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Business of the House

The previous Prime Minister was absent at Prime Minister's questions roughly twice as often as the current Prime Minister, who has spent more time answering his questions than almost any other Prime Minister. It seems to me perfectly reasonable, once Parliament has discharged the legislative programme, for the House to prorogue and then start a new Session. There will be an interval of perhaps three sitting days between the end of this Session and the beginning of the next one, which is roughly in line with what happened previously—[Interruption.] I just say to the hon. Gentleman, who is chattering incessantly from a sedentary position, that when he was Deputy Leader of the House he did not introduce a Backbench Business Committee. The freedom that he is now asking us to give to the House was one that he denied Parliament in the previous Parliament.