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Mr. Maclean: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Forth: I shall give way for the last time.
Mr. Maclean: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, particularly as I think that he was going to try out other similes on us.
Is the position not even worse than that described by my right hon. Friend? We shall have one minute to discuss each amendment tomorrow, and in that time, Ministers will have to try to explain why they said something totally different in Committee. Is it not imperative that we have time for the explanations to be given, so that we do not get into a legal quagmire later?
Mr. Forth: I agree with my right hon. Friend. He has highlighted one of the difficulties that always exist. The theory of parliamentary scrutiny is that each measure is considered in a number of stages, and that there is a relationship between the stages. Issues considered on Second Reading, in Committee or on Report in this House, and in the different stages in another place, and all the issues that are sent from one House to the other, interrelate. That is inevitable, so we in this Chamber would want to take account of what a Minister might have said in Committee or on Report. We would also properly want to take into consideration what the Government and their representatives had said in the other place. Will we have time to do that? The answer is patently no.
I do not dispute the fact that we may be able to consider one or two groups of amendments--but there are so many amendments in so many groups, and so little time, that the House will not be able to discharge its responsibilities properly. That is how serious the matter is. Unless I hear an argument that is much more persuasive than those that I have heard already, even from someone as eminent and distinguished as the Home Secretary, I will be unable to accept the motion. Unless my hon. Friends hear something much more persuasive, I invite them to join me in opposing it.
7.24 pm
Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster): It is a privilege to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). Mine will be a more modest speech.
An argument often deployed in favour of timetabling is that it enables what truly needs discussing to be discussed. In moving the Modernisation Committee's proposals on the programming of Bills on 7 November this year, the Leader of the House referred to an encouraging experiment in the Committee stage of the Greater London Authority Bill. No Government member of that Committee is present tonight, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst was on the Committee. He will recall that, despite our discussing 270 clauses and 30 schedules, we scarcely had time under the timetable motion to discuss congestion charging or the car park levy.
The Government say that the Opposition always have the ability to choose what they regard as significant.
Last week, in defending the guillotine on the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill, the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, said that, of the 140 amendments,
- some 40 are minor and miscellaneous.--[Official Report, 21 November 2000; Vol. 357, c. 182.]
The Unionist parties were particularly concerned to discuss flags and emblems. In that debate, the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) took a little over two columns; the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) took two columns; and the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) took a column and two thirds. I acknowledge that I spoke for half a column, but the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), who also supports the Government, began his speech by saying:
- I rise reluctantly to make two points, which have not been given the prominence that they should receive in the debate.--[Official Report, 21 November 2000; Vol. 357, c. 238.]
Earlier this afternoon, I intervened on the Home Secretary to ask whether consideration of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill in 1981--the parallel Bill to the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill--had been guillotined. He replied that it had not. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) then asked the Home Secretary about Bills that were guillotined in 1980-81 and effectively made my point for me. The 1981 Bill was framed in a manner that made it acceptable to the Opposition. I accept that the other place discussed it for 10 days--indeed, they did so knowledgeably--but the Bill did not require a guillotine.
Some of us welcome the wildlife aspects of the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill but are concerned about the setting in which those aspects have been placed. People outside are also interested in the wildlife provisions and they wrote to us saying that they were concerned that the Government might not be able to carry the Bill, and the Government have proved that they will be able to carry it only with the use of a guillotine motion.
I am an old-fashioned fellow. I never sign early-day motions except those of a memorial nature. I treat the others as a form of constitutional graffiti. I do not hurry
to vote on ten-minute rule Bills, a legislative mode that deludes and deceives the general public. The creation of more than 300 all-party groups likewise misleads our electors as to their significance. The fact that the one that took the number up to 300 was concerned with chocolate exemplifies their potential insubstantiality.I suppose that guillotine motions make the hair stand up on the back of my neck, but what is most disturbing is that campaigns that used to last a year--I think of the year of the tree, the year of the child and the year of literature--have now spawned campaigns that last a week, including, I learn from right hon. and hon. Friends, national guillotine week. However, I see nothing that will stop the Government, who are taking on the characteristics of Gadarene lemmings, from inventing the year of the lottery as well.
Parliament has existed for more than seven centuries and, in that time, we have forged a remarkable array of legislative instruments from our collective wisdom and experience. It is sad that so destructive an instrument as the serial guillotine is being deployed so ruthlessly to cut us down to size.
7.30 pm
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) for allowing me to speak before him because he has sat more assiduously than I have through the debate.
Like my right hon. and hon. Friends, I am becoming outraged by the Government's attitude, as exemplified by the guillotine motion. The Government seem to want to reduce Parliament to nothing more than an electoral college in which they have been put in power merely to bring the motions and Bills that they want rubber-stamped back to the House before they go on their way. That is this evening's approach, and the 40 Bills that have been guillotined in just three years are further evidence of it.
We should remember that the House of Commons had a three-month break this summer. If we had used some of that time to examine the Bills that clogged up the other place, we would not find the legislative programme in such a poor condition. It is clear that the Government pushed us away on our holidays because they did not want and did not trust their Back Benchers to examine their legislative programme. The Government thought that they would be better off if the detailed amendments that they were obliged to table--such as any Government might be obliged to table to such highly complex Bills--were examined in the other place and not in the House of Commons, perhaps during an extended consideration on Report.
No doubt the Government were also concerned about the threat of Back-Bench revolts. We know that such revolts are imminent today on aspects of the Government's programme. We wish Labour Members well in joining us to get some democratic accountability in the House for the Government's action.
Mr. Forth: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that Labour Back Benchers are revolting?
Mr. St. Aubyn: I would no more suggest that than I would describe my right hon. Friend, who said that we were the ants of the parliamentary system, as a drone.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House should revolt against the motion because it goes against the basis on which Parliament is elected. My constituents cannot understand why we do not have the power and the time to examine major pieces of Government legislation and why unelected Members of another place are given that time when it is denied to us.
The truth is that the extended recess also played into the Government's hands by allowing Ministers to do their job without being properly called to account in the Chamber. They get a double gain at our expense: their legislative programme is rammed through because they have run out of time at the end of the parliamentary Session--that is their excuse today--and during the recess they can get on with the job of government without being made accountable for disasters such as the fuel crisis.
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