Letters | 18 April 2013

What to do about PMQs

Sir: Charles Moore (Notes, 6 April) is right to propose that Prime Minister’s Questions revert to the long-standing previous practice of two 15-minute sessions a week (on a Tuesday and Thursday) in place of the current 30-minute session. Tony Blair introduced the present arrangement at the beginning of his premiership for one of the reasons offered by Mr Moore: that it would reduce the time he would have to spend each week on preparation.

Whether Tony’s intention was also, as Mr Moore suggests, to reduce his exposure to attack, I doubt; in any case it certainly did not achieve this. The vulnerability of the Prime Minister to the opposition leader’s questions rises exponentially in relation to the number of questions that can be asked in one go. The six questions allowed in the single Wednesday sessions are potentially more dangerous than the two sets of three questions under the previous system.