The State Duma will increase the number of meetings to consider social bills

The State Duma Council decided to increase the number of plenary sessions in the current session in order to consider bills that “citizens are waiting for.” About it reports press service of the lower house.

There are currently 1,073 initiatives in the legislative portfolio. According to State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, deputies have a lot of work to do. “The agenda includes a number of important social bills, the adoption of which citizens are waiting for, including increasing the minimum wage and increasing pensions by 7.5% for non-working pensioners,” Volodin said.

The social projects mentioned by Volodin were submitted to the State Duma by the government on September 29. The Cabinet of Ministers proposes to increase the minimum wage to 19,242 rubles. Previously, an increase in the minimum wage by 18.5% from January 1, 2024 was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is expected that such a measure will stimulate wage growth among 4.8 million Russian citizens. The government also proposes to increase the average pension of non-working pensioners by 7.5% to RUB 22,605. The initiative is expected to affect 32.6 million people.

The State Duma needs to adopt the federal budget for 2024-2026, submitted on September 29, he added. According to Volodin, work is currently underway on it in relevant committees. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov presented this project, noting that it includes funds for social support for citizens, technological development and infrastructure expansion, as well as strengthening the country’s defense capability and the full integration of new regions.

The Duma press service clarified that the week from October 30 to November 5 will become a plenary week, and it is planned to hold an additional three plenary sessions. Vedomosti’s source in the State Duma noted that an additional day of plenary meeting is planned for November 17 to consider the second reading of the draft budget. “We haven’t been given any more specifics yet,” the source said.

According to another source in the Duma, the appearance of the remaining additional working days is also connected with the “demand” of the leaders of opposition factions to allocate time for consideration of their initiatives with a full discussion, and not according to a simplified procedure, as often happens, because these projects, as a rule, , are recommended by committees for rejection.

There will be a total of eight plenary weeks until the end of the autumn session.

The increase in activity may be associated with the presidential election campaign, which should officially start only in December, but is already the “main nerve” of political life, says Valery Fedorov, general director of the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM). “As part of election campaigns, there is usually a dispersal of social expectations,” notes the general director of VTsIOM. According to him, these are the traditional expectations of people that exist during this campaign and are manifested “quite clearly.” “From this point of view, Volodin’s desire for the Duma to play a certain role in this is quite understandable,” Fedorov concluded.

In 2022, the State Duma adopted 653 laws, which is the largest number in the entire history of the parliament, told Volodin at the final plenary meeting of the previous autumn session in December. According to him, 34% of the laws adopted last year were socially oriented.

In the spring session of 2023, the State Duma accepted 500 laws, reported the speaker of the lower house. The share of socially oriented people was 27%. In particular, 77 laws related to support for participants in the special operation, and another 54 initiatives were adopted to integrate new regions into Russia.

The autumn session will last from October 5 to December 31, 2023.