Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The business for the next week is as follows:

Monday 1 July—Motion to approve a ways and means resolution relating to the Finance (No.2) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Finance (No.2) Bill (Day 1).

Tuesday 2 July—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Finance (No.2) Bill (Day 2).

Wednesday 3 July—Estimates Day [1st Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on public expenditure and health care services, followed by a debate on Rail 2020. Further details will be given in the Official Report. At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

[The details are as follows: The Health Committee, 11th report, 2012-13, Public expenditure on health and care services, HC 651, and the Government response (CM 8624); and the Transport Committee, 7th report, 2012-13, Rail 2020, and the Government response, 9th special report, 2012-13, HC 1059.]

Thursday 4 July—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill, followed by general debate on NATO, followed by general debate on corporate structures and financial crime, followed by general debate on the economic implications for the UK of an EU/US trade and investment agreement. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 5 July—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 July will include:

Monday 8 July—Remaining stages of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill.

Tuesday 9 July—Consideration in Committee of the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Wednesday 10 July—Opposition half day [4th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by the Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration.

Thursday 11 July—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee, including a general debate to mark the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster.



Friday 5 July—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 4 and 11 July will be:

Thursday 4 July—Debate on the 8th report of the International Development Select Committee on post-2015 development goals, followed by debate on 10th report of the International Development Select Committee on Pakistan.

Thursday 11 July—Debate on social care reform for working age disabled people.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business.

We are approaching the 65th birthday of the NHS, so will the Leader of the House now admit the truth: that in a reversal of their infamous airbrushed election poster, it is clear that this Government have cut the NHS and not the deficit? The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill is due to return to the House on 8 July, but with only one day of debate for all its remaining stages. After the important recommendations from the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards last week, which the Prime Minister claimed he supported, why has the Leader of the House scheduled only one day of debate? I am sure he agrees with me that we must act to reform the problems in our banking system, so will he now undertake to provide a second day to ensure that all the necessary amendments have time to be heard?

Does the Leader of the House agree with the assessment that the Tory handout EU referendum Bill of the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), which reaches the House next Friday, is

“a transparently cynical attempt to combat the rise of UKIP and to try to appease Tory backbenchers”?

I see that the Leader of the House does not, but those are not my words; they are the words of Stockton South Tory Councillor Mark Chatburn. How long does the Leader of the House think that this farcical misuse of the private Member’s Bill procedure by Tory Whips will carry on before the obsessive anti-Europeans realise they have been sold a pup?

This week, we have seen two alternative Queen’s Speeches put down on the Order Paper, one from the self-proclaimed Tory Taliban and one from Labour MPs. They want women to lose their right to protection if they are sexually harassed at work. We want respect for our armed forces. They want to scrap the BBC. We want fair prices on our railways. They want to bring back smoking indoors. We want to tackle the scourge of zero-hours contracts. I am proud of our Labour Back Benchers and the work they are doing, but can the Leader of the House tell us whether he can say the same about his?

This alternative agenda kicks off next week with the plan to hijack the August bank holiday and turn it into Margaret Thatcher day. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I can see that there is a lot of support for that among those on the Government Benches. Some might think that they are too obsessed with this controversial and divisive figure from the past, but I do not think they are showing nearly enough zeal. Why celebrate her once a year—why not every week? Are they not missing an opportunity? If they were real believers, would they not want Thursday, Friday, Thatcherday? I think she would be very disappointed in them. Perhaps we could name other days after current members of the Cabinet— 29 February could be named after the Deputy Prime Minister, because it gets noticed only once every four years and makes absolutely no difference to anything in the meantime.

Yesterday’s spending review underlined the scale of this Chancellor’s economic failure, with living standards falling, the economy stuttering, borrowing up, long-term unemployment up, prices rising faster than wages and bank lending down. He has not even managed to keep his prized triple A rating. He is presiding over the slowest recovery for more than 100 years, and businesses and families across the UK are paying the price. He can put on a mockney accent and eat as many posh burgers as he likes but, unlike millions of people up and down this country, he will never understand what it really feels like to be paying the price for his economic incompetence.

With a public relations man as Prime Minister, this Government are all too quick to issue press releases but too incompetent to deliver them, so we need a debate in Government time on Government incompetence. In their fourth year in office, only one of the 261 new schools they promised in their “priority” building programme has actually been built; only seven of the 576 infrastructure projects they promised have been completed; and they have delivered a paltry 2,000 of the 100,000 new homes they promised under the NewBuy scheme. They said that they would set up a British investment bank to help businesses grow, but no business has yet had help. They said that they would set up the Youth Contract to get young people back to work, but no one has used it. They promised councils £530 million for superfast broadband, but so far they have paid out only £3 million. They said that they want more infrastructure spending, but yesterday revealed a £1 billion cut in capital spending. They said that they would bring down borrowing, but it is £245 billion higher than they planned. Is not the truth that they are posturing, not governing? They are spinning, not delivering. It is not just the Chancellor’s Byron burger stunt that was a sham—it is the whole Government.

[Mr Lansley]

I do so look forward to the shadow Leader of the House’s response to the business statement, but mainly—normally—for the humour. On this occasion, however, it fell short of her normal high standards, which is a pity—I look forward to future weeks.

The hon. Lady asked about NHS spending. The figures demonstrate that the coalition Government have met their commitment to real-terms increases in NHS resources year on year. In addition, the Chancellor’s statement yesterday confirmed that we will make provision for a further real-terms increase in NHS resources in 2015-16. As she must recognise, that contrasts with my predecessor as Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who regarded real-terms increases for NHS resources as irresponsible—that was the Labour party’s view. We are delivering on our manifesto promises. The NHS could not have afforded Labour’s irresponsible policies.

The hon. Lady asked about time on Report for the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. I direct her to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s response on Tuesday to my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). We are clear that we will welcome, and consider positively and carefully, the Parliamentary Commission’s report and that, where necessary, we will legislate to bring its recommendations into force using that Bill. She must realise that the Government have allowed two days on Report more often than did our predecessors, but that that must be an exception rather than the rule. In this instance, as always, we will consider the requirement for debate on Report and make time available accordingly.

I will tell the hon. Lady exactly what the European Union (Referendum) Bill is about: it is about my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) taking the lead and giving the people of this country a choice. There are Opposition Members who do not share her unduly cynical view and recognise that it is a genuine attempt by Parliament to exercise its responsibility and give people confidence that they can decide our future in Europe. I and my hon. Friends support it, and I hope that hon. Members from all parties will do so too next Friday.

Given the Chancellor’s statement yesterday and the Chief Secretary’s excellent statement today, I am not sure why the hon. Lady tried to rerun some of the arguments from the Opposition that were demolished by the Chief Secretary. If she wants to talk about future business, she can use the half day available to the Opposition on 10 July, and I would be delighted if they chose to debate living standards in this country, given that yesterday’s statement made it clear that a five-year council tax freeze would be available. I and many others saw council tax double under Labour. Yesterday, the Chancellor announced a three-year council tax freeze and two further years available.

In addition, 24 million basic rate taxpayers will benefit by nearly £700 from the coalition Government’s commitment to increase the personal tax allowance. The consequence of not having to impose the fuel duty escalator will be a saving of £40—13p a litre—for the average motorist. If, on the other hand, the hon. Lady wants to debate the economy on 10 July, she will have the opportunity, among other things, to debate why we are in this situation: because they doubled the debt, leaving us with the highest deficit in the OECD and £157 billion of borrowing, which we have reduced by one third to £108 billion this year.

[Interruption.] It is all very well Opposition Members making gestures to suggest flatlining. The economy did not flatline at the end of the Labour Government; it fell, as new statistics tell us, by 7.2%. There was a 7.2% crash in the gross domestic product of this country. That is the basis of the crisis that we had to resolve when we came into office, and if the hon. Lady wants to have a debate on that, we will be very happy to accommodate her.