Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The practice has been abandoned because of paragraph 145 of the Wright Committee report, which specifically mentioned the two pre-European Council debates that formerly took place in Government time. The Wright Committee recommended that that debate and the other set piece debates should be transferred to the Backbench Business Committee along with the time in which those debates took place. That has now happened. My hon. Friend should go to the Backbench Business Committee with his request for a debate on this particular matter. I have to say to him that it is not as though we have not debated Europe in this Chamber: we had a debate on the petition on the referendum; we had a motion to approve the budget on 8 November; we had a motion on Croatia on Tuesday; and we had a general debate on the UK chairmanship of the Council of Europe. It is not the case that these important issues have gone by default in the Chamber.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament discussed the Act of Settlement, and there was broad and overwhelming agreement that the discrimination against Catholics must come to an end. When the Government consider sexual equality and the succession, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the House gets the opportunity to debate this ongoing discrimination against Catholics?

[Sir George Young]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there will be a Bill on the royal succession, and I hope it will be possible to debate the important issues he has just raised in that context.