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Mr. Hogg: Obviously there is some force in what the hon. Gentleman is saying about programme motions. I hope that he will recognise that Back Benchers may not share the same view as Front Benchers in terms of what is important. If a programme motion is to be determined by Front Benchers--the hon. Gentleman is the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, and therefore has an interest in arguing this point of view--other Members who have a different set of priorities may not have their views properly reflected.
Mr. Tyler: That is an important point. I acknowledge that the programme motion does not always work as perfectly as it should. However, on the occasion to which I referred, I received representations from both Labour and Conservative Back Benchers, as I am sure the Opposition Front Bench did. We made provision for those concerned. That cannot be done in a guillotined debate. However, in a programme motion, account can be taken of representations. As I have said, we managed to do that most successfully. I suggest that more often than not we should be seeking to adopt that approach.
On tonight's vote, on last night's vote and on Monday night's vote the business was set by the Government without consulting either of the Opposition parties. There was no opportunity for us to make representations about where decisions should be taken and at what point Members would want to have a proper debate on certain issues. The Government stand accused, as I said on Monday night, of hypocrisy in saying that they had no alternative but to introduce a guillotine motion. They had a much better alternative, and one that is accepted by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House as most effective.
It is not for me to give the Government advice on parliamentary tactics. However, would it not have been better to say, "We offered you the opportunity to debate the issues that you felt important and to have Divisions on them"? That would have put the Conservatives in some difficulty. There is a major division between the leadership of the Front Bench and the leadership on the Back Benches.
Mr. Grieve: Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the time that he thinks would be necessary to consider 666 Lords amendments and the Opposition amendments? I suggest that, far from there being any division, if a sensible time had been programmed, which would still have allowed the state opening of Parliament to take place next week, we would have put through the business having done a proper job.
Mr. Tyler: The hon. Gentleman comes to the point that I was about to make. I will not be betraying any secrets, but I am sure that in the specific circumstances of this week the Liberal Democrats would have been prepared to sit later if we knew that there would be adequate time for the particular issues that we wanted to debate and divide
upon. That would have been true on Monday night, and certainly true last night, when there was consensus on many of the issues.It is to be remarked upon that if there is a guillotine, we hand to the small minority the opportunity to filibuster on a particular interest to prevent other issues coming forward. The classic case was that of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), and I am sorry that he is not in his place. With his extensive experience of Wales, he managed to entertain the House for a long time, to prevent a discussion starting on freedom of information in relation to his erstwhile Department. Since the BSE report, it has been categorised as a seedbed of secrecy and deliberate obfuscation. In such instances the guillotine plays into the hands of small minorities on either side of the House. It enables them to prevent the House from debating issues that are of importance.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman has just attacked and impugned the integrity of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), and he is entirely unjustified in doing so. Had we been able to get on to discuss the formulation of Government policy and the availability or non-availability of the facts leading to decisions, my right hon. Friend would have been able to demonstrate that the way the Government intend to proceed would suppress the release of relevant facts. My right hon. Friend devoted considerable attention to amendments relating to Wales and Northern Ireland because the Government's clauses on those subjects were woefully badly drafted--a point that he demonstrated effectively in his speech.
Mr. Tyler: The hon. Gentleman is being rather more prolix than he normally is--he is usually very succinct. I am afraid that he has missed the point of my contribution. What I was saying was that, if there were only a limited time in which to discuss certain issues, a practised parliamentarian such as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal would make his own contribution that much more succinct to fit the case; and he could, in speaking to an amendment, have gone on to defend his former Ministry against accusations of secrecy.
A programme motion will always be a more effective way for the Opposition as well as the Government to ensure that we debate the issues that need to be debated. That is why I think that the Government have missed a trick. Not only have they shown themselves to be hypocritical on the issue of the business motion that they put before the House, but they could also have wrong-footed the Opposition. If the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties had not been able to sign up to a programme motion, the Government would have been in a stronger moral position. As it is, they are not in a strong moral position tonight. All that they can do is pretend that their sin is somehow redeemed because their predecessors were equally wicked. I have never been able to accept that.
I shall turn briefly to the nature of the two Bills whose timetable motion we are discussing. As has already been said, it is extraordinary that they were both introduced comparatively early in the parliamentary year, as though they were very urgent. Then everything seemed to go
quiet for an amazing length of time. It has not yet been mentioned, but the Government waited until October to bring them into Committee in the House of Lords.
Mr. MacKay: I just mentioned that.
Mr. Tyler: The right hon. Gentleman should wait a minute. He is not hanging on my every word, but he should do so.
The significance of the Government's action is that, this year, the other place came back in September. The House of Lords had plenty of time to make real progress and then send the Bills back to us in October or early November. That is what is so extraordinary.
The rationale for the so-called Disqualifications Bill has never been fully explained. However, the Bill was said at the outset to be urgent. The urgency argument has completely dissipated as each month has gone by. I cannot understand how the Government can pretend that it is still necessary to make progress at such speed today.
As I said earlier, the debate has all the elements of a well rehearsed pantomime. I regret that, and I hope that we shall shortly get on to the business that we are here to debate--the Bills. I hope that, in the new Session, which--all being well--will start next week, we shall all be able to learn a better way of dealing with our business.
6.13 pm
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): I do not intend to detain the House for long, but I felt that it was important to express my frustration at the synthetic indignation that has been voiced this evening.
Many people must feel frustration that we are spending time debating the guillotine rather than the Bill. I certainly felt frustration on Monday night, when we debated the guillotine on the Freedom of Information Bill. I had an important point about the Bill that I wanted to put to the Minister--I think that it related to amendment No. 22--about information concerning a tribunal brought under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The point had been raised with me by one of my constituents. Unfortunately, the amendment was in the third group of amendments, which we did not reach because of the discussions on technicalities on the other side of the House.
Mr. Swayne: Does not the hon. Lady realise that the remedy was in her own hands, in that she could have voted against the guillotine motion? I hope that she will learn from having made such a mistake on Monday.
Mrs. Campbell: Had I, and a sufficient number of other Labour Members, voted against the guillotine motion, we should have lost an excellent Bill because there would not have been time to debate it. Of course, that is the whole point of being in opposition. I have been in the hon. Gentleman's place myself, and I know that those are the kind of tricks that the Opposition play. I am not completely naive about these matters.
Mr. Wilshire: If I understand the hon. Lady correctly, she is suggesting that the three-hour limit for the guillotine motion is something to which she objects. However, the decision to allocate three hours to this guillotine--and to the guillotine yesterday--was taken by
Government Front-Bench Members, not by us. If the hon. Lady thinks that wrong, how long would she allow--a minute, or two? Or would she prefer a rubber stamp?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): Order. The point that the hon. Gentleman is making is covered by the Standing Orders.
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