Early-day Motions

Lord Wharton of Yarm Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans]

I shall mention saving costs on printing by publishing online later in my speech, but my hon. Friend makes a good suggestion on how we should reform early-day motions and what we should call them, which should be considered along with other things.

We should think about the future role of such a mechanism now that the Backbench Business Committee has been successfully established. The truth is that early-day motions have been devalued by the sheer volume that have been tabled—nearly 3,000 were tabled during the last year. Early-day motions have been devalued by the utter ridiculousness of many of them. There are motions congratulating football teams on promotion; motions congratulating two celebrities on their engagement; motions arguing about the origins of Robin Hood; motions suggesting a common hash tag to be used by MPs on Twitter; motions praising Ann Widdecombe’s dancing ability; and even a motion expressing support for an asteroid wiping out the entire human race.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend is eloquently setting out, does not the sheer quantity of early-day motions on such a range of topics, which are often rather inconsequential, undermine the function that they were designed to serve?