Irritable exchanges
Those somewhere other than ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Democracy Live will have missed a tasty dessert.... some splendidly catty exchanges in points of order immediately afterwards. There are usually a couple of attempts to re-fight the battles of PMQs, but there were a couple of rather more interesting points as well.
The Conservative awkward squaddie, Chris Chope, raised a motion to retrospectively authorise £23,893,853,000 of excess spending by the government, in the year ending 31 March 2009.
He thought it was the largest ever excess. Mr Chope wanted to know how MPs would be able to debate it -- he is a member of the Public Accounts Committee - the Commons financial watchdog had been told they had no authority to do anything about it. Mr Speaker Bercow said he could force a vote - and when Mr Chope leapt up and tried to come back he was warned not to become too excited...
Then the Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris asked for reassurance that last week's vote to establish a House Business Committee would be implemented.
He said the Leader of the House, Harriet Harman, would have to put down an amendment to standing orders and get it voted on. Mr Bercow said he understood work was in hand - and he invited Harriet Harman to offer reassurance - which she did, complaining of a climate of "unwarranted suspicion," over the government's approach to the issue.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
Comments
or to comment.