Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty)

I was tempted to ask the hon. Gentleman to give way. Of course there has been a steady erosion in Parliament’s role—I made that point—but the current Government are the ones who brought in automatic timetabling. The hon. Gentleman referred to last Monday’s debate and I agree that, from the point of view of oratory, it was a debate of quality, but Members’ speeches were restricted to eight minutes, and I do not believe that it is consistent with the best form of Parliamentary democracy to have tight limits on speeches. It was also, in all, only a five-hour debate on issues of such importance, because there were two statements. When we debated whether we should join the Common Market, we discussed the matter for a week, day after day after day. Last week, we should at the very least have had a two-day debate—and I completely agree with the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) that we should have two days for this Bill’s Third Reading debate. Members are parties to an emasculation of our own powers. I do not refer to the Modernisation Committee when I am chatting with friends; to me, it is the ““Emasculation Committee””, because it has taken away powers from this Chamber in so many particulars. I believe that the automatic timetabling of debate is the worst thing that has happened to Parliament in the past decade.