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Mr. Bercow: I am afraid that, in the final analysis, we revert to the question whether it will be necessary--as has yet to become clear--to hold a second Second Reading debate on the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that if, as a result of the consideration of the Bill's contents either by the Select Committee or by a Sub-Committee, amendments are proposed to the Bill and if the
Government, in their infinite wisdom or un-wisdom, decide that the purport of those amendments is justified and wish to bring forward an amended Bill, it will be essential to hold a second Second Reading debate? It would be constitutionally disgraceful to do otherwise, as we shall then be dealing with a new Bill.
Mr. Pickles: My hon. Friend is right. Had the Government not been using this occasion as a spinning exercise to demonstrate that they are all brothers and sisters together, we should probably be holding an Adjournment debate on the matter rather than debating procedure. Such a debate might have been longer than an hour and a half--it might have been held over a day in the way that we consider estimates. Having held such a debate, we could then say to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. We are not holding an Adjournment debate; we are debating the motion. The hon. Gentleman should direct his remarks to that.
Mr. Pickles: I was carried away, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I apologise.
Mr. Swayne: In relation to the need for a second Second Reading debate, both my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and I questioned the Leader of the House on that matter on Thursday and suggested other business for this afternoon, on the ground that we would merely have to repeat the Second Reading of the Bill in the next Session. The right hon. Lady did not deny that point. She merely went on to suggest that scrutiny by the Select Committee would be helpful to the House in future Sessions.
Mr. Pickles: That is correct. We had a good Second Reading debate; you chaired part of the sitting, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We held an informed and intelligent debate, but, because we were aware that we should be coming to motion No. 3 on the Order Paper, the debate did not have the feel of a normal Second Reading. Most hon. Members thought that we should have to go through the process again.
I support pre-legislative scrutiny, but we must understand which extra matters can be considered by a Select Committee. There are probably two. First, within the time frame, I hope that a Select Committee will be able to consider matters that could not be considered by a Standing Committee, because such matters would be outside the scope of a Standing Committee. The Select Committee could consider and take evidence on the budget; that would be crucial to understanding the importance of the measure. The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the budget would be about £5 billion. Such evidence would lay out the scope of the SRA--we would not get that from a Standing Committee. A Standing Committee would not be able to undertake detailed analysis of the individual items in respect of the votes that make up the budget. A Select Committee would be extremely useful in undertaking that process.
Secondly, if a Select Committee were used properly, it could consider the question of subsidy. On Second Reading and in our debate on the motion, we were told
about many of the comments that have been made by Sir Alastair Morton. We know that there are plans to change the subsidy and the formula for the subsidy. A Standing Committee cannot consider--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is again straying away from the motion before the House. He is also beginning to repeat himself. I should be grateful if he would not repeat himself; nor should he stray from the motion.
Mr. Pickles:
Of course, I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, in relation to this important innovation, we must clarify whether the scrutiny that the Government are offering us is better than that which would be given by a Standing Committee. It might cause some displeasure among my right hon. and hon. Friends--I hope that they will be tolerant--but I have to say that, in this case, a Select Committee could provide better scrutiny, because the matter would be out of order in a Standing Committee. Those points have to be considered.
I had not intended to speak for long this evening, so perhaps I should come to my second point. In conclusion, I believe that, before we embark on the process engendered by the motion, the Government should, as a matter of courtesy to the House, lay out the ground rules. We should be told when the Committee will start to meet, how many evidence-taking sittings it will hold--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is repeating himself, yet again. If he cannot find fresh ground to move on to, he should very quickly draw his remarks to a close.
Mr. Pickles:
I was summarising my points before sitting down--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is repeating himself and not for the first time. I suggest that he brings his remarks fairly quickly to a close.
Mr. Pickles:
I am doing so, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the motion should be resisted on three grounds. If those three grounds are addressed by the Government tonight, it is possible that the motion will go through.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford):
I listened with great interest to and was hugely impressed by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles). He provided such an olympian view of the subject before us that I hesitated before rising to my feet. If I understand the modernisation process at all, the point is that important constitutional changes should not be considered in the dead of night, when many hon. Members cannot be present in the Chamber. However, before the House is a motion of such monumental significance that, at the stroke of midnight, we are not yet halfway through our debate. It might be a small step for the sultans of spin to come up with the motion on behalf of the Government, but for many of us it is a giant leap in terms of the whole legislative process.
Mr. Bercow:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Gray:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It might have escaped your notice that the Chairman of
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Whether or not hon. Members remain in the Chamber is entirely a matter for them, not for me. I call Mr. St. Aubyn.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).
Mr. Bercow:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as I feel sure that he is but at the start of a characteristically magnificent oration. However, perhaps he would care to comment on my fear that he is in danger of being a little too charitable to those hon. Members who have the opportunity to be present in the Chamber but who decline to be present. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if Members of Parliament can be present within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster at the relatively early hour of four minutes past midnight, even though we know that some of them have had a convivial evening within these precincts, there is no reason why they should not--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. That is a long and rambling intervention.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
I know that I shall be proud to report back to my constituents that I paid due attention to every aspect of this debate which, as I said, may have monumental consequences for the House.
I have been a Member of Parliament for only a couple of years, but, in that time, I have been a member of the Standing Committees on four major Bills and served for more than two years on the Select Committee on Education and Employment. In that time, I have noticed some very important distinctions between the two types of Committee. It would not be necessary to dwell on them if the Minister had not failed to make clear the process that will follow the Bill going into what we might call its Select Committee phase.
I notice from the Order Paper that there are 62 Bills for consideration this Friday. Many Bills are given a Second Reading before they run off the rails. If this is such a Bill, much of our debate will have been unnecessary. We would be quite relaxed about the Select Committee having a second bite of the cherry in its consideration of the Government's ideas before a serious Bill is given a serious Second Reading at the beginning of next Session.
I want to address the fear--many Opposition Members regard it as a threat--of the Government proposing to put a Bill in the hands of a Select Committee, and then bringing it back to the House as if it had been through a Standing Committee. That is what this debate is about; that is why the Opposition are so exercised; that is why so many Members are hanging around the Chamber--they know that, many hours later, there will be a critical vote.
12.1 am
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