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Coalition Government

I certainly have no desire for a timetable Motion in this House. I will try to explain why I think that it would be extremely undesirable. That is not to say that it might not be necessary, but I very much hope that it will not. The whole of my political career in, if you like, business management, has been to avoid such things, except, as I said, on certain occasions where both sides reckoned that it was the best way forward. I never reached the point that the dear man, Michael Foot, did when he moved four timetable Motions in one day in the House of Commons and, when pressed, said that the reason why he was doing it was that the Government had such a small majority that that was the only way to get the legislation through. Some of us agreed that that was probably right. The basis on which I have felt that parliamentary business should be conducted is as follows. First, a Government who have a majority in the Commons are entitled to get their business through. It is not, in principle, the job of Oppositions to seek to frustrate the will of the Government of the country. Secondly, Oppositions should never lose sight of the fact that they will be the Government one day. That has always been the position, and therefore Oppositions should never do anything that they would disapprove of if they were in government. That is a proper constraint on Oppositions at all times. Thirdly, Oppositions have their rights in political debate, and it is the responsibility of the government Front Bench and government business managers to deliver to the Opposition the rights that they reasonably should have. That always has been, and it always will be. Fourthly, in this House it is not always sensible to press matters to a Division when there is absolutely no possibility of the House of Commons agreeing with them. This House is a revising House and is at its best when it seeks to ask the House of Commons to look again, particularly where the House of Commons is singing—if I may say so—an unclear note on an issue. That is where this House is right. I can remember, when I first got here, first Lord Callaghan and then Lord Whitelaw each saying, ““Of course I respect the right of your Lordships to press this amendment, but the question is: is it wise? Is it a sensible use of time to seek to pass amendments that have no prospect whatever of ever being taken up by the House of Commons?””. That is something that we should bear in mind when we are doing it. All of what I have been saying to you is, in fact, ““the usual channels””. That is how things should be negotiated. From time to time in our history it is impossible to negotiate a satisfactory arrangement. There is then no alternative but for the Government to do something—the Government have to get their business. So I am 100 per cent in favour of negotiations and I want to see them going on all the time. If it does not happen, then it is the Government’s responsibility to propose a solution for which they will have to get a majority. I finish by saying that the sentence that I like best in this subject was said in a speech by the late Lord Biffen, who many of us were great admirers of, in which he said that the agenda for political debate needs to be fixed, so that the discussions can be fierce and competitive.