HL
1. The House will of course be aware that the Bill has already received the
most searching scrutiny. In this House alone there has been some 170 hours of
debate and over 500 amendments have been proposed. The Bill has been subject to
equally rigorous scrutiny in another place where for instance nearly ten days were
devoted in Committee and Report Stage and where well over 200 amendments were
proposed at Committee Stage alone. There has therefore been ample opportunity
for this important measure to be properly considered and discussed, and we do not
believe that the curtailment of debate proposed in this motion can be said to
prevent adequate scrutiny of the Bill.
12.
Moreover, this motion has as I indicated earlier - been so arranged that
this House will have reasonable time to consider the important new proposals to
which I have referred earlier. The timetable will allow up to 7 hours debate
on the amendments on descent, up to 7 hours debate on Gibraltar, and up to
7 hours debate on subsequent matters. This should allow opportunities for
brief debates on other changes of particular concern such as the change in the
language test for applicants for naturalisation.
13. Mr Speaker, no one likes motions of this kind. But the Government has a duty
to ensure that at this late stage this important and much needed measure does not
founder for lack of time. We see this motion as the only way of ensuring that the
Bill completes its remaining stages within the available time and that the available
time is used to best advantage. We are in this situation largely because we have
honoured our pledge to approach the Bill constructively an approach which I know
the House, and in particular the Opposition, would endorse. I am confident that in
these circumstances the House will appreciate the need for the motion and will respond
to it in a similarly constructive spirit.
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