Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]
9:10 am
Ms Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Industry and the Regions and Deputy Minister for Women), Department of Trade and Industry; Redditch, Labour)
Far from being an arbitrary decision, it was a decision made by the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday evening. As I stated, the Bill, while being a significant and important piece of legislation, has nevertheless been considerably scrutinised in the Lords—some of the changes I hope that we shall make in this Committee notwithstanding—and it is therefore reasonable to expect that we shall be able to provide it with the scrutiny it needs and make sufficient progress to enable us to fulfil the recommendation of the Programming Sub-Committee.