Updated at 4.45pm
Parliament is set to debate the latest developments on the coronavirus outbreak on the request of the Opposition. Government Whip Glen Bedingfield made the announcement during Monday's sitting.
However, a proposal by Opposition leader Adrian Delia to suspend Monday's sitting in order for the MPs to be able to follow the Prime Minister's press conference on the matter was rejected.
Earlier it was decided that parliamentary business would forge ahead as planned despite the Opposition’s call to suspend the agenda to debate the latest developments on coronavirus on Monday, or even cancelling all of this week’s sittings.
The contrasting positions emerged during a House Business Committee meeting held on Monday afternoon where government has a majority.
The government Whip said the government was planning to debate various Bills including amendments to the explosive ordinance, devolution of certain ministerial powers and a Bill on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency. Moreover, the government was going to put the Budget measures implementation Bill to the vote, at the third reading stage in Monday’s sitting.
Opposition deputy leader David Agius insisted that the House should debate more urgent matters, namely the government’s response to tackle the challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak in sectors like the health service, education and the economy.
“At the moment this issue is much more important to discuss the outbreak rather than explosives,” Agius said.
While noting that the Opposition was willing to hold the Budget vote today, he said no sittings should be held during the rest of the week.
“We should follow the example of the European Parliament, and cancel this week’s sitting and meet again on Friday to take stock of the situation and decide on the way forward,” he said.
On his part the government whip said they were considering suspending the quorum provision of the standing orders, so that only the MPs taking part in the debate would have to be present. Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said that suspending parliamentary sittings at this stage would send the wrong message, as if the country was in lockdown.
Speaker Anġlu Farrugia called on both sides to hold further talks in an attempt to find a compromise. He noted that in the worst affected countries like Italy and Spain, parliamentary work had not been suspended but the load of work reduced.
He also outlined the various measures being taken in Parliament, in order to safeguard MPs and staff from contagion. This included disinfecting computer keyboards and doorknobs every two hours, banning access to the public and trips abroad, and working with a skeleton staff. He also confirmed a number of MPs who were abroad recently were in quarantine.