News In Focus
7 December 2005
MSPs push for more debating time
Holyrood's procedures committee is to write to Parliamentary Business Minister Margaret Curran suggesting an experiment with extra debating time in the Scottish Parliament.
The move follows the confusion experienced in the chamber last month during the final stage of debate on licensing law reform. The procedures committee is due to launch an inquiry into the the use of parliamentary time.
Currently the third stage of proposed legislation lasts one-and-a-half days. The committee is to propose extending stage 3 debates in the new year to two days as an experiment.
Liberal Democrat Donald Gorrie, the committee's convener, said that no major bill had escaped serious constriction of debate.