Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I, too, will vote against this guillotine motion if the House divides, but I plead with hon. and right hon. Members not to divide the House, because we need to get on with discussing this Bill. I commend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and the Front-Bench team for giving a reasonable amount of time to this Bill, but it is important that I should make three brief observations.

First, I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that we are all steeped in hypocrisy in the way in which we protest against guillotines and then find ourselves voting for them when we sit on the Government Benches. He did that and I dare say that I too will do so from time to time. Secondly, the approach being taken is the old way of doing things. We look forward to these arrangements being governed by a business Committee of the whole House, which reflects the interests of the whole House and will ensure that these things are discussed as a broad consensus in the House would want them discussed, rather than how those on the Treasury Bench see fit.

My third observation is that this is an important matter, because as we will discover—both those of us who have been through this process before and new Members—the disadvantage of having a knife fall in the middle of detailed discussions on a Bill of this nature is that we will discover things that may not have occurred to more than one Member in this House. Yet those arguments and discussions will be cut down in their prime.

I just hope that those on the Treasury Bench have considered the consequence of there being too many such occasions: it will whet the appetite of the other place. Time saved in this House may result in time added to scrutiny of the Bill in the other place. I urge those on the Treasury Bench seriously to keep under review the possibility of extending the time for debate on the Bill. I commend the Minister for saying that he will keep the matter under review. If he really wants to save time, the best way of saving time in the other place is for us to scrutinise the Bill properly. If we feel that our discussion has been cut short, we will encourage the other place to take whatever time is necessary.

The Electoral Commission has made it clear that unless the rules of the forthcoming referendum are settled six months before the referendum date, it will not support the referendum date of 5 May 2011. There is no possibility of the Bill completing all its stages by 5 November, so it is putting itself in a position in which it has to make a judgment on whether the clauses relating to the referendum are sufficiently settled before the Bill has completed its parliamentary stages and received Royal Assent.

I remember repeatedly saying in opposition that we should not amend the constitution in haste and should not gerrymander the constitution for the convenience of the governing party, yet I fear that the guillotine motion reflects that that is exactly what is happening. For that reason, if the House divides—I hope that it will not—I will vote against the guillotine motion.