Coroners and Justice Bill

I have an obvious interest in the programme motion because I have new clauses in one of the later groups to deal with freedom of speech—a matter that should be of interest to all Members. I am also a sponsor of the new clause dealing with assisted suicide. I think it is fair to say that I raised my concerns with the Government before I saw the groupings. I put some questions to the Leader of the House just last Thursday. I said:""Mr. Speaker, you will be selecting the amendments"" for the Coroners and Justice Bill""and, as there are so many parts to the Bill, they will inevitably fall into at least eight substantive groups."" Well, there are 14. I continued:""We are grateful to the Leader of the House for providing two days' debate"—" which was not the case in respect of the Criminal Justice Act 2008 when, as with so many others, we had just one day—""but does she recognise that the ability of the House to scrutinise the legislation will be measured"—" by our constituents and the media—""in part, by whether we have time to debate all those groups?"" I then asked her a simple question:""Will she take steps to ensure that there is adequate consultation between the parties so that those two days are used effectively to scrutinise all the parts of this important piece of legislation?"—[Official Report, 19 March 2009; Vol. 489, c. 1065-66.]" As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) said, there is not enough time to do more than we are doing because of the mismatch between the two days. He was available all last week to debate such matters, and the same applies to those on the Conservative Front Bench. When the Prime Minister was first selected as the new Prime Minister, he said it was his priority to ensure that the House improved the scrutiny that it delivered. At the time, I asked him whether that would include scrutiny of all legislation—particularly criminal justice legislation—by the elected House. I asked whether he agreed that it was unacceptable for huge tranches of legislation to go through the House, and sometimes even Committee, unscrutinised. As the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said, this is the only chance that those of us who are not on Public Bill Committees have. Surely the Government accept that the House is not doing its job of scrutiny unless it can debate all groups of amendments. There is an option other than a third day: consulting on the programme motion. I have been told by those who know more about the matter that whichever Committee of the House suggested programme motions never intended them simply to be imposed and to have the consequences, by design or accident, that we see today. They were always intended to be a vehicle for the House to arrange its business so that we could debate such matters. Does the Minister recognise that it must be sensible to negotiate the programme motion so that we do not have such a half-hour debate, Divisions and unpleasantness? I am assured that there was no negotiation—