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Mr. Maclennan: I wish I could say that it is a novel idea to suggest that delays caused by the Government are wrong, while those caused by the Opposition are right. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster complained about delay, and the Bill has been considerably delayed more than necessary by the antics of Conservative Members.
Mr. Bercow: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Government that brief consideration of a Bill in Standing Committee justifies the imposition of a guillotine on Report, or does he agree with the Opposition that such consideration justifies no such thing?
Mr. Maclennan: In this case, the short time it took to consider the Bill in Committee and the absence of
significant representations to those on the Committee-- I was one of them--suggested that the people most directly affected by its provisions were not greatly perturbed. The Bill was widely perceived to meet a need. It might even have been desirable to have it on the statute book before the summer recess when people visit the royal parks--
Mr. Paterson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Maclennan: Let me finish my sentence. I do not want to make a speech that is much longer than Lincoln's at Gettysburg. However, as I have been interrupted, I will give way.
Mr. Paterson: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Had he been here at 10 o'clock last Wednesday night, he would have seen that we were well on the way to completing the Bill's report stage. Very few Members wished to speak and if the 10 o'clock motion had been moved and a Government Whip had not arbitrarily interrupted the debate, the Bill would probably have sailed on and been given a fair wind. It was unnecessary to stop proceedings at 10 o'clock.
Mr. Maclennan: The 10 o'clock rule exists to enable the Government to conclude proceedings if that seems appropriate to them and to the House. I belong to the school of thought that, on the whole, it makes more sense for proceedings to conclude at 10 o'clock than to go on beyond that.
I remember my late friend, John Mackintosh, the former Labour Member of Parliament for Berwick and East Lothian, serving notice on the then Labour Government, whom he mostly supported, that if they were so unwise as to bring on legislation after 10 o'clock, they could not count on his support. That view weighed heavily with the Government as they had a very small majority, and they almost invariably paid attention to what he said. In fact, he almost established a convention of the House.
I am concerned that, because the present Government do not have a small majority--indeed, they have an almost unprecedentedly large majority--they will plough on regardless because no one is prepared to put their foot down and say, at 10 o'clock, "Enough is enough." I think that enough is enough. I am fortified in that view by what I read in today's Evening Standard, where the former Conservative Member of Parliament for Buckingham, Mr. George Walden, talks of how the public have increasingly lost sympathy with the House and ceased to see it as the cockpit of major national debate, not least because of its inability properly to manage its business and because it goes on debating matters into the night.
I do not want to take too much issue with the hon. Member for Lichfield, who was indulging his wit.
Mr. Maclennan: After-dinner speeches are supposed to be light and entertaining, and the hon. Member for Lichfield fell firmly into that category.
Mr. Fraser: Can the right hon. Gentleman, who is giving us a Cook's tour of parliamentary procedure,
explain why, in recent Committee proceedings on the Utilities Bill and the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill, which I attended, his colleagues tabled amendments but did not bother to turn up to move them? How does that help the parliamentary process that he is describing?
Mr. Maclennan: Curiously enough, I am addressing the two Bills that are before the House and whether or not a guillotine motion should be employed in this instance. I am not aware of what the hon. Gentleman has described and I cannot see that it is relevant to the discussion. The relevant question is whether this is the best way to manage the business of the House.
It is time that the Opposition got together with the Government and took up the idea of a legislative procedure Committee in which we seek agreement about how to deal with these matters. It is plain nonsense that we should be subject to the silly behaviour that characterised the consideration of the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill at an earlier stage on the Floor of the House, provoking an almost equally unacceptable attempt by the Government to curtail debate. That is not a rational way to deal with these matters, and it is time for the House to grow up and recognise that we are simply switching off the public with these performances. We may greatly entertain ourselves--hon. Members on both sides of the House are here because they have been told that they are required to be here, so they make the proceedings light and amusing for themselves--but that attitude to what is essentially an issue of public policy is too self-interested and self-centred.
Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Buckinghamites naturally tend to protect each other. The right hon. Gentleman referred to my predecessor, who in many ways is an admirable and distinguished fellow. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he is not claiming that my predecessor, Mr. George Walden, was supporting the application of the guillotine on these two Bills? Parliament is held in low esteem, perhaps even in public opprobrium, not because of its consideration of these Bills, but because Ministers and Government Back Benchers rarely attend, could not care less what people think, and despise the traditions of this distinguished House.
Mr. Maclennan: The former hon. Member for Buckingham made a better plea than I could in this matter, and he gave a great deal of thought to it. I recommend the article to his successor and suggest that he read it. The former hon. Member did not address the subject of guillotines. What he addressed, squarely, was the issue of the House failing to manage its business in a way that makes sense to the public. In particular, he referred to holding debates after 10 pm. It is not a rational response on the part of his successor to go down the route that he is following tonight.
Mr. David Taylor: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is it not ambitious to expect the official Opposition to sign up to the principles of rational debate? Is that not as likely as a group of sumo wrestlers signing up to Weight Watchers?
Mr. Maclennan: I live in hope. I have listened to Conservative Members in the House and outside advancing
arguments--more often, perhaps, when in opposition than when in government--for the sensible management of debate.I served on the Hansard Society committee on the reform of the legislative process, which was chaired by Lord Rippon, a former Member of Parliament for Hexham. That committee put forward ideas that I would commend to the present Administration. They were supported by people of all parties and none as being the way forward.
I grant, and it has always been granted, that Oppositions--I have served more in opposition than in government--have some fear of the loss of time being the loss of an opportunity to hold the Government to account. None the less, the factious use of time simply discredits the process of opposition and makes it seem irrelevant.
When a couple of Bills on which both sides are united on the substance lead to such a partisan exchange, it exacerbates the public disaffection--the switch-off factor. It would be sensible for us all to recognise that before it is too late--before the only serious debates in this country are those that take place not in the Chamber, but with people such as Andrew Marr, Robin Oakley or John Sergeant mediating them. I should prefer to have those debates in the House, under your chairmanship, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and under the chairmanship of the Speaker. This is where we want to hear it happen, but we must have a sense of proportion in deciding which are the big issues. Maastricht has been cited this evening, as has the Scotland Bill. Those were major issues that required and received lengthy debate, but if we inflate matters such as the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill and the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill in the way that occurred tonight and last week, I am afraid that we will go on losing the confidence and respect of the public whom we are trying to serve.
10.44 pm
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch): I understand the point made by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) in relation to today's news. Ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are on the Front Bench. The big news that most people are talking about today is the additional £29 million to be given to the dome. Many of my constituents object strongly to that, yet the House has had no opportunity to discuss it. I believe that the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross made a similar point, with which I agree.
I could not follow the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument about the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill because that measure did not receive its Second Reading until after 10 pm. I am surprised that he did not object to that. It would not have happened under a Conservative Government. It was a convention under the previous Government that a Second Reading debate would not start after 10 pm. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman tried to make that point.
The Minister's introduction to the debate included specious arguments. She argued that there was an urgent demand for the television licences measure to get on to the statute book. It may now be urgent, but that is because the Government delayed earlier. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) has left, but those of us who practised as barristers recall a time when many
papers, which had been sitting in chambers for longer than they should, changed from routine to urgent. That meant that they had been overlooked, not that an emergency had occurred. If the Minister meant that the Bill was an emergency measure, I remind hon. Members that it has not been pushed through the House on that basis.Having had a rather leisurely Second Reading debate after 10 pm, the Bill went into Committee. The first day the Committee sat, it spent only half an hour considering the matter before it adjourned and returned after Easter. That is hardly indicative of extreme urgency.
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