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(2) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on the Motion.
(3) The Committee shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
(4) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
(5) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (4), the Chairman shall--
(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and
(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on Motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.
(6) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.
Miscellaneous
6.--(1) The following paragraphs apply to--
(a) proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill,
(b) proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Disqualifications Bill,
(c) proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on either Bill, and
(d) proceedings on the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons (and the appointment of its Chairman) and the Report of such a Committee.
7. Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
8. The proceedings shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
9. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
10.--(1) If on a day on which any of the proceedings take place a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) would stand over to Seven o'clock--
(a) that Motion stands over until the conclusion of any of the proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time, and
(b) the bringing to a conclusion of any of the proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion after that time is postponed for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.
(2) If a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 stands over from an earlier day to such a day, the bringing to a conclusion of any of the proceedings on that day is postponed for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.
11. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the expiry of the period at the end of which any of the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
The allotted day12. In this Order, "allotted day" means any day on which the Disqualifications Bill is put down on the main business as first Government Order of the Day.
As Opposition Front-Bench Members will no doubt observe, this is the second time this week that I have moved a motion to timetable certain Bills.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire): We had noticed.
Mr. Straw: The motion is in respect of the third and fourth Bills that it has been necessary to subject to a timetable motion this week.
May I deal with the need for guillotines? It may be helpful if I first dispose of the reasons that are irrelevant to our requirement for timetable motions. It has been suggested that we have needed timetable motions in this Session because there have been more Government Bills than in any similar Session, of a normal length, between elections. That is incorrect. Leaving aside the long Sessions that have occurred after each election--since 1974, although not including it--more Government Bills were considered during five separate Sessions between 1979 and 1997 than in this Session.
Nor is it a case, as has been alleged, of the late introduction of Bills. Bills have been introduced into this House and the other place either at a similar time to previous years or earlier. If we compare the 1994-95 Session with this one, for example--it was a similar length and rather fewer Bills were introduced--22 Bills were introduced by March 1995 into the Commons, compared with the 31 that had been introduced by March 2000.
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Straw: I should like to deal with the matter in hand first, and then of course I will give way.
So the guillotines are not to do with the fact that there have been more Bills in this Session, because there have not, or with the late introduction of Bills, because that has not occurred either.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): What is it then?
Mr. Straw: I am glad that that has been asked, on cue, by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).
Mr. Wilshire: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on this point?
Mr. Straw: I am elaborating on this point, and I may even answer the hon. Gentleman's question without the need for an intervention from him.
There have been two Bills additional to those anticipated at the time of the Queen's Speech last year. The Football (Disorder) Bill, was, in principle, supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): Not by me.
Mr. Straw: I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned that. The fact that it could easily have been filibustered by the right hon. and learned Gentleman was one of the reasons why we had to have a timetable motion on that. Yet again, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's own side, having supported the principle of the Bill, could not deliver.
The Football (Disorder) Bill was widely supported by the Opposition Front Bench in principle, even though they could not deliver.
Mr. Straw: I was just going to say that there was a need for it. As far as we can judge, it has proved very successful.
There was another Bill that we judged necessary, although I accept that it has been controversial throughout its passage. I refer to the Bill to implement the recommendations of the former chairman of the Conservative party, Chris Patten, in respect of police in Northern Ireland. I continue to take the view that that was necessary, as do my right hon. and hon. Friends.
The introduction of two additional Bills is one reason for the number of guillotines. The second is that throughout the passage of Bills for which I have been responsible in my three and a half years as Home Secretary, I have gone out of my way to ensure that proposals are judged on their merits and not on the fact that there may be a weight of votes on our side, which there is. Where we can, we have listened to amendments and have then amended Bills. If we believed that suggestions for amendments from the Opposition Benches, as well as from our side, would command the approval of the House and improve the Bill, we accepted them. That has occurred at every stage.
I thank individual Opposition Members as much as my right hon. and hon. Friends for the way in which every Bill in which I have been involved has been improved as a result of the parliamentary process. However, people cannot have it both ways, and that inevitably means that when we improve a Bill because we are listening to the proposals made from the Opposition as well as the Government Benches, the Bill has to be amended. Sometimes--indeed, often--an undertaking has to be given in this House to amend a Bill in the other place; there is then traffic back to this place.
The third and overriding reason for this situation is that we cannot, and have never been able to, command a majority in the other place, whereas, although there were many Sessions in which Conservative Governments introduced Bills that were just as controversial as some of those we have introduced during this Session--in some cases, for example, in 1988-89, they were more controversial--the Conservatives could always guarantee
that they would obtain a majority in the other place. That was true even on a notorious matter on which they later came to regret their majority--the deeply divisive poll tax--when people who had never previously been seen in the other place, and who were not even known to the attendants, were pulled out of the woodwork to vote for the Conservatives so that the measure would be passed. Thus, it is now more likely not only that amendments will be carried in the other place against the advice of the Government but that more time will have to be allocated.
Mr. Wilshire: I want to take the right hon. Gentleman back to one of his earlier points: was he arguing that the fact that there had been fewer Bills than usual was a plus? I should have thought that a better argument would be that there had been more Bills, so that there was less time per Bill. If the number of Bills is the same and the right hon. Gentleman has still got himself into this mess, he is quite incompetent.
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