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Companies Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 3)

I very much support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), and by my relatively close neighbour, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). What we are doing is profoundly unsatisfactory. This House faces a very large number of amendments, new clauses and new schedules, many of which were tabled very recently within the past few days. There is no point in the Minister’s shaking her head in a despairing way—we are despairing of the conduct of Government Front Benchers. The fact that these amendments—hundreds of them—were tabled but two or three days ago means that right hon. and hon. Members cannot form a view as to their merits. Worse than that, neither can the outside interest groups that would wish to make representations to this House. That is wholly wrong. The other point to keep in mind is that this Report stage is the first occasion on which the House as a whole, as distinct from the Committee, can consider the detail of the Bill. The effect of a timetabling motion of this kind is to preclude the House from doing so. Because of the way in which the knives will fall, a whole range of important issues will not be addressed or examined, far less voted upon. We are doing this far too often, and there are examples of the chaos that results. I often have to handle the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in the courts, as does my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier). We know full well that the timetabling motions with regard to that Act produced one of the worst criminal justice Acts that the courts have ever had to deal with. We are now doing the same thing, but in this case it is worse because we have not only a new Bill but the new companies legislation incorporated into it.