Over the next year Parliament will sit for just 128 days, the lowest figure since 1979.
Although MPs do much valuable work when Parliament isn’t sitting (for example, Hornsey & Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone used this summer’s recess to call round on the residential care homes and sheltered housing in her constituency and last year’s to call round on the shops to find out what issues more effect them and need sorting), cutting back on the amount of time Parliament sites makes it much easier for Government to avoid scrutiny and to push through legislation without proper debate.
Simon Hughes raised this in Parliament yesterday, making the good point that the power to decide such matters should rest with Parliament rather than with the Government, but no surprises that Labour’s response wasn’t to welcome this idea.
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Is LDV backing Chandila?
Also 4 months work until next Nov/Dec? Shock!
When you consider how much damage Labour legislation has done to the country over the last ten years, I can only be happy that they are planning on giving themselves less time to legislate.
In fact, in the general case, I believe that we don’t need legislators anywhere near as much as they think we need them. We’ve got all the major bases covered in criminal law and have done for a while (which makes Labour’s 3600 new offences all the more disgusting). I just don’t see what there is for full-time legislators to actually do in this country!
But isn’t 2007/8 one of the longest sittings? A December state opening isn’t exactly usual. Doesn’t the timing of one rather affect the timing of the other?
Hughes is certainly right that it should be Parliament to decide though.
Good point James Graham. Another point is that the provisional Parliamentary calendar announced last week doesn’t include the date of prorogation, so they could extend the 2008-09 session into December as they have this year, making the number of sitting days more comparable.
Whatever the truth here this will suit Lib Dem MPs who prefer to be local councillors. Like Leech missing parliamentary work to attend a student meeting of a planning panel with no contentious issues. Or Stunnell campaigning for more paper in public lavvies in Stockport.