Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 3 December—General debate on the Leveson inquiry.

Tuesday 4 December—Remaining stages of the Public Service Pensions Bill, followed by motion relating to the appointment of Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority board members.

Wednesday 5 December—The Chancellor of the Exchequer will present his autumn statement, followed by consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill.

Thursday 6 December—A debate on a motion relating to the 40th anniversary of the expulsion of Ugandan Asians, followed by general debate on defence personnel.

The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

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

Monday 10 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Financial Services Bill.



Tuesday 11 December—General debate on public expenditure.

Wednesday 12 December—Opposition day (12th allotted day, first part). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 13 December—Motions relating to standards and privileges, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ms Eagle]

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

The flooding across England and Wales this week has caused widespread chaos and, sadly, a number of deaths. I would like to add my tribute on the work of the emergency services and all those involved in providing assistance to those affected.

The increasing frequency of serious weather affecting the UK underlines the importance of robust flood defences, yet spending on flood defences has been cut by a quarter, delaying much-needed schemes. Even the Government’s own advisory Committee on Climate Change warned in July that Ministers are not doing enough, and now hundreds of thousands of people risk being unable to obtain insurance because the Government have not reached an agreement with the industry. We welcome the statement earlier in the week from the Environment Secretary, but will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent debate on measures to protect people across the UK from flooding, especially in light of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report published today?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for arranging a statement by the Foreign Secretary on Palestinian statehood —something I asked for last week. At business questions last week I also raised the matter of the Liberal Democrat party member who masqueraded as an independent in the police and crime commissioner elections. I asked for an urgent statement, but unfortunately the Leader of the House has not been able to find time for one. I wonder whether he will reconsider, however, because I have managed to get hold of a letter put out by the Liberal Democrat candidate standing in today’s Middlesbrough by-election. In it he says,

“things seem to be getting worse, not better.”

I have read the letter very carefully, but, by some strange omission, nowhere does it mention that the Liberal Democrats have been in government for the last two and a half years, so will the Leader of the House now find time for a statement on cynical electoral subterfuge?

We are all looking forward to the publication of the Leveson report later today. During business questions on 28 June, I asked:

“Will the Leader of the House arrange in future business for Liberal Democrat and Conservative Ministers to share the speaking time to give both parties ample opportunity to differentiate themselves?”—[Official Report, 28 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 448.]

I must confess that I meant that suggestion to be parody, but yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister made a request to have a separate statement from the Prime Minister on the Leveson report and I see today that that has been granted. What on earth is happening to collective responsibility? I notice that the play “Yes, Prime Minister” is leaving the Trafalgar theatre to go on a UK tour, but with this Government in office there will at least still be one farce running in Whitehall.

The Government have been struggling to get their legislation through the House of Lords. This Government’s peers easily outnumber Opposition peers, yet for the entire duration of the Labour Government our peers never made up more than 29% of the total. May I say to the Leader of the House that the problem the Government have is not with the quantity of their peers, it is with the quality of their legislation?

There have been reports in the media that the Prime Minister is planning to create 100 additional peers, despite the fact that the House of Lords is already the second biggest legislature in the world—after the equally democratic Chinese National People’s Congress. Filling the House of Lords might be the only successful job creation scheme this Government have come up with, but will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent statement on the seemingly inexorable expansion of the second Chamber?

Word reaches me that this week’s Cabinet meeting was even more fractious than usual. Apparently, the Chancellor blamed the Culture Secretary for failing to deliver on the Government’s promise to roll out superfast broadband and the Culture Secretary blamed her predecessor, with her aides saying that she had done more in two months than the current Health Secretary had managed in two years. Astonishingly, the welfare Minister, Lord Freud, blamed the Chancellor for the abject failure of the Work programme and the Prime Minister blamed the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for the failure of enterprise zones. While Cabinet members bicker, we have a broadband network that is not connected, a job scheme that is not working and enterprise zones where there is no enterprise, while the only growth strategy they have is for the House of Lords.

The Prime Minister called himself the “heir to Blair”, but is he not just the natural successor to Jim Hacker?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her remarks about the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Palestine. I join her in paying tribute to the emergency services and the work of Environment Agency staff in supporting communities that have been so heavily damaged by flooding. I have personal knowledge of the area around Exeter and of St Asaph in north Wales; these are dreadful events for people to have to live through.

It is terrifically important that we protect people wherever we can. That is why the Government are allocating £2.17 billion over four years. The hon. Lady will have heard the Prime Minister say yesterday, in response to questions, that we hope to leverage additional support for flood defences. She will also know from what the Prime Minister said yesterday that we continue to be in discussions with the Association of British Insurers about securing protection for householders through insurance as well. I will, of course, continue to keep closely in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about how the House can be kept informed on these matters.

I am trying to think of anything else that the hon. Lady asked for that could be considered business of the House, but there was not much. She commented on press reports about what happened at Cabinet, but today of all days she might recognise that we should not believe everything we read in the newspapers.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Prime Minister being an “heir to Blair”, and she talked about the appointment of peers in another place, but my recollection is that Tony Blair made 374 peers. By that standard, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been notably reticent.

We in the House, including Opposition Members who have been in government, know that “Yes Minister”, when it was broadcast by the BBC and even today, is, in fact, a documentary programme and not a work of fiction. I am somewhat unusual in this place in having been not only my own version of Jim Hacker, but Bernard in a former life. The one thing I am not expecting to be is a Sir Humphrey at any stage. If at any point we can illustrate “Yes Minister”, I am sure we will set out to do so.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for talking about growth and welfare. Yesterday we had a debate about those issues. I looked at reports of past business questions for a request for an Opposition day debate on employment. Yesterday, the Opposition did talk about jobs but not about how to create them. They did not have a policy for that—it was a policy-free zone from the Labour party yesterday. What a missed opportunity. The Labour party had an opportunity to use its time to celebrate the 70-year anniversary of the Beveridge report. We could have celebrated the sense of how work is a route out of poverty and want, and how social solidarity through welfare provision is properly a way in which we can build a stronger society, as the Government are setting out to do. We could also have celebrated the contribution made by a Liberal as part of a coalition Government under a Conservative Prime Minister for the long-term benefit of this country.