Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Obviously, the Government are held to account, and quite rightly so, for their policy in Afghanistan, and that has been a matter of interest to the House and it has been covered quite fully. A general debate, however, is more a matter for the Backbench Business Committee. It has the time available for these debates and I encourage my hon. Friend to go to that Committee and seek one.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

May I briefly associate myself with the comments regarding the late Austin Mitchell? It was my privilege to work with Austin for many years on matters pertaining to the fishing industry. I know that his passing will be felt not just by his friends and family, but in fishing ports around the coast of the United Kingdom.

May I recommend to the Leader of the House that, if he has not already done so, he reads my urgent question on vaccine passports in yesterday’s Hansard? The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) opened the bidding for the Conservative Back Benchers by saying:

“What a load of rubbish.”—[Official Report, 8 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 307.]

What followed was three quarters of an hour that was not quite as polite and nuanced as that. Of most concern, however, was the fact that the Minister was asked three times whether this House would be given the vote that it was actually promised by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and three times he refused to give that commitment. Can the Leader of the House tell me now whether, in the time that remains unallocated, we will be allowed to debate and vote on the Government’s proposals?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that important question. The Government were quite clear—and this was agreed with the Department of Health and Social Care last year—that any matters of national significance would come to this House for a vote before the measure was implemented. That was a commitment made by Her Majesty’s Government and I assume that any Department that wishes to bring in a statutory instrument that meets that test would ask for time for a debate first. That is something that the House ought to expect.

English Votes for English Laws

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and we should be very proud of all that the Hanoverians did in this country, not least providing us with a royal household that served with great distinction.

We have had great success as a United Kingdom across the globe, and after our EU exit, we can work together to do more to increase prosperity across the whole country. Members need look no further than the Subsidy Control Bill or the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 for examples of us making good use of competencies taken back from Europe. In that context, the tiresome and ineffectual EVEL process seems less of a priority, particularly given the ease with which Governments can make changes to Standing Orders of this kind to suit them—a point that will not be lost on those of us elected in 2010 or before, who are now spending time trying to unpick the poorly thought through constitutional changes made by previous Administrations. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 is already on its way to the knacker’s yard.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way, because he has made reference a number of times now to powers that are being repatriated subsequent to our departure from the European Union. Does he not accept that when it comes to matters such as agricultural payments and fisheries management, we now have the highly unsatisfactory situation where the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for example, acts as a UK and an English Ministry? Does he not think that that makes the case for devolution within England?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There is a case for devolution within England, and that is part of the Government’s approach—there are the mayoralties in London, in Manchester and so on—but no, we are also a United Kingdom. It is important that we operate as a United Kingdom and ensure that powers are used where they will be most effective, and it is natural that most, though not all, powers that came back from the European Union should be used at United Kingdom level.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Leader of the House is being generous with his time. Surely the logic of his position is that if it is unsatisfactory for this House to be at the same time a UK and an English Parliament, the same thing must apply to the Executive.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not think that is quite what I am saying. I am saying that this Parliament is the Parliament for the United Kingdom and is therefore able to take a broad swathe of decisions. It also takes decisions that affect only England, and it has votes from people from outside England affecting them. The Ministers are United Kingdom Ministers who, like this House, also make decisions for England, but they are held accountable by Members from across the whole of the United Kingdom, and I think that that is a perfectly rational constitutional settlement, considering that 85% of the population of the whole of the United Kingdom live in England. They are not, however, necessarily English.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was expecting references to the West Lothian question. As the Leader of the House has said, we have different bits of devolution for different parts of the country. We have indeed a Labour metro Mayor of the West of England, who was elected quite properly by the people of the west of England. There are different elements of devolution across the entire country. That does not take away from the fact that in this place we should all be equal.

The then Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) totally failed to absorb the wise counsel from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) on the subject of matters of interest involving the border between Wales and England. My right hon. Friend said:

“The Government like to tell us that English votes for English laws is a clearcut issue, but it is not—and we have heard today many reasons why it is not. Residents of Alyn and Deeside use healthcare services both sides of the border.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 993.]

My right hon. Friend has already referred to that and other issues today. I fail to understand why Ministers at that time did not understand what my hon. and right hon. Friends were saying. Now, wonderfully, they do, but why not at the time? We could have saved so much time and effort.

Also, what of the need to reform the constitution of this country? Does this procedure in any way add anything useful? Well, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey observed at the time:

“Labour Members consider that this issue should have been properly dealt with as part of a much wider process involving a constitutional convention to examine a range of issues in a more holistic way.”

That might have answered what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) was asking. My hon. Friend continued:

“A genuine attempt should have been made to come to a cross-party agreement between the parties represented in this place, and with wider civil society.”

We could still try doing that. She continued:

“Proceeding in this consensual way, rather than in the blatantly partisan way the Government have chosen, would have hugely increased their chances of introducing a successful and sustainable change. No such attempt has been made.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 951.]

If only the Government had heeded her wise words.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, because, in Scotland in the 1990s, her party and mine were part of exactly that: a constitutional convention. However, I remind her in the House that that was not about a question of national identity, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) suggests. It was about better governance, and it was about bringing control of affairs back closer to the people. So the question of who speaks for England is not the appropriate question. The question should be: who should be speaking for the various parts of England?

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am thrilled to be called to speak now, Madam Deputy Speaker.

May I start by setting something straight? There is an answer to the West Lothian question. Tam Dalyell and I actually came up with two answers some 17 years ago. One, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you know, is the Harthill services, and the second is salt and sauce. I will leave it to the House to determine which one is the correct answer.

What an utter humiliation this is for the Government. A flagship policy of the 2015 manifesto will soon be nothing more than a footnote in future constitutional history books, and, remember, it is just another Tory policy disaster. God knows what they were thinking about when they introduced this some six years ago. They were consumed with the notion that we, the unkempt Caledonian hordes, were somehow stopping them securing the democratic outcomes that they desired—us, the 59 Scots MPs out of 650 MPs, needed to be constrained and curtailed. EVEL was just about the worst solution to a problem that did not even exist.

Never before has a procedure come to this House that has divided the membership of this House into two different and distinct classes. Not only did it do that, it did it by nationality and by geography. It is a procedure that barely anyone understands, that is a burden to the management and administration of the business of this House, that is entirely unnecessary, and that produces almost unprecedented resentment. Something that it will be remembered for more than anything else is what it has done for the cause of English devolved governance. This was the first serious attempt to create some sort of forum for English democracy. We actually agree with them. They do deserve their English Parliament. They should always get the outcomes that they want and deserve. We have even got a neat, practical and elegant solution to that, but, of course, they will not even start to look at that. There are myriad solutions to resolving this within the precious Union. The thing is that they could not be bothered doing the work. They could not be bothered rolling up their sleeves and designing a Parliament of their own. They decided instead to come here and to use the national UK Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for this doomed experiment. Imagine a quasi-English Parliament squatting here in the national Parliament. What an absolute and utter disgrace.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I do not have time to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

It satisfied absolutely no one. All it did was infuriate Scotland. Instead of securing the near federalism that was promised, Scotland instead saw its MPs become second-class Members in the Parliament that they had just been invited to lead. There were signs in the Division Lobby saying, “England only.” They would have been better saying, “Scots out.” That is what the Government did with this procedure.

The Government knew it would never work. From the first moment when they suggested this nonsense, we have told them again and again that it was madness and that, at some point, they would be here—as they are this evening—to withdraw it. Now under pressure from the SNP, EVEL is to be abandoned. This is a spectacular victory for the Scottish National party, and I congratulate all my hon. Friends on bringing down this nonsense. This is one victory that we have secured this week in the United Kingdom and, by God, we are going to celebrate like it is 1966. Believe me, we will be banging on about this for the next 55 years and we will enjoy every minute of it.

There is a part of me that will miss the entertainment of it all and the laughs that it gave us. It was designed to quell this tartan menace, but I ended up making the most contributions in the Legislative Grand Committee. With 57 contributions, not only was I the most committed and dedicated Member of the English Parliament but I beat all the English Members combined two times over.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend about the concerning growth and scale of online fraud. Online fraud can have a severe effect on individuals and businesses and on society more broadly. The Government work with law enforcement, industry and consumer groups to tackle online fraud. The Home Office, Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are all working together to consider additional legislative and non-legislative solutions via a continuing programme of work. I would say, though, that not all of this is legislative. One thing that we should all always remember and should say to our constituents is that if they ever see anything online that is too good to be true, it is not true. That single piece of advice will save many of us from the illegal activities of scammers.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

May I say to the Leader of the House that I hope that Members of all parties might be allowed to pay some tribute to my late colleague and friend Baroness Williams of Crosby? She was somebody who blazed a trail for women in politics in over five decades in public life in this country. She was blessed with a magic combination of both a fine political mind and genuine political warmth, which allowed her to reach out to people across the party divide and to people of no parties. I realised this for myself in 1983, when I heard her address an outdoor rally at a by-election in Darlington. There was a man behind me saying, “Hear, hear!”, and there was a lot of agreement coming from him. I turned around to see who this new convert to liberalism was, and it was, in fact, none other than Screaming Lord Sutch. I told Shirley that story some two decades later and it says a lot about her that she instinctively just loved the joke at her own expense. She will be enormously missed by people in all parties, but especially among the family of Liberal Democrats.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that tribute and I am grateful that he told me in advance that he would make it, because Shirley Williams was actually a great friend of my father. They knew each other from their Oxford days and Shirley got my father his first job. She wrote in an Oxford magazine that my father read the Financial Times every day at breakfast and the then editor of the Financial Times offered him a job, so my family has always been enormously grateful to Shirley for setting my father off in his journalistic career.

She was also, as the right hon. Gentleman says, one of the most charming people to meet: always kindly and thoughtful, and good to her friends. As somebody who was very much in favour of state education, she actually came to speak for me for a society I ran at Eton, which I think is symbolic of how kindly she was. When I last met her, she said to me that she was very glad she was my brother’s godmother, not mine, because had she been mine she might have had to disagree with me a little bit in public. Again, I thought that showed such kindliness and charm.

Above and beyond that, she was also a stunningly effective politician, a great Member of both the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats, and somebody this nation can be proud of for having produced a politician of such capability, such effectiveness, but also such kindliness.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

With projects of this scale, local effects will unfortunately be unavoidable. The Department for Transport encourages close co-operation and engagement between such projects and local councils, including parish councils. The HS2 Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), has been looking at this issue closely and, as set out in detail in the parliamentary report published last week, has taken a number of further steps to improve HS2 Ltd’s approach. The Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), is also supportive of the recently introduced monthly meeting between the leaders of Buckinghamshire Council, East West Rail Company, Network Rail and the EWR Alliance, which can act as a point of escalation for construction issues if required. As regards a debate in Government time, I am sorry, but I cannot promise that. I do think that an issue concerning the councils, including parish councils, of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) is ideal territory for an Adjournment debate.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

May we have an early statement from the Secretary of State for Transport on air safety? For whatever reason, the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU did not include access to the EU EGNOS—European geostationary navigation overlay service—satellite system, which is used to provide 3D glide slope for instrument approach procedures for planes coming in to land at airports. As a consequence, come 21 June, the limits at which planes will be allowed to approach a runway without visual contact will be significantly increased, which will be particularly acute across the highlands and islands, at exactly the same time as we will be wanting more people, hopefully, to come back and start to visit us again. We need a memorandum of understanding with the EU on that, and we really need to hear from the Secretary of State for Transport what he intends to do if we do not have one.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I cannot claim that I know a great deal about that particular issue, which may not surprise the House, but this is absolutely one of those things, as I said to an hon. Gentleman earlier, that I will take up with the relevant Minister, and I will try to get the right hon. Gentleman a detailed response to what sounds a very serious matter. Obviously we want transport to resume as safely as possible, so that tourists are able to come back. He raises an important point, and I shall do my best to get a detailed answer.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head up to the Shetlands and Alistair Carmichael.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) [V]]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—not quite as far as Shetland today; I come to you from Orkney. I ask the Leader of the House whether we can have a debate in Government time on the operation of the UK-US extradition arrangements, which were entered into under a treaty of the Labour Government in 2003. He will have seen press reports about the case of British businessman Mike Lynch, which demonstrate that the treaty is not only open to abuse but is being abused. We need arrangements that are equal in fairness to each side. Many Conservative Members were critical of the treaty in 2003. Can we now start a debate about getting improvements?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The issue that the right hon. Gentleman raises has aroused concern. Any extradition treaty should be proportionate and fair between the two parties and we should always ensure that Her Majesty’s subjects are treated fairly in any legal proceedings that may arise in this country or overseas. I was always concerned about the European arrest warrant for those reasons and the right hon. Gentleman is right to raise this important subject.

Virtual Participation in Debate

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment (a) in line 5:

Leave out from “Members” to “to” in line 8 and insert “with a public health reason relating to the pandemic”.

Welcome to the Chair, Mr Speaker. It is good to see you in your rightful place. I suspect that I am not going to please everyone, because I have just had an email from a Philip Toler, who says: “Why do you constantly stand up in Parliament?” [Interruption.] Oh, hang on, I seem to have united the House with that. He goes on: “Why do you not express your appreciation of the hard-working Prime Minister and all his Ministers? They are only trying their best. The Government was voted in by 95% of the population and you should therefore show some respect.” [Interruption.] Sometimes the vote in the Rhondda is a bit like that, but I do not think it is quite the same. That sounds a bit like a Trump version of how elections are run.

It is a terrible shame that this has become such a scratchy debate. There is no need for that, in all honesty, because there is a very simple issue at hand: the Government think one thing and quite a lot of Members of the House think a different thing, and we should be able to resolve that without all shouting and screaming at one another. I regret the way that we have ended up with the debate today, because many of us have repeatedly said to the Government, to the Whips and to the Leader of the House that the simplest way of having a proper debate on this is for the Government to timetable a chunk of time for a debate with a vote at the end of it, so that the House can decide. Unfortunately, that is not what the Government decided to do. They decided to table the motion on nod or nothing, without consulting with the Opposition Whips beforehand. Nod or nothing is there for consensual motions. The whole point of nod or nothing is that if the whole of the House does not agree then it does not go through. It is not nodded through, so we get nothing. I must say that when the Leader of the House made his response to the urgent question more than a week ago now, I had the impression that the motion he was going to table was one that the whole of the House would have been able to live with. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. What happened was that we had the nod or nothing games on Wednesday night and then again on Thursday. We have had a version of them again today.

Today has been the oddest of the lot, because the Government Whips put a whole load of speakers into lots of debates earlier on in the day. The Leader of the House, as I said earlier, told my Select Committee, the Committee on Standards, this morning that he had allocated time for two very important debates we would have tonight on bullying in the House of Commons. He said that we were going to have those debates and then he did not move the motions for them. I think it is a shame that we are debating this motion, rather than dealing with bullying in the Palace of Westminster. It has taken far too long to try to solve some of those issues. Members were asking earlier, “What will voters think watching this debate?” They will think, “Why haven’t you sorted out the bullying issues in Parliament?” They will not be worrying so much about this debate.

It is a shame we have got to where we are now. I say again that the easiest thing in the world for the Government to do is table a motion on the Order Paper in the normal way and to allow a chunk of time for it to be debated, so that all hon. Members can be notified that the motion is be happening at such-and-such a time and they can take their own view.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It appears to me that the House is now in a wholly unsatisfactory position. We stand to have a Division soon in relation to House business, which, by convention, is not normally whipped, and many Members who are not here will have given their proxies to their own party Whips. It is difficult to see how any view expressed by the House at 7 o’clock will be genuinely representative of the views of all the House.

[Chris Bryant]

I will come on to that point later, but there is a prior point which is really important. It is vital to the way we do our business as a Parliament that we have some business which is not subject to the Whip. Obviously, there are conscience clauses. One could argue that every single vote we ever cast in Parliament is a conscience clause, but there are specific matters that have historically been treated in the House as conscience clauses, such as abortion, gay marriage and so on. Traditionally, there has been a very strong view that when it comes to how the House does its own business and orders things, it is not a matter for the Whips.

Now, some of my best friends are Whips. Some of my very best friends are Whips. [Interruption.] Yes, all right, some of my next-door neighbours are Whips. They play an absolutely vital role in enabling the business of the House to proceed. They are therefore, in the main, for the greater convenience of the House. However, there is some business that we should just decide, because in our own conscience, out of our own thinking, that is what we have decided. I think that this matter, in the middle of a pandemic, really should be a matter where our own personal decision is the only thing that counts. It seems odd to me that we have ended up in a situation where a Government Whip can have more than 240 proxy votes—the Opposition Whip, too—yet lots and lots of people cannot take part in the debate. If anything, it should be the other way around.

I want to come specifically to the Government motion and why I have a problem with it, as it is worded. First of all, it says we must be

“certified by a medical practitioner”.

Frankly, I think medical practitioners have better things to do at the moment than to be signing people off as “clinically extremely vulnerable”. Secondly, the idea that we should have to present some kind of certificate—I do not know in what form—presumably to you, Mr Speaker, to prove that somebody has been certified as clinical extremely vulnerable by a medical practitioner, puts you in an invidious position, because you have then to decide. Effectively, you become the doctor of the House, deciding whether people are or are not clinically extremely vulnerable. I do not have any problem with all those people who are clinically extremely vulnerable taking part in debates. I think they should have been allowed to do so for some time already. I am not upset about saying that I have had several letters from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care telling me that I should be shielding—I am not sure whether this is his way of trying to prevent me from taking part in debates. He is not directly addressing this to me—as far as he knows, it has gone out to 300,000 people, or whatever —but the truth is that my doctor says that I am not clinically extremely vulnerable and there is no need for me to shield, not least because I completed my treatment for my cancer back in February. I just think that this is an inappropriate way of us dealing with Members.

The second point is that there are many people who have responsibilities for other people in their households for all sorts of different reasons, as many and as various as the stars in the sky, no doubt. I simply think that it is invidious, therefore, to draw the line in one particular place. I say to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)—he knows I have enormous respect for him—that, on this occasion, I just think that it would be perfectly simple for him to vote for the amendment and then we would be able to get both the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) able to participate in debates.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The difficulties families face when they are flooded and the worry that they must have when the rain beats down again is something with which every Member of this House would have sympathy. A great deal of taxpayers’ money is being spent, and Yorkshire is receiving more than any other region—£496 million has been spent since 2015, protecting 66,000 properties. Across England as a whole, £2.6 billion is being spent on flood and coastal defences between 2015 and 2021. In March, there was a commitment of £5.2 billion to build 2,000 new flood and coastal defence schemes across England by 2027. I appreciate that that does not necessarily give my hon. Friend’s constituents the comfort that they desire, but he will have the opportunity to raise the matter with the Secretary of State on 26 November. I will also take it up on his behalf and try to get him a detailed answer on when the programme will actually start.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Last week, the Home Secretary ended the exemption in relation to the numbers of people who can take part in a protest, meaning that for the duration of lockdown the maximum number of people who will be able to demonstrate is now two. Why did the Leader of the House allow that to happen without the Home Secretary coming to this House to explain why? Why was there not a statement as to why this most egregious and draconian restriction on our liberties would be necessary?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Prime Minister himself came and made a statement, and the Prime Minister himself opened yesterday’s debate on the new regulations. He is senior to the Home Secretary, so it was done at the highest level. A large number of restrictions are being imposed which nobody wishes to impose. Nobody wishes to restrict the freedoms of the British people. It is being done, with the support of Opposition Members, in response to the coronavirus crisis. The person to whom the Home Secretary reports came to make the statement. As the Queen is not allowed to come into this House, there is no more senior authority who could have come.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal held that Home Office regulations used for the removal of people under immigration rules, which have been used in an estimated 40,000 cases, were unlawful. Why has the Home Secretary not come to the House to make a statement in relation to that judgment, or are the views of the judges at the Court of Appeal to be dismissed as those of a bunch of lefty lawyers?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Home Secretary has the greatest respect for our judicial processes, as do all members of Her Majesty’s Government. The Home Secretary will be here for oral questions on 9 November. The good news is that the Home Secretary has announced that legislation on this matter will be coming forward, which will no doubt increase the clarity over the immigration law.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I understand it—although I will be corrected if this is not right—it is a made affirmative statutory instrument that will have to come to the House in due course, in accordance with the normal procedures. But my right hon. Friend is absolutely right; we are a parliamentary democracy, so decisions made by the Government have to be supported by this House. It is worth bearing in mind that the House passed the emergency legislation which provided the powers for these things to happen.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Further to the comments of the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, may I say to the Leader of the House that it is deeply regrettable that we will, even for the first week back, not have had an opportunity in this Chamber to discuss the proposals by Israel to annex the Occupied Palestinian Territories? It is a matter on which this House should express a view, as we have historic obligations in the region. I gently say to him that perhaps it might have taken precedence, in terms of the time available in the Chamber, over the rating arrangements for public lavatories, which could be dealt with in Committee—for everyone’s convenience?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

On the issue of Israel, the Government remain committed to a two-state solution. Any moves towards annexation would be damaging to efforts to restart peace negotiations and contrary to international law. We have conveyed our opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu on multiple occasions, and reiterated this message in a statement to the UN Security Council on 24 June.

The remaining stages of the Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill—without making any more puns on that issue—have to be taken on the Floor of the House. Report stage and Third Reading need to be completed as well as Committee stage, although I do not imagine that proceedings in Committee will take up a great deal of time.

Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that small businesses are the heart of the economy. They are the engine and the creators of new jobs. The Government have done a lot to support small businesses during the pandemic, beyond the furlough scheme, as I have outlined before. We do now need to think about how we move to the future and get the economy going again. The Prime Minister made an excellent speech on Tuesday and we will get more information from the Chancellor next week. My hon Friend is right to champion small businesses.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The BBC has been reporting all morning that it has been told by Government sources that there will be an announcement today or before the end of the week of the list of countries to which air bridges will be established. I hope that the Leader of the House will ensure that that announcement, when it is made, is made here first.

In fact, that announcement could be made by the Prime Minister, who could then explain his views on the fact that his father has apparently jetted off to Greece in defiance of the guidance. It may be—I do not know—that he needed an eye test or something like that, but we would all welcome an explanation.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I seem to remember that it says somewhere in the Bible that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons, but I do not remember it ever being the other way around, so I think the right hon. Gentleman is fishing desperately to try to make any criticism of the Prime Minister in that regard. As regards the countries that we may or may not have on a list, information is given to Parliament when Parliament is sitting. Parliament will not be sitting tomorrow, so I cannot promise that there will be a statement if the information comes out at a time when the House is not sitting.