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Mr. Swayne: The position is worse than my hon. Friend suggests. For every one of those examples, other clauses and groups of amendments were rushed through and given insufficient attention because Members were racing to reach a particular stage, or to make a point that they wished to make, before the knife fell.

Mr. Shepherd: I am truly grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Procedure Committee. That Committee used to be considered the most senior of all Committees, in the sense that it dealt with a matter of great importance to us all as ordinary Back Benchers and Members of this House; there is no disputing that fact. My hon. Friend's understanding of such matters
 
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has given greater flesh to the bones of an argument that I am making, have made and will continue to make during my parliamentary career. I agree absolutely with what he is saying, and we know the practice to which he refers.

We in this House often speak as if we have created some paradise, yet it is now insignificant in people's minds but for an occasional outburst on issues such as war. This will be the Parliament of war; that is what this issue is really about. Our deliberations on matters such as communications, criminal justice, planning and compulsory purchase and local government are not considered properly in Committee; they are truncated and half-done. They are the background to what is now the majesty and presumption of Executive Government.

The House has a personality. I have tried to make the point that we are all only temporary Members here. Others will succeed us, as others have preceded us. The present Government are just part of the passage of the long life of a nation. The central function of the rules—the rules, like court rules, that govern the way in which we contest the propositions of Executive Government—is to be more permanent.

When the electorate vote, they are effectively settling the question of who should be the Executive, but that is all. They are not settling the detail of page 83 of a manifesto. The electorate cannot possibly know the precise intentions of the Government's Criminal Justice Bill or be aware of the 106 clauses and schedules, stand parts and so on that were not reached. They do not know, so our job is to tickle out and challenge. That is the job of every Member of this House of Commons who is not a member of the Executive; to satisfy themselves, on behalf of their constituents, whether something is appropriate or right. That is our purpose and function.

I seek no office, but I want to know that I am a free man in a free country, in which I can say to the leader of the Government, "You are wrong, and here are the reasons why". However, these scheduling arrangements, timetables and guillotines deny the representative of Aldridge-Brownhills, the triple-barrelled constituency in Ayrshire or wherever the opportunity to examine the details.

I was not intending to make a long speech, because the House has been wearied by my views on this matter for a long period.

Mr. Heald: No, no.

Mr. Shepherd: I am glad to hear the shadow Leader of the House say, "No, no, no, no". He is right to say that, but he is wrong to accept the principle that the Government have a right to get their business through. If so, why do we bother to examine it? That is the heart of the argument; we examine it, because it is important. If it is wrong, it is important to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the House and the country that it is wrong. It is the country that we are talking to in the Chamber, but no one listens because there is no point. We are not actually doing our job because we are voting for a structure of rules, which Mr. Speaker is obliged by the Orders of the House to enforce, that denies us that right.
 
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It is truly curious when the Leader of the House does not argue that there are merits in his proposition. What is happening? Cicero said a long time ago that those who knew nothing of the time before they were born would for ever remain a child. The Leader of the House demonstrated that in spades. He came in only 10 years ago, yet feels fully competent to talk about how the House was managed 20 years ago. I defer to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) because her experience of the movement of the House over the years is deeper and longer than mine.

Mr. Heald: I fully accept my hon. Friend's rebuke, but surely he would agree that the Government were entitled to get their business through if, after properly debating the matters before the House, they could command a majority.

Mr. Shepherd: Indeed. Governments have that expectation; after all, it is only the Government who represent the majority in the House. However, there was no caveat whatever in what my hon. Friend said. What of the condition that the Government have to meet the test? After all, the Government do not always command all their own supporters; Government Members can, by working with us, with the Liberal Democrats and the nationalists, defeat a Government. I have seen it happen.

I wish to make two further points. One Bill greatly exercised me and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg); the Civil Contingencies Bill. There was no dispute about clause 1, but clause 2 proposed giving to a Government powers that had never been known outside wartime.

For whatever reason, members of the Opposition Front Bench were so terrified of being accused by the Government that they were not solid in the fight against terrorism that they did not vote against clause 2. That disappointed me, but what happened under the present arrangements? On Report, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham and I were denied the opportunity of pointing out that the Bill's definition of an emergency was inadequate, that property could be confiscated with or without compensation and that a junior Minister could suspend primary legislation.

Mr. Redwood: A Whip could do it.

Mr. Shepherd: As my right hon. Friend says, the Bill meant that a Whip could do it.

The proposals amounted to a profound assault on the central civil liberties of our people, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham and I were not reached in the debate. Our amendments were not selected for discussion. We were therefore left with 10 minutes on Third Reading, after the Front Bench Members of all parties had put their oar in, in which we could stand up and say, "This ain't right." We divided the House, and the tragedy of that Division is that it was the two of us against 659 other hon. Members.

I feel strongly about our civil liberties. We are nothing if we have no regard for our freedoms and where they come from. Those freedoms were originated by others,
 
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not by us, and yet we give them away so casually. Members of my own Front Bench would not even walk into a Lobby to deny the principle demanded by the Government that items could be confiscated with or without compensation.

Sir Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend holds views that I greatly respect, and is making a speech that I hope will be widely read. However, is he not making the case that there should be no programme motion affecting the Report stage of a Bill? As Chairman of the Procedure Committee, I am very interested in this matter, as other members of that Committee will be. Is not the Report stage the only opportunity available to all Members of the House to contribute to the debate on a measure? After all, hon. Members may not have been called to speak on Second Reading, or selected to sit on the Standing Committee considering the Bill. Is not the Report stage the only truly Parliament-wide opportunity for hon. Members to contribute to the debate on a Bill? That is especially important when a Bill is as important as the Civil Contingencies Bill, to which my hon. Friend referred.

Mr. Shepherd: Of course I am making that case. I am also making, in part, the case put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). There is no need for guillotines. It should not be the Government's first presumption that they must guillotine every piece of legislation that comes before the House. Our procedures work without guillotines. I remember, as I said, that there were some 43 guillotines under Mrs. Thatcher and that subordinate guillotines took the figure to about 60.

Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): May I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton)? Nomination to Standing Committees is controlled to a large extent by the Whips, who are generally unwilling to nominate hon. Members from their own party unless they are considered reliable. Those of us who are somewhat idiosyncratic in our approach to party discipline do not always find ourselves nominated. As a result, the Report stage is the only real opportunity for hon. Members like us to address the detail of a Bill.

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