Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

It’s the way he tells them.

Two interesting and different things have just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who very honestly confessed that he hoped the Bill would never reach the statute book—let us be clear; that is what all this is about—as opposed to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who says, “I want it done properly”. To some extent, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, may achieve his aim without having to put his amendment to the vote. His amendment says only that we should not go into Committee,

“until at least 24 hours after”,

the Select Committee on the Constitution has published its report. That was done at 11 am today. Given the way we are going, I think we are going to meet his target: it will be 11 am tomorrow before we go into Committee, so he may have achieved that without having to put it to the vote.

What we know is that no matter how much we want, ideally, to have time to do this legislation properly—in the “as normal” sense—we are not in normal times. It is simply no good putting this off so that by the time we get through it, and have had very clever people getting it right, it is too late. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says about there being things in the Bill that we may want to alter but spending time now on whether we consider the Bill, and how we deal with it and the need for corrections, makes it less likely that the Bill will end up in a proper state. Without having to do so officially, I hope that we can move to vote now on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I think we can reject it because it actually will be 11 am before we get into Committee.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I beg to move that the Question be now put.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and my noble friend Lady Taylor for their reports. We may feel that we have worked hard in this Chamber today, but a lot of work went into those and into making them available to the House. I also thank the 250 Members of this House who have, again and again, turned up to support this Bill and give it what we should give it, which is a Second Reading. Also, for reasons that a lot of people behind me will know, I record particular thanks to my noble friend Lady Smith, who is here today and has just voted for us. We can explain that to others afterwards, but it is particularly good that she is here today. With that, I beg to move my Motion.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, in the Statement that the Chief Whip just made, he said that he expects subsequent stages to be concluded on Monday. Given the proceedings we have seen all day today, is he giving a guarantee on behalf of the Government that they will be concluded on Monday?

[Lord True]

My Lords, if I intervene perhaps I might help the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. My interventions in this debate, as they were last week, were simply on procedural grounds. I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her Motion so that we do not have a precedent for such a Motion on the Order Paper. We have an agreement in the usual channels. We have an undertaking that we will complete Second Reading today and all other stages on Monday. I can speak only for myself, but I welcome the agreement in the usual channels. It is how we should have proceeded from the start. I will not table any amendments on the Order Paper for Committee or Report, in the spirit of co-operation that there is in the House. I ask the noble Baroness to consider, in these circumstances, whether she should not withdraw her Motion so as not to create the precedent of a Motion being forced, because I would feel obliged to divide the House on principle against it. I thank the usual channels and those wise heads on all sides of this House who have come to this agreement. Let us get on with Second Reading and, as we have just heard, consider the Bill properly on Monday. Everybody will want to get this Bill considered with dispatch. Looking around the House, I do not see any noble Lord dissenting from that. So I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the Motion.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I think the noble Lord was trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, without my Motion we would remain unable to deal with more than one stage; we would have to use the normal intervals between them. Therefore I am afraid that we do need my amendment to the Standing Orders to do that. Therefore I wish this Motion to be put to the House.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, Back-Benchers have a right to speak as well on this matter. I have sat through every minute of today’s debate and have seen the filibustering tactics of some of the Members opposite. The Government Chief Whip said that he expects the subsequent stages of the Bill to be concluded on Monday. As he knows, they have to be concluded by a certain time. Is he giving a guarantee that they will be concluded by that time? Otherwise, we will be double-crossed again.