Tynwald returns to action today with an agenda that should give politicians plenty to think about, with everything from climate change to assisted dying up for discussion.

Certainly, following the Christmas lay off, members should be busy at this month’s sitting.

After first dealing with the annual tradition of approving extra money to help the Department of Health and Social Care meet its budget shortfall - with £8 million being sought - the topic of climate change looms large.

Members have the Curran Report and the Council of Ministers’ response to it to consider. Will the government’s 10-point action plan be enough to keep members happy?

The Isle of Man parliament, generally, has given the impression that it has more sympathy with Greta Thunberg than Donald Trump on climate change and no doubt MHKs and MLCs will be aware that history will judge how they act.

We can expect a lengthy debate.

The other headline debate comes at the end of the agenda. It is the motion from Dr Alex Allinson (Ramsey) asking Tynwald to state that it believes legislation should be introduced to allow for voluntary assisted dying.

Already, the arguments are being aired. This motion should at least make it clear which way many of the Tynwald members lean on this tricky subject, although some may take the path of voting in favour of this motion but not committing to supporting any subsequent legislation.

At this stage, a positive vote does not guarantee a law change. The next move would be for Dr Allinson to seek leave to introduce a private member’s bill to the House of Keys - if Tynwald supports his motion, it is likely he would gain that leave - but then a consultation stage would follow.

It could be the start of a very lengthy road.

Also on the agenda - perhaps jarringly so, for some - is the report and lengthy list of recommendations from the social affairs policy review committee on ways to prevent suicides.

Children’s champion Tim Baker has his annual report down for debate. It contains some stark warnings and criticism over the state of the fostering service. It will be interesting to see, given the other issues on the agenda, how much attention this receives.

At risk of being lost among the bigger stories will be the approval sought for regulations paving the way for the introduction of national policy directives for planning matters, which would allow existing planning policies to be sidestepped in the ’public interest’.

A few alarm bells started to ring when the proposal was debated in the House of Keys.

Of course, before all of that, there is the question paper. You can tell there has been a break, because there are 67 questions in total, of which 36 are down for oral answer

The current pay dispute between teachers and the government crops up, with a number of questions seeking details on current pay grades, while there is also a demand for all the correspondence from education department over transferring out of educational support officers to put them under the umbrella of the Public Service Commission.

The future of sub-post offices in general and Ballasalla sub-post office in particular also feature heavily on the question and a wide range of subjects also sees issues including health staff recruitment, patient transfer contingencies, silt in Peel marina and, a little intriguingly, a request for a breakdown of the VIP event tickets issued by the Department for Enterprise.

With everything on this month’s agenda, by the end of it all, everyone in Tynwald might be ready for a night out.