Criminal Justice Bill
10:45 am
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Illsley, and I echo some of the comments of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North.
The Minister said that we might be pushed for time. That is the reality of the situation. Over the years, time for deliberation in Committee has become shorter and shorter and shorter. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) was extremely active in debates on the Bill that became the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. That Bill had 121 clauses, and we had some 55 hours in Committee. The current Bill has 273 clauses and 26 schedules. If we were even to have the same amount of time proportionately, we would need 130 hours in Committee to do it justice. We will get only about 65, which is probably half what we need. Conservative Members will not be filibustering, but there are big issues that need to be looked at in detail.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, North was right to say that everything in the House is so rushed nowadays. I am sure that every Government and Opposition Member feels the same. We hurry from A to B, and are never able to spend more than a minute or two on topics that require much more time. A Bill is published. No sooner does one have a chance to look at it than it has a Second Reading. As soon as the Second Reading has taken place, the Committee is set up almost instantly. There then follows an extraordinary rush in which one tries to draft amendments right up to the last moment. The non-governmental organisations are under huge pressure. One often drafts amendments late at night in order to submit them just in time, perhaps having received the relevant paperwork only an hour before. That is no way to proceed.