John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)
Mr Speaker
As we are about to hear the first urgent question of the Parliament, I think it right to remind the House, particularly the Front-Bench teams, of the conventions on time limits. Colleagues will understand that I do so because they have not been adhered to with any religiosity in recent times. For urgent questions, the Minister may speak for up to three minutes; the person asking the urgent question and the official spokesperson, where different, a maximum of two minutes; and the third-party spokesperson a maximum of one minute.
For oral statements, the Minister is usually limited to 10 minutes; the Official Opposition spokesperson to five minutes; and the third-party spokesperson to two minutes. Members wishing to take part in statements, urgent questions and business questions must be in the Chamber, in accordance with a very long-established convention, before such events begin, and colleagues should not expect to be called to ask a question if they are not in their place as the statement/urgent question/business questions begin.
In a moment, I shall call Jonathan Ashworth, but it might be helpful if I indicate to the House that, as there are not far short of 70 Members wishing to take part in the continued debate on the Queen’s Speech, I would like the exchanges on this question not to go on much beyond half an hour.