Terrorism Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

I do not wish to be churlish, and I congratulate the Home Secretary on producing a programme motion that is an improvement on the previous position. I certainly will not vote against it, and I am happy to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having listened to the complaints that we made before the general election about the time allocated to a similar Bill. He has tried to respond according to the standards of today’s practice, and the House is in his debt to that extent. It is, in fact, the standards of today’s practice on which I wish, briefly, to comment. As well as trying to avoid being churlish in the House—I hope—I try to avoid overdoing the ““senior Member of the House”” bit, and lamenting the fact that things are not what they were. But things are dramatically different from what they were, and I cannot hold my tongue on this occasion. I believe that if such a controversial Bill involving such changes in individual liberty had been produced 10 years ago by a Conservative Government with such a timetable, there would have been a major row. Twenty years ago, such an allocation of time for a Bill of this kind would have been regarded as laughable, and it would not have been entertained by the usual channels during the Thatcher Government. Thirty years ago, if a Conservative Government had proposed a Bill of this kind, several days of debate would have been allowed before any guillotine curtailing debate would have even been contemplated. Had anyone tried to force through a guillotine of this severity, I should have expected the sitting to be suspended as Labour Members caused disorder and began to run away with the Mace, or something of the kind, to give visual expression to their constitutional outrage. There is a serious point behind all this. I think that the House is becoming accustomed to a shortness of debate and a lack of scrutiny of legislation that is on the verge of becoming ridiculous, given the complexity of this Bill. I see no reason whatever why the House should have to rise shortly after 7 pm today and at a similar time tomorrow. The suspension of the rule to allow us at least to sit on through the evening until such time as the Government’s business managers decide to try to call a vote to end the debate would constitute a very elementary extension of debating time, which would cause merely minor inconvenience to a few Members and no real affront to the House. I also agree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) that the present situation underlines the case for not tampering with the powers of the House of Lords. I strongly believe that the House of Lords should be reformed; it lacks legitimacy and we need a much stronger Upper House. But if this House is to continue to deal with matters of this importance in such a cursory fashion, it becomes all the more important that the whole Bill be properly scrutinised, and that the Lords force us to look again at, and to discuss in more detail, some of the other very serious aspects of this Bill.