Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills)

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am actually a great fan of the speeches by the hon. Member for Shipley. He has a unique talent for filibustering. I just wish he would not do it on private Members’ Bill days, when we are trying to get things through the House. He seems to be able to speak for hours and hours on these things. It is something that new Members of the House might have to look at to see how to do it.

We will support the amendments put forward by the hon. Member for Rhondda and the Labour Front Bench. We fundamentally and profoundly agree that we must have a routine for private Members’ Bills that respects the fact that this is a two-year Session of Parliament. To have 13 days for private Members’ Bills is clearly insufficient. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Shipley that the Rolls-Royce solution is to have another ballot next year. That is something that the Government will not do, so what should we do in the face of the Government’s refusal to do that? Surely the sensible approach is to ensure sufficient time for the private Members’ Bills that we already have, which would possibly allow more to progress through this House than we would normally expect.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman said that it would be the Rolls-Royce solution to have a second ballot—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) made a perfectly good point about that—but nobody has asked for that and it is not in the amendment.

[Pete Wishart]

How about the hon. Lady and I campaign to ensure that we get that in place? If she agrees with me—some of her hon. Friends look like they might also agree with her—let us do it, because that is surely the solution we need. Now, we will not get that—the Government have made it clear that it will not happen—so what we need is an arrangement for the existing private Members’ Bills that properly reflects the two-year Session.

We have a long affection for private Members’ Bills on these Benches. We had the first SNP private Member’s Bill last year, when Eilidh Whiteford, the former Member for Banff and Buchan, got her private Member’s Bill on the Istanbul convention through the House—it was probably opposed by some Conservative Members. Last year we had four private Members’ Bills in the top 10 —there were some fantastic ones proposed—but we were really pleased for our former colleague Eilidh Whiteford and proud that she managed to get hers through the House last year. We also have two this time round, and I look forward to the fantastic private Members’ Bills to be proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald)—they are no longer in their places. I look forward to hearing them support their Bills in the House.

We need certainty about private Members’ Bills, because while it is quite easy for some colleagues on the other side of the Chamber to get back and forth to the House of Commons on Fridays, it is not so easy for Members from Scotland. Getting down to the House of Commons to take part in these debates involves getting on a plane which takes probably in the region of four to seven hours. We therefore need certainty about when sitting Fridays will be, and we are grateful to the Leader of the House, who has listed the seven sittings we will secure over the next year.