[WATCH] Speaker calls for shorter parliamentary speeches, suggests 'thinking committee'

Speaker of the House calls for shorter parliamentary speeches • Video by Raphael Farrugia

Speaker Anglu Farrugia used his Sette Giugno speech to call for shorter parliamentary speeches and to suggest the establishment of a parliamentary committee on "thinking".

Addressing a crowd of politicians and diplomats during the Sette Giugno ceremony at Hastings Garden, Farrugia said that MPs' speeches should be slashed to 20 minutes, except in exceptional cases, so as to force them to stick to salient issues and to free up parliamentary time.

The current Standing Orders allow MPs to speak for 40 minutes at a stretch. Ministers introducing debates on a Bill and their shadow ministers are allotted an hour and a half.

"These provisions do not exist in any European or Commonwealth parliaments and should therefore be reviewed so that the time of the House may be used more productively," he said.

"MPs must be able to say what they have to say in a short time, even in five or two minutes."

He added that MPs should be given an allowance to employ assistants to help them write their parliamentary speeches.

Farrugia also suggested the establishment of a parliamentary committee on 'thinking', an idea that has its roots in one of professor Edward de Bono's recent publications.

"The lack of value-added thinking leaves you at a standstill," he said. "We all know that the solution for certain problems will only be found if there is more thinking which is not necessarily conventional but open to other ideas, concepts and methodologies."

He said that this committee could tackle the lack of preparedness prior to the delivery of parliamentary speeches, which he blamed for "attacks" by MPs on politicians' relatives.

"I consider this the lowest level we could fall into," the Speaker said. "Family members at no point should feature in controversies that emerge among politicians. When we do this, we lower the level of politics and of free discussion, as it should be according to the values of a parliamentary democracy."