Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Nineteeth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 19th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson]

I can only speak for myself on that one and as I am addressing you in the Chair, Ms Dorries, I can confirm I am not on my phone. My hon. Friend makes her own point, in her own inimitable style.

The other development that there has been on the matter in the past weeks was the Leader of the House’s announcement of three more sitting Fridays for consideration of Back-Bench business. If we pass the Bill through Committee soon enough, that would give us extra time for the consideration of the remaining stages on the Floor of the House, where, as we have said previously, Conservative Members would have the chance either to further amend the Bill or to vote it down in its entirety.

That is notwithstanding the advice of the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean—he is not in his place today but is normally an assiduous attender of the Committee—that it is very possible that all stages of a constitutional Bill such as this should be considered on the Floor of the House. You might have the honour and responsibility of chairing such a Committee of the whole House, Ms Dorries, now that you hold a more elevated position on the Panel of Chairs. I look forward to serving under your chairmanship in the future.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is an immense pleasure to see you in the Chair, as always, Ms Dorries. We meet for what I believe is the 19th time, and what a glorious number that is. It is not quite 48, but perhaps we will get there; we might have 48 sittings of this Committee.

Interestingly, this week we saw various members of the extreme Brexiteer wing of the Conservative party bemoaning the fact that we would not have seats in the European Parliament any more. We are, of course, losing those 73 Members of the European Parliament, which in some respects is right if we leave the European Union. However, those powers will come back from Brussels to this House, and it is the job of Members to scrutinise them. I gently suggest to the Government, through the Chair, that if we reduce our number of MEPs—some people are struggling to get their head around that concept—and those powers come back to the House, we should not reduce the number of legislators in this place.

Question put and agreed to.