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Dawn Primarolo: This must be the last time.
Mr. Shepherd: By what process of divination has the hon. Lady come to the conclusion that the debate on
pension funds and tax credits need last only slightly more than two and a half hours? The proposals are of concern to many Members of Parliament and their local authorities. What was the rationale behind providing for such a limited debate?
Dawn Primarolo: There is plenty of time in Committee, and it is the Opposition's choice as to how much time is available.
In 1993, when the previous Government guillotined the Social Security (Contributions) Bill and Statutory Sick Pay Bill to complete all their stages in one day, I do not recall that Conservative Members protested with such vigour as they are now apparently doing today.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex)
rose--
Dawn Primarolo:
I have given way generously, and I must conclude soon, so that other hon. Members can participate in the debate.
The reason for the guillotine is certainty for the taxpayer. It will allow better consideration of the Bill, and will avoid the need to come back with a guillotine after the discussions have started. That could lead to greater problems when scrutinising the Bill.
In 1994, the Finance Bill was guillotined by the previous Government. The then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Michael Portillo, who is no longer a Member of the House, said that the Bill could proceed through the House on only one of two bases--by agreement between the parties, or by guillotine. We could not get agreement from the Opposition. They want to prevent the Government from proceeding with their Finance Bill, simply because they cannot stand the prospect of a Government being elected and keeping their promises.
We have a clear mandate to act quickly to deal with the problems that the previous Government left us. We have a responsibility to give new hope and opportunity to young people, and to tackle Britain's economic problems for the sake of long-term prosperity. Conservative Members, when in government, delayed taking action to help the unemployed for too long. We have no intention of allowing them to delay us now, when they are in opposition.
We have provided adequate time in the motion for debate on the Finance Bill. We have made every effort to come to an agreement with the Opposition, but they have refused. They do not know what they want; they simply want to destroy the Bill.
I commend the motion to the House.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard (South-West Norfolk):
I have listened with care to what passed for arguments advanced by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in support of the guillotine on the Finance Bill.
We of course agree that the Government of the day must be able to enact their legislation, just as the Opposition of the day must be able to oppose. May I dispel at once the ludicrous assertion that it was not possible for the Government to reach an agreement with the Opposition on the allocation of time? Discussions through the usual channels resulted, helpfully, in changes to the size of the Committee, and agreement on which clauses should be debated on the Floor of the House and in Standing
Committee. That was correct and right. There was no discussion, however, on the allocation of time--merely a decision on the part of the Government that there should be a guillotine.
The House knows that an allocation of time order is, according to "Erskine May", the most
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
I am highly delighted to hear the right hon. Lady quoting "Erskine May". As someone who seriously objects to the use of guillotines, I think that it is helpful when both Front-Bench teams are conscious of the needs of Back Benchers. If she seriously objects to guillotines and if the view that she is expressing is that of her colleagues, why did they move so many guillotine motions themselves?
Mrs. Shephard:
We moved only two guillotine motions on the Finance Bill, which should reassure the hon. Lady--and there was an important difference when we used them. Mention has been made of the length of time between the Finance Bill's publication and the end of the Committee stage, during which financial institutions can make their representations. This Government have allowed 12 working days for that process; under successive Conservative Governments an average of 77 working days was allowed.
But, of course, the Government have a high-handed disdain for the House and the parliamentary process. Let us consider their record. They have limited Prime Minister's questions to one session a week. After last week's mauling from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister may well be wishing that he had abolished Prime Minister's questions altogether--no doubt, that is to come.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced to the outside world changes to the powers of the Bank of England without bothering to announce them to the House. More regrettably, he, or one of his colleagues, allegedly briefed the press on the contents of the Budget before announcing them to the House. The Leader of the House either cynically or incompetently arranged for the debate on the motion to take place at the same time as the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons is scheduled to meet. I am relieved to see that the right hon. Lady is in her place.
One would have thought that the Government attached sufficient importance to their Finance Bill not to wish to curtail its consideration. The Chancellor described his Budget as
It can have been only with extreme reluctance that the Government decided that they needed to impose a guillotine. We know what they think about the use of guillotines. When in opposition, the present Home Secretary said:
What is--or at least should be--surprising is that what the Government say about the importance of consensus, consultation and partnership is contradicted by what they do in practice. Consider what the Leader of the House said about the legislative process in her memorandum on the modernisation of the House:
Perhaps I can make the right hon. and hon. Ladies understand, although that is sometimes a little difficult to do. Yes, the Government did agree to extend time for
debate in the House and, yes, the Committee stage will extend over a number of days, but in this instance the point is that the Government's guillotine motion will give only 12 working days between the publication of the draft Bill--and that agreed only as a result of our representations--and the end of the Committee stage.
It is precisely that period, when the Bill has been published, that the financial institutions, the business community and other interests use to make their valuable input into the legislation and all in the interests of better law. That is the point.
It is indeed ironic that it is today that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced--to a press conference, I expect; certainly not to the House--the setting up at taxpayers' expense of vast focus groups to scrutinise Government legislation and give reaction to Government policy. I thought that that was what Parliament was for. For business and financial institutions, the Committee stage of the Finance Bill certainly performs that function.
In oral questions on 3 July, the House was treated to a patronising lecturette from the President of the Board of Trade on the importance she attaches--now--to partnership with business. We learned:
There is no problem among Conservative Members about the Government's stated desire to improve the quality of legislation and the openness and accountability of the workings of government. Where we do have a problem--and so, increasingly, do the public--lies in the fact that what the right hon. and hon. Ladies and their Government say bears no relation to what they do.
A more striking example of that than today's motion would be hard to find. Unlike the Ministers--and despite the fact that it is short--we do consider the proposals of the Finance Bill to be important. They propose 17 tax rises. They propose an attack on savings and pensions. They propose an attack--as yet unadmitted and uncosted, but nevertheless an attack--on local government spending. Worst of all, they threaten the flourishing economic inheritance handed to the Government by the previous Government--just ask any mortgage payer.
The Government have a large majority. Clearly they can force through any measure they wish, they can decide to curtail consultation time with companies and organisations outside this House, and they can hide behind their mandate. However, a responsible Government would not allow that to happen--they would recognise that the very size of their majority imposes a responsibility to ensure that all views are heard. They might even consider practising what they so piously preach, and Ministers might even begin to answer questions with a few facts, instead of using a variation on the theme, "We won the election--so what?" That was breathtakingly illustrated, yet again, by the Financial Secretary today.
3.57 pm
"extreme limit to which procedure goes in affirming the rights of the majority at the expense of the minorities of the House".
The House will also know from "Erskine May" that such an order is not usually moved
"until the rate of progress in committee has provided argument for its necessity."
Yet twice in the past seven weeks--twice in the short life of the Government--who are so given to preaching and hectoring the nation about the importance of consultation, consensus and partnership, they have found it necessary to move such an order. In this case, they announced their intention to do so before the Second Reading had even begun. But of course, this Government and these Ministers have already earned an unenviable reputation in the few short weeks since the election for a high-handed disdain towards the House and the parliamentary process.
"a people's Budget for Britain's future."--[Official Report, 2 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 316.]
That is surely a portentous enough description for everyone. Curiously, when questioned on her proposal to limit debate on this epoch-making expression of new Labour in practice, the Leader of the House seemed to take a different view in business questions last week. She seemed to think that the importance of a Bill depended on its length. Curiously, that view was repeated today by the Financial Secretary. I suppose that, in their view, the Finance Bill is not really important or significant--it has just 50 or so clauses, so they might as well guillotine it. Have the right hon. and hon. Ladies no concept of the importance of the complexity of legislation? If not, it is worrying indeed that the Leader of the House is seeking to modernise the procedures of the House in order to improve scrutiny.
"The timetable motion is an abuse of power. No one can deny the wish of a Government to secure progress for their business, but that must be balanced against the need for adequate debate and discussion of a measure . . . Guillotines can be justified only where an Opposition have filibustered a Bill, where they have refused all reasonable suggestions to agree a timetable, or where there is no possibility of the Government getting their business through with reasonable speed without a guillotine."--[Official Report, 1 February 1988; Vol. 126, c. 757.]
In the case of this Bill, there has been no filibustering and no refusal to agree a timetable, so why impose a guillotine? Clearly, one reason is the Government's incompetence. In just eight short weeks, they have demonstrated that management of the work of the House is beyond their ability. Given their contempt for the parliamentary process and their desire to make announcements, put on stunts, produce soundbites and organise photo opportunities--all outside the House--that is hardly surprising.
"The quality of legislation can often be improved by consultation with informed opinion on both the substance and the drafting of legislative proposals."
We learned last week that, because it is short, the right hon. Lady thinks that the Bill is not that important; but even she should be able to perceive that its measures are complex. Even she, given the clearly expressed views in her own memorandum, should be able to see that it is precisely measures such as these that would benefit from the kind of consultation with informed opinion that she herself describes.
"Competitiveness must be improved by a partnership between government and business."--[Official Report, 3 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 413.]
Quite so. Some of us on the Conservative Benches have been saying that for some time. All conversions are welcome, but I wonder how that particular change of view can be served by the Government's deliberate curtailment of business input into the Budget. What kind of partnership is that?
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