Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 12 December will be:

Monday 12 December—General debate on immigration. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister plans to make a statement on the EU Council.

Tuesday 13 December—Motion to approve the chairman of the Statistics Board, followed by proceedings on the Charities Bill [Lords], followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to financial restrictions (Iran), followed by Opposition day [un-allotted day] [half-day]. There will be a debate relating to Europe. This debate will arise on a Democratic Unionist party motion.



Wednesday 14 December—Motions on Standing Orders relating to ways and means and supply, followed by motions relating to scrutiny of draft orders under the Public Bodies Bill [Lords], followed by Opposition day [un-allotted day] [half-day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 15 December—Motion relating to the recommendations of the Members’ Expenses Committee report on the operation of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, followed by, motion relating to financial education. The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 19 December will include:

Monday 19 December—General debate on apprenticeships.

Tuesday 20 December—Pre-recess Adjournment debate. The format will be specified by the Backbench Business Committee.

Colleagues will also wish to be reminded that the House will meet at 11.30 am on 20 December.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 15 December 2011 will be:

Thursday 15 December—Debate on Remploy.

[Ms Eagle]

We have all been captivated this week by the images of the arrival of two giant pandas at Edinburgh zoo. Is the Leader of the House alarmed to realise that there are now more giant pandas in Scotland than there are Conservative MPs? Before the Deputy Leader of the House gets too comfortable, let me say that, given his party’s poll ratings in Scotland, it looks like its MPs are going to be joining the endangered species list north of the border as well.

In 20 years in this place, I have never known business statements to contain so little legislative substance, especially so early in a Parliament. There has been little even resembling Government legislation in this place for weeks now. Will the Leader of the House explain why the Commons is twiddling its thumbs while the Lords teeters under the weight of badly drafted, highly controversial and ill-thought-out legislation? Was this part of the plan? Before he blames the Opposition, the snow or the royal wedding, analysis shows that thousands of Government amendments and endless Liberal Democrat speeches are causing the logjam in the Lords. Why is the Government’s legislative programme so out of balance and why can they not manage it better?

Talking about incompetence, on Tuesday the Government lost their first vote in the House of Commons amid chaotic scenes as panic-stricken Government Whips first dragged their MPs out of the Aye Lobby and then shoved them back in again. By the time the doors were locked, Hansard shows fewer than a quarter of Government MPs were actually in the Lobby with just three Cabinet Ministers for company. I have to say that neither the Leader of the House nor his Deputy were among them. Thankfully for the Leader of the House, neither was the Chief Whip.

I understand that when this defeat was announced, the cheers from the Carlton Club were even louder than those from Opposition Benches. What an ominous sign for the Prime Minister on his way to Brussels. Whether the Leader of the House likes it or not, this place has expressed a clear view by a majority of 134 that we require more time to debate this Government’s failing economic policy. Will the right hon. Gentleman now honour the clearly expressed wishes of this House, by scheduling further Government time for debate on the economy in the very near future?

This week, the Deputy Prime Minister vowed to go into the next election with a plan to means-test free bus passes and TV licences for millions of pensioners. Is that what his newly appointed “brand advisers” meant when they told him to act more like Oxfam? Some 9 million pensioners now want us to have a debate on whether this is Government policy. Will the Leader of the House oblige?

On Tuesday, a former Conservative Member of this House was caught on camera boasting of his access and influence at the heart of Downing street. This follows the still unanswered questions on the Werritty affair. In Opposition, the Prime Minister said that lobbying was the

“next big scandal waiting to happen.”

The Minister responsible gave a firm promise to the House that there would be a consultation document on the regulation of the lobbying industry by the end of November. Given that it is now December and next week is the last full parliamentary week before the recess, will the Leader of the House confirm that the promised consultation paper will be published next week?

Tory divisions on Europe have exploded into the open. The Prime Minister got a Euro-mauling from his own Back Benchers yesterday and the Eurosceptics are out on manoeuvres. Meanwhile, Cabinet Members are openly at war: the Work and Pensions Secretary is reportedly issuing threats over the phone; the Northern Ireland Secretary has taken to the airwaves demanding a referendum and the leader in waiting at City Hall is madly stirring the pot.

We have a Tory grass-roots rebellion, a Cabinet divided and a Prime Minister isolated. Will the Leader of the House inform us what is different from the last Tory Government that he served in?

[Sir George Young]

My party plans to overtake the population of pandas before the next election—[Interruption.] At the next election. In view of the fertility of pandas, that may not be a very high hurdle, but we do plan to do better than them.

As for the House twiddling its thumbs, I think that the hon. Lady demeans the debates that I have announced in the forthcoming week. There is a debate on Europe. What can be more topical than that? There is the Opposition-day debate. Are they going to choose something that is of no consequence? I am amazed that she has repeated the accusation that we heard last week. The fact is we have managed the business in the House of Commons much better than the outgoing Government. We have managed to scrutinise the Government’s legislative programme with adequate time. That programme is now in another place and we will deal with the Lords amendments in due course.

I am amazed that the hon. Lady raised the issue of the debate and vote on Tuesday. We provided a debate in Government time after the autumn statement. That is something that the previous Labour Government did not always do. We had the pre-Budget report, and we did not always get a debate in Government time. Having provided a debate in Government time, the Labour party then brought it to a premature conclusion by moving that it should stop before we reached 10 o’clock. It then complained that we did not have enough time to debate the motion. A number of Labour MPs who took part in the debate then solemnly went through the Division Lobbies to assert that they had done no such thing; that they had not considered the economy. At a time when we are trying to reconnect the House of Commons with the public, I wonder whether the sort of antics that the Labour party got up to on Tuesday really advanced our cause.

On benefits for pensioners, if the hon. Lady looks at the coalition agreement, she will see clear commitments on benefits to pensioners on bus passes and other issues and that remains the policy of the coalition Government.

I am amazed that the hon. Lady chose to raise the subject of lobbying. For 13 years, the Labour Government did nothing about lobbying. They ignored the recommendations of the Public Administration Select Committee, which reported in 2009. By contrast, we are actually doing something about lobbying. We will produce our consultation paper within the next few weeks, proposing a statutory register of lobbyists, which is something that the Labour Government consistently failed to do. On the question of boasting, I have to say that in the previous Parliament, there were ex-Labour Ministers who were boasting, while they were still Members of Parliament, of the influence that they had on Government.

Finally, on Europe, I gently remind the hon. Lady that when we had the vote on the referendum, her party was split as were all three parties. On the Government Benches, we are delighted that the person representing this country in Europe today and tomorrow is the Prime Minister and not the Leader of the Opposition.