The Nationalist Party has urged the prime minister to hold talks with it on the nomination of a new independent and impartial Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Parliament is due to be summoned on Saturday for its first sitting after the general election, and Anġlu Farrugia is set to be re-appointed Speaker for a third term. He only needs a simple majority in the House. 

But the PN said it disagreed with Farrugia's nomination, adding that it could not permit a repetition of the situation in the last legislature.

This, it said, was the first occasion for the prime minister to stand by his statement of offering a hand of friendship to the opposition. 

The party did not spell out its objections to Farrugia, but it had strongly criticised him in November last year over his handling of proceedings before the standards committee, which he chaired, particularly in the wake of a breach of ethics by Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar.