RENT (AGRICULTURE) BILL AND EDUCATION BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME)

HC Deb 20 July 1976 vol 915 cc1685-757

10.59 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Frederick Mulley)

I beg to move, That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining proceedings on the Bills:—

Report and Third Reading

1.—(1) The Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading of the Rent (Agriculture) Bill shall be completed in one allotted day, and—

1. (a) the Proceedings on Consideration shall be brought to a conclusion at half-past Ten o'clock, and
2. (b) the proceedings on Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion at Midnight.

(2) The Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading of the Education Bill shall be completed in one allotted day, and—

1. (a) the Proceedings on Consideration shall be brought to a conclusion at half-past Ten o'clock, and
2. (b) the Proceedings on Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion at Midnight.

(3) Standing Order No. 43 (Business Committees) shall not apply to this Order.

Dilatory Motions

2. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, Proceedings on either Bill shall be made on an allotted day except by a Member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

Extra time on allotted days

3.—(1) On an allotted day for either Bill paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings on that Bill for two hours after Ten o'clock.

(2) Any period during which Proceedings on either Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) shall be in addition to the period under this paragraph.

(3) If an allotted day for either Bill is one to which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over from an earlier day, a period of time equal to the duration of the Proceedings upon that Motion shall be added to the period during which Proceedings on that Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under this paragraph, and the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings on that Bill which, under this Order are to be brought to a conclusion on that day shall also be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on the Motion.

Private Business

4. Any private business which has been set down for consideration at Seven o'clock on an allotted day for either Bill shall, instead of being considered as provided by the Standing Orders, be considered at the conclusion of the Proceedings on that Bill on that day, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the Proceedings on that Bill, or, if those Proceedings are concluded before Ten o'clock, for a period equal to the time elapsing between Seven o'clock and the Completion of those Proceedings.

Conclusion of Proceedings

5.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order and which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall forthwith proceed to put the following Questions (but no others), that is to say—

1. (a) the Question or Questions already proposed from the Chair, or necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill):
2. (b) the Question on any amendment or Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of any Member, if that amendment or Motion is moved by a Member of the Government:
3. (c) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded; and on a Motion so moved for a new Clause or a new Schedule, Mr. Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

(3) If, at Seven o'clock on an allotted day for either Bill, any Proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time have not been concluded, any Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) which, apart from this Order, would stand over to that time shall stand over until those Proceedings have been concluded.

(4) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over to Seven o'clock on an allotted day for either Bill, or to any later time under sub-paragraph (3) above, the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion on that day at any hour falling after the beginning of the Proceedings on that Motion shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.

Supplemental orders

6.—(1) The Proceedings on any Motion moved in the House by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and the last foregoing paragraph shall apply as it applies to Proceedings on one of the Bills on an allotted day for that Bill.

(2) If on an allotted day on which any Proceedings on either Bill are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before that time no notice shall be required of a Motion moved at the next sitting by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

Saving

7. Nothing in this Order shall—

1. (a) prevent any Proceedings to which the Order applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order, or
2. (b) prevent any business (whether on one of the Bills or not) from being proceeded with on any day after the completion of all such Proceedings on either Bill as are to be taken on that day.

Re-committal

8.—(1) References in this Order to Proceedings on Consideration or Proceedings on Third Reading include references to Proceedings, at those stages respectively, for, on or in consequence of re-committal.

(2) On an allotted day for either Bill, no debate shall be permitted on any Motion to re-commit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any amendment moved to the Question.

Interpretation

9. In this Order— 'allotted day' in relation to either Bill means any day (other than a Friday) on which that Bill is put down as the first Government Order of the day provided that in each case a Motion for allotting time to the Proceedings on the Bill to be taken on that day has been agreed on a previous day, 'the Bills' means the Rent (Agriculture) Bill and the Education Bill.

These two Bills are long-overdue measures. One seeks to promote housing equality and the other seeks to promote greater opportunity in education.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who will reply, will deal at greater length with the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, on which he is uniquely qualified to speak. He has also been a practitioner in education for many years. Before taking his present office, he had a distinguished and greatly respected period of office as Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science.

The Rent (Agriculture) Bill received a Second Reading in this House by a substantial majority of 40. It had 12 sittings in Committee, and this stage in the parliamentary Session having been reached, it is necessary for the Bill to have a timetable if it is to conclude its remaining stages in time for completion and enactment in the present Session.

The Education Bill is more controversial than the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, and it has been subjected to a lengthy and strenuously contested passage. The House will recall that it received its Second Reading on 4th February by a majority of 41, but there had been a previous debate on the subject matter of the Bill—namely, in the debate on the Address—well before the Bill was prepared and printed. Indeed, on 24th November last year an amendment to the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech was rejected by a majority of 44. I must point out that before the Bill was prepared I went in for open consultation. I invited people to contribute comments and issued a Press statement setting out in general terms what I had in mind. I was criticised for doing so, but one gets used to that.

At the conclusion of the debate on 24th November, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) said: We shall oppose the Bill within the House by every parliamentary means."—[Official Report, 24th November 1975; Vol. 901, c. 509.] That was said even before the Bill was presented.

I understand that the Committee—I was not privileged to be a member of it—occupied 35 sittings lasting 86 hours for a Bill of only 10 clauses. I gather that discussion of Clause 1 alone occupied 15 sittings.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Beaconsfield)

Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that we should oppose the Bill by extra-parliamentary means? Is he saying that, because he may have asked people to make representations to him beforehand, we now need only a very short Report stage?

Mr. Mulley

I have not reached the Report stage. I am still dealing with the Committee stage. I was making the point that, when a number of Opposition Members give advance notice even before a Bill is printed that they intend strenuously to oppose it, they should not be surprised when the Government use the same Standing Orders and procedures to ensure the passage of the Bill.

It may be of interest to the House to know, for the purposes of comparison, that the time devoted to the Bill was more than was devoted to the whole of the Education Act 1944. That Act was 10 times the size of this Education Bill and its Committee stage was concluded in 14 sittings on the Floor of the House.

I regretted not having been present during the Committee—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why were you not there?"] I did not appear because I understand that one cannot participate in Committee proceedings if one is not a member of the Committee. I had other engagements on Tuesday and Thursday mornings which I found it necessary to attend. I would have been criticised if I had been a member of the Committee but was not present. It is well known that Cabinet meetings are held and must take priority over Committees.

Over and above that, I had two extremely competent Ministers who conducted the proceedings, and I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

Order. I am sorry to inform hon. Members that I am unable to hear what is being said. I know that hon. Members are anxious to see that the debate is relevant, and it must be kept in order.

Mr. Mulley

I was congratulating my hon. Friends on their conduct of the Government's case in Committee and myself on being fortunate in having so excellent a Minister of State and an Under-Secretary. That was recognised by both sides of the Committee.

It was a long and entertaining Committee stage. I am told by admirers of the hon. Member for Chelmsford that nothing similar in terms of entertainment had been known in the Palace of West- minster since strolling players were last heard in Westminster Hall. Many ripples of mirth were heard in the corridors, partly because the hon. Member relapsed into his native Latin and partly because classical allusions were flying like shuttlecocks from one side of the Committee to the other. Generally speaking, an enlightening and entertaining time was had by all. The only problem was the length of time it took: 86 hours.

In the normal course of events, the Bill was brought back to the Floor of the House for consideration. We have already had three days occupying 23½ hours on that stage. When we began, there were over 100 new clauses and over 150 amendments on the Notice Paper. I should make clear, because it is not unimportant, that there is not one Government new clause or amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) has two drafting amendments to a new clause which the Committee accepted against the advice of the Government and which I am content to allow to remain in the Bill. Except for that and a new clause and an amendment, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) had a half share and which led to a valuable debate on disablement, all the new clauses and amendments were tabled by Opposition Members.

Since 32 groups of new clauses and amendments were selected by the Chair, and experience is that they would be debated for two and a half to three hours each, the complete Bill would have taken, with normal procedure, a very long time indeed.

One did one's best to accommodate the wishes of the Opposition, but their attitude was illustrated by their attitude towards the 10 o'clock rule. On the first day that rule was suspended, as is normally the case with a Bill of this sort. On the second day the Opposition opposed suspension of the 10 o'clock rule, indicating that they thought it was time to rise, but at 1.15 a.m., when I proposed the adjournment of the debate, they opposed that because they wanted to continue to speak. It was a little difficult to understand their tactics.

Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas (Chelmsford)rose—

Mr. Mulley

I should like to complete this part of my speech before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

On the third day, having on the day before, because the days were consecutive, incurred the Opposition's displeasure as they opposed the 10 o'clock suspension, I encountered complaints when I did not move a similar motion. I found it difficult to know what the Opposition wanted.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

Since the tactics of the Opposition seem to have escaped the right hon. Gentleman, I should point out that we voted against the suspension to indicate that we should have preferred to have the discussion at a reasonable hour in the morning. [Interruption.] But we were denied that. We should have preferred to have the discussion at night rather than, as it turns out, have no discussion at all. Those two actions were reconcilable.

While I am on my feet, I should like to point out that the right hon. Gentleman has just paid a tribute to his former Under-Secretary of State. What a pity it is that she cannot reciprocate, having resigned because she could not stand the right hon. Gentleman's policies.

Mr. Mulley

I had two very good Under-Secretaries of State. It was a great regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) decided to resign. But I assure the hon. Gentleman that it was not because of any differences of view about the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] My hon. Friend, to my knowledge, has not had the slightest doubt about the wisdom of the Bill and what we are seeking to do in it. My great sorrow at losing my hon. Friend was compensated by the great talent of my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Miss Jackson).

I repeat that the Opposition, as they were entitled to do, gave notice on 24th November that they intended to oppose the Bill by every parliamentary means available to them. I think that the Bill came within the definition given by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) in the previous debate—that Bills should be introduced before the end of February. This Bill was introduced in January and had its Second Reading on 4th February.

I think that minority rights have been amply safeguarded, but I must remind the House that the majority also have rights. We have the right to get our legislation through. As I said earlier, if the Opposition are entitled to use the procedures and Standing Orders of this House to hold up business, we are entitled to use them to get the business through.

11.13 p.m.

Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas (Chelmsford)

Rarely can a bad case have been so feebly put as it has been put this evening by the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Indeed, as one heard him speak on education, one thought that he might have been wiser to stick to agriculture.

I intend to confine my remarks to education. I shall leave the argument against the Rent (Agriculture) Bill portion of this extraordinary double to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) and others of my hon. Friends who may speak on this matter.

The Secretary of State has based his case for the guillotine on the most extraordinary grounds. He asks that a Bill should be judged by the number of clauses it contains. That is an example of pathetic fallacy.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)

Mulley's law.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

I am sure that the Secretary of State knows my literary reference. It is about the attribution to inanimate objects of feelings and thought processes of animate ones. This is a process which has been pursued by the Secretary of State for some time.

Of course, it is not the number of clauses which is important but the principles which those clauses enshrine. That is the test of the importance or unimportance of a Bill. A Bill which upsets the settlement for education laid down by the 1944 Education Act—which, whatever its limitations and imperfections, lasted for more than 30 years—and which destroys the careful balance, which has been created by every Education Act since 1870, between central Government and local authorities and makes unprecedented attacks on the autonomy of voluntary aided schools by depriving them of their powers over organisation is surely a major piece of legislation. Whether one supports it or abhors it, it is entitled to be thoroughly examined and painstakingly assessed and discussed by the House.

The first count of indictment against the motion is that when a Bill of such major importance is before us no guillotine should be introduced until it has been thoroughly discussed, unless there is patent filibustering against the Bill. There has been no evidence of that. [Interruption.] No, there has not. Indeed, the Secretary of State in his speech specifically conceded that there had been no filibustering against the Bill and that the measure had been fairly, thoroughly and adequately approached by the Opposition.

That charge of the importance of the Bill and the necessity for discussion in this House is strengthened by the fact that the Bill is not supported by the majority of people in the country. Take the example of the teachers. When they were consulted in a poll conducted by The Times Educational Supplement, it was shown that 70 per cent., whatever schools they were teaching in, were in favour of the maintenance of selective schools.

Mr. Martin Flannery (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

Absolute nonsense.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

That was the result of the poll conducted by The Times Educational Supplement, which has consistently supported the Government in their policy of spreading comprehensive schools.

Mr. Flannery

The hon. Gentleman knows that the National Union of Teachers, which represents the vast majority of teachers—[Interruption.] It is typical, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that hon. Gentlemen opposite should abuse the greatest teachers' organisation of all. That organisation is repeatedly on the record as wanting the Bill.

Hon. Members

What about parents?

Mr. St. John-Stevas

I am not disputing that point, but the executive of the NUT is not representative of the political or educational views of even the majority of its own membership. It is well known that the majority of teachers are Con- servatives, but one would never guess that by looking at the executive of the NUT.

There is another piece of evidence. When the Opposition launched a petition against the Bill, we secured more than half a million signatures in just over two months. That is a fairly clear indication, since the signatures came from all over the country, of the lack of support that the Bill commands in the country as a whole. If the Secretary of State doubts what I am saying, he should persuade the Prime Minister to call a General Election to determine the verdict of the people. That would be clear and persuasive evidence about people's views.

This policy is not even supported by members of the Labour Party, as I was able to witness from a meeting I attended at the Central Hall, Westminster. It was called in support of the voluntary aided grammar schools and others in the London area. So many people were saying that they supported our petition although they were members of the Socialist Party that I had to say that the Conservatives also had done something in favour of the grammar schools.

It is incredible that, faced with the immense problems that confront the Secretary of State in education, with the indications from the Bennett Report and from the scandal at the William Tyndale School that all is not well—

Mr. Cormack

The Prime Minister's scandal.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

We cannot be held responsible for our relations. I am not responsible for mine, and the Prime Minister cannot be held responsible for his, although as far as possible one should practise what one preaches.

The Secretary of State for Education is so obsessed with the Bill that he has done nothing to help the 209,000 unemployed school leavers who are now disfiguring the unemployment register. What a sense of priorities the right hon. Gentleman has shown.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Gerry Fowler)

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that we accept his own obsessions and that we take as the clearest mark of them the fact that he put down 103 new clauses to a Bill which was originally 10 clauses long and which came out of Committee 12 clauses long, and that not one of his clauses was relevant to the Bill which he contends is the major change in educational policy in the last 30-plus years? How does he justify that?

Mr. St. John-Stevas

The Minister of State should know by now that no justification is required by me of selection of new clauses by the Chair. It does not surprise us, in view of this Bill and others, that the hon. Gentleman should take that view.

The second count of our indictment against the Government is equally clear. The need for the guillotine has not arisen from force of circumstances. It has not come about as a result of some kind of act of God. It has not even come about as a result of the activities of the Opposition. It is due only to the incompetence of the Government's business managers. The combination of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) as Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks) as Chief Whip has been the worst political disaster since the Fox-North coalition. It would be an exaggeration to say that hon. Members are regretting the departure of the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) from that post, but they are regretting the absence of the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). We all long to hear from him those soothing words "Not next week".

The incompetence of the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip on the Floor of the House was worthily matched by the non-behaviour of the Ministers in Committee. The Secretary of State never came anywhere near the Committee on this vital Bill, to which he professes to attach so much importance. He not only excluded himself from the Committee but he never once came to the Committee room to see what his Ministers were doing. For the last part of our deliberations the Secretary of State was in the Soviet Union inspecting selective schools there.

Mr. Mulley

I want the hon. Gentleman to get at least one fact in his speech right. It was because of the Opposition's attitude to the Bill and to pairing that I had to curtail my visit to the Soviet Union, which took place only in the vacation. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) recommended me to go to the Soviet Union. I learned quite a lot.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

We must be ecumenical and welcome the right hon. Gentleman back. I pass from his Russian activities, which were so happily curtailed by the firm action of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, to the activities of the Minister of State, to whom a fulsome tribute was paid by the Secretary of State. We fully expect that the resignation of the Minister of State will shortly follow. That is what is called a beneficial side effect. The Minister of State considered it more important to visit an obscure college of further education in the north of England than to attend to his duties in Committee. We never knew to which side of Hadrian's Wall the hon. Gentleman was clinging.

Mr. Gerry Fowler

I have long known of the hon. Gentleman's undying conflict with the Conservative chairman of the Lancashire Education Committee, but he must not carry it to these lengths. The Nelson and Colne College is a jewel in the crown of further education in this country, and the hon. Gentleman should not deny the achievements of the Conservative authority in Lancashire in this way.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

The Minister of State is wrong. I was pointing out that it was his duty, as the Minister in charge of the Bill, to be in Committee listening to the debates. The fact that he visited a college of education was not the gravamen of our charge. It was that he abandoned his duties to the Committee, so much so that for one sitting there was no Minister present from the Department of Education and Science. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales is not, to the best of my knowledge, a Minister in that Department. If the contempt with which the Committee was treated by Ministers was not bad enough, they never made full use of the time they had in Committee. For the first 10 sittings there were morning sittings only. When we had afternoon sittings, Ministers did not make full use of them. There was only one occasion throughout our deliberations in Committee when we sat after 7 o'clock in the evening.

Mr. Gerry Fowlerrose—

Mr. St. John-Stevas

No, I shall finish what I am saying. The hon. Gentleman is bobbing up and down like a jack-in-the-box.

Mr. Mike Noble (Rossendale)rose—

Mr. St. John-Stevas

I shall give way in a moment. Labour Members must not get so excited.

The Committee was normally adjourned, despite protest, between 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock each evening. Taking the average morning session as two and a half hours, and the average afternoon session as four and a half hours, there was a maximum of 123 hours of debate in Committee. Of that maximum the Government used only 86 hours. Therefore, approximately 35 hours was wasted. That is the equivalent of five days of debate on the Floor of the House. I give way.

Mr. Gerry Fowlerrose—

Mr. Noblerose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I do not know to whom the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) gave way. Mr. Noble.

Mr. Noble

In view of the hon. Gentleman's comments about my hon. Friend's absence, perhaps he will tell the House how many times he was absent from the Committee for religious occasions.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

I shall be delighted to do so. I believe that I was absent for three-quarters of an hour one evening to attend an official religious function.

Those who were members of the Committee were able to observe the behaviour of Ministers during those proceedings, but exactly the same attitude was mirrored on the Floor of the House on Report when, not once, not twice, but three times, the Secretary of State abandoned his Bill because he wanted to go home early to bed. The debate was adjourned at 1 o'clock in the morning on one occasion, at 1 o'clock on another and finally at 10 o'clock in the evening. After such behaviour, the Secretary of State is morally estopped from introducing a guillotine motion.

There have been complaints from the Minister of State about the number of new clauses that have been brought forward, but the Government got themselves into a mess initially by serving up a dog's dinner of a Bill which covered everything from comprehensive schools to school milk. They had a Long Title which enabled the Opposition, as was their right, to debate constructively their alternative education policy until the guillotine descended fully.

Our second charge is simple but devastating. The Government got themselves into this mess by their own incompetence and negligence, and the only way in which they can get themselves out of it is by subverting the procedures and traditions of the House.

Our third charge is that they were prepared to rig constitutional practice to get their own way, sweeping away Mr. Speaker's ruling when it suited them. I shall not use the word "cheating" when referring to pairing as that caused a little altercation earlier, but the Government have been culpably negligent and careless over their pairing arrangements. Finally, they have devised an unprecedented guillotine motion.

The Leader of the House is not present. No doubt he found the truths he had to hear earlier today too uncomfortable to hear any more of them. He was right to say that on occasions the guillotine has to be used. He said he disliked it, and so do I. But number is of the essence of the case. It was the Leader of the House himself who in an earlier speech said that it was a matter of degree. But to guillotine five major Bills in three motions in one day's debate is to move the issue from that of quantity to that of quality. While the Government may be within the letter of the law in so acting, they have utterly changed the spirit of the Standing Order.

The resentment which is felt by the Opposition against the Leader of the House is not because he says inconsistent things—everyone in the House has done that—but because he has held himself up consistently as the champion—[Interruption]—yes, he has, and we have all heard him—of the rights, liberties and traditions of the House and has then behaved as no other Leader of the House in the whole of our history has behaved. We have seen two versions of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale—Mark I and Mark II, and Mark I is as dead as the dodo.

Mr. Robin Corbett (Hemel Hempstead)

Rubbish.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

The hon. Member was not here to listen to the speech of his right hon. Friend. If he comes into the Chamber only half-way through my speech, he has no right continually to interrupt from a sedentary position. The House is right to expose cant and hypocrisy whenever it sees them, and the House will always do so. It has done so so successfully that the Leader of the House has the shame not to appear any further this evening.

The issue behind the Bill and behind the motion is much more important than any hypocrisy or any dual standards that may be practised by the Leader of the House. There is a basic cleavage of principle between the two sides of the House, and it is shown up by the motion and by the previous behaviour of the Government. The Government do not regard the House, and the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale no longer regards the House, whatever his earlier views may have been, as the forum of the nation, as the forum in which friction can be rationally, reasonably, amicably and peacefully settled. They regard the House as an engine for the achievement of a Socialist programme.

It does not matter whether it be Mr. Speaker, the present procedure or the Members of the House if anyone stands in the way, he has to be swept away. That is why my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was right when she said that an Iron Curtain was coming down in Parliament. It is mirrored in the minds of Labour Members—not every one of them, but a sizeable proportion, particularly those below the Gangway who are so vociferous—who think of this legislature in terms and in a fashion more suitable to great Albania than Great Britain.

Exactly the same intolerant impulse lies behind the Education Bill itself. The Government want to do away with grammar schools and voluntary direct grant schools. They want to truncate the rights of voluntary aided schools and to discriminate against and eventually to get rid of private schools. It is with one end in view, and it is to establish what has been the aim of all Socialist Parties on the Continent since their inception—to establish a State-dominated and State-controlled system of education wide open to manipulation for political purposes.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

The hon. Gentleman has been talking of "tolerant impulses". Perhaps he might explain the tolerant impulses which drove the Leader of the Opposition to end pairing which has resulted in two very sick men being brought in to vote? That is entirely the responsibility of the total intolerance which the Conservative Opposition have shown.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has acted fully within her right in requesting Conservative Members not to pair in these circumstances, and she has the full support of the party in so doing. If she had not done that, we would not have paired in any event because the right to pair or not to pair is the right of individual Members of the House. If the Labour Party had observed that basic rule, they would not have got into the mess which led to the general suspension of pairing from the Conservative side of the House.

In these circumstances, the first duty of the Tory Party, when faced with an attack not only on our schools but on Parliament itself, is to follow the advice of certainly itself, is to follow the advice of cerproduced—Disraeli—and preserve our institutions. We shall use every parliamentary means we have to defend our institutions, and we can best do that this evening by resisting this rash, unprecedented, unconstitutional and pretentious motion.

Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)

On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. During the previous debate I mentioned the absence of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy). When I referred to his absence I had no idea that he had had a serious operation yesterday and a further one this evening. I hope that the House will forgive me for any unintentional remark about the hon. Gentleman. I sincerely hope that he will make a swift recovery, and I send him the best wishes, I am sure, of all hon. Members on all sides of the House for a quick recovery and best wishes to him and his family.

11.44 p.m.

Dr. Colin Phipps (Dudley, West)

I am somewhat hesitant to introduce an agricultural note after a lengthy educational introduction, but we are discussing the guillotining of two Bills.

I find myself in the unusual position of introducing the topic of the agricultural tied cottage into the debate from the Back Benches. I start by declaring a somewhat unhappy interest in tied cottages. I hoped that I would have an opportunity on Report and on Third Reading to take further some of the points I raised on Second reading.

While I accept entirely that the Government have every right to their legislation, and that guillotining in this case and in the case of the Education Bill is justified, it has robbed me of an opportunity to raise the matter for the second time, because I hoped to discuss these matters in Committee. After I made a lengthy speech on Second Reading, I went to my Whips and requested to be put on the Committee. In the past I had been fortunate to be placed on Committees, but this was the first time I had gone along and asked to be put on a Committee. To my surprise, I was told that I was not going to be a member of the Committee.

I accept that on this side of the House there is a well-known reluctance to become members of agriculture Committees—I think that is recognised by the whole House. But I have been a member of most agriculture Committees since I came to the House and certainly of nearly every Statutory Instruments Committee dealing with agriculture. In this case, I was told bluntly and honestly by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Harper) that I would not become a member of the Committee. I asked him why, and he replied that it was as a result of my speech on Second Reading. I asked "Would you mind in that case if I wrote to the Chairman of the Committee of Selection asking to be put on the Committee?" He replied "It does not make a blind bit of difference whether you do or not."

Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham and Heston)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Am I right in thinking that my hon. Friend is at least technically out of order in referring to a private conversation?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I do not know whether a letter to the Chairman of the Committee of Selection is a private communication, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) will not pursue the matter at great length.

Dr. Phipps

The matter was given some publicity in the agricultural Press and is hardly any longer a private matter. But the point is important: I have been deprived on two occasions of the opportunity to push a case which I believed to be important. I do not wish to discuss it now, but I hope that at least I shall have an opportunity on Third Reading to make it. Under the guillotine motion, however, it is highly unlikely that I shall have that opportunity. I have been deprived on two occasions of the opportunity to make a point which seems to me to be important. I am not here now to argue the validity of that point, but I should have liked the opportunity to put it.

The matter which concerns me most now is that of the Committee of Selection. Far from its being the independent Committee which in my naivety I had assumed it to be, it is apparently controlled and run by the Whips of the Government party. I am not trying to raise this matter on a point of order, but I should like to suggest that, in a gentle manner, Mr. Speaker and the Deputy Speakers might see whether we can achieve a situation in which hon. Members who are qualified to speak in a Committee are given the opportunity so to do. Perhaps my qualifications as being the only Labour Member who is a farmer and the possessor of a tied cottage were insufficient for me to be on the Committee, but surely they should have been taken into consideration.

I raise this point because it will be of importance when future legislation comes forward. Next Session we shall have the devolution Bill, about which I also hold certain opinions and which will take up a large proportion of the time of the House.

Mr. Corbett

My hon. Friend will not be on that either.

Dr. Phipps

I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) is right about that. But we are getting increasingly into a situation where we have tied Committees, with the Government increasingly filling Committees with hon. Members from this side of the House who are of one view only, or no view at all.

Mr. Anthony Buck (Colchester)

We have been following with interest the hon. Gentlemen's difficulty and dilemma and we have great sympathy with him. Would it not be logical for him to support us in voting against this iniquitous motion? Would not that be the unassailable logic of what he is saying?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. Before the hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) replies to that intervention, I must point out to him that I am finding some difficulty in seeing how the matter he is raising relates to the subject under discussion, which is the guillotine motion.

Dr. Phipps

The point I am trying to make, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is that the motion is depriving me for the second time of making the point I wish to make to the Bill. I do not wish to push that matter further, but I hope that I shall have the opportunity to speak on Third Reading. I wonder whether, having been thought unfit to serve in Committee on one occasion, I shall ever be selected to serve on Committee again.

I support the principle of the Bill and that of the guillotine. I hope that the Government will allow an amendment on the topic which I raised on Second Reading so that is can be discussed by hon. Members who were not members of the Committee.

11.51 p.m.

Mr. William van Straubenzee (Wokingham)

A number of hon. Members on this side of the House at least would like afterwards to have a gentle talk with the hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) to discover how one does not get selected to sit on the Back Benches of a Committee. Perhaps he has an expertise on which we could draw. The serious point that he raised will excite the interest of the House because of its serious underlying note—although I regret that the hon. Gentleman, after slightly unsheathing his sword, put it back into its scabbard again.

I must swing back to the other half of the debate—that concerning education. For several reasons, I believe that the Government are wrong to go for a guillotine on the Education Bill. All their control in relation to education stems overwhelmingly from their financial control. We are now increasingly moving—and who would have thought it possible?—into an era in which there will be, in important respects, no capital building programme wherewith to control the objectives of a Bill which is the subject of the guillotine. I would not have expected that from any Government, but it is the truth of the present situation. If there is no capital programme, the objectives of the Bill cannot be enforced. Words are empty if they cannot be backed up with cash.

We are also moving into a new era in terms of expenditure. We were warned of that by the Secretary of State for Education himself. I have in front of me a speech which he made to the annual conference of the Council of Local Education Authorities on 14th July in which he said that a joint inquiry into expenditure showed that those authorities were probably overspending at the rate of £135 million a year, or at a rate of 3 per cent. The warning was clear. Against that background, against the background of an increasingly drying-up capital programme and a severe reining back in current expenditure, the words in the Bill are meaningless. If the words are meaningless, it is an affront to Parliament to use something as vicious as the guillotine to get a Bill through.

The Government should think carefully before they use one guillotine and should think exceedingly carefully before using it on five Bills in one day. The onus of proof is on the Government. I wonder whether in future years they will deeply regret that they made these speeches today, because their words will be turned against them and they will be powerless to change them. I hope not, but that is the way in which our parliamentary system tends to develop. It is no use the Secretary of State's praying in aid the Education Act 1944, as he did. That gave the game away. It was an agreed measure discussed by all parties. Granted, that was in war time. It was one of the great steps forward in our educational work together, far removed from the divisive nature of this Bill.

The second reason why the Bill is unnecessary is that there has been—and I welcome it with all my heart—a most encouraging move in the opinion of my party on comprehensive schools. Far less attention than is appropriate has been given to a remarkable speech, which was widely circulated within Conservative Party circles, by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), who leads for us in these matters. I gladly pay the warmest tribute to what he said on 19th June on the subject of comprehensive schools. His speech nails for ever the concept that we on this side of the House are axiomatically lambasting all comprehensive schools. It nails for ever the myth that large numbers of them have not been created by Tory authorities under a Tory Government. Many of them are doing admirable educational work.

That speech also correctly identified the anxiety in many minds about the weaknesses which some comprehensive schools, like other types of school as well, have been displaying in recent years. The size argument is now over. We no longer want to create massive comprehensive schools. It is undoubtedly true that in an uncomfortably large number of them there has been an undue, although understandable, emphasis on the less able child to the detriment of the able child. That, too, was correctly identified.

Mr. Flannery

The hon. Gentleman is giving the impression that the Conservative Party is on record as being in favour of comprehensive education. Conservative speakers continually attack comprehensive education in a way which is bound to convey the idea that the party is against comprehensive education.

The point that the hon. Gentleman has just made about the size of comprehensive schools, as though the Labour Party is in favour only of very large comprehensive schools, is completely wrong. We believe that the experiment is succeeding. The points that the hon. Gentleman is making are points that all educationalists, on both sides of the House, should be making on that score.

Mr. van Straubenzee

The hon. Gentleman illustrates perfectly what I am trying to say. He studiously forgets, or possibly does not know, that there was a period when people laughed out of court many people like me—and I have attended almost every debate concerned with the matter—who questioned the philosophy that in order to be acceptable a comprehensive school had for its own sake to be large. There was a long period of time when the Socialist Party attached itself directly, as an act of faith, to the very large comprehensive school. The massive schools provided by the former London County Council, now ILEA, or some of them, are a very good illustration of the sort of thing I mean.

Of course, if there is a dogmatic approach on these matters, error results. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will read the speech to which I have gratefully drawn attention and which I believe correctly sets out the modern Conservative approach. It further demonstrates the lack of necessity for the Bill, and hence for the guillotine motion which is the subject of our discussion.

Mr. Gerry Fowler

I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's position in these matters, and, although this may damage his reputation in his own party, in large measure I share his present position. Will he address himself, however, to the content of the speech to which he refers and repeated speeches in the Committee stage by his own Front Bench spokesmen, which were in accord with the speeches of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, suggesting that comprehensive schools could in some obscure way coexist with grammar schools—that selection could coexist with non-selection? We regard that as being at the heart of the Bill.

Mr. van Straubenzee

Do not let the hon. Gentleman start trying to drive a wedge between myself and any other Member of my party in this respect. I gladly repeat my great appreciation of the speech which I have just mentioned. If there have ever been differences of emphasis, there are no longer if this is the approach and the lead we get in matters of this kind.

The Minister of State must be very careful before he is so dogmatic as to say that there can be an effective comprehensive system only when it is in a monopoly position—when it is the only type of school. He thinks so. I respect his right to think so. I am asking him to accept, on the other hand—I can document this without any difficulty at all, having most carefully asked and checked the facts—that there are heads of comprehensive schools who are not affected by and do not feel themselves prejudiced by the existence of a selective school within their midst.

I believe that there may actually positively be advantage in the dual system, the one giving the greater width of course—which is very valuable for many children, as pointed out in the speech to which I have referred—coexisting with a much narrower academic type of education which for some children can also be extremely valuable. The hon. Gentleman is falling into exactly the same trap as his predecessors down the line of laying down dogmatic theories which may not necessarily stand up to application in practice.

My third and final reason is that compulsion in matters of this kind begets resistance. If the comprehensive system is so persuasive, there is no need of compulsion. It will, if that is so, corn-mend itself by precept and example. If compulsion is necessary, something is wrong with the comprehensive system. That is at the heart and kernel of the resistance which I have to the Bill, and that is why I believe that the Government are doctrinally wrong to apply to a Bill of this nature something as vicious as a guillotine.

12.5 a.m.

Mr. Max Madden (Sowerby)

One of the few matters that I have in common with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) is that I was not a member of the Education Bill Committee. I believe that that may have afforded me certain benefits. I attended the debates on Second Reading and Report. Having listened to the speech by the hon. Members for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) this evening, I am glad that I was not a member of the Committee on the Education Bill and that I did not have to endure 85 hours of debate at that level.

The majority of British people are often bewildered and amazed at the procedures of Parliament. They will be amazed that the Opposition now appear to want even more time in which to discuss a measure of 10 clauses which has already enjoyed 85 hours of debate. I say "appear to want" as we all know that in their hearts the Opposition do not want any more time in which to discuss the Bill. They are running out of arguments, comments and, indeed, opposition. If any proof of that were needed, surely the speech made tonight by the hon. Member for Chelmsford was proof indeed. I was at a total loss to understand what was the Opposition view on this Bill as the hon. Gentleman seemed to be at pains to avoid mentioning any of the issues contained in the Bill.

Mr. Noble

Will my hon. Friend take it from me, as a member of the Committee, that we spent so long discussing the Bill because the Tories did not understand their own policies? There was one line of policy from the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) and another from the hon. Member for Ripon (Dr. Hampson). The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) shuttled between them like a goods train. It was that dispute on the Opposition side which prolonged the proceedings in Committee.

Mr. Madden

That is further evidence of my worst fears.

I return to the speech made by the hon. Member for Chelmsford. It was a third-rate, knockabout speech. We visited the executive room of the National Union of Teachers. We visited Russia and the William Tyndale School. We heard some rather hostile remarks about Lancashire. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is similarly hostile towards Yorkshire, especially West Yorkshire.

I shall make some brief remarks about comprehensive education in Calderdale, which is in West Yorkshire, in my constituency. I should also like to draw attention to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) about modern Conservatism, as we who live in Calderdale have witnessed modern Conservatism in relation to educational policy—especially comprehensive education policy—over the past two years. We saw a reactionary rump of Tory councillors representing Calderdale doing everything possible to delay and obstruct the introduction of comprehensive education in Calderdale.

It was thought that comprehensive education would be achieved shortly after local government reorganisation in 1974. Comprehensive schemes were carefully prepared. Those plans were fully supported by the then Labour-controlled Calderdale Council, which also enjoyed the unanimous support of the education committee.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies (Thanet, West)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. How can the "Puddleworth Council" or the "Upper Lauderdale Council" have anything to do with the guillotine motion that is now before us? The question whether the motion should be carried has nothing to do with the general principles of comprehensive schooling. We are dealing only with whether discussion of the provisions of the Bill should be curtailed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I am obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman for raising that point of order. I share his point of view to some extent in regard to some of the speeches made on the motion, particularly that of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), which in my opinion have gone into far too much detail on the subject of comprehensive education. This debate is concerned with the question of the guillotine. Many hon. Members are anticipating tomorrow's debate. That is the occasion when these other arguments should take place.

Mr. Madden

I take note of your remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I also note a growing hostility among Conservatives to any reference to areas north of Acton. I am attempting to trace in some detail the need for the Bill and the guillotine. My constituents are anxiously awaiting the introduction of comprehensive education for the benefit of their children, and the area—[Interruption.] I shall not be shouted down by Opposition Members, who seek only to delay and obstruct comprehensive education.

The education committee which devised the comprehensive scheme in Calderdale at that time was composed of Labour, Conservative and Liberal councillors. That scheme also had the solid backing of parents and teachers in the area. Then came May 1975, when the Tories gained control of Calderdale Council. A small clique of hard-line, doctrinaire Tories set about halting the advance of comprehensive education—

Mr. Cormack

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. To revert to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies), surely the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) is totally out of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Total out-of-orderliness was shared by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee).

Mr. Madden

Since that fateful day, the children, parents and teachers of Calderdale, anxious for comprehensive education to be introduced, have witnessed a display of ducking and weaving, twisting and turning by a rump of Calder-dale Tory councillors on comprehensives that makes Muhammad Ali look like an elephant.

Dr. Keith Hampson (Ripon)

Obviously the hon. Gentleman has issued this statement to his local paper, but will he acknowledge that in the replies he has been given recently by his own Government's Ministers it was acknowledged that in his Tory-controlled area there have been clear moves towards reorganisation in a sensible and practical way and that money has been applied for and granted?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Let us try to get the debate back to dealing with the guillotine motion. I think that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) has gone deeply enough into his local situation.

Mr. Madden

Warming to your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall ignore the comments made by the hon. Member for Ripon (Dr. Hampson). The Conservatives have resorted to every trick in the book to obstruct and delay comprehensive education in the hope, distant though it may be, of Mrs. Thatcher crossing the threshold—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to refer to the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, he should do so in those terms.

Mr. Madden

In the distant hope of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition crossing the threshold of No. 10 Downing Street, the Calderdale councillors think that they can throw the comprehensive scheme, so carefully prepared, out of the window.

If the Tories of Calderdale do not come to their senses, I trust that this Bill will be the means of giving the people of Calderdale the comprehensive education they have awaited for so long. The parents, teachers, and governors of schools in Calderdale are anxious, as they have been waiting for comprehensive education.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I think that the hon. Member is going just a bit too far. If he has any further remarks to make he should come to the question of the guillotine. He is discussing a purely local matter.

Mr. Neil Kinnock (Bedwellty)

On a point of order and for general guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The guillotine motion proposes a timetable for discussion of a Bill, and that is the Education Bill. Does it not seem appropriate to draw on a specific constituency sample, because that is one of the best ways of illustrating that the guillotine motion is needed to secure a guarantee that the Bill will be completed?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) may not have been listening. The hon. Member for Sowerby kept on saying why he supported the Bill. We are discussing not the Bill but the motion.

Mr. Madden

I wish to express my support for the timetable motion because it is urgently necessary to get the Bill on to the statute book as quickly as possible. I am trying to show an example of the attitude of the modern Conservative Party to education in order to highlight the need for the guillotine motion.

I should like to emphasise the attitudes of the Tories of Calderdale in relation to the publication of Section 13 notices as another reason for the Bill getting on to the statute book at the earliest opportunity. We have seen the delicate art of drafting and redrafting being used in delaying and obstructing the publication of Section 13 notices for the reorganisation of grammar schools at Sowerby Bridge and Todmorden in my constituency. We have seen other devices as well.

Mr. Jim Spicer (Dorset, West)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wished to speak about the problems which would arise in my constituency on the doubling of the register of those who would need housing as a result of the Government's motion, which would result in agricultural workers going on to the register. That falls into exactly the same category as the speech of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden). I have stood down because I believed that that would not be within the purpose of the proceedings. What we are hearing from the hon. Member for Sowerby falls into that category, and I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will rule accordingly.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Member for Sowerby has said that he will respect the wishes of the Chair. I remind him that he is not in an Adjournment debate dealing with a local matter.

Mr. Madden

I agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and it must be pointed out to the official Opposition that there are within my area a number of Conservative councillors who are at great odds.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I am asking the hon. Member for Sowerby please to respect the wishes of the Chair. He will agree that what I have said is absolutely in order.

Mr. Madden

I was citing those individuals because they are anxious, as I am, to see the motion carried so that the Education Bill can be put on to the statute book. The Conservative councillors who represent the areas concerned wish to see comprehensive education introduced, and they resent very much the reactionary and doctrinaire attitudes of the majority of the controlling Conservative group in acting in a way which is contrary to the wishes of enlightened Conservative councillors who wish to see comprehensive education introduced.

Mr. Toby Jessel (Twickenham)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the hon. Gentleman is clearly in difficulty, would it be possible to come to his aid by suggesting that he should merely issue a statement to his local newspaper rather than subject the House to this parish pump diatribe?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I take it that the hon. Member for Sowerby is now concluding his speech.

Mr. Madden

I hope that my constituents, of all political parties, will have witnessed the tirade of futile opposition that my remarks have aroused on the Opposition Benches tonight, the blatant hostility that we see time and again to all matters that concern the North, and the hostility that has been expressed by the leading spokesman for the Opposition against educational institutions in the area. I hope that they will also have witnessed the futile opposition that has been expressed against the Bill.

I wish to see this timetable motion carried and the Education Bill established on the statute book in the interests of my constituents who have been waiting since 1966 for comprehensive education to come to their area.

12.22 a.m.

Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Although it may not be entirely apparent, the debate is about a timetable motion on the Rent (Agriculture) and Education Bills. It seems to me that some—not all—Members on the Government side have not read the motion or considered what it is about.

The question is not whether we are in favour of the Bills concerned but whether it is reasonable to take two Bills together in the one motion, to consider five Bills on one day and to deal with the matter by this procedure. That question concerns not only Opposition parties but Labour Back Benchers. I suspect from what has been said that some hon. Gentlemen opposite have not read the terms of the motion and are therefore not aware of the restrictions that it places upon them.

The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) indicated that he knew what this matter was all about. I think he should think a little more carefully and realise that he may have cause to vote against the motion. If he cannot rely on his hon. Friends, others must do so, because it is clear that they also will be subject to clear restrictions. Therefore, they must consider those restrictions. They must appreciate that at the end of the day, when the time is up, none of their amendments will be put to the vote, unless one of their hon. Friends on the Front Bench decides to move it. If there is the degree of disagreement indicated by the hon. Member for Dudley, West in his relations with his hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Harper), I suspect that the Government will not feel disposed to move any amendment that he may table on the subject. There will also be other sources of disagreement, because the timetable motion will not permit amendments tabled by other hon. Gentlemen to be discussed.

We are talking of the opportunity to allow reasonable discussion of measures before Parliament and not about whether we agree with them. I say that with some feeling, because we are talking about two measures that the Liberal Party supports in principle. I do not dissent from the Government in their desire to obtain measures in these five areas. We have sought to make amendments to them, which we may wish to support at a later stage, but we must stick to the question whether the procedure for dealing with those measures is fair and reasonable.

We are discussing two Bills between which there is no connection. That point must be established at the start. They are entirely unconnected Bills. The precedents suggest not that we should adopt this procedure but that these Bills should be dealt with separately. Indeed, these Bills have been subject to different treatment hitherto in the House.

I should like to deal first with the Education Bill, because I must disagree with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas). It would be difficult for any objective observer not to say that the Conservatives, in their deep opposition to the Bill, had used the time at their disposal to secure that the Bill did not go through the House. I regard what they did as filibustering. That may be in no way improper, but the Government would be right to suppose that any time they made available would be fully used by the Opposition to prevent the Bill going through.

Dr. Hampson

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman was not the Liberal Party spokesman on education at the time, but does he accept that at no point in Committee did the Government accept, admit or say that the Opposition were filibustering? Indeed, there was continuous contact between my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) and the Minister of State night after night agreeing that the sitting should close at 7 o'clock. Therefore, we did not have long, extended business in Committee. We even agreed to curtail our arguments so that the final day finished at half-past seven.

Mr. Beith

The Government's willingness to pack up early on this Bill has surprised me on several occasions, on the Floor of the House as well as in Committee.

Mr. Ronald Bell

What is more relevant is that on the three days of Report stage on the Bill the debate was evenly balanced between both sides of the House. It was not a case of the Opposition taking up all the time. The Government's supporters also contributed. There are so many ex-teachers on the Labour Benches that they cannot keep them quiet.

Mr. Beith

The hon. and learned Gentleman is right. Hon. Members in the official Opposition were fairly well prepared and organised to contribute extensively to the debates, but Labour Members could not hold themselves back. That is another reason why the Government find themselves in difficulty. They should have considered a reasonable timetable motion a great deal sooner on this Bill. They should have discussed this with all parties in the House and come to some arrangement.

When one compares the Education Bill with the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, the lumping of the two measures together is extraordinarily puzzling. The Rent (Agriculture) Bill has been the subject of 12 Committee sittings. At the end of those sittings the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong) said, on behalf of the Government, that he was grateful for the constructive way the Committee had tackled the important issues at stake. The Opposition spokesman claimed that the Opposition and the Government were at one in that regard. This happy spirit of accord indicated that there was not the slightest evidence of filibustering or prolonging debates more than was reasonable in the circumstances. I have seen no evidence anywhere of any filibustering on the Bill or any evidence that there was any intention to carry out such a filibuster.

Mr. Rees-Davies

In furtherance of what the hon. Member has said, may I remind him also that the Bill was debated only in the mornings? The Government did not seek to debate it in the afternoon or the evenings because we gave a clear undertaking that we would let them have it in reasonable time. It was also agreed that reasonable time would be given for Report and Third Reading.

Mr. Beith

I accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement. The Government have not seen fit since then to suggest that there was any attempt on the Opposition's part to obstruct this measure by unreasonably prolonging the debate. That is certainly not the intention of my hon. Friends and myself.

The suggestion that consideration and Third Reading of the Bill should be limited to only one day is blatantly absurd. It will stifle reasonable and open debate on a number of important issues arising from the Bill. On the Notice Paper today there are two new clauses, one new schedule and no fewer than 160 amendments to debate. Over 100 of them are Government amendments. Some are sensible, others are more controversial. But there is clear evidence that there are amendments tabled by other hon. Members who deeply desire to improve the Bill.

My party has one amendment down, and it is crucial to the heart of the Bill. The issue is that of the nature of the obligation of a local authority to rehouse. It comes at a late stage in the Bill, and it may well be that we shall be prevented from discussing that part of the Bill. As the time runs out, any amendment we might table, and certainly those that my hon. Friends and I have already tabled, will not be put to the vote. The only amendments to be voted upon will be Government amendments. If we cannot have a serious debate on the crucial question of the obligation on local authorities to rehouse, I do not see how my right hon. and hon. Friends can vote on Third Reading for a Bill which they would otherwise support in principle.

The Government must give a reasonable timetable for a Bill for which there is agreement in principle between my party and theirs. To agree with the Bill and to adjudicate on the timetable for it are two totally different things. I am worried most at the implication that it one wants a Bill one must wholly and unreservedly support any timetable motion that the Government put down, however much it might restrict the rights of the Opposition or Government Back Benchers to discuss it. If we do not decide now to separate those two aspects, we may find ourselves unable to debate measures forced upon us by a future Government that Labour Members may like a great deal less than they like this one.

We must safeguard the rights of the House and we should pay more attention to that than to particular Bills. I am anxious to see those Bills debated properly and adequately. A motion grouping together two Bills to which completely different considerations apply does not provide adequate opportunity for debate.

12.32 a.m.

Mr. Christopher Price (Lewisham, West)

Perhaps I may be the first to congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on assuming responsibility as Liberal spokesman on education. We shall all miss the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud), without whose interventions and wit the proceedings on the Bill would have been almost unbearable. We welcome the hon. Member to the secret garden of education and we hope that he will be very happy here.

I agree with the hon. Member that the Education Bill should have been guillotined before Easter. It was quite clear after about half an hour of the Committee that the Opposition's sole purpose was to filibuster and not to put forward reasonable arguments on the Bill. I was in a particularly fortunate position to observe these scenes, since as a PPS I was in what the Greeks in their dramas called a —I was a silent character simply watching the proceedings.

To give just one or two examples of the patent filibuster on the Bill, I furnished myself with the two massive volumes of the Committee's proceedings and turned up a certain number of pages at random. It might be interesting for the House to hear the sort of filibustering that took place in Committee.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)

Would it not be better for the hon. Gentleman to direct his remarks to the Report stage as the Committee was completed, in the end, by agreement?

Mr. Price

If the hon. Gentleman had served with us on the Committee, he would not make such remarks.

Let us consider some of the filibustering. The hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) said: At one time I tried the long jump, not very successfully I must confess until my mathematics master pointed out the sort of are I must jump if I was to succeed. The very build-up that we had made it more likely, scientifically and mathematically, that one would succeed in one particular athletic skill as against another. It was the beginning of my interest in some branches of mathematics, and certainly in angles, when I found that I really had to run up and jump at a particular angle. One ran, as it were, with the protractor alongside, knowing that in many cases the long jump depended on height and not length."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 11th March 1976; c. 435.] That is a random example.

The Opposition's obsession with the perfect social system that they seemed to imagine existed in the USSR fascinated me. It is not a social system that I would wish to imitate, but the Opposition seemed to regard it as an absolute Nirvana. The hon. Member for Brent, North read from what was said by the vice-president of the executive committee of the Novosibirsk City Soviet of Working People's Deputies: The territory of the USSR was divided into four zones. The zone of our Novosibirsk school covers Siberia, the Far East, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. I do not want to concentrate too much on the hon. Member for Brent, North since he is clearly a special case and the filibustering was not confined to him.

Many memories were recalled in Committee, and the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison) said: I remember when I was at public school from the age of 13 to 18 there was a boy who was incredibly successful by any stretch of the imagination. He was academically brilliant. He was captain of the school. He was brilliantly good at games. He was captain of the soccer XI, captain of the rugger XV, he was keeper of athletics, he won the school steeplechase when he was 15, 16 and 17, he was the president of the debating society, he the president of the literary society, he was the was the president of the political society. In every way he was incredibly successful."— [Official Report, Standing Committee, 18th March 1976; c. 595.] I think that the point the hon. Gentleman was trying to make was that that character was not the hon. Member for City of Chester. He went on in that vein. [Interruption.]

As the hon. Member for Brent, North appears to think that I should return to him, perhaps I should quote another of his contributions to a serious debate on the "meat" of the Bill. He said: I remember"— here it comes again— that in the Sunday school to which I went as a boy, in an area which is now represented by an hon. Gentleman opposite"— I think that that was a reference to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble)— there was a game played at harvest time whereby a drawing of a donkey was put on a wall and people were blindfolded—after they had had their apples and oranges and the enjoyment of the harvest—and given the donkey's tail. This is quite a pleasant game, and one that I can commend to all. The tail had a drawing pin through it and the participants had to cross the floor, arrive at the donkey blindfolded and put the tail where they thought the tail of the donkey should go. I accept that most of us when not blindfolded know where the tail of the donkey should go. Unblindfolded men generally agree about which end of the donkey is the tail. It should be on one particular end, which simplifies the matter. But the blindfolding meant that one did not know which end of the donkey was which, and the excitement of the game—which would go on for hours … —would lie in seeing where people put the tail of the donkey. The donkey finished up with many tails in different areas."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 1st April 1976; c. 994.] I shall not continue any further with the quotation as I realise that I should be trespassing on the time of the House.

When the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) constantly insists that there has been no suggestion of any filibustering, it is important that the Committee report be read. I willingly offer the report to any of my hon. Friends who wish to participate in the debate. They will find many more gems.

I now answer some of the serious points made by Opposition Members. One serious point was made by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), whom I think everyone on this side of the House respects. It is a very great shame that, because of the bigotry and extremism of the Opposition, he is not the spokesman for education, as he properly ought to be because of his wide and wise experience in the Department of Education.

The hon. Member suggested, as did the hon. Member for Chelmsford, that it was because the Bill was not in the spirit of the 1944 Education Act, because it was a massive change, that it was absolutely wrong that it should be guillotined. He was quite wrong about that. This Bill—and I had some small hand in drafting it with loving care—was very carefully drafted to be exactly in the spirit of the 1944 Act. The responsibility that it lays on local eduaction authorities are exactly measured by the responsibilities that it lays upon the voluntary schools, and it has held the balance of the 1944 Act exactly. The argument that the Bill is tremendously controversial does not stand up in any way.

The truth is that the sound and fury that we have heard from the Opposition during this debate have been simply to conceal the massive split in the Opposition about how to approach the principles of this comprehensive Bill. The hon. Member for Wokingham, in that rather pious manner for which he is so well known—I hope he will excuse me for saying that—said "Let no one try to drive a wedge between me and the Conservative Party." It is not necessary. As my hon. Friends remind me, one cannot drive a wedge into the Grand Canyon—it would disappear into the bottom without trace.

There is a massive split in the Opposition about comprehensive education. They try to get over it by pretending that grammar schools and comprehensives can exist side by side. They face motions like this guillotine motion with a great deal of shouting, but in Committee and on Report all we had was a great deal of filibustering. One can find as much trivial nonsense on Report as in Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tell us."] I appreciate that some Opposition Members want to say something, and I want to leave them a little time.

Never since the Second World War has a Bill more deserved guillotining. Never has a Bill been more trivially filibustered than this Education Bill through its Committee stage and on Report. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Chelmsford—["HON. MEMBERS:" Where is he?"] I do not know where he is. No doubt he is doing the sort of things he constantly did when he was begging us to let him have a pair or to pack up the Committee stage for the evening—he had very important engagements at the opera and naturally could not possibly sit beyond 7 o'clock on certain days. There was another occasion, to which the hon. Member was good enough to refer, when an archbishop of his faith required consecrating. Clearly his absence on that occasion we quite understood.

There were many occasions when we had to pack up early in Committee, but the occasions were just as often brought about by the quite reasonable desires of Conservative Members to be about their important, usually ecclesiastical business as there was any desire on our side of the Committee to wrap up early and go home.

Mr. Rees-Davies

The hon. Gentleman is making his case based upon a filibuster upstairs in the Education Bill Committee and is saying that he can introduce evidence afterwards. Has he considered at all the other Bill, upon which it is not suggested that there has been any filibuster, upon which there was less than 30 hours' debate and upon which no Conservative Member has been able to speak or say one solitary word because this debate has been entirely a universal educational debate? No Conservative Member has been called to speak one single solitary syllable on it whatsoever. Would not the hon. Gentleman concede, that, unless there is some evidence of undue delay at the very least, it would be quite improper to introduce a guillotine in respect of a measure which was debated only in the mornings and on which such an introduction is not necessary?

Mr. Price

I bow to the hon. and learned Gentleman's expertise in filibustering which I cannot possibly measure up to. I must plead on this occasion, and perhaps I might do it in Latin since most of the Education Bill Committee business has been in Latin, quoting the immortal words of Virgil, "Quisque suos patimur manes", which means that we each have to undergo our private trials. Mine was the Education Bill and not the Bill concerned with tied cottages. I leave it to my hon. Friends, who are more expert in these matters, to talk about tied cottages.

I could go on but I conclude by saying that never has a Bill deserved a guillotine more, and never will I have voted with a greater will than when I go into the Lobby tonight to vote for this timetable motion in respect of the Education Bill.

Mr. Rees-Davies

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is intended as I understand it, to be a debate upon two separate guillotines. One concerns the Education Bill and the other is in respect of the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. I would point out that not one speaker has been called from the Conservative Benches to deal with the position in relation to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. It was a Bill which was not criticised as being a cause of any delay. Is no Conservative hon. Member to be called?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I can put the hon. and learned Member's mind at rest immediately. Mr. Charles Morrison.

12.54 a.m.

Mr. Charles Morrison (Devizes)

After the earlier and constructive part of the speech by the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price), I thought that there was a reasonable chance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that your eye might next alight upon me. I wonder whether you can confirm that we are debating the motion entitled Rent (Agricultural) Bill and Education Bill (Allocation of Time)". I think that is correct, is it not?

Mr. Deputy Speaker indicated assent.

Mr. Morrison

In fact, no such Bill as the Rent (Agricultural) Bill has actually been before the House. I suppose we have to accept the sloppiness of the Leader of the House in not drafting his motion correctly, because the Bill that I and some of my hon. Friends have been concerned with has been entitled the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. But I suppose that we shall have to put up with that sort of incompetence by the Leader of the House.

Would you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, cast your eye along the Government Front Bench and be so kind as to indicate whether you can spot there, or whether you have been able to spot in the debate, a Minister from the Ministry of Agriculture? I think you will agree with me that until this moment there has not been a Minister from that Department present. That demonstrates yet again the scorn, arrogance and lack of respect that the Government have for the agriculture industry. The Parliamentary Secretary has been sitting on the second Bench for about 10 minutes, which perhaps emphasises his own embarrassment and shyness about the Rent (Agriculture) Bill.

There is no argument for a guillotine on the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. We had only 12 sittings in Committee. There were no sittings outside the normal Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We sat for less than 30 hours, and in that time we dealt with 42 clauses and 8 schedules. It is remarkable that we got through the Bill in that incredibly short time. There was no filibustering or any complaint of it. There were no long speeches. Even the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Miss Maynard) managed to contain herself, which must have taken a great deal of doing. The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), representing the Liberal Party, hardly got into top gear and was certainly not as revved up as the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) became tonight. The Opposition in Committee on that Bill were responsible. Given the lack of flexibility by the Government, some might think that we were too responsible.

The reality is that there are two reasons for the guillotine. The first is incompetence and the second embarrassment. The incompetence is that of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), who should perhaps no longer be honoured with the title "Leader of the House"—the great parliamentarian turned great dictator, the oratorical jewel who has proved no more than superficial, the sham democrat. When next, and very soon, he once more finds himself in Opposition, there will be no need for anyone to fear or respect his words because they will be no more than a meaningless facade, just as they have been so often in Government. It was the right hon. Gentleman's incompetence, with that of his predecessor, which ensured that the Bill came forward far too late in the Session. That is the basic reason why the Government are introducing the guillotine. They have mismanaged their business.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton

Does not my hon. Friend agree that one of the glaring omissions from the opening speech by the Secretary of State for Education and Science was any argument in favour of the guillotine for the Rent (Agriculture) Bill? The right hon. Gentleman advanced no cause why that Bill should be guillotined. Does it not make it difficult for the many hon. Members on this side of the House who wish to do so to put an argument to the Government when the Government themselves have not presented any argument for the guillotine?

Mr. Morrison

My hon. Friend is right. But the reason why the right hon. Gentleman did not produce any arguments is that there is none to present for the Government's case.

Mr. Mulley

If the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) had not been shouting almost continuously from a sitting position when I was speaking, he might have heard the reasons I gave.

Mr. Morrison

I do not think I was wise to give way to the Secretary of State.

The second reason for the guillotine is embarrassment. That is the embarrassment of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Because of statements which he made outside the House before and during the course of the Committee stage, he was open to criticism for deceit and hypocrisy if he refused to allow amendments to be made to Clause 29. He did not allow such amendments and the criticism is, therefore, upheld. The only way in which to reduce his embarrassment is to cut the time for debate on Report and Third Reading.

On numerous occasions the Government have said that the Bill will have no effect of the farming or agriculture industry. Farmers and others in the industry believe otherwise. Indeed, what point is there in the Bill if it will have no effect. The reality is that if the Bill is enacted it can easily change the pattern of British agriculture over a period of time. I believe that it will. Not only will it effect food production, but it will reduce employment in the industry, particularly because of its effect on the livestock sector. On the day when we have heard figures revealing the highest unemployment rate since the war, the Labour Government are setting out to add to it still further. It is a disgrace that we should be asked to vote on the guillotine motion. It proves once again that the Government are determined to make this Paliament a farce.

1.3 a.m.

Miss Joan Maynard (Sheffield, Bright-side)

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) says that we have given no reason for the guillotine. That is because the reason is self-evident. It is self-evident that the Bill is of great importance to a group of workers who have been waiting so long for action. If any Bill was entitled to the guillotine it is this one.

The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) referred to the number of hours spent in Committee. That is not the point at issue. The point at issue is the time that farm workers have waited for the measure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) complained that he was not selected to sit on the Committee on the Bill. He said that he was probably the only farmer on the Government side. I assure him that the farmers' view was not lacking on that Committee—it was put from the Opposition side.

Farm workers have waited 31 years for the Labour Party to take action, because we have been promising to introduce such a Bill since 1945. Because of that long wait, they have suffered great inhumanity through the tied cottage system. If a man lost his job for any reason—because of a disagreement with his employer, or because he was too ill to work, perhaps after an accident—he lost his home. I can relate many cases of men who became ill, carried on working and eventually died, whose widows were immediately faced with the farmer demanding his cottage back. I am surprised that anyone can defend this inhuman system, but Conservatives have been defending it for many years. Now the Government have decided to end it.

Mr. Rees-Davies

Does the hon Lady realise that we are discussing the question whether we should have one evening or two evenings for Report and Third Reading? After 31 years, surely one further evening to get the Bill right would not do agricultural workers any harm?

Miss Maynard

I do not think that there is any likelihood of getting the Bill wrong. I think that it is right in giving security of tenure to farm workers. Farmers have had security of tenure for many years. All that we are asking for is the same treatment for farm workers. I am glad that at last the Government, by deciding to guillotine the Bill, have recognised the importance of farm workers so that at long last they will have security of tenure and not lose their homes when they lose their jobs.

1.6 a.m.

Mr. Daniel Awdry (Chippenham)

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Miss Maynard) has put forward an outrageous argument. She says that because the Bill is important and the House has been waiting for it for many years it can be rushed through, with the guillotine applied.

I served on the Committee. I said that I would like to be a member because I am a lawyer and I wanted to help get the Bill right. In the past 20 years I have been dealing with farm cottages and similar problems. I am not standing at the next election. I am sure that the Minister will agree that I tried to be constructive throughout the Committee proceedings.

Some people say that lawyers talk too much, but I would point out that the Bill changes the rent law, and the Rent Acts are very complicated. We sat for a total of 30 hours—12 mornings of two and a half hours each. We never sat in the afternoon or evening, and there was never a complaint of filibustering. Now we find that the Minister has tabled 100 amendments—

Mr. Rees-Davies

There are 102 Government amendments, and we have tabled 59.

Mr. Awdry

My hon. and learned Friend counts better than I do.

We have to deal with those amendments between 4.30 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. on Thursday. The Liberals have an amendment that they wish to discuss, but we shall not reach it. The hon. Lady cannot be so confident that we have the Bill right that she does not want the Government amendments to be discussed. What is the us of producing a Bill, even if the House was waited 31 years for it, if it does not make sense, and contains injustices? What hope have practitioners of making it work in those circumstances?

This makes a mockery of the House. What is the point of our being on a Committee, reading the matter up, and studying amendments, if at the end of the day we are told that the Bill must be guillotined and rushed through for no apparent reason?

In fact, the Minister gave a reason. He said that we were running out of time, and that as this was an important Bill we must get it on the statute book. It is a very dangerous doctrine that this should be done because the Government got into difficulty with their programme. As a lawyer, I find it outrageous that we should be in this situation. The principle is bad. I have never before spoken in a guillotine debate, because often they are charades, but this is a serious issue. There is no excuse for guillotining this Bill.

I am certain that the Minister will not speak one word of criticism of the way in which we behaved in Committee. I hope that he will say, as he did at the time, that we were constructive and helpful throughout.

1.10 a.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

This subject is a matter of conflict. That there is conflict between the two parties is not unreasonable, but what is surprising is that the Opposition should express mock indignation about guillotine motions, as though the institution of Parliament can never change and adapt—as though this is the supreme shape for all legislative institutions. Many people in this House and a great many more outside tend to think that the way in which we conduct our business is nothing short of absurd. A timetable motion is an exceedingly sensible addition to a Bill. In the view of many people here, a timetable motion would be very useful for every piece of legislation going through the House.

We know that it is a weapon of the Opposition to use time—to pour words out so that as time goes by they can try to get some sort of concession from the Government. But there is no degree of certainty that this will take place. The only sort of concession that occurs is in the case of a drafting amendment that obviously makes sense, and is acceptable. The Opposition have to accept that the conflict is between two political ideas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) complained about not being on the Committee on the Rent (Agriculture) Bill; and he is a farmer. Opposition Members who have farms and farming interests quite properly declared their intention. But the fact is that the Government side tend to represent the interests of employees, as opposed to those who hold land and capital. We cannot get rid of that basic conflict, no matter how long we talk. Pouring words into time, to give the Opposition satisfaction of feeling that they are doing some sort of opposition job, really brings Parliament into disrepute.

It seems to me far more sensible to have a timetable motion for the whole spectrum of legislation. When the Conservatives were in office, their Back Benchers were told—just as are those on the Government side today—to keep their mouths shut so as not to delay Bills going through. They were told that if they did not do so they would, in effect, be helping the Opposition.

The dividing line between simply delaying a matter and filibustering is fairly fine, and there is no doubt that in many Committees, certainly in the Committee on the Education Bill—the proceedings are something like a public school debating society. The idea is to have some decent fun, to string the Government along, and at the same time pursue the delusion of actually supporting some sort of political attitude.

That is not good enough in the twentieth century, when we are producing legislation that affects people. Therefore it seems to me that if we had a timetable motion it would enable Government Back Benchers as well as the Opposition Front and Back Benchers, to play a much more effective role in debate.

The principle of a timetable motion is highly commendable as a general rule. It is not cutting down debate; it is making it more meaningful, cutting out the aeons of waffle that fill Hansard, page after page after page. Many speeches which take 45 minutes could be cut to 10 or 15 minutes and still contain the germ of what was intended.

Mr. Dennis Canavan (West Strlingshihe)

It is quite significant that there are no Members of the Scottish National Party here to take part in this debate, which is a very important one about the whole future of agricultural cottages and tied cottages in Scotland. None of them is here to participate in the debate. This is very important. What is happening is that we are having a debate—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)

Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is growing into a speech, and he has not caught the Chair's eye.

Mr. Cryer

My hon. Friend's intervention was useful, although I am not sure in what context.

If we organised Parliament on the basis of a timetable—short debates for non-controversial legislation and long debates for controversial legislation—it would improve Parliament.

Members of the Opposition said that our glorious institution must not be changed. Tonight our glorious institution depends on the votes of two sick men brought in as a result of the petulant attitude of the Opposition, who, when they heard about the sensible introduction of a timetable motion said "We are not pairing." Apparently it does not matter that the Government cannot be represented at important meetings. It has become necessary even to bring in sick people who, for example, have suffered heart attacks. It is said that if those sick people were not here they would suffer great anxiety at home and that they would be as badly off there as in the House of Commons, as the Opposition are not prepared to be sufficiently tolerant to pair the sick. Once again, Parliament must depend on the votes of the bedridden, who should be in hospital.

Mr. Beith

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his Chief Whip and his Chief Whip's predecessor refused to pair their sick members with members of my party, even when the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas) was seriously ill? They have maintained that consistent refusal.

Mr. Cryer

Our pairing takes place with the major party. That is where our voting position must be maintained. Indeed, I see our Deputy Patronage Secretary discussing this. I do not wish to go into the side issue of the Liberals.

Immediately the guillotines were announced the Leader of the Opposition petulantly said that pairing was off, knowing full well that the business of the Government and international situations might well be seriously jeopardised by that attitude. Yet members of the Conservative Party talk about patriotism and the greatness of our country. They deliberately set out to undermine the position of the Government by their petulant and spiteful attitude.

The institutions represented in Parliament have room for improvement. The Government should examine seriously the framework used for putting through legislation. The Labour Party have a radical programme. In our manifesto we are committed to comprehensive education. Since 1945 we have been committed to the abolition of tied cottages. The abolition of tied cottages and the introduction of comprehensive education are opposed by members of the Opposition. They have every right to oppose, but they must recognise that behind their facade of concern for democracy they are seeking to wreck the Government's legislative programme. They have said so. By their response, that is the position that they are clearly indicating.

The Opposition do not seek extra debating time. They do not care a hoot for the clauses, the subsections, the "delete the aforesaids". They seek sufficient time to wreck the Government's legislative programme and to create a position in which the comprehensive education programme is halted and relief to agricultural employees is not given.

It was significant to note that in Committee all the Opposition amendments were directed to assisting not the farm employee but the farm employer. The Opposition seemed to be concerned only with the interests of efficient agricultural production—but employees are important, too.

Mr. F. A. Burden (Gillingham)

The hon. Gentleman said that the Opposition were intent on wrecking the Government's proposals. We understand that Labour Members below the Gangway are no less intent on wrecking many of the intentions of their own Government.

Mr. Cryer

That is a silly intervention. There is a difference between the constructive development of legislation and the simple, blind hatred of an Opposition. That is the fundamental conflict between the Opposition and the Government. Of course there are nuances and differences of view and emphasis within the Labour Government and Labour Party, but hon. Gentlemen opposite can draw no comfort from that. What they forget is that the attitudes and values that bind hon. Members on the Labour Benches are far stronger than the divisions that occur among us. We believe that in this context the timetable motion has an important role to play in seeking to defeat Opposition wrecking tactics. We believe that the Government have a reasonable right, subject to the scrutiny of Parliament, to get their legislation through. These timetable motions will enable that to be done.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, Central)

My hon. Friend was a member of the Committee, and I should like to have been a member of it, but I suspect that I was kept off by the Government and by the Patronage Secretary because I take a certain view about tied cottages on the royal estates. I should like my hon. Friend to tell me whether an amendment was tabled to provide for tied cottages on the royal estates to be included in the Bill—and if not, why not? I should also like to ask whether my hon. Friend and others thought fit to table such an amendment. I should hate to think that this guillotine procedure would prevent, first, the selection of such an amendment and, secondly, a debate and vote on the matter.

Mr. Speaker

Order. This is a very long intervention. The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) was called upon not to address the House but merely to intervene.

Mr. Hamilton

My hon. Friend had allowed me to intervene.

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman, in a short debate, is making a long intervention, and it is not fair to the rest of the House.

Mr. Hamilton

I am just asking my hon. Friend to give an assurance that—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman has already spoken at some length. Perhaps he will bring his intervention to a close.

Mr. Hamilton

I am about to do so, Mr. Speaker. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give an assurance that he has tabled an amendment to be debated when the time comes.

Mr. Cryer

That intervention perfectly illustrates my point. An amendment has been tabled to meet the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). I believe that the debate on that matter was not sufficiently lengthy. There have developed two points about the—

Mr. Hugh Rossi (Hornsey) rose—

Mr. Cryer

Just a minute. I want to finish this sentence.

Mr. Canavan

Sit down, you silly man.

Mr. Cormack

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We were under the impression that you were in the Chair. The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) has already indicated that he thinks that these Bills apply to Scotland, when they do not. Now he is shouting vile remarks to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Speaker

The House will have noticed that my attention was distracted for a moment, but I hope there have been no offensive remarks. Mr. Cryer.

Mr. Cryer

On this Bill the Government had a majority in Committee because the Liberal representative voted not always but almost entirely with the Government side.

On one occasion one hon. Member spoke for almost 40 minutes on a clause, and at the end of it, one of his own side said I wonder if my hon. Friend can tell me the difference between 'advice' and 'recommendation' —the amendment was to delete "advice" and substitute "recommendation"— We have come on to a purely semantic point. If I were to advise my hon. Friend to catch the 5.15 train if he wanted to come to dinner, or recommend him to catch the 5.15 train if he wanted to come to dinner, it seems to me to be exactly the same."—[Official Report, Standing Committee K, 17th June 1976; c. 390.] In other words, there was an amendment which was admitted by an Opposition Member to be purely semantic, with no relevance to the development of the Bill. It was not uncharacteristic of the attitude of the Opposition to this legislation. They are not wholly obstructive, but—

Mr. Rossi

Does the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) agree that there were a number of clauses to which no amendments were put down? He will realise that if an Opposition wish to delay a Committee, it will seek to amend virtually every line in a Bill.

Mr. Cryer

I am willing to accept that some clauses were not subject to amendment, but the fact is that unless this Bill gets through in this Session, the provisions for agricultural workers will not be given legislative effect. The position in agriculture, in which the employee has always faced the possibility of misery and eviction, will still exist.

It surprises me that the Opposition are resisting a guillotine on the Bill. I would have thought they would want to get rid of the feudal image of agriculture, which is a modern and up-to-date industry. Let us get this legislation through and give agriculture the image it deserves.

1.29 a.m.

Mr. Francis Pym (Cambridgeshire)

First, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to help the House by advising us on the important point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison), because if the motion were passed—I hope that it will not be—it would make nonsense. That is because there is not a Rent (Agricultural) Bill. I sought to table an amendment to the Title but was advised that the title was not amendable. Will you therefore tell us what happens in the unfortunate event of the motion being passed?

Mr. Speaker

The Title of the Bill was correctly printed yesterday. It is clearly a printer's error. I have examined the text of the motion of which notice was given last week. The title was yesterday correctly described as the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. It appears correctly in the Order Paper that I have before me and that the House is discussing—not the Title, but the motion.

Mr. Pym

It seems unsatisfactory and unfortunate that the Title should not relate to a Bill that has been before the House, but at this hour of night perhaps I had better leave the matter there. It is not a very clever moment for a misprint of that kind.

Before I forget, I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in paragraph 1, leave out sub-paragraph (1).

So far no case for a guillotine has been presented by the Government in relation to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, and there is no case for me to answer. There was one sentence in the speech by the Secretary of State for Education and Science relating to it which in no way was a justification for a timetable motion or anything like it. Therefore, there is no case to answer.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Bright-side (Miss Maynard) said that it was self-evident, because farm workers had been waiting for the Bill for so long. That was supported by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer). That amounts to dictatorial government, with Parliament not being consulted, and it is the end of the whole democratic arrangement. I imagine that that is what those two hon. Members and a number of their hon. Friends want. A general move in that direction and against Parliament lies behind the whole galaxy of guillotines that we are discussing.

I am sorry that I was not present when the Leader of the House made his opening speech, but, as he is not present to hear mine, perhaps that is not too important a matter—I see that he is here now.

I have heard that for his argument the right hon. Gentleman relied heavily on the number of hours that had been spent on some of these Bills, the number of sittings in Committee, and the time that had been consumed in the House.

In so far as there may be any argument in that sense for three or four of the Bills, that could not be said of the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman did not even mention that Bill. I do not think that the Deputy Chief Whip can advise him in any other sense while I am speaking about the speech made by the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman left it out because his argument on the other Bills could not conceivably apply to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill.

In the last debate the Secretary of State for Employment referred to the Dock Work Regulation Bill, the fact that there was a debate upon it in April 1975, that there was plenty of time for other discussion and consideration before Second Reading, and that there were a great many sittings in Committee. That does not apply to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science, in opening this debate—I do not see him now—referred to a debate on the principle of the Education Bill last autumn, the Second Reading last February, and the 85 hours in Committee. That argument does not apply to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill.

The first question that I want the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment to consider when he replies—if he will spare me a moment to listen—is how he squares the arguments and comparisons that have been made about the time taken on the other Bills about which we have been talking with the Rent (Agriculture) Bill.

The Opposition feel that it is utterly wrong that the Rent (Agriculture) Bill should be included in today's orgy of guillotines. I remind the Leader of the House that the Second Reading took place on 4th May, which was very late if the Government thought it all that important. The Secretary of State for the Environment referred to the discussions that he had with the agriculture industry on the question of housing and the fact that those discussions had been conducted in a spirit that lacked any rancour.

On Second Reading, I said: The right hon. Gentleman said that they had taken place without rancour. I am sure that is true, for it is very much in the character and tradition of the industry. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman's speech was made without rancour, and I shall seek to do the same."—[Official Report, 4th May 1976; Vol. 910, c. 1080.] All I can say is that the lack of rancour shown by the industry has not been reciprocated by the Government in bringing forward this timetable motion. I think that is the understatement of the year.

The Committee sat on 18th May, and the usual morning sittings motion was passed immediately, without debate. That was the only sittings motion throughout the Committee, which lasted for no more than 12 sittings. Progress through the Bill went along at the rate of three or four clauses per sitting—more on some days, fewer on others. That was obviously very good progress. There was no kind of obstruction. Indeed, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) quoted the words of the Under-Secretary of State about the constructive spirit in which that Committee stage was conducted.

That is markedly in contrast with what the Secretary of State for Employment said about the Dock Work Regulation Bill and its 36 sittings on 18 clauses. It also compares favourably with what happened on the Education Bill. In saying that, I am not defending the timetable motion in relation to the other Bills; I am saying that this Bill, particularly, should not be included. There is no shred of justification for including it, and none has been admitted by either the Leader of the House or by the Secretary of State for Education, who has miraculously disappeared from the House.

It would be entirely reasonable for the Leader of the House to allow the remaining stages of the Rent (Agriculture) Bill to take two days. That would be the most they could take. In fact, probably they could be achieved in one evening and a long night, but two days, at most, would be reasonable. The Leader of the House did not even try this; he just came forward with the guillotine, for which there was no justification at all. The timetable motion in this case is a negation of Parliamentary sense, and an incitement to reasonable people to behave in an unreasonable way. [Interruption.] All the shouting and arguing from the Government Benches does not alter the situation. Those on the Labour Benches who have any twinge of conscience should realise that the House is being asked to do something entirely unreasonable.

It has been said that five timetable motions in one day is an insult, and no amount of talk about reform of parliamentary procedure changes that. This is a deliberate and calculated affront to Parliament, a denigration of Parliament, and a self-inflicted wound to the already ruined reputation of the Leader of the House.

I am entirely open-minded about reforms in this House, but I do not think that the Labour Party believes any more in the sort of Parliament that we believe in. Almost every previous timetable motion was rehearsed today, including double ones, but nothing remotely like the orgy that we are indulging in tonight has been revealed. To include the Rent (Agriculture) Bill in this orgy of timetables is totally unnecessary. It is greedy beyond description, and anti-democratic.

What about the revelation of the hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps)? He is trying to have it all ways. Having said that he was in favour of the principle of the Bill, he was reported in the Press tonight as having taken action that is contrary to the spirit of the Bill, if it passes. He spoke on Second Reading, and asked to go on the Committee but was refused. I hope that after what he said tonight he will not go into the Lobby in support of the Government, because he cannot justify it.

Dr. Phipps

I am in favour of the principle of the Bill, but I do feel that farmers have not been afforded the amount of protection they should have. I made my position clear. I can bear with fortitude the fact that I was kept off the Committee, but I do think that there is no longer any independence of selection in the Committee of Selection.

Mr. Pym

That is a very good reason for the hon. Member not voting for his Government tonight. But this is the usual case of a Socialist saying one thing and doing another.

This is a very greedy motion. What other timetable motions have been tabled for a Bill with a normal Committee stage of 12 sittings only?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)

Many.

Mr. Pym

The Leader of the House says "Many". He should name them. In fact, I would like him to name just one.

Mr. Foot

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to at least 10 Bills that were guillotined by the Conservatives and that had had fewer sittings in a Session than this Bill has had.

Hon. Members

Name them.

Mr. Pym

The remarks of the Lord President last Thursday about the reason for the guillotine do not apply to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, any more than what he said this afternoon applied to it. No precedent exists. The Government are trying to create one, but the one they are trying to create could mean the end of a sane parliamentary process of legislation. Why are the Government doing it? It is to pick up the time they lost through this own fault. They made a hash of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and they should pay the price for that by dropping some other Bills. Instead they are trying to change the rules by imposing five timetable motions. They are trying to recover their lost time by the ruthless use of their parliamentary majority.

I do not believe that a majority of Labour Members think it right to bring the chopper down on the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. If that is so, and if they vote for the Government, it will be the most cynical expression yet of the attitude we have seen before of "We are the masters now". There are always arguments about particular timetable motions, but until now there has been a general agreement about the procedure for introducing them.

Mr. Speaker

Order. There is a great deal of noise. The right hon. Gentleman must be listened to in reasonable silence.

Mr. Pym

The procedure has always been broadly agreed after discussions through the usual channels and with the Select Committee on Procedure. That is not the position today. Nothing like what has happened today was ever contemplated by either party when the Standing Order was amended. No discussion took place about the possible misuse of the guillotine in this way. We appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that what is happening is in order, but the spirit of the arrangement and the sense of it are certainly being abused.

The Bill is controversial, but we have not obstructed it. It is proving much more difficult to alter existing arrangements for farm workers than Ministers realised. There are numerous complications in what is proposed. Whether or not hon. Members agree with the principle, we can surely all accept that if a change is to be made it must be done with the least pain and difficulty. We are dealing with families and with people, and we are leaning on local authorities in a new way. We are concerned with people's homes. Our debates have been wholly constructive.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I distinctly heard the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) describe my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) as a hypocrite. I understand that to be unparliamentary language. I should be obliged if you would ask the hon. Member to withdraw his comment.

Mr. Speaker

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he described the right hon. Member as a hypocrite?

Mr. Flannery

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I did, and I withdraw the word.

Mr. Pym

We have been seeking to improve the Bill and we now find that the Government have tabled more than 100 amendments. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside said that the Bill was all right. How can it be, when there are 100 Government amendments? On the time allocated, that will leave fewer than four minutes for each Government amendment, even if they are all discussed, which they will not be. There is also a new clause and a new schedule, which introduce an entirely new principle of phasing in rents. That was not discussed in Committee. That should not come under the timetable motion.

The Secretary of State for Education said that there were no Government amendments on the Education Bill, but that is an absurd argument to put on this Bill, to which the Government have tabled 100 amendments.

There is not the shred of an excuse for what is happening tonight. It is a parliamentary disgrace, which could have been dreamed up only by people who would have no twinge of conscience in saying that black was white.

This is a black day for the House, and the Government apparently do not care a damn. I urge all hon. Members in all parts of the House to vote for what they know is right for the House and what it stands for. I urge hon. Members to support the amendment and throw out the motion.

1.46 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

Whenever a timetable motion is debated in this House, we hear a great deal about the precedents. Today has proved no exception, however unusual it may be in other respects. In spite of that, I doubt whether many of those who sent us here are too concerned about the historical precedents for what we are doing.

I hope the House will understand when I say that I have no intention of exhuming from the parliamentary records elaborate examples of what some of our predecessors did in similar vein in the recent or more distant past. Instead, I simply want to say why I believe that the motion before the House is justified and why it represents a sensible way of proceeding.

My right hon. Friend made out a very strong case for limiting and ordering the time for further debate on the Education Bill. Nothing I have heard in the debate tonight has persuaded me that the Government have not allowed extremely extensive discussion on this important measure.

We heard hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Benches argue that the Education Bill and the Rent (Agriculture) Bill have no place together in tonight's motion. The answer to that is very simple. The Government's view has been that, for the convenience of the House, consideration of our proposals for the timetables should be taken on one day. Therefore, the five Bills in question are the subject of three motions, observing the precedent that not more than two Bills should be coupled in any one motion and allowing nine hours' debate on the proposals.

I listened with interest to most of the speeches made in the past nine hours. Neither the time allotted to any debate nor the length of any speeches is a reasonable indicator of the value of their contribution to a measure that will eventually arrive on the statute book.

Marathon sittings are not the best way to give consideration to major Bills, and it is no wonder that many of our constituents regard it as an extremely odd way of conducting parliamentary business and cannot understand why we work such unreasonable hours.

I would not argue, of course, that the coupling of the two Bills that we are now discussing is dictated by similarity of content. As I have said, however, my right hon. Friend has shown that very full discussion has taken place on the Education Bill and that it is now time for it to make progress. I shall explain why I think that the same case applies to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. In my view, it is in this respect that the Bills resemble each other, and I see nothing amiss in their being the subject of a single motion.

It is true that the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, abolishing the agricultural tied cottage system, has had a rather different parliamentary career from that of the Education Bill. We had a constructive Second Reading debate shortly after the Easter Recess, and during our 12 sittings upstairs both sides of the Committee had ample opportunity to put their views on all parts of the Bill. There was no pressure from the Government side to rush ahead without proper examination of the issues. Equally, I acknowledge that there was no undue prevarication or time-wasting from the Opposition.

Now we are back on the Floor of the House and, as usual at this time of year, we find ourselves in a difficult parliamentary situation. Everyone complains about the volume of legislation going through the House every year, but the House has to face reality. The demands on the Government to do this, that and the other continue to grow. Governments are expected to intervene in various areas of community life in a way that would have seemed unthinkable in the early days of this century. The pressure on the legislative timetable is growing under all Governments, whatever their political complexion.

I suppose it can be argued—

Mr. Rossi rose—

Mr. Armstrong

I do not have time to give way. I believe it will be recognised that 99 times out of 100 I give way to Opposition Members, but the Government have been criticised from all parts of the House for not dealing with the Rent (Agriculture) Bill and I am given 10 minutes to deal with it. I think that the hon. Gentleman will understand if I do not give way.

I suppose it can be argued that if we had managed to introduce the Bill earlier in the Session it might well not have formed part of tonight's motion. I remind the House of the main reasons for the timing of this important Bill. As the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) was kind enough to acknowledge on Second Reading, the Bill is not the doctrinaire measure that it was alleged to be, but a genuine attempt to balance the right of the farm worker to security of tenure in his home with the need of the farmer to run his farm efficiently.

It was preceded, as was also acknowledged on Second Reading, by a very full consultative document, which was sent to and considered by several hundred local authorities and interested organisations. That process began a year ago, and we had to take time to consider the response. Those are the reasons for the timing of the Bill.

That has brought us to our present situation. The right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition has cut off the normal channels and promised all-out opposition on all occasions, and to leave out this important Bill from the procedures that we have proposed for the other four Bills would expose it to any small group of Opposition Members whose sole object would be to harass the Government and to subject the Bill to unacceptable delay.

Mr. Rossi

Give us the reason.

Mr. Armstrong

I am giving the hon. Gentleman the reason. My colleagues and I are convinced that we are right to ensure that after Report and Third Reading the Bill should be sped on its way to another place.

Mr. Rossi

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. How can the House consider 160 amendments properly in 390 minutes? In any event the majority of the amendments are tabled by the Government. How can we give proper consideration to a measure of that sort?

Mr. Armstrong

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am coming to that very point.

The House is surely well aware that the number of amendments is of little significance. Anybody who has studied the Order Paper carefully will see that the Government amendments fall into 43 groups and that not one of them represents a policy departure. Fifteen groups deal with undertakings given in Committee and another 15 are purely technical, while eight are designed to simplify or clarify the effect of the provisions and four close minor loopholes.

I have not so far discussed the merits of the Bill because that is not what the motion is about. I utterly reject the notion, culled from one or two minute and unrepresentative surveys, that the Bill is not wanted by farm workers. We have every constitutional right to honour our pledges to the electorate and to do so as long as we command a majority in the Lobby.

But the final judgment on what we are doing will not be made in the Lobbies; it will be pronounced by people outside.

Sir John Rodgers (Sevenoaks)

Sit down.

Division No. 263.]	AYES	[1.59 p.m.
Adley, Robert	Biffen, John	Bryan, Sir Paul
Aitken, Jonathan	Biggs-Davison, John	Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Alison, Michael	Blaker, Peter	Buck, Antony
Amery, Rt Hon Julian	Body, Richard	Budgen, Nick
Arnold, Tom	Boscawen, Hon Robert	Bulmer, Esmond
Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)	Bottomley, Peter	Burden, F. A.
Awdry, Daniel	Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)	Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Baker, Kenneth	Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)	Carlisle, Mark
Banks, Robert	Bradford, Rev Robert	Carson, John
Beith, A. J.	Braine, Sir Bernard	Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Bell, Ronald	Brittan, Leon	Channon, Paul
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)	Brocklebank-Fowler, C.	Churchill, W. S.
Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)	Brotherton, Michael	Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Berry, Hon Anthony	Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Clark, William (Croydon S)

Mr. Armstrong

It is interesting that the hon. Member, who has only recently come into the Chamber and who has not been here all day, should now shout from a sedentary position "Sit down".

Sir John Rodgers

rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. If the Minister is not giving way, the hon. Member must resume his seat.

Sir John Rodgers

As he has now given way, I want to point out that I was in the Chamber long before he started this ridiculous speech of his.

Mr. Armstrong

These two measures, the abolition of selection for secondary education and the long-overdue recognition that farm workers have the same rights to security of tenure as those that most of us have enjoyed for many years—the separation of their rights to a home from their conditions of work—were spelt out in the Labour Party manifesto. We believe that they are in the best interests of our people and we are content to be judged by them. I therefore ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in the Lobby and in asking the House to receive this timetable motion, which will enable the Government, in a proper and considered way, to help these Bills on their way to the statute book, so that the pledges that we gave and explained at the election can be honoured.

A great deal has been said today about procedures in this House. At the week-end—

It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of them pursuant to Standing Order No. 44 (Allocation of time to Bills).

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 286, Noes 306.

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	James, David	Prior, Rt Hon James
Clegg, Walter	Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)	Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Cockcroft, John	Jessel, Toby	Raison, Timothy
Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)	Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)	Rathbone, Tim
Cope, John	Jones, Arthur (Daventry)	Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Cordle, John H.	Jopling, Michael	Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)
Cormack, Patrick	Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith	Rees-Dovies, W. R.
Costain, A. P.	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)
Critchley, Julian	Kellett, Bowman, Mrs Elaine	Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)
Crouch, David	Kershaw, Anthony	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Crowder, F. P.	Kimball, Marcus	Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)	King, Evelyn (South Dorset)	Ridsdale, Julian
Dean, Paul (N Somerset)	King, Tom (Bridgwater)	Rifkind, Malcolm
Dodsworth, Geoffrey	Kirk, Sir Peter	Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	Kitson, Sir Timothy	Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Drayson, Burnaby	Knight, Mrs Jill	Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward	Knox, David	Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Dunlop, John	Lamont, Norman	Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Durant, Tony	Lane, David	Ross, William (Londonderry)
Dykes, Hugh	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John	Latham, Michael (Melton)	Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Lawrence, Ivan	Royle, Sir Anthony
Elliott, Sir William	Lawson, Nigel	Sainsbury, Tim
Emery, Peter	Le Marchant, Spencer	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Eyre, Reginald	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Scott, Nicholas
Fairbairn, Nicholas	Lloyd, Ian	Scott-Hopkins, James
Fairgrieve, Russell	Loveridge, John	Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Farr, John	Luce, Richard	Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Fell, Anthony	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Shelton, William (Streatham)
Finsberg, Geoffrey	McCrindle, Robert	Shepherd, Colin
Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)	McCusker, H.	Shersby, Michael
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Macfarlane, Nell	Silvester, Fred
Forman, Nigel	MacGregor, John	Sims, Roger
Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)	Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)	Sinclair, Sir George
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)	McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)	Skeet, T. H. H.
Freud, Clement	McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)	Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)
Fry, Peter	Madel, David	Smith, Dudley (Warwick)
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.	Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)	Speed, Keith
Gardiner, George (Reigate)	Marshall, Michael (Arundel)	Spence, John
Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)	Marten, Neil	Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)
Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)	Mates, Michael	Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)
Gilmour, sir John(East Fife)	Mather, Carol	Sproat, lain
Glyn, Dr Alan	Maude, Angus	Stainton, Keith
Godber, Rt Hon Joseph	Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald	Stanbrook, Ivor
Goodhart, Philip	Mawby, Ray	Stanley, John
Goodhew, Victor	Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin	Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Goodlad, Alastair	Mayhew, Patrick	Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)
Gorst, John	Meyer, Sir Anthony	Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)	Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)	Stokes, John
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)	Mills, Peter	Stradling Thomas, J.
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)	Miscampbell, Norman	Tapsell, Peter
Gray, Hamish	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)
Griffiths. Eldon	Moate, Roger	Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)
Grimond, Rt Hon J.	Molyneaux, James	Tebbit, Norman
Grist, Ian	Monro, Hector	Temple-Morris, Peter
	Montgomery, Fergus	Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret
Grylls, Michael	Moore, John (Croydon C)	Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)
Hall, Sir John	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.	Morgan, Geraint	Townsend, Cyril D.
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral	Trotter, Neville
Hampson, Dr Keith	Morris, Michael (Northampton S)	Tugendhat, Christopher
Hannam, John	Morrison, Charles (Devizes)	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)	Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)	Vaughan, Dr Gerard
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss	Mudd, David	Viggers, Peter
Hastings, Stephen	Neave, Alrey	Wakeham, John
Havers, Sir Michael	Nelson, Anthony	Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Hawkins, Paul	Neubert, Michael	Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)
Hayhoe, Barney	Newton, Tony	Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek
Heath, Rt Hon Edward	Normanton, Tom	Wall, Patrick
Heseltine. Michael	Nott, John	Walters, Dennis
Hicks, Robert	Onslow, Cranley	Warren, Kenneth
Higgins, Terence L.	Oppenheim, Mrs Sally	Weatherill, Bernard
Holland, Philip	Osborn, John	Wells, John
Hordern, Peter	Page, John (Harrow West)	Whitelaw, Rt Hon William
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)	Wiggin, Jerry
Howell, David (Guildford)	Pardoe, John	Winterton, Nicholas
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)	Parkinson, Cecil	Wood, Rt Hon Richard
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)	Penhaligon, David	Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)
Hunt, David (Wirral)	Percival, Ian	Younger, Hon George
Hunt, John (Bromley)	Peyton, Rt Hon John
Hurd, Douglas	Pink, R. Bonner	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch	Mr. W. Benyon and
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)	Price, David (Eastleigh)	Mr. Jim Lester.

NOES
Abse, Leo	Ennals, David	Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Allaun, Frank	Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)	McCartney, Hugh
Anderson, Donald	Evans, loan (Aberdare)	McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Archer, Peter	Evans, John (Newton)	MacFarquhar, Roderick
Armstrong, Ernest	Ewing, Harry (Stirling)	McGuire, Michael (Ince)
Ashley, Jack	Faulds, Andrew	MacKenzie, Gregor
Ashton, Joe	Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.	Mackintosh, John P.
Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)	Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	Maclennan, Robert
Atkinson, Norman	Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Flannery, Martin	McNamara, Kevin
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)	Madden, Max
Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)	Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)	Magee, Bryan
Bates, Alf	Foot, Rt Hon Michael	Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)
Bean, R. E.	Ford, Ben	Mahon, Simon
Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood	Forrester, John	Mallalleu, J. P. W.
Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)	Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)	Marks, Kenneth
Bidwell, Sydney	Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)	Marquand, David
Bishop, E. S.	Freeson, Reginald	Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Garrett, John (Norwich S)	Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Boardman, H.	Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)	Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Booth, Rt Hon Albert	George, Bruce	Maynard, Miss Joan
Boothroyd, Miss Betty	Gilbert, Dr John	Meacher, Michael
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur	Ginsburg, David	Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Boyden, James (Bish Auck)	Golding, John	Mendelson, John
Bradley, Tom	Gould, Bryan	Mikardo, Ian
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Gourlay, Harry	Millan, Bruce
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)	Graham, Ted	Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)	Grant, George (Morpeth)	Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)	Grant. John (Islington C)	Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Buchan, Norman	Grocott, Bruce	Moonman, Eric
Buchanan, Richard	Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)	Hardy, Peter	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)	Hart. Rt Hon Judith	Moyle, Roland
Campbell, Ian	Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy	Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Canavan, Dennis	Hatton, Frank	Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Cant, R. B.	Hayman, Mrs Helene	Newens, Stanley
Carmichael, Neil	Healey, Rt Hon Denis	Noble, Mike
Carter, Ray	Heffer, Eric S.	Oakes, Gordon
Carter-Jones, Lewis	Hooley, Frank	Ogden, Eric
Cartwright, John	Horam, John	O'Halloran, Michael
Castle, Rt Hon Barbara	Howell. Rl Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm'H)	Orbach, Maurice
Clemitson, Ivor	Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)	Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)	Huckfield, Les	Ovenden, John
Cohen, Stanley	Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)	Owen, Dr David
Coleman, Donald	Hughes, Mark (Durham)	Padley, Walter
Colquhoun, Ms Maureen	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)	Palmer, Arthur
Concannon, J. D.	Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Park, George
Conlan, Bernard	Hunter, Adam	Parker, John
Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)	Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)	Parry, Robert
Corbett, Robin	Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)	Pavitt, Laurie
Cox, Thomas (Tooting)	Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)	Peart, Rt Hon Fred
Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)	Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln}	Pendry, Tom
Crawshaw, Richard	Janner, Greville	Perry, Ernest
Cronin, John	Jay, Rt Hon Douglas	Phipps, Dr Colin
Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony	Jeger, Mrs Lena	Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)	Jenkins, Rl Hon Roy (Stechford)	Prescott, John
Cryer, Bob	John, Brynmor	Price, C. (Lewisham W)
Cunningham, G. (Islington S)	Johnson, James (Hull West)	Price, William (Rugby)
Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)	Johnson, Walter (Derby S)	Radice, Giles
Dalyell, Tarn	Jones, Barry (East Flint)	Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Davidson, Arthur	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Richardson, Miss Jo
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)	Judd, Frank	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)	Kaufman, Gerald	Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Kelley. Richard	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)	Kerr, Russell	Robinson, Geoffrey
Deakins, Eric	Kilroy-Silk, Robert	Roderick, Caerwyn
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)	Kinnock, Neil	Rodgers, George (Chorley)
de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Lambie, David	Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Dell, Rt Hon Edmund	Lamborn, Harry	Rooker, J. W.
Dempsey, James	Lamond, James	Roper, John
Doig, Peter	Latham, Arthur (Paddington)	Rose, Paul B.
Dormand, J. D.	Leadbitter, Ted	Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)
Douglas-Mann, Bruce	Lee, John	Rowlands, Ted
Duffy, A. E. P.	Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)	Sandelson, Neville
Dunn, James A.	Lever, Rt Hon Harold	Sedgemore, Brian
Dunnett, Jack	Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)	Selby, Harry
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)
Eadie, Alex	Lipton, Marcus	Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)
Edge, Geoff	Litterick, Tom	Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Edwards Robert (Wolv SE)	Lomas, Kenneth	Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)
Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)	Loyden, Eddie	Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)	Luard, Evan	Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
English, Michael	Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)	Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

Silverman, Julius	Tinn, James	Whitehead, Phillip
Skinner, Dennis	Tomlinson, John	Whitlock, William
Small, William	Tomney, Frank	Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)	Torney, Tom	Williams, Alan (Swansea W)
Snape, Peter	Tuck, Raphael	Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)
Spearing, Nigel	Urwin, T. W.	Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)
Stallard, A. W.	Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.	Williams, Sir Thomas
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Stoddart, David	Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)	Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)
Stott, Roger	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)	Wilson, William (Coventry SE)
Strang, Gavin	Walker, Terry (Kingswood)	Wise, Mrs Audrey
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.	Ward, Michael	Woodall, Alec
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley	Watkins, David	Woof, Robert
Swain, Thomas	Watkinson, John	Wrigglesworth, Ian
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)	Weetch, Ken	Young, David (Bolton E)
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)	Weitzman, David
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)	Wellbeloved, James	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)	White, Frank R. (Bury)	Mr. Joseph Harper and
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)	White, James (Pollok)	Mr. James Hamilton
Tierney, Sydney

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question Put accordingly:—

The House divided: Ayes 306, Noes 283.

Division No. 264.]	AYES	[2.14 a.m.
Abse, Leo	Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony	Graham, Ted
Allaun, Frank	Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)	Grant, George (Morpeth)
Anderson, Donald	Cryer, Bob	Grant, John (Islington C)
Archer, Peter	Cunningham, G. (Islington S)	Grocott, Bruce
Armstrong, Ernest	Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiten)	Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Ashley, Jack	Dalyell, Tam	Hardy, Peter
Ashton, Joe	Davidson, Arthur	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)	Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)	Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Atkinson, Norman	Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)	Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Hatton, Frank
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)	Hayman, Mrs Helene
Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)	Deakins, Eric	Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Bates, All	Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)	Heffer, Eric S.
Bean, R. E.	de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Hooley, Frank
Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood	Dell, Rt Hon Edmund	Horam, John
Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)	Dempsey, James	Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm'H)
Bidwell, Sydney	Doig, Peter	Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Bishop, E. S.	Dormand, J. D.	Huckfield, Les
Bienkinsop, Arthur	Douglas-Mann, Bruce	Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Boardman, H.	Duffy, A. E. P.	Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Booth, Rt Hon Albert	Dunn, James A.	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Boothroyd, Miss Betty	Dunnett, Jack	Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur	Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth	Hunter, Adam
Boyden, James (Bish Auck)	Eadie, Alex	Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
Bradley, Tom	Edge, Geoff	Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Edwards Robert (Wolv SE)	Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)	Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)	Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)	Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)	Janner, Greville
Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)	English, Michael	Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Buchan, Norman	Ennals, David	Jeger, Mrs Lena
Buchanan, Richard	Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)	Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)	Evans, loan (Aberdare)	John, Brynmor
Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)	Evans, John (Newton)	Johnson, James (Hull West)
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)	Ewing, Harry (Stirling)	Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Campbell, Ian	Faulds, Andrew	Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Canavan, Dennis	Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.	Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Cant, R. B.	Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	Judd, Frank
Carmichael, Neil	Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)	Kaufman, Gerald
Carter, Ray	Flannery, Martin	Kelley, Richard
Carter-Jones. Lewis	Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)	Kerr, Russell
Cartwright, John	Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)	Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Castle, Rt Hon Barbara	Foot, Rt Hon Michael	Kinnock, Nell
Clemitson, Ivor	Ford, Ben	Lambie, David
Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)	Forrester, John	Lamborn, Harry
Cohen, Stanley	Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)	Lamond, James
Coleman, Donald	Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)	Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Colquhoun, Ms Maureen	Freeson, Reginald	Leadbitter, Ted
Concannon, J. D.	Garrett, John (Norwich S)	Lee, John
Conlan, Bernard	Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)	Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)
Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)	George, Bruce	Lever, Rt Hon Harold
Corbett, Robin	Gilbert, Dr John	Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)
Cox, Thomas (Tooting)	Ginsburg, David	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)	Golding, John	Lipfon, Marcus
Crawshaw, Richard	Gould, Bryan	Litterick, Tom
Cronin, John	Gourlay, Harry	Lomas, Kenneth

Loyden, Eddie	Palmer, Arthur	Strang, Gavin
Luard, Evan	Park, George	Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)	Parker, John	Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson	Pavitt, Laurie	Swain, Thomas
McCartney, Hugh	Peart, Rt Hon Fred	Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
McDonald, Dr Oonagh	Pendry, Tom	Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
MacFarquhar, Roderick	Perry, Ernest	Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)
McGuire, Michael (Ince)	Phipps, Dr Colin	Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
MacKenzie, Gregor	Prentice, Rt Hon Reg	Thorne, Stan (Preston South)
Mackintosh, John P.	Prescott, John	Tierney, Sydney
Maclennan, Robert	Price, C. (Lewisham W)	Tinn, James
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)	Price, William (Rugby)	Tomlinson, John
McNamara, Kevin	Radice, Giles	Tomney, Frank
Madden, Max	Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)	Torney, Tom
Magee, Bryan	Richardson, Miss Jo	Tuck, Raphael
Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)	Urwin, T. W.
Mahon, Simon	Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)	Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.
Mallalleu, J. P. W.	Robertson, John (Paisley)	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)
Marks, Kenneth	Robinson, Geoffrey	Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)
Marquand, David	Roderick, Caerwyn	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)	Rodgers, George (Chorley)	Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)	Rodgers, William (Stockton)	Ward, Michael
Mason, Rt Hon Roy	Rooker, J. W.	Watkins, David
Maynard, Miss Joan	Roper, John	Watkinson, John
Meacher, Michael	Rose, Paul B.	Weetch, Ken
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert	Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)	Weitzman, David
Mendelson, John	Rowlands, Ted	Wellbeloved, James
Mikardo, Ian	Sandelson, Neville	White, Frank R.(Bury)
Millan, Bruce	Sedgemore, Brian	White, James (Pollok)
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)	Selby, Harry	Whitehead, Phillip
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)	Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)	Whitlock, William
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)	Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)	Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Moonman, Eric	Shore, Rt Hon Peter	Williams, Alan (Swansea W)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)	Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)	Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Short, Mrs Renee (Wolv NE)	Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)	Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)	Williams, Sir Thomas
Moyle, Roland	Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick	Sillars, James	Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King	Silverman, Julius	Wilson, William (Coventry SE)
Newens, Stanley	Skinner, Dennis	Wise, Mrs Audrey
Noble, Mike	Small, William	Woodall, Alec
Oakes, Gordon	Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)	Woof, Robert
Ogden, Eric	Snape, Peter	Wrigglesworth, Ian
O'Halloran, Michael	Spearing, Nigel	Young, David (Bolton E)
Orbach, Maurice	Stallard, A. W.
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley	Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Ovenden, John	Stoddart, David	Mr. Joseph Harper and
Owen, Dr David	Stott, Roger	Mr. James Hamilton.
Padley, Walter

NOES
Adley, Robert	Carlisle, Mark	Farr, John
Alison, Michael	Carson, John	Fell, Anthony
Amery, Rt Hon Julian	Chalker, Mrs Lynda	Finsberg, Geoffrey
Arnold, Tom	Channon, Paul	Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)	Churchill, W. S.	Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Awdry, Daniel	Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)	Forman, Nigel
Baker, Kenneth	Clark, William (Croydon S)	Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Banks, Robert	Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)
Beith, A. J.	Clegg, Walter	Freud, Clement
Bell, Ronald	Cockcroft, John	Fry, Peter
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)	Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)	Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)	Cope, John	Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Berry, Hon Anthony	Cordle, John H.	Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Biffen, John	Cormack, Patrick	Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
Biggs-Davison, John	Costain, A. P.	Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Blaker, Peter	Critchley, Julian	Glyn, Dr Alan
Body, Richard	Crouch, David	Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Crowder, F. P.	Goodhart, Philip
Bottomley, Peter	Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)	Goodhew, Victor
Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)	Dean, Paul (N Somerset)	Goodlad, Alastair
Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)	Dodsworth, Geoffrey	Gorst, John
Bradford, Rev Robert	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Braine, Sir Bernard	Drayson, Burnaby	Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Brittan, Leon	du Cann, Rt Hon Edward	Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Brocklebank-Fowler, C.	Dunlop, John	Gray, Hamish
Brotherton, Michael	Durant, Tony	Griffiths, Eldon
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Dykes, Hugh	Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Bryan, Sir Paul	Eden, Rt Hon Sir John	Grist, Ian
Buchanan-Smith, Alick	Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Grylls, Michael
Buck, Antony	Elliott, Sir William	Hall, Sir John
Budgen, Nick	Emery, Peter	Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Bulmer, Esmond	Eyre, Reginald	Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Burden, F. A.	Fairbairn, Nicholas	Hampson, Dr Keith
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Fairgrieve, Russell	Hannam, John

Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)	Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald	Sainsbury, Tim
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss	Mawby, Ray	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Hastings, Stephen	Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin	Scott, Nicholas
Havers, Sir Michael	Mayhew, Patrick	Scott-Hopkins, James
Hawkins, Paul	Meyer, Sir Anthony	Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Hayhoe, Barney	Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)	Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Heath, Rt Hon Edward	Mills, Peter	Shelton, William (Streatham)
Heseltine, Michael	Miscampbell, Norman	Shepherd, Colin
Hicks, Robert	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Shersby, Michael
Higgins, Terence L.	Moate, Roger	Silvester, Fred
Holland, Philip	Molyneaux, James	Sims, Roger
Hordern, Peter	Monro, Hector	Sinclair, Sir George
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Montgomery, Fergus	Skeet, T. H. H.
Howell, David (Guildford)	Moore, John (Croydon C)	Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Smith, Dudley (Warwick)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)	Morgan, Geraint	Speed, Keith
Hunt, David (Wirral)	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral	Spence, John
Hunt, John (Bromley)	Morris, Michael (Northampton S)	Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)
Hurd, Douglas	Morrison, Charles (Devizes)	Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)	Sproat, lain
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)	Mudd, David	Stainton, Keith
James, David	Neave, Airey	Stanbrook, Ivor
Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)	Nelson, Anthony	Stanley, John
Jessel, Toby	Neubert, Michael	Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)	Newton, Tony	Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)
Jones, Arthur (Daventry)	Normanton, Tom	Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Jopling, Michael	Nott, John	Stokes, John
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith	Onslow, Cranley	Stradling Thomas, J.
Kaberry, Sir Donald	Oppenheim, Mrs Sally	Tapsell, Peter
Kellett, Bowman, Mrs Elaine	Osborn, John	Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)
Kershaw, Anthony	Page, John (Harrow West)	Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)
Kimball, Marcus	Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)	Tebbit, Norman
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)	Pardoe, John	Temple-Morris, Peter
King, Tom (Bridgwater)	Parkinson, Cecil	Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret
Kirk, Sir Peter	Penhaligon, David	Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)
Kitson, Sir Timothy	Percival, Ian	Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)
Knight, Mrs Jill	Peyton, Rt Hon John	Townsend, Cyril D.
Knox, David	Pink, R. Bonner	Trotter, Neville
Lamont, Norman	Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch	Tugendhat, Christopher
Langford-Holt, Sir John	Price, David (Eastleigh)	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Latham, Michael (Melton)	Prior, Rt Hon James	Vaughan, Dr Gerard
Lawrence, Ivan	Pym, Rt Hon Francis	Viggers, Peter
Lawson, Nigel	Raison, Timothy	Wakeham, John
Le Marchant, Spencer	Rathbone, Tim	Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter	Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)
Lloyd, Ian	Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)	Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek
Loveridge, John	Rees-Davies, W. R.	Wall, Patrick
Luce, Richard	Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)	Walters, Dennis
McAdden, Sir Stephen	Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)	Warren, Kenneth
McCrindle, Robert	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon	Weatherill, Bernard
McCusker, H.	Ridley, Hon Nicholas	Wells, John
Macfarlane, Nell	Ridsdale, Julian	Whitelaw, Rt Hon William
MacGregor, John	Rifkind, Malcolm	Wiggin, Jerry
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)	Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey	Winterton, Nicholas
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)	Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)	Wood, Rt Hon Richard
McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)	Roberts, Wyn (Conway)	Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)
Madel, David	Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)	Younger, Hon George
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)	Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Marten, Neil	Ross, William (Londonderry)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Mates, Michael	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)	Mr. W. Benyon and
Mather, Carol	Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)	Mr. Jim Lester
Maude, Angus	Royle, Sir Anthony

Question accordingly agreed to.

Ordered, That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining proceedings on the Bills:—

Report and Third Reading

1.—(1) The Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading of the Rent (Agriculture) Bill shall be completed in one allotted day, and—

1. (a) the Proceedings on Consideration shall be brought to a conclusion at half-past Ten o'clock, and
2. (b) the proceedings on Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion at Midnight.

(2) The Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading of the Education Bill shall be completed in one allotted day, and—

1. (a) the Proceedings on Consideration shall be brought to a conclusion at half-past Ten o'clock, and
2. (b) the Proceedings on Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion at Midnight

(3) Standing Order No. 43 (Business Committees) shall not apply to this Order.

Dilatory Motions

2. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, Proceedings on either Bill shall be made on an allotted day except by a Member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

Extra time on allotted days

3.—(1) On an allotted day for either Bill paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings on that Bill for two hours after Ten o'clock.

(2) Any period during which Proceedings on either Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under pargaraph (7) of Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) shall be in addition to the period under this paragraph.

(3) If an allotted day for either Bill is one to which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over from an earlier day, a period of time equal to the duration of the Proceedings upon that Motion shall be added to the period during which Proceedings on that Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under this paragraph, and the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings on that Bill which, under this Order are to be brought to a conclusion on that day shall also be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on the Motion.

Private Business

4. Any private business which has been set down for consideration at Seven o'clock on an allotted day for either Bill shall, instead of being considered as provided by the Standing Orders, be considered at the conclusion of the Proceedings on that Bill on that day, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the Proceedings on that Bill, or, if those Proceedings are concluded before Ten o'clock, for a period equal to the time elapsing between Seven o'clock and the Completion of those Proceedings.

Conclusion of Proceedings

5.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order and which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall forthwith proceed to put the following Questions (but no others), that is to say—

1. (a) the Question or Questions already proposed from the Chair, or necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill);
2. (b) the Question on any amendment or Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of any Member, if that amendment or Motion is moved by a Member of the Government;
3. (c) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded;

and on a Motion so moved for a new Clause or a new Schedule, Mr. Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

(3) If, at Seven o'clock on an allotted day for either Bill, any Proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time have not been concluded, any Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) which, apart from this Order, would stand over to that time shall stand over until those Proceedings have been concluded.

(4) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over to Seven o'clock on an allotted day for either Bill, or to any later time under subparagraph (3) above, the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion on that day at any hour falling after the beginning of the Proceedings on that Motion shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.

Supplemental orders

6.—(1) The Proceedings on any Motion moved in the House by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and the last foregoing paragraph shall apply as it applies to Proceedings on one of the Bills on an allotted day for that Bill.

(2) If on an allotted day on which any Proceedings on either Bill are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before that time no notice shall be required of a Motion moved at the next sitting by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

Saving

7. Nothing in this Order shall—

1. (a) prevent any Proceedings to which the Order applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order, or
2. (b) prevent any business (whether on one of the Bills or not) from being proceeded with on any day after the completion of all such Proceedings on either Bill as are to be taken on that day.

Re-committal

8.—(1) References in this Order to Proceedings on Consideration or Proceedings on Third Reading include references to Proceedings, at those stages respectively, for, on or in consequence of re-committal.

(2) On an allotted day for either Bill, no debate shall be permitted on any Motion to re-commit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any amendment moved to the Question.

Interpretation

9. In this Order— 'allotted day' in relation to either Bill means any day (other than a Friday) on which that Bill is put down as the first Government Order of the day provided that in each case a Motion for allotting time to the Proceedings on the Bill to be taken on that day has been agreed on a previous day. 'the Bills' means the Rent (Agriculture) Bill and the Education Bill.