WALES BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME) (Hansard, 18 July 1978)

HC Deb 18 July 1978 vol 954 cc435-59 435

§ 12.31 a.m.

§ The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. John Smith)
I beg to move, That the Order of 16th November 1977 be supplemented as follows:—

TABLE
Proceedings
Allotted day	Lords Amendments	Time for conclusion
1st day	Nos. 1 to 24	7 p.m.
	Nos. 25 to 30	9 p.m.
	Nos. 31 to 51	10.30 p.m.
	Nos. 52 to 66	midnight
2nd day	Nos. 67 to 77	6 p.m.
	Nos. 17 to 104	7.30 p.m.
	Nos. 105 to 166	10 p.m.
	Nos. 167 to 198	midnight

§ 2. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings for two hours after Ten o'clock.

§ 3. For the purpose of bringing any Proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 above—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the Amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;
(b) Mr. Speaker shall then—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment, or as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended;
(ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment; and
(iii) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

(c) as soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to that Lords Amendment.

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§ Lords Amendments

§ 1. The Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed in two allotted days and, subject to the provisions of the Order of 16th November, each part of those Proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of the Table set out below.

§ Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments

§ 4. The Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of the Proceedings.

§ 5.—(1) For the purpose of bringing those Proceedings to a conclusion Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

§ (2) Mr. Speaker shall then—

(a) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on any item in the Lords Message; and
(b) put forthwith the Question, That this House does agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

§ (3) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords on any of their Proposals, Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Motion made by a Minister of the Crown relevant to the Proposal.

§ Supplemental

§ 6.—(1) In this paragraph 'the Proceedings' means Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the Report of such a Committee.

§ (2) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion moved by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of the Message or, as the case may be, for the appointment and quorum of the Committee.

§ (3) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which they are appointed.

437

§ (4) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings.

§ (5) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the Proceedings shall be made except by a Member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

§ (6) If the Proceedings were interrupted by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on the Motion shall be added to the period at the end of which the Proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion.

§ The purpose of the motion is to provide a timetable for the consideration of amendments made in another place to the Wales Bill. I think that, in principle, the case for an allocation of time motion in respect to the Wales Bill is the same as the case made for such a motion on the Scotland Bill, which the House has already passed—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Does not the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, Central (Mr. McCartney) know that the House is still sitting? Mr. John Smith.

§ Mr. Smith
As hon. Members will recollect, the House passed the timetable motion on the Scotland Bill, and, indeed, it has completed the present consideration of the Lords amendments. I propose briefly to put the argument for the allocation of time motion in the same way as I put it on the Scotland Bill.
First, I submit that a timetable motion is necessary. I remind the House that we started off the Wales Bill right at the beginning of the Session, back in November 1977. We had one day on Second Reading, nine days on the Committee stage and two days on Report and Third Reading, all in terms of a timetable motion, to which the motion now before us is supplemental.
Now, almost at the end of the Session, we require to consider a number of amendments from the other place. No one will seriously argue that without this motion we could deal with them in a reasonable time. We know what may happen from what happened without a guillotine on the Scotland and Wales Bill. There is the added advantage that we are more likely to have a balanced discussion. 438 With the timetable on the Scotland Bill, we were able to discuss and decide upon a large number of matters which had been discussed in the Lords but not in the Commons.
Once again, this supplemental motion has knives coming down fairly frequently throughout the two days to permit discussion of similar matters. The structure of the reasonable time allocated will allow us to discuss matters which have not been discussed in this House.
The Wales Bill is important and in some ways complicated, but on balance it is probably less complicated and extensive than the Scotland Bill—certainly in terms of Lords amendments—so it is reasonable to allocate two days.
The Government intend to recommend that the House should accept, on a quick calculation, 83 of the 198 amendments made in the other place. That leaves a fairly large number to discuss, but I believe that we shall have satisfactory debates, as we did on the Scotland Bill. This will enable us to give the fairest consideration to the amendments and to take decisions on a reasonable time scale.

§ 12.36 a.m.

§ Mr. Francis Pym (Cambridgeshire)
I disagree totally with the idea of moving such a motion as this in the middle of the night. It is unnecessary and unreasonable. It may not be relevant that it has not happened before, but it is certainly unnecessary. It amounts to an insult to this House and, in a way, an insult to Wales.
Surprisingly the Lord President, in his role as Lord High Executioner, is not prepared to do the dirty work himself. One of his Ministers has to release the blades while he sits by and enjoys the spectacle in whatever way he likes. That is not a very honourable procedure in the circumstances: indeed, it is rather ignominious. It is surprising too that, as I understand it, the Lord President will be taking no part at all in the debates on these constitutional Bills.
The right hon. Gentleman's sole interest is to get the Bills through at any price, no matter what happens on the way, no matter how many casualties there may be or what long-term damage may be 439 done. He admitted as much at a rally in Wales recently: We shall look at them"— the Lords amendments— with the same kind of care that would have been given to proposals for reforming the Band of Hope made by the Brewers' Society. Very funny. That just shows with what contempt the right hon. Gentleman is treating the amendments. It implies that he thinks he knows best and that everyone else is wrong.
We think that it is wrong to treat the Wales Bill as a second-class Bill, almost as the poor sister of the Scotland Bill. The allocation of time should be at least as much as was given to that Bill, which itself was inadequate. There is no justification for Wales faring even worse, with only two days instead of three. I agree that it is a different method of devolution, but in our view it requires just as much debate.
We might contrast the time allocated to the two Bills. In Committee and on Report in the Commons, the Scotland Bill received 17 days and the Wales Bill received only 11 days. In Committee and on Report in the Lords, the Scotland Bill received 18 days and the Wales Bill eight days. For consideration of Lords amendments, the Scotland Bill has had three days and the Wales Bill is to have two.

§ Mr. Thomas Swain (Derbyshire, North-East)
rose—

§ Mr. Pym
I want to develop my argument, and then I shall give way. The hon. Gentleman has only his right hon. Friends to complain about for the circumstances of this debate.
On the Scotland Bill there were 80 amendments that the Government decided not to accept, of which 48 were debated and 32 were not debated at all. They decided to accept 159 of the Lords amendments, but only six of those were debated. That is the experience that we have had in the three days on the Lords amendments to the Scotland Bill, and Wales will be provided with even fewer days.

§ Mr. Swain
Will the right hon. Gentleman, with his rather belated interest in Wales, tell the House why it was that during the Committee stage, Report and Third Reading of the Local Government Bill he and his colleagues, who were on 440 the Government Benches at the time, refused to accept an amendment put down by myself and other hon. Members providing for separate Bills for Wales and for England? The right hon. Member's interest in Wales is rather belated, and it is only a political point that he is making.

§ Mr. Pym
I think that my interest in Wales predates any interest of the hon. Member's. At any rate, on this occasion between us all we managed to persuade the Government to divide the Scotland and Wales Bill into two, so we have managed to achieve some advance.
In some ways the Wales Bill is more complex than the Scotland Bill. It certainly deserves as much debate, and I think that the way in which the Government have sought to curtail and to compress it is causing the House to be unable to fulfil its responsibility to the people of Wales and unable to fulfil its proper constitutional role.
The Leader of the House is abusing his position as Leader of the House, not because he is introducing a timetable motion but because that motion is demonstrably and unnecessarily inadequate. The right hon. Gentleman is using the Minister of State to bring down the knives on the Bill in such a way that our legislative function is made a mockery. I thought that hon. Members wanted an orderly and adequate debate, not no debate or a mockery of a debate. I do not believe that on the basis of this motion that is possible on the Lords amendments to the Wales Bill.
The facts of the matter are these. During the Bill's passage in the Commons previously, out of 84 clauses only 15 were discussed and out of 12 schedules only two were discussed. Vast tracts of the Bill were unexamined, unscrutinised and unconsidered by the House. In the Lords, 198 amendments were passed, covering between them over 20 substantial areas. Of these areas, only three were debated in the House during the previous stages of the Bill; the other 17 were never mentioned. If each of these areas was discussed for only one and a half hours, that would mean 30 hours of debate. Is that too much to ask? Is four days for Wales too much? Hon. Members on the Government Benches say that it is too long. Why is it too long? It is not too long for a major Bill which, if ever it 441 were to be put into operation, would have a far-reaching effect on the people of Wales, and, for that matter, on the people of the United Kingdom.
I do not think that I am overstating the case. I think that Wales deserves that modest allocation of time, and that is all that I am asking for. As it is, the motion provides for only two days—only twice as long, I recall, as the amount of time permitted by the Government for Lords amendments to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill—quite a significant Bill but certainly not one that could be considered to be a major constitutional Bill. Do you remember what happened to that, Mr. Deputy Speaker? It was found to be defective. It was found to have a mistake in it, and the Government had to bring in an amending Bill in order to correct that mistake, because we hurried our legislative work too much. It matters far more on this Bill to avoid mistakes, and so I say that two days is not enough for Wales.
Finally, of the 198 amendments a large proportion are Government amendments, and I think they said that they would accept some others, amounting to about 100 altogether. I think that is right. The right hon. Gentleman said 83, but from the list that he put in the "No" Lobby it seemed to me that it was more than that. There is no need to argue about that, but the fact that that has happened surely provides evidence of defective drafting or second thoughts on the part of the Government. The Lords have done their best to fulfil their proper revising function after our own failure adequately to scrutinise the Bill. The Lords have passed these amendments to try to make the Bill less bad.
The Lord President had the gall to say this when opening the launching rally: There is something incongruous in members of the House of Lords discussing how democracy should be denied to the people of Wales. There is something even more incongruous in the right hon. Gentleman, by remote control, denying this House the time it should have to work for the benefit of the people of Wales. The right hon. Gentleman showed that he will stick at nothing to impose his partisan will, and he is not prepared to take any notice of any other person, any minorities or any other groups.
442 I urge the House not to agree to the motion. Let us have another one, a better one and a fairer one that will provide adequate time to discuss this important matter. If that is done, some integrity might be restored to the parliamentary process in relation to this monstrously ill-conceived Bill.

§ 12.46 a.m.

§ Mr. Leo Abse (Pontypool)
I believe that it is the duty of those of us who believe in this way and who are speaking to Wales tonight, apart from those of us who are speaking to our colleagues who represent English constituencies and who perhaps are not so fully aware of what Wales is thinking about the issues, to point out that this is a deliberate act of contempt of the people of Wales by a group of people who are fearful that full debate of all the implications would thwart their attempts to foist a bureaucratic Assembly upon the Principality.
It is no wonder that the Government want a guillotine. The hope of the executioners is that no debates will take place which will catch the further attention of Wales. They want Wales to walk blindfold into the traps now being set. The hope by this ruse is that Wales will not know that Assemblymen will be able to have whatever salary and expenses they themselves decide and will not know that nationalist MPs who wish to become Members both of the Assembly and of this House will be able to augment their salaries in an unprecedented way. It will mean, further, that these decisions will be taken inside the Assembly behind closed doors. It means that Assemblymen will be able to deal with their own affairs, including their salaries, without the publication of any proper minutes. It will mean, in short, that Assemblymen will be able to exclude the public in a way that this House cannot.
It will follow, if these amendments are not properly discussed, that an Assembly will come into existence which will have absolute privilege, which will be a school for scandal and where those who wish to protect the interests that have been created will be able to say what they wish, how they wish, in whatever manner, without any of the traditional checks which prevail in an Assembly of this kind. All these matters have been scrutinised in the other place, where amendments were introduced directed to 443 ensuring that this House should have surveillance over the salaries that otherwise Assemblymen can create at whim.
The amendments which have been made in another place have made it clear that there should be inhibitions upon the manner in which the Assemblymen talk, since they will not have either the tradition or understanding which this House has carefully built up behind its protection of absolute privilege, ensuring that individuals outside do not suffer. There are those who may mock at the work done in the other part of our legislature. It is our legislature. If they do not want it, let them take action to abolish it. There is a case to be made for the abolition of the Lords, but as long as it is there and doing its function it does not become this Chamber to treat it with contempt when it is doing a workmanlike job which is denied to this House.
It demeans this House if we do not at least pay regard to what has been careful thinking about the minutiae of the Bill which was never examined at all in this Chamber. The fact is that because of their activities the Lords have inserted amendments which enable individuals to challenge possible abuses of power, which could take place, on the part of the Assembly. These amendments are necessary for the protection of the individual in Wales. I believe that the majority of the people there are looking with suspicion at the creation of this bureaucratic Assembly.
All these amendments will be buried unrecorded in this guillotine if it is passed. I say to my hon. Friends that we believe that the people of Wales, who are certainly deeply divided inside our movement as to the merits or demerits of this proposal, at least have the right to expect that they know all the arguments. They at least have the right to know that the Bill upon which they will be asked to make a decision has been properly scrutinised. All of us, including the Leader of the House, know full well that the debates have not taken place, that the Bill has not been examined and that large areas of it will be presented to the people of Wales if this guillotine is passed, without any scrutiny having been made.

§ Mr. Dan Jones (Burnley)
Why not?

§ Mr. Abse
"Why not?" comes the cry from the fanatics who are supporting the 444 Bill. If hon. Members believe that they can quench by a Bill of this kind the traditional internationalism of the Labour Party of Wales, they are making a great mistake. If they believe that by a guillotine of this character they can cut down a Labour movement that has vision and understanding of its links, certainly with the movement inside England and Scotland, I say to those hon. Members that they are making a grave mistake.
The backlash against this Bill is coming from those who stand four-square behind the long tradition that exists in Wales of ensuring that there is a unity of working people throughout Britain. They know full well that what is being presented to them is something which is cutting them off from the mainstream of the British Labour movement and is creating the conditions in which there could be a permanent Conservative majority in this country. One can examine the amendments and see how inevitable it will be that there will follow, if ever there is a Conservative Government, a wholesale reduction in the number of Members of Parliament representing Wales, as undoubtedly will take place in Scotland.
Those who cheer this evening and who believe that they are being loyal to the Government by going through the Lobby to support a guillotine of this kind are in my opinion estranging themselves entirely from the dynamic that has inspired our Welsh Labour movement—a dynamic that is certainly not expressed in this miserable, shrivelled-up Bill which would reduce Wales to a parish council and which would diminish the influence of Wales in Westminster. I believe it to be a major tragedy that at this hour of night—when there is clearly a need not merely to make the didactic statements that I am making but to justify them by being able to go through the Bill in detail and show to the House how disastrous the Bill is—a Bill of this kind is being imposed upon Wales.
But Wales has rumbled to what is taking place, and I am confident that, happily, there will be enough of us who will remain loyal to the views expressed by people such as Nye Bevan, and loyal to those who always understood that the worst damage that could be done to a Welsh Labour movement was to cut off its arteries from the main bloodstream of the British Labour movement.

445

§ 12.56 a.m.

§ Mr. Geraint Howells (Cardigan)
I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the morning in this very important debate. Being a staunch devolutionist, one of my ambitions during my political career has been to see a Welsh Parliament being set up in Cardiff, and I hope that the Members elected to that Assembly will be elected through a system of proportional representation.
The Bill is perhaps not acceptable to the majority of us. I wonder how many of the hon. Members on each side of the House who have spoken against the guillotine tonight, and against the Bill, are in favour of the principle of devolving power to the people of Wales. That is what is important, in my view—the principle of devolving power to the people.
My colleagues and I will vote this morning for the guillotine, or timetable motion. We have been told that 198 amendments have come from the other place. I wonder how many of the noble Lords in the other Chamber had the interests of Wales at heart. They have used delaying tactics because they are not in favour of devolving power to the people of Wales.
In my view, the Wales Bill should be on the statute book in this Session. We have waited long enough for this to happen. During the past two years right hon. and hon. Members have talked at length about devolution, and many hon. Members who were in this Chamber before us have talked about it at length during the past 50 years. But from what is said by many opponents of devolution one would think that the subject was an entirely new one, and that more time must be set aside over the next few years to discuss its implications.
We have to ask ourselves how much longer the people of Wales have to wait for devolution. Is it to be three weeks, three months, 30 years or 300 years? I think that the time is now opportune. It has been the cornerstone of Liberal policies for the last 100 years.
I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), who has opposed devolution during his time in the House of Commons. But perhaps at this stage it would be better for some hon. Members to hear 446 what a great statesman of this country said at the turn of the century. I quote from Gladstone, when he spoke on 26th November 1879. He commented: The imperial Parliament must be supreme in the three Kingdoms. But he went on: Subject to that limitation, if we can make arrangements under which Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and portions of England, can deal with questions of local and special interest to themselves more efficiently than Parliament now can, that, I say, will be the attainment of a great national good. The theme has been repeated again and again over the century, and today the Liberal Party upholds those principles.
Let us remind ourselves once again of what the late David Lloyd George said in February 1890. He was a statesman, and he said when seconding a resolution favouring self-government for Wales: There is a momentous time coming. The dark continent of wrong is being explored and there is a missionary spirit abroad for its reclamation to the realm of right … That is why I feel so sanguine that were self-government granted to Wales she would be a model to the nationalities of the earth of a people who have driven oppression from their hillsides, and initiated the glorious reign of freedom, justice and truth. Many right hon. and hon. Members have never understood the aspirations of the Welsh people. We are proud of our culture. We are proud of our language. We are proud of our traditions. We do not say that we are any better than the English, the Scots or the Irish, but we are different. If we do not look after our own interests, who will? We must safeguard our identity.
I beg right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who have the interests of Wales at heart to support us. I ask them not to deny us in Wales the right to govern ourselves.
I am determined that the opportunity will not be lost this time. We must work together for the establishment of the Welsh Assembly.

§ 1.3 a.m.

§ Sir Raymond Gower (Barry)
The argument of the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) seemed to be that we must have the Bill as quickly as possible, whether it is good or bad, and whether or not it has been worked out and argued properly. He made no remarks to convince anyone that he had any view about the efficacy of this proposed guillotine.

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§ Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarvon)
The principle.

§ Sir R. Gower
We are not discussing the principle of devolution. We are discussing whether the guillotine is a proper instrument for use at this stage of our discussions on this Bill.
The Minister of State said that a guillotine would ensure a more balanced discussion of Lords amendments. I cannot believe that he really takes that view. He may have said it, but he did not appear very convinced by it. He implied that our discussions on Second Reading and in Committee constituted a balanced examination of the Bill. It was a mockery of an examination.

§ Mr. Neil Kinnock (Bedwellty)
Whose fault was that?

§ Sir R. Gower
It was the very nature of the timetable which was set which resulted in very important parts of the Bill not being considered at all. It was not the fault of those who constituted the Committee that certain parts of the Bill could not be reached at the right stages on different days.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Alec Jones)
If the hon. Member is making the case that this House was denied sufficient time to discuss the Bill, can he honestly explain why it took this House six hours to debate Clause 1 when I moved in 35 seconds that the Government would not be proceeding with it?

§ Sir R. Gower
Because the part of the Bill that the Government suddenly decided to withdraw embodied a vital principle which was also reflected in other parts of the legislation. The hon. Member knows perfectly well that there were whole sections if the Bill which, even had the Committee galloped through its discussions, could not have been reached. As the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) so correctly pointed out, the other place did the work that we neglected or were unable to do.

§ Mr. Alec Jones
Did not want to do.

§ Sir R. Gower
The other House did the work which this House, by the very nature of the timetable, was unable to do. The other place has given us a second opportunity to look at sections of the Bill that we have not yet discussed.

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§ Mr. Caerwyn E. Roderick (Brecon and Radnor)
Does the hon. Member consider that the other place adequately dealt with these sections of the Bill, and will he tell us how long it took to do it?

§ Sir R. Gower
The important point is that by so doing the other place gave us a second chance. Now the stage manager of this Assembly is prepared to throw that chance away. It is a long time since the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) appeared as a champion of many things associated with freedom; it is only a dim memory in the minds of some of us. These days he seems to delight in adopting ideas that curtail discussion. I am amazed that he is not glad that we now have an opportunity to discuss such an important clause as that which deals with the local authorities in the Principality. That was one of the most important sections of the Bill. It could not be discussed before, and the Lords have given us the opportunity to look at it again.
I hope that the Government will have second thoughts about the timetable, even at this late stage. The discussion in this House was very poor. It was not worthy of the House of Commons. We left for the Lords a Bill that had hardly been touched. At least the other place, with all its handicaps, has done a great deal to illuminate parts of the Bill which require discussion. This House should grasp eagerly the opportunity and discuss the parts of the Bill which need very close scrutiny.

§ 1.8 p.m.

§ Mr. Neil Kinnock (Bedwellty)
We have heard again from the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) the speech that we have heard from him before. In discussing the guillotine he seems again to be confused by the nature of this Bill. He is supporting either federalism, which is the line his party currently promotes, or Home Rule, which his party used to promote. But he cannot bring those two to terms with the devolution which is contained in this Bill. We are talking about three different things. The hon. Member can opt for one of them, but he cannot come to terms with all three.
We are faced with an abbreviated guillotine on a runt of a Bill. The only reason why this Bill exists is in order to legitimise the panic that the Government 449 showed to the Scottish National Party. The whole business has been instituted, both in the Scotland and Wales Bill and in the split Bills, in order to give a veneer of respectability and a general commitment to the principle of devolution that would have been impossible to gain had they not given in to nationalist sentiment from only one part of the United Kingdom.
If we need any illustration of that we have only to look at the fact that at nine minutes past one in the morning we are in the course of a one-hour debate on a guillotine that is substantially shorter than the one proposed for the Scotland Bill. During the progress of these Bills through the House, the Wales Bill has had considerably less attention than the Scotland Bill. In every judgment at every stage, in every part of consideration, and in every proposal made allegedly to meet the thirst for self-government for the people of Scotland and Wales, there has been a complete difference in attitude by the Government towards Scotland and Wales.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, for a person of his talents—I mean that sincerely, as Hughie Green might say—has made no attempt to justify the imposition of a guillotine other than to adopt the classic argument advanced by Governments of all political complexions. Having used the procedures of the House to cramp debate, they then accuse those of opposing views, who face a brickwall in the curtailment of time, of wasting time or of inadequately using or abusing the time allocated. It is the oldest trick in the Government's book.
This suggests to me that time is not the great friend of opposition to any measure but the great friend of Governments in the way in which they can be tortured and moulded as a means of expediting business, even at the loss of adequate democratic consideration—consideration that should take place, especially on constitutional measures of this nature.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State went even further and talked of the possibility of balanced discussion being the greater because of the timetable motion. Had George Orwell sought to produce a phrase to describe the totalitarian attitude of Government towards 450 guillotine motions, he could not have come up with a better one than the suggestion of the possibility of balanced discussion during a guillotine that will last for mere flickers of the eye in the next two days when we attempt to consider most profound matters. My right hon. Friend talks of balanced discussion when we are being allowed only an hour-and-a-half's discussion on the subject of PR—and that includes the possibility of considering all the other matters handed down to us by their Lordships.

§ Mr. Roderick
We have had one opportunity.

§ Mr. Kinnock
My hon. Friend says that we have had one opportunity. We have had many opportunities, but is it not in the nature of this House repeatedly to given attention to matters and, by repetition, to seek to expose inadequacies.
The fact that PR might have been discussed on the Scotland Bill, or briefly discussed in Committee on the Wales Bill, is not sufficient justification for giving virtually no time at all for it to be discussed as a later stage. This House, notwithstanding the guillotines imposed by successive Governments, will discuss the whole question of changing the method of voting and representation in this country for as long as it likes and as often as it likes.
Is it justified in terms of balanced discussion that we give no more than an hour-and-a-half, and indeed considerably less, to clause 12—introduced by the Government not in the Scotland and Wales Bill, but drafted into the Wales Bill to permit the proposed Welsh Assembly to consider the possibility of local government reform?
We have been at some length into the ridiculous and wasteful duplication of such an exercise since we are talking of an executive Assembly in any case, and those proposals will have to return to this House for rejection, acceptance or amendment. But the fact remains that this matter was of such paramount importance to the Government that it has been used as a major justification for introducing the Assembly by the Leader of the House, who is fond of going around Wales saying that if we had had an Assembly we would never have had the dreaded Tory local government reform. Clause 12, therefore, is a main 451 justification by the Government for introducing this Bill in the first place.
How long have we got to discuss the Bill now? Seconds. We certainly did not have adequate time to discuss it in Committee or on Report. So in that sense I suppose that we have to be grateful to the noble gentlemen along the corridor. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I share an opinion about the other place.

§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)
Will my hon. Friend take into account that if the House of Lords that he is commending so strongly for its vigilance had only shown a little of that vigilance when the local government reform Bill was going through we would never have had the horror of the present local government reform forced on the people of Wales? The Lords did not exercise their restraint then; they have done it a bit belatedly now.

§ Mr. Kinnock
I understand what my right hon. Friend is saying. He is saying that we could have stopped local government reform if we had had a Welsh Assembly, or we could have stopped it if the gentlemen along the corridor had exercised their vigilance. With that latter remark, I entirely agree, because they are a bunch of Tories down there; the House of Lords is entirely dominated by Tories supporting Tory Governments and bent upon the confusion of Labour Governments. There is nothing that my right hon. Friend can tell me, and no terms in which he can put it too strongly, which would make me agree more with him about his general assessment of the House of Lords.
But the fact remains that, whilst we have spent considerable time in the past two years proposing and discussing legislation for which there is only limited support in Scotland and minute support in Wales, we could have been earnestly concerning ourselves with the obliteration of that place along the corridor. Indeed, that is a proposition that might have commended itself even more strongly than devolution to my right hon. Friend, a friend of democracy. But that has not been the proposition at all, so I do not offer my remarks about this guillotine in commendation of the House along the corridor—far from it. I do so simply 452 because, as the hon. Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower) said, it gives us an opportunity to bite this apple once again.
It is very difficult to accept criticism of the House of Lords from the Leader of the House because he, like all his predecessors, has an obligation to get the Government's business through the House of Commons. What does he do? Like all his predecessors, he introduces legislation in the House of Lords in order to abbreviate matters; he uses the House of Lords as a scrutinising Chamber, as the revising Chamber. I am not criticising him or his predecessors for that, for as long as that place exists, unelected, illegitimate as it may be in any democratic terms, Governments are forced to use it.
I will make an agreement with my right hon. Friend. As long as he does not take my remarks as being commendation of the House of Lords, I will not pay any more attention to the fact that he, like all other members of the Government, and certainly all previous Leaders of the House, is obliged to use such means in this most inadequate Parliament in order to relieve the House of Commons of some of the work so as to get the Government's business done.
But we still have before us a guillotine which, at the very outside, even if we wear track suits and spiked shoes in order to speed our way through the Division Lobbies, will leave us with an absolute maximum of 14 hours of possibility of debate on 183 amendments, involving important decisions which have not been previously considered by this House and which are of major interest to the people of Wales. It is the last opportunity for the rehearsal of these arguments in informed debate before we get to the referendum campaign, which we wrung so tortuously out of the Government. It is not an adequate means of scrutiny; it is not an adequate means of discussion. It is certainly not one that I can support.

§ 1.20 a.m.

§ Mr. Gwynfor Evans (Carmarthen)
I have been told that I have two minutes in which to make my speech. In that short time, I should like to point out that there is a wind of change blowing through Europe. Stateless nations and historic regions are showing a new vitality. On Monday we read in the press that the Basque country now has its own elected 453 assembly and the Basque people are negotiating with the Spanish Government to extend the considerable powers proposed for that assembly. Swift movement is also to be found in Catalonia. In many parts of Europe, we find similar moves to those that are taking place in these countries of Britain. This spirit of change affects us, too.
We speak in the context of a country which is one of the oldest nations of Europe and it is disgraceful that the Welsh people have no control over any aspect of their life, as a people. The Bill at least proposes a beginning to give the Welsh people some control over their own life. There has been talk of statutory instruments, but since March 1974 a total of 390 SIs have been presented by the Welsh Office and only 29 have been scrutinised by the House. We need a body in Wales even to do that job.
It has been said that devolution will be too costly for us to afford. It will cost the people of Britain ½p per week per person. That is the total cost of this exercise in democracy. It is an addition to democracy in Wales and we welcome it. We do not share the disgraceful sentiments of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), who has slandered his own nation tonight. He should withdraw those words. We believe that the Welsh people can look after their own affairs well and we want to see them given the chance. That chance can be started by passing the motion to give the Government the opportunity of getting the Bill through—an opportunity which they would not have if there were no timetable motion. We fully support the motion.

§ 1.22 a.m.

§ Mr. Nicholas Edwards (Pembroke)
Both hon. Members who spoke for minority parties in support of the motion failed to refer to the merits or otherwise of the guillotine and discussed only the principles of the Bill—which this debate is not about. The only two Labour Members who have spoken have criticised the guillotine, and that has been the pattern of all our debates on the Bill: there has been a lack of support from the Government's own Benches.
We are perhaps in a unique situation in considering this guillotine because we do not have to compare it with guillotines 454 on other Bills of long ago which may not be fair comparisons. Instead, we can compare it with the adequacy of the time allowed for Lords amendments to the Scotland Bill. There were three days allotted for the 239 amendments to that Bill. We have two days to consider 198 amendments
When the Minister put the Scotland Bill guillotine motion to the House, he forecast that the time would prove reasonable and tonight he said that it was satisfactory. Of the 80 Lords amendments not accepted by the House, 32 have not been debated before being returned to the Lords because there was no time to debate them. Of the 159 amendments accepted, only six were referred to in our debates. Those facts clearly establish that the time was inadequate and another place may consider that it will be justified in returning at least some of those amendments on those grounds alone. Our warnings proved right and the Minister's complacent forecasts proved wrong.
The time available for the Wales Bill is even shorter, and the Government intend to reject more Lords amendments on this Bill than they did on the Scotland Bill—115 against 80. We ought to have more time and not less for debate. The fact that 159 amendments to the Scotland Bill and 83 to this Bill are to be accepted by the Government justifies the work of another place and shows how totally unreasonable were the Lord President's insulting comments at the meeting referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym).
The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) said it was all a question of principle, but the Bill will have profound practical effects for the Welsh people and we should be considering not just the principle but whether the particular set of proposals are sensible and will work. The Lords have tidied up the Bill and given us the chance to re-examine some of the 68 clauses and 10 schedules that we were denied the opportunity to debate because of the operation of the guillotine. The truth is that the Government are now seeking to mislead the people of Wales. They are seeking to put to the people in a referendum an Act that the people will believe has been adequately debated and examined by Parliament, and that will be wrong. As a result of the guillotine they will have been defrauded.

455

§ Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West)
rose—

§ Mr. Edwards
In the course of the campaign the Bill's supporters will say that Parliament is satisfied that it will work, but it will not. The inconsistencies, the illogicalities and the unresolved problems remain.
The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) was right when he said that a prime objective of the guillotine is to curtail public exposure of the Bill before the referendum. Faced with the uncomfortable fact that virtually all the speeches made during the passage of the Bill have been against it, the Government are now seeking to silence the debate and to curtail the Bill's exposure. By holding the discussion in the middle of the night they are seeking to ensure that their actions will not be reported to the Welsh people in the Welsh press. The Government's concept of democracy is to curtail discussion and to keep the people in the dark. That is the principle followed by the Lord President.

§ The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris)
indicated dissent.

§ Mr. Edwards
That is the truth, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows it.
Faced with a constitutional measure of major importance that the House recognised from the outset would affect the unity of the Kingdom so that it refused to accept the first clause and the Government had to drop it, it is wrong that we should be silenced. It is wrong that our debates should be curtailed. I urge the House to reject this contemptible measure.

§ 1.27 a.m.

§ Mr. John Smith
The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) was in a state of great excitement. He made little reference to the detail of the timetable motion and the way in which we discussed these maters when they were before the House under an earlier timetable motion.
A fact that the House must bear in mind is that nine days were allocated under timetable motion. The length of most of the debates on various topics was decided by the Opposition. However, during nine days they covered only a small part of the ground that another place covered in five days without a guillotine. The conclusion that must be 456 drawn is that the Oposition were not concerned to see the maximum number of issues debated in this place.
It will not do for my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) or the hon. Member for Pembroke to suggest that the Government are trying to stifle debate. That cannot be said when, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State observed, we wasted six hours on clause 1 when the Government had indicated at the beginning of the debate that the clause would be withdrawn.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) took us a stage further when he commented on the Government's desire to get the Bill through Parliament. That is a legitimate desire because we started the Bill in the first week of the Session and we are now almost at the end of the Session. He said that there was panic on the part of the Government, with an exercise concerned only to maintain a veneer of respectability. I ask my hon. Friend to consider that we are trying to give a veneer of respectability to his own election commitment. In his manifesto he said: We shall meet the genuine demands for new democratic developments with an elected Welsh Assembly. This is precisely what we are seeking to do in proposing the Bill. A necessary part of that process is the timetable motion that we are putting before the House. My hon. Friend should be a little more generous towards a Government who are so accommodating to the promise that he made to his electors.

§ Mr. Kinnock
What about the promises that my right hon. Friend made?

§ Mr. Smith
I made a similar commitment n my election manifesto and I have been supporting the proposal in the House.
We saw what happened with the Scotland and Wales Bill when there was no guillotine motion. If we had continued with that Bill it would have been about the year 1990 before we had concluded discussion. As every hon. Member knows, it was clear that there was no chance of the Wales Bill or the Scotland Bill completing their stages through Parliament without a timetable motion. If we did not have the timetable motion now, there is no reason to suppose that the remaining 457 stages of the Bill would be completed in this Session. The Opposition might oppose the motion because they do not want the Bill to pass. But they should not cloak their opposition to the Bill in the guise of pretending that it is unreasonable to have a timetable motion.
We know that the Opposition are opposed to the Bill and that that is why they are opposed to the timetable motion. I do not object to that. It is their privilege. But they must not cloak their objection to the Bill by saying that there is something unreasonable about the timetable motion. There is nothing unreasonable in the motion. It is perfectly reasonable. When the House, in almost the last week of the Session, is dealing with Lords amendments to a Bill which began in almost the first week of the Session, it is reasonable.

§ It being one hour after the commence-

Table
Allotted day	Proceedings Lords Amendments	Time for conclusion
1st day	Nos. 1 to 24	7 p.m.
	Nos. 25 to 30	9 p.m.
	Nos. 31 to 51	10.30 p.m.
	Nos. 52 to 66	midnight
2nd day	Nos. 67 to 77	6 p.m.
	Nos. 78 to 104	7.30 p.m.
	Nos. 105 to 166	10 p.m.
	Nos. 167 to 198	midnight

§ 2. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings for two hours after Ten o'clock.

§ 3. For the purpose of bringing any Proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 above—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the Amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;
(b) Mr. Speaker shall then—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendments, or as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended;

458

§ ment of proceedings on the motion, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Order [16th November], to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of them.

§ Question put accordingly:—

§ The House divided: Ayes 291, Noes 260.

§ [See Division 287]

§ Question accordingly agreed to.

§ Ordered, That the Order of 16th November 1977 be supplemented as follows—

§ Lords Amendments

§ 1. The Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed in two allotted days and, subject to the provisions of the Order of 16th November, each part of those Proceedings shall, it not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of the Table set out below.

§ (ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment; and

§ (iii) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

§ (c) as soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to that Lords Amendment.

§ Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments

§ 4. The Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of the Proceedings.

§ 5.—(1) For the purpose of bringing those Proceedings to a conclusion Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister 459 of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

§ (2) Mr. Speaker shall then—

(a) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on any item in the Lords Message; and
(b) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

§ Supplemental

§ (2) Mr Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion moved by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of the Message or, as the case may be, for the appointment and quorum of the Committee.

§ (3) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which they are appointed.

§ (4) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings.

§ (5) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the Proceedings shall be made except by a Member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.