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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is going way beyond the terms of the motion. I have already heard him advert to that particular matter, and I do not wish to hear him advert to it again.
Mr. Hogg: Of course I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would not dream of doing otherwise, but my
point is--I am sure that you were the first to grasp it--that if the business motion is passed, there will be periods when although the House is suspended, hon. Members are present.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have indeed heard that argument, because the right hon. and learned Gentleman first placed it before me during an intervention. He cannot go on repeating it.
Mr. Hogg: It would be shameful of me even to think of going on repeating it, but there are one or two illustrations that might prove attractive to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The arguments that are advanced have nothing to do with me. There is no point of order involved for the occupant of the Chair. I have to ensure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not in breach of Standing Orders about repetition, or going outside the terms of the motion.
Mr. Hogg: I was not raising a point of order, but I was conscious that all observations on the Floor of the House are directed to the Chair and through the Chair. That is all I was doing--I was speaking to the Chamber through you.
Mr. Maclean: I would not wish my right hon. and learned Friend in any circumstances to disobey the instructions of the occupant of the Chair. Of course, he must not go down the route of repetition, as I have sometimes--but I have not fully understood his argument. Is it possible for him to state his argument in such terms that it is not repetitive, but we can fully grasp the concept?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is wholly mischievous.
Mr. Hogg: I would never accuse my right hon. Friend of being mischievous. Sometimes, he has not followed the argument as clearly as I would wish--but mischievous? Surely not.
The point that I was seeking to make is that the House wants to make constructive use of the time. We are being asked to sit on our backsides doing nothing, probably in the bar, or in our offices. That is not a sensible use of our time when we have the possibility of discussing substantive business.
I will not mention sugar again, because you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have told me not to. I imagine that if I mention the European rapid reaction force, you will tell me that I should not develop that argument either, save to say that today, the Government made a far-reaching policy statement, which has not received the authority of the House; the House has not been asked to vote its approval of the proposal. We could do that on Monday or Tuesday if the Government let us.
One can take advantage of otherwise empty hours to discuss substantive business. That is the proper way to make progress, so let us have an undertaking that there will be no guillotines. Let the House consider, and perhaps vote on, whether we should have the business motion at all, but the motion would be more acceptable to us if we were going to use our hours profitably, and not in the idle way that Ministers want us to use them.
7.35 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): The trouble with this type of motion and the way in which the Minister has presented it is that we know no more now than we did before about why the Government feel compelled to bring it before the House. He said in his beguiling and rather charming way that it is narrow and standard. That is ministerial code for, "I hope that the debate will not go on for long or be discussed much. I wish that it were all over very quickly." I bet he does, because lying behind this innocent-looking motion is quite a lot of history.
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will judge how far it is appropriate to go into the history. Suffice to say that the reason why the Government have felt compelled to come forward with a procedural motion at this stage--it is the only conclusion that I can draw, subject to the Minister correcting me--is because there is a substantial amount of business in another place, which will come here in the form of messages, and which, therefore, the Government must deal with in an unusual and extraordinary way. That is the key to all this.
If the Government were in full control of their legislative programme--if they had managed that programme properly--those matters could come to the House in the normal way and be dealt with properly, but what underlies the motion is the fact that the Government know that that cannot be the case, or at least they think that it cannot be the case. They are placing the House under an artificial and unnecessary time constraint and, therefore, must bring forward this extraordinary measure.
For the moment, I will leave to one side the fact that it is odd that the Government have gone to enormous lengths to seek to change the Standing Orders of the House, so that the House cannot vote after 10 o'clock at night, yet, in the business motion, it appears that the Government are prepared to ask for the House not to be adjourned until messages are received without time limit. That contradicts the proposal to which they attached such great importance just two weeks ago.
Mr. Hogg: Surely the following argument follows on from that of my right hon. Friend. The Government have often said that it is bad government and makes for bad law to debate matters after 10 o'clock--I do not happen to believe that; none the less, that is the Government's position--but the effect of the business motion is to oblige us to make law after 10 o'clock.
Mr. Forth: Indeed. As we know, messages are part of the law-making process--an integral part. I want to add to my right hon. and learned Friend's references the business that we know will come to this House in the form of messages from another place. The Countryside and Rights of Way Bill will come in our direction, as will the Freedom of Information Bill and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill. We can be certain of all those--they must be the subject of at least some of the messages referred to in the motion.
What is not so certain is whether the Disqualifications Bill will be the subject of one of the messages. It is a Bill of which I know a little because in February this year I had the honour to participate in a debate on it. It took the House of Commons quite some time to deliberate on it. Whether it would be proper for that Bill, on which we
deliberated, from memory, for about 27 hours, to come back in the form of a message in that peremptory way and to be rushed through is another matter. Perhaps the Bill will be one to come in this direction.Whether the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill would be subject to a message is also a matter for some speculation, but I need not speculate because you, Mr. Speaker, and I know that the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, the Freedom of Information Bill and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill are all in another place. They are an essential part of the Government's programme, and therefore--I think I am right, but the Minister may correct me--they must be involved in one of the messages that are to come from another place. Of that much I think we can be certain.
Here, however, the matter becomes more difficult. Indeed, if the Government are telling us that they think it proper for those substantial Bills, along with hundreds of amendments from another place, to be dealt with in the way suggested in the motion, the matter becomes improper. I use the word deliberately: I mean "improper" in terms of the legislative and deliberative process.
It would appear that the Government want to truncate, or compress, the time scale that would normally be available to the House in order to rush the legislative process. That must be entirely wrong, although I can see why they would want to do it. Their legislative programme is in a mess: they have far too much legislation, and we know that hundreds of amendments--mostly Government amendments--have been required in relation to those important Bills.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is now repeating his own argument. There cannot be endless repetition of the same point.
Mr. Forth: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I have explained why I used the word "improper"; but the position gets worse. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) pointed out, what we do not know from the motion is how it will work in practice. The motion simply states that
- the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Message . . . shall be received.
Mr. Hogg: My right hon. Friend has drawn our attention to the text of the motion. He will know that amendments can be tabled at any time before the Adjournment of the House, but not thereafter. According to the motion, it would be possible for the House to adjourn immediately after a message had been received. Consequently, there would be no gap between the receipt of the message and the Adjournment of the House. If that
were the case, no amendments could be tabled that night, and the business, unamended, could be discussed the following morning.
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