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Mr. MacKay: I suspect that there was far more evidence than the evidence of a man who, having died tragically in a car accident, cannot answer the Minister.
I do not want to be led further down this road, but I think it would be fair to say that others will be able to judge whether they believe the First Minister of Northern Ireland or the Minister's recollections. I maintain, and will maintain again if I catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and if we reach the amendments concerned--I think we will, because they are quite high on the selection list--that this is another sop to Sinn Fein. It allows Sinn Fein to get money from America and elsewhere, and it does the same for loyalist paramilitary groups. That, I believe, is entirely wrong.
We should consider more than one aspect of the dirty money--for it is dirty money--that comes from America to republican and so-called loyalist parties. It would be bad enough if the money were just for their own election purposes, and related to political propaganda in Northern Ireland; but, worse still, it will involve referendums affecting the whole United Kingdom.
Through Northern Ireland, there is a huge loophole. If we had a referendum on, for instance, the single currency--the Prime Minister has promised one for the next Parliament--it would be possible to channel huge sums from Northern Ireland into a campaign on one side of the argument. That must be wrong. Equally, in the event of a border poll on the future of Northern Ireland--and there will always be such polls from time to time--huge sums could come in from the Republic and America to support one side of that argument. That is entirely against what Neill advocated.
This is a shabby, bad, nasty little motion, which is out of character for the Home Secretary. He should be thoroughly ashamed of it, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.
5.44 pm
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington): I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) would forgive me for perhaps
disagreeing with her for a moment. She said that some aspects of the debate were fruitless. There is one fruitful aspect. It gives us the opportunity to expose fully the record of the Tories on guillotines and, in particular, the role played by the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay).Some of us might recall that the right hon. Gentleman was an effective Whip under the previous Conservative Administration. In his speech today, he spent a long time weaving a tangled web of rhetoric in an attempt to disguise his own record, which is formidable, so again, as I did a couple of days ago, and for the public record, I take the opportunity to set out the record of the Tories and, in particular, the right hon. Gentleman.
As background, may I mention what the right hon. Gentleman's role was? In 1992, he was appointed to the Whips Office as a Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury. In 1993-95, he was Vice Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household. In 1995-96, he was Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household. For five long years, he worked in the Whips Office, supporting, promoting and cajoling hon. Members to come into the Division Lobby and to vote in favour of guillotines. He is Mr. Robespierre personified. He is the man who, under the previous Government, was more responsible than anyone else for forcing guillotine motions through the House of Commons.
Let us consider some of the Bills that the right hon. Gentleman guillotined. The Education (Schools) Bill, the Further and Higher Education Bill, the Local Government Bill, the Local Government Finance Bill, the Finance Bill, the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Bill, the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill--all were guillotined by the right hon. Gentleman. It was his task in the Government.
Mr. MacKay: I am immensely flattered and I did not pay the hon. Gentleman, but, as he has some records in front of him, will he confirm that every time that I was involved in a guillotine--I am not against guillotines; I never said that I was during my speech--there was extensive discussion in the House and what some would call a filibuster? The Home Secretary likes to use that word. The hon. Gentleman will find that it never happened in the final week of a Session that was running into December and that the overwhelming majority of the guillotines were introduced when there had been extensive discussion already.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: It is not quite as the right hon. Gentleman says. I am referring to the period when Labour had taken a tactical decision to co-operate with the Conservative Government to ensure that legislation went through its stages in the House of Commons without filibuster. Even in those circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman was responsible--[Interruption.] He would do well to look at the record to see when the great body of guillotine motions took place on Bills. Most were prior to the 1992 Parliament.
Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I want to proceed a little. Let me finish the list because we are coming to an interesting Bill.
The next Bill on my list is the Railways Bill. What an interesting Bill the right hon. Gentleman guillotined. Does he remember it? Does he recall what it did? It privatised
British Rail and that led to the total collapse of the national network. The right hon. Gentleman was the villain of the piece. He was responsible for introducing the guillotine. That was his task, which he was paid to carry out--he was paid about £30,000 a year on top of his parliamentary salary to ensure that those Bills were guillotined in the House of Commons. I would say that there was an element of hypocrisy about these matters, but I cannot say that because it is not a parliamentary term.Other guillotined legislation included the Statutory Sick Pay Bill, which we all remember as very significant legislation; the Non-Domestic Rating Bill; the 1994 Finance Bill--
Mrs. Anne Campbell: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I certainly shall when I have finished my list.
The list includes the Family Law Bill [Lords]. It also includes the Prevention of Terrorism (Additional Powers) Bill. Does that legislation deal with matters in Northern Ireland? Of course it does.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I presume that, when the right hon. Gentleman gets to his feet, he will say, "Yes, I guillotined that legislation which relates to Northern Ireland."
Mr. MacKay: Yes, I guillotined that legislation which relates to Northern Ireland, but that guillotine simply reminds the House how soft on terrorism the Labour Opposition were. That is why a guillotine was necessary. Labour Members often deny that they were soft and say that there was a bipartisan policy on Northern Ireland, but I have always maintained that they were soft on terrorism. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of that.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Robespierre always had excuses and sought to justify his actions. Robespierre is a wonderful name for the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Bercow: Although the hon. Gentleman is certainly a diligent researcher--I am full of admiration for his anorakish attention to the historical record--is he aware that several hon. Members in the Chamber are parliamentary virgins and, therefore, not remotely interested in--or could not give a tinker's cuss about--the record of alleged misdeeds of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay)? What we want instead from the cynical, world-weary hon. Gentleman is a principled defence of the parliamentary barbarity of what the Government themselves are proposing today.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: At the very beginning of my speech, I said that all I wanted to do was to draw attention to the former Government's record. That is my role today. The hon. Gentleman may not be interested in that, but many members of the public are very interested in it.
Mr. Straw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his excursion into the record of the committee of public safety
that used to operate under the previous Government. I simply want to say--being as generous as I can--that the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) erred in his recollection when he claimed that the previous Government had never guillotined Bills at the end of a Session--
Mr. Straw: I do not know whether three times in a week is "rarely", but that is exactly what happened in November 1989, just as we were nearing the end of the Session. The Local Government and Housing Bill, the Employment Bill and the Self-Governing Schools etc. (Scotland) Bill were all guillotined within the space of six days.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The right hon. Member for Bracknell might recall that the Firearms (Amendment) Bill also was guillotined. Did not that legislation have implications for Northern Ireland?
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Perhaps I am wrong. The interesting thing about that Bill is that various Home Office Ministers voted in support of the guillotine.
In the next day, a parliamentary question that I tabled will be answered. I draw attention to it because it will help students of Parliament who wonder what debates on guillotines are all about to understand the background. I understand that, in reply to my question, a right hon. Friend has set out in detail--
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