Oddly enough most of the first day of recall revolved around the governments illegal attempts to curtail parliamentary scrutiny - worth having a chat about in my book. Then they used this newfound ability to scrutinise and discovered that the government inadvertently overlooked a greater number of arms sales to Saudi Arabia than had previously been realised. The government was also given the opportunity to clarify its position regarding Iran and detail its response to the Thomas Cooke affair. Outside the chamber several committees sat and papers on a variety of topics were laid down, including area specific planning for a European exit.
Given that Parliament was resumed at short notice it also had to create a new order of business. So some of the time last week was also used to set an agenda for the retabling and passage of such things as the Fisheries Bill, Agriculture Bill, Financial Services Bill, Exiting the European Union Bill, etc. Today that means they'll be debating and passing motions relating to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act.
In fact the parliamentary time given over to arguing about inflamed tensions and its repercussions on politician safety lasted little more than an hour - or 1/24th - of parliament's sitting.
