In the United Kingdom In the
United Kingdom there are twenty opposition days per
parliamentary session. The
Official Opposition (since 2024 the
Conservative Party) is allocated 17 opposition days, and the other opposition parties given 3 days. The outcomes of votes on opposition day motions are not considered legally binding, although they do represent
the will of Parliament. On 29 April 2009,
Gordon Brown's government was defeated in an opposition day vote on the subject of settlement rights for veterans of the
Gurkhas. This was the first time since January 1978 that a British government had lost an opposition day vote.
Theresa May's government, being a fragile
minority government, refused to amend the motions or
divide the house, meaning that all opposition day motions during this period were passed with no vote. This led the
Scottish National Party (SNP) MP
Pete Wishart to accuse the Government of "degrading [them] to little more than
adjournment debates". Following the
2019 general election, in which
Boris Johnson's government won a
landslide majority of 80 seats, the practice of the government attending and voting on opposition day motions temporarily resumed. However, following a campaign by footballer
Marcus Rashford, the government whipped its MPs to vote against a
Labour motion calling on the government to continue funding free
school meals for children over the school holidays until Easter 2021, which the Opposition claimed would prevent over 1 million children going hungry during the
COVID-19 pandemic, after which there was a strong public backlash, with many new-intake Conservative MPs receiving online abuse and threats. Following this the government resumed Theresa May's practice of ignoring opposition day motions, although Labour have forced the motions to go to a division by having a small number of MPs verbally vote against their own motion (only to vote for the motion in the division) – the government
abstains in these divisions. To counter this, starting from 2022, the Opposition has sometimes proposed, instead of symbolic motions, programme orders, which, if carried, bind the House to consider and hold a vote on a specific bill, under the rules and timetable set in the order itself. The Government cannot ignore a vote on such motions, because doing so would allow a bill it opposes to be brought to the floor (taking time away from proposals the Government supports) and perhaps even pass. A vote during an opposition day for the second largest opposition party (the SNP) on 21 February 2024 provoked controversy when the Speaker deviated from precedent in the choice of amendments to be taken, leading to a political row.
In other countries In
Canada there are twenty-two opposition days per parliamentary session. The days are divided among opposition parties with the
Official Opposition allotted the most. Canadian opposition parties are allocated days, which are also called "allotted" or "supply" days, in proportion to their membership in the House. There are no opposition days in Australian jurisdictions. In India, the Parliament does not have an opposition day, but one day every week (Friday) during a session is devoted to private members' bills and resolutions. ==In France==