Legislative Reform

I accept much of what the Minister says. Sympathetic though I was to the proposals in the Committee, I think that the Chair would accept that it was my suggestion that, as other members of the Committee—generally Labour Members—were uncomfortable with the proposals, we should be a little bit resistant. We then encountered the power of the Whips, and that is the point at which what the Government are doing is inappropriate. Obviously all these things are valid proceedings, but this one is inappropriate. It would be far better to have more dialogue with the Committee and look at the evidence. In practice, it would be nice if the Minister told us how much of the money will go to the Government, but he cannot be expected to know the answer, because it would require some work by civil servants. A decision will be taken within three hours of the commencement of this debate, and we shall go one way or the other—but we do not know. That is the wrong way to proceed. If we want proper evidence-based Government decision making, we must have the evidence during the decision-making process. When there is a deadline, and the whipped process is involved, we have to make a decision without knowing the facts. That is an appalling way of running Government. If there was a Division I would vote against the order on that procedural point. Although we do not have the evidence, the probability is that the substantive argument is reasonable, in that commercial creditors will learn where they can find out whether there is something that they should be worried about. In a recession, I am unhappy with taking money from newspapers and giving it to the Government, but I am most unhappy about the fact that the Government are using the power of the Executive to force a decision through the House, without evidence and against the recommendation of one Select Committee and of the Chair of another.