House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 Mar 1990

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Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Simon Hughes, Sir Rhodes Boyson and Mr. Ken Livingstone.

London Local Government

Mr. Simon Hughes accordingly presented a Bill to amend the law to enable parish and community councils to be created within Greater London : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 April and to be printed. [Bill 99.]

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National Health Service and Community Care Bill (Allocation of Time)

4.14 pm

Mr. Speaker : We now come to the guillotine motion on the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. I have received three manuscript amendments--two in the name of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and one in the name of the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer)--and I have selected them all.

Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It may be for the convenience of the House if I explain that I intend to move the second, not the first, of my amendments as I understand that we can divide on only one of them.

4.15 pm

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) : I beg to move,

That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining proceedings on the Bill :

Report and Third Reading 1.--(1) The remaining proceedings on consideration and Third Reading of the Bill shall be completed in two allotted days.

(2) The proceedings on consideration shall be brought to a conclusion at midnight on the first allotted day.

(3) The proceedings on Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion three hours after their commencement.

(4) Standing Order No. 80 (Business Committee) shall not apply. Dilatory Motions 2. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, proceedings on the Bill shall be made on an allotted day except by a member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

Extra time on allotted days 3.--(1) On an allotted day, paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings on the Bill, but on the first allotted day it shall apply only for two hours after Ten o'clock.

(2) On the first allotted day, any period during which proceedings on the Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) shall be in addition to the said period of two hours.

(3) If the first allotted day is one to which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 stands over from an earlier day, a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings upon that Motion shall be added to the said period of two hours.

Private business

4. Any private business which has been set down for consideration at Seven o'clock on an allotted day shall, instead of being considered as provided by Standing Orders, be considered at the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill on that day, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or, if those proceedings are concluded before Ten o'clock, for a period equal to the time elapsing between Seven o'clock and the conclusion of those proceedings.

Estimates

5. Proceedings on the Bill or on any private business taken under paragraph 4 of this Order shall not be interrupted for the purposes of Standing Order No. 53 (Questions on voting on estimates etc.) and if on an allotted day Mr. Speaker is directed by that Standing Order (as modified by the Order of the House [12th March] ) to put questions at Ten o'clock he

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shall put those questions at Ten o'clock or at the conclusion of the proceedings on the private business, whichever is the later. Conclusion of proceedings

6.--(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order and which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall forthwith put (so far as they are applicable and notwithstanding any Order of the House relating to the order in which the Bill is to be considered) the following Questions (but no others)--

(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair ;

(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill) ;

(c) the Question that such of the amendments 139 to 141, 158, 256, 275, 276 and 341 as remain to be made be made to the Bill ; (

(d) the Question that the new Schedule (amendment 269) be added to the Bill ;

(e) the Question that all remaining amendments standing in the name of a member of the government be made to the Bill ;

(f) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded ;

and on a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, Mr. Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

(3) If an allotted day is one on which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) would, apart from this Order, stand over to Seven o'clock--

(a) that Motion shall stand over until the conclusion of any proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time ;

(b) the bringing to a conclusion of any proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

(4) If an allotted day is one to which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 stands over from an earlier day, the bringing to a conclusion of any proceedings on the Bill which under this Order are to be brought to a conclusion on that day shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

Supplemental orders (7).--(1) The proceedings on any Motion made in the House by a member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order (including anything which might have been the subject of a report of the Business Committee) shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings. (2) If on an allotted day on which any proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before that time no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

Saving 8. Nothing in this Order shall

(a) prevent any proceedings to which the Order applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order ; or (

(b) prevent any business (whether on the Bill or not) from being proceeded with on any day after the completion of all such proceedings on the Bill as are to be taken on that day.

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Recommittal 9.--(1) References in this Order to proceeding on consideration or proceedings on Third Reading include references to proceedings at those stages, respectively, for, on or in consequence of, recommittal.

(2) On an allotted day no debate shall be permitted on any Motion to recommit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any amendment moved to the Question.

Interpretation 10. In this Order--

"allotted day" means any day (other than a Friday) on which the Bill is put down as first Government Order of the Day, provided that a Motion for allotting time to the proceedings on the Bill to be taken on that day either has been agreed on a previous day, or is set down for consideration on that day ;

"the Bill" means the National Health Service and Community Care Bill.

My right hon. and hon. Friends and I deeply regret the necessity to move a timetable motion given that the House has made such reasonable and rapid progress so far. There is so much interest in both parts of the Bill that, in the interests of Parliament and of both parties, it would have been an extremely good idea to have continued on a satisfactory basis until the end of the Bill's passage through the Commons and thus to have allowed hon. Members on both sides of the House to air all the matters that they wished to air.

It has to be conceded that we were well on course to make that agreed progress until the events of last night. I believe that my desire to avoid a guillotine if we possibly could was amply demonstrated by the Government's behaviour. Hon. Members will recall that we began by making two days available for the Second Reading debate. That is not unprecedented, I know, but only major legislation receives such treatment, which involves the concession of a day of Government time. The Bill then entered its Committee stage--we discussed it in part this morning--during which, we are all agreed, reasonable progress was made. We succeeded in debating an enormous number of amendments covering provisions from the beginning to the end of the Bill and allowing us a full discussion. We then returned to the Floor of the House.

I acknowledged this morning that the Bill's progress was facilitated by the agreement made through the usual channels--the best accompaniment to legislation--giving rise to an agreed timetable. We played by the rules on that agreed timetable. I always think that when the Government agree a timetable, we concede to the Opposition the whip hand when it comes to deciding how much time is devoted to each part. As the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) said this morning, the Opposition were keen to devote four days to the community care part of the Bill. We reached the end of the Committee stage in a highly satisfactory fashion, but thereafter something appears to have gone wrong--[ Hon. Members :-- "You."] No, what went wrong was revealed this morning. We had an agreement that we would have two whole days for Report and half a day for Third Reading, which again was a generous provision of time.

Several Hon. Members rose --

Mr. Clarke : I shall give way later, although I should remind hon. Members that the more time we spend on the guillotine motion, the less time we shall have on Report.

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The hon. Member for Livingston revealed this morning the reason for the sudden change in our hitherto smooth progress. It is true that I had said in public what was factually correct--that we had made smooth, steady, satisfactory progress on the Bill. I repeated my view--I shall do so again before I end my remarks--that one thing that has sped us along is that, although the detail of the Bill is extremely complicated, much of the political debate on it conceals wide agreement that the Health Service needs better financial management, quality control and many of the reforms that the Government propose. My remarks were reported in such a way as to cause a certain amount of sensitivity on the Opposition Front Bench. From time to time, we all read press cuttings that we would not necessarily have written ourselves or have had written on our behalf, but it is no good our looking at press cuttings like a debutante actress who is nervous about her write-up.

When my comments that we were making smooth, steady and speedy progress on the Bill were drawn to the attention of the hon. Member for Livingston--in shadow Cabinet, I believe, which was perhaps an unfortunate setting--he reacted rather strongly. I shall not labour the point because I do not want to take up Opposition time, but in my opinion the Opposition made a misjudgment yesterday and decided to hold a machismo performance of the traditional kind on the Floor of the House, thereby reversing the extremely sensible conduct of debate in Committee. Given the agreement that we were to have two days on Report and half a day on Third Reading, they thereby put at risk the control over debate that they had won for themselves in Committee.

Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : The Minister's defence of this restriction on debate rests on the fact that some agreement between Front- Bench spokesmen has not been kept. I understand that the Labour party denies that, but I shall let it speak for itself. How does the Minister's point cover the many parties in the House that are not covered by formal arrangements through the usual channels ; and how does he defend stopping contributions by my colleagues and me, who are not covered by the agreements that the Minister claims have been broken?

Mr. Clarke : I welcome the hon. Gentleman to our proceedings 130 hours into their duration. I was here for part of the Scottish debate in the small hours of this morning and I cannot recall whether he was present- -

Mr. Salmond : I was.

Mr. Clarke : I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. The fact is that the agreement, although conducted through the usual channels, provided ample time for discussion of all the issues in the Bill. Had we proceeded last night as we did in Committee we should by now be well advanced in consideration of the Report stage of the Bill, without disruption of the timetable of the House--

Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax) rose --

Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Cromarty and Skye) rose

Mr. Clarke : I shall give way once more and then I shall give an illustration of what I think happened last night to justify this motion.

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Mrs. Mahon : The Minister has said that he thinks that we were highly satisfied with the Committee's proceedings. I draw his attention to at least three amendments that I moved--one on enrolled nurses who cannot train ; another on the lack of protection during staff transfers ; and a third on care plans, about which the Minister for Health said that she was not particularly interested in doing anything that might harm the private sector. Far from being satisfied, I was bloody mad on all three counts.

Mr. Clarke : The hon. Lady made it clear on a number of occasions in Committee that we had unfortunately failed to satisfy her with our replies. My point is that she had ample opportunity to deploy her arguments, which were considered and given reasonable replies. We could have resumed those sorts of exchanges today--and we have, but in a very slow and protracted fashion.

Mr. Kennedy : I do not think that the Secretary of State's recollection of the Committee is accurate. We hit the buffers in the House last night because we reached, on a large-scale, the issue of income support for people in residential homes, and saw a repeat performance of what happened in Committee. Conservative Member after Conservative Member stood up to disagree with the Government's position. That was what took up so much time and it is why the debate ran so late last night. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is looking to apportion blame, he need only look behind him at his right hon. and hon. Friends.

Mr. Clarke : I have no complaint about new clause 1. I did not like the result, but I accept that what happened was a perfectly proper parliamentary procedure. Three Conservative Back-Benchers and quite a number of other hon. Members spoke against us last night, and I agree that we were making satisfactory progress until the vote at about 10 pm. Thereafter, it rapidly became clear that things had changed dramatically.

I understand the choice that the Opposition have to make--I have been in opposition myself--of whether to filibuster or make reasonable progress--

Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) : The right hon. and learned Gentleman was guilty of a disgusting display of filibustering last night.

Mr. Clarke : I shall do it again if the hon. Gentleman is not careful.

When I turned up at the Scottish debate the warning signs were already apparent, but a reasonable debate appeared to be in progress on what I have no doubt was a serious issue. It took two hours. I could see the warning signs immediately, however, when we reached the Welsh debate on an undoubtedly important matter--the number of community health councils in Wales.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett), who is not in his place--not surprisingly--made an extremely pithy contribution. He pointed out that the Opposition were saying that they thought the number of community health councils in Wales should be the same as the number of Welsh district councils, whereas the Government were saying that they should be the same as the number of health boards. In one sentence my hon. Friend expressed an idea which it took the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) half an hour to expound repeatedly. The hon. Gentleman's point was so profound that it was repeated by every Welsh Member of

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the House, who seemed to consist of a large proportion of the Welsh parliamentary Labour party, most of whom vanished from the Chamber the moment the debate concluded and who have not been seen from that moment to this.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : I ask the Secretary of State to do one thing : will he tell us what is going to happen this evening? When does he expect us to have the opportunity to begin the debate again on Report? I understand that agreements have been reached and that people have made suggestions as to what should happen, but at what stage during the evening will certain clauses be taken? What will happen to the hundreds of amendments and dozens of new clauses that may remain outstanding at the end of the evening? We should like to know. Let us get off all this rubbish about what happened yesterday.

Mr. Clarke : I confirm what I have already said--Report stage will begin as soon as the debate is concluded if the House agrees with the motion before it. I will not detain the House for long, but I insist on beginning by explaining why we are tabling a motion which I had no wish to table, especially as it is about to be challenged by the hon. Member for Livingston.

We reached the end of the Welsh debate last night. I am not going to relay everything verbatim--

Mr. Michael rose --

Mr. Clarke : I shall give way, but, as I keep saying, this is encroaching on Opposition time.

Mr. Michael : It is not satisfactory for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to try to write mythology into the record. Yesterday's record will show that the Welsh debate was conducted in an excellent manner by Opposition Members, but that the contribution from Conservative Members was pathetic. That debate showed that the Government have abandoned the consumer and the community. That is in the record and that will be noted by people and communities throughout Wales, whatever mythology the Minister tries to write into today's debate.

Mr. Clarke : I find that judgment of the Welsh debate as predictable and partisan as most of the hon. Gentleman's contributions. I am talking only about the length of time it took to debate what seemed to me, as an English observer who was waiting to debate the Bill, a rather simple point.

Mr. Kenneth Hind (Lancashire, West) : Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

Mr. Clarke : Let me just consider last night's proceedings, and then I shall draw a veil over them. Those proceedings are the sole explanation for why we are now debating the motion.

About 12 hours after we had begun the debate--some of that time was no one's fault because of new clause 1--we started to discuss the English National Health Service. For more than 12 hours I had maintained total silence, apart from one intervention--no doubt a blessed relief to many Opposition Members.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : What does the Minister propose to do tonight?

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Mr. Clarke : We then got on to a subject that is important, but a little tired to Committee members--consultations about the new NHS trusts.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to press this, but some of us have come into the Chamber for a constructive debate. We do not give a damn about what happened yesterday ; we are looking forward to tonight's business. What proposals have the Government--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. What is the point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : The Speaker selected nearly 200 new clauses and amendments--it was his decision which ones were to be called. We have five and a half hours and all that I want to know is at what stage in the evening will those matters be debated. That is a fair question. Let us forget yesterday and concentrate on the business tonight.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : That is not a point of order.

Mr. Campbell-Savours rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It would be much better if the Secretary of State was allowed to get on with his speech.

Mr. Clarke : I propose to make my own speech and I am not going to take advice on it from the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : What is going to happen tonight?

Mr. Clarke : I shall certainly not take advice from the hon. Gentleman, who wasted the whole of the first morning of the Committee and part of the afternoon on the Floor of the House afterwards by raising a frolic of his own. So far as I can recall, he is the only person who, before last night, wasted time on the proceedings of the Bill. I am saying that, last night, when we got to the English NHS, the signs were clear when the Leader of the Opposition, who had made short, succinct speeches in Committee

Mr. Robin Cook rose --

Mr. Clarke : The hon. Gentleman who leads for the Opposition on this subject. I do not want to start controversy or speculation on the Opposition side of the House of the kind that burst out in other parts.

A speech lasting one hour and 50 minutes was made by the hon. Member for Livingston which, as I said last night, was a patched-together collection of various speeches that he had made in Committee on a subject--

Mr. Campbell-Savours : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It would be far better, in this short debate, to allow the Secretary of State to get on with his speech.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : The guillotine is about the arrangements for taking new clauses, amendments and Government amendments this evening.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Clarke : The hon. Gentleman is maintaining his record as the hon. Member who has made more points of

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order in the proceedings on the Bill than any other, and probably more than all the others put together. He is merely taking up time. I am explaining the background of events which are in the memory of most of us who have followed the Bill. Last night, for reasons of pure machismo that I have already described, the Bill was suddenly filibustered. It is up to Opposition Members to raise whatever subjects and arguments they want, but I do not believe that we heard an argument that had not been deployed before in Committee. We heard the same arguments, largely from the same hon. Members, delivered at three times their previous length by all Opposition Members who spoke. They did not want to debate the Bill but wanted to show that they were capable of making long speeches in the small hours of the morning.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) : I fully support my right hon. and learned Friend in his opposition in principle to imposing a guillotine and I shall support the Government in the Lobby at approximately a quarter past 7 o'clock. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that if the Government had advised the House that they would take on board the very clear message at the end on the debate on new clasue 1 that appropriate measures would be introduced in the Social Security Bill, that might have resulted in an orderly debate being held and the filibustering which went on last night would not have occurred?

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