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Business of the House
12.30 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): Will the Leader of the House please tell us the business for next week?
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): The business of the House for next week is as follows:
Monday 27 November--Consideration of a timetable motion relating to the Freedom of Information Bill and the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Freedom of Information Bill.
Tuesday 28 November--Consideration of Lords amendments to the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill.
Wednesday 29 November--Consideration of a timetable motion relating to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill and the Disqualifications Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill.
Thursday 30 November--Consideration of Lords amendments to the Disqualifications Bill.
The House may also be asked to consider any Lords amendments which may be received.
If no further messages are expected, the House will be prorogued when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.
Friday 1 December--The House will consider any Lords amendments which may be received if further messages are still expected.
The House will be prorogued when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.
The House may also be asked at any time during the week to consider any Lords messages which may be received.
The House will also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, it will be proposed that the House should rise for the Christmas recess at the end of business on Thursday 21 December, and return on Monday 8 January.
Mrs. Browning: I assume that we shall hear a further announcement, as next week will obviously be declared national guillotine week.
The Leader of the House must realise the importance of the three major Bills that will be returning from another place next week. The Government, however, seek to curtail proper scrutiny and debate. For instance, on the Freedom of Information Bill--much trumpeted by the Government before they came to office--they have totally capitulated, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats. What we shall receive in the House next week has less strength than the much-criticised 1994 code of practice introduced by the Conservative Government. It is outrageous that such a Bill should be guillotined on the Floor of the House.
The same applies to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, a third of which was changed in the House of Lords. The House of Commons has not even
considered a third of that Bill, yet debate and scrutiny is again to be curtailed. This is not democracy by anyone's standards.Let me tell the Leader of the House that, having imposed on the House the necessity, following the Queen's Speech, for yet more programming of all Government legislation, the Government will have to do a lot better than this if they are to persuade the official Opposition that their new proposals for timetabling and programming of Bills have anything to do with the word "democracy".
Last week I asked the Leader of the House whether we could have a debate on the NHS national plan. That too is something that the Government have paraded publicly, but not on the Floor of the House. The right hon. Lady responded by suggesting that I should have mentioned the additional funds being made available to my health authority.
If the right hon. Lady allocates time for a debate on health expenditure in the south-west, I for one shall be very pleased to participate. We now have no neurosurgery beds in the south-west, and the state of cardiac care at Derriford hospital is such that people with life-threatening cardiac conditions are dying rather than being treated. Moreover--for the first time in my experience as a Member of Parliament--my office has been telephoned by a woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, but who, after a month, has still not been given a date for an operation.
If the right hon. Lady wants to discuss that, we will be pleased to do so, but, again, given the fact that the British Medical Association this week said that the NHS national plan is unworkable because there are simply not enough general practitioners, and given the constituency postbags, which have been mentioned by hon. Members on both sides of the House, about the abolition of community health councils, I hope that she will find time for the House to debate not just yet more recycling of Government expenditure plans, but what is happening to people out there waiting for urgent treatment.
When will the Commons debate the age of consent legislation? Can the right hon. Lady confirm that the Government do not intend to use the Parliament Acts before the remaining stages have been completed either in another place or in the Commons?
On some unfinished business from last week, I told the right hon. Lady how concerned we were about the many consultations that the Government have started but failed to respond to. She replied that she thought I was asking for more legislation; I am not. When the Government start a consultation and people from all corners of the country with a special interest in that consultation take the time to respond, the least that they can expect is for the Government to make those findings known, or to respond formally to the consultation.
So far, we have outstanding the reply on the Mental Health Act 1983 consultation, begun in November 1999--replies were required by 31 March. Consultation finished on directors pay in July 1999, but there has been no reply from the Government. Nor have the Government responded to UK Sport's paper on nandrolone in athletics; to the consultation on mergers, which finished on 6 August 1999; to the employment agencies consultation, which finished in September 1999; to the public sector ombudsman consultation, for which replies were required
by 29 September 2000; to the voluntary aided schools consultation, which finished on 15 September 2000; to the modern apprenticeships consultation; or to the report on the universal bank. Interestingly, the closing date for a Cabinet Office consultation on the procedure for Government in conducting written consultations was July 2000 and we still have not had a reply on that. That is just a sample; there is more to come.
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Lady made much of the outrage about the undemocratic approach of the Government in seeking to guillotine two Bills at once. She will recall, I am sure, that guillotining is not unprecedented. In fact, she must recall that because, on 14 December 1993, she voted for the Statutory Sick Pay Bill and the Social Security (Contributions) Bill to be guillotined together, as did the right hon. Members for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) and for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), all of whom I see in the Chamber.
Also, that in itself was not unprecedented. Two Bills were guillotined on 26 October 1989, on 8 November 1989 and on 11 November 1989. I will not bore the House with any more lists. I simply make the point that the Opposition object to our doing that. It is perfectly reasonable that they should do so, but unfortunately they set the precedent and they cannot really object to our using it.
I refer to the words of one of my distinguished predecessors, now Lord Howe, who said:
- I shall, therefore, leave it to the Opposition to use dramatic and bloody metaphors about guillotines and slaughter. I shall continue to refer to this elegant motion correctly, as a timetable motion, which is absolutely necessary to dispose of the remaining business in a reasonable way.--[Official Report, 8 November 1989; Vol. 159, c. 1003.]
The hon. Lady also asked for a debate on the health service national plan. I did not suggest that such a debate was not desirable or, indeed, that one might not be held. She said that she would be delighted by such a debate because of all the beds that are not available in her area. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health might well argue that he, too, would be delighted by a debate, which would give him an opportunity to remind her of the 40,000 acute beds that were closed by the Conservative Government. We are still dealing with the consequences of that action--[Interruption.] Yes, I am coming on to the issue of whether there are enough general practitioners to make the national plan workable.
Under the previous Government, we saw cuts in the number of training places for nurses, doctors and all the other health professionals. This Government are determined to provide sufficient general practitioners so that the reasonable standards of service which are set out in the national plan and which patients should be able to expect can be delivered.
If, however, there are difficulties in delivering those standards and there are not enough GPs, it does not lie in the mouths of Conservative Members to start laying the
blame with the Government. It is perfectly clear, given the fact that it takes seven years to train a doctor, that the fault lies with them and not with us.The hon. Lady also raised the issue of the age of consent. I am sure that she has not forgotten that it has already been debated in this place on three occasions. I cannot give her the confirmation that she seeks. Indeed, it would be wrong of me to do so. First, it is a matter for Mr. Speaker to certify when or if it is considered that legislation has been rejected in the House of Lords. Secondly, of course, what we cannot have in this country is a repeat of something that we see occasionally elsewhere, which is that simply by not discussing legislation it can be withheld. So, it has to be within our power to make decisions.
The hon. Lady then gave a long list of consultations to which she sought replies. I think that last week she referred to the consultation on licensing. She will know, I hope, that there are 1,200 responses to that consultation, and it is not only natural but highly desirable that the Government take adequate time to consider them. I anticipate a Government reply to that consultation soon.
As for the other issues that the hon. Lady raised, some of them are under discussion and consideration. Many such consultations lead directly into policy, and occasionally into legislation, as opposed only to a formal reply. Nevertheless, I take on board the point that she makes. I should have thought, however, that she would welcome the fact that the Government consult and pay heed to the responses to consultation. If the Government whom she served had done that more often, they might not have ended up in the mess that they did.
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