Clause 41 - applications for planning permission and certain consents
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
8:55 am
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Amess. I have received a helpful letter from Hansard, which states:
''I regret to inform you that, because of the heavy work load in Committees, the Official Report for the afternoon sitting of Tuesday 21 January will not be available until tomorrow morning. I apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause you or the Committee''.
I am not in any way blaming any of the officials of Hansard; it is not their fault, it is the system. I do not see how we can do our job properly in these Committees if we do not have a proper record of what has happened, particularly in the previous sitting. We might be in the middle of a clause, subsection or group of amendments when we adjourn. If we cannot look back and see what happened in the previous
sitting, I do not see how we can do our job properly. If it is not going to be possible regularly to have Hansard reports from previous sittings, the Government will have to schedule these Committees on a weekly rather than twice-weekly basis.