Procedures Committee, 25 Apr 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Official Report 156KB pdf

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Parliamentary Time

Agenda item 3 is the review of parliamentary time. The clerks have produced a paper on our inquiry, PR/S2/06/7/2, and one that contains information that we learnt when a delegation from the Finnish Parliament came here, which is additional to what we discovered when we went to Finland—that is paper PR/S2/06/7/3. The clerks have also circulated some issues that were raised during the debate on the legislative process on 15 March. We will consider mainly the points that are raised in paper PR/S2/06/7/2, which sets out the situation well.

I suggest that members notify the clerk of any issues that they are particularly keen on raising in our discussions. Those could be matters that have been raised during the inquiry or new ideas about how to deal with the problems. After those issues have been fed in, the clerk will submit papers on particular issues, which we will then discuss. That should allow us to make worthwhile progress before the summer recess. What do members think?

Paragraphs 6 and 9 cover the issue well. It is not unreasonable that we should identify the main options before the summer recess.

Good. The clerk is scoring well on his report so far.

The day is young.

Oh dear.