Police minister Nick Herbert under pressure over bail

Oh dear. The Police Minister Nick Herbert was monstered in the Commons after he announced emergency legislation to deal with a High Court judgement which has upset the normal police practices around bailing suspects - meaning officers will no longer be able to bail suspects for more than four days without either charging or releasing them.

The ruling has huge implications for the handling of current cases and the government is now under pressure to act immediately.

This kind of thing happens from time to time - and Parliament usually acts on an all-party basis to deal with it. Unfortunately Mr Herbert has not been able to announce when his emergency bill will appear, or what is going to be in it - the House was pretty incredulous, and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wasted no time in tearing into the government for not acting sooner, and for not being able to offer MPs a timetable for action.

The police minister didn't help himself by arriving late to deliver his statement - an attempted point of order from a quick witted backbencher provided just enough cover to allow him to scramble into position as a puzzled and irate Speaker Bercow scanned the horizon.

He earned a rebuke for that - but will be more worried that a lot of MPs are now wondering how it was possible for the issue to fester for several weeks before a failed appeal forced him to come to the House.

Given the urgency, the emergency bill will doubtless have to be rammed through before Parliament rises for the Summer, on July 19, so something in the current programme, which includes the Finance Bill, which enacts the Budget, an Opposition Day and the polishing off of the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, will have to be ditched.

The Government's programme is a bit bogged down at the moment - and you would need the best part of a whole Commons day to ram through the second reading, committee, report and third reading of even a short emergency bill.

Inquiring minds want to know what it will be….. In next week's programme the Estimates Day debates on the Prevent (anti-terrorism) Strategy and on Afghanistan and Pakistan, scheduled for Wednesday could be pushed back - but that's just my speculation.