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Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West): About 32 hon. Members have spoken in the debate so far: five have been called by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the other 27 or 28 have been talking non-stop on the Labour Back Benches. It is clear that they want to contribute to what is going on.

It would be useful to know whether the Leader of the House believes that her statement at the beginning of the debate was supposed to be a substitute for the business statement that she may want to make tomorrow, changing the business for tomorrow. Was it in accordance with precedence? Was her contribution to the debate a substitute for the business statement, on which she would normally expect to be questioned? If she is trying to avoid questioning, it compounds the offence of the way the Government have tried to curtail today's debate.

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The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has made a valuable point. It does not deal with the threatened guillotine. In practice, the issue being debated is not just whether the House adjourns tonight, which is a debatable motion, but whether the Government are right to say, at the first whiff of discussion in the House of Commons, "We want to drop the guillotine on the debate."

Local government had to face the Government consultation, where the Government said that it could not argue for the present system--it could have any type of democracy except what this country had been used to. I believe that the House would be right to debate the issue for an hour and a half, or two and a half hours. I believe that, if the Leader of the House, who seems to be absent from the Chamber--[Hon. Members: "Where is she?"]--is forced to make another business statement tomorrow, there will be the possibility of another hour of questions and answers. I will not anticipate points of order, but it strikes me that the Leader of the House would have been better advised to listen to the advice of her Whips. She would have done better to allow tonight's debate to continue in an even-tempered way, and, if necessary, to allocate more time to the Report stage.

11 pm

Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): Is it not extraordinary that, half an hour after the moving of the business motion at 10 pm, a motion was moved to curtail the debate?

Mr. Bottomley: It may try your patience, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I explain how that is consistent with a number of other actions taken by the present Government; but the key point for the House of Commons is that the debate could have continued until midnight, or slightly later. The only reason for the threat issued by the Leader of the House is the fact that the Government do not want the House to discuss, in detail, alternatives to their plans for local government. That will be noted in Worthing, in Arun district council and in West Sussex county council. [Interruption.] The laughter of Labour Members will be seen in parallel with the failure of their party to put up candidates in local government by-elections on the south coast.

The party that claims to govern for the nation is not playing its part in competition for elections to local government throughout the country. I believe that the party will be seen through, that as and when the consequences of its iron rule here are noted it will pay the penalty in local government, and that, whatever it does with the Bill, it will regret its action tonight. It is undemocratic and wrong.

Mr. Sanders: Liberal Democrats understand the frustration that the Government must feel. Certainly we could have made far more progress than we have made but for the filibustering tendencies of certain Conservative Members. Members of the official Opposition raised many important points--although some took a long time over it--but many more still need to be raised.

Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If an hon. Member was filibustering, would that not be ruled out of order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman can safely leave such matters to the Chair.

Mr. Sanders: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his filibustering intervention.

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Many important facets of the Bill still need to be debated. The Bill alters the relationship between local government and central Government in what we consider to be an adverse way. It confers powers on the Secretary of State that previously resided with the House, or with local government. We have yet to debate the important amendments on the principle of capping. Labour Members have spent the last 18 years criticising the Conservatives in that connection, but they may not now be able to hear the debate in full tomorrow.

The application of best value duty to police and other authorities, the definition of the general duty of best value, the limitation to the Secretary of State's powers of requiring him to take independent advice and the proposal to limit the duration of the Henry Vlll clause are all important issues, but what the Leader of the House has done has a further disadvantage: it has prevented Liberal Democrats from debating their amendments, and we may not now have the time that we would otherwise have had to debate them.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) made an important point. We have forces on their way overseas on our behalf. If we cannot debate the best value provisions, perhaps the House should sit through the night to debate that matter.

Mr. Hogg: The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) made a perfectly sound point about the desirability of debating events in Kosovo. Is not the proper action for the House to convene tomorrow to debate policy towards the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, and to debate this matter tonight?

Mr. Sanders: I agree entirely with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as do other Liberal Democrat Members, who will vote against the motion. I have made my point. This is a very sad day for democracy, and particularly for local democracy. The Bill is an attack on the ballot box in local councils and on people's right to determine who controls their council--local councillors or central Government.

Mr. Forth: The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), perhaps inadvertently, let the cat out of the bag. He said words to the effect--I cannot quote him exactly--of, "The Government will get their Bill anyway--so what's the point in debating it?"

Mr. Field rose--

Mr. Forth: He will correct me.

Mr. Field: I said that merely on the basis of my experience as an hon. Member for 20 years, watching the Conservative party in government.

Mr. Forth: Whatever the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's comment, it revealed what is in the minds of Labour Members--in the mind even of a distinguished and respected Government Back Bencher such as him. The gist of his remark was, "There's no point in continuing a rather futile debate on the Bill. Let's just get

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on with the Bill, because the Government have a huge majority." That seems to be the attitude of Government Back Benchers.

Mr. Hogg: Is there not another aspect to my right hon. Friend's comments--that, plainly, the Government Whips had caused their own Back Benchers to abstain from the debate, thus preventing a proper debate on the Bill?

Mr. Forth: Yes; regrettably, it is true. My right hon. and learned Friend is correct. Hon. Members who have been in the Chamber throughout the debate are very conscious of the fact that no Government Back Bencher spoke in it. Although that may be a matter for Government Back Benchers, I suspect--as my right hon. and learned Friend said--that it is much more likely to have been a matter for the Government Whips, ruthlessly suppressing any contribution by their own Back Benchers to the debate, and accusing Opposition Members of prolonging it.

Mr. Hogg: Is not the true position either that Government Back Benchers are not concerned about the issues involved in the Bill, or that a gagging order has been imposed on them to shut them up? It is one or the other. Which does my right hon. Friend think it is?

Mr. Forth: I regret to say that there were so few Government Back Benchers present for the debate that it was almost impossible to tell which it was--but I assume that it was their indifference to the Bill's substance, as they did not trouble even to come into the Chamber and listen to the debate, never mind participate in it.

Let us consider the point that we had reached in the debate. As many hon. Members will know, there are 12 groups of amendments for our consideration today. We have dealt with two of the groups, and the next group was intimately related to the one that we have just finished considering. The Government have, quite arbitrarily, interrupted the debate at a completely inappropriate time. It is bad enough that they are seeking to truncate the debate, but to do it in the manner that they chose shows that they are completely uninterested in the substance and nature of the amendments that were being debated.

Quite arbitrarily, the Government decided prematurely to finish off the debate. Moreover, as the Leader of the House said, the Government will tomorrow move a guillotine motion, further to restrict debate on this important Bill. That shows the Government's overall attitude to the House and to legislation, which is: no debate at all; no participation by Government Back Benchers; a minimum amount of time; arbitrary truncation of the debate, at a time when the House is perfectly capable of continuing with it; and--to add insult to injury--a provocative announcement by the Leader of the House that she will tomorrow move a guillotine motion further to reduce debate.


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