House of Commons Hansard Debates for 24 Oct 1990

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Clay, Bob

Corbyn, Jeremy

Cousins, Jim

Cryer, Bob

Knapman, Roger

Nellist, Dave

Skinner, Dennis

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Tellers for the Noes :

Mr. Eric Illsley and

Mr. Bill Michie.

Question accordingly agreed to .

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Redbridge London Borough Council Bill [By Order] Order read for resuming adjourned debate on the Question [15 October], That the Lords amendment be now considered.

Clause 6

As to transfer of rights

Which amendment was : in page 4, lines 9 to 17, leave out clause 6.

Question again proposed, That the Lords amendment be now considered.

7.57 pm

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You may recall that the Bill has been the subject of some controversy and, indeed, difficulty. When it was last considered an amendment was moved. The House considered an amendment which did not refer to anything. As a consequence of the belated discovery of that fact during the debate, the proposer withdrew the amendment because clearly the House could not debate something which was not there. Could you agree to allow us to start from the beginning? We had two and a quarter hours of debate in a vacuum as it were. It seems to me that it would be better to agree for the purposes of time that the debate was about to begin now because on the last occasion it was about, literally, nothing.

Madam Deputy Speaker : In the first instance, the motion to which the right hon. Gentleman--I should say hon. Gentleman ; I am giving him titles that he does not have--referred was not withdrawn. The debate was adjourned. The hon. Gentleman knows that the powers of the Chair do not include a power to make that debate null and void. No occupant of the Chair has that power. Therefore, this is a resumed debate, with which we must now continue. If I remember correctly--I remember the debate well--Mr. Harry Barnes had the Floor.

Mr. Michael Neubert (Romford) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I remain somewhat perplexed about the position of the printed Bill that we are about to discuss. You will recall that the original Bill that was deposited was dated 16 November 1988. The later Bill, which I have in print, was dated 23 November 1989. The two Bills now available in the Vote Office are dated, respectively, 28 February 1990 and 25 May 1990. Should we come to debate clause 6 and the amendment to it, it is not clear to me which of the two Bills we are discussing. That clause is in the Bill dated 28 February 1990, but it does not appear in the one dated 25 May 1990.

I would consider it odd if it was within our procedures to discuss an outdated edition of a printed Bill, but even if that was so, is it not a contempt of the House that the Bill should have been printed in anticipation of the deletion of clause 6 even before the House had considered that matter?

Madam Deputy Speaker : One Bill is the Commons' Bill and one Bill is the Lords'. The Bill before me is the correct one. The Vote Office, being efficient as ever, has both the Bills and all that hon. Gentlemen have to do is ask for the correct one.

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I would be generous enough to offer my copy to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert), but, as we are debating it, I think that I should have it by the Chair.

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton) : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In addition to the two Bills to which reference has been made we have received a statement on behalf of the promoters in support of the consideration of the Lords amendment. Paragraph 3 of that statement says :

"Clause 6 of the Bill dealt with the power to transfer market rights conferred by the Bill. In view of the decision to make the amendment referred to above, clause 6 became otiose and was struck out at Committee Stage in the House of Lords."

I challenge that argument. When I made inquiries as to when the amendment was made, I was informed that when the Bill left the Opposed Private Bill Committee in the House of Lords it was in the same condition as it was when it left the House of Commons. We are now told that that Committee made the amendment. The report of that Committee should be made available, but, having asked for it, I have been told that it is unavailable.

If we are told that an amendment was made, we are entitled to see the business before the Committee when that amendment was made. I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, about how to obtain the report of those Committee proceedings so that we know exactly why the amendment was made. I have been unable to obtain that information and, therefore, I request that this business be adjourned until we receive it. Yet again we are approaching a debate without the evidence needed to consider the amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I cannot go behind decisions that were taken in the Lords. The question before us is perfectly in order, as is all the documentation. Points of order are taking time out of a resumed debate. We have already spent more than two hours on the procedural motion. The matters that hon. Gentlemen are seeking to raise now could be raised in the general debate when I should be happy to listen to them. I call Mr. Barnes.

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : I am afraid that I must start by raising a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We adjourned the debate on 15 October until today to get ourselves out of a great difficulty--we were debating something that did not exist. Many clever speeches were made, and I take my hat off to those hon. Members who were able to talk for two and a quarter hours about material which did not exist but which was loosely linked to the Bill. The amendment that had been moved, however, related to nothing.

I believe that we should start again from scratch and that the promoters should move that the amendment be considered. We should then be able to debate the items correctly. I put my case in a letter to Mr. Speaker and no doubt it was considered before this debate.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I know that the hon. Gentleman approached Mr. Speaker about this matter, but the Chair has no authority to make null and void and erase a debate which was proper and had taken place. We must now continue that resumed debate. The Bills and all the papers are available to the House this time.

Mr. Barnes : In that case I now need to argue why we should vote against the amendment being considered.

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The main reason not to consider the amendment is to give Redbridge council time to put its house in order, especially as the Bill is a procedural mess. That would give the council an opportunity to consider the role of the parliamentary agents, Sharpe Pritchard. In the previous debate on this matter the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) said :

"Redbridge's parliamentary agents are Sharpe Pritchard who are well known to hon. Members."--[ Official Report, 15 October 1990 ; Vol. 177, c. 994.]

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that you have heard several points of order already, but I have another point of order that is extremely important to the Chair and to the House.

When we previously debated the Bill a number of Conservative Members who are deeply involved in this matter spoke and, therefore, under the normal rules of procedure, they would be disallowed from speaking today. However, they were speaking about a clause that was not in the Bill. In effect, now that we know about clause 6, they have not taken part in the proceedings.

Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East) : Good one.

Mr. Skinner : For the purposes of proper procedure, and as those hon. Members have a vested interest in this matter, those who spoke about a clause which was not in the Bill should now have the right to speak to clause 6. If not, those hon. Members and, in particular, their constituents, will be disfranchised in this debate.

Madam Deputy Speaker : The hon. Gentleman has made an extremely good point. It is most ingenious, but, unfortunately, at this stage I cannot change our practice to change the rules of debate. Hon. Members who have spoken before may intervene, but I cannot change the practice now to allow them to speak. I must say, however, that the hon. Gentleman raised a most ingenious point of order--one of the best I have heard in my time in the Chair.

Mr. Skinner : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We know that there is a procedure in the House whereby an hon. Member can ask the permission of the House to speak again in a debate. Sometimes Ministers exercise that right when they are introducing new Bills. In those circumstances, if Conservative Members who took part in the previous debate on the non-clause asked permission to speak again, would that be allowed? I know that someone might object, but that is another story.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I cannot anticipate that, but, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, it is for the House to determine the answer.

Mr. Cryer : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has great validity and I endorse its sentiments. In view of that, would you accept a manuscript amendment to the Standing Orders--a procedure that is widely followed in the House?

Madam Deputy Speaker : That was a very good try on the hon. Gentleman's part, but I am not going to wear it this time.

Mr. Neubert : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. If it is not open to you under the

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Standing Orders to make such special arrangements in the special circumstances of the business being adjourned on Monday 15 October, would you be prepared, if asked to judge the adequacy of the time given to the debate, to make allowances for the fact that a good deal of our time during the previous debate was spent debating a matter that was out of order? We were asked to discuss a clause that did not appear in the Bill and much of the debate was taken up with points of order about just that.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I see that this evening our time is also being taken up with points of order. The hon. Gentleman must now leave the matter to the discretion of the Chair.

Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley, West and Penistone) : On the ruling that you have just made, Madam Deputy Speaker, you said that if we ask for the permission of the House to speak again, it will be up to the House to decide yea or nay. I take it that if there were to be a division of opinion, there would also be a Division of the House on whether that Member could speak.

Madam Deputy Speaker : No, no--one voice only is our normal practice. It is the practice of the House that if one voice is raised in opposition, so be it. It is not up to the Chair.

Mr. Barnes : I thought that the point of order from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) about the disfranchisement of the hon. Members who spoke in the previous debate was important. That was why I included it in my letter to Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover said it with much more style and panache than could be contained in my letter.

The point that I was making was that we should vote against the amendment because Redbridge council is in something of a mess over the measure. I was quoting from the hon. Member for Romford, who said :

"Redbridge's parliamentary agents are Sharpe Pritchard who are well known to hon. Members. Their no doubt expensive services enjoy a high reputation in the House."

However, they may not enjoy such a high reputation following the procedures in which we have been involved. A great mistake had been made when the debate had to be adjourned on 15 October.

Mr. Cryer : Does my hon. Friend agree that the debate was not adjourned in the sense of an ordinary conclusion, but came to an end in unusual circumstances because the Bill was withdrawn? The debate had to come to an end because the sponsor had to withdraw the Bill and left the House with nothing to debate. That emphasises the importance of the procedural points that we are making.

Mr. Barnes : The measure was, in practice and de facto, withdrawn, but unfortunately the sponsor moved an adjournment, so formerly we were in that position. I wrote to Mr. Speaker in an attempt to claim that, despite how the words appeared on paper at the end of the debate, the reality was that the officials and, to a large extent, the Chair were in a considerable mess about what was taking place. I was asked by Mr. Deputy Speaker who was in the Chair to allow the sponsor to get us out of that mess, which he did by moving the adjournment. Now, we have been hoist by the petard of the adjournment having been moved. But in reality it was a convenient means of killing

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off the debate. That is why I felt that we should start the whole thing again and enfranchise the hon. Members who had previously spoken, but Madam Deputy Speaker's ruling was different, so I must pursue the debate.

I was quoting from the hon. Member for Romford in the debate of 15 October, when he talked about the expensive services of Sharpe Pritchard and said that the firm would be well known to hon. Members. He continued :

"Proceedings on the Bill have been under way for nearly two years if one dates them from the printing of the Bill on 16 November 1988. Redbridge residents must have been paying a packet all this time."--[ Official Report, 15 October 1990 ; Vol. 177, c. 994.]

They certainly have been paying a packet and, presumably, have had to pay an extra packet in having the Bill reprinted to make it available for us today. They also have the problem of all the mess that was created on 15 October when the parliamentary agents were present.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor (Upminster) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have just been up to the Private Bill Office and seen the only copy of the report of the Lords Committee stage. While I clearly did not have time to go through all five days' proceedings, it is, I am informed, practice for House of Lords Committees to announce their findings at the end of the Committee stage. At the end of the Committee stage of this Bill all that is on record is that the Bill should proceed. There is no mention of clause 6 being taken out. It seems that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, may have been misinformed. Clearly, the House cannot debate a House of Lords amendment that has not been made.

8.15 pm

Madam Deputy Speaker : That is something which the Chair cannot go into now. The matter before the House--the procedural motion that we are debating--is perfectly in order.

Mr. Skinner : My point of order is different, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Redbridge London Borough Council Bill was first introduced by the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) ; when we debated it last week the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) spoke on behalf of the promoters. The hon. Member for Ilford, South introduced the Bill, and the hon. Member for Ilford, North was allowed by the Chair to stop the proceedings. If someone who is not promoting the Bill in the House--such as the hon. Member for Ilford, North, who was not at the beginning--is allowed to stop it, it should be right and proper for any other Member, whether Opposition or Conservative, to be able to say, "Let us adjourn again." If the hon. Member for Ilford, North can do that, as he did on the last occasion, why cannot we do it now and get on to something else?

Madam Deputy Speaker : It would be in order for the Chair to decide whether that motion was acceptable.

Mr. Skinner : I shall move it then.

Madam Deputy Speaker : It would not be acceptable.

Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) : Further to the matter that has been under discussion, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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The second and third paragraphs of the statement put out on behalf of the Bill's promoters refer to a decision made in another place to make an amendment that led to clause 6 becoming otiose and being struck out at Committee stage in the House of Lords. If clause 6 became otiose, an amendment could not appear to leave out clause 6 in the Bill. How can we have a statement saying that the clause is no longer relevant, is otiose and should be struck out, and yet we are discussing an amendment to leave out clause 6? Surely, logically, the decision to leave out clause 6 has been arrived at in another place and we are simply being asked to justify or rubber-stamp a mistake made in another place because the amendment was not properly constructed. The statement contradicts the Bill.

Madam Deputy Speaker : We are not talking about that. The House has been asked to determine for itself whether, when we reach the amendment, we should decide to omit it from the Bill.

Mr. Illsley : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I do not know whether there can be a further point of order, but the hon. Gentleman appears to want to delay the debate.

Mr. Illsley : How can we determine what was in the minds of their Lordships in leaving out clause 6? We are being asked to determine whether clause 6 should stand on its own in our opinion, but we cannot see the reasoning behind the decision by their Lordships, the promoters or whoever to leave out clause 6.

Madam Deputy Speaker : The House determines for itself whether amendments should be made and clauses left out or withdrawn. Those are matters that the House determines during the course of debate.

Mr. Skinner : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

You were not in the Chair when we discussed the matter last week, but we found that, although there are 1,100 people qualified to sit in the House of Lords, not one of them spoke on the issue. Therefore, not only is the hon. Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor) right about the matter, but it went through the House of Lords like a dose of Epsom salts. It was not moved by the person who first moved it in this House because the sponsor-- the man who is commonly known on these Benches as the man with the monocle, Erich von Stroheim II--was not here to do it. It really is a cock-up of tremendous magnitude.

Madam Deputy Speaker : The hon. Gentleman is not raising a point of order ; he is raising perfectly legitimate points of debate and, perhaps, substance. If we can proceed with the debate, I shall be delighted to call him.

Mr. Barnes : On 15 October my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover said that our debate was like something out of Monty Python. Further proof of that is the fact that I might end up making the longest speech that I have ever made while saying nothing because there have been so many interventions and points of order.

Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend will know that when a Bill comes from the other place it is handed by a gentleman in a wig to the Serjeant at Arms who then holds it--balances it--and gives it to an usher who carries it round the No Lobby in order to give it to somebody who then gives it to

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one of the Clerks. In all that handling, some sheet of paper with clause 6 on it may have dropped out. Has my hon. Friend investigated that possibility to see whether the missing clause is on a piece of paper in an odd corner somewhere?

Mr. Barnes : I am afraid that I understand nothing about procedural mysteries and details. I am just the hon. Member who walked in here like a little boy lost, picked up the Bill and saw that the emperor had no clothes and that we were discussing nothing. When I said that, the debate was stopped. If I had made some investigations I might have been able to discover some other great procedural anomalies between here and the other place, but I am afraid that I have not.

Mr. O'Brien : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I feel strongly about this. The report of the Third Reading debate in the other place on 14 June says :

"Redbridge London Borough Council Bill. Read a third time, and passed, and returned to the Commons with an amendment."--[ Official Report, House of Lords, 14 June 1990 ; Vol. 520, c. 414.] But nowhere is there any record of an amendment. It is only referred to. So how can this House consider an amendment from the other place that has not been made? Nowhere is there a record of an amendment being made by the other place to the Bill to the effect that clause 6 should be erased. How can this House consider an amendment that has not been made? May we have some guidance, because the procedure that we are following tonight seems very strange?

Madam Deputy Speaker : The Chair is not responsible for the deliberations of the other place. The amendment that I have before me tonight has come from the other place, and therefore our proceedings tonight are in order.

Mr. O'Brien : Further to my point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Who made the amendment in the other place? No Member of the other place is recorded as making such an amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker : As I say, the Chair is not responsible for deliberations in the other place. There is no judgment that the Chair can pass on that. The amendment has come from the other place and I am assured by the authorities of the House that it is perfectly in order.

Mr. Neubert : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) said that the Bill was given its Third Reading in the other place on 14 June. You will recall that I drew to your attention a copy of the Bill printed in May this year without that clause. On first glance, that would seem to imply that the amendment was proposed and enacted in Committee in the other place. Yet my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor) assures us that, according to the record, that is not so. I think that we are owed an explanation.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor : I cannot assure my hon. Friend or the House that there was no such amendment in Committee in the other place because I did not have a chance to read all five volumes of the Committee's proceedings. But I am assured by the Private Bill Office that the usual procedure in the other place is to make

recommendations on a Bill at the end, and I assure the House that at the end no such amendment was recorded.

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Madam Deputy Speaker : The hon. Gentleman and the House can be assured that the Private Bill Office is correct in presenting the Lords amendment. It is in order.

Mr. Nellist : On a different point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be aware, as most hon. Members are, that the other place has a strange, but presumably on many occasions useful, procedure by which the House adjourns during pleasure. It is a quaint and rather nice phrase. Will you, Madam Deputy Speaker, accept a motion from the Floor that our proceedings be adjourned for a similar period, which I understand is about an hour, so that the Clerks of this House can contact the Clerks of the other place to discover whether the points made by Conservative Members are correct? If they are, it would save a lot of embarrassment all round if the matter were put right before something wrong was done tonight.

Madam Deputy Speaker : No. Hon. Members are making a good try in raising points of order, but our proceedings are in order, as is the documentation before us, or it would not be here.

Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) : Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think that it would be right to say that the Chair at all times protects Members of the House and the records of the House. As I understand it, after the Committee proceedings in the other place a private Bill is then placed on the Table of what is called the Lord Chancellor's counsel, which may or may not be comprised of Members of the other place but who are lawyers. They then amend the private Bill without any record of the proceedings being made available to hon. Members which would enable them to discover why such amendments were made. That is what happened in the case of the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill. Amendments to that were made by the Lord Chancellor's counsel and there were no records of that. Are there any records of such procedures in the other place at which we could look so that we could discover why the clause was removed from the Bill?

Madam Deputy Speaker : The Chair has many responsibilities and much authority, but it does not extend to the other place.

Mr. Cryer : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a serious matter. According to the Order Paper we are considering that the Lords amendment to the Redbridge London Borough Council Bill be now considered. We have had two documents from the Vote Office, one of which says that in the parliamentary Session 1989-90 the Lords amendment is, in effect, to leave out clause 6. It is stapled to another document which had been issued by Sharpe Pritchard, parliamentary agents.

There must be some limit to the extent to which an outside body can insert an amendment which is to be considered by Parliament without any authority other than their claim that it is a Lords amendment. There is none of the other documentation that is usually available to the House of Commons to verify that it is a Lords amendment. We have only the word of the parliamentary agents. Frankly, that is not something which, in my experience and I am sure in yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, the House has ever taken as proof that the amendment was considered by the other place.

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Madam Deputy Speaker : This is a procedure that has been going on for many years--

Mr. Cryer : It is wrong.

Madam Deputy Speaker : It may well be wrong, but it is not for the Chair to amend that procedure at this stage. I simply tell hon. Members that this is a procedure which has been accepted by the House for a long time.

Mr. Barnes : I was discussing Sharpe Pritchard, parliamentary agents, who have also been mentioned in many points of order, and suggesting that Redbridge borough council should have an opportunity to get itself new parliamentary agents. Given the money that Sharpe Pritchard made out of this and the inept and incompetent way in which it handled the matter, especially in connection with the debate on 15 October, the company should be known as "Sharp Practice" rather than Sharpe Pritchard.

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