Children Bill [Lords] (Hansard, 23 October 1989)

§ Mr. Speaker
Before calling upon the Minister to move the order of consideration motion, I must draw the attention of the House to a printing error on the Amendment Paper. The amendments to new clause 34, which is printed on page 3173, will be found on page 3164.

§ Mr. Keith Vaz (Leicester, East)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Leave it for the moment.

§ The Minister for Health (Mr. David Mellor)
I beg to move, That the Bill, as amended, be considered in the following order, namely: Amendments relating to Clauses 1 to 14, Schedule 1, Clause 47, Schedule 4, Clauses 48 to 53, Schedule 5, Clauses 54 to 56, Schedule 6, new Schedule 6A, Clauses 57 to 59, Schedule 7, Clauses 60 to 63, Schedules 9 to 13, new Clauses 1, 23 and 20, remaining new Clauses, new Schedule 9A, Amendments relating to Clauses 15 to 26, Schedule 2. Clauses 27 to 33, Schedule 3, Clauses 34 to 46, Clauses 64 to 71, Schedule 8, Clauses 72 to 91 and the Title. I should like to pay warm tribute to the officials of the House, who had to work exceptionally hard to produce the order of consideration for today having regard to the large number of amendments that have been tabled. I know that that necessitated a number of officials of the House, as well as officials of my Department, working through the night on Friday. I should like to express my gratitude and, I suspect, the gratitude of the House for that.
The motion endeavours to arrange our consideration so that a significant number of uncontentious and formal amendments are taken first.

§ Mr. Vaz
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I tried to attract your attention earlier, but you did not call me. My point relates to what the Minister has just said and the order in which the House will take the amendments. As you, Mr. Speaker, have said, there is an enormous number of amendments to the Bill. I am concerned about new clauses 13 and 5, which involve the child assessment orders and the child production notice. They are important clauses and, if we follow the selection that you have determined, we shall reach them by about 7 o'clock this evening. In view of the importance of the clauses and the statements made by the Minister last Saturday to the social services correspondent of The Guardian will it be possible to take those clauses out of the schedule you suggested and put them back until tomorrow?

§ Mr. Speaker
The order in which amendments are taken is not for me. It is in the Government's motion which is on the Order Paper. If the hon. Gentleman does not like that motion, he must vote against it.

§ Mr. Mellor
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not feel it necessary to do that.
I was about to say that the motion, which has obviously been discussed through the usual channels, is an endeavour to reflect the significance of making progress 481 with largely uncontentious amendments, followed by the opportunity, while the House is still fresh, to consider some issues, including the one raised by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), which are more contentious and on which the House will no doubt want to spend some time.
In explaining to the House why there are so many amendments, I shall make three points. First, the Bill is a major consolidation and reform of both the private and public law relating to children. It is an important technical Bill on a matter which is unlikely to be the subject of further sustained parliamentary consideration for some time. Therefore, it is crucial that all the details are right, hence the large number of amendments, many of which, though I suspect purely formal and uncontentious, are vital. I apologise for the large number of amendments.
Secondly, the Bill has proceeded through both Houses of Parliament as a non-partisan measure and, therefore, the fact that when the Bill was considered in totality in Committee the Government offered a number of concessions to opinion among all parties means that a number of the amendments reflect agreements which were reached in Committee. While that has added to the work of the House, it is an ornament to Parliament rather than otherwise that the Committee stages have led to such a measure of consideration on Report.
Thirdly, one or two new issues have arisen, such as the follow-up to the Crookham Court school problems which have led to some amendments being tabled. It would have been remiss if we had not taken the opportunities offered to make changes in a part of the law which plainly gave rise to considerable public concern.