Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I am sorry to disappoint the Minister, but I will not agree to this programme motion, which represents a fairly pathetic performance by the Government in relation to how they treat the House. This is a constitutional Bill, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is absolutely right that, historically, there would have been open-ended discussion of such Bills on the Floor of the House. We do not like internal knives, as the Minister knows, and the one merit of the second group of two days for consideration of this Bill was that there were to be no internal knives so that the House could debate the matter at its leisure, and if it were to have become clear that there was insufficient time for everything to be considered, I would, doubtless, have approached the Minister, through the usual channels, to ask him kindly to make more time available. On that basis, there is no rational reason for the internal knives now to be inserted. Moreover, as the Minister has candidly admitted—I am grateful to him for that—the fact of the matter is that this Bill is far from finished. We do not know what will be in about 50 per cent. of it, although we have had some hints. It will be a very important measure, and careful debate will be required on the recommendations of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and how Parliament wishes to implement Sir Christopher Kelly's report. We have also been told that there will be a debate and opportunity to vote on an alternative voting system. Things could not be much more constitutional than that, but all these matters are deferred into the future, and we have no idea how much time will be allocated for us to consider them, or, indeed, how much time the House will then get on Report—I think the Minister would acknowledge that we will have to have a Report stage because the Government have amended their own legislation.