I beg to move,"That the Order of 20 October 2009 in the last Session of Parliament (Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows:""1. Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Order shall be omitted.""2. Proceedings on consideration shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table.""3. The proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table."
TABLE
| Proceedings |
Time for conclusion of proceedings |
| New Clauses and new Schedules relating to public records or freedom of information. |
One and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on consideration. |
| New Clauses, new Schedules and amendments relating to Part 4. |
Two and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on consideration or 9.00 pm, whichever is the earlier |
| New Clauses, new Schedules and amendments relating to Part 7; remaining new Clauses, new Schedules and amendments; remaining proceedings on consideration. |
9.00 pm. |
"4. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 10.00 pm."
This programme motion is intended to ensure that there is sufficient time to debate the Government amendments on Dacre and Kelly as well as part 7, which concerns protests in the vicinity of the Palace of Westminster.
As colleagues will readily recall, the Bill has been before the House since July of last year, when it had its Second Reading. It was preceded by a draft Bill and 18 consultations and publications. The Bill and the draft Bill have been scrutinised by several Select Committees, including the Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, the Public Administration Committee, the Select Committee on Justice and Committees in the other place. I anticipate that there might be some suggestion made that there has not been sufficient scrutiny of this measure, but I simply remind the House that on most of the provisions—although, it is fair to say, not on the two that are new before the House today—there has been huge prior consideration. When people seek to hark back to an earlier alleged golden age—as I think that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) was about to, judging by the eye that he was giving me—it is worth recalling that in that alleged golden age there was no pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills and few Bills were published in draft. This Bill, although it has been the subject of programme motions, has also been the subject of a huge amount of prior consideration and changes have been made to the Bill in the light of that consideration.