Clause 90 - Objections to registration
Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr Christopher Chope (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; Christchurch, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Cook. There is a lot of atmosphere in the Committee this morning. Apparently, people feel that it is unreasonable that we should have to go through all the clauses one by one. May I point out that, because of the Government's guillotine motion, it was not possible to put the equivalents of the individual clauses to a vote when they were debated under the England and Wales part of the Bill? The way in which the Government are trying to restrict debate is highly provocative and contentious. They refused to table in the other place a host of amendments that they tabled in this Committee, thereby taking up much more Committee time.
We saw an example earlier of an hon. Member who seems to be under the impression that the majority should always have sway, irrespective of any other consideration. Today, in the other place, minority rights—the right of people to be able to go hunting—will be debated. There are minority and majority rights at stake in this Committee, and it is important that people should bear that in mind.