By Tash Shifrin
4 February 2010
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has signalled that he will not make time for MPs to debate a series of reform measures aimed at giving Parliament more power.
The Commons reform committee, which was chaired by Labour MP Tony Wright, published its proposals in November. It suggested MPs be allowed to directly elect select committee chairs and for a backbench committee to timetable all parliamentary business that is not strictly ministerial.
Brown told a meeting of the Commons liaison committee – made up of the chairs of select committees – that he supported the proposals, which will go before MPs later this month.
But Wright, who also chairs the public administration select committee, challenged Brown. He said the proposals would be put to the Commons under a procedure that would allow the whole package to be dropped if a single MP objected. This was ‘a clever way to sink the whole project’, Wright suggested.
An objection was ‘likely’ to be made, Wright warned, calling on the prime minister to ensure the government made time for a full debate before the general election ends the parliamentary session.
But Brown defended the procedure, saying: ‘If we have to go line by line, every dot and comma, through these proposals, we will not have time.’ The government preferred to ‘make progress as quickly as possible... by consensus’ between the parties, he said.
Brown said it was his ‘intention... to find time’, but said Wright should ‘be realistic’, because of the limited amount of parliamentary time available.
4 February 2010
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has signalled that he will not make time for MPs to debate a series of reform measures aimed at giving Parliament more power.
The Commons reform committee, which was chaired by Labour MP Tony Wright, published its proposals in November. It suggested MPs be allowed to directly elect select committee chairs and for a backbench committee to timetable all parliamentary business that is not strictly ministerial.
Brown told a meeting of the Commons liaison committee – made up of the chairs of select committees – that he supported the proposals, which will go before MPs later this month.
But Wright, who also chairs the public administration select committee, challenged Brown. He said the proposals would be put to the Commons under a procedure that would allow the whole package to be dropped if a single MP objected. This was ‘a clever way to sink the whole project’, Wright suggested.
An objection was ‘likely’ to be made, Wright warned, calling on the prime minister to ensure the government made time for a full debate before the general election ends the parliamentary session.
But Brown defended the procedure, saying: ‘If we have to go line by line, every dot and comma, through these proposals, we will not have time.’ The government preferred to ‘make progress as quickly as possible... by consensus’ between the parties, he said.
Brown said it was his ‘intention... to find time’, but said Wright should ‘be realistic’, because of the limited amount of parliamentary time available.
