Government Whip Mario Galea came up with some interesting suggestions when he was interviewed by The Malta Independent earlier this month.

He said he would like to see the introduction of a British-style Prime Minister’s question-time and that the opposition should have the opportunity to set parliament’s agenda once a month.

Mr Galea however admitted that there is no broad consensus on the matter, and therefore it seems highly unlikely at this stage that any of the above will be implemented in the short term.

Still, the suggestions put forward by Mr Galea should be given due consideration because, for one thing, they would render Parliament more interesting. It is, in fact, rather strange that there is no agreement on matters which would be of benefit to both sides of the House.

We have all seen, at one time or another, a British Prime Minister having to face a bombardment of questions from all sides of the House, including his own, on British TV. It is considered to be the highlight of what goes on in the British Parliament, and we are sure that the same thing would happen here if such question-time had to be introduced in Malta.

Question-time would give the opportunity to all MPs to put all the pressure they can on the PM who, in his turn, would need to be well-prepared to meet the challenge. It would certainly be a sitting that we would all look forward to.

Having the opposition setting its own agenda for one parliamentary sitting a month would also be a positive measure. Many times the opposition complains that it is not given enough opportunity to debate subjects which it deems to be important, but which the government wants to neglect. Such a move would give the opposition the chance to “rule” Parliament for the day.

In the interview, Mr Galea said he is in favour of changing the way a quorum-check is called. He said it is unacceptable that a quorum is called to disrupt a parliamentary session, adding that such calls should only be made only when a vote is to be taken, again as happens in the UK’s House of Commons.

For his part, Opposition Whip Joe Mizzi defended his calls for a quorum saying he always gave plausible reasons when he resorted to such a move. He said he always called a quorum when he felt that democracy was under threat.

No doubt, the quorum issue is a hot potato. The government always feels that the opposition is trying to break the House’s momentum while the opposition always feels there is always an important reason as to why it chooses to call for a quorum. What is unfortunate – for us citizens – is that quorum checks at times expose the fact that our parliamentarians are not where they should be between 6pm and 9pm.

What the two Whips agreed upon is that there are many occasions when the speeches delivered in Parliament are not up to standard. And this is true, because one does get the impression sometimes that the speaker has literally nothing to say but is basically repeating words to fill up his allotted time.

Mr Galea said that 40 minutes is too long for speeches while Mr Mizzi said that many MPs go to Parliament unprepared. Perhaps the two sides should consider revising the parliamentary rules to limit speeches to, say, just 15 or 20 minutes.

We are sure that MPs do not need longer than that to say what they have to say. On many occasions, the second 20 minutes end up being a repetition, in different words, of what they said in the first 20.