SMIP Committee Report

CLOSURE AND TIME ALLOCATION

21.   Closure and time allocation are methods set out in the Standing Orders, whereby the Government can restrict debate and force decisions. Governments of all stripes have invoked them, and opposition parties have consistently inveighed against their use.

22.   When closure and time allocation are used by governments, there is a feeling that there should be a procedural price to pay, in addition to the criticisms that are leveled. Moreover, government Ministers should be required to justify their use of such measures to curtail debate and to demonstrate why closure or time allocation should be invoked at this particular point.

23.   The Committee believes that there should be a half-hour question and answer period following the moving of the closure or time allocation motion. The questions would be directed toward the Minister who is sponsoring the bills under debate, or in exceptional circumstances, an acting Minister. Secretaries of state for the relevant departments could participate on behalf of the Minister, but not parliamentary secretaries. The intent of this change is to promote ministerial accountability, and to require the Government to justify its use of these extraordinary measures.

24.   We expect the half-hour period to be composed of succinct questions and answers. We have full confidence in the Speaker’s ability to monitor interventions and to exercise judgment in the selection of questions. While opposition parties seldom support the use of closure or time allocation, the Speaker will be aware that, on occasion, some parties are more aggrieved than others at the curtailment of a particular debate, or will have a particular interest in the measure under consideration. In such cases, we would expect that the Speaker would exercise his or her discretion in allowing suitable opportunities for members of that party to ask questions of the Minister.

The Committee recommends that the Standing Orders be amended by the addition of Standing Order 67.1 as follows:

67.1.(a)(i) When a motion has been proposed pursuant to Standing Order 57 or 78(3), there shall be a period of not more than 30 minutes during which time members may put brief questions to the Minister responsible for the item which has been subject to the motion pursuant to Standing Order 57 or 78(3), or to the appropriate Secretary of State or Minister acting on behalf of the Minister sponsoring the item, and the said Secretary of State or Minister may make a corresponding reply.

(ii) At the conclusion of the period provided pursuant to paragraph (i) of this Standing Order, the Speaker shall put the question on the motion moved pursuant to Standing Order 57 or 78(3), as the case may be.

(b) If a motion pursuant to this section regarding any bill is moved and carried at the beginning of Government Orders on any day and if the order for the said bill is then called and debated for the remainder of the sitting day, the length of that debate shall be deemed to be one sitting day provided that a period of time equal to the time taken for the proceedings pursuant to paragraph (a) of this section shall be added to the time provided for government business in the afternoon of the day on which the said proceedings took place. Private Members’ Business, where applicable, and the ordinary time of daily adjournment shall be delayed accordingly, not withstanding Standing Orders 24, 30 and 38 or any Order made pursuant to Standing Order 27.

25.   Presently, the use of closure under Standing Order 57 provides that when it is invoked, debate continues until 11:00 p.m. It appears that this late hour is a hold-over from the days when the House of Commons routinely sat late into the evenings. Given that the current rules provide that the House not sit beyond 7:00 p.m., we believe that the 11:00 p.m. adjournment time for closure should be revised. We have agreed to end such debates at 8:00 p.m.

The Committee recommends that Standing Order 57 be amended as follows:

57. Immediately before the Order of the Day for resuming an adjourned debate is called, or if the House be in Committee of the Whole, any Minister of the Crown who, standing in his or her place, shall have given notice at a previous sitting of his or her intention so to do, may move that the debate shall not be further adjourned, or that the further consideration of any resolution or resolutions, clause or clauses, section or sections, preamble or preambles, title or titles, shall be the first business of the Committee, and shall not further be postponed; and in either case such question shall be decided without debate or amendment; and if the same shall be resolved in the affirmative, no Member shall thereafter speak more than once, or longer than twenty minutes in any such adjourned debate; or, if in Committee, on any such resolution, clause, section, preamble or title; and if such adjourned debate or postponed consideration shall not have been resumed or concluded before 8:00 p.m., no Member shall rise to speak after that hour, but all such questions as must be decided in order to conclude such adjourned debate or postponed consideration, shall be decided forthwith.