Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

If Secretary of State is not embarrassed, as he now suggests, he has gone down in my estimation.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said that all these matters have been extensively debated, but it is one thing to debate a matter in its general application and principles but quite a different matter to look at the wording on the page when it actually comes to legislation.

As I understand the rules of this House, given that we have not yet carried the motion before us, no amendments to which the Government have referred can possibly yet have been tabled. So, they will be tabled tonight and appear on the Order Paper tomorrow, and consequently we will not be able to table amendments to those amendments until after that. I can see the Clerk saying “No, no, no”, so perhaps I have got that completely wrong—[Interruption.] He is nodding now, so I hope that hon. Members will feel free to ignore the last part of my speech and remember everything I said at the beginning of it, and that they will oppose this ludicrous process.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that that is what many colleagues will have done.