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Mr. Hayes: If the sequence of events that my right hon. Friend describes is accurate, as it certainly seems from my recollection, surely it returns us to his earlier point about the role of the Leader of the House. He talked about the Leader of the House offering inspiration and guidance. I submit that the Leader of the House should also offer a measure of protection for the rights of the House--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have appealed for interventions to be brief, and that one is not. Interventions must be quick and sharp.
Mr. Forth: Just like me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Quick and sharp as ever, I shall move on now to--
Mr. Bercow: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Forth: No, no. I shall not allow my hon. Friend to lead me astray. Following Mr. Deputy Speaker's guidance slavishly, as ever I do, I must move on to the main thrust of my argument. I have completed my preliminary remarks and must now get stuck into the real business.
Let me return to the claim made by the Leader of the House--insouciant, I think, is the only word to describe it--that the matters before us are uncontentious. That is the ultimate insult. Right hon. and hon. Members who sat in previous Parliaments will remember such triumphs of consensual politics as the Child Support Agency and the Dangerous Dogs Act 1989. Those provisions were shoved through the House on an all-party basis, with agreement
but with brief and inadequate scrutiny. They ended up being some of the worst legislation ever inflicted on our citizenry.Allegedly uncontentious legislation is some of the worst that exists. I believe that consensus is essentially an evil political concept. Even worse, in the context of the current Parliament's proceedings, when a Bill is deemed uncontentious, we become lazy about it. These two Bills have gone through Committee without proper scrutiny, and now we are told that because they were uncontentious, there is no need to waste the time of the House on debating, scrutinising or seeking to amend them.
That process is passing easily and seductively into the political language. It may be intended to let the babes go home early, but its net result is bad legislation.
Mr. Forth: I shall give way, but I am warming to my theme.
Mr. Fabricant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that he is offering a fine example of how a stitch in time can save nine? So-called non-contentious legislation such as that on the Child Support Agency and dangerous dogs has had to be debated over and over so that it can be amended. If it had been properly debated in the first place, less parliamentary time would have been taken up.
Mr. Forth: That is very likely the case. What makes things worse is the fact that the two Bills that have been impudently described as uncontentious are in fact highly contentious. One need only glance at clause 4 of the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill--"Seizure of property"--or clause 5, which is entitled "Retention and disposal". The Bill gives the police considerably increased powers of seizure and confiscation of property from private individuals. That is highly contentious. If the Bill affected any other area of the law, Labour Members--those who bother to be here--would be outraged by the proposal to increase the powers of the police to confiscate property from vulnerable individual members of society. Not this time, however, because we have been told that the Bill is "uncontentious".
The Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Bill contains measures on "Disclosure of information", which involve supplying the BBC with social security information. The provision includes not only the BBC, however. It states that
- the BBC includes any person providing the BBC with services in connection with television licences.
We must ask why the Government have seen fit to bring new clause 2 before the House this evening.
Janet Anderson: Conservative Front Benchers asked for it.
Mr. Forth: The Minister--I am glad to see that she is awake--may say that my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) asked for it. That is surely some
demonstration that enough was wrong with the Bill for my hon. Friend to spot it and to persuade the Government, in Committee, to change their Bill. The Government still try to persuade us that such Bills are uncontentious, even when they have to be amended.We are now in a fine pickle. These Bills--one of which did not even receive its Second Reading on the Floor of the House, and both of which went through a brief and truncated Committee stage--arrived for consideration on Report. One was making excellent progress--the Minister himself told us so--but had the plug pulled on it. Yet, when we are about to undertake such detailed consideration as we are allowed by the guillotine, we find that serious outstanding matters will probably not receive the proper attention of the House because there is no time.
Mr. Bercow: Why, in justification of the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill, have Ministers felt it necessary constantly to denigrate and vilify the hot-dog and hamburger salesmen of the royal parks? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if Ministers--including those who are usually courteous--opt for such a bitter and personal approach in this Chamber against those who do not have the opportunity to defend themselves, they should at least provide time for others--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The purpose of a timetable motion is not to go into the Bill in detail. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is aware of that.
Mr. Forth: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If time permits, we shall soon be able to undertake a little bit of detailed scrutiny--once the House has disposed of the guillotine motion. If the House were to give the motion its approval--as I sincerely hope it will not--then we should move to an all too brief consideration of the amendments that have been selected.
The fact that amendments have been selected, especially on the television licensing measure, is proof that Madam Speaker considered that they were worthy of debate on the Floor of the House. Surely, that is all that is needed to show that the matter is serious and substantial and had to be dealt with. However, the Government did not seem to agree. They will restrict the debate so much that it is highly doubtful whether we shall be able to do justice to the amendments that were selected by Madam Speaker herself.
It remains to be seen how much time the Government propose to take to persuade the House of the virtues and necessity of their new clause. That will be a test of the persuasiveness and commitment of Ministers--something of which we have seen little during the debate so far, especially on the part of the absent Leader of the House. However, the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting and the Minister for the Arts are both in their places, ready to help the House through the remaining stages of our proceedings on the measures. They will have their work cut out trying to persuade us that we should dispatch--in the little time available to us under their guillotine--the remaining business set down for the Bills.
That would be bad enough, but, on the television licensing measure, we have to deal not only with new clause 2, which would add a considerable, substantial
and--for all I know--controversial provision, but with other amendments. I tabled two of those that were selected by Madam Speaker--I am flattered by that. The others were tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean). He, too, has seen fit to try to amend the Bill in order to improve it further. However, I very much doubt whether we shall have the opportunity to do that at this stage.Sadly, the House finds itself in an invidious position. We shall almost certainly be unable to devote a proper amount of time to the amendments, even though they were selected by Madam Speaker and thus, by definition, relevant and important. We may well have to rely on another place--I hate to hear myself say that--to give proper scrutiny to the Bill. If we in the House of Commons cannot adequately discharge our responsibility to scrutinise legislation, and if the Government persist in introducing guillotines, with all their arrogance and contempt for the House, I can but conclude that, in order to do justice to the parliamentary process of scrutiny, we shall have to look to Members in another place to undertake the job that we are proved unable to do. I regret that. As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I try to play my modest part in the scrutiny of Bills. I do my best, as do my--
The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Caborn): The right hon. Gentleman is in opposition now.
Mr. Forth: The right hon. Gentleman, whom I welcome to the Chamber, suggests in an accusatory tone that I am in opposition. I had rumbled that fact and I have now come to appreciate it. He has known me for many years and in many different guises, and I tell him that I take my job in opposition seriously. I regard it as one of my duties to do what I can properly to scrutinise legislation and properly to hold the Government to account. Yes--I say this in the House, so it will not go any further--I admit that I occasionally seek to delay the Government imposing more and more legislation on my hapless voters. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends do the same thing. Is the right hon. Gentleman accusing me of something of which I should be ashamed because the truth could not be more different? I see that he seems to be endorsing what I do in opposition and I am grateful for that.
The Minister for the Arts has put on the record how he appreciated and approved of what we did in our scrutiny of the Royal Parks (Trading) Bill and the Minister for Trade, who has joined the debate at this late hour, has endorsed my description of what I seek to do in opposition. I could not seek for any greater support.
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