Today’s Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend has been a long-standing champion of a business of the House committee, as I am sure he will be in the next Parliament, but that is when that will have to be decided. What we are proposing to bring to the House today are those issues that would affect the opening days of a new Parliament, which obviously cannot be decided with any usefulness or meaning any later than today.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

In my 23 years in Parliament I have never seen a Government behave in such a grubby and underhand way. In October 2011 the Procedure Committee published its report. At the express request of the Government, the Committee did not pursue bringing forward the necessary debate in that Session. In the following Session, in February 2013, the Committee looked again at its report and concluded that it did not feel that a change was necessary. However, it wrote to the Government to request a debate on a Monday or Tuesday to allow the House to consider the matter properly and to ensure that as many Members as possible were present. The Government refused. The Committee raised the matter again in the previous Session with both the current Leader of the House and his predecessor. On every occasion the Government refused to grant time. As recently as February, the Chair of the Committee wrote to the Leader of the House to ask for a debate, stating that it

“should not be tucked away on a Thursday afternoon”.

The Government again refused to grant that request.

What has changed over the past six weeks? Why did the Government, who had so resolutely refused to allow the debate for three and a half years, suddenly change their mind on Tuesday? Why did the Government decide that this motion was so sensitive that it would not and could not be discussed with Opposition Front Benchers, the Chair of the Committee or even the Speaker himself? Why did the Leader of the House wait until the last moment yesterday before tabling it, without any warning or notification to anyone? Why did he claim to me that the Government Chief Whip had spoken to the Procedure Committee Chair in the afternoon, when in fact no such conversation had taken place? Why is the motion before us today the complete opposite of the motion drafted by the Committee and given to the Government?

Is not the truth that this is nothing to do with the Procedure Committee’s report and everything to do with the character of the Prime Minister? It is a petty and spiteful act because he hates his Government being properly scrutinised, thanks to this reforming Speaker. The Leader of the House should be ashamed of himself for going along with it.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Lady quotes the Procedure Committee, which said in 2011:

“We recommend that the House be invited to decide whether on the first day of a new Parliament, where the Presiding Member’s decision on the question that a former Speaker take the Chair is challenged, the question should be decided by secret ballot or by open division.”

The Committee asked for an opportunity for the House to decide, so Opposition Members cannot consistently complain that that has not been debated and that now it is going to be debated. The debate is not “tucked away”. It cannot possibly be described as being “tucked away” when there are hundreds of Members here on both sides of the House entirely able to make a decision, and they should be able to do so of their own volition on a free vote. They should be able to do so, and I hope Opposition Members will be able to have a free vote on this question.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the final days of this Parliament, and, of course, for his extremely gracious and entirely typical thanks and tributes not only to me, but to all Members. I am sure that next week, during the “valedictory addresses”, we shall have an opportunity to repeat some of the graciousness.

I must say, however, that despite the heroic efforts of the Leader of the House since he took the reins, this is a Parliament that will be remembered for being so devoid of business in its second half that “zombie Government” has entered the political lexicon, and so badly managed that it has lost two MPs to UKIP, seven Cabinet Ministers, and no fewer than 103 votes in the House of Lords. No wonder the Tory Chief Whip cannot even organise his way out of a toilet.

Yesterday, we heard a Budget that people will not believe from a Government whom they do not trust. No amount of rhetoric can mask the Chancellor’s failure. He told us that the deficit was the most important thing, and promised to eliminate it by the end of this Parliament. He has failed. He claimed that we were “all in this together”, but he has given us tax cuts for millionaires and a bedroom tax for the most vulnerable. We have had tax breaks for hedge funds from a party that is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the tax avoiders, and, for the first time since the 1920s, working people are worse off at the end of a Parliament than they were at the beginning.

What did the Chancellor offer when he told us to choose the future? Extreme and dangerous cuts, the deepest for 50 years, which the independent Office for Budget Responsibility has described as a “rollercoaster”. It is no wonder that the Chancellor mentioned Agincourt more than he mentioned the NHS. It has been calculated overnight that he spent £80 million on bad jokes in his Budget speech. I can give you this promise, Mr Speaker: my jokes will always be cheaper than that.

It is no surprise that this week one Tory MP has been caught desperately trying to hide his true identity. He has come up with a cunning disguise, and has taken on a whole new persona. I am not talking about Michael Green. This week, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) contacted constituents, begging them to endorse him to their families and friends. So confident is he about the Government’s stunning record that he said:

“it'll be much more effective if it doesn’t mention the Conservative Party”

or the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the Tory party chair, after years of denial and threatening to sue one of his own constituents, has finally admitted that he did, after all, have a second job while serving as a Member of Parliament. He created a brand-new alternative to “economical with the truth” when he apologised for “over-firmly” denying the facts. After five years, there we have it: the Liberal Democrats misadvise themselves, and the Tories over-firmly deny.

As this is the last session of business questions during the current Parliament, I thought it would be remiss of me not to take a few moments to poke fun at the Liberal Democrats, but, given what we have just heard from the Chief Secretary, I think that they have done it all by themselves. The Chancellor’s apprentice, the mini-me of the Treasury, came to the House to deliver his very own faux-Budget statement—and what did he say? That today he disagrees with everything that he signed up to yesterday. Apparently, he is so determined to feel important that he had his very own yellow Budget box constructed, and—absurdly—posed with it at the weekend. However, I hear that he has already taken it to a Liberal Democrat fundraiser and sold it off to the highest bidder, much like his principles. I understand that he got fifteen hundred quid for it.

Meanwhile, the former president and aspiring next leader of the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), tried to boost morale at the party’s spring conference by saying that he thought they might lose half their seats, and that they deserved a mark of just two out of 10 for their time in government. I think that that is a bit generous.

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Leader of the House, who is retiring from this place in just a few days’ time after 26 years of service. He has gone from blond bombshell to slick statesman. He commands respect across the House. Over his career he has befriended celebrities, he has written books, he has travelled the world, he has led his party, and he has been a hard-working and effective Leader of the House whom I have enjoyed working with. Now that’s not bad for someone who was once rejected for a job as a special adviser by Margaret Thatcher, who wrote on his application form, “No, no, no.”

I know the right hon. Gentleman is off to a new house in Wales, which I gather has 10 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and I am not sure how many kitchens—perhaps he will tell us. All I can say is that he is lucky a Labour Government will repeal the bedroom tax, although he may be less happy about our plans for a mansion tax.

Yesterday the Chancellor laughably claimed that this Government were helping the north, but what he does not realise is that he is about to lose the only northern powerhouse the Tories have ever had.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s touching remarks. As last week, I will not join her in making fun of the Liberal Democrats; I pointed out that I am going to wait a little while for that. I have spent a lifetime making fun of the Liberal Democrats, but I have had a five-year interregnum, and I am looking forward to it coming to an end. Since I will be released from this place anyway, I will be able to join in, but they are deeply valued colleagues—for another few days anyway—and I very much meant the tribute I paid to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House.

The hon. Lady asked about various matters including referring again—we have debated this before—to the Chief Whip and his experiences in toilets. I have explained that it is an essential part of the duties of a Chief Whip to know who is lurking in there at any one time.

I want to take the hon. Lady up on what she said about this Session of Parliament, because I believe when we come to the end of it next week a great deal will have been achieved: the Infrastructure Act 2015 that provides a nearly £4 billion boost to the economy; the small business Bill that will help businesses get credit from banks and ensure they can expand; the Pension Schemes Act that gives people freedom and security in retirement; the Criminal Justice and Courts Act that allows us to properly punish serious offenders; the Modern Slavery Bill, which will be a landmark piece of legislation; and the Childcare Payments Act that helps more parents with the cost of child care. These are all from this Session of Parliament. That is not a zombie Session of Parliament; that is real, constructive legislation that is of immense assistance to many people in this country.

I have all the great respect for the hon. Lady that I spoke of earlier, but I think she may have written part of her remarks before the Budget, because she said people would be worse off at the end of the Parliament than they were at the beginning of it, but as we now know from the Office for Budget Responsibility one of the achievements of this coalition—Conservatives and Liberal Democrats—will be that on average households will be £900 better off in 2015 than they were in 2010. So the script will have to be changed, albeit at the very end of the Parliament.

Talking of the northern powerhouse, I am very proud that, as the Chancellor pointed out yesterday, more jobs are being created in Yorkshire than in the whole of France. That is not remotely a surprise to those of us from Yorkshire, but it is part of the achievement of this Government that employment is at its highest since records began, and that 1,000 more jobs have been created every day under this Government. One particularly striking aspect of yesterday’s figures is that the rise in youth employment in the last year has been higher than in the whole of the rest of the European Union put together. It is very rare for a Government at the end of a Parliament to be able to say that—very rare indeed—and the Opposition, who voted for the charter for budget responsibility but are now unwilling to maintain any spending discipline, have to explain where the tax rises are going to come from in their programme. There will be a great deal of suspicion that there will be large hidden tax rises from a Leader of the Opposition who has that large hidden kitchen he did not want to speak about.

Such issues will be considered in the Budget debate, continuing until Monday, and in the general election campaign. We will do everything we can in the meantime to bring the business of the House next week to an orderly conclusion.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, may I associate myself with your remarks about the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry)?

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

Mr Speaker, may I, too, associate myself with your remarks about my right hon. Friend?

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 16 March—Motion to approve statutory instruments relating to counter-terrorism, followed by a motion to approve the draft Drug Driving (Specified Limits) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2015, followed by opposed private business which the Chairman of Ways and Means has named for consideration.

Tuesday 17 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Modern Slavery Bill, followed by a debate on motions relating to the reports from the Committee on Standards on the code of conduct and on the standards system in the House of Commons, followed by a debate on a motion relating to Shaker Aamer. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 18 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 19 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 20 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

The provisional business for the week commencing 23 March will include:

Monday 23 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 24 March—Consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Recall of MPs Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to counter-terrorism.

Wednesday 25 March—All stages of the Finance (No. 2) Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism. The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.

Thursday 26 March—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by an opportunity for Members to make short valedictory speeches, as recommended by the Backbench Business Committee. The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the shadow Leader of the House, it might be helpful for the House if I say this: the Leader of the House has just announced that the Backbench Business Committee debate to be held on the morning of Thursday 26 March is intended to give retiring Members an opportunity to make a short valedictory speech. I gather that there will be many retiring Members who wish to take part and, inevitably, the time will be constrained. I therefore draw their attention to the opportunity offered by the four-day Budget debate, also just announced for Wednesday 18, Thursday 19, Friday 20 and Monday 23 March, in which my colleagues and I are minded to permit some latitude to retiring Members wishing to make valedictory remarks, although without any derogation from any time limits that may be in place.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the remainder of the Parliament. In the blizzard of last-minute statutory instruments that have appeared on the Order Paper, the Registration of Consultant Lobbyists Regulations 2015 were laid on 26 February. Despite the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge to shine the light of transparency on lobbying, it is expected that the new register will cover just 1% of ministerial meetings organised by lobbyists and would not have stopped any of the lobbying scandals that have hit the Government. We are committed to an effective register of all professional lobbyists, backed by a code of conduct and sanctions, so we will pray against these regulations. Will the Leader guarantee us time for a debate on them?

The Government have a clear track record of avoiding scrutiny. On the European arrest warrant, on the Agricultural Wages Board and now on plain packaging of cigarettes, instead of trying to win the argument, they just try to avoid having it altogether. Last week, the Leader of the House rejected my request for a debate on plain packaging on the Floor of the House, and this week we can see why. A majority of Tory MPs failed to vote in favour of this common-sense measure to protect public health, including eight Ministers, three members of the Cabinet and even the Tory deputy Chief Whip. This morning, an analysis by The Independent has revealed that one in four MPs who voted against have declared links to the tobacco industry. Does it not say everything about today’s Tory party that a majority of its MPs is more interested in the rights of global tobacco companies than the health of Britain’s children? Is not the Prime Minister’s refusal to defend his record in the TV debates symptomatic of this Government? Instead of trying to win the argument, they just run away from it.

Next week, we will have the charade of the Chancellor’s pre-election Budget, which will reportedly contain large chunks of the Tory manifesto. Perhaps the Leader of the House can tell us whether both parties of Government have signed up to it? It is clear that the real omnishambles is this Chancellor’s record. He has broken every promise and missed every target he has ever set himself on the economy. For the first time in nearly 100 years working people are worse off at the end of a Parliament than they were at the beginning. Not only would Tory plans cut public spending back to pre-war levels, the reality would be extreme and dangerous cuts of up to £70 billion.

The Prime Minister is an expert at evading scrutiny and the Chancellor yet again excused himself from Treasury questions this week, but I am sure that, as an honourable man, the Leader of the House will be willing to answer some simple questions. To meet their target, is it not the case that a Tory Government would have to cut spending on day-to-day public services by significantly more than they will admit? Is it not the case that to meet their target they will have to either raise VAT or cut the NHS? Is it not right that the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) was speaking for growing numbers in the Conservative party when he said that he did not agree with protecting the NHS budget? Is it not also the case that Tory plans would mean that we would have the smallest police force since records began and the smallest Army since Cromwell?

There are only nine more days of this Parliament and I can see that the Leader of the House is eagerly counting them down. He has led his party, he has toured the world, he has become best mates with Angelina Jolie. However, in a rather disappointing end to his glittering career it seems that Conservative party headquarters has got him doing its e-mails. This week, in a message to Tory Members, he warned of the dangers of entering government on the coat tails of a small party that does not keep its promises. He should know quite enough about that already.

It has not been a good week for the Liberal Democrats either. They have been embroiled in a cash-for-access scandal, but the country is mainly just in shock that anyone wants to donate any money to them at all. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has apparently been sending leaflets out in his constituency that spell the word “failure” incorrectly. I would have thought that every single Liberal Democrat would know how to spell that word. Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and the man in charge of their campaign, declared on the radio this morning that he was going to be very busy during the general election campaign and that he doubted he would get to do any campaigning. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Things are looking bad for the Prime Minister, too. His latest ploy to escape the scrutiny of the TV debates was to say that radio hosts can grill him “as hot as they like”. Mr Speaker, I prefer a long slow burn. There are just eight weeks to go until the general election and the only person from Chipping Norton who has come out fighting has just been suspended by the BBC.

[Mr Hague]

I think the reference to a long slow burn was a reference to the shadow Chancellor’s personal life, although I think we can be confident that it would be a very rapid and immediate crash if he were to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am not going to join the hon. Lady in making fun of my Liberal Democrat colleagues—I am going to wait for election night. [Laughter.] There will be a moment for all of us to join in that. I have enjoyed working with them immensely. It has been one of the high points of all the things I have done in my career to be able to work with them in government over the past five years. I will certainly continue to send out e-mails to people about the dangers of the coming together in government of a party that wants to bankrupt the country with a party that wants to break up the country. That is the real threat.

The hon. Lady asked about a number of matters. On the plain packaging vote, the Conservatives had a free vote, which was absolutely the right thing to have done. The regulations were carried by a very large majority in the House. I voted for them myself and I am pleased that they have been passed.

The hon. Lady asked about the register of lobbyists that is being set up under this Government, as is the declaration of transparency of all ministerial meetings with outside organisations. There have been very important improvements on this issue in the past few years.

The hon. Lady asked about the Budget. I can assure her that the Budget that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will present next Wednesday will be agreed across the coalition: it will be the Budget of the coalition Government. We will, of course, all be able to set out in our party manifestos what we will do after the general election. When the Chancellor stands up to deliver the Budget on Wednesday, he will be highly unusual in the ranks of Chancellors of the Exchequer in the history of this country in being able to say that during his tenure nearly 2 million jobs have been created, that there is lower inflation than when he began, that he presides over the fastest growth in the G7, and that he has halved the deficit of this country. It is a very long time since a Chancellor of the Exchequer could stand up on Budget day with that as his starting point. That is what he will be able to do next Wednesday.

There will be four days to debate the Budget. That is a great deal of time, so there will be a great opportunity to explore all the issues the hon. Lady has raised. She asked about protecting the national health service budget. I seem to remember that the party that did not offer to protect the national health service budget at the last general election was the Labour party. Indeed, what has happened over the past five years is that its budget has been protected in England but cut in Wales, where it has been under the management of the Labour party— that is the advert. But there will be plenty of time to discuss these issues during the Budget debate.

It has been an interesting week for the Opposition. Shadow Ministers have briefed against their own disastrous tuition fees policies, saying they have other uses for £3 billion. Lord Mandelson has managed to brief against the entire Labour party, saying it will fail to win a majority. According to the New Statesman, the shadow Chancellor has briefed against the Leader of the Opposition, saying he has not grown into the job and he feels dreadfully sorry for him. The shadow Chancellor then managed the most unusual feat of briefing against himself, by setting out a number of scenarios for a future Conservative Government and then saying he disagreed with those scenarios. And the whole Labour party briefed against itself over whether to do a deal with the Scottish National party. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition sits rudderless in the middle, not knowing what to say. We hope at least that the shadow Leader of the House will rule out a deal with the SNP, as many of her own Back Benchers wish her to do—perhaps we can look forward to that at next week’s business questions.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 9 March—Remaining stages of the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Consumer Rights Bill, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to the Commission work programme 2015, followed by general debate on the forthcoming nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 10 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Deregulation Bill, followed by motion to approve statutory instruments relating to counter-terrorism, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to subsidiarity and proportionality and the Commission’s relations with national Parliaments, followed by debate on a motion relating to school funding. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 11 March—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Democratic Unionist Party. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 12 March—Debate on a motion relating to defence spending, followed by debate on a motion relating to education regulations and faith schools. The subjects for both debates were recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 March—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 16 March will include:

Monday 16 March—Motion to approve statutory instruments relating to counter-terrorism, followed by motion to approve the draft Drug Driving (Specified Limits) England and Wales (Amendment) Regulations 2015, followed by the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.

Tuesday 17 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Modern Slavery Bill, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to counter-terrorism, followed by debate on motions relating to the reports from the Committee on Standards on the code of conduct and on the standards system in the House of Commons, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 18 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 19 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 20 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the remainder of March will be:

Thursday 12 March—General debate on the relationship between police and children, followed by general debate on violence against women and girls.

Monday 16 March—General debate on a petition relating to veterans’ pensions.

Thursday 19 March—General debate on the future of local newspapers.

Monday 23 March—General debate on an e-petition relating to proposed increase in fees for nurses and midwives.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. On Sunday, we will celebrate international women’s day. We have our pink bus, which is generating fantastic enthusiasm wherever it goes in the country, and half our candidates in target seats are women. Will the Leader of the House tell us what the Conservative party is doing to involve women properly in politics?

On Monday, we will consider Lords amendments to the Consumer Rights Bill, including proposals for a crackdown on ticket touting. Despite widespread evidence of touts fleecing the public and calls for action from across the leisure industry, the Government have spent more than a year opposing the measures and the Culture Secretary described ticket touts admiringly as “classic entrepreneurs”. Will the Leader of the House confirm that following their humiliating climbdown in the Lords the Government will support these proposals in the Commons and finally protect the public from this exploitation?

There are strong and powerful arguments in favour of plain packaging for cigarettes, but this Government have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting them. First, they were for a vote on plain packaging, then when they took tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby in to the heart of Downing street they were suddenly against it. Now after five years of inaction, in the dying days of this Parliament, they are for it again. I note that the plain packaging regulations will finally be taken in Committee on 9 March, but why did the Leader not schedule a debate on the Floor of the House? Is it because he knows that his party is split right down the middle on this important public health measure but he does not want the public to notice?

Yesterday the Prime Minister repeatedly refused to acknowledge his complete failure to keep his “no ifs, no buts” promise on net migration, which is not in the tens of thousands that he promised but nearly 300,000 this year alone. In a desperate attempt at a diversionary tactic, he treated us to a selective list of things that he thinks he got right, while continuing to refuse to make himself available for scrutiny on any of them in a head-to-head TV debate with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition.

I greatly enjoyed the Leader of the House’s speech at the Press Gallery lunch last week, decoding what he called civil service-ese and revealing that when civil servants say, “We are scaling up our response,” they actually mean, “We never expected this to happen.” So I have been doing my own decoding of the Prime Minister’s pre-election promises. When he said:

“We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT”,

what he really meant was, “ I will raise VAT when the election is safely over.” When he said, “We will not balance the books on the backs of the poor”, what he really meant was, “We will not balance the books at all.” When he said in 2009:

“I have always believed in live television debates. I think they can help enliven our democracy.”,

what he really meant was, “I will only debate with people when I’m not scared I might lose.”

In his pre-2010 election contract with the British people, the Prime Minister wrote:

“If we don’t deliver our side of the bargain, vote us out in five years’ time.”

Mr Speaker, there are only nine weeks to go.

The Liberal Democrats are no better. This week we have learned what their red line in any future coalition talks would be. Having campaigned to scrap all tuition fees during the last election, only to vote to triple them after the election, they now plan to veto Labour’s plan to cut fees by a third and increase grants for poor students. I wonder whether we could have that in writing, because then we will know for sure that they will do the exact opposite.

It is not surprising that the Lib Dem right hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) has decided that he needs to take matters into his own hands. On Tuesday he held an Adjournment debate on the plight of endangered species, and he has written about it on Politics Home. He laments:

“The facts are stark. … numbers have fallen … the poachers are highly organised. … we are in a race against time.”

Before long, the Liberal Democrats will be going the way of the woolly mammoth.

I have learned this week that the Conservative party is busy preparing for a Labour victory in May. The Chancellor has apparently hatched a long-term cunning plan to curb the regicidal instincts of the Conservative party—good luck with that—and keep the Prime Minister on as leader after 7 May even if it loses. According to one Back Bencher, “He either wins or he goes.” Once again showing his strategic prowess, the man he has chosen to assist him in this mission to avoid a leadership battle is the ever-absent Tory Chief Whip. Apparently they are going to form a protective ring around their leader and claim that he won a moral victory even if the Conservatives lose. Is this why the Chief Whip is never here, Mr Speaker? He is too busy forming a protective ring around the Prime Minister to bother to come to this Chamber. Having just listed some of their broken promises, I feel I should offer some comfort to the Conservatives. If there is one target that I am confident the Tories will not miss, it is the one on the Prime Minister’s back.

[Mr Hague]

The shadow Leader may not be in a strong position this week to talk about party leaders since this is the week in which the Doncaster Free Press released its power list and revealed that the Leader of the Opposition was the fourth most influential person in Doncaster, ranking, interestingly, behind the star of One Direction who just happened to grow up in Doncaster. The right hon. Gentleman is regarded as having less influence on the town than that. We will return to these matters in a moment.

On the hon. Lady’s specific questions, she asked, rightly, about international women’s day, which we look forward to commemorating on Sunday. She referred to the pink bus that has caused so much amusement around the country and asked what the Government have been doing. We have been achieving more women in work than ever before in history—up by 839,000 since May 2010. There are more women-led businesses than ever before in the history of the country and 37% of start-up loans are now going to women. There are more women on FTSE boards than ever before in the history of the country, with no all-male boards remaining. More than half the people lifted out of income tax altogether—58% of them—are women, and the state pension reforms have particularly benefited women, who have historically done poorly under the complicated two-tier system of pensions. That is a tremendous record of achievement, which is superior to any previous Government’s record in assisting the welfare of the women of this country.

The hon. Lady mentioned students—rather bravely, in a week in which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that Labour’s proposed reform of tuition fees

“sounds progressive. . . Sadly, it isn’t.”

It

“will mainly benefit mid- to high-earning graduates who would otherwise have been repaying all or most of their loans.”

That is the position bizarrely adopted by the Labour party on which it is now condemned to fight the election.

It was brave of the hon. Lady, too, to mention migration, as it was a completely open door under the previous Government which brought millions of people to settle in this country.

Following my extensive translation of civil service-ese at the Press Gallery lunch, the hon. Lady did a translation of Prime Ministerial statements, but I have my own translation of what the Leader of the Opposition was saying yesterday when he was calling for a debate, which means, “I am desperate because the election is slipping away from me and I have nothing else to ask about at all.” That is the translation of that. When I was Leader of the Opposition in 2001, I recall asking Tony Blair for a television debate. There was not even an offer of a debate from Tony Blair, not even the pretence of a debate. There was a very clear “No debate whatsoever.” This Prime Minister is offering a debate and that is an offer that should be taken up, which was never offered by Tony Blair in similar circumstances.

Talking of debates, the hon. Lady asked about the debate on the plain packaging of cigarettes. As she knows, because of EU procedures it has been possible to lay regulations but not to make them until after 3 March. That is the reason for the timing. It is normal for such statutory instruments to be considered in a Committee after going through the scrutiny procedures and, subject to the deliberations of that Committee, it will then be possible for the whole House to vote on the outcome of that Committee’s deliberations.

I should have thought that the hon. Lady would welcome the Government’s move in the other place on ticketing. She did not ask about the economic situation in the country, but what has defined the past couple of weeks is what has happened on the economy. Today we heard that new car sales for February were up 12% on last year. This week we heard that average household incomes have returned to pre-recession levels. In the past two weeks we have seen growth in manufacturing and construction up, public sector borrowing fall, and small firms win more than a quarter of Government contracts—the highest percentage ever. That is very clear evidence as we move to the end of the Parliament that a long-term economic plan is right for this country and is working.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 2 March—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate entitled “Devolution in England: The Case for Local Government”, followed by a debate on “Towards the next Defence and Security Review: Part Two—NATO”. Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Devolution in England: The Case for Local Government, 1st Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, HC 503, and the Government response; Towards the next Defence and Security Review Part Two: NATO, 3rd Report from the Defence Committee, HC 358, and the Government response, HC 755.]

Tuesday 3 March—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, followed by a debate on children’s and adolescents’ mental health and child and adolescent mental health services. Further details will be given in the Official Report. At 7 pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

[The details are as follows: Support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, 4th Report from the Work and Pensions Committee, HC 720 of Session 2013-14; Children’s and adolescents’ mental health and CAMHS, 3rd Report from the Health Committee, HC 342, and the Government response.]

Wednesday 4 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipations and Adjustments) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill, followed by Opposition day (unallotted half-day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion; subject to be announced.

Thursday 5 March—There will be a general debate on international women’s day, followed by a general debate on Welsh affairs. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 March—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 9 March will include:

Monday 9 March—Remaining stages of the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Consumer Rights Bill, followed by a motion to approve a European document relating to “Commission Work Programme 2015”, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 10 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Deregulation Bill, followed by a motion to approve statutory instruments relating to counter-terrorism, followed by a motion to approve a European document relating to subsidiarity and proportionality and the Commission’s relations with national Parliaments.

Wednesday 11 March—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Democratic Unionist party—subject to be announced—followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 12 March—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 March—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall on 5 March will be a general debate on planning and the national planning policy framework.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House.

Monday and Tuesday are estimates days, and we shall have a chance to scrutinise Government waste, but the form of the debates will allow us only to scratch the surface of those overspends. Does the Leader of the House agree that rather than three days being allocated for debate, the estimates process needs to be made much more rigorous? Will he support our plans for a yearly session of budget questions to each Department, so that Secretaries of State can be held to account directly for their spending decisions?

Yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) described what seemed to be a worrying case of the blatant misuse of public resources for party-political purposes. After she had passed an e-mail from a concerned constituent to the Prime Minister, her constituent received a party-political reply from No. 10 featuring propaganda about the Conservative Party manifesto. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether party-political letters are being prepared at public expense and civil service neutrality is being undermined, or whether correspondence intended for the Prime Minister is being passed directly to the Conservative party? Will he tell us why this seems to be a developing theme with this Government, with millions of letters to small businesses on No. 10 headed paper filled with Tory propaganda, Government announcements conveniently located in marginal seats, the Prime Minister and Chancellor travelling the country on public money on their “long-term economic scam tour” and the unexplained 22% rise in the Government’s external communications bill just as the election is approaching? Will the Leader of the House also arrange for an urgent statement from the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General on these disturbing developments?

Today, we have had the last set of quarterly migration figures before the election and it is clear that the Prime Minister’s pledge to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands is now in tatters. Instead of net migration’s being reduced, it is now higher than it was at the start of this Parliament and illegal immigration and exploitation are getting worse. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Home Secretary on the huge failure in her Department?

Figures released this week show that the number of people on zero-hours contracts has soared, but in this place we have had the sorry sight of the Conservative party defending the right of its MPs to earn millions of pounds on the side. Our motion yesterday was a sensible solution to the widening gap between the rules we have in this place and the standards the public expect of us. In a democracy, when we are out of step with public opinion we must change. The Government voted against banning paid directorships and consultancies, so I want to ask the Leader of the House whether his party is ready to contemplate any form of change.

I have been reading an interview this morning with the Prime Minister in woman&home magazine. In it, he praised his wife and said that behind every great man there is a great woman. Surely he meant that behind every great man there is a very surprised woman.

I am getting a bit worried, Mr Speaker. During questions yesterday, the Prime Minister boasted of how successfully he combines his job as Prime Minister with being the Member of Parliament for West Oxfordshire. That must be easy, because the constituency of West Oxfordshire does not even exist. Last week, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) knocked on the door of a local resident claiming that he was their MP, but was greeted by the wife of my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love), who pointed out that he was in fact canvassing in the wrong constituency. I do not know about second jobs, but perhaps they should pay a bit more attention to their first ones. It is of course possible that they both just had a mind blank, like the leader of the Green party, who was involved in an eco-friendly car crash at the LBC studios on Tuesday. I gather that following her interview the Green party has joined the Conservative party in campaigning to be excluded from the leaders’ debates.

Although some Government members do not seem to know quite where their constituencies are, the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) appears to have left his for another planet entirely. He has been formulating the new Conservative health policy and not content with wasting £3 billion on a top-down reorganisation of the NHS, he told a journal this week that the way to take the huge pressure off doctors is astrology. He claimed that it is a useful diagnostic tool, enabling us to see strengths and weaknesses via the birth chart. It is unclear whether he thinks that the Chancellor would have met his deficit reduction targets if only he had not broken that mirror.

One person losing his constituency by choice is the Leader of the House. Asked at the weekend why he was leaving Parliament, he replied, “I’ve been Foreign Secretary and I’m determined not to be Prime Minister.” If I may say so, that goes some way to explaining his time as Leader of the Opposition.

[Mr Hague]

As ever, I am grateful for the questions from the hon. Lady. It shows what a broad party we are that we welcome views from all parts of the galaxy, as she has just demonstrated. On the question of what is behind every great man, I have always thought that behind every great man is an astonished mother-in-law, so that is a further refinement of that phrase. I can assure her that the Prime Minister knows where his constituency is and it is of course in west Oxfordshire even though that might not be its name. It would be wise, of course, for all candidates from all parties to know the boundaries of their constituencies for the general election.

On the so-called car crash interview of the leader of the Green party, I think she has been taking lessons from the shadow Chancellor, who has given a series of disastrous interviews in which he has managed to fall out with his own window cleaner, quite apart from anything else. I have previously put the hon. Lady forward for her party leadership, but I really think she ought to consider being the shadow Chancellor in the coming general election campaign, because a shadow Cabinet member has said that if the shadow Chancellor

“carries on behaving like this he is not unassailable…He has complete contempt for colleagues. He’s not a team player.”

The hon. Lady is a team player and she could replace him. I think she would do a much better job than he has done. Indeed, Labour might not then need to bring back Lord Prescott to the front line of the campaign, which in any election campaign is a sure sign of desperation.

Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that, as part of a wider regulatory framework for hon. Members’ second jobs, from the start of the next Parliament no hon. Members should be permitted to hold paid directorships or consultancies.

I wonder whether the Leader of the House could indicate—he could even shout over the Dispatch Box—before I begin my speech whether, in the light of the attempts by the new chair of the parliamentary Labour party to give the Prime Minister what he said he wanted at Prime Minister’s questions today, it is his intention not to move his amendment to today’s motion.

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

I will most certainly move the Government amendment today. It is an excellent amendment. It is not my role to facilitate the Opposition’s making up their policy as they go along throughout the afternoon.

[Ms Eagle]

I want to make it clear that we are actually trying to facilitate what the Prime Minister said he wanted during Prime Minister’s questions. We are not making up our policy as we go along; we are trying to include all views in it. It is in that spirit that I want to open the debate and move the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, which proposes that this House bans MPs from holding paid directorships or consultancies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Angela Eagle]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

Perhaps the hon. Lady could clarify that.

[Ms Eagle]

To make it clear again, the parliamentary Labour party will change its rules and its standing orders so that from the start of the next Parliament no Labour MP will have remunerated directorships or consultancies. All our candidates and all our existing Members of Parliament will have to change their arrangements in order to comply with this change of rules. Will the right hon. Gentleman now commit to his party doing the same?

[Mr Hague]

No, as is very clear from my speech. I have made the point that the Committee on Standards in Public Life made. The hon. Lady has said what the Labour party will do in the next Parliament, but I hope she will admit that she has to deal with the points I have been making about how to define these responsibilities, because they are not dealt with at the moment. There is no clear answer from the Opposition even about what their policy is.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business, not for next week but for the week commencing 23 February—[Interruption]—yes, the next parliamentary week—will be as follows:

Monday 23 February—Remaining stages of the Serious Crime Bill [Lords]. I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement following the European Council.

Tuesday 24 February—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill, followed by consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the House of Commons Commission Bill, followed by motions relating to Procedure Committee reports on business in Westminster Hall, Queen’s and Prince Of Wales’s consent and e-petitions, followed by a general debate on mental health and unemployment. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 25 February—Opposition day (18th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

Thursday 26 February—Statement on the publication of the fourth report from the Culture, Media And Sport Committee on the future of the BBC, followed by debate on a motion relating to Equitable Life, followed by a general debate on epilepsy. The Select Committee statement and subjects for debate were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 27 February—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 2 March will include:

Monday 2 March—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on Devolution in England: The Case for Local Government, followed by a debate on the next Defence and Security Review Part Two: NATO. Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Devolution in England: The Case for Local Government, 1st Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, HC 503, and the Government response; Towards the next Defence and Security Review Part Two: NATO, 3rd Report from the Defence Committee, HC 358, and the Government response, HC 755.]

Tuesday 3 March—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, followed by a debate on children’s and adolescents’ mental health and child and adolescent mental health services. Further details will be given in the Official Report. At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

[The details are as follows: Support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system, 4th Report from the Work and Pensions Committee, HC 720 of Session 2013-14; Children’s and adolescents’ mental health and CAMHS, 3rd Report from the Health Committee, HC 342, and the Government response.]

Wednesday 4 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipations And Adjustments) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill, followed by an Opposition day (unallotted half-day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

Thursday 5 March— Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 March—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the remainder of February and for 2 March will be:

Monday 23 February—General debate on an e-petition relating to ending non-stun slaughter to promote animal welfare.

Thursday 26 February—General debate on low-carbon electricity generation.

Monday 2 March—General debate on an e-petition relating to Harvey’s law.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the post-recess business.

On Tuesday, the Standards Committee published a review of the standards system in the Commons, led by the lay members. We need radical action to restore trust in our political system, so I thank the Committee for the report, which contains some sensible recommendations. Will the Leader of the House set out how he intends to take the report forward, and will he tell me if he will act on my suggestion and remove the Government majority on the Committee to address concerns about the Government protecting their own?

Yesterday’s report from Sir Robert Francis revealed that nearly a quarter of NHS staff have experienced bullying or harassment—a problem that is all too prevalent in other workplaces across the country too. Given that the Government were quick to welcome the Francis report but have made it their mission to make people pay to access employment rights and protection from bullying and arbitrary treatment everywhere else, may we have a debate on the protection that Britain’s workers deserve against bullying at work? May we especially have a debate about the 60% fall in employment tribunal cases since the Government introduced steep payments for access to justice in the workplace?

Yesterday we learned that a string of Tory donors banked with the Swiss arm of HSBC, which has been caught red-handed facilitating tax abuse. Since the Prime Minister became leader of his party, those donors have given him £5 million and HSBC’s chairman, Lord Green, was appointed a Minister in the Government after the scandal was public knowledge, with no questions asked about his oversight of this rogue bank. Does that not say everything about this Government?

On the Government’s own estimate, uncollected taxes rose by a massive £34 billion last year. Their sweetheart Swiss tax deal is full of holes and has brought in less than a third of what they promised, and they have cut taxes for millionaires and hedge funds, which have given them £47 million since the Prime Minister became leader.

With the election looming, our shameless Prime Minister travelled to the British Chambers of Commerce to steal a TUC slogan and suddenly declare that “Britain needs a pay rise”. Yet this is the first Government since 1874 who have left people worse off at the end of the Parliament than they were at the beginning. While he was there, he even decided to channel Lord Kinnock, but I would have used a different speech: “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible Tory pre-election promises. They’re pickled into a rigid soundbite, a code, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Tory Government—a Tory Government!—hiring chauffeur-driven limos to scuttle round Davos handing out huge tax breaks to its own donors.”

The Prime Minister has reportedly told the Cabinet that he is fed up of this zombie Government and that he wants Ministers to get back to work. Most appear to have responded by suddenly dumping hundreds of statutory instruments on the Order Paper, but the invisible man—the Tory Chief Whip—has responded in his own unique style. On a day when he failed to show up in Parliament—the day before Parliament adjourned five hours early—he gave a speech on the “myth” of the zombie Parliament. His key evidence was an increase in urgent questions under this Government. But, Mr Speaker, you grant urgent questions and you grant them when the Government are avoiding scrutiny.

I read this morning that the Chief Whip has literally been back-seat driving, but not at the Department for Education: he has been taking vanity trips in his Jaguar to travel the 400 yards between Parliament and No. 10. He drove teachers round the bend, he has put this place on the road to nowhere, and his Government hold the record for the most U-turns. He certainly will not be allowed anywhere near our magenta battle bus.

On Monday night, the Conservative black and white ball raised millions of pounds and gave a whole new meaning to the term “by-election”. According to the Daily Mail, the Prime Minister partied with the kings and queens of sleaze, including a porn baron, the owner of a strip club and the boss of Ann Summers. Perhaps they should have changed their theme to black, white and a little blue. This year, in a doomed bid to limit the PR disaster, they banned ostentatious displays of tuxedos and champagne, but they did still auction a 500-bird pheasant and partridge shoot for tens of thousands of pounds; a bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher for £210,000; and, hilariously, a holiday in Cobblers Cove.

I have been inspecting the auction lots and if I had more money than sense I could have bought shoe shopping with the Home Secretary or a personalised cartoon from the Leader of the House’s private collection, where he is depicted as a “bionic babe”. Perhaps he could tell us what that went for. I could also have paid to take on the welfare Secretary in an endurance race across hills, woods, streams, hedges and hay bales. Surely I would be certain of winning that one, because, judging by his welfare reforms, that man has no hope of finishing anything.

I gather that the Liberal Democrats are organising their own fundraiser, too: instead of an auction, they are going to sell off their principles to the highest bidder.

[Mr Hague]

I am always grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. She asked about the Standards Committee report. The decision on it is primarily one for the House itself, but the Government strongly support the need for the highest standards in public life. We welcome the report, which follows the inquiry chaired by one of the independent, lay members of the Standards Committee. There are now two reports from the Standards Committee that we need to consider and debate. We will seek an opportunity in due course to provide time to debate this report, and we will then set out the Government’s view on how the Committee’s conclusions can be taken forward.

The hon. Lady raised a variety of other matters, including that the Chief Whip has the use of a car. She has seen that, as we all have, in the newspapers this morning. I think one newspaper report referred to the Chief Whip as a former Minister or ex-Minister, which shows a certain limited understanding on the part of the journalists about the role of the Chief Whip in the British Government. He is most certainly a Minister, and he remains entitled to the use of a car.

The hon. Lady said that the House rose five hours early the other night, but there was a time when Oppositions used to debate the benefits uprating order, the pneumoconiosis compensation regulations, the mesothelioma payments regulations or the guaranteed minimum pensions increase order. They were all before the House on Monday, and the Opposition chose barely to debate them. That is why the House rose five hours early.

The hon. Lady asked about the cartoon of me as the “bionic babe”. I do not know how much it went for, but since it is 38 years old, I had a lot more hair in the cartoon than I can display in the House today, so it is certainly a collectors’ item.

The hon. Lady said that the Conservative party received £5 million from certain donors, but she neglected to mention that since the Leader of the Opposition was elected, the Labour party has received £35 million from trade unions. Of the Labour candidates selected since then, 60% have union links and half of them are from Unite. There is only one party in this country in which policies are purchased, and that is the Labour party. There is no doubt about that.

On tax avoidance, under the rules left by Labour, thousands of the richest home buyers did not pay stamp duty—they now do; foreigners did not pay any capital gains tax—they now do; and private equity managers paid lower tax rates than their cleaners—we have got rid of that. The previous Government left behind a terrible mess of tax loopholes that this Government have now closed.

With the addition of the £100 billion in extra revenue as a result of action on tax avoidance and evasion, not only are the Government finances stronger, but it has been another good week for the British economy, which Labour Members do not like to raise and about which they do not like to ask for debates. There was strong manufacturing growth in January, there is an increased growth forecast from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has just announced £5 billion of road and rail investment for the midlands. The hon. Lady criticised the Prime Minister for going to the British Chambers of Commerce conference, but it is no wonder that the Leader of the Opposition hid in his office while the conference took place just a few hundred yards away. They would have to hide him from 60 million people to have a real hope of winning the general election in May.

The hon. Lady knows the confidence I have in her. I call for her to have more control over her colleagues. She would not have offended the country’s nuns on television a week ago. If she had been in charge of the biggest campaign on women’s issues ever launched by the Labour party, she would not have led it from a 17-seater minibus. In the week of “Fifty Shades of Grey”, it is 50 shades of pink embarrassment for Labour Members.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 9 February—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-Rating Order 2015 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2015, followed by motions relating to the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payment Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 and the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment Of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2015.

Tuesday 10 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, followed by consideration of Lords Amendments to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Wednesday 11 February—Opposition day (17th allotted day). There will be a debate entitled “Labour’s job guarantee”, followed by a debate on tax avoidance. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Thursday 12 February—Debate on a motion relating to pubs and planning legislation, followed by general debate on the destruction and looting of historic sites in Syria and Iraq, followed by general debate on the mental health and well-being of Londoners. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 February—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 23 February will include:

Monday 23 February—Remaining stages of the Serious Crime Bill [Lords].

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 12 February will be:

Thursday 12 February—General debate on effect of national infrastructure projects on local redevelopment.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I welcome the publication today of the House of Commons Commission Bill, which will implement the recommendations of the Governance Committee’s report. Will he confirm that it is his intention to ensure that this legislation is on the statute book prior to Dissolution on 30 March? If that is his intention, may I assure him of our co-operation and support?

Yesterday we had two vital statements on the inquiry into child sexual abuse and Rotherham, and as a result our Opposition day debates were severely curtailed. Given that the Leader of the House has to make such a superhuman effort to fill the Government’s paltry programme of business every week, will he grant Her Majesty’s Opposition a further half day to make up for it?

I am sure we all enjoyed the first episode of Michael Cockerell’s documentary “Inside the Commons” on Tuesday. I think all right hon. and hon. Members will agree that it was a beautifully shot, illuminating depiction of life in this place, and I look forward to the remaining episodes with only a little trepidation. I must say that after a mere 23 years in this place, I had not realised until I watched the documentary that until very recently Members were entitled to free snuff. I feel that I have missed out. I was especially struck by the Prime Minister’s description of this place as half church, half museum and half school. All I can say is that this place certainly does not look like any school I ever went to, and Eton should clearly get a better maths teacher.

This week marks the start of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history month when we celebrate progress on LGBT rights while recognising that we must do more to banish bigotry and discrimination. This week my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the shadow Education Secretary, launched Labour’s comprehensive plan to tackle the baleful legacy of section 28 and end the scourge of homophobic bullying in our schools. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on how we can make LGBT rights a reality in this country and around the world?

On Tuesday we will debate motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, and nothing could better illustrate the huge gap between this Prime Minister’s rhetoric and his record. Before the election he said that a Conservative Government would not cut any front-line services. Five years later we have almost 17,000 fewer front-line police officers, 9,000 fewer front-line NHS staff, and the 10 most deprived areas in the UK have suffered cuts 16 times greater than the leafy Tory shires. Before he was elected, the Prime Minister promised that education would be a big priority, but his previous Education Secretary managed to alienate everyone he came across. Even the Conservative-led Education Committee has concluded that there is no evidence that the Government’s ideological dash to create academies has made any difference to standards whatsoever. In my own constituency on the Wirral, 19 of the 21 secondary schools are facing serious financial strain, and this week we learned that the Tories’ solution is to slash the schools budget by 10% if they win the election, disguised by the Prime Minister in a speech last week as “flat cash”.

The Prime Minister has broken so many promises that he has created a whole new medical condition—Camnesia. Cutting the deficit, not the NHS? Camnesia. The greenest Government ever? Camnesia. Balancing the books by the end of this Parliament? Camnesia. His condition is now so bad that he is officially even worse than the Liberal Democrats at keeping his promises.

The Prime Minister laughably asserted yesterday that this election is a choice between competence and chaos, but he failed to notice the chaos around him. We have a Tory Chief Whip who still pines after his old job and a Lib Dem Chief Whip so exercised by this Government’s legislative agenda that he is reportedly falling asleep in Cabinet. We have a Work and Pensions Secretary whose flagship benefit reform is so behind schedule that, at the current rate, it will take 1,571 years to complete. We have a universities Minister who is so out of touch that he is telling students not to worry about debt because three years of tuition will cost them only 13,846 cups of posh coffee. Using that coffee currency, I have estimated that the Government have missed their borrowing target by 64 billion salted-caramel lattes.

[Mr Hague]

As ever, we have enjoyed the hon. Lady’s questions. In fact, I was having a look, as so many people are, at the betting odds for who will be the next leader of the Labour party. I must congratulate her, because it turns out that she has now entered the list at Ladbrokes at 100:1. Admittedly, that is only a start—the same level as Ken Livingstone and Lord Mandelson—but I might fancy a flutter on the prospect, because we know that we can laugh with her, whereas there are one or two of her colleagues whom we can only laugh at. I wish her well in moving up the odds.

The hon. Lady asked about the House of Commons Commission Bill, which has indeed been published today. It is certainly my intention to have it on the statute book by Dissolution. It has a great deal of cross-party support, so I hope that we can arrange Second Reading and other stages soon after the February recess.

There are several more Opposition days to come in this Parliament. We make a genuine effort to avoid having many statements on Opposition days. I think the House understands that yesterday’s statements from the Home Secretary and the Communities and Local Government Secretary were highly important, and indeed that it was urgent that they came to the House as soon as the report on Rotherham was available. Occasionally that happens on Opposition days, and it is unavoidable, but that does not mean we can create additional Opposition days; it means we try to avoid it on other occasions.

Like the hon. Lady, I enjoyed the BBC’s documentary “Inside the Commons”. My comprehensive school did not look anything like this place either, and I would have known that three halves add up to more than one. On the other hand, forgetting that three halves add up to more than one is a bit better than forgetting the entire Budget deficit, which was the performance of the Leader of the Opposition.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of LGBT rights. Indeed, the Education Secretary has just announced a £2 million fund to help tackle homophobic bullying in schools. There is a good case for a debate on these issues, although it is most likely to be successful as a Back-Bench business debate. I would certainly support such a debate taking place.

The hon. Lady asked about public services. It is a common mistake for the Opposition to think of public services in terms of inputs, rather than outputs and what is actually achieved. For instance, over nearly five years we have seen crime fall by a fifth, we have seen a huge increase in the number of children in schools rated good or outstanding, and we have seen satisfaction with the health service increase—except in Wales, where it has gone down. That is what matters to people: the actual performance and achievements of public services.

I hope that in the debates that the Opposition have called for next week we will be able to look at the recent economic good news, because just in the past week we have seen construction output growth rebound, manufacturing growth accelerate, and consumer confidence make a large jump, and the car sales figures announced this morning are up 7% on the year. The real jobs guarantee—they have a debate next week on a jobs guarantee—is that sort of success, as is the growth of 1.75 million jobs in this country over the past four and a half years. At least in that debate the Opposition will be able to tell us what advice they have received on jobs from Bill Somebody and their business supporters, or Fred Somebody, or Joe Somebody—or just somebody. It is not an age thing on the part of the shadow Chancellor that he could not remember the names of any business supporters; it is a being totally out of touch with job and business creation thing.

Even by Labour Members’ own chaotic standards, they have had a special week, with university vice-chancellors attacking their fees policy, saying that it would

“damage the economy…and set back work on widening access”;

with business people who were Ministers in the previous Government attacking their attitude to business and wealth creation; and with their own peer, Lord Glasman, saying they need bold leadership but have got the Leader of the Opposition. Nothing could better demonstrate the real choice between competence on this side of the House and chaos on the other.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 2 February—Second Reading of the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill, followed by motion to approve the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedules 4 and 5 and Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2015.

Tuesday 3 February—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Insurance Bill [Lords], followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to mitochondrial donation, followed by general debate on rural phone and broadband connectivity. The subject for this debate has been determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 4 February—Opposition Day (16th Allotted Day). There will be a debate on 18-25 apprenticeships, followed by a debate on electoral registration. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Thursday 5 February—Debate on a motion relating to building sustainable GP services, followed by general debate on improving cancer outcomes. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 February—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 9 February will include:

Monday 9 February—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-Rating Order 2015 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2015, followed by motions relating to the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payment (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 and the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment Of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2015.

Tuesday 10 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Wednesday 11 February—Opposition Day (17th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion including on a debate entitled “Labour’s job guarantee”—[Laughter.] I kept a straight face while reading that out, Mr Speaker. That will be followed, if necessary, by consideration of Lords amendments.

Thursday 12 February—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 February—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 5 February will be:

Thursday 5 February—Debate on the fourth report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on voter engagement in the UK, followed by debate on the first report from the Work and Pensions Committee on employment and support allowance and work capability assessments.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and for giving us a hint of what might follow thereafter. This week, we marked Holocaust memorial day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The sheer scale of the evil perpetrated by the Nazis almost defies belief. Does the Leader of the House agree that the testimony of the survivors will help us to ensure that that obscenity is never repeated? Will he join me in welcoming plans for a new holocaust memorial in this country that will honour the memory of all the victims? Does he also agree that this anniversary must motivate us to redouble our efforts to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice, including racism, homophobia and religious hatred, which are on the rise across the world today?

I notice one thing missing from this week’s business is any reference to plain packaging for cigarettes. After the Government had supported it, the House then backed it. The Government then changed their mind and opposed it, but last week the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) U-turned on the U-turn late at night in an Adjournment debate, presumably when she thought tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby was not looking. Given the reports that more than half of Conservative Back Benchers are willing to rebel against the Government and oppose plain packaging—

[Ms Eagle]

That has just been confirmed. Given those reports, will the Leader of the House acknowledge that he is going to have to rely once again on Labour votes to pass the measure? Will he also confirm that he will bring this debate to the Floor of the House before Dissolution?

I notice that, just in the nick of time, the Government yesterday appointed someone to review the impact of their gag on free speech in the run-up to the election. But the man they have chosen to review the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 is a Conservative peer who did not once vote against the Government on the Bill and who voted with them on some of its worst aspects. Yesterday, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the deputy leader of the Labour party, was forced to write to the Culture Secretary about the disgraceful and overt political bias of another Conservative peer, the supposedly impartial deputy chair of Ofcom. This morning I have been reading about the extent of this Government’s pork barrel politics, abusing public money to prop up their candidates in marginal seats, and refusing to admit how much they are spending on it. So will the Leader of the House now arrange to publish full details of Government spending in marginal seats? Will he also arrange for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary on this Government’s widespread neglect of the Nolan principles for public appointments, as these appointments seem to have little to do with impartiality or integrity and much more to do with membership of the Conservative party? Given that Ofcom has today said that Baroness Noakes’s comments were clearly inappropriate, will the Leader of the House explain why she is still in her job?

Yesterday, we saw the Prime Minister refusing to acknowledge that all the hospital units he stood outside and promised to save before the last election have been closed or downgraded while he has been Prime Minister. More than 1,000 ambulances a day are now queuing outside accident and emergency units, overstretched hospitals are cancelling 1,500 operations a week and all the Government have done is make it harder for hospitals to declare major incidents. The Tories’ pledge to protect the NHS is now in tatters. They promised they would put patients first, but instead they gave us a £3 billion top-down reorganisation and an NHS in crisis. They promised they would cut the deficit not the NHS, but borrowing has soared and they have missed every target they ever set themselves on the economy. They promised a recovery for everyone, but they gave us queues at food banks, record insecurity at work and tax cuts for their millionaire mates. I am not the only one who is glad there are only 98 days left of them.

This week, the Liberal Democrat Transport Minister, Baroness Kramer, turned up in Taipei on a rail mission with a very special gift. Local journalists looked on in horror as she gave the city’s mayor a watch, which is taboo in local culture because it suggests that the recipient’s time is running out. She should have given it to her party leader. The mayor was less than impressed, saying:

“I can just re-gift it to someone else or take it to a metal dealer and sell it for cash.”

I just wish we could get as much use out of other Lib Dem offerings. Someone else who has been struggling with timepieces is the invisible man, the Tory Chief Whip. In Cabinet, he inadvertently interrupted the Chancellor with a sudden musical outburst. His Cabinet colleagues looked on in horror as Beyoncé’s latest hit began blasting from the Chief Whip’s new smartwatch. Any watch that is smart enough to play Beyoncé should surely be able to tell him when business questions is.

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely share the sentiments expressed by the hon. Lady about the commemoration of the holocaust and the importance of the testimony of survivors. We had an excellent presentation at the Cabinet meeting this week from Mr Mick Davis, who chaired the commission on commemorating the holocaust and came up with excellent proposals, which the Government have adopted and which have support from all across the House. She is absolutely right about the need to redouble and intensify all our efforts to counter not only anti-Semitism, but racism, homophobia and religious intolerance and hatred of every kind.

The hon. Lady asked about parliamentary business and plain packaging for cigarettes. I explained the position on that last week. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) announced that the Government are committed to laying regulations. These draft regulations will be laid in good time before the end of the Parliament. The regulations cannot be made until after 2 March, under the EU technical standards directive. To correct what I said last week, they can be laid before then but they cannot be made until after 2 March. So that is the constraint.

The hon. Lady asked about spending. A statement will be made later today about local growth deals, and the Minister responsible for those will be showing how the Government work with local authorities across the country to spend money a great deal more productively in supporting local infrastructure and local economic growth than ever happened under the previous Government.

The hon. Lady asked about hospitals. Of course health has been extensively debated in the House over recent weeks. As of today, we have almost 9,500 more doctors and 6,300 more nurses since the last election. Rather inconveniently for her argument, the survey of satisfaction with the health service was published today showing that satisfaction has gone up to 65%, which is the second highest level in 30 years, and that it has fallen in Wales, which is something that the Labour party is often unwilling to discuss. We will doubtlessly talk about health further before the dissolution of Parliament.

The hon. Lady talked about the gift of a watch in Taipei, but the Leader of the Opposition received an even greater gift this week, which was the gift of being defended by the noble Lord Kinnock. That is a sure sign of impending disaster. Lord Kinnock’s belief that the Labour party is following the right election strategy is a great comfort to all of us on the Government Benches, and we hope that he will express it regularly. The hon. Lady neglected to ask about the good news, which is that, at 2.6%, we have the fastest economic growth in the G7.

The background today is one of collapsing credibility on the Labour Benches after a former Labour Health Secretary said that

“Labour’s position on the health service becomes almost an emblem for Labour showing an unwillingness”

to learn. When the Leader of the Opposition tried to weaponise the NHS, he never expected that it would be a boomerang that would come back and hit him so hard.

Added to that collapse in credibility, the Labour website still has a “freeze that bill” page. I can give the House more details. Gas and electricity bills under Labour’s energy plan will be frozen until 2017. There is even a little calculator to work out how much a consumer can save, which is presumably now showing negative results for everybody. I might try it out to see what the results are. That is the sort of chaos that we are seeing. There has to be something desperate about casting around for a future coalition with parties that want to break up the United Kingdom, and something intensely desperate about doing so with parties that do not actually vote in this House, such as Sinn Fein. That is the very definition of desperation, and that is what the Opposition have reached this week.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

I should like to make a statement about next week’s business, which will be:

Monday 26 January—Remaining stages of the Infrastructure Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 27 January—Second Reading of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill, followed by debate on a motion relating to accommodation for young people in care. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 28 January—Opposition day (15th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 29 January—Debate on a motion relating to the Iraq inquiry, followed by general debate on financial support available for restoration of opencast coal sites. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 30 January—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 2 February will include:

Monday 2 February—Second Reading of the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill, followed by motion to approve the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedules 4 and 5 and Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2015.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his announcement of next week’s business. I thank him, too, for his announcement earlier that he has asked the Clerk to draft the necessary motion to allow the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford),which repeals this Government’s catastrophic top-down reorganisation of the NHS, to proceed finally to Committee. Since this Parliament is rapidly running out of time, can he clarify when that is now likely to happen?

The Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) to ban wild animals in circuses is scheduled, yet again, to have its Second Reading debate at this time tomorrow, after Conservative Members have made every effort to talk it out. A ban has widespread support across the country, it was backed by the House in 2011 and no less a person than the Prime Minister promised to introduce it in this Parliament. Will the Leader of the House now allow the Prime Minister’s promise to be delivered by granting the Bill Government time?

On Monday we shall debate the remaining stages of the Infrastructure Bill. Last week I raised the last-minute tabling of 60 pages of badly drafted Government amendments relating to the electronic communications code and asked for more time to debate them, which the Leader of the House refused. Last night the farce continued as the Government dramatically withdrew all the amendments. Can the Leader of the House tell us what on earth is going on with this farrago of a Bill? Is this his definition of competence, or is it, once again, total chaos?

We welcomed yesterday’s top-line figures on jobs, but for millions of families up and down the country, there is a grim reality lurking beneath the headlines. More and more people are unable to obtain the hours they need at work in order to pay the bills. Real wages have fallen by record amounts, and 5 million people are being paid less than the living wage. That shortfall in wages is being made up by hundreds of millions of pounds of extra spending on tax credits. Will the Leader of the House accept that a low-wage economy is not just bad for hard-working people but bad for public finances, and will he arrange for an urgent debate, in Government time, on the low-wage economy that the Government parties have sustained?

As Mr Speaker noted yesterday, we shall be celebrating a number of important anniversaries this year, including, this week, the 750th anniversary of the de Montfort Parliament. Let me take this opportunity to thank the members of the Speakers’ Advisory Committee for the 2015 Anniversaries for all their hard work on Parliament in the Making. I particularly thank the House of Commons Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff), and—obviously—Mr Speaker himself.

Mr Speaker was right yesterday when he said that we must remember our history, but, when we look back at the de Montfort Parliament, it seems there are some lessons that the Conservatives have failed to learn even after 750 years. If you destabilise your leader with defections, and if you keep arguing with Europe, you will be in for a bloody end before the year is out. Simon de Montfort was a rebel leader who held the King hostage and governed in his place—no wonder he is an inspiration to the many Conservative MPs who have similar ambitions.

The Prime Minister has been brushing up on his history this week, in order to avoid a repeat of his failure, on prime-time US television. to know what “Magna Carta” actually means, but I am afraid that he bestowed an even worse embarrassment on the nation by insisting that the President calls him “bro”. Yesterday he failed a test on the radio to establish whether he was as cool as President Obama. I think we could all have told him what the outcome of that would be—it was fairly obvious before he began—but he did say that he enjoyed a Nando’s. That is hardly surprising; we all know that the Prime Minister is very partial to chicken.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister proposed his own constitutional change this week. He has decided that he would like to scrap Prime Minister’s Questions. Apparently, they are just “not a good use of his time”, and he would rather be

“out of the Westminster bubble”.

The Deputy Prime Minister keeps fleeing Westminster, so I thought that I had better look at what he has been up to in his own constituency, and in doing so I came across a leaflet. Alongside the obligatory dodgy Liberal Democrat bar chart, this leaflet contains—strangely—two photographs of the leader of the Labour Party, and absolutely none of the local MP, who happens to be the Deputy Prime Minister. In fact, I cannot see any mention of him at all. Moreover—this is the oddest part yet—it claims that the leader of Labour Party

“wants you to vote Conservative”.

It should be pretty obvious by now that the person who has been voting Conservative for five years is actually the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Mr Hague]

As usual, I thank the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) for her questions. She asked about several Bills. As I made clear earlier, during Question Time, we will table a motion to allow the appointment of members of a Committee to consider the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). Of course, a Committee of Selection will need to meet in order to make those appointments, but the Committee will then be able to do its work.

On the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill, I certainly support that Bill and the Government do too, but it would be wrong for the Government to pick Bills out of the private Members’ Bill process and give them Government time. It would be an entirely different process if Governments did that, so the Bill will have to take its normal chances.

Last week the hon. Lady complained that amendments had been submitted on the communications code amendments, but now she is not happy that they are not going to be proceeded with. I think there is no pleasing her on this subject. Opposition Members asked me to provide additional time for the Infrastructure Bill so these amendments could be discussed, but it is a good job I did not provide the additional time because the Government do not now propose to add the amendments to the Bill. The Minister responsible in Committee, the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), mentioned earlier that the Department had listened to some of the objections, so the Government need to consult further.

The hon. Lady mentioned the commemoration of anniversaries, which Mr Speaker informed us about yesterday. I was proud that one of the anniversaries he referred to was the 20th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which I took through Parliament and which I regard as my main achievement in 26 years in Parliament—some may say it is my only achievement, but that is not how I see it. I am proud that that Act was mentioned and I join in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff) and Mr Speaker for the work they have done on the commemorations this year.

The hon. Lady talked about the lesson of 750 years of history being not to destabilise the leader. It might be awkward for Labour Members to embark on that subject, although in their case it is not so much destabilising the leader as that the leader has not stabilised himself in the first place or at any point in his time in office as Leader of the Opposition. The issue is not that the Prime Minister insists that President Obama calls him “bro”; it is that that the word the US Administration use most for the Leader of the Opposition is “who?” The hon. Lady might like to reflect on that instead.

The hon. Lady asked about an interview the Prime Minister gave in the United States, but I have noticed that the Opposition have had a disastrous week in terms of giving interviews. When interviewed by Andrew Neil on Sunday, Labour’s deputy leader was unable to answer questions on where £30 billion of savings were to be found by the Labour party, and the shadow Business Secretary walked out of the Sky News studio when asked questions by the interviewer on subjects he had not been briefed on. I can only say that if we all walked out of interviews when we were asked about things we did not know about in advance, there would not be much politics on television. The hon. Gentleman really needs to get a bit less sensitive. Most of us did not know we were allowed to walk out and have spent several decades valiantly trying to answer the questions, but the shadow Business Secretary has an entirely different approach.

We cannot be lectured on competence by a party that has had those experiences this week and that has now dropped 21 policies since new year’s day. It is now the 22nd day of the month, so that is one policy per day. The Labour party has still been unable to explain about “weaponising” the national health service, and the former Labour mayor of Doncaster has said of the Leader of the Opposition, whom he knows well:

“He is ignorant of the real values of ordinary working-class voters and holds his nose at their lifestyle.”

Also, the Labour party has still had “Freeze that bill” on its website for most of this week, so Labour headquarters is apparently unaware that the nation has moved on—that energy prices are falling, and that a “Freeze that bill” policy is precisely what people do not want when their energy prices are being reduced. Once again, we will not be taking lessons on competence from the Opposition.

The hon. Lady quoted President Obama, so I will finish by quoting him too. Last week he said:

“I would note that Great Britain and the United States are two economies that are standing out at a time when a lot of other countries are having problems, so we must be doing something right.”

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 19 January—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill.

Tuesday 20 January—Opposition day (13th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party on Trident renewal.

Wednesday 21 January—Opposition day (14th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 22 January—Debate on a motion relating to the governance of the House of Commons.

Friday 23 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 26 January will include:

Monday 26 January—Remaining stages of the Infrastructure Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 27 January—Second Reading of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill, followed by a debate on a motion relating to accommodation for young people in care. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 28 January—Opposition day (15th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 29 January—Debate on a motion relating to the Iraq inquiry, followed by a general debate on financial support available for restoration of open-cast coal sites. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 30 January—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the remainder of January will be:

Thursday 22 January—Debate on the third report from the Energy and Climate Change Committee on the green deal, followed by a debate on the first report from the Justice Committee on crime reduction policies.

Thursday 29 January—Debate on the second report from the Home Affairs Select Committee on female genital mutilation, followed by a debate on the second report from the Science and Technology Committee on UK blood safety and the risk of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

[Ms Eagle]

May I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business, including all stages of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill next Monday?

Even those of us who feel that the unelected and supersized Chamber at the other end of the building is in need of more radical reform can welcome this Bill. Prior to the creation of Labour’s senate of the nations and regions, it is only right that the Lords Spiritual should consist of women bishops as well as men.

I also welcome the debate that the Leader of the House has scheduled for next Thursday on the report from the Governance Committee. I hope that the House will not only agree to the recommendations but agree on a timetable for implementing them so that we have a new management system in place before Dissolution. Will the Leader of the House tell the House how this will be accomplished if the motion is carried?

The Committee stage of the Infrastructure Bill is due to conclude upstairs today, and the Leader of the House has announced that we will debate it on Report on 26 January. It is over seven months since consideration of the Bill began in the other place, so will he explain why last Friday 60 pages of amendments reforming the electronic communications code appeared out of nowhere? Why is the drafting of the amendments so bad that mobile phone operators have thrown into doubt the Government’s uncosted deal with them to extend mobile phone coverage? Will he now consider extending the Report stage to give the House the time it needs to improve these badly drafted amendments? Is this yet another example of this Government’s competence, or is it simply more chaos?

Despite repeated Government promises that free speech would be protected, last week the Electoral Commission wrote to a range of political blogs warning them about falling foul of the Government’s lobbying Act. Bishop Harries’ commission on civil society and democratic engagement has said that the law is already having a widespread chilling effect on campaigning by charities and other organisations in the run-up to the general election. When does the Leader of the House intend to put section 39 of the Act into effect, as he has only a few days left? Will he now admit that despite all the false promises from Government Front Benchers, this law is having the effect they desired in silencing criticism of the Government and suppressing healthy democratic debate? Does he accept that the only reasonable thing to do now is to repeal this disgraceful assault on free speech?

The Conservative election campaign continues to lurch from one embarrassment to another. First, we had the fiasco of the German road that, it now turns out, was airbrushed to remove all the potholes. This week the Conservatives have unveiled six election priorities, which, amazingly, make no mention of the NHS.

Such is the Conservatives’ popularity that they have been caught spending tens of thousands of pounds buying their own Facebook friends, and now they are so confident of victory that the Prime Minister is running scared of each and every chance to be held to account in debates. He promised to be interviewed by Bite the Ballot in front of first-time voters, which every other party leader has now done, including leaders of the minor parties, such as the Deputy Prime Minister—even he turned up to his appointment with Bite the Ballot. The Prime Minister, however, has suddenly pulled out, absurdly claiming that of the 111 days left until the election there are

“no dates that would work.”

Then we have the saga of the TV debates. The Prime Minister has been clucking for days that he will not do them without the Greens, but he is actually frightened that he would be in for a roasting. Is not it blindingly obvious that that is a fowl excuse?

The Liberal Democrats are not doing much better. After the Prime Minister rebuked the Tory Chief Whip for messing with his mobile phone in Cabinet, the Chief Secretary decided to take the secretary part of his job very seriously and leapt to reinforce the Prime Minister’s message, pointing out that he too had spotted others using their phones during Cabinet. Doesn’t everyone just love a teacher’s pet?

I think that the Business Secretary is jealous. After being unceremoniously dumped as economic spokesman from the farcical Liberal Democrat cabinet within a Cabinet that is apparently designed to shadow the Cabinet while actually propping up the Cabinet, he has insisted that he is still economic spokesman and that his demotion is just a “minor internal matter.” That sounds like how the Tories refer to the Liberal Democrats.

In just a few hours we will learn who has been nominated for an Oscar, and this year I think us Brits have got at least one in the bag: this Government will win the award for best farce.

[Mr Hague]

I welcome the opening remarks of the shadow Leader of the House: we are united in our support of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill and there will be a good deal of time to debate it next Monday. The allocation of time motion will provide for that, including a four-hour Second Reading debate. I hope it will enjoy the unanimous support of the House. We shall see.

When it comes to the debate on the governance of the House, it will be important for us all to listen to the views of the House. The hon. Lady and I have both signed the motion tabled by the members of the Governance Committee. There is a great deal of support for their recommendations, some of which will require legislation in order to implement them, but the majority of them can be proceeded with very speedily. If the motion is passed, the relevant authorities will be empowered and, in effect, instructed to get on with those actions and the necessary recruitment processes.

On the Infrastructure Bill, the Culture Secretary has been working on a tremendous improvement in mobile phone coverage in this country. The hon. Lady asked for more time on Report to discuss amendments. I might have considered that differently had the Opposition used the time they had asked for and obtained on other Report stages, but they did not do so. For instance, they asked for, and we provided, six days’ debate on the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, including two days on Report, but the House rose early on both of those days by several hours. I think the time we have provided will be adequate to discuss the Infrastructure Bill.

I will look at the point raised by the hon. Lady about section 39 of the transparency of lobbying Act, but some vigorous campaigning is already going on without anybody being silenced in the run-up to the general election campaign.

The shadow Leader of the House mentioned the Government’s competence. I pay tribute to her, as I often do, because at least she can remember what she is meant to be talking about when she comes to the House. However, the Leader of the Opposition is having increasing problems recalling things, including whether he said he would “weaponise” the national health service, despite being asked seven times on television on Sunday and being challenged in this House. He could not remember the main issue—the biggest problem facing the country—in his party conference speech, and now he cannot remember what he said about the issue he has most often raised, which makes us wonder whether he would remember anything he was meant to do if he became Prime Minister of this country or, indeed, what the day was on any particular day. She is clearly in a stronger position.

I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition remembers that he promised to freeze energy prices, and that when he stood at the Dispatch Box only 15 months ago he said:

“Nothing less than a price freeze will do”.—[Official Report, 30 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 912.]

Yesterday, the awful realisation at last dawned on the Opposition that had we had a price freeze when they asked for it, energy prices would not now be falling, as they are. The cheapest energy tariff is now £100 cheaper than it was a year ago, meaning that it would be £100 more expensive had we frozen energy prices when they asked for that. [Interruption.] It is no good Labour Members shaking their heads about wanting a freeze because it is all there in motions they tabled in this House. Such motions demanded nothing other than a freeze, including one on 18 June, which stated:

“That this House notes the policy of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition to freeze energy prices for 20 months”.—[Official Report, 18 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 1185.]

Seven months later, energy prices are falling, which would not have been possible. Yesterday, they decided that a freeze meant a cap, but that was the first time they had done so. From my own experience, I can tell the Leader of the Opposition that reaching for a cap when in difficulty is not always a good idea.

I pointed out last week that the Opposition have dropped 12 policies in under 10 days, and they have now been joined by a 13th policy. The Opposition have started to announce their policies in secret, such as their latest one to carpet the countryside with unnecessary wind turbines if they win the next general election, to which they do not want to give any publicity.

The real story about what has happened this week is one of competence: the World Bank has confirmed that the UK is the fastest-growing G7 economy; UK manufacturing is now performing at levels not seen since 2002; and the pensioner bonds launched today will reward people who have worked hard and saved hard throughout their lives.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next will be:

Monday 12 January—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Stamp Duty Land Tax Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Consumer Rights Bill, followed by a motion to approve a carry-over extension on the Consumer Rights Bill.

Tuesday 13 January—Debate on a motion relating to the charter for budget responsibility, followed by a debate on a motion relating to national policy statement on national networks, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, followed by a motion to approve a carry-over extension on the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, followed by a motion to approve a carry-over extension on the Deregulation Bill.

Wednesday 14 January—Opposition day (12th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 15 January—Debate on a motion relating to contaminated blood, followed by debate on a motion relating to the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 16 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 19 January will include:

Monday 19 January—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 15 January will be:

Thursday 15 January—General debate on national commissioning of NHS specialised services.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. In the aftermath of yesterday’s atrocity in Paris, I add my voice to the many who have already expressed their shock and anger at this attack on democracy and free speech. This House, of course, stands in solidarity with the French people and we send our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of those who were so brutally murdered.

Despite the appalling events of yesterday, I would still like to take this opportunity to wish the whole House a very happy new year and say that I hope the Leader of the House has had a rest over the Christmas period. Judging from the Government’s meagre future business in what is left of this zombie Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman seems to want to extend the period of rest for a few more weeks yet. I hear that the Government Chief Whip, not satisfied with introducing a three-day week for Government Members, has now decided to slim it down to two days for his worried Back Benchers. I suggest that he should be sent as an envoy to the Lords, who this week were forced to debate how to reduce the number of peers attending their House because so many coalition cronies have been crammed into it that it is bursting at the seams. Perhaps a two-day week would be the answer for them too.

Before Christmas, the Governance Committee produced a series of responsible and sensible suggestions and proposals for reforms. It is vital for the new management system to be implemented before the end of this Parliament. I note that the Leader of the House did not announce a date for a debate on the report. Will he confirm that we will consider it very soon, and will he ensure that the House has an opportunity to vote to implement its recommendations rather than merely taking note of them?

The general election campaign seems to have kicked off this week, and I am afraid that the Leader of the House has not had the most auspicious of starts. On Monday he flashed his briefing note at the cameras, and inadvertently revealed secret Tory plans to slash the schools budget after the next election. Perhaps he will now come clean and tell us what cuts that briefing note was trying to hide—or was the Liberal Democrat Education Minister right when he revealed that if the Tories win, they will cut the education budget by a quarter?

At the same press conference, the Chancellor told us that the choice at the general election was between competence and chaos, and on that one issue I actually agree with him. So let us see how the Government are doing on competence. Last year began with severe flooding in the south-west, which they did not even seem to notice until the Somerset levels had been under water for weeks and the hue and cry became too loud to ignore. Then we had the fiasco at the Passport Office when tens of thousands of passport applications were delayed, which caused considerable anxiety and extra cost and ruined many holidays. We have had the ongoing saga of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who has been in denial about the fiasco that is universal credit implementation—now very late and hugely over budget. On the deficit, the Government have missed every target and broken every promise, borrowing £200 billion more than they promised at the start of the current Parliament.

The year has ended with chaos on the railways, and our NHS in crisis. Not content with wasting hundreds of millions on botched rail franchise competitions, the Department for Transport topped even that over Christmas, when thousands of travellers were left stranded, separated from their families and herded around stations like cattle—but the railways Minister toasted the success of rail repairs in her Christmas message, and said she was “chuffed” that there was

“light at the end of the tunnel”.

In the last year, the Government have breached half the service standards that they enshrined in the NHS constitution. In A and E, nearly half a million people have been left waiting more than four hours for treatment—the worst waiting time since records began—while the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are in denial. If all that is the Chancellor’s definition of competence, we have to wonder what on earth chaos would look like.

Will the Leader of the House grant us a debate on the competence of the Government, and, while we are at it, may we also debate the chaos of the coalition election launches? First we had the Tory campaign poster, a barren road to nowhere which the Chancellor stubbornly insisted was

“a British picture, a British road”.

Actually, it turned out to be in Germany, which presumably explains why there were no potholes in it. Then we had the Liberal Democrats promising to be the heart and spine of any future Government. Well, while we are all in favour of organ donation, it is surely impossible to donate something that you do not already possess.

And then we had the Leader of the House and his colleagues, the least exciting five-piece ever to take the stage. Their fan base is in decline, and they are all jostling to be the lead singer—except the Leader of the House, who is leaving the band. It was not so much One Direction as No Direction.

[Mr Hague]

On the solemn note on which the hon. Lady began, I absolutely join her, as will the whole House, in condemnation of yesterday’s terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France are very much in the thoughts of this House and of the British people today. As the Prime Minister has made clear, we will, of course, offer all possible assistance to our colleagues in France. I think this attack will only redouble the determination of people in Britain, France and across the world to defend freedom of speech, because that is clearly what is at stake here.

The hon. Lady said that, despite that, it was appropriate to wish a happy new year. I am not sure why she thought I particularly needed a rest over the new year, but I join in wishing her a happy a new year. It will, however, still be a year for a considerable amount of work in this House. The hon. Lady used the phrase “zombie Parliament”, and I ought to point out that in this Parliament we will actually sit for 734 days, which is more than the 718 days of the five-year Parliament under the last Government, and that in this Session we are considering, including the Bill to be introduced today, 23 Government Bills, compared with 13 main programme Bills under the Labour party in the last Session of the last Parliament. In the penultimate Session of the last Parliament there were 18 Government Bills, whereas there were 20 in this Parliament. I therefore do not think the Opposition have much to crow about in that regard. The Bills we are considering are not only numerous, but they include the Pension Schemes Bill, which is giving people a freedom on retirement that they never enjoyed under any previous Administration, a small business Bill, which is very good for entrepreneurs, and an Infrastructure Bill, which is giving another multi-billion pound boost to our economy, and these are things that the Opposition do not seem to think are necessary or desirable. That is what is happening in this Session of Parliament.

The hon. Lady asked about the very important report on the governance of the House. I certainly intend that that will be debated soon—almost certainly in the week after next, although I have not been able to announce the full business for that week. That will mean that debate can take place after the meeting of the House of Commons Commission, which, as she knows, will also take place that week, on the 19th. I am sure the House will want to make a decision about how to proceed with this, rather than, as she said, just take note of matters. A great deal of work has gone on in the Governance Committee. It has been very good work, as I am sure the House will agree, and we do now need to get on with implementing many of the conclusions of that report.

The hon. Lady asked about various aspects of political campaigning and advertising in the last week, including a road in Germany. We know that what the Opposition would lead us to is the road to Greece—not the road to Germany, but the road to the deficit of more than 10% of GDP that they left us with.

I am happy to read out to the hon. Lady the note that the press noticed me carrying:

“In this Parliament, we’ve shown that we can protect the front line by making the Education budget more efficient and effective…But putting the economy at risk because Ed Miliband doesn’t have an economic plan, Labour would put our schools at risk.”

I am very happy to read that out to her, but I do not think she can lecture us about competence when the rebuttal document from the Opposition to what we said on Monday first of all confused a “million” with a “billion” three separate times, which does not inspire confidence as to how they would make any numbers add up, and asserted that one of their spokesmen was only a Back-Bench peer, the noble Lord Rosser, when he turns out to have been on their Front Bench for five years now without them even being aware of it in their own party headquarters. So telling us about competence after such a document may not be a very appropriate way to start the new year. Labour has also been forced to drop 12 policies in their entirety over the course of this week. It is too long a list for me to go through them all—

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next year?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for the week commencing 5 January 2015, and therefore next year, will be:

Monday 5 January—Second Reading of the Serious Crime Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 6 January—Remaining stages of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill (Day 1).

Wednesday 7 January—Conclusion of the remaining stages of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.



Thursday 8 January—Debate on a motion relating to higher education funding, followed by debate on a motion relating to Gibraltar. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.



Friday 9 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 12 January 2015 will include:

Monday 12 January—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Stamp Duty Land Tax Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Consumer Rights Bill, followed by motion to approve a carryover extension on the Consumer Rights Bill.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 8 January will be:

Thursday 8 January—Debate on the first report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on winter floods 2013-14.

I would also like to inform the House that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced the date of the Budget statement. It will be on Wednesday 18 March.

May I take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, and all right hon. and hon. Members a very merry Christmas? I am sure that the whole House will join me in recognising the outstanding work that goes on to support the House throughout the year. I thank all staff who work in the service of the House and wish them a restful and peaceful Christmas and a happy new year. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the first week back—a task that he will have just 10 more times before Dissolution in March and before he bows out after a quarter of a century as an MP. We will all be sad to see him go, even though he may be mightily relieved.

I welcome yesterday’s unanimously agreed report from the House of Commons Governance Committee, which was presented to the House ahead of the extremely challenging schedule that the House laid down in its motion of 10 September. I would like to take this early opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), all the members of the Committee and its hard-working staff on producing such practical recommendations.

The report sets out a series of sensible reforms that have the potential to move the administration of this place into the 21st century. It is right to conclude that the role of Clerk and chief executive should be split; it is right that we should reform the House of Commons Commission and the Management Board; and it is right that we should explore quickly how we can share more services between the Commons and the Lords. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is important that the House debates and acts on the report swiftly? Will he therefore confirm that it is his intention to move with alacrity to call a debate on it? Perhaps he even has a date in mind.

Amid the festive flurry of written statements that have been published this week, I note that we still do not have the long overdue list of special advisers and their pay. After the Prime Minister promised to cap their numbers and cut the cost of politics, he authorised a massive increase in their numbers and their cost. He now seems to have stopped publishing any details whatever. Will the Leader of the House tell us what on earth is going on and when we can expect the list to be published, or is he hiding something?

I note that, yet again, the Government have failed to bring forward the money resolution for the Bill on the NHS that is promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). Will the Leader of the House tell us when it will be forthcoming?

On Tuesday, the House voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) requiring large companies to publish their gender pay gap. We know that women earn an average of £209,000 less than men over their lifetime, and the Government are clearly so concerned that they have done absolutely nothing about it for four years. Seven Conservative MPs even voted against the Bill. Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Government will now listen to the will of the House and implement section 78 of Labour’s Equality Act 2010? Will he also tell us whether his equivalent in the Lords, Baroness Stowell, is still being paid less than he is?

Given that this is our last sitting day before the Christmas recess, I want to take the opportunity, as the Leader of the House did, to wish all right hon. and hon. Members, all the House staff and you, Mr Speaker, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. It seems that everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit in their own way. The Chancellor, who is Parliament’s very own incorrigible Scrooge, has been visited by the ghost of Christmas future, and he is the only person in the country who likes what he sees. The Prime Minister has been spotted pigeon shooting with a full police escort, because apparently he misses killing things, and the UK Independence party has been busy putting on its very own nativity play—it sent the wise men back to where they came from and told the Virgin Mary to stop breastfeeding in public.

The festive season is now in full swing, and I have been hearing all about the coalition Christmas party. There was a bit too much excitement at the start, and there are now lots of people regretting saying things that they did not mean. They have learned that if you end up in bed with somebody, you can regret it for years to come. We can just imagine the games they were playing—for the Home Secretary and the Chancellor it was less musical chairs and more “Game of Thrones”. For the Liberal Democrats it was “Twister” when they should have been playing “Pointless”, and the Tories rewrote “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to reflect their past year—four resignations, three Euro-fudges, two lost MPs and a Chief Whip who’s nowhere to be seen.

[Mr Hague]

It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Lady, and it was nice of her to say that she will be sad to see me go. If it is a plot to get me to stay, it will fail. I am determined about the going bit, but also determined to enjoy the 10 further business statements that she talked about. I reciprocate the respect; she is the most cheery Opposition Front Bencher—not that that is a high bar when we look at them in general, but she unfailingly manages to clear that bar.

I join the hon. Lady in her welcome for the report by the House of Commons Governance Committee, and I thank the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who chaired it, and all the right hon. and hon. Members of all parties who served on it. It is for the House to reach a view and take a decision—there is no fixed Government view, but I welcome the report and judge that it will be well received in the House and that there will be a great deal of support for its recommendations. We will indeed move with alacrity, as the hon. Lady put it, to have a debate. Although I have not been able to announce a specific debate in the first week back, I will certainly facilitate a debate on the report in January so that if its recommendations are supported by the House—as I said, I think they generally will be—they can be taken forward expeditiously.

The hon. Lady asked about the so-called festive flurry of written ministerial statements. Today and yesterday there have been 49 of them, although I notice that on the last two days before the final Christmas of the last Parliament, there were 50—even more. Only one more, but one is enough, as we politicians know. One is always enough to prove a point or win an election, so I consider my point fully made.

The hon. Lady asked about the publication of the list of special advisers. It will be published today. There are more special advisers now given the nature of coalition, although their average pay is actually lower than it was under the last Government, which is an interesting point.

Latest figures show that the gender pay gap has closed for people under 40; although there is more to do, it has closed a good deal and continues to do so under this Government, which we want to continue.

The hon. Lady talked about the festive season in general, including for UKIP, and part of the festive season for Government Members is reading the Labour party document on UKIP, which has already been referred to—I am not recommending that my hon. Friends spend all of Christmas reading it, but it is good for a laugh now and again so I recommend reading it before Christmas eve. Page 18 gives advice on getting into a discussion with voters, and for when people ask about Labour policies it states:

“It does not however follow that…emphasising our policies in our conversations with electors is always the correct response.”

Indeed, when one thinks about some of Labour’s policies, that is pretty good advice for Labour canvassers.

The hon. Lady compared the coalition to a Christmas party and getting into bed with each other, but it is not often that someone signs an agreement to get into bed for five years specifically, knowing that at the end of those five years they will be happy to be on their own. That, however, is what we did in the coalition agreement, and at the end of this year of coalition Government, as we come up to Christmas, we can celebrate what in my view is the most important fact: unemployment is 455,000 lower than it was 12 months ago. There are 326,000 more businesses in this country than there were 12 months ago, and 440,000 people have started an apprenticeship in the past 12 months. Those things are happening because the parties in the coalition got into bed with each other.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 15 December—Motion relating to the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Regulations 2014, followed by consideration in Committee of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill (day 2).

Tuesday 16 December—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Local Government (Religious etc. Observances) Bill.



Wednesday 17 December—Opposition day (11th allotted day). There will be debates on Opposition motions including one entitled “The Immediate Abolition of the Bedroom Tax”.



Thursday 18 December—Statement on the publication of the fourth report from the Communities and Local Government Committee on the operation of the national planning policy framework, followed by matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment as selected by the Backbench Business Committee.



Friday 19 December—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 5 January 2015 will include:

Monday 5 January—Second Reading of the Serious Crime Bill [Lords].

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 18 December will be:

Thursday 18 December—General debate on business investment in outer-city estates, followed by a general debate on the future of Carnforth station.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and the business for the first day back in 2015. I also thank him for the debate that he has granted for Monday on the firefighters pension scheme.

On Wednesday, we will once more stage a debate on the pernicious and cruel bedroom tax. Will the Leader of the House assure us that if the House votes again to scrap the tax, he will actually act and abolish it?

This week, the Government achieved the dubious distinction of losing its 100th vote in the Lords. They were defeated for the second time on their plans to curtail judicial review, and four former Tory Cabinet Ministers voted against them. This was after the Justice Secretary had to admit that he did not understand his own Bill, and in an humiliating apology correct his assertion in this House that clause 64 maintained judicial discretion when it does not.

Will the Leader of the House tell us whether his Government will now see sense and accept the Lords amendments? After losing yet another judicial review last week, should not the Justice Secretary now accept that instead of trying to abolish judicial challenge, he should just get on top of his brief and stop trying to implement unlawful policies?

A week after the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the mask has slipped and his baleful plan for Britain’s future has become clear. He has failed every test and broken every promise he made on the economy, including his promise to balance the books before the election next year. He hoped we would not notice the choice that he has made to cut public spending to 35% of gross domestic product, which would take us back to levels reminiscent of the 1930s before we had the NHS or a social safety net.

In the week when we were reminded that 4 million people in our country are now at risk of going hungry, it seems that the Tory solution is to blame the victims and tell those who cannot afford to feed their families that they do not know how to cook. We all know that the real problem is low wages and in-work poverty. Instead of their ideological obsession with destroying 60 years of social progress, what we really need is a fair and balanced deficit reduction programme that combines common-sense savings with an effective growth strategy. May we therefore have a debate in Government time on these competing visions for the future of our country?

The Tory Chief Whip has had yet another bad week. It seems that some of his ministerial colleagues took his declaration of a three-day week a little too literally. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was so amazed that he needed to be here on a Thursday that he very nearly missed his own debate on the Government’s flagship stamp duty policy. However, a generous offer from the Work and Pensions Secretary to lead the debate in his absence was enough to send him sprinting down Whitehall from the Treasury. While Government Back Benchers wasted time with points of order, he eventually arrived, flustered and visibly out of breath. What on earth were the Government Whips doing? Were they playing Candy Crush on their iPads? The Chief Whip is always bunking off; when he is here, he is causing trouble at the back of the class; and he never does his homework. I think the Education Secretary would be very happy to put him in detention.

The autumn statement appears to have had a peculiar effect on the Liberal Democrats. The Business Secretary told the Cabinet that it was “excellent”, with “Lib Dem fingerprints all over it”, before getting others to brief the newspapers that he really thinks that the cuts are simply not achievable. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury happily signed it off as a member of the quad, but then he called it

“a mix of unfunded tax promises, harsh spending plans and pandering to UKIP.”

The Deputy Prime Minister has said that he is proud of the autumn statement, but he was so desperate to distance himself from it that he fled 300 miles to Land’s End. We are all used to celebrities having “show-mances” to make the front page of Hello! magazine, but this must be the first time in history that two partners have attempted a “show-vorce”. They are leaking lurid details of their rows to the papers, and they have moved into separate rooms in No. 10 so that they can spin against each other. They have even resorted to “masosadism”—inflicting pain on each other while inflicting pain on themselves at the same time.

The Liberal Democrats must think that we have all fallen off a Christmas tree. Their cynical choreography has now reached such ridiculous levels that I am told that they are forming a Cabinet within a Cabinet in order to shadow their own Government’s Cabinet, and I bet there are still no women in it. It is less like Candy Crush and more like parliamentary zombie apocalypse.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Welcome back, Angela!

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, following the announcement regarding the reform of residential rates of stamp duty land tax, made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I should like to make a short business statement regarding tomorrow’s business.

The business for tomorrow will now be:

Thursday 4 December—Motion to approve a financial resolution for the purposes of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968, followed by the business as previously announced: a debate on a motion relating to the Financial Conduct Authority redress scheme, and a general debate on availability and pricing of branded medicines on the NHS. The subjects for both debates were recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

I will make my usual business statement tomorrow.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for finally deigning to inform us about the content of the unidentified Government business, which he was so coy about last Thursday. We have been waiting all week with bated breath, wondering what on earth it might be about. We dreamed that it might be about action to tackle low pay or under-employment, which is now rife in the country, hitting living standards and tax receipts. We thought that he might announce an intention to reverse the millionaires’ tax cut, or promise that the Government will not raise VAT. However, with the sudden legislation on stamp duty, are not the Government trying to hide the fact that the Chancellor’s promise to eliminate the deficit in five years is running four years late, borrowing is up by £12.5 billion compared with the March Budget, and he has had to borrow £219 billion more than he forecast he would in 2010? Is not he attempting to disguise the fact that the Government’s incompetence has wasted over £100 billion, which is £4,000 for every taxpayer in the country? The Chancellor may think he has a cunning plan, but every day he is looking less like the Machiavelli he models himself on, and more like Baldrick.

[Mr Hague]

I will take that as a welcome for the resolution tomorrow. I think that the hon. Lady made a better presentation of the Labour party’s case than the shadow Chancellor did a couple of hours ago. We look forward to her elevation to that position. She would be a dramatic improvement on the Opposition Front Bench.

It is apparent why I was coy about the business last week. It would have caused considerable mayhem had I announced the business for tomorrow last week, both to the Chancellor’s autumn statement and to the housing market. Therefore, I am sure that the House understands the reason why that business has been nominated today, just as I hope that it will understand the tremendous progress announced by the Chancellor in bringing down unemployment and addressing all the other issues that she mentioned.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week.

Monday 1 December—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.

Tuesday 2 December—Second Reading of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Wednesday 3 December—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of Exchequer will deliver his autumn statement, followed by remaining stages of the Taxation of Pensions Bill.

Thursday 4 December—Motion to approve a statutory instrument, followed by debate on a motion relating to Financial Conduct Authority redress scheme, and a general debate on availability and pricing of branded medicines on the NHS. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 5 December—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 December will include:

Monday 8 December—Second Reading of the Infrastructure Bill [Lords].

For the convenience of the House, I advise colleagues that the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill will be considered in a Committee of the whole House on Tuesday 9 December, Monday 15 December and Tuesday 16 December.

I also inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 11 and 15 December will be:

Thursday 11 December—Debate on reports from the International Development Committee on strengthening health systems in developing countries and on recovery and development in Sierra Leone and Liberia, followed by a debate on the 11th report from the International Development Committee on disability and development.

Monday 15 December—General debate on an e-petition relating to Millie’s Trust campaign to train all nurses in paediatric first aid.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business, albeit with last-minute changes. I note the sudden appearance next Thursday of unidentified Government business. Will he tell us what it is, or is he playing partisan games? In the light of the publication of the Smith commission report this morning and the assurance that there will be a draft Bill by the end of January, will he set out in more detail what arrangements the Government will make to enable proper consideration and debate on that report, both inside and outside the House?

Yesterday the Home Secretary published the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, and we will debate its Second Reading next Tuesday. The Bill contains welcome measures to restore relocation powers and give more support to the Prevent programme. Will the Leader of the House ensure that he gives the Bill appropriate time to be properly scrutinised, especially because yesterday the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation said that one of the measures was:

“An announcement waiting for a policy.”

Do the Government need time to explain why they got it so wrong on control orders and put public safety at risk?

Next week we have the autumn statement, which is yet again in December—I am beginning to wonder whether the Chancellor knows something about climate change that he is not letting on. In 2010 he promised two things: that he would balance the books by 2015, and that he would not do that on the backs of the poor. Four years later he has clearly broken both promises. His five-year plan to eliminate the deficit is now running four years late; wages have fallen year on year while food bank use soars. On this Government’s watch the majority of people in poverty in this country are in work, but all the Government can deliver is a £3 billion tax cut every year for the top 1% of earners. While the Chancellor makes complacent boasts about the slowest recovery for more than 100 years, is the truth that only Labour can end this low-wage economy and deliver a recovery for the many not the few?

One thing this Government do well is miss their own targets. We have had the Chancellor’s abject failure on the deficit. The Home Secretary has finally admitted that the Government have no hope of meeting their target to reduce net migration—we all remember “no ifs, no buts”—and today’s net migration figures show the scale of her failure. The Government’s flagship universal credit programme is being delayed again. It was meant to be in place by 2017, but yesterday’s report from the National Audit Office states that it will not be ready until 2020. One million people were meant to be on universal credit by this April, but there were fewer than 10,000. It was supposed to save money, but the Government wasted millions of pounds on a failed IT system and staff costs are set to soar by a massive £2.8 billion. The Secretary of State talks fondly of “landing” the universal credit programme safely, but is it clear from that damning report that it has not yet even taken off?

This Government have managed to be cruel and inefficient at the same time. They have overspent by £25 billion on social security because they have not tackled low-paid and insecure work. They have spent £5 billion more than they planned on tax credits and £6 billion more on housing benefit. People are suffering because of the bedroom tax, and nearly a million of the most vulnerable people in our country have been left waiting for their disability assessment. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate in Government time so that we can start to sort out the rhetoric from the reality on social security?

This week yet again we have watched as the Conservative party’s civil war on Europe widens. After the Chancellor’s humiliating climbdown on EU bankers’ bonuses, and while the Prime Minister keeps us all waiting for yet another speech to end all speeches on Europe, it is no wonder that Conservative MPs are taking matters into their own hands. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said:

“I agree with UKIP and Nigel Farage on virtually everything”.

The former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has made a bid to put himself at the head of the “out” campaign, and six senior Ministers look set to join him. No wonder the Home Secretary has let it be known that she no longer rates the Prime Minister and has “given up” on him.

Appearing on “Desert Island Discs” this week, the Home Secretary revealed that her favourite song is Abba’s “Dancing Queen”, but what she really meant was “Take a chance on me”. She revealed her favourite book to be “Pride and Prejudice.” Well, Mr Speaker, “It is a truth universally acknowledged” that the Conservative party just cannot stop banging on about Europe. I can only imagine what it would be like to be stuck on a desert island cut off, alone, isolated from friends, with no one to talk to and no hope of rescue. It must be a bit like being a Liberal Democrat.

[Mr Hague]

I think the hon. Lady is being a little audacious in talking about “Desert Island Discs” when the Labour party cannot even sing “Stand By Your Man” very well. When she talked about somebody being cut off from all his friends, I thought she must have been referring to the Leader of the Opposition.

The hon. Lady asked about last minute changes to business. Unusually, I have announced business three weeks ahead to 15 December. It is for the convenience of the House to have business announced as far ahead as possible, so I think that that is a good last minute change to make. She also asked about a particular item of business on Thursday next week. I can assure her that it will be very clear by next Thursday.

We have just had a statement on the Smith commission report. It is very important for the House to debate these matters further and to debate the consequences for the rest of the United Kingdom, a point made by many of my hon. Friends and Opposition Members. As the Chair of the Cabinet Committee for Devolved Powers, I intend to ensure that the Government publish the options for England in a Command Paper before Christmas, following up the work of the Smith commission. I am sure the House will want to consider that, and I will make a statement at the time.

The hon. Lady asked about appropriate time to be given for the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill. I have announced three days in Committee on the Floor of the House. There will be a clear gap between the Committee stage and Report. The Opposition wanted the Report stage to be after the Christmas recess and it will be. That will give the House time to reflect on all parts of the Bill, so I hope we have accommodated Opposition concerns on that. We have had productive discussions on this issue. The Bill is very important for our national security, but of course it needs to be properly scrutinised and considered in detail.

The hon. Lady asked about the autumn statement and poked fun at its being on 3 December. I have to remind her that autumn lasts until the winter solstice, which is normally on 21 December, or on 22 or 23 December in certain years. I can therefore assure the hon. Lady that 3 December is very much within autumn.

The hon. Lady asked about universal credit. The previous Government were left with a welfare system in which for every extra £10 some people earned, they lost £9 in additional taxes. Universal credit is being designed to ensure that it pays to work and it is likely to deliver benefits to millions of people. Yes, it is always possible to criticise the implementation of IT projects, but it was estimated that the previous Government wasted £26 billion on IT projects that did not succeed. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), made a statement to the House, so Members have had the opportunity to discuss that.

The hon. Lady asked about relative incomes. Relative poverty in the last year for which we have figures, 2012-13, was at its lowest since the 1980s. We have 600,000 fewer people in relative poverty than there were at the general election. The answer to poverty is to get people into work, and that is what the Government are achieving. She asked about a recovery for the many or the few. The previous Government left office with no recovery for anyone at all—neither many nor few. That is what the Opposition’s policies would bring about again.

The hon. Lady talked about comments within the Conservative party on various issues in the past week. It has not been a great week in the Labour party. She has made an exception of asking about the whereabouts of the Chief Whip this week. As I explained last week, he spent much time in Rochester. Really, the Opposition Chief Whip should have been there to tell members of the shadow Cabinet not to photograph people’s houses. She would have been well deployed—[Interruption.] Oh, she was there! Well, she obviously did not get to all the members of the shadow Cabinet.

After the stealth reshuffle that I think took place in September on the Opposition Front Bench, and the anti-climax reshuffle in October, we have now had the Rochester reshuffle in November. But we are pleased that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) is still in place and we are absolutely delighted that the Leader of the Opposition is in place all the way to the general election.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 24 November—Remaining stages of the Recall of MPs Bill.

Tuesday 25 November—Remaining stages of the Pension Schemes Bill, followed by a motion to approve resolutions relating to the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill, the Local Government (Review of Decisions) Bill, the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill and the Control of Horses Bill.

Wednesday 26 November—Opposition day (10th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 27 November—Debate on a motion relating to inequality, followed by a general debate on progress of the historical child sex abuse inquiry. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 28 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 1 December will include:

Monday 1 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 27 November and 4 December will be:

Thursday 27 November—Debate on the second report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on food security, followed by a debate on the 11th report from the Environmental Audit Committee on plastic bags.

Thursday 4 December—General debate on small business Saturday.

It may assist the House to be made aware that the calendar confirming the dates agreed by this House until the dissolution of Parliament next year is now available from the Vote Office.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. A week on Monday we will debate the Government’s defeats on the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill on their plans to curtail severely the use of judicial review. With their cuts to legal aid and their gag on charities and campaigners, is it not now obvious that this Government started off promising a big society but have ended up stifling civil society? Does the Leader of the House plan to allow the modest amendments from the other place to remain in the Bill?

I am getting a bit worried about the Tory Chief Whip. The first thing he did when he got his job was get stuck in the toilet, and I am afraid to say it has all gone down the pan since then. He has misplaced two MPs, he keeps losing votes, and this week he presided over the first-ever Commons defeat for this Government on their own legislation. This was the fourth time that the House has voted to introduce a statutory code to end unfair beer ties. The Leader of the House has some relationship with beer and he used to tell us about it a lot, so will he confirm that he will now finally accept the clearly expressed will of the House and not try to reverse this decision? Is it not obvious now that the Chief Whip cannot even organise a vote in a brewery?

Light was shed yesterday on the Tory Chief Whip’s mysterious absence from this place every Thursday morning. I note that once again he is not here. Apparently he has written to Tory MPs to tell them that this Government are so out of ideas that they are no longer required to be in Parliament on a Thursday. I am glad to see that so many are disobeying him, but 40 years ago a previous Tory Government introduced the three-day week. Only this nostalgia-obsessed former Education Secretary could possibly think of bringing it back. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether we can now expect to be holding our debates by candlelight? Does he support the reintroduction of the three-day week? It seems that this zombie Government are grinding to a halt. Their legislative programme is threadbare, the House sits for less and less time, they have lost and then ignored a record number of votes, and now the Chief Whip has told Tory MPs that they do not need to show up at all.

Is it not the case that the Government treat this place with contempt? Just look at what happened with the European arrest warrant. The Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and promised the House that we would have a vote on the European arrest warrant before today. The Government botched the drafting so badly that the regulation was rejected by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. They brought a motion to the House which masqueraded as a vote on the European arrest warrant when it was no such thing. This caused outrage on all sides. The Home Secretary was left filibustering while frantic junior Whips rang round Government Back Benchers to bring them back from their lobster dinners, and although the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor were forced to rush back from their white tie banquet with their City friends, the Chief Whip was nowhere to be seen.

The following day’s newspapers were full of a vicious blame game between the Home Office and the Tory Whips, and later in the week we learned that the unelected Chamber was going to be granted a say on the European arrest warrant when the Commons had been denied one. It took yesterday’s Labour Opposition day to give this House the debate on the European arrest warrant which the Prime Minister promised us four weeks ago. After witnessing this farce, I have a suggestion for the Leader of the House. He likes outsourcing, so why does he not just give up and let the Opposition handle the rest of the legislative programme in this Parliament? There is no question but that we would make a better job of it.

There are only two other men in the Government who came close to the Chief Whip for having a bad week. One was the Prime Minister, who has been savaged by Dominic Cummings for having “no political priorities whatsoever” and being unable to

“manage his way out of a paper bag”.

Cummings revealed a real truth when he went on to say:

“There is no long-term priority. There is no long-term plan.”

And what about the Chancellor? This week we learned from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that they have gone from drinking whisky together in those early heady days to the Chancellor putting a padlock on the Treasury fridge filled with treats and milk. What would Mrs Thatcher say if she knew that it was the Liberal Democrats who are now the milk-snatchers?

[Mr Hague]

She would have believed anything about Liberal Democrats. Unlike me—I am very fond of my Liberal Democrat colleagues.

The hon. Lady asked about judicial review. As we come to the debate on Lords amendments a week on Monday, the Government will set out what we propose to do about the amendments in the other House. On the question of civic society and volunteering, the hon. Lady ought to have mentioned that the number of people now volunteering in the big society in this country has gone up to 74%, from 66% five years ago. That is the change that has taken place over the past few years.

On the vote on pubs—and I yield to no one in my expertise on pubs in Yorkshire in particular—the Business Secretary set out the position just a few moments ago at Business questions, because he congratulated the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and told him he had won, and that can be taken as an official statement of Government policy. Let us hope that some of the feared consequences of that do not come to pass, but we will see.

The hon. Lady asked whether we were now on a three-day week. I have to tell her that if we sit the days that are indicated on the calendar now in the Vote Office, this Parliament will have sat for more days than any of the three Parliaments of the last Government, so we need no lectures on that. On the question of turning up, she asked about the issues of judicial review in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. I seem to remember that when that was first debated in this House only three Opposition Members took part, and one of those was a Whip who was sent to the Back Benches in order to speak, so we do not need any lectures about turning up.

On the votes on the European arrest warrant, the result of this week’s vote was remarkably similar to the result of the vote on Monday last week, because the House was voting on essentially the same issue. But it is quite right that the Opposition provided time, because it was their motion to move the previous question that denied the House the opportunity to have a debate a week last Monday. Either way, that has now been resolved.

The hon. Lady said that the Prime Minister had been savaged. It is not a very good week for Opposition Members to talk about leaders of parties being savaged after what happened to the Leader of the Opposition the other night. This is a week where the Prime Minister stood up to President Putin and the Leader of the Opposition could not stand up to the other guests on an evening television show. If we are going to trade comments about leadership styles and behaviour, we should remember that barely a day goes by without, in this case, a senior Labour MP stating that

“this is not one or two backbenchers—there’s an angst across the Labour party. We are desperate.”

Another senior figure is quoted as saying that

“there are two deficits—the deficit he ignores and the deficit of economic competence.”

That is very true.

Once again, the real gap in the demand for debates from the Opposition is on economic questions. Since our last business questions, newly published figures have shown more people in work than ever before in the history of the country, youth unemployment at its lowest since the 1970s, redundancies at a record low, the UK new car market enjoying its longest period of continuous growth, and the difference—I am surprised the hon. Lady did not raise this—between the average earnings of men and women in the UK narrowing to its smallest gap since records began in 1997. When the gender pay gap widens she wants to ask about it, but when it narrows there is not a mention of it from the Opposition, and that is the result of a long-term economic plan that we will continue to pursue.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 10 November—Consideration of a Business of the House motion, followed by motion to approve the draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations.

Tuesday 11 November—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by debate on a motion relating to the medium-term financial plan for the House of Commons and draft estimates for 2015-16. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Colleagues will also wish to be reminded that the House will meet at 12 o’clock on this day.

The business for the week commencing 17 November will include:

Monday 17 November—Remaining stages of the Childcare Payments Bill.

Tuesday 18 November—Remaining stages of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill (Day 1)

Wednesday 19 November—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, followed by Opposition half day (10th allotted day, 1st part). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 20 November—Debate on a motion relating to devolution and the Union, followed by general debate on money creation and society. The subject for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 21 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 24 November will include:

Monday 24 November—Remaining stages of the Recall of MPs Bill.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 20 November will be:

Thursday 20 November—Debate on the first report from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, followed by debate on the ninth report from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee on carbon capture and storage.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Deputy Leader of the House on his promotion in the fallout from the spectacular exit from the Home Office of the right hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker)?

On Sunday, I will attend a remembrance service by the war memorial on Egremont prom in New Brighton, overlooking the River Mersey. On that day, we will remember all the men and women who have given their lives to protect our country. Does the Leader of House agree that such events will be especially poignant this year, the centenary of the start of the great war? I note that we are commemorating on the Order Paper the Members who gave their lives in the great war. Does the Leader of the House agree that we should also find an appropriate way to commemorate all House staff who lost their lives in that war?

A week on Monday, we will debate the remaining stages of the Childcare Payments Bill. The Bill is too little, too late for parents for whom child care costs have risen five times faster than pay since 2010. They do not want to wait until after the next election for the Government to do something about it. Surely the answer is to nearly double the hours of free child care for three and four-year-olds.

Every week in Wallasey, I meet people struggling to feed their families at the end of the month, despite the fact that they are in work. Thanks to this Government, more than 12,000 people were forced to rely on food banks in the Wirral last year alone. This is living wage week, which Opposition Members are proud to support. Twenty-eight Labour councils are now accredited living wage employers, and Labour-run Brent council is putting our policy into practice early by incentivising local employers to pay the living wage. Does the Leader of the House remember his fight to prevent the introduction of the lower but statutory minimum wage, and does he remember declaring that it would price people out of work? Will he now apologise for getting it so wrong, and will he tell us why he is proud of an economic recovery that is leaving so many hard-working people behind?

As Tory Back Benchers continue with their never-ending plots to drive Britain out of the European Union, it is clear that the German Chancellor is losing patience with the Prime Minister’s desperate attempts keep his party together. She let it be known this week that tinkering with free movement was a point of no return for Britain’s membership. Yesterday, all the Prime Minister could do was to attempt an in/out hokey cokey that fooled no one. Before the Leader of the House is tempted to follow in the Prime Minister’s footsteps and quote extensively my deputy, my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), will he tell us if he agrees with his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), who this week wrote that

“the anti-immigration and EU minority tail, is wagging the majority British dog”?

May I thank the Leader of the House for heeding my call last week and for announcing that we will vote on opting back in to the European arrest warrant on Monday, just 10 days before the Prime Minister’s self-imposed deadline? Will he confirm troubling reports that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has in fact refused to approve the draft regulations because they are riddled with errors? Lords rules dictate that a statutory instrument will not be taken unless it has been approved by the Joint Committee, but the Government are now so desperate to get this vote out of the way that they appear to have scheduled the vote in the Commons before they are sure that they can get the Joint Committee’s consent. Will the Leader of the House explain what he will do if the Joint Committee rejects the proposals after the House has voted on them on Monday? Will he admit that Ministers should have been spending less time worrying about the revolt on their Back Benches, and more time ensuring that the Home Office got its drafting right?

I understand that after business questions last week the Leader of the House and his fellow Tories travelled to the Prime Minister’s constituency to shed the accusation that they are out of touch and privileged by recreating the Bullingdon club at a £200-a- night hotel. Apparently, it was billed as a “How to beat UKIP summit”, but the campaign effort appeared to consist of knocking back free champagne and cognac until 3 am. The Chief Whip played a special game of “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue”, but we know that already. The right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) unveiled an excruciating painting of the Chancellor naked and brandishing a carrot, and some after-dinner jokes were in such dubious taste that Bernard Manning would have been embarrassed to use them. I know the Leader of the House is a man of the people, so will he confirm that he had his usual 14 pints?

[Mr Hague]

On that point, I had one pint actually, which another hon. Member paid for—it is a fine Yorkshire tradition that somebody else buys the round—so I do not know where that comes from. I have had to cut back quite considerably since the days of having 14 pints.

The hon. Lady is quite right, of course, to refer to the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, which makes this year’s remembrance services especially poignant, exactly as she said. We will all have that in our minds as we attend local or national remembrance services this weekend. There was a service in the Undercroft yesterday, which you attended, Mr Speaker. It is important for us to commemorate on the Order Paper the sacrifices of House staff as well as former Members, and I am sure we can all join together in giving further thought to how to do that.

On Commons business, the hon. Lady asked about next Monday’s debate. The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has not completed its consideration of this statutory instrument, which is a substantial one, because it brings together all the measures necessary for opting in to those of the 35 measures that require regulation to be passed. It is substantial, and I understand that the Committee will return to this on Tuesday. It is not unprecedented for the House to consider a statutory instrument—[Interruption.] It is unusual. It has not happened in this Parliament, but it has happened in previous Parliaments. [Interruption.] I am assured that it has happened in previous Parliaments, and I think the assurances I have received should be good enough for the rest of the House. There is no barrier and no ruling to prevent this from happening. We will do so on Monday—subject, of course, to the Joint Committee completing its consideration on Tuesday. Our rules are different from those of the House of Lords in that respect. By having the debate on Monday, provided that the business of the House motion is carried at the beginning of the day, we will be able to have a full day’s debate—a much longer one than would be usual on statutory instruments. We are also able to ensure that the issue can return to the European Council agenda, for which we need to give 16 days’ notice before 1 December—and there are very good operational reasons for us to have completed our consideration before that date. [Interruption.] I am explaining to hon. Members on both sides why this is being timed when it is, and why it is important to do this on Monday. We shall do so, subject to the clearance of the JCSI the following day.

The hon. Lady asked about a number of other subjects, including the cost of living, food banks and the living wage. I remind her that this Government have cut tax for more than 26 million people and frozen fuel duty for the rest of this Parliament. We have helped to freeze council tax for the fourth year running, when council tax doubled under the last Labour Government and energy bills increased hugely. Town hall charges doubled and fuel duty was increased 12 times, so when it comes to the cost of living, the Opposition have nothing to teach us.

The hon. Lady asked about the minimum wage. Government Members have long supported it, and if everybody is to apologise for past errors, we are waiting for some very big apologies from the Opposition. Perhaps the hon. Lady will supply them on one or two of these occasions.

She asked about the article by my Parliamentary Private Secretary, which strongly supported the immigration policy of Her Majesty’s Government—she can be assured of that. I commend the shadow Leader of the House—I try to find some way to do so every week—for being so cheerful about the situation of her party. An examination of this morning’s media shows that their election guru is losing patience with Labour. The Opposition have had a reshuffle in order to forestall a coup—and things are getting pretty bad when that happens. The editor of the New Statesman, the only publication to support the Leader of the Opposition when he was elected, has now disowned him. One shadow Cabinet Minister said to the newspapers:

“Morale has never been lower”.

Another said that they were all “very concerned”. On the subject of real congratulations this week, however, we have a special guest appearance by the shadow Deputy Leader of the House for sheer honesty. Because he is not really allowed to speak at business questions, I will helpfully read out his words for him:

“The state that the Labour party is in right now is we are in a dreadful position. And we’ve got to be honest about ourselves…The electorate looks at us and has no idea what our polices are. We have a moribund party in Scotland…And we have a membership that is ageing and inactive.”

That is the hon. Gentleman’s own description of his own party—to which he assents, for he is nodding. It will take a lot more than a reshuffle to forestall the judgment of the voters on that party next May.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 3 November—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Recall of MPs Bill, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill.

Tuesday 4 November—Remaining stages of the Modern Slavery Bill.

Wednesday 5 November—Opposition day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 6 November—General debate on UK foreign policy towards Iran followed by general debate on promotion of the living wage. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 7 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 10 November will include:

Monday 10 November—Remaining stages of the Childcare Payments Bill.

Tuesday 11 November—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Colleagues will also wish to know that the House will meet at 12 o’clock on this day.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 6 November will be:

Thursday 6 November—General debate on the US-UK mutual defence agreement.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I also thank him for the challenge he sets me each week to find much Government legislation to talk about.

On Monday, the Justice Secretary’s plan to block any dissent through the courts was halted in the other place as the Government lost three key votes. A brace of Tory ex-Cabinet Ministers backed our amendments to maintain some legal discretion by judicial review, and a former Lord Chief Justice described the Government’s preferred alternative as an “elective dictatorship”.

We all know that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has been openly conniving with the United Kingdom Independence party to subject the European arrest warrant to judicial review when it is reintroduced. Only this Prime Minister could try to solve the latest challenge to his authority from the Eurosceptics by seeking to abolish judicial review rather than by containing the antics of the hon. Member for North East Somerset. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the Government will now acknowledge that they have gone too far on judicial review and accept our amendments?

Tuesday is equal pay day—the day when women effectively stop being paid for the rest of the year because of the gender pay gap. The picture is bleak. The pay gap is at 20% and widening, women are earning less than they were a year ago, and the UK has crashed down the world gender equality rankings to 26th place. It is no wonder that the Prime Minister has refused to wear a Fawcett feminist T-shirt. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate in Government time on this Government’s dire record on women, and will he wear the T-shirt?

With 21 days to go to the by-election in Rochester and Strood, the panic has clearly set in and the work of Government seems to have been wholly subordinated to Tory attempts to outflank UKIP on Europe. We have had the tantalising, and as yet unfulfilled, promise of yet another “game-changing” European announcement from the Prime Minister. We have had his unconvincing Mr Angry performance in Brussels on the €2 billion bill that the Chancellor forgot to tell him about. And we all know that half his parliamentary party seem content to put our security at risk by plotting to sink the European arrest warrant in a move that his former immigration Minister says would make us the “Costa del Crime”. Yesterday, the Prime Minister promised a vote on the European arrest warrant before the by-election. The Leader of the House has just announced business up to 17 November, which is just three days before the by-election, so will he tell us when the vote will actually take place? Given that the Prime Minister has totally lost control of his party, Labour Members need plenty of notice to ensure that UK security is not sacrificed on the altar of the Tory civil war.

I note the mysterious absence in the future business of any reference to the European Union (Referendum) Bill. However, I have managed to get my hands on a couple of letters that shed some light on this mystery. On Tuesday afternoon, the Tory Chief Whip wrote to his ever loyal flock announcing:

“Today the Liberal Democrats have killed the EU Referendum Bill”.

In retaliation, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats wrote to all Tory MPs stating:

“This claim is utterly false”.

What a sad state of affairs: in four and a half years they have gone from fluttering eyelashes in the rose garden to an exchange of “Dear John” letters. But the problem with all this is that no one seems to have bothered to tell the House what on earth is going on. Genuinely important Bills are being held up by this farce, so can the Leader of the House confirm that these two Bills are now dead, in order that there can be progress on the others? If the European Union (Referendum) Bill was so important, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us why, in the words of his coalition colleagues, the Prime Minister

“folded like a cheap deckchair”

at the first opportunity in the negotiation that could have ensured its passage?

Last week, I was harsh on the Chief Whip for his absence from the Chamber—I note his absence again today. I have since discovered that he was learning some skills to help him with the job—at the Westminster dog of the year competition. May I congratulate him on coming second with his dog Snowy, which he described as “naughty, stubborn and greedy”. That sounds a lot like his Tory Back Benchers. Members are fleeing the kennel to UKIP, the Eurosceptics are straining at the leash and Lynton Crosby has sent the dog whistle into overdrive. Anyone who would vote for this lot must be barking.

[Mr Hague]

Let me turn to the serious parts of the questions first. The hon. Lady asked about what she called the “absence” of legislation. If we look at the business I have just announced, we see that it includes the Recall of MPs Bill, the Modern Slavery Bill, which is of global importance, the Childcare Payments Bill, which will be of enormous help to many people in this country, and the National Insurance Contributions Bill, which, as with any matter of taxation, is extremely important. That is the business of the House in just the next 10 days, so to say that business is thin is a refrain for some week past; it is not relevant to this week.

The hon. Lady asked when there would be a vote on opting in to certain measures in justice and home affairs. We have, of course, already decided to opt out of 100 measures, which is the largest return of power from Brussels to Britain ever seen in the history of this country. She said that I had announced the business up to 17 November, but she was not listening carefully enough, because I have announced the business up to 11 November. There is more time before we reach 20 November, as simple arithmetic makes it possible to deduce.

The hon. Lady asked about the coalition and when there will be an opportunity for the House to discuss money resolutions and private Members’ Bills. Those are discussed on private Members’ Bills days, and this issue was raised in Prime Minister’s questions yesterday. It can hardly be said that the House does not have an opportunity to address these things, but, as she will have gathered, money resolutions have not been agreed in the Government on the European Union (Referendum) Bill or the Affordable Homes Bill. She asks whether that allows other private Members’ Bills to proceed, and the answer to that is yes. That is why I have announced in the business the money resolution relating to the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill, which will be moved on Monday. I am also placing on the Order Paper a motion that will allow that Bill to go into Committee. Other private Members’ Bills are, in the light of this situation, able to proceed.

The hon. Lady asked about votes that took place this week in the House of Lords, and of course the Bill she mentions will come to the Commons, we will be able to consider those amendments and the Government will have the opportunity to ask the House to reverse them if it wishes to do so. I note that yet again she did not ask—the Opposition never seem to—for any debates on, or time to discuss, the economy of this country. We look forward to a few such requests, because since the last business questions the GDP figures have shown our economy to be 3% bigger than it was a year ago and the statistics released yesterday showed the number of workless households in this country now to be at its lowest for at least 18 years—the figure is lower than at any point during the last Labour Government. Although we have our differences in the coalition from time to time, we have brought about that transformation of the economic prospects of this country. I will of course convey to the Chief Whip the hon. Lady’s congratulations on his dog doing so well in the Westminster dog of the year show.

As the hon. Lady asked about the Government record on policies towards women, I have to remind her that, under Labour, female unemployment rose 24%, and under this Government there are more women in work than ever before. When the Government whom she supported left office, 25% of the FTSE 100 boards had no female members. Now there are no FTSE 100 boards that have no female members. A higher proportion of public appointments have gone to women this year than in any year in the previous decade. Half of all honours this year have gone to women, which never happened under the previous Government. There are more women-led businesses than ever before, and there are, after the work that we have done in the Foreign Office over the past four years, more women ambassadors than ever before. Since I am on record all over the world as saying that the great strategic prize of this century is the full economic, social and political empowerment of women everywhere, it is clear that sometimes this is what a feminist looks like, with or without the T-shirt, and I have no hesitation in saying that.

Finally, as I always congratulate the hon. Lady on something—I have found something to congratulate her on every week so far—I congratulate her on being omitted by Maureen Lipman from the roll-call of reasons not to vote Labour any more. Maureen Lipman announced that, for the first time in five decades, she will not be voting Labour. She said:

“The Chuka Harman Burnham Hunt Balls brigade? I can’t, in all seriousness, go into a booth and put my mark on any one of them.”

I will draw Maureen Lipman’s attention to the hon. Lady, as she might be worth a vote.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s—[Interruption.] Sorry. Will the Leader of the House please announce the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

I will. It is nice to be thanked in advance. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady.

The business for next week will be:

Monday 27 October—Consideration in Committee of the Recall of MPs Bill (day 1). I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement following the European Council.

Tuesday 28 October—Opposition day [8th allotted day]. There will be a debate entitled “The negative effect of the Government’s policies on disabled people”, followed by a debate on coalfield communities. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Wednesday 29 October—Motion relating to the appointment of the chairman of the National Audit Office, followed by Second Reading of the Taxation of Pensions Bill.

Thursday 30 October—Debate on a motion relating to UK drugs policy, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the sale of park homes. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 31 October—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 3 November will include:

Monday 3 November—Consideration in Committee of the Recall of MPs Bill (day 2).

Tuesday 4 November—Remaining stages of the Modern Slavery Bill.

Wednesday 5 November—Opposition day [9th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 6 November—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 7 November—Private Members’ Bills.

[Ms Eagle]

May I thank the Leader of the House once more for announcing the business? It is always better to thank him once he has announced it.

I want to start by expressing our sadness about the loss of life, and our solidarity with our sister Parliament in Canada as it deals with the aftermath of the terrorist attack yesterday. This was an attack on democracy, and it will not succeed.

This week, the Recall of MPs Bill received its Second Reading, and on Monday we will consider it in Committee. As Members from across the House seek to strengthen its provisions, does the Leader of the House agree that the trigger for recall should centre on a Member’s conduct, not their opinions? Does he agree that we need to go further and reform the Standards Committee? Will he support proposals that seek to remove the Government majority on the Standards Committee and increase the number of lay representatives?

Last week, the Leader of the House accused me of suffering from amnesia on the deficit. I bet he wishes he had amnesia this week because the deficit has gone up. The Chancellor promised in 2010 that he would eliminate it by the end of 2015, and because of his economic failure he has had to push that back to 2018. Figures this week show that he is off track to do even that. Mr Speaker, you would not think from all the Chancellor’s complacent boasts that borrowing went up by 10% in the first half of the year. In its forecast in 2010, the Office for Budget Responsibility told us that wages would grow by 7.5% by the end of this year. They have actually fallen in the biggest squeeze on wages since Victorian times. Despite all the talk of Tory fiscal responsibility, the Prime Minister has just announced £7 billion-worth of pie-in-the-sky, unfunded pre-election bribes. With all the missed targets, is it not time for the Leader of the House to admit that this is less of a long-term economic plan and more of a really, really, really long-term economic scam?

This week, the Government were heavily criticised by the National Audit Office for failing to deport more foreign criminals. Unless they stand up to their Eurosceptic Back Benchers, on 1 December the UK will no longer be able to use the European arrest warrant, which enables the arrest and transfer of suspects across borders and was instrumental in the rapid return of one of the 7/7 bombers to face trial. The head of the Association of Chief Police Officers said that the warrant gives us

“a stronger, more effective means of arresting dangerous criminals”.

Until recently, the Tories were briefing that they would keep it. However, I hear that the Tory Chief Whip has been making panicked phone calls to his Back Benchers, suggesting that they may drop it. Will the Leader of the House therefore tell me whether he thinks that pandering to UKIP is more important than the security of this country? Will the Tories stand up to their own Eurosceptics and have a vote?

As Halloween approaches, it seems that the Tories are dusting off their ghosts of Governments past. This week, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) launched an astonishing attack on a campaign by the girl guides for more sex and relationships education in schools, claiming that it would increase teenage pregnancy. Last week, the Prime Minister turned up, for the first time in 14 years, to a meeting of the ultra-Thatcherite No Turning Back group to plead with his ever-loyal Back Benchers. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) was openly conniving with the UKIP treasurer over lunch. It is no surprise that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) took to the airwaves to challenge more Tory Eurosceptics to defect to UKIP. Today’s Tory party just cannot stop banging on about Europe.

I am often hard on the Tory Chief Whip, but, looking at his party, he does have the hardest job in politics. He has lost two high-profile votes, lost two Ministers to resignation and lost two MPs to UKIP. It is no wonder he is never here. Apparently, he has been hiding in Rochester and Strood. When asked about the UKIP threat, he said:

“Does this face look bovvered?”

The way the Government are pandering to UKIP, they are less Catherine Tate and more “Little Britain”.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 20 October—Remaining stages of the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill, followed by motion to approve a Church of England measure relating to women bishops.

Tuesday 21 October—Second Reading of the Recall of MPs Bill.

Wednesday 22 October—Opposition day (7th allotted day). There will be debates in the name of the Democratic Unionist party, including on the National Crime Agency.

Thursday 23 October—Debate on a motion relating to repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, followed by debate on a motion relating to oral hormone pregnancy tests. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 24 October—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 27 October will include:

Monday 27 October—Second Reading of the Taxation of Pensions Bill.

Hon. Members will also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the February recess at close of play on Thursday 12 February and return on Monday 23 February.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 30 October will be:

Thursday 30 October—Debate on the first joint report from the Committees on Arms Export Controls, “Scrutiny of Arms Exports and Arms Controls”.

[Ms Eagle]

May I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and February’s recess date? I note, however, that he has not announced a date for this Government to stagger to their painful and inevitable end—or should I say dissolution?

Six weeks ago, the House gave a Second Reading to the Affordable Homes Bill, which mitigates the cruel effects of the bedroom tax. A week later the House also gave a Second Reading to the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill. However, there is still no sign of the money resolutions that would enable either of them to progress to Committee, and the Tory wing of the Government are using parliamentary tricks in an attempt to subvert the will of the House. Will the Leader of the House now give us a commitment that he will respect the decisions of the House by bringing forward those two money resolutions ahead of any money resolution for the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which makes its predictable reappearance on Friday? Or is he so scared by the UKIP threat to his party’s election prospects that he is desperate to let the EU Bill jump the queue?

Yesterday the Prime Minister failed to defend his own welfare Minister, Lord Freud, who claimed that disabled workers are not worth the full minimum wage and promised to go away and think about making them work for £2 an hour. This was not just an unfortunate slip of the tongue; it revealed the truth about this Government’s attitude to people with disabilities, and straight from the mouth of the Minister directly responsible. Why is he still in his job? Is it because too many in the Tory party secretly agree with him or because the Prime Minister is too weak to act? Will the Leader of the House arrange for the publication of all documents commissioned by the Government on the disabled and the minimum wage? As the welfare Minister has been mysteriously pulled from his scheduled appearance in the Lords today, will the Leader of the House ensure that he is available to make a statement in the other place sooner rather than later? The Minister for Employment said yesterday:

“Those words will haunt him,”

but is it not the truth that those words will haunt this Government until Lord Freud resigns?

Senior Tories finally admitted this week that their toxic reorganisation of the NHS has been their biggest mistake in Government—and they are right. Patients are waiting longer in A and E; they are waiting longer to see their GP; and cancer waits are up. Before the election, the Prime Minister promised “no top-down reorganisation” and then embarked on one that has caused chaos and wasted £3 billion. According to senior Tories, as reported in The Times, the Prime Minister did “not understand” the reforms, but he forced them on the NHS anyway. Does the Leader of the House agree that these actions have done profound and intense damage to the NHS? Will he ask the Prime Minister to come to the House to explain why on earth he went ahead with it when he did not even understand it?

I would like to welcome to the House the newly elected Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes). She will be a doughty fighter for her constituents and I congratulate her on her victory. I would also like to welcome to an entirely different place in the Chamber the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell)—the new Member for Clacton who has the distinction of being the old Member for Clacton. He should be congratulated on managing to win an election as both the incumbent and the insurgent all at the same time. I note that we will have another by-election in just a few weeks’ time, so let me say to the Leader of the House that to lose one MP may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose two is just reckless!

The Conservative party conference in Birmingham might have got off to a bad start with yet another defection, but the swansong address of the Leader of the House steadied the ship. May I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his 26th consecutive appearance on his party’s conference platform? Some of us remember his Wilsonian- style address as a precocious 16-year-old. The Prime Minister was so moved by the right hon. Gentleman’s final oration to the party faithful that he has proclaimed him as the greatest living Yorkshireman. This has caused much consternation. Teenagers think it is Louis Tomlinson from One Direction; Guardian readers think it is Alan Bennett and I, of course, think it is my dad. Deep down, however, we all know the truth. He spent years batting on a sticky wicket; he stood strong as his side was collapsing around him; and he made a return to the top team after years in exile. It is not the Leader of the House; it is Geoff Boycott.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his business statement. I welcome tomorrow’s debate on devolution following the Scottish referendum and the Command Paper on further powers that has just been published by the Scottish Secretary. After Scotland’s historic decision to remain part of the United Kingdom, we must now honour our commitment to deliver further powers within the promised timetable.

It is also right that as we debate further powers to Scotland we consider further devolution to the rest of the UK to help to address the declining trust in our politics and the widespread feeling of disempowerment. However, Labour Members believe that, instead of petty partisan games and 7 am announcements, we need a considered process that seeks to achieve broad public support as well as cross-party agreement. That is why a partisan fix in Westminster just will not wash.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing our Opposition day debates on the minimum wage and on the NHS this Wednesday. During the NHS debate, perhaps senior Tories can use the occasion to explain to the House and have the guts to admit on the record what they have told The Times today—that their top-down reorganisation of the NHS has been their biggest mistake. If they did that, for once there would be something on which we could all agree.

[Mr Hague]

I take that as a warm welcome for the change of business, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She is right: my right hon. Friend the Scottish Secretary will be making a statement, coupled with the publication of the Command Paper that has indeed just taken place. Across the Government, and I think across the House, we are all very determined that the commitments made to the people of Scotland will be honoured. She said it is right that we should consider further devolution and its consequences for the rest of the UK. That is quite right. No one is looking for a partisan fix, but equally no one should imagine that the question of the consequences for England can now be evaded. Many of us will want to make that point in tomorrow’s debate.

As I said, I will give the details of further business on Thursday.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for the week when we return from the conference recess?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for the week commencing 13 October is as follows:

Monday 13 October—Debate on a motion relating to Palestine and Israel. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 14 October—Second Reading of the Recall of MPs Bill.

Wednesday 15 October—Opposition day [6th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

Thursday 16 October—Debate on a motion relating to progress on the all-party parliamentary cycling group’s report “Get Britain Cycling”, followed by general debate on the national pollinator strategy. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 17 October—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 October will include:

Monday 20 October—Consideration in Committee of the Recall of MPs Bill (Day 1).

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 16 and 23 October will be:

Thursday 16 October—Debate on the 13th report of the Public Administration Committee on “Caught red-handed: why we can’t count on police recorded crime statistics.”

Thursday 23 October—Debate on the eighth report of the Science and Technology Committee on “Communicating climate science.”

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for after the conference recess. May I associate myself with the tributes paid by the deputy leader of the Labour party, the Leader of the House and other Members during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday to Jim Dobbin? We will all miss him.

Following President Obama’s address to the American people overnight and on the anniversary of 9/11, will the Leader of the House promise to keep the House updated on the rapidly developing situation in Iraq and Syria?

The Opposition Benches might seem just a little more sparsely populated than usual, but I assure you, Mr Speaker, that our Members’ absence is in a good cause. They are all in Scotland campaigning to save the Union. I will be joining them later today and I know that the Leader of the House is also bound for Scotland. Does he therefore agree that we can only build a better, fairer and more just future for the generations yet to come by realising that our two great nations are far better staying together than being torn asunder? May I welcome his Government’s support for the legislative programme outlined by the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), to give the Scottish Parliament greater powers in the event of a no vote? Does he agree that this demonstrates that the choice facing Scotland is not, as the nationalists would have us believe, between the status quo or separation?

Last Friday, the Government were defeated three times on the bedroom tax when the Affordable Homes Bill promoted by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) was given a Second Reading by 304 votes to 267. The bedroom tax is callous and cruel and has caused misery to hundreds of thousands of people across the country who have no realistic chance of moving to a smaller property. Many of them have been forced to turn to food banks to feed their families at the end of the month and many more have fallen unavoidably into debt. Will the Leader of the House confirm when the money resolution will come forward to enable the Bill to go into Committee? Clearly, there is no longer a majority of MPs who favour this cruel measure, and even Ministers are voting against it, so may we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions outlining how he plans to move forward?

This week, the Minister for Employment flew to the other side of the world to talk about the welcome fall in youth unemployment. What she did not mention in her choreographed boast was that long-term youth unemployment on the Wirral, where she and I both have our constituencies, has increased sevenfold since 2010, that the number of zero-hours contracts has trebled and that families are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government. By 2019, the number of working people claiming housing benefit will have doubled, increasing the cost by a massive £13 billion. Just when we thought that the Minister for Employment could not be any more out of touch, she suggested that the unemployed should undergo psychological tests to check out their attitude. The tests will apparently decide whether those looking for jobs are determined, bewildered or despondent. It sounds like these tests could sensibly be used on Tory Back Benchers.

During the Newark by-election, Tory MPs were expected by their Whips to visit the constituency at least three times, yet I hear that the Chief Whip, who is strangely absent yet again, has now made trips to Clacton-on-Sea optional. Following this week’s defection of two Tory councillors in Clacton to UKIP, are Tory MPs too bewildered or despondent to go there?

This week, months of research and planning finally culminated in a long-expected and spectacular launch. The press was lined up, waiting with bated breath, and fans lined the streets. Some had camped out overnight. There was going to be a product even slimmer than the iPhone 5s—the Liberal Democrat pre-manifesto, otherwise known as the iLie 3. The Deputy Prime Minister clearly takes seriously his pledge not to make promises he cannot keep, as he has promised to plant a tree for every child born and to legalise all drugs. The problem is that the only trip he is going on is to the Back Benches. There is, however, some good news—I hear that the manifesto is on a shortlist for a prestigious prize: the Booker prize for best new fiction.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful as always to the hon. Lady. What she has said about Jim Dobbin was one of many heartfelt tributes in the House this week.

We will always keep the House updated—although we are entering a four-week recess for the conferences and the referendum—on developments in foreign affairs. Yesterday we had a foreign affairs debate in which many hon. Members took part. The Government will keep the House updated whenever possible.

I am pleased—it is unusual for me to say this—that the Labour party is out campaigning. The shadow Leader and I will be doing so—not together, although we will both be in Scotland—[Interruption.] Well, perhaps we will meet up later today. We will be on the same side, and for an important reason: as we discussed in the House yesterday, the decision to be made next week by the people of Scotland is not an opinion poll or an election; it is a permanent decision that will affect their children and grandchildren. Therefore, it is right that this will have such intense attention over the coming days.

The hon. Lady referred to the process put forward by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). All the main parties have endorsed the proposed timetable, including for a Command Paper to be published at the end of October.

The hon. Lady asked about last week’s private Member’s Bill debates. As discussed at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, this is, in our eyes, a basic matter of fairness. The Bill that has been introduced would cost the country up to £1 billion, but I have not heard any proposals on how to replace that money. Many of the people whom the Bill intends to help are already supported within the existing policy—elderly people are exempt and disabled people who need overnight care from a visiting carer are allowed an extra bedroom. Of course, the House takes its own view on private Members’ Bills, but Government policy on the matter has not changed.

I am pleased that the hon. Lady, unusually, turned to employment matters, but she ought to have referred to the prediction of the Leader of the Opposition that 1 million jobs would be destroyed by Government policy. Since then 1,750,000 jobs have been created in this country; long-term unemployment is down, both on the last quarter and since the election; the Work programme is helping 1.4 million people, and has already got more than 500,000 people into work; and we have more than 1.8 million apprenticeship starts since the election. That is a strong record on employment and it will be a major factor at the coming general election.

Talking of elections, I thank the hon. Lady for referring to the Newark by-election, which was a great Conservative election victory—in fact, the first by the Conservative party in government since I was elected 25 years ago, which just shows how well we are doing in the run-up to the general election. She linked that with asking, as always, about the whereabouts of the Chief Whip, who is on his way to Clacton to campaign in the by-election. She will find plenty of Conservative MPs campaigning in Clacton, including me next week. That will be another of my visits around the country and I look forward to it.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for the next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 8 September—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by a general debate on food fraud. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 9 September—Motions relating to the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Legislative Reform (Clinical Commissioning Groups) Order. To follow that the Chairman Of Ways And Means has named opposed private business for consideration.

Wednesday 10 September—General debate on Ukraine, the middle east, north Africa and security, followed by a debate on a motion relating to a Select Committee on governance of the House. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 11 September—Debate on a motion relating to carbon taxes and energy-intensive industries, followed by a general debate on Gurkha pensions and terms of employment. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 12 September—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 October will include:

Monday 13 October—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 11 September will be:

Thursday 11 September—General debate on the political and humanitarian situation in Kashmir.

[Ms Eagle]

May I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business?

The barbaric and disgusting murder of a second US hostage in Syria this week has appalled the world, and reinforced the fact that the threat of ISIL must be dealt with. The Prime Minister is right to say that we should work internationally to build alliances, and also that we need to take strong action against terrorism at home. We will support him in that aim. I welcome the foreign affairs debate announced by the Leader of the House for next Wednesday. Given this fast-moving and dangerous situation, will he assure the House that he will make provision for future foreign policy debates in Government time over the coming period? Does he agree with me that although statements are very welcome, they are no substitute for a debate where all Members can get to the heart of the complexities of these issues?

The Prime Minister confirmed yesterday that he wanted to go ahead with reintroducing relocation powers, despite the Deputy Prime Minister suggesting differently. Will the Leader of the House take this opportunity to clear up the confusion about Government policy by outlining when we can expect strengthened TPIMs—terrorism prevention and investigation measures—to be in place and what legislation he expects will be needed?

NATO meets today in Wales at a time of increasing turmoil in many parts of the world. In these volatile times, the summit must address the urgent security concerns that have emerged in eastern Ukraine and agree an appropriate response in the face of the increasingly belligerent Russian leadership. Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Prime Minister will provide a statement to the House on Monday? Given the rapidly changing context in which NATO is now operating, will the Leader of the House assure us that the Government will make time available for the House to discuss these important matters?

Today, the Government have finally decided to publish the Elliott report following the horsemeat scandal last year. The report was due in spring, and we are now in September. The food industry is the single largest manufacturing sector in the UK, so it is crucial that the Government show urgent leadership and get the response to this right. Does the Leader of the House agree with the report that the Government’s misguided decision to carve up the Food Standards Agency, splitting the responsibility for food safety and authenticity, created confusion, which was clearly highlighted in the horsemeat scandal? Will he also arrange for a statement from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs so that she can set out the Government’s response to this report?

I see that the Chief Whip is not in his place—yet again. Before the summer recess he lost his first vote, only three days into his new job. Yesterday, only three days into the new Session, he has already had to retreat before he lost another one. He was stuck in the toilet last time—I am not sure that I really want to know what his excuse is this time! Yesterday’s European Committee objected to the Government’s inadequate plans for protecting British ports, despite three panic-stricken last-minute Government amendments. The sector, which employs more than 100,000 people across the country, including many in my constituency, is under real pressure, but the Transport Secretary’s response has been muddled and weak. I understand that a European Commission document relating to the ports strategy has to be considered in this House by early October. Given that that means next week or not at all, will the Leader of the House explain why this has not been tabled for consideration in next week’s business—or will he just admit that the Government are all at sea?

May I take this opportunity to welcome hon. Members back to the House after the summer recess? The Prime Minister seems to have enjoyed his holidays—we have all seen a few too many photos of him in Cornwall pretending to be in “Baywatch”. The problem with him is that he is less the Hoff and more the Toff.

I have been researching British seaside destinations and I have a suggestion for the Prime Minister’s next break: the blue flag, popular, family resort of Clacton-on-Sea. The writ will soon be moved and the by-election will reportedly take place in Essex on 9 October, the Prime Minister’s birthday. We can just imagine the birthday party at Conservative central office: half the invite list will be at Nigel’s party down the road.

Is it not the case that the Conservative party is becoming ungovernable? It has no strategy on Europe. The Prime Minister has lost an MP to UKIP. A Minister has resigned and nine of the MPs from the 2010 intake are just giving up. The MPs he has left are dialling B for Boris. What the Conservative party does not understand is that its chances of winning the next election are sinking faster than Boris island.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Lady was right to start her questions by referring to some of the horrific events of recent days and the crimes against humanity that are being committed in Iraq and in Syria. The House’s united voice on the matter is very important, as was discussed at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday. She has welcomed the holding of a broad foreign policy debate next week. That is an important response to the demand for such a debate. It is important, too, that regular statements are made. There is a need for both those things when there are so many crises in the world. I made perhaps more statements than any Foreign Secretary in history when I was Foreign Secretary. I know that my successor will also want to make regular statements on these huge issues. Whenever it is possible to have a debate as well, so that Members can discuss them in more detail, we will have one, including next week.

On tackling extremism and bringing forward legislation, again the Prime Minister made the position clear at Prime Minister’s questions. We will introduce specific and targeted legislation to provide the police with a temporary power to seize a passport at the border. We are clear in principle that we need a targeted and discretionary power to allow us to exclude British nationals from the UK. We will work up proposals on that and discuss them on a cross-party basis. It is important to have as much cross-party unity on this as we possibly can.

It is important to get that legislation right. Over centuries there has been a legitimate debate in this country on where the balance is to be struck between liberty and security. That arises every time there is a threat to our national security. The House of Commons has always had a variety of views on these matters, so we must make every effort to proceed on a cross-party basis. Consistent with acting with sufficient speed, we will try to get the legislation right. That means that it will not be introduced next week; we will be ready to do that at some stage after the conference recess.

The hon. Lady asked whether there would be a statement by the Prime Minister on Monday following the NATO summit. There will be. The Prime Minister is very keen to do that and to inform the House after that summit. There will be time in Wednesday’s debate to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

On the Elliott review, a written ministerial statement has been published today by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. There will be a debate on food fraud on Monday on the Floor of the House. The Secretary of State has accepted all the recommendations giving top priority to the needs of consumers, improving laboratory testing capacity and capability, introducing new unannounced audit checks by the food industry and many other measures. They are set out in the written ministerial statement.

The hon. Lady took the Chief Whip to task again, although I was a bit disappointed that it was the same joke about his being in the toilet as seven weeks ago. Recycling has its limits and we would like slightly more up-to-date—[Interruption.] I am all in favour of recycling jokes, but I expect more from the hon. Lady. I am sure that she will be able to deliver that next week.

I cannot go into the Prime Minister’s plans for his birthday, but certainly I and many of my hon. Friends will be visiting Clacton in the coming weeks. Our former hon. Friend Douglas Carswell explained in May that the Conservative party’s policy on Europe was 100% right. He may be the only person in British history to leave a political party because he was 100% in agreement with it. That is particularly striking as there are many people who sit in this House in their political parties perfectly happily who certainly do not agree 100% with their party’s policies; that is true in every party. This is no doubt something he will want to explain to the voters of Clacton, and it will be very interesting to see how he tries to do so.

The shadow Leader of the House accused the Government, or the Conservative party, of having no strategy on Europe. That is a bit rich from a member of a party that was against a referendum before the European constitution came up, then in favour of one and announced one, then against one when it came to actually holding the referendum, then against one on the Lisbon treaty, then against our referendum Act of 2011, but now has accepted it into law, then toyed with the idea of being in favour of a referendum, and has now come out against it. There is absolutely no way we will take any lectures from the Opposition on strategy on Europe.

I conclude by saying that after a summer recess in which we have seen strong figures on GDP growth in this country, our world economic ranking for competitiveness now go up four places from where it was left by the last Government on grounds of controlling the fiscal deficit, an excellent reduction in unemployment and a growth in employment figures, a major increase in car registration, and consumer confidence at its highest for a long time, it is rather revealing that there are no requests from those on the Opposition Benches to discuss the economy and the long-term economic plan of the Government.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Angela Eagle

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 21 July—Second Reading of the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill.

Tuesday 22 July—Motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to data retention, followed by matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment, as selected by the Backbench Business Committee.

The business for the week commencing 1 September will be:

Monday 1 September—Debate on a motion relating to hospital car parking charges, followed by a debate on a motion relating to mitochondrial replacement techniques and public safety, followed by a general debate on the position of Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The subjects for debate were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 2 September—Second Reading of the Pension Schemes Bill.

Wednesday 3 September—Opposition day (5th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 4 September—Debate on a motion relating to regulation of the sale of puppies and kittens, followed by a general debate on the future of non-league football, followed by a general debate on the achievement gap in reading between poorer children and their better-off peers. The subjects for debate were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 5 September—Private Member’s Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 September will include:

Monday 8 September—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 4 and 8 September will be:

Thursday 4 September—Debate on stamp duty and the housing market.

Monday 8 September—Debate on an e-petition relating to research funding for and awareness of pancreatic cancer.

If I may, Mr Speaker, I would also like to thank my predecessor as Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley). In the past two years, he has led the successful delivery of the Government’s legislative programme; ensured improved levels of scrutiny by this House; overseen a record number of Bills and measures receiving pre-legislative scrutiny; and piloted continuing reform, making the House increasing relevant to the public. I wish him well for the future and I hope he continues to make a major contribution to public life. Finally, as is customary, may I thank all the staff of the House for their hard work? I hope they enjoy a well-deserved break before the House returns in September.

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[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

May I associate myself with the wish of the Leader of the House that our staff and all the staff of the House have a restful holiday?

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), who this week left his post as Leader of the House after two years in the job. May I say how much I have enjoyed working with him, especially in our joint duties as members of the House of Commons Commission, and may I wish him all the best for the future, although the Leader of the House has made an intriguing comment about what that might be?

Once again, I take the opportunity to welcome the First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) to his new responsibilities. I thank him for next week’s business and the provisional business for our first weeks back in September.

On Monday, we will debate the pleasing sounding but completely vacuous Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill—a five-clause Bill that does something that the previous Labour Government legislated for in 2006. The Government could bring in a new law to guarantee rights for victims of crime or deal with the meltdown in probation or tackle the prisons crisis, so can the Leader of the House tell us why they are wasting time with this PR exercise?

This morning, we discovered that the Liberal Democrats had made their most shameless U-turn since their last one: this time it is the bedroom tax. We told them it would create misery and save no money, but their votes got it on to the statute book, and their votes defended it time and again. Given that there is now no majority in this House for the continuation of this pointless and cruel tax, will the Leader of the House make time for an emergency debate before the summer recess so that we can consign it to the dustbin of history?

Less than a month ago, the Prime Minister was leading the charge against Jean-Claude Juncker because nobody knew who he was. Now he has appointed an EU commissioner who has such presence that when he tried to resign from the Government, the Prime Minister did not even notice. Only last month, Lord Hill was telling ConservativeHome that he did not want the role because

“I quite like it at home here in the British Isles.”

When asked if he would accept the job as EU commissioner, he said, “No! No! No!” We know the trouble that was caused when that phrase was last heard in here. Lord Hill might not be a household name, but we really cannot fault his enthusiasm for the job! Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) that he would support parliamentary scrutiny of his nominee for the European Commission, so can the Leader of the House set out what form that scrutiny will take and when we can expect more detail?

This week’s super-spun but chaotic reshuffle was supposed to unite the Tory party, but the modernisers are furious, the right is furious, and the Eurosceptics never stop being furious. The Prime Minister says his new Cabinet is a team that represents Britain, but it is 95% white, 77% male and nearly 50% privately educated. That is not a Britain that most people recognise.

The Prime Minister appointed an equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage and sacked his own Minister for modernisation. It is no wonder that the Deputy Prime Minister just said on the radio that

“the head bangers have now won”

in the Conservative party.

I am glad to see that the Leader of the House is settling in to his new role. He spent four years travelling the world. He has rubbed shoulders with Angela Merkel; hobnobbed with Angelina; and now he is stuck with Commons Angela. In the words of the former Education Secretary, I do not know whether he would call that demotion, emotion, promotion or locomotion, but I certainly look forward to it. May I also congratulate him on his success in negotiating a huge pay rise for the Leader of the House in a triumph that surely indicates he has a new career opening up when he leaves Parliament at the next election as a trade union negotiator!

I welcome the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) to—I was going to say to his new job as Chief Whip, but he is not in his place. [Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] He has not had the most auspicious of starts. Yesterday, he not only lost his first vote, but he managed to get stuck in the toilet in the wrong Lobby, and nearly broke his own whip. We know all about the former Education Secretary’s love of free schools, independent of any central authority, so I wonder whether he is keen to allow the emergence of lots of free Tory MPs, who do not have to submit to his authority. At least the only book that he can ban now is “Erskine May”. When the Prime Minister asked the Chief Whip to take up his new role, he apparently asked him to become the “hand of the king”. Now, I am no “Game of Thrones” expert, but is it not the case that so far the hands of the king have been variously beheaded, knifed and shot with a harpoon—and all by their own side? I note that the last time a Conservative Foreign Secretary became Leader of the House he helped to depose the Prime Minister a few months later.

As this is our first business questions together, may I just say, “Welcome to the cause”?

[Mr Hague]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, in particular because hardly any of her questions were about the business of the House, but I entirely understand that.

The hon. Lady joined in the tributes to my predecessor. It was not meant to be intriguing to wish him well. I think that it is taking criminology and conspiracy too far to think that an innocent wishing of him well is to be interpreted in some deep way, but I know that the whole House will join in wishing him well. I also thank her for her welcome. I have a great respect for the hon. Lady and look forward to working and sparring with her. She pointed out that the last Conservative Foreign Secretary to become Leader of the House joined in deposing the Prime Minister. I am unsure whether the Foreign Secretary in question expected or wanted to become Leader of the House, whereas I asked for this duty, which I am delighted to take up. I am a strong believer in the power, vitality, role and relevance of the House, as well as in the policies of Her Majesty’s Government and the support of those policies by all coalition parties. I look forward to advancing both those things.

The hon. Lady will have to be careful with some things, such as criticising the nomination of Lord Hill for European Commissioner. This is quite a big glasshouse in which to throw stones, given what happened the last time a commissioner was appointed. Lord Hill occupies the same position that Baroness Ashton occupied when she was appointed by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). She was appointed after the most chaotic saga: Lord Mandelson was to be the nomination, then was not, then various other former members of the Cabinet were, and then Baroness Ashton appeared at the last moment. This is a dramatically more orderly process with a strong candidate, whom we will support. I will of course be happy to discuss with the Select Committees what the process should be for the House taking evidence from the nominee. I will have the advantage over the hon. Lady of being able to pronounce Llanelli a little better than her, but that comes from having been Secretary of State for Wales in my extensive political career—