Education Bill
9:32 am
Mr John Heppell (Government Whip (technically a Lords Commissioner, HM Treasury); Nottingham East, Labour)
On a point of order, Mr. Pike. The Government are trying to be as amenable as possible to the Opposition. The Minister was disappointed that we did not discuss all the clauses on Tuesday morning. We offered the Opposition an extra three hours to debate those items, if they would make up the time later in the evening. We did not disagree that the extra three hours would be useful, but we failed to get consensus because the Opposition decided that they would agree to the extra three hours only if we moved the middle knife. I conclude from that that they were happy to debate for another three hours, as long as we made no progress. That would seem to be illogical, except for the fact that I have a copy of a letter from the Leader of the Opposition to the Conservative party chairman, which spells out the tactic of—