Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I wish to repeat publicly what I said to you a short while ago, Mr. Gale. I will convey your views to the appropriate people, and I agree that it would have been helpful for those of us who had to grapple with this matter over the course of the morning to have had a precedent to look back on. However, if the net result of our experience benefits people in future, it will not have been wholly in vain.
I will not delay the Committee for longer than is necessary. However, as we are now in a public sitting I must repeat the views of Her Majesty's Opposition. We are implacably opposed to the general principle of there being programme motions on the Order Paper. We have had to agree to another one today, and we were as opposed in principle to that as we were to all the others.
We are also opposed in principle to dividing programmed Committee sittings by guillotines part of the way through them. It has already twice been demonstrated in this Committee that we have not had enough time to deal with matters because clauses have been guillotined, and we are being allowed only two sittings on Tuesday to try to complete a substantial part of the Bill. I will not go into details, but I wish to put it clearly on the record that we do not support the principle of what the Government are seeking to do.
However, we are where we are. The Government are seeking to substitute one wrong thing with an equally wrong thing, but that is the same situation on different days and it would be churlish to kick up too much of a fuss. Therefore, having registered our objection, we will not seek to divide the Committee on the motion. It would also be churlish not to put on the record my gratitude to the usual channels for listening to what we have to say and responding helpfully.
The Minister said that the Government do not intend to bring any new business before the Committee when it sits on Tuesday, but left open the question of what might happen on Report. Should the Government seek to introduce on Report anything arising out of the discussions currently taking place, we will oppose it, because the Bill received full consideration in the other place as drafted.