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Sittings of the House

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, with which I agree entirely. The Government would lose nothing by accepting my amendment, which would merely increase the amount of time that private Members would have available to them to bring business to this House. There are two reasons why private Members bring Bills to this House. As I have discussed, one is to get them into law. I am sure that some of the private Members' Bills that have been proposed by Labour Back Benchers have much merit, but I am worried that those Members will not have enough time to get the Bills into law and that this House will not have an opportunity to discuss them fully. The other reason why private Members' Bills come before this House is so that an issue can be debated and the Government must respond on a substantive motion. We hold useful debates in Westminster Hall—I have referred to the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering is leading one at this moment—and very useful Adjournment debates, but they are not on motions that could become law. In addition, such debates are short and the half-hour debates tend just to have the relevant Minister and the Back Bencher speaking, so no real debate takes place. By comparison, when a private Member's Bill is considered there is a proper debate in this Chamber and everybody takes part.