King's Cross Railways Bill

HC Deb 08 February 1990 vol 166 cc1072-98

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order 121 (Quorum of committee on opposed bill), leave be given for the Committee on the King's Cross Railways Bill to proceed with a quorum of two.—[The Chairman of Was and Means.]

7.12 pm

Mr. Neil Hamilton (Tatton)

I am most grateful to the Chairman of Ways and Means for facilitating this debate. I thought that I might have to begin by introducing myself to right hon. and hon. Members, because I have been so long detained outside the Chamber that hon. Members may have forgotten who I am. [HON. MEMBERS: "Never".] Indeed, since 27 June last year—

Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes)

May I say that my hon. Friend will always be remembered a s a shining wit?

Mr. Hamilton

My hon. Friend has merely stolen one of my spoonerisms.

Since 27 June last year I have had the honour and privilege of chairing the Committee considering the King's Cross Railways Bill, which, while not exactly the greatest show on earth, has added to the gaiety of nations and augmented the public stock of harmless pleasure from the Grand Committee Room off Westminster Hall. We have sat in public on 33 days since, and we have had one private session and also one site visit.

I have emerged this evening blinking into the sudden glare and sunlight of the Chamber and hope that hon. Members will vote for the motion, which is brought before the House at the request of all the members of the Committee: my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), and the hon. Members for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) and for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay). I hope that hon. Members will appreciate that the honour of sitting on the Committee was not one that we actively sought, but we are doing our duty as it was imposed upon us by the House and intend, even if the motion is passed this evening, to continue to do so.

The Committee has now been sitting for a long time and my colleagues and I feel that we have now exhausted time and are beginning to encroach upon eternity. It is producing some significant problems for those on the Committee in carrying out their other parliamentary duties from time to time.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish)

I wonder whether, having gone this far through the experience, the hon. Gentleman now feels that private Bills should be encouraged or discouraged as a process. Does he not now have much sympathy with the special Select Committee that looked at this, seeking a way to reform the whole process?

Mr. Hamilton

The hon. Gentleman implies that I did not have any sympathy with that proposition before I became Chairman of the Committee. I should disabuse him of that idea, because I feel that there is much to be said for many of the recommendations in the Joint Committee report and I hope that the Leader of the House will take on board that Committee's recommendations. I am sure that they are in line with the views of many hon. Members who have come here this evening to debate not merely whether the quorum on the Committee should in this circumstance be reduced, but the wider points that have been adverted to by the hon. Gentleman.

It is a serious request that we are making to the House and it is not made lightly. It is not one to which, in other circumstances, I should be very sympathetic. I believe it to be of some importance, therefore, to establish the justification for what is being proposed.

I have said already that we have sat in public for 33 days. It is only this week that we have begun to hear evidence on behalf of the petitioners against the Bill. Therefore, the Bill is likely to continue in Committee for a very long time to come I have also said that, notwithstanding the request that we are making this evening, it will be incumbent upon hon. Members to attend diligently to their duties as often as is possible and necessary. I give an assurance to the House that they will do so.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)

I sympathise with the situation of the members of the hon. Gentleman's Committee. I have sat on and chaired, I think, five private Bill Committees and I understand his position, even though I shall be opposing what he proposes. He has just mentioned that the petitioners are about to start making their case. Does he think that they will be disadvantaged by this move, because the promoter, British Rail, has had the opportunity of a quorum of three, whereas now the petitioners will have a quorum of only two?

Mr. Hamilton

The hon. Gentleman may like to know that it is not necessarily an advantage to those making speeches that they be heard; in some cases it may be the opposite. However, I take the point that he has raised and assure him that, in our opinion, the petitioners will not be disadvantaged by the proposal. If we believed that they would be, I should not be standing here now advocating that the motion be passed.

A full record of the proceedings is taken every day and the transcript is available the following morning. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have been assiduous throughout the proceedings on the Bill in testing with some vigour the assertions of British Rail. I do not think that the representatives of British Rail would say that every day has been an agreeable experience, as they have been subjected to the penetrating glares and cross-examination of the members of the committee.

Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)

If it is not a disadvantage to any party for the quorum to be reduced from three to two, and my hon. Friend advanced the case that a good transcript was available to other hon. Members, why not reduce the quorum to one?

Mr. Hamilton

I appreciate that my hon. Friend thinks that autocracy is the best system of government, and I am sure that many hon. Members have sympathy with that. However, it is a question of degree. From time to time, it is necessary to adjourn the Committee, merely for a few moments, for an hon. Member to make a telephone call, or to perform some other function that it would be too indecorous to mention. For that reason we tabled the motion, and we also recognise that hon. Members have other duties in the House and outside, and it is our opinion that, on balance, this one exception to the general rule ought to be allowed, on the ground of the length of time that the Committee has been sitting.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

I can sympathise with the dilemma of the Committee, because I have been a Chairman of a Select Committee, although it did not have to sit as long as the hon. Gentleman's Committee. Does he agree that the problem that the Committee faces and that the House is considering tonight—I believe the problem has applied to other Bills in the past—is that Bills of this description come to the House without being preceded by other procedures? This type of private Bill deals indirectly with matters of public concern that it was not initially meant to deal with. There is a deep-seated difficulty over the nature of the promoter's objectives rather than any shortcoming in the procedures of the House.

Mr. Hamilton

I believe that procedural alterations could be made to shorten the time for which Committees sit. I believe that, if there were a procedure such as a summons for directions in cases before the High Court, to examine which witnesses and the nature of the evidence to be called and other such relevant questions, that might shorten the length of time for which the Committee sits without disadvantage to the promoters or the petitioners on the Bill. There are other options that one could mention.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I know that he is a distinguished Chairman of a Committee, as is the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks).

This request is not without precedent, although precedents are not apposite to cover the case of the Committee on which I sit.

Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North)

rose—

Mr. Hamilton

Would my hon. Friend permit me to make a little more progress with my speech? I hope that the debate will not last as long as the Committee has been sitting, and I want to allow other hon. Members to speak. I hope that my hon. Friend will be patient and perhaps intervene later.

Motions to reduce a quorum on Committees on private Bills have been put before. For example, in 1965 in the Committee examining the Covent Garden Market Bill, one of the hon. Members was taken seriously ill early in the proceedings and the quorum was reduced. In 1986, during the Committee on the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill, the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) refused to serve and no other Opposition Member could be found to take her place, so the quorum was also reduced then.

There are not many precedents for what we are asking the House to do. I am fully sensible of the enormity of what is being proposed, and I do not think that it should become a general precedent. The rules and procedures on private Bills are not to be substantially changed, but I believe that when a Committee lasts for an exceptionally long time, such as the length of time that we have endured, it is right that hon. Members should be permitted to be absent for short periods, from time to time, without causing the Committee to adjourn.

The previous record for length of sitting of a private Bill Committee is held by the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill and the North Killingholme Cargo Terminal Bill, which sat for 26 days. The Leicester (Crematorium) Bill also lasted for 26 days in the 1982–83 Session.

The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill Committee, which sat for 25 days, met for 86 hours in Committee over five months. The King's Cross Railways Bill has already sat for more than 115 hours on 33 days, over eight months, and as I have said, it is possible that it will last for another 15 or 20 days. We shall be well into the lead by the time that we conclude our proceedings.

Looking to the future, that time is probably as nothing compared to what will be endured when, and if, British Rail comes forward in November, as it has said that it intends to do, with its high-speed link Bill to put the rail line through Kent to King's Cross. Therefore, I hope that I carry with me tonight supporters from Kent who sit on the Benches behind me.

I hope that I am making a case based on the length of time that the Committee has served. The average number of sitting days per Committee during the past 20 years is 4.8, so the vast majority of private Bills sit for only a few days, and the total number of hours when the Bill is considered is very small.

Mr Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

What is the average now?

Mr. Hamilton

I accept the hon. Gentleman's sedentary comment—we are certainly pushing up the average, but I do not think that that is the greatest of my achievements in my short period in the House.

A number of Select Committees on hybrid Bills have sat for lengthy periods, but hybrid Bill Committees are not strictly comparable with private Bill Committees, because they contain a greater number of hon. Members and a smaller quorum in relation to the overall size of the Committee. That is the point that the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure had in mind when it turned its attention to quorums and made its recommendations.

The two most notable hybrid Bill Committees were the Channel Tunnel Bill—on which I also had the privilege of sitting—which sat for 39 days in 1985–86 and 1986–87 and the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Bill, which sat for 22 days in 1987–88, when there were seven members and the quorum was three.

I have some experience of these matters, and it is on the basis of that that I make this request this evening. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) should have some sympathy with my request, as he sat on the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure. In paragraph 118 of its proceedings, that Committee says: it is now unrealistic to expect members of an opposed bill committee in the Commons to abandon all their other duties in order to attend the whole of the committee's proceedings, it seems desirable slightly to relax the requirement for a quorum. I am delighted to adopt the view of my hon. Friend the Member of Faversham, whom I am pleased to see here to support me.

I hasten to assure hon. Members that the purpose of moving the motion is not to enable hon. Members to take days off regular. I have had one morning and one afternoon off to perform other duties in the House and in my constituency during the 33 days that the Committee has sat; otherwise, I have sat in the Committee Room almost without exception, with just a few minutes outside. Other hon. Members have had other reasons to be away from the Committee for short periods.

The motion is to facilitate two hon. Members being away from Committee, without having to disrupt proceedings and to adjourn and so cause counsel and witnesses to have a break in proceedings. That causes inconvenience to petitioners, who are disadvantaged when the timetable of the Bill is unexpectedly altered, rather than to promoters.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

The hon. Gentleman has been chosen for special treatment by the Tory Whips to serve on the Committee. Before he proposed the motion, I wonder whether he had a good look around to see whether someone else was available to fill the bill and whether he could make a change and substitute someone else. That would require a new procedure. One or two Tories seem to have a lot of time on their hands. Off the top of my head, I am thinking about the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is prepared to do a couple of days for Barclays for £100,000 a year. Does the hon. Gentleman have that sort of money?

Mr. Hamilton

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the four hon. Members on the Committee are painfully aware that we are dedicated public servants, unpaid for the extra responsibility on our shoulders, while in front of us sit a suave collection of silks, juniors, agents and others, who are deriving no doubt well-deserved fees for the work that they perform. I should hate the hon. Gentleman to think that there was the slightest tinge of envy in our minds when we look at them.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South)

My hon. Friend is a saint.

Mr. Hamilton

I was not aware that canonisation was in the gift of the Chief Whip, but it may be my reward for all my hard work in Committee.

I speak for all hon. Members on the Committee when I say that it is not our intention to use the latitude that the motion would give us to be away from the Committee in contravention of our duties to the House. We take very seriously paragraph 119 of the Joint Committee report, which states: The Committee wish to emphasise that despite the relaxation of these formal requirements, Members of Parliament should still regard themselves as obliged to attend committees on opposed bills assiduously and attentively. It will be my intention to continue to sit on the Committee every day, in so far as it is possible for me to do so, and we shall attend assiduously to our duties.

Therefore, I commend the motion to the House. I hope that it will not be taken as a generalised exception, but will be treated as the exceptional case that it is. I hope for the support of my hon. Friends and of Opposition Members.

7.32 pm

Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Hillhead)

I, too, had the privilege of sitting selflessly on the Committee considering the King's Cross Railways Bill. Somebody up there in the Whips' Office likes me, too. I sat on the Committee considering the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Bill, to which the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) referred. That Bill dealt with a bridge from one place to another place where I had never been and which I had never heard of. I never crossed the bridge, and probably never shall, but it was a bridge too far for me. I sat on the Committee for all those 22 days under the distinguished chairmanship of the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman).

Mr. Skinner

He was not all that distinguished then.

Mr. Galloway

He was a very distinguished Chairman. He did not leave his place very often, either. I see that he has his reward in heaven, his canonisation by the Chief Whip and now sits on the Treasury Bench, so perhaps the hon. Member for Tatton has something to look forward to after all.

Mr. Corbyn

Perhaps my hon. Friend can enlighten the House about a rumour that is going around that the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Bill may have to return to the House because of the height of the bridge. In those circumstances, presumably my hon. Friend would be more than happy to serve once again on that Committee.

Mr. Galloway

If it is proper to say so, I had always thought the measure a dubious one. After those 22 days, the Committee made a fairly strong recommendation which I understand the House later overturned. It may be that our wisdom has been vindicated and the measure will return.

Having served my 22 days on the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Bill, clearly I transgressed again, because I was given the chalice of a place under the equally distinguished chairmanship of the hon. Member for Tatton—the Spectator's parliamentary wit of the year. Before the Committee started, I thought that epithet only half right. As each day progressed—and, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there have been many days—my admiration for him has grown and his wit and wisdom is being amply demonstrated in the Chair of that Committee.

I hope that no one will imply that one of the reasons for the tremendously slow progress of the measure is somehow any shortcomings in the chairmanship of the Committee, for the hon. Member for Tatton has acted assiduously, wisely and with a good deal of humor, often finding pearls of humour where none could have imagined it possible in the tedium.

No fault can be laid at the door of the Chair of the Committee, or the Members of the Committee or the highly remunerated silks and others, some of whom are in the Gallery—I realise that I was not supposed to mention them. I have been so long in that Committee that I am losing touch with parliamentary procedure. Some of them are doing well and they have all had their moments. Like Wagner's operas, they have all had their moments and their terrible half hours. Some of them have been Rocky Marciano, others have been Don Cockell; sometimes the roles have been reversed. It has been a long time.

I wanted to give one example to my hon. Friends, most of whom I suspect are ranged against the motion, although I am sure for other reasons than wanting to see me locked up in the Grand Committee Room for any longer than necessary. Last Tuesday, as the House will know, was the day of action called by the Trades Union Congress in connection with the ambulance dispute. I was privileged to be invited by the ambulance workers' trade unions and the Scottish Trades Union Congress to address the rally at George square in Glasgow. It was a very significant occasion.

I could not turn down the invitation, and the Chairman of the Committee, although no doubt his views are different from mine, was willing to release me for that purpose. However, that reduced the available membership of the Committee to three.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) the other Labour Member on the Committee wanted to attend a meeting in the House on the ambulance dispute, and again the Chairman was willing to release him. That meant the collapse of the Committee. The proceedings stopped, causing inconvenience particularly to the petitioners. The promoters have broad backs and their counsel and other legal representatives were not terribly distraught about the break, but those petitioners who were appearing for themselves or had fine legal representation which I understand was working virtually for nothing, were particularly disadvantaged.

It is clearly ridiculous, when a Bill has been considered for 150 hours—and, despite what the Chairman of the Committee said, I suspect that it will be 150 hours more yet—to expect a quorum of three out of four Members of Parliament to devote so much time to the Committee or to feel terribly guilty about answering a telephone call, a call of nature or anything else. When I was at the rally in Glasgow, I was aware of the responsibility with which I had left my three colleagues trapped in the Committee.

Mr. Moate

The hon. Gentleman explained that there is always a clash of priorities when one is serving on a private Bill Committee, because circumstances such as the ambulance dispute arise. Does he agree that such circumstances would arise whether it was a short or long Bill? If it were a short Bill and the same pressure had arisen, he would have felt similarly obliged to go elsewhere and similarly guilty about leaving his colleagues behind.

Mr. Galloway

By definition, the longer a Bill goes on, the more such clashes of responsibility are likely to occur and to prove problematic. I have much sympathy with my hon. Friends who criticise the private Bill procedure, but that issue is different from the motion that we are discussing.

As a Scottish Member of Parliament, I must be in my constituency on Friday and often have constituency business on Monday. That effectively means that almost all my time in the House is spent in Committee. I cannot attend Prime Minister's Question Time—I have forgotten what the Prime Minister looks like—or questions on foreign and commonwealth affairs, and this week I could not attend Scottish questions. That is becoming intolerable.

I accepted the mantle thrust on me by the Whips of serving on the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Bill and now on the King's Cross Railways Bill. I trust that they are polishing another Bill for me to serve on when this one is finished. The Opposition's deputy Chief Whip is present, and I am sure that he can hear what I am saying.

I hope that the House will pass the motion because it will make life much easier for the four members of the Committee. It will not disadvantage the petitioners—I understand people being anxious about the dangers of disadvantaging them—and no one who has read the transcripts of the Committee's proceedings, which I commend to hon. Members, could claim that the Committee has been a pushover for British Rail. On the contrary, BR has been mauled repeatedly during our proceedings.

I hope that, in all the circumstances, the House will pass the motion.

7.43 pm

The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Michael Portillo)

The motion is strictly procedural, but sometimes it is helpful for the House to hear the Government's attitude to such matters.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) and the other two hon. Members serving on the Committee on their excellent service. They have displayed selfless public service and commitment to duty.

On Second Reading last year, I said that the Government gave consent for British Rail to seek the powers in the Bill. In principle, the Government believe that the Bill's proposals are sensible and that they are a further step in British Rail's plans to create a modern railway to carry traffic to and through London.

Consistent with that approach, the Government support the motion, which is supported by all the members of the Committee and would enable it to complete consideration of the Bill in a sensible way. I am therefore happy to record the Government's attitude to the motion.

7.44 pm

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)

As I said earlier in an intervention, I sympathise with the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) and the other two hon. Members serving on the Committee.

I chaired four or five private Bill Committees. Sometimes a streak of malevolence goes through the heart of even the kindest Whip when he is deciding which hon. Member should be given a task that is onerous, unrewarded and unobserved. One of the worst things that can happen to any hon. Member is to be totally unobserved for such a long period. Hon. Members who sit not only on private Bill Committees but on public Bill Committees and Select Committees are the workhorses of this place, and they deserve recognition for that.

The Committee stage of a public Bill used to be rather like dropping into a legislative black hole. There was plenty of action, but they sat only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We now have the advantage of Committees being televised. I am a member of the Committee considering the Broadcasting Bill. It is important for all politicians to know that they have a platform. Therefore, the Committee stage of public Bills has become much more relevant and interesting than it was in the past.

The Committee stage of a private Bill is different; it is like being fossilised in amber. It may appear very grand—the members serving on the King's Cross Railway Bill look very grand and decorous, I am sure—but, rather as with insects fossilised in amber, there is little movement.

I must underline the fact that I am exceedingly sympathetic to the motion, but for several reasons I shall vote against it.

The hon. Member for Tatton and my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead mentioned Queen's counsel, who seem to be paid by the word. They seem to assume that members of the Committee are incapable of reading. After one has sat in such a Committee for a few hours, one is almost incapable of doing anything, but one can usually summon up the ability to read a sentence. However, they continue to read interminably. I hope that the hon. Member for Tatton has reminded learned counsel that members of the Committee are capable of reading the papers that are put before them and that there is no need to go through them word by word, at great expense to the promoters and petitioners.

Knowing the circumstances that prevail on private Bill Committees, I believe that it is little wonder that hon. Members are so reluctant to serve on them. I volunteered to do so because I thought that I would learn something. I think that I learned a few things. I certainly learned about the defects of the private Bill procedure, with which I shall deal later. A number of hon. Members, confronted with the possibility of serving on a private Bill Committee, have fleetingly considered taking the Chiltern Hundreds. One or two would have preferred to disembowel themselves rather than serve on a private Bill Committee.

When we were considering how to get hon. Members to serve on private Bill Committees, the Select Committee on Procedure suggested—this was a serious suggestion—the possibility of knighthoods being given. That would not have enticed Labour Members, but Conservative Members might have been enticed by gongs being handed round.

The difference between the Committee stage of a private Bill and that of a public Bill is that, as the hon. Member for Tatton said, the private Bill Committee meets perhaps not for more hours but for more days and at times which are crucial in the House, such as Question Time. The Committee meets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The other distinction is that on a public Bill Committee, it is possible for hon. Members to disappear, to come down here and to make speeches. I do not know whether the Broadcasting Bill Committee is still sitting. I should be there, but no one will drag me down here and complain on the Floor of the House that I was not serving on the Committee. Yet that is what can happen to an hon. Member who does not turn up at a private Bill Committee. It is not permissive but mandatory for an hon. Member to serve on that Committee. If an hon. Member refuses to serve on such a Committee or does not turn up, it is incumbent on the Chairman of the private Bill Committee to report the absence to the House. That is the difference, which we must examine.

I suggest to the Minister and to hon. Members who have gone through this rather daunting experience for so many hours that hon. Members of all parties should insist that the report from the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure, which was presented to the House in July 1988, should be debated properly on the Floor of the House. We should have the opportunity to vote on its various recommendations.

It is a substantial report, and I do not intend to take hon. Members all the way through it. However, it is worth reminding the House of a few of the recommendations so that hon. Members know what the report contains.

Mr. Spearing

Before my hon. Friend discusses these important factors, will he permit me to attempt a reconciliation between himself and the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton)? Does he agree that one of the recommendations which was not in the report, although it was good, was the installation of a filter—perhaps a joint Committee of both Houses—to determine whether a private Bill was suitable for consideration by either House? Would that proposal deal with many of these matters?

Mr. Banks

I must point out to my hon. Friend that that is the first recommendation of the Committee. The report says: Promoters of a private bill should be required to prove before the committee on the bill that private legislation is necessary to secure the primary purpose of the bill. The report continues: Where the primary purpose may be authorised through other means, the committee on the bill should insist that those means be pursued first, and that the approval of Parliament be limited only to the specific components which require its authority. That would undoubtedly foreshorten many of the proceedings that are now being endured by members of the Committee.

The other principal recommendation that I want to draw to the attention of the House is recommendation 5, which says: In cases where planning considerations are dominant"— which is clearly the case in the King's Cross Railways Bill— all works proposals for which private bill approval is presently required should instead be authorised through non-parliamentary procedures involving the holding, where necessary, of a public local inquiry into objections. There are many objections to the King's Cross Railways Bill on local planning and national strategic planning grounds.

As I have said to the Minister and many other hon. Members, the proposal should never have had to go through the private Bill procedure. It should have been considered in other ways, and there should have been a full public inquiry.

Mr. Moate

I agree on that point, although that is not why I intervened. To correct what the hon. Gentleman said, does he recall that we had an extensive and full debate on the recommendations? We are waiting now not for a debate but for Government moves to implement the recommendations.

Mr. Banks

Yes, but the debate that I seek would be an executive debate so that we could take a decision at the end. We had a take-note debate. I remember the present Secretary of State for Energy when he was Leader of the House putting off the debate for ages, although many hon. Members were asking for one. The then Leader of the House kept saying that the Government were digesting the report. When we came to the debate, it was merely a take-note debate.

I do not know whether the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) shared this belief, but many Opposition Members thought that the then Leader of the House would make recommendations. However, when they were explained to the Prime Minister, he backed off quickly because the Prime Minister had said previously in Question Time that she thought that the private Bill procedures were perfectly adequate for such matters. I realise that the Prime Minister's word is law all the way through, but it is about time that hon. Members began to insist that cases such as the one that we are hearing tonight should never be repeated. That issue could unite hon. Members of all parties in demanding that action be taken.

I wish to draw the attention of the House to a couple of other major recommendations. There is a danger of the report being forgotten. It took a long time for the Table Office to find a copy, and we shall be told next that the report has gone out of print so we cannot discuss it. We shall then be told that all the drafts have been lost as well. I am suspicious about that, and I must insist that we have a proper debate in which we can take decisions. Recommendation 13 says: Each House should incorporate environmental impact assessment into private bill procedures by making new Standing Orders. My God, we need an environmental impact assessment on the proposals for King's Cross. I am sure that, if hon. Members were to seek that, British Rail's proposals would be cursorily and summarily thrown out.

The report also recommends: Opposed bill committees should comprise five Members and the quorum should be three. If even the four or five recommendations that I have read out had been incorporated, the hon. Member for Tatton and my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead would not have been in their present position.

There is a difference between this proposal and the two precedents that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Tatton: the Covent Garden Bill of 1965 and the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill of 1986. In the case of the Covent Garden Bill, one hon. Member had a lengthy illness and another suddenly felt a bit dicky, which was not surprising given the problems associated with the private Bill procedure.

In the case of the Felixstowe Docks and Railway Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) refused to serve. There were effective reasons for her not serving. It is not easy merely to appoint another Member because proceedings are already under way. An hon. Member cannot be brought in at a later stage, because that would be grossly unfair to the promoters and to the petitioners. There were specific reasons in 1965 and 1986 why a proposal to reduce the quorum should have been received favourably—as it was. The position here is different.

Mr. Neil Hamilton

It is true that the reasons for the quorum were different for those two Bills, but the hon. Gentleman's argument seems odd. The quorum was reduced in the 1986 Committee because the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clywd), with whom I have the greatest sympathy, refused to undertake the duty imposed on her by the House. In this case, hon. Members are performing those duties, yet they are not to have the advantage of such a move.

Mr. Banks

There is another difference. The matter was brought to a head because my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley refused to serve. We are obliged to her for refusing because, as a result, the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure was set up. If, after my hon. Friend rendered us that service, we had had a chance to decide on the matter, the hon. Member for Tatton would not have been in his present position.

All hon. Members are taking an honourable approach. People outside and our constituents must understand. Now that the House is televised, I should not be surprised if each of the hon. Members who is serving on the Committee was accosted by their constituents saying, "I've been watching the television and I have never seen you at Prime Minister's Question Time or in Scottish Question Time. Where were you? What have you been doing?" Since the private Bill Committees are not televised, hon. Members should have the opportunity to ensure that everyone inside and, more importantly, outside the House knows what goes on. That is why, if for no other reason, this debate is useful.

I object to the reduction of the quorum. The promoter, British Rail, is the real problem maker and has got us into this mess. British Rail's arrogance and high-handed attitude have not been at all helpful. It is about time that we visited on the heads of those who make the decisions at British Rail a just penalty for the way in which they are prepared to use this procedure.

Mr. Skinner

Put them on the Committee.

Mr. Banks

Unfortunately, they would make all the wrong decisions. British Rail and other promoters seem able to use this place in a way which I consider to be wholly unacceptable.

British Rail had the advantage of a quorum of three, with four hon. Members usually in attendance. The petitioners are beginning to present their case. Camden and Islington borough councils are presenting their case, part of which will be to show why the second London terminal for the Channel tunnel should be located in my constituency and the London borough of Newham, rather than at King's Cross. Petitioners will make that case, but the same quorum of hon. Members will not be present to hear them.

I want to know from the hon. Member for Tatton whether the reduction in the quorum will mean that, on average, there will still be four hon. Members on the Committee. I am worried about why he wishes to reduce the quorum now. It may be because of pressures in the past or intimations that there will be pressures in the future. In other words, an hon. Member may wish to make the odd visit abroad or there may be a reselection crisis in the air. If there will not be the same regular attendance to hear petitioners as there was to hear the promoters, the petitioners will be at a disadvantage.

Mr. Neil Hamilton

There is no sinister motive underlying the request of the Members of the Committee. It would be an unjustifiable slur on his hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) and for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) if the hon. Gentleman were to suggest that we intend to do something which would disadvantage the petitioners. It has been our duty all along to bend over backwards to assist the petitioners, particularly those who are not represented by counsel or specialist parliamentary agents. We have done our best to accommodate them in all their difficulties, given the disparity of resources between private individuals and enormous corporations such as British Rail.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the only reason why we come now with this request is that we have sat for 33 days, which is seven days more than the previous record. I did not feel that it was open to us to make this request until the exceptional nature of the Committee became evident for all to see.

Mr. Galloway

Two of the members of the Committee have been reselected.

Mr. Banks

I am relieved to hear that at least two of them have been reselected. I did not mean to imply that there was any intentional disservice to the petitioners. I merely wish to know that the petitioners' case is heard to the maximum effect and by the full membership of the Committee. Ultimately, all four members will vote, whether or not they all heard the cases put by the various petitioners.

We are in this mess because Private Bill procedures have been tested to destruction. Clearly they are completely inappropriate for a measure as important as the King's Cross Railways Bill and the location of the second London terminal for the Channel tunnel and associated infrastructure, which is the largest capital investment in transportation this century in this country—

Mr. Cormack

The largest ever.

Mr. Banks

That is even longer than this century. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman, who is so precise on these matters.

The private Bill procedure is not the way to deal with a Bill such as this. The Government have walked away from a major strategic decision. I have been to see the Minister and he has been courtesy itself, but he has never accepted that the decision is so important that it should be taken by the Government and not left to four members of a Committee who have had the decision inflicted upon them. They will have to listen to hours and hours of petitions. This is a strategic decision, and the responsibility should be taken by the Government.

The Government are to blame as well as British Rail, but they are doubly to blame because they have allowed private Bill procedures to be used by British Rail on such a significant development and because they have refused to bring the report on private Bill procedure to the House so that we can vote on it.

I could make the case that we should have the terminal at Stratford where there is no opposition to it, unlike at King's Cross. We are waiting to greet the construction.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)

Order.

Mr. Banks

I know that that goes somewhat beyond the terms of the motion, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am coming to my peroration, my last sentence.

The hon. Member for Tatton knows our motives for opposing the motion. This debate and the pressures that have been put on the Committee have reminded us yet again that the private Bill procedure is inappropriate and overstretched. If we obtain a debate on it, the Committee members will have served us well, as they have done in the Committee. I repeat that I shall oppose the recommendation tonight.

8.6 pm

Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)

I begin by applauding the Committee for both its assiduity and its integrity. Those of us who are anxious about British Rail's proposals, both in this Bill and in the others that it proposes to bring forward, are extremely grateful to the Committee for the way in which it has forced British Rail to address some of the questions that, in its usual slovenly way, it would have preferred to slide past the Committee in the miasma that is characteristic of its normal proceedings. I pay a grateful tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) and his colleagues on the Committee.

I served on a Committee on a private Bill under the scrupulous and assiduous chairmanship of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). He has said that he understands what is involved, and from my personal experience I know that that is true. He said that hon. Members, or at least most of them, can read, so it could be argued that all that is needed is a transcript. Why should we bother to have a Committee of Members of Parliament when it would be cheaper for professionals to argue out the matter and to make a decision based on the transcript of those discussions?

That argument under-estimates the importance of cross-examination by members of the Committee. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) said, one could ask: if the quorum is to be reduced by one, why not reduce it again? If it was reduced again by a third, one would obtain a recurring decimal—except, in this case, it would not be a recurring decimal, but a spasmodic decimal. The effect of reducing the quorum would be that people would not come so often.

I am surprised that the members of the Committee want relief. The proceedings have almost all the ingredients that one could possibly wish for in the life of a Member of Parliament. First, they are complex. We have heard how many days the board of British Rail took to present its evidence. The numbers of days was greatly increased by the need for British Rail to re-present and in some cases re-re-present evidence. The matter is immensely complex and we probably need to have a balance of hon. Members to scrutinise it thoroughly.

The Bill deals with matters of major importance. Often in this place we find ourselves working hard on matters which, sub specie aeternitatis, are of no importance whatever. British Rail is seeking to override carefully constituted protection for the heritage and the environment. Scheduled buildings are not only of major importance in the context of King's Cross but of fundamental importance to the protection of the British environment from John o' Groats to Land's End. If a private undertaking can use the private Bill procedure to demolish the protection of scheduled buildings, there is no safety for any of our landmarks. We may find that the Dean and his bus affiliation in Salisbury would use the private Bill procedure to demolish the cathedral to allow more parking.

The Bill has also provided all sorts of surprises, and it is always rather nice in an otherwise drab routine to have surprises. I am sure that every member of the Committee must have had a frisson of surprise when British Rail told the Committee that, in its brand new 21st-century station, the platforms would not be long enough to accommodate its brand new 21st-century trains and, so that the passengers are not prevented from getting off the trains, the driver will have to get off in the tunnel and walk back down the track.

It has all been immensely entertaining. What could be more fun than to discern, for example, that British Rail wants a new station when it cannot give the Committee any firm assurance that it will have a line to get to the station? These are matters of burlesque amusement from which, when hon. Members reflect upon them, I am sure that they will not wish to be released.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has made it abundantly clear that this is an outdated way of handling such major matters. Indeed, the debate is really about the clear and unmistakable evidence that major private Bills such as this can no longer be run in this way and that the promoters can no longer expect Members of Parliament to participate.

Before we get the essential changes that the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure has previsaged, perhaps we should suggest one or two improvements. I wonder whether this motion would be before us if the timing of the Committee's sittings were to be changed. Why is the timing of the Committee primarily for the convenience of the legal profession? Why does the Committee not sit at times that would suit Members of Parliament, so that hon. Members could come to Question Time and take part in some of the more lively parts of the parliamentary day?

Mr. Neil Hamilton

Perhaps I can give my hon. Friend some suggestions. It is, of course, open to the Committee to set its own normal sitting hours. One of the problems that we have faced during our proceedings when we have wished to sit later in the afternoon is a shortage of shorthand writers. If there is nobody to transcribe what is said, the Committee is unable to sit. That is something else to which the House should turn its attention.

Mr. Rowe

I am both grateful for and appalled by that intervention. That seems a further example of the extraordinarily incompetent way in which we run our own affairs if we cannot so structure our organisation that we can arrange the timetable to make it possible to run the proceedings of our House as they should be run.

It would considerably benefit peititioners if they could meet the Committee at a time that is not during their normal working hours. I suspect that many petitioners have to take time off work and often even have to accept loss of earnings simply to come here to give evidence. What is more, because it is almost impossible for the Committee to predict exactly how long any sitting will last, no doubt the petitioners come and—like out-patients at some of our hospitals—go away disappointed, not having seen the doctor. If we were to suggest altering the procedures of the House so that such a Committee could sit at times that suit Members of Parliament, perhaps we might have less difficulty with the Committee.

The procedure that we are discussing was designed in the 19th century to assist relatively weak private railway companies to override the spoiling tactics and the enormous power of the large landowners. It is no longer an appropriate vehicle for a huge state monopoly that is seeking to override the weakness of individual housholders or, in the case of this British Rail Bill, to override the law of the land. It is wholly inappropriate.

I am not concerned only about the Bill; I am concerned about the future. There is alleged to be coming—I do not really believe it because we have heard it all before—or there is the faint possibility that at some stage British Rail will bring before the House a Bill to connect the Channel tunnel to either London, Swanley, Ashford or somewhere. There is a faint chance that British Rail might devise some way of getting its trains from the Channel tunnel portal to—I can see that I am in trouble, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Madam Deputy Speaker

Yes.

Mr. Rowe

If that were to happen, we would be faced with a Bill of such length and such complexity, affecting so many thousands of people and covering tens of miles from Dover to King's Cross or—more realistically—to Stratford, that I believe that it would prove impossible to find hon. Members prepared to serve on such a Committee. As a high proportion of that Bill's content would relate to planning matters, the time is long overdue for the House to turn the report of the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure into regulations before we get—if we ever get—the Channel tunnel link Bill.

8.16 pm

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

I speak because of the procedural matters involved, and also as an Islington Member of Parliament. My hon. Friends the Members for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) and for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) cannot be here tonight, but they are interested in the fate of King's Cross and, therefore, in the fate of this proposal.

Although I understand that the motion deals with the quorum of the private Bill Committee, other issues emanate from that, which are of great importance to the House. Other hon. Members have touched on the procedure of the private Bill Committee and on the public's right to know what is going on. I have been following this from a distance. Now that the Whips have left the Chamber, I can reveal to the House that I have never served on a private Bill Committee— [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is informing me that he is an agency— [Interruption.] No, I beg his pardon, he is now a full Whip. Nevertheless, although I have never served on such a Committee, I have observed them from afar.

I have been concerned that, so far, the Committee has sat for 33 days, and I have every sympathy for the hon. Members concerned. If I had to serve on a private Bill Committee that was dealing with a part of the country that was far away from London and of no direct concern to my constituents, and had to spend that amount of time on matters of no direct relevance to my area, I can understand that people in my constituency would say, "What on earth are you doing obsessing yourself with the Inverness Harbour Bill?"—or whatever.

I can understand both that and the frustrations of the hon. Members concerned. Although I have a great deal of sympathy with them and the House should have some sympathy with their problems, that is not to say that I shall vote for the motion, so they will have to suffer for a bit longer. Nevertheless, I hope that the House has listened carefully to what has been said and will consider the procedures involved.

In the past, I served as a local councillor. Indeed, I was the chair of a planning committee on a borough council. No borough councillor would get involved in such detail on a planning application or a planning procedure, because that is not the way in which local government works, so why should we expect Members of Parliament to go into the most enormous detail on planning matters?

This abuse of the private Bill procedure is growing. The procedure was introduced as a form of planning control for major harbour and railway developments. It was the only form of planning control that existed at that time. There was no local government framework capable of dealing with planning, and Parliament deemed this an appropriate form of control.

There would be no point in going into how the railways were built and into the procedures that had to be followed. However, one has to ask whether, in this age, it is appropriate that an enormously important decision in respect of King's Cross, with ramifications far beyond King's Cross—indeed far beyond the railway network of this country: international ramifications—should be thrust upon four Members of this House, who are forced to give up virtually all other parliamentary and political activity to pursue the matter. The House must address itself to that problem, and I hope that it will. I hope that it will recognise that there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing procedures.

I have been involved in road inquiries in the past, and I expect that, if the Department of Transport's plans for my borough go forward, I shall be involved in such inquiries again. There is nothing particularly democratic about the public inquiry system, either. However, the advantage is that the applicant has to put all his cards on the table in advance.

One contrasts that with the case of the King's Cross Railways Bill, in which British Rail seems to make up the evidence as it goes along. Every day, it seems to come up with a new set of papers and a new set of plans, even if it cannot measure the length of a train and compare that with the length of a tunnel.

In the case of a public inquiry on a road or a major building, for example, the inspector reports to the Secretary of State, who makes the decision. The Secretary of State is not accountable for the decision, except to the extent that, theoretically, as Secretary of State he could be the subject of a motion of censure. There is something fundamentally wrong with decision-making as a whole.

There are also, of course, the feelings in the community. I represent—Islington, North, which is slightly beyond King's Cross. Actually, the main line from King's Cross runs through it. The Department of Transport, through its consultants, has just put forward a proposal for the creation of a major road through Islington, down to King's Cross, and a road beyond that.

I realise that that matter goes slightly beyond the scope of our debate, but I make the point to underline the concern of the community about the passage of the King's Cross Railways Bill. Many people in Islington are genuinely very worried. They are worried about the size of the proposed development north of King's Cross, and they are worried about the procedures being adopted in respect of the Bill itself.

The Bill has been under consideration for, I think, 33 days—my hon. Friends may correct me if I am wrong—most of which time has been taken up by British Rail. As I said, British Rail has altered its course many times throughout the procedure, and it has not yet come up with a firm proposal for a line leading into King's Cross. It is discussing the provision of a station served by some very outdated tracks.

Indeed, at the moment trains could not get into the new King's Cross international terminal. There is no tunnel that could take them. So a station is being discussed virtually in isolation from a rail system that coud cope with the trains. That was pointed out earlier by the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe). For 33 days, British Rail has had very expensive representation—silks and all the rest—and goodness knows what the cost is. At the end of the day, we shall all have to pay the bill.

The procedure involves Members of Parliament being taken away from the political activities for daytime sittings of the Committee. The local community, most of whom have other things to worry about, are unable to be represented, other than through local authorities or by community associations. Some people are making enormous sacrifices to represent them.

The Camden and Islington local authorities are now starting to present their views and their evidence. That evidence is very much out in the open, unlike the case presented by British Rail. Now we are told that it is an appropriate time to reduce the Committee quorum. I understand why the motion has been moved, but what message is to be given to the people of the borough that I represent? How are they to be told that the quorum is being changed, now that the applicants have completed their submission? I know that it is not the intention of the hon. Members concerned, but one cannot escape the fact that the impression being given to the people in the community is that the views of the two local authorities, both of which are elected—the board of British Rail is not elected—of the local community association, of the King's Cross Railway Lands Group, and of all the other groups concerned are such that they can be dealt with by a smaller Committee. The message is inescapable: that they are less important than the British Rail evidence. I hope that the House will recognise that, if the quorum motion is passed, it will be very difficult to persuade people in the boroughs of Camden and Islington that their views and the views of others—many people are affected—are being taken seriously.

It is not appropriate to go halfway through a Bill procedure and then change the quorum. If, when the Committee started, the quorum was three out of four, it should stay at that figure. In the light of all this, the Select Committee on Procedure may well bring forward a procedural proposal. That would be the appropriate time to make such a change. It would be appropriate to consider also the representation of the public at Committee meetings, the sitting times and other procedures. It is not appropriate to chop and change in the middle, because that is seen as unfair to the less well-financed people who are trying to put forward their views.

In future, we shall have to look much more seriously at the major questions arising from these matters. It seems to me that it is fundamentally wrong that a major planning decision such as this should be taken by a Committee of four hon. Members. The local authorities have a sort of walk-on part. They can collect evidence and put it forward. Local communities can collect evidence and put it forward. But a Committee of the House will decide one way or the other. As the hon. Member for Mid-Kent said, this procedure rides roughshod over many other things. The implications of the decision are enormous.

As a separate matter, there is the enormous office development proposal north of King's Cross. In reality, of course, it is linked to the fate of the King's Cross station development itself; one cannot separate the two. Nor can one escape the effects on south London constituencies and on Kent as a whole. If this major station complex is not approved, the railway line route south of London will have to be different; if it is approved, the general direction of the railway line will be more or less set. One way or the other, the effect will be considerable.

I realise that the terms of the motion are quite narrow. However, as in the case of most things that are narrow, the deeper one goes, the wider one wishes they were.

Madam Deputy Speaker

Not in my case. The more I go into this, the more I realise that the hon. Member is straying. It has been a very good-humoured debate, but I wish that he would come back to the motion that was moved by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Mr. Corbyn

I can only beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not attempting to deviate one iota; I was merely trying to explain the depth of feeling in Islington. People in every pub on the Caledonian road talk of little else than the King's Cross Railways Bill Committee. Indeed, the verbatim reports are passed from house to house. They are read as widely as the Islington Gazette.

Mr. Gerald Bowden (Dulwich)

And in Dulwich.

Mr. Corbyn

Yes, in Dulwich as well. One report that I have here is very boring, but some are very interesting and are widely read.

I hope that, when the House makes its decision tonight, it will vote the motion down for the reason that I have given: that it is unsustainable, midway through a Committee, despite all the frustrations, which I understand, to change the rules. One cannot move the goal posts halfway through the game. The message that the House will give the people of Camden, Islington, the south London boroughs and Kent, which will all be affected, is that somehow there is one rule for British Rail and a different rule for everybody else. That is not good enough. It is not acceptable, and it will not be understood by people outside the House.

Another message from the debate is that there must be a serious examination of the private Bill procedure. It was never intended that planning decisions of international importance, in this case the biggest construction project that the country has ever seen, should be decided by four hon. Members, all of whom have other pressures on their time. I do not say that they have better things to do, but they have other things to do as Members of Parliament. Their experience on the Committee must have given them food for thought. I am always reminded that people who have served on juries for a long time during a major trial are given absolution by the judge at the end; he says that they will never have to do jury service again. I hope that the four hon. Members on the Committee will be given absolution from serving on other private Bill committees. I hope that the Whips will read that in Hansard.

The issues are complex. A point of principle is involved. I hope that the House will reject the proposal before it and show that it intends to keep faith with the original procedure. That would give confidence to the people, community groups and local authorities now preparing to appear before the Committee that they will be subject to exactly the same rules as British Rail, rather than inferior terms of representation

8.30 pm

Mr. Gerald Bowden (Dulwich)

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) and his colleagues for their service on the Committee. The whole House owes them a debt for their assiduous attendance and the conscientious way in which they have pursued their duties. In sympathising with their predicament, I fear that I cannot support the motion. It gives me no pleasure to say that, but the motion raises a constitutional point, a broad general point of policy and a particular point in this case before us.

On the general policy point, it would be wrong, as the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) said, to change the rules of the game during play, or to move the goal posts while the players are on the field. It would suggest that the party that had had the opportunity of presenting its case before a full Committee of four, or a quorum of three, was in a stronger, better and more prestigious position than those who present their case later to a lesser quorum. That would be wrong in law and in equity.

It is an important principle that justice should not only be done but be seen to be done. Although I have no doubt that the two hon. Members who would constitute the new quorum would discharge their duties with absolute integrity and objectivity, nevertheless it would appear that the petitioners were being short-changed. It is wrong to try to tamper with, or to make minor repairs to, the mechanism while the vehicle is still in motion. For that reason, if for no other, the motion should be rejected.

The motion illustrates the problems of piecemeal change. The House has had before it for some years a recommendation of the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure. We have had an opportunity to take note, to digest and to debate it. I regret that that opportunity was missed by the powers that be in suggesting the changes that could be made to accommodate the real shortcomings in the procedure. The shortcomings are before us this evening, but the motion also highlights the misuse and abuse of private Bill procedure by sponsors such as British Rail, which is promoting the Bill under discussion.

It is absurd that a Bill can be brought forward to develop a terminal in central London without any mention being made of the route or path to that destination. The Bill is so constricted and constrained that, should someone dare mention the route to the destination, he might well be called to order and would certainly not have the opportunity to appear before the Committee. To be able to make such a great development by the salami process of slicing off first King's Cross and then pieces through south-east London and Kent to the Channel tunnel terminal is wrong. If nothing more, the procedure and progress on the Bill show the inadequacy and shortcomings, and demonstrate that change is necessary.

Mr. Corbyn

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, before other Bills on rail development are promoted by British Rail, it should be forced to produce a detailed plan of the entire route programme and destinations for trains from the Channel tunnel, so that we may have an idea of the effect on Kent constituencies, the hon. Gentleman's constituency, my constituency and many others between London and the north of England?

Mr. Bowden

I welcome that intervention. It is a rare and happy occasion when the hon. Gentleman and I can agree so wholeheartedly.

It is tragic that 33 days have been spent by the Committee listening to argument—who knows, the Committee may spend another 33 days listening to further argument—and at the end of it the proposal of British Rail for the route may be turned down by the House, or an alternative proposal may run parallel to it. At the end, all the work of the Committee might be rendered redundant and obsolete because the proposal for the development of King's Cross did not fit in with the chosen route.

That shows the utter waste of public and private money in following a procedure which does nothing to help the country at large but does everything to facilitate British Rail in trying to develop, in an inefficient and secretive way, a Channel tunnel rail link to connect the whole of the United Kingdom with continental Europe.

Mr. Corbyn

I promise that this will be the last intervention. Of course, there is a fear that the Bill will be entirely abortive. That is possible. I understand that we are debating only the quorum of the Committee. In that respect, the quorum would then be dealing with a Bill that was about to be aborted. In the meantime, many people would have lost much money on property deals in the area.

Mr. Bowden

I am concerned about the waste of public money. I do not have quite the same concern about the speculation of private money. At the same time, I am concerned about the blight on so many properties, families and communities. The stress and anxiety that the uncertainty has caused are to be deprecated. That demonstrates more than anything else the need to change the private Bill procedure which is being so misused and abused.

I recognise the difficulties that my hon. Friends and other hon. Members on the Committee are experiencing in neglecting by necessity the needs of their constituents and their own parliamentary duties in the House, and I have no wish personally to prolong their agony. However, it is essential that, if we are pursuing the proposal to develop King's Cross, it should be done on an equal footing for all parties. On that basis, I cannot support the motion.

8.39 pm

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East)

I am opposed to the private Bill procedure, for many of the reasons mentioned by hon. Members from both sides of the House in relation to its general operation. Traditionally, Parliament dealt with private Bills, and public Bills only later came in on a more general and wider basis. We should now have moved on from private Bills, because society has changed so much.

A provision that was right for small traders, the establishment of charters and other provisions seems entirely inappropriate in the modern age. Something that was used by the forces of the petty bourgeois and is now used by the big bourgeois and large corporations, will inevitably be abused. The procedures that were outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) in terms of the report of the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure should be seriously considered and responded to. Measures for the provision of transport such as the one before us should be matters for the public Bill procedure.

Mr.William Cash (Stafford)

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he believes that matters that fall within private Bill procedure should be dealt with by statutory instrument? If so, will he acknowledge that that would deprive legitimate objecters of the opportunity to put forward issues in Parliament, before a parliamentary Committee, that are of relevance to them in their ordinary daily lives?

Mr. Barnes

An interesting discussion has been taking place. Earlier, hon. Members outlined some of the items contained in the Joint Committee's report that try to handle some of these problems. Although I generally find a great deal in the private Bill procedure obnoxious, I do not deny that there might be specific and limited provisions for which the procedure might be appropriate, if some of the checks and balances suggested in the Committee's report were brought forward.

Mr. Cash

In other words, the hon. Gentleman agrees that the private Bill procedure, with modifications, has his support.

Mr. Barnes

Basically, the major items that have been brought forward as private Bills are an abuse of the House, although they might be in line with the tradition of private Bills that came before 1800. They might have some scope for use if they are carefully checked and controlled. However, our major concern is the abuse of such procedures by strong outside organisations when alternative avenues are available such as the public Bill and planning agreements.

Mr. Gerald Bowden

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if a railway network is planned which is to cover the whole of the United Kingdom and open up every region of that kingdom to continental Europe, it goes above the normal scope and confines of private Bill procedure and should be dealt with in something wider?

Mr. Barnes

I agree with that. Essentially, the private Bill procedure is increasingly used for matters that it was not developed to handle. The case in which the planning agreements should have been used was briefly mentioned; it involved the two Humber port Bills. The investigation, questioning and public inquiries that they involved should have taken place in the Humber area, not the House.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) that we are not in the business of attempting a minor, piecemeal adjustment to an unfair system. We should be worried about the suggestion to reduce the quorum, because that would allow us to bumble on with the measure, rather than face up to the transformation that is required.

Other proposals could be put in front of us to deal with a crisis that might occur in the Committee, and they would not produce the same piecemeal adjustment that leads to this sort of system going on and on, as it has. For example, if Committee Members come under too much pressure and experience mental fatigue because of the time involved—I agree that they bear a terrible burden—the House could swop the membership of the Committee. I know that that is not entirely desirable and problems will arise from it. However, it happens elsewhere.

I have been on a Select Committee that has been preparing a report that is shortly to be published. I came to the Committee relatively near the end of procedures, when a great deal of work had already been done. I was not involved in any voting because we reached unanimous decisions. I was able, at least towards the end of the Committee, to make a contribution and assist in reaching those unanimous decisions. It is possible, at the halfway stage, for someone else to be drafted in if there is a specific problem. It has been said that hon. Members can read and do not always need counsel to give them detailed information. They can also read the past reports and details of the Committee so that they can make a significant contribution, together with the three other members, to the Committee's final decision.

It would be possible to have a reform in line with the provisions contained in the Committee report that could be seen as an advancement. If there is a massive problem for the Committee to sustain its quorum of three, it could be extended to a Committee of five Members.

I have served on only one such Committee. It lasted for about eight days and dealt with the Birmingham City Council (No. 2) Bill concerning the road race in that district. If a problem arose over the provision we are discussing, some hon. Members here tonight who have revealed that they have never been involved in such procedure could offer to take up the fifth position if we decide that that is a viable alternative.

8.48 pm

Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)

On the face of it, the proposition to reduce a quorum from three to two is the narrowest of procedural points, and I am sure that I would be brought to order if I sought too stray to far from it. However, tonight's debate has shown beyond doubt that that small procedural matter arises only because of some major principles—a confusion of principles—stemming largely from Ministers.

We would not be in this position if we had thought out clearly the strategy we were adopting on railway policy, particularly with regard to the Channel tunnel rail link. If we had clearly thought out our approach to major planning matters, particularly in the light of the report of the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure, we should not be in this position.

Inevitably, when our principles become confused and our hypotheses muddled, we get into trouble, as we are now. If my right hon. and hon. Friends do not heed the problem we are facing, they should think of the problems that we are likely to face when we come to the further legislation referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton). He spoke of the next major Bill directly relevant to this proposition—that dealing with the high-speed rail link.

If hon. Members on the private Bill Committee are finding themselves in difficulty, imagine the problems that the House will face when we come to a Bill of such immensity and complexity that it will make the King's Cross Railways Bill seem the most modest of propositions. If we do not get this right, how shall we face further proposals of this kind? It is a muddle and the House should not try to resolve it by passing a motion in an attempt to put a plaster on what I would call a gaping wound.

I come to the fundamental problem about planning. It is preposterous—the absurdity of it has been made clear tonight—that a planning matter of this magnitude should be determined by a Committee of four Members. It is even more absurd to suggest that that number should be reduced on occasions to two. Because it is an absurd proposition, the House should not accept it.

The Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure tackled the proposition head on and concluded that major planning matters of this kind were inappropriate to be dealt with by this method. The House has had that report for some time, and its conclusions commanded general support from the Front Benches. Its proposals were probably torpedoed in Whitehall by the large number of parliamentary draftsmen who have great skills in handling this procedure. I do not think that politically there were any arguments against what was proposed. If we are to deal sensibly with major planning matters of great concern to the British people, we must get the procedures right, and they are not right at present.

Even if we accepted the Select Committee's report on private Bill procedure, it would not necessarily help us with Bills of this kind. It would still be a matter to be determined by the Government whether the King's Cross proposals—or, indeed, a high-speed rail link proposal—should be dealt with by the planning procedures outside the House, by the hybrid Bill procedure in the House or by a special development order. Those are still political decisions, but it is clear that the present procedure is totally inappropriate for a matter of this magnitude.

Hence, our first mistake has been not to face up to the planning matters. We also have it wrong in terms of the railways, because it is fundamentally ridiculous that a small Committee of four Members—reduced to two on certain occasions—should have almost the power of life and death over something that the Government regard as critical—the hub of the ultimate high-speed rail link linking the Channel tunnel and the rest of the United Kingdom.

That is a wrong proposition. It is a matter of public policy, and the Government should have determined at a much earlier stage that it was a matter of public policy, that the Government were involved and that it should have been a hybrid Bill. A hybrid Bill would have allowed us to avoid the sort of problems that we are now facing, for we would have had a larger Committee, the problems of a quorum would have been avoided and there would have been no difficulty over attendance. The Channel Tunnel Bill is evidence of that.

There are disadvantages and advantages in all procedures, but we would not be in the position in which we find ourselves today if the Government had faced up to that responsibility. They will have to face up to it when we come to further legislation, in relation particularly to the high-speed link. So again we have a muddle, and it has produced the problem that, we face.

I had the privilege—if that is the word—of serving on a similar Committee, through it was not quite so long. I was Chairman of the Committee that dealt with the Ginns and Gutteridge Crematorium Bill, and deliberated for 26 days. I learned a lot about the burning of bodies, about smells and many other things, and, while it probably did not contribute much to my political knowledge, it has resulted in my being sympathetic to those who serve on the Committee with which we are now concerned. One appreciates the difficulties that they face.

I also had the privilege of serving on the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure, and, because of that, I reached a different conclusion from that reached by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), who selected a quotation from the report emphasising why it was difficult for four Members to stay permanently on a Committee. The conclusion that that Select Committee reached was contrary to the proposition that we are facing today.

Our proposal—I gather that most people are in favour of the conclusions of the report—was not that we should allow the quorum ever to be reduced to two: it was that the Committee should be increased to five and that the quorum should stay at three, which is the quorum that we have now. If we are minded to implement the Select Committee's report, we must not reduce the quorum to two. The proposition was clearly that it should remain at three, but that the size of the Committee be increased to five.

A further important recommendation was that the members of such private Bill Committees should be drawn from a large panel of Members who would, in effect, be volunteers at the beginning of a Session to serve on such Committees. They would volunteer because they felt that they could spare the time or give priority to such Committees or because they enjoyed them. Many hon. Members enjoy private Bill Committee work, and I do not think that there would be a problem in having such a panel. It must be better to have volunteers rather than pressed men.

I am proud to have served on that Select Committee, and its report, in my view, is one of the best documents the House has produced. It added up to a valuable package. It would have allowed the House to avoid many of the problems that we face today. It would have resulted in better decisions and given greater justice to petitioners and others. Therefore, it would be wrong tonight to deal with the small problem that has arisen in this case and ignore the recommendations of the Select Committee. We should implement the report as a whole.

I agree with those who say that it is wrong in the middle of proceedings suddenly to change the rules. It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton—he was out of the Chamber when I expressed my admiration for the service that he has given—to say that the petitioners will not lose. He has not explained why they would not lose by the Committee being reduced from four to two. Is he saying that at no time is the quality of decision-making by four superior to that of two? If so, we should always have had a quorum of two. I cannot understand his argument.

Mr. Neil Hamilton

I am not making the case that a decision made by two is as good as a decision made by four, and in this case the decision will be made by four after an exhaustive examination of all the evidence put before us, including that which has been put before other members of the Committee when one has been out of the room in the proceedings on the Bill hitherto. So unless my hon. Friend is saying that the quorum of a Committee of four should always be four, I do not understand the logic of his argument.

Mr. Moate

I remind my hon. Friend that, although the quorum is three, there is a strict injunction on all Members that they should be in attendance at all times and that the reduction to three should be exercised very sparingly indeed. The Chairman has the power to report to the House—I do not think that the power is exercised any longer—any Member who is absent for quite a short time, so the quorum is very much a fallback.

If the general rule is that four hon. Members should be present, and three on occasions, that rule should apply throughout the proceedings. Otherwise, petitioners who lose their case might feel aggrieved that for much of the proceedings, when they were putting their case, only half the Committee members were present.

The House should not pass the motion. We should follow the recommendations of the Select Committee and not reduce the quorum to two. That was specifically rejected in the report. A Committee of two is an absurdity.

8.59 pm

Mr. Peter Snape (West Bromwich, East)

Like the Government, the Opposition do not have any official view on this motion, as it is a House of Commons matter and it is for all hon. Members to make up their minds accordingly. Having served on one or two of the private Bill Committees to which the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton)—who spoke to this proposal in his usual able and amusing way—referred, I have great sympathy for him and his Committee members.

I served on the two Channel tunnel Committees, in 1975 and in 1985, the latter of which spilled over into 1986. They were hybrid Bills. I am talking about longevity rather than procedure. They were long-drawn-out affairs. I do not claim the same affinity with my Whips' office that the hon. Gentleman obviously has with his, but I was rewarded on the last occasion by being put on to the Standing Committee that followed the Second Reading of that Bill. I have some experience of long-running Committees and the disruption that they cause to the daily lives of hon. Members. For that reason, I shall be voting for the motion.

The Committee is unanimous in its view; that fact should make some impression on hon. Members. The fact that, if we pass this motion, we will be accepting a quorum of two should not concern us too much. If the Committee consists of only four hon. Members, and three hon. Members form a quorum, as the hon. Member for Tatton rightly said in his intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), it is not that two people are taking the decision—the whole Committee is taking the decision—but that some of the evidence will be heard by a smaller number than makes up the Committee. That is not unusual. I point out to the hon. Member for Faversham and some of my hon. Friends that, if the quorum for debates on the Floor of the House was 75 per cent. of hon. Members, the House would be a much quieter place.

Every hon. Member who has participated in the debate agrees on the inappropriate nature of our proceedings for schemes of that magnitude. The hybrid Bill on the Channel tunnel was not an effective way of agreeing, debating or discussing what could be said to be the major civil engineering project of this century. For a Committee of that size to be responsible for a decision of that magnitude is not a sensible way for the House to proceed.

As all hon. Members know, one of the problems with the railways is that, traditionally, any alteration to a railwaay building or to the existing railway system must be done in this laborious way. That is something that we should examine. For the Channel tunnel, the King's Cross terminal and the link from the Channel tunnel that will join it with King's Cross—indeed, the railway links with the rest of the country—to be decided in that way is nonsense to say the least and brings the proceedings of the House into disrepute.

Mr. Corbyn

I accept and understand my hon. Friend's point about major railway developments, but does he accept that the private Bill procedure protects some smaller railway developments or railways that might have been closed?

Mr. Snape

I cannot say that my memory goes back that far. I am sure that, in the last century, there were good reasons for the procedures that we still have today, but they have been somewhat outworn by the passage of time.

Another point that most hon. Members who have spoken have mentioned, and one with which I agree, is that normal planning procedures are circumvented by our procedures in the House. Again, that is an understandable matter of concern for those who live in and around the King's Cross area, such as the constituents of the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) and others who participate regularly in debates such as this. People cannot generally understand how schemes of this magnitude can be debated and decided in this place by a handful of hon. Members using archaic procedures left over from the last century.

I hope that those in the Government responsible for these matters have listened to the debate, that those who have not listened will read the report of the proceedings, and that the House of Commons will do something to reform those procedures which bring all of us into disrepute. However, I repeat that I was impressed by the case made by the hon. Member for Tatton and the other distinguished members of the Committee, and for that reason, if it becomes necessary, I shall be joining them in the Division Lobby tonight.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 107, Noes 24.

Division No. 71]	[9.08 pm
AYES
Allason, Rupert	Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Arbuthnot, James	Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Ashby, David	Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Atkinson, David	Cormack, Patrick
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Dewar, Donald
Bevan, David Gilroy	Dickens, Geoffrey
Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Durant, Tony
Boswell, Tim	Fearn, Ronald
Bottomley, Mrs Virginia	Fookes, Dame Janet
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Forman, Nigel
Brown, Michael (Brigg & CI't's)	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)	Foster, Derek
Buck, Sir Antony	Freeman, Roger
Burns, Simon	George, Bruce
Canavan, Dennis	Goodhart, Sir Philip
Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)	Graham, Thomas
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Carrington, Matthew	Gregory, Conal
Cash, William	Grist, Ian
Chapman, Sydney	Grylls, Michael
Chope, Christopher	Hanley, Jeremy

Harris, David	Patnick, Irvine
Hawkins, Christopher	Portillo, Michael
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Renton, Rt Hon Tim
Hinchliffe, David	Riddick, Graham
Home Robertson, John	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Hordern, Sir Peter	Sackville, Hon Tom
Hunt, David (Wirral W)	Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas
Hunter, Andrew	Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)
Irvine, Michael	Sims, Roger
Janman, Tim	Snape, Peter
Kennedy, Charles	Speed, Keith
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)	Speller, Tony
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)	Stevens, Lewis
Kirkhope, Timothy	Stradling Thomas, Sir John
Knapman, Roger	Sumberg, David
Knight, Greg (Derby North)	Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Lang, Ian	Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)	Thurnham, Peter
Lightbown, David	Walker, Bill (T'side North)
Lilley, Peter	Waller, Gary
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)	Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Lord, Michael	Watts, John
McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)	Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)
Mans, Keith	Widdecombe, Ann
Mawhinney, Dr Brian	Wiggin, Jerry
Mitchell, Sir David	Wilshire, David
Monro, Sir Hector	Wood, Timothy
Montgomery, Sir Fergus	Young, Sir George (Acton)
Nicholls, Patrick
Nicholson, David (Taunton)	Tellers for the Ayes:
Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley	Mr. George Galloway and
Page, Richard	Mr. Neil Hamilton.
Paice, James

NOES
Aitken, Jonathan	Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)	Moate, Roger
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)	Nellist, Dave
Bermingham, Gerald	Pike, Peter L.
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Rowe, Andrew
Cartwright, John	Shaw, David (Dover)
Fenner, Dame Peggy	Skinner, Dennis
Flannery, Martin	Spearing, Nigel
Harman, Ms Harriet	Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Hayes, Jerry	Vaz, Keith
Haynes, Frank
Leighton, Ron	Tellers for the Noes:
Lewis, Terry	Mr. Harry Barnes and
Mahon, Mrs Alice	Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Ordered,

That, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order 121 (Quorum of committee on opposed bill), leave be given for the Committee on the King's Cross Railways Bill to proceed with a quorum of two.