Business of the House

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

When the House introduced experimental sitting hours in 2003-05, whereby we sat from 11.30 am to 7 pm on a Wednesday—as we do now—and also on a Tuesday, it was never intended that the House should sit in the morning and then through the evening until 10 o’clock, as we did yesterday. Will the Leader of the House consider reintroducing Tuesday morning sittings? Is he aware that we have sat later hours in this Parliament than we did on any night in the 2005 Parliament?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raises the broad issue of the parliamentary calendar and whether we should change Tuesday hours back to ending at 7 o’clock instead of 10 o’clock. The Procedure Committee will examine the sitting hours and the whole parliamentary calendar, and following its inquiry I understand that it will put a range of options before the House. I agree that it is right that the House revisit the issue, because there has been a substantial change in membership since we last visited it. There will be an opportunity to look more radically at how we operate.

On my hon. Friend’s specific question, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the last two weeks have been unusual, partly because this Government want to allow adequate time to scrutinise Bills, particularly important constitutional measures. However, we do not envisage the regime that we have had for the past two weeks being the normal pattern.