Safety on the island’s roads will come under the microscope in Tynwald today (Tuesday).

Bill Shimmins (Middle) has tabled questions for Home Affairs Minister Bill Malarkey on what action is being taken to reduce the number of accidents on our roads and where road safety comes on the police force’s list of priorities.

Mr Shimmins himself will also be the subject of question time scrutiny, in a roundabout way, ask Speaker Juan Watterson - who is permitted to table questions in Tynwald - will ask Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan what successes have been achieved by the SAVE team set up to find £25 million of government savings. Mr Shimmins is at the helm of that team.

Other subjects covered in question time include air pollution, winter pension bonuses and fuel poverty.

Question time is merely an appetiser for the main course today, however, which is the Budget (see today’s Examiner).

Once that debate is out of the way, Tynwald will find itself back on familiar territory: talking about itself.

The select committee on the functioning of Tynwald has another report about a previous report (Lisvane), that Tynwald may have already debated, but it is not afraid to discuss a little further.

Members’ pay is in there - another review is suggested. The committee does say that whatever recommendations come forward, they should not result in an overall increase in the wage budget. The review could, conceivably, come back with a recommendation for a pay cut for MLCs.

Let’s hope all the prospective candidates are aware of this.

The report also covers the role of the Bishop in Legislative Council and Tynwald. It includes whether the Bishop should have a vote, despite that not being in the initial remit and the fact it has already been debated in Tynwald. The argument was that the areas of the remit it was asked to cover - whether the Bishop should form part of the quorum and whether he should be allowed to abstain from voting - could not be considered in isolation from whether the Bishop has a vote in the first.

Fortunately, the committee agrees the Bishop should continue to keep his vote, which matches what happened the last time in Tynwald. Otherwise, we would face yet another report. Moreover, if he’s there, he should be expected to vote rather than abstain.

As is tradition, the government has tried to avoid placing too many items on the agenda for the sitting that also contains the budget.

But David Cretney MLC will take his campaign to see a ’champion for the older people and the lonely’ be appointed. His previous request was rejected, but given the debate over health service funding, the changes to meals on wheels, to name but two matters, Mr Cretney’s argument is getting stronger.

Clare Bettison (Douglas East) will finish off proceedings with a motion stating that any votes that take place in a select committee should be a matter of public record, including how each member voted.

Given the mantra of transparency that we hear from both the government and Tynwald as a whole, any reasons to oppose this will be examined with interest.