Clause 117 - Extent
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill
4:15 pm

Jonathan Djanogly (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (HM Courts Service and Legal Aid), Justice; Huntingdon, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr Sheridan. To mark the conclusion of proceedings, I want to thank you, Mr Sheridan, and indeed Mr Hollobone, for your balanced and professional chairmanship of the Committee. I thank all members of the Committee for their participation. It has been a productive Committee with many excellent contributions by hon. and right hon. Members, many of whom have brought to bear a wealth of experience from their respective professions. Serious and very complex issues have been discussed and the atmosphere has generally been very good.

I also thank the Clerk to the Committee, Hansard, the Doorkeepers, police and, of course, our Ministry of Justice officials, who have been very helpful throughout the process.

I am pleased to note that the Committee has covered all 119 clauses and 16 schedules in the Bill through robust, informed and thorough debate. We have even managed to end early on the last day, which I must admit is quite an achievement. The Committee has given the Bill the scrutiny and the consideration that it fully deserves.

The usual channels must also be congratulated. Our proper allocation of time has meant that we have not had to guillotine debate at any point, which is how I wanted to proceed from the outset, and I am pleased that we got there. I am also grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, who, of course, made a valuable contribution in leading the debates on parts 3 and 4.

Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith, Labour)

Further to that point of order, Mr Sheridan. The Minister has said that we are going to end early, but I must warn him that my point of order may take up the rest of the time.

Philip Hollobone (Kettering, Conservative)

That will depend on whether it is a proper point of order.

Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith, Labour)

I echo all the thanks that the Minister has given, but I begin by thanking you, Mr Sheridan. We had the opportunity before Mr Hollobone left this afternoon to thank him. We have appreciated the authority that you have both shown, the good order in which you have kept the Committee, and the good humour that you have displayed, even when we have been sitting up—as we did on at least one occasion—until midnight. I take no responsibility for late sitting or verbosity; that was caused simply by the Government’s bad timetabling.

I echo the Minister’s thanks to Miss Emms and her colleagues in the Clerks’ office. In the first five years that I was here, I managed to do a lot of Bill dodging, so I came to the Committee with little experience. As a result, I suspect that I and those working with me have pestered Miss Emms unduly with our requests outside the Committee. We appreciate not only the firm procedural guidance but all the assistance that she has given, particularly to the Opposition, outside the Committee.

The Minister has thanked the civil servants, and we should perhaps thank them for writing short speeches for the Ministers. I do not know whether it is traditional, but I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland will join me in thanking our researchers—

Crispin Blunt (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation), Justice; Reigate, Conservative)

Who have written long speeches.

Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith, Labour)

I would like to thank our researchers for what they have done with somewhat fewer resources. As my researcher is here, he can attest to that, and to the doorstep briefings that he has handed round on many occasions. With rather fewer resources than the Government, I hope that we have acquitted ourselves well.

I would like to thank Hansard, and I apologise to the Hansard Reporters for the fact that my handwriting is often as incoherent as my thoughts. Of course, I also thank the Doorkeepers, the police and everyone else who has assisted us. I would like to mention the Whips. It really is a case of the iron fist in the velvet glove, because they have seamlessly taken us through without our even noticing their presence. What better example could we have? My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde has been rewarded for that by being sucked into the epicentre of power already—as far as the Opposition are concerned—and it can be only matter of time before the same happens for the hon. Member for Kenilworth and Southam.

I did not have many dealings with the prisons Minister before this so I have had to get used to his style of debate, which is to be charming and emollient and to have a sting in the tail of everything that he does. I do not want to make any invidious comparisons, but if he were a confidence trickster, he could take someone’s wallet not only without their noticing but without their minding. I am slightly more used to the debating style of the legal aid Minister and I think that he is a Geoff Boycott, because however penetrating our questions—all our questions are penetrating—he can dead-bat them away in a style that leaves us none the wiser and floundering to make a different point.

I wish that we had heard from the hon. Members for East Hampshire and for Edinburgh West. No doubt they are saving their best for Report, and I am sure that that is why we have three days of it. As far as the other Government Members are concerned, we have been privileged to have such experts, and it would be invidious to make distinctions between them. In relation to the points that they have made and articles they have written, perhaps their voting behaviour does not demonstrate their full intent and support of the Government’s position. That is all credit to them. We have been privileged to have people who bring a great deal of expertise; it was not a matter of simply packing the Committee with  people sympathetic to the Justice Secretary, to avoid anybody voting against part 3 of the Bill, as I initially thought.

I thank the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and apologise for mangling or shortening the name of his constituency, though he must be used to that by now. He has brought a different, expert and useful perspective to our deliberations. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for St Helens North and for Stockton North for their interventions and personal insights. I pay particular thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull East, for Makerfield and for Stretford and Urmston, who have shared the burden in a hugely professional way. I end by thanking, last and the opposite of least, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, who again is being rewarded and, sadly, moving on to higher things. It has been a pleasure to share the brief—and particularly these proceedings—with her over the past year.

It is usual to say that we have had wonderful debates and have all been terribly erudite. I think that is for others to judge. We will see with the three days on Report what the Government wanted to do in Committee but failed to bring before it. We look forward to next week with interest to see what they put before us. I hope we have done the best we can to scrutinise the Bill; the Government will no doubt think they have done their best in defending it. We can end today on that reasonable note of harmony. Thank you, Mr Sheridan, for your eloquent chairing of the Committee.

Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Plaid Cymru)

Further to that point of order, Mr Sheridan. I associate myself fully with what has been said by both hon. Gentlemen. The proceedings have been very interesting,  ably chaired by you and Mr Hollobone. Without the Clerks, I wonder where we would be.

The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Huntingdon said that we have arrived early and that the whole process ran well. It has been different for me. I missed the first sitting through recuperating from pneumonia, and yesterday I was run over by an idiot on a bike in Camberwell. Fortunately, he broke his nose before I did. It is hardly a happy way to finish the Committee.

In any event, it has been a pleasure to serve on the Committee. It has been an interesting process, and Ministers have engaged beyond their briefs, which has been most welcome. I shall remember this Committee for a long while.

Finally, I say to the Hansard writer, Diolch yn fawr i chi, a gobeithio y byddwn ni’n ennill dydd Sadwrn. For the record, I said, “Thank you very much. I hope we win on Saturday.”

Philip Hollobone (Kettering, Conservative)

I am sure I speak on behalf of Mr Hollobone as well when I thank you for your tolerance. For both of us, it was a virgin Bill, as we were chairing for the first time. We stumbled through. Quite rightly, we thank the Clerk who kept us in check and up to speed. That is epitomised by one comment she made after explaining a procedure to me five times. She said, “I do not know why I bother.”