Education Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West, Conservative)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. I fear that the Government Whip fails to understand the problem that he has caused. Because of so-called knives in our proceedings, we lost the opportunity to discuss 11 clauses on Tuesday, and a further four this morning. Those of us who believe that we come here to do a job, and do not want to accept public funds in our salaries under false pretences, are angry that we are not able to do that job properly. Regardless of how we plan ahead, we cannot know how the debate will pan out in practice. This morning was a case in point.
We arrived amicably at an agreement with the Government on the basis that we could deal with matters during the morning sitting. As it happened, through no fault of my own or my Conservative colleagues, who spoke little during the sitting, we had no chance to deal with most of the business on our timetable. The fact that the Government were not prepared to listen to our reasonable concern has now prevented us from considering those aspects of the Bill.