Policing and Crime Bill

Absolutely, and the corollary to that is that if legislation were passed that turned out not to be great, the Government could share the blame with the House as a whole. I would certainly be willing to take my share of the blame if we had debated a matter and failed to convince the House that the legislation was bad. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) recognised, the timetable in Committee sometimes means that even when Government new clauses are tabled at that stage, there is simply not enough to time to debate them because of the end point in the programme motion. The Committee on this Bill was productive and did not drag on, and there was little excess verbiage on all sides, yet, as my hon. Friend said, still the Government brought in at the last minute two chunks of legislation in new clauses, too late for amendments to them to be tabled. This is the only chance that we have to debate those clauses, and it will be curtailed. It is treating the House with contempt—there is no other word for it—for us not to have the opportunity to debate huge chunks of the Bill. That is a particular problem with regard to the DNA proposals, which state that the House will not have the chance to debate primary legislation when the Government sort out what they want to do. We have a Government proposal that would curtail Parliament's ability to amend legislation, and it is going to be rushed through in whatever time we have at the end of this programme motion debate. The points that I have made are not just my opinion. They have been debated among a group of MPs, of which I am one of the more junior members, called Parliament First. That is an organisation that comes together to ask, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) did, "Is it not time for Parliament to reassert itself and have control of the timetable?" What else are we to debate in this Session? Is it crammed full of Bills that we need to scrutinise and have Second Reading debates on? The record will show that there are fewer Bills this Session than in practically any other. There are vanishingly few Second Readings still required, and we have had more days of general debates and Adjournment debates than ever before. I am not against those, but they do not trump scrutiny of legislation, which is our primary duty. More of those days have fizzled out, with unused time, than in any other Session that I can remember. This is not the first time that such timetabling has happened in this Session. The Coroners and Justice Bill was given two days, but the first day had so much crammed into it that the House did not get the chance to debate murder. I understand that we are debating the present programme motion, but this is not the first time that we have been presented with a programme motion that packs so much into one day that we cannot reach important debates. There have been other examples of that, which I shall not go into now. It cannot be said that the House did not urge the Government to reconsider a programme motion such as this. Going backwards in time, I raised the general problem at business questions on 26 March, in another Bill debate on 23 March, in business questions on 19 March and 5 March, in a written question to the Leader of the House on 5 March, in questions to the Leader of the House on 22 January, in business questions on 30 October, on 22 October and in business questions on 16 October. I am getting sick of me, so I am sure the Leader of the House is getting sick of me. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] I asked for that. But it is an important point—what more can we do than raise the matter at business questions and in points of order time and time again? In business questions two weeks ago, at least six Members mentioned the programming of this Bill. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), the Leader of the House said that she would undertake to""look at how much time is needed for the Bill"" In response to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher), she said, "Don't worry, there is plenty of scrutiny of these Bills." I am paraphrasing there, but that response is obviously not going to apply to this Report stage. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East made the powerful point that an extra day was needed. It would not add greatly to the Government's burden, but it would provide the House with an opportunity to explain why the Government's position on DNA, to which he referred, is wrong. I raised the same point again, asking how the Government intended to deliver the pledge that the Prime Minister gave when he was selected as Prime Minister: that Parliament would have greater scrutiny of the Executive. That pledge has not been delivered, and we are considering another example of that failure. In response to me and the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), the Leader of the House said that""there are discussions between the parties about the time allocated to Bills."—[Official Report, 7 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 351, 357.]" Last week, she said:""We will have as much discussion as we can and will try, if possible, to reach agreement on the allocation of time in the full day's debate on Report."" That was after we had to accept that we would be given only one day. Again, in response to the hon. Member for Macclesfield, the Leader of the House said:""I have said that we will have discussions to make sure that we can try to reach agreement on programming so that hon. Members are able to debate all the important parts of the Bill."—[Official Report, 14 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 1026 and 1029.]" What discussions and negotiations took place? I have investigated and, despite the Leader of the House's undertaking, to which the Speaker referred when I made a point of order last week, Government Whips held no discussions with Liberal Democrat Members. Usual channels are usual channels only if they exist. As I understand it, no discussions took place with any Back Benchers who have tabled new clauses. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has tabled several new clauses, yet there were no discussions. I ask the Government, through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, what is to stop the Government Whip on the Bill asking Liberal Democrat Members and Back Benchers generally through the usual channels where the knives should go in such a motion, thereby delivering the Leader of the House's commitment? Has the Government Whip been struck mute or is there another reason for his or the Government's decision not to implement the Leader of House's words, thus rendering them meaningless?