Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The business for next will be:

Monday 5 November—Second Reading of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill.

Tuesday 6 November—Second Reading of the European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill, followed by motion to approve European documents relating to banking union and economic and monetary union.

Wednesday 7 November—Opposition day (8th allotted day). There will be a debate on regional pay in the NHS, followed by a further debate on a subject to be announced. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Thursday 8 November—A debate on a motion relating to the medium-term financial plan for the House of Commons administration and savings programme, followed by a general debate on stimulating growth through better use of the prompt payment code. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 9 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the following week will include:

Monday 12 November—Opposition day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Tuesday 13 November—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House of business in Westminster Hall:

Thursday 22 November—A debate on the Transport Select Committee’s report on air travel organisers’ licensing reform, followed by a debate on the Committee’s report on flight time limitations.

Thursday 6 December—A debate on fisheries.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week.

Last week, I welcomed the new Chief Whip to his position. This week, I should congratulate him on another parliamentary record. John Wakeham, his predecessor, lost a Commons vote within 40 days in the job; this Chief Whip has done it in only 13 days. At least his experience in John Major’s Cabinet means that he knows what it is like to serve under a weak Prime Minister who is unable to control his parliamentary party.

Yesterday lunchtime, the Prime Minister said he was in favour of cutting the EU budget, but yesterday evening he voted against cutting the EU budget. It says something about his unique negotiating strategy that he thinks he strengthens his position by voting against the very thing he says he will argue for; and it says something about his approach to party management that, ahead of last night’s vote, he told his Back Benchers—in colourful terms—that the House

“is not some…sixth-form debating society”.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said the Government were seeking a real-terms cut in the EU budget, but today the Deputy Prime Minister has ruled that out. Who speaks for the Government?

Two weeks ago, the House voted against the scrapping of 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and the Government ignored the vote; last week, the House voted against the badger cull and the Government carry on regardless; but they must not ignore the vote of the House last night—after all, this is not a “sixth-form debating society”. May we therefore have an urgent statement from the Foreign Secretary on what steps the Government will now take?

I am afraid I owe the House an apology. Last week, I tipped Flashman for the 4.25 at Doncaster, but when it came to it Flashman over-promised and under-delivered. He turned out to be a great disappointment. There is a lesson in that for Conservative Back Benchers: don’t waste your money on a gelding called Flashman.

Back in September, the Prime Minister announced with great fanfare that he was setting up a growth implementation committee. He said it would be

“a forum which will be focused on implementation and driving implementation.”

When asked, the Business Secretary—vice-chair of the committee—could not remember its even being set up. So unmemorable and unimportant was the committee on “driving implementation” that the Business Secretary’s officials had to remind him that the committee had in fact met twice and that he had been there. There we have it: the PR Prime Minister announces by press release a drive for growth, and nothing happens.

It is no wonder that, halfway through the life of this Government, they had to ask Lord Heseltine to report on how to drive economic growth. His report concluded:

“the UK does not have a strategy for growth”.

They did not need to ask Lord Heseltine to find that out. So far, we have had a growth implementation committee and a growth report, and next week we will debate the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, but since the Government were formed and over the entire period they have been in office, the economy has grown in total by just 0.6%. Whether plan B or plan H, the Government need a plan for growth, so may we have an urgent statement from the Chancellor on what the Government are doing to implement the report’s recommendations?

The Conservative Energy Minister said this week about onshore wind farms that “enough is enough”. Hours later, up popped his boss, the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State, to announce the opposite. For good measure, a “source” told the Guardian that the errant Energy Minister “has been very silly”. We clearly need an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change so that we can find out precisely what this Government’s policy on onshore wind farms really is, because it did not become any clearer in today’s questions. We also need an assurance that his junior Minister will not contradict the policy the day after it is announced.

Then there is Trident. This week, the Defence Secretary announced one position, and then the Deputy Prime Minister announced a different one. We have not heard from the Leader of the House on the subject, so maybe he would like to announce a third.

This week we have had two defence policies and two wind farm policies and today we have got two EU budget policies. Even a sixth-form debating society would do better than this.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her tip last week, but I was looking forward to one this week. It turns out that all we get from the Labour party is a non-starter. The hon. Lady has to get it right—if the horse does not run, you keep your money, and that is what we are going to do. We are going to keep the money.

The hon. Lady is right: we are not a sixth-form debating society, but people might have thought differently from the way the Labour party approached yesterday’s debate. It was a classic of student politics—do one thing and say another. This is a party which in government saw the EU budget rise by 47%. It said it would go and negotiate toughly on the budget, but gave away the rebate and saw the budget go up by £8 billion. That is not a party that has any credibility. On the contrary, our Prime Minister will go to those negotiations looking for a cut, not—as the shadow Leader said—aiming for no cut. We have already started with the toughest position ever achieved in relation to the EU budget, with the Prime Minister already having done what the Labour party talked about but never did—creating allies in Europe for constraining the EU budget, as he did in December 2010. Contrary to what the Labour party says, the Prime Minister is prepared to use the veto on the EU budget if necessary, whereas Labour says it would not.

The hon. Lady did ask a question—I always search for them. She asked whether the Chancellor would make a statement about Lord Heseltine’s report “No Stone Unturned”. The Prime Minister and Chancellor commissioned that report and welcomed it. It rightly stressed that we are on the right track. Anyone who knows Michael Heseltine well—as I do—will recognise that he always wants to be pushing forward, and that is what we will do. The Chancellor will make the autumn statement on 5 December and show how we are taking forward growth, because from our point of view it is vital to achieve growth in the economy.

The hon. Lady asked about Trident. All that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence was doing was announcing the next phase of what was announced back in May in relation to the design and development process. There was nothing new or exceptional about that. The shadow Leader of the House seems to have written her response to the business statement before she came to the House to listen to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change respond to questions. He and his Ministers could not have been clearer. We are achieving improvements in renewable and green technologies in ways that Labour could only dream of.

I remind the shadow Leader of the House that she told her constituents in the Wirral News yesterday that

“we desperately need…some good news on the economy.”

I find that astonishing. Does she not realise that we have reduced Labour’s deficit by a quarter? Under this Government, there are more than 1 million more people working in the private sector and an increase in employment of 750,000. The number of people claiming the main out-of-work benefits has fallen by 170,000. Furthermore, 950,000 people have started apprenticeships in the past two years, and more new businesses have been created than in any other year on record. That is happening under this Government. Only Labour believes in a plan B— B for borrowing!