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House of Representatives                                Ch 16                                                 p 571

Programming and scope of the debate

The first order of the day, government business on each sitting Monday is grievance debate. It is called on following private Members’ business. The question proposed by the Chair is ‘That grievances be noted’, to which question any Member may address the Chair. If consideration of the question has not concluded after one hour and twenty minutes, the debate is interrupted and the question put by the Chair. ¹ The House may postpone the order of the day, or agree to the question without debate, ² if it desires to progress to other business. When the House has not met on a Monday, sometimes arrangements have been made to enable a grievance debate to take place on another day. ³

Any Member may address the House on, or move an amendment to, ⁴ the question ‘That grievances be noted’ but, in practice, Ministers rarely participate in order to give more private Members the opportunity to speak. ⁵ A Member’s speech is limited to 10 minutes ⁶ and it is the traditional practice for the first speaker to be called from the Opposition. ⁷ The grievance debate is regarded by private Members as a most useful opportunity to raise matters in which they have a particular interest or to ventilate complaints of constituents. A wide-ranging debate, similar in scope to that which may occur on the motion for the adjournment of the House, may take place. A matter which has been the subject of a debate earlier in the session may be referred to, but the earlier debate itself may not be revived unless the allusion is relevant to a new aspect or matter which the Member is raising. This restriction does not prevent reference to previous grievance or adjournment debates.

The scope of an amendment is practically unlimited and debate may then cover both the main question and the amendment. Amendments were frequently moved until about 1924 —primarily to seek a resolution of the House or to focus attention on a particular subject—but are now rare. ⁸ Only three amendments have been agreed to, two of them involving amendments to proposed amendments. ⁹

S.O. 44.

VP 1996-98/289.

E.g. VP 1993-95/1769, 1777; VP 1996-98/375, 1312.

VP 1974-75/452.

In recent years the participation of Parliamentary Secretaries has become more common.

S.O. 1.

H.R. Deb. (20.9.73) 1333.

VP 1974-75/452; H.R. Deb. (13.2.75) 276-9.

VP 1920-21/163, 271-2; VP 1907-08/284-5.