Business of the House

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (IGC)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I can see that the hon. Gentleman wishes to contribute to the exchanges on this matter. He does not have to do a salute.

[Mr Leslie]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was clearing my throat at that particular moment. I am grateful to have caught your eye.

This may look like an innocuous motion from the Government, essentially suggesting that hon. Members, prior to Second Reading, should be allowed to table amendments for the Committee stage, but these are highly unusual circumstances and this motion relates to probably one of the most momentous pieces of legislation that has happened certainly in the last 50 years. It is of course preferable to give hon. Members as much time as possible to table amendments for the Committee stage and potentially for the Report stage, although there is normally an intervening period between the Committee stage and the Report stage.

For the benefit of the House, I want to highlight that, as far as I know, the programme motion for this Bill has not yet been published, although I have heard some quite frightening rumours about what the programme motion is likely to look like. One suggestion I have heard—I invite the Leader of the House to disabuse me of this—is that, as well as seeking Second Reading tomorrow, the Government also intend to commence the Committee stage and have a number of hours in Committee tomorrow.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I very gently interrupt the hon. Gentleman to say that that information was divulged, and therefore this prospect was foreshadowed, in the business statement that the Leader of the House delivered earlier, so it is not something on which we need to dilate further.

[Mr Leslie]

I am very grateful, Mr Speaker. I may not have been in the Chamber at that moment in time, but I am still quite shocked at the idea of having the Second Reading take place and then moving straight on to the Committee stage on Tuesday—tomorrow. The reason this is relevant to this motion today is that the House is expecting Members to frame and draft amendments to a Bill that we have not yet had the opportunity to see. It has just this preceding moment received its First Reading. The time is now 7.41 pm, and we are expected to table amendments for a Committee stage that will take place tomorrow—I think on clauses 1 to 4 of the proposed Bill.

While this motion is, I think, absolutely the minimum required, it is worth reflecting on the appalling notion that this Bill is going to be rammed through in this way and in this particular fashion. I say this for a very good reason. Many hon. Members will remember—the Leader of the House is too young, possibly, to remember many of these things—that the practice when considering legislation that amends aspects of European treaties has quite a long pedigree. The House of Commons Library has rather helpfully produced a briefing paper about the parliamentary process of Bills in respect of EU treaties. We know that the Commons Committee stage on the treaty of Rome was not three days or two days, but 22 days; for the Maastricht treaty, 23 days; for the treaty of Lisbon, 11 days; for the treaty of Amsterdam, five days; for the Single European Act, four days; and for the smallest of them all, the treaty of Nice, three days. In total, there were five days of Commons consideration for the treaty of Nice reform.

This is an unprecedentedly short period of time to dedicate to a massive and momentous piece of legislation. Personally, I am very worried that the motion we are now debating is the first in a series of attempts by the Government to presage what is essentially the ramming through of a piece of legislation in what I regard as a disorderly way. Order in this place is a matter for you, Mr Speaker, but from my perspective, in terms of good law making, this has all the hallmarks of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and all those other bad pieces of legislation. We know that legislation that has not had a chance to be properly scrutinised tends to end up with ill effects or unforeseen consequences for our constituents.

At a quarter to eight in the evening, what are hon. Members really supposed to do? Presumably, by now, the Bill has been published and is hot off the press and available for us to scurry to the Vote Office and look at. Perhaps the Leader of the House—I have not had the opportunity to see it—can tell me how many pages there are in that legislation. He is asking in this motion for us to go and write amendments to that piece of legislation and table those this evening for them to be in order for a Committee stage that is taking place tomorrow. I do not know whether the Leader of the House can say on how many occasions a Bill of such magnitude and importance has had a Second Reading and Committee stage on the same day. Perhaps he can give me some examples, but I do not see that that was the case in any preceding piece of European Union legislation going back to the early 1970s, before I was even born. I am really worried about this motion being the first of many such motions. I think it is necessary as an absolute minimum, but everybody needs to be alert to the fact that it is not just an unfair way to treat the House of Commons, but quite a dangerous approach to take.