Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and chair­man of the Stand­ing Or­ders Com­mit­tee, Jagdeo Singh, says he will con­vene a meet­ing of the com­mit­tee to al­low full par­tic­i­pa­tion from all mem­bers on the is­sue of the pro­ce­dure to be fol­lowed dur­ing the Ques­tions for the Prime Min­is­ter Seg­ment of House sit­tings.

Singh said the com­mit­tee will fol­low the law as laid down in the Stand­ing Or­ders. He added that while he could not pro­vide a spe­cif­ic time­line, the meet­ing will be held as soon as it is con­ve­nient for all par­ties and will ad­dress what he de­scribed as a “la­cu­na” in the rules re­gard­ing sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tion Time (PMQT).

Jagdeo’s de­ci­sion comes af­ter Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les warned that democ­ra­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go was un­der threat fol­low­ing Singh’s rul­ing last Fri­day that blocked the Op­po­si­tion from ask­ing sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Gon­za­les said PMQT, in­tro­duced in­to the Stand­ing Or­ders in June 2015, had tra­di­tion­al­ly al­lowed sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions un­der for­mer Speak­ers Wade Mark and Bridgid An­nisette-George.

How­ev­er, Singh has said he does not have the au­thor­i­ty to per­mit sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions and ad­vised that the is­sue be ad­dressed through the Stand­ing Or­ders Com­mit­tee, where the Gov­ern­ment holds a ma­jor­i­ty.