There’s ‘ordinary’ New Year, the Muslim New Year and the Chinese New Year, and then there’s parliamentary New Year.

And that’s this week.

Last week we saw the end of the last parliamentary session, a time when peers and MPs play parliamentary ping-pong and there’s a sense of wonder as immutable principles suddenly turn into “finding a form of words” to compromise a Bill through before the deadline.

But quite often the House of Lords agrees with the Commons (ie the Government) – on Monday three votes were all won by the Government because the opposition parties in the Lords did not agree with each other.

The real fun was on Wednesday when the Lords debated the so-called “free speech” amendment from Lord (David) Waddington – formerly MP for Nelson and Colne and the Ribble Valley.

The new Coroners and Justice Act makes it an offence to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, and no-one disagreed with that.

But the Government was trying to repeal a law that provides a safeguard against prosecution for expressing genuine beliefs that homosexuality is wrong or immoral, in a way that does not stir up hatred against gays and lesbians.

There have been a small number of cases in which the police have acted in a silly and oppressive way against people who have, for instance, written to their council to object to gay pride-type events.

The Government said the safeguards were not needed, and passing this amendment would give the wrong signals to homophobic elements.

Lord Waddington’s amendment carried by 179 to 135. But when it went back to the Commons the Government gave in and accepted the Waddington amendment! Parliamentary ping-pong is a strange game.

My main concern on Wednesday evening was to wave the Marine and Coastal Access Bill on its way.

We’d had 17 days of gruelling scrutiny of this Lords’ Bill in the spring but the Commons amendments (such as they were) went through almost on the nod.

It’s a huge and very important piece of legislation and has been a very rewarding use of my time.