Business of the House

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am sympathetic towards my hon. Friend’s point. In fact, I have a brother-in-law who was a child diabetic some years ago, so I am aware that things have improved dramatically in schools. In 2014, the Government introduced a new duty on school governing bodies to arrange support for pupils with medical conditions such as diabetes. As a constituency MP, I am also aware of challenges when parents have found that schools have struggled to provide that support, so I encourage my hon. Friend to continue to take up this issue, perhaps through an Adjournment debate, because it is important that we solve it.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business statement and for advance notice of the allocations of time on 6 November, 7 November and, provisionally, 16 November. That is very useful indeed. We have received 21 applications over the past three weeks, and a number of debates have not yet been allocated time. Would what she said about Opposition days and the 12-week response time also apply to Backbench Business debates if the House divided on a Backbench motion, and would the response come within 12 sitting weeks or 12 calendar weeks?

Additionally, the House may remember that I ventured a crackpot theory last week that the House was suffering from a Faraday cage effect due to the scaffolding. I had a telephone call from technical services yesterday to confirm that my crackpot theory was in fact correct and that telephone signal is suffering because of that Faraday cage effect.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, not only is the hon. Gentleman an illustrious Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, but he has other qualities to boot, including a degree of technological or scientific or even physicist-orientated knowledge.

[Ian Mearns]

O-level: failed.

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, but the hon. Gentleman has recovered since then, and the House rejoices in his distinction.