Private Members’ Bills

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am disappointed by what the Government have done tonight. My starting point is to ask why they are doing this at all. Why is this something that we had to let the Government propose? It seems to me that it is a matter for the House—that the House should decide how many days it will devote to private Members’ Bills. I should have thought that a sensible discussion between the Leader of the House’s office and the Backbench Business Committee would have come up with a far more sensible procedure.

The way in which time is allocated for private Members’ Bills has serious implications for the Backbench Business Committee. Despite the best efforts of the Deputy Leader of the House, who is doing a very good job in the absence of the Leader of the House—I am disappointed that the Leader of the House is not present, given that he told us that this was such an important issue that it had to be debated tonight—we have not heard how he calculated the four extra days. We heard a superb analysis from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) of how the Government might have arrived at that figure, but that is only the best estimate of my hon. Friend. It is not actually the process employed by the Government, and it is the Government who allocate time to the Backbench Business Committee.

I should like to know whether the same process of calculation, which is so obscure and opaque that none of us knows what it is, will be applied to the allocation of Back-Bench business time. The Backbench Business Committee, and, I would hope, all Back Benchers, will be extremely concerned if, in an extended parliamentary Session that is the equivalent of two normal parliamentary years, Back-Bench time is not also equivalent to two full parliamentary years. I should welcome an intervention from the Deputy Leader of the House if he wishes to reassure me that my fears are unfounded, but I fear that we could be running into trouble.

The other thing that we have not heard from the Deputy Leader of the House is why he has chosen these particular Fridays. What is special about 9 September, 21 October, 25 November and 20 January 2012? Why have they been chosen rather than any of the other Fridays? I would have hoped the Deputy Leader could give us an explanation for that.

The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) criticised those of us who have tabled quite a large number of private Members’ Bills, and she was generous enough to mention in passing myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. She might find reassurance in the fact that none of the Bills my hon. Friend or I have tabled has reached the top of the list for discussion in this parliamentary Session. Despite our best efforts, we have not had the opportunity of parliamentary time to test our ideas in the Chamber. I do not believe we should be criticised for trying, however; we are doing our best on behalf of our constituents to put forward ideas to improve our nation, and that is entirely laudable.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I have a lot of time for the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), but I, too, was a little disappointed in her statement that Members who thought they had no serious chance of making progress with their Bill should just withdraw it.

[Helen Jones]

I did not say that.

[Mr Bacon]

The hon. Lady did say words to that effect, as the record will show. I have paraphrased, but that is essentially the meaning of what she said: that Members who thought they had no serious chance of making progress with Bills should withdraw them. I have been trying for seven years to get food labelling legislation on to the statute book. The fact that I have now had to introduce a Bill four times, and that at each stage people have said I have very little chance of succeeding, has never stopped me trying.

[Mr Hollobone]

I commend my hon. Friend for his efforts with his private Member’s Bill, and I am delighted that this coming Friday it is listed fourth on the Order Paper. I hope that by some magical intervention it might rise further up the Order Paper and we therefore get a chance to debate it, scrutinise it and vote on it so that it can make further progress in this place. I will be making a special effort to be here on Friday to hear my hon. Friend discourse on his Bill, and I know other hon. Friends will also make a special effort. I do not share the view that being here in the Chamber on a Friday is not an appropriate use of a Member of Parliament’s time. I do not know where the idea that every Friday has to be a constituency day came from. I think it is probably a new Labour invention. They tried to persuade Members of Parliament not to turn up to this place so we did not scrutinise the Government and instead let the Executive get away with quite a lot.