On Friday 27 Feb we had a rare victory in the House of Commons when the Government was ambushed during the proceedings on a private member’s bill. The bill was designed to place a duty on local authorities to assess and plan for the needs of adults suffering from Autism. The problem for any private member’s bill is not so much the danger that anyone will trouble themselves to vote against it, but rather that it will simply run out of time.
When the Government is opposed to a bill it encourages its stooges to talk at length until the time runs out at 2.30 o’clock on Friday afternoons. In this way the Government can claim to have no blood on its hands despite having effectively killed the bill as surely as it would have done had whipped its majority into voting it down.
There is, however, a rare device known as a closure motion which can be used to force a vote before the time runs out. It is rare because not only do you have to win the vote on the motion for closure, but you have to do so with at least 100 members voting for it. It is actually very difficult to organise 100 MPs on a Friday (such is the pressure to be in one’s constituency doing surgeries and etc.) and at the same time not to alert the Government whips that an ambush is being planned.
The Government itself only keeps a skeleton shift at Westminster on Fridays, just enough to keep the talking going long enough. A large number of people wrote to me asking me to turn up to support the Autism bill but I wrote back apologising that I had other plans and explaining that the bill would be talked out, and by being there to watch I would not make it any better.
The Ambush was successful: I managed one meeting in the Forest before catching the train to London (where the talking was still going strong) in time for the closure being moved at 2 o’clock. The vote was 131 to 26. So the bill survives into its next stage. There are still enormous difficulties because that next stage is a standing committee with a Government majority. Nevertheless I felt pretty good on the train back to the New Forest. |
