Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill
2:30 pm
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Conway, I wish to seek your advice on a matter pertinent to the further scrutiny of the Bill. As the Government know, the Conservative party always objects in principle to programming. You will appreciate that it is difficult at the start of consideration of legislation to estimate with any precision the length of time that scrutiny of that Bill will take. When we embarked on scrutiny, we were offered—and accepted—four sittings. It has become obvious over the course of the past three sittings that some five clauses have remained entirely unscrutinised, including two groups of amendments which it was not possible to discuss in full. Could you advise me on the position that you and your co-Chairman would take should I make a formal request for the re-convening of the Programming Sub-Committee in order to consider a further extension of the time to scrutinise the Bill?