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Legislative Process

My recollection is that the House did rise early in that way once, but, as with many aspects of Robin Cook’s proposals, that started rapidly to erode. The House voted enthusiastically for that deal, so it is not a question of a small group of zealots trying to impose on the majority of the House our way of doings things. We are merely asking that we stick to what we agreed, or at least to something closely resembling it. Almost immediately, however, it was apparent that there was little enthusiasm for the new arrangement, either at the highest levels of Government—with the sole exception of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—or among the establishment of the House. We sat in September 2003 and 2004, but last year we were told that we could not sit because a new security screen had to be erected in the Public Gallery and, blow me down, the work could only be carried out in the first half of September. I asked at the time for a guarantee that once the screen was up we would be allowed to resume the practice to which we had previously agreed, and I have to say that the answers from the Minister concerned were opaque. I was not in the least surprised to discover that we could not sit in the autumn of 2006.