Opposition Day Debates are debates where the subject is chosen by the Opposition rather than the Government.

These are frequently rather poorly attended debates, though the government whips will take care to ensure that the vote is not lost. A lot of MPs will appear for the vote, even if they have not been involved in the debate.

David's position in voting against the government on a whipped vote will have been an uncomfortable one, but he did this because he belived it to be right.

The Opposition will generally choose to pick a subject in which they believe they can score valuable points against the Government.

The situation at Stafford Hospital interests the opposition on a number of different levels. Many of these have little to do with the experience of the patients, the morale of the staff or the confidence of Stafford residents in their hospital. The chief interest of the opposition, as it appeared through their use of the debating time, is to question some of the structural changes that have occured in the healthcare system, and to indicate that these are a problem.

This may pave the way to changes they are hoping to make to the health system if they should become the next Government.

The debate took place over three hours. On the face of it this looked like a long time. In practice it is no time at all and merely scratches the surface of what needs to be said on the hospital. It is a good thing that it has been agreed that there will be a select committee that will have more leisure to explore the complex issues much more carefully, and call witnesses.

On occasions like this it is sometimes possible to see how experienced parliamentariians may like to "play politics" with a debate.

Debates of this nature are carefully structured. The Shadow health minister has his allocated slot, then the minister, then the front bench lib- dem spokesperson. after that you pass on to the backbenchers. It was intended that each of the back nechers that wanted to speak would be allocated 15 minutes, by the time it came to it this had been cut back to 10. The reason for this is because of the interventions.

When a speaker is making his speech some one else has the option of making an interverntion. The speaker can give way or not, as they choose. Most member are pretty happy to do so. Some backbenchers like to make the most of this. David Kidney made one short intervention to make it clear that he would be voting for the opposition. Bill Cash tends to make far more interventions than other MPs. He made numberous long interventions on a whole range of topics, This meant that by the time other backbenchers did get to speak they had substantially less time than they would otherwise have had. Mr Cash continued trying to make interventions, but given the short time left most people were not prepared to oblige him. He did then resort to trying to make a "point of order" which means the speaker is obliged to let them speak. On this occasion he was sternly rebuked by the deputy speaker, for trying to disguise an intervention as a point of order.  

If you take a quick look through the debate you will see!

D Smith