Wednesday 1st February 2012 | 16:53

Sir George Young denies existence of plan to move PMQs

The Leader of the House of Commons Sir George Young has said he is not aware of any plans to move Prime Minister's Question Time from noon on Wednesdays.

At a hearing of the Procedure Committee hearing into Commons sitting hours, Tory MP James Gray said:

"There is a rumour circulating in the press gallery, that home of everything that is almost certainly not true, that the Government is keen to change Wednesday sitting hours in order to better accommodate the media schedule regarding Prime Minister's Question Time."

Sir George Young replied: "I am not aware of this and you should not believe everything you hear in the media."

The committee is considering moving the start of Commons business back as early as 9.30am or 10.30am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well as changing the business on Fridays. It present the Commons sits at 2.30pm on Tuesdays and 11.30am on Wednesdays.

Earlier Sir George said he has "an open mind on the use of Westminster Hall" for some ministerial statements and questions to ministers.

However, he said: "I can see issues about taking Scottish Questions or Welsh Questions in Westminster Hall and all the other questions in the chamber, but I have no instinctive objection against using Westminster Hall for questions and enabling the House better to hold ministers to account."

Shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle also gave evidence. She said the Parliamentary Labour Party has "no official position" on changing sitting hours. "There are quite a lot of completely incompatible positions," she noted.

She said in her 20 years as an MP there has never been any consensus on when the House should sit.

Ms Eagle rejected a suggestion that the Commons should sit during party conference season.

"In the Labour party our conference is actually the supreme policy-making body and we take extremely seriously our democratic structures and the use we make of our conference. It would be very difficult to move."

She added: "Parties also use their party conferences as a platform that the media cover in great detail and I think that is good for democracy. I would be loath to see that diminished. The idea of Parliament sitting simultaneously would simply remove MPs from being able to attend. It is important for the political parties themselves and for members and activists in the party to be able to interact more closely with their representatives and MPs."

Ms Eagle said the September sitting "if properly organised allows the opposition to keep holding the government to account" and these two-week sittings between summer recess and conference recess "are probably here to stay".

She urged the committee to "look at the more fundamental challenges" beyond just moving the hours forward slightly. "I don’t think any of us came into politics expecting it to be 9 to 5," she told the committee.

 

"The thing about this is not to make one change, and put it into an existing structure but look at the entire structure from start to finish. The plain fact is that our parliament created its structures and its way of working in Edwardian times, when there were no women, MPs weren’t paid anything, when many MPs had other jobs to do before they came to Parliament. We ought to be looking at a different way."

Ms Eagle said the 2010 intake is "pretty impatient with the old ways" and want more certainty about when they will have to vote. 

 

Sir George said the government is of the view that the House should sit in September and he rejected the suggestion that Private Member's Bills be moved from Fridays to Wednesday evenings. He backed Ms Eagle's point about the lack of consensus among MPs on sitting hours.

"My view is we have got the balance of sitting and non-sitting days about right and if you move the days in September I would have to find them somewhere else," he said.

"I think it would be considered as an act of agression if I tabled business for the House when the three main parties were holding their party conference. I tend to work round the party conferences. I dont think it would make sense quite frankly to make it difficult for MPs to attend their party conference."

Sir George also warned that bringing forward sitting times would have an impact on the staff of the House who may have to come in very early to prepare the chamber and committee papers.

"The views of the staff are important," he told the committee.