House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Feb 1992

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Mr. Robert G. Hughes : My hon. Friend will no doubt wish to take the opportunity to welcome one of the part-time members of the Committee, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) to the debate.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is returning to his place.

Mr. McCartney : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Not for the first time, the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) has made outrageous remarks about the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti). The hon. Gentleman is not a member of my party, but I feel that it is vital that remarks made in the House should not denigrate or give a false impression of an hon. Member's conduct in this place. Only a moment ago, the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) accused the hon. Member for Eastbourne of being involved in a filibuster. Now the hon. Member for Harrow, East accuses him of being a part-time member of the Committee. Yet he was neither. Conservative Members are simply engaging in party political activities--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am not aware of any matter arising from that that is a matter for the occupant of the Chair.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : You will see, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from the length of that so-called point of order, precisely why Conservative Members have complained about filibustering in Committee. I confess to an admiration for the way in which the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) can pour out a torrent of words for hours on end--for what purpose, I know not. If a medal were to be awarded, it would certainly go to the hon. Member for Makerfield, who has taken over the mantle of an hon. Member who retired from the House a few years ago and who was a genius when it came to filibustering. That accolade now passes to the hon. Member for Makerfield. I merely add that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) is perfectly capable of defending himself, and will no doubt do so when he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

There ought not to be any argument about the fact that the public are entitled to have, and be seen to have, value for their money--and that means compulsory competitive tendering. The long-winded case against CCT has been nothing more than rearguard action to ensure that many--though not all--local authorities can go on in their own sweet way, measuring need and the delivery of service by the old Labour party yardstick of the amount of money that they spend. That seems to be the only yardstick that the Opposition have ever had : if one spends more, it must be a better service- -if one spends less, one is cost-cutting. They have never understood value for money. Let me give an example to which I have referred previously. Our own Labour authority in Nottinghamshire, working from desktops on unchecked and untendered for building work needed in our old people's homes, would rather announce their closure--as it disgracefully did--than obtain outside quotations and find out what it would cost to do the work required. [Interruption.] I will gladly give way to the hon. Member for Makerfield if he wishes me to--he has spent an entire paragraph of my speech rabbiting from the Back Bench.

Mr. McCartney : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not accuse me of filibustering. He rarely speaks in the

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House and even when he does, he never speaks up for Nottingham. He always denigrates it and finds excuses to attack Labour councillors. Come 9 April, the people of Nottinghamshire will sort him out.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : I do not know whether to laugh or cry. If there is one hon. Member who speaks up for his city, I am he. My one criticism and my one sadness is that the queen of the midlands is oppressed by Labour -controlled city and county councils, and I cannot wait for the day when we get rid of both of them.

A few Labour Members at county hall--there are some honourable men among our Labour councillors, although not the Labour county councillor who is the prospective parliamentary candidate for my constituency--

Mr. Clelland : We did not think that you would like him.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : I do not.

Some members at county hall had their consciences pricked over the possible closure of our old people's homes and joined my Conservative colleagues on the county council to vote that outrageous proposal down. Had there been compulsory competitive tendering, that situation might never have arisen. It will certainly not arise in future, because I know from the outside quotations that we have had for the work on the old people's homes that it would come comfortably within the budget that the authority already has available to it. Even the Labour councillors are beginning to feel ashamed at the dreadful pressures that they put on all the residents of those 12 homes while the matter was being debated at county hall in Nottinghamshire. The Bill began in the other place and was considered in considerable detail there. The Opposition can hardly say, therefore, that they have not had a chance to examine its substance and properly to air their grievances and table amendments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. French) said, with the time that they have taken so far, they have denied us the opportunity properly to consider part II.

My hon. Friend might well have referred in his excellent speech to the fact that part II refers to the Audit Commission which, strangely, the Labour party wishes to abolish the Audit Commission, although it is one of the greatest protections that the public have. I cannot for the life of me understand the logic of that, but that is another good reason why the Bill must not be allowed to fall through lack of time left in this Parliament.

The main purpose of part II of the Bill is to give us the means by which we can restore or create single-tier unitary authorities wherever it is found appropriate. That is a process that we cannot afford to delay. My constituents, living in one of the finest cities in the country--I say that again for the benefit of the hon. Member for Makerfield--and in the urban areas around our city, which constitutes the real capital of the east midlands, want to throw off the shackles of county hall. They simply do not understand or want councillors from Worksop, Mansfield and Retford making decisions that are rightly for the people of Nottingham--or south

Nottinghamshire--whatever the ultimate decision may be.

Of course those northern councillors want to do the best that they can for their towns--that is right and proper--but I submit that they should no longer have the power to make those decisions at the expense of my constituents living within the city of Nottingham. The sooner the Bill

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reaches the statute book, the happier my constituents will be, and I believe that that view is held throughout south Nottinghamshire. Blocking the Bill will cost the Labour party dear. Labour will not get away with the publicity in my locality and bogus amendments to put teeth into the citizens charter. We all know that Labour opposes the charter.

Labour Members will not get away with claiming that they support single- tier authorities. The controlling Labour group at county hall provided funds for county hall to produce self-congratulatory pamphlets with the express purpose of trying to preserve the county's existence. Labour cannot have it both ways. A Labour authority cannot spend public money to maintain its existence while Labour Members of Parliament state in the House that they want single-tier authorities.

Mr. Martlew : The hon. Gentleman must recall that it was a Conservative Government who, in 1972 and 1973, proposed the local government reorganisation that is now being altered. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept any responsibility for that?

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : Yes, we got it wrong. Many Conservative Members and Conservatives around the country believed that local government should be reorganised in the early 1970s, but we did not believe that there should be the same solution throughout the country. That is exactly what the present Government have recognised. We cannot claim that everywhere must have precisely the same solution. That is precisely what part II of the Bill addresses. Some areas may continue to have two-tier authorities, if that is right and proper for them and if that is what the local people want, but there is no doubt that a two-tier structure is not the answer in Nottinghamshire. It was wrongly imposed in the early 1970s. The Conservative party has at least had the courage to say that it was wrong, we must put it right and we must not delay further.

Mr. Clelland : If the hon. Gentleman is big enough to admit that the Conservative Government were wrong in 1972 and that they were wrong in respect of the poll tax--another piece of infamous local government legislation--is it not a little unwise of the Government to rush through yet another measure which is also wrong?

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : No, there is no logic in that view. One of the great tragedies in this House is that so few of us have run businesses. When one runs a business, one is aware that one makes mistakes, but one does not dwell on them. If one makes a wrong decision, one simply says, "Stop--cut your losses and move on to something new." I wish that we in politics were more able to admit that something we did a few years ago was wrong and that we should put it right as quickly as we can. There is no shame in that. One of the problems in politics is that it takes so long for us to admit that we got something wrong. We were wrong to impose a similar structure throughout the country in the 1970s. The Government recognise that, and we are establishing a system which will ensure that we get it right this time.

Mr. Simon Coombs (Swindon) : Is not one of the attractions of the Bill the fact that, by creating the Local

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Government Commission, we provide an opportunity for freedom of choice in local areas so that people in different parts of the country can choose different solutions? It is a question not of rushing through a single prescription, but of creating a framework in which choice can be exercised.

While I have the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo)

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Briefly, please.

Mr. Coombs : Of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I wish to raise a point which arises from our discussions. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South has referred to a mistake which he alleges that the Conservative party made in 1972. We have learnt from our mistakes, but the Labour party refuses to learn from its mistakes. Labour is still determined to have regional government and to impose another tier upon it, which will be--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Interventions should be brief. Let us return to the motion before the House.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo : I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs). His intervention stands freely and requires no comment from me. I do not disagree with him at all.

The Bill must make progress. I therefore support the timetable motion without reservation.

8.24 pm

Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield) : There seems to be a sense of deja vu on the Conservative Benches. This must be about the 60th motion to curtail debate on a Bill in the past five years, and most of those motions have related to local government matters. On each occasion, the motion has been dictated by political considerations on the Government Benches.

The Government's arrogance in Committee is clear. When hon. Members attempt to debate issues, they are met with silence or with occasional sedentary interventions in the form of caustic remarks from Conservative Members. If, in Committee, Opposition Members did not participate in a debate, the Minister tried to curtail the debate, causing the Committee to progress to the next clause. Opposition Members could not win no matter what happened. If Opposition Members did not wish to participate in a debate, the Government would not initiate one.

That is precisely what happened on 11 February. Without consultation, and of their own volition, the Government decided that the debate would continue not till 10 pm--as had previously been agreed--or to 11 pm, midnight or 1 am, but until 5 am. However, there was a tacit and clear policy, in that Back-Bench Conservative Members did not participate in the discussions. Therefore, Back-Bench Opposition Members had to shoulder the responsibility of examining the Bill.

When it comes to considering amendments in Committee, Conservative Members are gutless. They have failed to scrutinise the Bill. The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) has admitted that mistakes were made. That was big of him, but such mistakes would not have been made if amendments had been considered properly in Committee and if Conservative Members had shown any desire to participate in the debates to scrutinise the Bill.

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From the Government's point of view, we have an elected dictatorship. Whatever the Secretary of State says goes. If the Government cannot get their legislation through quickly, they can always introduce a guillotine. That is why Conservative Members cannot make a case tonight. So far, we have simply heard a litany of personal attacks on Opposition Members. My hon. Friends and I take it as a badge of pride when Conservative Members try to denigrate our contributions in this place and in Committee. I believe that that shows that we are on the right course.

I do not intend to apologise for referring to safety in the fire service. Why should I apologise for referring to men and women who daily try to save lives? They save the lives of about 700 people a year, and they save another 10,000 people from serious injury. I have been personally attacked in this House for trying to ensure that, when compulsory competitive tendering is introduced in the fire service, it protects equipment and the maintenance of equipment which saves the lives of firefighters and those who are unfortunately involved in fires. If it is being boring to attack the principle by which the Committee operates, then I plead guilty.

We must also consider CCT in the police service and the fact that that service believes that the Government are wrong to force the police service into areas of CCT which will affect security. If it were not for Opposition Members, the professional advice that the Government have received from the fire service and the police service would never have seen the light of day. Conservative Members object to Opposition Members being able to place on the public record the advice that the Government have received from their professional advisers who say that the Government are wrong. If it were not for Opposition Members, that advice would not have come to light. Why have the Government failed in Committee to give any public commitment to publish consultants' reports in respect of the legislation? The reason is that the consultants have made it clear to the Government that the way in which they are proceeding with the Bill is a mistake and a serious error in administrative, financial and political terms.

Their arrogance is such, after 13 years in power, that the Government will listen to no one. They will take advice from no one--they will certainly not take advice from Opposition Members. When advice becomes politically embarrassing, they close the debate. That has happened in Committee.

As the debate unfolds, the Government become more and more embarrassed. We are able to produce evidence of the disasters of compulsory competitive tendering in councils, irrespective of political control or region, or whether they are county councils, non-metropolitan councils or metropolitan councils. There have been disasters in terms of the quality of service, the wages and conditions of those who are trapped in compulsory competitive tendering and the pressures being placed on local authorities even when they win a tender. Tenders are won at the cost of the delivery of service. The Government hate the fact that public scrutiny is taking place and they want to close the debate.

The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. French) made an interesting assertion. He believes that there is a need for Committee procedures to be changed, that this is an intellectual debate and that he is very sorry that it had to take place. The Government have had 13 years to change

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procedures and to come up with proposals to ensure the proper consideration of legislation and to protect the rights of Back-Bench Members, of minority groups and of the official Opposition, but they have failed to do so--because it is not in their interests to do so. The Government are not prepared to have open government or open debate in Committee. They want to protect the system as long as it protects their position. The hon. Member for Gloucester cannot have it both ways. He cannot complain to hon. Members that he will not have sufficient time to take part in the debate on part II of the Bill when he himself has connived, and will connive tonight, at ensuring that there is no proper consideration of it.

What is at stake in the first part of the Bill are two major clauses-- clauses 8 and 9--which are at the heart of the proposals. That is why Opposition Members are insisting on a proper debate on those clauses. Unlike the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo), I have read the legislation. I am surprised that, as a Conservative Member, he did not realise that this is an extension of a piece of legislation that has been in operation since 1988. Compulsory competitive tendering has been in operation since 1988. The legislation is about extending the scope of services and the way in which the Government through the Secretary of State control tendering procedures. That is what we objected to in Committee. Much of clause 8 is enabling legislation. Let us have more information in it. Each time we have asked questions, the relevant Minister has said, "We are still in consultation ; we will bring forward statutory instruments on that."

By that sleight of hand--that casual brushing aside of the political debate --in one week the Government protect themselves from proper scrutiny of the legislation. As we saw with the poll tax, with statutory instruments they forced through, without any debate, fundamental changes in the structure of local government. That leads to complete disaster--not only political disaster, but, more important, disaster in the fair operation of local government as an institution and a deliverer of services.

Mr. Clelland : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for enlightening the House on what has been going on in Committee as opposed to the filibustering that we now hear from Conservative Members. Does my hon. Friend agree that it may be a good policy on our part to send copies of the Committee's proceedings to fire authorities, police authorities and local councils in areas represented by Conservative Members who serve on the Committee? Those authorities and perhaps the local press in those areas will see the contributions that have been made by my hon. Friends and compare them with those by Conservative Members, which I suspect would not fill one sheet of A4 paper.

Mr. McCartney : My hon. Friend has a good idea, but I can put his mind at rest : that is already happening. In my postbag, I have received contributions from people in the Strangers Gallery stating that, if it were not for Opposition Members, their views about the legislation would never have been put.

Professional associations representing architects wrote the Government a detailed paper about the way in which the Government were seriously undermining architects' departments in local authorities. Did the Minister publish

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that document? Did the Minister refer to it either on Second Reading or in our debate on clause 8 in Committee? Not a bit of it. It was left to Opposition Members to set out the position of architects and professional advice to the Government.

The same applies to the fire service, the police and local authority associations. On every occasion, the Government failed to take account in proper debate of the views of people outside. That is despite the fact that the Government are introducing legislation which changes large sectors of local authority delivery of services, and the consultation procedure has not been completed.

The Government are passing legislation without asking local authority associations, fire services, police services, voluntary organisations, local authorities, parish councils, or town councils their view on the legislation. The Bill will be law before their views have had an opportunity to be expressed properly unless Opposition Members are given that opportunity during the passage of the Bill.

Have hon. Members ever heard of such a situation? The offer of open government through the citizens charter and the procedure for public comment has ended after the Bill becomes law. That is a sham. The Government have already decided the principles of the Bill. They have no intention of allowing a proper debate on the consequences of it. This is only a bit of window dressing in the run-up to the election. That is what this pernicious guillotine motion is about : the Government are desperately clearing the decks for a general election.

The Government have no advantage in containing the debate upstairs, because each day more and more embarrassing information comes out about their proposals. For example, last Thursday, the Government sought to change clause 9 to allow a calumny about local authorities which, to some extent, was continued by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South : that, over the past three years, local authorities had been cheating in some way in their operation of compulsory competitive tendering and we therefore need a change in the law. They said that they had to do something to get rid of those local authorities' anti-competitive practices, yet in the debate that Conservative Members did not want, the truth was that of more than 3, 000 tendering procedures that were investigated, only 30--about 1 per cent.-- required any action or proposed action by the Government. That was the excuse for dramatically changing, without consultation, major sectors of local government services such as housing, architectural services and a host of legal and administrative services--a change of the law based on an outright misrepresentation of the facts. That is why Conservative Members do not like the debate : because we find out the truth. We find out that the Government have nothing more than blind ideology when it comes to the continuation of this piece of legislation.

I now refer to what will happen from tomorrow onwards. Much has been said about the way in which we shall proceed. It would take much to convince me and other hon. Members that the Government are serious about a fundamental review of local goverment other than for political reasons, in the light of the way in which 13 years of Tory attacks on local government have undermined the concept of public service in the United Kingdom.

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The Tories' record is not good. When they lost control of metropolitan authorities, they abolished them. When they lost control of Greater London local authorities, they abolished them. The legislation is not about a commission to improve local government services. For Conservative Members, it is a short-term, ideological set-up whereby they will examine county councils in non-metropolitan areas that are controlled by Labour. They are already fingering some local authorities not because they do not provide proper services but because they are controlled by Labour. If the Government cannot win in the ballot box, they abandon the ballot box.

Mr. Rupert Allason (Torbay) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way ?

Mr. McCartney : I give way to the hon. Member for MI5.

Mr. Allason : How does the hon. Gentleman square that slightly paranoid view of the reconstruction of local government with the position in counties such as Devon, where a substantial proportion of the local authorities are Conservative-controlled at both district and county level ? In Devon, we feel that there is great duplication, especially in the control and supply of services. All we are after is one sensible unitary authority. Surely that is nothing to do with politics but is the desire to provide our constituents and people in individual wards with a sensible, proper service, combined with a sensible, proper system of accountability.

Mr. McCartney : In the light of some of the hon. Gentleman's writings, he is the last one to accuse anyone in the House of being paranoid.

Mr. Allason : I have read the hon. Gentleman's file, and it is all right.

Mr. McCartney : If one were to believe what the Minister, the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) and other Conservative Members on the Committee believe, it would be a pretty boring file.

Mr. Allason : There was an interesting telephone conversation two years ago.

Mr. McCartney : I had an even more interesting one last night, but we will deal with that in a moment.

I would go along with the hon. Gentleman if his record and that of his hon. Friend was one that we could trust. I am sure that, in his time, the hon. Gentleman has deliberately voted with the Government for the abolition of many local authorities. The Opposition want to get rid of the Government's political inclination to tamper only with Labour-controlled local authorities.

I believe in a root-and-branch review of local government services. I believe in unitary authorities. I believe in bringing services down to as local a level as possible to take account of the need to have a financial base and a land base on which to implement strategic policy decisions. So I have no argument with the hon. Gentleman about the concept in principle, but I worry about the political ideology behind the Government's position.

For example, at present the Bill makes no provision for local communities to appeal against decisions by the commission. That is fundamental if one is serious about local decision-making. The commission will be able to

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make fundamental changes to a council, abolish it or amend it. Local people will have no procedure by which to appeal against that decision. At least with the present Local Government Boundary Commission there is a procedure for appealing against its decisions. If the Government are serious about local government and consideration by local people, why have not they provided a proper procedure to appeal against a decision to abolish an authority?

Mr. Clelland : Does my hon. Friend also agree that we are right to be worried about the impartiality of the commission because the Secretary of State for the Environment has already pre-empted the commission's decisions by expressing the view that Cleveland and Humberside will be abolished under its recommendations? He said that even before the commission was set up.

Mr. McCartney : My hon. Friend is right. Irrespective of one's position and whether a decision is right, it is no job of the Secretary of State, in advance of setting up the commission, to set down as its first term of reference the political abolition of certain local authorities. That is why Opposition Members want to ensure proper scrutiny and create safeguards.

We want to prevent the Government--this Government or any future Government, and whatever their political complexion--from interfering in any way for political considerations in decisions to amend local government boundaries and the local communities served by local units of administration. That is vital. Otherwise, we are going into the business of gerrymandering of local authority communities. Let us be frank : that is what happened to the metropolitan counties, and in my area, we had to live with the consequences.

I represented a metropolitan council area. Our democratic authority was abolished forthwith. Out of it, a series of quangos has been set up. They are unelected, but they have the resources and powers to determine basic services--whether fire, police, transport or waste disposal services. Not a single vote is cast in respect of the decisions of those bodies. They spend millions and millions of pounds. That is the Government's record in reorganisation of local government. I am sure that the hon. Member for Gloucester does not want to say that that record will continue with the local government commission.

One of the Government's serious proposals is that, in making wholesale amendments to unitary authorities, it will be necessary to have many former county facilities controlled by the districts. I want to ensure that, when several district councils are involved in delivering a countywide service, there is some democratic accountability in the provision of services and the development of policy, and that the local community has some say in the way in which money is spent on that service.

So Opposition Members need make no apology for the way in which we have scrutinised the Bill so far.

Mrs. Edwina Currie (Derbyshire, South) : I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. Is he aware that one of the strongest wills in my area to see the abolition of the county authority and the establishment of a unitary authority is that of the Labour-controlled South Derbyshire district council? It has had enough of decisions being taken on its behalf by idiots a long way away, be they of its party or not.

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Mr. McCartney : I have no objection to that. I do not know what the hon. Lady is complaining about. All we are saying is that we want the structure of the commission, its membership and democratic control, the style of membership, and its knowledge of local government to be correct. More important, when the commission comes to decisions, we want local Conservative associations, Liberal and Labour parties, community groups, tenants' groups and so on to have an opportunity to challenge the commission's views or to put alternative views to it. With all due respect, the 35 wisest men and women in Britain will be on that commission, but they do not know everything about every local community in Britain. Why should they? If South Derbyshire want a unitary authority, I am happy with that. All I am saying is that, when the commission makes its proposals for the area, the people of South Derbyshire should have an opportunity to say whether the proposals are right and fair.

I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) will come into the Lobby with us tonight against the guillotine motion. If it is accepted, the consideration of the Bill that she and I want will never take place. I hope that she will take that into account, and I am sure she will. I am sure that she is not just a hackette for the Government.

I wish to give an example of the value of debate--this is not only my view but that of the Minister. He and I took part in a debate for perhaps 30 minutes at about 3 o'clock in the morning on the de minimis rule, which excludes services up to a value of £100,000 from compulsory competitive tendering. That rule was introduced by the Government in 1988 to protect small district councils. At the end of the debate, the Minister of State said that the only reason that we had been able to sort out a serious problem was the debate that we had had. That is what Opposition Members are about. We want to engage the Government in an appropriate debate about the major issues before the Committee.

Compulsory competitive tendering is not only a contentious issue : it goes to the heart of the principle of delivery of public services in Britain. Unless the delivery of services is subject to proper public scrutiny, even if the Government force the Bill through, the Bill will not be worth a row of beans if in practice it undermines the ability of local authorities to provide services. Is not that the fundamental test when it comes down to it? Irrespective of political ideology, when legislation leaves the House, the test is whether in practice it is better than the legislation that preceded it--whether it will ensure better services, better scrutiny of services and better value for money. The way in which the Government are proceeding means that the Bill will fail on all three counts. The Government will lose politically, but more importantly, local government will lose. The public who believe in and require the services will be the biggest losers, because the scrutiny in the House does not do justice to the major changes that the Government seek to force on the British public.

8.49 pm

Mr. James Paice (Cambridgeshire, South-East) : Conservative Members have come to recognise the regular hollow protests by the Opposition at the use of the guillotine. What we have seen in this debate, what we saw last week, and what we may see again--I do not know, and

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my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will know better than I--is the recognition by the Labour party of what will happen on 9 April, 7 May, or whenever. If there were to be a Labour Government after the general election, they would wish to use guillotines. Their fervent opposition to guillotine motions shows their recognition that they will not, in a few short weeks, be on the Government Benches and able to demand their own guillotines.

Mr. Martlew : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Paice : Not for a minute--I have only just started.

What also proves the hollowness of arguments against guillotine motions is that often the debate on the motion takes time from the debate on amendments. Although that is not the case with this debate, it has often happened with other timetable motions.

Like those of my hon. Friends who have spoken today, I welcome this timetable motion. I believe that every Bill should be timetabled from day 1. That would be far better than introducing a timetable halfway through a Bill. However, the motion had to be introduced tonight, for all the reasons that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House outlined when he detailed the waste of time that we have already had.

The hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) urged the Government to come clean and say that this is all part of a campaign to clear the decks before a general election. We are led to believe that the Labour party is looking forward to the general election. The Leader of the Opposition keeps encouraging the Prime Minister to call a general election. The Opposition cannot have it both ways. If they want a general election and believe that the Bill should become law--they are in favour of the part that the Committee has not reached--they should acknowledge that there is no option other than to timetable the remaining stages. The agreement made through the usual channels has come asunder, but what the timetable motion proposes is in line with that agreement--with the one exception that the original agreement did not envisage the Committee sitting until 5 o'clock one morning.

Mr. McCartney : That was the Government's decision.

Mr. Paice : That may be so, but it was still extra time on top of the original agreement about the proceedings of the Bill.

Mr. Don Dixon (Jarrow) : What agreement?

Mr. Paice : If the timetable that was agreed through the usual channels--the two Whips Offices--was wrong, why was it agreed in the first place ?

Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley, West and Penistone) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way ?

Mr. Paice : The hon. Gentleman is on record as saying that he is no longer a Whip but only a Back Bencher, so there is no point in giving way to him while I am speaking about the usual channels.

Only on Thursday last did we finish the part of the Bill dealing with competitive tendering, and we have not yet reached the part dealing with the Local Government Commission. Many people would gain if they could stand the boredom of the tedious and long-winded speeches to

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which the Committee has listened and which are recorded in Hansard. The Opposition have spent vast amounts of time detailing local government services and experiences of contracts that have gone wrong. They have detailed the odd examples where the service has been below standard or the contract has broke down, and have blamed that on compulsory competitive tendering, but that is not the truth of the matter. The fault lies with the contract that is up for tender. If the documents are properly drawn up, one is able to enforce higher standards and to deal with the problems that may arise.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman is not speaking to the motion before the House. I hope that he will quickly get back to it.

Mr. Paice : Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I take your remonstrations.

The Committee has spent a considerable amount of time-wasting on matters not directly related to the Bill.

Mr. McCartney : The hon. Gentleman is wasting time.

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