Private Members’ Bills

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There is much to commend the current ballot system, but it is incumbent on the Committee to put a series of proposals before the House so that it can come to its own view, because the House is populated by extremely wise people who have a lot of knowledge and wisdom to impart in this area. It will be for the House to reflect on what it wishes to do.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I have been able to read the Procedure Committee’s report since it was issued this morning, and I greatly welcome it. Were it to be implemented, it would result in a sea change in the attitude of Members on both sides of the House to private Members’ legislation, and their behaviour would change as a consequence. However, achieving such a change in behaviour is not so much about the method of selecting the Bills in the first place as about providing, through timetabling, a process by which decisions can be made. At the moment, any Bill that is even remotely contentious ends up being kicked into touch as a result of the activities of the Whips. This creates a dishonesty that verges on farce, and leads to institutional disingenuity by those in the Whips Office—of all persuasions—and therefore by Government Departments. I also very much welcome the Committee’s proposal for the Government to have to state their attitude to a Bill on First Reading. The Leader of the House suggested in his evidence to the Committee that the Government spent a great deal of time forming a view of such Bills. If that is the case, things have obviously changed since 2010. Also, we must be able to come to conclusions on Bills, whether on a Friday or on any other day.

[Mr Walker]

The right hon. Gentleman has made some useful observations. In preparation for this afternoon’s debate, I wrote a very long, tedious and laborious speech, but I do not think that I shall have time to make it. Instead, I shall demonstrate the clear thinking of the moderately informed by answering each of the points that he has just raised.

First, in my view and the view of most members of the Committee, timetabling is an outstanding idea. We have come up with a number of suggestions to facilitate its introduction, in which either some or all of the private Members’ Bills drawn in the ballot would be timetabled. They would get a vote at the end of the Second Reading debate, and there would be a facility on Report to table a timetable motion that could be debated for 45 minutes and voted on if the House so wished.

The House really needs to give serious consideration to our suggestions on timetabling. It is incumbent on every colleague here to ensure that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and others spend more time with their constituents on Fridays. As much as I enjoy listening to my hon. Friend on Fridays, I believe that on occasions his time on those days could be better spent in his constituency, where he would be welcomed with open arms. I know that you will be concerned about my mentioning my hon. Friend in this way, Mr Speaker, but I spoke to him in the Tea Room this morning and he told me, in his rounded Yorkshire vowels, that he thought the report was a load of rubbish and “cobblers”. However, we need to ensure that colleagues have an incentive to turn up on Fridays, whether they are for or against a particular Bill, and that they at least have a chance to make their views heard. If a Bill has a timetable motion, one can then impose time limits on speeches.