Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 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)]

First, Mr Speaker, let me pay my personal tribute to Paul Goggins, a colleague held in the highest respect and affection throughout the House. His loss will be felt widely and for a long time.

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 13 January—Second Reading of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion relating to welfare reforms and poverty. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 14 January—Remaining stages of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 15 January—Opposition day [17th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, including on the subject of banking.

Thursday 16 January—General debate on child neglect and the criminal law, followed by general debate on nuisance calls. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 17 January—Private Members’ Bills.

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

Monday 20 January—Second Reading of the Intellectual Property Bill [Lords], followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 21 January—Opposition day [18th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, including on the subject of pub companies.

Wednesday 22 January—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to the Commission work programme 2014.

Thursday 23 January—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 24 January—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 16 January will now be:

Thursday 16 January—Select Committee statement on the publication of the 10th report from the Justice Committee on Crown Dependencies: Developments Since 2010, followed by a combined debate on the second report from the Justice Committee on Women Offenders: After the Corston Report and the fifth report on Older Prisoners.



May I also take this opportunity to congratulate all those who were recognised in the new year’s honours? We take pleasure, of course, not only in Members of this House being recognised for their service but in the recognition of those who give service to Parliament and take part in voluntary and public service. They include Michael Carpenter, the Speaker’s Counsel, John Pullinger, the House Librarian, and Nicholas Munting from the Catering Service. I also congratulate those within government who have been recognised, including the principal private secretary to the Patronage Secretary, Mr Roy Stone.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Leader of the House for what he said about those who work in the service of the House and have been recognised. All of them are thoroughly deserving. As many right hon. and hon. Members will know, Michael Carpenter and John Pullinger are especially well known to me, as I work with both of them closely and on a very regular basis. They are deeply deserving of the recognition that has been afforded to them.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for his tribute to Paul Goggins and wish to add my own. His untimely death this week has shocked and saddened all Members across the House. He was a kind and caring man who campaigned tirelessly for social justice, including his recent work securing the passage of the Mesothelioma Bill. All our thoughts are with his wife, his children, his family and his many friends.

May I also associate myself with the Leader of the House’s comments, and yours, Mr Speaker, about those recognised in the new year’s honours list? I cannot help wondering, given his appearance today, whether his hairdresser feels somewhat left out—perhaps it is an easier job with hair like his.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business—although, if we take away Opposition days and Back-Bench business, we yet again have very little meaningful Government legislation. Will he tell us whether that is what we can expect for the next 16 months? I note that the Government’s self-proclaimed flagship Immigration Bill is still mysteriously absent from future business, despite its consideration in Committee concluding on 19 November. Can we expect consideration on Report soon, or is the Prime Minister still running scared of the 69 Tory Back Benchers who have signed the rebel amendment?

We expect the Queen’s Speech some time in the spring, but the Government have yet to confirm a date. With the European and local elections scheduled to take place on 22 May, the pre-election purdah will be in force from the beginning of May. Unless the Government are planning a state opening with no announcements at all—I would not put it past them—it looks as though the Queen’s Speech will have to take place in June, after the Whitsun recess, the dates of which the Leader of the House has already announced. What conversations has he had with the Cabinet Secretary on the matter? Can he now tell us the date of the Queen’s Speech?

The universal credit fiasco continued this week as we discovered a war between the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Minister for the Cabinet Office over IT support. Last night the Minister for the Cabinet Office slammed the DWP’s implementation as “pretty lamentable”. Will the Leader of the House arrange for him to make a statement to the House on why the Cabinet Office and the Government Digital Service have walked away from that costly chaos?

The Chancellor this week wished everyone an unhappy new year with a speech underlining his ideological obsession with rolling back social progress and shrinking the size of the state to pre-war levels. He announced his ambition for a further £25 billion of spending cuts in the first two years of the next Parliament, with £12 billion coming from the social security budget. The Deputy Prime Minister immediately called it a “monumental mistake”, and even the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions briefed against it. Treasury Ministers were unable to say which benefits would be targeted, but refused to rule out those for the sick and the disabled.

The Chancellor told us in his speech that 2014 would be a year when Britain faces a choice, and he was right—a choice between a Government who give tax cuts to millionaires while prices rise faster than wages, and a party that wants the economy to work for the many, not the few. He is doing his best to hide his failure to balance the Government’s books by 2015, but people across the country are £1,600 worse off under his watch and we will not let him rewrite history to cover up his failed economic plan. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Chancellor, rather than making these announcements where he cannot be questioned on them, to come to the House and tell us where his £12 billion of extra social security cuts would come from?

I hope that all Members had a good break over Christmas and have returned refreshed and ready for the new year. If the Leader of the House and his Cabinet colleagues had a new year’s resolution to be better at their jobs, I must say that they have made a pretty shaky start. We have only been back a week and we have already seen the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions rowing with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office about the gargantuan mess that is universal credit, we have seen the Education Secretary slapped down by his colleagues for trying to politicise the commemoration of the first world war, and we have had the spectacle of Liberal Democrats frantically trying to distance themselves from a Government they are a part of while simultaneously accusing the Tories of stealing their policies. All the Liberal Democrat press office can do is desperately retweet a BuzzFeed item listing

“ten reasons the British public will fall back in love with the Deputy Prime Minister.”

I would like to disagree with the Mayor of London, who this week called the Deputy Prime Minister a “prophylactic protection device”. Now I know I am not the world’s greatest expert in this area, but I thought you were supposed to be able to trust contraception.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her further questions. I agree with her: listening to the debate on the Mesothelioma Bill earlier this week, I thought it was a cruel irony that Paul Goggins was not able to be there to see it come into law and to continue to pursue the campaign he had fought so very well on behalf of his constituents and others.

The hon. Lady asked about Government business. We still have 19 Government Bills before the two Houses of Parliament and we are making progress on a wide range of legislation, some of which is of considerable importance, including, as I have announced, the remaining stages of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. She seemed to dismiss it but it is a very important measure in achieving much higher levels of rehabilitation for those with sentences of below 12 months, which will contribute to overcoming the high levels of recidivism.

I cannot give the hon. Lady a date for the Report stage of the Immigration Bill—otherwise I would have announced it—or for the Queen’s Speech; both are subject to the progress of further business. I will make announcements in due course.

The hon. Lady asked about universal credit. It has always been very clear—I have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions make it very clear to the House on a number of occasions—that the Government have welcomed what the National Audit Office has said and have taken steps to put it in place. Yes, there is an adjusted timetable for the roll-out of universal credit, because we have listened, learned and acted in order to make sure there is safe and sound implementation. Part of that was always in anticipation of the transfer of responsibility from the Government Digital Service to the DWP’s own digital team.

I thought the highlight of the hon. Lady’s remarks was her question on hairdressing. I am quite pleased that people up in the Gallery can have a good look at the—[Interruption]—try to get that one into Hansard, Mr Speaker. When I visit Mr Polito’s in Cambridge, as I perhaps will this weekend, he will be able to advise me. [Interruption.] Mr Polito’s is not a person but a shop. [Interruption.] Actually, it costs £15, so I am getting my hair cut cheaper than the Deputy Prime Minister, which just shows that you can come to the Conservatives for value for money.

The shadow Leader of the House asked about the Chancellor. The Chancellor will be here to answer questions on 28 January. In a way, I would rather he were able to be here more often. Every time he comes here he is, as the hon. Lady says, able to make very clear the choice, which will become increasingly apparent as we go through this year, between a Government with a long-term economic plan that is delivering sustainable recovery for this country and, as we have heard only in the past few days, leading to business confidence at close to all-time highs, with employment in the private sector up by over 1.6 million; or, under Labour, more borrowing, more debt, more taxes, and the consequences of a second Labour recession.