I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 11, at end insert

'after deducting therefrom any money paid pursuant to the said section 49 and in anticipation of a direction under the section being money paid prior to the passing of this Act'.

Normally when we move amendments we have had sufficient time to study the implications of the speech by the Secretary of State on Second Reading and also to ensure, with the assistance of the Clerks, that our amendments are within the rules of order. One of the problems about the debate on this shoddy little Bill has been the propensity of the Secretary of State to throw around various sets of figures, as though he were Will Hay in one of his madder sketches. This has caused considerable difficulty. We are still not clear exactly what the GLC will be required to provide and whether the Secretary of State is prepared even to accept the arrangements that have already been entered into.

It is important to remember that we are talking about large sums of money and about an authority which has to raise that money properly. The GLC will be asked to pay London Regional Transport £258,179,588 for the remaining part of 1984–85, which is called the initial year after the transfer of control of London Transport to the Secretary of State, between 29 June 1984 and 31 March 1985.

We must make certain that, as the GLC has already paid £177 million, the Bill will not add to that sum but will give the GLC credit for the amount that has already been paid. There is doubt about it, because the Secretary of State said on Second Reading:

"Subsection (2) provides for the phasing of payments by the GLC. Its intention is to avoid requiring the GLC to pay money to LRT in advance of when it would have had to do so under the section 49 direction.

It allows for two possibilities. If Royal Assent is received before 25 March, the first instalment of grant is payable on the day following Royal Assent. That instalment is the amount which would have been due under the section 49 direction by 25 February, less the two sums of £10·2 million and £12·9 million now conceded to the GLC. A second instalment will then fall due on 29 March and under the section 49 direction this was divided into two payments, due on 25 and 29 March." —[0fficial Report, 19 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 874.]

That may be factually correct, but the basis is wrong. The figures that should have been used are the current cash flow needs of LRT, not what was estimated last June. Had we been given more time to consider the Bill, we would have tabled amendments relating to this point. The narrowness of the amendment has been dictated by the narrowness of the Bill and the speed with which it has been dealt. It is a fundamental consideration. We should ensure that credit is given for the £177 million that has been paid by the GLC since the appointed day for the operation of the London Regional Transport Act 1984.

It has been noticeable throughout the entire battle—a word which I use deliberately because it has been a battle; the Secretary of State has tried to ride roughshod over the interests not only of London's ratepayers but of Members of Parliament — that the GLC has behaved properly. It explained to the Secretary of State in the first instance that it did not believe that the sums of money that he was demanding were accurate. However, because of LRT's operating needs the GLC continued to pay the money, explaining that it was doing so without prejudice. The GLC also made it clear that it would appeal against the actions of the Secretary of State.

Since that is the case, the Secretary of State has a responsibility to write into the Bill a much clearer undertaking that he has taken account of the £177 million that has already been paid over. If the GLC had been seeking to cause untold difficulty, it could have withheld, until the court case was over, the amount of money that the Secretary of State was demanding. Because it knew that the money was needed for the operating costs of LRT, it behaved properly by warning the Department of Transport what it was doing, but nevertheless continuing to make the payments. Therefore, it is all the more dispiriting when there is no clear indication from the Secretary of State that he will take account of the money that has already been paid.

So far the Secretary of State has shown no intention to take account of the needs of the passengers of London Transport, the wishes of elected London councillors or the needs of the House of Commons. The Secretary of State would show a welcome and astonishing degree of flexibility if he were to accept that his calculations were done on the wrong basis. The figures that should have been used were the current cash flow needs. Therefore, I ask the Secretary of State to accept the amendment.

It may be convenient if I intervene now because I can give the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) a categorical assurance that the money paid by the GLC to LRT since 29 June will be taken into account in calculating what the GLC owes in future.

To help the Committee, perhaps I may be allowed to take the hon. Lady through the figures. She took me to task for what she described as throwing around sets of figures. I am certain that she would have been even more critical if I had not tried to give the maximum information during our many discussions about the Bill. I think that I can give her a little more information, provided that she does not then blame me for having done so and accuse me of throwing around even more figures.

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman quite understands my argument. I am happy that he should give accurate information. However, we are extremely worried because, during our different debates, different sets of figures have been given to the House at different times. We are told that this is simply a case of interpreting them in different ways but, frankly, everyone would be happy if we knew the basis on which the Department was doing its calculations.

I do not think that that is sustainable. All the figures that I have given are totally compatible. I think that the hon. Lady is trying to say that the GLC would have preferred to work them out in a different way and to have got a different answer.

Before 29 June of this year, the GLC had paid, taking into account the £10·2 million, a total of £88·9 million. Section 49 and this Bill do not apply to that. We leave that on one side, because it was before the date of the LRT Act.

Since the Act, the GLC has deposited £177 million with LRT. We agree about that. The Bill requires that £258 million-odd should be paid when the Bill becomes an Act. The difference which will have to be paid is the difference between £177 million and the £258 million — £81 million-odd which is not yet paid. It has to be done this way because the section 49 direction that I made in June was quashed by the court and is therefore invalid. That means that there is no basis for regularising the money which has already been deposited by the GLC.

As the hon. Lady said, the GLC has behaved correctly in this respect and has left the money there, but it cannot be said that that money is there as part of any instalment or debt or obligation which lies upon the GLC. There would be such an obligation only if the direction had been upheld and had come into force. With the quashing of the direction, that money was left by the GLC as an instalment of what it expected to have to pay either when there was a new direction or, as it turns out, when this Bill becomes law.

To have specified in the Bill that the £177 million had to be paid would have been retrospective, and retrospectivity is an accusation which has been thrown about frequently in these debates and which I deny. But if I had so drafted the Bill that the £177 million which the GLC has already paid was included as if it was required to be paid, it would have been retrospective because, when the GLC deposited it, it did not know that it would have to pay it.

The GLC now knows that the total will be £258 million-odd and I give the Committee the categorical assurance that under the Bill, as drafted, there is no suggestion that the £177 million already deposited will not be counted against the total sum that is owed.

That means that the amendment is unnecessary. The Bill is drafted exactly to take account of the hon. Lady's point. The amendment is also defective. As it is neither correctly drafted nor necessary, I hope that the hon. Lady will feel able to ask leave to withdraw it.

Since what in this case is sauce for the gander should be sauce for the goose, if the amendment is neither necessary nor well drafted, it appears to be in line with all that has happened in relation to London Regional Transport ever since these debates began. But having a degree of graciousness which is not always found on the Government Benches, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 1, line 13, leave out from 'paid' to end of line 16 and insert

'on the third day upon which banks are open for business after that on which this Act is passed'.

With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 13, leave out

'on the day after that on which this Act is passed'

and insert

'on the third day upon which banks are open for business after that on which this Act is passed'.

These are two inconsequential amendments in respect of the main purpose of the Bill. They have been tabled merely to make sense of a measure which we thoroughly oppose.

You, Sir Paul, will not permit me to go into the argument conducted up until 10 minutes ago about the way in which we have arrived at this position. It is a great pity that only three Opposition amendments have been selected. That is not my fault. I was not a party to the usual channels negotiations last night, and I have to tell the Minister of State that it was the Opposition's wish to table a great many other amendments of much more substance if we had had the opportunity to do so.

I was one of those hon. Members who spoke at great length and in great detail in last night's debate. The Secretary of State had some very serious questions addressed to him which he answered by bringing in new figures which we are not allowed to challenge. I feel that I ought to make that protest even though I may be out of order.

The amendments are designed to assist the GLC if this measure is carried into law. I was reminded of the speech made by the Secretary of State for Transport at the annual dinner last week of the Bus and Coach Council, when he referred to another Transport Bill and said:

"We should really try to fashion a better Bill in Committee."

I hope that we can fashion a better Bill in Committee today. If these amendments are accepted, in my view the Bill will be marginally better.

The amendments attempt to ensure that the GLC is given two working days in which to arrange to have available the money that the Secretary of State is about to take from the GLC, money which a court of law found to be unlawful. The Secretary of State has not accepted that judicial decision. He has introduced legislation to overturn that decision. That being the case, having secured a Second Reading for his Bill, he will appreciate that the GLC is anxious to be given time to provide him with the money. Simply because the GLC may have budgeted for the money does not mean that tomorrow morning it can lay its hands on £80 million. It cannot. It needs time to do it.

That is the reason for these amendments. The GLC needs time to ensure that the Secretary of State cannot require the money to be paid on a non-banking day.

If the amendments are defective in drafting or inhibiting in any way, I have no doubt that the Minister of State will say so, but I hope that she will take on board the spirit behind them. It is simply to ask that, if the Bill is passed, having been rushed through the House tonight, at least she will be gracious enough to allow the GLC time to marshal its forces and come up with the money.

I understand what the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) said about the spirit behind the amendments, but I hope that I can assure him that there is no difficulty here.

I assume, although he did not say so, that the hon. Gentleman considers the amendments as alternatives. If he does not, they can be shown to be contradictory. I shall not discuss that point. I understand the hon. Gentleman's difficulty only too well. If I understand his intentions aright, amendment No. 3 makes the whole sum payable to LRT on the third working day after Royal Assent and amendment 4 retains the framework of the stage payments as set out in clause 1(2)(a) and (b), but also involves payment by the third working day. The two amendments are exclusive rather than to be taken together.

indicated assent.

I see that the hon. Lady and I understand each other, on that point at least.

The amendments are unnecessary. There is nothing in law to prevent the GLC from paying up on the day after Royal Assent, which may well he some time away. It does not need more time. The money could be paid by electronic transfer within a single day, or the GLC could write—[Interruption.] It is perfectly possible to transfer money in a single day.

If you have it.

We are discussing these sums and it is obvious, from other decisions that it has been making, that the GLC has the money. It has undoubtedly been warned in the past and by means of the passage of this short Bill. As the Bill progresses, it will be up to the GLC to have the money ready to pay over in good time. There is no way in which amendments such as these could be made in terms of other transactions that pass between public bodies, referring to a specific third banking day after the due date. The whole process is designed to take place when the sum becomes payable.

I think that, if the Bill is passed before 25 March, there will certainly be enough time — that is the reason for bringing the Bill forward now — for that money to be raised and paid over as agreed in clause 1(2)(a) plus the remainder at the end of March.

My right hon. Friend explained just now why the total figure was in the Bill. We are really talking about a remainder figure.

It is a big remainder.

I do not dispute the fact that it is a large figure. The figures have been around for a long time. They were fully known during the court case. There is no reason why the money should not be available when it is required to be paid over.

I shall not indulge in any nit-picking over the wording of the amendments. I could do so, but that is not my purpose. I understand the spirit behind the amendments, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no need for the concern that he has expressed, and no need to press the amendment.

The Minister graciously tells us that she is not going to involve herself in nit-picking about the details of the amendments which have had to be cobbled together by the Opposition. We do not in fact regard that as especially gracious on her part, because it was only because we were not given sufficient time to consider the matter that we had to produce the amendments in a rush. Still, perhaps we should be thankful. No doubt, had the Secretary of State dealt with this part of the Bill, he would have made nitpicking criticisms.

The GLC may have the money in its budget. It may have raised the money. However, that does not mean that the money is instantly available to be handed over to someone else without damage to the ratepayers' interests. Conservative Members — there are not many of them here — know more than I do about having money on account. They are probably aware that local authorities, other organisations and rich individuals may invest money in such a way that an instant withdrawal to meet the needs of instant payment will damage the person who has invested the money. It is quite conceivable that, like other local authorities, the GLC invests the sums at its disposal that are not needed at once in such a way that an instant demand to hand money over to LRT would result in a loss of interest to the ratepayers. There might be genuine difficulties and genuine losses as a result of what the Government are demanding, if they will not accept either amendment or something on these lines.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) is not slavishly committed to the wording of the amendments and would be happy to accept a Government amendment on Report—

Hear, hear.

—that was better than the ones that she was able to devise in the few minutes available to her yesterday.

Given all their resources, the Government do not seem to have done very well up to now.

It is true that most faults discovered in legislation spring not from things that happen in the House or in Committee but from the parlous standard of parliamentary draftsmanship. It may well be that our innocent efforts will produce better and more accurate legislation than the Minister could achieve.

We have to have this debate, either because the Bill that became the London Regional Transport Act 1984 was a mess or because the Secretary of State has administered the Act badly. In either case, as the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for both the Act and its administration, he takes responsiblity. The drafting of my right hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich may be better than anything that the ministerial advisers could produce for Report.

There is one further point to be made on the Bill, if the Government will not either accept the amendment or produce a variation of their own. If the crucial stage of the Bill were taken late on Friday, the GLC might have to find the money to hand over to LRT on a Saturday. Even using electronic means to shift money, the Minister must accept that Britain's financial institutions are not usually at their best on a Saturday. In practice, the demands might be difficult to meet. We are merely saying that we want to avoid such practical difficulties for the GLC to stump up the money on the instant, and the financial losses to London's ratepayers that might be suffered as a result of the precipitate withdrawal of GLC funds.

One would have thought that a touch of humility would have been appropriate from the Government now. It ought not to lie in their power, still less in their desire, to pass legislation which might prove difficult for the GLC, as all the difficulties that have led to the Bill spring from shortcomings on the part of the Government. Just this once, the Government might listen to what the GLC is saying.

If the Secretary of State had taken one minute's notice of what the GLC said about his direction under section 49, the courts would not have found that he had acted unlawfully, irrationally and procedurally improperly. In those circumstances, we should not have to put up with listening to him again. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept the spirit of the amendment and do the decent thing.

My hon. Friend made an excellent point when he said that it would be difficult for the GLC to stump up the money at a moment's notice from the Government. Does he agree that it is not beyond the Government, who have been vindictive to the GLC all along, to insist that the money be stumped up at a most inconvenient time?

Yes. It beggars the imagination that any hon. Member should be expected to say that he is willing to accept the Government's good faith in their dealings with the GLC. The Government have had the ultimate in bad faith in their dealings with the GLC since the Prime Minister precipitately introduced at a late stage into the Tory manifesto a draft commitment to abolish it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) said, the Government might deliberately time the demand to cause maximum embarrassment and difficulty. They have always done that in other respects. The same is true of rate capping for other local authorities in London.

It is preposterous for Ministers to expect us to accept that they will act reasonably and in good faith. They sit there having been found guilty by Mr. Justice McNeill of having acted unlawfully, irrationally and procedurally improperly. The trouble is that in all three respects he found them acting characteristically. If we no longer accept their word or that they will act in good faith, they have only themselves to blame. I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment or agree to come up with a better Government amendment on report. Without such an amendment, we shall leave the GLC and the ratepayers of London vulnerable to more of the Government's malignance.

The amendments are contradictory simply because, at 10 o'clock last night, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), after spending the whole day in the Chamber debating the Bill's Second Reading, had to cobble together some amendments to enable us to debate the matter today. We had no time for preparation, or to consult anyone, or to consider the Secretary of State's responses, and the amendments were put down as a marker to give the Committee something to talk about. If my hon. Friend had not had the foresight to table these amendments at the eleventh hour, we should have not one amendment to debate.

I accept that, in the circumstances that I have described, the amendments might be badly drafted or contradictory, but the spirit behind them is worthy of discussion. By virtue of his huge majority the Secretary of State will get his way and his money—well, not his money, but the money of London ratepayers. Unfortunately, we cannot prevent him from getting his way because we do not have the troops in the Lobby to stop him.

We are merely asking that, once the Bill receives Royal Assent, the Minister should please listen to advice that we have received from the GLC about getting the money together. The Secretary of State is requiring £80 million of it. Amendment No. 4 says that he should be able to do that

"on the third day upon which banks are open for business after that on which this Act is passed".

What is unreasonable about that? It gives the GLC time to marshal its resources and to give the Secretary of State his ill-gotten gains.

Not me.

Well, LRT, but some of that money will be filched away to the Treasury, because LRT does not need it all.

No.

The Secretary of State ought not to lead me down that line of argument. I am trying to concentrate on the amendments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) asked the Minister a simple question — whether, if the Bill became an Act of Parliament on a Friday, the following day, logically, being a Saturday—

Not necessarily with this Secretary of State.

I have to take each point slowly so that the right hon. Gentleman understands. If it were to be a Saturday, the Secretry of State could demand that the Greater London council should pay over this money to him.

7.30 pm I want to draw the Committee's attention to the fact that it is in Committee that hon. Members get down to the nuts and bolts of altering, changing, amending and improving legislation. If the Standing Committee that considered the London Regional Transport Bill had done what it should have done, or if the Secretary of State had responded to the suggestions made by my right hon. and hon. Friends, legislation of this kind would not have to be debated tonight. We are engaged in writing legislation, and it is beholden upon the Committee to get it right. The Secretary of State must not be forced to introduce another Bill because he cannot get the money from the GLC on a Saturday. That might appear to be ludicrous, but unless this legislation is corrected that is what might happen.

I do not wish to labour the point. Both the Minister of State, Department of Transport and I want to make progress. We have both been involved in many transport Bills, and no doubt there will be many more. I ask the Minister of State to look carefully at the amendment and at least to take on board the spirit of it. If it is inadequately drafted, perhaps she will be able to say that in the other place she will meet the point that I have made.

Because of the complicated nature of the days when the money might be paid, I suspected that we might spend a little longer on this amendment than upon the previous one. However, since the amendments are based upon the advice that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have received from the GLC, I believe that it is unreasonable that the hon. Gentleman should have referred to the time that was needed to draft the amendments. This problem has been known for quite some time and the hon. Gentleman knows that. There is no reason why the GLC should need two extra days in which to transfer funds to London Regional Transport.

The GLC has already been given notice that it will be required to pay this money. If the payment has to be made on a banking day which, for the purposes of any Bill, including this Bill, is Monday to Friday inclusive under the terms of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, it can be made immediately, on the same day. That is how the GLC has made payments to London Regional Transport during the past six months. If the due day is at the weekend, the GLC can discharge its liability to pay by dispatching a cheque on that day. The money would not necessarily have to be received on that day — [Interruption.] I am certain that the GLC would not do such a thing. The hon. Lady knows that only too well.

What about American Express?

I believe that the hon. Gentleman's limit on his credit card might be exceeded by this particular sum. It is no part of our intention that the GLC should suffer any financial penalty by having to have the money ready for payment on the due date. When the Bill passes through the other House, the GLC will know when it has to have the money ready. Until that date there is no reason why the GLC should not continue to receive interest on the money that it will eventually pay over. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) suggested that Royal Assent might be given on a Friday or a Saturday.

I did not say Saturday.

The hon. Member says that he did not say "Saturday". However, for the sake of argument, let us take either a Friday or a Saturday, in particular a Friday. The hon. Gentleman's fear is unfounded, because the Commission for Royal Assent hardly ever sits on a Friday or a Saturday. I can give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman and to the Committee.

Will the hon. Lady accept that if a measure is not urgently required to be passed into law the House of Commons very seldom sits on a Wednesday to debate the remaining stages of a Bill that received its Second Reading on a Tuesday?

If I were to stray back to the last business of the House I think that you, Mr. Chairman, would rule me out of order. Nobody has made any bones about the fact that this is an unusual situation. As the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) said, had the Committee which considered the London Regional Transport Act drafted that Bill in a different way, probably a far greater sum, namely £23 million, more would have been paid over during the year than will be paid over as a consequence of this amending Bill. There is no reason for Opposition Members or for the GLC who briefed them to believe that there will be any problem over this payment. The GLC can discharge its obligations by drawing a cheque or another payable instrument whenever it wishes to draw it. When the other place has considered the Bill, the GLC will know what sums will be owing and those sums can be drawn in due time.

These amendments are unnecessary. This procedure is designed to do no more than rectify the manner and the timing of the payments before the end of the financial year. The Bill enables the GLC and London Regional Transport to know exactly where they are over the payments due to LRT.

The only saving grace is that our proceedings are being recorded by Hansard and that their Lordships will have more time than the Opposition have had to study what has been said before they debate this Bill. I hope that their Lordships will take note of what the hon. Lady has said. At least they will have more time to consider what has been said than the Opposition have had between Second Reading and today's proceedings. Since the other place will have more time in which to study the response of the hon. Lady to these amendments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

In a two-clause Bill, in which the second clause simply relates to the name, clause 1 is almost inevitably at the heart of the Bill. Before we allow such a measure to be put on to the statute book we must look closely at its provisions. This entire saga has been a disgrace from beginning to end. It is appalling that we have had to sit through the proceedings on a Bill which ought to have been unnecessary. We should not be wasting the time of the Committee by debating clause stand part. It is putting right not only the sums of money that should be paid but the way in which they should be paid and the liability or otherwise to the interest payments to be made by the GLC if the sums are not paid on the due date. The Bill is the result of the Secretary of State's desire to push ahead with improperly drafted and ill-thought-out legislation.

This clause is part of the Bill for one reason alone—because the Secretary of State pushed through a Bill which was so badly drafted that he was found to be in default of his proper responsibilities. We cannot reiterate that too often.

I know that we are not supposed to use foreign languages in the House, although occasionally some of the gobbledegook that goes through in the form of legislation constitutes practically a different language, but from the beginning to end of the Bill the Secretary of State has acted as if he had droit de seigneur over the entire transport system. He says what he wills will be done and then, irrespective of the needs of the ratepayers, the elected councillors, the House of Commons and anyone else involved in the legislation, what the Secretary of State wants shall be done. If that means bringing in the odd Bill every now and then to amend the Bill that he originally thought of before he got it wrong and had to redraft it and bring it all back, that is unfortunate. It becomes a rather complicated game.

We are told that we must discuss the clause today because the money is urgently needed. There is considerable doubt about that. LRT may go into deficit by the end of February, but it has considerable borrowing powers — of up to £10 million — given to it by the Secretary of State. Yet he stands at the Dispatch Box and says that he must push the Bill through because if he does not LRT will not be able to cope.

It may well be that LRT's borrowing powers need to be extended, but there is nothing to stop the Secretary of State extending them. He could do that if there were any question of LRT not being able to pay its operating costs. If there really were any urgency, why would this Bill say that there is a possibility of the Bill becoming an Act after 25 March? In other words, when the Secretary of State was having the Bill drafted by his own infallible means he wrote into it the assumption that if the Bill were not passed before 25 March it would be passed afterwards. That is the general level of assessment that we have had all the way through this bit of nonsense. Nevertheless, we should take account of it.

Does not that suggest that LRT would, if it were a commercial organisation, be trading illegally if the Bill were not passed by 25 March? Is not that what the Secretary of State and his departmental officials must have anticipated and therefore must have also anticipated that LRT would be able to use the borrowing powers which the Secretary of State asked the House to approve last year? What other reason is there for the borrowing powers?

My hon. Friend has hit upon it. The reality is, as the Secretary of State knows, that we do not have to push this completely inadequate two-clause Bill through tonight. He understands better than anyone that there is no real urgency because he has the powers to give LRT the right to borrow the money to keep itself solvent. That would not be difficult for him to do. Indeed, it would not be an unusual thing for him to do.

The Bill is being raced through the House with what can only be called indecent haste. It would not be unusual if the Secretary of State were to say that if LRT wants to extend its borrowing powers it shall do so. He knows that that is almost the norm. It has been done many times before. What has not been done many times before is for a Secretary of State to produce a measure which is found by the British courts to be illegal and irresposible and then to compound the difficulty by bringing forward another Bill in which he seeks for a second time to do that which he was not able to do legally on the first occasion.

The Secretary of State has done that with no apology and very little explanation to the House of Commons. He says that we debated the Ways and Means Resolution and have had a debate again today so why should we go through the whole affair again? We need to go through the whole affair over and over again because the message behind clause 1 and the arrogant way in which it has been shoved through the House of Commons is that the Secretary of State's political view of transport, which bears a strong resemblance to Dante's "Inferno", is that if he wants to change the system he will. It does not matter whether he is talking about finance for LRT, about the services that are provided for London ratepayers or even about levying extra sums on the ratepayers, which is what he has been doing in advance of this nasty little Bill. As far as the Secretary of State is concerned, his word is law and anything else must be subsidiary to his narrow and blinkered view.

7.45 pm The Bill ought not to go through the House of Commons. It ought not to be pushed on to the statute book. The House should not be examining it today and we should not be asked to accept it. The Secretary of State will get it through, of course he will, because although Conservative Members are not prepared to make speeches about the Bill they will be prepared to vote for it tonight. If he is not ashamed of his behaviour, I hope that some of his hon. Friends will be. The Secretary of State's entire decision-making process on the Bill has been defective. It has been a disgrace from beginning to end and I am appalled that we should be asked to accept it tonight.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on presenting this clear, simple Bill which requires no amendment. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) talked about the droit de seigneur. She is certainly the dame aux camellias tonight. The hon. Lady has bored us to death, as did her hon. Friends in the tedious repetition of the same shabby little argument. My right hon. Friend was wise and sensible to introduce the Bill and we welcome it tonight.

After the speech of the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page), I hesitate about addressing the Committee because that which the hon. Gentleman supports with such exaggerated and baseless language is so manifestly invalid that it needs no one to oppose it. I shall confine myself to a single point and make it shortly.

Does my hon. Friend accept that the description, la dame aux camellias, is more apt for the Secretary of State than for my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) because the tragedy of the heroine of "La Traviata" was that she could not get her accounts right?

If I followed that line of thought, I should not get far before I was ruled out of order. Therefore, I shall not follow that line.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) pointed out, the Bill seeks retroactively to validate an Act which was invalid at the time that it was passed. That is the obverse of a method of which the reverse is retroactively to criminalise something which was not a crime at the time that it took place. One has only to say that to show how repulsive it is to democrats that, except in emergencies, retroactive legislation should be introduced. Such legislation is a common feature of police states. Totalitarian Governments who do not like what a chap is doing, but discover that it is not a crime, pass laws to make it a crime and make them retroactive for a couple of years to catch him. That is bad, but it is as bad to validate retroactively an action that was invalid.

When I first became a Member, everyone was horrified at the idea of retroactive legislation. A Minister who had to introduce it — it happened only when something drastic or deadly had to be coped with — came to the House in sackcloth and ashes, as a humble penitent, begging the pardon of the House for not having anticipated matters well enough to ensure that he did not need to be forced to legislate retroactively. It was considered to be a very nasty thing which Ministers should do only as a last resort, in a great emergency and on a matter of grave importance. It was also considered that they should apologise to the House for having to do it.

The mores of ministerial behaviour have changed since 1979. We saw some of that this week. I do not know whether the Secretary of State for Transport was an hon. Member when Sir Thomas Dugdale, who was an hon. Member in every sense of those words, was Minister of Agriculture, but someone in Sir Thomas's Department committed a not very grave impropriety. The Minister of Agriculture was not involved, but, being an honourable man, he took responsibility for the actions of his subordinates and resigned. There were later cases, one or two of which were painful, and on that account I shall refrain from mentioning them.

The standards of morality and decency that used to characterise the Conservative party and others have evaporated in what my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich rightly called the arrogance of Ministers, especially in their dealings with the House.

Ministers in this Government have ceased to see themselves as servants of the legislature, putting its decisions into practice. They now see themselves as masters of the legislature — deceiving and lying if necessary and, whether necessary or not, brazening and railroading things through the House. Today has been a prime example of that.

The Secretary of State is introducing legislation retroactively to make him an honest woman. He went whoring after false gods; he did not realise that they were false until a judge told him so. Now he has introduced legislation to make himself honest. It is a smelly business from start to finish. If I were in his place, I would be ashamed of it.

Clause 1, which the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) says is all that we are left to debate, is not, as the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page) claimed, before us without amendment. It is an amendment itself.

The basis of the argument—if it can be accorded that description — of the hon. Member for Harrow, West is that this is a wonderful, tidy little Bill. I was able to be in the House only briefly for last night's Second Reading debate, because I was upstairs in Committee on the Local Government Bill. The Government spend so much time interfering with local government that many of us have to occupy most of our time in Parliament on local government matters rather than national Government issues.

However, I have read the arguments adduced on behalf of the Government yesterday and they do not begin to persuade me that the sum set out in the Bill is the right sum. The Secretary of State said:

"The sum of £258·2 million roughly achieves just that."

The "just that" was the amount that the Secretary of State regards as reasonable in relation to LRT's requirements. He said:

"It will leave a cash surplus of some £30 million at the end of the year. But LRT has liabilities of £21 million for voluntary redundancies and a further £15 million for other unfunded liabilities. Thus, the £285 million is certainly not more than LRT needs to balance its books this year."—[Official Report, 19 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 873.]

I am not a mathematician, but the figures in that paragraph alone do not justify the sum for which the Secretary of State is asking the House.

I remember the discussion in Committee on last year's London Regional Transport Bill. The reason for the clause empowering the Secretary of State to seek a direction was that when the governance of London Transport was broken in the middle of a financial and accounting year, the right hon. Gentleman would be allowed to do two things. Mr. Justice McNeill made clear what those things were. The first was to consult, and the second was to agree an appropriate figure to balance the books.

Clause 1 of this Bill seeks to produce that right figure; it is an accountancy figure. Yesterday's debate on Second Reading and today's debates on the business motion and the amendments were about whether we should agree a clause that gives a certain sum, under the control of the Secretary of State, from one authority to another. Is the sum that the right hon. Gentleman has determined is the right sum to go to the GLC and on to LRT to make up the balance for this year?

In considering those questions, we have to go on the evidence. There is no other way in which we can be persuaded. The only argument that we have been given and the only evidence presented to us is that contained in my quotation of what the Secretary of State said on Second Reading. That is not convincing.

We are being asked to agree the budget of LRT for this year. We need to know more about its liabilities for voluntary redundancies and whether they are attributable to the Capitalcard or are connected with the policies that LRT has implemented. We also need to know about its unfunded liabilities.

I have a duty to my constituents, who pay rates and travel by LRT, to find out whether we are providing the right sum. The money does not come out of the Secretary of State's pocket; he merely acts as the authority. The money comes out of the pockets of my constituents. Every extra pound paid to LRT means that my constituents have a pound less for something else.

We are talking about a substantial sum. The Minister of State says that she is not used to dealing in millions of pounds. We are talking about £258 million, which is a large sum. If it is divided equally among London citizens, of whom there are about 7 million, we are paying more than £10 each. Even if we knocked off a bit for the people outside London who use London's transport, we are still paying pounds as opposed to pence.

It is £30 each.

Is is more than £30. That means that I and other London ratepayers and residents are paying more than £30.

It is £37.

The computations are being ever bettered around me. The further east we go the more accurate the accounting becomes. The amount has gone up to £37 per Londoner.

I should have liked to have time, without doing six other things simultaneously, to read all of last night's debate. I am not the transport spokesman for my party, but this is a London matter, and I should have liked to be able to consider amendments. Normally I would table amendments to Bills that relate to London. We know that it has been impossible to table amendments because we were sitting in Committee upstairs until midnight and then had to participate in a debate on fluoride, which continued until about 2.30 am.

The hon. Members for Wigan (Mr. Stott) and for Crewe and Nantwich said that it would be useful to talk about what will happen. It would be useful to check with officials whether or not the sums are correct. All political parties have their own advisers and are given the good offices of independent officials in the GLC, local councils and transport authorities to check figures. Accountants are also available to give plenty of advice if we ask for it. We have not been given a moment to ask for advice.

I shall not go on at great length, although I recall that last year when I was on a Committee I was able to speak, without any trouble, for 80 minutes. I am well minded to continue, because I am sufficiently angry about this matter. I have rarely been as angry in my time in the House, and I shall have been here two years this week. I am angry because I have seen what the Government are doing to justify this clause and this money.

The Government Front Bench have given muddled arguments with different figures. The Government want to rush through all the stages in the same day with no opportunity for proper consideration. This is all to do with the nationalisation of a public service by a Government who do not believe in nationalisation. It is all to do with handing over powers from local authorities to the present incumbent in the Department of Transport, who should never have had the powers in the first place.

As a member of the legislature my primary job is to control the Executive. My second role is as a member of a political party. The arguments I have been given do not begin to persuade me that this is the right sum. What do I do? I have one option — to vote against the clause. That option will be exercised when other hon. Members vote against the clause. I must register my grave dissatisfaction in being asked to vote for this financial measure, which is what Governments are all about, without the assistance or safeguards which we would normally have when financial measures come before the House. Taxation measures go through a special procedure with special examination in Committee upstairs. We normally have an ample opportunity to consider any measure of financial relevance, but for this measure we have been given no opportunities at all.

An amount of £250 million-odd is asked for as the last stage of the saga. As we have often been reminded, the Secretary of State got it completely wrong the first time around. I have no reason to believe that this figure is any more accurate than the first figure. Unless and until the Government's procedures improve to show that they believe that their duty is to prove the case, there is no option but for Committee members to do all that is left in their power—I wish that they could do more—and make it thoroughly difficult for the Government to get such business through the Committee, and later through the House.

There are only a limited number of options available to delay the Bill. If it were in the Committee's power, I would not be at all reluctant to delay well beyond 25 March, because that is the reward that the Secretary of State deserves for the appalling way in which he and his colleagues have treated the House of Commons in this small, but significant, piece of legislation, which has already, for no reasoned argument, broken two principles.

I believe that the Committee would like me to reply briefly to the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has seen a misprint in Hansard. The figure of £285 million should be £258 million.

Ha, ha.

The hon. Gentleman laughs, but I may have something to say about him later. I do not think that the Committee would hold me responsible for a printer's error.

This may be a rushed job, but the hon. Members for Southwark and Bermondsey and for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) have misunderstood the position. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey got himself into a lather of bogus information and used the rest of his speech to mouth adjectives which he thought might hurt. I must include in that charge the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody).

I must make clear the errors of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. In the passage to which the hon. Gentleman referred I was talking about the balance at the end of the existing financial year, 1984–85. I was answering points put by hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Newham—

Which one?

Both, the hon. Members for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), and for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). I was referring to the surplus of cash and whether that sum was roughly equivalent to the accrued liabilities. I was doing so to justify my pledge that LRT's needs would be met—no more, no less. I cited figures showing that, roughly speaking, within the margins of error, that had been achieved. The hon. Gentleman mixed that up with LRT's total cash needs for the year and the amount in the Bill that should be taken from the GLC to fulfil the objective of financing LRT for the year.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey failed to understand that because of all the other things that he says he is doing. Why does he not do the other things and stop getting mixed up in matters that he does not understand? Having made his mistake, the hon. Gentleman started to abuse me. It is easy to do that, but he would have been right if he had leased his argument on the correct figures.

The hon. Member for Bow and Poplar made a similar mistake. He said that the legislation was retroactive and proceeded to castigate the Government for bringing in retroactive legislation. The hon. Gentleman failed to prove his point. The legislation is not retroactive. The GLC knew, when the London Regional Transport Bill was published in December 1983, that its exposure under section 49 was £360 million in toto for the year. That figure, less the amount that the GLC had already paid, was put into the direction made in June. Until that moment, the GLC had no doubt that that was the amount it would have to pay.

The judgment went against the Government and in favour of the GLC. That same morning I said that I intended to appeal. At no time did the GLC have any doubt that it could be liable for the full £360 million. In the event, it is asked to pay £23 million less than it was always on notice it would have to pay. The hon. Member for Bow and Poplar must withdraw the charge of retroactivity, because there is nothing about that series of events that is retroactive. If he does so, as he must, he must withdraw the adjectives.

I thought that I had made myself clear. The element of retroactivity arises from the fact that the Minister got it wrong the first time and is introducing this nasty little Bill to correct his error.

The hon. Gentleman has not heard the precedents that I cited either. It is better to read previous debates. He will know the two precedents that I cited. They are cases where local authorities, one of which was the GLC, were busily paying concessionary fares, were taken to court and were found not to have the powers to pay them. Immediately the House legislated and overturned the illegality. There is no difference between those precedents and what I have done.

There are two reasons for urgency. First, London Regional Transport will be running out of money soon, will go into deficit and will have to pay interest on borrowings. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich picked up that reason. The second reason is an important one, which she conveniently ignored. The GLC needs to know what will be in the Bill in order to make its rate. It is typical of the hon. Lady to pick up one argument and ignore the other. Obviously, the two arguments go together, and are strong reasons why the Government wish to make progress with the Bill. Although we have had the debate about the day on which this matter is being taken, I wanted to put her right on that.

Has the right hon. Gentleman at any point said to the GLC in reply to its queries that it does not matter what happens with the Bill and that it can proceed on the figures because it should assume that the Bill will become law? Or has he given the GLC to understand, during the many months of argument, that it will have to make its calculations without any clear indication of the sums of money involved? I believe that there is considerable doubt whether he has made the position as clear as he suggests.

The position is now totally clear—

Now.

Now. The sum of money is on the face of the Bill. I made it clear earlier that the £177 million deposited will be taken into account. If the House gives the Bill its Third Reading tonight, there will be no way in which the Bill can be amended, especially in relation to the sum or, indeed, to anything else. At the close of play tonight there will be certainty for the GLC. It will know what sum to work on for its budgetary purposes.

The hon. Lady had made a meal of these debates and heaped adjectives upon me, which I have taken in good part. I must tell her that she even made a slip tonight when she referred to the measure as a two-clause Bill. It is a one-clause Bill. If she cannot get even that right, it does not say much for her competence.

It is a two-clause Bill.

It is a one-clause Bill.

On the Bill it says clause 1 and clause 2.

There are two clauses.

It is a one-clause Bill in so far as what matters and the hon. Lady knows it. The hon. Lady has conducted her opposition with all the venom that she can muster, but she knows in her heart of hearts that this is the only possible way to redress the interests of the ratepayers versus the GLC. However much she may have enjoyed opposing the Bill, the ratepayers and travellers of London will not thank her for all the efforts that she has made.

It is important that we have a debate on this clause, given that about 10 minutes ago the Secretary of State did not know that it was in the Bill. In my two years in the House I have never known a Bill to have clauses that were not known to its drafters. I remind the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman told the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) that it did not say much for her confidence if she did not realise that it was a one-clause Bill.

I know that we have descended to personalities, but it is important that the world should know that the Secretary of State for Transport introduced a Bill and did not spot one of the clauses. If we did not have the clause, the Bill would have no name. If the Bill had no name, it might have no consequences. If the Bill had no consequences, many of us might be a great deal happier, because clause 2 says something important. It states:

"This Act may be cited as the London Regional Transport (Amendment) Act 1985."

Most Bills have something like that at the end because they like to have a name when they become law. The significance of the name of this Bill is that it is important that the history books should record that the Secretary of State needed to introduce not just one London Regional Transport Bill but two, the second being the London Regional Transport (Amendment) Bill. That is the title of the Bill, but not the name of the clause. It shows that the first time around the Secretary of State got it wrong.

Out of respect for the Committee, I shall reserve my remarks about the other things that the Secretary of State said in reply to the hon. Lady on the earlier clause until Third Reading. That means, as I understand it, that I shall not have to reserve my remarks for long.

It is a pretty odd state of affairs when 50 per cent. of a Bill is unknown to its master. Perhaps the arguments have been put so badly because, as some hon. Members believe, 50 per cent. of them are also unknown.

Today's The Standard carries an interesting editorial. It says:

"Mrs. Thatcher's terrible twins were at it again yesterday: Mr. Patrick Jenkin and Mr. Nicholas Ridley reminding us that, for some Ministers, banana skins don't have to be special, just part of life's routine. Mr. Ridley was involved in what one MP happily described as a piece of legislative Tippex, to correct a court ruling that had unfortunately gone against him. … Mr. Ridley, in other words, broke the law. So yesterday he used the full weight of the law-and-order Party to change it. … The problem with both Ministers is that these are not isolated blunders. Mr. Ridley's recent record features own goals on Stansted, heavy lorries in London, and private buses. What each man has in common (apart from a certain baffled charm) is an unerring ability to turn a perfectly logical case into an unholy mess. Mrs. Thatcher's Cabinet would be stronger without them."

That well-known Socialist newspaper, the The Standard, is expressing in fairly calm terms the sentiments of every hon. Member who has sat through the passage of the London Regional Transport (Amendment) Bill.

The Bill was created out of chaos, it has been prosecuted with prejudice and it passes on to the statute book with a distinct odour of disgrace.

It is not often that the House is asked to deal with badly drafted legislation that has been taken to court almost as soon as it has passed on to the statute book, that has a specific and damaging effect on the ratepayers of London yet is presented to them by the Secretary of State for Transport as amending legislation that is saving them from the rapacious and all-embracing Greater London council.

The reality behind the Bill is a simple one, but it bears repetition simply because the House has a responsibility to make sure that when Ministers make radical and serious mistakes they do not rewrite the legislation but come to the House and admit, first, that they have got it wrong. The Secretary of State asked for more money than he had a right to ask for. He persisted, when a court of law found that he was acting illegally, in demanding that the House should not discuss the matter, because, he said, it was sub judice. He said that not once but four times. When I suggested that he had no intention of appealing, he said that I was misreporting him. The Secretary of State claimed that he had said that the matter was sub judice because it was sub judice to him.

From the beginning of the debate the truth is that the GLC has been asked to hand over money that it has raised from the ratepayers, which belongs to the ratepayers and which should go back to the ratepayers if it is not required for the operating costs of London Regional Transport. But the Secretary of State has been prepared to accept neither that he made a mistake nor that he should now no longer demand that the mistake be put right by legislation, in whatever form it is written, the intention of which is to have retrospective effect. He is seeking to put right something which a court of law found was based on an illegal demand. I can think of no other way of expressing it.

The Secretary of State says that we claim that the legislation is retrospective, but we never expand on the point. The crux of the matter is that the Secretary of State asked for something to which he was not entitled. When he was found out and taken to a court of law he said that it did not matter and that he intended to create a new Bill to cover what he had not done in the first instance.

That is a shameful way to proceed. Hon. Members representing London constituencies have consistently asked him not to rush the Bill through Parliament. They have asked him to give us time in which to table amendments that would at least explore some of the extraordinary reasoning behind the Bill.

The Secretary of State has made a number of speeches, everyone of which has given a different set of figures, sometimes amended because he says there has been a printing error. Sometimes he has claimed that we have not understood the full implications and sometimes he has done this simply because he is shifting the grounds of the argument as we proceed.

I believe that this incident has been one of the most shabby in which I have been involved since I was elected to Parliament. It has demonstrated the will of a Government who are no longer prepared to concern themselves with the interests of the ratepayers or the taxpayers. The Secretary of State has encapsulated that view in his attitude to the Bill.

Tonight we have not had sufficient time to debate the few inadequate amendments that have been tabled.

Tonight the House has moved from Committee to Report to Third Reading without the chance to amend or even fully to explore some of the figures that the Secretary of State has given. Tonight we have seen as fine an example of completely arrogant disregard for the interests of the people of Britain as we are ever likely to see even from a Conservative Government.

This has been a shameful episode. I am deeply depressed that the Secretary of State will use his majority to push this nasty little measure on to the statute book.

On 12 February the Minister of Transport at 11.55 pm introduced to the House a debate on the draft London Regional Transport (Levy) Order 1985. That order sought approval for the budget for London Regional Transport for the coming financial year. In remarks relating to the year that is about to begin the Minister of Transport explained to the House, in answer to a question, that the matter was difficult, complicated and complex. After a debate which lasted one and a half hours, the Minister of State, in reply to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), said:

"I agree wholeheartedly … that the order is complicated." —[Official Report, 12 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 306.]

The House was of course asked to decide on that matter before we had sorted out the budget for this year, so it was an illogical order.

It was even more illogical when one considers what the Secretary of State said on 7 February:

"LRT has to budget and plan ahead for 1985–86 and beyond, as well as to settle its 1984–85 accounts. The GLC is at the crucial final stages in its annual budgetary and rate-precepting processes. Legislation is the only way to resolve the uncertainties and give Parliament the opportunity to determine the outcome in a way that is reasonable as between the parties concerned."

The right hon. Gentleman then said:

"This matter must be urgently resolved, if possible, before the end of the financial year."

We should have done things in the right order. We should, first — to use the Secretary of State's words — have settled the 1984–85 accounts. We should have been given the opportunity to determine the matter, as the right hon. Gentleman said, in a reasonable way as between the parties concerned. To have had to go through this process in two days has been unreasonable and not in keeping with what the Secretary of State said, for he claimed:

"This matter must be urgently resolved, if possible, before the end of the financial year."

He did not say that it had to be resolved within a week or by the end of February, or that the LRT could not go ahead unless the issue was resolved by a date in March, or that it had to be finalised by the end of the financial year. He simply said:

"This matter must be urgently resolved, if possible, before the end of the financial year." —[Official Report, 7 February 1985; Vol. 72, c. 1198.]

A steamroller has brought in an alteration of the Secretary of State's own making, getting all stages of the Bill through in two days. No wonder there have been protests. No wonder hon. Members complain when the figures do not add up—I am not talking about a printing error—when statistics given in the last 24 hours are not explained and when the right hon. Gentleman does not give the statistical detail to justify the Bill.

The Secretary of State told me not to interfere in matters that I did not understand. The job of hon. Members is to examine legislation, and the Government have a duty to provide us with an opportunity to examine legislation in a responsible way so that the people whom we represent get a decent service, by the legislature tempering the activities of the Executive.

I do not pretend to be an expert in transport subsidy matters. Does the Secretary of State believe that he improves the chances of hon. Members understanding such issues when he pushes legislation through in 24 hours? Does he think that Parliament passes better legislation by that means?

Are members of the Government now forbidden to apologise to Parliament? Cannot a Minister say, "I am sorry, I got it wrong. I will see if we can agree a procedure that we should have sorted out in the first place." Do the Government presume that, because they are in office, they always get it right and need never be criticised? Governments all over the world make mistakes, sometimes fatal ones, occasionally involving millions of people being killed.

Compared with some of the world's catastrophes, this Bill can be described as a minor mistake. Nevertheless, it is expensive and it is important. Hon. Members might have been more sympathetic to the Secretary of State had he apologised and said, "Mr. Justice McNeill said that I was unlawful, irrational and procedurally improper. He was right and I apologise to the House. I made a mistake. I shall try to do what I failed to do at the beginning. I shall now try to consult; I shall try to do what I said on 7 February, and resolve the issue in a way that is reasonable." What the right hon. Gentleman has done has been wholly unreasonable. Not only is the procedure unreasonable, but it is unconstitutional and unacceptable. Only because the Government, by our electoral system, have a majority in Parliament — though they have a gross minority of votes in the country—can they get a measure such as this on to the statute book. [Interruption.] Conservative Members should accept that their party is in power on the basis of a minority of votes.

I do not know whether the occupants of the official Opposition Front Bench were consulted through the usual channels about the business statement that was made last night. If they were—and I guess that they were—they must be considered to have been a party to today's exercise. I know that my colleagues were not consulted. [Interruption.] My colleagues are in the building and will come in later to register their disapproval; they trust me to make these points. There is probably a greater percentage of my party present now, personified by me, than of the Conservative party as personified by the occupants of the Government Benches.

If there was an agreement with the Labour party that all stages of the Bill should be taken so quickly, it should never have been made, for it goes against constitutional precedent and the right of hon. Members to have time to reflect and discuss so that they can do their job properly. That is why I say that the official Opposition must take their share of the blame.

The real blame, however, must be laid at the door of the Government and the Secretary of State. Once they decided to take over transport in London, they were asking for trouble. When they decided to nationalise London Transport, against all their declared policies, they were interfering. Having done it, they had a duty to try to do a better job than those who had been running London Transport previously. If this Bill is the first evidence of the Government running transport in Britain, and it is, it is a pathetic, sorry and bad example.

I hope that we learn the lesson never again to commit local authority functions to Government, because the Government are not worthy of the trust that they usurped when they took over those functions. Their interference has been shown by the courts to have been a disgrace, and by the high court of Parliament saying that the Bill is disgraceful and should not be passed. Only because the Government, for the time being—I hope for not much longer—have sufficient troops to get it through are they likely to succeed in doing so. We do not wish the Bill any success. I hope that the Secretary of State and his Department learn never to treat the House of Commons with such cavalier disrespect and lack of apology.

The Bill seeks to give authority to the Secretary of State to receive £258 million from the ratepayers of London to pass to LRT. During our debates there has been some argument whether that is £50 million or £30 million more than it should be.

We have had little time to probe the technical complexities of the matter. Anybody who doubts that needs only to read the speech made yesterday afternoon by the Secretary of State. In the debate yesterday, at column 903, I asked the right hon. Gentleman a question, but he did not, when he replied, answer me specifically. I shall put it to him again. I referred to the proceedings in Parliament on the money resolution which we passed on 7 February, and said:

"I assume that all the additional revenue over and above the requirements for this year will be used for improving the service or reducing fares. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can give me that assurance."

The right hon. Gentleman said:

"I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance categorically "— [Official Report, 7 February 1985; Vol. 72, c. 1214.]

The right hon. Gentleman has used that adjective several times today. I gave grateful responses, but said that people would always be suspicious of the right hon. Gentleman whenever there was a bus around.

I am afraid that I had to ask further questions about that yesterday. I asked what the money was being spent on, and the Secretary of State said that the surplus was not £50 million, but £30 million, and that the liabilities would be £37 million, so there would be a deficit of £7 million. He said:

"The expected current cash surplus at the end of this financial year is not £50 million, as he said, but £30 million. As I said, it is necessary to provide for the needs of LRT, and they are, including the accrued unfunded liabilities, the following sums: £21 million for voluntary severance payments already agreed and accepted"—

I take it that that is before 31 March—

"£6 million for insurance claims against LRT, which it will in due course have to pay; £4 million for claims outstanding on the Jubilee line"—

the Jubilee line opened some years ago, so I cannot understand why it is still being paid for—

"£5 million in relation to development land tax which it owes and will have to pay; and £1 million for land compensation claims. That makes a total of £27 million".

That does not tally with what the right hon. Gentleman told me on 7 February, when he said that the funds would be used for improving services and reducing fares. Is there compatibility between those two statements? I ask the Minister of State, who sometimes has to field the awkward balls for the Secretary of State, to reply to that point. There may be an explanation for it. I may have missed the vital clue, and the Minister knows what I mean by that. Whether or not the answer is satisfactory, this is an unhappy Bill.

The understanding that I gave in the money resolution debate remains. Not one penny of this money goes to the Exchequer. It will all go to LRT. There has not been a change, and there will not be one. The hon. Gentleman asks whether the items that he has read out are compatible with improving the service and reducing fares. I listed those items in the context of the accrued liabilities and needs of LRT for the financial year ending 31 March 1985. It was an accountant's balancing that I gave. They are needed because the efficiency of London transport is going up and the costs are coming down. That means things such as redundancy and other costs that LRT will have to meet. I do not see the inconsistency that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State, and I hope the House will be indulgent, because this is the problem of rapid legislation. The extract from which I have just quoted continues to say that "auditors will certify" the £37 million

"as being due and having to be covered in this year's accounts." —[Official Report, 19 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 945.]

That may include redundancy, but one can have two views of this. Whether or not these sums are paid, the quality of services and the level of fares will not be affected one whit. I leave it to the House, the readers of Hansard, and perhaps the other place to judge between us on this matter.

The whole Bill has a whiff of impropriety about it. I shall go further and, in great seriousness, say that it has a whiff, slight though it be, of the Reichstag. We have only to think of the Secretary of State's behaviour at Question Time on this matter a little time ago and his statement yesterday excusing his sub judice gaff by saying that it was sub judice to him. When he was subjected to a genuine sub judice constraint, the result was a phrase which I hope will go into parliamentary language—it deserves to be written to some catchy tune—

"unlawful, irrational and procedurally improper".

Had the Secretary of State taken the trouble to consult before making the direction, he might not be in this mess. Consideration before legislation is the historic watchword of this place and of parliamentary democracy. The right hon. Gentleman is not in tune with that, otherwise he would not have broken that law.

As there was no proper consultation, the whole affair was conceived without consultation. It was born out of illegality, brought before the House irrationally and is being passed by improper procedure. It will be remembered for the injury that it has almost certainly done to parliamentary democracy and if, as I very much hope, it has not done that, it has certainly done an injury to the Secretary of State and to the Government who have put him where he is.

We have not had proper time, but we are not the only people who have not had proper time. Because we did not have much time last night, and perhaps because he did not consult as widely as he might have done, the hapless Leader of the House had to accept the Prime Minister's motion earlier today, which means that there will be a plundering of London's ratepayers of £30 million to £50 million over what they should justifiably pay.

This is a contemptible Bill, and that is not surprising because it comes from a contemptible Government and from a Prime Minister who has contempt for the House. It may be that today, in two great democratic Assemblies across the Atlantic, both of which owe a great deal to the procedures of the House, the right hon. Lady will be praised for making a speech which she did not write. At home, that motion in her name has ridden roughshod over the procedures of the House. Even if she did not personally approve it, it is redolent and typical of the hon. Lady's attitude to this place.

It is not only typical of the right hon. Lady's attitude to this place, but typical of her attitude to the ordinary people of London—the least well-off people of London, mostly from Newham. It is mostly east London that has carried the debate today, and in previous stages, and that is no accident, because the Government do not understand ordinary people. There is anger in the country and it is being expressed in a way that Conservative Members do not understand.

Nonsense.

The Minister says "Nonsense". She is entirely out of touch.

It is a big act. The hon. Member deserves an Oscar for that performance.

I am grateful for the attribute. This is not an act, because there is growing anger among many people, particularly those who are the least privileged and who have to pay more and more taxes that are required by this unjust Government. The Government say stupidly to the electorate that they want to reduce rates, yet, as a result of the Bill, people will have to pay more rates. The Bill is contemptible because it is in contempt of Parliament and, therefore, in contempt of the British people.

Perhaps I might begin by referring to the diversion caused by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). Had he listened to what the shadow Leader of the House said in the lengthy debate on whether all the remaining stages of the Bill should be taken today, he would have heard that the Labour party was not a party to any agreement to take the remainder of the Bill today. We were simply told that that was what the Government had decided. Had the hon. Gentleman been here at some ungodly hour this morning, at around 2.30 am—

I was.

He may have had his eyes closed—he might have seen me sitting on the Front Bench shouting "Object" when the Government Whip moved that the Question be put.

The only reason why we had an opportunity to debate the business motion this afternoon, according even to the Leader of the House, was that I shouted "Object" at that time. I do not recall any brilliant Liberal or alliance contribution then. Instead of trying to suggest that there was collusion between the Labour party and the Government to try to smuggle the remaining stages of the Bill through today, the hon. Gentleman should get the facts straight. There was no collusion. Our response was complete opposition and we made use of the opportunities that were available, in a way that alliance Members did not.

rose—

I am not giving way.

The Bill is unnecessary. The Secretary of State, following the decision of Mr. Justice McNeill that his original direction in the matter was

"unlawful, irrational and procedurally improper,"

could have issued a new lawful direction that would have met the operating needs of London Regional Transport in 1984–85. He did not choose to do that because he wanted to go beyond the law that he had proposed in 1984. Section 49 of the London Regional Transport Act 1984 permitted him only to meet the operating needs of LRT. He told the Committee on that Bill that he would call only for the sums that were strictly necessary. We have to consider the Bill in this shabby and hurried way because the Secretary of State wants to do more than that. He wants to require the GLC to pay to LRT a sum that will mean that it will have £50 million surplus to its operating needs. That is why the law has had to be changed and why the Secretary of State has not relied on making another direction.

The Bill is not about redrafting, but about changing the law. The Secretary of State is going back on a solemn undertaking that he gave in Committee on the London Regional Transport Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), not a man given to making impassioned speeches, made an impassioned contribution. Conservative Members should ponder for a moment why he feels so passionately. It may be that, despite all their cant, he is upset about what has happened and feels that the people whom he was elected to represent are being robbed by the Secretary of State. They are sick of it, and my hon. Friend is sick of it. He is sick of being totally ignored by the Government when he is attempting to represent the interests of Londoners.

Let us get the facts straight. It is one thing for the Government to do things legally and properly to the disadvantage of my constituents, immoral though the Government may be; it is quite another to do them by adopting an improper parliamentary procedure. That is why I was angry.

That is right, and I do not think that my hon. Friend need explain his anger.

If we started awarding Oscars, perhaps the Secretary of State would get a few nominations. In 1984 he might have been Legislator of the Year, having introduced his own apparently inadequate section 49, or perhaps he might have been Issuer of Directions of the Year that have been found to be

"unlawful, irrational and procedurally improper."

Tonight we have his final effort, presumably as Parliamentary Mathematician of the Year. He sought to upbraid my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) by asserting that the Bill had only one clause. I can only plead that the Chairman of Ways and Means then proceeded to call a clause stand part debate on clause 2.

I shall always defer to Mr. Speaker or to the Chairman of Ways and Means if there is any dispute about the number of clauses in a Bill. But if we have a Secretary of State who cannot even get that right, the chances of this legislation proving to be up to the job are not very good, and it is conceivable that we shall be back here again considering the London Regional Transport (Amendment) (Amendment) Bill if the right hon. Gentleman's track record is anything to go by.

In Committee, the Secretary of State said, and people took him at his word, that the GLC had asked that LRT's auditors should be requested to certify what its operating needs would be. The officials of the Department of Transport—democrats all, apparently—no doubt under instructions from the Secretary of State, refused that reasonable request on the ground that is was not germane to the issue. However, it was germane to the issue because, as the judge pointed out, the right hon. Gentleman was entitled to direct the GLC only to hand over money which was directed to meeting those operating needs. If he had been prepared to direct the GLC to hand over money to meet the operating needs, it would not have been necessary to bother the House with changing the law. The right hon. Gentleman could have made a lawful direction, but that is not what he has tried to do.

That is why my right hon. and hon. Friends representing constituencies in London have been most perturbed. We believe that if money which was paid by ratepayers to the GLC is not needed for the operating needs of LRT, it should not be handed over to LRT. It does not need it. If the money stayed with the GLC, it could be used for one of two purposes, or a combination of both—either to reduce the rate precept on Londoners, or to improve its services. In that way the ratepayers of London would gain 100 per cent. from the money staying with the GLC.

There is a further point which should appeal to the Secretary of State, who appears to believe that the paymaster should have some control over those to whom money is being paid. Both under the present Labour-controlled GLC and under previous Tory-controlled GLCs, it has always been the practice to hand over money raised by the rate precept to London Transport against performance by London Transport. If London Transport failed to carry out what the democratically elected GLC from year to year decided were its obligations, the GLC used to withhold some of the money. That is what the Tories normally call an incentive. It is wholly proper therefore that the GLC should not hand over money to LRT if LRT has not done everything that it was supposed to do or if the programme laid down by the GLC has not been carried out. The ratepayers are entitled to that degree of protection.

On the other hand, because of the relationship between central Government finance and rate finance for LRT, if the surplus goes to LRT, the ratepayers' maximum benefit can be only two thirds of the sum involved. Far from London ratepayers paying twice, it is in their positive interests not to pay over money surplus to the needs of LRT, as they will under the Bill. If the Secretary of State was willing to accept that the money to be paid over to LRT should meet only its operational needs, he could make a valid directon under the present law and would not need to change the primary legislation.

That is our case against this squalid little measure. We deeply deplore the way in which the measure has been put before the House. The situation is quite extraordinary. The ways and means resolution, which normally flows from a public Bill, was introduced and debated 10 days before the Bill itself. We then had the Second Reading debate yesterday. Today we have been expected to respond as best we can to the points made by the Secretary of State yesterday and to give proper and detailed consideration to the Bill.

It would not necessarily have taken a long time to give proper and detailed consideration to a two-clause Bill. What would take time—if we were properly to represent the Londoners who elected us and who pay taxes and rates —would be proper consideration of the detailed drafting and of what the Secretary of State has said, and the tabling of amendments which would explore further the points that the right hon. Gentleman has raised or perhaps make changes to the Bill. We have been denied the opportunity to do that job properly.

Having sat through the whole Committee stage of the Bill today, I do not think that we have done our job properly. I am not proud of the quality of debate this afternoon. The debate has been a mockery of the legislative process. If the Secretary of State does not agree, I do not know what he thinks would constitute a mockery of that process. We are all entitled, especially the London Members, to give proper consideration to these matters. We have been denied that opportunity. We deplore what has happened. What the Secretary of State has done is damaging not only to himself—I do not mind that—but to the interests of those who elected me and my hon. Friends. For that reason, we reject both the Bill and the Secretary of State who introduced it.

The Secretary of State has told us that the money is to go to LRT, not to the Government. We know that that is correct, not because the Secretary of State told us, but because that is what the Bill says. However, he did not tell us that the Government plan to cut their subsidy to LRT progressively and that if the Bill was not passed there could be no such subsidy reduction. Moreover, if the sum in the Bill had been reduced by the £50 million that my right hon. and hon. Friends wanted the level of subsidy cut would have been affected.

The Bill displays two types of incompetence — incompetence in the reasons for the Bill, and incompetence in the handling of it. The Government have anticipated the possibility of further incompetence by clause 1(2), which provides that if the Act is passed before 25 March one set of provisions will apply, and that if it is passed after that date there will be different proceedings for the transfer of money. There could be no better example of the state that the Department of Transport and the Government have got into.

With their large majority, the Government are in charge of the parliamentary timetable. The Bill was given a Second Reading on 19 February and refers to the Act receiving Royal Assent on 25 March. Why should the five weeks between those dates pose any problem for the Government? Nevertheless, the Government have panicked and included clause 1(2).

Legislation undertaken in panic is rarely good. Like many other things, the Bill shows that the Government are losing their grip and, I suspect, their reason. That is one reason why the House should reject the Bill.