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Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): We understand that this Select Committee will be outside Standing Orders. Is there any way for it to table amendments, or will it merely write a letter, as a postscript to its proceedings, for the Government's consideration?

Mr. Pickles: I have no idea. That is the essential problem. However, it was the Minister who said that the Select Committee could improve the Bill, not I. I wrote her words down, as they were so startling.

I believe in pre-legislative scrutiny, but my support is being weakened by the way in which the Government have gone about this matter. The ground rules for the procedure need to be laid out. How often will the Committee meet, and for how long at a time? From whom will evidence be taken? When will the Committee deliberate on what it has heard?

A Select Committee operates on the basis of consensus. There is no whipping. My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) said that there is plenty of leaking. There are plenty of sackings and resignations, too, when people break the rules.

Mr. St. Aubyn: If we do not know the procedure, is there not a possibility that the Bill, after it has

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been enacted, will be struck down in court as bogus? That would mean that all the time devoted to the Bill--in the Chamber and in Select Committee, both in this Session and the next--will have been wasted.

Mr. Pickles: That is possible. Our constitution is constantly changing, and the courts interfere more and more in our affairs. We are now signed up--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is wandering rather wide of the mark.

Mr. Pickles: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but, with your indulgence, I should like to follow up my hon. Friend's point. If he is right, one matter that the courts will look at is our procedures, to ensure that they were properly observed. If we do not know what the procedures will be, how can we render the legislation judge-proof?

Mr. Swayne: My hon. Friend will be aware that the Leader of the House said last Thursday that she hoped

"that the Transport Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs will agree to consider the Bill"--[Official Report, 15 July 1999; Vol. 335, c. 580.]

We do not know whether the Select Committee has agreed to the procedure. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), its Chairman, would say only that the Committee was independent.

Mr. Pickles: That is true, but I began my speech by expressing the hope that hon. Members would not get tetchy in this debate. My hon. Friend should heed those words.

Mr. Wilshire: I hope that my hon. Friend will helpme, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) was not willing to. I am confused. I thought that we were debating a reference to a Select Committee, but my hon. Friend mentioned a Standing Committee. Will he say what type of Committee we are debating?

Mr. Pickles: I refer my hon. Friend to the motion, which specifies the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee. It is possible, in theory, that the Select Committee could refuse, but, as it has been set up by the House, it must be bound by the House to report to us by 12 November. Knowing the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich as I do, I have no doubt that she will keep to that timetable.

Mr. Wilshire: My hon. Friend has helpfully explained what the motion says, but may I press him a little further? Where do Sub-Committees come in? I see no reference to them in the motion.

Mr. Pickles: I can help my hon. Friend on that point.My understanding of Standing Orders is that a Select Committee may refer a matter to a Sub-Committee. When I sat on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, it divided its time between environmental issues and those relating to transport. The entire Committee met on matters of joint interest, but the two Sub- Committees dealt with matters relating to specific areas. When the Bill was first considered, the Transport

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Sub-Committee dealt with it. That made the Liberal Democrats very unhappy, because they had no representative on that Sub-Committee.

Mr. Swayne: They do not have one in the Chamber either.

Mr. Pickles: I can see that.

Mr. Maclean: They have gone for the last train.

Mr. Pickles: My right hon. Friend is quite right. They have all gone.

When the Bill returned to the Select Committee from the Transport Sub-Committee, the Liberal Democrat representative was effectively precluded from moving amendments because he had not heard the evidence and had not been able to cross-examine anyone.

Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend is ever anxious to be generous to the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs, but does he accept that he has not done justice to the inquiry made of him by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire)? Although the Select Committee may be empowered to delegate to a Sub-Committee consideration of a relevant matter, surely it should at least apprise the House of its intention to do so.

The Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning (Mr. Richard Caborn): Apprise?

Mr. Bercow: That is the word. The Minister is obviously unfamiliar with it. During the drier parts of my intervention, he may wish to consult a copy of the "Oxford English Dictionary", and I assure him that he will find the word there.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if subsection (2) of the motion said that the Committee shall consider, or shall ask the Transport Sub-Committee to consider, the provisions of the Bill and report on them by 12 November 1999?

Mr. Pickles: My hon. Friend is being a little hard. It is up to the Select Committee to determine how it considers the Bill. The motion already places restraints on when it may meet and sets an artificial deadline. The Committee should be able to deliberate in its own way.

The process will be straightforward in practice: the Sub-Committee will almost certainly consider the Bill, then report back to the Select Committee. The report of the whole Committee will come back to us, and so it should. I caution my hon. Friend against being over-prescriptive when it comes to Select Committees. The whole process could be brought into disrepute.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: It has become apparent that the Committee has already made a decision. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)--who, I am sorry to say, refused to take any interventions from those on the Opposition Benches--kept referring to "my Committee". However, as I understand it, she is Chairman only of the Sub-Committee and the full Committee is chaired by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). I do not quite understand. It seems

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that the hon. Lady has already determined that her Sub-Committee will consider the matter. Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that, before we agree to the motion, the House is perfectly entitled to receive an explanation of the exact procedure?

Mr. Pickles: I am grieved to disagree with hon. Friends about this issue. However, I served on the Transport Select Committee under a Conservative Chairman and on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, and I never had the slightest doubt that the Committee belonged to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich and that the rest of us were there at her pleasure. The hon. Lady has considerable expertise in this area. She scratches her brow. Perhaps she regrets the fact that she did not have the opportunity to lay the exact procedures before the House.

I believe that the hon. Lady could have allayed all our fears if she had said that there would be about 15 evidence sessions and that the Committee would be most careful and diligent in its consideration. She could have explained that, following the 15 evidence sessions, the Committee would consider the Bill and make broad recommendations about changes and improvements to clauses. If the hon. Lady had done that, hon. Members might be in a position to go to their beds tonight contented and not a little reassured. We must allow the Select Committee to decide the matter, but the Committee must determine how it will proceed.

Mrs. Gorman: On the matter of deciding how to conduct scrutiny of this sort, is it not a fact that officials who advise the Select Committees are completely different from those who advise the Standing Committees? The advisers to Select Committees are independent and they are joined by a general Clerk who backs up the Chairman. However, on Standing Committees, civil servants back up the Minister so that the final formulation of the legislation conforms to standard legislative practice. As the legislation is to become the law of the land, it must have the usual structure, and civil servants assist the Minister in that process.

Mr. Pickles: I had not considered that point. Will parliamentary draftsmen be a part of this process? A Select Committee will examine this legislation. It has ideas about what it wants to achieve, but it will need advice from parliamentary draftsmen on how the Bill should be constructed.

I said earlier that there are two tasks ahead: the Committee must consider the issues and then examine the individual clauses of the Bill. However, there is a third element. The Committee will have to consider the practicality of the legislation: how good are the different clauses and how should they be changed to meet the demands arising from the two previous processes? That will be an extremely difficult task.

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