Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

No—on that I am happy to have the debate. But can I simply say that I hope that people who have concerns about the conduct of question time would actually go to the Procedure Committee and put to them suggestions about the way that question time could be made better.

Ad nauseam, I have suggested that the same standing order should apply to answers as applies to the questions. It would have been a much better solution than ‘directly relevant’. It would have meant that question time is not about the debate; you can have the debate on other occasions.

I am happy to entertain discussions about that, but I am also of a mind that the amount of banter that goes on—I agree, from both sides of the chamber—could well be reduced, and question time could revert—if it has ever been—to an occasion when it has been about the discussion and debate on the matters of ideas rather than personalities. I would agree that the amount of debate that is in the answers is a big part of the problem that any occupant of the chair confronts. Something which I have been consistent on is that I cannot fathom why the House does not contemplate applying the same rules to the answers as it does to the questions.

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