Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty)

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, who spoke at considerable length. We gave him plenty of rope, which he used effectively—his speech was dire. The exchanges between the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) showed how democracy in this House is intended to evolve according to new Labour. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston said that we should discuss things not ““sentence by sentence”” but ““principle by principle””. How can anyone who has the least tendency to discuss issues of legality separate sentences from principles? That is what they do in new Labour, however, which is why the Government have tabled this appalling motion. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston assumes that he knows what it is best to discuss, as do the Government, who tabled the motion. For example, he has explained that energy is an important issue, but who should decide what this House discusses? The Members of this House should decide that. The beauty of the old-fashioned, outdated and passé Committee stages of Bills is that the Clerks and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, put the amendments into a logical order, so the issues themselves have the merit of determining the nature of the discussion or the order in which the discussion takes place, rather than having the Executive do it for their own convenience. I was amused when the right hon. Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt) discussed the disillusion with which people greet debates in this House and politicians generally. It was not Conservative Members but the Government who chose to table this technical, nit-picking procedural motion. All Executives have an agenda of trying to downgrade and downplay the importance of those who are meant to hold them to account. That is the nature of office, which is why Margaret Thatcher and John Major passed guillotines, but the trend has been getting worse. On that point, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) ably and passionately pointed out the great traditions of this House, and I congratulate him on his speech. I will support the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), albeit that it is highly unsatisfactory; I was extremely relieved to hear that my entire party will vote against the whole principle behind the construction of the timetable. I am not a luddite about timetables, but they have their problems. One disadvantage is that they enfranchise people who just want to fill time, because there is limited time to fill. They also tend to curtail discussion, often at a very interesting point, which is another disadvantage. I am not opposed to timetables in principle. I was a shadow Constitutional Affairs Minister when we considered the Scotland Act 1998. I persuaded my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) to get the usual channels working, because we knew that there would be a guillotine, which is more unsatisfactory than a timetable that reflects as much consensus around the House as possible. Before my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills starts rumbling, I have full sympathy for his point that any kind of timetable is a disadvantage—we have encountered the disadvantages—but we agreed to a timetable on the Scotland Act 1998, which was an innovation. We proceeded on the basis that the great principle had already been settled in a referendum, which is not the case with the Lisbon treaty, and that we could agree where the knives would fall throughout the day in order to facilitate discussion and to move it on to a variety of topics, which is nothing like what we have here. The Maastricht debates took place under the old system, and although the Prime Minister has invited scrutiny, this programme and the arrangements for the Maastricht debates cannot be compared. The Prime Minister has failed to deliver on his assurances. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks has pointed out the utter inadequacy of the time allowed to debate justice and home affairs, which have been forced into one debate. We are not discussing a law; we are discussing how laws in this country are made. We are discussing what the founding fathers of the United States constitution took 10 years to agree, but we are being asked to do it in 12 days. My right hon. Friend referred to justice and home affairs; furthermore, defence is being truncated with foreign policy. I wish to draw attention to two relevant matters. In defence, we have a major innovation in respect of article 42 of the treaty on European Union: instead of a common security and defence policy that ““may”” include the progressing of common defence, and ““may”” lead to common defence, those words are being replaced with ““shall”” and ““will””. That is a very major innovation, and the idea that it should be truncated with other matters is extraordinary. The Government have consistently assured the House that there would be no duplication of NATO. I would like plenty of time to discuss a mutual security clause that has been inserted into the treaty on European Union under article 42:"““If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power””." We are embarking on a series of debates in which very large issues are at stake; I have just mentioned a stronger obligation than we have under the NATO treaty. Yet the discussion of that part of the Lisbon treaty is to be truncated and incorporated with a whole lot of other matters. That is, of course, entirely unacceptable. We are led to believe that the Government motion has been tabled to help the House. The Minister said that it would give an opportunity to debate all the issues. What opportunity? Perhaps the Minister will address the point when he replies to the debate. What opportunity would we not have if we did not have this form of timetabled debate? What opportunity would this form of debate give that we would not have even if we were discussing amendments rather than having thematic debates? The answer, of course, is that there is no such opportunity. The Minister gave the game away when he said that the motion was to test the Government’s policy on the EU generally. The debates are not about that: they are for testing how the treaty will be implemented into United Kingdom law. Under the Government’s motion, we will spend less time discussing that than what the Government want to discuss. As the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) pointed out, the motion will put the Minister at the Dispatch Box in prime time, at the beginning of every day of debates on the treaty, as the discussion of amendments never would. That is a coincidence, of course; I am sure that the Minister will discover that only as the debates unfold. The Minister will be allowed to speak generally on topics of his own choosing instead of having to address amendments tabled by hon. Members. The Government have clearly been driven to table the motion for presentational reasons. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) told me quietly in the Chamber that a great deal of thought must have gone into how the debate should be structured. I imagine that the spin doctors—although the Prime Minister pretends that he does not have any—had quite a say in the drafting of the motion. They would have been saying, ““Look, if we go into a Maastricht-style debate, we’ll lose control of the agenda. How can we control the news agenda?”” They will control it by having the themed debates; each day, the Government will know exactly what they can say. They will make the case that they want to make, rather than address subjects raised by amendments. The thing about amendments, unless they involve the Government clearing up their own mess in a Bill, is that the Government have to answer points made by people who are not in the Government. The beauty of the procedure that the Government have chosen is that the first three hours of every day will be spent debating subjects that they have chosen. It is the complete reversal of how a Committee stage should operate.