Homes Bill
10:30 am
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I do not think that you are a relic, Mr. Gale, but I also welcome you to the Chair. I am sure that our proceedings will be good natured, and that we will be able to disagree without being disagreeable. This debate is the third bite of this particular cherry. We debated the programme resolution after the Second Reading debate, and I endorse the comments and criticisms that I made there. Last night, there was a meeting of the Programming Sub-Committee, and here we are again for half an hour this morning.
It is not good enough for the Minister to say that he believes that the time allowed is adequate to deal with the Bill, the amendments that we know about, the amendments that we do not yet know about, new clauses and Government amendments. How can he be sure? That is the basic criticism of any attempt to give a definite end date to our consideration.
It is not remotely relevant for the Minister to cite the number of clauses. There are 34 clauses and three schedules, but some are complex and worthy of considerable debate. The Maastricht ratification Bill had only a couple of clauses, and that took up a lot of time, as hon. Members will remember.
We hear much from the Government about open government but the opposite of that is happening in the House of Commons. There is a policy of suppressing debate as far as possible, which renders the House an irrelevance in the Chamber and in Committee.
It is important to remember the history. The original proposal for programming debate—or guillotining, to give its proper description—predated Second Reading, let alone any amendments tabled since. The proposal from the usual channels has always been the same: six days and 12 sittings. That has not altered since the beginning of the so-called programming process. There has been no real flexibility. It is rather like Henry Ford saying that people can have any colour they like as long as it is black. It seems that we can have any period that we like as long as it is six days and 12 sittings.
Yesterday evening, under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale, I had the pleasure and privilege of sitting for the first time on a Programming Sub-Committee, which is the new constitutional device that the Government have introduced to deal with such matters. No record is kept of its proceedings, it is closed to the public and other hon. Members are barred from participating in its debates. In effect, it is held in secret. At that meeting, a decision was made to programme the Standing Committee along the lines of the resolution.
At the Programming Sub-Committee—a new Government device to guillotine the discussion of legislation—the Minister let slip that the Liberal Democrats had agreed to Government proposals to limit discussion of part I, which deals with seller's packs, to three sitting days. As my comments will be the only record that the public will get on the proceedings, I note that the Liberal Democrats voted with the Government to limit the entire Standing Committee duration to six days.