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Mr. Gale : Is it not a fact that the other place is not only a House of Lords that the Government created, but a House of Lords that the Prime Minister voted to retain in the face of fierce opposition from Labour Back Benchers and Conservative Members?
Mr. Forth: Yes, it is Blair's Lords—that is what we are talking about. When the Prime Minister's supporters on the Labour Benches criticise the House of Lords, they are criticising the Prime Minister, because the current House of Lords is his creation and he is the one who is sustaining that House in its present form. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) to say that he wants more peers, he wants this and he wants that—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the right hon. Gentleman speaking to the motion or the amendment?
Mr. Forth: The right hon. Gentleman is attempting to reply to the debate, which has been running since the Leader of the House initiated it. He covered all these matters, and the hon. Member for Middlesbrough,
whose speech I enjoyed—as, I think, did you, Madam Deputy Speaker—also referred to them repeatedly and frequently. Now I am attempting to reply to the debate—as I hope we still do in the House of Commons—to which the hon. Gentleman contributed so eloquently.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Reference to certain sections of the debate is fine. I just hope that we are not getting into too much detail.
Mr. Forth: Oh, perish the thought, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pride myself on being somewhat of a generalist—I like to sweep the horizon of an issue. Not for me the mundane details of a Bill, even though earlier, if you did not invite me to do so, you certainly gave me permission to explore some of those details, and I might come to that later, if I am pressed. However, because of your guidance, I shall not pursue the matter that I was addressing—I just wanted to touch on the matters that the hon. Member for North Cornwall analysed, and to say how much I support him.
The question that arises from the motion is why the Government felt it necessary at this stage, on this day, which we thought would be the day of Prorogation, to table in a panic this rather ill-thought-out motion to provide the possibility of further sitting days in order to save their legislative programme—I assume that that is the reason behind the motion. We are confronted with the possibility, which I welcome, of the House sitting on Monday and Tuesday next week.
That raises another interesting question. Why have the Government not given us the option of sitting tomorrow—Friday? The Government are afraid of Fridays for some reason. Apart from the excellent Fridays on which we consider private Members' Bills, which I value very highly, Fridays have disappeared from the parliamentary calendar altogether. The question that we have to ask ourselves is, what happened to Friday?
Mr. McLoughlin: I know that, like me, my right hon. Friend welcomed the Leader of the House producing a calendar—an innovation introduced by his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). Is my right hon. Friend aware that the calendar produced a few weeks ago covering the next Session lists tomorrow as a possible sitting day? In that case, why do we not have that option available to us now?
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that. In that sense, Friday has doubly disappeared—
Mr. Paul Goodman (Wycombe): Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?
Mr. Forth: Yes, in a moment, but I am enjoying my Friday and I want to elaborate on it before giving way to my hon. Friend. This mystery has arisen directly from the motion before us today. I believe that the House in its generosity would grant that the Government need more time, given that they have cocked up their legislative programme so badly and got themselves into such conflict with the House of Lords that they now
need to make provision for extra time. The question I pose—with direct reference to the motion, Madam Deputy Speaker—is: why not tomorrow?
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): It is probably an impertinence to ask my right hon. Friend whether he has looked at the Order Paper. The answer to his question, why not tomorrow, lies therein. Under the title "D. Other future business" is listed:
- "Friday 21st November . . . DRAFT CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE (REFERENDUM) BILL: Second Reading.
Member in Charge: Mr Frank Field".
Mr. Forth: I think that my hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. That in part shows why the Government are so afraid of Fridays. Fridays, in my memory, were a proper, legitimate, normal parliamentary day in which we conducted parliamentary business, including scrutiny of legislation.
Mr. John Taylor (Solihull): My right hon. Friend will remember how precious Fridays were to me. It was on a Friday that I introduced my High Hedges Bill.
Mr. Forth: Yes, I remember that with great affection. My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to congratulate him on the fact that the Government sneaked the provisions of his excellent Bill into their Anti-social Behaviour Bill, without hardly anyone except me noticing.
Mr. Goodman: Would my right hon. Friend be prepared at any point in his speech to give way to a Labour Member to allow them to say how much pleasure they would take from being able to come in on a Friday to represent their constituents?
Mr. Forth: Yes, I would be, but I should be astonished if any did so.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk): Referring back directly to why Friday has disappeared, does my right hon. Friend think that because the Prime Minister and the President of the United States of America have gone north, rather like a mediaeval court, many Ministers and their hon. Friends will also be in the north tomorrow? Perhaps Parliament could meet up in the north tomorrow.
Mr. Forth: I shall not allow myself to be dragged too far in that direction, because my hon. Friend is an eminent historian. He and I know that in the 13th and 14th centuries, Parliament moved with the monarch. Since our new monarch is to be in Sedgefield, perhaps sitting there would be appropriate. However, I shall not allow myself to be diverted, because I have a great deal to say on the substance of the motion.
I did not think to table another manuscript amendment to insert "Friday" into the motion—in fact, it occurs to me to try to do that after I resume my seat, since it would give the House the proper option of sitting tomorrow. Perhaps one of my hon. Friends will do so—
I simply make the suggestion. As things stand, we are left with the possibility of the House sitting on Monday and Tuesday next week. That brings us to the substance of the manuscript amendment that stands in my name and the names of my hon. Friends, which I am pleased that Mr. Speaker saw fit to accept and which was so ably moved by the hon. Member for North Cornwall, for whose pledge of support for the amendment I thank him.
Mr. Greg Knight: My right hon. Friend's views on what he calls the wretched Select Committee on Modernisation are well known. Does he appreciate how much it warms our heart to hear him speaking to an amendment on a topical question, which strongly resembles a debate initiated by the Modernisation Committee in September last year?
Mr. Forth: Indeed, urgent questions are one of the very few points on which I find myself in agreement with the work of the so-called Modernisation Committee. One of the many areas in which the Government, having almost killed it off, have absolutely refused to enliven the House of Commons is in respect of urgent questions. It is a great irony, is it not, that their lordships have urgent questions, but the Commons does not. That is one of the many respects in which the House of Lords acts as a far more effective parliamentary Chamber and holds the Government to account sadly much more effectively than does the House of Commons.
Mr. Tyler: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the House accepts the amendment that he and I both support, we might be creating a rather useful convention, given that at short notice we will bring a Secretary of State to the House to answer questions? That is, if I may say so, a highly effective way of ensuring that this House does its proper job of holding Ministers to account.
Mr. Forth: Indeed, and it is one of the arguments that I intended to deploy in the hope of persuading the House to support our amendment, if I can call it that. Accepting the amendment would provide the opportunity for an experiment to determine whether such a degree of immediacy in questioning would work to the benefit of the House. I am sure that it would.
By the way, this is an appropriate time to appeal to hon. Members present and elsewhere to table their questions now for the Home Department on Monday and the Department of Health on Tuesday. We have been given an opportunity and I hope that my hon. Friends will avail themselves of it.
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