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The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Phil Woolas): Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the inclusion in the sittings of the House motion of a provision for urgent questions is intended to assist the House, as it allows important and urgent questions to be tabled without the obstacle of a three-day notice period, which is required under the usual procedures?
Mr. Blunt: Unless I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman, urgent questions can be allowed in any event by application to Mr. Speaker on the day. We have established that new procedure, and there is no reason why the position should be any different under the amendment. Urgent questions could be taken, just as the Home Secretary was dragged to the House yesterday to answer an urgent question about the breach of security at Buckingham palace—[Hon. Members: "Dragged?] In response to Government Members, the Prime Minister, as usual, was not entirely at one with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth, when he was asked about the matter at Prime Minister's questions and said that the Home Secretary would make a statement later. The Home Secretary did not make a statement—he came to the House to answer a question that Mr. Speaker had allowed. That is symptomatic of the way in which the Executive treat the House, as is the way in which the Leader of the House said that there is no question that he will allow questions to the Executive on Monday and Tuesday.
The amendment was carefully tabled, thanks to the assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) and the Table Office, to ensure that it identifies the correct Departments—the Home Department on Monday and the Department of Health on Tuesday. By happy coincidence, those are the Departments that are scheduled to answer questions on the next Monday and Tuesday that the House sits, so there would be no disruption to the usual timetable for the tabling of questions. Given the issues at stake, the amendment should be passed on its merits, in the teeth of opposition from the Executive, because it would give hon. Members the opportunity to question the Executive about trial by jury on Monday and foundation hospitals and other health issues on Tuesday.
I want to conclude by replying to the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough about the role of the House of Lords and the impertinence, as he sees it, of its daring to resist the will of the House of Commons. There is such a thing as a democratic mandate, which comes through the contract that we make with our electorate when we stand for office on the basis of our party's manifesto and, no doubt, our own additional material. I am certain that not one Labour Member was elected on the basis of manifesto commitments to introduce foundation
hospitals, which enable some hospitals to gain different access to capital funding from others, or to abolish the right to jury trials.
Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley): When the Tories were in power, they did not put the poll tax in their manifesto, nor the sacking of 30,000 miners.
Mr. Blunt: In fact, the introduction of the community charge was part of the Conservative party's 1987 manifesto. It was already in the process of being delivered in Scotland owing to the difficulty of dealing with its rate revaluation—the reason why the policy was conceived in the first place. It is notable that the Government are encountering similar difficulties as a result of loading such a weight on to the council tax, which is a curious hybrid of rates and the community charge—[Hon. Members: What has that got to with the motion?"]. I am replying to the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell). I am sure that if I am not in order, Mr. Speaker will do his job more than adequately—but of course I am grateful for the guidance of Labour Members.
Under the Salisbury convention, which has existed since 1948, the other place does not oppose measures that the governing party puts through on the basis of the manifesto on which it was elected. Now, however, the Government are driving through measures that have come as a total surprise to their supporters and are a matter of enormous controversy within their own party. Moreover, as the hon. and learned Member for Redcar said, we now have the extraordinary business of amendments that were tabled in the name of Baroness Scotland in another place—
Mr. Blunt: Will the Leader of the House at least accept that they were agreed between representatives of all the parties?
Mr. Woolas: I want to put on the record that the amendments were not tabled by the Government.
Mr. Blunt: I am very happy to accept that they were not tabled, but they were agreed by representatives of the three parties. Those were the terms of the agreement, but—such is the controversy surrounding the measures—Baroness Scotland, who presumably thought that she was negotiating properly on behalf of the Government, now appears to have had her position vetoed by the Home Secretary. It is my judgment, and a judgment that I have heard being voiced privately by Labour Members, that the Home Secretary is behaving in the most extraordinarily unreasonable fashion—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has quite rightly said that I would be able to help him out if he ever strayed. He is now straying well away from the motion.
Mr. Blunt: I am grateful for your guidance in keeping me on the straight and narrow, Mr. Speaker.
The point that I was attempting to make, in answer to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, was that the Salisbury convention holds, and that the Government
would not be in this mess of having to table this motion asking us to sit on Monday and Tuesday if they accepted the right of the House of Lords to ask the House of Commons to think again. We are being asked to think again about one very profound legal principle that has sat at the heart of our proceedings as a nation for nearly 1,000 years—the right to a trial by one's peers.It is not unreasonable for the Government to seek extra time to discuss that issue; nor is it unreasonable for their lordships to go on asking us to think again. We should do so. I support the motion, as amended, and I think that it should be carried to give us the time to think again. We should accept that, given the enormity of the principle at stake—and the fact that the Government have had to table this motion because the measure did not appear in their manifesto, which is why it is being opposed—it is appropriate to allow the House of Lords to ask us to think again. We should not then return to the issue. We have seen all the difficulties involved in tabling this motion.
Hon. Members who are not members of the Executive should certainly consider very carefully the amendment that has been tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne and me. In the unlikely event that we play ping-pong with their lordships until Tuesday, it would be appropriate—
Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The original Lords amendment was rejected by the House of Commons by 17 votes. When it came back and we were asked to think again, it was rejected by 41 votes. Assuming that it comes back again and is rejected by an even larger number of votes, should we continue to think again?
Mr. Blunt: The hon. Gentleman has been as badly wrong-footed as the Department of Health by events down the Corridor. It would appear that the Department has sent out a press release saying how regrettable it is that Parliament has rejected foundation hospitals through the vote in the House of Commons being overturned by the vote in their lordships' House. The Department has also given instructions to NHS trusts as to what they should say about that, and asked them to try to gain support for foundation hospitals in the country. I say with some regret, however, that it appears that one party in the other place—
Mr. Tyler: I have had careful guidance on this matter, and, in fact, the opposition from the Conservative peers was withdrawn before any spokesman from the Liberal Democrats made a contribution.
Mr. Blunt: If that is the case, I am happy to accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
Mr. Heald: I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed that the draft press release sent out by the Department of Health to the trusts says that the Secretary of State could delegate these powers to the trusts anyway. So what have we been doing?
Mr. Blunt: That is a most extraordinary statement. This press release that was put out and then withdrawn
will have to bear a serious amount of examination, although it is plainly not the subject of the motion before us.I urge Labour Members, who will obviously want to support the motion standing in the name of the Leader of the House, to accept also the amendment that has been tabled simply to say that in the unlikely event of us being here on Monday and Tuesday—
Mr. Bob Ainsworth (Coventry, North-East) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question put, That the Question be now put:—
The House divided: Ayes 331, Noes 175.
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