Oral Answers to Questions

Thomas Docherty Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

First, I should perhaps correct the impression that the hon. Gentleman wants to give that this Parliament has not been busy. The 2010 to 2015 Parliament will sit for 734 days, which compares with the 718 in the 2005 to 2010 Parliament. Of course, for individual Bills there have been more Public Committee days or sittings than there were under the previous Government. I have heard what he has said about private Members’ Bills. I know that the Procedure Committee has some strong views about private Members’ Bills, and I suspect that we may have to return to the matter in the next Parliament.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

The reality is that too many Bills have been leaving the House of Commons without adequate scrutiny and have to be salvaged in the other place. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) has proposed a new stage for Commons scrutiny—the whole House scrutiny stage. Does the Deputy Leader of the House accept that we need to improve scrutiny in this place, rather than simply using the Lords to bail us out?

[Tom Brake]

I do, of course, accept that in this House we need scrutiny, but the Labour party is responsible for scrutiny and what we have seen in this Parliament is that far more Bills have finished early than was the case in the previous Parliament. I am afraid that is because the Opposition are not undertaking their job of scrutiny effectively.