Manitoba politicians will spend a little more time in the legislature under a new agreement that was reached late last week. The NDP government and Progressive Conservatives have agreed to hold longer sittings in the spring and fall.

The new deal will see the legislature reconvene in February or March each year instead of April and the summer break will end in October instead of November.

"The main idea is to have a fixed calander so people can have a predictable sense of when they will be sitting as legislators and when they'll be available to work full-time for their constituents," said Premier Greg Selinger.

The Tories says the new deal will prevent the government from keeping the legislature in recess for months at a time, which in some years has sat for little more than 30 days.

"We've seen different years where the Legislature sits for a month or a month-and-a-half and that's not a respectable way to deal with government business," said Tory house leader Kelvin Goertzen. "It's not a respectable way to deal with people who have issues that they want brought to the Legislature."

Also, under the new agreement, the government will hold more committee hearings and allow more opposition bills to be voted on while the opposition has agreed to not hold up more than five bills from passing each spring. They will also lose their ability to hold up legislation indefinetly.

"There are several other changes that will be formalized over the next few weeks," said Selinger.

This session of the legislature will continue until June 30 and then break for the summer.