Backbench Business Committee

Mark Williams Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I will keep my comments brief, in order that Back Benchers are given a bit more time.

I am deeply disappointed that the Government have tabled this motion without consulting either the Procedure Committee or the Backbench Business Committee. It goes absolutely against the spirit of the sort of relationship that has grown up between the Backbench Business Committee and the Government. The fact that motions affecting the Backbench Business Committee’s operation have been tabled while the Procedure Committee is still looking at that matter in detail and asking people far and wide, inside the House and beyond, for their ideas means that today’s debate cannot be as informed as it should be. Furthermore, to allocate one and a half hours for such a debate is laughable. Members are being asked to make decisions on matters that require much more information.

The Backbench Business Committee will produce its report either this week or next week. The Procedure Committee could work much more quickly on its review of the operation of the Backbench Business Committee if it needed to, and could report very quickly on it. If the Government were willing to withdraw the motion, I am certain that we would benefit from a debate informed by the end-of-term report from the Backbench Business Committee and by the Procedure Committee’s report, well before the end of the Session and timed to coincide with the elections to the Backbench Business Committee. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are willing to consider withdrawing the motion and having a debate on these matters on another day? I am sure that the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) and I would work very quickly to produce our Committees’ reports in order to facilitate such a debate.

The amendments tabled in my name deal with the minority parties. This matter has been a running sore to the Backbench Business Committee. We are, by accident, a Committee of Members from England. We have three members from the east midlands region, and we are an entirely English Committee. We could be far more representative not only of Back Benchers but of the country as a whole if the minority parties were more actively involved.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

As a Member from Wales, I endorse what the hon. Lady has just said. She will be aware that the leading characters from Wales came to her to put their case for a St David’s day debate, and I am happy to report that the English members of the Committee yielded to that request, but it took two years to achieve that. The point that she makes about geographic spread is an important one.