Happy to say sorry

I'm feeling pleased with myself.

It doesn't take much to please a lord. You can't really survive in the house of lords if you need recognition, praise or the noise of great battles. Most days the press gallery is empty, most days our proceedings go unreported, most days our proceedings are so detailed and obscure that it is just as well for the mental health of the rest of us that they do go unreported.

So I take pleasure in little things, Little victories, little parts played in changing something small. Something that happened to someone else today took my mind back to clause 2 of the compensation act 2006, which reads:

"An apology, an offer of treatment or other redress, shall not of itself amount to an admission of negligence or breach of statutory duty."

which was my suggestion. So I am pleased to take credit for it, though in truth nothing would have come of it if it had not been for the support of my frontbench colleague Lord Hunt, for the interest taken in the suggestion by the minister Lady Ashton of Upholland, for the support and help of a host of unnamed civil servants, for the support too I expect of the lord chancellor Lord Falconer and of a minister or two in the Commons.

Perhaps that's why the Lords is such a nice place to be. None of us can achieve much without the help of our colleagues and our opponents, so we spend our time being pleasant to them. And being quite unreasonably pleased when one suggestion in a thousand is taken up.