§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord)Before we discuss the programme motion, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that three amendments on today's amendment paper have been incorrectly numbered. Two amendments tabled to clause 58 on page 1676 in the name of Kevin Brennan have been incorrectly numbered as 309 and 310. They should instead be numbered as 320 and 321. An amendment tabled to schedule 3 on page 1701 in the name of Mr. Secretary Milburn has been incorrectly numbered as 308; it should instead be numbered as 322.
§ 2.5 pm
§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith)I beg to move,
That the Orders of 29th October 2001 (Adoption and Children Bill (Programme)), 23rd January 2002 (Adoption and Children Bill (Programme (No. 2)) and 20th March 2002 (Adoption and Children Bill (Programme) (No. 3)) shall be amended by substituting for the Table, so far as relating to the second and third allotted days, the following—
| Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
| Second allotted day | |
| Amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 1 and 17 to 40 | 3.45 p.m. |
| Amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 41 to 51, 53 and 64 to 74 | 6.00 p.m. |
| Amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 52, 54 to 63, 75, Schedule No. 1, | 7.00 p.m. |
| Clauses Nos. 76 and 77. Schedule No. | |
| 2, and Clauses Nos. 78 to 80 | |
| Third allotted day | |
| Amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 81 to 88, 121, 122 and 125 | Three quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill |
| New Clauses relating to the remainder of Part 1, amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 89 to 100, 105, 106, 114 and 115 | One and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill |
| New Clauses relating Part 2, amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 107 to 113 | Three and a quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings of the Bill |
| New Clauses relating to the remainder of Part 3, amendments relating to Clauses Nos. 101 to 104, 126, Schedules Nos. 3, 4 and 5, Clauses Nos. 127 to 134, Schedule No. 6, Clauses Nos. 135 to 137, remaining new Clauses, new Schedules and remaining proceedings on consideration | Four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill. |
§ I hope that I shall not disappoint the House, as I rose only to move the motion. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
§ Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham)I doubt that I shall get a similar cheer even if I speak for only a little longer than the hon. Lady.
The Opposition do not intend to oppose the programme motion, although we are against programme motions in principle. We are grateful for the additional allocation of two full days for consideration of the Bill after the 936 abortive first day when, due to an emergency debate—also on Afghanistan—our deliberations were curtailed and we had only two hours for debate.
I want to record, however, that we are not entirely happy with the events of recent days, which have led to our having to confront a large number of amendments and new clauses during the allotted two days. A total of 319 amendments and 16 new clauses were tabled previously and a good many of them were dispatched during the two-hour debate on 20 March, including many Conservative amendments on substantial subjects. Those amendments were not debated and were all subject to the guillotine that fell after two hours.
Nevertheless, during the rest of today and the next allotted day on Monday, there are still left for debate 210 Government amendments and five Government new clauses, 11 Conservative amendments and three new clauses, seven Liberal Democrat amendments and one new clause—although they are purely on the subject of adoption by unmarried people—and 47 Back-Bench amendments and four new clauses. A total of 275 amendments and 13 new clauses are to be debated—more than all the amendments tabled during the entire Committee stage.
We are especially aggrieved because the vast majority of the Government amendments have appeared only during the past few days: 136 were tabled last Thursday, 18 on Monday and a handful on Tuesday. We only received on Monday a letter from the Minister, dated 10 May, by way of explanation of some of those amendments. We have had only a few days to start studying some detailed and extensive new amendments.
I remind the House that the Committee stage ended on 17 January—four months ago. There were 24 Committee sittings between 6 November 2001 and 17 January 2002 when the Government could have considered those matters in more detail. We tried to start our consideration on Report on 20 March, so why have the Government taken so long to come up with all these new amendments? Why have they tabled them at such a late stage in the Bill's proceedings, thus giving the Opposition very little time to scrutinise them properly before the two days on Report?
The Bill is not party political. We have supported it throughout its passage and we intend to continue to do so. We have made many constructive and positive amendments to try to improve it. However, the current situation is extremely unsatisfactory. There are some huge groups of amendments—the third group contains no fewer than 59—but we have only limited time to debate them. We have many meaty subjects to debate today, but all the Conservative amendments have been timetabled today, leaving less contentious issues for debate on Monday, so that timetabling is questionable.
I do not want to detain the House any longer because, for the reasons that I have mentioned, we need to get on and maximise the time that we have to debate the Bill. In the few minutes that I shall take, it is worth putting on record that this is not the most courteous way in which the Government could have treated the House, particularly those hon. Members who have spent many weeks and months living and breathing the Bill. We have done so for the past six months, but debate is now being curtailed to just two days even though we have an extraordinarily 937 large amount of work to do—much more than was originally intended. I will not oppose the programme motion, although we have problems with it in principle.
§ Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon)I should like to take this opportunity to associate myself with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) about the number and the short notice of the Government amendments, and therefore the crowding of today's agenda in particular.
In addition, many hon. Members will think it regrettable that it is not possible to vote today on amendment No. 158, which deals with the substantive definition in relation to unmarried couples. Unfortunately, it appears that, by virtue of the programme motion, the decision on that amendment can be taken only on Monday, so dissociating the decision from the debate. For those reasons, I, too, am concerned about the programme motion, but for the same reasons as those given by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, we do not propose to press the motion to a Division.
§ Question put and agreed to.