Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making. A whole range of organisations have had to take difficult decisions about final salary pensions, given the very welcome—but challenging for pension fund trustees—increase in life expectancy. I will make sure that the concerns he raises are passed on to my ministerial colleagues.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Following the comments made by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and your excellent article earlier this week, Mr Speaker, will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate and a vote on whether the House should continue to have a conference recess, or whether the political parties should pull their finger out, sort themselves out and organise their conferences at weekends, like the Scottish National party do, to enable this House to continue to sit? By having such a debate and a vote, we would be able to work out which MPs believe they should be doing their job in this House and holding the Government to account.

[Chris Grayling]

There is growing interest in this area in this House, particularly given the fact that there are perhaps slightly fewer Liberal Democrats than there used to be for their conference week. This matter has been raised with me through the usual channels. Of course, conference bookings by the principal parties take place some years in advance. I do not rule out change in the future, but this is something that needs to be dealt with quite carefully.