1ST REPORT OF SESSION
2013-14 FROM THE PROCEDURE COMMITTEE
Backbench Questions for Short
Debate: Grand Committee sitting hours
1. On 24 April 2013 the House rejected a proposal
to create a Backbench Debates Committee, set out in the Procedure
Committee's 6th report of Session 2012-13 (HL Paper 151). As
the Report made clear, the corollary of this decision was that
alternative proposals put forward by the Leader of the House would
be further worked up for consideration by the House. At our next
meeting on 25 June we will therefore consider in detail how to
implement all the measures put forward by the Leader.
2. In the interim, we have considered a memorandum
from the Leader of the House which proposes the early adoption
of one of those proposals, namely that where a Grand Committee
sits exclusively to consider backbench Questions for Short Debate
(QSDs), the duration of the sitting should be five hours instead
of the current four—allowing five QSDs to be debated in
each such sitting. This would apply to the Government's undertaking—described
in our 6th report—to schedule at least one such Grand Committee
sitting for every six sitting weeks in the session. The Leader
proposed that the sittings times for such Grand Committee days
should be as follows:
- Monday and Tuesday: 3.30pm - 8.30pm
- Wednesday: 3.45pm - 8.45pm
- Thursday: 1pm - 6pm.
The Grand Committee sitting would thus end an hour
later than at present on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and begin
an hour earlier on Thursday. The existing provision whereby additional
time is allowed to QSDs in Grand Committee when they are interrupted
by a division would remain in place.
3. The Leader of the House has invited us to
put this proposal to the House now, so that it can be implemented
to enable new extended sittings of the Grand Committee for these
purposes early in the Session.
4. We recommend that on days where a Grand
Committee sits solely to consider backbench Questions for Short
Debate, as described above, the duration of such sittings should
be extended from four to five hours. The extended sitting hours
would be as follows:
- Monday and Tuesday: 3.30pm - 8.30pm
- Wednesday: 3.45pm - 8.45pm
- Thursday: 1pm - 6pm.
| 
