As the Government's programme kicks into a higher gear, every Monday The Times will bring you a precis of the last week's bills and motions in the House of Commons, and the highlights of MPs' speeches.

And, as per tradition, we will begin with last Monday's first bill...

B787 - Independent Sentencing Bill

This is the Government's take on the controversial minimum sentencing bill, which was amended in the Lords and subsequently rejected in the Commons in the second round of Parliamentary ping pong. One interesting point of note is that B618 was first submitted to the House in June 2018. It was only finally rejected by Parliament barely a fortnight ago.

B787 takes a slightly different tack, in that it puts both maximum and minimum sentences under the microscope. This was born out of a desire for the Government to reconcile strong views in favour of abolishing minimum sentencing, and the Government's - and, in the past, the Conservatives' and perhaps LPUK's - reticence to support the abolition. In the words of one of the authors of the bill, /u/charlotte_star:

I called for this legislation after hearing the government's plans to vote against the minimum sentences bill by my honourable friend CDocwra, I was personally against this move but in consultation with other ministers I feel this is a compromise I can support, if we must have minimum sentences I'd rather they weren't in the hands of civil servants or government ministers. Who knows the judiciary best and the realities of the law? The judiciary itself. And therefore I would be far more comfortable if they decided minimum sentencing among themselves, and using their expertise to work out what would be most appropriate.

In short, the bill hives off sentencing to an independent judiciary committee, who would define each crime in terms of a category, where a category reflects a given sentence. The salient provision in the bill states:

(7) The Council shall consider all offences under the law of England and Wales and recommend an appropriate lowest category starting point and a highest category starting point.

Support for the bill was somewhat muted, but appears to have broad support in the House, and we would expect it to pass.

M383 - Motion to commiserate the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral

After last week's devastating fire, this cross-party motion sought to ask the House to express its sympathies for the near-destruction of the famous cathedral. It is expected to pass easily.

B788 - Export Control Reform Bill

This bill relates to the export of materials that may be used in executions or for cruel and unusual punishments. It is an administrative bill, that seeks to close loopholes and inconsistencies across a range of existing legislation and regulations. This bill is also expected to pass the House when it goes to vote.

B735 - Local Government (Reform) Bill

This bill was first read at the beginning of the year and passed the Commons, but was reasonably decisively rejected in the Lords. So, now, it is back in the Commons for the next round of ping pong.

In itself, it seeks to reform local Government, and was one of the initiatives of last term's Liberal government. The general idea is to promote localism and give local authorities, and their constituents, more control over local decision-making. Debate was very muted this time around, so there's no telling how the bill will perform when it goes to division.

B789 - Trade Union Funding and Ballot Requirements Bill

Another Government bill falling into the category of 'repeal or reform', this seeks to make it much more difficult for trades unions to initiate strike action, and more difficult to contribute en masse to a given political party (which, in reality, will more often than not be the Labour Party).

The bill appears to have cross party support, with many describing its provisions as "sensible" or "common sense". However, these comments came mostly from liberals or conservatives. Interestingly, there was a complete absence of any speeches from the parties of the left. We would expect them to vote against this bill, but they did not put a case forward.

M390 - Motion to Join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

This Classical Liberal motion's aims are spelled out in the title. Speeches were also predictably based on party lines, with the liberals and the right expected to support the motion, with the left dissenting. /u/Secretary_Salami of the Labour Party questioned the merit of joining CPTPP, and also added:

It is also odd that the government and some Members of this House think that the UK belongs to the same historical, cultural and economical circle of the Pacific nations, while we never before have wanted to categories ourselves as such. Yes, we have oversees territories in the pacific region, but I am sure the people of these areas would agree that their location should not be exploited to gain access to "greener pastures" in terms of trade, in some colonial manner dating back to the 1800s.

Following on from this were a series of points made on the pros and cons of the agreement, which we would encourage all our readers to peruse.

Regardless of Labour Party concerns with the CPTPP, this motion is expected to pass.

B784 - Civic Education Bill

This is the latest version of a bill that caused controversy in the House not so long ago, when it suggested that those who failed the civic education course would be barred from voting. That bill was withdrawn, and resubmitted in its current, albeit heavily amended, guise.

The bill instructs the Electoral Commission to send information about how elections work to newly-registered voters, and also instructs schools to put on a civic education course.

Most criticism is around how the bill has been neutered by its past and by its amendments. It is not expected to pass, at least in its current form. There seems to be an appetite for a good civics education for young voters, but not in this bill.

B790 - Representation of the People Bill

Speaking of young voters, this is the bill that has caused quite a ruckus in the Commons and, The Times hears, will cause a ruckus outside the Commons in Parliament Square sometime soon. This bill, quite simply, establishes the franchise age at 18 from its current age of 16.

This forms part of the Government's reform or repeal programme, and drew many a barbed comment in the debate. Many made the link between the Government's withdrawal of votes from prisoners, with myriad accusations of an anti-democratic attitude from the Government. /u/PM-ME-SPRINKLES typified the tone of many of the speeches:

I concur with what the Right Honourable Shadow Defence Secretary and the Former Member for Oxfordshire and Berkshire have stated before this House, that already 16 year olds have so many privileges that are affected by the horrific Tory policies before us. While we can sit here and argue about the reasons for allowing a particular someone to vote in an election, the question before us is simply why? Why, should we be sitting here discussing this when it's quite simply obvious to see the major reasons for why this bill is before this house, it is because the Conservatives hate Democracy. We have already seen before this house a bill written by the government that eroded the basic democratic rights of prisoners.

The Government's view is that more rights are conferred on individuals at the age of 18, and therefore voting ought to be one of them. The Deputy Prime Minister /u/Friedmanite was heavily involved in this aspect of the debate, and in one of his speeches he said:

Lowering the voting age to 16 was a mistake, it set a bad precedent, will the government lower the votign age to 15, 14,13,12,11? The member is guilty of the is-ought gap, this debate is about where the line should be drawn. That line should be drawn at 18 because that is the age as individual receives full responsibility and rights.

In the end, Hansard recorded 375 utterances from members of the House, and we would encourage our readers to read as many of the speeches as possible, as this is clearly seen as a major issue for all of the UK's political parties.

You can also read more in The Times' special report on the debate.

B791 - Protest Policing Reform (Repeal) Bill

A pure repeal this time, of the Protest Policing Reform Act 2017. The original act disallowed the use of "water cannons, mounted constabulary, kettling ... [and] tear gas" when policing protests. The Government now seeks to repeal this bill, because, according to the repeal's author /u/ggeogg:

The very nature of having three arbitrary methods of riot control means the police have to follow these criteria. It simplifies riot control, reducing it is answering yes or no questions to three basic questions. Before this act, police had to factor in 101 considerations. They had to use discretion. Deciding what method of riot control to use is more complex than what the Protest Policing Reform Act makes out to be.

He also added:

This is not a bill to allow free for all use of these riot control methods, but a bill to remove the poorly thought out criteria on them, in favour of a broader consideration which was a more effective method of decision-making.

As with B790, this bill also received a wide range of speeches - albeit only 80 this time - with /u/ContrabannedTheMC giving a lengthy and well-received speech on the merits of the original act, which is too large to print here.

Opposition parties are expected to oppose this bill, but because of the Goverment's majority it is expected to pass, assuming it doesn't get neutered in the amendments committee.

B785 - R&D Tax Credit Enhancement Bill

This bill expands the scope of existing tax credits for research and development purposes. It sets lower thresholds for companies' spending on R&D with a view to encouraging more R&D.

This reading was mostly notable for this bizarre turn from /u/HenryJohnTemple, which has to be seen to be believed.

M391 - Advancement of LGBTQ rights in the Commonwealth

A cross-party bill that is widely seen as the Government's attempt to make up for its widely-condemned rejection of a similar motion on Brunei's anti-LGBT laws. You can read more about that motion in The Times' piece here.

This motion is expected to pass, as M388 did, but it seems at least two MPs did not accept the apparently-conciliatory nature of the motion. /u/InfernoPlato, in typical style, said:

I wonder if the members of the Opposition will come crawling out of the woodwork to call the government homophobes again.

While /u/CDocwra added late in the debate:

This bill is toothless, gutless and thoroughly Conservative, the Government is shameful is thinking that this is better than the stronger motion presented by the Opposition.

B792 - Election Bank Holiday Bill

The law currently states that elections days are considered bank holidays, with the idea being that people are more likely to vote if they have the whole day to do so. However, the Government disagrees, with /u/LeChevalierMal-Fait noting:

Bank holidays while very welcome in moderation incur significant economic trade offs and productivity loss. Election Day bank holidays are impossible for businesses to plan for and therefore impose a significant cost on the economy. We already have mr speaker “no questions asked” provision of postal and proxy votes. It isn’t hard to vote if for reasons of work it would be difficult to do so then I sympathise but would point out that postal votes exist as a reasonable mechanism to support people in such a position and that this can happen without a damaging bank holiday.

This prompted responses to the bill elsewhere in the debate questioning the merits of postal and proxy votes over ensuring everybody can physically visit a ballot:

And, Mr Speaker, in order to not waste time in further comments I will note why the only alternative - postal votes - are not viable. I have had postal votes arrive on the day of the election itself, which is a depressingly common story to hear. Not only that, but we know that postal votes are the most easily defrauded voting method - this is frankly one step away from many working class people getting second class votes.

Given the pro-business view the Government is taking, we would also expect this bill to pass the Commons.