§ 41. Mr. WinnickTo ask the Lord President of the Council on how many days the House will have met during 1993.
§ Mr. NewtonOn the basis of the House's agreement to rise for the Christmas recess on 17 December, there will have been 165 sitting days in 1993. Allowing for weekends and bank holidays, the number of non-sitting days will have been 88. Those figures compare with the averages for the calendar years since 1979, which are 166 sitting days and 88 non-sitting days respectively. If election years are excluded, those figures become 172 and 82 respectively.
§ Mr. WinnickDoes the Leader of the House recognise that there will be no consensus about changing the hours and sitting days so long as the Government treat the House with the contempt that they are showing this week? Does he realise that the manner in which the House is being treated with contempt will mean that there will be parliamentary warfare well into 1994 and that the responsibility for that lies entirely with the Government and the contemptible manner in which they are treating the business of the House on Tuesday and Wednesday?
§ Mr. NewtonI do not, of course, accept the hon. Gentleman's comment about contempt, but no doubt we shall have opportunities to debate that tomorrow. However, quite apart from the averages that I have mentioned, there were two non-election years—1986 and 1991—within the past eight or nine years in which the figures were almost exactly the same. In 1991, the figures were exactly the same as those that I have just given for 1993. In view of the reference to the Jopling report, the following is a direct quote from that report:
Compared with the legislative bodies in other large democracies the House of Commons continues to sit for more days and for many more hours in a year than any other.As far as the great majority of the House is concerned, I make no apology for continuing to try to act within the spirit of the Jopling recommendations.