Rebel Lords Meet the Lords

We like wrapping things up in ribbon in Parliament.

Since time immemorial, green has been the colour of the House of Commons

and red the colour of the House of Lords.

For 100 years,

a delicate balance of power has existed between our two

Houses of Parliament.

This is the splendidly traditional way in which the two Houses

exchange messages.

But now, that's under threat.

Come on, the Lords.

Come on, your lordships.

Division!

We just, we just won, that is great.

See, the House of Lords, rocking.

In a year that has seen political orders overturned around the world,

the Commons and Lords have been fighting their own battle -

with each other.

We've been behind the scenes where no-one's filmed before.

Not all men are keen on wearing diamante buckles on their slippers.

Who will win this war of wills?

Hello, Lord.

Monty, it's Keith, can you take a message, please?

Yeah, thanks, mate, cheers, bye.

-OK, Mr Beamish.

-This is the fun bit,

when the police clear everybody aside

and it makes me feel like Moses crossing the Red Sea,

and the waters parting.

The most important people are made to stand aside.

I think they're ready.

Chief clerk David Beamish is carrying a Bill back to the Commons

with suggested amendments made by the Lords.

It's probably one of those things that's become fossilised in time

and nobody's ever thought to change it,

a bit like the clerks still wearing 18th-century dress with wigs and gowns.

The Lords' role is to revise legislation and to ask the Government to

think again.

The way we describe the whole Houses of Commons is at

the other end are the students

and the schoolchildren, they do the work,

and the House of Lords are the teachers.

So it's sent up, we mark it, correct it,

send it back down and then laws and bills are passed.

Morning.

On the way out there will be a short test, OK?

If you get less than 90% you're back in for an hour, all right?

That includes you.

If the two Houses can't agree,

the unelected Lords are supposed to give way to the Commons.

Division!

But since the Tories came to power in 2015,

rebellious lords have thrown their weight around and derailed key

Government policies.

The Government has had enough.

Sometimes people come here and think that they can overturn

an elected government, and they can't, and they shouldn't,

and they need to be disabused of that view.

It's winter, 2015.

The Prime Minister has called on his party's most canny operator in

the Lords to rein them in.

When residing at his London home, rather than his Scottish estate,

hereditary peer Lord Strathclyde

has one of the shortest commutes in Westminster.

I think I can do it in about three minutes,

maybe even quicker if I have to run.

The Prime Minister wants him to review the power the Lords has to

block the Government.

This is the small, back-door entrance to the House of Lords,

which I like, it's very quiet and calm.

I never tire of coming into this building.

I don't really believe in ghosts,

but there are ancient voices that come through late at night.

You somehow feel the spirits

of the great men and women who have been here in the past...

And played their part in the governance of the country

in one form or another.

George IV, liked dressing up.

These are well-trodden paths, well-trodden.

-Hello.

-Hello.

Lord Garel-Jones, lovely to see you.

I feel very comfortable here.

I've been here quite a long time, so I know all these people very well.

When he first came here, it was a very different place.

Dominated by hereditary peers like him.

There's our front bench, there I am,

a far more youthful me than I seem to remember.

It was a different House, there's no doubt about that,

from the way it is today.

There's a great team of people there,

as there were on the Opposition.

I've always said that Labour make a far better opposition than they do

a government, when it comes to the House of Lords.

They don't like me saying that, though!

Reform in 1999 kicked out most of the aristocrats.

Now Labour and Lib Dems outgun the Tories.

For the first time we have a Conservative Government who don't

have a natural majority in the House of Lords,

which they had for much of the 20th century.

This is the first time that a Labour Party, in Opposition,

has had the kind of power and control over the House

that it has demonstrated.

I think I need to take their lordships to the clifftop

and let them look over the edge.

Well, in some ways, I think

Tom Strathclyde is an ideal person to do this,

but he's a foxy, crafty character.

A former Lib Dem MP, Lord Tyler,

has a humble bedsit round the corner from the Lords.

Never used the cooker, ever.

Well, I think once,

but it was just to warm up a pizza which had gone rather flabby.

I think when I was a student I had a slightly bigger room.

Normally, it's a quick breakfast and then off to the Lords.

Back again quite late.

I'm so used to it, it doesn't seem odd.

I suspect anybody else would think it's very odd,

peculiar people to live that sort of life.

The last election saw the Lib Dems

cut down to just eight MPs in the Commons.

But in the Lords, they still have 100 unelected peers,

unwilling to give up any of their power.

If there was an attempt to take on the House of Lords and try,

as it were, to lame us, nobble us, neutralise us, make us impotent,

the Lords would not go down without a fight.

The stage is set for an historic showdown

between the Government and the Lords.

This is not a place that always welcomes change.

When I tell people where I work and what I wear,

quite a lot of people don't believe me or refuse to believe it happens

like this any more. They think it's quite funny.

We work in this amazing building.

The uniform goes with the building.

You put a role on with the uniform and it's a bit of an act.

We wear a black waistcoat because we are still in mourning

for Prince Albert. No-one told the doorkeepers,

"OK, we've mourned enough now, so you can stop."

We've been in mourning for 150 years.

It's very strange putting it on for the first time,

you do hold yourself a bit stiffer and a bit more upright and you act,

I think, in a little more of a formal way

once you've got the uniform on.

But I think that's the point of it.

When Lords and Commons don't see eye-to-eye there are more votes.

There's no electronic voting here.

Whatever their age, peers vote with their feet.

The whips, who are normally sitting around this area,

will give us an idea of which groups are likely to have a division.

First of all we listen out for, "Clear the bar".

That means there is a division.

The clerks would start counting eight minutes.

So, as soon as that happens, we open the doors into the voting lobbies...

..we lock the door at the other end of the voting lobby.

As soon as the clerk indicates that eight minutes is up,

all the doors shut.

If a member turns up two seconds past, they cannot come in.

Sometimes you really do literally

have to slam the door in somebody's face.

As lords wait nervously for the publication of Lord Strathclyde's report,

party leaders on all sides urge their members to show restraint.

But for 83-year-old Lord Dubs,

there is one burning issue that is more important than party politics

and bowing to the will of the Commons.

Across Europe, refugees are fleeing war and persecution.

He's visiting the thousands of refugees stranded in Calais.

I want to ensure that Britain plays its part in giving safety to

the children who are vulnerable to being sucked into trafficking,

into prostitution, into criminality, into drugs.

Very vulnerable young people.

He knows what it's like to be a refugee.

Mum and Dad, from their Czech passports.

That's my father, a bit overweight he was!

And my mum.

That was about three weeks after the Nazis occupied Prague.

These were good friends of ours and when the Nazis came eventually

they both went to concentration camps.

He didn't survive and she went to a camp and she survived.

And that's me in the middle.

He was rescued by the British Government.

All I remember is we were all on the train, I didn't know anybody else,

all children.

I was one of the youngest.

My mum was there with a friend looking very anxious and all

the other parents were there looking desperately anxious saying goodbye

to the children they might never see -

some of them realised they'd never see them again -

and off the train went.

At that time, Britain was the only country that was persuaded to

take Kinder transport children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

All the other countries said no, even the Americans said no.

Lord Dubs wants to amend the Government's Immigration Bill

to give 3,000 refugee children a home in Britain.

'What I want to do is to give at least some of them the chance

'of having safety in this country

'in the way this country gave me safety.

'I'm seeking support from the bishops,

'from the Lib Dems and the crossbenchers and hopefully some of the Conservatives

'because I believe if there's any chance of winning,

'it's got to be done on the basis of broad political support.'

Rebellious lords have the advantage that they can't be sacked.

Unlike MPs,

they have a job for life and aren't accountable

to constituents or party - only to themselves.

I'm quite torn about this, actually,

because obviously

as a Conservative peer, which I am,

I want to support the Conservative Government,

it's not very mysterious.

But I do feel that when

the Opposition put up sensible amendments,

I do find it quite difficult to vote against that.

That's part of the spirit of the Lords.

I was a party political person for many years

and therefore I always

obeyed the party whip, or I tended to obey the party whip as far

as I can remember, but now I'm footloose and fancy free,

I can vote exactly which way I want, I don't give a damn,

nobody instructs me, I do whatever I think is right.

Many peers, like Admiral Lord West,

are out of step with their party leadership.

I think I'm slightly unusual in that I lie to the left of centre in

the way I think and the things that I do but I'm not a member of

the Socialist Workers Party, that would be too far for me to go.

I take the Labour whip,

but if one absolutely doesn't agree with something

you just don't turn up or, you know, if you really, really are grumpy,

you vote the other way and if someone puts pressure on you,

well, you know, rabbit away, mate, is basically it because, you know,

at the end of the day, they can do nothing about it.

Lord West is a leading contributor to debates on defence but he also

pursues his own interests regardless of party policy.

Because I'm in the Lords, that gives me a platform.

If I were just AN Other person in Tunbridge Wells, you know,

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, that gets no traction.

Right, here we go.

I'll let you take charge of the buttons.

Today, Lord West is using his privileged platform to entertain

his passion for flags and heraldry.

He's persuaded the authorities to let him onto the palace roof.

Not something one does every day.

Well, I think Albert probably does, you do it every day, do you?

Yes, we do, yes.

There we are.

The whole parliamentary estate all laid out below us.

Must be one of the best views in London.

You can see for miles up here.

-Do you have your lunch up here, bag meals?

-Oh, no!

-Oh, I would.

-Aren't you allowed to?

-No food's allowed up.

-Oh, no!

Well, I'd probably cheat and have a little picnic up here.

Bloody brilliant it would be, wouldn't it?!

Before, it only used to fly when the House was sitting and we felt that

was not correct. This is the seat of the mother of all parliaments,

the seat of government in this country, and we didn't even fly our

own flag, which seemed to us totally ridiculous.

We said, "Why not fly it every day? We should fly it every day."

We've managed to achieve that.

Now, one of the next steps is to have the flag of England, Scotland,

Wales and a bare flagpole

because there isn't a flag for Northern Ireland

but we think there should be

and when they see there's a bare flagpole there,

this might get some move towards actually producing one.

Morning, Lord.

It's January 2016,

and peers return from their winter break to get their hands on

the hottest document in Westminster.

Do you have a copy of the Strathclyde report?

-It's just there.

-Lovely.

Thanks very much. Thank you.

The House of Lords is never going to like this report,

to which I say, well, you should never have done what you did.

I don't think it's going to be a best seller.

The pigeons will be fluttering.

Who the cat is, in this case, I'm not yet so sure.

Can we prepare the lobby, please, doorkeepers?

Lord Strathclyde has decided to go for the nuclear option.

He's recommended a new law curbing the Lords' powers to block the Government.

We don't like it.

We certainly don't like it.

I don't think the crossbenchers are going to like it

and they are crucial in this debate.

Peers will have the chance to debate the report

but if the Government wants to make the recommendations law,

they'll be powerless to stop it.

Well, I'm going to go into the chamber and it will be, I expect,

about six hours before we get out, maybe even longer than that.

We'll see.

Long debates like this one can last many hours.

The Lords still use a messaging system that predates the digital age

to keep them in touch with the outside world.

Some of them are very trivial, some of them are "Please ring home",

some of them are,

"Would you like to talk to the Times about this subject?"

We're supposed to be invisible.

We don't hang around, we just get the things in and then skedaddle.

It's very personal, yes, and just somewhat Victorian.

Lord Strathclyde.

Hear, hear!

My Lords, this debate goes to the heart

of what we believe we are here to do, what we are for.

It goes to the heart of the relationship that we have between

this House and the House of Commons.

'He's using it,

'trying to pretend that he's concerned about the primacy

'of the House of Commons.'

What he's really concerned about and what the Government are

really concerned about is to stop scrutiny

and challenging the Executive, challenging the Government.

The House can always, virtually always,

defeat the Government and that way chaos lies.

They're pissed off.

They want to, you know, basically cart us off,

lock us up and tell us to shut up

and that's not how the British system of government works

and they shouldn't really be trying to get through what

they're doing now.

I think that's a very dangerous route for us to go down.

Hear, hear.

'It's been a hell of a day.

'These are serious issues.'

This is about how we make laws.

That's why it counts, that's why people get excited about it

and now the Government will have to think about where it goes next.

The Lords are now living under a threat.

Obstruct the Government plans again and they could pay a high price.

It's February. For a few cold weeks, there's a ceasefire between

the Government and the Lords.

And window cleaners prepare to give the palace's 4,000 windows

their annual scrub.

Harness, carabiners, descenders,

everything we need to get the job done.

And obviously our ropes, as well.

Weigh quite a bit.

It's not too windy, it's not too cold

and it's not raining. That's always a plus.

Just setting up our ropes.

Rigging to the structural steel work

so that we can get over the edge safely.

The last thing we want is to create an injury

or, in the worst case, a fatality.

This back section overlooks the river

so we'll be abseiling down with life jacket devices

to ensure if we did get down to the bottom for whatever reason

and not through the window, which is our planned route,

we would be OK.

We've got to watch our foot on like the brickwork and statues,

the gargoyles and stuff like that.

You don't want to be breaking those

because I don't know how much it would cost to replace that.

It's a very iconic building, you know.

They wanted it to stand out and it's certainly done the purpose.

The window cleaning was probably the last thing on their minds.

It's a good feeling to be able to say

I've been on the Houses of Parliament.

The windows are now clean but the future relationship

between Lords and Commons is less clear.

It's just two months since the Strathclyde report was debated

and already the fragile truce between the Government and Lords

is being put to the test.

The Government has introduced a bill to reform trade unions,

making contributions to political parties voluntary.

It says individual members, not union leaders,

should decide where their money goes.

But the move could drastically cut the Labour Party's funding.

Good morning, My Lady, how are you?

-Are you OK?

-All good, My Lady.

'We didn't pick this fight, it's the Government that's picked this fight.

'So we're absolutely clear that if they've picked the fight,

'of course we're going to respond and we're going to try everything in

'our powers to make sure that we tame this bill in some way.'

As a party whip,

Baroness Morgan will be trying to get all Labour peers

to vote against the bill.

What happens is that every week, all of the Labour group receives

a whip telling them what's coming up,

what's going to be debated and whether they need to be here or not.

One line means, well, you know, if you turn up that would be good.

Two line, well, it's quite important.

But three line is, yes, you need to be here.

This week is a three line plus plus.

That is, you need to be here

and you may be in a bit of trouble if you're not.

To win, Labour will need support

from other parties and independent peers.

Lord Tyler is always keen to take on the Government but he wants to be

armed with the facts.

He's joined a cross-party committee set up to try and look at the issue

without party bias.

'I felt we ought to demonstrate to the Government that this wasn't

'just a straight Labour-Tory issue.

'It had significance for everybody in the House of Lords.'

What the Government appears to be doing

is trying to attack the Labour Party

and doing it in a way which is frankly pretty underhand.

The committee tables an amendment to the bill which would block

the changes to party funding.

-That's the way to do it.

-That's very helpful.

-OK.

Thanks very much.

Lord Tyler lobbies peers to vote against the Government.

'The brush past in the corridor is a very important function

'of this end of the building.'

Here, give me your card and I'll drop you a note...

'It can be incredibly useful.'

You can't overdo this because if you look as if

you're sort of a perennial plotter,

a sort of character from the 18th century who spends his or her

life wandering about this building to try and make sure that everybody

is onside, it's a bit too well organised.

But, you know, you bump into people,

don't you, and when you bump into people that's your opportunity,

as was the case just a few minutes ago, just here.

It's a good moment to have a conversation.

INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION

The trade union bill is running up against

the end of the Parliamentary session,

when all bills must be agreed by both Houses

or they won't make it into law.

Message from the Lords!

When the two Houses begin to disagree,

and therefore they send back amendments backwards and forwards,

this process is colloquially known as ping pong.

I suppose the ping is when it goes back from the House of Lords

to the House of Commons,

and the pong is when it comes back

from the House of Commons to the House of Lords.

If the Government and the Commons

chooses to reject the Lords' amendments,

it risks being timed out and losing the bill.

Occasionally there's a row, particularly towards the end of the session

when time is tight between issues

that the House of Commons want passed

and because the Government has no majority in the House of Lords,

it encourages the Opposition to dig their heels in and make life a bit

more difficult for the Government.

I'd like to say there is a mutual respect, but sometimes,

here you are, you see, just a few hundred yards between the two,

sometimes it's a gulf as big as the Atlantic Ocean.

Away from the Westminster bubble,

the refugee crisis in Europe is escalating.

Lord Dubs's amendment to allow

refugee children into Britain is part of the ping pong.

It has passed in the Lords, but been rejected by the Commons.

I was obviously disappointed that the Commons overturned the amendment.

I'd hoped for a better outcome.

It does make me more determined.

There are no parents or anybody to support them.

Some of them have been on their own, doing a difficult journey,

perhaps it's taken them a year or so, so they are pretty vulnerable.

But, of course, they put a brave face on it.

All I've argued along is that we should take our share,

we shouldn't take them all, we can't do that.

We should take our share of these young people,

and that's a fairly small thing to ask, really.

He submitted another amendment,

which demands some children be allowed in,

though not the 3,000 he was originally asking for.

It's a slightly softer amendment,

but the key principle is still there.

There are a number of people who feel that we shouldn't vote again on

an issue which the Commons has overturned.

But I would argue that there are certain occasions when the issue is

so important, it is such a matter of principle in humanitarian terms,

in terms of human rights,

that it is proper for the Commons to have to think again,

not just once but more than once.

Lord West has a very different issue which needs an answer from

the Government before term ends.

Hello, have you got a copy of my question on Boaty McBoatface?

OK, let me have a look.

A public poll to choose a name for a new polar research ship

has voted overwhelmingly for the name Boaty McBoatface.

Ah, lovely, thank you very much indeed.

Lord West isn't happy about it.

The question was "to ask Her Majesty's Government

"in the light of the fact that the Royal research ship being built

"for the British Antarctic Survey is a ship and not a boat,

"what is their assessment of the suitability of the name

"Boaty McBoatface for that vessel?"

It's all very amusing, and I think you get what you ask for, don't you?

If you ask the British public to come up with some ideas,

they come up with very amusing ideas like Boaty McBoatface and Usain Boat

and Boatimus Prime, all these names that were put in.

Well, I can call it Shippy McShipface...

Could be very, very difficult if one said it quickly,

I think it would be very awkward.

It is March, and the day of the big vote on party funding in

the trade union bill.

Labour Lords will need other rebel Lords to support them if

they are to defeat the Government.

Yes, trade union bill today.

There's obviously a bit more of a buzz in the air.

I'm well, thank you.

We've got quite a few of the Lords that don't take part in anything

in the House, they don't come in if they don't need to,

but they do have to come in, they say, when there's a division.

The cafes are fuller, the restaurant,

the bars are fuller, definitely.

Going around, you get a feeling very quickly there's a sort of tension.

People who are normally really friendly and easy-going are a little bit grumpy, that sort of thing.

There are some of us, like me,

who are not deeply, deeply political, who,

you know, we sort of bumble around, but you can certainly feel it.

-Hello there.

-You're here.

We need to talk...

'We've been e-mailing, texting, writing, phoning people,

'just to make sure that they are here for this really important vote.

'The biggest problem for us today is making sure they stay,'

because we're expecting a really late vote today.

Well, certain people are here that you don't normally see.

In the old days it used to be Mrs Thatcher, or Lady Thatcher.

Now, I don't know who...

Sometimes Lord Mandelson is a bit of a giveaway.

The doorkeepers are supposed to know every one of the peers by sight.

I've been here two and a bit years

and I think I'm on about 80% ish, on a good day.

But there's always one that you get stuck on.

Er, no... Baroness, no.

'But the ones that catch you out

'are the ones who aren't regular attenders,

'and you won't see them for months and months and months

'and then they show up,'

and you just think, "I have no idea."

I'm relatively weak, I think, on the crossbenchers, and also the bishops.

Because...

..I find that bishops all look very similar.

Dressing up to go into church is familiar to us,

so this isn't so peculiar.

Fortunately now we have allowed mobile phones and other devices

in the chamber on silent,

because it's really difficult to read your watch

with these round your wrists.

Labour need every vote they can get.

Their Chief Whip, Lord Bassam,

is going low-tech to make sure everyone is here.

Like a school register, yes, but it's a rolling one.

When you're at school, you do it at nine o'clock,

or five to nine, I think it was when I was a kid.

Now they come in during the course of the morning

and afternoon and they let me know that they're here.

-Here we are.

-Hello.

-I'm here.

Ah, fantastic.

I'm always pleased to see you, and I'm always pleased to see David.

Very good.

It's a very simple technique, and it works!

-OK, cheers.

-Cheers, thanks a lot.

There are no good excuses.

You know, people do have to look at their diaries and they do have to

think about organising their priorities.

I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation

to hope that they can be here

when pretty much the future of the Labour Party's at stake.

INAUDIBLE CONVERSATIONS

It's amazing what nooks and crannies of this funny building,

that you sometimes find yourself in having a conversation.

I won't tell you where I was earlier this morning...

It was the sort of place that only male peers would be allowed to go,

but we had a very useful conversation there.

-Hiya.

-Have you seen Anita?

I haven't seen Anita.

Right, so who've I got left?

Anita, Una is not in yet.

Right, we're all done.

We need to keep them here now, that's the challenge, isn't it?

-That's always the challenge.

-Yes, we'll see how it goes.

-I think we're doing OK, though.

-Very good.

-Right, see you later.

There is a tendency, amongst some members,

to approach the whole issue of voting and division not with head or heart,

but with stomach.

If the stomach is rumbling

and people think they'd like to get away for supper,

it's very difficult to keep them here for a big vote.

So what have we got here?

We've got sirloin of beef, scallops, cured pigeon,

mustard macaroon.

Pulled ham hock...

Very nice.

Smoked salmon, my favourite.

Potted brown shrimps and sourdough.

Sounds like they do well, doesn't it, really?

Hello, darling.

Oh, do you remember where Mummy said I was going to be this evening,

can you remember? We were talking about it.

Yes, that's right, sweetie, yeah, Big Ben and Parliament.

Well done, darling.

Bye, bye, bye.

There's definitely a reason to be here,

but sometimes you're literally just waiting and waiting and waiting,

and then when the vote doesn't happen, you want to die.

I do wish to test the opinion of the House.

Hear, hear.

My Lords, as many are of that opinion will say content.

-Content.

-To the contrary, not content.

Not content.

Clear the bar.

Just after six, the vote is called.

The result will show whether rebellious Lords are still prepared

to stand up to the Government.

-Division.

-Division!

-Division!

BELL RINGS

Sorry! Thank you.

The Government have got a strong whip on,

and I think they will have somewhere in the region of 210 people here.

But, of course, they've all got to vote for the Government.

Not all of them will, hopefully.

It's not just whether we win or not, it's by how many we win,

because the bigger the victory here in the House of Lords,

then the more pressure we can put on the Government.

Supporters of the cross-party amendment flood through the content lobby.

On the Government side, there are some notable absences.

Rather than vote against the Government, I said I'll be absent,

so I'm going to take my wife out for dinner.

Conservative Lord Cormack is going a step further and is voting against

the Government.

Nice to see a Tory face, excellent, thank you very much.

How does it feel walking through that other lobby?

Well, I've done it before.

I've done it before, both in this House and the other one.

If you believe something

is very important, and you're going to stand up for it,

then you have to put your vote with your voice.

My Lords, there have voted

contents 320,

not contents 172, therefore the contents have it.

Hear, hear!

-Good?

-Very good.

It's good when you win,

but to win on something as important as this to the trade union member

and the Labour Party is phenomenal.

It really takes you into a different place.

Result. Utterly demoralised, that's the way we like it.

Great news.

I think it is the biggest margin since the election, yes.

But I take no delight in that.

I mean,

I did what I thought I had to do.

The amended bill will now go back to the Commons.

I am very happy, but then, you know,

until you've actually got Royal assent,

complete change to a bill like this,

at the very end of the process,

you can't start cheering and raising a glass in celebration.

Hello, My Lady.

-Morning, Ma'am.

-Morning.

-Thank you.

-Have a good day.

-You too.

-Thank you.

'The Lords do say that when I'm in a red coat, the summer's here,

'and they also blame me'

for when it's raining, which isn't right, but that's the way it goes here.

The red coat, though, is only a summer coat, so, as you can see,

it is quite thin. During the winter I have a black woollen coat.

Hello. However,

some of the Lords have said that I should have a red woollen coat.

They've approached Black Rod, he said no.

Hello.

One of the Lords also said I should have some for shorts for the summer.

That's not happening either, not with my legs!

It's late April, and the game of Parliamentary ping pong in which

bills bounce between Commons and Lords is about to begin in earnest.

The Lords' amendment to the trade union bill has been agreed by

the Government and the Labour Party's funding is protected.

But it looks like the immigration bill, and Lord Dubs's amendment,

will go right to the wire.

In these last days of a session,

the atmosphere gets slightly more... charged.

I've called it more poker than ping pong.

It's a mixture, I think, of politics and tactics and timing.

PHONE RINGS

Hello? It's Alf Dubs here.

When?

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

83-year-old Lord Dubs's amendment on child refugees has sparked a national debate.

..committee's there...

PHONE RINGS

What time would suit you?

PHONE RINGS

Ten o'clock at the peers' entrance, yes.

PHONE RINGS

I had an invitation for the 22nd, 23rd and 24th.

..OK, bye-bye.

Oh, God.

-What's that?

-It's just an interview for Channel 5, Channel 5 News.

Oh, dear.

PHONE RINGS

'It's ridiculous, really.

'I want a quiet life.

'It's difficult to say no,

'because it helps put pressure on the Government to have more'

sympathetic coverage in the media, so I suppose it's worth doing,

but it's got a bit out of hand.

PHONE RINGS

Judging by the number of messages I've had from people I've never met

before, in terms of public opinion, my sense is it's pretty popular.

I think the public support for this, I hope,

will help to make the Government think again.

It's not just in the palace that Lords and Commons are at loggerheads.

MPs and Lords are limbering up for the annual Parliamentary boat race.

I'm looking forward to it.

It is the one event that the Lords has the edge on the Commons.

Having a captain as youthful

as ours, in Lord Taylor, who's in his 70s.

We have trained.

I know the Lords have been out and they managed to swamp

their boat.

We've had some quite eventful times, you may have heard,

where the Commons' boat sunk and we haven't sunk yet,

but I don't want to be too optimistic.

Always like to try and make sure that those democratically elected

come out on top.

I think we've got some very fit and active people,

so we're very hopeful.

In the Commons they say something like

that bunch of superannuated silly

old idiots who've gone up there, let's forget about them.

And then that adds to the tension.

It's thoroughly good to thrash the other place in everything that one does.

Previously, the Commons have won five races to the Lords' four.

But the Lords are hopeful that this year they will draw even.

OK, both crews. Please make yourselves ready to race.

They're taking their bloody time, aren't they?

Attention. Go!

Come on, the Lords!

The Commons' boat sort of seem to be striking quite well.

There's a bit of a horlicks in the Lords boat, it looks like it.

We seem to have one oar that's not working at all in the Lords boat,

for some obscure reason.

Come on, the Lords!

It looks to me as though the Commons are slightly ahead,

I hope they didn't cheat at the start.

Oh, dear. Well, I'm afraid the Commons have won it,

that's one of those things. I think we had a broken rod.

They probably sabotaged our boat.

But not all is lost for Lord West.

The Government has overruled the public vote.

Boaty McBoatface has been sunk and will instead be called

the RRS Sir David Attenborough.

I'm delighted now they've come down with a name that's sort of acceptable.

I mean, normally ships are named after people who are dead,

not always, and I hope they're not sort of making any judgments about

how long he'll live for.

The decisions have to be made in the other place,

in the Commons, obviously.

That's absolutely right, because they're voted and we're not.

But at least we're able to get things moving and make people think about these problems.

Lift your left arm.

Left arm...

It's like playing in Mum's dressing up box, isn't it?

Yeah.

The final Acts of Parliament will be signed into law in a ceremony

at the end of the session.

But first, the House of Lords' top brass must rehearse.

The actual ceremony is very quick and easy.

It's a bit of a faff to set up.

That's the front, is it?

-That way?

-It's just like putting a dressing gown on, really.

But slightly posh, with gold bits.

This is Lord Laming's old one, my lord.

Would you like to try that?

Is there a back and a front?

It doesn't really matter, does it?

I think that's fine. That's perfectly comfortable.

Do you want to pretend you're reading?

We don't want to read, we just need to make sure...

The Clerk of the Crown will read out

the short titles of the act,

and I in each case turn to the Commons and say

in a good loud voice, "La Reine le veult."

'La Reine le veult is simply Norman French for the Queen wishes it.'

La Reine le veult.

Does anyone actually speak Norman French any more, apart from us?

House of Commons Members' Fund Act.

I've done it many times.

As long as it's properly coordinated and done in an appropriate way,

choreographed, then I think it's always good fun.

The trick is getting the timing right, but really,

I mean, how difficult can all nodding at the same time or doing that be?

Sorry, sorry.

Try that one again, sorry!

The first time you were a little bit slow,

a little bit late and a little bit slow.

-Don't worry, David.

-We jumped the gun!

The system here's working well.

I jumped the gun.

'I saw them practising this morning,'

I said to them they reminded me of Gilbert and Sullivan,

and we don't want that kind of image.

The second chamber should be looking at how we deal with legislation in

a proper, effective manner,

and this kind of thing distracts from it.

With just days to go before the end of the session,

Lord Dubs is about to make his case to the Lords a second time.

Basically, it will leave unaccompanied child refugees

in a vulnerable position.

None of us would want our own children to be subject to that

sort of environment.

I've been astonished at the amount of popular support there's been,

and as a country with strong humanitarian traditions

I believe we can do better. I beg to move.

Hear, hear!

Peers must now vote on whether, yet again,

they will defy the Government

and bat the amendment back to the Commons.

BELL RINGS

We do not have the right, in my view, as unelected people,

to overrule the Commons. They're the elected ones,

they have the final say and they should always have the final say.

There comes a time when you have to say, thus far, no further,

and the body that has to drop the bat

at the end of the ping pong is the House of Lords.

There is a degree of doubt as to how far either side is going to take the

game of poker.

'I'm not good at predicting these things,

'but if one believes in something, I think one should go on pushing it,

'because all my experience of politics is that if you have

'an issue that's worth it and you keep pushing it,'

quite often in the end something positive will happen as a result.

I'm going to be really honest that I can't quite tell you how it's

looking, even though I've just come out of the voting lobby.

There aren't as many as sometimes when we win by a lot.

It's also later in the evening

and they kind of drop off the later it goes.

My Lords, there have voted

contents 279, not contents 172.

So the contents have it.

We just won, we just won.

That is great, see, House of Lords, rocking.

-Speech!

-APPLAUSE

Speech!

HUBBUB OF CONVERSATION

'I'm gratified and delighted that there was such support.

'I think the Government will have a job to dig themselves out of this.'

So I think we may get something, we may win something.

Something, I hope.

Just a few days before the end of the session,

Lord Dubs gets some news.

I haven't come to terms with it yet, you know.

It's only just happened.

I still can't quite believe it, to be honest.

His amendment has been accepted by the Prime Minister.

-Congratulations.

-We've won, yes.

-Yeah, well, that's very impressive.

I watched Prime Minister's Questions. I just mentioned it to some colleagues.

-Oh, that's good.

-You must be delighted.

I'm delighted. I'm absolutely delighted, yes.

Well, your place in heaven is now secure.

My place in heaven! Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

-Will you be joining me?

-Well, I'll try.

-Just coming back. I came back last night.

-Oh, wow.

I was in the refugee camps.

Met the kids. And, you know, fantastic.

-People are talking about what you're doing here, and...

-Oh, well.

-It's wonderful, well done.

-Oh, well, thank you very much.

-Fantastic.

-Well, look, it's only a small amendment.

-But we're moving them.

-Yeah, OK.

-In the right direction.

Thanks.

Lord Dubs, are you pleased that the Prime Minister's finally moved,

or are you disappointed that he had to be brought to this position

kicking and screaming?

Well, the outcome is what matters,

and the outcome is that a lot of,

or a number of vulnerable unaccompanied child refugees

in Europe will find safety and a decent home in Britain.

That's what matters.

I'm going to disappear into anonymity after all this.

I can't sustain... Can't sustain this level of excitement, you know?

Can't do it! So a bit of quiet anonymity would do me good.

But Lord Dubs' rest is short-lived.

Only about 350 unaccompanied children would be allowed in before

the Government shut the door again.

He's fighting the decision.

It is now the end of the session.

INDISTINCT SHOUT

'Well, there've been some tense moments in the last few weeks.'

There have never been so many Government defeats

in the modern era.

It's unusual, and it's unprecedented.

Although the Lords has challenged

the Government robustly with amendments

that have left their mark,

all Government bills have been passed into law.

At times, I've felt we were getting very near the edge of that dividing

line between complementary and trashing the Government's business.

I think we've now ended up on the right side of that line,

and that's a very good thing.

Members of the Commons are now summoned to the Lords,

where the bills are formally agreed.

Immigration Act.

La Reine le veult.

Energy Act.

La Reine le veult.

The battle between the two Houses has reached a delicate truce.

But the threat of Lord Strathclyde's review

will still hang over the Lords when the new term starts.

They just need to learn the lessons from this session,

do the scrutiny which the House of Lords is so good at

and the revision,

but not necessarily to be a block to the will of the elected House.

It's May. And the countdown has started to the Queen's Speech,

when the monarch comes to Parliament to open a new session.

Everyone wants a seat.

And the exploding size of the House, now with over 800 members,

becomes impossible to ignore.

It's just luck of the draw, exactly that, the draw.

Here we are at Black Rod's office.

Nicola looks after me very well,

but she's completely fair about the draw,

which is really irksome.

So no matter how much I butter her up, it doesn't make any difference.

The good news is that your daughter

was successful in the eldest daughter's ballot

in the chamber, so she'll have a standing place.

-Lovely.

-You weren't successful in the robe ballot, I'm afraid.

No, I never am. So I'm going to have to pay for that.

So that's it, sell another grandchild.

Staff have just a week to turn

the palace from a place of work to a stage set.

She's coming.

The Queen. Elizabeth.

Ma'am!

-What's this?

-That's where the...

The thing goes on top of it.

-What thing?

-Like, a big sword thing.

This time of year, everyone sort of comes together,

and sort of like mucks in.

You've got to get it done on time.

Have you got the black paint?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

No-one can change the date.

We know when the Queen's coming.

Little room for manoeuvre on this one.

We can't ask her to go around the block a couple of times

while we're not ready.

The Queen's representative in Parliament, Black Rod,

will be the master of ceremonies.

Everybody's very motivated.

All our people who've got a hand in this really want it to be tiptop.

Nobody wants to be picked up on the Black Rod's inspection

for having not done something.

Good morning, sir, how are you?

It doesn't need power washing,

just someone with a bucket and brush

just to get the blobs of bird shit away.

We normally leave him something to find, to be honest with you.

Because as soon as he's found something, he normally moves on to the next room.

He's a stickler for the smallest of detail,

like if there's a screw that we've left on a carpet somewhere,

he'll actually see it from a distance.

I'm not sure if he brings the screws up himself

and leaves them lying about

so he can pick them up, but he's quite funny like that.

And straight lines, we have to have straight lines everywhere.

Ex-military, what do you expect?

From her throne in the Lords, the Queen will announce

the Government's plans for the coming year.

Some expect House of Lords reform to be on the agenda.

Should there be an age limit when they have to retire?

Should there be a certain amount of time that they spend in here?

They say there's too many,

but how do you govern what numbers we have in the House?

I have some ideas, but they're probably best kept to myself.

Hello, Sir.

-Have a good day, My Lord.

-Thank you.

Next time - the Queen comes to Parliament.

I am going to get out of my trainers.

-Eventually.

-That's my concession for Her Majesty.

But the Palace looks like it's crumbling down.

We're running out of buckets.

Almost every area of the parliamentary estate has had

some type of water damage today.

And Brexit hits the Lords with a bang.

This is much bigger than anything

I've encountered during my political lifetime.

It will open up a firestorm of resentment in the country.

As many of that opinion would say content.

Content.

Are you interested in finding out more about the House of Lords

and the role it plays in the UK's political system?

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