Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for what he said. I am trying to wrap it up, but of course we must hear from Chris Bryant.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the Deputy Leader of the House is somewhat mistaken in his interpretation of what happened yesterday evening. I think there was a clear desire by many hon. Members not just to debate the particular issue of thresholds but actually to debate clause 6, which has not been debated at all in any shape or form in this House. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary is saying from a sedentary position that I was wasting time. I profoundly object to the fact that when we choose to scrutinise his legislation, he is calling into question my good faith.

The truth of the matter is that the Government did not provide enough time for the debate. In addition, the Deputy Leader of the House last night, when he suggested to me that he was bringing forward this new motion, said that it was because all the rest of the stuff that we were going to debate tomorrow was a pile of dross and did not need very much analysis. I hope that there will be a process of ensuring that the House of Lords is made fully aware of the fact that today’s programme motion makes absolutely no difference to whether or not yesterday we had any opportunity to consider the three clauses and three schedules that were before the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I certainly cannot go into all of that. Suffice it to say that I think the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made constitutes a self-fulfilling prophecy; in so far as he is concerned that the other place should be aware of his interpretation of last night’s events, he has made it aware of his interpretation by what he has just said. It is on the record and I am sure it will be studied carefully there and elsewhere.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for giving me notice of his point of order. It is not for me to rule on what has happened in Committee of the Whole House. On the wider issue he raises, it is not unprecedented—the hon. Gentleman has been a Member of the House since 1984, so he will testify to the truth of this—for a Minister to move a Back-Bench amendment, even if he or she does not wish to vote for it. As the First Deputy Chairman said last night:

“What the Government propose is orderly under Standing Order No. 83D(2)”—[Official Report, 18 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 767.],

although it is, as some hon. Members have observed—including, today, the hon. Gentleman—somewhat unusual. I am sure that hon. Members will also have noted the opportunities open to them, as has been remarked, on Report. Members present will certainly have noted what the Deputy Leader of the House has just said.

I hope that is helpful; I am not keen to take, and indeed I am keen not to take, further points of order on that matter, but I think we have a point of order from Mr. Andrew Rosindell.