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Business of the House

I was in the Chamber when the hon. Gentleman raised that point. In my view, the time that the Government allocated on Report for the Financial Services Bill was adequate. Speaking from memory, we allocated two days, which is quite generous compared with the time that is normally allowed. When what I would regard as adequate time has been allowed, it is up to the House to make intelligent use of that time. If people speak at length during the earlier debates, it is inevitable that a price must be paid in the later stages. As a business manager, I genuinely believe that the overall amount of time that we allocated was adequate so long as the House behaved in an intelligent and disciplined way that enabled all the relevant bits of the Bill to be covered.