Sittings of the House (22 March)

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is a matter of opinion, and he and I may disagree about the judgment he has just presented to the House.

I wondered whether this strange aversion to Wednesdays might be randomly generated happenstance or unsupported by any evidence. I was even beginning to chide myself a little for developing such unworthy thoughts about Machiavelli or anybody else, so I decided to check the evidence. I looked back at the record to see how often the House has risen for recesses on Tuesdays, and it turns out that during the period when Tony Blair was Prime Minister the House rose on Tuesdays 22% of the time, and when my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) was Prime Minister the House rose on Tuesdays 29% of the time, but since 2010 while the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) has been Prime Minister the House has risen on Tuesdays a whopping 58% of the time.

These figures prove that this Prime Minister is categorically no heir to Blair in his desire to be answerable for the actions of his Government in this Chamber. They prove he truly has an aversion to Wednesdays and a reluctance to let the House sit on Wednesdays if he can possibly avoid it. What on earth can the Prime Minister be scared of?

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Did not Tony Blair reduce the number of Prime Minister’s Question Times from twice a week to once a week?

[Ms Eagle]

The length was not reduced; as hon. Members may recall, Tony Blair put the two sets of 15 minutes together into one half an hour. The figures that I have just given the House are unaffected by the changes that were made to Prime Minister’s Question Time, because the half-hour, one-day-a-week session is common to all three figures. That point does not address the pattern of avoiding Wednesdays which the statistics demonstrate we are dealing with in this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

But it is a hugely important part of holding the Government to account. It clearly has a considerable impact on the Prime Minister, given his desire to avoid it. If one reads the memoirs of a number of Prime Ministers, not just of recent vintage—

[Michael Ellis]

Tony Blair.

[Mr Spellar]

Not just of recent vintage, I said. I know the hon. Gentleman is a new Member who thinks that history started with Tony Blair’s election. I know this belief is common within the Conservative party, but actually we did have Prime Ministers—both Labour and Conservative alike—before that. I was actually thinking of Harold Macmillan, but the hon. Gentleman was probably in short trousers when he was Prime Minister.