I beg to move,

That the Order of 8th May 2003 (Fire Services Bill (Programme)) shall be varied as follows

Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and Third Reading

1. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Order shall be omitted.

2. Proceedings in Committee and any proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion five and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.

3. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.

The measure will amend the order of 8 May so that the House will have ample time to consider the provisions of this short Bill. The previous order did not specify the duration of proceedings in Committee, on consideration—if any—and on Third Reading, except to allow that proceedings in Committee and on consideration would be brought to an end one hour before the moment of interruption.

The Government are conscious that many hon. Members of all parties have an interest in the Bill. We therefore propose that the order of 8 May be varied so that the House may be guaranteed sufficient time to consider the Bill. The proposed variation therefore provides that proceedings in Committee and any proceedings on consideration be brought to an end five and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order. At least one hour further will be allowed for proceedings on Third Reading.

I am, frankly, a little mystified. The Minister's statement, when taken at face value, is very interesting but, by my calculations, we have gained precisely an extra nine minutes of debating time out of which we must take the time to debate the motion. As the Minister knows, we are not generally supportive of programme motions—we voted against motion No. 1—and I shall reiterate a couple of points.

We have said from the outset that we will support emergency legislation if it effectively removes the burden that the fire dispute is placing on our troops, ensures public safety and ensures that our emergency services are ready and able to respond to the increased threat of terrorism.

We have said that we will support not only a Bill that achieves that, but the unusual parliamentary arrangements for its consideration if the Government accept amendments that allow it to fulfil those purposes. If, however, the Bill is not an effective emergency measure of short duration to deal with the present crisis by the time that it completes its passage through this place, it cannot be justified because it is a draconian measure that gives the Secretary of State powers to impose settlements in a way that would not usually be acceptable. In addition, it goes against the grain of everything that the Government have said about devolving power and decision-making responsibility to local fire authorities in their attempt to reform the fire service. The Bill will recentralise on a massive scale and give the Secretary of State huge power to impose a settlement.

If the Bill itself is not justified then neither is the special parliamentary passage that is being made available for it. I hope the Minister accepts that there is a problem with taking all the remaining stages of a Bill at one sitting of the House. It is normal practice to consider the details of a Bill that need to be addressed during the Committee stage and for Opposition Members, and I suspect in this case some Labour Members, to consult outside bodies and to review what the Committee decided before it is considered further. That will clearly not be possible today because we will move straight from the Committee stage to Report or Third Reading, which places us in some difficulties.

In our opinion the special procedures to deal with the Bill are justified only if it is an emergency measure of short duration which addresses the immediate and present problem, but in those circumstances it is surely not justified to curtail the debate further by placing a time limit on it. Surely it is necessary to allow the House as much time as it needs. I will urge my hon. Friends to vote against the programme motion.

Has my hon. Friend noticed as I have, that no fewer than 14 of the amendments tabled for consideration in Committee have been tabled by Labour Back-Bench Members, notably the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell)? Does my hon. Friend agree that in responding to his points, it would be helpful for the Minister to say whether he has had any prior consultation with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that. It might be very interesting to know whether such prior consultation has taken place. I suspect from the comments that the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister made on Second Reading and from what I recently read in the press about the relationship between Government Front-Bench spokesmen and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), that it is unlikely that cosy fireside chats have taken place. No doubt the Minister will alert us if something is going on that we should know about.

I would be grateful if the Minister were to explain what he meant in his opening remarks. Perhaps I am missing something, but it is not obvious to me that we have gained any significant debating time.

Our problem with the programme motion is that it allows the Government to rush the Bill through at an unnecessarily fast pace. If the Fire Brigades Union conference accepts the settlement in about a week's time, as it may do, the Bill is unnecessary. The timing of that conference means that there is certainly more time to consider the Bill's measures than the six and a half hours allocated for the remaining stages.

The Government have indicated that if the FBU accepts the settlement on offer, they probably will not pursue the Bill further at that stage. There is therefore time to consider the Bill, since the Government are clearly not trying to get it on to the statute book in time for the conference.

The Liberal Democrats will join the Conservatives in opposing the programme motion. The Bill is being pushed through at a tremendously fast rate and it is almost certain that there will not be sufficient time to consider all the groups of amendments. There are serious issues to be debated this afternoon—issues that are the subject of considerable disagreement across the House—but I am strongly of the opinion that they will not be reached.

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) and the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) in their opposition to the programme motion. I have several reasons, which I shall advance briefly.

First, I am bound to say that I am against programme motions per se. There is very little justification for them, and I do not believe that there is justification in the present case. One of the malign consequences of a programme motion is that it discourages participation by right hon. and hon. Members in discussion of the Bill, because they know that there will be limited time in which to speak. Frequently, they simply do not turn up, far less do they table amendments and new clauses. That is of particular importance when a Bill is taken on the Floor of the House. This is the only occasion on which the Bill will be subject to detailed scrutiny, yet because of the programme motion many right hon. and hon. Members who might otherwise have participated or made proposals for change have been discouraged from doing so.

My next point follows on from the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. We have, of course, the theoretical option of having a Report stage. Amendments have been tabled, some of which are Government amendments. We can hope that the non-Government amendments will be carried—that is possible—but we can be sure that the Government amendments will be carried because the Whips are here to ensure that they are. Consequently, the House has the option, in theory, of having a Report stage.

I agree that some of the Government amendments are pretty trivial. Some of the non-Government amendments—mine, for example—are not, and if they were carried right hon. and hon. Members would want to have proper time to reflect on them and to take representations from outside the House before proceeding to Report. However, we are to proceed forthwith to Report and then Third Reading, concluding at 10 o'clock or thereabouts. That means that the House will not consider in detail any amendments made in Committee, or if it does it will be uninformed consideration because we have not had time to take representations from outside.

I have a further point. I tabled three new clauses, the object of which was to prevent industrial action by fire brigade members. They were not selected. Now, as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would not dream of complaining about that—after all, you would be the first to tell me that Mr. Speaker never gives reasons for not selecting amendments and that it would be impertinent of me to raise the point. All of that, I willingly concede. However, some might suppose that the reason my new clauses were not selected is that they lay outside the long title of the Bill—that is possible. On reflection, it might have been possible to construct the new clauses so as to bring them within the long title; they would then have been capable of being tabled on Report. However, because I learned only today, at 1 o'clock or thereabouts, that I had had the misfortune not to have had my new clauses selected, and because we are to proceed forthwith to Report, I am unable, barred, precluded, disqualified from tabling significant amendments for proper discussion by the House.

It is surely right that Members of Parliament have the opportunity on Report to consider whether or not FBU members should have a right to go on strike. However, the effect of the motion is to prevent me having an opportunity to table new clauses in a proper form. That is a lamentable betrayal of democracy and yet another example of the ill effects of the motion.

A guillotine is, of course, a denial of the rights of Members to represent their constituencies and to express their views. It is an abrogation of freedom of speech. At the heart of all this is a Government intent to exercise total control over the business of the House, as they have been doing since they first came into office. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, and with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg). Their points are true and just.

I ask the House to reflect on the fact that in this Session 23 Bills have been subject to the guillotine, or, as we call it now, a programming motion or whatever. All but three have been opposed by Opposition Members and by Labour Members on Divisions. In addition to the 23 Bills that were subject to the guillotine, 10 motions, including the one before us, were applied. Twenty-three Bills, in the short time since November, equals half the number of Bills that were guillotined by Baroness Thatcher during her time as Prime Minister.

Labour Members well know that Baroness Thatcher's guillotining of Bills, of which I was a vigorous opponent, was considered to be a major authoritarian and almost autocratic instrument of her control over the House. Yet, within six months of the start of the Session the Government have already guillotined half the number of Bills that were guillotined during 11 years. It is intolerable. That is the truth of it. One day, Labour Back Benchers will wake up and understand that there is almost no purpose in their being here if they can be denied the right to speak on matters of great importance.

The fire service is undoubtedly one of those matters. It has given rise to what the Deputy Prime Minister insists is emergency legislation. Those are the pieces of legislation that require caution and proper examination. Yet we have the twenty-third Bill of the Session experiencing its second guillotine motion. I ask the House to consider whether that does us justice in the face of the genuine anxieties and beliefs of our constituents. The motion is intolerable and it should be opposed.

We have heard a huge amount of largely synthetic indignation, which comes all the more curiously when it is realised that we moved the second motion as a precautionary measure, knowing that 3 June was the first day back to the House after the short recess, and that there were the possibilities of private notice questions, statements and other business, including, as we heard, several interventions in the form of points of order, that could well have taken up rather more of the time of the House. As a sensible and entirely reasonable move, which we discussed with other parties through the usual channels, we suggested that there should be arrangements to ensure that the House had a full six and a half hours to discuss six groups of amendments to a two-clause Bill.

I say to Opposition Members that, put in that context, much of the rhetoric that we have heard appears to be little more than that.

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way in a moment. I know that the hon. Gentleman has strong feelings on these matters. Before he intervenes, I put it to him that there is a world of difference between the application of a guillotine motion to a large and complex Bill, with the result that it will not receive detailed consideration, and a programme motion that is designed to ensure orderly consideration of a very short Bill that can be considered properly and fully within the time available, and that is what we are considering this afternoon.

It is not good enough to be quite so dismissive by speaking of a two-clause Bill. The Minister will remember that Maastricht was the subject of a two or three-clause Bill, and that that had huge ramifications. The present Bill also has ramifications. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, it gives the state enormous powers.

I am only surprised that the hon. Gentleman should want to rake up in his party's psyche the uncomfortable memory of the Maastricht treaty. Many of us feel genuine sympathy for the wider issue of the need for proper time for consideration. Many of us felt unhappy about the old arrangements, under which Bills were considered at enormous length for several weeks, and then inevitably a guillotine had to be applied, or they would not have completed their passage.

The purpose of timetabling is to ensure that there is a proper, orderly process in which all parts of the Bill can be considered. That is what we are doing. This is a two-clause Bill. There are six groups of amendments. There is more than adequate time to consider them, and if we were not spending so much time on the programme motion, we would be able to give more time to the details of the Bill.

I offer my sympathy to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) on his failure to prepare his three new clauses in a form that allowed them to be considered. I am sorry that he feels that he has been precluded, debarred and prevented from tabling new clauses. I think it is simply the way in which he drafted the new clauses that is to blame.

The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) knows only too well that the Bill is a short-term measure. It is not designed to be in place for long-term strategic purposes. It is necessary because of the circumstances relating to the fire dispute, which have been discussed at considerable length in previous debates in the House, many on statements from my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. We have always made it clear that we would introduce the measure if necessary, to ensure that a line can be drawn under the dispute. That is why the Bill has been prepared. There has been close consultation with Opposition parties all the way through the process. The purpose of taking the Bill through in one sitting today has been discussed fully and does not justify the criticism levelled by the hon. Gentleman.

I am interested to hear the Minister's assertion that the Bill is to be a short-term measure. He knows that the first group of amendments is led by an amendment tabled by me and my right hon. and hon. Friends to ensure that that is the case, but I am afraid I have missed the Government amendment delivering a similar outcome, if that is the Minister's intention.

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not paying attention in the Second Reading debate when I made it clear in my winding-up speech that we would consider carefully the option for making this a time-limited Bill. We always made it clear that our intention was to introduce the measure to deal with the unhappy short-term situation existing in relation to the fire dispute. That was the reason for introducing the measure and the reason for timetabling it. I hope that hon. Members will accept that there is good reason.

I am afraid that that sort of rhetorical blather does not meet the needs of the case. If it is the right hon. Gentleman's intention to table the measure only for use in the short term, and in light of the existence of the precedent of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 introduced by his Government, can he explain the absence from the Bill of a sunset clause?

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, who knows a great deal about rhetorical blather, has not had sufficient time to read the Order Paper and to realise that in the next group of amendments we will consider that very issue. I suggest that we would do the House a service if we now brought an end to proceedings on the programme motion and proceeded to the substantive matters. I urge the House to support the motion.