Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
10 NOVEMBER 2004
RT HON
SIR ALAN
HASELHURST MP, DEREK
CONWAY MP AND
MR ERIC
ILLSLEY MP
Q180 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Really,
what you are saying is that the answer to the scrutiny deficit
would be to sit later in the afternoon, if that is necessary.
Sir Alan Haselhurst: And certainly
to sit the full two-and-a-half hours in the morning. If you are
going to lose half-an-hour in the morning as a result of fitting
in with the convenience of members, then one must ensure that
the rest of the time of sitting is made up and I think it is easier,
taking up the point made by Derek Conway a moment ago, for a committee
to sit in a post-dinner session if the House as a whole is in
session than if the rest of the House has gone home. The willingness
to want to work on into the night, at least up until 9.30 or 10.00,
is diminished. If I may just make the additional point that there
appears to have become then a pressure on time spent in the Chamber
and it is now a regular thing for a member who has put in to speak
to come up to the Chair to say, "When do you think I might
be called because I have to go to a committee?" or "I
have to go and see a minister" or "I have to go and
see a delegation." It seems that there is so much more being
poured into a certain time of the day, but these things were perhaps
done in the mornings or at other times and now, because the Chamber
is sitting that much earlier, members are finding that they are
being pulled in many more directions and I think attendance at
debates has therefore been affected and that the normal courtesies,
if you like, of being there for the opening speeches, being there
at the end for the wind-ups and actually listening to the debate
in which you wish to take part has diminished.
Q181 Mr McLoughlin: Do you think that
one of the answers to the consideration in committees of bills—I
realise that is partly programming but it does have an impact
on the way in which the House operates—would be to have
a formula which stated that so long would be allowed for each
clause in each bill and so long for each schedule and then it
would be up to the people running that committee how best and
where the knives should fall? So, for each clause, you allow perhaps
an hour's debate, obviously accepting that some clauses would
not take that kind of time, but that would at least give something
that everybody understands.
Sir Alan Haselhurst: I think it
is a question of how far you can fine tune in general. If you
were to have a formula of that kind which was the template for
all bills, it might not actually fit the circumstances of
a particular bill. It seems that, through a programming committee,
it would be possible to adjust and to say that there would be
a period of time to deal with the first ten clauses which might
be seen as less controversial and then spend more time on clauses
15 to 30 which are perceived to be more controversial. I think
I would have to simply put in a health warning that so much in
this place depends upon cooperation between the two sides of the
House and, unless there is some tacit understanding of how progress
is to be made, then one can get bogged down in trench warfare
which then leads ultimately to the Government having to bring
out their big guns in order to make sure they get their business.
So, there will be times when I think it will be quite difficult
for both sides to agree intensity of controversy of a particular
matter but, on the whole, I think there can be understanding between
the whips and the managing of the bill to ensure that the time
in the programme is spaced out sufficiently without making it
too rigid a formula.
Derek Conway: I think that Mr
McLoughlin's observation is the one that makes sense in the big
bills. For example, the School Transport Bill presently in committee.
The first clause in the Bill is where the meat is and so the Committee
is spending a lot of time on the first clause with agreement of
all parties. Whereas, I think if that had been limited to a specific
period of time, then the Committee might have felt that it had
not covered what is a very wide-ranging clause because some clauses,
we know, can be one line and some can cover several sub-paragraphs,
so I think it very much varies. I think the point is around the
way the usual channels work in this place or do not work as the
case sometimes is and I think there is a balance of understanding.
So, whilst I think the present system helpful whereby more Government
backbenchers can contribute to the debate, I think as long as
there is a degree of self-control about all that, then the system
is not going to break unduly. However, if we get to the stage
where Government whips, regardless of party, are just encouraging
more and more backbenchers to make Government-supported points
to the extent that the Opposition is not getting enough time to
fulfil its scrutiny role, then I think the system will start to
change for the worse and so we have to be careful that our committee
structure just does not become a smart public relations exercise
but is actually getting on the record the views of outside groups
who can only really use the Opposition in order to register the
point if they have not already made it to the Civil Service before
the bill ever reaches the House of Commons.
Mr Illsley: Could I make a point
on the scrutiny deficit and again on programming. One of the problems
faced by chairmen quite often is that the programme motion brought
forward by the Government usually and agreed by both sides is
quite often wildly optimistic and you reach a stage very quickly
in the timing of a bill where everyone realises that the knives
are not going to be met and huge rafts of the bill will simply
be voted through when we approach where the knife falls. So, in
answer to Mr McLoughlin's point, I think it is more flexibility
rather than less and the ability for programming sub-committees
to meet to actually change the programme motion for the bill.
I chaired more recently a Criminal Justice Bill which lost huge
sections of it, even then, it had eight or nine separate programme
sub-committees, because of the difficulties in timetabling that
Bill.
Q182 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Surely the
programme sub-committee or the business sub-committee of a Standing
Committee can only, as it were, change the knives within the standing
committee. It cannot change the outdate, so it really is only
going to extend the time for debate within the period up to the
outdate from Standing Committee.
Mr Illsley: This is where a debate
takes place between both sides during the committee when they
realise perhaps that certain sections of the bill which are controversial
or which they wish to debate in some detail will be missed because
of where the knives are going to fall and obviously there is no
extra time that can be added into the programme.
Q183 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Of course
you can extend, as Sir Alan has indicated, the sittings of the
Committee into the evening: instead of finishing at 7.00, of course
you could continue to 8.00 or 9.00 or even 10.00 at night if that
is necessary and you undertake the proper job and responsibility
of scrutiny. Is that agreed?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: Yes but the
ethos has changed. If you relate it back to the principal point
at issue, the sitting hours of the House, with the House finishing
on a Tuesday in particular at 7.00, there is little appetite,
the evidence seems to suggest, for members to sit on in Committee
beyond that time.
Q184 Joan Ruddock: My point follows directly
on what Sir Alan has just said. Would it therefore not be possible
to have Standing Committees sitting, say, at 4.30 on a Monday
or even from 7.00 to 10.00 on a Monday? Most people, I think,
are probably in the House by about 4.30 on a Monday and this would
both fit with the times that the House itself is sitting and then
one does not have that bad feeling of, they have all gone home
and I am still here, and it could begin to alter the shape of
the week because it is my contention that what has gone wrong
with the new hours is certainly we are doing as many hours and
I believe it is sometimes even more hours, but somehow the
shape of the week seems to be that we only have Tuesday and Wednesday.
If we look to Monday and better use of Monday and make some adjustments
on Thursday, we might end up by solving what appear to be the
problems resulting from the new hours. So, why not Mondays and
should we look at the shape of Thursdays?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: Anything
is possible but there has been a shift in emphasis, I believe,
in the work of Members of Parliament or the perception of their
work and there is now more pull, shall I say, from the representative
constituency function than there used to be and therefore the
readiness of a member to depart from whichever far part of the
United Kingdom it was to be here in London for business of the
House has diminished as there are things to do, that member perceives,
in the constituency before arrival here. So, we have got into
a collective habit, I think, of not arriving particularly early
on Monday and indeed that was recognised by the decision of the
Modernisation Committee not to recommend that we sat at 11.30
on a Monday. The other thing I would ask the members of the Committee
to bear in mind is that so many Members of the House are only
used to a House made up as the present House is made up and things
can be very different in a situation where the governing party
has a small majority and it is very important to make decisions
which apply to as many circumstances as one can conceive and I
think that there will be very much greater pressure on members
to be here more often if there were a tight majority. What happens
when there is a large majority—it happened in the 1980s
and it has happened again since—is that the Government Whips
do not need their maximum numbers here on every occasion and therefore
there is almost a system of time off to be in the constituencies
and the more that happens, the more members feel they have to
fulfil that because otherwise they will have political competitors
snapping at their heels. One can think what one likes about that
but it has become a fact and I believe personally that the balance
between our representative function and our scrutiny function
has altered in such a way that the scrutiny function is now being
performed less assiduously than it used to be.
Q185 Mr Heald: Often in a bill will be
certain clauses which are the key clauses where all the controversy
is and other clauses where there will not be much argument. Generally
speaking, I think Sir Alan you have said that to have knives is
really quite counterproductive and that certainly as few as possible
for programming is the way forward. Of course, if there is not
enough time allocated overall or it is a matter of controversy,
that can mean that you do not get to a particular clause which
is important. Is another way of looking at this to say, look,
we will have a programme without any knives at all, just the end
date, but we will make an appointment for a particular clause
or two or three clauses and they are definitely going to be dealt
with on a particular day and they will have five hours and that
way at least you protect the main pillars of the bill for debate?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: I think that
is possible but I am not sure it can be done by formula, I think
it has to be done by cooperation and it can often be, can it not,
that a government in midstream will change their mind about a
particular part of a bill or will have listened to representations,
whether they have come from the Opposition parties or from outside
sources, and want to change the focus of the bill and insert a
large section of new clauses. That is not easily anticipated beforehand
by again a set programme or template. I think it does in the end
come down to cooperation, further programming, but the test of
all this is whether there is in total sufficient time to cover
the content of a bill and the contingencies which may arise if
a bill is radically altered at some stage during its committee
passage.
Mr Illsley: Again, it comes back
to Sir Alan's point on cooperation between the two sides and I
have had experience of chairing a committee and speaking informally
to the whips on either side to try and achieve a consensus of
debating the controversial clauses, if you like, to try and agree
an informal programme within the knives to try and accommodate
the debate for the length of time both the Opposition want and
Government want. Occasionally, it does happen where the controversial
clauses that everybody thinks will take up a huge part of the
debate turn out not to be the main controversial clause and that
innocuous looking clause within a bill can then hold a bill up
for a day/day-and-a-half because something is revealed during
the debate which proves it to be controversial. So, it is flexibility
which is the key issue.
Derek Conway: I think it is very
important for the Committee and for the House in due course to
take Sir Alan's warning quite seriously. When I came to the House
in 1983, the governing party had a majority of 140 and the biggest
problem the business managers had was trying to keep us all amused
and causing as least trouble as possible, whereas by 1996 on committees,
there was a majority of one on standing committees and then everybody
becomes much more focused indeed than the present more relaxed
atmosphere where the majorities can be bigger. I think the House
is slipping into a way of thinking as it is now it will ever be
and I think that is a dangerous basis upon which to keep changing
our procedures because the atmosphere is very different if you
are chairing or trying to run a standing committee with a majority
of one to a standing committee where you have a majority of several
and I think that some of our colleagues do not quite appreciate
that difference.
Q186 Mr Tyler: Reverting to the hours
more strictly, Sir Alan, you have said that the appetite of members,
the willingness of members to stay on after the Chamber has risen
is a problem. Tempting as it is I think for some of us old lags
who have sat through the night, indeed in a committee where there
was no majority in 1974 and I was the majority, to think that
these young things have no stamina, I do think that we should
recognise that there is some illogicality anyway of saying that
the Chamber should not be sitting late into the night because
we are not very good at our job, 10.00, 11.00, 12.00 at night,
and yet somehow in committee members are going to be more alert
to do what is actually a much more difficult job in committee.
So, I do not think it is just willingness, is it? It is actually
doing a good job. That brings me to the particular question that
I wanted to put to Derek who said earlier that the lack of a standard
start time in the morning is a problem. Is there a standard start
time in the afternoon? Is it 1.30 or 2.00? Clearly, that is just
as important, is it not?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: It is meant
to be 2.30.
Q187 Mr Tyler: Is that not absurdly late
given that questions are over by 12.30? A statement, usually only
one, goes for an hour. Could we not at least get an hour then
which we have lost in the morning and could gain then?
Derek Conway: I think we fatter
men sometimes enjoy something to eat midday! It is all right for
fit people!
Mr Illsley: I think it probably
reflects the interval from the previous session, a session finishing
at 1.00 and restarting at 4.30 in the afternoon, so the interval
is probably the same carried over.
Q188 Mr Tyler: Is the interval necessary?
Mr Illsley: It is 11.30 until
2.30, so that you get a four-hour interval.
Q189 Mr Tyler: Is that necessary?
Mr Illsley: It is a matter of
personal opinion.
Sir Alan Haselhurst: Taking up
Mr Tyler's first point, I do not think there is a significant
group of Members of the House who are arguing to go back to sitting
hours which carry on through the night. I would have thought that
that argument was done and dusted. The question is a more limited
one, as to whether 7.00 is right on certain days or 10.00 or indeed
there could be other variants of that and I think that because
the job of a Member of Parliament is a strange one, with this
increased requirement of constituents, there is more time needed
for that and therefore it is how you could fit that in conveniently
with, if you like, the original job of sending someone to Westminster
to represent you, which was to scrutinise legislation on their
behalf. I think it then has to be a matter of judgment as to whether
you can still do a job effectively up until 9.00 at night or 10.00
at night. No one is seriously suggesting that by rejecting the
present hours one wants to go back to sitting through the night
and therefore manifestly not being able to do an acute job in
those hours.
Derek Conway: What I do not really
see happening—and there are other chairmen as members of
this Committee—is filibustering. I think there is often
frustration on both the part of the Government and the Opposition
in committee when they are being affected by the programming motion.
It is not just the Opposition that is getting frustrated by it,
sometimes ministers are not covering what they need to cover and
are becoming frustrated by the time out limitations of the programme.
I do not think there is a problem of time with scrutiny as in
former days when everybody would start talking about whose great
granny was great granny just to keep the thing going. I really
do not feel that is happening in committees anymore, whereas it
was a very common feature when we had to get 100 hours in the
bag before any kind of agreement could be made to make progress.
So, I do not think members are abusing the system on either side
at the moment.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Before I pass
to Richard Shepherd, can I just say both to our witnesses and
to members of the Committee that we are of course discussing sitting
hours rather than programming although there is, I have to say,
a link between them, but sitting hours is the main thrust of this
inquiry.
Q190 Mr Shepherd: And of course the extent
to which we can do the business of the House within these sitting
hours. Just to start with, a point of information for the record
perhaps, do standing committees sit on Monday?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: I do not
believe they do.
Mr Illsley: I have chaired a committee
on a Monday.
Q191 Mr Shepherd: The bulk of the Government's
legislative programme is not dealt with at all on a Monday?
Derek Conway: It is mainly statutory
instruments.
Mr Illsley: The business of delegated
legislation in relation to the referendums on regional development
agencies and the orders had to be through very quickly which is
why we sat on a Monday.
Q192 Mr Shepherd: I am observing that
Monday is effectively a lost day other than a ceremonial arrival
in the House of Commons in time to vote at 10.00 and that seems
slightly incredible that we talk about the week running Monday
even to Thursday now. In fact, it is perhaps Monday essentially
is the proper place for the discharge of the volume of business
that this House has to account for. I sit on the Joint Committee
on Human Rights. It sat on Mondays. It no longer sits on Mondays,
it sits on Wednesday and it sits on Wednesdays because the old
time coincided with the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party—I
think that is right—of whom the Chairman is the Chairman
of the Parliamentary Labour Party. I am just trying to see how
we could do it because it seems to me that one of the hearts—and
we have more than one heart—of our business is the scrutiny
of legislation and it is very distressing to read the unconsidered
parts of bills now. I am not saying that they were always considered
in the past, we know that that is not true, and so it is seeing
how, whatever pattern of the hours, whether they were tweaked
by half-an-hour on a Tuesday and a Wednesday and a Thursday or
whatever. Sir Alan, would it be an appropriate place for standing
orders to cite that standing committees should meet twice a day?
They have that power already, do they not? It is down to the committee.
Should the House itself set the rule that they will meet twice
a day?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: I think that
is taking away from the flexibility which I believe we would argue
for. It is not for chairmen to impose the idea of flexibility,
it is simply what we observe about the way committees work. When
there is greater flexibility, you are probably going to satisfy
more people more of the time than if you had a prescribed procedure.
It certainly seems to me that it is open to the Modernisation
Committee in considering the evidence it receives to come up with
the conclusion that the House might be encouraged to have standing
committees on a Monday, not just largely reserve Tuesdays and
Thursdays for that purpose.
Q193 Mr Pike: Do you think it is a good
thing?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: Yes. It is
a question then of whether it fits in with these other issues.
There is the travel issue. Many Members of Parliament on a committee
might find themselves to be leaving their homes earlier. That
is again a matter for the House to decide and for this Committee
to recommend, but not everyone, if they happen to find themselves
on an important standing committee where their presence was definitely
required by their whips, let alone their own interest, might be
keen to be leaving home on Sunday night. That is a change of pattern
which will have to be considered and I do not think necessarily
everyone will be too happy with that. The other thing is the point
I made earlier about the demands of constituency. Many would feel
that they would like to make some visit or enter into some commitment
in their constituency on a Monday morning before arriving at the
House of Commons. The other thing one has to take account of is
the proliferation of committees of the House that has taken place
over the years. We have only been living 20 years with the present
pattern of select committees which now take up a considerable
amount of time. They are a part of the scrutiny process, so they
are competing for the time that is available. There are all the
backbench committees of the parties which are perhaps less active
in a parliament which is unbalanced than in a parliament which
is more finely balanced. Then there is the huge increase in the
number of all party groups. It is an exponential increase. All
I am trying to say is that there is so much more that Members
need to fit into a parliamentary week and I think possibly standing
committees have suffered a little in the process.
Q194 Mr Shepherd: I do not want to lose
the thread. We were talking about the outdates, how committees
consider bills within the overall and now, as I understand it,
a bill comes in and it gives the outdate straight on the face
of the bill, we know from the Commons. That does not tell you
the number of hours' consideration allocated to a bill and this
is really a discussion about the number of hours allocated to
the consideration of a bill. I was going to just tease this idea.
If, instead of saying that the outdate is whatever it is, we also
say, if it is a standard formula because the whips informally
used to adopt a sort of standard number of hours before they considered
this was intolerable, on the face of the bill, they say there
will be 100 hours or whatever is considered. That it finishes
in less than 100 hours is clearly with the consent of the committee.
If it takes longer than 100 hours, then there is a reason to go
back to the Commons or to the Government to consider whether it
should be allowed an extra allocation. I quite understand Members
of Parliament seeing convenience in relationship to other matters
which they judge to be urgent, but I am wondering how the House,
within the framework of the available hours which are not being
taken up by committees because of this conflict of alternative
arrangements, whether on the face of the legislation and if one
were going to try and continue with programming actually stated
something like whatever was thought to be the standard measure
or foresaying that these numbers of hours are available for the
Committee to sit. That was the point.
Sir Alan Haselhurst: I think you
just have to set that against what has been widely perceived to
be the convenience of Members. The whole argument, as I understand
it, for a change in the hours was to do with the convenience of
Members. In other words, if the convenience of Members has been
elevated to a certain level, then is it for the convenience of
Members to have the kind of suggestion that Mr Shepherd is making
when in fact there will be then great uncertainty as to exactly
when the Committee would sit in order to fulfil the hours that
are specified and which would, in a controversial bill, be likely
to be taken up. One of the things which I think some of us would
remember is that, when there was a set pattern of standing Committee,
you knew you were going to be put on a standing committee or indeed
volunteered to be on a standing committee on a bill that interested
you and you knew absolutely that it was going to be 10.30 until
1.00 and you wrote that off in your diary twice a week. Certainly
4.30 to 7.00 you wrote off and you had to keep open the possibility
that you might be sitting a little later than that. It is also
quite important for chairmen because I will have to say in parenthesis
that I have a difficulty in finding a sufficient number of colleagues
who are willing to undertake this important service to the House.
They have to block off a considerable amount of their diary and
I think if you were making that kind of prescription that it will
put people off even more. I merely make that remark. I think the
suggestion is one that needs to be seriously considered.
Derek Conway: I think the point
Mr Shepherd is making is critical to this argument because it
is about outdates and outdates are important. If a party has a
large majority in the Commons, what happens to its legislation
in the Lords becomes much more critical and, when you have a small
majority in the House of Commons, it is less so because the difficulty
is in the Commons Chamber whereas at the moment the difficulty
for the governing party is actually coming from the House of Lords.
So, the Chief Whip's Private Secretary, who is really the mastermind
behind all these outdates, has a much more difficult task of knowing
how long their Lordships are going to take with a particular bill
because otherwise when is the House going to change? Maybe carryover
will change that pressure on those who are trying to manage the
Government's business in both Chambers but I think a lot of it
again relates to size of majorities and that is why I hope the
Committee will bear that in mind when they are considering their
conclusions.
Mr Illsley: I think it is a question
of willingness. The Committee Chairmen came in with the agreement
of the two whips and extended the hours of sitting and there is
simply a view that we finish at 5.00, that the session is 2.30
to 5.00 and the Committee ends whereas in the past we sat after
the dinner breaks and, with the agreement of the whips, we can
extend that 5.00 finish to 6.00 or even 7.00 and there is still
a power to sit within the evening even after the House is adjourned
but there is not a willingness amongst Members to do that.
Q195 Mr Shepherd: You actually, Mr Illsley,
introduce something that is very important because, under the
old regime, there was a discussion within the usual channels as
to whether the outdate was reasonable or not and therefore there
was flexibility to that extent. There is no discussion of that
nature now or largely it does not take place, so it is an imposition
as to what the outdate is. So, there is no reasonable balance
of whether the hour is possible.
Mr Illsley: The only way in which
the chairmen can extend is within the—
Mr Shepherd: I appreciate that. That
is why I was seeing if one cited hours and I was just testing
the proposition as a general one, but that needs, as the Deputy
Speaker, Sir Alan, said, goodwill on both sides. Nothing works
without goodwill and this is not working.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I am going to
ask for goodwill from this Committee that we now concentrate upon
sitting hours rather than programming.
Q196 Barbara Follett: I just want to
wrap up this section which is the general section on standing
committees and, though you have provided part of the answer already,
I would like to know why you think that the Tuesday and Thursday
sitting times have become so entrenched for standing committees.
Sir Alan Haselhurst: I think they
were entrenched before I came to the House in the 1970s. It seemed
to me there was a pattern to the week which allowed for a leisurely
arrival on Monday from distant parts, it was possible to have
some committee meetings, usually party meetings, that would take
place on a Monday, there was a full schedule of those, and then
your working week was Tuesdays and Thursdays for standing committees
and Wednesdays for the very small number of other types of committee
at that stage which took place and of course party committees
went on as well. Prime Minister's questions were twice a week,
so again that determined the length of time you were staying here,
and there were then Friday sittings which were very rarely whipped.
So, for most people, the fact that there was a Friday sitting,
you just cleared off to your constituency—I then represented
a northern seat and I was very rarely here on a Friday. The fact
that the House sat was of small consequence to me. If I wanted
to take part in a debate on London policing, I could have stayed
for it and so on. That was the pattern I met with. What has happened
since has reinforced it only to the extent that the biggest increase
in activity for Members of the House has been the new select committee
system.
Q197 Barbara Follett: Is there an idea
that select committees meet on a Wednesday?
Sir Alan Haselhurst: Yes.
Q198 Barbara Follett: I am just trying
to get a pattern. We still seem to have party meetings on Mondays,
standing committees on Tuesdays and Thursdays and select committees
on Wednesdays but our problem is that we lose quite a lot of Thursday
and Monday, they are getting eroded, so everything is getting
collapsed into Tuesday and Wednesday.
Derek Conway: It is an interesting
point and certainly the Government is using Monday for statutory
instrument and delegated legislation scrutiny and there is more
of that happening now. I do not know if people resent that or
not but it just seems to me that that is the slot that people
have to try and find because select committees are primarily meeting
on Wednesdays. I think we should not lose sight of the fact that,
in the 1983 Parliament which I came into, the Government then
had 13 Government business three line whipped Fridays a session
because of the scale of legislation that the Prime Minister was
pushing forward. I think now that colleagues are more used to
Fridays being very much a constituency day or whatever you want
to call it, then maybe there is scope for this Committee and the
House to consider whether Mondays is used as wisely. What
I certainly find in standing committees on Tuesdays and Thursdays
is that Tuesday is not a problem but there is a marked reluctance
by both the Opposition and the Government to meet Thursday afternoons
and even the Committee I am chairing at the moment, although scheduled
to meet on a Thursday, it is looking highly unlikely that it will
because people actually feel that if there is not going to be
a serious Government vote at 6.00 on a Thursday, then they would
rather be off as soon as they can be. I think that has changed
from my younger days where, if I left for Shropshire at 2.00 in
the morning on Friday morning, it was a very good start to the
week-end and a very unusual occurrence.
Q199 Sir Nicholas Winterton: If I may
just add, in case people have forgotten, Wednesday is also used
for standing committees on private members' bills and select committees.
So, the pattern of the House has been established for 30 or 40
years really with standing committees mainly on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
private members' bill standing committees on a Wednesday and select
committees on a Wednesday although of course they now do meet
on other days of the week as well and some statutory instruments
are taken on a Monday. So, as I think Sir Alan implied in his
opening remarks, there has been huge compression of business particularly
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but even more business is now
being done on a Monday.
Mr Illsley: Another point in relation
to Tuesdays and Thursdays for standing committees was the logistics
of tabling amendments and having a space in order to table amendments
before a certain clause came before the House.
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