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Business of the House

May I put it to the Deputy Leader of the House that when she says that we are spending 12 days considering the Lisbon treaty in Committee, she is saying something that is not true? Half the time is spent on debates of the Government's own choosing—as a platform for their own views, not for Ministers to respond to amendments tabled by hon. and right hon. Members. By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that line-by-line scrutiny is taking place when whole rafts of amendments—for example, on defence and foreign policy—have been simply passed over and not discussed at all. May I endorse the request made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) for at least an extra day on the defence aspects of the treaty? Otherwise, the Government will not have delivered their promise of line-by-line scrutiny.