Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As right hon. and hon. Members know, it is my normal, almost unfailing, practice to try to call everyone at business questions. I would point out, though, that today we have two Government statements after this, both of which are of course important and of which the House will wish to treat, and then two debates under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, both of which, especially the first, are significantly subscribed. It therefore may not be possible for me to accommodate all colleagues today, though I shall strive to do so and will be greatly assisted in the process by brevity from Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike, first to be exemplified by Mr Peter Bone.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House adopt a policy on programming whereby he gives a protected number of hours to main debates? As you were saying, Mr Speaker, today we have the problem that Back-Bench business is being squeezed, but if we had agreed a motion providing that it could last for six hours from whenever it commenced, it would have solved the problem entirely. Such a thing has been done before, so does the Leader of the House agree that that would a good tactic to adopt?

[Mr Lansley]

Our practice on programming is to be flexible. It is sometimes in the interests of the House for time to be protected, but sometimes that would be an unnecessary constraint. As I made clear last week, in the run-up to the recess, there will inevitably be pressing reasons why the Government make additional announcements and statements, which will have an impact on business, but we will do everything we can to ensure that that does not frustrate us in conducting our business in good time.