§ As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
1.56 pm§ Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I refer you to the statement that Madam Speaker made on 24 January when the Government were introducing the Disability Discrimination Bill. She pointed out that there was a problem about whether the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill and the Disability Discrimination Bill covered similar ground and said that, if so, there would be difficulties in allowing the second Bill to proceed. It was ruled that the Bills were sufficiently dissimilar to allow the second Bill, the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, to proceed. May I refer you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to page 469 of "Erskine May" on new clauses? On the possibility of clauses being ruled out because they clash with clauses in a different Bill, it says:
Similarly a new clause offered at the consideration stage of one bill was ruled out of order when it substantially repeated the provisions of another bill of the same session, the consideration stage of which had been adjourned.New clause 1, which we are about to deal with, is sufficiently similar to clause 7 of the Disability Discrimination Bill to create that problem. Furthermore, other new clauses that we shall discuss in the first batch deal with the Secretary of State taking over the role of the disability rights commission. Those are in line with the Government's Bill, which is now before the other place. The problem crops up in later clauses, too. Should not a number of the clauses currently before us be removed on the ground that they form part of the Disability Discrimination Bill?
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse)Madam Speaker has selected the new clauses and amendments for debate. I have no doubt that in doing so she took careful account of the sort of problems that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. We shall now proceed with the Bill.