Robert Syms
Main Page: Robert Syms (Conservative - Poole)Department Debates - View all Robert Syms's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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I think that after the general debate on the matter there will need to be, at some stage in the not too distant future, a substantive motion on which the House can take a view. Important questions were raised in the Procedure Committee report—for example, about the exclusion from a general proposal for proxy voting while on maternity, paternity or adoption leave of particular categories of Division in the House. The Committee discussed various approaches to how a proxy vote might operate in practice. The House needs to consider those things, as well as the points about the potential for bereavement leave or carer’s leave that other hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised.
We know that the system actually works pretty well. The Minister has given the figures that show that occasionally, for a variety of reasons, pairs get broken. In those cases, an apology is required, very quickly, and we had an apology from the two individuals in question that should settle the matter. The reality, though, is that this is the worst system except for all the alternatives.