Submission from the Chairman of the Board
of Management
CHANGES TO THE HOUSE'S SITTING HOURS
1. I understand that the Modernisation Committee
is intending to re-examine the House's sitting hours. I am writing
on behalf of the Board of Management to indicate how House staff
may be affected by further changes.
2. Not all House staff are directly affected
by changes to the House's sitting times, but in a number of areas,
in particular those serving the main and parallel Chambers, and
the Committees of the House, working hours are closely related
to the hours the House sits. Staff in such areas have generally
benefited from earlier finish times and more predictable working
hours. They have had to start work earlier, however, and have
experienced more intensive periods of work, which in some cases
has led to difficulties with taking meal breaks. Nor is it guaranteed
that the House will rise earlier than before under the new arrangements:
the House has often sat well beyond 7.30 pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
in recent weeks.
3. It is worth bearing in mind that staff
must often attend well before a sitting, or Committee meeting,
begins, in order to undertake preparatory work, and must often
stay after the rise of the House, for example to send the final
version of the Order Paper or daily Hansard to be printed. Furthermore,
the Lords now routinely sits later than the Commons on Tuesdays
and Wednesdays, which can cause problems for Public Bill Office
staff who must sometimes wait long after the Commons has risen
to receive bills and messages from the Lords for consideration
the next day. The options your Committee is likely to consider
are not likely to exacerbate this problem.
4. In general, House staff have shown considerable
flexibility in adapting to the changes agreed in October 2002
and implemented just over two months later, in January 2003. Many
staff altered well-established domestic arrangements in order
to adjust to the House's new requirements. It is, I believe, most
important that adequate notice should be given of any further
changes to the current sitting pattern, so that management and
staff can make adequate preparations. This approach was endorsed
by the Procedure Committee, in its commentary on the results on
the recent survey of Members' views on sitting hours. It asked
your Committee to bear in mind that decisions about sitting hours
"should be taken in full knowledge of the implication for
staff working patterns and enough notice should be given for these
to be changed if necessary"[1]
5. The Procedure Committee has also recently
focused on the possibility of transferring Friday business to
mid-week evenings, or taking non-contentious business at such
times, and concluded that this should be introduced "only
after appropriate staffing arrangements can be made, not before"[2]
My evidence to the Committee included reference to how such a
change would affect staff. In some areas, particularly in the
Clerk's Department and the Department of the Official Report,
a standard 14-hour working day would be introduced for at least
two days a week. In order to guarantee that employment legislation
was complied with, a shift system would need to be introduced
which would entail the recruitment, and training, of extra staff.
This would be costly; would require changes to the House's three-year
financial plans, which are agreed by the Commission and the Finance
and Services Committee; and could not be achieved without a significant
lead time.
6. A further, procedural, problem relating
to taking Private Members' Bills on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings
would also affect staff working conditions and would be likely
to inconvenience Members. In order to guarantee, say, three hours
of debate on each of those evenings, Private Members' business
would either have to be commenced at a set time, for example 7
pm, or there would have to be provision for three hours' debate
commencing at whatever hour the main business was concluded. The
first option could lead to the main business being interrupted
at 7 pm and then resumed at 10 pm, with the possibility of wind-up
speeches or divisions after that time. The second option would
generate uncertainty as to when Private Members' business would
commence, particularly if the recent trend for other debates,
such as on Opposition motions or the remaining stages of Government
bills, to be guaranteed certain amounts of time continues. In
both cases, unpredictable finish times after 10 pm would be reintroduced
and the frequency of significantly late sittings would be likely
to increase.
7. Problems would also arise if the House
chose to restore the former sitting hours on Tuesdays or Wednesdays,
but Standing Committees continued to meet at 9 am. The current
problems arising from the same staff sometimes working late on
a Monday and starting as early as 7.30 am on a Tuesday to support
a Standing Committee would be exacerbated in such circumstances.
Either some staff would be expected to work very long hours on
those days, or, in the long run, extra staff would be needed.
The combination of a later sitting time on Tuesdays and an early
start on Wednesdays would be somewhat easier to deal with, in
terms of compliance with employment legislation, than the current
arrangements, because Standing Committees do not routinely sit
on Wednesdays.
8. One of the difficulties which has arisen
as a result of earlier sittings (particularly of Standing Committees)
is that there is less time in which to prepare amendment and other
papers, as a result of which Members have less time to prepare
for debates. This situation would be improved if the notice period
for the tabling of amendments to bills was increased. Selection
lists could be issued earlier, other preparatory work for Standing
Committee meetings could be undertaken on the day before the meeting,
rather than very early in the morning, and staff workload could
be more easily managed. Increasing the notice period for amendments
would also be an essential prerequisite for attempting to implement
the suggestions made by the Modernisation Committee for increasing
the clarity of the papers available to Standing Committees, given
the significant extra work which changes of that sort would entail.
9. I hope these observations are helpful
and I would welcome the opportunity to contribute further, on
either the procedural or managerial aspects of further changes,
as you develop firm proposals.
Roger Sands
Clerk of the House
June 2004
1 HC 491, 2003-04, paragraph 13. Back
2
HC 333, 2002-03, paragraph 39. Back
|
