Procedures Committee, 21 Sep 1999
Meeting date: Tuesday, September 21, 1999
Official Report
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Working Hours
Item 2 concerns Donald Gorrie's paper, which we discussed during Mike's evidence. However, Donald, I am willing to allow you to make any other points that you wish to at this stage. Do you feel that you had a fair thrash at it and that we are going in the right direction?
I wanted to comment on the clerk's response to my paper. It states:
"At this stage in the life of the Parliament it is not feasible to point to concrete examples of ways in which the basic timetable/structure has constrained Parliament unreasonably."
That is not correct. Some of the debates have been too short and, as has already been said, a number of people who would have liked to speak and could have made reasonable contributions were not able to. The time allocated for speeches is sometimes so short that interventions are discouraged and the impact of the speech is diminished because the speaker is unable to put their arguments properly. I argue that slightly longer debates would be better debates. That is linked to the issue of how much time is available to Parliament.
We addressed that question earlier, Donald, but I am perfectly happy for you to put your opinion on the record.