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When Harriet Harman sets out the proposed Commons business up to the February half-term, at , there will be a large number of MPs waiting - more in hope than expectation - to hear that a debate on the Wright Committee's report on the reform of Commons procedure has been scheduled.

That committee was set up at the darkest depth of the expenses scandal, to help rehabilitate the Commons, by working out ideas to make it a more effective legislating chamber and scrutineer of government.

The ensuing report, proposing elections for select committee chairs and the creation of a Commons Business Committee, designed to give the House more control over what it debates, was published in mid-November. To be sure, it contained an exquisitely balanced and nuanced set of institutional changes, and honourable members clearly needed time to assimilate them.

But plenty of time has now passed and still there is no debate; although, in fairness, the government does keep promising a debate and a decision, to the serried ranks of reform enthusiasts who keep plying the PM and the Leader of the House with annoying questions on when.

The trouble is that time is beginning to run short. Reformers are desperate to see the issue dealt with before 10 February, when Parliament will rise for its half term break. After that, with an election looming ever closer, they fear the window of opportunity for changing the way the Commons works will slam shut.

Rumour reaches me of Labour whips muttering that they wouldn't want to saddle an incoming government with procedures which they would not have wanted to work through themselves...which is jolly chivalrous of them, if true.

But there are other mutterings too, about how much longer it will be before someone tries to force the pace with an Urgent Question to flush out some comment - any comment - about whether or not the government really plans to push the Wright proposals through.

UPDATE: Still no date announced at Business Questions on Thursday. But Harriet Harman did include this ominous little phrase: "...this is a complex matter on which the government will have to take a view about what is right to bring to the House."

So will MPs get a chance to vote on all the Wright proposals, or will some be off the table from the start? I hope no-one is missing the internal irony of the Commons having to wait on a government decision about whether MPs should be allowed any influence on what they debate.

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