Deputy Speaker’s Statement
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I have a short announcement to make about the certification of Bills under the so-called English votes for English laws Standing Orders. Since those Standing Orders were passed, it has been the practice of the Speaker or a Deputy Speaker to suspend the sitting for certification prior to Third Reading in any case when a Bill had been amended since Second Reading. Now that the House has greater experience of this process, Mr Speaker proposes that such a suspension should take place only when a non-Government amendment has been made on the day on which consent is required. In all other cases, the Speaker or Deputy Speaker will sign a certificate in the Chamber in the form of the provisional certificate issued alongside the selection list, and thus already available to the House.