§ Lord DenhamMy Lords, I think it might be helpful if, with the leave of the House, I could say a word about the two debates this afternoon standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs. As your Lordships are aware, the House has already agreed that these two debates should be under the short debate rules, limiting each to 2½ hours.
It is a generally accepted practice on these shorter debates that the mover should be entitled to approximately 15 minutes if he wants it, that the Minister should rise to reply not later than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, and that the winder-up from the Opposition Front Bench should have a slightly more generous share than the rest. If my arithmetic is correct, par for each of these two courses is something of the order of nine minutes.