Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 16 January—Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on individual voter registration, followed by a debate on the national health service. These debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Tuesday 17 January—General debate on the future of town centres and high streets. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 18 January—Consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 1).

Thursday 19 January—Motion to approve European documents relating to integrated EU infrastructures, followed by motion on public bodies—scrutiny of draft orders—followed by continuation of debate on national policy statements relating to ports.

Friday 20 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 23 January will include:

Monday 23 January—Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Tuesday 24 January—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 2).

Wednesday 25 January—Motion to approve a European document relating to EU criminal policy, followed by: the Chairman of Ways and Means will name opposed private business for consideration.

Thursday 26 January—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 19 and 26 January 2012 will be:

Thursday 19 January—Debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2012.

Thursday 26 January—Debate on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee report on football governance.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for that explanation of the packed legislative programme that he has brought to the House of Commons for the start of the new year. I notice that he has not announced the date for the Queen’s Speech, despite the fact that Paul Waugh of PoliticsHome announced it on his blog last week. We wait to hear some time in the future whether he was accurate.

We learned this week that the Committee stage of the Local Government Finance Bill is being taken on the Floor of the House—virtually the only Government business to be taken on the Floor in the next couple of weeks. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that over the past 30 years, only five local government Bills have been treated in this way: the 1984 and 1985 Bills that abolished the Greater London council; the 1987 Bill on block grants and rate limitation; the 1991 Bill on rate capping; and the 1999 Labour Bill that finally restored democratic government to London. Will the Leader of the House explain what in this local government Bill requires it to have its entire Committee stage on the Floor of the House? The Government are obviously struggling to fill the Commons calendar, so in the spirit of new year bonhomie, and wanting to help the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask him whether he could make time for a debate on the Government’s mishandling of their legislative programme?

On fat cat salaries, the Prime Minister, in his new year tour of the TV studios, announced that shareholder votes on executive pay would now be binding. However, in November he announced that his idea to address exorbitant boardroom pay was to appoint more women to boards, and in October he told us that the solution was boards asking themselves, “Is this the right thing to do?” Over the past year we have had plenty of press releases from No. 10, but FTSE 100 bosses have put their own salaries up by a staggering 49%, while average earnings have gone up by just 1.4%. To prevent the Prime Minister from touring the TV studios once a month with the latest wheeze, will the Leader of the House explain to him that if he is serious about dealing with fat cat salaries we need action, not more press releases? When will we get it?

Perhaps the Leader of the House could also have a word with the Chancellor and inquire when we can expect a response from the Treasury to Will Hutton’s report on fair pay in the public sector. In June 2010 the Chancellor announced—in yet another press release—that this was an “important review” and that it would play a “crucial role” in developing Government policy. Will the Leader of the House enlighten us as to what has happened since the report was published 10 months ago?

Given the defeat that the Government suffered last night on their shocking plans to deny benefit to cancer sufferers, will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the tiny band of Liberal Democrats who joined Labour and the “Cross Benchers” in standing up for decency and fairness? Rather than using parliamentary time in this place to reverse the three votes that the Government lost last night, may we instead have a debate on fairness, to remind the Liberal Democrats why they claim they came into politics in the first place?

The Leader of the House will understand the concern over the safety of PIP implants. The Secretary of State for Health announced yesterday a “rapid review” of the safety of people seeking cosmetic interventions. Can the Leader of the House confirm when the review will conclude, and will he assure us that the Health Secretary will make a statement to the House when it does?

The House is growing weary of rapid reviews being announced by press release. Last November, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) promised that the Government would publish by the “end of the month” proposals to clamp down on the access that lobbyists have to the Government. Since then we have had Mr Collins of Bell Pottinger boasting of the access to those at the top of Government that he can arrange for his clients, and now Mr O’Shaughnessy, one of the Prime Minister’s top aides, has signed up to another lobbying firm. What we have not had is the promised consultation. The last time the Leader of the House was asked about this, at the beginning of December, he told the House that the Government would publish proposals “in a few weeks”. Given that the consultation is now long overdue, will the Cabinet Office Minister return to the House to explain what has gone wrong? While he is at it, will he also explain the Government’s policy on freedom of information?

Before Christmas the Information Commissioner launched his first ever probe into a Government Department, because the Education Secretary and his advisers were communicating using the Education Secretary’s wife’s e-mail account. Given that the Secretary of State announced this week—not to the House—a new policy on information technology lessons in schools, perhaps the Leader of the House could arrange for his colleague to have some IT lessons himself, so that if he wants to communicate secretly with his advisers he can set up his own e-mail account, and will not need to use his wife’s.

Finally, Mr Speaker, may I wish you and all Members a happy new year? Will the Leader of the House join me in urging all Ministers to adopt a new year’s resolution to make announcements to this House first? After all, the ministerial code requires them to do so.

[Sir George Young]

I begin by echoing the hon. Lady’s good wishes to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House, for a happy new year. She began in a traditional way by asking about the Queen’s Speech. I am delighted that she is looking forward to the next one, which will be packed with legislative reform from the coalition Government, and I hope that she will warmly welcome it when it arrives. She will have to contain herself for a little longer, however. The date of the Queen’s Speech will be announced in due course in the usual way. In the meantime, I have given hon. Members some certainty about the House’s sittings: I have announced them up to October this year. By contrast, my predecessor gave the House two weeks’ notice of the Easter recess in March 2010. The House now has a degree of certainty about when we shall meet, and hon. Members can plan their work-life balance accordingly.

On Parliament’s work programme, I hope that the hon. Lady is not going to denigrate the work that the House is doing. This week we had two statements on Tuesday, on the referendum in Scotland and on High Speed 2. We had a statement yesterday on breast implants, as well as two Opposition day debates; I hope that she is not going to say that those were not worth having. Later today we shall have two important debates arranged by the Backbench Business Committee. As I have said before, this place is not a legislative factory. We are not going to make the mistake that the previous Government made of introducing too much ill-considered legislation.

The hon. Lady asked why we were having the Committee stage of the Local Government Finance Bill on the Floor of the House. I have in front of me a list of 18 non-constitutional Bills that went to a Committee of the whole House between 1997 and 2010, so let us not have any nonsense about this being unprecedented.

Let me give just one example of what the previous Government did. The Digital Economy Act 2010—50 clauses and three schedules—was rushed through the House during wash-up, without consensus, on the Floor of the House. Here we have a 10-clause Bill with three schedules and we are allowing three days for Committee. I hope the House will support what we are doing, as more than 600 experts on local government will be at hand here and able to take part in the Bill’s proceedings.

On executive pay, let me remind the Opposition that they did nothing about it for 13 years. By contrast, we consulted and we will set out in our response the action we will take to tackle irresponsible directors—something Labour did not do—and we are going to require greater transparency for directors’ pay and salary. We shall give shareholders a greater say through binding votes, and allow them to block unjustified pay-offs for failure. An announcement will be made in due course by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I will, of course, pursue the matter of fair pay and the Government’s response with the Chancellor, and find out the date of the response for which the hon. Lady asked.

There will, of course, be an opportunity for the Government to consider in this House yesterday’s votes on the Welfare Reform Bill in the other place. I make the simple point that if we do not reverse those amendments we will need to make savings from other areas. Of course the Government will look carefully at what has happened in the other place. It is worth making the point that the amendments that were carried would not have affected the position of those in the support group—the most vulnerable—whose entitlement to benefit would remain unaffected. Nor would the Government’s proposals have affected those on means-tested benefits. It is a question of getting the balance right on the extent to which applicants draw on their own resources or on the resources of taxpayers. Let me remind the hon. Lady of what the Leader of the Opposition said in his speech of 10 January:

“in these times, with less money, spending more on one thing means finding the money from somewhere else. When someone wins, someone else loses.”

She might like to remember that when we come to debate those amendments.

On yesterday’s statements by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, he announced three reviews in connection with what went wrong with the breast implants, and I know he will want to keep the House informed as those reviews make progress.

I am surprised that the hon. Lady raised the issue of lobbying. For 13 years the Labour Government did nothing about lobbying, yet she now criticises us for taking time to come up with the paper on our proposals. The consultation document will be published shortly, and there was no breach of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments rules by Mr James O’Shaughnessy.

Finally, I have announced an Opposition day on Monday, and I wonder whether the Opposition are going to compound the confusion they caused with their last one. On Tuesday their leader talked about responsibility regarding the deficit, but just hours later the Opposition voted against our modest measures for sorting out the mess in local government finance. On the very next day they tabled two motions that, far from reducing the deficit, would have increased it. They opposed every cut and promised to spend an extra £87 billion that we do not have, and they were in denial about the mess they created when they were in government. I wonder whether the time has not now come for another relaunch by the Opposition.