The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake
Hon. Bimal Rathnayake addressed concerns about time management in Parliament, contrasting the previous Parliament’s difficulties with efforts in the current Parliament to manage speaking time more effectively. He clarified that oral question time runs for one hour from its commencement, that both Government and Opposition Members may ask questions under established practice, and that deferrals or special time allocations should be handled cooperatively within Table Office procedures.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, while I cannot speak fully about the previous Parliament, there was a major time-management issue then; Opposition often had to forego lunch to get speaking time. Since the start of this Parliament, we have tried to manage time better. Oral question time is one hour from when it starts, not strictly 9.30 to 10.30; today we even exceeded it, which is fine. There is no Government–Opposition distinction in asking questions—that’s longstanding practice. On deferrals, if the Opposition requests special time for items, we can cooperatively adjust, but the Table Office procedures apply. Government MPs too are elected by the people; let us proceed cooperatively.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Wednesday, 8 January 2025 ·No. 1737023464031571 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 January 2025. No. 1737023464031571. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27588