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3.57 pm
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): My right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) has articulated the general objection to the Bill, and I will therefore not repeat it. Let me say, however, that I have the strongest opposition to the use of timetables, both in general and in particular.
I do not believe--if the Minister will forgive me--that he has even tried to advance an argument in favour of timetabling the Bill. He has told us about the number of amendments: he has told us that there are 140--indeed, there are 13 groups--and that 40 are minor. A proper inference to draw from that is that the remaining 100 are not minor.
My right hon. Friend said that, for the most part, the amendments were not controversial, but that does not strike me as a good reason for truncating debate, unless there is a powerful and compelling case for doing so--and it is for the Government to demonstrate that there is.
If there were a genuine fear that hon. Members would wilfully and unreasonably extend debate, that would be a good reason for truncating it; but I do not believe that there is such a genuine fear. I therefore ask myself what can be the justification, and I see no such justification.
I understand, of course, that Ministers feel that their parliamentary timetable may be at risk, but whose fault is that? It is not our fault, and it is not itself a good reason for truncating parliamentary debate. The plain truth is that we had an extraordinarily long recess. I personally benefited from that, but we could have sat earlier, and the programme could have been very much lighter. In fact, the Government are imposing timetables because they have so overloaded the parliamentary agenda as to put their own artificial timetable at risk.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Government are fundamentally mistaken in their assumption, and in the premise from which it works, that the presence on the Order Paper of a large number of amendments somehow justifies the imposition of a timetable? Is it not the case that the presence of that large number of amendments, even if technical and drafting, is testimony to the ill-considered, badly prepared, poorly conceived character of the Bill?
Mr. Hogg: It is testimony to that in part, but it also points to the need for a more extended debate, for reasons that I will come to.
I have referred to the fact that Ministers complain about the risk that debate poses to their parliamentary timetable. Government Back Benchers will complain about staying late. That argument is often advanced, but I make two points. First, it is the business of Members of Parliament to scrutinise legislation. If a Government introduce legislation that requires scrutiny, it ill behoves Government Back Benchers to say that they do not want to sit and to scrutinise it.
The second point works in a slightly different direction. The solution lies in the hands of Government Back Benchers. They have to say to their Whips, "I am sorry, but I am not going to spend the night here" or "I am not going to support your beastly legislation." If they said that often enough, the Government would start to listen to them, which would make a pleasant change for them, and they would begin to have an effect on the volume and quantity of legislation.
If Government Back Benchers really want to reinstate their reputation in the public eye, which will be a hard task for them at the best of times, one of the things that they should do is mark out their independence and cease to be the creatures and clones of the Whips Office and Ministers. They would do well to learn those lessons.
I return to the substance of the matter. I am glad to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is in his place because he has strong views on timetable motions, which I hope he will articulate, if he gets the opportunity. The first thing that we need to grasp is this. A total of 140 amendments are before the House. It is the first time that right hon. and hon. Members have an opportunity to look at many of those amendments. It is not good enough to say that 40 of them are minor and 20 more relate to best value. That leaves many others which are not.
Let us be clear about this: if the timetable motion is passed, many of the amendments, and probably many of the groups of amendments, will not be discussed at all. That takes me to the response to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who made an important point. If at this stage in the passage of the Bill there are many amendments on the Order Paper, for two reasons that argues not for a timetable, but for an extended debate.
One reason is that legislation is improved by scrutiny; that is why we have scrutiny. If we let amendments go through without discussion, as night follows day we will have bad law, and that is an abomination. I see the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) nodding. He and I know from our practice in the courts that that is true.
We lose sight of the other reason at our peril. Democracy depends on the acquiesence of the electorate. They want to feel that legislation and policy are being enacted after proper scrutiny. If we do not subject legislation to proper scrutiny, two things happen: we dishonour ourselves in the eyes of the public, although I hope that the opprobrium will fall on Ministers; and, perhaps more dangerously, respect for the law falls, because the public know full well that it is simply law that reflects the dictate of a Department and Ministers and has not been the subject of proper debate. In that way, we dishonour ourselves and respect for the law.
It is an absolute outrage that the timetable motion and the Division that, I hope, will follow will come out of substantive time. That again shows the Government's contempt for the House. I am against timetables. We should go on protesting, although timetabling is becoming the norm under the Government.
4.4 pm
Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh): I noted with interest that when the Minister of State opened the debate, he referred to the consultation on the Bill and the implementation of the Patten report. May I say at the outset that this is the first time that I have ever dealt with a Bill about which there was no prior consultation? I believe that the Minister of State is fully aware of that and that the House is fully aware of the implications, to the extent that this has become a fractious, divisive debate on the issue.
The Minister of State mentioned implementing Patten. One of the many reasons that I am greatly opposed to today's timetable motion is that when we last debated the Bill on 11 July, almost all the controversial issues were not debated on the Floor of the House. I do not want to give a litany of those issues, but I think that their importance can be summed up just by looking at them--the flag, the badge, quota, powers of the Policing Board, the ombudsman, the Oversight Commissioner and accountability. Those issues were not debated on the Floor of the House on 11 July. That is why I believe it essential that, whichever way the Bill goes tonight, we at least take the opportunity to make a contribution on the issues that affect us all so deeply.
I do not know whether the predictions that there will be a guillotine tonight are correct. I am, by nature, opposed to guillotines. However, I hope that in the interests of the future, time will be made available in the debate so that some of the outstanding points that people must understand are clarified.
May I suggest some such points to the Secretary of State? I would like him to say on the Floor of the House tonight that, in accordance with Patten, the Union flag will not be flown on police buildings from the date on which this becomes operative. [Hon. Members: "Shame!"] That is what Patten recommended, and if we are discussing the Patten report we must deal with its recommendations. I provide the Secretary of State with the opportunity--no double negatives or quadruple negatives--to let people in Northern Ireland who have to make judgments know.
Will the Secretary of State use the opportunity provided by the time allocated tonight to make it clear that a police flag or emblem will not have any identification with the British or Irish state? That is also a requirement of the Patten report, and such neutrality could be crucial.
We are not yet in possession of the facts about a crucial element that I believe the Government can clarify tonight. I refer to the implementation plan and the aspects of it that were specifically referred to by Patten--the subsuming of special branch into the police service under an Assistant Chief Constable, an indicative date for ending the full-time Reserve, the time scale for increasing the part-time Reserve and decisions on the holding centres, especially now in relation to Gough barracks in Armagh.
Two other points have received no consideration by the Government on the Floor of the House or in Committee. What is the Government's attitude to lateral entry, and what arrangements have been made for secondment from the Garda Siochana? Again, those are recommendations in the Patten report.
I have one more point that I would like the Secretary of State to address. We all saw the trauma in this country surrounding the Stephen Lawrence murder, and we all saw how long it took for it to be dealt with. The murders of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hamill have not yet been subjected to inquiry. I pose this question to the Government and to ourselves: under the Policing Board envisaged by the Secretary of State, could and would inquiries such as those, if they were needed in future, ever take place?
I am opposed to the allocation of time motion. I want to make a point about a matter referred to earlier. We, as a party and as a community, want to play, for the first time in the history of the Northern Irish state, a full role in the policing of our society. We want to do that unequivocally and in the most positive way possible. However, we need clarity and certainty about what is going to happen. We need clarity about the legislation, and certainty about the implementation plan and the approach that the Government will bring to the development. To date, we do not have those. That stands in the way of our decision, and will do so until we have that clarity and certainty.
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