Planning Bill
10:30 am
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth, Labour)
On a point of order, Sir John. As I indicated before the sitting started, I am very concerned about some processes and the way in which papers are reaching members of the Committee. I understand the ambitions underlying the process that we are following. This is the second Committee that I have sat on that has followed the new process and it is the second that seems to me to be overwhelmed by large numbers of contributions and pieces of paper arriving at very short notice. It seems to me that the whole process will be hauled into disrepute before the experiment is properly under way if we do not get a grip on the process now.
This issue goes beyond the pressure that is being placed on members of the Committee to the wider issue of how the House handles the experiment and tries to make it a positive one. Last night, a couple of megabytes of contributions relevant to today’s proceedings were sent to us by e-mail, with a note saying that it was on the board. That is a fat lot of use if we do not see the information until after the 10 o’clock process. Most of us do not sit in our offices waiting for e-mails to pop up and indicate that this one element of our responsibilities in the House requires our undivided attention and that everything else should be abandoned. Normally, we ought to have papers by at least the Thursday before a sitting in order to have the opportunity to read them, as many of us do, over the weekend, rather than during the pressures of the working week.
Something therefore needs to be done now to ensure that the deadline for submissions is well in advance of Committee sittings, so that papers can come to hon. Members in a timely manner, and that the Committee is not pushed from pillar to post, which is certainly what happened with the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill Committee, for instance, for which additional evidence-hearing sessions had to be added at the last minute. It is also unfair to the staff of the House, who I appreciate are trying to get information to us, and to serve the public as they try to put evidence to us in a proper and timely manner. They cannot do that in the seemingly rather chaotic current situation.