The week ahead
A rather fag-end feel to the business for the week beginning on Monday 2 November. It's the parliamentary ping-pong season, in which bills bounce between Commons and Lords as MPs and peers try to agree outstanding changes made by one house or the other.
The Commons Order Paper is dotted with phrases about "Remaining Stages" where the House completes its consideration of a bill.
Another recurring feature is Consideration of Lords Amendments (if necessary). No bill can become law until it has been accepted in identical form by both, and, as the deadline for draws nigh, their Lordships often indulge in a bit of noble brinkmanship.
If the music stops before a bill is agreed, the bill is dead. The second reading debates, the committee stages, the report and third readings are all in vain, if final agreement between the two Houses is not reached.
And the only way the Commons can get its bill through is by invoking the and passing the identical bill again....a waste of time and effort that whips and ministers hate.
Waiting
So MPs and Peers will spend a lot of time in the remaining days before prorogation waiting around for "messages" from the other House. The annunciators - the green and red TV monitors which tell people what's going on in either House - will frequently flash up the rather Carry-On sounding message "House Adjourned During Pleasure".
Every now and then, MPs will thunder denunciations of the ermine clad obstacles to their will (actually their Lordships almost never wear ceremonial robes, and hate it when any story about the Lords is illustrated with pictures of the State Opening - when they do). Peers respond with a touch of ennui, and a couple of weary epigrams about the oiks in the Commons. And behind the scenes, the whips and business managers scurry about negotiating deals. Thus is the law of the land made.
So what's on?
Anyway, the week's business starts on Monday with the Commons polishing off the , which deals with the legal rules around particular bequests and trust funds, before moving on to a general debate on anti-social behaviour.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the whole House will resolve itself into a to ponder the detail of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. This is the normal drill when the Commons deals with constitutional issues.
This bill deals with such matters as the independence of the civil service, the conduct of ministerial special advisors (SpAds), ratification of treaties, the appointment of judges and protests around Parliament.
The bill was published in draft, but this version adds some new stuff about the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General (the formidable finance watchdog who heads the National Audit Office and reports to the powerful Public Accounts Committee of the Commons) and - interestingly - the composition of the House of Lords: removing the last 92 hereditary .
They're a hangover from the removal of the majority of the old aristocracy from the upper house. A deal was cut to waft that reform through without the need to invoke the Parliament Act. And now the government wants to end it by what is politely referred to as "natural wastage" or, to put it more brutally, allowing them to die off.
So they're proposing to stop the rather bizarre system of by-elections to replace departed hereditaries. No tumbrils will be involved.
On Thursday, the Commons debates climate change in advance of the , which some are billing as the last chance to save the world from runaway global warming. Some pre-election knockabout is distinctly possible - the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, majored on this issue in PMQs, and the Conservatives have been keen to stress their green credentials.
Over in the Lords, the business before peers has a similarly end-of-term flavour. Detailed work on the on Monday, followed by the Welfare Reform Bill and the Policing and Crime Bill on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, peers turn to the vast Coroners and Justice Bill, which covers subjects ranging from the legal definition of murder, through to secret inquests, to the creation of a specialist treasure coroner to deal with discoveries like the recent Staffordshire Hoard.
On the same day there's the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, another mega-measure. And on Thursday another bite of the Policing and Crime Bill.
Their Lordships are also sitting on Friday, when the Defence Minister Lord Drayson will answer a debate on the Armed Forces and future defence policy. More to come on this...
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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