Business of the House

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady is right that yesterday’s debate focused on more than simply the situation in Syria, but one of the reasons why we need to act against ISIL in Syria is the growing challenge we face from it around the middle east and in north Africa, and those issues were undoubtedly reflected in yesterday’s debate.

On the two-day debate issue, I simply repeat that we are providing an extended debate that is the equivalent of the amount of time that would have been available on a normal day’s business on Wednesday and Thursday, but we are doing it on one day over a very extended period to create a coherent single debate.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

If the Government genuinely want to build as broad a consensus as possible on what might be the most momentous decision of this Parliament, how are the public supposed to understand a time-limited debate on their specific motion to escalate bombing where fewer than perhaps a fifth of Members are able to take part?

[Chris Grayling]

What I would say to the public is that we in Parliament will have discussed these issues over a 20-hour period since Monday of last week. The Prime Minister has taken two extended sets of questions, has considered very carefully the issues raised by Members on both sides of the House, has produced a motion that in our view reflects those concerns and takes many of them into account, and then has provided a length of time for debate that is longer than any that has been provided for a similar decision in recent years. I think that is treating this House, and the public and their concern, in exactly the right way.