Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 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 commencing 6 February will be:

Monday 6 February—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.

Tuesday 7 February—Opposition day (un-allotted day) (half day). There will be a debate on responsibility and reform for British banks. This debate will arise on an Opposition motion. It will be followed by a motion relating to metal theft. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.



Wednesday 8 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.

Thursday 9 February—General debate on Somalia.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 February will include:

Monday 20 February—A debate on Iran. The subject of this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. I commended him last week for announcing three days of actual Government business. Clearly exhausted after their exertions, next week the Government are to manage only a paltry one day of legislative business.

A few weeks ago, when I asked the Leader of the House for the date of the Queen’s Speech, he promised it “in due course”. On Sunday, The Independent on Sunday announced that the Queen’s Speech was delayed because the Government needed “more time” to secure their legislation. Given the Government’s incompetent handling of the legislative programme, if we have to wait for them to get their act together, we will not have a Queen’s Speech this year at all. Government business managers might find a deadline helpful, so will the Leader of the House finally tell us the date of the Queen’s Speech?

May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that one way to end the legislative logjam and enable the Government to get around to having a Queen’s Speech this year would be to drop the Health and Social Care Bill? This week, the British Medical Journal, the Health Service Journal and Nursing Times called for the Bill to be dropped because the NHS was

“far too important to be left at the mercy of ideological and incompetent intervention”.

The Prime Minister has told Ministers that he wants “less and better legislation”, yet last night the Government put down another 136 amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill—adding to the 1,800 already tabled. Does the Prime Minister actually know what is going on with his own Health and Social Care Bill? Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the NHS to give the Prime Minister the opportunity to inform himself on what the Government are doing and to give the Health Secretary the opportunity to come to this House to announce that he has finally seen reason and will drop this disastrous Bill?

I note that the Prime Minister did not tell his Ministers that he wanted fairer legislation. Yesterday, the Government voted to cut support for disabled children; they voted to cut support for people recovering from cancer; and they voted for a crude cap that even the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government says will increase homelessness. Can the Leader of the House find time—again, he has plenty of it—for a debate on fairness? That would give Ministers the opportunity to explain why, when they are cutting support for those who have the least, all we have had from the Prime Minister about the excessive rewards for those who have the most is pointless press releases.

The Chancellor, who has not been seen at the Dispatch Box since mid-December, is fond of saying, “We’re all in this together.” Will the Leader of the House explain, then, how this Government can triple student fees, leading to an almost 10% drop in university applicants, at the same time as they sign off a tax dodge for the chief executive of the Student Loans Company, which saves him tens of thousands of pounds a year? Will the Leader of the House explain, since the Chief Secretary to the Treasury did not, how that can be fair? While he is at it, will he explain which Minister was aware of this issue and went ahead and approved it?

Will the Leader of the House explain how it is fair that the Government did nothing to stop the chief executive of RBS taking a £1 million bonus and why it took the threat of an Opposition motion to put a stop to it? What have the Government been doing? If the Leader of the House could find time for a debate on fairness, perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could lead it. There has been no sign of him explaining in public why the Liberal Democrats did nothing to stop bankers awarding themselves multi-million pound bonuses, yet voted to cut support for those who have the least.

The Deputy Prime Minister did pop into the Chamber for the European statement earlier this week—at least he turned up for some of that one, although he was too busy sulking to turn up in December. On that occasion, the Prime Minister told this House there would be absolutely “no way” other European Governments would be allowed to use EU institutions to enforce a fiscal compact. He said “no way”, as he had vetoed it. This week, the Prime Minister slunk back to announce that EU institutions would be allowed to enforce it after all, but it was all right because he was going to be watching them “like a hawk”. Who is he kidding? The only thing the Prime Minister watches “like a hawk” is the news cycle. We have a veto that has been un-vetoed to a treaty that is not a treaty—it is like the mad hatter’s tea party.

[Sir George Young]

Three of this week’s four days have been on Government business, on Monday we have the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill, and on Wednesday we will deal with the local government and police grant orders, without which no local authority will get its funding next year. I hope the hon. Lady agrees that that is important legislation. There is an Opposition debate on Tuesday—I hope she is not going to describe that as “thumb-twiddling”, as she said last week. Next Thursday we have an important debate on Somalia, which some Opposition Back Benchers have asked for. I hope she will not be so dismissive about the House of Commons programme.

As for the Queen’s Speech, the date will be announced in due course in the usual way—a response with which the hon. Lady may be becoming familiar. There is legislation still to get on to the statute book. On the one hand, she wonders why things are taking so long, but on the other hand I am constantly being asked for more time for debates. At some point, the shadow Leader of the House will have to work out whether the Government are pushing their programme through the House of Commons too fast or whether they are taking a leisurely time about it.

We have no plans to drop the Health and Social Care Bill. The principles of clinical-based commissioning, of patient choice and of any qualified provider as well as the linking of health and social care are important reforms. There will be an opportunity for further debate when the House returns.

We discussed the issue of fairness at some length yesterday. We are convinced that work must always pay more than benefits, which is at the heart of our welfare reform. We owe it to people who work hard, do the right thing and pay their taxes to make sure that there are some limits on welfare. Some families in Westminster receive £2,000 a week in housing benefit; I think that position is wholly unsustainable.

So far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is concerned, I have announced a Second Reading on Monday of the Financial Services Bill; the hon. Lady may find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in the House for that. On student loans, we have just sat through 40 minutes of an urgent question, and I have nothing to add to what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said.

As to bankers’ bonuses, the hon. Lady keeps on asking who signed off the contract with Mr Lester, but we know who signed off the contract for the bonus for Mr Hester at the Royal Bank of Scotland. There is no doubt that the Labour Government signed off that contract, which entitled him to the bonus. Since then, we have taken steps, which Labour never took, to cap bankers’ bonuses in cash. Last week, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills announced new reforms to empower shareholders to control future pay.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the EU treaty. Perhaps at some point we could have an answer to the question of whether or not the Leader of the Opposition would have signed the proposed treaty.