Business of the House

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman and I would differ on whether the inquiry could have been established earlier, but, leaving that aside, as he says, the House will of course be able to debate this in detail a week today thanks to the choice of the Backbench Business Committee, and I think many of these points are best explored then. It is of course an independent inquiry, as the whole House acknowledges, so Ministers do not have much knowledge of the detailed reasons for the delays in its proceedings. I think I can say we all had a reasonable expectation that it would have reported by now, and while I cannot, given its independence, confirm some of the things the right hon. Gentleman has just said, I certainly have not seen any indication that the behaviour of witnesses like himself has been delaying the inquiry.

[Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Further to the welcome announcement in the Adjournment debate last night by my the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), can my right hon. Friend say when the Government will lay the regulations so that we can make progress with the standardised packaging of tobacco products?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend the Minister who is responsible for public health did make that announcement yesterday. I cannot say exactly when these regulations will be debated, but they will be laid in good time to be debated in both Houses before the general election. My hon. Friend is also talking to the devolved Administrations about consent for the measure to be UK-wide. Because of various EU processes, these regulations cannot be laid until after 2 March, so they will have to be dealt with in the final month of the Parliament.