Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (Programme No. 2)

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

rose—

[Mr Browne]

I will give way in a moment. I do not want to get too far off the beaten track, but I think that under the previous Government and under this one there has been a presumption that scheduling business—with a few provisions made for financial legislation, for example—is a sensible way to conduct our deliberations in this House. This is not a debate about whether the procedures of the House have changed; it is about the programme motion for this Bill.

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[Mr Llwyd]

I just wish to make the point that there is no unanimity across the House that every piece of legislation should be programmed. I was a Member in the early ’90s, before the hon. Gentleman was elected to this House, and under the Conservative Government of that time programming was used rarely indeed and things seemed to work out all right.

[Mr Browne]

I was not wishing to get off the beaten track, and I did not say that there was unanimity in the House. There may be Members who want to debate the motions and business before the House until 5 or 6 o’clock every morning, and they are perfectly entitled to take that view. All I am saying is that we have come to a reasonably settled collective agreement that some sort of timetabling of legislation gives clarity. The balance we are trying to obtain is between ensuring that clarity and providing sufficient scope for all the different points of view to be aired. That is why, as I say, we are making generous provision in this programme motion for this stage of the deliberations on this Bill. I am sure that the wider points that have been made have been heard by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and, indeed, by the shadow Leader of the House. They no doubt spend a lot of time deliberating these matters and can now spend more time considering the issues raised this afternoon.

I have an important and specific extra announcement to make, which relates to the Leader of the Opposition’s amendment. The Government will also introduce a supplementary programme motion if the cross-party talks have concluded—either with or without agreement—to allow debate of Leveson-related amendments on the second day of business on this Bill. On that basis, both coalition parties will support the programme motion, having had the assurances that I have just delivered at the Dispatch Box, and will support the supplementary motion. I hope that we will now get on and debate the many important issues addressed in this Bill and in the amendments already tabled by right hon. and hon. Members.

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[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The debate is quite important, because we all know the importance of getting the post-Leveson scene right. Mention has been made of the cost, the time involved, and the great care that Lord Justice Leveson took over the inquiry. We, as a minority party, were never part of the all-party talks, although the official Opposition have kept us in the loop, to their credit. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) said, we should be kept in the loop, which would be perfectly fine.

On the programme motion, of course, we are not part of the foul waters of the usual channels.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Foul waters indeed.

[Mr Llwyd]

The foulest in Europe, apparently—and that is why we are not part of them, probably.

On a serious point, even with the amended timetable we are still pretty well limited in terms of discussing Leveson, and we know that there are many opinions within the House on the Front, Back and middle Benches, on what we should do next. One thing is certain: the people out there demand that we get this right and, if we do this in this piecemeal, last-minute, eleventh-hour way, it will be an ignominious start to any proceedings on getting Leveson right.

I echo what was said by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and I agree with many things that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said. We do need to have sufficient time to debate this issue. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said that we could dispense with programming if we want to be in the Chamber until 5 am or 6 am on every Bill. That is patently nonsense, because in the 1992 Parliament that happened occasionally when the Maastricht treaty was debated, but not all the time. There are some Bills that require greater debate and scrutiny, but the flexibility to provide that is missing from all of this. That is extremely unfortunate because, with the best will in the world—with the benign Government we have now and any Government who may follow—the Executive are riding roughshod over us. This is not what Parliament is meant to be.