House of Commons Hansard Debates for 28 Mar 1990

Column 498

On the same occasion, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short)--I am pleased to see her taking her place with such zeal and diligence--who led for the Opposition, said :

"It has been a civilised but serious Committee."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee G, 8 March 1990 ; c. 462-63.]

That was a sensible judgment. I think that all my right hon. and hon. Friends who had participated in or followed the proceedings of the Committee agreed with her.

What happened subsequently, however, revealed a startling and far less constructive attitude by the Opposition. They have tabled no fewer than 21 new clauses and a further 21 amendments for consideration on Report. Few of the new clauses relate to subjects that were discussed in Committee. The remainder have been tabled to widen substantially the scope of the Bill and as pegs on which to hang a series of debates about matters not directly related to its main purposes. Unless we take sensible steps now, the debate will become unmanageable.

Mr. John Battle (Leeds, West) : Did not the Government table new clauses on matters not related to the substance of the Bill when it went before the Committee, precisely because they found themselves in difficulty with other legislation? The clauses that have been tacked on bear no relation to the substance of the Bill in its original form. The Government have extended the agenda and turned the Bill into a holdall to pick up the pieces of other shoddy legislation.

Sir Geoffrey Howe : I do not accept that analysis. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, and I shall deal with it shortly. The usual process for the handling of a Bill is for the main substance to be debated in Committee and for discussion to focus more sharply when it returns to the Floor of the House. What has happened with this Bill has paralleled what happened with the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. The House will remember that that Bill made good progress through Committee, only to be brought to a virtual standstill on the Floor of the House by the behaviour of some Opposition Members when we began to make headway on Report.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : Has the Leader of the House forgotten what really happened? That Bill was obstructed and eventually guillotined for what some might say was exactly the same reason as this Bill will be obstructed--I understand by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Back Benchers--and guillotined. We are debating the same issue- -the charges in residential homes. Do not the Government bear responsibility for that? It has nothing to do with my hon. Friends.

Sir Geoffrey Howe : If the hon. Gentleman believes that, he will believe anything. What happened on the National Health Service and Community Care Bill was overwhelmingly the result of the time taken by Opposition Members. That Bill could continue its passage through the House in a sensible manner only after the successful moving of a timetable motion by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health. He did so only after many hours of debate on Report.

The Social Security Bill is a much smaller Bill. Because of the similarity in the way in which the Opposition are apparently proposing to handle the Bill, it is sensible to let the House make a decision at the outset of the Report stage on the amount of time to be devoted to consideration

Column 499

of the Bill. Indeed, that view is in line with the view increasingly often aired in more than one part of the House, that timetabling is generally helpful.

Sir Peter Emery (Honiton) rose--

Sir Geoffrey Howe : I thought that that might provoke my hon. Friend.

Sir Peter Emery : Will my right hon. and learned Friend cast his mind towards the two Procedure Committee reports about the Committee and Report stages of Bills? If the Government had followed our advice, this debate might have been unnecessary. Our reports make two recommendations similar to what I think my right hon. and learned Friend is now attempting to do. Is not he attempting to ensure that all parts of a Bill are debated in Committee, and that only new factors of apparent importance are debated on Report? Would not it be better to timetable in that way and so ensure that this sort of position does not arise?

Sir Geoffrey Howe : My hon. Friend gives me such comprehensive support that I must welcome it. However, I must take care to ensure that my response is not so enthusiastic that it makes him feel that the argument is already over. There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend said. One point about the recommendation for more timetabling that emerged from what he said is that the earlier that that is undertaken the more value it has.

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) : I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will be cautious about those recommendations, which touch on the heart of what the House is about. The Government, through their hubris last year, introduced 11 guillotines. That meant that much legislation was unargued, unreasoned and caused difficulty in the country through the necessity to defend our position. Our fear about the guillotine is that many of the issues arise as a consequence of debate, and are not matters of settled judgment beforehand. In a spirit of humility, I ask the Government to be cautious about such arguments.

Sir Geoffrey Howe : I would not imagine my hon. Friend making a point of that kind except in a spirit of the utmost humility and I accept it in that sense.

The time foreshadowed for the Report stage was a day and a half and that is not unreasonable. We are now providing for rather more time than that to be devoted to debate and for that to be carried out in a more orderly fashion. That should command reasonable support. I hope that the House will agree that it makes sense to keep within reasonable bounds the amount of time that can be devoted on the Floor of the House to topics that were touched on or discussed in detail in Committee. There is much to be said for a fair, but disciplined approach to debating the new clauses and amendments that will shortly come before the House and the timetable motion will encourage that process. If the House approves the motion, the more self- disciplined we can be, the more new clauses and amendments we shall be able to debate.

I repeat the central point that the Bill will now have longer for debate than the one and a half days agreed

Column 500

through the usual channels. Therefore, I see no merit in accepting the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer).

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) : The Leader of the House has repeated his earlier point that there will be more time to debate the Bill and its new clauses. How can that possibly be so when the first six Opposition new clauses are being squashed into one hour and when the most important of these is about poll tax benefit, and all hon. Members know that that will take up the whole hour on its own?

Sir Geoffrey Howe : The total time allotted exceeds the normal one and a half sitting days--

Mr. Battle : That is time to debate Government new clauses.

Sir Geoffrey Howe : The Government new clauses deal with important matters with which it is perfectly sensible to deal at this stage. For example, the social fund amendment is a response to events that have occurred since the Bill's introduction. The measure relating to income support payments for people in residential care and nursing homes is a sensible response to the concerns expressed earlier this month by hon. Members on both sides of the House. That is a complicated area and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was understandably concerned to get it right. That new clause was tabled yesterday.

The new clause on occupational pensions tabled last Friday improves the existing provisions, following further and useful consultations with interested parties. The overwhelming majority of the Government amendments are simply designed, as you would expect, Mr. Speaker, to improve the detailed drafting of the Bill. I see no reason to apologise for bringing any of the new clauses to the House on Report.

Ms. Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) : Will the Leader of the House explain what possible justification the Government have for tabling a three-and-a-half page new clause on the duties of fathers to maintain their children if that saves social security costs--as seems to be the Government's only interest? When the Prime Minister made her speech about that in January we had plenty of time left in Committee. Why did the Government not bring that important issue forward sooner? We will not have enough time to discuss it properly now because of the guillotine motion.

Sir Geoffrey Howe : As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will explain, it is important that that matter should have been thought through carefully before it was debated in the House. The new clauses, including the one to which the hon. Lady has referred, have intrinsic merits and they will provide an opportunity for hon. Members to air their views on those issues.

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North) : The Leader of the House has just made a very serious point. He has suggested that the reason why the new clause has only just been introduced is that the issue had to be thought through. Was it not thought through when the Prime Minister made her speech in January?

Sir Geoffrey Howe : Of course it was. Speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister are lucid and

Column 501

effective, but even her speeches require a little time to be translated into clauses and then find their way into Bills such as this.

The time that will be made available under these arrangements is a sensible allocation, not least in the light of the experience on the National Health Service and Community Care Bill to which I have referred. It is a sensible way to ensure that these matters are discussed in an orderly and sensible fashion. No Government can stand back and allow the proper management of the business of Parliament to be threatened by the unreasonable prospect that could have followed from handling the Bill without a timetable motion. I commend the motion to the House.

4.10 pm

Mr. Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin) : I shall try to be helpful, but I doubt whether the Government will take my advice. I cannot help reflecting that I have had the job of opposing a guillotine motion in the House on only one other occasion. The Government decisively rejected my advice and I have the feeling that they have regretted that decision ever since. It was made during the guillotine debate on 22 February 1988 on the poll tax Bill. I advised them that it was not a good idea to rush it through. There were 317 of them and 223 of us and, accordingly, the vote to rush the legislation through as quickly as possible was carried. The old phrase about turkeys voting for Christmas inevitably comes to mind. Having made the mistake once, perhaps the Government will listen more carefully today.

I am disappointed that the Leader of the House has chosen to bring forward the motion. I approach my job with a little caution, because I know that guillotine debates have a certain sameness about them, and I also know that it will not be long before the Government and Opposition are reversed. I do not disagree with the Leader of the House when he says that it is important to get sensible consideration of Bills in Committee. However, he stretched matters to excess in pretending that the guillotine on this series of debates constitutes the orderly management of Government business.

I had some hopes that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be a reforming Leader of the House. He has made promises about the private Bill procedure and I thought that he would find better ways to deal with such things. I am afraid that, increasingly, he is becoming a party hack putting through business as effectively as he can and stifling opposition and debate. He has been a little disappointing. The guillotine motion is not business management, it is crisis management.

Mr. Andrew MacKay (Berkshire, East) : The hon. Gentleman talks about crisis management. As a fellow retread, he will recall that some years ago when he sat on the Government Benches as the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth, we both witnessed the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) standing at the Dispatch Box and moving five guillotine motions in one day. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that was orderly and that it was good management?

Mr. Grocott : The hon. Gentleman neglects the critical difference. At that time there was a deliberate attempt, helped by the House of Lords, to throw out major pieces of legislation to which we were committed. There was a different state of affairs at that time and the motions were presented much later in the parliamentary year. We had

Column 502

fewer guillotine motions than the present Government. I will not bore the House by reading the list of all the guillotine motions that the Government have presented. In the two and a half years since the general election more guillotine motions have been brought forward by the Government than were brought forward during a similar period by the last Labour Government. That has happened even though the Government have a large majority, a supine press and a largely docile House of Lords. I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands that the state of affairs is totally different.

What are the possible explanations for the Government bringing in a guillotine motion on this legislation at such short notice? The first might be that we were running out of parliamentary time at the end of a parliamentary year. Clearly that does not apply to this legislation. I know that, to Conservative Members, it must seem a long time since the Queen's Speech, but I remind them that we are only three months into the parliamentary year.

A second possible reason is that the Government's legislative programme is threatened. I know that they are losing by-elections, but the Government still have a substantial majority in the House, so surely they cannot claim that their programme is threatened. Have the Opposition behaved irresponsibly when considering the Bill? That cannot be the reason : Second Reading was on 22 January and the Committee had 12 sittings, so there can be no suggestion of filibustering or of the Opposition behaving unreasonably. The reason for this guillotine is that the Government are in a panic. Just for the record, let us get straight how the Government tabled their five new clauses, which are complicated and which deal with important issues. One was tabled on Monday ; two more were tabled early on Tuesday morning ; a fourth was tabled a little later ; and the final one, on residential accommodation, appeared only at 5 pm yesterday. The first we knew about the guillotine motion was yesterday morning. If that is not crisis management I do not know what is.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : Surely the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that the residential care provisions were changed because the Government were responding to the wishes of the House? He cannot grumble about that.

Mr. Grocott : The hon. Lady did not have the advantage that I had of being in Mid-Staffordshire on the day the Government lost the vote of residential accommodation and of seeing the panic at the Tory press conference when Conservatives had to explain how the Government were operating. I am sure that that panic has fed back to the Cabinet by now. The Government were in an indefensible position, so they are not being reasonable and sensible : they are panicking.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett (Pembroke) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Grocott : I shall not give way as I have already been speaking for some time.

The Government are panicking because they can no longer rely on many of their Back Benchers. On Tuesday night in the debate on the flagship of their legislative programme, the poll tax, they were deserted by the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) and by the

Column 503

former Chancellor of the Exchequer, so it is not surprising that run-of-the-mill Back Benchers without big jobs are failing to support the Government.

As the Leader of the House rightly pointed out, our 21 new clauses touch on crucial areas such as residential care, the poll tax, the uprating of benefits in line with earnings, people with disabilities--important new clauses tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) deal with them--and the compensation of victims of radiation. Either all these new clauses, some of them supported by Conservative Members, will not be considered at all or debate on them will be grossly foreshortened. No Government with a majority of 100 or more, three months into the parliamentary year, should be doing this, and they would not be if they were in rational control of their programme.

I said at the beginning that I would try to be helpful, but I have a feeling that I am not striking a chord among Tory Members. If they will not take any notice of us I suggest, in their own interests, that they take a look at their record of rushing legislation through Parliament, to see what happens when they make a mess of it. The three guillotines on the "great" Social Security Bill still failed to produce a sensible Act. Time after time, with the poll tax legislation and social security legislation, the Government have not listened to reasoned argument and allowed enough time for debate, so they have looked stupid and sometimes have ended up in the courts thereafter.

The guillotine motion is not moved so that there can be sensible scrutiny of the Bill, but because the Government are in a panic. That is why we shall vote against it.

4.19 pm

Sir George Young (Ealing, Acton) : Like the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott), I hope to be helpful. His speech was short on enthusiasm and seemed to be a bit of a ritual. Perhaps it was a word- processor-written speech with "social security" inserted for the name of the previous legislation on which he may have opposed a guillotine motion.

I spoke on Second Reading, but did not serve in Committee. We had a reasoned debate, with support from both sides. I understand from my hon. Friends who served on the Committee that it was a civilised procedure. Therefore, at first sight it may seem that the legislation does not deserve a guillotine motion. The reason for the guillotine and why I support it is what happened a fortnight ago.

A fortnight ago, I voted in every Division through the night. The notion that if one allowed this debate to proceed through the night there would be a civilised and rational discussion of new clauses is betrayed by anybody who was here a fortnight ago or anybody who reads Hansard. We got through about one clause in four hours and did not put the time to good use. If this measure were not guillotined, we would waste the small hours, and tomorrow afternoon the Government would have to introduce a guillotine motion. Against practice and even the declared intentions of Labour Members, it is sensible to introduce this motion to ensure a civilised debate in reasonable hours.

Column 504

Although I have not always supported guillotine motions in the past and I did not support one on the community charge, I shall vote for this one with enthusiasm.

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North) : I have followed the drift of the hon. Gentleman's argument, but it is inconsistent. Is it not better to debate matters at length than not debate them at all, which is what he will vote for if he votes for the motion?

Sir George Young : The hon. Gentleman misses my point. If one provides extensive time for debate, it is not put to productive use. I am not sure whether he was here a fortnight ago and listened to some of the debate--

Mr. Howarth : I was.

Sir George Young : The hon. Gentleman was. I challenge him to say that the hours between 10 pm and 7 am were put to the best possible use, that we got through a whole series of new clauses and had a useful discussion. We did not. Labour Members filibustered. They used the time to spin out discussion--

Ms. Short : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir George Young : No. The hon. Lady will be able to make her own speech.

That is why I have no hesitation in supporting the guillotine motion. We shall make more sensible use of time than if we did not have the guillotine and sat all through the night listening to boring speeches from Labour Members who are simply trying to spin out time. That does the House no good. People outside the House and Conservative Members wholly understand why the Government have introduced the motion.

4.23 pm

Mr. Michael Foot (Blaenau Gwent) : I am glad to have this opportunity to speak in the debate. I have spoken on one or two guillotine motions before and I shall refer to them.

The Leader of the House should have waited to listen to the debate. Whenever I moved a guillotine motion, I at least had the courtesy to listen to the debate. This is an important occasion, and he was at his lucid and most effective best--those were the words that he purloined from the Prime Minister--when he spoke to us. To run away immediately afterwards is grossly discourteous. It is not how the House of Commons should be run. He should be here to listen to the debate.

I mean no disrespect to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick), who is left on the burning boat and serves alone. He is probably better than his colleagues and if he had the chance to speak, it might be better all round. It is shocking for a Leader of the House to move a guillotine motion and to skedaddle off as though it were nothing to do with him. The Patronage Secretary moved the previous timetable motion because the Leader of the House was not present to move his own motion--he was off in Chile or somewhere. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's absence during that previous debate is all the more reason why he should have stayed today. The behaviour of the Patronage Secretary was bad as well. I have never in all my time as a Member seen a more raucous, demonstrative Patronage Secretary. I thought that he had been appointed to the Chief Whip's Office to

Column 505

bring a much-needed touch of elegance and courtesy. All his measures outside are matched when he comes into the Chamber. He sits next to the Leader of the House, shouts and interrupts everyone who wants to make a speech. He skedaddles off when he has the chance, leaving the hon. Member for Hallam, who is not allowed to reply, although I am sure that he is more capable of doing so than Ministers.

This is a discourteous way of treating the House of Commons, especially if the Government want the motion to be treated seriously, as it should be. I agree with the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) that it is dangerous for the House of Commons as a whole if we become used to the idea that we just need a guillotine motion to get business through.

Mr. Richard Holt (Langbaurgh) : If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that it is discourteous for my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House not to be here, does he think that it is also discourteous for the shadow Leader of the House not to be here?

Mr. Foot : My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) made an effective speech from the House of Commons' point of view, and everyone who heard it knows that it was a good speech. He is here to listen to the debate. I should have thought that every Conservative Member would understand that for a Leader of the House to move a motion and then clear off without having heard any of the replies is a discourteous way to treat the House of Commons. When I was Leader of the House, I stayed pretty well throughout the debates, certainly on these matters, to listen to the view of the House of Commons.

I underline the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin. It is foolish, even from the Government's point of view, not to listen to the House of Commons. The main purposes of a Leader of the House are not only to listen and move motions but to take messages from here to the Cabinet. Perhaps the breakdown in the Government's operations has occurred because that main task has not been performed. Cabinet does not learn what the House of Commons says, for example, in the early hours of the morning, when some of the most interesting developments take place--such as the debate a week or so ago that led to the other guillotine motion.

If such events are not reported to No. 10 Downing street by the Leader of the House, it shows a great weakness in our government and injures Cabinet government. Whenever there is a fresh Government crisis, the Leader of the House says, "We shall go back to Cabinet government." He says that almost twice-weekly now, but he is one of the chief offenders. He should tellNo. 10 Downing street and the Prime Minister around the Cabinet table each week what is happening here. He cannot do so if he is not here to see what happens. Even in the Government's own interests, it would be better for the Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary to pay attention to the House of Commons for a change and learn some wisdom from this place. I was provoked into making those comments by the conduct of those on the Government Front Bench, but I now wish to start on a different note. I agree with the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills that this is a serious matter for the House of Commons as a whole, although I disagree with the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G.

Column 506

Young), who has great knowledge of the House. It is a serious matter if Governments of any complexion get into the habit of thinking, "We can always introduce a guillotine motion to deal with these matters. If we get into trouble, we need not worry too much, and we need not even think of it at the beginning of a Bill." Indeed, a proposal to that effect is sometimes put forward by the Select Committee on Procedure.

That idea has always in the past been rejected by the House, and it should be rejected. I regret that the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery), is not in his place because he could learn something by listening to this debate. It is important for all concerned to hear what the House of Commons as a whole has to say on issues such as this.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett : My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) is attending a meeting upstairs.

Mr. Foot : The hon. Gentleman may have a good cause for not being here, but he makes interruptions in debates such as this and has suggested that the House should conduct itself in this way. As I say, he might attend here on occasions such as this because people can learn by listening to what is said in the Chamber.

The idea that we should have a cut and dried timetable for every Bill, with utter certainty about each measure going through in an allotted time, would do great injury to the House as a whole. After all, every Government, even the next Labour Government, would like such powers. We never sought such powers when we were in office. I accept that I introduced, and urged the House to introduce, guillotine motions on particular Bills. Indeed, we introduced five in a single day, as some people are kind enough to recall-- [Interruption.] --but even then I said exactly what I am saying now, which is that it would be a great injury to the House of Commons to have cut and dried guillotine motions on all Bills. The Government would love to have such a power but, by the same reckoning, it would greatly injure the power of the House, including the power of Government Back Benchers.

That that is true is borne out by the experience of the last few years, and Conservative Members will recall the debates that took place on what is now the Official Secrets Act 1989. A guillotine was introduced on that measure at a late stage--not to control speeches by my hon. Friends, but to gag Conservative Members.

Is there anyone who does not think that that measure would have been better had the Government listened to what Back Benchers said, and had even gone to the extreme length of incorporating into the legislation some of the amendments tabled by their supporters? The Government would have done better from their point of view and from that of the legislation.

I urge the Government--as I urge the new Government who will be coming into office ; nobody knows exactly when, but it is within a measurable time--not to be tempted by the idea of saying, "Let us have a cut and dried procedure so that we can get every Bill through in exactly the way we want."

If the Government take that attitude, they will, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin said, finish up with legislation with gross defects. No measure has ever been pushed through with grosser defects than the poll tax

Column 507

legislation. The Government could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble by listening to what hon. Members in all parts of the House said about that legislation.

Had the Government not used the guillotine, they might even have had time to think up some of the brilliant ideas on the poll tax about which we have heard in the last week or two. Indeed, they might even have put those ideas to the House and got them approved. That is the purpose of debates in the House. I have found over a number of years that debates in Committee are some of the best. Those debates, be they late at night or early in the morning, are some of the most important of all.

A prime example of the point I am making occurred only a week or so ago, when the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton voted against the Government, and I accept that he has had a creditable record on the type of issue that was then before the House. He did his best to persuade the Government to adopt his view. Although he did not quite succeed, anyone who listened to that debate--and I listened to most of it--could see that that is what the House of Commons is for. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) made his case very effectively, but it was the cross-play of argument with several Conservative Members that made the debate a most memorable one. In the end, the Government had to give way, but it was not only because of the vote. I claim that those who listened to the debate could come to only one conclusion : that something had to be done.

If only the Government had been wise enough not to introduce the guillotine, the debates on the poll tax legislation could have been much better. The Government could have learnt something from the House of Commons and could have had second thoughts, but, far from learning from experience in the House of Commons, they rushed off to introduce the guillotine to deal with the situation.

I do not want to elaborate a point that has been made quite clearly, but I have to say that, so far as I can judge--and I am an expert on the subject- -that is why the present Government's use of the guillotine has been far more dangerous, extensive and elaborate than that of any Government since the introduction of the mechanism by the Liberal party before the first world war. Previous Governments took some care. They paused before introducing the guillotine. That is the purpose of debates such as the one that we are now having, but even this debate has been cut down--to some extent, in my opinion, wrongly.

As things are going, it seems that the Government would like to make introduction of the guillotine a simple formality. The procedure is used so often that one might almost think that it was a formality already, that in every Bill there was a clause providing that, when the Committee stage or the Report stage has been reached, the guillotine will be brought in. The present Government have introduced more guillotines to curtail debate at this stage of Bills than any other Government in British history. By doing so, they have done injury to the House of Commons, but principally to themselves. The more this is done, the worse the government of the country becomes. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. and hon. Friends, when they are given the chance to run affairs, will resist any

Column 508

temptation to follow the present Government's example in this field--as in any other field. Indeed, I am sure that they will. The Leader of the House comes into the Chamber with a real hangdog look on his face. Time and again he appears looking as if he has just come from a meeting with the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). [Interruption.] I am glad to have from such high authority, confirmation that that is what the Leader of the House has been doing. That is his excuse. He will have to troop round the country to keep up with his right hon. Friend the Member for Henley. Let me give the Leader of the House some advice. If he wants to finish off his right hon. Friend, we shall help him. We too think that the right hon. Gentleman is not fit to be Prime Minister. When it comes to a comparison, there is not much choice- -"small choice in rotten apples", as Shakespeare would have said. If the Leader of the House really wants to deal with the right hon. Member for Henley, he has only to ask him why he voted so eagerly for the application of the poll tax in Scotland when he knew that it was going to be so injurious to England. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had the nerve to cross the Scottish border when he has been on his tours. He takes trips everywhere else. He should be invited to Scotland soon and asked to reply to that question.

All these matters could be dealt with properly if only the Government learned that they should provide time in the House for arguments to take place properly. That is why I oppose the motion in good conscience. The Minister for Social Security, who is to reply to the debate, knows something about the Bill. I am sure that he will try to defend the Government's position. No doubt he is as good a person to defend it as anybody ; certainly he will be much better than the Leader of the House or the Patronage Secretary, with whose eloquence we had to content ourselves on the last guillotine motion. It is better that the Minister should deal with the motion. He starts with a measure of good will. I am trying to dissipate some of it so that he does not have too easy a time. The Minister has a long record. I do not know who will be Leader of the House in the next Parliament, but I am sure that some hon. Members who are now on the Government side, and perhaps the Minister himself, will be on the Opposition Benches, remembering what I am saying today. They may reflect then on how wise I was.

If only the Government would get the message, how much better it would be for the country. When the Minister replies to the debate, I ask him not to make the formal reply which he has been given by the Leader of the House but to express the view which he would get from this side of the House in this and future debates.

4.41 pm

Mr. Roger King (Birmingham, Northfield) : It is always a pleasure to listen to the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), with his not infrequent strictures on the introduction of guillotine motions. One feels that one is listening to a maestro who had the opportunity, when he was in a similar position to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House, of obtaining an entry in the "Guinness Book of Records" for the greatest number of guillotine motions introduced in one day. We are well

Column 509

aware of that and we shall continue to remind the House of it when Opposition Members complain that we are guillotining happily.

Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : Given that his Government have extended the guillotining process, does not the hon. Gentleman consider that there might be a danger that the next Government, whoever they may be, will extend the process further? Does not the hon. Gentleman worry about that?

Mr. King : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. It pre-empts what I intended to say in a few moments ; perhaps I may come to it now.

The main problem that we face in the House is that we have opposition for opposition's sake. It has been going on for many years. Opposition Members recounted that the Government introduced a guillotine on the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which introduced the community charge. If my memory serves me right, we debated that measure for 180 hours or longer. Try as we might, we could not obtain from the Opposition one element of their alternative policy. It was just mindless opposition for the sake of opposition. Not one shred of policy came from the Opposition. There is still not a shred of policy on their alternative to the community charge, although they have a vague idea of values about which they trumpet in by- elections, but no one knows what the values are. It is like saying, "If you do not like my principles, I have plenty more where they came from."

Mr. Holt : Did my hon. Friend hear the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) on the radio the other morning? When he was asked by the interviewer if the Labour party had made up its mind on whether the future funding of local government would be by a property tax or a tax on each individual in the property, he said that that was one of the little points that Labour had not quite worked out.

Mr. King : That is right, but we are not here to debate the community charge. I should welcome that opportunity because we might have the chance to flush out Opposition policy. My point is that after 180 hours of endless debate in Committee and on the Floor of the House we could not obtain one shred of policy from the Opposition.

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Crawley) : My hon. Friend and I had the honour of serving in Committee on that Bill. Does he recall that Labour policy has changed twice since the Committee stage? Such policy as we were able to get out of the Opposition changed immediately afterwards, and it has subsequently changed again. What conclusions does my hon. Friend draw from that?

Mr. King : My hon. Friend invites me to draw conclusions. I note that the Labour party has introduced a flexible membership card, a credit card. It is like the party's policy--extremely flexible depending upon which by-election the party is contesting.

Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North) rose --

Mr. King : I am not giving way. I must get on because other hon. Members want to speak.

Not only did we have problems in flushing out any worthwhile opposition to the community charge and in obtaining concise, realistic debate, but we suffered the same experience on water privatisation. In my book that

Next Section

Home Page