Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will recall, because he was in his place, that the House was informed that one of the reasons why I addressed the House from the Dispatch Box on Tuesday was that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) spoke on behalf of the Government on the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. I spoke as Leader of the House in order to facilitate debate and to speak on behalf of my party in circumstances in which the Prime Minister had explicitly set aside collective ministerial responsibility. The House was informed by me then.

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

As the Leader of the House knows, more and more Members are coming to the Backbench Business Committee with ideas for debates that have a wider public interest. They are asking us to schedule debates quite far in advance so that they can then engage better with people outside in order to give them a better idea of what we are doing in Parliament. As he knows, we are given a maximum of two weeks’ notice of any days that are to be allocated to the Backbench Business Committee. Given that almost every Thursday is a Back-Bench day, will he consider the possibility of our working on the assumption that Thursdays will be Back-Bench days to allow Members more time to organise greater interest in the debates that are happening in Parliament?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady knows that I am happy to work with her and her colleagues to provide as much advance notice of the allocation of days as possible and, where possible, to enable her and her Committee to announce days in advance. We have been able to do that to some extent in the past. The issue was covered to some degree in the report from the Procedure Committee on the work of the Backbench Business Committee, to which I responded. We have a good record of providing Back-Bench time in the Chamber every week, with the exception of one week so far in this Session. She is, however, asking for a level of certainty in relation to future business that is not even available to me and my ministerial colleagues. She is aware of the issues that we face when timetabling business, but we do our absolute best to provide a degree of certainty to her and her colleagues, and we will continue to talk about how we can do that.