Sir Robert Buckland says Tory pushback probable when details get debated, after bill passes second reading
In his Today interview this morning Sir Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, said he expects the illegal migration bill to be “scrutinised carefully” as it continues its passage through the Commons, and the government to make changes during this process, to address the concerns he and other Tories have. (See 9.17am.)
But the bill won’t get proper scrutiny, at least according to Hannah White, a parliamentary expert and director of the Institute for Government thinktank. In a blog post, she says that just 12 hours has been set aside for the line by line scrutiny of the bill at committee stage. And even those 12 hours won’t be effective, she argues, because the bill will be in committee of the whole house (CWH), which means it will not be debated clause by clause.
The reality is that our current generation of ministers have got used to the apparent benefits of legislating at speed. They have forgotten the downsides. And MPs generally – one third of whom have joined the House since 2017 – have lost institutional memory of what used to count as adequate scrutiny.
I don’t think there is an existential crisis at all.
Of course, there’s the wider issue here of the fact that there is quite clearly disagreement in discussion within the party.
I think it is inevitable when you’re in a leadership contest, no matter which party it is, there’s going to be differences of opinion.
What I would hope for is when we get on the other side of this, once the contest has concluded in a couple of weeks, that we can come together and move forward together.
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