Clause 1

Part of Orders of the Day — European Communities (Amendment) Bill – in the House of Commons at 10:45 am on 27 June 1986.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Dennis Skinner Dennis Skinner Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee 10:45, 27 June 1986

Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. Would it not have been more sensible for the Leader of the House to have come to the Dispatch Box to tell the House that, as with last night, he and his friends have great difficulty in whipping up more than 100 Tory Members who are more or less slaves to the Common Market and will troop through the Lobby to close debates?

The purport of what the Leader of the House said—it needs spelling out—is that the Government will wait until they see whether they can get more than 100 Tory Members to troop faithfully through the Lobby to close a debate. If that happens, and the Government can put enough pressure on those Members to stay here long enough, the Government will battle on. The truth, however, is that there are not all that many Tory Members out of nearly 400 who are prepared to come to work on a Friday to back the Common Market to take us deeper into that mire. That is what the Leader of the House has had to say. He should have been more open and frank with you, Mr. Armstrong, and made the problem clear.

The right hon. Gentleman ought to say now that we will finish at 2.30 pm and that he will allocate another nine hours to make up for those which were lost last night, because the Government could not hold their troops here, so that we can debate the Bill properly, as befits its importance.