Private Members’ Bills

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

As my hon. Friend says, two and three quarter hours—one of the suggestions for timetabling on Second Reading—does not sound a lot, but we have to remind ourselves that most private Members’ Bills, if not all, are fairly straightforward. I appreciate that that is not the case on every occasion, but they are often straightforward and short. Government Bills, which are usually enormously complex and run to hundreds of pages, get six and half hours, which is often truncated by urgent questions and statements. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) says, but that is why we have options in the report. One suggestion is for timetabling to be limited to one Bill on a Friday. Again, it is for her and others to argue for and against the system they favour, which can then be put to the vote.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

The report is much to be welcomed. Could we summarise the hon. Gentleman’s and the Committee’s views thus: “Here is a package of proposals to make sure we reach a view and decide on private Members’ Bills in the future, so that they do not get kicked into touch, but we are not against revisiting the time of the week or the week of the month in which such Bills are looked at if the first set of proposals does not achieve the sort of objectives that I hope we would all want”?