Jacob Rees-Mogg was left red-faced by a member of his own party on Wednesday after he questioned the limited debate on government legislation.
In a point of order, the MP for North West Somerset expressed concern that MPs would only be given three hours to debate the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
He said: “I am concerned, and I know this takes up time in itself, but we now have just about three hours including the ten-minute rule bill for the final stages of a bill that runs to 328 pages, plus 145 pages of amendments, which include 68 new clauses and at least 240 amendments.
“This house has not been overrun with business lately. We had many days before the recess when we were going home early.
He added: “And it seems to me that it is not respectful to this House to try and shoehorn such a large piece of legislation into such a short period of time.”
But leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt was quick to remind her predecessor that the timings were in-fact as a result of the programme motion agreed by Rees-Mogg himself.
She said: “Contrary to what some may say, this is not a zombie parliament and we’re putting through a lot of legislation as well as private bills.
“But I would also remind the House that the programme motion for this was agreed on 9 May.”
Mordaunt set social media platform ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, ablaze on Wednesday with facial expressions that seemingly reflected the ‘unconvincing tone’ of yesterday’s PMQs.
The leader of the House of Commons joined ministers on the front bench for the first PMQs after the summer recess as Rishi Sunak defended the government’s response to the school concrete crisis.
Related: Watch: Penny Mordaunt’s face spoke for us all during ‘unconvincing’ PMQs
