Office Of The Parliamentary Counsel

EDM number 1240 in 1993-94, proposed by Rhodri Morgan on 17/05/1994.

That this House condemns the abuse of the proper public duties of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel in instructing that office to give greater priority to the preparation of amendments to be fed to back-benchers who wished to, or were requested to, frustrate by debate the passage of Private Members' Bills such as the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill by the use of such amendments and a lesser priority to the preparation of amendments for government legislation even where Cabinet Ministers had given solemn undertakings on the course of Second Reading debates that such amendments would be tabled by specific deadlines now missed; and believes that the primacy of the functions of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel in the preparation of constructive forms of legislative activity, for which the office was set up, requires to be reaffirmed.

This motion has been signed by a total of 59 MPs.