Business of the House: Debates, 18th December (Hansard, 16 December 1991)

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington)
My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It may be for the convenience of the House if I speak to both this Motion and the other Motion standing in my name.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that, following the summit at Maastricht last week, it was only right that we should hold a debate in this House as soon as possible. After discussions through the usual channels, it was agreed that Wednesday of this week would be most convenient. However, as your Lordships will be aware, this Wednesday was the day in December which had been set aside under the Rules of the House for balloted short debates.
The first Motion tabled in my name is therefore necessary to move these debates to the first available day, which is Monday 20th January. I should tell your Lordships that this has been done with the full agreement of the noble Lords, Lord Molloy and Lord Jenkins of Putney. I am most grateful to both noble Lords for agreeing so readily to move their debates.
The second Motion tabled in my name applies five-hour debate rules to the Maastricht debate. Again, it was decided to do this after full discussions through the usual channels. As the two short debates on that day would have taken five hours, and as we have some business after that, it seemed right to avoid upsetting the timetable of the day as much as possible, especially in the light of the fact that we had a debate on Maastricht very recently. I should draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Motion allows for movers of amendments to the Motion to be allotted the same time as the mover of the Motion. I hope that your Lordships will agree that that is fair.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, notwithstanding the fact that this Motion has been agreed through the usual channels, perhaps noble Lords will consider that the Developments since last Thursday are such that the House ought to have a rather longer debate 1020 on this most important topic, especially in view of the fact that the other place will be having two Sittings on it. I urge the noble Lord and the usual channels to reconsider the five-hour limitation which has been placed upon the debate. In view of the number of speakers in prospect, that limitation will allow only extremely small individual contributions to be made by many who are particularly expert or interested in the field.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, I should like to raise one further point. It is in relation to the debate being held on Wednesday at the same time as the debate in the other place. I should have thought that it would have been far better for this House to have had a debate following the Christmas Recess, after mature consideration of all the implications of the Maastricht summit. Even at this late stage, I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will give some thought to that possibility.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, I have a secondary point to make; namely, that when this House has debates that are limited in time to two-and-a-half hours and five hours it is quite important that the Digital Clocks on both sides of the Chamber should work properly. Last week, the noble Lord the Chief Whip said that the matter was in hand and that he hoped the Clocks would be working very soon. However, they have not been working for nearly a week. In this technological age, can the noble Lord the Leader of the House say whether any progress has been made in the matter?

§ Lord Waddington
My Lords, on the last very important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, I am assured that the Digital Clocks will be working by Wednesday. I hope that we are not let down in that respect.
With regard to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, I think that it would be for the convenience of all sides of the House to know when the debate will end. I believe that that was why the usual channels came to the conclusion that it would be desirable to time limit the debate. I see the force of the argument that more time may be required. But judging by the number of noble Lords who have put down their names to speak, I believe that there will be eight minutes for each person in addition to the time for the movers of the amendments as well as the mover of the original Motion. I think that I have the feeling of the House if I say that we shall stick to what was originally proposed.
As regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, the other place is debating the matter this week. I respectfully suggest that it would look rather odd if we were to postpone the matter. There is no reason for our not getting on with it. We have the time. For that reason, I suggest that we should stick to what we have proposed.