Business of the House

Debate between Angela Eagle and Peter Bone

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

In the light of recent revelations about the Chair of the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, may I welcome your decision, Mr Speaker, to write to the Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee? It is surely right for you to ask whether Chairs of Select Committees should have commercial interests in those sectors covered by their Committee— but it is not just MPs who can have an influence on Government.

I understand that on Tuesday evening, the Prime Minister’s Australian election guru, Lynton Crosby, addressed the Tory parliamentary party, with the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister in attendance, on his strategy for the general election. He is having a clear influence on Government, but we do not know who Lynton Crosby’s corporate clients are. We do know, however, that his company, Crosby Textor, has long lobbied lucratively for big tobacco. We know, too, that plain packaging for cigarettes suddenly disappeared from this year’s Queen’s Speech, despite strong hints that it would be included. So does the Leader of the House agree with me that for the sake of transparency, lobbyists at the heart of No. 10 should publish their interests and their client lists? We have already had one scandal involving prime ministerial appointments at No. 10; surely we do not need another.

I understand that Government meetings have already taken place to discuss the contents of the lobbying Bill. Labour has been offering cross-party talks to find a solution for three years. Why does the Leader of the House not take up our offer? Will he will arrange for pre-legislative scrutiny, and when can we expect to see the Bill?

At the Coming Year in Parliament conference on Tuesday, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) jumped the gun by announcing that on 5 July the first private Member’s Bill to be discussed would be the EU referendum Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I thought they might like that, Mr. Speaker. Normally it is the job of the Member promoting a Bill to decide on the day for Second Reading, but the cat is now well and truly out of the bag. Will the Leader of the House confirm the obvious—that the Bill is actually a Conservative party handout?

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Yes!

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but let us see what the Leader of the House says.

Will the Leader of the House also assure me that the hon. Member for Stockton South will at least be consulted on the parliamentary strategy that Conservative party managers will be pursuing in his name? Is not the real purpose of the Bill to persuade the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay and 100 of his colleagues to stop writing letters to the Prime Minister? Does this not show that his party is more concerned with pursuing partisan interests than with pursuing the national interest?

Over the last week, we have seen a bleak picture emerging of an increasingly divided Britain. New figures from Public Health England reveal that thousands more people are dying prematurely in the north than in the south. The shocking variations show that someone living in Manchester is twice as likely to die early as someone living in Wokingham. Moreover, a report published by the TUC this week shows that wages have fallen by nearly 8%. This comes at a time when prices are rising and people are suffering unprecedented cuts in their living standards. The regional differences are shocking, with the north-west and the south-west seeing pay packets shrink by more than 10%. The Chancellor used to say “We’re all in this together”, but those figures, added to his millionaires’ tax cut, make that statement laughable. Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate on divided Britain, to take place in Government time?

This week, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) added his request for a leadership contest to the growing pile in the 1922 Committee’s files. Likening the Tories to passengers in an aeroplane, he said that they could either “do something about” the Prime Minister or

“sit back, watch the in-flight movies and wait for the inevitable.”

I have been wondering what movies members of the Cabinet might be watching while waiting for the inevitable to arrive. “Eyes Wide Shut”, perhaps? “Clueless”? “Les Miserables”? Or perhaps they have just been instructed to watch “The Wizard of Oz”.

Luckily for the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary took the opportunity to lecture him about his “motives and values” last night, and his fellow Bullingdon boy Boris Johnson rushed to undermine him by calling him a “girly swot”. As a self-proclaimed “girly swot”, I remind the Mayor of London that being called a woman and clever is not an insult. Indeed, is not the truth that if the Prime Minister had a few more “girly swots” in the Cabinet, he would not be in the mess that he is in now?

Sittings of the House (22 March)

Debate between Angela Eagle and Peter Bone

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I agree wholeheartedly with the points that my right hon. Friend has made. As a former Treasury Minister, I can attest to the fact that some of the more disastrous bits of last year’s omnishambles Budget had indeed been put to Ministers for their consideration prior to their adoption last year and had been batted back for the nonsense that they were.

Because of the Government’s cynical manipulation of the recess dates, it took 28 days after that botched Budget for the Prime Minister to find himself back at the Dispatch Box to account for it. By then we had also had the fuel strike scare and the jerry can scandal to add to the chaos. Understandably, he was so unnerved that, red-faced and angry, he started attacking his own side. The hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) was wholly unfairly ticked off for having a sense of humour failure by a rattled Prime Minister who was demonstrating to the House just how easily he seems to be able to channel his inner Flashman. The memory of this omnishambles is obviously still raw. According to samizdats emerging from the 1922 Committee, the Chancellor has admitted to Tory Back Benchers that last year’s Budget was a disaster. Why else would he have been seen nodding vigorously as he was being exhorted, in language so earthy that I cannot repeat it here, not to—how can I put this politely and stay in order—mess it up this time?

Perhaps the Prime Minister’s reluctance to appear at the Dispatch box the day after the Budget debates to answer for his Chancellor’s omnishambles is an understandable human failing on his part, but it is not one in which this House should be assisting or that we should allow him to repeat this year. However, that is precisely what the motion will do unless our amendment is accepted. The Budget will be on 20 March and the Prime Minister is not due to appear at the Dispatch Box to answer questions until 17 April. Once more, that is 28 days after the Chancellor’s Budget statement.

If the Prime Minister finds it impossible to appear before the House to answer questions on the Budget before 28 days have elapsed, he could do what all Prime Ministers in the past have done and let his deputy do it for him. After all, we are told that the Liberal Democrats are intimately involved in all of the decision making about the Budget. We know that they are so central to the Government’s inner core that they make up two of the “quad” who, we are told, make all the final decisions. They are so closely involved in Budget decisions that they leaked most of it in advance last year so that they could take credit for all of the nice bits and distance themselves from the nasty bits. The only thing left for the poor Chancellor to surprise us with was the granny tax, and that was all he had to take credit for. No one seemed to benefit—unless of course they happen to be a millionaire awaiting their huge tax cut this April while everyone else feels the pain.

In the spirit of being a team player and recognising the Liberal Democrats’ acts of selfless sacrifice on tuition fees, why does the Leader of the House not just accept our amendment, change the sittings motion and let the Deputy Prime Minister step in and help out with Prime Minister’s questions straight after the Budget? Surely the Prime Minister trusts him to do a good job.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech—unfortunately, she has made some political remarks, but parliamentarily it is a very good speech. However, I have not heard her move her amendment yet. Does she intend to do so?

[Ms Eagle]

Yes, we intend to press the amendment to a vote.

Surely the Prime Minister cannot have taken to heart the content of last December’s leaked Liberal Democrat memo, which urged senior Liberal Democrats to spread the message that

“The Conservatives can’t be trusted to build a fairer society”

and to remind voters that the Tories only want to look “after the super rich”. I am sure, given those comments, that the Deputy Prime Minister would be welcomed to the Dispatch Box the day after the Budget to support all its content. Perhaps he might also be asked by the Tories on the Government Benches why the Liberal Democrats keep sending out press briefings criticising the Government’s tax policies just after the Chancellor has finished announcing them.

Last December, for example, the Liberal Democrats were caught out saying:

“The only tax cuts the Conservatives support are ones for the very rich. At the General Election, their priority was to cut inheritance tax for millionaires. In the Coalition, Liberal Democrats have blocked these plans.”

After all, just this week the Business Secretary has expressed his

“deep disappointment at the lack of capital investment in the economy”

while declaring himself the shop steward of the newly formed “National Union of Ministers”, fighting cuts to his own departmental budget openly in any TV studio and newspaper that would have him. I can see why the Prime Minister might be reluctant to let his deputy fill in for him at the Dispatch Box given that level of loyalty, so perhaps he should just bite the bullet and do it himself.

If our amendment were carried, all it would do is restore a status quo that has been long experienced in this Parliament: the Prime Minister comes to this House regularly to be held accountable during Prime Minister’s questions for the policy and the behaviour of his Government. That is even more vital after major Government announcements, such as Budgets. It cannot be acceptable that we are expected to put up with a month-long gap between the Budget and the next appearance by the Prime Minister to answer questions at that Dispatch Box.

If the Government resist the amendment to the sittings motion, it will become emblematic of their wider disdain for parliamentary accountability and even for democracy. After all, they have had no democratic mandate for the economic policy that they have pursued since June 2010, because the Liberal Democrats fought the election espousing a completely different economic policy from the one that they now support. The Government have had no democratic mandate for their disastrous top-down reorganisation of the national health service. They explicitly ruled it out during the general election, but now they pursue it with the certainty of zealots and the competence of Mr Bean.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Angela Eagle and Peter Bone

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful point, but it should not be up to the Executive or the shadow Executive to determine how much time the House takes to debate the matter; that should be for the House to decide. The Bill should not be programmed in any way whatsoever.

[Ms Eagle]

We look forward to seeing what proposals the Government actually bring forward. I tried earlier to get a few hints from the Leader of the House, but he seems not to know the answer yet. I hope that we will know soon what the Government intend to do, but the principle that the entire Bill must have adequate scrutiny and that when it leaves this place, it must be fit for purpose is the one that is in our minds.

Business of the House

Debate between Angela Eagle and Peter Bone

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for that statement.

Ahead of Remembrance Sunday, it is only right that this House records its deep debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces. We will remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in services up and down the country this weekend, and we will all wear our poppies with pride.

In normal circumstances, the House rises at this time of the year for practical reasons, to make way for the beginning of a new Session and the State Opening of Parliament, but even though that has been put off until next year, we are still to have a short recess now. During the summer recess, Parliament had to be recalled the day after it rose in order to deal with the phone hacking scandal, and then it had to be recalled a second time to deal with the riots. With no Government in Greece and contagion spreading to Italy, does the Leader of the House think that it is right for Parliament to take a break just as we face the biggest economic crisis of our lifetimes—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

You all voted for it.

[Ms Eagle]

It was voted for before those events. Is the Leader of the House making contingency plans for a recall to deal with the worsening economic and political situation in Europe?

Given that the right hon. Gentleman has already helpfully announced all the recess dates for next year, will he now tell us the date of the rearranged Queen’s Speech? With crucial elections taking place countrywide on 3 May 2012, and with the Easter recess taking place between 27 March and 16 April, I am sure that he would not wish to put Her Majesty in a position where the ceremony of a State Opening runs up against election purdah. Our Head of State should not be used in a pre-election stunt by this Government, especially in her diamond jubilee year, so I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can reassure me on that important point.

The fact is that there should be a new Queen’s Speech next week, not next year. If one were happening now, the Government could start by admitting that they will have to revise their economic growth forecast down for the fourth time in 18 months, as unemployment and inflation soar and growth stalls. They ought to abandon their disastrous top-down reorganisation of our NHS and get to grips with the fiasco engulfing Britain’s border controls, and if the Chancellor had any sense he would swallow his pride and unveil a plan B to rescue our stagnating economy.

On the shambles at our borders, will the Leader of the House confirm to the House that the information given to the three inquiries that the Home Secretary has announced so far into those events will be published, so that we can get to the truth of what happened? Does he agree that that is especially important given that the former head of the border force has directly contradicted the account that the Home Secretary gave to the House and to the Home Affairs Committee?

The Rio plus 20 summit, the biggest meeting on the environment in 20 years, has been moved to avoid a clash with the diamond jubilee celebrations and to allow the attendance of all 54 Commonwealth leaders, but, despite the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge to lead the “greenest Government ever”, we hear this week that he does not plan to attend. Does the Leader of the House agree that, by not attending, the Prime Minister is failing to show any leadership at all on climate change, despite his pre-election posturing and husky-hugging photo calls? Is it not now clear that the Government’s green credentials are being put in the bin quicker than the constituency correspondence of the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin)?

Speaking of privacy, I note that in the run-up to James Murdoch’s second appearance before the Culture Media and Sport Committee this morning, it has become clear that at least one Committee member has been subject to covert surveillance by News International. We know also from the comments of former members of the Committee that they were initially reluctant to pursue the phone hacking scandal with full rigour because they feared that they would be targeted in exactly the same way. Did the Prime Minister know about that when he decided to give Andy Coulson a job at the heart of Downing street? If not, why not? Given those extremely disturbing developments, which touch directly on the rights of Members of this House to pursue the truth without fear of intimidation, can we have a debate on Select Committee powers?

Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

Debate between Angela Eagle and Peter Bone

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly good point, and I hope that the Government are listening. They have to show understanding and good will if they are to make appropriate progress on public sector pensions, especially at a time of pay freezes and the most ferocious squeeze on living standards since the great depression.

The Government should not play politics with this issue, and they cannot take our support for the motion as any endorsement of the way in which they have so far chosen to pre-empt meaningful negotiations with public sector trade unions to resolve the outstanding issues on pensions caused by the announcement of an across-the-board 3.2% increase in contributions, a shift from RPI to CPI for indexation—

[Mr Bone]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Eagle]

Yes, of course.

[Mr Bone]

The shadow Leader of the House is making quite a powerful argument. I think that she is arguing for the amendment, because it would remove all the talk that she is particularly concerned about. Is she arguing for the amendment?

[Ms Eagle]

The trouble with the amendment, as the hon. Gentleman would probably admit if he sat down and thought about it, is that, the amended motion would look like we wanted our public sector pension to be treated differently from the generality of public sector pensions, and that would be an unfortunate impression. I hope that he reflects on that meaning of the amendment, to which he has put his name, and thinks better of it when it comes to the debate.

I was in the middle of saying that the outstanding issues caused by the announcement of an across-the-board 3.2% increase in contributions, a shift from RPI to CPI for indexation and speeding up the increase of retirement ages, the latter of which hits women particularly hard, are real issues that I hope the Government will address with good will in the negotiations, rather than regard as a complete fait accompli.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) who, as usual, made a number of good points. I think it would be wrong if I did not mention the speech of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe), which I thought was the most reasoned and sensible speech of the whole debate. Uncharacteristically, the Leader of the House was not on his best form and did not show his usual charitable nature. I think that when he reads Hansard tomorrow, he will regret the remarks he made about the implied position of Members who signed the amendment, which was quite wrong. I really think that, on reflection, he will regret saying that.

The emoluments of Members should be a matter for the House and Members should have a free vote and be allowed to make their own minds up—this should not be party whipped. That is where a lot of the problems with our pensions and salaries have occurred in the past, with every party leader trying to bid lower to attract what they thought was the best press coverage on the issue. I do not think that a single Member has said that our pension scheme should not go to IPSA. What I am concerned about is our sending it to IPSA, and then the Executive—the very Government who say they want there to be an independent look at how our pensions are run—telling that independent scheme what to do. That is the whole problem.

The amendment is very simple. It simply takes out all the garbage, goes to the heart of the matter and transfers our pension scheme to IPSA for IPSA to make up its own mind. I am quite sure that Sir Ian Kennedy will ignore the rest of the motion anyway, saying that it is just a representation and that IPSA will make its own mind up. It seems to me that the Government can quite properly make their own submission but that they cannot tie it to the House. Members should be able to make their own submissions and it is wrong to try to force this through. This is what every single Executive have done since I have been here. I say to the Government, “You really have to butt out; you have to leave the pay, conditions and expenses to IPSA.” With all due respect to the Leader of the House, I will have a 10p bet with him that we will be back here again voting on our salaries, because the Government at some stage will not like something that IPSA has recommended.

Let me address the comments of the shadow Leader of the House. I am amazed that the Opposition are going to vote for a motion that states that the House

“supports the approach to public service pension reform set out in the Final Report of the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission chaired by Lord Hutton of Furness”.

I might think that is a good idea, but I did not think that was the Opposition’s view. If they vote for this motion, they are voting for that. They cannot argue about it because it is on the Order Paper.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

I spent a little time talking about some aspects of the Hutton report that we did support, and I also made observations on some aspects of the Hutton report to which I thought the Government should pay more attention. I think my speech was entirely in keeping with our response to the Hutton report to date—as the hon. Gentleman will see if he reads it in Hansard tomorrow.

[Mr Bone]

I listened very carefully to the hon. Lady. If this motion goes through, the Government will quite rightly be able to say that the official Opposition support the wording because they voted for it in the House of Commons. That may well be her position—I am happy to accept that—but this is not the right place to be debating this issue.