Restrictions on motions for adjournment of House or of debate

20.24The Speaker has power under Standing Order No 35, if of the view that any dilatory motion is an abuse of the rules of the House, to decline to propose the question on it to the House or to put the question thereon forthwith (see also para 20.49 ). If a motion for the adjournment of the House or the debate has been put and negatived, it may not be proposed again without some intermediate proceeding.1

A Member who has already spoken to the main question is not permitted to move either form of dilatory motion;2 nor, having moved a dilatory motion, may they later speak to the main question if their motion is negatived.3 Similarly, a Member who has moved a dilatory motion is not entitled to move another in the course of debate on the same question.4

A motion for the adjournment of the debate, if carried, merely defers the decision of the House (an opportunity being given for fixing a day for the resumption of the debate when the decision to adjourn it is announced from the Chair), while a motion for the adjournment of the House supersedes the question altogether.5 If, at the moment for the interruption of business under the standing orders (see para 17.8 ), a motion for the adjournment of the House or of the debate has been proposed from the Chair, such motion lapses without question put, pursuant to the provision in Standing Order No 9.

Footnotes

  1. 1. 2 Hatsell 109 n; Colchester ii, 129. Hence arose the practice of moving the two forms of motion alternately; see Parl Deb (1819–20) 41, c 136; CJ (1862–63) 388; ibid (1881) 49–50.
  2. 2. HC Deb (1963–64) 690, c 1472.
  3. 3. HC Deb (1928) 215, c 593.
  4. 4. Parl Deb (1866) 184, c 1450; SO No 34.
  5. 5. Parl Deb (1848) 97, c 963; ibid (1875) 222, c 1122.