I beg to move, That in the Order of 6th March (International Development Bill (Programme)) the following be substituted for paragraphs 4 and 5—4. Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall be completed at today's sitting.5. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at Three o'clock.5A. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at Four o'clock. The motion proposes that the remaining stages of the International Development Bill be completed in the House today. It is supplementary to the programme motion approved for the Committee stage, which finished on 15 March.

The Bill is important, but it is also short, simple and uncontroversial. We have already spent about 16 hours debating it—Seven on Second Reading and nine in Committee—and have covered a great deal of the ground. I hope that our debate today will be similarly constructive and that, to that end, we shall not spend too much time debating the programme motion. I commend the motion to the House and will set an example by sitting down.

I certainly do not want to detain the House for too long on the programme motion—frankly, there is precious little time this afternoon to discuss some important amendments to an important Bill. However, the Minister would not expect me to let him off the hook quite that lightly. It is important to record—Yet again—some important points of principle about the way that the Government whistle legislation through the House without proper scrutiny or consideration.

The Bill was printed on 15 February this year. Second Reading took place on 6 March. The Bill went into Committee on 12 March and was out again on 15 March. When it came out of Committee, several important new clauses—some of them drafted by me—had not been considered. In one sense, the Minister is right to say that the Bill is relatively uncontroversial. However, because it sets out the framework for international development—probably for many years to come; the previous Act of this type was in force for 21 years—it is essential that we get it right. The Conservatives and other hon. Members have raised important points that we want the Government to consider.

Today, we have two hours to consider 12 important amendments—one or two of which are fundamental to the essence of the Bill. That is not enough time. However, our main complaint about the programme motion, as you will know, Mr. Speaker—I suspect that you have heard this speech once or twice since Christmas—is one of principle. These newfangled programme motions are being imposed on the House of Commons by a heavy-handed Government using their massive Majority. The result is that debate is stifled and insufficient scrutiny given to legislation. We all know that that means that legislation will be less good than it would otherwise be.

In this case, the community of non-governmental organisations has not had time to study the Bill properly, nor had an opportunity to make its comments on the Bill known to us. There has not been enough time during the Bill's consideration to tease out important points from the Government.

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government increased the allocation of time for Report, it would be possible to incorporate in the Bill the terms of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention against bribery in international business dealings, thereby answering the consistent call of Her Majesty's Opposition and the recent request of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Colman)?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is one of the many failings of the Government in the last 12 months that they have failed to introduce important anti-bribery legislation, despite a commitment from a Minister in April 2000 to do so at the earliest opportunity. The earliest opportunity came in the Queen's Speech in the autumn; it came and it went. The legislation was not in the Queen's Speech and there is insufficient time to insert it into the Bill that we are considering today.

I ask the Government again to reconsider programme motions. They clearly are not a great success and there is no point in driving through legislation if it later turns out to be bad legislation because of insufficient time.

Members of Parliament are all in this place for a number of reasons. We are here to represent our constituents—that is important. We are here for some of us to become members of Governments and Shadow Governments. But above all, we are here as Members of Parliament to make law. That is what our constituents think they send us here for. Perhaps we are becoming too much like glorified social workers now, but we are really here to make law.

It is important that there is consensus across the Chamber on the rules of procedure by which we seek to make and improve law. There are 659 of us in the House, all of us having the incredible privilege of being one of a small number of people in this country who can make legislation. What a great privilege and onerous responsibility that is. The onus therefore is on the Government to ensure that our rules of law making are fair, and that they give proper time for scrutiny, and proper time for Her Majesty's Opposition to consider things properly. That is not the case with this programme motion. For those reasons, I wish to register our firm opposition to it.

I shall speak briefly in Opposition to the programme motion and to echo many of the points of the Conservative spokesman. The Minister is right that the Bill is simple, short and relatively uncontroversial, and it will remain uncontroversial if we do not get much opportunity to add anything to it.

As the Minister said, the Bill has had 16 hours of scrutiny, but I emphasise that Report is one of the few opportunities that ordinary Back Benchers, especially Back Benchers from minority parties, have to table amendments and hear them debated. I hope that we shall have the opportunity to do so this afternoon, but I believe that, in guaranteeing only an hour and a half for Report, the Government have done a disservice to their own Bill.

Would we not all have more time to debate important amendments to the Bill if we stopped talking about the programme motion and got on with it?

I do not accept that point at all. It is right and proper that we challenge the Government when they table programme motions such as this one. This is only the second time that I have spoken in a debate on a programme motion; I do not make it a habit. I do make it a habit, as I believe that the hon. Lady does, to oppose programme motions, because in drafting those motions the Government never allow sufficient time for debate.

I do not oppose programming on principle. If we allow enough time for Back Benchers to speak and for scrutiny of the different clauses, we should be able to reform the House, and should have a proper amount of time to go through every Clause, but that does not mean that we should sit mute when the Government move an inappropriate programme motion. After Report and Third Reading, we shall have an Adjournment Debate on matters to be considered before the Easter recess, which is a nice tradition in the House but less important than the vital job of legislation. We have got our priorities slightly wrong, and it is appropriate to take the opportunity to say so.

This is an important Bill, and there are some important issues that need scrutiny, especially in the first group of amendments on the Bill's objectives. For that reason, I did not intend to speak for more than a couple minutes but it was important to make our views known.

I was surprised by the comment made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), because she seemed to blame those hon. Members who want to make a couple of perfectly serious points on the programme motion. Under this procedure, every minute that we use to debate the programme motion comes out of the total debate, and that is unfair.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) said that we have about two hours to discuss all 10 amendments; but, of course, we will only have two hours if we have a very short programme motion debate. That puts us under intolerable pressure and is not a fair way to proceed.

The Minister defeated his own argument by saying that the Bill is non-controversial. It is non-controversial, but with such a Bill, it is right and proper for the Government to agree with the Opposition, through the usual channels, exactly how much time is needed. Perhaps two hours may be enough, or perhaps three hours would be right, but narrow time limits have been imposed without explanation. The Minister made no attempt to explain why we must finish this business by 4 o'clock, especially given that all that follows is the Easter Adjournment Debate, so there is no rhyme or reason for doing so. The Government are simply determined to table programme motions on everything.

There are 10 amendments in four groups. If we debated each Amendment for the same time, we would spend about 10 to 12 minutes on each. The Bill may not be controversial, but while a Bill may be non-controversial in a party political sense, people may still have serious points of view. International development is vital to many people outside the House. They are concerned about poverty in the third world and want Parliament to have a serious debate. They may well look askance at a Parliament that, on average, devotes only 12 minutes to each amendment.

Perhaps some of the amendments need no debate at all, but for the Government arbitrarily to lay down such a time limit on such a Bill damages the political process and the parliamentary process. The programme motion is unfair, and I regret and oppose it.

I had not planned to take part in this debate, but having been present during the whole debate on Second Reading and having served on the Standing Committee that considered the Bill, I thought that it might be appropriate to say a few words. I might even persuade the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) that he protests too much.

I refer the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), as well as his colleagues, to the Official Report of the proceedings of the Standing Committee. I genuinely invite them to consider whether the Committee's time, which they protested earlier was not enough, was used in the best interests of the Bill and the procedures of the House. I shall offer them a few examples of the kind of trivia that the Committee had to consider for two days, although I concede that everything that was said must have been in order or the Chairman would have ruled it out of order.

As reported in column 6, the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) thought it right to tell us the story, yet again, of David and Goliath—all very interesting. As reported in column 8, the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) lectured my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) on his girth. Later, as the discussions continued, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), who normally makes constructive contributions, asked the Committee to focus on the need to export abroad, as he put it. Elizabeth Filkin. Those subjects are fascinating, but whether they help the Bill or international development is another matter entirely.

We then moved on to the bizarre events of the afternoon of Thursday 15 March. All the members of the Committee assembled for our fourth sitting at 2.30 pm, but the Chairman, the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), was not there. He was half an hour late, and without the assistance of one of my hon. Friends, who started the Committee proceedings seven minutes late, we would have been delayed still further. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham then took another seven minutes to complain that we did not have enough time.

We are being told by the Opposition today that Parliament is being short-changed. However, if one reads columns 81 to 82 and 88 to 89 of the report of the Committee proceedings, one will find that we had an exchange on contact lenses, the work of opticians generally and the wonderful merits of hormone replacement therapy. I found that fascinating, but we were supposed to be making progress on the Bill and the important subjects that it covers, so was that a sensible use of our parliamentary time? I can tell the hon. Member for South-West Devon that I certainly did not think so.

At the heart of the Bill lies the need to challenge poverty internationally. The Bill is a move in the right direction, and I would do the House no further service if I did not sit down now and allow it to continue with its important business.

The right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) was making the case of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) when he spoke as he did about the Committee stage. It was perfectly possible for the Government and the Opposition to agree between them how much time the Bill needed. As I understand it, no consultation took place, and the result was that because the Opposition rightly oppose the whole concept of programming consideration of Bills, we had the kind of discussion about which the right hon. Gentleman complains. I have only read those exchanges—I did not participate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) is right when he complains that we do not have sufficient time this afternoon properly to discuss the important questions on the Bill. It is a disgrace to Parliament; it is the wrong way to proceed, and we should not be in this position. The Bill deals with substantial matters of practical importance, not the party political issues between us. We need to understand and properly debate them. However, we have so organised Parliament that that will not happen. I only hope that in the time now left to us we can have an important, reasonable and sensible debate.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 244, Noes 75.

Question accordingly agreed to.