Ian Mearns
Main Page: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)Department Debates - View all Ian Mearns's debates with the Leader of the House
Business of the House
Ian Mearns Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make the important point that we need to deliver our legislative agenda, and that is why we need to be back physically. We were getting no Bill Committees or statutory instrument Committees, and the routine work of legislation simply was not taking place with a virtual Parliament. The Chamber was taking place in a limited way, but we had not got to the Public Bill Committees and we were running way behind on the business that we needed to attend to. Under the virtual system, we went down to a third of the time debating public Bills that we had had in the week before we had to go away, earlier in March. We therefore needed to get back to make sufficient progress with these important Bills.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I understand that we are due to have some time for estimates day debates in early July, so Members across the House need to be thinking about submitting applications for the subject matter, and the Departments that they want the estimates day debates to be about, to the Backbench Business Committee by no later than a fortnight tomorrow, Friday 19 June.
We are reassembled here in the House of Commons this week so that the Government can carry forward their legislative programme and, as the Leader pointed out, to hold the Government to account. However, I note with regret on behalf of the Committee that the business statement did not include any Backbench Business debates next week.
With no Backbench time, we, as elected Members, are mainly able to hold the Government to account only through debates on subjects of the Government’s own choosing. May we therefore have a debate, in Government time, on the way in which our parliamentary agenda is constructed, and the need to uphold the spirit of Standing Orders with regard to the allocation of time for Back Bencher-generated debates, to be able to hold the Government to account on subject matters of Back-Bench Members’ choosing?