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Mr. Bercow: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons that Ministers seem to think that such truncated consideration is adequate is that they believe that unless a Member has sat on the Standing Committee considering a Bill, he or she has a bit of a cheek to try to contribute on Report? Does he agree that they need now to understand what new Ministers in particular have hitherto failed to learn--that the Bill is being reported to the House for proper consideration by it?
Mr. Forth: Indeed. In addition, there are two Houses of this Parliament, and what one does is properly to be scrutinised by the other. The fact that a matter may have been dealt with in another place--with all of the expertise that resides there--does not mean that this House of Commons can either take that for granted or ignore it. This motion is an outrage and a disgrace, and I hope that the House will reject it.
4.3 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills): There are few points that I wish to make, as the matter has been covered adequately by my right hon. Friends the Members for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir R. Smith). I was cheered to note that the Liberal Democrats are actually weighing how a procedure motion addresses the issues that we want to address.
This motion is a product of a rollover process following modernisation. It is an indication that my Front-Bench colleagues agreed to such an arrangement; it could only have gone forward on that basis. Therefore, this is an important process. That the Government are abrogating proper investigation and examination of the many clauses in the Bill is inappropriate and it may discourage my Front-Bench colleagues from ever agreeing to any future rollover. That would be a real loss in terms of the serious consideration over a longer period of detailed and highly complex Bills such as this. The Government should take on board the fact that a guillotine on a rollover that has allowed two parliamentary Sessions to deal with the detail of a Bill is inappropriate.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out that what we shall be debating are Lords amendments. I have been in the House long enough to remember--as you will too, Madam Speaker--when it was unthinkable to guillotine that which came from a Chamber that may not be democratic, but has equal weight in our legislative processes.
The Government have now guillotined 34 Bills. That is a historic high, and no other Government have ever approached it. Previous Labour Governments since 1945
seldom used the guillotine, but now there is a crescendo applied to the second Chamber and what it says in its amendments. This guillotine demonstrates the power of a majority to deny freedom of speech. I do not know whether the time is adequate, as the whole debate could implode, but the Government have allowed less than five minutes for each of 80 substantial amendments--again taking the figure supplied by my right hon. Friend--and that is not including votes.Parliament should not be muzzled in this way. We have enough bad legislation as it is. Sometimes, Conservative Governments have been hung by having inadequate discussion of detail. This Government should not go down that route, which is a denial of the very purpose and function of this Chamber.
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Mr. Howard Flight (Arundel and South Downs): The Bill is not exactly the stuff of red-hot party politics. Because of that, and because it affects our biggest industry and the prosperity of the whole of the south-east, the Opposition have endeavoured throughout to be wholly constructive, to get complicated matters legally right and to end up with a piece of legislation that is not damaging to our key industry.
It is extraordinarily disappointing to me that, when the Treasury is aware that there are many key issues on which we are advised that the Government and their legal advisers have got it wrong, the Government are unwilling to listen further and are railroading this stage through with a guillotine motion.
It is easy to take for granted the prosperity of the financial services industry of the City of London, but it depends on Britain being highly competitive in terms of tax, regulation and accommodation and staff costs. I am afraid to report that I have encountered several business people in the past few weeks who, having seen the final proposals on market abuse, are considering moving their businesses elsewhere, whether within the European Union or to other major financial centres.
The Bill comes from the Lords wrong, and we are being given inadequate time to consider it in the key areas of the obligation to preserve our international competitiveness, market abuse, proper practice in line with corporate governance required elsewhere, avoiding being ultra vires in respect of the European Court of Human Rights and, indeed, the new situation regarding what is to happen to stock markets. Did the Government even imagine, when rushing through the change of the listing authority from the stock exchange to the Financial Services Authority, the implications if the London stock exchange were to merge?
I declare an interest as not only the non-executive chairman of a financial services business but probably the only Member of Parliament who has worked in the industry for 30 years. As such, I stand back from the Bill and am seriously concerned that it creates a body that is too powerful and inadequately accountable and that there remain too many areas in which the legal balance is wrong or tilted against the industry.
It is wrong that the House should have only one evening to go through nearly 700 further amendments. We welcome the amendments that were introduced in response to issues that we raised, but we believe that the Bill remains wrong in certain key areas. That is why I
oppose the motion. When a piece of key legislation is not right, the House of Commons should have time to get it right.4.10 pm
Miss Melanie Johnson: The importance of the financial services sector is well recognised by the Government, and I trust that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) did not wish to imply that the Government do anything other than attach as much importance to that sector as he would claim to do. We believe that the Bill is a crucial part of securing the future of that industry. Without the Bill and the new regulatory arrangements that it will introduce, the future of that industry would increasingly be at risk.
Hon. Members have raised the issue of scrutiny of the amendments. The right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) suggested that the amendments before us today had not received sufficient scrutiny, but they received extensive scrutiny in the other place. Only one additional Government amendment has been tabled for consideration this afternoon.
Mr. Tyrie: Will the Economic Secretary give way?
Miss Johnson: No, I have limited time and I wish to--[Interruption.] Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. The right hon. Member for Wells claimed that we faced a paperback of amendments, but the amendments made to the Financial Services Act 1986 in the other place covered some 135 pages, which is more than 40 pages more than the amendments before us today. No difficulties appear to have been experienced as a result of that earlier legislation. It is also important to recognise that 582 amendments were tabled by the then Government to that Act at a comparable stage in 1986.
Opposition Members have also neglected to mention the fact that there were 1,300 non-Government amendments discussed both here and in the other place. The Opposition have made a lively contribution to the debate and, as a result, in some cases we have tabled Government amendments to implement the changes that the Opposition have requested. The Bill is better as a result. The publication of the amendments on 24 May, and the report of the Bill's progress in the other place, have enabled those hon. Members who wished to do so to take an interest in the amendments long before they came here for debate. I trust that Opposition Members have done so.
The Opposition argue that we have not accepted their points, but in some cases that is because we do not agree with them, and hours of debate will not change that. In other cases, we have accepted the Opposition's arguments and tabled amendments to that effect. The fact that so many of the Lords amendments were passed with all-party support is further proof that we have listened. That is why they are before the House this afternoon.
As a result of the scrutiny it has undergone, we have a good Bill. Hon. Members will wish to discuss certain matters during the remaining hours of debate, but I reiterate that many of the amendments before us are purely technical, drafting or consequential on one main change in the Bill. Hon. Members can do the arithmetic on the number of amendments, but their case is not as substantial as they claim. With the possible exception of one area of discussion, I believe that it would be quite
surprising if I were to hear anything in the Chamber this afternoon that I had not heard several times before, in more than 200 hours of parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill. We have already reached the point where many debates have become exceptionally repetitive.I therefore urge the House to accept the supplemental allocation of time motion on the remaining consideration of the Bill.
The House divided: Ayes 244, Noes 126.
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