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John Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland) (Lab): Would the clauses that a Committee has not discussed be given preference on Report, or would that statement just be for information?
Sir Nicholas Winterton: It is both, but the statement would be primarily for information.
As I am also a member of the Chairmen's Panel, I have chaired a number of Committees in which there has been no delay, no filibustering at all, but time has run out without important clauses and schedules to the Bill being debated. It would help the whole House to have that information and perhaps know the accurate numbers of the clauses and schedules when the Bill is debated on the Floor of the House. I do not propose that in any way to try to delay or protract the debate on Report, but it is important.
As the Leader of the House rightly said, there are occasions when a clause is not fully debated but is voted on there and then because it is not particularly controversial. Often, clauses are passed by agreement, without full debate. I have experienced that many times, but it is wrong when a Standing Committee has not, for lack of time, debated important clauses and schedules or provided any time for new clauses.
The remaining paragraphs of the Government motion implement minor improvements suggested by the Clerks—I am grateful to them—that the Procedure Committee has endorsed.
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I should also mention some other recommendations that the Government have accepted, but that do not need any change to the programming orders, including the suggestions that there should usually be as few internal knives as possible, that Standing Committee sittings could, or perhaps should, occasionally be longer if necessary and that Members should keep their speeches reasonably short. The latter suggestion also refers to Ministers who occasional seem to drag out their speeches unnecessarily. We also recommended that Government amendments for debate on the Floor on Report should be tabled in good time, because that is important if the House is to do its job properly at that stage.
The next motion takes note of our report of last November on procedures for debates, private Members' Bills and the powers of the Speaker. It will provide for a two-Session experiment on our proposal to allow an hour of short speeches before the wind-ups. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) for suggesting the proposal when he gave evidence to our Committee. The motion contains the words "three minutes", but I must emphasise to hon. Members, and especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), that that would be a minimum time limit.
We recommended that on suitable occasions, the last hour before the wind-ups should be divided equally among Members who had attended most of the debate and were still waiting to speak. The limit would be as short as three minutes only if there were 20 or more such Members. The experiment would build on informal attempts that are often made at present by the Whips and others to fit everyone in before the wind-ups start. Of course, Members would prefer an eight-minute speech to a three-minute speech, but I must suggest rationally that for most hon. Members, a three-minute speech would be better than no speech at all. We also recommended that the same procedure could be applied to the half hour before the wind-ups in a half-day debate.
The Committee's report made several other recommendations that are not the subject of today's motions, but I shall be interested to find out which receive support in the House. We made a proposal about lists of speakers, although I know that the idea is controversial and that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and Mr. Speaker have strong views about it. We suggested the possibility of linking Westminster Hall debates to relevant early-day motions. I should tell the Leader of the House that I fully support the use of Westminster Hall. As a complementary Chamber, it has provided a useful and valuable outlet in which hon. Members may raise issues of importance to them and their constituents and Select Committee reports may be debated. We also recommended that it was time to increase the £200 drafting allowance for the top 10 Members in the ballot on private Members' Bills. I hope that those suggestions will receive the House's attention in due course. The Committee also made recommendations on the Speaker's role in emergency recalls of the House. It is the view of many hon. Members that the recall of the House in an emergency should be in the hands of Mr. Speaker rather than the Government.
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The other motions that we are considering do not arise from Procedure Committee reports, so I do not need to cover them—I shall allow other hon. Members who wish to speak to do that. I should, however, talk about the motion on short speeches to which the Leader of the House and my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire referred. The proposal would give the Chair greater latitude on who should be exempted from a time limit on speeches. A debate on a Select Committee report will often be initiated by the Government, as is the case today, but the Chairman might be expected to make his report on behalf of the Committee at length. The motion would allow that to happen whenever the Chair thought it appropriate, so I commend it to the House.
I commend both Procedure Committee reports to the House and urge hon. Members to support amendments (a) to (d), and I do so with these final words. I am committed to this House of Commons. I believe that it must be able to do the job that the people who send us here expect it to. That means that the Government of the day must allow the Opposition adequate time to do their job. The Leader of the House was not in the Chamber when I said that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich is an outstanding parliamentarian. She is respected throughout the country for the work that she does not only in the Chamber, but as the Chairman of a Select Committee. Given that she takes her view seriously, as do the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and many other hon. Members, I hope that the votes will be genuinely free and that there will be no pressure on Government Members to support the motions tabled by the Leader of the House. There should be total freedom for Members to exercise their right to ensure that this place remains a democratic assembly and a Parliament in which proper work can be done.
3.25 pm
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (Lab/Co-op): It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), for whom I have a great deal of respect. When, as a Minister, I replied to Westminster Hall debates that he chaired, he always treated me with the greatest courtesy and respect, which I greatly appreciated. I also appreciated his remarks today and thought that his arguments on amendment (d) were convincing. I assure him that a gun is not being held to my head on which way to vote, although I will listen to any arguments that the Deputy Leader of the House might make against the amendment.
On the question of the guillotine and filibustering, may I start by saying that some of my colleagues realise that I am not by nature a moderniser?
Mr. Foulkes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that.
I opposed the changes to the House's hours, and I still think that they were a mistake, because tremendous problems have been created with double booking and clashes, as I have found today. I want to talk about guillotines and filibustering, because I have a confession to make. When I was an Opposition Back Bencher,
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I indulged in a great deal of filibustering. That was legitimate, in order within the procedures of the House, and accepted. However, even as I did that for hour after hour, I realised the futility of it all. We did not achieve anything most of the time, except keeping most of us out of bed until the early hours of the morning.
The futility of that process explains why programming is vital. Some Conservative Members are yet to get out of the filibustering mentality. I have served on Committees as both a Minister and a Government Back Bencher in which a great deal of time was allowed to discuss clauses, but Opposition Members inexplicably seemed unable to stop themselves from needlessly going on and on, not asking genuine questions or challenging the Government, but just filling up time. They are unable to get out of that filibustering mentality. We still face that problem. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who used to be shadow Leader of the House, is probably one of the most proficient and continual habitués of that style of debating.
My first and main point relates to pre-legislative scrutiny. Although I do not always agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), as she knows, I do respect her experience here, to which the hon. Member for Macclesfield referred. The House showed that it can exercise independent spirit when it re-elected her as Chairman of the Transport Committee, irrespective of what the Government said. However, she and the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) have not fully taken account of the important change that has come about with pre-legislative scrutiny, which I hope will be used more often.
I served on the Joint Committee on the draft Charities Bill, which revealed the practical effects of pre-legislative scrutiny. When we went through the Bill, we took evidence from people who understood the issues—private schools, private hospitals, Oxfam, Age Concern and other bodies and small charities in towns and villages throughout the country—and we made a number of recommendations. The hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) said that such scrutiny will extend the debate in Standing Committee. I do not think that that is the case. As the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire said, we will be better informed and understand the issues better. We will not ask questions for the sake of it on something to which we already know the answer. Pre-legislative scrutiny will narrow down the things on which there is division, so that there is time to debate those matters on which there is a real difference of opinion and real concern.
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