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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Lady must confine her remarks to the matters immediately before the House.
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Mrs. Gillan: I agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The fact is, however, that the Minister is able to get press releases out and not leave time for them to be discussed, and was not capable of producing from her office—throughout the recess—the information that she had promised in Committee. I know she is sorry, I know she has apologised and I accept that apology, but it is still absolutely appalling.
Let me end by returning to the Procedure Committee's excellent report, which made certain recommendations. For the sake of the Minister and those who support her, I should say that page 21 needs to be read carefully. At paragraph 13—unlucky for some—the Committee said:
"We believe that the House will usually want to spend most of the time available considering amendments on report, rather than debating third reading at length."
We are left with a programme motion that ensures that the Third Reading debate will be longer than the debate on Report, which is directly contrary to the Committee's recommendations. That does not surprise me, however. Only yesterday, the remaining stages of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill did not complete their course here. The Prevention of Terrorism Bill is to be rushed through in two days, and because of a programme motion part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Bill was not discussed at all, although it involved serious constitutional issues. What hope have we for the Drugs Bill, which deals with a matter that is so important to families and communities up and down the land?
This is a pattern with the current Government, who wish to stifle debate and, dare I say it, diminish the standing and powers of Parliament. No doubt the Drugs Bill will be added to the wonderful table in the Committee's report, table A on page Ev5. It gives a long catalogue of Bills in the 2002–03 Session parts of which were never reached and never discussed in the House.
I invite my hon. Friends, and anyone else who cares to join me in the Lobby, to vote against the motion as a matter of principle. Once again the Government have been discourteous to the Opposition, have shown that they are not organised or competent, and have sought to stifle debate about something on which I believe Conservative policies are winning hearts and minds throughout the country. I think people believe that the Government have failed to act successfully on drugs.
5.43 pm
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD): Although it may not be apparent from the debate today, at the end of proceedings in Committee the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), thanked Members for the courtesy and good humour with which they had conducted those proceedings.
We had ample time to explore the issues in Committee, and the Government deserve credit for that. As the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) has said, as a result of that exploration a number of amendments were accepted, either as they stood or in principle. The Government have returned the issues to the Floor of the House, and I give the
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Minister credit for that. However, I share many of the concerns of the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. For the entire proceedings on Report to be given at most two hours is not adequate. To include in that two hours the debate on the programme motion means that we may have no more than one and a quarter hours for consideration of matters on Report.
Matters on Report are important. If matters have been dealt with in Committee, that has been the preserve of a small number of Members. This is the opportunity for Back Benchers on both sides of the House who have concerns about the Bill to have their say. One hour and 15 minutes will not be sufficient for that.
The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham referred to the correspondence from the Minister's office. I am quite happy to favour cock-up rather than conspiracy as far as that is concerned, but it highlights the danger of proceeding in the manner in which the Government wish us to proceed today with a highly timetabled debate.
The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham said that we had protected time for Third Reading. That is not necessarily the case. If she looks at the motion, she will see that proceedings on Third Reading must be concluded three hours after the commencement of debate on the motion. Proceedings on Report must be concluded after two hours. If we were to have a vote after two hours, that would mean that Third Reading would not start until probably about 15 minutes into the one hour. At best, there will be 45 minutes available.
Mrs. Gillan: I accede to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I was referring to a previous Bill where there was no protection at all for Third Reading and the debate was completely lost.
Mr. Carmichael: We should be fortunate and have three quarters of an hour, if that is fortunate.
A number of issues have come to mind as I have considered the Minister's correspondence this afternoon. On first reading, I thought that it was fairly innocuous. The more I read it, the more I think, "Perhaps there is a point to be asked about here and a point to be asked about elsewhere." I hope that, when the Bill leaves the House, as I think it inevitably will tonight, and goes to the other place, the matters that we are not able to deal with today but that have been raised in correspondence from the Minister will get a fuller hearing and that there may be an opportunity for us to deal with those matters during consideration of Lords amendments.
I was slightly surprised that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham was not able to get the Government amendments through PDVN, as I was. I am delighted that, for once, in a technological sense, things seem to be working better in Orkney and Shetland than in Chesham and Amersham.
5.47 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con):
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) was right to pick up the point that the Minister made briefly and rather weakly that, because matters have been considered in Committee, why should
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we delay ourselves much on the Floor of the House—that was okay, was it not? That prompts a number of questions, one of which we need not discuss here: was the amount of time even in Committee adequate? My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) pointed out that his excellent new clause was not considered in Committee because of the Government's vicious timetabling of the Committee itself.
In a sense, however, that is beside the point because the whole purpose of the Report stage, as my hon. Friend pointed out, is to give Members who did not have the privilege of being on the Committee the opportunity to consider what it did and to submit further amendments. Indeed, even the Government themselves now routinely table amendments on Report for consideration. Therefore, we should look at what we are expected to consider on the Floor of the House in the time allotted by the Government. We should notice that under these so-called timetable motions the Government are graciously allowing the House of Commons a certain amount of time to do its job of scrutinising the Government's legislation.
Mrs. Gillan: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He might want to consider that, first, the Minister was interrupted in mid-flow on a new clause in order for us to vote on the reclassification of cannabis; I have referred to the record in that regard. Secondly, does he agree that, given that part of the Bill refers to provisions in Northern Ireland and that no Northern Ireland Member served on the Committee, it is even more important that consideration on Report be allowed to run for some time, so that Northern Ireland Members can make points on behalf of their territory?
Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is of course correct. The point is that the Government are now deciding how much time they themselves will allow Members to do the job that they have been elected to do, which is to scrutinise the Government's legislation.
Let us examine the specifics. There are five groups of amendments. They are not trivial and they cover some important and fundamental points. The first group deals with provision for schools and with children, and the second deals with dangerous driving. The third group concerns our old friend—substituting "shall" for "may". That always sounds trivial and innocuous, but it rarely is, because it is almost always of extreme importance. The fourth group deals with the role of the Secretary of State, which is also a matter on which we should dwell. The final group consists of new clause 1, which deals with, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the extremely important issue of the classification of cannabis.
Any one of those groups could easily justify at least an hour's debate in the House—if not several hours—because in theory several hundred Members might want to debate these matters, and they would be entitled to do so. Instead, the Government have said, "You will be allowed a maximum of two hours to consider all these matters." That is 24 minutes per group, and if time is allowed for contributions from the Minister and other
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Front Benchers, there would probably be no time left for Back Benchers. That is the absurd situation in which we now find ourselves. The Government are saying that they do not think that Members need to bother turning up to debate these matters, because they do not think that time should be given to do that. That is the essence of the motion.
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