Speeches by Campbell.

“The answer to the second question is yes. To the first one, it is a provisional yes; I just need to go and check. Probably it is a double yes.”

“Well, despite the fact that I have been here a very long time, I never had a view on restoration and renewal, because I accepted that I did not really need one. In my previous job, I never needed one. I have suddenly discovered in this job that I need one, so I have got one, and it is not exactly what people thought it…”

“Good question. One thing I did very early on, which flowed from an earlier Procedure Committee report, was ask to look at what a typical working week looked like. An earlier Procedure Committee inquiry, if I am correct, looked at private Members’ Bills, sitting Fridays and all those things. I thought it was a good time…”

“That is a really good question. We need to think about that, because there need to be lessons learned. Again, there are a lot of aspects to it: one is the new Government having a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do, particularly where it was set out in the manifesto, and there were commitments we had made, usually…”

“Yes. I cannot give you a precise date, because I do not have one, but I think it is a fairly open secret that this is a long Session. It is not an unusually long Session; the first Session of the coalition Government in 2010 was of equal length, and we have done a great deal in this Session. There will be somewhere in …”

“Yes, this is a real issue. I am not saying it is a new issue; I do not know whether it has got worse or better, but it is a real issue, and I take it very seriously indeed. It goes back to what I said at the beginning about making sure that, where we have conventions and rules, they are followed. I continue to make the…”

“I do not think there is a simple answer to that. I do not hide the fact that my preference is for annual Sessions, which I would quite like to get back to, but that has probably gone. We still have the short November recess because the Sovereign’s speech was inevitably in November. We knew when the Session started and …”

“I am Alan Campbell, Member of Parliament for Tamworth and the Leader of the House and Lord President of the Council.”

“Thank you for inviting me, first of all. As you know, I am quite recently appointed to the job, so I am learning as we go along, but there are three strands of work that I am involved in. The first is a legislative one; it is no secret that we are putting together a second Session, and therefore much of my time is take…”

“The short answer to your question is no, I have not had conversations with the Speaker. As you know, the Speaker is a great advocate for Parliament, and he encourages and cajoles us to make sure that MPs are making full use of that. I take your point that part of that is what happens here and people seeing it, but also…”

“It is worth some thinking, and I will go away and think about it. However, one of the immovable things—and I am not just talking about dates—might be political parties. We have to be clear that if they make their mind up about when their conference is going to be, that is when it is going to be, whether they have booke…”

“There needs to be balance in that. It is about getting it clear in our mind, from a Government perspective, what the role of Parliament is, and respecting the role of Parliament to talk about the things it wants to talk about. Getting that balance is a mutual understanding. The primary purpose of this place is the scru…”

“It is really important to do that. I spend a great deal of time talking to the Opposition parties. I will talk to anybody, but particularly the Opposition parties and their representatives to try to get consensus. It is not always possible, but I like to work on a consensual basis if possible. From my fairly limited ex…”

“Thanks, Mary—that is a good question. I said before that in my mind it is a hub and spoke model. The overall answer to your question is that we should work really closely. I meet Cat. I am happy to talk to anybody about the work of any Committee, but this Committee is very close to a lot of what we do. I want to work t…”

“I have said the same thing, but there is also something else that can be a bit of a magic wand here: get on your feet on a Thursday morning at business questions and ask why a Department has not answered your question. You would be surprised at how quick you get an answer—but please don’t take that as an invitation for…”

“Which is helpful.”

“It will be interesting to see what comes out of what happened in the Adjournment debate yesterday. I knew it was happening, but I did not see it; I will go away and have a look at it. I would gently say that, in my experience—for obvious reasons, I don’t put questions down in the way that I did—Departments might strugg…”

“Going back to what you said before, I was going to be glib and say, “That’s politics, isn’t it? Your opponent is trying to unseat you and is looking at how you spend your time and what you answer questions about,” but there is a wider issue. I am certainly not offering to go away and come up with a solution to it, but …”

“They always do, Tom. There are more Liberals there than you can shake a stick at.”

“I am trying. Again, it is about making sure it is on the agenda of Secretaries of State. I emphasised to the permanent secretaries that this is a key thing that MPs are looking at. It is about having some empathy about the job that MPs actually do. What is it that they are looking for? They are not aways out to catch o…”