Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill — Timetable — 9 Feb 2006 at 17:22

Those voting Aye agreed that the scrutiny of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill by the Standing Committee would be finished by 9th of March, and that the debate on the floor of the House of Commons after that would last no more than one day.

This timetable, known as a guillotine motion, is designed to ensure that debates finish to a pre-arranged schedule, even if it turns out there is nowhere near enough time to discuss everything. When the Bill returned from four days of Standing Committee debates with no changes, this schedule was amended from one to two days just before the debate began to take account of the time that was required. It should be noted that since the MPs in Parliament can change the schedule whenever they like, it cannot be used as an excuse for not having enough time to scrutinize something important.

Debate in Parliament | Source |