Are times changing?
It's the first day of debate in the new House of Commons and the times, they are a-changing, a bit.
Mr Speaker Bercow was in the chair for the first hour and has already made it clear that he won't tolerate gratuitous time-wasting speeches being used to "talk out" bills. The rules mean that a private member's bill cannot be voted on unless a second reading debate has either come to a natural end, or been closed by a vote of 100 MPs - so bills can be killed if their opponents just keep on talking.
As I write the Bury North Conservative, has been speaking for 45 minutes in the debate on John McDonnell's Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill - and he has already been gently rebuked both by Mr Bercow and . It looks as if the Speaker wants to apply the rules more rigorously, so those wanting to talk out a bill will have to offer more than a general ramble around the subject.
Mr Nuttall, with the assistance of assorted backbench allies, who're intervening to ply him with helpful comments and soft questions, has so far kept on the right side of the line, while treating the House to a history of employment law since the dawn of time. The chair has to be seriously provoked to require an MP to sit down and shut up, but the threshold may be lower than it was under Speaker Martin.
And by the way, Mr Nuttall's has now been speaking for 65 minutes.....and counting....
UPDATE: MP Kerry McCarthy has blogged about this - . doesn't have a post about this: will scour the blogsphere to see if anyone else does.
UPDATE: David Nuttall has just sat down after speaking for 98 minutes. It's a little too early for the chair to entertain a closure motion on this debate, but it may be that enough Labour MPs are lurking in their offices to move this bill into committee. We shall see.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
Comments
or to comment.