Housing Benefit (Withholding of Payment) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)
Further to that point of order, Mr. O'Hara. You will have noted that our numbers have become depleted since the morning sitting. We have also lost the promoter of the Bill, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), although he may return at any second. This is the first private Member's Bill that I have had the pleasure to discuss in Committee—despite this being my second term in Parliament, it is a new experience—and I do not know the procedure. Can we continue our deliberations in the absence of the promoter of the Bill, who will not hear our arguments and thus will not be able to decide whether he wishes to amend the Bill? It seems rather odd on first principles that someone who is pushing through a Bill is not here to listen to it being debated. That seems to go against the whole process of democracy.