Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for some time in the middle of September?

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

The business for the week commencing 2 September is as follows:

Monday 2 September—Launch of the second report from the Procedure Committee on private Members’ Bills, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the future for postal services in rural areas, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the all-party parliamentary cycling group’s report, “Get Britain Cycling”. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 3 September—Second Reading of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill.

Wednesday 4 September—Opposition day [6th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 5 September—A general debate on high-cost credit, followed by a general debate on the north-east independent economic review report. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 September—Private Members’ Bills.



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

Monday 9 September—Consideration in Committee of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill (Day 1).

Tuesday 10 September—Consideration in Committee of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill (Day 2).

Wednesday 11 September—Conclusion in Committee of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. The Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name Opposed Private Business for consideration.

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

Friday 13 September—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 9 and 12 September will be:

Monday 9 September—General debate on an e-petition relating to age-related tax allowances.

Thursday 12 September—General debate on UK trade and investment.



As this is the last business questions before the summer recess, may I, on behalf of the House, thank all its staff for their hard work? I hope that they have a good and very well-deserved break before we return at the beginning of September.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the first two weeks in September.

It is Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday today, and I am sure that all Members across the House will want to wish him well as he fights his illness in hospital.

Last week I said that this Government have a blind spot when it comes to women. The Leader of the House told me that he did not agree, so what does he have to say about yesterday’s mocking of the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), who was miaowed and clawed at behind her back while speaking in the Chamber because of the outfit she was wearing? Does he think that this boorish behaviour by his Back Benchers is acceptable?

As the House adjourns for the summer recess this afternoon, may I take this opportunity to thank you, Mr Speaker, and all the House staff for the support provided to Members and their staff throughout the year? We are very grateful to all House staff for the support that they give us.

Before everyone heads off to their constituencies for the recess, I would like to give some end-of-term awards. The Man of the People award goes to the Chancellor for his posh burgers and mockney accent. The Bungle of the Year award goes to the Defence Secretary for his spectacularly bad attempt at making a statement to the House on Army reserves. The most contested category, Smear of the Year, was this week snatched by the late entry by the Health Secretary, ably assisted by his barnacle-scraper, Lynton Crosby.

With the Lords due to sit until the end of July and the Commons not due to return until early September, it is clear that this Parliament is no more joined up than this Government. With the two Houses now completely out of kilter, it is practically impossible for Joint Committees to meet. Does the Leader of the House really think that that is a desirable state of affairs, and will he make sure that this practice is brought to an end?

I note that we are to discuss the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill in the first two weeks back. The Bill is not even 24 hours off the press but it is already being derided by campaigners, charities and lobbyists alike for failing to regulate over 80% of the industry. The Government’s Bill is a cheap, partisan attack on Opposition funding. It is constructed solely to divert attention from the real lobbying scandals of their dodgy donors dinners in Downing street.

It has been a bad week for Australians both in the Ashes and in No. 10. At Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday, the Prime Minister once more pointedly avoided answering the question of whether he had discussed the plain packaging of cigarettes with Lynton Crosby. The Leader of the House may remember saying when he was Health Secretary:

“The evidence is clear that packaging helps to recruit smokers, so it makes sense to consider having less attractive packaging. It’s wrong that children are being attracted to smoke by glitzy designs on packets.”

Why has he changed his mind on this issue? I wonder whether he agrees with the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who tweeted yesterday:

“I’ve seen how election strategists drive current policy & simply untrue to suggest otherwise. It’s why we must know who else pays them”.

Quite so. It is clearly now in the public interest that the House is given full information about Lynton Crosby’s influence. At a minimum, he should publish his client list immediately. Will the Leader of the House support our calls for an inquiry into whether the ministerial code has been broken?

In his hysterical attacks on trade unions in the past few weeks, the Prime Minister has been emulating Senator McCarthy, but this week it has been more like Big Brother from “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. In that masterful novel, George Orwell wrote that the Party’s slogan was:

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

I think that we might just have found the Conservative party’s new motto.

We may be living in Tory Orwellian times in which the Government think that Newspeak trumps reality, but we will not let their propaganda go unchecked. They can make all the claims they like about the NHS, but we know that it was they who did not act on 14 failing trusts. They can pretend that plan A is working, but we know that we have had a weaker recovery than during the great depression and that long-term unemployment is at a 17-year high. They can blame anyone other than themselves for as long as they like, but the British people will not be fooled. If the Conservatives want to play Orwellian games for the next two years, they can carry on as they did last week, but they should not think for a minute that they will get away with it.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House. I am not sure whether, in the midst of what she said, there were any requests relating to the future business, but I will try to answer the points that she raised.

Most pleasurably, I join the shadow Leader of the House in sending our congratulations to ex-President Mandela on his 95th birthday. He is an inspiration and an extraordinary man. The extraordinary nature of his capacities is further illustrated by the promising progress in his health. That is something in which we can all take pleasure.

The hon. Lady asked about the relationship between sittings in this House and in the other place. I am happy to discuss the operation of Joint Committees with colleagues across both Houses. That is something that we should certainly look at. However, it is for this House and the other place to determine when they sit. The other place does not sit in September, whereas we rise earlier for the summer and sit in September. We have different approaches, but they are not necessarily disjointed because there are differences in the flow of business in the two Houses that make them perfectly sensible.

The hon. Lady talked about the lobbying Bill, which was published yesterday. It will indeed have its Second Reading and pass through Committee in the first two weeks back in September. I was surprised by what she said; I do not understand how the Bill can be an attack on Opposition funding since it says nothing about Opposition funding. The only thing that is in the Bill—

[Ms Eagle]

Come on!

[Mr Lansley]

It is not in the Bill. Let me make that clear to the hon. Lady.

I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition earlier this week because he said in a speech that he wanted the participation of trade union members in the political funds of trade unions to be a deliberate choice. If that is what he wants, the Bill is available as a legislative framework to enable it to happen. If he believes in it, he should be willing to legislate for it. We have made him that offer and he should respond to it. In practical terms, if he wants to take up that offer and demonstrate that he means what he says, he needs to come back to us in the next three or four weeks to enable those amendments to be available for the Committee stage in September.

The hon. Lady talked about the NHS. I have listened to the exchanges, but the shadow Leader of the House should not have entered into the argument about our not doing anything in relation to the 14 trusts. I know about the matter because I have been Secretary of State for Health and shadow Secretary of State for Health. I was shadow Secretary of State when the then Secretary of State and Minister of State stood at the Dispatch Box and told us that Mid Staffs was an isolated incident and that nothing comparable was happening anywhere else in the NHS. They dismissed the idea that there were systemic problems in the NHS—they waved it away. I stood at the Dispatch Box for the Opposition on 30 November 2009 and asked why the then Secretary of State was dismissing the problems at the Basildon and Thurrock hospitals and saying that nothing would be done about them.

When I was Secretary of State, I stood at the Dispatch Box and made it clear that we were taking responsibility by moving NHS trusts towards foundation trust status not on the basis of their finances and governance, but on the basis of achieving quality. I said that we would use the NHS Trust Development Authority to make that happen. Agreements were put in place with NHS trusts to make that happen. I am sorry, but I will not take any lectures from the Labour party on that issue.

I will also not accept lessons from the Labour party on standardised packaging, which again relates to my former role as Secretary of State for Health. I saw what the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Cabinet Secretary yesterday. I am afraid that it proceeds from a complete misunderstanding or misapprehension of the position. As Secretary of State for Health, I made no bid to the then Leader of the House for a place for such legislation in the Queen’s Speech for this Session. Why was that? As I said in the consultation that I launched on standardised packaging, I had an open mind. My successor as Secretary of State and other Health Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box and said that the Government have continued not to make a decision. As there was no bid from the Department of Health for a place in the Queen’s Speech, there cannot, by definition, have been any decision to take it out. I am afraid that this has all proceeded from a misunderstanding.

To be more cheerful, I hope the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) enjoys the sunshine in Wallasey over the summer. When she is thinking about the Opposition day debate, I am sure she will find that she still has a number of possible subjects to choose from in September. Perhaps she will choose to have a debate to celebrate the Government’s cutting net migration by a third, or a debate to celebrate the fact that the latest unemployment figures are down and employment is up, with 1.3 million more new jobs in the private sector. We are creating jobs in the private sector nearly five times as fast as jobs are being lost in the public sector. Perhaps she will choose a debate to celebrate the crime survey statistics published this morning that show a year-on-year reduction of 9%, taking the figures down to their lowest level since the survey began. That is all being achieved under this Government.

Finally, the hon. Lady talked about a motto. Let me remind her that at the Labour party conference last year, its motto was apparently going to be “one nation”. I have looked, but in this calendar year in this Chamber the Leader of the Opposition has never uttered the words “one nation”. We know why he has not done so. The Labour party is not a one-nation party; it is a trade union party, not the party of one nation. It is owned by the trade unions and it does not represent the people of this country.