Since the eighties it has become a Parliamentary ritual for the House to debate the proposal of permanently moving the clocks forward by one hour, only to see each attempt scuppered by archaic rules which allow individual members, intent on speaking until the proverbial cows come home, to talk the Bill out. In this Parliament things appear different.
(See the debate here.)
Thanks to the dogged determination of Rebecca Harris MP, support from a new intake of MPs and belated support from both Government and Opposition, her Bill is pioneering unchartered territory.
Yet even with over 100 ministers and backbenchers (the minimum required to pass contested private business) bringing to life the normally Hopperesque atmosphere of Friday Commons proceedings, this was to be no easy final reading. Whilst the Bill is only six pages long, it attracted over 100 amendments, the majority of which designed to hijack the Bill’s intent. Many of these amendments were so barmy (i.e. renaming it the “Berlin Time Act”) they did not pass the Clark's scrutiny. 28 did and were taken in three groups collectively. These were enough to suggest once again that this Bill might get talked out.
The debate commenced with the standard call to ‘sit in private’ (a bizarre Parliamentary Friday ritual) the result of which (118 against and 12 for) confirmed where the battle lines lay for the debate. Genuine arguments proposed by the dozen in support of their amendments were difficult to find and although many proved to be entertaining, they were simply irrelevant.
After one hour the first speaker, Chris Chope, MP for Christchurch, was still on his feet promoting in turn the virtues of each of his many amendments. The pro Bills were beginning to twitch. Four more hours of this with no prospect of closure would result in the Bill being doomed, but a breakthrough - calling on a rarely used Standing Order (the 'Golding Rule') – resulted in Mr Chope MP being forced to sit down, thus allowing a series of other speakers to contribute. A vote was called half an hour later kicking this block of amendments into the Hansard archives. Time was running out. The second block of amendments soon fell, but the third did not and the Bill failed to complete its third reading.
Rebecca Harris MP should not be dismayed. Time may be running out for this Parliamentary session, but the 'usual channels' will have noted the frustrated mood of the House, which might result in the possibility of more time being granted in order to conclude the Bill’s Third Reading.
The scale of Parliamentary interest in this Bill has exposed why Friday business urgently needs modernising. How can it be possible for a hand full of determined Members to blatantly defy the will of the House as they did? This is not to cast any aspersions on those Members whose abhorrence to change or simply for the sport, chose to talk Private Members Bills out. It is the process that must change in order to permit a balanced airing of viewpoints with the mechanism to honour a sizeable majority view of the House. As Sir Peter Bottomley eloquently illustrated, had the will of the whole House been followed, changes such as the abolition of the slave trade, and the introduction of the Plimsoll line, would have occurred a lot earlier.
Here's to debating lighter later, later!