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Mr. Dismore: I ought to clarify the position. I very much support the proposals in the Opposition's Bill that reflect mine, but of course their Bill contains many other proposals about which I am less happy. Perhaps I can remind the hon. Gentleman of the position of the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger), who voted for the Select Committee report, against my Bill and for the Opposition's Bill, so he has changed sides twice.

Mr. Goodman: If I remember rightly, the hon. Gentleman made the same point about my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater on 21 January; I cannot speak for my hon. Friend. However, I hope that the hon. Member for Hendon tells the Israeli, Japanese and Chinese citizens in Hendon, to whom he referred today
 
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and on First Reading, that he was offered a chance, on 21 January, to vote in principle for exactly the measures that he proposed in his Bill, but he voted against them. We will have to see what they make of that. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has offered that explanation, and that the cause was not an momentary lapse of concentration.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe said on 21 January, part 2 of our civil service Bill is, in his words,

"the least important part of our Bill"—[Official Report, 21 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1330.],

but it is, as I said, a part. It is worth dwelling on that for a moment. I want to make it clear that although we believe that there is merit in this Bill—we could scarcely do otherwise given that it reflects the measures in part 2 of our Bill—it does not, of course, follow that the arguments advanced for this Bill, on the one hand, by the hon. Member for Hendon and, on the other, by us, are exactly the same.

As I said, our support for this Bill is based on the principle that it is right to tidy up the anomalies, and that it offers the prospect of a reasonable framework for doing so. At present, there are 7.8 million economically inactive people in Britain; 2.7 million people are drawing incapacity benefit; and about 1.6 million of those 2.7 million say that they want to work. Most of these people are currently eligible to be employed in a civil capacity by the Crown, so we are not entirely convinced by the arguments about labour shortages put forward by the hon. Gentleman on First Reading. In addition, Britain is becoming more diverse, not less, at least partly because of the rise in the number of minority ethnic British citizens, so we are not convinced by the hon. Gentleman's argument, put forward on First Reading and again today, that we need the Bill to reflect the increasing diversity in our society.

We do not support the Bill on those grounds; we support it because it offers a way of tidying up anomalies to achieve better order. We will naturally want to consider very carefully any amendments to the Bill that are tabled in Committee. As I said, we see merit in the Bill because it offers the prospect of a more rational framework, replicating, as it does, the proposals in the more comprehensive Civil Service Bill promoted by my right hon. and hon. Friends.

Mr. Heald: My hon. Friend has encapsulated the arguments. On his final point about the more comprehensive Civil Service Bill that I presented to the House, does he agree that as the Government have long promised such a Bill, and indeed they promised a draft Bill in this Session, should not this small Bill be part of that process? Is it not a bad sign of the Government's good faith that they strongly support this Bill, which is a small part of the overall measures that we are calling for, because it looks as though they may be kicking the Civil Service Bill that we need into the long grass?

Mr. Goodman: My hon. Friend has put his case extremely well. Perhaps the Solicitor-General could deal directly with that point when she begins her reply.
 
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11.47 am

Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD): I shall reflect on some of the points made in the debate and during the earlier stages of the Bill and its predecessor. It has been suggested that the measure is being rushed, but it seems to me that it has already been the subject of detailed scrutiny by the Public Administration Committee. In addition, if the Government publish a draft Bill in due course, that will be the subject of pre-legislative scrutiny.

I start by beginning where the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) finished. We have the Opposition's Civil Service Bill; we have the PAC's draft Bill; and we have the promise, from the Dispatch Box, of a draft Bill from the Government. This is a bit like London's buses: suddenly, three turn up in one go, although we are still waiting for the third, which is, in some ways, the most important as it is the one that, in the end, we will all be asked to get on. It will be the vehicle that delivers legislative change, so it would be useful if the Solicitor-General told us what is in the Government's mind and what the timetable will be for publication and deliberation.

Mr. Heald: The Bill that I presented is the Public Administration Committee's Bill, but would it not have been better had the Government simply said, "Well, let's have pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill."? If they had further ideas, those could have been presented as part of that pre-legislative scrutiny.

Mr. Burstow: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Given that that work from the Public Administration Committee is already well under way and given that it has garnered a good deal of cross-party support, it would have provided a good platform for embarking on pre-legislative scrutiny. Obviously, the Government would have had the opportunity to feed in any additional changes that needed to be made.

It seems to me that such legislation, more than any other in terms of the civil service, needs that foundation of cross-party support to be built in from the outset to ensure that what eventually makes its way on to the statute book is legislation that provides a long period of stability and certainty. However, I want to return to discussing the Bill before us.

This is a modest measure that attempts to tackle genuine, practical anomalies that arise, at least in part, from this country's membership of the European Union. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), in various contributions in relation to the measure, has outlined the scenarios flowing from that, as did the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who spoke for the Conservatives. Like him, I am struck by the example given by the hon. Member for Hendon of the wife of a British citizen—who might be Chinese, Russian, Japanese or, for that matter, American—being forbidden from joining the civil service. However, if the Chinese, Russian or Japanese wife of a citizen of another EU member state were to apply for the civil service, the current legislative position would not debar them.
 
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Some advance an argument that appears to suggest that anyone who is an alien is, by definition, an enemy of the state who therefore should not be eligible to work for the state, but I find that hard to accept. The better test, first and foremost, is whether the person has the merit and ability to do the job and whether, depending on the sensitivity of that job, they pass the necessary security checks.

I asked the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) whether, on the basis of his logic, he sees the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 extending to local government. He was tempted, and indeed invited me to become a co-conspirator in such a development. I have to say that I have no wish to do so.

Mr. Forth: Oh!

Mr. Burstow: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman by telling him that, but it is important to put the record straight. If he were to introduce such a measure, that could mean, for example, debarring Bob Kiley, London's transport commissioner, from providing a service.

Mr. Forth: So?

Mr. Burstow: The right hon. Gentleman may be delighted by that, but it is interesting that that could be one consequence of extending his view of the legislation.

The right hon. Gentleman suggested that this is a matter of political correctness, multiculturalism and so on, but I do not see it in those terms. The Bill is fundamentally about tackling basic anomalies that arise from the piecemeal nature of legislation passed by this place, and it ought to progress. We have heard clearly that he has identified ample scope for further debate on various aspects of it, so I look forward to consideration on Report with some trepidation, as, I am sure, does the hon. Member for Hendon. The Bill ought to secure a Second Reading today, and it certainly has the support of the Liberal Democrats.

11.53 am

The Solicitor-General (Ms Harriet Harman): The Minister who normally would be responsible for responding to the debate on the Bill is not in the House today, for the best possible reason: his wife Jacqueline has just given birth to their baby daughter. We in the House tend to focus more on deaths, but perhaps we can pause for a moment and offer our congratulations to my hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and his wife.

Rather in the way that schools have supply teachers, I am a supply legislator this morning. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who has made the case very clearly for the Bill, which the Government support. As other Members have said, this is not the first time he has made that case. Important points were covered by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who spoke for the official Opposition. The Government support, by and large, nearly everything he said, so I will not repeat those points. Points were also made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). The Government support those as well, so I will be as brief as possible.
 
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The Government want a good civil service. I hope everyone agrees with that. We want the very best for this country. One way to achieve that is to have the widest possible pool available to those who are recruiting to the civil service. We do not want them to be tied up with unnecessary red tape, but to get down to the business of recruiting who they need.

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