speeches.

House Speaker Ernest Decouto has urged them to be more frugal with waffle and less wasteful with substance.

And he has suggested limiting the amount of time an MP can speak in the House of Assembly.

Yesterday Mr. DeCouto said he would be raising the matter with the Rules and Privileges Committee.

"I think we need to get a more efficient and effective way of debating and maintaining the dignity of the House, while showing we are responsible.'' Mr. DeCouto spoke after the debate on the Opposition Progressive Labour Party's Reply to the Budget ended shortly after 2 a.m. on Thursday. It had kicked off around 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday.

As the hour drew on, empty spaces on Government and Opposition benches appeared more prominent.

And at one stage there was nobody on the Government side -- after Finance Minister Grant Gibbons briefly left his seat to ask a colleague a question.

"I must have been gone between 30 and 45 seconds,'' Dr. Gibbons told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

At the tail-end of the Budget Reply debate, PLP veteran and Shadow Women's Issues Minister Lois Browne Evans attacked Government MPs over their speeches.

"This Budget debate has become a farce,'' she declared.

She accused some UBP MPs of resorting to insults, gloating, rudeness and sarcasm.

Mr. DeCouto, urging MPs to put their points in a nutshell, proposed restricting such debates to 12 hours.

And he suggested testing the idea of a time limit with a "take note motion'' debate.

"Time makes you put more substance in what you say. There is no time for waffle.'' Yesterday Mr. DeCouto said other jurisdictions imposed curbs on MPs, including the House of Commons in Britain.

"In the House of Commons the motion to adjourn is only half an hour, but our motion of adjourn can go on for hours.'' It is not the first time Mr. DeCouto has appealed for brevity. He made a similar plea during last year's Throne Speech debate.