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Mr. Hain: No, I want to make more progress.
Let me put this in perspective. The average duration of a Programming Sub-Committee meeting has been two minutes, while the longest was 30 minutes. If this was a case of the Government railroading legislation through Committees, with a big civil war going on between Opposition and Government, the whole process would be logjammed. The truth is that Government and Opposition Whips and other Committee members, including the Chairman, have the opportunity to achieve consensus and regularly do precisely that.
Secondly, members of the Procedure Committee tabled an amendment to implement their recommendation that programme motions be decided without debate only with cross-party support; on other occasions, they would be subject to a one-hour debate. Again, we considered that recommendation very carefully, but felt that it was unrealistic—perhaps even naive. In our response to the Procedure Committee, we said:
"The Government is very willing to engage with the Opposition to try and establish a cross-party approach to the programming of future bills. But it should be recognised that there are strong political pressures on the Opposition, be it of whatever party, to oppose the Government's proposals for timetabling of all but the least controversial of bills. While the Opposition may be willing to adopt a pragmatic approach in informal negotiations through the
- usual channels, it would be very difficult for it to sign up publicly to a programme for scrutiny of a Bill to which it is opposed in principle. The experiment with 'agreed programming' in 1998–2000 demonstrated this very clearly. The effect of the Committee's recommendation would therefore be that programme motions would be routinely debated, detaining the House for an additional hour after the vote on second reading."
The Government do not believe that that would be in the interests of the House.
The amendment would also implement the Committee's recommendation that programme motions should not be put to the House until 48 hours or more after Second Reading. The Government are not persuaded that it is desirable or necessary so to delay consideration of the initial programme motion. We believe that it is more convenient for Ministers, Opposition spokesmen and women, and the House as a whole, to continue to take the initial programme motion immediately after Second Reading. If points arise on Second Reading that suggest that the out date should be revised, the Programming Sub-Committee can take those into account and recommend change if it thinks fit. Indeed, that has occurred on several occasions during the past Session.
Thirdly, members of the Committee tabled an amendment to give Chairmen of Standing Committees discretion to delay a knife to allow injury time for Divisions in the House, or for a quarter of an hour if he considers it to be
"for the general convenience of the Committee".
We gave open-minded consideration to those recommendations, but on reflection felt that they were unnecessary and undesirable.
I understand the argument behind the amendments. Equally, I hope that hon. Members will appreciate why the Government continue to oppose such changes. The essence of the success of programming lies in the spirit of co-operation between those acting for Government and Opposition on a particular Bill. The Government believe that where the main parties engage positively in discussions on the programme, programming can and does work well—for the Government, for the Opposition and for members of the public, including interested parties who wish to know when a particular clause or part of a Bill is to be debated in Committee and can now timetable their attendance in advance, make their travel arrangements and come to watch the debate.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I am listening to the Leader of the House extremely carefully. Is he not aware that the unanimous report of the Procedure Committee had the sole objective of making programming more acceptable in all parts of the House? The decisions were taken on a cross-party basis because we believed that we were building into the way in which this House operates safeguards for the whole House, not just the Government.
Mr. Hain:
I understand and respect the hon. Gentleman's motivation. He made it clear that he was not opposed to the principle of programming but was trying to make it better. I accepted several of the recommendations from the Procedure Committee that he chairs; others I did not accept, for the reasons that I described.
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It is important to put it on the record that of the 23 Bills that have been committed to Standing Committee this Session, 12—more than half—had no knives incorporated into their programme apart from the out date. Of the 11 Bills where the Programming Sub-Committee agreed to the incorporation of knives, four had two knives, three had three knives, two had five knives and one had seven knives. There is understandable concern, which I share, that programming should be in the interests of the whole House. The hon. Member for Macclesfield has made some practical suggestions for improving matters. We have accepted some and rejected others, for the reasons that I have given. We are not therefore considering a big Opposition-Government confrontation; we are simply assessing how best we can move forward and improve programming.
Sir Robert Smith: I want to reinforce the fact that the amendments represent an attempt to balance the programming system slightly more in favour of the whole House. The Leader of the House should reconsider his response. Earlier, he said that programme motions help outsiders to plan their travel arrangements, but he went on to say that approximately 12 Bills had no knives in them. How did people plan their travel arrangements for those Bills?
Mr. Hain: The point is that when there are knives, and the out date is determined by the programme motion, people know roughly when things will occur.
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): Given the adversarial nature of this place, it is understandable that the focus is on Government and Opposition parties. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that programming benefits at least Back-Bench Members of the governing party, who used to be under pressure to say nothing in Committee but are now set free to participate in debates? I believe that scrutiny is consequently of better quality.
Mr. Hain: I agree. I remember serving on Committees when I was in opposition and being told to keep quiet or to speak for a long time. Under the previous Government, Conservative Back Benchers said nothing in Committee. They simply stared in a concentrated fashion at their constituency correspondence.
Mrs. Dunwoody: I have the greatest respect for my right hon. Friend, but if he believes that Back Benchers sitting supine, having been told by Whips to keep their mouths shut, is a demonstration of democracy, I hope that he will soon disabuse himself.
Mr. Hain: I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend. I was saying exactly the opposite of what she suggests. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) that programming had encouraged Back Benchers of all parties, including the Government party, to make constructive contributions.
The second motion before us takes note of the Procedure Committee's fourth report of the previous Session on procedures for debates, private Members'
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Bills, the powers of the Speaker and the Government's reply. The report is wide ranging and I shall leave it to the Chairman of the Committee to describe it in detail.
The motion implements the recommendation in paragraph 13 of the report for an experiment with shorter Back-Bench speeches. It is proposed that, between certain hours—the Committee suggests an hour before the winding-up speeches, or half an hour in a half-day debate—the Speaker might call on Back Benchers to make shorter speeches, down to a minimum of three minutes depending on the number of Members who want to take part. The precise arrangements would be for the Speaker to determine. The experiment would run for the next two Sessions, and we could then consider whether it should continue.
The third motion seeks to make permanent the Sessional Order on deferred Divisions. I believe that most hon. Members find the provision for Divisions to be deferred in specific, well-defined circumstances of great convenience, and I see little point in the House revisiting what is now established practice, Session by Session.
The fourth motion would make permanent the temporary Standing Order on carry-over of Bills, which was agreed by the House for this Parliament only in October 2002. As the Procedure Committee found in its report on programming,
"carry-over increases flexibility and has the potential to lessen bottlenecks in the legislative process".
The Committee commended the gradual way in which the Government have introduced carry-over. Two Bills were carried over from the previous Session to the current Session, and three from this House and another in the House of Lords are to be carried over from the current Session to the next.
Those who believed that carry-over was an underhand method of undermining the Sessional cut-off have been proved wrong.
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