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Business of the House

It is important that we do what we can now. Parliaments have nicknames—the Long Parliament, the Short Parliament, the Good Parliament and the Bad Parliament—and I am afraid that the next Parliament will be the Naive Parliament. We need to bear that in mind in what we decide to do today. The Leader of the House said that there is not time today or tomorrow to fit in these 90 minutes. Can she confirm that if the Government wanted to they could extend the wash-up period into Friday? That would give us an entire day to debate these matters. Will she give an assurance to the House that if we find ourselves, as we often do at Prorogation, with the House adjourned while waiting for the other place to complete its consideration of Bills—I am sure that that will happen—she will reconsider her decision and use that time to pass the Standing Orders? What is different about the Standing Order changes is that they do not require the consent of the other place. We can make them here ourselves without any ping-pong. That is a crucial difference between this proposal and her proposals for the consideration of Bills.