Backbench Business Committee

Debate between David Heath and Mark Reckless

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

Again, I commend the Wright Committee report to the hon. Gentleman. He will find that he was simply wrong in some of the points that he made earlier about the Committee’s suggested structure for determining House business.

I move on to the last substantive point that needs to be made. The hon. Gentleman seemed to take exception to the fact that the Government had attempted to facilitate the Backbench Business Committee’s procedures for this week.

[Mark Reckless]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?

[Mr Heath]

No, not for the moment. Let me explain what the Government have been attempting to do.

It seems that there is some objection to the fact that the Government have tried to help the Backbench Business Committee by providing the debate that it would normally have scheduled this Thursday. We are committed to the Backbench Business Committee having time for Back-Bench debates at an average of once a week, although not necessarily every week consecutively, and we have kept up that average.

We felt it imperative that we reserved time this week for a Backbench Business Committee debate. Did we pluck a subject out of the air for that debate? No, of course we did not. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House asked the Chair-elect of the Committee, who of course was its previous Chair and so has some experience, what she felt would be an appropriate subject for debate this Thursday prior to the Committee being formally instituted. She undertook to consult the new Committee’s members-elect to see whether they had views, and she took into account the requests that had come forward. She suggested that we might provisionally propose that there be a motion on mental health, tabled by Back-Bench Members and in the name of the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan).

The Government are now being criticised for providing at the earliest opportunity what members of the Backbench Business Committee wanted. We are told that we are wrong to have done that. I reject that criticism, which I think is frankly rather stupid. All that we have done throughout the process has been to say that we will do whatever we can to help the Committee in its work. Had the Committee been set up last night, it would have met today and agreed the subject for debate on Thursday. I have every confidence that the subject it would have chosen was the one that its members asked for. If the Government are to be criticised for helping the Committee and facilitating its setting-up at the earliest opportunity, I fail to understand what more we can do to assist Back-Bench Members. I believe that we have acted entirely properly.

[Mark Reckless]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?

[Mr Heath]

I think the debate has now covered all the topics that could conceivably be relevant to the motion, and I hope that the House will now have the opportunity to move swiftly to a conclusion.

Question put and agreed to.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)

Debate between David Heath and Mark Reckless

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I beg to move,

That the Order of 12 July 2011 (Public Bodies Bill [Lords] (Programme)) be varied as follows—

1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Order shall be omitted.

2. Proceedings on Consideration shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table.

3. The proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister said yesterday that if there were any treaty change to shore up the euro, we should press for the repatriation of social and employment policy. Given that he has just been completely contradicted by his Europe Minister, could you advise us how we might clarify Government policy in that important area?

[Mr Speaker]

I have known the hon. Gentleman since long before his election to this House last year—indeed, for the best part of two decades—and I know of no one who surpasses him in ingenuity. I trust that he will deploy his ingenuity through the use of the Order Paper and other mechanisms in order further to convey his own views and to highlight his concerns. I think the Deputy Leader of the House may now continue with his oration.