HC Deb 28 October 1996 vol 284 cc327-8
30. Mr. Simon Hughes

To ask the Lord President of the Council how many (a) days and (b) hours the House of Commons has sat in each of the last 10 years. [598]

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton)

The House of Commons has sat for between 83 and 240 days in the past 10 Sessions. I have written to the hon. Gentleman with the full details.

Mr. Hughes

I am grateful for that answer. The mischievous question would be, "How many days will we sit this Session and will the Lord President please be precise?", but the serious point is that, although the Minister has been helpful in organising many aspects of our business, two steps remain: first, to end the nonsense of the spillover when we could easily finish all our business in the summer; and, secondly, to ensure that we have reasonable summer holidays, not a huge expanse of summer holiday—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I mean holiday from this place. We could come back and start the new parliamentary year in September, like everybody else who has an annual autumn start.

Mr. Newton

On the latter part of the question, the House has already spoken for me in resisting the suggestion that the recess is a matter of being on a beach with a bucket. Members of Parliament have many matters to attend to elsewhere in their constituencies.

On the earlier point, we have just had the shortest spillover for many years. I share the hon. Gentleman's view that having a short spillover and an early start to the new Session, which is what we have achieved this year, is a sensible way to proceed.

Mr. Rooker

Does the Leader of the House accept that the real issue is the effective use that we make of our time in the House? Changes could be made in that respect. I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not be responsible for the dates of next summer's recess, but does he agree that it might be a good idea to ensure that the House never sits for more than six weeks at a time, but never goes into recess for longer than six weeks either?

Mr. Newton

In view of how helpful I have been to the House in recent years on recess dates and the like, I find the hon. Gentleman's introductory remarks a little churlish; however, I understand why he made them.

On the hon. Gentleman's latter point, he will be aware that it is not long since all those matters were examined by the Select Committee on Sittings of the House and set out in the Jopling report. The Committee looked carefully at a number of options and concluded that a modified pattern, along current lines, would be sensible.