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Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Helen Southworth, Mr. David Stewart, Rosemary McKenna, Ms Dari Taylor, Liz Blackman, Mr. Colin Pickthall, Ms Christine Russell, Linda Perham, Mr. Khalid Mahmood, Dr. Phyllis Starkey, Mr. James Plaskitt and Mr. George Howarth.
Helen Southworth accordingly presented a Bill to require manufacturers and retailers of prepared foods to provide information about the content and nutritional quality of the foods: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 5 November, and to be printed. [Bill 167].
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Programming of Bills
Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. As Members will be aware, the House yesterday ordered that at 6 pm the Chair should put the Questions on all six motions relating to procedure to be moved by the Leader of the House, so clearly we must have a joint debate on motions 2 to 7 on the Order Paper. The House will also see that I have selected all four amendments to motion 2 tabled by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) and his colleagues on the Procedure Committee. At the conclusion of the debate, I will therefore invite the hon. Member for Macclesfield to move formally any of those amendments that he wishes to press to a vote. Motions 2 to 7 will then be put to the vote, one after the other.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Peter Hain): I beg to move,
That the House takes note of the Fourth Report of the Procedure Committee, on Programming of Legislation, HC 325, and the Government's Response thereto (published as the Committee's Fifth Special Report of the current Session, HC 1169); and makes the following provision:
That, with effect from the beginning of the next Session of Parliament, the Orders of the House of 28th June 2001 relating to Programming of Bills be Standing Orders of the House, with the following Amendments:
(1) In Order A (Programme Motions), in paragraph (6), leave out 'or where paragraph (8) of Sessional Order B (Programming Committees) applies,'.
(2) In Order A, in paragraph (10), leave out 'In an excepted case' and insert 'If any of the exceptions applies'.
(3) In Order B (Programming Committees), leave out paragraphs (8) to (10).
(4) In Order C (Programming Sub-Committees), in paragraph (1), after 'and', insert 'subject to paragraph (9A) of this order'.
(5) In Order C, after paragraph (9), insert—
'(9A) A Minister of the Crown may make any motion in a standing committee which could have been the subject of a resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee; and for the purposes of this order the motion shall be treated as if it were in the terms of a resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee: provided that proceedings on such a motion shall lapse if any member of the committee signifies objection to it.'
(6) In Order D (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings in Standing Committee or in Committee of the whole House), in paragraph (2), after 'others)' insert 'in the same order as they would fall to be put if this order did not apply'; and in sub-paragraph (c), leave out 'division' and insert 'decision'.
(7) In Order D, in paragraph (5), at end insert ', except that the question shall be put separately on any clause of or schedule to the bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out'.
(8) In Order E (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on consideration or third reading), in paragraph (2), after 'others)' insert 'in the same order as they would fall to be put if this order did not apply'; and in sub-paragraph (c), leave out 'division' and insert 'decision'.
We have six motions before us this afternoon. The first is a motion to take note of the report of the Procedure Committee on programming of legislation, and to make permanent the Sessional Orders on programming of Bills, with certain amendments. The second is a motion to take note of the report of the Procedure Committee on procedures for debates, private Members' Bills and the powers of the Speaker, and to implement the Committee's recommendation of
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an experiment with shorter Back-Bench speeches. The third is a motion to make permanent the Sessional Order on deferred Divisions. The fourth is a motion to make permanent the temporary Standing Order on carry-over of Bills, with certain amendments to clarify its application. The fifth is a motion to increase the Speaker's discretion over the application of the short speeches rule, following representations from the Liaison Committee, and the sixth is a motion to implement the recommendation of the Modernisation Committee that the term "strangers" be no longer used in referring to visitors to the House.
In respect of four of the motions—those that contain textual amendments—explanatory memorandums have been made available in the Vote Office. These may assist Members by showing how the Standing Orders would be amended by the motions.
First, I am grateful to the Procedure Committee for its timely consideration of programming. This builds on the work that was done last year by the Modernisation Committee. Proper timetabling of Bills has been a central recommendation of parliamentary and independent reports for 20 years or more. It is not a whim of the current Government. In 1985, the Procedure Committee recommended that Bills should be timetabled. The proposal was reiterated by the Jopling Committee in 1992. The independent Hansard Society Commission on the Legislative Process, also in 1992, regarded it as a central feature of any reforms to improve scrutiny. In 1997, the Modernisation Committee's first report highlighted the importance of programming legislation, stating that other proposals for improving the legislative process—scrutiny of draft Bills, for example—could not be seen in isolation from the legislative timetable.
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): Does the Leader of the House recognise that the earlier attempts concerned agreed programming, not the imposition of the guillotine, which the Government have employed since 2000? Does he agree that the Procedure Committee was trying to find ways to return to a more consensual approach that would better meet the needs of the House than the current oppressive regime?
Mr. Hain: First, we have taken some of the Procedure Committee's amendments on board. Secondly, it is a myth that programming is at variance with the principle of consensus. Let me provide the hon. Gentleman with the figures: in the past Session, 70 per cent. of programme orders were achieved consensually, and of the 24 Bills committed to Standing Committee, 23 had programme orders and five also had supplemental programme orders, which allow business and timing to be changed by consensus. Of the 28 programme orders, 20 were agreed formally and only eight resulted in a Division—in other words, nearly three quarters of programme orders were achieved consensually.
I can provide the hon. Gentleman with many more statistics: the vast majority of Programming Sub-Committees achieved consensus, and Divisions have occurred in only two of the 33 Programming
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Sub-Committees so far this Session—in other words, 94 per cent. of those Programming Sub-Committees reached agreement without a Division.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): In spite of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, has not the Procedure Committee clearly demonstrated that significant portions of many Bills that leave this House are unexamined and not discussed, which means that the Government have not been held to account? Has not the Procedure Committee provided the formula for redressing that particular problem?
Mr. Hain: The hon. Gentleman is far more distinguished and experienced than me. [Interruption.] I am glad that I have achieved unanimity on that point. He knows that some clauses and schedules of previous Bills were not discussed, often by consensus, because the Opposition wished to focus on the areas that concerned them most and about which there was most argument. In addition, guillotines were used in previous eras—every Government used them and they were a regular feature of the parliamentary process. We have achieved a programming structure that allows the maximum consensus to be built, as I have just described.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): For the sake of clarity, will the Leader of the House make it clear that in the good old days back in the 1980s, Committees were allowed to determine their own timetables and run their own course until the Government eventually and reluctantly may have had to guillotine a Bill, but only after the Opposition had determined the pace of the Committee? To put the matter in context, how many clauses now leave guillotined Standing Committees unconsidered?
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