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Business of the House

I welcome the full day's debate on Africa, which I requested last week. With such prompt service, I must clearly be careful what I ask for in future. The right hon. Gentleman will have heard his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister say, in answer to a question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), that he will soon bring forward proposals for the proper scrutiny of European legislation. Given that we had yet another Adjournment debate on the European Union yesterday, which I am sure was valuable in its way but which was unfocused, is not there a clear need to have a proper process of scrutiny of what our Ministers do in the Council on behalf of this country? At the moment, we have no such scrutiny proposals. Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the report issued today by the Public Accounts Committee on non-attendance at court, which has become a very significant problem? Might we also debate the comments of the chief constable of Avon and Somerset, Colin Port, who suggests that perhaps what we need is a national agency, along the lines of the US marshals, responsible for tracking down fugitives and bringing them to justice? That would certainly merit debate. Can we have a standing slot, on a regular basis, for a debate that might be called, "New policies announced by Ministers but for which details have unaccountably never been given to the House"? There we could, for instance, consider the very ambitious plans announced for first-time buyers, which we still do not know anything about, and discover when the free travel for pensioners on buses will be implemented, which is a question that is often asked. Moreover, it might decrease the number of opportunities that Ministers have for making statements outside this House instead of coming here and making a proper statement. Lastly, could we have a debate on the very serious medical condition of amnesia? It seems to me that some right hon. and hon. Members simply cannot remember the position that they took only a matter of months ago on ID cards, demonstrations in Parliament square, or the extradition treaty with the United States.