Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

It is not right to be in this position for three reasons. First, in a parliamentary democracy with one elected House, is it right that Government legislative proposals on any Bill, let alone a constitutional Bill, should proceed all the way through Parliament without being scrutinised and debated by Parliament, or that they should be put to the vote en bloc as Government amendments? That is not appropriate in the single elected House or in a parliamentary democracy. That is not something of which anyone in the House should be proud—it is a complete failure by the House and Members regarding their ability to do their fundamental job, which is to hold the Executive to account and scrutinise legislation. Secondly, we always have arguments about the time for debate proposed in programme motions, and we wonder why we are in this position. We are in this position for several reasons, but the main one is that the Government decide what we debate. We are therefore in a bizarre position whereby the Government decide, as they have with this Bill, which bits of their programme the elected House gets to debate and vote on. That is not a parliamentary democracy; that is the Executive pushing legislation through the only elected House. It is not a surprise therefore that the unelected House feels that it has to do considerable work. That is not satisfactory, either, but despite all its flaws it is better than nothing. Surely a better way forward, especially on such Bills as the one before us, would be much more consultation on the time that is needed and the use of time elsewhere in the week, when business collapses early. The Library and the Clerks have identified huge chunks of days on which business collapses early, and that time would be available to extend our debates on Report. In addition, the Lord Chancellor should understand, in respect of his answer to me, that there is a proposal from the Wright Committee for speech-length restrictions on Report. We could get through the business that is before us much more quickly without the need for knives, or at least by having knives for any proposal that was multi-consenting, as it were, without the need for them late in proceedings in order to get through the Bill. There is a holistic solution, and it could be made available if we reform, but even if we do not reform there are ways in which we can improve such matters. It is extremely sad that critical matters of parliamentary reform and matters relating to referendums and to discrimination against Catholics and women in our constitution, to which I referred earlier, will not even be debated—especially when they are the subject of Government amendments, which will be voted through. This is probably the 12th time that I have made such points on Report, and the House should not have to suffer that. The solution is in our hands not just today, but on Thursday, and I hope that we take it. I hope also that on Thursday, as a consequence of hearing such complaints so often, the Lord Chancellor will find himself in the right Lobby when it comes to a full-time permanent cure that involves not a complete shortage of time but more consensual undertakings and the reform of our procedures to ensure that we do our key job properly.