NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill
Debate between Natascha Engel and Jane Ellison(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. Before the Minister responds, I should point out that the subject of defibrillators is some distance away from any of the amendments. The hon. Gentleman might like to save it for Third Reading.
Jane Ellison
I am sure we all recognise the truth of your judgment, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the example was given earlier of an NHS charity that had championed defibrillators in the local community, and I think that that is how the topic was introduced. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) has made a good point, and I shall be happy to give him more information about the proportion of the fund that the British Heart Foundation has been able to spend on the training that he described.
I hope that what I have said about the amendments has been of assistance to the House.
Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: Wright Reforms
Debate between Natascha Engel and Jane Ellison(11 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Backbench Business Committee
Debate between Natascha Engel and Jane Ellison(12 years, 7 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Natascha Engel
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman use the opportunity of the Procedure Committee’s investigating the operation of the Backbench Business Committee, because this is exactly the sort of thing the former could consider.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Wright Committee, which first suggested and recommended establishing a Backbench Business Committee. You served on that Committee, Mr Brady, as did the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire. The Wright Committee’s setting up the Backbench Business Committee, which we voted on at the start of this Parliament, has led to one of the most significant cultural shifts in the way this place works—one that was pretty unimaginable, even in the Wright Committee. The new intake from 2010, which has grown up with the Backbench Business Committee, has made it their own.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
I join others in paying tribute to the hon. Lady’s excellent chairmanship and for the way that the Committee has acted as one body throughout the Session.
On the new intake, I want to record my thanks, as a new Member of Parliament, for what I have learnt from being a Committee member. On behalf of lots of hon. Members in the 2010 intake, some of whom are gathering for the next debate, I should like to say that the Committee, and the debates organised by it, have offered them an opportunity to get really stuck into parliamentary life at a much earlier stage, and lead debates they might not otherwise have dreamt of leading for some years. Does the hon. Lady agree?
Natascha Engel
I agree, especially in respect of the new intake from 2010, who were unused to the way Parliament worked before and made no assumptions; they have made this Committee their own. The biggest difference I have identified between the previous Parliament and this one is that the Backbench Business Committee, as a forum for Back Benchers, has given them the opportunity to hold the Government to account properly and do the job of a Back Bencher much more effectively than in previous Parliaments. In large measure, that is thanks to the imaginative way that the 2010 intake, especially, has used the Backbench Business Committee.