I beg to move,

That the following provisions shall apply to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 23rd February 2005—

1. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of that Order shall be omitted.

2. Proceedings in Committee of the whole House and any proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order or at 10.00 p.m., whichever is the later.

3. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after the commencement of those proceedings.

In programming today's business, the Government are, of course, very conscious of the speed with which we are having to consider this legislation, but we have tried, as far as possible, to ensure the maximum time available to the House to consider its provisions. Clearly, we are in this position today because of the House of Lords judgment that was made on 16 December. That judgment set out the reasons why it was considered that the existing part 4 powers were not compatible with the European convention on human rights. Therefore, it is necessary for us to have a new legislative framework in place by 13 March.

When the Minister or her officials drafted the timetable motion that we are now discussing, did she or did she not know how many amendments and new clauses would be tabled? Indeed, did she know the contents of the provisional selection of amendments by the Chairman of Ways and Means?

I am not aware that we had that information at the time that the programme motion was drafted. However, I can try to assure hon. Members that we will seek this afternoon to have as full a debate as we can on the amendments and new clauses that have been tabled.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I will give way again in a moment.

Today, we have guaranteed six hours of debate in Committee or until 10 pm, whichever is the later. We have agreed to an hour's extension to the business to protect the time for debate on Third Reading, and also to Opposition requests that no knives are placed on the debate in Committee so as to try to retain the maximum flexibility to consider the amendments that have been tabled.

Can my hon. Friend clarify the position? I understand that we have been told to listen with bated breath to the Home Secretary this afternoon, when he will show that he has been listening to the debate and will come forward with alternative proposals. However, those alternative proposals or amendments will not be before the House today; they will appear on a promissory note saying that he will introduce them in the House of Lords. Is that correct? If it is, it really is bad form. We should have allowed a day or two to elapse so that the House of Commons could discuss the amendments rather than there being a promise that they will be introduced in the House of Lords.

My hon. Friend will have to listen to today's debate as it unfolds and to the Home Secretary. I have said on many occasions that we have been listening very carefully to the strength of feeling—not just on the Government Benches, but on the Opposition Benches. I have no doubt that, as the debate develops today, we will see that matters are being taken fully into account. I am sure that my hon. Friend can make his points at that stage.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I will give way in a moment.

We need to have a legal framework in place by 13 March. Otherwise, without the renewal of the part 4 powers, we could face the prospect of looking at the possible release of detainees without any legal framework to provide some controls in respect of those detainees. That is why it is important that we consider this legislation today with some urgency.

The hon. Lady referred to the Opposition's view on knives in the programme motion. When the Government approached us to suggest that there should be knives in the programme, we did not even know the programme on which knives were to be imposed. It is not entirely correct to suggest that the Government have acceded to our request. It is true that they have not imposed knives, but they would not have known where they should fall.

As I said, we are trying to ensure that there is sufficient flexibility to enable the various points that hon. Members have raised to be considered.

Even if one accepted what the hon. Lady said about the deadline, why could we not have had two days this week to consider such an important Bill?

A decision has been taken to consider the Bill today and we need to make progress with it. I entirely accept that its passage is very swift, but the time available will enable us to scrutinise the big issues of principle that remain matters of contention.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I am sure that we can have a good debate this afternoon. [Hon Members: "Will the Minister give way?"] I will give way to hon. Members in due course, but not on the basis that they are shouting at me.

My hon. Friend is well known for her flexibility and tolerance. Given that this is a basic and important question of not only the rights of the House of Commons, but those of every United Kingdom citizen, surely it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility for the Leader of the House to come to the other parties through the usual channels and ask for this week's programme to be rejigged so that we could have at least one more day to consider the Bill. Failure to do that will at least leave the Government open to the interpretation that they are frightened of free speech.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we will be discussing serious and fundamental matters today and the Government are not afraid of that debate or unwilling to enter into it constructively. The programming of the Bill has been considered by the usual channels and the Leader of the House, so I suggest that we press on with the business.

The hon. Lady said that she did not know how many amendments and new clauses would be considered. By her calculations, how many minutes—or seconds—will be available to discuss each amendment and new clause?

At the last count, about 160 amendments had been tabled, although I am sure that there are more now. As the hon. Gentleman well knows from his extensive experience in the House, some matters are more complex than others and some take longer to discuss. Some matters can be dealt with relatively quickly, but sometimes the shortest amendments take the longest time to discuss because they are more fundamental than others.

The hon. Lady has already conceded that she did not know the number of amendments and new clauses to be considered at the time at which the revised programme motion was tabled, so what conceivable grounds has she to say that the programme motion gives anything like sufficient time or that it is based on proper information?

As I said, I was aware of 160 extensive amendments when I left on Thursday afternoon. Without the use of knives, I believe that we can have a wide-ranging and flexible debate on the principles in the Bill.

The Minister concedes that there are a great many amendments, all of which relate to important matters. She also conceded a few minutes ago that the Bill is being rushed through the House and that we will have only a brief time to discuss such matters. Surely she can take up the extremely reasonable point made by my hon. Friend Mrs. Dunwoody and ask the Leader of the House to rejig this week's schedule. If she did that, she would get the support of every other party and most of her Back Benchers.

I do not agree with my hon. Friend. I did not say that the Bill was being rushed. I said that its passage was swift, but that we could nevertheless have a good, constructive and reasoned debate.

Just for absolute clarity, let me make it clear that the Opposition would be very willing to discuss with the Leader of the House any further rejigging of the motion to get proper debate on this important subject.

As I said, I think that we should press on with the business and maximise the time that there is for debate.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I give way to Mr. Bercow.

I am sorry that the Minister is making the speech that she is making because she must know that it is an undignified performance. Given that Home Office Ministers usually pride themselves on speaking frankly, why is it that she has not felt able, in response to my hon. Friend Peter Bottomley, to explain to the public that the Government's belief is that for more than 180 new clauses and amendments, it is satisfactory that the House should have less than two minutes for the consideration of each? If she does not think that that is a disgrace, she ought to do so.

I do not think that it is a disgrace. The hon. Gentleman will know, from his extensive parliamentary experience in this place, that many amendments are consequential and relate to minor matters. Some deal with serious matters of principle, and he is right that we should have time to discuss those—but if he thinks for one moment that every amendment and new clause carries equal weight, he is not the hon. Gentleman I thought he was because he clearly has extensive parliamentary experience in that regard.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I propose to press on. I have no more to add to the programme motion. [Interruption.] We are clearly not going to make progress if everyone shouts at once. I did not see the Father of the House and happily give way to him.

May I gently say that these proceedings bear no resemblance to the House of Commons to which I was first elected, because the last 10 minutes would not have been left to a Minister of State? It is unfair for a Minister of State to have to deal with this. What more pressing engagement than being in the House of Commons at this moment have the Home Secretary, the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House got?

I am more than happy to deal with the programme motion. Once we press on with the business, I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will address some of the serious and fundamental matters of principle that face us.

If the hon. Lady looks back on the collective parliamentary experience to, say, the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974, she will see that it was discussed through the night and all clauses were examined. That is a very different situation from the one in which I find myself now. I am particularly interested in clause 9 and the schedule, because they will determine whether a person can see the evidence on the basis of which their liberty might be taken away or restricted, but I see no prospect of us getting that far on a six-hour timetable. Why not revert to the 1974 practice and run the business through until it is completed, as it was successfully done then?

These matters have been considered by the usual channels in the House and the business managers. The programme motion is in accordance with that consideration. I can only reiterate—

Several hon. Members:

rose—

There are only so many ways in which I can say this, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We propose to press on today, to have the debate, to consider these serious issues and to ensure that we have as much consideration of them as possible.

Will the hon. Lady not at least concede that by pressing on with this business in almost indecent haste, when one considers the number of amendments—

It is indecent.

I said "indecent".

The hon. Lady said "almost."

Does the Minister agree that that haste will lead people to believe that this action is more an attempt to justify the Government's disastrous foreign policy than it is to secure the security of the people of this country?

I reject that entirely. The people of this country are concerned that we get proper legislation in place which meets the threat that we face and provides us with a framework to ensure that we protect national security while striking that difficult balance with individual liberty. That is what the people of this country want us to do, and they want us to get on with it. I commend the programme motion to the House.

This is a very sad occasion. The House must consider carefully whether it wishes to take a grip of its own procedures or simply allow the Executive to roll us over and treat us as their rubber stamp. The Minister will know that I have always been willing when business has gone into Committee, to try to meet agreed timetables when they are reasonable. I have no objection to a sensible timetable if it can help to provide a degree of certainty for the House, but what we are being asked to do today is scandalous.

One need only look at the 230 amendments that have been tabled, the 10 new clauses and the 14 groups to realise that there is absolutely no possibility of our doing justice to what must be one of the most important pieces of legislation that this House has had to consider since the second world war. We are being asked to do this in a way that guarantees—the Minister admitted it in her comments—that this House cannot properly scrutinise the legislation.

Let me pick up a point that was made earlier. The Minister seemed to take the view that as long as the House could debate the principles, the detail did not matter. Yet the Committee stage of a Bill is precisely when the House is supposed to do its duty by looking at the details. Let us take the schedule as one example. Paragraph 4(3)(c) specifies that the Secretary of State will never be required to disclose information if

"he does not propose to rely on it in proceedings."

That means that he will be under no obligation to disclose relevant exculpatory material to the court. So if one informer says that somebody is a terrorist but somebody else says that he is not, the Home Office can choose to rely on and disclose what the informer whom it prefers has said, and not do so for the informer whose view it does not support. That is the sort of issue of detail that the House is to be wholly unable to consider in Committee because the schedule is at the very end of the Bill and there is absolutely no possibility of our reaching it.

I had not realised that there was an exact formula for the number of amendments and the time for debate in Committee. Perhaps Conservative Members could give me the number so that I can better understand exactly how many minutes per new clause and amendment they want.

The hon. Gentleman can make the calculations for himself. I would have thought that he had been in this House long enough to know how long it takes to have a sensible debate. He knows the number of his colleagues of all parties who want to participate in the debate, and it is perfectly obvious that we cannot do justice to the legislation.

Would my hon. Friend care to remind Mr. Simon that if this Bill had gone into Committee in the ordinary way, it would not have taken less than 25 hours to consider, even on an agreed timetable?

My right hon. and learned Friend is right. That highlights the massive deficiencies in the House's procedure. Is the Minister really going to ask us, when we have had six hours of debate in Committee and one hour on Third Reading, to maintain consensus—as she wants—and send the Bill to the House of Lords with our approval? I could not approve a Bill on that basis under any circumstances. The Minister is ensuring that the Government's desire to try to achieve a meeting of minds on an important issue is fatally undermined from the outset.

Surely it is a question not just of the number and complexity of the amendments but of the principle involved. We are talking about 800 years of legal precedent. I understand that that leaves us one hour for every 100 years of legal precedent.

It is less than that.

Less, indeed.

The Minister clearly has not got the authority to change the Government's view today, so can we redouble our efforts through the usual channels and through every channel to try to have a decent debate, so that we can reach some consensus to preserve civil liberties in this country?

I agree with my hon. Friend. May I make one point clear? The Minister suggested that the decision had been arrived at after discussions through the usual channels, implying that we have had some part in the process. I assure my hon. Friend that we have not. We have consistently asked for a proper period of time to consider this legislation. I entirely agree with what was said earlier: I do not like going home late or, for that matter, in the early hours of the morning, but this is a Bill for which I would be perfectly happy to stay all night. It is, without doubt, the most important legislation that I have examined since I entered this House.

I am not being silly about the numbers of minutes. According to the analysis of Mr. Hogg, eight minutes is fine, but two minutes is wrong. Conservative Members are being childish and ridiculous.

I am sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman demeaning himself in that fashion.

Not only is today's timetable grotesque but, because of the way in which the matter has been handled since Second Reading, hon. Members have had grossly insufficient time in which to consider the detail of the legislation and to select their amendments. The Clerks of the House have had great difficulty in grouping the amendments, which is the inevitable consequence of requiring amendments to be tabled in haste. It would have been so much better if we had had more time to consider the matter.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, which the curmudgeonly Minister would not do. It would help our proceedings if we knew which amendments the Government will propose within the tight timetable. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we have received absolute and categorical assurances from the press that there is a letter in the post to all of us setting out the Government amendments? Does he have a copy yet?

Well, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I have a copy of a letter from the Home Secretary, which tells us that the Government will amend this Bill in another place. We are being asked to pass this legislation, which is of huge constitutional and legal significance, on the basis of promises that will be fulfilled elsewhere. That is an impossibility.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am sorry to interfere with my hon. Friend's speech, but he has just made an important statement. He has received a letter, which will apparently be sent to all other hon. Members, about the future progress of the Bill, but most hon. Members have not received such a letter. Should we not stop these proceedings until we are in a position to read the letter, which is apparently important?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. A note entitled, "Note on non-derogating control orders", was handed to me in the Lobby. It is dated 28 February and it is unsigned, although I assume that it comes from an agent of the Home Office. Will you confirm that it has been handed not only to me, but to other Government and Opposition Members? It would be a great pity if Government Members did not know what their Government were doing in their names.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The situation is wholly unsatisfactory. Will you use your powers to stop the clock and suspend the sitting to allow all hon. Members the chance to read that letter, and Government and Opposition Front Benchers the chance to work out a sensible programme?

As I understand it, a note has been placed in the Vote Office and it should be available to all hon. Members. I am not aware of the letter to which hon. Members have referred, but it is usual for any matter which is to be relied on in debate to be made available to all hon. Members. I am not aware of the extent to which those documents are available. On previous occasions, the Chair has ruled that anything that is vital or relevant to the debate should be available to all hon. Members.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The letter is addressed to my right hon. Friend David Davis. It arrived less than an hour ago by fax and is signed by the Home Secretary, who makes two points of which the House should be aware. First, he says:

"I shall make each of these points clear in the debate this afternoon."

Where is he? I cannot see him. Secondly, he says:

"I hope that this letter makes my intentions clear and so I am placing a copy of this letter in the library of the House for the benefit of all Members before the substantive Committee debate begins."

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that. It appears to the Chair that both documents that have been referred to have been made available in the appropriate ways to which the House is accustomed. [Interruption.] Well, the intention is that they should be available. On that basis, we must proceed with the programme motion.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If it is right, as has been read out by my hon. Friend Mr. Grieve, that the Home Secretary expects us to see the letter in the Library before the substantive debate begins—in other words, before the debate that follows the programme motion begins—would you please suspend the House so that we can do it?

I have to assume that the Home Secretary's intention, as stated, is being fulfilled. That is relevant to the substantive debate, rather than to the programme motion. It is a separate issue from the question of the suitability of the programme, which the House is discussing at present.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I gather that, as has been said, a copy has been placed in the Library of the House of Commons, but a single copy in the Library would lead to an unseemly queue if every hon. Member went along to make a photocopy. It would seem appropriate if the Department or the Library were asked to provide copies as rapidly as possible for circulation to Members in the Chamber and those who want it from the Vote Office. I hate to say this, but, if necessary, the House should be suspended until they all have a copy of the letter, which I have.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, what the Home Secretary is trying to communicate to us through the letter in the Library is that, presumably because we have only six hours for debate, he does not intend to table amendments in the House today, but he has already formed a clear intention of amending the Bill, and he will table those amendments in another place once we have finished our proceedings. I have never heard of that process being followed before. It is an outrage. Could you suspend the sitting while the usual channels consider whether the Government can proceed with an important Bill on that basis? It reduces our proceedings to a farce if we know that we are about to discuss a Bill that is going to be amended, if the Government get their way, in another place. It is an intolerable contempt of the House to proceed in that way.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

Order. As I understand it now, the letter—I have a copy in my hand—is being made available in the Vote Office so that it will be available to all Members before the substantive debate begins. By continuing this argument, time is being taken out of the overall time available, which the Chair does not control. There is a programme motion before the House, which the House has yet to decide upon. That is the first step the House has to take—

My hon. Friend Mr. Salter is distributing the letter.

Order. If I may say so to the right hon. Lady, there is a method for doing these things. If hon. Members wish to have documents relating to the debate, it is more orderly for those to be collected and not distributed while the occupant of the Chair is on his feet. The programme motion before the House is precedent to the business—[Interruption.] Order. That has to be determined first. The House must make a decision on that. If the House decides on the programme motion, the business goes ahead. Anything that happens outside the Chamber between the usual channels is nothing on which the Chair can adjudicate. I advise the House that we should proceed with the programme motion and decide thereafter how we deal with the substantive order.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. All legislation is important, but surely no legislation is more important than legislation that might have the effect of depriving the individual citizen of his or her liberty. I feel great discomfort about the way in which these proceedings are being conducted, particularly in the past 15 or 20 minutes. Would it not be appropriate for you to consider the applications made on both sides of the House for a suspension so as to allow right hon. and hon. Members the opportunity to study the documents that have now been made available?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This has a great resemblance to what happened a few weeks ago when the Lord Chancellor had entered into correspondence with people outside the House. Mr. Speaker was very annoyed that we did not get proper notice of the letters that had been exchanged earlier that day. Surely the Government are again treating the House with total contempt. Is the Chair happy with that?

The hon. Gentleman must not attempt to second-guess the state of mind of the Chair. The Chair is attempting to conduct these proceedings in an orderly manner. I have suggested to the House that the business motion, which has so far appeared to attract criticism, still has to be decided upon by this House. The decision of this House on the programme motion determines whether we proceed on the substantive business in the way that is laid out. I think that that is the best way for the House to proceed.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I gently remind you that it is normally seen as the duty of the Chair to protect the House of Commons? We all heard on the news at midday that a letter had been sent to us. I went to the Vote Office before I came into the Chamber, and the letter was not there. This is a crucial consideration in our attitude to the allocation of time, as well as to the content of the Bill. I gently suggest that for the Chair to defend the behaviour of the Government, which dishonours this House, is to take on a duty that is not in line with the way in which the Chair normally sees its role.

I do not think that I made any such imputation. I have merely said, or thought that I had merely said, that the documentation to which reference had been made—two separate items—now appeared to be available, and that the orderly manner for Members to respond to that is to collect them from the place where they have been put. I was simply objecting to a disturbance in the House while I was on my feet about the distribution that was going on unofficially. These documents are now, as I understand it, in the Vote Office and available to all Members.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the House has made it very clear that it wants to suspend and that the Chair is being put in an impossible position. It could help us if you would indicate whether it is your intention to accept manuscript amendments in any discussion. That could influence the decision of individual Members who might feel very strongly that, if you were so inclined, they could allow the discussion to go ahead.

Manuscript amendments can be submitted, but must of course be considered in the usual way, so I cannot give any guarantee that simply because such an amendment is submitted it will necessarily be chosen for debate.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have one small point and one more major one. The small point is that it is not yet clear to the House whether the Government are circulating one document or two. A statement from a Minister would clear that up.

The substantive point is that, if the Home Secretary is proposing amendments to the Bill and has decided that he does not want to put them to this House on Report, that is probably because six hours does not give us enough time to discuss them. That is why this matter is relevant to the programme motion. It would be a courtesy and a help to the House if the Leader of the House or the Home Secretary could come here to say what those amendments would be. We could then decide whether to extend the programme motion or reject it so as to allow the Government amendments to be considered at the Report stage of this important Bill.

I can say to the hon. Gentleman that there are, to my knowledge, two documents, which, also to my knowledge, are both now in the Vote Office.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When the Home Secretary introduced the Bill, he said that the country faced a threat the like of which we have never faced before. Looking at the rest of this week's business, I would suggest that nothing on our agenda ranks higher than the consideration of this measure. Clearly, there has been pressure from both sides of the House for the Government to give us more time to consider whether it is proper or appropriate given the level of threat that we face. The Opposition parties have a day's debate this week. If the Government are unwilling to give us some of their time to extend the timetable, might not the Opposition give us their day so that we could at least have two days' debate on the Committee and Report stages?

Yes, we would.

Given that the Opposition are prepared to give us their Opposition day to extend the timetable on the Bill, may we ask your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on how we might act positively on that helpful suggestion?

The Chair is unable to make any suggestion about the way in which the usual channels work. That is one of the great mysteries of the House. However, it is always open to the usual channels to act in the way that they think fit.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to ask your assistance on a matter that stems from a point that was raised earlier. What is happening is unprecedented in my experience and that of hon. Members who have been here much longer than me. Many serious amendments have been tabled on the derogating aspects—the most important elements—of the Bill. How can hon. Members possibly debate amendments to a Government Bill that is not, in fact, the Government Bill? We are told that there are inchoate, as yet unexpressed and undrafted amendments that the Government will table in the House of Lords. I seriously ask how can the House conceivably debate those amendments?

The hon. and learned Gentleman, in making those remarks, seeks to draw the Chair into the debate. The House is trying to determine precisely that issue in considering the programme motion. The Chair cannot comment on that.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not recall an occasion of such importance, with points being raised on the way in which the House should proceed, when the Leader of the House has not hurried into the Chamber, if he was not already present. In my experience, the Chair often has to rely on the Leader of the House to take some action following any expression of concern from the Chair. Is there some way in which you can communicate to the Leader of the House that he should be here to assist the House in finding a way out of the difficulty of ensuring that the measure is properly debated?

There is an admirable system of electronic communication around the building and I would be surprised if most hon. Members were not aware of the proceedings.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have we been in order for the past 37 minutes or so? It appears that we are discussing a programme motion for allocation of time to consider amendments that will be redundant because the Government intend to amend the Bill in their own way in another place. Before we came into the Chamber, the letter and the documents were not available to hon. Members such as me. We have spent 25 minutes discussing a programme motion for which relevant documents were not available before we began the debate. Is that in order? If not, surely it would be better to suspend proceedings, get the information and begin the process again.

We are in danger of repeating ourselves. I have said that the documents are available. Their absence at the beginning may have been unsatisfactory in the eyes of some hon. Members but they are available now.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The letter may be available but the amendments are not. As the guardian of the House's rights, will not you protect us by ensuring that we have the papers that are relevant to the debate? The only way in which that can happen is to have the amendments.

I am afraid that that matter is outwith my control. It is not unprecedented for the House to be informed during the course of a debate that amendments, sometimes not completely specified, will be tabled in another place. We are in that position today. It is not for me to comment on the suitability of that, but it is not without precedent. In the circumstances, the House must rely only on the Home Secretary's letter.

The House will have heard the comments and representations that were made in the points of order. The programme motion prevents proper consideration of a most important Bill. Irrespective of hon. Members' views on the measure, I urge them to take back control of our proceedings and vote against the motion.

In the short time left, I will simply say that, in our Second Reading debate last Wednesday, we saw Parliament at its best, but what is taking place this afternoon shows us Parliament at its worst. The problem is that the letter from the Home Secretary makes critical changes to the Bill, which will undermine the debate on the first group of amendments and make nonsense of the process that we shall go through in the next few hours.

The hon. Gentleman says that we are seeing Parliament at its worst, but I believe that the responsibility for this state of affairs lies with the Government, not with Parliament.

Unfortunately, though, this reflects on all of us, whether it is this Government or any other who have proposed the measures that we are considering.

I suggest to the Minister that we need not have reached this situation in the first place. This problem has existed for three years and the Liberal Democrats have consistently pointed out that the Government should have tackled it during that time, rather than leaving it until a point at which, because of a Law Lords judgment, we are faced with such a short time scale. It cannot be right that we have to deal with such critical issues in such a short period of time.

These are not small matters. We shall have only two hours in which to discuss whether a judge or a politician takes certain decisions, although the Home Secretary is going to help us out with that later. We shall probably have only two hours in which to discuss the standard of proof. We might have only an hour to consider whether evidence can be heard in certain situations and a similar time to discuss what the control orders will involve. It cannot be right to rush such fundamental issues through in six hours.

I am sure that all hon. Members want to try to resolve this issue in a way that will prevent a terrorist attack from taking place in this country, while ensuring that we defend our strong principles of justice. We are not being allowed to get into that debate this afternoon or to do justice to that difficult balancing act. I have two questions for the Minister, and I hope that she will have time to respond to them.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise to Mr. Oaten for interrupting him. As it has been indicated that the official Opposition would be prepared to allow this debate to continue on Wednesday, would you accept a manuscript amendment to the programme motion to enable that to happen?

No. We have only three minutes of the debate on the programme motion left, and I could not accept such an amendment. If there is any question of more time being provided by an attempt being made through the usual channels to do so, that is how it will have to be done. If the programme motion is accepted, we shall move on to a debate that might be determined by the hours set out by the programme motion or might be extended by decisions taken elsewhere. At this stage, however, the Chair does not know what will happen in that regard.

I hope that the Home Secretary will confirm that he will come to the Floor of the House to explain his letter, so that we have a proper chance to debate that matter later. It is totally wrong that four days have been allowed for this debate in another place, while this House has only two. We find that unacceptable, and we shall vote against the programme motion.

Mr. Oaten has made most of the points that I wanted to make, but I want to add a further comment to the Minister. We have been told that we must rush this Bill through. That is simply not correct, because it is not necessary to have new legislation of this kind in place by 13 March. The truth is that the detainees in Belmarsh could be let out tomorrow without there being any danger whatever to the state. The point has already been made that they are not going to be subject to house arrest. They are going to be placed under surveillance and they can be kept under surveillance without any new legislation being passed, so there is no pressing need for the Bill.

If there were a pressing need for this legislation, it would be the fault of the Government, because they have had since last December to contemplate the terms of the House of Lords judgment. They have had more than a year to reflect on the contents of the report prepared by Lord Newton. The fact that we are where we are now is solely and exclusively the fault of the Government. What they are doing is a disgrace. It is profoundly undemocratic, it undermines the liberties of each and every one of us, and this House should have no part of it. I urge the House to recover its authority over its own proceedings, and to reject this guillotine.

It is worth noting, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the amendments and new clauses already referred to were selected by you as being worthy of debate. There should be no doubt that the Chair told the House "Here are the matters that we believe are worthy of debate: 13 distinct groups of amendments—

It being forty-five minutes after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A (8).

The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 185.

Question accordingly agreed to.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether we are yet in Committee or whether you are still in your role as a Deputy Speaker of the House, but in either guise, will you allow me to read a few brief lines from the letter sent by the Home Secretary to my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, which I have now had a chance to look at? I will be quick. It states:

"The new procedure for derogating control orders will be as follows. The Secretary of State would make an ex parte application to the High Court for an order. The application would be heard by the judge as quickly as possible . . . The order would be subject to automatic referral to the full court for an inter-partes hearing".

To me, that amounts to a wrecking amendment by letter. If that is true and that is the Government's intention, clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill are otiose—

Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman must know that this is a matter for debate. If the House moves into Committee, these matters can be debated then. That, indeed, is the time for all those points to be considered. Any amendments or intended amendments will be taken into account then; we cannot have this matter debated as a point of order.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

Order. I advise the House that we are now moving into Committee. We must complete that process—[Interruption.] Order.