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Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords] (Allocation of Time)

I, too, oppose the timetable motion. During my years in Parliament, the House has not passed legislation as quickly as this unless there really was an emergency and it was crucial to get it through in a very short time by taking it all on one day. I genuinely think that the Government have messed up on this. The Bill could have come at any time during the past year, or even earlier, particularly once the Back-Bench Bill had been introduced, and there is no need to rush it through like this, leaving aside the principle of the issue, about which I have very strong feelings. As those of us who were around in 1994 remember, it has been an incredibly contentious issue about which people feel very strongly and on which Labour Members have always had a free vote. I am very concerned that pushing the Bill through in this way is yet another example of the increasing tendency to say, ““If it is about the Olympics and the Paralympics, anything can be changed or moved.”” I think that the Olympics and the Paralympics are incredibly important to this country and that they will be a huge success, but people could be cynical about the fact that they increasingly seem to be used as excuses for all sorts of things to be done, changed and made different—including those who suddenly discovered at the weekend that they might have missiles of some kind on top of their houses. We have to be very careful, as a Parliament, that we consider legislation within a time scale that treats it with the seriousness that it deserves. The Bill does not need to be rushed through in this way, and it should not be. I hope that many hon. Government Members—I presume that they have a free vote as well; if not, they should—will join us in opposing the Bill, or at least its timetabling.