Speaker of the House Sir Alden McLaughlin has pressed members of the Parliament Management Commission Council to prioritise their responsibilities to the House, saying the lack of meetings cannot continue.
McLaughlin addressed the issue in Parliament Tuesday morning, saying that there have been too few meetings to effectively administer the House.
“For one reason or another the Parliament Management Council has not been meeting regularly enough, quite frankly, to manage the affairs of Parliament. Nature abhors a vacuum. Some body or some entity has to run the affairs of Parliament,” McLaughlin said.
The council was created when the Parliament was made an autonomous body and it is charged with administering the affairs of the House.
McLaughlin said collectively the House, especially senior lawmakers, has worked to move the administration of Parliament under MPs rather than under the executive.
He said the council held only three meetings from April to December 2021, while six meetings were cancelled from January to December 2022.
“There were only four meetings held [in 2022], [with] two meetings cancelled. In January to December 2023 we had four meetings and four were cancelled. Since I became Speaker there were three meetings called and none of those have been able to be held; [the] reason, in almost every case, has simply been not being able to get a quorum,” he said.
The council consists of the Speaker, Premier, Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Speaker, three MPs appointed by the Speaker on the advice of the Premier, and two MPs appointed by the Speaker on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition. The Clerk of Parliament serves as the secretary and non-voting ex-officio member.
McLaughlin said some members have indicated that the Parliament Management Act requires too many members and the quorum required is too high at five members, half of the 10-member council.
He said while that may be the case, only legislators can fix that requirement through amending the law.
Though he said he understands the responsibilities of members, McLaughlin contended that the situation cannot continue.
“If we don’t manage this Parliament… sooner or later a means is going to be found for some one else to do so because it can’t manage itself… [O]ther people are going to wind up taking decisions because the business of Parliament has to carry on. Budgets have to be prepared; people have to get paid – all of those sorts of basic things which are part of the overall responsibilities of the council,” he said.
He pleaded with those who have a role to play on the council to give it more priority, noting that the MPs were elected in 2021, meaning “we only have about a year to run before Parliament is dissolved in the run up to the next elections”.
On the other hand, he said, the Standing Orders Review Committee has made significant progress.
A report with recommendations for new standing orders will be delivered in advance of the House resolution so members can have an opportunity to consider it and agree on a new form “so that the next class of elected members will have some modern standing orders to operate with”.
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