Stephen Gethins
Main Page: Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party - North East Fife)
Mr Speaker
The debate end time is displayed on the clocks at the table in front of the Clerks. I am sure that we can look at the practicality of that end time being displayed more widely. The proposition advanced by the hon. Gentleman is not only inoffensive, but potentially practical. [Interruption.] And practicable, as has been in no way pedantically pointed out to me.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are at a time of unprecedented crisis and time is not quite on our side. The UK is due to leave the European Union next week and the House is sitting on Friday, just as we come to the end of a critical European Council. May I seek your guidance on what scope there may be for Members or for the Government to bring forward a resolution so that the House could sit on Saturday?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Colleagues, for the second day running, I am obliged to turn to “Erskine May”—namely, page 309, with which colleagues, I feel sure, will be closely familiar—which states:
“Under Standing Order No 11(6) a sitting on Saturday or Sunday…can be secured only by a resolution of the House, made normally…at the commencement of public business.”
I hope that my reply sates the hon. Gentleman’s curiosity. If there are no further points of order, we will proceed to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) has been very patiently waiting.