Business of the House

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

There are plenty of avenues that would allow the hon. Gentleman to call such a debate, such as the Backbench Business Committee or the Adjournment debate system. We have had to take difficult decisions about the pension age, against the background of an ever-ageing population. The previous Government took similar decisions. It is a reality that people will retire later than they would have done in the past. We will continue to have discussions with Members about the detail, but we cannot escape the reality that we face.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House tell me when the next meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee is likely to be? It has not met since the election and it met only once in the year before the election, yet prior to that it met eight times a year on average. I knew that he was keen on Welsh MPs not speaking in English debates, but I had not realised that he had extended that to Welsh debates.

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman does talk a lot nonsense sometimes. As he knows, I have never sought to exclude Welsh MPs from speaking in English debates. The essence of the reform is that we do not to exclude Welsh or Scottish MPs from speaking in debates on English matters. Of course, the same does not apply the other way around. The Welsh Grand Committee will have a lesser role in the future because we are in the process of devolving substantial additional powers to Cardiff, but I will look at what is happening with the Committee and write to him.