Opposition motions for Parliament to revoke the new Mepa development tariffs and for the House to debate the situation at ARMS Ltd will be debated on Friday, November 5 and Monday, November 8 respectively, the parliamentary House Business Committee agreed yesterday. The Mepa sitting will be held in the morning.
Both debates will be held in the midst of the debate on the Budget.
During the meeting, the committee approved the Budget debates schedule, which was later approved by the whole House through a motion tabled by Leader of the House Tonio Borg.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech will present the Budget next Monday, October 25 and Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat will reply to the Budget speech on the following Monday, November 1. The Prime Minister will give his reaction on November 3, after which the House will resolve itself into Committee of Supply to consider the votes of expenditure of the various ministries.
The debates on the various ministries start on the next day, November 4, with Foreign Affairs in the morning and Justice and Home Affairs in the evening. These will be followed by Finance in the November 5 evening sitting, Health on the morning of November 6, Gozo on the morning of November 8, Resources and Rural Affairs in the morning and Transport and Communications in the evening of November 9, and Education and Family Affairs on the morning of November 10.
The debate on the votes of the Office of the Prime Minister will start on the evening of November 10 and conclude the next morning, winding up with a vote of appropriation at 1.30 p.m.
The Budget debates will be interrupted twice for discussion of the two opposition private members’ motions.
The motion to rescind the new tariffs for Mepa services will be discussed in the morning of Friday, November 5, and the motion on ARMS Ltd’s operations has been pencilled in for the evening of Monday, November 8.
On the Tuesday and Wednesday following the Budget speech the House will debate amendments to the Civil Code.
House Leader Tonio Borg promised the HBC that the Whistleblower Bill and the Corruption Bill would be debated before the Christmas recess.
Mr Speaker Michael Frendo said that henceforth, any MP taking part in any overseas meeting would be expected to file a one-page written report to the Standing Committee for European and Foreign Affairs about his or her participation. Both sides agreed.
Mr Mizzi pressed for a decision on the motion to set up a select committee of the House to discuss the problem of black dust, which the opposition had presented on October 5.
The next meeting of the committee will be held in the morning of November 11.