Mr Speaker
I say in response to the hon. Lady that I am not sure that this is an occasion for pronouncing on a reform to the process, as she puts it. It is difficult for the Chair to give a ruling without certain knowledge of the facts, but what I would say at this stage is as follows—and I would welcome any clarification the Leader of the House can provide. The first point is that, as I understand it, it is the Government’s firm intention to ensure that the text of the motion is widely available today. Members can apparently consult it—I cannot say this for certain—now in the Table Office.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Harper)
indicated assent.
Mr Speaker
Nods of assent from the Government Chief Whip and the Leader of the House suggest that that is so. [Interruption.] Order; I am trying to help the House. If that is so, that is welcome.
On the subject of amendments, perhaps I can say to the House that if amendments are tabled today, presumably by Members who have seen the text of the motion, those amendments will be on the Order Paper tomorrow. Therefore, they will not be manuscript amendments. However, it is within the discretion of the Chair to consider manuscript amendments. Colleagues who have been in this House for any length of time will know that this Speaker has regularly done so, and if necessary I will be ready to do so again.
It is obviously desirable, not least in the light of what the Leader of the House said about having undertaken widespread consultation with a view to trying to put together a motion that would command widespread agreement, that the motion itself, when decided upon and its text finalised, should have been formally given at the very least to the official Opposition. I assume that was done. [Interruption.] Well, may I say that I think that it would be desirable for that to be done, and it would be entirely consistent with the words the Leader of the House uttered about widespread consultation? If it has not happened, may I say that it would now be desirable for it to happen?
Beyond that, all I can really say is this. The Leader of the House made the point that the one-day debate stretching over 10 and a half hours would represent a time allocation broadly equivalent to two full days on Wednesday and Thursday. I know some people like to be very precise about these matters, and my mental arithmetic tells me that if we have a full day’s debate on a Wednesday and a full day’s debate on a Thursday, and bearing in mind that we have business questions on a Thursday, that would amount to an allocation of time of I think 12 hours—10 and a half is being allocated—and that if it were a Monday and a Tuesday and there were two full days’ debate without interruption by urgent questions or statements, that would amount to 13 hours of debate. So to be absolutely correct about this, it is not two full days’ debate in one—that is not true—but it is considerably more than one and a half. It is also perfectly reasonable—this is a political point for the Leader of the House to make; it is not a matter for the Chair—to say that the time allocation is somewhat greater than has been the case in the past.
I am trying to be completely fair-minded about this. I respect what the Leader of the House has said, and there is some considerable agreement with what he has said, but I recognise that there is some unhappiness. I think the best thing at this stage on matters of procedure—we have the rest of the day available—is to try to maximise buy-in to the procedure and to minimise dissent. Let me try to look at it from the vantage point of members of the public. I think that is what responsible members of the public would expect responsible Members of Parliament to do. I hope that is helpful.