Mr.
Wills: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the hon. Member
for Huntingdon was not strictly accurate in his description of the
Government amendments? They were tabled last Thursday. Was he aware of
that?
Pete
Wishart: I am grateful to the Minister. I have absolutely
no problem at all with the process of the Government tabling their
amendments. The Conservative party seems to have a massive issue with
that. If that is why the Conservatives have failed to bring forward
their amendments and to make progress on the Bill, their approach is
absolutely disgraceful. It has not been in good faith and we should
have made further progress. Having to listen to the hon. Member for
Epping Forest—whom I usually enjoy listening to—for 50
minutes on what I assumed was an inconsequential group
of amendments is unbelievable and shocking. The
Conservatives have done the public a massive disservice in terms of
making progress on the Bill. We ought to reconvene at the earliest
opportunity to discuss these vital issues, because it will be a total
dereliction of duty if the Committee fails to address the important
issues of the Bill. I have spent several hours with the hon. Member for
Chichester discussing some of the issues, and I was looking forward to
his contribution. I thought that we had some sort of arrangement or
agreement about where we would move forward with the Bill, but nothing
has been put forward by the Conservatives. I hope that one of the
Conservatives will now get up and tell us exactly what their intentions
are on the Bill. It is inconceivable that we cannot deal with those
main issues. I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge that we must
come back and discuss the vital
measures. 7.30
pm Mr.
Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): I agree with my hon.
Friend the Member for Cambridge and with the hon. Member for Perth and
North Perthshire that we should reconvene later tonight to discuss
these important issues. I have little sympathy with the Conservative
viewpoint. My hon. Friend and I have tabled amendments to later clauses
in the Bill and have submitted new clauses. We did not wait to see what
the Government were planning to do. We put forward our own ideas, and
Conservative Members could have done exactly the
same. I
draw the Committee’s attention to what little progress we have
made. The Bill has 20 clauses. We are now
discussing the 10th clause. That means that, in three quarters of the
time available, we have debated less than half the Bill. We have got
through six groups of amendments today. If we make similar progress on
Thursday, we will not even reach clause 9. The most controversial
measure is clause 10, which brings in triggering. As my hon. Friend
said, we debated that at great length when we were questioning the
witnesses. As that is the most controversial part of the Bill, it would
be an utter outrage if the Committee were not able to debate it. With
the knife already set in place by the House for 4 pm on Thursday, we
would have only four and a half hours on Thursday. That is simply not
enough time to deal with the rest of the Bill. We must reconvene later
tonight. Sir
Nicholas, during your chairmanship, you have tried to usher us on as
quickly as possible, but Conservative Members have spent a great deal
of time debating their amendments. They are perfectly entitled to do
so, but the logic of their choosing to spend a lot of time debating
their proposals is that they will vote to continue consideration of the
Bill tonight. It would be an outrage to democracy if we could not
discuss the important amendments and clauses that are still to be
debated, so I urge members of the Committee to vote to continue
discussion of the Bill this evening, especially those Conservative
Members who have hogged most of time in Committee so
far.
Question
put, The
Committee divided: Ayes 14, Noes
3.
Division
No.
7] Question
accordingly agreed to.
The
Chairman: This Public Bill Committee is breaking new
ground in modern times. I have just consulted the Clerk sitting on my
left, and this is the first occasion for many years that a motion to
adjourn the debate has been
opposed. Adjourned
accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Eight o’clock
till Thursday 20 November at Nine
o’clock.
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