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Mr. Bercow: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is imperative that we should have the maximum time to consider the two Bills because there are no fewer than 13 amendments, new clauses and new schedules tabled for debate and because the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting and the Minister for the Arts have on various occasions referred to dodgy burgers and rip-off traders? That may be a source of hilarity to the hon. Lady, but Ministers have not troubled themselves to offer any evidence for their charges against members of the public and traders who do not have the opportunity tonight or at any other time in a public forum to defend themselves.

Mr. Nicholls: My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting did not make a speech of any great length but, even in her short address, she managed to introduce the concept of forcibly feeding people burgers. I do not go to the London parks very often--perhaps, you do, Mr. Deputy Speaker--but I have heard no reports of people being forcibly fed burgers. I have carefully read the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill to see whether it contains any provisions to prevent the forcible feeding of burgers. If that practice is going on in London parks, there is nothing in the Bill to stop it. However, the Minister introduced the concept as justification for the Government's motion.

Mr. Bercow: I am sorry to trouble my hon. Friend again, because he has dealt eloquently with my intervention. He knows that the Opposition support this Bill and the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill. However, if Ministers are to make charges against people, the least they should do is provide evidence of the health-damaging properties of the burgers in question. They have not done so. The Minister for the Arts should also provide evidence of the allegedly rip-off prices that he mentioned. Under interrogation the other day he palpably failed to do that.

Mr. Nicholls: My hon. Friend is exactly right and he anticipates the remarks that I shall make shortly. The Bill involves issues relating to liberty and people's capacity to pursue a humble calling in their own way without the nanny state bearing down on them. However, if I am not careful, my hon. Friend will lead me astray--quite unintentionally, I am sure--and divert me from the sequence of my argument.

A few moments ago, I was saying that guillotines have their place. Of course they do, otherwise I would not have voted for them over the years. However, there is no doubt

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that the authorities state plainly that the use of the guillotine is draconian. I have a list of all the measures that have been guillotined since 1945. I shall not detain the House by going through them at great length, but it is instructive to examine some to give an idea of the gravity of measures which justify guillotining.

In the 1946-47 Session, the Transport Bill and the iron and steel legislation were subject to the guillotine procedure, as was the Housing Rents and Repairs Bill in 1953. In the 1971-72 Session, the European Communities Bill was subject to a guillotine. Indeed, there could be no more appropriate measure to be guillotined, as it dealt with a major constitutional issue in a way which, in retrospect, we know was profoundly misjudged.

Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): Will my hon. Friend give the House an idea of how long those Bills were in Committee? Is he aware that the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill was in Committee for only 35 minutes, so probably deserved greater scrutiny on the Floor of the House?

Mr. Nicholls: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. Indeed, one could make such a point without arguing for any particular brief on what the European Communities Bill did. At least it was acknowledged then that a draconian measure that would severely limit our ability to exert our sovereignty had been debated for a long time before being subject to a guillotine.

Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) rose--

Mr. Nicholls: I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a moment.

Another Bill in the 1971-72 Session which was thought appropriate for the guillotine procedure was the Counter- Inflation (Temporary Provisions) Bill. My hon. Friend is twitching.

Mr. Paterson: I wanted to intervene when the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) was in the Chamber. Sadly, however, he has just left. My hon. Friend is getting dangerously close to the hon. Gentleman's argument that there is a case for guillotine motions on what he described as important measures. Does he agree that that puts power back in the hands of the Executive, as they, not Members of Parliament, decide what measures to introduce and which are important?

Mr. Nicholls: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. I hope that he was not criticising the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) for leaving, as the hon. Gentleman has been in the House many years and sometimes has to leave in the middle of our deliberations.

The hon. Gentleman may have been here in 1972, when the Counter-Inflation (Temporary Provisions) Bill was subject to a guillotine. In passing, as we remember from the history books, I am delighted that some hon. Members, perhaps including the hon. Gentleman, insisted on that procedure for that ludicrous legislation, which said that one could legislate and order prices to go down when the market was driving them up. It is quite understandable that such lunacy should have been subject to the guillotine.

Bringing matters up to date, crucial constitutional measures that have been guillotined recently include the Prevention of Terrorism (Additional Powers) Bill and,

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since the last election, the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill and the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill. The European Communities (Amendment) Bill was guillotined, demonstrating that Europe, or rather the European Union--at least for the time being--is always with us. The Government of Wales Bill, the Northern Ireland Bill and the Human Rights Bill were also guillotined. That Bill, which became the Human Rights Act 1998, needed to be guillotined to be driven through the House, and as the Government will discover in a few short months, it will play havoc with this country's legal system.

The list includes a number of substantial Bills dealing with the future of the country, its identity and its constitution. Joining the list of all those important Bills that have gone through the House since the war is the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill. We are debating a proposal to guillotine a Bill dealing with the activities of hamburger salesmen. The Government say that if we accept that the Bill is correct in principle, no scrutiny is necessary.

Let us examine the matters that we shall consider tonight, after the guillotine motion has been approved--on the assumption that it is approved. We shall discuss the seizure provisions. Government Members may ask whether those matter. Yes, they do. There is a peculiar meanness about the way in which the provisions have been drafted. We are not dealing with major capitalists, extremely efficient makers of money or the nouveaux riches glitterati whose friends Labour Members are these days. We are speaking of people with a much humbler calling, who make a living selling hamburgers.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing the allocation of time for the Bill. We are not dealing with the content of the Bill at this stage.

Mr. Nicholls: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My point, in summary, is that when we get to the detail of the Bill, we will see that we are speaking about depriving people of their livelihood. If we go down that road, we need time for the debate.

What would be lost by debating these matters in detail? After all, the time now is 9.16 pm. Speaking for myself, and perhaps for some of my hon. Friends, I do not expect to work normal office hours for the salary that the state pays me. Underlining the ethos of using the guillotine on tiny measures such as this Bill is the belief among Labour Members that debate, let alone debate out of office hours, is quite unnecessary.

There is even an hon. Lady who says that she will give up her membership of Parliament because she finds that it does not fit in with family life. I find it extraordinary that when we do a job as big as the job that we should be doing in the House--scrutinising legislation--hon. Members say that we should be paid an abnormally high salary for working normal office hours.

Even though the principle of the Bill is agreed, it contains measures that deserve to be scrutinised. The House should devote sufficient time to that. I do not see what the problem is. On several occasions in recent weeks, I and my hon. Friends have shown that we are prepared to spend the time necessary to consider Bills in detail. If Labour Members cannot be persuaded to scrutinise the legislation introduced by the Government--

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without anticipating the debate, I can say that the Bill has not been drafted with any great skill, to put it mildly--it is not too much to ask that they should at least make the case for it.

Perhaps the serried ranks of the Labour party are outside the Chamber, waiting to come in and make major speeches. Although my hon. Friends and I are outnumbered 3:1 in the House--I am thinking of quantity, rather than quality--there are two Labour Back Benchers present. They seem to be awake, but they are not moving, and I cannot tell whether they intend to speak. It is remarkable not only that Labour Members are not prepared to scrutinise the legislation, but that apparently they are not even prepared to make the case for it.

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