Non-Sitting Fridays (Hansard, 10 February 1997)

§ 31. Mr. Barnes
To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement on the operation of non-sitting Fridays. [13375]

§ Mr. Newton
Under Standing Order No. 11A, there are 10 constituency Fridays, on which the House does not sit, in each Session. Those Fridays are treated as sitting days for the purpose of calculating periods of notice, and on them hon. Members may give notice of questions and of amendments to Bills between 11 am and 3 pm. The Government have undertaken to use their best endeavours to avoid taking highly contentious business on Thursdays, especially those that fall before constituency Fridays.

§ Mr. Barnes
Has the Lord President of the Council noticed the impact that non-sitting Fridays and the business generally dealt with on Fridays has had on Thursdays? The right hon. Gentleman has already mentioned the subject. If he compares Prime Minister's Question Time on a Tuesday with that on a Thursday, he will notice that the Chamber is only half full on a Thursday. There is no difference between a Tuesday and a Thursday—the Prime Minister is equally boring on both occasions, so that cannot be the reason. The difference 19 must involve non-sitting Fridays and their impact on Thursday's business. The House now works virtually a three-day week.

§ Mr. Newton
Leaving aside the characteristically tendentious second half of the hon. Gentleman's question, I can tell him that the basis on which the Jopling proposals were put to the House was that if constituency Fridays were to be sufficiently beneficial to those who sought them, business on Thursdays would have to be kept light. The non-sitting Fridays have been disproportionately 20 beneficial to the Opposition owing to the greater geographical distance from the House of many Opposition Members' constituencies.

§ Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)
On a point of order, Madam Speaker.

§ Madam Speaker
Order. There will be no points of order until after the statement. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that we are about to hear an important statement.