We have a motion on the floor that witnesses be given 10 minutes for their opening statements and then go to a first round of seven minutes for members, and then for rounds two and beyond, to go to five minutes per member.
As chair, it would be helpful if there could be a minor change to what you've just suggested, which would be to grant witnesses up to 10 minutes for an opening statement. As chair, I've had the problem where we might have two panels of one hour each, and each panel has three members on it. If we give them 10 minutes each, as I would be bound to do by the routine motion, the first 30 minutes of the meeting would be taken up with opening statements from the witnesses. Saying “up to 10 minutes” gives the chair flexibility that if we have a very tight agenda, a lot of members on the panel and not a lot of time, we could shorten it to five minutes each, giving members more time.