Red Box - Times Online's Westminster blog

House of Commons: one of the worst offenders

I am out of Westminster today and up in Birmingham for the Labour spring conference tomorrow. But until then the unrestrainable Labour MP John Spellar has shed light on two subjects. First, he discovered that Parliament is one of the worst offenders over bottled water, the subject of the environment minister Phil Woolas's ire. MPs and their staff received 16,200 litre bottles free in committee rooms, and 34,000 from water coolers for staff. This is on top of the 105,957 bottles sold by the Commons Refreshment Department in 2006-07.

Secondly, he asks what the cost was of translating the "About Parliament" pages on the parliamentary website into (a) Welsh and (b) Scots Gaelic. The answer is an eyewatering £19,440.40.

Libson treaty: the first text-message Commons vote

An end of an era: Labour MPs have been queueing up to hand in their pagers, having been told that Labour Central will be issuing orders by text in future on a Blackberry or mobile phone. Another Blairite symbol dropped, but the real target is slapdash Labour MPs who have been missing votes by losing or ignoring their pagers. With the five-week marathon debate on the Lisbon treaty under way, the whips will tolerate no excuses, so have installed a shiny new system from Vodafone.

(Nothing to worry about tonight, though, because apparently the Speaker has not allowed a vote on a wrecking amendment by the rebel Labour MP Ian Davidson and friends*.)

A technical history below the fold, along with *a list of friends