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Mr. Fraser: Does my hon. Friend agree that a perfectly adequate ten-minute Bill, which was supported by Conservative Members, was introduced last year to tackle the same issue? Had it been accepted, the Government would not have had to introduce a Bill in such a politically expedient way.
Mr. Chope: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) introduced a ten-minute Bill which was supported by all parties, but not the Government Front Bench. If the Government were not so proud or foolish, they could have accepted the Bill, which would be on the statute book by now--and 11,000 of my constituents, who will benefit from free licences for those aged over 75, would already be benefiting.
Mr. Bercow: We have reached a significant point in our deliberations. My hon. Friend says that the House's time, which Labour Members claim so jealously to guard, has been frivolously wasted for no other or better reason than the hubris of Ministers.
Mr. Chope: My hon. Friend is right, as he invariably is. We are considering a serious issue. The more the Government believe that they can push through measures by use of the guillotine, the less attention they will give to whether the Bills should have been introduced in the first place and whether they should have been piecemeal measures.
We would not be discussing the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill if someone had thought more seriously about whether we required a Bill that embraced the needs of Westminster, the royal parks and perhaps other local authority areas. One Bill could have covered all those subjects. Instead, the City of Westminster Bill was introduced in the previous Session and the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill has been introduced in this Session.
We learn from a previous debate that there is every prospect of other local authorities calling for even more legislation because the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill and the City of Westminster Act 1999 will result in displacement of anti-social behaviour to other local authorities. That means that more prime time in the House will be taken up. That could have been avoided if the Government had considered matters in advance. The Minister's argument about the need for urgency does not wash.
Last November, the Chancellor announced that all over-75s would be given a free television licence this autumn, but pensioners are to receive their licence rather later than many of them expected. That is so often the
case with the Government. Be that as it may, free licences will be introduced on 1 November, but, by all accounts, arguments about who would administer the scheme were still taking place in Whitehall in the early months of this year. There would have been no need for the Bill had the Government adopted the common-sense proposition that the over-75s--effectively, the generation of law-abiding, God-fearing citizens that served this country so well in the war--could be trusted to own a television without a licence. There would have been no need for this bureaucracy.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The hon. Gentleman must discuss the allocation of time motion, not the Bill's merits.
Mr. Chope: I was not seeking to discuss the Bill's merits and I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The Government could have achieved their objective without legislating. Had they given that more thought, less of our time would have been wasted in considering the Bill.
I look forward to the Minister's explanation of why the first sitting of the Committee considering this urgent legislation lasted only half an hour; the second lasted only an hour and a half. Had it met for a full sitting, consideration could have been completed and the Bill could have returned to the House much sooner.
Mr. Swayne: The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) suggested that greater use be made of pre-legislative scrutiny, which would rely greatly on the expertise of Select Committees. Is it my hon. Friend's estimate that scrutiny of the Bill in Committee would have been much more exhaustive had such a procedure been applied? Therefore, the timetable motion would not have been required.
Mr. Chope: I take my hon. Friend's point; the timetable motion is not required. It represents a macho exercise by the Government--an attempt to satisfy some of their Back Benchers by making a point against my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). That is unnecessary. We know perfectly well that the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill was being discussed last Wednesday--I was speaking to amendment No. 6--and I expected the 10 o'clock motion to be moved by the Government, which would have allowed me to finish my speech and the House to complete its consideration of that important measure. After hearing the Government's reply, we could have dealt with the remaining amendment and proceeded to Third Reading.
Mr. Maclean: Will my hon. Friend comment on the rumour, which was awash in the House that night, that, incompetently, the Government had put Labour Members on a one-line Whip, they had all gone home and were not in the House to vote? The Government did not want the debate to go beyond 10 o'clock because they knew that there may have been a vote on amendment No. 6.
Mr. Chope: I remember discussing that point with my right hon. Friend on that occasion. If one thinks of these proceedings as a game, Conservative Members missed a trick: we were concentrating too hard on the merits of the Bill and not thinking enough about strategy and tactics.
Mr. Bercow: If the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill was so uncontentious that it required
minimal consideration in Committee, why have the Government only now tabled new clause 2? Did that not occur to them before? If not, why not?
Mr. Chope: I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had a chance to read the Committee proceedings, but I have. It is clear from those proceedings that, as a result of comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and also by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser), the Minister said that she would think about that point. To give her credit, she did think about it and recognised that it was a good point, and that is now reflected in new clause 2.
It has been suggested that the whole purpose of the Report stage of Bills is merely to consider a good many more detailed amendments. We know perfectly well that one of the few opportunities that often arise in the House for the discussion of major issues results from the introduction of new clauses on Report. That is why, on Report, new clauses take priority over amendments. On many a criminal justice Bill, issues relating to, for instance, capital punishment have been presented on Report and we have engaged in major debates here, some of which have lasted all day. The idea that we should curtail Report stages because they are an unimportant part of the legislative process is a dangerous one: it could result in the conferring of substantially more power to the Executive and to the power of the legislature--the true representatives of the people--being much diminished.
Mr. Maclean: My hon. Friend speaks of the importance of considering new clauses. Would he care to reflect on the fact that four of the new clauses selected by the Speaker--from which we assume that they are not bogus or spurious, but are genuine new clauses worthy of debate here--were tabled by Opposition Members, including me, and one was tabled by the Government? In those circumstances, is it not outrageous to curtail debate on these important new clauses?
Mr. Chope: I entirely agree. It is outrageous to curtail debate in this way, and it need never have happened. At the end of tonight's proceedings, we shall probably find that more time has been spent overall on discussing allocation of time motions than would have been spent on discussing the substantive issues contained in the Bills had the Government not tabled those motions. I find it depressing that the Government felt it necessary to table them to try to satisfy their Back Benchers.
Mr. Maclean: It is a question of pique.
Mr. Chope: It shows that the Government no longer command the respect of their Back Benchers and are having to throw them titbits every now and again to try to keep them satisfied. That is an astonishing way to behave, given that the Government have such a large majority.
Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend will have read in The Times--this is pertinent to the motion--that several Labour Members will be standing down after serving just one term. Does my hon. Friend think that the Government's motive in imposing guillotine motions such
as this--although they destroy the democracy in which we currently serve--is to keep Blair babes, and others who are going to have twins, in the House of Commons?
Mr. Chope: My hon. Friend made some excellent comments earlier about "Major's men", a gang of which he was a proud member.
Mr. Bercow: He voted for Redwood.
Mr. Chope: My hon. Friend does not want that to be put on the record--[Interruption.] As for Blair's babes, I am the last person who can comment usefully. When I was at school, I was asked to write an essay on the proposition "A Woman's Place is in the Home". I think I was the only person in my year who divided the proposition into different stages in a woman's life. Would it, for example, be appropriate for her to be at home looking after young children and to go out to work later? But perhaps I am straying a bit from the subject of tonight's debate.
The Government had an opportunity to introduce the television licences legislation earlier, if indeed they needed to introduce it at all, but they are now trying to force the Bill through urgently. The Minister said on Second Reading that issues related to the total cost of administering the scheme for free licences would be brought out during the debate in Committee. It is my understanding that those issues have not yet been brought out, and we could have legitimately raised that on Third Reading. I hope that we shall still be able to discuss that during the Third Reading debate, which will be much curtailed as a result of the Government's allocation of time motion.
My constituency contains some 11,000 pensioners over 75, which is more than in any other parliamentary constituency in the country. They are eager to find out how the new scheme for television licences will be administered. Hon. Members will be deprived of the opportunity to raise those issues on Third Reading.
Under the terms of the allocation of time motion, I expect to be able to speak further on amendment No. 6 to the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill, which I was speaking to when the House adjourned at 10 o'clock last Wednesday. The major point that has emerged from today's proceedings on these allocation of time motions is that the Government are guilty of proliferating piecemeal legislation. That is the root cause of the problem over the Government's timetable and the allocation of time motions for debating these Bills.
The provisions of the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill could have been included in a consolidated measure in common with the City of Westminster Act 1999. If the Government were less regulatory minded, we could have achieved the objective of allowing people aged over 75 to watch television without paying a licence fee, without any need for the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill or the bureaucracy it creates, which will cost some £24 million. Interestingly, that sum is not dissimilar to the extra £29 million that the Government have awarded to the dome--a cause that has little sympathy among the general public.
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