Business of the House

Christina Rees Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. One of the real challenges with pancreatic cancer is that the symptoms are often not recognised until it is too late for any kind of effective treatment to be given to the patient. She will have noted that in my statement I announced time for the Backbench Business Committee that is as yet unassigned, so she might want to take this issue up with the Committee Chair.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

May we have a statement or a debate in Government time on consultation periods? The Government have announced two important consultations, and both last over the Christmas period. Consultation on reforming the soft tissue claims process opened on 17 November and closes on 6 January, which is a day over seven weeks, while consultation on reforming the employment tribunal system opened on 5 December and closes on 21 January, which is one day less than seven weeks. Surely Christmas knocks out about two weeks of that, so we are down to five weeks. The last Labour Government guidance stated that there should be a minimum of 12 weeks and that if it is over Christmas, it should be longer, but this Government amended that to a “proportionate amount of time”. Surely five weeks is very little time to respond to these crucial consultations, and both should be extended to over 12 weeks. The Leader of the House needs to understand that the results of consultation are for life, not just for Christmas.

[Mr Lidington]

There is a balance to be struck in any consultation period between allowing sufficient time for representations and ensuring that the timetable allows decisions to be taken and policy to be brought forward. The hon. Lady’s suggestion that we should simply write off two weeks over Christmas and the new year seems to me to be somewhat extraordinary. The two timetables that she described allow in each case for several weeks well apart from the Christmas and new year period. At a time when postal services are perhaps not running normally, all these consultations invite responses online, so it is not at all difficult for people to make representations without having to rely on the post.