WHEN the pay rise for MPs was announced I rushed to table the following early day motion (EDM 1039), “That this House believes now is the wrong time for hon. Members to accept any pay increase and that future decisions about the level of hon. Members’ pay should await resolution of the expenses crisis.”

I wanted to be the first to table this as I am sure it reflects most people’s views and I expected a rush of MPs to wish to say the same thing to show they were in touch with views outside this place.

Not a bit of it! The only MPs I could get to sign in the important top six places with me were the three other Independents who are standing for re-election.

I could not believe that the party MPs I approached all had reasons for not being seen in the top six to sign it.

Now it has been signed also by seven independent-minded party MPs. This is a disappointingly poor showing for the usual rate of signing of EDMs of general interest but I am no longer surprised by the hold political parties have on their MPs.

Last Friday was designated as a day for debate of Private Members’ Bills. I attended as my Bill on support for NHS Whistleblowers was number seven on the list.

At seven I knew it had no chance of being debated but I wished to be there to “beg to move the second reading” in the hope of it being passed to the committee stage without debate as I had spoken to Health Ministers about it and had their support.

The morning was an eye-opener. There were five hours for debate, starting at 9.30am, first for the six Bills that were ahead of mine as they had all passed their second readings and come back for the report stage and third readings, and then twelve Bills for second readings.

I knew progress would be slow but not how slow or why. The first Bill was passed by 10am with suitably short speeches and we moved to the second, a Bill to regulate the use of sunbeds by young people that had support from all three main parties.

One Tory MP had tabled two new clauses and 32 amendments of which Mr Speaker had selected 20 for debate in two groups.

Then I witnessed brazen filibustering by Tory MPs. One member spoke for one hour and 27 minutes with the aid of interventions from his friends.

Unnecessary verbiage and unnecessary divisions took up three hours of the precious five and so, inevitably, only the Sunbeds (Regulation) Bill and one other passed all the necessary stages.

The other three that had passed the committee stage fell because of lack of time and, of course, all the others fell too.

The worst of it was that the Tory objectors used the argument that the Government did not allow enough time for debate on Private Members’ Bills when they had themselves wasted three hours of the available time.

This is one glaring example where political parties should and could exert control over their members when front benchers have agreed to support Bills.

DR RICHARD TAYLOR MP