HOUSING (HOMELESS PERSONS) BILL (Hansard, 27 July 1977)

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant God-man Irvine)
I have to acquaint the House that a message has been brought from the Lords by one of their Clerks, as follows: The Lords have agreed to the Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill with amendments to which they desire the consideration of this House. As Mr. Speaker indicated earlier, copies of the amendments are available in the Vote Office.

§ Mr. Tim Sainsbury (Hove)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You have informed the House that copies of the amendments are available in the Vote Office. There are 57 amendments, 11 pages of them. To indicate the scope of the changes they introduce to the Bill, I must point out that the first 30 lines on page 4, 31 lines on page 5, and 33 lines on page 6 are deleted. These amendments were available in the Vote Office only at 12.05 a.m.—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I think that the hon. Member will have an opportunity to debate this matter in a moment.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Lords amendments be now considered.—[Mr. Snape.]

§ Mr. Michael Morris (Northampton, South)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If you have the same photo-copy as I have, you will see that there are a large number of handwritten manuscript amendments alongside the typewritten ones. May we have an assurance that the hand-written amendments are approved ones and that if passed they will not be altered subsequently? Can we be assured that these rather 863 scruffy amendments are a true and accurate record of the proceedings in another place? I raise this matter because we have had precedents before, particularly in housing matters, where there have been errors which subsequently had to be put right.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
That is not a matter for me.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
If I may continue my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was illustrating the scale of the amendments that have been introduced. In support of what my hon. Friend has just said, I refer to the third page of the amendments with a six-line manuscript amendment—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. Perhaps I can assist the hon. Member. The matter which he appears to be raising is not a point of order, but it would be relevant to the matter now being debated.

§ Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South and Finsbuiy)
I think that my colleagues would probably appreciate it if I said my expected rude remarks about the situation now and then kept quiet for the rest of the debate.
It is no secret that from the beginning I have regarded this Bill as ill conceived and thoroughly badly prepared. I shall not repeat the strictures on the Department that I have expressed on other occasions. The difficulties we are encountering now at 2.45 a.m. in dealing with 57 Lords amendments in this messy form—some of them only decided in a Lords debate which ended at 6 p.m.—is a final but characteristic and appropriate conclusion to the sort of processing of this legislation that has characterised it throughout.
The Bill will get to the statute book tonight—probably without a Division—through a combination of support from many of my hon. Friends who believe that it is better than nothing, and from the Opposition, who believe that it is better than something. They believe that this rotten Bill, as it is and as it will be when we pass the 57 amendments, is better than the properly drafted, properly constructed and properly conceived Bill that we would have if we put this one where it belongs—in the river—and started afresh next year with the advant- 864 age of the consideration given to this measure this year.
I do not believe that the Bill will help homeless people. It will cause enormous difficulties to those who try to use it and apply to local authorities. It will cause even more enormous difficulties for local authorities in trying to comprehend their obligations under it.
Having said those few words, I hope that the House will learn the lesson that it is no way to prepare legislation to start with a half-thought-out idea, to treat the Standing Committee as a pre-legislation Committee, and then to go through a process which means that each stage is about two stages behind the stage it is properly at. We are now about ready for the Committee stage of the Bill, and yet here we are finalising Lords amendments at 2.45 in the morning. I must say that in my seven years in the House there is no doubt that this is the worst-drafted, worst-constructed worst-conceived and worst-prepared Bill I have ever seen.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)
Perhaps we can now get under way with the Bill. For the convenience of the House—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
We must first deal with the Question.