
- 18 March – Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis
- 25 March – Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Lord Mandelson
A ballot will be held to decide which Members of the Lords will ask the three questions each week. The ballot will be held on the Monday preceding the question time at 2pm.
Further information
External links