House of Commons Business

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am glad the hon. Lady raised that. I was going to come on to those. I accept that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 was taken through at something of a pace because of delivering the referendum. There is sometimes a slight cynicism in the House, with the suggestion that all Ministers do not like having things debated. When that Bill was going through, I took great pains to make sure that all the important issues were debated in the House, and they all were, even though in the debate on thresholds I had to indulge in the device of moving a Back-Bench amendment from the Government Front Bench—following the model of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)—in order to ask Members to vote against it, to ensure that this House was able to take a decision and not leave it to the other place.

Another Bill that I had some responsibility for was the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, for which we did not have that imperative. In fact, we ran out of Bill before we ran out of time, and we debated all of it fully. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), who ably assisted me in taking that legislation through, and I took great pains to ensure that the House had ample time to debate all of it. I will say a little more in a minute about how I think the Government should do the timetabling.

I also welcome the Government’s suggestion of a three-day deadline for tabling amendments, which supports what the Procedure Committee has said. I welcome the Opposition’s support for that. It will of course be challenging for Opposition Front Benchers and for Back Benchers, but I think that without it we cannot ensure that time is used more sensibly.

Another point that I want to put on the record—I got the answer I wanted, and expected, from the Leader of the House when I asked how the Government and the usual channels would approach programming—is that I think Back Benchers can help in this regard by indicating where the focus of debate is likely to be. With the best will in the world, timetabling is an art, not a science. Having amendments tabled earlier in the process would enable their full scope to be seen by the Government and the usual channels before the supplementary programme motion is devised, so the amendments could indicate what the issues of controversy are and on which provisions debate is likely to concentrate. Even so, it is still an art, not a science. I think that it will take good will on both sides of the House to ensure that the right decisions are made on whether to allow a debate to flow or to put knives in place and manage it more tightly.

I also think that it might be worth engaging the Chair in this process, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that there are rules about avoiding repetition and so forth, but clearly the Chair must be mindful of the need to allow a proper debate by making the proper judgments when Members step over those lines and engage in game-playing. If the House is to debate things properly and table amendments earlier, and the usual channels are going to try to ensure that that happens, it will be interesting to see whether the Chair experiments with the severity with which it imposes the rules of the House, and the extent to which Members find that agreeable, to ensure that we balance properly progress—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and this seems to me to be an opportune moment to make it clear to the House that, although he is perfectly in order and has not taken a unreasonable amount of time this afternoon, it would nevertheless be helpful if Members speaking from the Bank Benches could limit their remarks to between 10 and 15 minutes, and possibly 12 minutes. That way, everyone who wishes to speak will have an opportunity to do so.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. When putting on the record things that the Chair might wish to consider, there is always a risk of provoking the Chair, as I have just done. I can hardly complain, having invited you to do that.

There is sometimes game-playing on the Back Benches, on both sides of the House, to try either to get something debated or to ensure that it is not debated. The Chair has quite a lot of scope, both in the selection of amendments and in enforcing the rules of debate, for ensuring that we make progress.

My final point, and an important one—I agree with the shadow Leader of the House on this—is that this House, the elected House of Commons, should have the opportunity to debate and vote on all the important issues when legislation starts its journey through the House. Sometimes it is unavoidable that important matters have to be added to Bills in the other place, and often that is in response to issues raised in this House. Indeed, if issues are raised in this House and Ministers say that they will take them away and consider them, clearly it would be absurd for the Bill not to be amended in the other place.

However, I think that it is important that this House does its job properly to avoid the other place using the refrain, as it frequently does—it is sometimes justified, but often not—that we do not do our job properly and that we always rely on it to do so. This House can and does do its job properly, and it does it increasingly well, for example because of the extra time that the Leader of the House often makes available for us on Report. I want to ensure that we step up to the plate and do not give the other place the opportunity to pretend that it has to do our job for us.

I support the motions and hope that the hon. Member for Nottingham North will take his concerns up with the Procedure Committee, rather than pressing his amendment.