The government and opposition whips have agreed that the first reading of the 2020 budget bill will take place over three days from next Thursday until Saturday, according to government chief whip Wirat Rattanaset.
Mr Wirat said both sides will get 15 hours each while Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is allocated two hours to present the budget bill to the House.
The Palang Pracharath Party's MPs insisted that cabinet ministers who are government MPs can vote on the budget bill, saying there is no law prohibiting MPs holding a cabinet position from taking part in the vote.
When asked about the government's razor-thin majority in the House, Mr Wirat said that government whips will see to it that all government MPs attend the budget debate and be present when a vote is called.
The opposition parties had demanded that the budget bill debate should take three days -- instead of two -- because there were a lot of details to cover and many MPs had expressed their intentions to speak.
Opposition chief whip and Pheu Thai MP, Sutin Klangsang, said the party's MPs will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare for the budget grilling and stressed that the MPs are expected to toe the party line even though they are free to exercise their own judgement.
Mr Sutin said the Pheu Thai Party has yet to determine which ministries it will focus on, but pointed out that from an initial study, the spending plan seems to give emphasis on military funding rather than economic problems.
Pheu Thai spokesman Anusorn Iamsa-ard yesterday warned the government to brace itself for intense scrutiny.
He said the whole atmosphere would be different from the past five years when the now-dissolved National Legislative Assembly spent an average of 30 minutes on revealing the spending plan.
The Future Forward Party (FFP) yesterday called a meeting of party lawmakers to prepare for the budget debate.
FFP list-MP Surachet Praweenwongkul said he was interested in the investment budget and had discovered that funding earmarked for several transport projects might not be cost-effective.
Meanwhile, FFP MP for Bangkok Nattapong Ruangpanyawut said that he would examine the budget bill in terms of how it would address social and economic disparities.