Helen Goodman
Main Page: Helen Goodman (Labour - Bishop Auckland)Department Debates - View all Helen Goodman's debates with the Leader of the House
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is quite right. The Procedure Committee report proposed that hon. Members taking baby leave should be able to choose between proxy voting and a pair, even from vote to vote, so the complexity would obviously increase; nevertheless it is important that we have choice and flexibility.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Chair of the Procedure Committee will attest to the fact that I have been a proxy voting sceptic—until yesterday. Does the Leader of the House agree that the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) has done for proxy voting what the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) did for the private Members’ Bills process?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady is being extremely unfair to my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth. It is absolutely clear that he was unaware that he was breaking a pair. It was an administrative error.