Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 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 (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 21 January—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill.

Tuesday 22 January—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House on the Succession to the Crown Bill.

Wednesday 23 January—Opposition day [15th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 24 January—Debate on a motion relating to reducing the voting age, followed by general debate on the Holocaust memorial day. The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 25 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the following week will include:

Monday 28 January—Remaining stages of the Succession to the Crown Bill.

Tuesday 29 January—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, followed by remaining stages of the HGV Road User Levy Bill.

Wednesday 30 January—Opposition day [16th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 31 January—Consideration of opposed private business nominated by the Chairman of Ways and Means, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 1 February—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 31 January will be:

Thursday 31 January—Debate on the 30th anniversary of S4C, followed by debate on the military justice system.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the forthcoming business. May I also thank him for the written statement today on public reading stages for Bills?

We welcome the announcement that the House will debate, on a Back-Bench business motion, Holocaust memorial day. It is right that we remember the premeditated murder of millions of people, mostly Jews, during the holocaust.

We agree with the Government’s decision to provide logistical support for the French operation in Mali. The brutal rebel regime has been terrorising the civilian population. Its links with al-Qaeda pose a security threat. The killing of two oil workers in Algeria and the kidnapping of more than 20 of their colleagues shows that the threat from al-Qaeda remains serious. This is an extremely dangerous and, for the families, deeply worrying situation. We recognise that Ministers might be limited in what they can say in public until the situation is resolved, but will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to ensure that the Government keep the House updated when it is appropriate to do so?

We are less than three weeks into the new year, and three major retailers have gone into administration. First Jessops, then this week HMV and Blockbuster. More than 10,000 retail jobs have gone or are at risk, impacting on communities across the country. The growth of online business has had a major impact on the structure of the retail economy, but the hollowing out of our high streets has a detrimental effect on local communities. The Government could support the change in the retail sector by ensuring that global online retailers paid their fair share of tax here in the UK. It has also been revealed this week that Ministers have been including unpaid work experience posts in their employment figures. So, while real jobs are disappearing on the high street, Ministers have spent their time conniving to boost artificially the employment figures. May we have an urgent statement on that from the Business Secretary?

Students at Stanford university were last week regaled by Mr Steve Hilton’s accounts of his time in No. 10. He told them:

“Very often you’ll wake up in the morning and hear on the…news”—

a Government announcement—

“…and you think…it’s not just that we didn’t know it was happening, but we don’t even agree with it!”

None of us was in the least surprised by that observation. After all, Mr Oliver Dowden, the deputy chief of staff at No. 10, said he was

“surprised on a day-to-day basis”

by his own Government’s announcements. The fact that the Government’s aides wander the world saying that No. 10 is a shambles does raise the question of who is responsible.

This week, we learned that Ministers have found someone new to blame: the civil service. The list of those the Government have blamed for their difficulties keeps on growing. We have had the weather—at different times, it has been too hot, too cold, too windy or too wet for the economy to grow. We have had Her Majesty, for having a diamond jubilee, we have had the Olympics for distracting us, and the Deputy Prime Minister has been blamed for just about everything. Next, they will be turning on each other. Oh—they are.

That brings me to Europe. The Prime Minister told The Sun in 2009 that

“if we win that election, we cannot afford to waste time having a row with Europe.”

Well, the Conservatives did not win the election, and they are having a row about Europe. The Prime Minister has decided that crossing the North sea to Holland will put sufficient distance between him and his Back Benchers to allow him safely to deliver his European speech. No doubt the Dutch people are eagerly anticipating his remarks, but will the Leader of the House suggest to the Prime Minister that he might choose to make a statement to this House?

Yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, we had questions but no answers, so perhaps the Leader of the House could tell us this: is it the Government’s intention that the UK will be a full member of the European Union in five years’ time? The Prime Minister refuses to answer, but Cabinet Ministers have been falling over each other to offer different answers. The Local Government Secretary said that he might vote to leave; the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), thinks the idea is barking; the Education Secretary thinks that it might be a good idea to leave; and the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that it would have a chilling effect on our economy. I can quite understand why the Foreign Secretary, witnessing all that, decided to go and spend some time in Australia. Given that we had two statements on Leveson, are we now going to have three on Europe: one by the Deputy Prime Minister, one by the Prime Minister, and one by rebel Tory Cabinet Ministers? There we have it: the Government are divided, the Prime Minister has lost control, and party management is trumping the national interest. It is Maastricht all over again.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her comments, and particularly for her welcome for the written ministerial statement on public reading stages. I also share her welcome for the Backbench Business Committee’s decision to timetable a debate on Holocaust memorial day. I am a supporter of the Holocaust Educational Trust and a member of its council, and I have been with students to Auschwitz-Birkenau, as I know many Members have done. Holocaust memorial day is an occasion on which we can commemorate and understand the nature of that horror. It helps us to understand the applications of that genocide to the issues of today, and the horrors that man unfortunately still tends to visit on other members of mankind.

The shadow Leader of the House asked about Mali. She will recall that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), made a statement on that matter earlier in the week. I know that my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence will ensure that the House is updated on that issue, and, when it is appropriate to do so, on the events in Algeria. The Government condemn what has happened there. We are acting in concert with our allies in response. We send our condolences to the families of this and other countries’ nationals who have been killed and captured, but we will not rest from trying to recover those who have been kidnapped.

The hon. Lady asked about the high street, and she will recall the Portas review. The Government are supporting regeneration in the high street, but she and the House must understand completely that the Government cannot stand in the way of change in the economy—and changes are taking place, which will impact on high-street retailers. Some high-street retailers will succeed and prosper; others unfortunately will not. One of the key things that this Government have set out to do is always to try to ensure that we give the private sector an opportunity to grow. The evidence for that—the hon. Lady neglected to put it before the House—is the creation of more than 1 million jobs in the private sector since the general election. That is precisely what this Government are doing.

I was amused, but I was not much questioned by the shadow Leader of the House on some other issues. A former civil servant myself, I have seen press reports suggesting that the Prime Minister referred to “Yes Minister” as a documentary, but I am not aware that he did; I think I did in the House.