Hunting Bill
2:00 pm
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
I join the Minister in welcoming you to the chairmanship of this Committee, Mr. O'Hara. I remember that you were in the Chair when the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) was filibustering his Bill in Committee a couple of years ago. We had great fun then and I dare say that we shall do so during this Committee. There will be serious discussion and, no doubt, moments of high emotion, when tempers will have to be controlled. I am sure that both you and your colleague, Mrs. Roe, will ensure that our deliberations are conducted within the rules of the House.
I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is on the Committee. We did battle on the Human Rights Act 1998, we have travelled abroad on the armed forces parliamentary scheme and we have learned never to turn our backs on each other. I have never wanted to turn my back on the other Minister involved, the Parliamentary Secretary of State, Lord Chancellor's Department. The whole Committee is delighted that her legal expertise, and all the inestimably valuable authority of the Lord Chancellor's Department, will be fully deployed at all stages of the proceedings. The Committee may not know, but she and I certainly do, that she owes me one. When she was a Whip—