The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake
Bimal Rathnayake referred to a Committee on Parliamentary Business decision to suspend sittings for a lunch break irrespective of the debate schedule. He said this was necessary not only for MPs but also for parliamentary staff, including Hansard staff and interpreters, and argued that sittings should continue through lunch only in special circumstances decided by the Chair or after reconsideration by Party Leaders.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, at the Committee on Parliamentary Business we agreed to have a lunch break. Regardless of the debate, we agreed to suspend proceedings for lunch. MPs cannot remain in the Chamber for every debate. Officials also need the lunch break — Hansard staff, interpreters. They have requested this. Therefore, let us follow the Committee’s decision not to sit through lunch, unless in very special circumstances the Speaker/Deputy Speaker decides otherwise, or Party Leaders reconvene the Committee to decide. Proceeding without lunch imposes unseen difficulties on the staff. So, the Deputy Minister’s point is fair.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 7 January 2025 ·No. 1736487038022510 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/16027
Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 7 January 2025. No. 1736487038022510. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/16027