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brought in petitions on Friday mornings, possibly to delay the business set down for the day. Anyone can use that technique. I remember discussing the Sessional Orders of the House, when people said that I was playing to the cameras. But anyone could have discussed them, just as anyone could have presented petitions on a Friday. Some say that large numbers of petitions are presented on Fridays to delay business, and that that is an abuse. It is not. Groups of hon. Members or an individual Member may want to delay private Members' legislation at any time, and this is a perfectly legitimate way of doingit--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman is anticipating the later debate.

Mr. Cryer : I am trying to suggest, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it will take a great deal of time to discuss this important subject in detail. The business motion tabled by the Leader of the House--I am glad to see that he is still awake--imposes an important new restriction. We cannot encompass the subject of public petitions by 7 pm. I know that the business motion is not identical to the three motions following it, but we must be able to touch briefly on subjects the time for which the business motion seeks to restrict. New writs are also significant. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), the most recent exponent of the art of moving a new writ, would need at least half an hour in which to explain his views on moving new writs. The House is starting to fill up with Members interested in this subject-- [Laughter.] There are still a few empty seats left should other hon. Members want to participate quickly in the next 40 minutes--

Mr. Beith : I hope that the hon. Gentleman realises, as a Committee Chairman, that an awful lot of Select Committees are meeting in the Corridor upstairs, as many of them do at this time on Wednesday afternoons. Those attending them may want to take part in the debate, too.

Mr. Cryer : I could not take part in the original debate because I was serving on a Select Committee--

Mr. Dalyell : Does my hon. Friend recollect how important it was, before the writ for the Richmond, Yorks by-election was moved, to hear in detail about the role of the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the prote ge of the Leader of the House who, I notice, is burying his head deeper and deeper in his documents because he does not like this subject? It was important to explain in some detail the improper use of a Law Officer's letter, as it was subsequently proved--after all, we have Sir Leon Brittan's word for it--that he would not have acted as he did had not Mr. Powell and Mr. Ingham--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I find it impossible to relate that intervention to the motion.

Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend has pointed out the intricate detail involved in debating new writs. Moving the new writ in question took up a great deal of time ; my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover spoke on it for about three hours

Mr. Skinner : I was never out of order once.

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Mr. Cryer : Unusually for my hon. Friend, he has just commented from a sedentary position that he was never out of order. He had prepared extremely carefully. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has emphasised the value of the new writ procedure. It is important to bear that in mind when assessing the fourth motion today. Without enough time we cannot do justice to new writ motions

Sir Peter Emery : None of these rights is being taken away from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) or any other hon. Member, except in as much as these procedures should not take place in private Members' time. It is good of the Government to say that these procedures shall not interfere with private Members' time and to stipulate that they must be carried out in Government time. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be delighted with that.

Mr. Cryer : Motion No. 4 refers to private Members' Bills being given precedence. The Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure is now providing us with a snapshot of the sort of views that he is going to express--but he cannot express them all in an hour and a half. Judging from the thickness of his pile of notes

Sir Peter Emery indicated dissent.

Mr. Skinner : He has got it all in his head.

Mr. Cryer : The hon. Gentleman has spent hours in the Select Committee and he wants to give the House a great deal of information on this subject.

My point is that the Government are going to restrict the time available to Back Benchers. New writs can be moved, first, because an hon. Member wants to bring one to the attention of the House ; or, secondly, because a Back Bencher wants to use up a certain amount of time because he does not like a Bill that is coming up for consideration.

In any debate we need to consider the conventions of the constitution--

Mr. Skinner : May I put my hon. Friend right? On neither occasion when I moved a writ--before the Unborn Children (Protection) Bill or before the Abortion (Amendment) Bill--did I stop anyone moving a Bill. I prevented people from queue jumping. Enoch Powell was trying to jump the queue with his Unborn Children (Protection) Bill and the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) was trying to do the same with another Bill. It was not a question of trying to stop the Bills, but of an attempt being made to jump the queue and move ahead of other private Members' Bills.

Mr. Cryer : That fits in with what I am about to say. By rushing the motion through, there will not be time to examine the subtleties of the way in which the House operates. Those subtleties have developed over many years, but some people question their value and say that we should start with a shining new constitution. The experience of procedures and the reality of the way in which people work together have developed rules of thumb that are very helpful. Perhaps I could give an example to illustrate the point. An hon. Member who wishes to raise a point of order during a Division has to put something on his head. At first sight, that seems daft and hon. Members feel foolish putting a hat on. People start to sing songs such as "Give Me the Moonlight" and we all make a joke about it. Its

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purpose is to reduce the possibility of people raising points of order during a Division because that is an awkward time. The wearing of a hat is a hurdle for a Member who wishes to raise a point of order. It seems simple, but it works rather well.

En passant, I shall elaborate on our voting system. People ask me why we cannot have an electronic voting system which would be slicker and more efficient ; hon. Members would not have to move from their places and we could get more votes through more quickly. People say that, if we had very long-range telephones hon. Members who were scattered all over the world on fact-finding missions on behalf of Select Committees could telephone their votes to the House. But the voting system that we have is simple and effective and works well. It also makes it difficult to cheat. We cannot discard all those ideas--throw them out of the window--without long and serious discussion. That is why the business motion is less than adequate. We have to consider the conventions of the constitution.

Our Standing Orders are varied by the motions. "Erskine May" gives us written opinions that have been accumulated over hundreds of years, and we also have the conventions of the constitution. If we are properly to consider the business motions, we should have to consider those matters too. I shall give a couple of examples about how we could include those in the discussion.

There is a convention that private Members' Bills brought before the House on Fridays will get through, as long as they are not extremely controversial. If they attempt to remedy a relatively minor matter, something that people accept as a matter of urgency, they will get through. There must be 100 hon. Members present to ensure that such a Bill gets a Second Reading, but by and large, it will reach that stage.

It is a different matter in the case of highly controversial subjects that split all the parties in the House. Liberal, Conservative and Labour Members have different views on abortion. The difficulties of using the private Member's Bill procedure properly and within the rules are manifold. I am not speaking specifically about abortion proposals that have been presented to the House over many years, but about any major matter of great controversy. The private Member's Bill procedure is not designed for that.

Mr. Heffer : What about hare coursing?

Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend gives a good example. Hare coursing is controversial and some people, mainly Tory Members, do not like any attempt to interfere with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Walton has tried to promote legislation on the matter on at least one occasion.

Mr. Heffer : I have tried three times.

Mr. Cryer : In such cases, Tory Members organise petitions or new writs, although I do not think that there were any new writs in relation to hare coursing. Certainly they used the measures available to them in this place, and that reinforces the conventions of the constitution. We need a Labour Government committed to a programme in support of animals to eradicate hare coursing and all other examples of cruelty to animals. We could try a private Member's Bill but we know the obstacles and hurdles that exist. Therefore, it is vital to discuss the conventions of the constitution, those unwritten areas that make it difficult to define what sort of Bill will get through the House. The

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motions try to say that we must have a path for private Members' legislation that is free from any attempt to delay or obstruct it. As I said, the Opposition used to have the opportunity to delay and obstruct on the Consolidated Fund. The Opposition can do that to Government legislation, although we do not do it often. On one glorious occasion, we used that opportunity and as a result, the compulsory sale of old people's dwellings was removed from legislation to sell council dwellings. We have lost such opportunities and the Consolidated Fund is a pale shadow of what it used to be. That is why I am concerned that Back Benchers should not give up something that they could use in this place as part of the to-ing and fro-ing in the production of legislation.

The production of legislation should never be easy. It should always be subject to hurdles because it affects thousands of people. I chair the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments because I am concerned to see that the powers that are given to Ministers are not used in an arbitrary or unfair manner. The same applies to the business motion. I guarantee that the business motion will be supported by the payroll vote. There may be some diffident Tory Members, but I do not think that there are many.

Mr. Skinner : It is not as easy as my hon. Friend makes out, because some of the payroll vote have gone to the Savoy, to the big spree of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). Some of them have been told not to stop for long, and some of them do not want to stop for very long, including the Prime Minister. We are now reaching the hour when it is conceivable that the Government have the necessary 100 Members to close the debate. I rather suspect that the presence of the Chief Whip means that he might shortly move the closure now that the junketing is about to finish.

Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend shocks me. I am fairly cynical about this place, but I cannot believe that the Government are manoeuvring. I see the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), kneeling at the feet of the Leader of the House. Is that in order? He should know the rules of this place. I thought that somebody was about to use a sword on a delicate spot.

If what my hon. Friend says is true, it appears that the Government are preparing to muster 100 Members for the closure. That shows that our fears are very real. This is a Government-inspired manoeuvre. As the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said--the Government Chief Whip was not here at the time and missed the comments--there are a lot of Select Committee reports on procedure. We have not had an explanation of why this report has been put forward today. I know that the Leader of the House is not used to the job but he gave a paltry speech. I know that the Chief Whip desperately wants to hear what I am saying, and does not want to plot any more to bring about the downfall of yet another Back-Bench comment on the matter in hand. The Leader of the House hardly gave us an explanation, but he gave the excuse that this has been done before. The Government took out the ten- minute Bill slot on Budget day. Three years ago they took it out by convention, and on the other occasion by practicality. This issue merited a

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longer speech from the Leader of the House, not simply to soak up time, but to explain why the Government have chosen this report out of the rich variety of Select Committee reports on procedure. They are lined up on the shelves, gathering dust, awaiting their time on the Floor of the House.

It is not as though the motion says that we will finish at 7 o'clock so that we can deal with more Procedure Committee reports. We are finishing them so that we can get items 2, 3 and 4 on the Order Paper through as rapidly as possible--like a dose of salts. I think that I am right to mention my reservations and suspicions about why this is going on.

Some of my hon. Friends, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) may have served on the Select Committee on Procedure and perhaps they have come to an agreement. I wonder whether the Government have put down such a motion to get this business speeded through using a Select Committee report. Not only this Select Committee report but all the others need debating time, but they are not getting the time allocated to them. It is a conundrum.

I suspect that the reason for the motion is not that the Government want to help private Members but that they want to make things easier for themselves. That is what Governments generally wish to do. Therefore, they have moved motions which will exclude private Members from participating in the procedure of private Members' motions, which will reduce private Members' rights to present public petitions--they will have to choose other items and there will be a time limit--and which will affect the operation of new writs. Ordinary Back-Benchers can use their ingenuity to bring subjects to the attention of the House, through debate on motions for new writs. It gives them an opportunity that would otherwise have been put to one side. When a new writ is moved, it is for the benefit of the House but probably for the inconvenience of the Government.

Mr. Beith : I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member's train of thought, but sometimes when new writs are moved--as on this occasion when we are discussing the new business motion at some length--they are a sign that the Government are not listening to the general anxieties of some hon. Members. New writs are one of the means by which those anxieties can be expressed. The hon. Member's experience, and my own, shows that if one does not inconvenience a Government they will never listen.

Mr. Cryer : That is absolutely right. This--

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Tim Renton) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put :--

The House divided : Ayes 242, Noes 94.

Division No. 88] [5.44 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Alexander, Richard

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Amos, Alan

Arbuthnot, James

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Ashby, David

Atkins, Robert

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Bendall, Vivian

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Benyon, W.

Bevan, David Gilroy

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Biffen, Rt Hon John

Blunkett, David

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Boswell, Tim

Bottomley, Peter

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Bowis, John

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Brazier, Julian

Bright, Graham

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

Browne, John (Winchester)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Buck, Sir Antony

Budgen, Nicholas

Burns, Simon

Butler, Chris

Butterfill, John

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Carrington, Matthew

Cash, William

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Chapman, Sydney

Chope, Christopher

Churchill, Mr

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Colvin, Michael

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Couchman, James

Critchley, Julian

Cunningham, Dr John

Curry, David

Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

Day, Stephen

Devlin, Tim

Dickens, Geoffrey

Dixon, Don

Dorrell, Stephen

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Duffy, A. E. P.

Dunn, Bob

Durant, Tony

Eggar, Tim

Emery, Sir Peter

Evennett, David

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

Favell, Tony

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Fishburn, John Dudley

Flynn, Paul

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Forth, Eric

Foster, Derek

Franks, Cecil

Freeman, Roger

Fry, Peter

Gale, Roger

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Gill, Christopher

Golding, Mrs Llin

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Goodlad, Alastair

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Gorst, John

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Gregory, Conal

Grist, Ian

Ground, Patrick

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Hanley, Jeremy

Harris, David

Haselhurst, Alan

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Hordern, Sir Peter

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Irvine, Michael

Irving, Sir Charles

Jack, Michael

Jackson, Robert

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Key, Robert

Kilfedder, James

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Knapman, Roger

Knowles, Michael

Lang, Ian

Latham, Michael

Lawrence, Ivan

Lee, John (Pendle)

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Lilley, Peter

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Lord, Michael

McAvoy, Thomas

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Maclean, David

McLoughlin, Patrick

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Malins, Humfrey

Mans, Keith

Maples, John

Marek, Dr John

Marland, Paul

Marlow, Tony

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Mellor, David

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Miller, Sir Hal

Mills, Iain

Miscampbell, Norman

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Mitchell, Sir David

Moate, Roger

Monro, Sir Hector

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Morrison, Sir Charles

Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Mudd, David

Neale, Gerrard

Needham, Richard

Nelson, Anthony

Neubert, Michael

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Nicholls, Patrick

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

O'Brien, William

Oppenheim, Phillip

Page, Richard

Paice, James

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

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