Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (Programme) ((No. 3)

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The point today is that the Standing Order No. 24 application related to matters that were part of the planned debate on amendments on Report in the first three hours. In any case, if the House agrees it, the programme motion will take us two hours beyond the normal moment of interruption. I accept that as a consequence of the pressure on the time for debate today, some hon. Members may be disappointed if a particular amendment that they have sponsored or signed does not receive the amount of discussion that they had hoped.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

This has nothing whatever to do with personal disappointment. These are matters of some considerable importance; otherwise, they would not be in the Bill. The fact that we wish to debate amendments or new clauses—indeed, the amendments and new clauses have been selected—suggests that they are considered to be of some importance by people other than their individual proponents.

Another point that my right hon. Friend perhaps needs to address is that the emergency debate that we have just had surely cannot have been in his mind when the timetable motion was drafted and tabled. He did not know that Mr Speaker would grant the three-hour debate, so the three hours taken out of the debate—or, as he might say, put in the debate—cannot have been in the calculation. We need to be clear about the thinking behind the timetable motion.

[Mr Lansley]

I am quite clear about the thinking behind the timetable motion. We wanted to make sure that there was sufficient time to debate Leveson-related issues. Also, it will also not have escaped my hon. and learned Friend’s notice—it did not escape the notice of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who is no longer in his place—that we did not anticipate necessarily that the debate would start at 3.30 pm, not least because I anticipated that the Prime Minister would make a statement on the European Council. Thus, when we consider the overall time available, we find that we are not very far from where we anticipated we would be. My right hon. Friends and I understand that if we cannot have a full debate on all the issues to which the later groups of amendments relates, there will no doubt be future opportunities for us to do so.

Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and other right hon. and hon. Members. Its effect would be to restrict today’s debate to the clauses relating to press conduct and provide an additional third day for consideration on Report, with Third Reading to be scheduled for a future date. I will not trouble the House with questions of how we could fit further days into the diminishing time remaining before the Session concludes, but I would like to make it clear that, as Leader of the House, I have sought with colleagues to provide at least two days on Report for important Bills where necessary and possible. My right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, my predecessor as Leader of the House, and I have done that for 14 Bills in this Parliament, which stands in stark contrast to the previous Administration’s record. Indeed, today’s consideration is in addition to what was originally set out in the programme motion the House agreed on Second Reading. It is wholly exceptional to move to three days on Report; that has been given to only two Bills in this Parliament, and only three between 2001-02 and 2009-10.

I reiterate that if we crack on we will have four and a half hours available for further consideration of the Bill on Report and on Third Reading. Given the widespread interest in the issues before us, I hope that the House will agree to the programme motion quickly so that we can proceed with the substantive business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

It is always great to be a legend in one’s own—whatever the saying is.

The Government’s response to the amendment is unwise and intolerable.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I will keep taking the tablets, Sir Edward.