A Test For M.P.s

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 16

A Test For M.P.s

Our Parliamentary reporter has noted that enthusiasm for the half-hour adjournment debates held twice a week in the House of Representatives has been flagging. This is not the first session during which the House has exposed its inability to make good use of the adjournment debates, introduced to enable members to air matters not of the Government’s choosing. Discussion of the Estimates, the Address-in-Reply and Budget debates, and question time are all occasions on which Ministers may be called to account. Adjournment debates are often inconclusive. Unless a member adroitly curtails his speech, thus upsetting the regular pattern, the Government always has the last word. But as long as the Opposition can find ground on which to attack the Government, Ministers must be ready to answer for their policies and administration. As it turns out, these debates seem to be just as testing for the Opposition, which has to find ammunition for an assault.

Members of Parliament would not readily admit that they waste time in the House. They should not be tempted to abolish debates which are, by order, brief and potentially valuable. If any feel that time is being wasted, then there is room for a reform of practice rather than for a change in principle. It is, for example, the usual practice of members to exhaust their speaking time in all debates, regardless of whether the content of their speeches demands the full time allowed. Such self discipline and flexibility in speaking time would upset the comfortable predictability of the House’s progress through a formal debate. The party whips would no longer be able to allot, with reasonable certainty, the hour at which a member should appear in the chamber to speak. This seems a small price to pay for a higher degree of relevance, brevity and ousinesslike progress. As adjournment debates have shown, many members find it harder to speak crisply and coherently for five minutes than to address the House leisurely and diffusely for 20 or 30 minutes. The adjournment debates have not yet proved good training in qualities which would benefit the conduct of all business.