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Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich): The reality is that if the report states boldly that it is important to understand that programming is here to stay, and then proceeds to discuss various reasons why it might not necessarily be the best thing, it is difficult to believe that it is quite as balanced a report as my right hon. Friend suggests.
Mr. Hain: In the end, this is a matter for the House to decide, but my hon. Friend will agree that criticisms of the way in which programming has been handled and suggestions as to how it could be improved will have to be taken into account by the Government in years to come.
In keeping with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), the report acknowledges that programming has not always worked well in practice. When things do not go according to plan,
- "it can result in legislation receiving inadequate scrutiny leading to frustration on all sides as well as the increased danger that the House will pass defective legislation."
The Government will consider carefully how they can respond to the Modernisation Committee's recommendations; we look to the Opposition to do likewise. For these reasons, the Modernisation Committee endorses the continued use of programme motions governed by the existing Sessional Orders. It recommends no change to the motions before us, reflecting the belief that any existing problems lie not with the Sessional Orders themselves, but with the way in which they are sometimes operated.
The second motion before us relates to the provisions for deferred Divisions. I am aware that when deferred Divisions were introduced, some Members had objections in principle to the separation of decision from debate, and were concerned that they would impact on attendance and the vigour of debate. I do not believe that those concerns have been borne out in practice; most Members find the deferral of Divisions in certain well-defined circumstances to be of great convenience.
I hope that this afternoon's debate can be conducted not in a spirit of partisanship, but with a wider concern for the quality of parliamentary scrutiny. Both motions should be debated in the context of the wider package of reforms implemented in the past few years—including pre-legislative scrutiny—which is designed to make the Commons more effective and efficient. For example, the massive increase in the number of draft Bills produced by Government in the past few years has undoubtedly enhanced the Commons' ability to scrutinise and shape legislation. I reaffirm our commitment to continuing to produce more Bills for pre-legislative scrutiny.
We could all point to individual events, taken in isolation, in which practice has not lived up to theory, and the Modernisation Committee's report highlights such concerns frankly and openly. However, solutions lie not in petty point-scoring, but in grown-up politics, and I urge Members to take a broader view, so that this debate can be conducted in that spirit. For my part, I will continue to listen to all proposals for reform that will strengthen and enhance parliamentary scrutiny. I commend the motions to the House.
1.26 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): I disagree with almost everything that the Leader of the House has just said, but I want to make it clear from the start—lest anyone listening to today's debate or reading the subsequent Hansard account be under any illusion—that this ghastly, so-called Modernisation Committee is, and has been, simply a vehicle through which a Government with a very large majority can reduce the role of the House of Commons in properly scrutinising legislation. That is what it has been and has become. The Modernisation Committee is not some misty-eyed, impartial philosophical guardian of the rights of the House of Commons; it is a Committee of the House with a very large Government majority, chaired by a Cabinet Minister. Although it is deemed to be a Select Committee, it is a vehicle for the wish of the Government. It saddens me that this Government, to whom the electorate gave an enormous majority in 1997 and 2001, have seen fit to abuse that majority by effectively reducing the House of Commons' role in a number of ways.
Because we are considering two specific motions and a Modernisation Committee report, we are examining only two ways in which the role of the House of Commons has been altered—not irrevocably but for the time being, a point to which I shall return. For my modest contribution to today's debate, I thought that I could do no better than to pick out some items in the report with which I agree, and some with which I disagree. To my surprise, there are one or two items with which I do indeed agree, but I disagree with most of them.
Let us start with paragraph 11(a), which states:
- "The Government of the day must be assured of getting its legislation through in reasonable time (provided that it can obtain the approval of the House)."
Mr. Hain: Could I ask the right hon. Gentleman to read the next sub-paragraph? He read out paragraph 11(a)—that the
- "Government of the day must be assured of getting its legislation"—
- "The Opposition in particular, and Members in general must have a full opportunity to discuss and seek to change provisions to which they attach importance."
- "All parts of a bill must be properly considered."
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that, which is the crux of the debate. What he has just said is an absurd proposition, to which we shall return in more detail in a few moments.
I want to focus the House's attention on the central proposition. What worries me is the Government's assumption that, having been given a large majority by the electorate, they have the right to legislate to an unlimited extent, at will, regardless of the wishes of the House of Commons. The Government believe that their role is to alter our procedures so that they can get their legislation through with the minimum of inconvenience and fuss. That is the central proposition, to which I take great exception.
I have spent 20 years in this place, first through the 1980s as a Government Back Bencher and subsequently as a Minister. Even with the large majority that we enjoyed in 1983, we did not fiddle with the procedures of the House in order to make life easier or reduce the opportunities available to the Opposition. As a Back Bencher and then a Minister, I spent many hours in Committee allowing the Opposition to determine the amount of time a Committee devoted to a particular Bill. We brought in a guillotine or timetable motion only when the Government viewed the time period as excessive—a point to which I shall return in a few moments. The key point is the presumption that Ministers alone decide how much time the House and
Standing Committees will take to consider legislation. That is what has undermined the role that Members of Parliament, particularly the Opposition, can play.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Phil Woolas): Would the right hon. Gentleman prefer the old practice of guillotining, which he and other Conservative Ministers exercised and which was exclusively at the discretion of the Executive, to timetabling, which the House, through its Programming Sub-Committee, is allowed under the current arrangements?
Mr. Forth: The answer is yes. An informative table is appended to the excellent minority report of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). I was hoping that someone would allow me to raise this matter and the Deputy Leader of the House has provided me with an opportunity to do so.
I draw the House's attention to page 31 of the report, which highlights the Education Bill of the 1992–93 Session. It had 255 clauses and 17 schedules, and the date of the allocation of time motion was 15 December 1992. The time allowed under that motion required the Standing Committee to report by 9 February 1993, but 18 subsequent sittings were allowed after the motion had been introduced. That is important for several reasons—not only because of the dedication and excellence of the Minister in charge of the Bill at the time, whose name for the moment escapes me. If pressed, I am sure that I could remember it. I was told at the time that it was the biggest Education Bill that had ever been brought before the House.
In the 1980s and on to the 1990s, it was standard practice to allow up to 150 hours in Committee—occasionally, at the discretion of the Opposition, even up to 200—before the Government took the view that it was necessary to introduce a guillotine. That is why my reply to the Deputy Leader of the House is that I prefer the earlier approach. What often happened was that the then Opposition, now the Government, would expend considerable time—sometimes two or three days—debating the sittings motion. Hon. Members who had the privilege of being in the House at the time will recall that that was the Opposition's choice; that was how they chose to spend their time in Committee—I have no complaints about that. We then allowed them to spend weeks and months in Committee—again at their discretion—to debate the legislation. Only after a very long lapse of time would the Government, with some reluctance, introduce a guillotine motion.
Yes, I preferred that approach. Under the current system, even before a Committee has embarked on its work, the Government decide how much time it will take and then often introduce what we call "knives".
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