Before I move on to the week ahead, I thought that I couldn’t do so without mentioning last week’s debates on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act which saw its final stages in the Lords last Monday. Dispiriting though it was to see such a ghastly piece of legislation passed, I take some (very) slight comfort in the fact that Liberal Democrat peers were in the forefront of the attempt to first defeat the Bill at Second Reading and then to salvage what could be salvaged from the wreckage that ensued, as outlined by Mike German in his speech.

I’m going to try something a little different this week, focussing on my own personal highlights for the week ahead, rather than simply reciting the week’s events. If that’s what you’d like, why not look here?

Liberal Democrat intervention of the week

Jonny Oates is essaying a Motion of Regret over the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (HC 556), published on 19 February. As he rightly notes, the changes will deprive migrant care workers of the basic right of caring for their own children, increase workers’ dependency on their sponsors by removing the safety net of a partner’s income, and make it harder for workers to report and change sponsors, increasing the risk of exploitation.

Whilst a Motion of Regret, even if passed, can’t stop such changes from going through, it does flag up dissent. It also acts to encourage other Opposition parties to place their positions on the record, and may well offer a window into the thinking of an incoming Labour government.

Liberal Democrat question of the week

Ironically, Paul Scriven has, as it currently stands, the only Liberal Democrat Oral Question this week, although the results of the lottery for the two topical questions (one on Wednesday and one on Thursday) are yet to be drawn. He’s asking about the prospects of a Best Value Notice being issued to the Tees Valley Combined Authority over a court case lost by its subsidiary. Readers of Private Eye in particular will have been following the saga of the Teesside Freeport and the way in which large sums of public money are alleged to have been transferred into the hands of a small number of individuals linked to the Combined Authority’s Mayor (Lord) Ben Houchen who, coincidentally, is up for re-election on Thursday.

Lords Committee to watch this week

I can’t help but turn to the International Relations and Defence Committee, which has two interesting sessions this week. On Wednesday, John Alderdice and Malcolm Bruce get to do what Layla Moran can’t and question David Cameron on what he and his colleagues are doing in the sphere of international relations, whilst on Thursday, the Committee take evidence from the former Chief of the Defence Staff at British Armed Forces, Lord Peach, and the former Commander of United Kingdom Maritime Forces at Royal Navy, Rear Admiral (retired) Alexander Burton as part of their Inquiry into the implications of the war in Ukraine for UK Defence. If you’re interested in watching either session live, the links above should take you to Parliament TV’s coverage.

Liberal Democrat statistic of the week

73: The average age of a Liberal Democrat Peer. And perhaps that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given that only one new Liberal Democrat peer, John Russell, has joined the House since 2016. But it does say much for the commitment of the eighty-strong Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party in the Lords…

* Mark Valladares is the Lords Correspondent and Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.