Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty)

Given the flexibility that he has said he will apply, it would be open to the Minister to rearrange the time as my right hon. Friend has suggested. However, I would prefer the Minister to do what is set out in our amendment. He should give many days of additional debate; of course debates can take place on energy and international development, but further days would mean that other vital subjects could be properly addressed in a bit of the detail that they merit. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. The paucity of time, in the Government motion, for discussing amendments is another reason why we have framed our alternative schedule as we have. The Government’s proposal for four and a half hours of Second Reading-style debate each day on the principles of the treaty’s provisions in selected areas—but, notably, not in other areas—leaves only one and a half hours each day for the consideration of amendments in a Committee of the whole House. Whatever one’s views of the treaty or that procedure, the distribution of time—three quarters of it for general debate and only one quarter for detailed amendments, within the confines of an overall schedule much shorter than anything that the House had every right to expect and of topics chosen to minimise debate on aspects of the treaty most uncomfortable for the Government—has the overall effect of making inadequate the time available for consideration of amendments tabled by Members on both sides of the House.