Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 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 will be as follows:

Monday 25 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 26 March—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by debate on a motion relating to flood insurance, followed by the pre-recess Adjournment debate, the format of which has been specified by the Backbench Business Committee.

The business for the week commencing 15 April will be:

Monday 15 April—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Tuesday 16 April—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Defamation Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords], followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Wednesday 17 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (day 1).

Thursday 18 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (day 2).

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 18, 22 and 25 April will be:

Thursday 18 April—Debate on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee report on the road to UNFCCC COP and beyond, followed by debate on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee report on low-carbon growth links with China.

Monday 22 April—Debate on an e-petition relating to immigration from Bulgaria and Romania in 2014.

Tuesday 25 April—Debate on the Transport Select Committee report on road safety, followed by debate on the Transport Select Committee report on plug-in vehicles, plugged in policy?

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and congratulate him on the fact that there have been no sudden U-turns, on the business at least.

This is our last business questions session before we rise for recess, so may I take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, staff, the Leader of the House and all colleagues from across the House a happy Easter? Would the Leader of the House care to comment on rumours that there are plans afoot to start selling a coalition Easter egg? It would have shiny yellow wrapping but the chocolate would be true blue. Despite the slick advertising it would be entirely hollow, and it would come with two free mugs and a health warning.

The situation on the European Union bank bail-out for Cyprus is volatile and fast-moving. The Government gave assurances at the weekend that no British service personnel or civil servants working in Cyprus would lose out, and then had to dispatch an aircraft full of cash to fulfil that promise. As Parliament will rise on Tuesday for the Easter recess and not return until 15 April, and because a bank run in a eurozone country would have serious implications for the UK, will the right hon. Gentleman consider recalling the House if there is a serious deterioration in the situation?

While the Chancellor was busy revealing the scale of his economic failure in this House, the other place was voting to defeat his absurd shares for employment rights scheme, which was announced with great fanfare at the Tory party conference. Mrs Thatcher’s favourite Chancellor, Lord Lawson, was so impressed with his successor’s flagship policy that he voted against it—he was not the only one. So will the Government now see sense and abandon this appalling policy before the Growth and Infrastructure Bill returns to the Commons on 16 April?

Mr Speaker, you have just made a statement about yesterday’s Budget leak. It included market-sensitive information being leaked on Twitter before the Chancellor had even opened his mouth. We welcome the apology, which you have drawn to our attention this morning, from the Evening Standard, but is it not the case that budget secrecy is now a principle more honoured in the breach than the observance? Will the Leader let the House let us know what action will be taken on behalf of the Government to ensure that this never happens again, particularly in respect of the inclusion of market-sensitive information in any embargo?

This morning, the Chancellor refused to say whether his mortgage support schemes would be open to those who wish to buy second homes up to the value of £600,000. As the Chancellor could not tell us, perhaps the Leader of the House could clear up the confusion: is it really the Government’s intention to subsidise the purchase of second homes up to the value of £600,000 while homelessness rates soar? Or will this be the first U-turn of the Budget?

The next Prime Minister’s questions will not now take place for a whole month, so the Prime Minister should have time to read all the Budget documents for himself. Close inspection will show him that the Office for Budget Responsibility has halved growth forecasts for this year and downgraded them for next; revealed that borrowing will be £245 billion higher than was thought in the spending review to pay for the costs of his Government’s failing economic plan; and shown that real wages will fall by 2.7% over the course of this Parliament. We have had three years of pain and not an inch of gain. The Chancellor claimed he was trying to

“light the fires of ambition”—[Official Report, 20 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 941.],

but it is his own reputation and the dreams of millions that are going up in smoke, and next week 3,000 millionaires will get a tax cut while the rest of us pay the price of this Government’s failure. This was a downgraded budget from a downgraded Chancellor.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for that, and I share her hope that those in the House service who look after us so well here in the House will get a bit of a rest while we are busy in our constituencies.

Parliamentary Standards Act

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for explaining the motion before us. As he said, it allows the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to continue paying the Panel of Chairs and Chairs of Select Committees an additional amount, on top of their parliamentary salary, on 1 April 2013. Although IPSA has the power to set MPs’ pay, the House retains responsibility for determining which offices or positions are eligible for the higher salary. The motion sets out the positions that will qualify for the extra salary payment. As the Leader of the House noted, it makes no changes from the list of positions already eligible under existing resolutions of the House.

IPSA was given the power to determine MPs’ pay in May 2011 and has recently concluded a consultation on pay rates for the next two years. It concluded, as the Leader of the House said, that MPs’ pay should rise by 1% in 2013 and by a further 1% in 2014. The motion allows that 1% increase to be added to the additional pay given to the members of the Panel of Chairs and the Chairs of Select Committees.

The Opposition agree with the Government that this is a necessary motion, which need not detain the House for long, and we therefore give it our support.

Question put and agreed to.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (Programme) ((No. 3)

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I rise to support the programme motion moved by the Leader of the House in this short debate. Clearly, the House is having to deal with an unusual situation, because the Bill has become a vehicle for implementing the Leveson proposals on press regulation. The fact that it has evolved in this way has certainly made for some unusual processes that would hardly be considered best practice for the routine passage of legislation through the House, but sometimes needs must.

We must all remember that it has been 20 months since MPs from all parties came together to set up the Leveson inquiry after the revelations about industrial-scale phone hacking and indefensible press intrusion into the lives of families such as the Dowlers and the McCanns. It is time the issue was gripped, and today’s programme motion will allow it to be resolved.

Over 100 days have passed since Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry reported and all parties promised that we would work together to find a lasting solution to prevent such scandals from ever happening again, while also protecting press freedom. As cross-party talks took place last Wednesday, the Opposition withdrew an amendment to the programme motion that would have allowed some new clauses relating to the Leveson report to be taken ahead of some other parts of the Bill. We withdrew the amendment following an assurance from the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), that changes to the order of consideration would make it impossible to talk out any attempt to deal with the Leveson amendments in the Bill. The Government were as good as their word and produced a programme motion changing the order of consideration for the clauses in the Bill.

However, on Thursday the Prime Minister decided to pull the plug on the cross-party talks and table his own amendments to the Bill, which did not comply with the Leveson principles. Consequently, a raft of new amendments was tabled seeking to implement Leveson with statutory underpinning and other safeguards of independence. Today’s debate was looking as though it would offer a straight choice between a Leveson-compliant and a non-Leveson-compliant approach. However, as we have heard today, overnight a cross-party agreement was reached that will put in place an enduring solution, protected against pressure from the press, or indeed from Ministers in the Privy Council.

As part of that agreement, an amendment will be made—I understand that it has been tabled in the other place—to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill to ensure the statutory underpinning necessary to protect the royal charter vehicle from being arbitrarily changed in the Privy Council without reference to Parliament. Essentially, therefore, the programme motion before us ensures that the Leveson new clauses can be debated and added to the Crime and Courts Bill today. We therefore agree that the new clauses on press conduct should be taken ahead of the consideration of other parts of the Bill and that this debate should last for the requisite time.

[Mr Hollobone]

There is no disagreement between the Leader of the House’s programme motion and the amendment that will be moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone); all agree that the clauses relating to Leveson should be debated and decided upon today. However, the hon. Lady’s support for the Government’s programme motion means that all the other clauses will probably not be reached, including new clause 12, which relates to the provision on intermediaries for very vulnerable witnesses and has been signed by 57 colleagues on the Opposition side of the House.

[Ms Eagle]

There are important debates that need to take place on the clauses that come after those relating to Leveson. If everybody co-operates and speaks succinctly—I am about to demonstrate this by sitting down—we ought to have time to consider them all. I note, in passing, that some of the amendments to be considered are manuscript amendments and that the House will have had only a short time to examine them before they are debated. It is undesirable in principle to have manuscript amendments, but it is inevitable in the context of the fast-moving cross-party talks on Leveson, which continued into the early hours of this morning. The House has to be flexible and its procedures have to enable agreements to be enacted if the circumstances are exceptional, as I believe they are in this case.

I know that many Members are disappointed that debate on other parts of the Bill will be curtailed or truncated by the programme motion, but I am sure that if we work together we can ensure that we can debate all the parts of the Bill. I hope that Members on both sides will accept the programme motion, which will enable us to implement the findings of the Leveson report on regulation of the press, ensuring that any future victims can have redress, while maintaining press freedom. I also hope that we will be able to debate in an appropriate manner all the other parts of the Bill before finishing those stages at midnight.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

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

With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week.

Monday 18 March—I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement following the European Council. This will be followed by the conclusion of remaining stages of the Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]. Colleagues will wish to be aware that the business is expected to go beyond the moment of interruption.

Tuesday 19 March—Proceedings on the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill, followed by motion relating to section 4A(2) of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009.

Wednesday 20 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 21 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 22 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

The provisional business for the following week will include:

Monday 25 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 26 March—Debate on a motion relating to flood insurance, followed by pre-recess Adjournment debate, the format of which has been specified by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 21 and 25 March will be:

Thursday 21 March—Debate relating to the post-2015 development agenda.

Monday 25 March—Debate relating to the e-petition on preventable cardiac deaths arising from sudden adult death syndrome.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for finally announcing the business for next week. I have been following this morning’s chaotic events largely on Twitter, and it is a deplorable state of affairs. It would be helpful to everyone in the House if the Government could get their act together and learn how to organise their business in a more timely fashion.

Ninety-nine days have passed since the publication of the Leveson report, and a decision must be made. Now is the time to act for the many victims of press intrusion whom the report identified. We wanted a cross-party agreement, and we are disappointed that this morning the Prime Minister pulled the plug on the all-party talks. Even at this late stage, we urge him to think again. When he launched the inquiry, he looked victims in the eye and told them that he would fight for them. It is a sad indictment that he now fights for the people who hurt them.

Will the Leader of the House guarantee that the Government will allow time for a debate and vote on any Leveson proposals in the Crime and Courts Bill on Monday? When can we expect to see the supplementary timetabling motion which was promised by Ministers yesterday, to facilitate the debate and the votes that must accompany it?

I am beginning to think that my prediction that the Government will perform a U-turn every 29 days is going off the rails. The last one arrived three days early, and this week we have seen two more—and that is before next week’s Budget. Despite the urgent question, we still have no idea what the Government’s policy on a minimum alcohol price of 45p actually is. Will the Leader of the House tell us? Perhaps he will also let us know his personal view.

The Government have amended the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill in the other place to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board, which provides vital protection for rural communities. According to the Government’s own impact assessment, the abolition will take £260 million out of rural workers’ pockets and transfer it directly to their employers. The Bill is due to complete its Lords stages on 20 March. Will the Leader of the House tell me when it will return to the House of Commons?

We were all startled by the vivid imagery from the Liberal Democrat conference last week. The party’s president said that his own members were

“like cockroaches after a nuclear war”.

The Deputy Prime Minister described his coalition partners as

“like a kind of broken shopping trolley.”

Mr. Speaker, I present you with our Government: a broken shopping trolley full of cockroaches, veering wildly to the right.

Over the last week, the bookies have been raking it in because an important leadership election has been taking place. The front-runners have been jockeying for position, factions have been forming, there has been whispering in the corridors, people have been excited to see who will emerge as their next leader—and that was just in the Vatican. Meanwhile, here at Westminster, the Prime Minister is searching for divine inspiration. The Home Secretary has openly staked her claim, only to be silenced by the Education Secretary, who harbours his own ambitions. Perhaps the Prime Minister’s Aussie spin doctor should turn his attention to the Cabinet, and stop harassing Tory Back Benchers about their tweeting habits.

The Budget is just under a week away. Everyone is wondering what the part-time Chancellor’s encore will be after last year’s omnishambles, and I have to say that the omens are not good. The Prime Minister has suffered an unprecedented ticking off from the Office for Budget Responsibility for obscuring the facts on cuts, the Business Secretary is openly campaigning for Labour’s plan B, and the Chancellor lost £1 billion in the 4G auction and has failed his own triple A test.

The Chancellor’s plan is not working. People are suffering while our economy flatlines, and he is busy handing out tax cuts to millionaires. Perhaps he should listen to the 81% of his own constituents who think that he should spend less time in the Tory bunker and more time in his day job. The Guardian quotes a senior Tory as saying:

“The Conservative party has two moods. Panic and complacency.”

Will the Leader of the House tell us which mood he thinks his party is in?

[Mr Lansley]

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

On press conduct and the implementation of the Leveson report, the hon. Lady will recall that yesterday the Minister of State, Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), made it clear in response to the debate on the programme motion that if the talks conclude, either with or without agreement, we will bring forward a supplementary programme motion to ensure that issues relating to press conduct are debated on the second day of consideration of the Crime and Courts Bill. That is what we are doing.

The Prime Minister announced this morning that further all-party discussions have this morning concluded without agreement. For the benefit of the House I will read out what he has said:

“I believe that what we have on the table is a system that will deliver public confidence and justice for the victims. It’s a system that would introduce the toughest press regulation this country has seen and a system that will defend press freedom in our country.”

The Government will now publish the royal charter again so people can see how it would deliver the principles that Lord Justice Leveson set out. Through the consideration of the Crime and Courts Bill on Monday, the minimal legislative changes required to put in place a system of exemplary damages will be tabled. As the Prime Minister made clear this morning, other parties can also table amendments, although we hope, of course, that they will see that the minimal legislative changes supporting a royal charter will deliver what is required to balance a tough system of press regulation and the need for freedom of the press. The shadow Leader of the House asked me about the tabling of amendments and motions. As the House is not sitting tomorrow, they will have to be tabled today.

I hope my comments have given Members an indication of the shape of the debate. My purpose is to facilitate the debate of the House. As the Prime Minister made clear this morning, the debate on Monday should resolve this issue and I hope the way the debate is structured—we can discuss that through the usual channels—will facilitate the House reaching a conclusion. The hon. Lady asked about other Bills, including the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. I hope these steps will enable us not only to achieve the implementation of the Leveson report recommendations, but to enable other important legislation to be concluded in a timely fashion.

Now—[Interruption.] I think we can be quick on other things. On minimum alcohol pricing, the Minister of State at the Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane, has just responded to an urgent question, and my personal view is the same as his. [Interruption.] I agree with the Government, no problem.

The Government’s decision to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board is an important deregulatory measure. The minimum wage will remain in place.

The hon. Lady mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) referring to Liberal Democrats as cockroaches. We can squash that right now. We all know that Liberal Democrats have a capacity to fly away, as their symbols demonstrate, but we will leave it at that.

The hon. Lady talked about next Wednesday’s Budget statement. I cannot pre-empt what the Chancellor will say, but there are a number of things the House recognises and the hon. Lady and her party ought to recognise: that we were left a dreadful financial mess; that we have cut the deficit by a quarter; that we have seen private sector employment rise by over 1 million; and, as was discussed when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Skills delivered his statement to the House, 1 million people are going into apprenticeships as part of our creating sustainable growth for the future. We are making benefits fairer and we are making work pay. We have taken 2.2 million people out of income tax all together as a consequence of the increase in personal allowances. All this, and so much more, means the Chancellor will be delivering the Budget statement against a background of a record of achievement thus far and can set out proposals that will enable us to secure deficit reduction and our growth prospects for the future.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 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 11 March—Second Reading of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill.

Tuesday 12 March—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on tax fairness, followed by a debate on apprenticeships.

Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Wednesday 13 March—Remaining stages of the Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (day 1).

Thursday 14 March—Launch of a report from the Justice Select Committee on youth justice, followed by debate on a motion relating to accountability and transparency in the NHS. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the following week will include:

Monday 18 March—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Crime and Courts Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 19 March—Proceedings on a Bill.

Wednesday 20 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 21 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 22 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 14 March will be:

Thursday 14 March—Debate on the Foreign Affairs Committee report on the FCO’s human rights work in 2011, followed by general debate relating to Commonwealth day.

The House will also be aware that this morning I made a written statement announcing that Her Majesty the Queen will open a new Session of this Parliament on Wednesday 8 May 2013.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and the date of the Queen’s Speech.

Tomorrow is international women’s day. To celebrate, the Government propose to remove the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s general equality duty from the statute book, having already slashed 70% of its funding. The Government have undermined the EHRC to such an extent that the United Nations has warned that it may lose its current A-list status as an independent body. It was therefore fitting that on Monday the other place blocked that attack on the commission’s powers to progress fairness. No wonder that the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) suggested in The Sun on Tuesday that her own Front Bench needed equality training. Will the Leader of the House confirm when we will see the amended Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill back in this place?

I think I have finally managed to discover something reliable about the Government: the regularity of their U-turns. On 14 February, I observed that with this Government we have a U-turn every 29 days. Following the Education Secretary’s embarrassing climbdown on GCSEs, I predicted that the next one was due to arrive on 8 March—a non-sitting Friday.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady must resume her seat. We cannot have points of order in the middle of business questions. There will be an opportunity for points of order in due course and there are plenty of opportunities to contribute, but not in the middle of business questions.

[Ms Eagle]

As I said, I predicted that the next U-turn was due on 8 March—a non-sitting Friday. Therefore, may I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting my request that this U-turn be brought forward to a sitting day by agreeing to Labour’s urgent question on the NHS competition regulations, which the Government withdrew ignominiously on Tuesday? It may have arrived like clockwork, but that U-turn took a quarter of a million names on a petition, thousands of doctors protesting and outrage across the House before the Government saw sense and realised that the British public will not tolerate our NHS being privatised.

The Leader of the House may recall that he told me last week that I was “not right” to say that the NHS competition regulations were a direct contradiction to the reassurances he gave during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Yet only yesterday, the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reported that the regulations are defective for precisely that reason. Will he now concede that he was wrong? Will he tell me when we can expect to see a new version of the regulations, and can we have them published in draft first, to avoid even more chaos? I am setting my clock for the next 29 days, but I make a plea to the Government: if I can predict their U-turns, then surely so can they. Could they, perhaps, just think through their policies a bit more before they announce them?

Last week, I asked the Leader of the House to ensure that the Commons Committee stage of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill will not be completed before the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards has even published its second report. This week, we learned that the Government intend to railroad the Bill through the Commons Committee stage by 18 April, well before the second report is expected to be published. How can the Leader of the House seriously expect MPs to scrutinise a Bill that is still only half-written? Will he stand up for the rights of this House and delay the Committee stage until after the Banking Commission has reported?

I am glad to see that our downgraded Chancellor has got his priorities right: he spent the week in Europe defending bankers’ bonuses. He gathered his allies around him ready for the fight and ended up in a minority of one. No one seems to respect the Chancellor anymore. Yesterday, the Business Secretary made a pre-emptive strike on the Prime Minister’s big economy speech by agreeing with the Opposition that we need a plan B, and the Governor of the Bank of England has accused the Chancellor of holding back the economy by not splitting up RBS. Most damningly, however, he has lost the respect of the British public, who see him ignoring the suffering of hard-working families, while he signs off six-figure tax cuts to 30,000 millionaires. Will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor to start listening?

While the Chancellor is acting as a shop steward for the rich, another union is growing in strength: the national union of Ministers, united in their determination to dump further cuts to their Departments somewhere else. The Defence Secretary seems to have emerged as the new Arthur Scargill; and, from reports of the slap-down of the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is emerging as the new Margaret Thatcher. Could the Leader of the House tell us whether the union is confident enough in its numbers to win a strike ballot? No wonder the Prime Minister has arranged to take a 28-day comfort break before he has to answer questions in the aftermath of the Budget statement.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her response to the business statement.

I share the hon. Lady’s wish to mark international women’s day tomorrow. In that respect, I hope it is helpful that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will make an important statement immediately following business questions. I am sure the hon. Lady and the House will also welcome this morning’s written ministerial statement by the Home Secretary informing the House that the violence against women and girls action plan will be published tomorrow, on international women’s day. That will enable us to underpin further the strategy we set out two and a half years ago, showing the progress we have made and demonstrating our ongoing commitment to ending violence against women and girls, which was also marked by the debates agreed by the Backbench Business Committee in the Chamber recently.

The shadow Leader of the House asked when the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill would return here from another place. That depends on when those in another place finish their consideration. To my knowledge they have not yet done so, but we will see that in due course.

I do not believe that the competition regulations as originally presented to this House were in any sense in conflict with the commitments given by Ministers. What is clear, however, is that those regulations are capable of being misunderstood and misrepresented—particularly the latter by the Opposition. In that respect, it is simpler and better to illustrate clearly two simple facts in the regulations. First, clinical commissioning groups have a duty, which overrides all other considerations, to secure the needs of their patients and the quality of services to their patients and to make choice available to them. Secondly, contrary to the situation under the last Government, in their “Principles and rules for co-operation and competition”, procurement should be conducted with a view to securing integrated services for patients. To that extent, what we are doing is based on the principles set out in early 2010 under the last Government, but we are enabling patients to be more confident that they will get integrated services responding to their needs with clinical leadership. That seems absolutely fine to me.

The hon. Lady asked about bankers’ bonuses and all that. We have to be clear about this. The Opposition might not think it is important now, but in the past the Labour Government used to rely almost entirely on the proceeds of financial services in the City to fund all their expenditure. Now the Opposition seem to have ignored the fact that, notwithstanding that, we need a competitive financial services industry in this country. Labour seems to have ignored the fact that it did nothing about bankers’ bonuses, which were four times as great under the last Government than they are under this Government. The Opposition seem to have ignored the fact that what the European Parliament is proposing could have perverse results, leading to higher salaries rather than bonuses, adding to companies’ fixed costs and reducing both their capacity to claw back bonuses if there is poor performance and the flexibility that brings. This is not a debate in principle about whether bankers should have bonuses or about the level—we are dealing with that. The issue is whether they are structured in a way that allows poor performance to be penalised without adding to the problems of the industry’s competitiveness in Europe.

The hon. Lady talked about U-turns. On a day when the Labour party is trying to contrive some kind of U-turn on its immigration policy, that was a bit of an own goal. I have not heard the shadow Leader of the House get up and apologise for the fact that the last Government simply lost control and ended up with a net migration figure of 250,000 a year. The coalition Government set themselves the task of bringing that net number down from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, and the figures published last week demonstrate that net migration has fallen by a third in the past two and a half years. That shows that, in this respect as in so many others, the coalition Government are delivering on their promises.

Sittings of the House (22 March)

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will come on to that point in a moment, if I may, when I address some of the issues that the shadow Leader of the House raised at business questions.

The motion adds a further sitting day and its effect will therefore be to allow the four-day Budget debate to take place, as well as to accommodate the opportunity for the Backbench Business Committee to schedule business, including the traditional pre-recess Adjournment debate, on the last day before recess.

Sitting on an additional Friday would allow a continuation of the Budget debate but it would not be its last day, so there would be no requirement for Members to vote on that day. That is the best option to provide the balance between the certainty requested by the House, which the publication of the calendar in mid-October permitted, and the disposal of business before it, including providing the Backbench Business Committee with access to the debate opportunities that it would expect.

It may be helpful if I remind the House that there is a precedent for the proposal to sit on a Friday to allow the continuation of the Budget debate before a recess. Just last year, the House agreed to sit on Friday 23 March to continue the Budget debate, and I am not aware that any issues were raised following that sitting. The precedents go further back than that, as another occasion occurred under the last Administration on 11 April 2003.

As you said, Mr Speaker, an amendment in the name of the Opposition has been selected, which seeks to amend the motion to produce the effect that the House would sit not on Friday 22 March, but on Wednesday 27 March. I fear that the Opposition, in tabling the amendment, might just be thinking back to their time in government and imputing similar motives to this Government. I think they are wrong in that.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

What a gross calumny!

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady set out her reasons during business questions on 7 February. I addressed her points then, but it may be helpful for me to recap. Her first reason was that Members might already have made arrangements in their constituencies for Friday 22 March. This is valid up to the point that Members are just as likely to have made arrangements in their constituencies for Wednesday 27 March—the date proposed in the Opposition amendment. It is important to bear in mind that only those Members who wished to speak on that day in the Budget debate would be affected. Others might have commitments in their constituencies that they regard as inescapable, but on three other days they would have the opportunity, subject to catching the Speaker’s eye, to contribute to that debate. It is not a case of “speak on that Friday or lose the opportunity”.

There is a choice here, but my preference—and, I believe, the preference of Members—would be to sit on that Friday and not on the subsequent Wednesday. While the calendar is always issued with the proviso that it is subject to the progress of business, the Government are conscious that having announced dates, Members and staff might have made arrangements for the Easter recess, which it would now be inconvenient, to say the least, to change. Indeed, as I have said, the Friday would not involve the prospect of voting, and I can add that we do not intend to arrange ministerial statements for that day. Those with necessary constituency business will still be able to deal with it, which might not be the case were the House to sit on Wednesday.

The second reason given by the shadow Leader of the House was that if the House rose on a Tuesday, there could be no Prime Minister’s Question Time during that week. I do not think that anyone could accuse the Prime Minister of avoiding his duties in the House. [Interruption.] I must tell the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) that his view is contradicted by the facts. The Prime Minister has made more statements to the House per sitting day in the last Session than his predecessor, spending more than 30 hours at the Dispatch Box in so doing. He also gives evidence to the Liaison Committee, and he takes all his responsibilities to the House very seriously.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) should take a look at the 2013 calendar that I published. It shows six occasions on which recesses have been proposed. There is the February recess, which we have already had, and there are the Easter, Whitsun, summer, conference and Christmas recesses. The plan was for the House to rise on a Tuesday on two of those occasions, on a Thursday on three of them and on a Friday on one of them. No pattern is involved; it is simply a matter of trying to ensure that each of the recesses has the right balance of time overall. A simple examination of the parliamentary calendar will show that there are no grounds for the supposition that we have avoided a Wednesday sitting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

This may seem a dry issue on which to take up the House’s time. After all, recess dates are rarely the subject of much contention; they are rarely, if ever, noticed, and much less often divide the House. So what is the problem with the sittings motion, and why are we trying to amend it?

We decided to table our amendment because, after two and a half years of experience, we have begun to perceive a pattern in the Government’s behaviour, and especially in that of the Prime Minister. We have realised that he does not much like being accountable to the House at Prime Minister’s Question Time, and that he therefore arranges for the House to rise on Tuesdays as often as he thinks that he can get away with it. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) made that point from the Government Benches. That way, the Prime Minister avoids Prime Minister’s questions, which take place on Wednesdays. In contemplating this emerging trend, I thought it might just be one of those random patterns that occurs by accident, until I noticed that our Prime Minister seems to be anxious for the House not to sit long enough for him to have to face Prime Minister’s questions, especially after a Budget.

That is the crux of the issue before us today. For the second year running, the House has been asked to sit on a Friday to accommodate the debate we must have on the Chancellor’s Budget, and to allow the recess date therefore conveniently to fall on a Tuesday, thus letting the Prime Minister off his Prime Minister’s questions duties.

[Stephen Mosley]

Was the hon. Lady listening when the Leader of the House explained that this year we will be breaking up on a Tuesday twice out of six occasions? That is a ratio of one in three, and therefore a minority, so this is not a trend; it is completely the opposite in fact.

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman should hear me out, because I have a few other things to say about the trends we on this side of the House have perceived. Perhaps when he has listened to me he might form an opinion, rather than having an opinion before he has heard what I have to say.

Both last year and this year the Government decided to sit on a Friday and begin the recess on a Tuesday, and this year that means the Prime Minister will next have to appear at Prime Minister’s questions and justify the Budget to the House fully 28 days after the date of the Budget. Perhaps it takes him 28 days to plough through all the Budget documentation, but the rest of us have to react instantly, and so should he.

Let me readily acknowledge that when the original sittings motion suggesting this arrangement was put to the House on 17 December last year, the Opposition did not vote against it, and before any Member on the Government Benches leaps up to point this out, I also acknowledge that six days earlier, on 11 December, the Chancellor had announced that the date of the 2013 Budget would be 20 March. I must confess that I was perhaps guilty of feeling a little too much pre-Christmas spirit towards the Government and might even have been lulled by the season into a false sense of security that they were not being Machiavellian with the parliamentary timetable. I now know I was wrong to be so generous to them.

I often worry about the adversarial nature of our parliamentary system putting people off politics, so I considered the possibility that the observation I have made about our current Prime Minister’s strange aversion to the House sitting on Wednesdays might just be partisan criticism on my part.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Would it not be perverse of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to avoid Wednesday questions when he is so much better at them than the hon. Lady’s right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition?

[Ms Eagle]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is a matter of opinion, and he and I may disagree about the judgment he has just presented to the House.

I wondered whether this strange aversion to Wednesdays might be randomly generated happenstance or unsupported by any evidence. I was even beginning to chide myself a little for developing such unworthy thoughts about Machiavelli or anybody else, so I decided to check the evidence. I looked back at the record to see how often the House has risen for recesses on Tuesdays, and it turns out that during the period when Tony Blair was Prime Minister the House rose on Tuesdays 22% of the time, and when my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) was Prime Minister the House rose on Tuesdays 29% of the time, but since 2010 while the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) has been Prime Minister the House has risen on Tuesdays a whopping 58% of the time.

These figures prove that this Prime Minister is categorically no heir to Blair in his desire to be answerable for the actions of his Government in this Chamber. They prove he truly has an aversion to Wednesdays and a reluctance to let the House sit on Wednesdays if he can possibly avoid it. What on earth can the Prime Minister be scared of?

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Did not Tony Blair reduce the number of Prime Minister’s Question Times from twice a week to once a week?

[Ms Eagle]

The length was not reduced; as hon. Members may recall, Tony Blair put the two sets of 15 minutes together into one half an hour. The figures that I have just given the House are unaffected by the changes that were made to Prime Minister’s Question Time, because the half-hour, one-day-a-week session is common to all three figures. That point does not address the pattern of avoiding Wednesdays which the statistics demonstrate we are dealing with in this debate.

[Mr Lansley]

I do not understand the point the shadow Leader of the House is making. She says that when the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) was Prime Minister the House rose for a recess on a Tuesday on 29% of occasions. She can see from the calendar that I published that the House is intended to rise twice on a Tuesday out of six occasions, which is 33.3%. Is the whole strength of her argument really the difference between 29% and 33.3%?

[Ms Eagle]

If one takes into account all the recesses since this Government have been in office, the figure goes up to 58%. That is a difference and it rather proves that this Prime Minister has a strange aversion to the House sitting on Wednesdays. That is what we are dealing with in our amendment.

Why on earth can the Prime Minister be frightened of Wednesdays? Last year’s Budget was enough to put the frighteners on anyone, let’s face it. It certainly set the bar high in standards of incoherence and incompetence, which even our part-time Chancellor will find hard to match this year. Let us remember that we had the granny tax, the churches tax, the charities tax and the pasty tax. The Chancellor had been so busy swanning around Washington in search of President Obama’s coat tails that he had forgotten to pay enough attention to one of his day jobs.

Last year’s Budget was unravelling even before the Chancellor had sat down. It was so disastrous that it spawned its own new word—omnishambles—which became the “Oxford English Dictionary” word of the year. There was open revolt against Budget measures on the Government Benches. Nine Tory MPs and four Liberal Democrats voted against the pasty tax, in defiance of their Whips. Sixteen Conservatives and one Liberal Democrat voted against the caravan tax, with two Liberal Democrat Ministers strangely missing the vote completely. No lesser person than Lord Ashcroft was moved to observe:

“The main problem is not so much that people think that the Conservative Party is heading in the wrong direction, it is that they are not sure where it is heading. And that includes me.”

[Mr Spellar]

Does this not speak to a greater truth, which also affects the issue before us, given that the Budget date had already been announced prior to the motion being put to the Commons? If my hon. Friend has read analyses of how Budgets have traditionally been made up properly, under Labour and Conservative Governments, she will know that many of the proposals in the last Budget had been proposed a number of times before by the civil service and had been batted back. What we have with this Government—here is the relevance to this debate—is a failure of process: a failure to attend to detail and a complete failure to attend to proper parliamentary and governmental process.

[Ms Eagle]

I agree wholeheartedly with the points that my right hon. Friend has made. As a former Treasury Minister, I can attest to the fact that some of the more disastrous bits of last year’s omnishambles Budget had indeed been put to Ministers for their consideration prior to their adoption last year and had been batted back for the nonsense that they were.

Because of the Government’s cynical manipulation of the recess dates, it took 28 days after that botched Budget for the Prime Minister to find himself back at the Dispatch Box to account for it. By then we had also had the fuel strike scare and the jerry can scandal to add to the chaos. Understandably, he was so unnerved that, red-faced and angry, he started attacking his own side. The hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) was wholly unfairly ticked off for having a sense of humour failure by a rattled Prime Minister who was demonstrating to the House just how easily he seems to be able to channel his inner Flashman. The memory of this omnishambles is obviously still raw. According to samizdats emerging from the 1922 Committee, the Chancellor has admitted to Tory Back Benchers that last year’s Budget was a disaster. Why else would he have been seen nodding vigorously as he was being exhorted, in language so earthy that I cannot repeat it here, not to—how can I put this politely and stay in order—mess it up this time?

Perhaps the Prime Minister’s reluctance to appear at the Dispatch box the day after the Budget debates to answer for his Chancellor’s omnishambles is an understandable human failing on his part, but it is not one in which this House should be assisting or that we should allow him to repeat this year. However, that is precisely what the motion will do unless our amendment is accepted. The Budget will be on 20 March and the Prime Minister is not due to appear at the Dispatch Box to answer questions until 17 April. Once more, that is 28 days after the Chancellor’s Budget statement.

If the Prime Minister finds it impossible to appear before the House to answer questions on the Budget before 28 days have elapsed, he could do what all Prime Ministers in the past have done and let his deputy do it for him. After all, we are told that the Liberal Democrats are intimately involved in all of the decision making about the Budget. We know that they are so central to the Government’s inner core that they make up two of the “quad” who, we are told, make all the final decisions. They are so closely involved in Budget decisions that they leaked most of it in advance last year so that they could take credit for all of the nice bits and distance themselves from the nasty bits. The only thing left for the poor Chancellor to surprise us with was the granny tax, and that was all he had to take credit for. No one seemed to benefit—unless of course they happen to be a millionaire awaiting their huge tax cut this April while everyone else feels the pain.

In the spirit of being a team player and recognising the Liberal Democrats’ acts of selfless sacrifice on tuition fees, why does the Leader of the House not just accept our amendment, change the sittings motion and let the Deputy Prime Minister step in and help out with Prime Minister’s questions straight after the Budget? Surely the Prime Minister trusts him to do a good job.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech—unfortunately, she has made some political remarks, but parliamentarily it is a very good speech. However, I have not heard her move her amendment yet. Does she intend to do so?

[Ms Eagle]

Yes, we intend to press the amendment to a vote.

Surely the Prime Minister cannot have taken to heart the content of last December’s leaked Liberal Democrat memo, which urged senior Liberal Democrats to spread the message that

“The Conservatives can’t be trusted to build a fairer society”

and to remind voters that the Tories only want to look “after the super rich”. I am sure, given those comments, that the Deputy Prime Minister would be welcomed to the Dispatch Box the day after the Budget to support all its content. Perhaps he might also be asked by the Tories on the Government Benches why the Liberal Democrats keep sending out press briefings criticising the Government’s tax policies just after the Chancellor has finished announcing them.

Last December, for example, the Liberal Democrats were caught out saying:

“The only tax cuts the Conservatives support are ones for the very rich. At the General Election, their priority was to cut inheritance tax for millionaires. In the Coalition, Liberal Democrats have blocked these plans.”

After all, just this week the Business Secretary has expressed his

“deep disappointment at the lack of capital investment in the economy”

while declaring himself the shop steward of the newly formed “National Union of Ministers”, fighting cuts to his own departmental budget openly in any TV studio and newspaper that would have him. I can see why the Prime Minister might be reluctant to let his deputy fill in for him at the Dispatch Box given that level of loyalty, so perhaps he should just bite the bullet and do it himself.

If our amendment were carried, all it would do is restore a status quo that has been long experienced in this Parliament: the Prime Minister comes to this House regularly to be held accountable during Prime Minister’s questions for the policy and the behaviour of his Government. That is even more vital after major Government announcements, such as Budgets. It cannot be acceptable that we are expected to put up with a month-long gap between the Budget and the next appearance by the Prime Minister to answer questions at that Dispatch Box.

If the Government resist the amendment to the sittings motion, it will become emblematic of their wider disdain for parliamentary accountability and even for democracy. After all, they have had no democratic mandate for the economic policy that they have pursued since June 2010, because the Liberal Democrats fought the election espousing a completely different economic policy from the one that they now support. The Government have had no democratic mandate for their disastrous top-down reorganisation of the national health service. They explicitly ruled it out during the general election, but now they pursue it with the certainty of zealots and the competence of Mr Bean.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Would the hon. Lady remind me what democratic mandate Tony Blair had to take this country to war in Iraq?

[Sarah Newton]

That was the very same Prime Minister who did not even allow a debate in the House on a votable motion. It is preposterous for the hon. Lady to deny that from the Dispatch Box and say that our Prime Minister does not put himself before the House on a regular basis for it to scrutinise what this Government are doing.

[Ms Eagle]

I know that the hon. Lady was not a Member when there was a vote on Iraq, but there was a vote in this Parliament, and a very large majority for the action that was subsequently taken in Iraq.

[Sarah Newton]

Action, not war.

[Ms Eagle]

There was far more of a mandate. Indeed, the Conservative party, which was then in opposition, supported that.

[Mr Jones]

Is it not also a fact that the motion was carried on the votes of Conservative Members, which they may conveniently have forgotten?

[Ms Eagle]

Yes, that is absolutely true. Perhaps in future the hon. Lady should check the record before she makes points as defective as that.

[Mr Spellar]

The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) makes a point which I think needs to be on the record. She says that the House voted for action, not war. The hon. Lady, who is fairly new to the House, will not be aware of the fact—I am sure that my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House is aware of it—that this country has never formally gone to war since 1939, but we have been involved in a considerable number of military actions. It is quite understandable that the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth, not having been around at the time and not having been here long, would not understand that difference.

[Ms Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is entirely correct.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

On the Iraq war, I am sure the hon. Lady knows that there is an application before the Backbench Business Committee for a debate on the 10th anniversary of the war. Will she support that application?

[Ms Eagle]

I wish the hon. Gentleman all good speed with his application to the Backbench Business Committee, but it is not for me from the Front Bench to dictate what the Committee should decide to do.

The Government also had no mandate for the trebling of tuition fees, which they—

[Mark Pritchard]

For clarification, the application is not mine. My application is for a less contentious debate on Romanian and Bulgarian migration to the United Kingdom. The application for the debate on Iraq was made by the leader of the Green party, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), but I think it is in the national interest. The debate would be in the interests of the Opposition and a cathartic exercise for them, and I hope the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) will support it.

[Ms Eagle]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but we are awaiting the publication of the Chilcot report, which I am sure will occasion us plenty of opportunity to have a debate and consider the way these matters worked out.

We know why the Prime Minister is running scared. He knows that his Chancellor’s economic plan is not working. His Back Benchers know that their Chancellor’s economic plan is not working. Little wonder, then, that our Prime Minister wants to hide away and hope that we will forget about it over a long Easter recess. He keeps organising these long Easter recesses for his, rather than for our, convenience. The only way to stop him getting away with it is to vote for our amendment to stop the Prime Minister evading scrutiny after the Budget for an entire month. I certainly hope that the House will do so.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 4 March—Remaining stages of the Justice and Security Bill [Lords] (day 1).

Tuesday 5 March—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on the budget and structure of the Ministry of Justice, followed by a debate on financing of new housing supply.

Wednesday 6 March—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on universal credit, followed by a debate on regulation of medical imports in the EU and UK.

At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates. Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: There will be a debate on Universal Credit, Third Report of Work and Pensions Committee 2012-13 (HC 576) Government response, February 2013 (CM 8537)].

Thursday 7 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipations and Adjustments) Bill, followed by conclusion of remaining stages of the Justice and Security Bill [Lords].

The provisional business for the following week will include:

Monday 11 March—Second Reading of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill.

Tuesday 12 March—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 13 March—Remaining stages of the Crime and Courts Bill [Lords].

Thursday 14 March—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 7 March will be:

Thursday 7 March—Debate on the Scottish Affairs Committee report on the referendum on separation for Scotland: terminating Trident—days or decades?

[Ms Eagle]

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

Today would have been the 67th birthday of Robin Cook. He is remembered, among many things, for his formidable mind and for the reform and modernisation of the Commons that he delivered when he was Leader of the House.

I want to congratulate the Patronage Secretary, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who was first elected on this day in 1974. I wonder whether he agrees that there are some clear parallels between the run-up to that election and now: economic turmoil, a Conservative Government in crisis, and an Education Secretary with an eye to the main chance. There is even an NUM—a national union of Ministers to resist further cuts in their Departments. We wish them well.

It is three months since Lord Justice Leveson published his report. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is vital that we make sure that what happened to the Dowlers, the McCanns and countless other victims of press intrusion can never happen again? The debate that we had in this place before Christmas and the amendments attached to the Defamation Bill in the other place demonstrate clearly that parliamentarians from across all parties and across both Houses support the implementation of Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations. Since the Bill has now completed all its stages in the other place, when does the Leader of the House expect it to be back in this House?

The Government have been caught out trying to privatise the NHS by stealth. The NHS competition regulations create a system of compulsory competitive tendering for all NHS services. This is in breach of direct assurances given during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, not least by the Leader of the House himself. While the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister appear happy to unleash a free market free-for-all in the NHS, the Liberal Democrat Health Minister, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), is not. On Tuesday in Health questions, he criticised the regulations, which can neither be amended nor easily withdrawn. Given the huge level of concern, will the Leader of the House arrange for us to debate the statutory instrument on the Floor of the House and not upstairs in Committee?

“Channel 4 News” has published disturbing revelations about alleged cases of sexual harassment in the Liberal Democrats. While the party hierarchy have buried their heads in the sand, the victims are being let down. Next Friday is international women’s day, so will the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent debate in Government time on sexual harassment of women and the culture of silence that all too often surrounds it?

The Leader of the House has announced that the Second Reading of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill is scheduled for 11 March, but the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards is not due to issue its second report until later this year, after the conclusion of the Commons Committee stage, which means that the House is expected to scrutinise a Bill that is only half written. That shows contempt for the Commons, so will the Leader of the House assure us that the Committee stage will not begin before the commission has reported?

Last week we learned that the part-time Chancellor was missing £1 billion from his 4G auction receipts. He was so desperate to fiddle the figures that, as usual, he put party politics before economics. We also learned that Britain has lost its triple A credit rating. Let us remind ourselves of what the Chancellor promised in the Conservative manifesto:

“We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating”.

He also said that it would be a benchmark against which the British public could

“judge the economic success or failure of the next government.”

This is more than just a humiliation for our downgraded Chancellor—he has failed a test he set for himself. Even now, however, he is too stubborn to admit his mistakes, so the British people are paying the price for this downgraded Chancellor’s failed economic strategy. Businesses, families and pensioners feel it every day, while in April 13,000 millionaires will get a six-figure tax cut. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Chancellor to begin his Budget statement with an apology?

I was shocked to see the Prime Minister hugging five hoodies in Downing street last week, until I realised it was a photo op with the chart-topping group, One Direction, for Comic Relief. This week, however, band member Harry Styles has declared himself a Labour man. He apparently styles his outfits on those of Harold Wilson and Michael Foot. Harry and I know that there is only one direction in which this Government are heading and it is the wrong one. Perhaps the Prime Minister should have instead met with hip hop artist, Plan B.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House, particularly for her tribute to my distinguished predecessors. Robin Cook was a notable Leader of the House for the reforms that he brought in. Indeed, I am sure, as time goes by, that the contribution of the current Patronage Secretary will be seen as such, not least because, as our discussions in business questions show, the Backbench Business Committee has improved dramatically Members’ access to the Floor of the House to debate current issues.

The hon. Lady raised a number of matters. On the principles of the Leveson report, she will know that only a few days ago the Conservative party published proposals for a royal charter to implement them. That is subject to cross-party discussions and I urge them to proceed and come to a successful conclusion. I share the view of my noble friend Lord McNally, who made it clear on Third Reading of the Defamation Bill that, while the so-called Puttnam amendment was amended further at that stage, the amendment is still unacceptable. On that basis, I hope that an agreement will be reached that will enable us to proceed with the Bill without that amendment and to deal with Leveson properly.

It is not unknown for us to debate the regulations for public procurement in the NHS. The hon. Lady will know that it is possible for Opposition business managers to seek access to such a debate through the usual channels, and I encourage her to do so. On the substance of the issue, however, she is not right. The Prime Minister was quite right yesterday and let me reiterate what he said. If we did not have these regulations, normal procurement law and competition rules would apply. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), knows perfectly well that the principal rules for co-operation and competition would have applied in the same way before the last election. If he and the hon. Lady look at the regulations properly, which of course I have, they will see that it is possible to proceed without a competition on a single tender basis. The regulations, for the first time, create a structure that allows for “any qualified provider”. That is exactly what was said during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and what is stated in the Act. There is no change in policy. The regulations enable commissioners to go for whoever is best placed to improve the quality of the services, meet the needs of people who use the services and improve efficiency, including through an “any qualified provider” route rather than a competitive tendering route.

The hon. Lady asked about a debate on international women’s day. I have announced the business and it does not allow us to have such a debate on that day; the House is not sitting on 8 March and the business does not allow for such a debate on 7 March. However, there is an Opposition day on the following week and the Backbench Business Committee has always been receptive to Back-Bench Members who apply for such debates, as was demonstrated in the well-attended and well-structured debate that took place the week before last.

The hon. Lady asked about the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that before Second Reading—not before Committee stage, as was previously intended—the Government will publish the principal draft regulations associated with the Bill. She asked about the timing of the Committee stage. She knows perfectly well that it is our intention on Second Reading to table a carry-over motion so that we can consider carefully what is the appropriate timing for the Committee stage.

I thought that the most important sign-up to a political party this week was to the Conservative party on the part of Marta Andreasen, a UK Independence party MEP. That demonstrates that across this country people are recognising that the Prime Minister’s speech on the future of our relationship with the European Union was, as she said, a “game changer”.

I apologise that we have not been able to give the hon. Lady and her colleagues time for an Opposition day debate next week as we are making progress with legislation. When she does have that opportunity the week after next, there are many matters for her to choose from: the increase in employment last year, with the fastest rate of new employment growth in the private sector since the 1980s; the reduction of more than 80% in the number of people waiting for NHS operations for more than a year and the waits that patients have to experience in Wales under a Labour Government, which the shadow Secretary of State for Health might want to debate; and, in the Home Office context, the reduction in crime figures or the reduction in net migration to this country of a third since the last election, which was announced this morning. This is a coalition Government delivering on our promises.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 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 25 February—Second Reading of the Children and Families Bill.

Tuesday 26 February—Remaining stages of the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of opposed private business nominated by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Wednesday 27 February—Opposition Day (18th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist party, subject to be announced, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Bank of England Act 1998 (Macro-prudential Measures) Order 2013.

Thursday 28 February—Debate on a motion relating to the Kesri Lehar campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in India, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the 25th anniversary of the Kurdish genocide. The subjects for those debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 1 March—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 4 March will include:

Monday 4 March—Second Reading of the Financial Services (Banking Reform Bill).

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 28 February will be:

Thursday 28 February—Debate on the Communities and Local Government Select Committee report on the European Regional Development Fund, followed by a debate on nuisance phone calls.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. The Opposition welcome the decision of the Backbench Business Committee to schedule a debate this afternoon on violence against women and girls. The campaign states that three quarters of a million children witness acts of domestic abuse every year, and that one third of girls in relationships aged between 13 and 17 have experienced physical or sexual violence. Shockingly, one in three women will be beaten or raped in her lifetime. Today’s debate coincides with a series of actions across the UK as part of the One Billion Rising global campaign. Will the Leader of the House join me in fully supporting that campaign?

One of the first actions of the Work and Pensions Secretary after the election was to abolish Labour’s future jobs fund. The Prime Minister then went around claiming that it was

“one of the most ineffective jobs schemes there’s been.”

However, an assessment by the Department for Work and Pensions of the future jobs fund, published by this Government, said that it was one of the most successful and cost-effective schemes ever.

Yesterday the Government had to rush emergency regulations through the House after the courts ruled the Government’s Work programme illegal. For most people looking for work, however, what matters most is the assessment by the Department for Work and Pensions of the Work programme, which concluded that the current scheme is “worse than doing nothing”. The Government blundered in scrapping the future jobs fund and setting up the Work programme. The Work and Pensions Secretary was happy to attack the courts in yesterday’s newspapers, but he has not come to the House. May we have a statement from the Work and Pensions Secretary on the future of the Work programme?

Last week at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister claimed that the bedroom tax “is not a tax.” This week the Government Chief Whip apparently e-mailed Conservative backbenchers:

“Please could all colleagues refer to underoccupancy and not the bedroom tax?”

You can change the name but you cannot change the facts. This April the bedroom tax will hit those at the bottom, while at the same time the Government are handing out a huge tax cut to those at the top. That is what the Chancellor decided to do in his previous Budget. After the omnishambles of the previous Budget it was reported this week that the Chancellor has retreated to his country house to pore over Budget plans with Conservative party staff to try to do a better job next time.

May I make a constructive suggestion? Before the Government get themselves into another fine mess, the Leader of the House could arrange for the Chancellor to make a statement next week so that he can U-turn on the bedroom tax and U-turn on the tax cut for millionaires. It is hardly as though the Government do not know how to U-turn: new figures show that since the election they have announced a U-turn every 29 days. Given that the Education Secretary U-turned on GCSEs this time last week, I calculate that the next Government U-turn is due on 8 March. As 8 March is a Friday and not a sitting day, will the Leader of the House arrange for his colleagues to bring forward the next U-turn to a day when the House is sitting?

Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to Harold Wilson, who 50 years ago today was elected leader of the Labour party? He was a Member of the House for almost 40 years and led the Labour party for 13 years. He was Prime Minister for more than seven years. Government Members might reflect on the fact that, after the February 1974 election, Harold Wilson chose to lead a minority Government rather than go into coalition with the Liberals. He went on to win the subsequent election later that year.

Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the Deputy Prime Minister, who managed a brief appearance on his weekly London phone-in this morning from Mozambique? I can only conclude that he has gone to Mozambique to help the Liberal Democrats in the Eastleigh by-election. Yesterday, the Chancellor went to Eastleigh, which will also help the Liberal Democrats. As Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs fight it out in Eastleigh, there is only one thing to say: things can only get better.

The coalition has been going through a rough time. Relationships are strained. As all good marriage guidance says, when a relationship hits tough times, you need to get the romance back—put a bit of spice back into it and have a bit of fun. It is Valentine’s day, so in that spirit may I suggest to the Leader of the House that Conservative MPs should be encouraged to take out a Liberal Democrat colleague—for a suitably expensive Valentine’s day meal?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House. I join her in expressing support for the One Billion Rising campaign. She will have heard what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities said earlier in Question Time. She will have a further opportunity in the debate this afternoon to express support. I welcome the debate and the focus it rightly puts on that important issue.

I was quite surprised that Harold Wilson was the subject of a programme on Channel 4 on the eve of Valentine’s day. It was not an obvious choice. I remember Harold Wilson because he addressed the first political meeting I attended—in 1966, at Abbs Cross school in Hornchurch. That was in the good old days, when I was politically neutral and 10 years old.

We must be careful with Valentine’s day references. I read an interview with the Leader of the Opposition in The Guardian this morning. In telling us about the nature of his Valentine’s day evening—a Chinese takeaway, followed by what he describes as “a surprise”—I fear he provided us with altogether too much information.

I tried to detect questions about business from the hon. Lady, but I am not sure there were any. A written ministerial statement on the Work programme and the Wilson and Reilly court case was made on Tuesday. It is clear that the courts did not quash the principle of the scheme—the problem was the structure of the technical regulations and how they worked. We put down regulations to put that right for the future, and we will continue to contest the Court of Appeal’s decision. That is a matter for the courts and not, for the moment, for this House.

The hon. Lady asked about the under-occupancy charge, but the Government rest on the facts. The simple facts, which we have discussed in business questions and at Prime Minister’s questions, are that, under the previous Government, Labour Members were perfectly content for an under-occupancy deduction to be applied to housing benefit in the private sector, but somehow find it impossible to read that across into the social housing sector. They fail to recognise—the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster) made this point well in yesterday’s debate—that hundreds of thousands of homes are under-occupied, and we have a million and a half people on the social housing waiting list and need to ensure that there are incentives to use social housing stock to the best effect. Those are simple facts.

An additional simple fact is that we have to recognise that housing benefit, at £23 billion, pretty much doubled under the previous Government and we have to control that. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) sat in the debate yesterday and failed to recognise what he said when he left government, which was that there was no money left. It is curious that outside the House Labour Members seem willing to accept that. The head of their party’s policy review, the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) said just last night:

“The money is not there and everyone knows that.”

They have to recognise that they left us in an economic mess, and the head of their policy review says that they have to start by saying sorry for that. If their leader does not start saying sorry, they will not be able to participate in debates—as was clear yesterday—with any credible response. Their leader has gone off to Bedford and their policy review is described as a work in progress. Of course, when one is in Bedford one thinks of “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. I have to say that the Leader of the Opposition has yet to reach his slough of despond.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 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 11 February—I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement following the European Council, followed by consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords], followed by general debate on the local government finance settlement for rural local authorities. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 12 February—Opposition Day [17th Allotted Day]. First part, there will be a debate on an Opposition motion on education. Second part, there will be a debate on an Opposition motion on infrastructure.

Wednesday 13 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, followed by motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-Rating Order 2013 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2013.

Thursday 14 February—Debate on a motion on protecting future generations from violence against women and girls, followed by general debate on preventing sexual violence in conflict. The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The business for the following sitting week will include:

Monday 25 February—Second Reading of the Children and Families Bill.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House. Yesterday a number of supermarkets and suppliers withdrew ready meals because of concerns about contaminated meat and adulteration. There is growing concern about this issue and consumers are rightly worried and want reassurances, yet the Government appear to be slow to react. Could the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement on this matter by a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?

On Tuesday, the Lords accepted amendments to the Defamation Bill that included plans for a new arbitration service to hear libel cases, along the lines of the recommendations of Lord Leveson. Has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to look at those who voted for the amendment? This week’s alternative coalition included Lord Fowler, Lord Hurd, Lord Ashcroft and the Prime Minister’s father-in-law, Lord Astor. Half of the Conservative party voting against him on equal marriage is one thing, but now the Prime Minister cannot even persuade his own father-in-law to vote for the Government. Tuesday’s vote showed that there is cross-party agreement on the need to implement Lord Leveson’s recommendations, to ensure that the suffering of the Dowlers and the McCanns will never be repeated. Will the Leader of the House tell us when the legislation will be returning to this House for Members to consider? Will he undertake to ensure, when it does, that he will keep within the spirit of that cross-party agreement and not seek to rupture it?

Yesterday, astonishingly, the Prime Minister claimed that the Government’s taxes and benefits were progressive. On that very day, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies claimed that the tax changes being introduced this April were regressive, with the richest tenth gaining the most while the bottom 50 % lose. At the same time, the IFS warned that the social security bill was going up and that borrowing was going to overshoot by £64 billion. The reason is that the Government’s economic strategy is failing. May we have a statement from the Chancellor, ahead of his Budget?

Yesterday, the motion on the Order Paper from the Leader of the House that the House should sit on Friday 22 March was objected to. It is not immediately apparent why Government business managers need the House to sit on that day, so will he explain that in his reply? The Government’s legislative programme is hardly packed, so that cannot be the reason. I wondered whether, after last year’s omnishambles Budget, the business managers might have been planning an extra day of debate to give the Chancellor room to perform a few U-turns. An extra sitting day on the Friday would, of course, enable the House to rise on the Tuesday, meaning, conveniently, that the Prime Minister could once again miss Prime Minister’s questions. Given the Government’s mismanagement of the economy, it is little wonder that the Prime Minister wants to duck out of PMQs after the Budget. Will the Leader of the House now think again about that Friday sitting, given that it is a day on which many MPs will already have constituency engagements?

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the Prime Minister recently spoke in the ballroom of the Hurlingham Club, where

“the Dom Perignon flowed like water at £100 a bottle”

and

“ordinary club members complained about being unable to get in the entrance because of all the Rolls-Royces and Daimlers clogging the drive”.

In that rarefied environment, did the Prime Minister really make a speech about how the Conservatives had

“modernised and were no longer the party of privilege”?

Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the team who found the remains of Richard III? He was only in charge of this country for two years, and he was of course the first leader of the country to lose his horse and get stabbed in the back. The Prime Minister has already lost the horse lent to him by Rebekah Brooks, and he has found a stalking horse in the form of the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). And as for being stabbed in the back—well, it is no wonder that the Education Secretary is so keen on the history of our kings and queens.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her questions. I thanked her and her colleagues at business questions last week for having announced the subject for the Opposition day debate prior to that, and I thank her again today for having ensured that I was able to announce the Opposition day business for next week. I appreciate that.

The hon. Lady asked me a question last week during the debate on the effectiveness of Select Committees, but I did not have the relevant figures in front of me at the time. She sought the publication of more Bills in draft. I can confirm that, in the last Session, we published more Bills in draft—13 Bills—than in any previous Session under the last Government.

[Ms Eagle]

A two-year Session.

[Mr Lansley]

The shadow Leader says that it was a two-year Session, so I am happy to be able to tell her that in this Session, which is not a two-year Session, we have thus far published 10 Bills in draft, and I am hopeful that before the Session is ended, we will match the record of the previous Session.

The shadow Leader of the House asked me about my colleagues at DEFRA. As she will know—there was an equine theme to her questions—

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 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 will be as follows:

Monday 4 February—Second Reading of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 5 February—Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.

Wednesday 6 February—Opposition day [16th allotted day] (first part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Democratic Unionist party on suicide prevention in the UK, followed by consideration of opposed private business nominated by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Thursday 7 February—Debate on a motion relating to subsidies for new nuclear power, followed by general debate on the closure of A and E departments. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the following week will include:

Monday 11 February—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords], followed by general debate on the local government finance settlement for rural local authorities. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 12 February—Opposition day [17th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 13 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, followed by motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-Rating Order 2013 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2013.

Thursday 14 February—Debate on a motion on protecting future generations from violence against women and girls, followed by general debate on preventing sexual violence in conflict. The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 7 February will be:

Thursday 7 February—Debate on the Environmental Audit Committee report on Protecting the Arctic, followed by debate on the Defence Committee report on Future of Maritime Surveillance.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting an urgent question on Tuesday to the Defence Secretary. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) said, we support the decision to send troops to Mali and neighbouring countries to help to train the Malian army, but the deployment of troops to conflict areas raises important issues on which Members wanted to question the Defence Secretary. It should not have taken an urgent question to force the Defence Secretary to the House. It is not the first time that an urgent question has been necessary to get the Defence Secretary to the Dispatch Box to answer questions on important matters concerning our armed services. Will the Leader of the House therefore undertake that in future, while our armed forces are deployed, the Defence Secretary will keep the House regularly updated without being forced to do so? Will the Leader of the House now agree to a general debate on the developing situation in north Africa?

Last Friday’s GDP figures were terrible. After two and a half years in government, the Chancellor has presided over a double-dip recession and a flatlining economy. Once again on the part-time Chancellor’s watch, the economy is contracting. We warned that the Government’s economic strategy—if one can call it that—was damaging the economy: they cut too far and too fast. The Deputy Prime Minister has popped up to attack his own Government’s record of cutting infrastructure expenditure. It is a bit late to be saying so, since his party voted for each and every cut. While the economy has nose-dived, the part-time Chancellor has been filling up his time with pizzas in Davos, and not one but two dinners with Rupert Murdoch. With all these dinners, I fear that the only thing now growing is the Chancellor’s waistline.

With bankers lining up to pay themselves massive bonuses over the forthcoming weeks, may we have an urgent statement from the Business Secretary on what the Government are going to do to stop this abuse?

We welcome the cross-party decision on Tuesday on the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. The Conservative party’s attempt to gerrymander parliamentary boundaries was rejected by Members across the House from all political parties—an alternative coalition, one might call it. I welcome the fact that the Leader of the House has returned to his rightful role after subbing for the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) in that debate, for reasons that were somewhat opaque. None the less, we enjoyed his performance on a sticky wicket.

The Leader of the House will have heard in Tuesday’s debate the clamour among those on the Conservative Back Benches to hear from the Deputy Prime Minister, who was strangely absent from the proceedings. It is not very often that the Leader of the House’s Back Benchers want to hear from the Liberal Democrat leader. Given the demand, will he arrange for the Deputy Prime Minister to make a statement? I think we would all enjoy that.

Relate tells us that January is the month in which couples are most likely to break up, so may I congratulate the coalition on managing to get through it? [Interruption.] Just—there is one day left.

Last weekend I was troubled to read not about coalition tensions but about tensions within the Conservative party. There was even the suggestion of a plot to depose the Prime Minister. I do not know where the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) is today; perhaps the Chief Whip could tell us. The way things are going, we do not want to lose the Prime Minister and his chums, so may we have a debate on Government leadership to give the hon. Member for Windsor the opportunity to share with the House the qualities he thinks he has to lead the country?

I have been looking at the voting records in Hansard. What we have learned this week is that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), managed to vote both for and against the Succession to the Crown Bill. She then failed to participate in the boundaries vote on any side, so engrossed was she in meeting Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty. She was not the only Conservative Minister to miss Tuesday’s crucial vote. In a brilliant whipping operation, the Foreign Secretary decided that he would rather have dinner in Washington than vote in the House. You would have thought, Mr Speaker, that the Cabinet was a dining society given the number of dinners that Ministers are having. Can’t vote, forgets to vote, can’t be bothered to turn up—what a shambles!

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House. I think she asked one question relating specifically to future business.

Of course, it is absolutely our intention and that of my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary that the House should be regularly and appropriately informed about our engagement in Mali and in north-west Africa. On the issue of a statement or an urgent question, the circumstances were that EU agreement had not yet been reached on the EU training mission, and in my colleague’s mind was the intention to update the House in the light of the EU training mission as well as the bilateral agreements that were entered into. I make no bones about that—it was absolutely fine for the urgent question to be responded to and we will keep the House informed. I cannot promise an oral statement in every case, for reasons of the progress of business, but I am sure we will keep the House fully informed through a combination of written ministerial statements, oral statements and answers to questions.

The hon. Lady asked a number of questions. It is interesting—the Leader of the Opposition made almost exactly the same point yesterday—that the Opposition try to argue that the economy requires the Government to spend more money, but complain, at one and the same time, that the Government are borrowing too much. They cannot have it both ways. They have to decide. Not only does their position represent utter confusion on the part of the Labour party, but, to be frank, it carries no credibility outside Parliament—that is the essential point. As the Prime Minister rightly said, the public will not trust the people who crashed the car last and put them back in the driving seat. It is not going to happen.

I listened to yesterday’s debate on Europe, but did not hear the confusion regarding the Labour party’s position remotely clarified. As far as I can see, the Opposition’s position now is that they are not in favour of an in/out referendum today, but they might be at some point in the future; yet, at the same time, they manage to be opposed to the idea of making a future commitment to the public that a new settlement with Europe should be the subject of a referendum. If they, like us, do not want a referendum now, why can they not just agree with us that there should be a referendum in the future on the basis that the public have the right to decide on the character of the settlement that we seek to negotiate with Europe?

On the question of powers in Europe, the Foreign Secretary has made it clear that, through the review of competences, we are looking at that negotiation with specific objectives for the return of powers. The hon. Lady and the Leader of the Opposition talk about returning powers, but the shadow Foreign Secretary has said that the Opposition are talking not about repatriation but about reform and a flow of powers to and back from Europe. I thought that the Opposition had just agreed to the referendum lock on powers to Europe, yet they seem to be reopening that question. There is utter confusion on their part.

Finally, the hon. Lady referred to collective ministerial responsibility. It was my happy duty to lead from the Dispatch Box on the debate on the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. She was very kind about that. In fact, she was so kind that she did not observe that, although I was defending a sticky wicket—though I did make the odd stroke here and there—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), who is not in his place, took the bails off my stumps later on. He was rather good—I give him credit for that.

The point is—the hon. Lady has to give the Government credit for this—that the mid-term review shows that we are very clear about where we are going and we are doing it together as a coalition. We have entered into not only a coalition but a mid-term review. We understand that we have a collective responsibility. I wish that the shadow Leader of the House and her colleagues would stand at the Dispatch Box and take either collective or individual responsibility for the mess they left this country in—for the debt and the six-and-a-half per cent. collapse in the economy. The reduction in GDP was not 0.1% but 6.3%. It was a bust like we had never seen before, after her then leader had promised that there would be no more boom and bust.