Government awaiting opposition's reaction

The government has made proposals for the introduction of Prime Minister's question time in Parliament, the Leader of the House, Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg (right) said.

It has also proposed giving the opposition the right to occasionally set the agenda of the House itself, a radical departure from the current system where the government has the final say on whether private business comes up for debate.

The proposals were made on the basis of a report on the revision of Standing Orders prepared by President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici five years ago.

"We gave the proposals to the opposition more than a year ago but have had no reaction since. The government would prefer to change the Standing Orders with consensus," Dr Borg said in an interview.

He said the government would also like to see changes in the way the House meets, with, say, longer sittings on two days instead of shorter ones over three days, as at present.

"We can also have a situation where, say, once every month or every two months, the agenda is set by the opposition and the House can then discuss any motion or Bill it proposes" Dr Borg said.

At present, MPs give notice of private members' motions to the Clerk of the House, but then it is up to the government to decide whether to put them on the agenda. Standing Orders reserve alternate Thursdays for such private business, although sittings are actually rarely held on Thursdays.

"We are also in favour of having Prime Minister's question time once a month or every three weeks" Dr Borg added. He saw no need for similar fixed question time for other ministries, but said ministers tried to answer all supplementary questions put to them during question time at the opening of each sitting, even though, strictly speaking, supplementary questions have to be related to the original.

He said the government also wanted to change the current quorum system. At present a sitting is called off if 15 MPS are not present in the Chamber five minutes after a call for quorum is made. The sitting is suspended during those five minutes.

"The Mifsud Bonnici report suggested various alternatives, one being that the quorum should be retained only during voting. Another alternative, which we support, is that 20 minutes should be allowed after the call for quorum, but if enough members are present in the Chamber before that time, the sitting will be resumed immediately."

Dr Borg said the government had not adopted any position on whether secret voting should be allowed in the House, but he was personally against it.

"My view is that MPs should assume responsibility for their actions and everyone should know their position. MPs, after all, are deputies of the people. And having secret votes in the House can also lead to instability," he warned.

Dr Borg admitted he found it "strange" that an elected MP nominated Speaker should lose his original vote (although he has a casting vote). This situation, he explained, stemmed from the idea that the president of the House was neutral and giving him an original vote would obviously go counter to this concept.

It was a situation which had forced governments with slim majorities to nominate as presidents of the House people who were not members of Parliament.

"We have to choose whether to continue to have a Speaker super partes, who officially does not take a position on the debate, or a system like in Italy where the Speaker participates in political life while being responsible to ensure impartiality in the debates.

"It is strange that an MP elected by the people loses his vote, but should one of the top offices of the state be occupied by a person who never stood for election, or failed to get elected? So far all governments have felt that the Speaker should be super partes and the current constitutional arrangement should prevail," Dr Borg said.

He said the government was discussing proposals made by the current Speaker, Anton Tabone, for greater autonomy of the House from the civil service. Such autonomy could take several forms, he said, and no decisions had been made yet. "I am in favour of autonomy that would raise the dignity of the institution and make it easier to, say, recruit certain staff" he said.

Dr Borg insisted that MPs should remain part-time and their number, at 65, was about right.

"Part-time MPs have a greater opportunity to retain contact with the people, at their work and at their constituency. Indeed, this government has amended the law so that civil servants can retain their job and their parliamentary seat. MPs must not be isolated from the people. Meeting the people is an important duty of every MP."

A secondary potential problem, he pointed out, was the situation faced by those full-time MPs who did not get re-elected and ended up without a job. Some ministers in the past had faced this problem. "We could have a situation where only the rich, and those who wish and can afford to lose their current job, stand for elections."

Furthermore, requiring MPs to serve full-time did not guarantee bigger attendance in the House.

Dr Borg insisted, however that attendance for sittings in Malta was far better than in England or Italy, "where MPs are proportionately much better paid". "We attend many more plenary and committee sittings than they do abroad even though I am sometimes disappointed and expect certain people to speak on certain debates."

Dr Borg said the setting up of standing committees 10 years ago had been an important development. "You cannot expect the same sort of thing as they have abroad, with more MPs and more resources, but the committees have been very beneficial for the House.

"The Committee for the Consideration of Bills has enabled the House to proceed with its business while Bills are considered in committee stage elsewhere in a less formal way where experts can more easily advise the government and opposition MPs. The Public Accounts Committee has helped instil greater accountability in the civil service, and the Social Affairs Committee has enabled MPs to hold debates, involving many people, the nature of which were never held before, such as on bioethics. The European and Foreign Affairs Committee has also been doing much work in connection with EU laws."

He admitted though that the National Audit Committee had not been a success and the government at one time even considered scrapping it. The committee is meant to consider motions on the transfer of government property so that, when there is agreement, a full debate would not need to be held in the House. But agreement has only been reached once, and debates in the committee have inevitably been repeated in the House.

Despite claims about debates taking too long, Dr Borg said he had no complaints about how parliamentary business had proceeded this year.

"The government programme went ahead as planned and the agenda of the House is short, with no pending business. Planning went well and there was significant progress since the 40-minute speaking time limit was enforced. One cannot curtail debate, but, unofficially, the government and the opposition have agreed on debate programming on most times. One can only hope that this atmosphere is retained this year."

Dr Borg said that what was likely to happen in the future was that the budget would continue to be presented early, as happened this year because of CHOGM. "It was a positive experience, and it removed the tension associated with the budget from Christmas."

The House is due to meet this evening after the Christmas recess. Dr Borg said that over the coming weeks parliament is expected to debate a Bill on the implementation of the budget measures, the financial estimates of Enemalta, the Malta Maritime Authority, the Malta Tourism Authority and cultural entities. It will also consider a motion for the ratification of the EU accession treaties of Romania and Bulgaria and debate a Bill to prevent abuse in the granting of pensions.

Dr Borg said he still hoped that the House would consider entrenching a ban on abortion in the Constitution, but that would require the support of the opposition. "With 200 organisations, local councils and all the polls in favour of such a measure, my wish is that MPs from both sides would jointly move this initiative, which should be a non-political issue" he said.

Contacted for a reaction, opposition whip Joe Mizzi said the opposition had not been in a position to react to the proposed changes to Standing Orders because of other national priorities. The proposals were under consideration, he said, but the opposition also felt some time was needed to assess how the recently set up scrutiny committees within the Foreign and European Affairs Committee functioned.

"The opposition agrees with the need to update Standing Orders, and the fact that we have not officially reacted so far was not out of pique. What I can assure you of is that our reactions will be based on the needs of the House and not the government's or the opposition's."

Mr Mizzi said he was personally not happy with the way the scrutiny committees were functioning because a lack of resources - such as for research - and time pressures meant that MPs could not sufficiently scrutinise all the proposed EU legislation before them.

With regard to the standing committees, he said some were performing better than others because of the personality of the chairman. "One cannot have a chairman who does not consult and treats MPs like schoolchildren".

He said MPs had many duties to keep up with and that was a problem in itself. But when asked whether he felt the number of MPs should increase, he said a possible solution would be through better organisation of work, better facilities and a support infrastructure.

Mr Mizzi said the opposition would also like to see an improvement in the quality of replies to parliamentary questions and better security in the Parliament building.

He said quorum requirements existed in most parliaments and a call for quorum could be used as a sign of protest.