Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 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)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 7 April—General debate on justice and home affairs.

Tuesday 8 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.

Wednesday 9 April—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.

Thursday 10 April—Statement on the publication of the 13th report from the Public Administration Select Committee entitled “Caught red-handed: Why we can’t count on Police Recorded Crime statistics”, followed by matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment. The Select Committee statement and the subject for debate were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 11 April—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 28 April will include:

Monday 28 April—Second Reading of the High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 10 April will be:

Thursday 10 April—Debate on police response to domestic violence.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I know that this Government aspire to shrink the state to pre-war levels and take us back to Victorian times, but do we really have to endure the return of London smogs? The chief medical officer has recognised air pollution as one of the top 10 health risk factors in the country. We all know there is little we can do about sand from the Sahara, but will the Leader of the House tell us what steps the Government will take to tackle the UK’s contribution to this problem?

As the much delayed and barely anticipated Queen’s Speech begins to loom closer, may I ask the Leader of the House about reports that the Government failed to consult the Queen about her most convenient date for the state opening and plumped for 3 June, despite a clash with the Buckingham palace garden party? One would think that with all the spare time this zombie Government have at their disposal, they would at least have been able to put it off for a day, but I have found the reason for their inflexibility—4 June is Eton founders day, so half the Cabinet would be unavailable. Given that the Government are so desperate for business that they have had to announce a general debate on Monday, will the Leader of the House confirm what we all know and admit that Prorogation will come sooner rather than later?

Yesterday we learned that the Prime Minister believes that he meets a better class of engaged and talkative shopper at Waitrose. As someone who holds an advice surgery in Asda, may I tell the Prime Minister that his snobbery is out of touch and misplaced?

I do not know whether the Saharan dust cloud is responsible for clogging up the machinery of government, but this week has been remarkable for the sheer scale of the incompetence emerging after this Government’s four years in charge. On Monday, we learned that the Government have got only 3,780 people into their flagship universal credit scheme, which was sold as a way of transforming the lives of people on benefits. That is 0.3% of the 1 million people the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was aiming for by now. So far, £140 million of public money has been written off, each user of the scheme has cost taxpayers an incredible £160,000 and £34 million has been wasted on IT systems that do not work. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State to come to the House and explain why his Department is in complete and utter chaos, and why he is letting down vulnerable people as a consequence?

The Work and Pensions Committee published a report on Wednesday, which reveals that the bedroom tax is causing disabled people

“severe financial hardship and distress”.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), the Minister responsible for the tax, claimed that it was saving money, but she has now been forced to admit that it is not saving anything.

The Liberal Democrat president, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), then issued a cynically choreographed announcement that the Liberal Democrats no longer support the bedroom tax. That is odd because, as the bedroom tax has made its way through this House, he has behaved like a true Liberal Democrat: as Liberal Democrat president, he has voted for it; he has abstained on it; and he has voted against it. Will the Leader of the House organise a debate and a vote in this House in Government time so that we can see what on earth the Liberal Democrat president and his party are going to do next?

The National Audit Office delivered a damning verdict this week on the Royal Mail fire sale, which has left the taxpayer short-changed by hundreds of millions of pounds and given a whole new meaning to the phrase “Cable theft”. It is so indefensible that one Conservative MP has described it has described it as a “debacle”, “unethical” and “immoral”. Despite the Prime Minister’s feeble efforts to defend the indefensible yesterday, if someone takes something worth £3.4 billion from us and sells it for £2 billion, it is fairly obvious that we are not getting a good deal.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was unable to say whether a gentleman’s agreement was reached with the so-called long-term investors, who actually cashed in their shares within weeks and made millions. Since the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has refused to answer, will the Leader of the House now tell us who the 16 priority investors selected by the Government are, whether any of them are Tory donors, and whether the Government will publish any correspondence? The country has a right to know.

With all the incompetence this week, it seems appropriate that we had April fool’s day. Some of the fake articles almost fooled me. I almost believed that Piers Morgan was the new press adviser to the Liberal Democrats, and I was taken in by the idea that Alex Salmond would want his face on a new Scottish pound coin; but I could not believe that the Chancellor’s best man made £36 million from the Royal Mail fire sale until I found out that it is actually true. How is that for a mate’s rate?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her response to the business statement.

The hon. Lady accuses us of shrinking the state. What we are doing is trying to live within our means, which is a perfectly reasonable proposition. As it happens, we are taking Government spending back to about its level in 2004; it is nothing like as apocalyptic as she would have us believe. In truth, having inherited the largest deficit of the G8, it is necessary. It is part of what our long-term economic plan will achieve: it will reduce the deficit and, as a consequence, we will be able to have stronger economic growth to create more jobs and live within our means, including by capping the welfare budget.

I note that, having voted for the welfare cap, all we hear—once again—from Labour Members is that they do not believe in it, that they would vote against it and that they are against the measures within it. Frankly, they also now appear to be against universal credit, which will have the most positive characteristics of being able to support those people whose needs are greatest and to provide additional resources, not least to those on low incomes with children. It is being delivered carefully. We are seeing where the issues lie and dealing with them.

For the shadow Leader of the House to castigate the Department for Work and Pensions again this week is astonishing, when one considers that it is presiding over the most far-reaching and positive pension reforms that anybody here has seen in their lifetime, and that it has presided over an increase in employment of 1.3 million people and an increase in private sector employment of 1.7 million people since the election.

The shadow Leader of the House asked about the reports on the spare room subsidy over the past week. Interestingly, much of the analysis showed flaws and inaccuracies in the BBC data. Frankly, if the Government had published the data behind the BBC’s announcement and had tried to make arguments on that basis, we would have been castigated. It would be best if it went back and did its numbers again.

The shadow Leader of the House asked about the Queen’s Speech and the date of Prorogation. As is customary for all Governments, the date of the Queen’s Speech is announced following full consultation with the palace. The date of Prorogation will be announced in due course and will be subject to the progress of business.

On shops, the Prime Minister, like all of us, visits various retailers in his constituency. There was a Waitrose in my constituency, but it got shuffled out of it in the boundary changes before the last election. I tend to get accosted in all the shops I visit, wherever I go, in a very positive fashion.