Greater London Authority Bill
10:30 am
Michael Gove (Shadow Minister (Housing), Communities and Local Government; Surrey Heath, Conservative)
First, I welcome the Minister to his place and you, Mr. O’Hara, to the Chair. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I look forward to your wise guidance and that of your co-Chairman, the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton).
I imagine that I will rely rather more on your wise guidance than will the Minister, as this is the first substantial Bill Committee on which I have served. Due to the vagaries of the operation of my own party, I find myself serving on the Front Bench. I suspect that in the days to come I will find myself tripping over schedules, amendments and other aspects of the legislative process. If your kind, guiding hand, Mr. O’Hara, can take me out of the thickets into which I stray and back to the straight and narrow, I will be immensely grateful.
On the time allocated for debate, allow me first to enter a note of regret. One change suggested by the Leader of the House is that public Bills coming before the House in this calendar year should be subject to a new procedure that allows us to take evidence, much though not entirely in the manner of a Select Committee. Given the nature of the Bill, and the number of bodies throughout the capital that have an interest in submitting evidence, we on this side of the Committee—I suspect that we are joined by the Liberal Democrats—think it a pity that the new, enhanced scrutiny procedure is not in place. However, we understand why the Government have decided to press ahead without that enhanced procedure. While we express our regret that it is not in place, we will endeavour to do our best to work within the time constraints.
Given those constraints—the 10 sittings we have in front of us—we will try our best to move expeditiously through those measures that are less controversial to allow sufficient time to debate those that cause greater controversy and division across the Benches. The Government have had ample opportunity to prepare the legislation and there has been pre-legislative consultation. Indeed, it is because of that pre-legislative consultation that the Government argue that there is no need for us to operate under the new, enhanced Public Bill Committee procedure.
Given that, we confidently expect that the Government will not introduce their own amendments. If they do, and if they acknowledge that their legislation is flawed and have to hurry into Committee with significant proposals, we might find the current allocation of time insufficient. With that caveat—that rider—we are happy to accept the good offices of the usual channels.