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Madam Speaker: Any Minister, including the Prime Minister, can come before the House when they have something to say.
Mr. Forth: I was considering the possibility of another place making further amendments to the House of Lords Bill. I was doing that in the context of yesterday's debate and considering whether we would benefit from a further amendment that would establish a timetable for stage 2 of the reforms. One of the things to emerge clearly from yesterday's debate was the widespread unease and dissatisfaction in the House about the fact that we are being asked to endorse an important constitutional change with no sign or commitment from the Government about the timetable for a further stage of that reform. That is a good reason for the House to be careful about adjourning prematurely, because we might want to give very full consideration to further changes that the other place might want to make to the House of Lords Bill.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Government say that the steps that they have taken so far for the House of Lords are merely interim measures.
Madam Speaker: Order. I have already cautioned the House, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not listening. Members must not go into the details of legislation. There is a motion on the Order Paper which, at the moment, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is debating quite correctly.
Mr. Forth: I believe that another possibility exists. Either an emergency Bill could be tabled in another place, or a statement could be made by a Minister--I accept that, as yet, none has been requested--on the matter of probity, openness and reliability of information given in the House of Commons.
One of the weaknesses evident in the House over the past few months has become even more critical recently. That is the ability of hon. Members--especially Labour Members--to make statements in the House that are demonstrably and patently unverifiable. I think that I am correct in saying that it would be possible for the House of Lords to introduce an emergency Bill even at this late stage in the Session--although some other mechanism may exist--that would allow us to give the National Audit Office or the Public Accounts Committee, for example, a role in ensuring the immediate correction of misleading and false information purveyed or peddled in this House. I feel that, given what has happened recently, the House is coming to the view that a proper mechanism to ensure that should exist.
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West):
If the motion is agreed to, the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) will not be able to introduce his Adjournment debate. Leaving party politics aside, I believe that an extra reason not to agree with the motion is that the names of hon. Members come to the top of the Adjournment debates lottery only infrequently. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to say a few words about buses in north Derbyshire if he chooses to explain why he supports the motion, or otherwise.
The matter that I raised in my further point of order, Madam Speaker, which you dealt with well--
Mr. Bottomley:
I have reflected on your judgment, and a slight ambiguity remains. You confirmed that there is an opportunity for the Home Secretary or another Home Office Minister to come to the House and ask to make a statement. I shall read the two relevant sentences from the written answer. The answer states:
The first question that arises has to do with who the "House authorities" are. We have tiptoed around that problem on previous occasions when the House authorities instructed counsel to go to the High Court or to the Appeal Court. I shall take the phrase "House authorities" to mean a mixture of Murdo Maclean, the private secretary to the Government Chief Whip, and the Clerk's Office. That would probably give us the best group. Should Mr. Maclean or the Clerk's Office respond to the Government if, before
spring, the Government ask for advice about how to execute a procedural move--what opponents might see as a wangle, and supporters as assistance--with regard to the Bill that failed in this House a year ago?
I hope, Madam Speaker, that you will be able to give guidance to the House authorities as to whether they should say to the Government, "If you want to talk to us before the inquiry has reported, there must be a further parliamentary answer, so that the House will know the basis on which we are proceeding."
There are other reasons for prolonging the debate until Ministers are able to come to the House. According to an argument that I shall not pursue at length, the subject to fill the gap between questions on a prorogation day and the expectation of a royal commission should be that of the last early-day motion on the Order Paper. I do not need to remind the House that early-day motion 1011 is about the conduct of the Prime Minister.
Unusually, there have been four early-day motions on that subject in this Session. The Prime Minister has chosen to respond to none of them, and neither has any response from him, either through the House authorities or the usual channels, been available for debate. I shall not go into detail, but early-day motion 1011 has been tabled as a consequence of answers that he gave at Prime Minister's questions yesterday, which he must have believed to be true.
I raise this matter now because it has not been picked up by the media. When I asked the BBC whether its correspondents had checked that the Prime Minister had got his facts right--
Madam Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member of Parliament, but he is straying from the motion before us. I have been very tolerant, but I think that he knows that he must get back to the motion.
Mr. Bottomley:
Your guidance, Madam Speaker, is that I should not further illustrate why the Prime Minister should not respond to the early-day motion.
Madam Speaker:
Order. I bring the hon. Gentleman back to the motion before us.
Mr. Bottomley:
Which is that this House shall adjourn.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
Shall not adjourn.
Mr. Bottomley:
If we agree the motion quickly, there will be no further discussion in the House until notice of the Royal Commission is received. I think that I have got that right; I am grateful to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) for his intervention. If, during that period of silence, a Minister asked whether he could make a statement on the written answer on foxhunting, on the early-day motion on the Prime Minister's conduct or on early-day motion 1007 on the conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, could the House then resume? That is a question to which the House does not know the answer, but no doubt you will be able to tell us, Madam Speaker.
I believe that the arguments for using this time to hold the Government to account are good reasons why the debate on the motion to adjourn should continue.
Of course, the Prime Minister could at this moment be on a plane on his way to South Africa, where he no doubt has international duties, and the Chancellor may have decided to leave because he would not give straight answers at Question Time.
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford):
Last night, we discussed the proposals in another place that will fundamentally change the country's constitutional balance. I believe it important that, before we adjourn, there should be an opportunity for the Government to produce the regulations that they have so far failed to produce with regard to those Members of another place who, from today, will no longer have a right to attend the House of peers.
"We shall consult the House authorities, as appropriate, on how this can best be taken forward.
There is a paragraph break between those two sentences, but a normal understanding of their meaning would be that the Government are committing themselves to delay consulting the House authorities until an inquiry has reported in the spring.
The Government have decided that there should first be an inquiry."
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