Standing Committee A
Thursday 23 October 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Alan Hurst in the Chair]
Clause 5
RSS: revision
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 125, in
2.30 pm
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made
The Chairman: Order. This morning, the Committee was discussing amendment No. 125 to clause 5, and the Minister was intervening on the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) when the Committee adjourned. I should advise the Committee that once the hon. Gentleman has completed his remarks, we will consider a resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee. I call the Minister to complete his intervention.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): I thank you, Mr. Hurst. The caveat is that the periods of revision will clearly depend on local circumstances.
Matthew Green (Ludlow): In the light of the Minister's intervention, we have probably taken the matter as far as needed. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chairman: Copies of the Programming Sub-Committee's resolution are in the Room. I ask the Minister to move the motion.
Keith Hill: I beg to move,
I draw the Committee's attention to a number of facts. We have had 17 hours of debate to date, and under the terms of the motion we have a further five hours to come. So far, 35 per cent. of the time, or just under six hours, has been spent on Government new clauses; and 65 per cent. of the time, or 11 hours, has been devoted to Opposition new clauses. That seems to be a fair treatment of the Opposition's interests.
The Government have shown considerable restraint. We have been guided almost entirely in the emphasis given to debates by the Opposition—and not
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more so than with new clause 49, on which we spent two and a half hours. In other words, we effectively spent two and half hours dealing with part 2 of the Bill.
We have already discussed 27 Government new clauses, 30 Government amendments, three new schedules, 20 Opposition new clauses and 18 Opposition amendments, and we have had seven clause stand part debates. It seems to me that proper progress has been made on the Bill. I believe that we have the prospect of further proper consideration. I ought to point that, as we promised, we published the Government amendments well in advance. In addition, as I observed earlier today, we have made every effort to publish the maximum number of planning policy statements and regulations in draft.
We have so far sat for an additional three hours and 18 minutes beyond our normal sitting time of five hours a day. The Committee will be aware that, on Tuesday, we were willing to go on for a further 47 minutes, but that we accommodated the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown). We have been extremely fair, and it was not the Government who were taking an excessive amount of the Committee's time.
We have always been willing to continue the debate. We have remaining before us 49 clauses with amendments, nine of which are in part 2, and we have effectively had a Second Reading debate on new clause 49. A further 18 of those new clauses fall in parts of the Bill that were discussed by the earlier Standing Committee. Although we have always made it clear that the completion date was not movable, we have always been emphatic about our willingness to be flexible. Indeed, at our first sitting, I spoke of
''my willingness to be as flexible as possible''—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 14 October 2003; c. 7.]
We would have been very happy to yield to an Opposition request for an extra sitting on Wednesdays, but that was not forthcoming. The usual channels have been unusually open, and we have regularly checked on how the Opposition considered the Committee to be progressing. At no time has there been any request for consideration of a Wednesday sitting. In all circumstances, the Government have gone out of their way to accommodate the Opposition. It has been a good Committee so far. Through the motion, we have expressed out willingness to sit for another two and a quarter hours. If we add up all the hours, we will have had an extra day's sitting by the end of the day.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold): We still need to put one or two things on the record, but we appreciate the flexibility that the Government have shown within the constraints of the motion. I am personally grateful to the Government and the usual channels for allowing the sitting to finish early on Tuesday, which accommodated me. The Minister's statement was slightly inaccurate. As I recall, we were due to have a vote at 6.25 pm, but we finished at 6.10 pm—15 minutes early rather than 37 minutes early: a slight difference.
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We have made it consistently clear from the outset that eight sittings would not be enough, given the amount of new material that the Government are inserting into the Bill and the number of issues that remain from our deliberations in January. I said so on 9 June, as I mentioned this morning when the motion was debated, and at the beginning of this sitting, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said the same in subsequent business questions. I am glad that the Government, having steadfastly refused to consider any of our amendments in January, have now made some concessions in relation to one or two matters. I hope that they will make some more this afternoon. Indeed, I eagerly anticipate that they will as that would be a good thing.
These matters need to be fully negotiated. I accept the Minister's assertion that 35 per cent.—six hours—of the Committee's time has been spent on Government matters and that 65 per cent.—11 hours—has been spent on Opposition and other matters relating to Government new clauses and amendments. It is quite proper that a planning Bill that touches so many constituency cases should allow adequate time not only for Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen but for Back Benchers, who have initiated some extremely useful debates and new clauses.
Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), who found a consensus of opinion among Government Back Benchers in some of the debates that he initiated. Some of the Committee's time has therefore been very usefully spent, given the importance of any debate on planning. I do not know how many letters other Members receive from constituents about planning, but probably nearly half my constituency correspondence is about planning one way or another. I admit that I live in the Cotswolds in a very sensitive planning area, but it is unsurprising that colleagues want to raise such matters.
I accept that the time allowed has been prolonged, for which I am very grateful to the Government. As the Minister says, an extra sitting gives us an extra day, but I still do not believe that nine sittings are enough. As I said at the outset, 12 would have been about right. I hope that we will have adequate time on Report to deal with the outstanding matters. The Government tell us that the Report stage will be held after the Queen's Speech, and I hope that we will not be severely timetabled to an hour or two. We need to discuss that through the usual channels. I give the Minister notice that I believe that we need at least a complete day on the Floor of the House on Report, or possibly longer. I need to reflect on that. Then, of course, it will go to the other place. It is important that these matters are debated properly. People outside will not understand that whole chunks of the Bill are undebated.
I return to the subject of timetabling. This morning, Mr. Hurst, your co-Chairman said that the Modernisation Committee was considering the matter. Several points need to be made about timetabling. First, I do not like it. I would have been
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more than happy to agree to have no timetable, as the hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) and I did when we were the usual channels for the Committee considering the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill. That Committee lasted for six weeks, and we finished exactly on the day on which I had given an undertaking to the Government usual channels that we would. That is a far better way of working because things can go wrong in Committee—as we found under the straitjacket of the motion that was passed in the House this morning—and it makes much more sense than going on until 7.30 pm, thus inconveniencing every Member. I do not mind. I would have been happy to go on until midnight, as the Minister offered, although he then retracted that. It does not make any difference to me, but that is not a clever way of working. We would have been much better off doing that, but we could not do that under the terms of the timetable agreed by the House. The Standing Orders need to be more flexible so that we can discuss such matters.
With those few remarks, I reiterate to the Government that not enough time was allowed for this Bill. However, we are grateful for the Government's flexibility, and we will do our best to proceed expeditiously and see how much we can get through.
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