Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I was hoping to intervene on the Minister, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but he was so quick in trying to get away from the Dispatch Box that I am now forced to make a speech. The issue of timetable motions is not new to controversy, but there has always been a tradition that anything that can be deemed a constitutional Bill is not timetabled. The tradition dates back a long way and there is an important point to it. Be that as it may, we have a programme motion before us that is, as ever, extremely unsatisfactory. It simply says that by the moment of interruption we will conclude business on a large number of amendments. By my estimate, at least four major subjects ought to be debated today and it is quite possible that three of them will not be debated at all, because we will simply spend the next six hours or so debating the first major group of amendments on treaties and will not get to debate elections or the Lords—we may not even get to debate demonstrations in Parliament square.