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Sir George Young: We are grateful to the Leader of the House for giving us next week's business and an indication of the business for the first week back. Having said that, today's statement is not a happy one with which to conclude before the recess. I very much regret that, at short notice last night, the Government decided to guillotine two Bills, neither of which the Opposition had planned to delay. The right hon. Lady has now announced yet another guillotine for Monday. I will set out the reasons why we feel that the Government have overreacted when we debate the motion later. At this stage, I would say that the Government have played their hand badly and sent the House off on the wrong note.

Can the right hon. Lady assure the House that Members will be able to get here for the next guillotine debate on Monday? I understand that another group of citizens whom the Government have driven to despair are to lobby Parliament--this time, the truckers, following the latest meeting of the road haulage forum on Monday, which demonstrated that the Government are interested only in delay and not in genuine discussion.

I welcome the proposed debate on the Procedure Committee's report on the consequences of devolution, for which I--and you, Madam Speaker--have been

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calling. We will do our best to help the Government find the right way through the consequences of devolution for this House which, clearly, they have not thought through.

Also in the first week back, we are due to discuss the Office for National Statistics. Should not we use the time to debate the royal commission on long-term care--a debate that has been called for repeatedly in the six months since publication of the report and which the Government seem anxious to avoid?

Finally, I understand that the Government will publish their annual report next week. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the place to hold the Government to account is not before the press and civil servants in the rose garden at No. 10--as last year--but here, before Members of Parliament, in the Chamber of the House of Commons?

Mrs. Beckett: I, too, regret the fact that the Government have found it necessary to introduce timetable motions on the debates of which I have given notice today. Conservative Members seem to have got it into their heads that things run all one way in the House and that they are at liberty to play the rules as they choose, without the Government being able to have similar regard to those rules. We will be able to touch on those matters if Conservative Members want to debate them. We, too, regret the fact that it was not possible to reach agreement on the handling of legislation. We have to protect not only Government business but the interests of the House as a whole.

On groups being driven to despair, I am not sure what those who were lobbying the House yesterday were driven to, but they were certainly making the most extraordinary noises, which I presume were supposed to be evocative of some part of their argument; they were certainly interesting, if not illuminating.

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman welcomes the debate on procedure, for which, as he rightly said, both he and Madam Speaker have asked us to find time. I reject the notion that there is something unforeseen about the debate. We need to consider how our procedures can evolve and we will have a useful opportunity to discuss that.

I think that we have been waiting--as the right hon. Gentleman would put it--for the debate on long-term care for closer to four months than six. We will of course have that debate, but we will not be able to have it as early as he suggests.

I listened with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman's remarks on the annual report. I am slightly surprised if he is saying that it should be announced in a statement to the House, as I rather had the impression that he thought otherwise in the past, but I will certainly bear his remarks in mind in the future.

Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley): Will my right hon. Friend find time in the not-too-distant future for a further debate in a calm atmosphere on the recommendations of the Modernisation Committee on pre-legislative scrutiny? I chaired the Special Select Committee on the Food Standards Bill, which took evidence from two Ministers on two occasions and from 24 organisations and three other individuals. We spent many hours producing a report most of whose recommendations the Government accepted. In view of this week's events, especially as there were more than 20 Opposition amendments on

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Report, following both Second Reading and the Standing Committee, we need to decide whether this is how the Modernisation Committee wanted us to proceed or whether legislation should go through Parliament in a calmer and more sensible way.

Mrs. Beckett: I had thought that the whole House was grateful to my hon. Friend and the Committee for the excellent work that they did on the Food Standards Bill. Until yesterday, those proceedings were thought to have been a model of the way in which we would all want the all-party recommendations of the Modernisation Committee to be implemented. The Special Select Committee did excellent work, as Select Committees always do, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the hope was that the legislation would be handled all the better, and would be better legislation, because of the degree and the kind of scrutiny that it had received. I was especially sorry to hear Conservative Members criticising the work of the Special Select Committee.

I agree that if we are to proceed with proper modernisation, we must bear in mind that it will never happen if, at the last minute, when all the proper procedures for a modernised debate have been carried through, people want to take the opportunity to exploit the use of time and not to debate a Bill properly. The House will have to take that into account.

Mr. Don Foster (Bath): I urge the Leader of the House to find time for the Government to explain to the House why they have made a material change to the contracts for special advisers. Is she aware that, under the previous Administration, special advisers were specifically warned not to engage in purely party political activities, whereas under the new Labour contract they are specifically encouraged to brief Labour Back Benchers?

Will the Leader of the House find time for the Government to explain why the House has been told that there has been no change in the arrangements, when that is clearly not the case? Why have we been told that no records are kept of briefings given by special advisers, when I have in my hand an example of a Department for Education and Employment briefing that is titled, dated and numbered, gives specific references to other titled, dated and numbered briefings and states where copies of such briefings can be obtained? Can the Leader of the House explain why the House has been told that no records are kept?

Finally, on the first question raised by the shadow Leader of the House, will the right hon. Lady provide time to reflect on the use of guillotine motions? Does she accept that the orderly programming of business by timetable motions agreed by all parties is for the benefit of the House, but that the procedure is being brought into disrepute by the sudden introduction of guillotines of which the Opposition parties have had no notice?

Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman asked me a number of questions about political advisers. I do not know why the House has been told that no records are kept. Perhaps it is because they are not--[Hon. Members: "Perhaps?"] Well, I do not know. The hon. Gentleman makes several suggestions about changes that he says have taken place in the way in which special advisers are employed under

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this Government compared with under the previous Government. I am not familiar with the arrangements under which special advisers were employed by the previous Government. On at least one occasion, statements were made purporting to suggest changes in the way in which special advisers are able to operate, which--I am told--were not well founded. Conservative Members suggested, for example, that there were changes in the rules that had operated when they were in government when that was not the case. As for the hon. Gentleman's basic assertion that under the previous Government special advisers held themselves aloof from the impurity of party politics, I can only say that the large number of former special advisers decorating the Opposition Benches suggests that that policy was spectacularly unsuccessful.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point about the orderly progress of business and timetable motions. I entirely share his view. I am not sure whether he was able to be in the House last night. If he was, he will know both that I regretted that we felt we had to introduce these timetable motions and that I made it plain that an agreed timetable was sought and it was only when agreement was not forthcoming that we felt we had to take action to protect not only today's but tomorrow's business.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): Is my right hon. Friend aware that I for one do not question in any way the right of the Opposition to delay business? That is the legitimate right of the Opposition. Is it not the case that during the 18 years that we were in opposition, when we delayed business, the Government's response was always to introduce a guillotine motion? Therefore, there is absolutely no difference in the responses of the previous and the present Governments. Is my right hon. Friend further aware that on Monday night, when we stayed until two o'clock in the morning--I make no complaints whatever--some Opposition Members voted against every order on the agenda, including one that would have extended the opening hours for the millennium celebrations? They are spoilsports and we should tell the country so.

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