Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for the first week after the recess?

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

The business for the week commencing 24 February is as follows:

Monday 24 February—Second Reading of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.

Tuesday 25 February—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2014 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2014, followed by general debate on the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 26 February—Opposition day (unallotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, including on Housing Benefit (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (S.I., 2014, no. 212).

Thursday 27 February—A debate on a motion relating to the effects of welfare reform on sick and disabled people, followed by a debate on a motion relating to parliamentary representation. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 28 February—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 3 March will include:

Monday 3 March—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on managing flood risk followed by a debate on Government levies on energy bills.

Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Managing Flood Risk, Third report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, HC 330, and the Government response, HC 706; The Levy Control Framework: Parliamentary oversight of the Government levies on energy bills, Eighth Report from the Energy and Climate Change Committee, HC 872.]

Tuesday 4 March—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on defence and cyber-security, followed by a debate on the private rented sector. Further details will be given in the Official Report. At 7pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Defence and Cyber-Security, Sixth Report form the Defence Committee, HC 106 of Session 2012-13, and the Government response, HC 719; The Private Rented Sector, First Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, HC 50, and the Government Response, CM 8730.]

Wednesday 5 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipations and Adjustments) Bill, followed by general debate on the Francis report.

Thursday 6 March—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 7 March—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 27 February will be:

Thursday 27 February—General debate on patient rights and access to NHS data.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the week after the recess.

On Tuesday the House voted to ban smoking in cars with children present, despite the Government’s opposing the move in the Lords. Will the Leader of the House confirm that we will have a law on the statute book before the next election?

Yesterday the House voted by a margin of 226 to 1 in favour of the Bill to abolish the bedroom tax—a Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery)—on the same day as we revealed that thanks to Government incompetence at least 13,000 people have been forced to pay it when they should have been exempt. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has tabled a statutory instrument to try to force those people to pay that hated tax again, but I want to make it clear that during our next Opposition day debate Labour will move to annul that odious measure. The bedroom tax is a callous attack on the poorest people in our country that might end up costing more than it saves, and we do not think that anyone should have to pay it.

It seems that the ever-eager Justice Secretary is the only Minister to have responded to a plea for some business to fill the gaping holes in the Government’s stuttering legislative agenda. The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill amends their own legislation from only two years ago. It has apparently been brought forward from next year’s legislative programme, which suggests that the Government are so desperate for business that they are already poaching Bills from their sparse draft of the next Queen’s Speech. Does the Leader of the House think it would be easier just to skip the Queen’s Speech altogether and leave us officially twiddling our thumbs until the next election?

The floods that are blighting many parts of our country are causing untold misery for thousands of people. As we have just heard, the huge storm overnight caused further travel chaos and left more than 100,000 people without power. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister said at his Downing street press conference that money would be no object in dealing with the floods, but within 24 hours we were told that there would be no blank cheques. Will the Leader of the House tell us which it is?

During Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister failed to tell us whether he would commit to spending more on flood defences, so can the Leader of the House tell us whether he will? Yesterday the Prime Minister yet again cited inaccurate figures on flood defence spending, so will the Leader of the House finally admit that the Government cut flood funding by £97 million when they came to office in 2010, that they changed the Treasury rules to make it harder to give flood protection schemes the go-ahead, and that flood spending for this year is £63.5 million lower than in 2010, even after the extra money announced last week?

We learned this week that Barclays intends to increase its bonus payouts by 10% while cutting 7,000 staff in the UK. In 2011, the Prime Minister said:

“I want the bonus pools to be lower, I want the taxes that the banks pay to be higher and…I want the lending that they do to do business…to increase.”

As always with this Government, the results do not match the rhetoric. Bankers bonuses have increased by £600 million since 2012, net lending under the funding for lending scheme for small and medium-sized enterprises has fallen by £2.3 billion since June 2012, and since the election banks have paid more than twice as much in bonuses as they have paid in corporation tax. Labour would use a bankers bonus tax to fund real jobs for young people, but all the Government can do is refuse to rule out a cut in the top rate of tax. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Chancellor on fairness so that he can explain why he stands up only for a few at the top?

As Valentine’s day approaches, the coalition will be conscious that it has been going through a bit of a legislative dry spell. Does the Leader of the House have any plans to spice things up, because everyone seems to be falling out of love? The Environment Secretary and the Local Government Secretary have been briefing against each other. Apparently the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has “gone native” and is basically just a Tory, and Tory Back Benchers are busy describing their coalition colleagues as

“harder to pin down than a weasel covered in Vaseline”.

I understand that Lord Rennard is trying to sue to the Liberal Democrats so that he is allowed to rejoin the party, but he must be the only person in the whole country who would take legal action to become a Liberal Democrat.

[Mr Lansley]

I feared that the shadow Leader of the House’s contribution would not live up to her previous humour, but at least she managed it at the last moment.

[Ms Eagle]

It was a good one, though.

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, it was.

I was delighted that the House, in a free vote, expressed its view on smoking in cars—speaking personally, I entirely agreed with it. The Government now have to consider when we bring the relevant regulations before the House, but I am afraid that it will be a while before we can advise hon. Members of the timing.

The hon. Lady referred to the ten-minute rule Bill proposed yesterday by the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), but I was sorry that she seemed not to understand the nature of proceedings on such Bills. The House votes not on the principle of a ten-minute rule Bill, but simply on whether it gives leave for the Bill to be brought in. As the House did not express a view on the principle of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, I do not think that we can draw a particular lesson from those proceedings.

The hon. Lady anticipated Labour’s Opposition day debate on the next sitting Wednesday, when Ministers will set out their position clearly, but that gives us further evidence that the Labour party is in denial. Under the Labour Government, housing benefit doubled and the deficit quadrupled. We must arrive at a point where there is welfare reform so that the fairness of the system is established: the fairness of people in social housing having a similar system in relation to under-occupancy as those in the private rented sector; the fairness of recognising that there has been a dramatic increase, including under the last Government, of the number of people seeking social housing but unable to find it, while at the same time large numbers of people are in under-occupied properties. It is important to get that fairness into the system, and yet, again, the Opposition are resisting it.

The shadow Leader of the House again peddled the proposition that the House is not busy. The House is dealing with legislation. The Thursday before last, four Bills received Royal Assent. In the last three weeks, we have introduced three Bills, which will be carried over into the final Session of this Parliament. I am not sure what in the business statement that I have just announced the hon. Lady thinks does not constitute genuine business. Under the Standing Orders we are required to have estimates days, so we are having estimates days. Under the Standing Orders we are required to give the Opposition access to the time of the House, but she will have noticed that the next sitting Wednesday’s debate is an unallotted day. Is the hon. Lady saying to me, and through me, to the usual channels, that she does not think that that merits the attention of the House? If so, hand that time back to us, and the Government can use it to bring forward measures. As it is, we are busy with legislation and the House is busy debating the issues that are chosen not only by the Government but by the Backbench Business Committee and the Opposition. If she objects to the Backbench Business Committee and the Opposition having time for debates because it does not constitute scrutiny of legislation, the Government will take it back and scrutinise legislation instead.

The hon. Lady repeated the canard that the Government are saying two different things about money being available to support the response to flooding and disruption and the recovery from that. The position is clear. It is exactly as the Prime Minister said yesterday and my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary said today. We will do whatever is needed to support people in responding to these events and in recovering from them, and we will not be constrained in doing that by virtue of resources. Resources will be available to make that happen.

I do not know whether the House can have any debate in relation to Valentine’s day, but in a spirit of amity I point out that we have agreed that about this time of year we will be looking towards the first opportunity to introduce measures on same-sex marriages. The hon. Lady will note that the two Houses will be dealing with the relevant regulations in the first week after the recess. At least at this time of year, in a romantic spirit, we can look forward to that happening by the end of next month.

The hon. Lady’s reference to bank bonuses reminded me of the shadow Chancellor. The Opposition, having access to time for a debate, have not chosen to debate the economy again, which reminded me that this week is national storytelling week. My nine-year-old son was asked by his school to look up “Aesop’s Fables”. The hon. Lady will recall the fable of the eagle and the arrow, where the eagle is flying and is shot by an arrow and falls to the ground, and seeing the arrow recognises one of its own feathers in the shaft of the arrow. The moral of the fable is that we often give our enemies the means of our destruction. That is a little story that she might tell the shadow Chancellor this week.