§ Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOEMy Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
§ Moved, That Standing Order 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be suspended on Wednesday the 17th instant for the purpose of giving precedence to the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Wigg over that standing in the name of the Lord Shackleton.—(Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe.)
§ Lord WIGGMy Lords, I do not know whether this Motion is debatable, but as my name is mentioned here I should like to know the circumstances in which this transfer has taken place, for as I understand it—
§ Lord WIGGMy Lords, as I understand the situation, it is this. I entered my name in a race in which there were four runners; therefore there is no place betting, it all goes on to win. I lost and make no complaint about that. I will try again on another occasion. But I was telephoned and told that the noble Lord who had won had scratched. He made approaches to me as if I should be grateful, but I am not. I had arranged to speak to my Motion on that date and had altered my plans accordingly. I never look a gift horse in the mouth, so if I have moved up one through disqualification of the first two, I accept it. The circumstances in which a noble Lord enters his name in the ballot and then for some trivial reason—no explanation is given—removes his name, does not affect me very much; I am not important. But it is a reflection upon the House as a whole, and other noble Lords may be interested in the subjects raised in the Motions. But for a noble Lord to merely remove his name and, without notice of any kind, to do another little jiggery-pokery, reminds me of the Christmas draw in my regiment when I was a private soldier. The company sergeant-major always won the turkey!
§ Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOEMy Lords, I am afraid I cannot follow my noble friend either in his regiment or on the racecourse as I 945 am not expert in either. I can assure him that what has taken place is according to the practice of your Lordships' House. We always draw for names. The first two from the ballot are the successful ones and we always have a third and a fourth in case, for some reason, one of the first two—or both, as once happened—should have to remove their names. I am sorry that my noble friend finds himself inconvenienced by this absolutely normal practice. The third name we draw out moves up. If I may explain why my noble friend's Motion is ahead of the Motion of my noble friend Lord Shackleton, it is because Lord Shackleton has particularly urgent business and is unable to move up on that afternoon. We hope the noble Lord can move his Motion and we shall look forward to the important debate which will ensue.
§ Lord GLENDEVONMy Lords, next time the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, asks a question perhaps he could speak up, because it sounded as if it might have been rather a good question. One has had to gather what it was about from the noble Baroness who replied. We could not hear a word of the noble Lord's remarks.
§ Lord GLENDEVONWe still cannot hear you!
§ Lord SEGALMy Lords, is there any record of any sergeant-major ever previously having complained of winning a turkey?
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.