Business Rate Supplements Bill

I share the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). There is also a general point to be made here. How much longer will the Government go on with this absurd process of guillotining and timetabling every Bill? Under previous Governments of both parties, most Bills went through this House without any guillotine whatever. They went through in the time that the House felt they needed. Sometimes we needed less time than the Government might have thought, and sometimes we needed more. Governments of both parties accommodated the wish and will of the House on the ground that this is the democratic Chamber, and the place in which we ought to be able to talk sensibly about a Bill for as long as it takes to deal with any problems. This is a particularly nasty and spiteful little Bill. It will impose up to £600 million of taxation on business at a time when business is running out of money and when the grotesque mismanagement of the money supply and the banking system in this country by the Government and their regulators has left business in a very weak position. Now we see them back for third helpings wanting up to £600 million more out of businesses' coffers at a time when they are having to worry about how they pay the gas bill or the staff wages, or keep in business at all. I do not know for how long the House would like to discuss the Bill, but I do not understand why the Government cannot let us discuss it for as long as we think it should take. They may get a pleasant surprise; some of its stages may take less time than they have laid down in their motion. However, surely the least that they could do in the circumstances would be to give us the freedom to express ourselves and to have the debate that we want. This is a revenue-raising Bill. This great House of Commons built its democratic strength on being able to challenge how much money was raised and how it was spent. It is doing a dreadful job of that at the moment. Huge sums of money go through without our having the opportunity to discuss and challenge them in the normal way, as we saw with this week's £20 billion supplementary estimate, which was not even down on the Order Paper for debate and went through on the nod. This £600 million should not go through on the Government's timetable but according to the will of the House. I urge the Minister, at this late stage, to do the decent thing by withdrawing the guillotine motion and letting us discuss this properly. If it takes longer than until 7 o'clock tonight, what is the problem? We are paid to do our job. I am happy to stay here a bit later if there are lots of colleagues with sensible points to make, so why will not the Government? Why will not they do the decent thing?