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8. Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply to either Bill.
Supplemental Orders
9. The proceedings on any motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order
10. If at today's sitting the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the time at which any proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
I shall speak briefly because the House has important business to consider this afternoon. The motion would allow for up to five hours of debate on the timetable and both Bills. I hope that it will not be necessary to spend three hours debating the motion, and that we can move on swiftly to debate the substance of the Bills.
There can be no doubt about the value of both measures. Of course, some hon. Members want to probe and discuss various aspects of the Bills. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said last Thursday, the Committee stages of the Bills--and, indeed, two other Bills that the House will consider later today--passed swiftly.
The Nuclear Safeguards Bill took one hour 48 minutes in Committee. Today, 33 amendments, four new clauses and one new schedule have been tabled. None of those amendments raises anything new, and the Government oppose them all.
The Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Bill took one hour 13 minutes in Committee. The Government accepted no amendments, and no Government amendments have been tabled today.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Unless I misheard the Parliamentary Secretary, he suggested that the Nuclear Safeguards Bill absorbed one hour 48 minutes. Will he confirm that it in fact absorbed only one hour 12 minutes?
Mr. Tipping: I cannot confirm that, but I shall look at the matter. I understand that the Nuclear Safeguards Bill took one hour and 48 minutes and the Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Bill one hour and 13 minutes. The three new clauses and two amendments, which have been tabled by an Opposition Member, would add nothing to the Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Bill.
Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time with his characteristic courtesy. Unless I am much mistaken, or there has been a misprint, the Standing Committee sitting began at 10.30 am on 18 April and consideration concluded at 18 minutes to 12. Even by new Labour calculations, that amounts not to one hour and 48 minutes, but to one hour and 12 minutes. That is germane to our consideration of the timetable motion.
Mr. Tipping: Clearly, if the Official Report is correct--I am sure that it is--the hon. Gentleman is better at his sums than other people. I apologise to him and the House.
There are important matters that the House needs to debate this afternoon. It is regrettable that a few Opposition Members seem to be less interested in the genuine scrutiny of legislation and more interested in disrupting the progress of business, regardless of the desirability of the legislation that they want to delay. Such behaviour may not be in the interests of the whole House and the industries concerned, nor in the public interest. However, it is for those Members to justify their actions.
I do not complain, nor should they complain of the Government's desire to pass legislation. I hope that the House will approve the motion quickly.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich): Can my hon. Friend the Minister tell me where, in the Government's view, the dividing line on applying timetable motions falls? Is it where Her Majesty's Opposition are being an irritant and, therefore, have to be taught a salutary lesson or where the legislation is of such major importance that it should be dealt with in an exemplary manner, without the Opposition having recourse to what are legitimate means of opposition?
Mr. Tipping: I remind my hon. Friend of what I have just said--I do not complain and those are legitimate tactics; nor should other hon. Members complain about the Government's desire to secure their business.
The Bills are important for the industries concerned. There has been widespread concern across the House that important issues are not given sufficient time for debate. For example, last week, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) pressed strongly for a debate on House of Lords reform. Small measures such as these may be blocked, which takes a great deal of time and causes the Government difficulties in initiating bigger debates.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): If the minority in the House has rights which are respected--I hope that that will always be the case--should not we also recognise the rights of the majority? If a small minority of Members causes lengthy delays, despite remaining perfectly in order, surely the majority has a right to put its foot down and say, "Enough is enough."
Mr. Tipping: My hon. Friend may have an opportunity to put his foot down if the motion is pressed to a Division. It is a matter for the House and he will be able to express his view. I have expressed mine: a small group of Members is needlessly holding up the business of the House to the inconvenience of a great many other Members.
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills): Why have the Government decided to consolidate what are effectively two guillotine motions into one? That denies the House the opportunity properly to discuss the motion. I should be grateful to the Minister if he would advise us why the Secretaries of State responsible for the Bills are not leading the debate. The precedent was in the 1970s when, as the Minister will recall, the relevant Secretaries of State spoke on the sections of the motion that related to their Bills and explained the necessity for a guillotine.
Mr. Tipping: I am supported by my hon. Friend the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs. The precedents on such matters are far from clear. The hon. Gentleman asks why two Bills are being guillotined by one motion. He makes the point that there is insufficient time, but three hours have been made available to discuss the motion. I hope that the House will debate the motion quickly so that we can deal with the important matters.
3.50 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): The Minister is one of the most courteous Members in the House, and we all acknowledge that, but I am bound to tell him that he dealt with the motion in an exceptionally perfunctory manner. I am also bound to tell him that I think it a great pity that the Leader of the House is not here--indeed, I am sorry that she did not introduce the debate. Given that she too is a Member of impeccable courtesy, I would have expected her at the very least to be present.
We should consider the context of this debate. In last year's Queen's Speech, the Government put before us one of the heaviest legislative programmes of recent years. Since then, we have seen an attempt by them to push through non-controversial Bills as quickly as possible so that they can get the rest of their legislative programme through. In fact, they have not yet extracted themselves from a legislative quagmire of their own making.
I accept that although both the Bills we are discussing are important, they are not controversial in a party political sense; but to say that they are not controversial is not to say that they are unimportant. Many pieces of legislation put before the House are non-controversial in a party sense, but are extremely important. I do not think anyone could suggest that a Bill relating to nuclear safeguards, or, indeed, a Bill dealing with sea fishing, deals with an unimportant subject.
A number of important points were made on Second Reading of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, which ran for some time. Although the Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Bill had a briefer Second Reading, again important points were made, especially by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss). I do not believe that the Government have answered either set of points adequately.
The trouble with the present Government--I acquit the Minister of this charge--is that they are excessively arrogant when it comes to Parliament. The purpose of Parliament is to serve by holding the Executive to account and by scrutinising legislation thoroughly. The present Government seem to be so hell bent on their legislative programme--their agenda--that they are not prepared to allow Parliament to fulfil its role properly.
We have already heard one reference to this in an intervention, but last week, in business questions, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) asked yet again--I have lost count of the number of times he and I have asked for this--for a debate on the intergovernmental conference White Paper, and for a debate on reform of the House of Lords. Most important of all in the context of what is currently happening, he asked--for the second consecutive week--for a debate on Sierra Leone.
People outside Parliament find it incomprehensible that we have so distorted our patterns and procedures--or, rather, the Government have done so--that we do not have the opportunity to debate matters that are in the headlines of every newspaper and news bulletin, at a time when British troops are engaged, albeit with impeccable skill, in one of the most delicate operations in which British troops have been engaged for a long time.
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