Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the jam-packed business for next week?

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

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 12 May—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Care Bill [Lords], followed by remaining stages of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill (day 1).

Tuesday 13 May—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by remaining stages of the Consumer Rights Bill (day 1), followed by motion relating to the Standards Committee report on all-party parliamentary groups, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Wednesday 14 May—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by remaining stages of the Deregulation Bill (day 1), followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Thursday 15 May—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Friday 16 May—The House will not be sitting.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for what looks to be the last business statement before the end of this Session. Will he confirm that the House now looks likely to prorogue more than a week before the recess date that he originally announced?

The horrific kidnap of nearly 300 schoolgirls by a terrorist group in Nigeria has rightly been condemned by leaders across the international community. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Foreign Secretary so that he can tell us what support the UK Government are offering to help locate and rescue these young women?

On Tuesday, the Business Secretary told the House that he will not “rule out intervention” on Pfizer’s attempted takeover of AstraZeneca, which may threaten UK jobs in the strategically important pharmaceutical sector, but the Prime Minister seems to be a cheerleader for it. At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, he failed to tell the House whether he would work with the Opposition to deliver a public interest test. That would need only secondary legislation, so perhaps the Leader of the House could tell us now: will the Government work with us to introduce such a test quickly so that the UK can safeguard its strategic interests in this sector, which is so crucial both to our research and development and our science base? Will he arrange for the Business Secretary to come to the House so that he can tell us exactly what the Government’s position now is on this crucial issue?

Coalition chaos on AstraZeneca is just the tip of the iceberg according to a report published yesterday by the Institute for Government. It warns that the Government are in danger of seizing up altogether as the election approaches. Some of us think that they already have. There are now credible complaints that civil service impartiality is being compromised by the partisan and inappropriate demands for policy advice from warring coalition parties. To provide reassurance and transparency, will the Leader of the House tell us whether he supports the Institute for Government’s sensible calls for the publication of civil service engagement rules for this final year so that we can have both clarity and oversight of the Government’s behaviour? Does he also agree with the institute that:

“The access that the two coalition parties will have to the civil service in the pre-election period strengthens the case for offering more extensive civil service support to the Opposition”?

The Government’s habit of believing that policy delivery ends with sending out the press release just gets worse. In November 2011, the Department for Work and Pensions said:

“Over one million people will be claiming Universal Credit by April 2014”.

But when April 2014 arrived, fewer than 4,000 people were on a pale imitation of the proposed regime.

In July 2007, the current Leader of the House said in a press release that there would be no top-down reorganisations of the NHS, but four years into this Government, what do we have? We have a disastrous and expensive top-down reorganisation of the NHS. This week, we have learned that the much trumpeted NHS better care fund has been delayed, after a Whitehall review declared that it would not work, would not help balance the budget and would not bring about the promised revolution in patient care. Is not the truth that the better care fund was a knee-jerk reaction to Labour’s policy on the integration of health and social care, and that the Government’s own legislation is standing in the way of proper integration? Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Health Secretary so that he can urgently clarify the status of the better care fund?

There are now just two weeks to go until the local and European elections. The Conservative party has frantically been trying to paint the Leader of the Opposition as a mixture of Karl Marx and Hugo Chávez, the UK Independence party has been hiring eastern Europeans to deliver its anti-immigration leaflets, and the Deputy Prime Minister appears to have resorted to backing a report that calls for the legalisation of cannabis. I suppose mind-altering drugs are the only thing that might persuade people to vote for him. At his campaign launch on Monday, he was reduced to pleading with his activists to shout from the rooftops about Liberal Democrat achievements. I think they might be safer on the roof than they would be on the doorstep.

What about those Liberal Democrat achievements? The Deputy Prime Minister promised to scrap tuition fees, but he trebled them. He promised he would not raise VAT, but he raised it. He promised fair taxes, but he gave tax breaks to millionaires while everyone else pays more. This week, scientists have discovered a new dinosaur with a very long nose, and they have named it Pinocchio rex. I think maybe they should just have called it Nick.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her response. She will be aware that only once business is concluded can we be certain of the precise timing of Prorogation, so as is customary, Prorogation will be announced once all the Government’s business required in this Session has been secured.

The hon. Lady was right to ask about Nigeria, and she will have heard what the Prime Minister said about that. We are all shocked by what has been happening there, including the kidnapping of the girls and the other terrorist attacks. As the hon. Lady will know, the Foreign Secretary has been in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova this week, but I will of course talk to the Foreign Office about how we might take an opportunity to update the House not only on his visit this week but on the steps that he has taken on Nigeria, including the contacts that he has had with the Nigerian Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister’s discussion with the President of Nigeria, which was scheduled to take place yesterday afternoon.

One point in the Institute for Government’s report is about making progress in this final year. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House said in Question Time, we cannot anticipate the Queen’s Speech, but I can assure the House that there will be a full programme of legislative business for it to consider.

I would remind the House of the sheer scale of the legislative achievement that has been accomplished in this Session. Opposition Members had the opportunity to support much of it, such as legislation on same-sex marriage; on shared parental leave; on the establishment of single-tier pensions; on reforms to speed up adoption; on giving children in care new time limits on their care proceedings, to reduce delays; on introducing special, additional measures for children with special educational needs, including care plans; on establishing the principles of High Speed 2 and the Select Committee on the Bill; on electricity market reform and investment in our energy infrastructure; on investment in the water industry; and on protection for householders seeking insurance against flooding.

The Opposition did not seem quite so keen on some things, of course, such as the employment allowance, which will give 1.25 million businesses and charities the benefit of £2,000 off their employer’s national insurance bill. There is also banking reform; criminal justice; the reform of antisocial behaviour law; and those who leave prison having served fewer than 12 months will receive supervision to reduce reoffending. I think that in any year, any Government could be proud of the scale of the legislative achievements undertaken.

You know how loth I am, Mr Speaker, to engage in any kind of partisan activity at the Dispatch Box, so I will not engage in electioneering. I will just say that the parties of the coalition Government can go into the local and European elections not least on the strength of our long-term economic plan working. We are seeing some of the best growth figures, and indeed forecasts for the United Kingdom to be among the strongest growing economies in the developed world. We debate many things about Europe, but we all know that to be a strong country we need a strong economy. That is what this coalition Government are delivering through our long-term economic plan.

The hon. Lady asked about the Pfizer-AstraZeneca merger, and she will have heard what the Prime Minister said in response to the Leader of the Opposition. She asked for a statement; the Business Secretary was at the Dispatch Box just 48 hours ago to answer questions from the House. I think he did so very clearly. He made clear a number of things, including the point that Pfizer has not as yet made a formal bid, and that from the Government’s point of view there is open-handed neutrality. We have engaged with both companies to establish their positions and what their commitments may be. If there are further developments, I know that the Business Secretary will engage the House. I have substantial constituency interests in relation to both Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The shadow Leader of the House will therefore understand that I am not party inside Government to discussions relating directly to Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and I am not able to go beyond what my friends have said at the Dispatch Box.