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Ms Blears: I do not think that it is a disgrace. The hon. Gentleman will know, from his extensive parliamentary experience in this place, that many amendments are consequential and relate to minor matters. Some deal with serious matters of principle, and he is right that we should have time to discuss those—but if he thinks for one moment that every amendment and new clause carries equal weight, he is not the hon. Gentleman I thought he was because he clearly has extensive parliamentary experience in that regard.
Ms Blears: I propose to press on. I have no more to add to the programme motion. [Interruption.] We are clearly not going to make progress if everyone shouts at once. I did not see the Father of the House and happily give way to him.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) (Lab): May I gently say that these proceedings bear no resemblance to the House of Commons to which I was first elected, because the last 10 minutes would not have been left to a Minister of State? It is unfair for a Minister of State to have to deal with this. What more pressing engagement than being in the House of Commons at this moment have the Home Secretary, the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House got?
Ms Blears: I am more than happy to deal with the programme motion. Once we press on with the business, I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will address some of the serious and fundamental matters of principle that face us.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD):
If the hon. Lady looks back on the collective parliamentary experience to, say, the Prevention of Terrorism
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(Temporary Provisions) Act 1974, she will see that it was discussed through the night and all clauses were examined. That is a very different situation from the one in which I find myself now. I am particularly interested in clause 9 and the schedule, because they will determine whether a person can see the evidence on the basis of which their liberty might be taken away or restricted, but I see no prospect of us getting that far on a six-hour timetable. Why not revert to the 1974 practice and run the business through until it is completed, as it was successfully done then?
Ms Blears: These matters have been considered by the usual channels in the House and the business managers. The programme motion is in accordance with that consideration. I can only reiterate—
Ms Blears: There are only so many ways in which I can say this, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We propose to press on today, to have the debate, to consider these serious issues and to ensure that we have as much consideration of them as possible.
Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park) (LD): Will the hon. Lady not at least concede that by pressing on with this business in almost indecent haste, when one considers the number of amendments—
Mr. Hogg: The hon. Lady said "almost."
Dr. Tonge: Does the Minister agree that that haste will lead people to believe that this action is more an attempt to justify the Government's disastrous foreign policy than it is to secure the security of the people of this country?
Ms Blears: I reject that entirely. The people of this country are concerned that we get proper legislation in place which meets the threat that we face and provides us with a framework to ensure that we protect national security while striking that difficult balance with individual liberty. That is what the people of this country want us to do, and they want us to get on with it. I commend the programme motion to the House.
3.44 pm
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con): This is a very sad occasion. The House must consider carefully whether it wishes to take a grip of its own procedures or simply allow the Executive to roll us over and treat us as their rubber stamp. The Minister will know that I have always been willing when business has gone into Committee, to try to meet agreed timetables when they are reasonable. I have no objection to a sensible timetable if it can help to provide a degree of certainty for the House, but what we are being asked to do today is scandalous.
One need only look at the 230 amendments that have been tabled, the 10 new clauses and the 14 groups to realise that there is absolutely no possibility of our doing
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justice to what must be one of the most important pieces of legislation that this House has had to consider since the second world war. We are being asked to do this in a way that guarantees—the Minister admitted it in her comments—that this House cannot properly scrutinise the legislation.
Let me pick up a point that was made earlier. The Minister seemed to take the view that as long as the House could debate the principles, the detail did not matter. Yet the Committee stage of a Bill is precisely when the House is supposed to do its duty by looking at the details. Let us take the schedule as one example. Paragraph 4(3)(c) specifies that the Secretary of State will never be required to disclose information if
That means that he will be under no obligation to disclose relevant exculpatory material to the court. So if one informer says that somebody is a terrorist but somebody else says that he is not, the Home Office can choose to rely on and disclose what the informer whom it prefers has said, and not do so for the informer whose view it does not support. That is the sort of issue of detail that the House is to be wholly unable to consider in Committee because the schedule is at the very end of the Bill and there is absolutely no possibility of our reaching it.
Mr. Siôn Simon (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab): I had not realised that there was an exact formula for the number of amendments and the time for debate in Committee. Perhaps Conservative Members could give me the number so that I can better understand exactly how many minutes per new clause and amendment they want.
Mr. Grieve: The hon. Gentleman can make the calculations for himself. I would have thought that he had been in this House long enough to know how long it takes to have a sensible debate. He knows the number of his colleagues of all parties who want to participate in the debate, and it is perfectly obvious that we cannot do justice to the legislation.
Mr. Hogg: Would my hon. Friend care to remind the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) that if this Bill had gone into Committee in the ordinary way, it would not have taken less than 25 hours to consider, even on an agreed timetable?
Mr. Grieve: My right hon. and learned Friend is right. That highlights the massive deficiencies in the House's procedure. Is the Minister really going to ask us, when we have had six hours of debate in Committee and one hour on Third Reading, to maintain consensus—as she wants—and send the Bill to the House of Lords with our approval? I could not approve a Bill on that basis under any circumstances. The Minister is ensuring that the Government's desire to try to achieve a meeting of minds on an important issue is fatally undermined from the outset.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con):
Surely it is a question not just of the number and complexity of the amendments but of the principle involved. We are
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talking about 800 years of legal precedent. I understand that that leaves us one hour for every 100 years of legal precedent.
Sir Patrick Cormack: It is less than that.
The Minister clearly has not got the authority to change the Government's view today, so can we redouble our efforts through the usual channels and through every channel to try to have a decent debate, so that we can reach some consensus to preserve civil liberties in this country?
Mr. Grieve: I agree with my hon. Friend. May I make one point clear? The Minister suggested that the decision had been arrived at after discussions through the usual channels, implying that we have had some part in the process. I assure my hon. Friend that we have not. We have consistently asked for a proper period of time to consider this legislation. I entirely agree with what was said earlier: I do not like going home late or, for that matter, in the early hours of the morning, but this is a Bill for which I would be perfectly happy to stay all night. It is, without doubt, the most important legislation that I have examined since I entered this House.
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