Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be:

Monday 20 October—Remaining stages of the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill, followed by motion to approve a Church of England measure relating to women bishops.

Tuesday 21 October—Second Reading of the Recall of MPs Bill.

Wednesday 22 October—Opposition day (7th allotted day). There will be debates in the name of the Democratic Unionist party, including on the National Crime Agency.

Thursday 23 October—Debate on a motion relating to repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, followed by debate on a motion relating to oral hormone pregnancy tests. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 24 October—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 27 October will include:

Monday 27 October—Second Reading of the Taxation of Pensions Bill.

Hon. Members will also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the February recess at close of play on Thursday 12 February and return on Monday 23 February.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 30 October will be:

Thursday 30 October—Debate on the first joint report from the Committees on Arms Export Controls, “Scrutiny of Arms Exports and Arms Controls”.

[Ms Eagle]

May I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and February’s recess date? I note, however, that he has not announced a date for this Government to stagger to their painful and inevitable end—or should I say dissolution?

Six weeks ago, the House gave a Second Reading to the Affordable Homes Bill, which mitigates the cruel effects of the bedroom tax. A week later the House also gave a Second Reading to the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill. However, there is still no sign of the money resolutions that would enable either of them to progress to Committee, and the Tory wing of the Government are using parliamentary tricks in an attempt to subvert the will of the House. Will the Leader of the House now give us a commitment that he will respect the decisions of the House by bringing forward those two money resolutions ahead of any money resolution for the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which makes its predictable reappearance on Friday? Or is he so scared by the UKIP threat to his party’s election prospects that he is desperate to let the EU Bill jump the queue?

Yesterday the Prime Minister failed to defend his own welfare Minister, Lord Freud, who claimed that disabled workers are not worth the full minimum wage and promised to go away and think about making them work for £2 an hour. This was not just an unfortunate slip of the tongue; it revealed the truth about this Government’s attitude to people with disabilities, and straight from the mouth of the Minister directly responsible. Why is he still in his job? Is it because too many in the Tory party secretly agree with him or because the Prime Minister is too weak to act? Will the Leader of the House arrange for the publication of all documents commissioned by the Government on the disabled and the minimum wage? As the welfare Minister has been mysteriously pulled from his scheduled appearance in the Lords today, will the Leader of the House ensure that he is available to make a statement in the other place sooner rather than later? The Minister for Employment said yesterday:

“Those words will haunt him,”

but is it not the truth that those words will haunt this Government until Lord Freud resigns?

Senior Tories finally admitted this week that their toxic reorganisation of the NHS has been their biggest mistake in Government—and they are right. Patients are waiting longer in A and E; they are waiting longer to see their GP; and cancer waits are up. Before the election, the Prime Minister promised “no top-down reorganisation” and then embarked on one that has caused chaos and wasted £3 billion. According to senior Tories, as reported in The Times, the Prime Minister did “not understand” the reforms, but he forced them on the NHS anyway. Does the Leader of the House agree that these actions have done profound and intense damage to the NHS? Will he ask the Prime Minister to come to the House to explain why on earth he went ahead with it when he did not even understand it?

I would like to welcome to the House the newly elected Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes). She will be a doughty fighter for her constituents and I congratulate her on her victory. I would also like to welcome to an entirely different place in the Chamber the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell)—the new Member for Clacton who has the distinction of being the old Member for Clacton. He should be congratulated on managing to win an election as both the incumbent and the insurgent all at the same time. I note that we will have another by-election in just a few weeks’ time, so let me say to the Leader of the House that to lose one MP may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose two is just reckless!

The Conservative party conference in Birmingham might have got off to a bad start with yet another defection, but the swansong address of the Leader of the House steadied the ship. May I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his 26th consecutive appearance on his party’s conference platform? Some of us remember his Wilsonian- style address as a precocious 16-year-old. The Prime Minister was so moved by the right hon. Gentleman’s final oration to the party faithful that he has proclaimed him as the greatest living Yorkshireman. This has caused much consternation. Teenagers think it is Louis Tomlinson from One Direction; Guardian readers think it is Alan Bennett and I, of course, think it is my dad. Deep down, however, we all know the truth. He spent years batting on a sticky wicket; he stood strong as his side was collapsing around him; and he made a return to the top team after years in exile. It is not the Leader of the House; it is Geoff Boycott.