Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 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 30 April—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords], followed by if necessary consideration of Lords Amendments.

Tuesday 1 May—The House may be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for his comprehensive statement. I also thank the staff of the House for all the hard work that they have done for Members during the current Session.

In the week of Shakespeare’s birth, we should pay tribute to our greatest dramatist, who has had such an enormous impact on our culture and our language. Looking at the Government, however, I have to say that even Shakespeare could not write a farce like this. Where does one start?

The Culture Secretary came to the House yesterday to try to explain himself. He failed. He said on Tuesday evening that now was not the time for knee-jerk reactions. On Wednesday morning, he kicked out his special adviser. The Culture Secretary may have thrown his aide to the wall, but the ministerial code is crystal clear: the Secretary of State is responsible for the conduct of his special advisers. Will the Leader of the House now answer the following questions, which the Culture Secretary conspicuously failed to answer yesterday?

Was News Corporation informed about the content of a parliamentary statement before that statement was made to the House? Although the Culture Secretary told the House on 3 March that he had published all the exchanges between his Department and News Corporation, the e-mails that were disclosed at the Leveson inquiry demonstrate that he had not done so. That is not a matter for Lord Leveson; it is a matter for the House, and the House needs answers. Far from acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, the Culture Secretary has been acting like a dodgy football ref who not only favours one team, but is in the dressing room with them planning the tactics. Apparently he is at the Tower of London today, awaiting his fate.

Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the Prime Minister has asked the independent adviser on the ministerial code to investigate the Culture Secretary’s actions, and if not, why not? Will he also tell us whether the Prime Minister has indicated his intention to come to the House to correct the record that he placed in the Library on his meetings with Rupert Murdoch? The Prime Minister recalled just two, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said yesterday, Mr Murdoch revealed to the Leveson inquiry that he had met the Prime Minister more often than that. The Prime Minister apparently “forgets” the majority of his meetings with Rupert Murdoch.

The Prime Minister also said that he had not been involved in “any of the discussions” about News International’s bid for BSkyB, but it now emerges that he did discuss it with James Murdoch—over a cosy Christmas dinner with Rebekah Brooks while the phone-hacking scandal was in full swing. And then there is Raisa the police horse. The Prime Minister could not remember whether he had taken her riding, before finally remembering that he had. We know that this Prime Minister doesn’t do detail, but his lapses of memory are beginning to look a little bit too convenient.

The Public Administration Committee has been examining the leadership that the Prime Minister has given the Government. Has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to read its report? According to the Committee, which is chaired by a distinguished Conservative Back Bencher, there is a “strategic vacuum” at the centre of this Government. The report concludes that the Government’s aims were

“too meaningless to serve any useful purpose”.

Another Conservative Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries), has put it even more bluntly. Now that Government Members recognise what Opposition Members have been saying for some time—that this is an incompetent, out-of-touch Government —will the Leader of the House be making time for a debate on the Committee’s report before Prorogation?

The current long parliamentary Session is finally crawling to a close. It began with extravagant boasts by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In June 2010, presenting his first Budget, the Chancellor told the House that by today the economy would have grown by 4.3%. He also told the House that unemployment would peak in 2010 and fall in each subsequent year, and that public sector borrowing would fall each year. Will the Chancellor now be correcting the record?

The economy is back in recession. The Chancellor has presided over the worst performance in our economy for a century. Unemployment is higher than it was when the Government came to power, and they are borrowing £150 billion more than they had planned to borrow. This is a double-dip recession made in Downing street. The Chancellor has bungled his latest Budget just as he has bungled his economic strategy, and hard-working families up and down the country are paying the price.

“The economy is stagnant. The Government is misfiring. The Budget was a shambles. Tory MPs are unhappy. Downing Street is incompetent.”

That is not my assessment; it is the assessment of The Daily Telegraph.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. For the avoidance of doubt and for the sake of good parliamentary order, I assume the hon. Lady’s question relating to the details of the conduct of the Culture Secretary and Prime Minister are couched in terms of a request for a statement or debate next week?

[Ms Eagle]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed. [Interruption.] I am seeking to clarify the position, and that should be welcomed by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).