Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 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 5 May—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 6 May—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Wales Bill. It may be helpful if I remind colleagues that the House will sit at 2.30 pm next Tuesday and that the moment of interruption will be at 10 o’clock.

Wednesday 7 May—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Water Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments.

Thursday 8 May—A debate on motions relating to House of Commons business, including on petitions, programming, parliamentary privilege and amendments to Standing Orders, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 9 May—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 12 May will include:

Monday 12 May—Consideration of Lords amendments, followed by remaining stages of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill (Day 1).

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

Thursday 8 May—A debate on the fourth report of the Scottish Affairs Committee on the impact of the bedroom tax in Scotland: interim report, followed by a debate on the 10th report of the Environmental Audit Committee on sustainability in the UK overseas territories.

[Ms Eagle]

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

Mr Speaker, yesterday you announced that the Clerk of the House will be retiring after 42 years of distinguished service to this place. There will be an occasion in future to pay an appropriate tribute, but for now I just observe that his seminal opus “How Parliament Works” still remains the most borrowed book in the whole of the House of Commons Library. The warm applause he received from all sides of the House yesterday is a fitting tribute to the esteem in which he is held.

Given the languid nature of the Government’s legislative programme to date, may I congratulate the Leader of the House on managing to find at least some business for us to consider? Will he now confirm to the House what we all know: that next Thursday he will be at the Dispatch Box announcing an early Prorogation and admitting that they are a Government who have not only run out of ideas but out of steam?

I note that next Thursday we will debate a range of motions on House business, including on programming, privilege, e-petitions and Standing Orders. I also note that some of those motions are being rewritten at the last minute and even as we speak. Will the Leader of the House set out what he will be proposing? Will he tell us how he plans to structure the debates and, more important, whether there will be separate votes? After last year’s embarrassment of Tory Back Benchers moving to regret their own Queen’s Speech, will he confirm whether the Government are trying to avoid a repeat performance this year by attempting to limit the number of amendments that can be tabled, or are they frantically rewriting the motion even as we speak because they realised that they going were to lose the vote and have had to back off from this attempt to gag Parliament? What a spectacle: a Government who have to contemplate changing the Standing Orders to stop their own Back Benchers amending their own Queen’s Speech, and then have to abandon the attempt because they realised they would lose the vote.

On Monday, almost 80 Conservative Members were allowed to absent themselves or rebel on their Government’s flagship High Speed 2 Bill. Those conveniently absent included the Attorney-General, the Minister for Europe, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury—and the Prime Minister. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the Prime Minister has been taking lessons on collective responsibility from the Liberal Democrats?

Today is May day. Given that the Tories have farcically renamed themselves the workers party, will the Leader of the House tell me whether he or the Chief Whip plan to be on any May day marches this weekend to show solidarity with their comrades in South Cambridgeshire and North West Hampshire? May we have a debate, in Government time, on the increasing levels of insecurity in work, so they can explain exactly why it is that there are now more than 2 million zero-hours contracts in this country, and why underemployment is at record levels?

Yesterday the Government were forced to reveal the list of 16 firms that had been given priority access to the Royal Mail fire sale. We now know that Lazard—the same firm that had advised the Business Secretary on the price—bought nearly half the shares that were available to the priority bidders, and was able to make a profit of £8 million in a single week. The chairman of Lazard in the United Kingdom is a former Tory Member of Parliament. The Chancellor’s best man made a mint, and numerous Tory donors appear to have benefited from being allowed into this cosy old boys’ club. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement to be made by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills so that he can explain the cronyism that exists in the Government?

With just three weeks to go until the local and European elections, the race is hotting up. The Prime Minister, on the campaign trail in Essex, could not tell his Chelmsfords from his Colchesters—which proves that with this Prime Minister it is not “The Only Way is Essex” but more like “Made in Chelsea”. Meanwhile, in their bunker, the Liberal Democrats are eagerly awaiting the verdict of the electorate. The number of candidates they are putting up is significantly down, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) has described his own party as “largely pointless”, and the Deputy Prime Minister must be fondly reminiscing about the days when everyone thought he was the man who was going to change British politics. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury recently declared that the Cornish were now a national minority; I think it is about time that he also declared that the Liberal Democrats are now a national joke.