The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, we can discuss this in many ways, but we must act under the current Standing Orders. If Parliament wishes to rethink the Committee on Parliamentary Business, we can consider it in the future. This is not the Party Leaders’ Meeting; it is the Parliamentary Business Committee. Not all of Parliament’s work is decided there, though it is important. Major boards everywhere are limited to a small number of experienced and responsible persons. Hence, the Committee must be limited; we cannot accommodate all parties. Recognizing the concerns raised, we agree to add two more Opposition Members. The SJB already has the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Opposition Whip ex officio. Next, ITAK can be given a slot, then the New Democratic Front, and then the SLPP. We considered increasing representation so that even the SLPP, which governed in the recent past, is represented. With the increase now, parties with three Members may also be accommodated. Additionally, we have increased the membership of the Committee on Public Accounts and decided to give its Chair to the Opposition. Members unable to come into the Parliamentary Business Committee can participate in COPA and COPE; we have increased their memberships to strengthen oversight. We believe senior Members like Hon. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam should have such opportunities. For COPE, we propose a Government Chair because initially it will examine the previous Government’s actions, maintaining propriety.

¶ 02 Further, today’s Order Paper includes increasing Public Petitions Committee membership from 15 to 19. In Ministerial Consultative Committees, at the Opposition Whip’s request, we increased Opposition members from one to five per Committee, creating 120 Opposition opportunities across 24 Committees, with an additional 96 slots overall. Therefore, we now provide one more slot to the Opposition in the Parliamentary Business Committee: with the two ex officio Opposition Members, the Opposition will have six Members. This is our decision, and we do not wish to prolong this discussion.