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Business of the House

I do not want to be led— ... I agree, Mr. Speaker. I was not about to be led. I was not going to try to explore reasons; I just noted that the amendment was not, apparently, selected. I do not want to be drawn from the path of virtue—at least not on this matter. I want to clarify what the Leader of the House has said, because we should not be in the position of thinking that we would get the Standing Orders. Many people might have had more fun during the last few weeks of their time in the House, not having to worry about such things, if we had not been led astray by the Leader of the House. She said that""it is gratifying that there were very big majorities in the House last week to resolve this matter and move forward"—" move forward in this House.""We have the resolutions of the House. My task now is to make sure that the House is given an opportunity to endorse the Standing Orders that will give effect to them. My mandate is the will of the House as expressed in the resolutions."" The Leader of the House is right about that.""We need Standing Orders to give effect to them—nothing less."" I could have said that. I cannot understand how the Leader of the House inadvertently told the House something that turned out not to be true. She led us astray. I am told that by definition that is inadvertent, but I still cannot understand how she could have done it. She continued:""Whether or not that is the case"—" that is, the concern about whether the Standing Orders were in the right shape—""I can assure the House that we will bring forward the Standing Orders, and there will be an opportunity for the House to endorse them before the next election."" We are before the next election, but the record will show that the Leader of the House inadvertently said "before the next election", when now she says that, apparently, she meant to say, "after the next election". The House votes to do something before the next election. The Leader of the House tells us that there will be an opportunity for the House to endorse it before the next election, but then we are told that the House was not misled because it must have been inadvertent when she said that there was that opportunity. I do not know whether the Leader of the House is the bad person in this, or whether she is just forced to do the grubby work of the Prime Minister and higher powers, but at some point she should turn round and say to the people who were pulling her strings in that case, "I am not going to do this any more. I am not going to spend my time inadvertently giving the House the impression that things are going to happen that then don't happen." On the same day, the Leader of the House told me that she would send drafts of the Standing Order to everyone who had shown interest in the issue. No drafts were sent to anyone. She did not say, "I will table them. You can look at them, think about them and if you object, you can let me know." She said, "I will send drafts." I understood that "sending drafts" meant that we would be sent drafts, but perhaps I am being too literal and I was inadvertently misled in my understanding of the normal words that she used. She continued:""The question is not what I supported"—" because she had not supported the detail—""what the shadow Leader of the House supported or what we both supported; what matters is what the House decided."" I agree. That led me and others to believe that we would have the Standing Orders in this Parliament. The Leader of the House said:""The Standing Orders that I will bring forward in draft and consult the hon. Gentleman about"—" that was me—""will be to bring into effect the will of the House."—[Official Report, 11 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 433-444.]" Well, where are they? How can a parliamentarian of her experience, on three separate occasions within the space of a week, inadvertently lead us to believe that something would happen that did not happen? That is the height of inadvertence. The Leader of the House said:""We need to complete the process of placing before the House for its approval the Standing Orders that would give effect to the resolutions of the House, and they will indeed be brought forward."—[Official Report, 18 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 975.]" The business motion—