Duncan Hames
Main Page: Duncan Hames (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)Department Debates - View all Duncan Hames's debates with the Leader of the House
(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir George Young
May I return the compliment, by saying that of the two Denis’s that confront me the right hon. Gentleman is by far the nicer?
May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that I totally reject his accusations that somehow this is taking power away from people? This is a wholly sensible proposition and it is right that the House should know the Government’s intentions before it begins to debate the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill—that debate follows in a few moments’ time. There are opportunities to carry over at the end of one Session, which he appeared to ignore, and we have allowed ample time to debate the constitutional Bills to which he has referred. Far from this being an insult to the House, at the earliest opportunity I made a written ministerial statement to the House, and the proposals that I have referred to will be debated in respect of the Bill that the House is shortly to address.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
What consideration did the Leader of the House give to instead bringing forward the next Queen’s Speech to May 2011?
Sir George Young
If one were to do that, it simply would not give the House adequate time to debate fully the programmes announced in the last Queen’s Speech.