They work for you

They work for you — when they can

I hope that some day people will wake up to what has happened to this Parliament, and to this House in this Parliament. We are effectively handing over our responsibility, as the House of Commons, for the proper scrutiny of legislation—ironically, to the unelected House of Lords. It does a wonderful job of scrutinising legislation properly: it works more days and longer hours than we do, it has more serious debates, and it is not subject to draconian Government timetables. I wish that I were a member of the House of Lords. Eric Forth (Bromley & Chislehurst, Con)

From the debate in the House of Commons, 3 Feb 2005, on the Government’s motion to restrict debate on the SOCPA bill to 90 minutes.