After the summer recess, the familiar rituals resume: the speeches, the questions, the motions, the interruptions – and, in a few weeks, the annual Budget marathon.
There is also renewed discussion about whether Malta should have a full-time Parliament, with more resources for MPs and a more modern working environment. It is a perfectly legitimate debate. But perhaps we are starting at the wrong end of the question.
Before deciding whether MPs should spend more time in Parliament, perhaps we should ask what we expect them to do with the time they already have.
Parliament is supposed to scrutinise the government, legislate, hold ministers to account and provide the principal forum in which the executive is challenged. The Speaker’s Office is now preparing proposals to reform the House’s Standing Orders, including how parliamentary business is conducted.
That is where the discussion about a full-time Parliament becomes interesting.
More time is not necessarily more scrutiny. More resources are not necessarily better legislation. And a larger parliamentary budget does not automatically produce a stronger democracy.
It could, of course.
MPs should have the resources to examine legislation properly. Parliamentary committees should be capable of scrutinising government decisions in detail. Ministers should be expected to answer legitimate questions rather than treating parliamentary scrutiny as an administrative inconvenience.
If that is what a full-time Parliament means, there is a serious argument for it.
But there is another possibility: that we simply create a better-funded version of the same Parliament.
That would be a rather expensive way of achieving very little.
The current debate over MPs’ speaking time is a useful example. Government and Opposition whips disagree over whether the current 30-minute limit should be reduced, while the Speaker has argued that the real issue is how responsibly MPs use their time.
Quite.
A good parliamentary speech is not improved by adding another twenty minutes to it. Nor is a bad one made more insightful by being allowed to continue.
Parliamentary reform should therefore be about quality, not quantity.
If MPs are to become full-time legislators, let us expect them to legislate properly. If they are to receive more resources, let those resources strengthen scrutiny rather than political machinery. If ministers are to face parliamentary questions, let there be meaningful mechanisms for insisting upon answers.
And if we are serious about making politics accessible to younger people and women, then Parliament should indeed become a more modern workplace.
But ultimately this is not about making Parliament more comfortable.
It is about making it more effective.
Malta is a small country. That is often presented as a reason for doing things informally, quickly and with as little institutional fuss as possible.
When it comes to democracy, it should be the opposite.
A small country needs strong institutions precisely because there are so few people to hold power to account.
So yes, let us talk about a full-time Parliament.
But let us first decide what a full-time Parliament is actually supposed to accomplish.
The objective should not be to give Parliament more hours.
It should be to give Malta a Parliament that makes better use of them.