Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Tenth sitting)

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Lord Commissioner of His Majesty’s Treasury (Taiwo Owatemi)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd. To let the Committee know, last week I gave the Opposition a week’s notice, and I shared it again this morning. It should have been shared.

[Gregory Stafford]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd. Generally, such things are agreed between the Whips, but it was not agreed on our side. I put back a counterproposal that I thought was reasonable, and no response was received from the Government Whip.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd. I made it very clear that I was not going to accept that proposal, and I explained last week why not. Again, I outlined the Government proposal. The counteroffer did not meet halfway; in essence, it stuck to the Opposition proposals. At the end of the day, I decided that we had a clear target of what we are trying to achieve, and we wanted to give Members reasonable time to discuss the Bill.

[Dr Johnson]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd. I am confused about what the Opposition wish to achieve—[Interruption.] Sorry, the Government. It was the Government’s programme motion, which the Government produced and in which the Government suggested that we had a certain number of days and sittings. The Government had the numbers to decide how many sittings were allocated. Having allocated all those sittings, why have the Government suddenly decided that they want to complete the Bill in Committee three days early?

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd. We want the Committee to be able to discuss the new clauses. We are not finishing today; we are just trying to get to the new clauses, which will still need to be debated.

[Dr Johnson]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd. Will the Chair clarify how many new clauses there are, and how many of the new clauses have already been debated?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Johnson]

On a point of order, Mr Dowd. To clarify, there are 10 new clauses and we have already debated: new clause 1, when we were debating clause 91 earlier today; new clause 3, which we debated with clause 1; and new clause 10, which we debated with clause 10. That means that the Government have made a decision —I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that they will need to do seven new clauses over a period of three days, and all the remaining 50 clauses this evening. I am not sure that that is a reasonable expectation of civil service and House staff.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Further to that point of order, Mr Dowd—

[The Chair]

Order. I will call the Government Whip, but then I am going to leave it at that, because it is not for the Chair to go outside the usual channels.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

Given the fact that we spent hours debating just one clause, the Government cannot be certain that we will finish on time, because of the pace at which Opposition are going. To ensure that we finish on time, we are doing our best to ensure that Members of this House have the time needed to debate the Bill, hence why we decided that we should get to the new clauses.

[The Chair]

I will just leave it at that. I repeat, I wanted people to be aware of that, for clarity about their timings, understanding, domestic commitments and all the rest of it. The issue of discussions through the usual channels is a matter for those discussions through the usual channels; it is not a matter for me.

Clause 96

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