Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the picturesque Welsh constituency Rhondda, appeared on BBC's Daily Politics today discussing the Bill he introduced (on 17th July 2017) as a Private Member.
http://www.chrisbryantmp.org.uk/about-chris/
His Bill is aimed at protecting emergency workers from assault in the course of their work.
https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/assaultsonemergencyworkersoffences.html
The Bill starts its Second Reading tomorrow.
The MP said he needs to tweak the definition of emergency worker which he drew too narrowly.
He wants to amend that definition, at Committee Stage, to encompass GPs and nurses.
With EU withdrawal leaving both a gap in Westminster's legislative calendar and creating a stretched out two-year parliamentary session - which has elongated the usual Private Members' Bill process - there may be scope for Chris Bryant's Bill to make some progress before Christmas if it can be slotted into the parliamentary timetable for debate.
The point was made that the Private Members' Bill process very rarely sees a Bill make it to the Statute Book when it comes from an opposition MP.
However it appears that the Westminster MP for Rhondda's Bill has Government support and so, unusually, a Private Members' Bill from the opposition benches could well make it through the parliamentary process.
Chris Bryant (a font of interesting parliamentary facts) said that a successful Private Members' Bill will usually come from a Government backbencher. Indeed the Government can handover a Bill to a Government backbencher and these are known as 'handover bills'.
There could still be some scheduling impact resulting from the elongated session impacting on Private Members' Bills (the two year current session giving rise to some unusual scheduling consequences.
Comments
Third Reading completed
The Emergency Workers' Bill has just completed Third Reading in the House of Commons and MPs Chris Bryant and Holly Walker-Lynch (MP for Halifax) have had their efforts congratulated with a suggestion that their approach will stand as a template for future efforts which often result in good ideas ending, if at all, in bad legislation.
Third Reading in the House of Lords completed
This Private Member's Bill is making steady progress towards the statute book having completed its Third Reading in the House of Lords just before Mid-day today (24th July 2018)