Consideration of Bill, as amended in the Committee.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Order. I am saving up Mr Bone; it would be a pity to waste him at this early stage of our proceedings. We will come to him for his point of order, he can be assured of that. Before that, however, I have the following to say.

As the Government have not moved the programme motion, proceedings will be taken in the customary order on consideration: Government new clauses first, then other new clauses, and then amendments in the order they occur in the Bill. We will start as originally envisaged, with the group on child exploitation and so on. We will then take the group on other issues, and then there is, for consideration, the group on abortion. The selection list has been reissued, and the amendment paper has been reissued with the revised order. Proceedings on Report may continue until 9 pm, and Third Reading until 10 pm, under the earlier programme motion.

That is what I have got to say for now, but let us hear the point of order from Mr David Burrowes first.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As the programme motion is not being moved, of which there was good notice, new clauses 1 and clause 25, which deal with the important issue of gender-selective abortion, have effectively been shunted to the end of proceedings. I understand fully, and the House understands fully, the importance of addressing child exploitation and protection, and how they are integral to this very important Bill. That needs proper debate and scrutiny. However, gender-selective abortion is also a matter of public interest. Concerns have been raised across the country, not least by the more than 100 Members of Parliament who have put their name to new clause 1. There is a concern that, unless there is great restraint from parliamentarians in the debate, we may not even get to the point of being able to move those new clauses.

Mr Speaker, you have championed the role of the Back Bencher. New clause 1 was tabled in the scintilla of time available between Committee and Report, and now we run the risk of not getting to this business before the end of our consideration. With respect, I wish to suggest a way out and to ask for your guidance, Mr Speaker. According to the selection paper, after we have considered child exploitation and protection, we will move on to “other issues”, including investigative powers, the publication of names, firearms offences, new psychoactive substances and money laundering measures. Could you also include under “other issues” the important other issue of gender-selective abortion? Otherwise, we will be left to rely on your customary guidance and urging of restraint across the House to ensure we get to the matter.

In conclusion, we are all concerned about the esteem in which Parliament is held. I put Parliament on notice that if we do not get to the issue of gender-selective abortion, the public will hold us in disrepute, and it will be a grave day for Parliament.

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

rose—

We shall come to the hon. Gentleman shortly—I have been saving him up, and I hope he is not going to disappoint me. I call Helen Goodman.

Mr Speaker, do you agree that had the House agreed with the Procedure Committee report on this problem of Report, this problem would not have arisen this afternoon?

That might well be so. I do not have the details of that report with me, but I think it only courteous and perhaps charitable to observe that the hon. Lady was for a period a distinguished ornament of that Committee, and it might well be that it was her own intellectual stimulation that led to the report in question. She is too modest and self-effacing to claim the credit directly, but she might appreciate my proffering it in her direction instead.

I will come back to Mr Burrowes’ point of order, but not before I have heard from Mr Peter Bone.

I am interested to hear your response to my hon. Friend Mr Burrowes, because I am also concerned about the amount of time being allowed for debate, so I will leave it like that.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the self-denying ordinance that he has exercised. I say two things to Mr Burrowes. First, I had understood that he was going to ask me whether it would be in order, in the absence of a Minister moving the programme motion, for him to move it, and I had intended to say that no it would not be in order for him to do so, because he is not a Minister and had not signed the motion. However, as he did not raise the point, I will not make the point that I would have made if he had.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman inquires into the possibility of eliding—if I can put it that way—consideration of the abortion new clauses into the “other issues” group. He has raised an extremely important point, but there is merit first in seeing what progress we make on the first group. I shall reflect on his point, which I take extremely seriously, over the next hour or so and then advise the House of my conclusion. I make him no promise, but I shall consider his suggestion very seriously. I hope that that is helpful.