Government Announces Changes to Prime Minister's Question Time

From the start of the new Parliament next week, the sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays will be replaced by a single half hour on Wednesdays.

The change, announced by the Leader of the House, Anne Taylor, will mean an end to the fifteen-minute exchanges that have been the occasion for some of the rowdiest scenes in the Commons. The Prime Minister hopes the single, longer session will be more civilised.

"As a first step towards fulfilling our manifesto commitment to improve the effectiveness of Prime Minister's Questions, we intend to replace the existing much-criticised Prime Minister's Questions with one of half-an-hour each Wednesday, allowing the Prime Minister to be questioned in greater depth," she said.

Mr Blair is keen that it should no longer be seen as a "leaders' knockabout". Under the new arrangements, only the leader of the official Opposition - currently the Conservatives - will be able to ask follow-up questions. But it'll no longer be the practice for questioners initially to have to ask the Prime Minister to list his engagements for the day - prompting his constant referring back to "the answer I gave a few moments ago".

Downing Street said Mr Blair would make a point of taking questions himself unless there were "very, very exceptional circumstances", when the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, would stand in.

Margaret Beckett: "more serious scrutiny"

The Government will also put forward plans for the setting up of a new select committee to review Parliamentary procedures and to consider further changes to ministerial question times, including Prime Minister's Questions.

Mr Blair notified the Tory leader, John Major, and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, by telephone.

The President of the Board of Trade, Margaret Beckett, said the change was a bold and brave move, which opened the Prime Minister to more serious and sustained scrutiny from MPs. Other reaction has been mixed.

Ever since Mr Blair became Labour leader, he has been keen to reform what he regarded as the outdated style of Prime Minister's Questions.

It's said that, during the election campaign, he became convinced that the public were fed up with the "relentless slanging" between politicians which Question Time had come to epitomise.

Downing Street said he believed the new format would give an opportunity for more effective Parliamentary scrutiny of the Government.