Committee members appointed
11 June 2013
David Amess, David Anderson, Bob Blackman, Jane Ellison, John Hemming, Mr Marcus Jones and Ian Mearns have been appointed members of the Backbench Business Committee.
Natascha Engel had already been re-elected unopposed as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for 2013-14 session.
Backbench Business Committee
The Backbench Business Committee meets weekly on Tuesdays at 3pm to consider requests for debates from any backbench Members of Parliament on any subject, including those raised in e-petitions or national campaigns.
An MP must make a representation before the Committee for an e-petition or petition to be debated; e-petitions exceeding the Government's 100,000 signature threshold are not automatically allocated backbench time.
The Committee then has to decide how to allocate the limited Parliamentary time it has at its disposal. The Committee's meetings are always conducted in public and can be watched on Parliament TV.