Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 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 as follows:

Monday 25 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 26 March—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by debate on a motion relating to flood insurance, followed by the pre-recess Adjournment debate, the format of which has been specified by the Backbench Business Committee.

The business for the week commencing 15 April will be:

Monday 15 April—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Tuesday 16 April—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Defamation Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords], followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Wednesday 17 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (day 1).

Thursday 18 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (day 2).

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 18, 22 and 25 April will be:

Thursday 18 April—Debate on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee report on the road to UNFCCC COP and beyond, followed by debate on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee report on low-carbon growth links with China.

Monday 22 April—Debate on an e-petition relating to immigration from Bulgaria and Romania in 2014.

Tuesday 25 April—Debate on the Transport Select Committee report on road safety, followed by debate on the Transport Select Committee report on plug-in vehicles, plugged in policy?

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and congratulate him on the fact that there have been no sudden U-turns, on the business at least.

This is our last business questions session before we rise for recess, so may I take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, staff, the Leader of the House and all colleagues from across the House a happy Easter? Would the Leader of the House care to comment on rumours that there are plans afoot to start selling a coalition Easter egg? It would have shiny yellow wrapping but the chocolate would be true blue. Despite the slick advertising it would be entirely hollow, and it would come with two free mugs and a health warning.

The situation on the European Union bank bail-out for Cyprus is volatile and fast-moving. The Government gave assurances at the weekend that no British service personnel or civil servants working in Cyprus would lose out, and then had to dispatch an aircraft full of cash to fulfil that promise. As Parliament will rise on Tuesday for the Easter recess and not return until 15 April, and because a bank run in a eurozone country would have serious implications for the UK, will the right hon. Gentleman consider recalling the House if there is a serious deterioration in the situation?

While the Chancellor was busy revealing the scale of his economic failure in this House, the other place was voting to defeat his absurd shares for employment rights scheme, which was announced with great fanfare at the Tory party conference. Mrs Thatcher’s favourite Chancellor, Lord Lawson, was so impressed with his successor’s flagship policy that he voted against it—he was not the only one. So will the Government now see sense and abandon this appalling policy before the Growth and Infrastructure Bill returns to the Commons on 16 April?

Mr Speaker, you have just made a statement about yesterday’s Budget leak. It included market-sensitive information being leaked on Twitter before the Chancellor had even opened his mouth. We welcome the apology, which you have drawn to our attention this morning, from the Evening Standard, but is it not the case that budget secrecy is now a principle more honoured in the breach than the observance? Will the Leader let the House let us know what action will be taken on behalf of the Government to ensure that this never happens again, particularly in respect of the inclusion of market-sensitive information in any embargo?

This morning, the Chancellor refused to say whether his mortgage support schemes would be open to those who wish to buy second homes up to the value of £600,000. As the Chancellor could not tell us, perhaps the Leader of the House could clear up the confusion: is it really the Government’s intention to subsidise the purchase of second homes up to the value of £600,000 while homelessness rates soar? Or will this be the first U-turn of the Budget?

The next Prime Minister’s questions will not now take place for a whole month, so the Prime Minister should have time to read all the Budget documents for himself. Close inspection will show him that the Office for Budget Responsibility has halved growth forecasts for this year and downgraded them for next; revealed that borrowing will be £245 billion higher than was thought in the spending review to pay for the costs of his Government’s failing economic plan; and shown that real wages will fall by 2.7% over the course of this Parliament. We have had three years of pain and not an inch of gain. The Chancellor claimed he was trying to

“light the fires of ambition”—[Official Report, 20 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 941.],

but it is his own reputation and the dreams of millions that are going up in smoke, and next week 3,000 millionaires will get a tax cut while the rest of us pay the price of this Government’s failure. This was a downgraded budget from a downgraded Chancellor.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for that, and I share her hope that those in the House service who look after us so well here in the House will get a bit of a rest while we are busy in our constituencies.