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Chair (Terminology)

As I said, it is a free vote, but I make the point that this was not an original recommendation of the Wright Committee. On the Back-Bench committee, I intend to vote for amendment (b). I do not agree with the Government's resolution, as it fails to get the committee up and running by the beginning of the next Parliament, which is my preferred time scale. As I have said before, I want the Back-Bench committee to be given progressively more influence—first over the set-piece debates, in whatever configuration it prefers, and then over the general debates. That would then lead to its being given a day or half a day a week for Back-Bench business. The Wright Committee report is absolutely clear, stating that these proposals would""inevitably need implementation in stages."" It recognises that the pieces of the jigsaw should not be put together all at once on day one, and that brings me to the difficulties that I see with amendment (c). That amendment risks making worse one of the central problems that the Wright Committee has sought to address—the lack of time for the Report stage of Bills. The assumption in paragraphs 31 and 32 of the report is that, whatever approach we adopt, the totality of sitting days and hours should remain roughly the same. Given the finite amount of available time, the more time that is spent on general debates, the less time, by definition, will be available for Government business. My amendment (b) would allocate 27 days in total to the Back-Bench committee—the 15 set-piece days, and the 12 general debates. Amendment (c), by virtue of its endorsement of recommendation 30, would allocate the committee one day a week, which by the Wright Committee's reckoning amounts to 35 days. The difference between the two amendments is that mine could allow seven extra days for the Report stage of Bills, whereas that would be lost if we opt for amendment (c). I urge the House to think carefully about that before making its decision later.