Jimmy Hood (Lanark & Hamilton East, Labour)

Copies of the programme motion, which was agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee last Thursday, are available in the Room. I remind the Committee that the debate on the motion may continue for up to half an hour.

Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee recommends that the programme order of the House [28th June 2005] should be amended by substituting ''21st July'' for ''19th July'';

(2) the Order of the Committee of 5th July be amended by the addition of the following subparagraph to paragraph (1)—

''(f) at 9.15 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 21st July;''

(3) the Order of the Committe of 5th July be further amended by the substitution of the following paragraph for paragraph (3)—

''(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the second column of the following Table.

This motion seeks to revise the original order, because we have somewhat reluctantly accepted that we are not making enough progress on the Bill, and there needs to be more discipline in the timetable for debates. At the start of our proceedings, we said clearly that we did not want to force the pace of debate and that all our deliberations would have to be seen in the context of the debate now being three years old. The consultation paper was issued in 2002. The Bill, or one similar to it, has been ''pre-leg'' scrutinised, if that is the appropriate phrase, and examined through all its Commons stages. We are not discussing new material. The previous Bill was dispatched in eight Committee sittings. If we were to carry on as we are now, having used 40 per cent. of the allotted time in Committee to debate two clauses, we would be here until Christmas if there were no such motion.

The motion will do two things. First, it will introduce two further sittings and amend the out date to 21 July. Even in the context of discussing a similar Bill in only eight sittings, there will be potential for what is essentially the same Bill to be discussed in up to 14 sittings. We are relaxed about that additional time, but we cannot use it at the lamentable pace of our deliberations thus far.  

We have dealt with barely two out of 45 clauses and two schedules. We have concluded debates on 35 amendments, and even including the group of amendments that we were debating when the Committee adjourned on Thursday, I reckon that we have covered 52 amendments out of a total of 211 amendments that have been tabled, leaving a further 159 amendments to be discussed. That is simply not good enough. We are happy to introduce more time formally in respect of the programme motion, but also, as I said earlier, with additional sittings at the least on Tuesdays and, if we need them, on subsequent Wednesdays. However, we can do that only if sense and discipline are brought into our deliberations.

Secondly, the motion will introduce knives. They will allow us to conclude our sitting this morning, having discussed the remaining elements of clause 3, schedule 1 and clauses 4 and 5. The knives will then be put in when we consider it appropriate in common with the table in the programme motion.

I tabled the motion merely in the interests of the Committee, and no more. The Bill is important, but it has been around the block since 2004. A similar Bill was subject to full Commons proceedings. I remind the Committee that it was dispatched in eight sittings. We are now offering up to 14 sittings for the Bill currently under discussion, but in that context, there must be knives. I commend the motion to the Committee in generous terms and in the hope that it will help to focus our deliberations and bring a bit of discipline into them; the fact that we have spent 40 per cent. of our time on two and a half clauses is not good enough, regardless of one's views of the Bill.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for the gentle way in which he introduced the motion, but I do not agree with a word that he said. He asked for discipline. Well, Mr. Hood, I think that you and your co-Chairman, Mr. Gale, would both agree that we have not been ill-disciplined during the proceedings. There has been no interruption from a Minister or the Government Whip to say that the Opposition have been wasting time and prolonging debate for the sake of it. Although the Parliamentary Under-Secretary attempted at one stage to suggest that a wrecking amendment had been tabled, I was able to correct him with the backing of Mr. Gale. No such amendment had been tabled—and if one had, it certainly would not have been selected.

As far as procedure and what has appeared on the amendment paper are concerned, there can be no criticism from the Government.

Nick Palmer (Broxtowe, Labour)

With respect, I do not think that anyone who heard the first stage of our proceedings and the very extended discussions of different ways in which people could be dead could possibly have said that time was not being wasted.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I was certainly not dead during our first discussions and I do not remember, alive as I was, an extended discussion of how people could be dead. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is unworthy. I see that he has tabled some amendments that we will come to later in our proceedings, and I hope that we shall   have adequate time to discuss them. I am sure that he would be most disappointed if we did not have that time.

The Minister said that this debate was three years old, but that is hardly the point. Lots of things of interest to the public that affect public policy and how we deal with legislation in this House are not new ideas. Very little that this Government have thought of has been a new idea, and all items of legislation, particularly at the Home Office, take time to gestate. We have to realise that this is a new Bill in a new Parliament and a new Standing Committee. We are perfectly entitled to fulfil our duties as Members of Parliament and members of this Committee to scrutinise this legislation. Although it is not incorrect for the Minister to say that this Bill is a descendant of one that has previously been discussed, that is beside the point.

Kali Mountford (Colne Valley, Labour)

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is here as a Parliamentary Private Secretary or an intervener. Either way, I shall listen to her.

Kali Mountford (Colne Valley, Labour)

I am grateful as a Committee member to be given the opportunity to debate this matter with the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I am grateful to him for giving way.

The hon. and learned Gentleman was making a point about the history of this Bill. One would hope that members of a new Committee in a new Parliament could look at both the pre-legislative scrutiny and the previous Committee proceedings, of which I was a part, take something from them and, having built on that experience, expedite proceedings now.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

We have done both those things. The hon. Lady reminds me of one of her parliamentary colleagues, who turned to me in the Tea Room after the 1997 election when the Labour Government were returned with a majority of 140 or 145 seats—I cannot remember the precise figure—and said, ''I cannot understand why we need to have debates at all. We have just been elected with a massive majority. Our entire manifesto should simply be turned into legislation without debate.'' I am afraid that I nearly choked in my tea, but there we are.

Mark Prisk (Whip, Whips; Hertford & Stortford, Conservative)

It may sound immodest to say so, but there are two new Conservative Committee members, and colleagues from other parties have not had their chance to debate the issues. Why should those hon. Members simply read what others have said in debates, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) suggested? Are they not here to debate these matters for themselves?

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. It is deeply boring to be a Member of the Government party in Committee, because such Members are not encouraged to intervene. The hon. Member for Colne Valley is an exception; she has been a hugely interesting contributor to our debates, as my hon. Friends will agree. No doubt she will wish to intervene on many other occasions, particularly to scrutinise the   detail of the legislation and cross-examine the Ministers as they seek to advance the Government's policy. I look forward to hearing her, knives or no knives.

The Minister said that we had used 40 per cent. of our time dealing with not quite three clauses, and he is right. I am afraid that that is not our fault, however, but that of the Government. They decided the timetable, and we are merely creatures of that; we must operate within the timetable that they set.

Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)

I have a minor correction to make: the timetable has been agreed through the usual channels. It is not a Government-imposed timetable. The usual channels agreed 10 sittings and that is the end of the story.

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

Far be it for me to suggest that the Minister is misleading himself, but that line was attempted on Second Reading. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary made it clear in an intervention on his opposite number—I cannot remember whether it was made at the Dispatch Box or from a sedentary position, but I was next to him at the time—that there is no such agreement. We all know what the phrase ''the usual channels'' means. It means that the Government say, ''This is what we are doing. Take it or leave it'', and we simply have to do what the Government insist.

Let us not be naïve about this: the Government control the agenda of the House of Commons. The Executive sit in, and on, the House of Commons. I do not complain about that. When we are in government we will no doubt do things that are deeply disobliging to the Labour Opposition. Right now, I am in the Opposition and Labour Members are in government. They have to make the case for the extension or restriction of the time that we have to debate this issue—end of story. We have used 40 per cent. of the time that the Government suggested to Parliament that we should have. That is fair enough. However, that is their problem and they have been hoist by their own petard.

The Government have a choice. They could allow the Bill to be debated properly and to receive the proper scrutiny that it deserves. That may mean that we run beyond the end of the summer term. There is no problem with that, because this is an enabling Bill, which provides for 60 regulations to be made by the Secretary of State, and in practice the consequences of its enactment cannot take effect until 2007–08. As I understand it, nothing in the Bill will happen for a good many years yet. There is no particular hurry to rush the Bill through its Committee stage by the end of the summer term.

In any event, the Government are hoist by their own petard. They could face up to the fact that the Bill, as knifed and guillotined, will not have received proper debate. We might be out of Committee by 21 July—I make no complaint about the extra day—having, in the Government's words, considered every clause and every schedule. However, we know that the reality is that we shall not have done so. Alternatively, we could stick to the 21 July date and face the reality of getting only halfway through the Bill. The   Government can choose between one unsatisfactory outcome and another. They cannot claim on 21 July or when we get back to Report in October that the Bill has been properly scrutinised in Committee. Making such a claim would be presenting an entirely false case. They must realise that that is the fact of the matter.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Durham, City of, Labour)

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

Yes, of course. I hope that the hon. Lady's career is advancing well.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Durham, City of, Labour)

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman. I hope that he will allow me to make an observation as a new Member. Would it not be better if we used this time debating the clauses?

Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Harborough, Conservative)

The hon. Lady might be a new Member, but she does not advance a new argument. I assure her that if she serves on many other Committees, she will find that the Government find debate inconvenient. It is not unusual for Government Members to say, ''Rather than complaining about the knives and the guillotine, wouldn't it be a better idea just to get on with the debate?'' I assure her that in a Bill with 45 clauses and two schedules, taking half an hour to expose the weakness of the Government's case on the knifing and guillotining policy is time well spent. It may be inconvenient, and I am sorry about that.

Judging by the hon. Lady's contribution to the previous few sittings, I expect that she is itching to say just as much over the next few. I apologise to her, but my job is not to please the Government or her; it is to do what I can to improve the legislation, to ensure that it is properly scrutinised and to defend the rights of Parliament against the Executive.

The Minister told us that his motion was in the Committee's interests. Frankly, that is a secondary point. The question of what is in the interests of good legislation and of the general public whom we represent in this House is a primary point. I am unconvinced that the knives will achieve anything other than butchered scrutiny that produces inept legislation. Although I am delighted that we can sit on 21 July, I fear that the Government have wholly mismanaged the Bill's programme and that when it leaves Committee we will be dissatisfied because we as parliamentarians will not have done a good job for our constituents.

Alistair Carmichael (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Orkney & Shetland, Liberal Democrat)

I wonder whether I am the only Committee member who finds the hon. and learned Gentleman's description of the usual channels so profoundly depressing. If I understood him correctly, he told us that the function of the usual channels was to ensure that the Government got their own way all the time, and that that was all right because if the Conservatives were in government they would do the same. That suggests that our purpose is not to engage in proper argument but merely to rehearse positions determined only by which political side we are on. Although the   hon. and learned Gentleman might be right about that, it was depressing to hear.

We have not made dramatic progress with this legislation. That is because the meat of the Bill is in the first three clauses—in the creation of the database, and the construction of information that will be registrable. The time that we have spent on the consideration of those clauses has not been time wasted. That goes to the heart of my concern about the timetable motion. I am worried about the inclusion of knives. If we had started off with a timetable motion that included knives, we would not have had some of the useful debates that we have had. A good example of that is the debate that was had on rebuttable or conclusive presumptions; it was a classic of the Committee debate genre, and, because of when it occurred, I suspect that it would not have taken place because the knife would have fallen at a much earlier stage.

I am grateful to the Government for making extra time available; that is necessary. However, unfortunately, I will be unable to support the timetable motion because of the inclusion of the knives; as a matter of principle, I believe that they are not helpful or conducive to good debate.

John Robertson (Glasgow North West, Labour)

I had no intention of speaking. In common with many Labour Committee members, I wish to speak to other clauses, and if we were to continue in the current way I would be unable to speak to some of them. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) might be picking sides, but I am here to represent my constituents and the people of the country, and to speak for those who cannot speak here today. In my own humble way, I want to look after people who have a disability, or are elderly, or who might not be able to understand what is happening in respect of this Bill today. That is my job. The hon. Gentleman might think that I have chosen a side, but I happen to be a member of the Labour party and I am here to speak for those people. I take great exception to someone saying that I do not do so.

We have discussed this matter before. I sat on the Committee that dealt with the previous Bill, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) was a victim of his own Front-Bench colleagues in debates on that earlier Bill, when they proceeded in countless sittings to discuss the same clauses that we have spoken on so far in this Committee. I feel sorry for the hon. Gentleman; it appears that his colleagues are doing the same thing to him.

I and other Members wish to speak on other clauses, and I fear that, if we introduce knives, discussion of them might be cut out. However, the Bill should be dealt with in the period that we want; it is important for this country to get the legislation on to the statute book. I blame Opposition members for the waste of time. I want them to go and look at themselves in the mirror and realise what they may have done to people who need our representation today. It is all very well for the Opposition to turn around and blame the Government for everything, and to blame our Front Bench for introducing these   measures, but if the Opposition had treated the arguments properly, and had made their points and speeches succinctly, this programme motion would not be before us today.

Patrick Mercer (Shadow Minister (Homeland Security), (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Newark, Conservative)

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments, which clearly come from the heart, and for the sympathy that he expresses; I can see that it is quickly turning into empathy.

I suffered throughout the previous consideration of the Bill, and I take exception to the Minister's comments about lack of discipline. If he thinks that he sees lack of discipline here, what on earth did he see during the Bill's previous passage through Committee? Then, there were constant interventions from all parties. Those in the Chair had to make the point very clearly that we were digressing and I seem to remember the Minister's predecessor making a speech that went on for one hour and forty-something minutes—a very lengthy speech that was probably not necessary. Certainly, the Minister is speaking very far from the point when he complains about a lack of discipline.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) touched on an important point: we are here not necessarily—and certainly not first of all—to represent our parties. We are here to represent the people who elected us. The hon. Gentleman feels strongly, as he should do, about people with disabilities and those who will have physical difficulty complying with the Bill, but there are so many other considerations. I feel desperately strongly about clause 8, for instance. The workings of the card itself are something that I wish to debate in detail.

So far, we have talked at length about the register. That is fine, but that is a completely separate and discrete argument from that on the issue of the cards. I have heard so many Members on the Labour Benches tell me how much support the register and cards enjoy among their constituents. The hon. Member for Colne Valley spoke extremely lucidly last week about the expressions of sympathy for the issue in south Yorkshire. However, I am afraid that I cannot reflect such a feeling in north Nottinghamshire. Perhaps we both live in bubbles and are inured to the true feeling of our constituents; I do not know. But I would like the opportunity to discuss what my constituents feel about the subject, and the fact that they do not wish to pay perhaps several hundred pounds—let us find out the exact amount in debate—for the cards.

That is why I do not want knives to be introduced, and why I wish to continue using disciplined debate to find out about those things that affect our constituents deeply. I resent the use of knives, and the fact that I and many other hon. Members sat here during the previous Committee sittings hearing flannel and tosh talked by a number of people. That actually prevented us from talking about the important issues. I do not believe that anything that we have said so far is ill disciplined or improper. We may have been able to indulge in a certain amount of light-heartedness—I think that that is good—but the fact remains that the events of last week add a new focus to the Bill. Those events give us a duty to remember exactly where that focus lies.  

I welcome the additional time that the Government have given us, but as for the idea of introducing knives to our proceedings, if parts of the Bill go undebated, we are mis-serving not just our constituents but our country.

David Drew (Stroud, Labour)

I shall try to keep my remarks especially brief if we are to get through the debate on the motion in the time specified.

I take what the hon. Gentleman says at face value, but it is fair to say that although the role of the Opposition is to oppose, it is also to understand the mood of the House. It is very difficult to understand the mood of the House. It is fair to say that I have some misgivings about some parts of the Bill, but Committee members may never hear those; we shall never get through to them unless there is some discipline among the Opposition.

I hope that the Opposition will see the value of the knives so that we can get through this Bill and hear from both sides of the House. I shall try to represent the views and misgivings of Labour Members. So far there has been no chance to do so because we have taken so long to go such a little way along the path of getting through the Bill. I hope that we shall speed up a little bit; then, perhaps, the knives will be unnecessary. However, unless the Opposition hear very clearly what is now being said, I fear that our path will be slow and rocky. There should be a lot more discipline on all sides.

Ben Wallace (Lancaster & Wyre, Conservative)

I shall be brief, Mr. Hood. I was not on the last Committee and could not contribute to the debate on the ID card when the issue was initially introduced. I did not have the honour of hearing the hon. Member for Colne Valley during the previous Committee. However, it is important that this time there are three Committee members with counter-terrorism experience; one was on the previous Committee, but two were not. We also have with us a very learned Member who understands the law and how it works in court.

Yes, our discussions have taken time, but some clauses at the beginning of the Bill are more important than some later ones, so why should they not be debated at length as they come up so that their importance is reflected? So far, during all the hours of discussion about which the Government complain, how many points have they conceded? How many points have they listened to and done something about? Not one—they have dismissed them as if they counted for nothing, although many people have strong feelings about them.

I apologise that I was not here earlier, but I had to wait for a Labour Member to step aside to allow me to attend the Committee in the new Parliament. There are people with experience who have points to contribute, and introducing knives to the Committee will damage that process. Let us remember that the Government could put a programme motion before the House and ask for consideration to span the recess. That is in their power, but I wonder whether Labour Committee members will support that.  

John Robertson (Glasgow North West, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, although we can have discussions and points can be made, there is no point in having five inputs from his side, all saying the same thing but involving a different story?

Ben Wallace (Lancaster & Wyre, Conservative)

Given what the hon. Gentleman has said, perhaps we should have just one Conservative Committee member to make our arguments. Would that be more convenient for the Government? We can glance around the Room and see how many Labour Committee members have been eager to contribute with amendments. I cannot see many amendments tabled by them on the amendment paper, although I know that a few would like to make proposals.

We look forward to some of those amendments, including that of the hon. Gentleman, but he should understand that although his amendment comes later, it may be as important as the amendments that we tabled on clauses at the beginning of the Bill. Therefore, I do not think that knives are constructive in this debate, nor, given the impact of ID cards, will it benefit any of us to rush this through.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 6.