Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
10:30 am
Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)
I have a few preliminary announcements. I apologise that we are in a less spacious room than we would wish. That is due to the pressure on space. The Speaker’s Committee is sitting today and it has priority for the larger room for which we made a bid. Hon. Members may remove their jackets during sittings if they wish. Mobile phones, pagers and so on must be turned off.
I remind the Committee that there are money and ways and means resolutions in connection with the Bill, copies of which are available in the room. Adequate notice must be given of amendments for them to be eligible for selection. For Tuesday sittings, amendments must be tabled by the rise of the House the previous Thursday. For Thursday sittings, amendments must be tabled by the previous Monday. As a general rule, neither I nor my co-Chairman, Mrs. Humble, will accept starred amendments.
Not everyone is familiar with the process of taking oral evidence in Public Bill Committees so I shall explain how we will proceed. We will first consider the programme motion. That debate is limited to half an hour. We will proceed to a motion to report written evidence and a motion to permit the Committee to deliberate in private in advance of oral evidence sessions. I hope that those motions will be taken formally. Assuming that the motion to sit in private is agreed to, the Committee will move into private session. Once we have deliberated, witnesses and members of the public will be invited back into the room and the oral evidence session will commence. We estimate that that will happen at about 11 o’clock.
If the Committee agrees to the programme motion, the Committee will hear oral evidence today, on Thursday and on next Tuesday morning before reverting to the more familiar clause-by-clause scrutiny next week.