Angela Eagle
Main Page: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)Department Debates - View all Angela Eagle's debates with the Leader of the House
(9 years, 6 months ago)
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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 (Chris Grayling)
The business for next week is as follows:
Monday 15 June—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (day 1).
Tuesday 16 June—Consideration in Committee of the European Union Referendum Bill (day 1), followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to landfill tax.
Wednesday 17 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on Opposition motions, including on productivity.
Thursday 18 June—Consideration in Committee of the European Union Referendum Bill (day 2).
Friday 19 June—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 22 June will include:
Monday 22 June—Second Reading of the Education and Adoption Bill.
Tuesday 23 June—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the European Union (Finance) Bill followed by motion relating to the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill.
Wednesday 24 June—Opposition day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
Thursday 25 June—General debate: subject to be announced. In future, this day will be allocated to the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 26 June—The House will not be sitting.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I read in The Times this morning, rather than hearing in his future business, that the Government plan to rush through their controversial plans for English votes for English laws as early as next week. We have had no detail on those proposals, and no debate is scheduled. Apparently, the Government plan to change Standing Orders and avoid having to legislate. As this is a matter of serious constitutional significance, may I ask the Leader of the House to confirm what his plans are, when he intends to bring them before this House, and how he intends to ensure that all Members have a proper chance to have a say in any change?
At his Mansion House speech last night, the Chancellor pledged to pass a law to ensure that he keeps his own promises. It is easy to see why he needs one, given his abysmal economic record in the previous Parliament. He missed his own deficit reduction target, leaving himself a deficit of £75 billion, and he borrowed £200 billion more than he said he would five years ago. It is no wonder that he needs an emergency Budget to clear up the mess he left himself in. He sprayed around £25 billion of unfunded election spending commitments, and he has no idea where he will find his £12 billion of social security cuts. Is the British Chambers of Commerce not right to say that the Chancellor is just as likely to miss his latest deficit target as he was to miss all the rest?
Last night, the Governor of the Bank of England declared in the City that the age of irresponsibility was over, and he called for tougher rules to drive out continuing major market abuse. Instead of political trickery to distract us from the Chancellor’s record, may we have a debate in Government time on the fair and effective markets review, and a statement from the Chancellor on the legislative action he plans to take better to control ethical drift in the City?
At the weekend, I actually thought the Prime Minister had broken the habit of a lifetime and done something prime ministerial by putting the interests of the country ahead of those of his party. At the G7, he briefed the press that his Ministers would have to back his position on the EU or else. He even dispatched the ever dutiful hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) to warn on the “Today” programme that Ministers who do not agree with the Prime Minister would have to quit the Government. But a few hours later, he was in full retreat. By Monday lunchtime, the Bavarian hills were alive with the sound of U-turns. I know that before the election he admitted that he cries at “The Sound of Music”, but it is not “Edelweiss” that gets him now; it is “How do you solve a problem like Back Benchers?”—talk about the Con Trapps!
Last week, I highlighted the Leader of the House’s poor record on answering written questions, and I am beginning to worry that his old habits are returning. I have now asked him this question twice but have had no answer. Given that the Prime Minister has pre-resigned, and the UK Independence party leader has unresigned, will the Leader of the House, who is a notable Eurosceptic, tell us whether he will have to resign to fight for a no vote in the looming referendum?
It has not been a good week for the smaller parties. UKIP launched an attack on Sainsbury’s supermarket because it mistakenly thought a supermarket chain was funding the EU referendum yes campaign; it has attacked the LGBT community as “bigots” after being banned from London Pride, the irony apparently being completely lost on it; and last night its former chief of staff went on TV and said that UKIP is full of
“rag-tag, unprofessional, embarrassing people”
and revealed that it had had to lock certain doors because the people behind those doors were too embarrassing to be seen.
And what about the Scottish National party? The vaingloriously self-styled Scottish 56 have now been in Parliament for nearly a month. They promised to make the Scottish lion roar at Westminster—
Ms Eagle
But, as we hear, so far it has been more of a whimper. As of Friday, of the 1,300 oral questions asked of Government, as far as I can see they have barely managed one each. They tabled what they thought was a reasoned amendment to the Second Reading of the Scotland Bill, but it was so badly drafted that it was ruled out of scope and not selected, so they could not even vote on it. They tried to amend the European Union Referendum Bill, but forgot to put their leader’s name on the amendment. I am sure it was just a coincidence that the name of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) appeared at the top instead.
To cap it all, one of the SNP’s most senior Members, who has been here since 2005—
Chris Grayling
Let me start with English votes for English laws, which the hon. Lady raised at the start of her remarks. I urge her not always to believe everything she reads in the papers. We will shortly make proposals on this front and we will discuss them in the House. There will be time for hon. Members on both sides to give them consideration and there will be a full and proper debate on them. We will naturally ensure that the House gets the opportunity to give them full consideration, as all parties would expect, and I will, of course, discuss them with her and with the other parties when we are ready to do so.
On the Mansion House speech last night and the Chancellor’s plans, the hon. Lady should take a look in the mirror when she talks about those who should be taking note of the need for better management of our economy. I remind her that this Government and our predecessor the coalition have over the past five years brought down step by step the largest peacetime deficit in this country’s history. Why did we have to do that? Because of the actions of the Labour party in government, by its own admission and that of many of its leading lights. I have been reading with great interest in The Times this week the post-mortem of Labour’s election defeat. What comes through most strongly is that the party never got to grips with the fact that it messed up the economy. If we need good practices in this country in future, it is to make sure that Labour does not wreck things again.
The hon. Lady also referred to the comments made by the Governor of the Bank of England. If she wants a debate on the fair and effective markets review, as I said earlier there are two Opposition days coming up shortly. The Opposition are, of course, free to have that debate. If it is a question of ensuring good practice in the City of London and in our banking sector, I ask her to remember who it was who knighted Fred Goodwin. This party has nothing to be ashamed of in our work to sort out a massive problem that we inherited. Labour Members should be embarrassed about how they changed regulation, knighted the people who messed things up for us and now pretend that none of that ever happened.
The hon. Lady asked me about resignation. I am rather enjoying our Thursday exchanges, but I reassure her that the first person to leave our discussions at the Dispatch Box will not be me. When she becomes deputy leader of the Labour party, as I am sure she will, she will be moving on to a new job in the very near future and I will be facing a new person across the Dispatch Box.
I am not only a little concerned by the fact that the hon. Lady has had only one new declaration this week; I am worried that I may be a jinx on Labour contests embarked upon by people who shadow me. Only this week I discovered that the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who was my shadow in the previous Parliament and who is standing to be the Labour candidate for Mayor of London, has not even got the support of his own constituency party—it is voting for Tessa Jowell. May I seek the hon. Lady’s reassurance that her constituency party is supporting her for the deputy leadership of the Labour party?
Finally, this week has seen one of the great sporting events of this country in my constituency, and I have to boast about it. It is of course the Epsom derby, a magnificent event, attended by large numbers of people, a great race, a fine finish, a worthy winner in Frankie Detorri. I offer my congratulations to everybody involved in making it such a successful event. But the attention of the bookies is turning this week to a different race, a race that is taking place rather closer to this Chamber. Each morning at around 7 o’clock a queue of Labour Members of Parliament forms, a queue of Scottish National party Members of Parliament forms, and when the door opens there is an unseemly race for the seats. Given that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) is involved in that race, I am concerned for his welfare, and I wonder whether we should order a health and safety investigation to make sure that no one is injured in this daily fracas.