Business of the House

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Those elements of the hon. Lady’s concern are already reflected in the motion. As I have said, in the motion we have sought to reflect the concerns in all parts of this House. I can only reiterate that this motion was tabled shortly after the opening of business today and all Members of this House can manage to access it—and indeed my hon. Friends behind me have already managed to do so.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It appears that a real shambles is developing here. The Leader of the House is telling us that we are having 20 hours of debate, but that is not correct, because we are being given 10 hours to debate the motion. That is a substantive point. As Members have said, it is a motion that this House needs to reflect on and put down amendments to. Is it not the case that our constituents are very concerned about the consequences of this motion, and surely we should be having two days for debate so that Members can debate this properly? Why does the right hon. Gentleman not call the Prime Minister back from whatever engagements he may have on Thursday? Let us do this properly and treat the country with respect.

[Chris Grayling]

I can only say again that we discussed these matters for two hours last Monday, two and a half hours last Thursday, and five hours-plus in the debate yesterday, and we have a 10-and-a-half-hour debate tomorrow, and the debate tomorrow is for the equivalent amount of time as would have been available if we had run normal days on Wednesday and Thursday. I happen to think it is more coherent and logical for us to do this in one go, with one extended debate opened by the Prime Minister and wound up by the Foreign Secretary, and we will have had in total 20 hours to consider these matters since Monday of last week.