Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House says that the Committees will be elected in due course. The Labour party has carried out its elections today, and those Committee members will be in place tonight. How soon can we expect the Government to sort out their side of the equation?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As soon as possible, and within the normal timeframe for establishing Select Committees.

The Opposition make a comparison with the 2015 general election, saying that, by the summer recess following the vote, Select Committees had been established and Opposition days had been held. However, the election in 2015 was in May, not June, and there were 32 sitting days between the Queen’s Speech and the summer recess. Between the Queen’s Speech and the summer recess this year, there will have been only 18 sitting days.

Let us look at our record on providing Opposition day debates versus the record when the Labour party was in government. Let us use the Opposition’s assumption that each Session should be one year and that there should be 20 Opposition days each year. On their reckoning, between 1997 and 2010, when Labour was in office, Opposition parties were short by 35 Opposition days. By the same calculation, and using the Opposition’s assessment, they have had one more day than their allocation between 2010 and today.