Table
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
10:30 am

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

The Minister will not be surprised to know that, following the proceedings of yesterday's Programming Sub-Committee, my hon. Friends and I intend to oppose its resolution for consideration of the Bill—more details of which will follow anon. Before that happens, however, I wish to echo at this early stage in our proceedings what the Minister said by way of welcome to you, Mr. O'Brien, and to Mr. Sayeed, who will also Chair our proceedings.

Despite our disagreements yesterday afternoon, which on the whole were good natured although the Minister became tetchy towards the end, your chairmanship, Mr. O'Brien, was a model of clarity, firmness and fairness. I put on record today—because, of course, there were no minutes of yesterday's proceedings, still less a verbatim account—the appreciation that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk and I share for your chairmanship. You have had 17 years experience in the House and, therefore, know a thing or two about sitting on Committees, chairing Committees and participating in parliamentary proceedings. As I gently reminded you yesterday—and you took no umbrage at the reminder—you have, by virtue of your 17 years' service, considerable experience of opposition, so you recognise both its frustrations and its occasional opportunities. We look forward to your chairmanship, which will be firm but fair.

In the spirit of the earlier part of yesterday's proceedings, it is a genuine pleasure to serve on a Committee with the Members whom I see behind, around and opposite me, many of whom contributed constructively and intelligently on Second Reading. Although we had our differences, several potent speeches were made, and a great deal of interest was shown in this important but not entirely uncontroversial Bill. It is good to know that the arguments will be amplified and developed further in the course of the Committee's consideration. I am especially pleased that the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) is a member of the Committee, as he competes with the Minister as the most courteous and accommodating Government Member.

It is not only a pleasure but a privilege to serve opposite the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), the Minister of State. No ordinary Minister of State, he; we should be aware that we are in the presence of potential and possibly actual greatness. That is relevant as we begin our proceedings. I refer to what is probably the most recent but, I am sure, not the last commentary on the Minister in yesterday's edition of The Guardian—where else, one might inquire. He was the subject of the Monday interview, entitled Man with a Mission'', written by Mr. John Kampfner, that celebrated journalist and biographer of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In the byline to the article, he says:

You've probably never heard of—

and then he names the Minister, which I will of course not do, Mr. O'Brien—

But one thing singles him out from countless innocuous Labour MPs.

Mr Bill O'Brien (Normanton, Labour)

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are debating the motion on programming. I am aware of the newspaper report, but could he stick to the motion?

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I respond to your guidance and exhortation immediately, Mr. O'Brien.

Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) rose—

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I will do the gentlemanly thing and give way with alacrity to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh).

Mrs Anne McIntosh (Vale of York, Conservative)

I invite my hon. Friend to address the programming issue. I am disappointed at having missed yesterday's discussions, which I gather were lively. I was concerned by the Minister's opening remarks today, in which he said that, in his view, the Government have allowed enough time for debate. I have come to the Committee armed with a large amount of material connected with the Bill, especially relating to the objection that vehicles such as motorcycles have not been included in its remit. Will my hon. Friend assist me on that point?

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

Not for the first time and, I am sure, not for the last, my hon. Friend anticipates me. I intended to focus precisely on that point. My observation about the Minister is germane. In my imperfect way, I was about to suggest that, precisely because he is viewed as a future leader of the Labour party and an arch-operator'' by Mr. John Kampfner, he should be aware of Opposition concerns that there will not be adequate time to debate fully, thoroughly and dedicatedly all the matters appertaining to the Bill. The concern raised by my hon. Friend—raised, in a sense, on behalf of the British Motorcyclists Federation, which is an important representative body—is a case in point.

The thrust of the resolution was that the Committee should have 23 hours' debate by 23 January, by which time the proceedings should conclude. We oppose that. It is important to emphasise that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk and I tabled an amendment proposing a further nine hours' debate.

I thought that I was being almost wimpish and stood to be chastised by the more robust of my colleagues for proposing only an additional nine hours. However, my suggestion was that, instead of finishing at 7 o'clock on Tuesday evenings, we should conclude at 10 o'clock; that there should be an hour's break for dinner for those who feel inclined to consume supper; and that, on Thursday afternoons, instead of finishing at 5 o'clock, we should conclude at 7 o'clock, with half an hour's tea break. That seemed to be a modest proposal, given the fact—which must be emphasised, especially in the light of the absence of minutes or, more valuably, of a verbatim account of yesterday's proceedings—that the Bill has no fewer than 45 clauses, and, so far, 33 amendments to it have been tabled. I say so far'' because, as we know, those 33 amendments have been tabled only to part II, which the Government wish the Committee to consider first.

If we work on the fairly modest assumption that for the other two main parts—I know that there are four parts in all, but it might be argued that there are three main parts—there will be a similar amount of tabling, one does not have to be a distinguished mathematician such as the Minister to recognise that we will face 99 amendments and 45 clauses during the two weeks. I explained that there was therefore a potential for up to 144 debates in 23 hours, which leaves pitifully inadequate time to debate each matter. That is unsatisfactory, which is why we proposed a change. The Minister and the hon. Member for Hyndburn indicated great flexibility on the Government's part— that they would be ready to entertain the idea of longer sittings and more time for consideration of the issues. I was invited to make, and was enthusiastic about making, a specific proposal. However, that was when the Government turned nasty. They were not willing to entertain the idea at all. It was therefore a case of the smile on the face of the tiger. There was general enthusiasm for tolerance, but specific reluctance to entertain it.

A number of issues arise from yesterday, which, as this is the first occasion on which a Standing Committee is considering a Bill following a decision of the Programming Sub-Committee, are of the highest constitutional importance. The first is whether the Programming Sub-Committee, from which the draft resolution came, was a Standing Committee, a sub-set of a Standing Committee or a Select Committee. We were advised by the Chairman, on the strength of guidance from officials, that it was a Select Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk and I asked repeatedly when and by whose authority that was decided. I was told that it was thought desirable that it should meet in the form of a Select Committee, and that, as there was no witness present, it should therefore be held in private. I inquired where that was specified in the Sessional Orders, and where there is a resolution of the House to that effect. The Minister readily admitted that there was nothing in the Sessional Orders on the matter, no specific guidance and no resolution of the House.

Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)

I said nothing of the kind. The Chairman and the Clerk gave information to that effect. It was a matter for the Chairman and the authorities of the House rather than for the Government.

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister. I would certainly never accuse him of anything other than frankness and candour. However, my recollection was that he assented to the proposition that there was nothing in writing. [Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering his disapproval and disagreement, but the problem is that there is no minute of the meeting yesterday, still less a verbatim text. That precisely underlines the unsatisfactory nature of a Programming Sub-Committee meeting with no subsequent record of its deliberations. There is now scope for continuing the argument about exactly what was said.

Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)

My chuntering was to the effect that I assented to the ruling of the Chair. More than that, I said that the Government would vote with the Chair—as is the convention of the House—in order to carry the ruling. I was assenting not dissenting to the hon. Gentleman's remark. Earlier, I said that it was not my judgment on Sessional Orders, but that the Government should—as we did—support and share the judgments made.

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

That is correct, but it is also correct that the hon. Gentleman implied that he was relaxed about whether the meeting took place public or in private, following the model of a Select Committee without a witness. Indeed, he seemed ready to entertain the prospect of its meeting in public. I therefore, quite naturally, proposed that we meet in public, but you advised me, Mr. O'Brien that there was no scope for you to allow such a motion. It is entirely unclear to us where the absence of scope is declared in the Sessional Orders. We are in uncharted water.

I will develop the point about the character of the Sub-Committee which determines the basis on which our proceedings are conducted. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk and I strongly believe that the model is not that of a Select Committee. Yesterday's Programming Sub-Committee contained the Minister and me. Although the Minister has many merits, I believe that the reason that he was on that Sub-Committee was nothing to do with his innate kindliness or his potential to be a Labour Prime Minister, but that he is the Minister responsible for piloting this legislation through the House. I was included not on the basis that I would wind up the Minister or pay him gratuitous compliments, but on the strength of the fact that I am the Opposition spokesman with responsibility for leading on the subject.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk, under whose beady eye and continuing supervision my hon. Friends and I are obliged to operate, is a fine fellow and a formidable figure in more ways than one. He was selected for the Sub-Committee not for those reasons but because he is a member of Her Majesty's Opposition Whips Office. The hon. Member for Hyndburn sits on this Committee and on the Programming Sub-Committee by virtue of his being a Government Whip.

The Sessional Order C paragraph (3)(b) states that the Sub-Committee shall consist of members of this Committee. It shall consist of but not embrace all members of this Committee, because it is only a Sub-Committee. How can a Sub-Committee of a Standing Committee suddenly become a Select Committee? That is beyond the realm of imagination. Why is it thought to be a Select Committee? Why did the Minister suggest that we would have a greater prospect of reaching agreement if members of the public were not present? The notion that the presence of members of the public or members of interest groups is either conducive to or militates against the achievement of consensus is not only wrong but constitutionally obnoxious, for it suggests the intent on the part of outside parties to influence our deliberations. That would be a serious thing for a member of the public to do, and a serious charge for a member of this Committee to level at a member of the public. I hope that the Minster will reconsider that dastardly doctrine that he advanced.

Yesterday, I suggested that we should have a record of the proceedings of the Sub-Committee, and at one point my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk and I were moved to switch on a tape recorder. The Minister was veritably incandescent. He sought a guarantee that I would not seek to inform members of the media of the contents of our discussions.

Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)

If the hon. Gentleman thought that I was incandescent last night, despite his flattery, he has not seen me incandescent.

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I do not change my views lightly—I am not a chameleon representative of new Labour. I make no bones about it; I have long admired the Minister and know the scope of his talents. I am aware of the extent of his ambitions and, at least as far as the Opposition are concerned, I hope that he will be a leader. I shall not be distracted or put off my compliments to him, which are justified, just because he is nasty to me from time to time. I shall rise above the nastiness.

I wanted to tape record the proceedings, but you advised me that I could not do so, Mr. O'Brien. There is, of course, a precedent for attempting to tape record proceedings. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) wanted to tape record the deliberations of the Privileges Committee in the 1994-95 Session. As you will remember, Mr. O'Brien—you were a Member of the House, although I was not—eventually, the right hon. Gentleman was excluded from the Committee because he issued his own report of the deliberations.

The question that I and my hon. Friends, and, I believe, at least in part, the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell), are asking is why these matters should not be debated publicly. If observers of our proceedings consider that merely an arcane question and ask why it matters, the answer is that the means by which a Bill progresses from Second Reading to the statute book, including the timetable, the order of business, the priorities of Government and Opposition in terms of the procedure to be followed and the order of consideration of the Bill, is a matter of the highest importance. No one should try to hide it from the magnifying glass of publicity.

Mr Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

I thought that we were debating a resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee, which I have read with great care. Having listened to the hon. Gentleman's semantics, I should like to ask him a question. Would anything that he proposes in the context of the timetabling motion materially alter the order of debate or provide extra time for a particular clause? Will he confirm that he made those points at yesterday's meeting?

Mr Bill O'Brien (Normanton, Labour)

Before the hon. Member for Buckingham replies, I should like him to note that the hon. Member for Colchester, representing the Liberal Democrats, wants to speak in the debate.

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I most certainly will, and I am grateful to you, Mr. O'Brien, for that reminder.

My response to the hon. Gentleman's question is that that is one of the problems relating to the fact that only some members of the Standing Committee—I am grateful to him for highlighting the defect—are members of the Programming Sub-Committee. Through no fault of his own, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston was not present. He could not sit on yesterday's Committee—although as it transpired, as was evidenced by the attendance of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) in the background of the Committee, he would have been free to attend, although he could not have spoken. However, if he had been present, he would have known that I made it absolutely clear that, as I said this morning, more time should be made available for the consideration of particular clauses and parts of the Bill.

Mr Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

No. I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. He will have to bear with that response to the question that he just posed. I proposed a further nine hours of debate because many important matters need to be considered. We have received representations from the Association of British Insurers, the Local Government Association, the British Motorcyclists Federation, and several others to boot. Those organisations suggested that the Bill contained substantial defects, and expressed reservations about its content and a desire to ensure that it was significantly amended.

I also suggested that the Minister's understanding of the Second Reading debate was wrong and that it would be better to consider the matter in the normal way—to examine clauses 1 to 15 first, and then move on to clauses 16 to 30. I did not believe that his understanding of the Second Reading debate was accurate. He will have to bear with me to find out whether I am right, but I believe that that anxiety will be reflected in the nature and number of amendments tabled on other parts of the Bill. The Minister's understanding of what constituted the most fraught and contentious part of the Bill, occasioning the largest number of amendments and the greatest scope for controversial debate, is mistaken. He made an honourable judgment, but he was not right to make it.

Yesterday, we were invited to examine the order of consideration, and we were told that alternatives could be considered, as detailed in point 6 of the brief guide issued by the Public Bill Office. That brief guide was dated 21 December, and was helpfully circulated, but only on the afternoon of the Programming Sub-Committee, by the Clerk acting on your behalf, Mr. O'Brien. What if other, Back-Bench Members who sit on the Standing Committee but are not so privileged or august as to sit on the Programming Sub-Committee had wanted to propose a different order of consideration and suggest an alternative draft resolution? They would not have had the opportunity to do so, as alternatives had to be proposed there and then, not least in light of the debate that took place on the matter that afternoon.

I am bound to say that that is a significant problem, as is the fact that the timetable for the overall consideration of the Bill is fixed by the earlier programme motion. Factually and helpfully, Mr. O'Brien, you reminded me yesterday that the end date of 23 January was set in concrete. We could argue the toss about parts of the Bill and how much time there was for consideration thereof, but we could not change the final date because the House passed the timetable motion after Second Reading.

There is no real chance to extend the number of hours available, especially in the light of the Minister's truculent attitude yesterday afternoon, even if a panoply of new clauses and amendments is subsequently tabled. We have had no suggestion of a self-denying ordinance or self-discipline on the part of Ministers. If Ministers were to say that they would absolutely undertake not to table any new clauses or amendments, the situation would be marginally less unsatisfactory, but they may issue them, and they propose to proceed in a hole-and-corner fashion in a private sitting to escape the magnifying glass or transmission belt of the mass media, on which a free and pluralistic society depends.

The timetable proposed is inadequate. The constitutional vandalism is unjust. What is demonstrated above all is that, deep down, the Government simply do not care about the traditions of the House or the entitlements of Members of Parliament. They are concerned exclusively with the operation of their business and the pursuit of their goals. They use every administrative fiat and caprice available to them to achieve their objectives. We believe that that is wrong, and we strongly object. We urge the Committee to consider instead the alternative extra nine hours that we proposed yesterday. That proposal would be right, as it would be in the interests of the consideration of the Bill and a service to those concerned about it. I will sit down, because I look forward with interest and respect to what the hon. Member for Colchester has to say.

Mr Bob Russell (Colchester, Liberal Democrat)

I will try not to take up my entire four minutes. As my votes on the subject yesterday suggest, I believe that the time allocated is inadequate. However, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the assurance that he gave yesterday, which was that the usual channels will consider the whole set-up. We are creating a precedent, as we are the first Committee to use the new procedure. The Government must regret the fact that, by design or default, they have created a situation in which the hon. Member for Buckingham, for two and a half hours last night and another 25 minutes today, has gone out of his way to try to prolong matters rather than to shorten them.

We will support the Bill in general terms, but with reservations. I cannot say that that is necessarily the view of the Conservative Opposition. I believe that the Minister took on board the points made last night. I can only conclude that the hon. Member for Buckingham does not have the interests of the Bill at heart. We have heard his long speeches, last night and today. If he were to bore for Britain—small bore—he would certainly win a gold.

In the Division, we will vote against the inadequate amount of time, but in debate we will make constructive arguments. If the Conservatives want to be the vehicle villains' friends, let them, but we do not.

Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)

I thank the hon. Member for Colchester for his brief and pithy remarks of two minutes. I know that his contribution and that of his party in support of the Bill will be constructive.

In the 30 seconds that the hon. Member for Vale of York had to speak, she made a remark that was pithy and to the point. The definition of vehicles in the Bill covers motorbikes. We have received representations by telephone from the British Motorcyclists Federation, which has been in touch with the team on the Bill. If she tables amendments that are informed by such groups, we will consider them seriously and properly. I encourage their involvement in the debate, and the way in which she made her point.

All the points made by the hon. Member for Buckingham, who spoke for 23 minutes, related to the programming process itself. They are perfectly fair points, although he perhaps made them in an overly lengthy way. The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk might perhaps be an example to him. As I said at the meeting of the Programming Sub-Committee last night, we are discussing through the usual channels the important issues of whether the hearings should be heard in public, how the Committee is formed, and so forth. We shall pursue those discussions. They are matters for the House and for you, Mr. O'Brien, to take up, not for the Committee—

It being half an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, the Chairman put the Question, pursuant to paragraph (6) of the Order of the House of 7 November 2000 relating to Programming Sub-Committees.

The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 5.

Mr Bill O'Brien (Normanton, Labour)

Before we move on, I remind the Committee that there is a financial resolution in connection with the Bill. Copies are available in the Room for hon. Members. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice must be given of amendments. As a general rule, my co-Chairmen and I do not intend to call starred amendments. Clause 16 Requirement of Registration forRegistration Plate Suppliers