Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I entirely accept the Secretary of State's comment that the House did not divide on the programme motion at the end of Second Reading, but he can see for himself what has already been tabled for consideration over the next two days, and it clearly shows that there will be insufficient time for full consideration. Moreover, this is a constitutional Bill, and not such a long time before the Labour Government were elected in 1997 not only would such a Bill have been considered on the Floor of the House, but that would have been without any guillotine or any end date for its coming out of Committee, and therefore all Members would have had the opportunity to participate and say what they wished about what is, even in its curtailed form, a very important piece of legislation. How are we to do justice to this legislation when it is already apparent—I am not criticising the Secretary of State for this, but he can now see it for himself—that we have no possibility whatever of getting through the clauses for consideration on the civil service in the course of today's business, particularly as the time is now 20 minutes to 6 and the business will be finished by 10 o'clock? Having looked at what is already down for consideration on day two, I strongly suspect that there will be insufficient time then as well. We must also face up to the fact that, because the Government have imposed internal guillotines, as is their current practice, we will probably come across the most controversial parts of the legislation at the very end of the process, whereas if the Government had left the consideration of business so that knives did not fall, the House could have adjusted to make sure that it gave the desired amount of consideration to those parts it decided were most important. After all, some interesting ideas are floating around; the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) rightly raised the idea of term peers, but I can foresee already that we will not have sufficient time to give that the proper scrutiny and consideration that it requires.