Business of the House

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I will raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Depending on the subject that is chosen for debate next Wednesday, which will presumably relate to Northern Ireland, the hon. Lady may have an opportunity to raise the matter then and get a response from him.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I had understood that the January surplus was £7.8 billion, so I congratulate the Leader of the House on finding another £4 billion down the back of the sofa.

The Backbench Business Committee has been unable to allocate time for pre-European Council meetings, because it has limited time that is often changed at the last moment. Will the Leader of the House now reinstate those debates in Government time, or does he believe that the Standing Order No. 24 process is more appropriate?

[Sir George Young]

That would be to reverse the commitment that we made to implement in full the Wright recommendations, which involved putting in a pot a number of days, including those for the pre-EU Council debates, and transferring the pot over to the Backbench Business Committee. I would be most reluctant to take power away from the Committee in the way that my hon. Friend suggests by reducing its number of days.

On a more encouraging note, my hon. Friend may have heard the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) yesterday, with which I have a lot of sympathy. He suggested that at the beginning of each Session, we earmark a number of days that would be made available to the Committee at the appropriate time when an EU Council was imminent. If we go down that road, we may avoid the problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) refers.