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6.52 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills): I am sorry that the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) is not in his place. He advanced a deeply distasteful concept when he referred to these proceedings as a ritual. As a Conservative, I view rituals with caution and respect, and I must ask to what ritual he was referring. The rituals in question are freedom of speech and the right to represent those who sent us here. I am not dismissive of either concept. Both are important, but the hon. Gentleman thinks that they are not. He thinks that it is somehow denigratory to have freedom of speech and to be free to represent the views of those who sent us here.
Last week, the hon. Gentleman voted against a guillotine. I take it from the burden of his remarks that he will do so again today on a motion affecting two Bills. Did he mean that the ritual had convinced him to vote against the guillotine? He said that he would like all Bills to be--in his grandiloquent word--programmed, and that even when they are, we do not necessarily fail to debate important areas of Bills. The Police (Northern Ireland) Bill was perhaps the most powerful demonstration against that, and I do not want to waste too much time on the triviality and deeply offensive ideas that the hon. Member for North Cornwall holds on representative democracy.
The hon. Gentleman was supporting the Home Secretary's motion. I speak only in the context of the Freedom of Information Bill, as I do not have the
knowledge to speak on the second Bill. The Home Secretary said that there is, at the end of a parliamentary Session, an imperative to secure the Government's business. That business could be set off course by the shuttling between the other place and this one, and he therefore had to address that imperative.An assumption lay behind his words that has become a commonplace under the Government since 1997. They say that all Governments must get their business. That has never been a constitutional proposition in the United Kingdom. Governments propose, and, in one sense, the House of Commons disposes. Governments bring measures before the House. Those measures may have had the support of the electorate who made the Government, but no electorate have ever examined the detail of a Bill, know what is hidden in the clauses or sub-clauses or know in advance the weight of the criminal sanctions to be imposed in legislation. That is why the process of being able to examine and unpick legislation is something that all Governments seek. Our system secures authority by allowing those opposed to have their say. That is the most crucial element in asserting the rights of the people and the old Burkean concept of consent, not just allegiance.
Mr. Forth: Does my hon. Friend agree that an even more sinister thought lies hidden behind the new principle that he has identified? It is that the Government of the day can be assumed to have a right to any number of Bills, because the programming mechanism that the Government have single-handedly imposed on the House implies that the Government may determine how little time can be given to each Bill and therefore how many Bills--an unlimited number--can be forced through in a Session. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the implication of the arrangements that we face in the new Session?
Mr. Shepherd: I do, indeed, and the hon. Member for North Cornwall was a handmaiden in that process.
Mr. Hawkins: My hon. Friend makes, as always, an extremely powerful speech. Does he agree that what he is criticising the Government for doing was wisely encapsulated in the other place by Lord Archer of Sandwell, a Labour peer attacking his own side, who said:
- "I'll be judge, I'll be jury", said cunning old Fury;
"I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death"?--[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2000; Vol. 619, c. 214.]
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case that Parliament exists to question the Executive. What would he do, however, if he were faced by an Opposition who, on many occasions, insisted on dragging out the process of legislation with a view to destroying it? Oppositions raise valid issues, but are there no circumstances in which the hon. Gentleman would have to come to terms with the use of some mechanism to ensure
that Oppositions should not be allowed to destroy Bills that the majority of the House of Commons feels are wanted by the wider public?
Mr. Shepherd: I said that our system secures authority by allowing those opposed to have their say. The hon. Gentleman--who double and treble-counted to give us an extraordinary relationship on the number of guillotine motions used--[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have sedentary interventions from the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours).
Mr. Shepherd: Under Mrs. Thatcher, 34 Bills were guillotined in the House. As the hon. Member for Workington said, 64 motions were required to guillotine 34 Bills. That took place over slightly more than 11 years. Let us contrast it to the conduct of the Labour Government, who in three and a half years--less than one Parliament--have already guillotined 40 Bills, requiring more than 50 motions. The hon. Gentleman's list would not even include the motion to guillotine the two Bills that we are discussing. Even if we allow for the agreement of Conservative Front-Bench Members and of the hon. Member for North Cornwall to such timetables, only 18 Bills could be deducted from the Government's total.
This matter raises a point of principle. What makes us angry about the imposition of such guillotines is that Governments are disposing of the most essential process for giving legitimacy to the laws that they make. This procedure has become a system of management of the Commons. The hon. Member for North Cornwall applauds that as merely ritualistic, but in fact it is destructive of the House and of its standing with those who sent us here.
I am fearful that guillotines such as this undermine the standing of Governments. Governments can talk directly to the electorate, but how do the electorate talk back to them? They can talk back only through us as the representatives that they sent to this place. If we are so marginal that a majority is mobilised to stop proper discussion of measures, we undermine our system of authority.
I did not intend to speak for long, but the arguments adduced by the Home Secretary as to the need for the guillotine do not stand up to reasonable examination. The Government's assertion is deeply offensive when they tell those who are opposed to, or who want to examine or improve measures how they should go about their business of representing the arguments of those who sent them to this place. The guillotine should be rejected.
7.2 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): We have heard an interesting combination of arguments, ranging from the principled to the detailed. Those used by Government Members all seemed to start from several propositions that would, I suspect, be accepted by very few Opposition Members. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) has just reminded the House, the first of those propositions is the completely new idea that has arisen--at least it is new to me, and, obviously, to my hon. Friend--that a Government have the divine right to push through any amount of legislation they choose, at a time of their choosing, in a given Session of Parliament.
I did not know that that was a principle of our constitution. I was not aware that that was the result of centuries of historical development of the relationship between Parliament and the Executive--but suddenly it has burst on to the political scene. We are told with great confidence, even by the Home Secretary, that apparently the Government of the day have a right to any amount of legislation, and also have the right so to structure the parliamentary timetable as to fit that legislation into a given amount of time. That is further reflected in the fact that during the debate, Labour Members told us repeatedly that there was to be a timetable on the consideration of other Bills due to come to us from another place this week. Given that time limit, we are told that we must truncate debate on this week's business.
That argument poses some difficulties. The first is that the time limit is of the Government's making. They have decided, quite arbitrarily, that the Queen's Speech will be next week, so the House must prorogue before that. That time limit is only of the Government's making, because of their incompetence in managing their legislative programme for this year to date.
Within that, there is another artificial time constraint. What is so magic about midnight? Do we all turn into pumpkins? Do we turn into something else? Do our shoes no longer fit? I do not understand why, according to the Government's timetable motion, deliberations on the Freedom of Information Bill must finish at midnight. Even more bizarrely, proceedings on the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill must finish at 10 o'clock tomorrow night.
I realise that the Government have imposed on the House a new set of Standing Orders, under which it is decreed that in the next Session of Parliament, the House will not deliberate, or--more accurately--that it will not vote, after 10 pm. But we are still in the current Session, not the next one, so I am not aware that there is a requirement to end our consideration of Bills at 10 o'clock on a given night.
I am aware that Labour Members are delicate flowers--especially the babes. I know that they want to go home, presumably not to their constituencies, although some of them are probably there already; indeed, they may not yet have arrived back--perhaps they will not arrive back at all. I understand all that, but, like many of my hon. Friends, I continue to cling to the belief that the primary duty of Members of this House is to be in the Chamber to hold the Government to account--not against an artificial time limit, but using the amount of time reasonably required to investigate properly what they are doing.
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