I recognise the seriousness of the activities covered by the Bill and I understand why the Home Secretary considers it intolerable for us to not address this matter when the House returns from the summer recess in September. However, in considering the timetable motion, we have to consider the other options available to the Government. I hope the Minister will be able to address why he has ruled those options out.
Perhaps the most straightforward way to do that is to consider what would have happened if the Cabinet had not reached agreement on this matter at its emergency
meeting on Thursday last week. In that scenario, would the Home Secretary be fuming at not being able to pass the Bill until autumn, or would she have found other means to take the action she considers necessary? Would we be looking at the business of the House for next Monday?
Colleagues will be well aware that we have the traditional end of term debate next Tuesday. I am sure Members covet their speeches in that debate, but they might recognise that for matters of national security and proposed legislation that the Government consider to be an emergency, it might be appropriate to move Tuesday’s business so that we could have more time to debate the Bill. Indeed, colleagues might even consider the necessity of the House rising on Tuesday, when we need to consider the Bill.
If there was no agreement in the Cabinet last Thursday, I am absolutely certain that the Home Secretary would not have waited until September to pursue the Bill. I am sure that other decisions would have been taken to enable us to consider it next week. If it were the will of the House to have the time to scrutinise the Bill properly, then such changes could still be made. That is why the timetable motion is unnecessarily restrictive, not just in the amount of time that Members have to debate these matters, but in terms of the timetable of the various windows of opportunity for proposing alternatives to the Bill.
I hope that in responding to the debate the Minister will tell us why it is not acceptable to give Members next week to consider House of Lords amendments. Forcing them to be considered on Thursday, when they will have been made only on Wednesday, creates an even tighter window for this House. I am not advocating that we should wait until the autumn, but I believe that Ministers should think again about curtailing debate and forcing it to take place on today only, with consideration of Lords amendments on Thursday.
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