That's the principle behind programming. Obviously, the problem of programming is who's doing it. I have no problem with a schedule being set out on the basis of agreement. That's what happens now. I've said I think it is important, but there is no sense in which there is a committee or an agreement to allocate different amounts of time for different private members' bills depending on how much time is needed.
Maybe that could be a role for a secondary chamber. You would have the first hour of debate in a primary chamber, and then you would have a secondary chamber for further debate with more wide open parameters on private members' legislation. There would be many possible ways to create a venue in which there is that scrutiny.
In fairness, the thing about private members' bills is that they still go through that committee study, and there's no limit to the breadth of the study the committee can do. Of course, there is one rule in the Standing Orders that's unique for private members' bills, which is that they're automatically referred back from committee after a certain amount of time. That's to prevent committees from basically ragging the puck on legislation and effectively preventing it from being considered that way. The committee has to deal with private members' legislation, or it will be dealt with automatically according to the provisions of that Standing Order.
The point is that there is still a committee study phase which can and should be very detailed. It might be worth making the point that for any private members' bills that make it through that process and get all the way to third reading, at least at that point, you should be allocating more debate.
My concern about allocating more debate to private members' bills is that it could be done in a way that reduces the number of private members' bills that can come forward. I would be all for looking for ways to allocate more time for private members' bills for debate on each one, provided that we're not doing it in a way that reduces the number of private members' bills that can be brought forward. I would like to see us go in the opposite direction and try to increase the number of private members' bills that can come forward, so that we don't have people who have long parliamentary careers and yet never have an opportunity to bring forward their own legislation.
This is a good discussion. This is an area that we should be discussing and moving forward with, and I sincerely hope that we'll have the opportunity to do that at some point—