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Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

It is not my intention to speak at great length or to filibuster the Bill, but it does need legislative scrutiny. I take issue with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) who suggests that any desire to scrutinise, examine or otherwise consider this Bill is somehow reprehensible or wrong. After all, the Opposition spend most of their time doing that to Bills, and when we put pressure on them they roundly criticise us for not allowing proper scrutiny. It is right that this House should scrutinise Bills. The new intake may be new, but we are not naive. We have been sent here to scrutinise legislation and to clean up politics. For many of us in the new intake, the behaviour of previous Parliaments and the disgraceful abuse of expenses were unacceptable, inappropriate and wrong. The disrespect to this House—including its symbols—by Members of the previous Parliament was inexcusable, inappropriate and wrong. To bring before this House a private Member's Bill that is obviously controversial and highly partisan in nature is an outrageous and disgraceful thing to do. This day should be for legislation that will pass with the support of both sides of the House. It is wholly wrong and inappropriate to waste the time of this House by bringing before it legislation that will divide it. There are other issues that we could have been discussing today on which the House is united and agreed. I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is inappropriate, inexcusable and wholly wrong to do this to this House and the other Members who have legislation to be considered today. We could have been passing useful law today, but I do not think that that will happen. We could have been talking about matters that unite us, but for which there is too little parliamentary time. I especially condemn the hon. Gentleman because not only does his Bill lack support on this side of the House, but—as we have just heard from the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith)—it lacks support on his side of the House.