Committee on Standards and Committee of Privileges

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Opposition support the principle that lay members should sit on a newly constituted Committee on Standards. We also understand and support the pragmatic solution of splitting the current Committee in two to avoid the complications and uncertainty that could arise if non-MPs were to sit on the Privileges Committee.

When the issue was first considered at the end of last year, we did not seek to divide the House on the approach suggested. Although it is not directly analogous because all MPs are elected—and therefore ultimately accountable to their constituents—the principle of appointing lay members to a standards Committee is widely adopted in other areas of public life. For example, both the Bar Council and the General Medical Council have lay members.

On the other hand, the Press Complaints Commission also has lay members, and given the mess that it now finds itself in, perhaps we should take this opportunity to remind ourselves that lay membership of any committee is not in itself a complete answer to the challenges of upholding the standards of conduct and behaviour expected of any particular group of people, be they lawyers, doctors, MPs or—dare I say it—journalists. Undoubtedly, however, the presence of lay members should reassure the public that the Standards Committee is not some kind of cosy stitch-up but is there to deliver a rigorous and robust process that is fair to all and therefore credible. That is obviously in the public interest.

I congratulate the Procedure Committee on its work on this issue since the House’s resolution last year and on bringing this change about. I note, however, that the Government have ignored the Committee’s recommendation to give the House a further opportunity to vote on the principle of lay membership. Although the Opposition are in favour of the principle, it is noticeable that in evidence to the Procedure Committee a number of Members raised concerns about the appointment of lay members. Those Members included, from the Government Benches, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin).

In its report, the Procedure Committee states that

“it is right to register our concern at the level of unease felt by many Members about the House’s decision of 2 December. It may well be that, having considered the examination of the practical and privilege implications as set out in our report, the House may wish to reconsider its view of the principle of adding lay members to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.”

Will the Leader of the House explain why the Government have chosen not to tackle this unease head-on and do as the Procedure Committee suggested? Perhaps it is because of the decision to split the current Committee, but I would like to hear the Government’s explanation for their decision not to have a further vote on the principle itself.

We support the appointment of lay members to the Standards Committee. The Procedure Committee has found that the appointment of lay members is not completely without precedent—it cites a 1933 committee on the future government of India. I must say, however, that that is a rather particular example and not one likely to be replicated any time soon. It must not be assumed that simply appointing lay members to the Standards Committee will do the trick. It is clearly not a panacea.

Moreover, how lay members should take part in Committee proceedings needs to be clearly defined. This the Procedure Committee has done. It has recommended that Members of the House make up the majority of the new Standards Committee—after all, it will be a Committee of the House—and the proposals outlined in the proposed new Standing Orders, which adopt the recommendations of the Procedure Committee, suggest appointing at least two but no more than three lay members. That strikes a sensible balance.

We also agree with the proposed powers of lay members as outlined in the motion. The Standards Committee will be a Committee of the House, and the Members of Parliament who serve on it will be able to do so first and foremost because they successfully stood for election. Therefore, they are ultimately accountable to their constituents for their actions, as are all of us, and following the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, they submit themselves to that judgment every five years. Lay members of the Committee will not be elected but will be appointed, and they will not have to justify their actions at the ballot box.

The Procedure Committee therefore had to consider how that difference could best be accommodated in the day-to-day workings of the Committee. It considered two options: whether members of the Committee should have full voting rights or whether they should be appointed with more limited rights. In its impressive survey of the history of Committees of the House and the operation of committees in Parliaments around the Commonwealth, the Procedure Committee came across few examples of lay members voting. In its survey of the Commonwealth, only the New South Wales Legislative Assembly had given lay members of a Committee voting rights. But that practice, confined to one Committee in New South Wales, has now ceased.

To give lay members voting rights would also raise difficult questions of privilege, as the Leader of the House pointed out. He also pointed out that the Procedure Committee outlined the issues, as set out in the evidence of the parliamentary Clerk to the Procedure Committee. For those reasons, like the Government, we support the second option, which would mean that lay members could fully participate in the Committee by questioning witnesses but could not vote.

The proposed new Standing Orders require the Committee to publish any paper from a lay member setting out that lay member’s opinion on the report. We recognise that a balance has to be struck if lay members of the Committee are not to have voting rights. Nevertheless, we recognise the concerns raised by some Members, including the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, about the publication of dissenting reports. I note that the right for a lay member to publish a dissenting report was described in the Government’s weekend spin on our proceedings today as a “golden share”, which is a nicer name for a veto. Perhaps the Leader of the House could let us know in more detail how he sees that power working.

Amendment (b) suggests that ex-Members should be eligible for selection as lay members after only five years out of the House. That seems like a way of ensuring that lay members are not quite lay members and runs the risk of undermining the credibility that the reforms will bring about. Amendment (c) suggests that the membership of the soon-to-be-separated Standards and Privileges Committee should be the same. That runs the risk of undermining the separation, and we believe that the membership of these important Committees could easily be different and certainly should not be made the same by changing the Standing Orders.

I do not want to spend too much time intruding on the debate between the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee and the Leader of the House, but her amendment raises an extremely important issue about the number of days allocated to her Committee. That is one of those issues that will rumble on. Suffice it to say that I have considerable sympathy with what she says.

We support the other proposals in the proposed new Standing Orders. They are a welcome advance designed to improve public confidence, but they are not a panacea. The PCC, for example, had lay members, and that did not make the body effective or ensure that the organisation retained public confidence. Public confidence in Parliament, as the Leader of the House said, was significantly damaged by the expenses scandal. The appointment of lay members will not in itself restore that confidence, but it is one of many steps taken since then to repair the damage done.

I have been a Member of the House for 20 years, and I believe that, overwhelmingly, Members are committed to public service, strive to serve their constituents and seek at all times to uphold the Nolan principles.

[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentioned the Nolan principles. I am a member of that committee, in its latest guise, and I wonder whether she agrees that over the years the Committee on Standards in Public Life has done some useful work in scoping out the code of conduct and the work of the commissioner as a fully independent investigator, for example, and of course in proposing lay membership.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

I am more than happy to agree with the interjection that the hon. Gentleman made just as I was about to finish my remarks. The Nolan committee clearly has a lot to be proud of for how it has developed the code of conduct—we will have a debate on that later. It has done a great deal to codify and put in good order the standards that should be expected of every single Member of the House.

As I was just about to say, the Opposition support the proposed new Standing Orders and will not seek to divide the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Code of Conduct

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

We welcome the review of the code of conduct by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the report by the Committee on Standards and Privileges commenting on the draft code and the changes that the commissioner has suggested. May I also say at the outset that Labour supports the changes that he has suggested for all-party groups?

As the Committee notes, the code was last revised in 2005 and several areas of it could be usefully clarified, so there is much that we welcome in the review. It is sensible that the code of conduct has remained one of high-level principles, rather than detailed rules. As the chairman of Standards for England noted in his consultation response, there is a danger that having a set of rules

“which is too tightly defined can lead to a complexity which makes understanding of the rules too difficult to grasp which is therefore counter-productive”.

We welcome the fact the commissioner has rejected such an overly prescriptive rules-based approach. There is much that we can welcome in the report, so rather than go into great detail about that, I wish to concentrate on areas where we have some concerns, one of which has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker).

Labour Members believe that the existing code of conduct is working well. That is not only a tribute to the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) and his Committee, but it is reflected in the responses to the consultation, which did not throw up any major concerns with the status quo. Therefore, any suggestion that the code should be extended into areas not currently covered would need to be backed up by a convincing argument.

In his consultation, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards asked:

“Should the scope of the Code extend to some aspects of a Member’s private and personal life? If so, how should that be expressed in the Code?”

The parliamentary Labour party’s response to the consultation said no to that, as we feared that it would turn the code of conduct into a code of morals. That remains our view, and we are puzzled by the commissioner’s recommendation on this point. The proposed revision to the code states:

“the Code does not seek to regulate the conduct of Members in their purely private and personal lives”.

We agree with that approach, because the code should not seek to do that. However, the proposed new code would go on to state:

“unless such conduct significantly damages the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole or of its Members generally.”

That is the point that we have all been wrestling with in the debate.

That extension appears to suggest that we, as Members of this House, are entitled to a private life—we are all human, so we are entitled to one under article 8 and the Human Rights Act 1998—unless the commissioner rules that we are not. As the Leader of the House pointed out in his response to the consultation,

“extending the scope of the Code explicitly to cover Members’ private and personal lives could, as you note in the consultation paper, lead to their human rights being infringed.”

What threshold would result in the code coming into action? We are not told. The commissioner’s response to the consultation says that it would be “extremely limited circumstances” that are

“so serious and so blatant”.

However, he gives no further indication of what those might be. Such comments cause further confusion, rather than illuminate what the new situation might be. He gives no clues as to what he thinks those circumstances should be.

So what are these “extremely limited circumstances”? Some attempts have been made in the debate to define them, but those have been unsatisfactory. I am sure if we stood on Westminster bridge and canvassed the views of those who passed by, we would find as many views on what those circumstances should be as people we spoke to. The current commissioner may take a narrow view of what constitute his “extremely limited circumstances”, but his successor may take a more or less narrow view. This is an unsatisfactory situation. The Leader of the House noted in his response to the consultation that we should be

“wary of extending the Code to deal with a purely hypothetical eventuality.”

I agree with that.

As I said at the outset, the existing code is working well. What was needed was tweaking and clarification, not mission creep. Most of the proposed changes to the code are sensible and can easily be supported.

[Oliver Heald]

I rather agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) was saying earlier. I do not think there is any intention to extend the scope of the code here. The existing code, before the amendments, did not apply to private conduct, but there was a general provision that no Member must act in a way that brought the House into disrepute. This is about clarifying what those two provisions mean in the amended code. I would have thought that that was something that should happen, even if the hon. Lady is not happy with the exact wording.

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman makes a particular point, but I do not think that what the commissioner has suggested is clear either and that is what we are struggling with at the moment. I may be alone in this, but I did not think that we faced a problem that needed the kind of revision that has got us into the confusing situation we are now in.

Members of Parliament are rightly accountable in the courts of law and under the code, as are people in other walks of life. But unlike lawyers, general practitioners or people in any of the other professions, Members of Parliament are accountable at the ballot box for their actions and they are accountable to their political party. The electorate are entitled to make a judgment about a Member’s private life, and about how effectively they pursue their constituency duty and how they treat their constituents—that is how democracy works—but I trust the common sense of the British people to make such judgments; we should leave judgments about morals to them.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 12 March will be:

Monday 12 March—Motions relating to the Backbench Business Committee, a Committee on Standards and a Committee of Privileges, the code of conduct, all-party groups and scrutiny of certain draft orders.

Tuesday 13 March—Opposition day (un-allotted day) (half day). There will be a debate on a motion relating to the Health and Social Care Bill. This debate will arise on an Opposition motion. Followed by consideration of opposed private business nominated by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Wednesday 14 March—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill.

Thursday 15 March—Motion relating to the introduction of charging for Big Ben Clock Tower tours followed by a motion relating to reform of the common fisheries policy. The subject for these debates has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 19 March will include:

Monday 19 March—Consideration of Lords amendments followed by a debate on a motion relating to the waste water national policy statement.

Tuesday 20 March—Consideration of Lords amendments.

Wednesday 21 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 22 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 23 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

The provisional business for the week commencing 26 March will include:

Monday 26 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 27 March—Motion relating to assisting dying. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 22 March 2012 will be:

Thursday 22 March—Debate on services for young people.

[Ms Eagle]

This week, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life criticised the Prime Minister’s failure to ask the independent adviser on ministers’ interests to investigate allegations made against the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the then Defence Secretary—a course of action that the Opposition urged him to take at the time. Does the Leader of the House agree that since the office was established it has become clear that it would be far simpler and more transparent if the independent adviser could initiate an investigation? Will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent debate on the ministerial code so that we can determine what Parliament should do when the Prime Minister himself breaks the ministerial code?

The Institute for Fiscal Studies states that the Government’s proposals to cut child benefit are “fundamentally unfair”. For some families a pay rise will actually result in a significant cut in household income. Is this the Prime Minister’s definition of fairness? This is a mess entirely of the Government’s own making. They rushed out a press release for cheap headlines ahead of the Tory party conference without bothering to look at the detail, and it is hard-working families who will pay the price. This week, the Opposition forced a parliamentary debate, but we did not get an answer from Treasury Ministers, so will the Government now find time for a debate on what on earth they mean by “fairness”?

That would give them the opportunity to explain why, from April, they are penalising almost 500,000 children with draconian cuts to child tax credits. At the moment, because of tax credits, a couple where one parent works and the other looks after the children are £59 a week better off. It pays to work. From April, they will be £14 a week better off on the dole—this despite the Government’s claims that they want to make work pay. Will the Leader of the House explain how that is fair?

May I wish everyone a happy international women’s day and welcome the debate later today, for which I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel)? Does the Leader of the House agree that the Justice Secretary should clear his diary to attend it? The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will halve the number of women entitled to legal aid in domestic violence cases. The Opposition have set out proposals to reduce the legal aid bill without penalising the most vulnerable. Will the Leader of the House explain how the Government’s proposals are fair?

One person who does not think it fair is the junior Education Minister, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who spends her day voting for Government cuts and then goes delivering leaflets in the evening asking, “Who can you trust to stop the cuts?” The answer is clearly not the Liberal Democrats. Will the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent debate on Government communications to the electorate to enable her to explain herself?

A letter from the Business Secretary to the Prime Minister this week mysteriously found its way into the public domain. The Business Secretary thinks that the Government lack a “compelling vision”. Middle-income families are being hit by cuts to child benefit. Hard-working families are being penalised by child tax cuts. Women are being shut out of the legal system. The Business Secretary is right. That is not a compelling vision for Britain. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister’s guru, Steve Hilton, the man who authored the statement,

“Let sunshine win the day”,

has fled to California in search of it?

This week the Prime Minister’s top aide leaves the country; last week the Deputy Prime Minister’s chief economic adviser resigned to go travelling the world. Can the Leader of the House therefore find time for a debate on why so many senior Government advisers are fleeing the country?

The Business Secretary said he thought his letter was “helpful”, and I suppose it was—in the sense that it was helpful for the Business Secretary’s party profile ahead of the Liberal Democrat spring conference. May I also be helpful to the Leader of the House? He knows I always try to be. Every time I have raised the Health and Social Care Bill, he has cited parts of it that he thinks have merit. Is he not concerned that doctors, nurses, royal colleges, public health organisations, patients, GP groups and now even the Cabinet Secretary think the Bill should be dropped? Instead of proceeding with this disastrous Bill, here is a helpful suggestion: just drop it and start again.

[Sir George Young]

Let me start with the ministerial code, which sets out that if there is an alleged breach, the Cabinet Secretary can make some initial investigations. That is exactly what happened in this case. As a result of those initial investigations, the facts were put into the public domain, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) resigned and there was therefore no need to refer the matter to the independent adviser—something that, I note in passing, the previous Prime Minister did only once. The shadow Leader of the House will also know that the Public Administration Committee is currently holding an inquiry into the ministerial code. We await the outcome of that inquiry with interest.

On the issue of child benefit, we debated it on Monday —we had a half-day Opposition day—and it featured regularly in the exchanges at Treasury questions on Tuesday. Our view is quite clear: it is not fair that somebody on £20,000 a year should pay, through their tax, for the child benefit of someone who might be earning five times as much. That is the view that we put forward in that debate, and we are very clear that those who are better off should make a contribution to paying down the financial deficit. The same issue was also raised in relation to child tax credit in the debate on Monday, and again at Treasury questions, and we made our position quite clear. To put it in the broader context of universal credit, even couples working 16 hours a week will be some £36 a week better off when universal credit is introduced next year.

On international women’s day, the hon. Lady may have seen that we have announced a new offence of stalking—an amendment has been tabled to the Protection of Freedoms Bill. On Monday we had a written ministerial statement about domestic violence disclosure—the so-called Clare’s law. We will take no lectures from Labour Members about women. They did nothing about the glass ceiling or the differential. I welcome the debate that is about to take place on international women’s day.

On legal aid, the hon. Lady will know that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is in another place. Legal aid in this country, at some £39 a head, is way above what is spent in France or Spain, at some £5 a head. The Labour party consulted on reducing legal aid, but never got round to doing it. However, we are protecting the most vulnerable members of society in the legal aid scheme.

On the letter from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, I am not sure whether the BBC has changed its definition of “breaking news”, but this was, in fact, originally reported several weeks ago in a newspaper. However, I think the whole country was much more interested in the news on Tuesday that Nissan was bringing an additional 2,000 jobs to the north-east—a clear vindication of the Government’s decision to put support for manufacturing at the heart of our economic strategy.

I am responsible for many things; I am not responsible for leaflets that get distributed in the London borough of Brent. However, it is certainly the case that had the Labour party been re-elected at the last election, it would have had to make some cuts. Labour would not have been able to maintain the investment in, for example, the numbers of police on the front line.

So far as Steve Hilton is concerned, yes, he is going; but the good news is that he is coming back. Also, he is not leaving next week, and I pay tribute to the number of creative new ideas that he has injected into the first two years of the coalition Government.

Finally, on a serious note, the whole House will want to honour the memory of two previous Leaders of the House, Robert Carr and Norman St John-Stevas, who died recently. They were not only effective politicians of their day, but fine parliamentarians who left an enduring mark on this place, and the resurgence that the House is currently enjoying, both in the Chamber and on the Committee corridor, would not have been possible without the changes that they put in place all those years before.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 5 March will be:

Monday 5 March—Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on jobs and growth in a low-carbon economy, followed by a debate on living standards. These debates will arise on Opposition motions. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister plans to make a statement following the EU Council.

Tuesday 6 March—Conclusion of Second Reading of the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill, followed by a motion relating to a reasoned opinion on procurements by public entities. That will be followed by the remaining stages of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Bill [Lords]. In addition, the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.

Wednesday 7 March—My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will propose an Humble Address to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen. That will be followed by Opposition day [un-allotted day] [half-day]. There will be a debate on a Democratic Unionist party motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion relating to human rights abuses and the death of Sergei Magnitsky. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 8 March—Topical debate on international women’s day, followed by a debate on the future of social care. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

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

Monday 12 March—Motions relating to Standing Orders and to outstanding reports of the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

Right hon. and hon. Members will know that this morning I made a written statement to the House announcing that Her Majesty the Queen will open a new Session of this Parliament on Wednesday 9 May.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement and, ahead of this afternoon’s general debate, wish everyone a happy St David’s day. We spend our time surrounded by his amazing designs in this place, so it is also right to mark today the 200th anniversary of Pugin’s birth.

The Foreign Secretary updated the House this week on the situation in Syria. Today, the whole House will be appalled that the Syrian Government appear to be escalating repression. They are responsible for widespread human rights crimes, including the deliberate targeting of civilians and journalists. We fully support the call by the United Nations Secretary-General for an immediate end to the violence. Across the region, tens of thousands have been killed demanding the freedom that we in this country take for granted. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the middle east so that the House can consider the support we give to those battling against brutal dictatorship? Such a debate would give us the opportunity to praise the outstanding journalism that has meant the crimes of the Syrian Government have not gone unrecorded.

If in Syria we have seen journalism at its very best, we have heard this week at the Leveson inquiry about the worst excesses of some sections of the press. The Conservative Mayor of London, who is in charge of the Metropolitan police, said last year that stories of illegal phone hacking were “codswallop”, but this week he argued that “the caravan should move on”. Joining in, the Conservative Education Secretary said that the Leveson inquiry was having a chilling effect on press freedom. This is beginning to look like a systematic attempt to undermine the inquiry and pre-empt the outcome. Some sections of the press might be trying to browbeat Lord Justice Leveson, but does the Leader of the House agree with me that Conservative Cabinet Ministers and the Conservative Mayor of London should not join in?

I was disappointed this time last week when, in response to my questions about the Health and Social Care Bill, the Leader of the House said that he was not one of the heroic three Cabinet Ministers who briefed ConservativeHome off the record that the Bill was a disaster, but it is not too late to change his mind. After all, the Deputy Prime Minister briefed Liberal Democrat peers this week on the record that the Bill needed amending to stop Conservative Ministers privatising the NHS. I wonder whether the Leader of the House could explain what the Deputy Prime Minister has been doing all this time, because he wrote the foreword to the health White Paper and championed the original Bill. He then voted for the Bill but championed the pause and the rethink. He then championed the revised Bill, and now he is championing a revision of the revision of the Bill. This cynical choreography will not be taken seriously by the public. If he really wanted to, he could stop the Bill now. Why on earth has he not done so? Meanwhile, a Conservative Health Secretary is proving that we can never trust the Tories on the NHS.

The most signed e-petition on the No. 10 website is a campaign to drop the Health and Social Care Bill. The Prime Minister said on launching the site:

“One of the points of the new e-petitions website is to make sure that if a certain level of signatures is reached, the matter will be debated in the House, whether we like it or not. That is an important way of empowering people.”—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1092.]

Will the Leader of the House explain why Government Members of the Backbench Business Committee voted en bloc to stop a debate on the NHS petition? Last week the Prime Minister locked his health critics out of No. 10, and this week’s shenanigans in the Backbench Business Committee revealed that the Government are running scared of debate. Does the Leader of the House think that that will win over the public?

As a result of another e-petition, the House decided to ban the keeping of wild animals in circuses, but today the Government sneaked out a consultation that completely ignores the will of the House. It looks as though e-petitions are another public relations gimmick from a Prime Minister who thinks that that is what his job is about, so may we have an early debate on the Government’s response to the Procedure Committee’s report on e-petitions, which after all said that the Prime Minister’s claims on the No. 10 website needed to be rewritten to ensure that they “more accurately reflect reality”?

I thank the Leader of the House for finally confirming what Paul Waugh of PoliticsHome announced at the beginning of January: that the Queen’s Speech would be on 9 May. I have a suggestion for how he could successfully bring this legislative Session to a proper close: drop the Health and Social Care Bill.

[Sir George Young]

I endorse what the hon. Lady said at the beginning of her questions about St David’s day and the 200th anniversary of Pugin’s birth.

On the serious issue of Syria, we had Foreign Office questions on Tuesday. She will know that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has issued a written ministerial statement today. She may also know that the matter is likely to be raised at the European Council meeting later today, and I have announced that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a statement on that on Monday, so there might be an opportunity to report progress then. I join her in paying tribute to those journalists who have risked their lives, and in one case lost her life, to bring the truth to the rest of the world, going to the most dangerous places in the world, showing the hardships that people endure there and broadcasting the realities to a wider audience.

On Leveson, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister dealt with this yesterday, and I gently remind the hon. Lady that it was the coalition Government who set up the inquiry to get to the bottom of exactly what has been going on.

We had an urgent question on the Health and Social Care Bill on Tuesday, which my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary answered. The Bill continues to be improved by amendments tabled from both sides of the House, and from both Houses, as it goes through Parliament. It was a Labour Secretary of State for Health who had a motion of no confidence passed in her by one of the royal colleges.

We have no intention of dropping the Bill. I asked the hon. Lady last week which particular clauses she wanted to see dropped. Does she want to drop clauses 22 and 25, which make it explicit that patients should have more choice and be much more involved in decisions about their care? Does she want to drop the clauses placing a duty on key organisations to integrate health and social care services? Does she want to drop the clauses that remove the arbitrary private patient cap, which stifles groundbreaking new treatment by organisations such as The Royal Marsden?

The Government have passed to the Backbench Business Committee responsibility for the subjects that it chooses. It has chosen Magnitsky, social care and a wide range of important issues which have been brought before it by Members from both sides of the House. The Committee may have taken the view that the health Bill has been adequately debated in this House since it was introduced more than a year ago. It has probably had more debate than any other Bill in recent history, and that may be why the Committee took that decision.

We have just had DEFRA questions, and I watched the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), answer questions about circus animals. As the hon. Lady knows, we have put out a written ministerial statement—

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 27 February will be as follows:

Monday 27 February—Estimates day [4th allotted day]. There will be debates on funding for the Olympics and Paralympics, and on the Forensic Science Service.

Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Funding for the Olympics and Paralympics: Oral evidence taken before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 14 and 21 December 2010, HC 689 I and II, 17 May 2011, HC 689-III, 15 November 2011, HC 689-IV, and 24 January 2012, HC 689-V; Forensic Science Service: 7th report from the Science and Technology Committee of Session 2010-12, HC 855; Government response—The Forensic Science Service, Cm 8215.]

Tuesday 28 February— Estimates day [5th allotted day]. There will be debates on transport and the economy and on preparations for the Rio plus 20 summit.

Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Transport and the Economy: 3rd report from the Transport Committee of Session 2010-12, HC 473; Government Response—4th special report from the Transport Committee of Session 2010-12, HC 962; Preparations for the Rio+20 summit: 8th report from the Environmental Audit committee of Session 2010-12, HC 1026; Government response—5th special report from the Environmental Audit Committee of Session 2010-12, HC 1737.]



At 10 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Wednesday 29 February—Second Reading of the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill, followed by proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill.



Thursday 1 March—Motion relating to CPI/RPI pensions uprating, followed by a general debate on Welsh affairs. The subject for these debates has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.



The provisional business for the week commencing 5 March will include:

Monday 5 March— Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 1, 8 and 15 March 2012 will be:

Thursday 1 March—Debate on rebalancing the Northern Ireland economy.



Thursday 8 March—Debate on the common agricultural policy after 2013.

Thursday 15 March—Debate on the effectiveness of UK Trade & Investment.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement.

Every time that I have raised the question of the Health and Social Care Bill, the right hon. Gentleman has claimed that he supports it, and I was beginning to worry that he might actually be a true believer in it. So I was delighted to read that Downing street sources had fingered him as one of the Cabinet’s heroic three who had briefed Conservative Home about their opposition to the Bill. May I welcome him to a just cause? He joins the company of patients, doctors, nurses, midwives, royal colleges and health managers—in fact, he joins just about anyone who has anything to do with the NHS. These are all the people who were locked out of No. 10 when the Prime Minister held his self-styled “summit” on Monday, which was just another public relations stunt from a Prime Minister who thinks that that is what his job is about. A year ago, the Prime Minister said he had to listen to those in the NHS, but now he shuts the door on them if they dare to disagree with him.

Yesterday, the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), explaining all this away, said that we should ignore the views of the royal college because general practitioners had been opposed to Labour’s 1948 Bill founding the NHS. That was not the best argument for a Conservative MP to advance, because if Labour had listened to the Conservatives then, there would be no NHS today. The Conservative party was wrong then and it is wrong now, so will the Government see sense, listen to even the Leader of the House and drop the Health and Social Care Bill.

Fifteen Liberal Democrats signed early-day motion 2659, which states:

[That this House expects the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill reforms in advance of Report Stage in the House of Lords in order to ensure that it informs that debate.]

Yesterday, there was an almost identically worded motion on the Order Paper, but astonishingly only four Liberal Democrats joined us to vote for it—the rest abandoned their principles and shamefully scurried through the Government Lobby or sat on their hands. This week, Russian scientists announced they had grown an extinct plant from seeds frozen in the permafrost for the past 30,000 years. Liberal Democrats have clearly decided to put their principles into a similar deep freeze. Let me tell them that they are kidding themselves if they think they can store them away until the next election.

There are rumours going around that the Deputy Prime Minister, who astonishingly did not turn up to vote last night, is encouraging Liberal Democrats in the Lords to wreck the Health and Social Care Bill. So will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on coalition unity, to give Liberal Democrats a chance to make up their minds on whether they are in the Government or not? They cannot be a bit of both.

The House was grateful to the Leader of the House for announcing the forthcoming parliamentary calendar. The Government are planning for the House to rise on Tuesday 27 March, Tuesday 17 July, Tuesday 18 September and Tuesday 13 November. In total, two thirds of the days on which the House has risen since the election have been Tuesdays. Will the Leader of the House now find time for a debate on why the Government are so keen for the House to rise on Tuesdays? The Prime Minister operates a lock-out policy at No. 10 for his health critics, he cannot stand criticism, he gets rattled at the Dispatch Box and now it looks very much like he is running away from Prime Minister’s questions at every opportunity.

Today, Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that its losses doubled last year. There have been 3,500 job cuts and front-line bank staff have been offered a 1% pay rise. With ordinary families struggling, can it be acceptable that RBS is planning to pay £400 million in bonuses to top bankers—from a state-owned bank? Is that the Government’s definition of “We’re all in this together”?

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Anti-business, that’s what you are.

[Ms Eagle]

I am pro-fairness, not anti-business.

The House was conveniently in recess when last week’s appalling unemployment figures came out, and when the next figures are due the Prime Minister is out of the country. The Prime Minister runs away from engaging with health critics, he cannot face talking about the economy and he has no solution to the unemployment crisis. So will the Leader of the House now find time for a debate on the economy so the Government can explain their failing economic policies?

This is a Government led by a Prime Minister who dodges Prime Minister’s questions and a Deputy Prime Minister who spends most of his time attacking the Government of which he is a member. Their disastrous economic policy has resulted in unemployment at its highest level for a generation and their health policy is opposed by just about everyone who works in or cares about the NHS. No wonder recesses cannot come fast enough for the Government.

[Sir George Young]

I was waiting for the question about the business, but it did not come.

May I begin by disappointing the hon. Lady? There was no truth in the rumours to which she referred at the beginning of her remarks. I have supported the Health and Social Care Bill publicly and privately and continue to do so. Once again, she asked us to drop the Bill. Does she really want us to drop clauses 22 and 25, which put in law for the first time a duty on the NHS to tackle health inequality? Does she want that dropped? Does she want clause 116 dropped, which will prevent discrimination in favour of private health companies over the NHS the first Bill to do so? Does she want to abolish part 1, which is all about integrating health and social care? Does she want to stop local authorities dealing with public health? The Opposition want to stop all sensible reforms and to drop our extra £12.5 billion investment.

On yesterday’s debate, I am delighted that Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament listened to the argument made by Members on the Government Benches and decided, on reflection, to oppose the Labour party’s motion. I gently remind the hon. Lady that I seem to remember an early-day motion in the last Parliament that was signed by a large number of Back-Bench Labour MPs. When it was debated in the House, they miraculously had the same sort of Pauline conversion and decided to support the Government, so she should be slightly more careful about the examples that she chooses. On the cohesion of the Government, I would say that this is a more cohesive Government than the Blair-Brown Government of which she was a member.

So far as Prime Minister’s questions are concerned, I have checked the figures and can tell the hon. Lady and the House that the number of Prime Minister’s questions per sitting day has risen in this Session compared with the last Session under the previous Administration. I say to the hon. Lady that the current Prime Minister is turning up for Prime Minister’s questions more often than his predecessor. His predecessor—[Interruption.]

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 20 February will be:

Monday 20 February—Motion relating to Iran. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 21 February—If necessary consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a European document relating to the remuneration of European Union staff.

The Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.

Wednesday 22 February—Opposition day (un-allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion including on the publication of the NHS risk register.

Thursday 23 February—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2012, the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2012, and the draft Pensions Act 2008 (Abolition of Protected Rights) (Consequential Amendments) (No. 2) (Amendment) Order 2012.

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

Monday 27 February—Estimates day (4th allotted day). Details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: Funding for the Olympics and Paralympics: Oral evidence taken before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 14 and 21 December 2010, HC689 i and ii, 17 May 2011, HC689-iii, 15 November 2011, HC689-iv, and 24 January 2012, HC689-v; Forensic Science Service: 7th Report from the Science and Technology Committee of session 2010-12, HC 855; Government Response – The Forensic Science Service, Cm 8215]

Colleagues will wish to be reminded that they will have the opportunity to pay individual tributes to Her Majesty the Queen on 7 March during the debate on the Humble Address, marking the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 23 February will be:

Thursday 23 February—Debate on cycling.

For the convenience of the House, I would like to provide additional information on the parliamentary calendar. The House will return from the conference recess on Monday 15 October. In addition to the dates already announced, the House will rise at the close of play on Tuesday 13 November and return on Monday 19 November. The House will rise at the close of play on Thursday 20 December and return on Monday 7 January 2013.

As previously announced, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver his Budget statement on Wednesday 21 March. As is usual, the Budget debate will continue for a further three days. I will bring forward a motion to allow the continuation of the Budget debate on Friday 23 March. This will also facilitate the Backbench Business Committee’s usual pre-recess Adjournment debate prior to the Easter recess on Tuesday 27 March.

The House will also want to be aware that the private Members’ Bills Fridays for the next Session will be: 6 July, 13 July, 7 September, 14 September, 19 October, 26 October, 2 November, 9 November, 30 November, 18 January 2013, 25 January, 1 February and 1 March. All these dates are contained in a revised version of the calendar, now available for Members and staff from the Vote Office.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement and for announcing yet another packed week.

The Government’s legislative incompetence has reached new heights with the announcement the Leader of the House has just made of a Friday sitting for the Budget. Did Government business managers forget to schedule the time they needed to debate the Budget, or did the Chancellor not bother to inform them when he announced the date? They certainly know how to manage the legislative factory, although I note that once again, the House is rising on a Tuesday so the Prime Minister can dodge his Question Time.

Yesterday, the Government were defeated in the Lords on day one of the Report stage of the Health and Social Care Bill. In yesterday’s Financial Times a Conservative Back Bencher was quoted as saying:

“No Tory MP knows what the point of these reforms is”.

Let me reassure Conservative Members: they are not alone. No one—with the possible exception of the Health Secretary—understands the point of these reforms. However, what doctors, nurses, the royal colleges, patients’ groups—in fact, just about anyone working in or using the health service—do understand is that this disastrous Bill is damaging our NHS. As the massive increase in the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment shows, it is patients who are suffering.

The Health Secretary may have presided over the biggest legislative shambles and policy disaster in recent history, but apparently the Prime Minister still has confidence in him. I do not imagine he feels particularly reassured, given that one No. 10 insider is quoted in The Times as saying that the Health Secretary

“should be taken out and shot”.

That was followed by a story in The Daily Telegraph with a headline saying that No. 10 does not want to shoot the Health Secretary. Given that the Prime Minister cannot even get his story straight on whether or not he wants to shoot his Ministers, is it any wonder that they have made such a mess of running the NHS? Will the Government recognise reality and finally drop the Health and Social Care Bill?

Ever willing to help the Government out, the Deputy Prime Minister briefed this week that he thought about vetoing the Health and Social Care Bill, but decided against it “for the sake of coalition unity”. So there we have it: the Liberal Democrats in government—power before principle.

The Health and Social Care Bill has become the latest Government Bill to run into trouble in the Lords. Over the period of the Labour Government, when we lost about a third of whipped Divisions in the Lords, the proportion of Labour peers reached a maximum of 30%. Representation on the Government Front Bench in the Lords is already at 39%. Will the Leader of the House therefore rule out stuffing the House of Lords any further with Government peers?

The Deputy Prime Minister also said this week that he was asking Liberal Democrats “day in, day out” to vote for things they

“wouldn’t do in a month of Sundays”

if there were a majority Liberal Democrat Government. It might have escaped his notice, but we have not been voting for legislation “day in, day out” due to the Government’s shambolic mishandling of parliamentary business in this House. The few votes we have had were clearly too much for the children’s Minister, who fled London rather than going into the Division Lobby with the Conservatives to vote for the Welfare Reform Bill. Does the Leader of the House agree with his own Back Benchers who said that the children's Minister should have the courage to vote for the Government’s business, or the guts to resign?

Labour called for the RBS chief executive not to take his bonus; it happened. Labour called for the board of Network Rail not to take their bonuses; it happened. On Tuesday, Labour initiated a debate on bankers’ bonuses and not a single Cabinet Minister could be bothered to speak for the Government. The Chancellor, speaking to the Federation of Small Businesses, even seemed to think it was anti-business to be talking about executive pay at all. Had he deigned to come to this House on Tuesday, he would have realised it is actually about fairness.

Will the Leader of the House confirm that as a result of quantitative easing, every bank in the country has benefited from taxpayer funding, and does he agree that it is not fair for the bosses of all the banks that have benefited from taxpayer support to earn in one day many times more than most people in this country earn in a lifetime? Every time I have raised this matter, the right hon. Gentleman has ducked the question. Given that Barclays is due to announce its bonus round, will the Leader of the House now send an unequivocal message to banking bosses about what the Government consider fair?

I want to pay tribute to two remarkable women. Her Majesty the Queen has reigned for 60 years, and her commitment to the nation and the Commonwealth has rightly earned respect across the country and around the world. Florence Green, who died this week at the age of 110, was the last known surviving service member from world war one. Mrs Green was one of 100,000 women to serve this country in the great war. Will the Leader of the House now agree to schedule the traditional debate to mark international women’s day, so that we can pay tribute to the service of those remarkable women and many others who enhance our public life in this country?

[Sir George Young]

The Government are anxious that we should have the normal pre-Easter recess Adjournment debate, which is normally scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee, and that is why we are scheduling an additional day’s debate on the Friday after the Budget; if we did not do so, there would be a risk that that popular occasion would be squeezed out of the calendar.

The Prime Minister relishes Prime Minister’s questions—probably more than the Leader of the Opposition does. If the hon. Lady had been listening to what I said, she would have heard me announce that the House would be rising on a Thursday in December, not on a Tuesday. As for the upper House, the Labour party has more peers than any other party and if there was representation on the basis of votes at the previous general election, Labour would clearly not be entitled to that number of peers.

There are three principles in the Health and Social Care Bill: more control for patients; more power for professionals; and less bureaucracy. Those are three principles that the previous Labour Government were embarked on following when they were in power; they were establishing foundation trusts, they were promoting choice and they were promoting practice-based commissioning in the mid-2000s. We take forward that agenda. In addition, I say to the hon. Lady that it is called the “Health and Social Care Bill”—everyone agrees that social care must be linked more closely to the NHS, and the Bill promotes better financial and professional integration. As for the independent sector, I just remind her of what her manifesto said:

“We will support an active role for the independent sector working alongside the NHS in the provision of care”.

We are actually precluding the sort of arrangements that Labour promoted, whereby independent treatment centres were parachuted into the NHS with no powers for the NHS to compete.

On the point about the education Minister, the shadow Leader of the House was a Minister and she knows perfectly well that Ministers are occasionally away on ministerial business. That was the issue for my hon. Friend. If the shadow Leader of the House looks at the voting register, she will find that a large number of her colleagues did not take part in that particular vote.

On taxing the banks, the shadow Leader of the House will know that our annual levy on the banks brings in more each year than Labour’s one-off tax—that deals with that issue.

On international women’s day, that debate is one of the fixed events now allocated to the Backbench Business Committee, but I can say in response to the hon. Lady’s question that we will seek to allocate to that Committee a day so that it can hold the traditional debate on international women’s day roughly on the date when it occurs in March.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business commencing 6 February will be:

Monday 6 February—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.

Tuesday 7 February—Opposition day (un-allotted day) (half day). There will be a debate on responsibility and reform for British banks. This debate will arise on an Opposition motion. It will be followed by a motion relating to metal theft. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.



Wednesday 8 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.

Thursday 9 February—General debate on Somalia.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 February will include:

Monday 20 February—A debate on Iran. The subject of this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. I commended him last week for announcing three days of actual Government business. Clearly exhausted after their exertions, next week the Government are to manage only a paltry one day of legislative business.

A few weeks ago, when I asked the Leader of the House for the date of the Queen’s Speech, he promised it “in due course”. On Sunday, The Independent on Sunday announced that the Queen’s Speech was delayed because the Government needed “more time” to secure their legislation. Given the Government’s incompetent handling of the legislative programme, if we have to wait for them to get their act together, we will not have a Queen’s Speech this year at all. Government business managers might find a deadline helpful, so will the Leader of the House finally tell us the date of the Queen’s Speech?

May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that one way to end the legislative logjam and enable the Government to get around to having a Queen’s Speech this year would be to drop the Health and Social Care Bill? This week, the British Medical Journal, the Health Service Journal and Nursing Times called for the Bill to be dropped because the NHS was

“far too important to be left at the mercy of ideological and incompetent intervention”.

The Prime Minister has told Ministers that he wants “less and better legislation”, yet last night the Government put down another 136 amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill—adding to the 1,800 already tabled. Does the Prime Minister actually know what is going on with his own Health and Social Care Bill? Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the NHS to give the Prime Minister the opportunity to inform himself on what the Government are doing and to give the Health Secretary the opportunity to come to this House to announce that he has finally seen reason and will drop this disastrous Bill?

I note that the Prime Minister did not tell his Ministers that he wanted fairer legislation. Yesterday, the Government voted to cut support for disabled children; they voted to cut support for people recovering from cancer; and they voted for a crude cap that even the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government says will increase homelessness. Can the Leader of the House find time—again, he has plenty of it—for a debate on fairness? That would give Ministers the opportunity to explain why, when they are cutting support for those who have the least, all we have had from the Prime Minister about the excessive rewards for those who have the most is pointless press releases.

The Chancellor, who has not been seen at the Dispatch Box since mid-December, is fond of saying, “We’re all in this together.” Will the Leader of the House explain, then, how this Government can triple student fees, leading to an almost 10% drop in university applicants, at the same time as they sign off a tax dodge for the chief executive of the Student Loans Company, which saves him tens of thousands of pounds a year? Will the Leader of the House explain, since the Chief Secretary to the Treasury did not, how that can be fair? While he is at it, will he explain which Minister was aware of this issue and went ahead and approved it?

Will the Leader of the House explain how it is fair that the Government did nothing to stop the chief executive of RBS taking a £1 million bonus and why it took the threat of an Opposition motion to put a stop to it? What have the Government been doing? If the Leader of the House could find time for a debate on fairness, perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could lead it. There has been no sign of him explaining in public why the Liberal Democrats did nothing to stop bankers awarding themselves multi-million pound bonuses, yet voted to cut support for those who have the least.

The Deputy Prime Minister did pop into the Chamber for the European statement earlier this week—at least he turned up for some of that one, although he was too busy sulking to turn up in December. On that occasion, the Prime Minister told this House there would be absolutely “no way” other European Governments would be allowed to use EU institutions to enforce a fiscal compact. He said “no way”, as he had vetoed it. This week, the Prime Minister slunk back to announce that EU institutions would be allowed to enforce it after all, but it was all right because he was going to be watching them “like a hawk”. Who is he kidding? The only thing the Prime Minister watches “like a hawk” is the news cycle. We have a veto that has been un-vetoed to a treaty that is not a treaty—it is like the mad hatter’s tea party.

[Sir George Young]

Three of this week’s four days have been on Government business, on Monday we have the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill, and on Wednesday we will deal with the local government and police grant orders, without which no local authority will get its funding next year. I hope the hon. Lady agrees that that is important legislation. There is an Opposition debate on Tuesday—I hope she is not going to describe that as “thumb-twiddling”, as she said last week. Next Thursday we have an important debate on Somalia, which some Opposition Back Benchers have asked for. I hope she will not be so dismissive about the House of Commons programme.

As for the Queen’s Speech, the date will be announced in due course in the usual way—a response with which the hon. Lady may be becoming familiar. There is legislation still to get on to the statute book. On the one hand, she wonders why things are taking so long, but on the other hand I am constantly being asked for more time for debates. At some point, the shadow Leader of the House will have to work out whether the Government are pushing their programme through the House of Commons too fast or whether they are taking a leisurely time about it.

We have no plans to drop the Health and Social Care Bill. The principles of clinical-based commissioning, of patient choice and of any qualified provider as well as the linking of health and social care are important reforms. There will be an opportunity for further debate when the House returns.

We discussed the issue of fairness at some length yesterday. We are convinced that work must always pay more than benefits, which is at the heart of our welfare reform. We owe it to people who work hard, do the right thing and pay their taxes to make sure that there are some limits on welfare. Some families in Westminster receive £2,000 a week in housing benefit; I think that position is wholly unsustainable.

So far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is concerned, I have announced a Second Reading on Monday of the Financial Services Bill; the hon. Lady may find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in the House for that. On student loans, we have just sat through 40 minutes of an urgent question, and I have nothing to add to what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said.

As to bankers’ bonuses, the hon. Lady keeps on asking who signed off the contract with Mr Lester, but we know who signed off the contract for the bonus for Mr Hester at the Royal Bank of Scotland. There is no doubt that the Labour Government signed off that contract, which entitled him to the bonus. Since then, we have taken steps, which Labour never took, to cap bankers’ bonuses in cash. Last week, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills announced new reforms to empower shareholders to control future pay.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the EU treaty. Perhaps at some point we could have an answer to the question of whether or not the Leader of the Opposition would have signed the proposed treaty.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 30 January will be:

Monday 30 January—Second Reading of the Civil Aviation Bill.

Tuesday 31 January—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 3).

Wednesday 1 February—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill.

Thursday 2 February—General debate on the transparency and consistency of sentencing.

The provisional business for the week commencing 6 February will include:

Monday 6 February—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.

Tuesday 7 February—Opposition day (un-allotted day) (half-day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 8 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.

Thursday 9 February—General debate on the Somalia conference.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 9 February will be:

Thursday 9 February—Debate on the seventh report of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on “Football Governance”.

Earlier this week, all colleagues should have received an e-mail on behalf of the House service, inviting them to participate in the 2012 survey of services. As well as providing an opportunity for Members and their staff to provide feedback on the services we currently use, it will also help the House service and the House of Commons Commission to identity priorities for the next few years, when budgets will be tighter. I encourage colleagues to find a few minutes to take part.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response and for finally announcing three whole days of actual Government business—for, I think, the first time since October. The Leader of the House wanders about saying that Parliament is not a legislative factory, but if he were running a factory he would have had us all sent home on half pay ages ago.

I raised last week the extraordinary situation of the Business Secretary lining up a speech to a think-tank in order to announce his proposals on executive pay. The Leader of the House promised to remind the Business Secretary of his obligations under the ministerial code. I fear he would not make a very good factory foreman, because it took an urgent question to force the Business Secretary to come to the House first. Did the right hon. Gentleman forget to remind the Business Secretary, or are Government relations so poor that his Liberal Democrat colleague just ignored him?

Another Minister who is reluctant to come to the House is the Chancellor. Despite two weeks of terrible economic news, he has made no appearance at the Dispatch Box. This week’s GDP figures showed that the economy is shrinking, not growing; 2.7 million people are out of work; and family budgets are under extraordinary pressure. This time last year, the Government’s excuse for the shrinking economy was the snow. We have now had the mildest winter for 350 years, and the economy is still contracting; it was too cold last year, and it is too warm this year—the country is tired of excuses from a Government who refuse to take responsibility for their own disastrous economic mismanagement.

Given that the Chancellor was not present for Treasury questions, will the Leader of the House be a bit more of an assertive factory foreman and insist that he come to the Chamber? If the Chancellor does ever condescend to reappear at the Dispatch Box, we could ask him about the bonus scheme for the chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. I fear that the Leader of the House will be unsuccessful in coaxing the Chancellor out of hiding, so perhaps he will now explain why RBS, a state-owned bank bailed out by the taxpayer, wants to give its chief executive a £1 million bonus this year. The board of RBS is thinking of paying its chief executive in one day more than someone on average earnings would make in a lifetime. We have heard the synthetic outrage from those on the Government Benches, but the question is, what are they going to do about it?

Government incompetence plumbed new depths this week when the local government Minister ended up in the Aye Lobby supporting an amendment that he had rejected moments earlier at the Dispatch Box. Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Minister, on realising that he was locked in the wrong Lobby, bravely took refuge in the toilet while a Conservative Minister barked orders at him through the doorway? The Government’s legislative agenda has been bogged down for months—[Laughter.] It says something about the incompetence of the Government that it took the Serjeant at Arms to flush the Minister out—[Laughter.] The local government Minister has inadvertently revealed the Liberal Democrats’ new political strategy—if in trouble, run for the toilet.

Last night, the Government suffered a crushing defeat in the House of Lords. Their proposal to charge lone parents for using the Child Support Agency is simply “unjust”; I am quoting a Conservative peer. I agree with a former Conservative Lord Chancellor, a former Conservative party chairman and a former Liberal Democrat Chief Whip—why on earth will not the Government? The party of Lloyd George is reduced to this: voting to take away support from young people with cancer, the disabled and lone parents. I quite understand why Liberal Democrat Ministers have taken to hiding in the toilet.

It is more than a year since the Health and Social Care Bill was first introduced. It started at 353 pages; by Second Reading, it had grown to 405 pages; and now, almost 2,000 Government amendments later, it weighs in at a colossal 445 pages. In the Leader of the House’s legislative factory, MPs are sat around twiddling their thumbs, but the Clerks are run off their feet redrafting the Government’s disastrous Bills.

The growing length of the Health and Social Care Bill has not won over critics—the royal colleges, doctors, nurses, patient groups and the voluntary sector all now oppose the Bill. Even the Select Committee on Health, chaired by a former Conservative Health Secretary, has questioned what the Government are doing. The Health Secretary is about the only person in the country who still believes in the Bill. Is it not time that the Government listened and dropped this disastrous measure?

[Sir George Young]

On the programme before the House, we believe in a balanced diet, including proposed legislation. For the hon. Lady to describe as “twiddling our thumbs” Opposition days, Back-Bench business days and serious debates, such as the one I have announced on Somalia, does a genuine discourtesy to the House.

My right hon. and hon. Friends are fully aware of the ministerial code and I remind them about it from time to time.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was at ECOFIN on Tuesday, which is why he was not at Treasury questions. I am sure that if the hon. Lady reflects on her days at the Treasury, she will understand that from time to time the Chancellor has to represent this country overseas and therefore cannot appear in the House.

I am surprised that the hon. Lady raised the subject of bonuses, as the contract that entitles Mr Hester to a bonus was put in place by the Labour Government. We have done something that they failed to do: we have limited cash bonuses to £2,000 at RBS and Lloyds, and we will do the same this year. We have also said that the bonus pool at RBS and Lloyds will be lower and more transparent this year than last year—something else that the Labour Government failed to do. So far as this year is concerned, no decision on bonuses has been taken.

I have looked at Hansard, and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), voted the right way. I understand that after so doing, as an act of generosity, he went to refill one of the carafes on the Table so that his fellow Minister would be refreshed during the remaining stages of the debate, when he was entrapped in the opposite Division Lobby. I understand that there were fraternal greetings. We are all grateful that my hon. Friend emerged from the Lobby unharmed.

On the Child Support Agency, I understand that the provision to make charges was introduced by the Labour Government. We all know from our constituency work that the CSA is in need of reform. All too often, it lets down those it seeks to help. Part of the purpose of that reform is to encourage more settlements outside the CSA. The proposal to which the hon. Lady referred is part of that process.

On the Health and Social Care Bill, many of the amendments to which the hon. Lady referred were called for by the Opposition, so I hope she will welcome them. In due course, this House will deal with Commons consideration of Lords amendments.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 23 January—Opposition day (un-allotted day). There will be a debate on rising food prices and food poverty followed by a debate on youth unemployment and taxation of bank bonuses. These debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Tuesday 24 January—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 2).

Wednesday 25 January—European document relating to EU criminal policy. To follow, the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.

Thursday 26 January—General debate on progress on defence reform and the strategic defence and security review. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 30 January will include:

Monday 30 January—Second Reading of the Civil Aviation Bill.



Tuesday 31 January—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 3).

Wednesday 1 February—Consideration of Lords Amendments.

Thursday 2 February—General debate. Subject to be announced.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 2 February will be:

Thursday 2 February—Debate on Network Rail.

This year marks the happy occasion of the Queen’s diamond jubilee and I am today able to announce that an early celebration of that magnificent anniversary will be the attendance of the two Houses on Her Majesty in Westminster Hall for the presentation of Humble Addresses on the morning of Tuesday 20 March. On a day before then, which will be announced in a forthcoming business statement, there will be a debate on the motion

“That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.”

I hope the House joins me in looking forward to an important and happy event. On that theme, Mr Speaker, although the score is somewhat lower, may I wish you many happy returns of the day?

[Ms Eagle]

We all look forward to being able to celebrate the Queen’s jubilee, a remarkable achievement and a very happy reign.

Yesterday’s unemployment figures were desperate. There are now almost 2.7 million people without a job in this country, a 17-year high. This week, two independent reports predicted that the worst is still to come. One said unemployment would increase to a staggering 3 million, the other that it would not fall for four more years, yet all we get from the Government is talk and no action.

On Tuesday, the Economic Secretary actually boasted that the cost of living was coming down. Over the past year, unemployment has gone up by 17% in her constituency, so does the Leader of the House agree she is now a leading contestant to be this week’s most out-of-touch Minister? The Economic Secretary’s boss, the Chancellor, had to fly halfway around the world to Hong Kong before he felt he had sufficient distance between himself and his Back Benchers to announce that the Government would be willing to increase International Monetary Fund funding. While I understand why he might have wanted to make such an announcement 6,000 miles away, would it not have been better if he had made a statement to this House?

On 6 December, the House voted overwhelmingly to continue a debate on the economy in Government time. Given that the parliamentary managers are yet again struggling to fill the Commons timetable as a consequence of their gross mishandling of their legislative agenda, will the Leader of the House now bow to the clearly expressed view of this House by letting the Chancellor know that it is safe to come home and by finding time for a debate on the Government’s mishandling of the economy?

Will the Leader of the House assure me that if we finally get an announcement on tackling executive pay, the Business Secretary will make it to this House first? It is unacceptable that he appears to have lined up a speech to a think-tank next week to make this announcement. He should make a statement to this House and then give a speech to a think-tank, not the other way around. With bankers set to award themselves massive bonuses while millions of hard-pressed families are struggling to make ends meet, we need Government action now, not promises of action at some point in the future or lectures to think-tanks.

Up to 100,000 people died during the famine in the horn of Africa last year. The House will have seen the report that found that this tragedy could have been averted if the international community had responded faster. There is now a growing food crisis in the west of Africa. Will the International Development Secretary make a statement to reassure the House that mistakes made in the horn of Africa last year are not being repeated in the west of Africa this year?

This week, the Government announced a commission into the so-called West Lothian question. Rather than following the cross-party approach we took when setting up the Calman commission and the current Welsh Secretary took when establishing the Silk inquiry—both of which were on devolution matters—the Government have, outrageously, chosen to proceed without any input at all from opposition parties. It is difficult to conclude anything other than that this is yet again constitutional tinkering to secure partisan electoral advantage. Will the Leader of the House explain why cross-party agreement was not even sought?

Tomorrow there is legislation before this House—not Government legislation, needless to say—to clamp down on metal theft. Will the Government confirm that they will now support this important piece of legislation, given the growing problem, as highlighted in Question Time?

We learned from yesterday’s Telegraph that the Government are to launch a consultation on building a new airport in the south-east. Had the Transport Secretary announced it last week when she was before this House, Members would have had the opportunity to question her. According to media reports, a Conservative source said there were timetabling problems because “at the last minute” the Deputy Prime Minister “stepped in to block” that. Coalition infighting may explain the discourtesy to this House, but it does not excuse it. Will the Leader of the House tell us how much this consultation will cost?

I am sure the Education Secretary deeply regrets the fact that coalition tensions mean his confidential Cabinet correspondence has been leaked to the media. Will the Leader of the House confirm that a leak inquiry has been set up? Is not the leaking of Cabinet correspondence the latest sign of growing coalition disarray? The Liberal Democrat leader now spends his time doing interviews claiming credit for allegedly blocking Conservative proposals. In turn, an ally of the Prime Minister is quoted in the Telegraph saying of the Deputy Prime Minister:

“No one has noticed, but there isn’t much about him that is British.”

What sort of Government do we have when the announcement of important infrastructure proposals is delayed by coalition infighting, and when the Transport Secretary then announces that policy—in the media—the Deputy Prime Minister briefs the media that he is going to veto it anyway? This is a complete and utter mess.

We learned from Now magazine that the Prime Minister and his wife have a “date night” each week. Given coalition tensions, perhaps Conservative Cabinet Ministers should have date nights with their Liberal Democrat colleagues. May I suggest that the Education Secretary might want to go on a date with the Energy Secretary to discuss the leaking of Government correspondence? I can understand that no Minister would want to ruin their evening by spending it with the Deputy Prime Minister, but perhaps someone could take out the Business Secretary to remind him that since joining the Government he has abandoned everything he said on the economy when in opposition.

Finally, Mr Speaker, I am reluctant to draw attention to your birthday in case the Prime Minister now starts poking fun at you because of your age, but happy birthday—I hope you have a good one.

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity to debate unemployment on Monday, as I note that the Opposition have allocated half a day to it. I just make the point that youth unemployment increased by 40% when world trading conditions were benign and, obviously, it is a challenge for any Government, particularly one tackling a huge deficit, to deal with youth unemployment when world conditions are less benign than they were, but the Government will be happy to set out on Monday the steps that we are taking—the youth contract, the Work programme, and the initiatives on apprenticeships and work experience, among others—to bring down youth unemployment.

This country is a good supporter of the IMF, and there are no firm proposals from the IMF at the moment to increase contributions. Our position has not changed: we have been prepared to provide resources in the past and we would be willing provide them in the future if a strong case is made, but we have made it absolutely clear that the IMF cannot lend money to support a currency and, of course, we would have to come back to Parliament if the request took the Government over the limit that has been voted on.

On legislation, and returning to what the shadow Leader of the House has said in past weeks, I hope she will welcome the fact that a lot of legislation is to be dealt with in the two weeks that I have just announced, with three days of it in the second week. On debating the economy, I just remind her that we had no debate on the pre-Budget report in one year when her Government were in office and had sole control of the timetable. Indeed, we went for months without any debate on the economy under a Labour Government. On the Business Secretary, he is well aware of the ministerial code, which of course he will observe; all important announcements of policy will be made, in the first instance, to the House of Commons.

I am surprised that the shadow Leader of the House raises the matter of bank bonuses, because the Labour party did absolutely nothing about them when it was in government. We have already had the Merlin agreement last year, which capped cash bonuses at £2,000, and she must await further announcements about what we plan to do about executive pay.

On what the shadow Leader of the House said about Somalia, my view is that this country led the way in the support that we extended to Somalia and that if other countries had responded as proactively as we did, the harm might have been reduced. However, I will pass on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development the point that she made about learning any lessons.

The coalition agreement contained a clear commitment to establish a commission to look at the West Lothian question. That question was one of the many unanswered constitutional issues we inherited from the outgoing Government. On metal theft, the hon. Lady must await the views of the Government, which will be set out in response to the debate tomorrow on a private Member’s Bill.

On airports, the coalition parties are united in rejecting a third runway at Heathrow—the Labour party backed that runway in government but they have now joined us in opposing it in opposition. No decisions have been taken on the estuary airport. As the Chancellor made clear in his autumn statement,

“we will explore all the options for maintaining the UK’s aviation hub status, with the exception of a third runway at Heathrow.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 806.]

We will consult on an overarching sustainable framework for UK aviation this spring and publish a call for evidence on maintaining effective UK hub airport connectivity.

On relationships within the coalition, my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House and I are at one; we are as brothers in our approach to the issues for which we have responsibility, and not a cigarette paper could be found between us on any issue.

Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 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 (Sir George Young)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 16 January—Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on individual voter registration, followed by a debate on the national health service. These debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Tuesday 17 January—General debate on the future of town centres and high streets. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 18 January—Consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 1).

Thursday 19 January—Motion to approve European documents relating to integrated EU infrastructures, followed by motion on public bodies—scrutiny of draft orders—followed by continuation of debate on national policy statements relating to ports.

Friday 20 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 23 January will include:

Monday 23 January—Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Tuesday 24 January—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill (day 2).

Wednesday 25 January—Motion to approve a European document relating to EU criminal policy, followed by: the Chairman of Ways and Means will name opposed private business for consideration.

Thursday 26 January—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 19 and 26 January 2012 will be:

Thursday 19 January—Debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2012.

Thursday 26 January—Debate on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee report on football governance.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for that explanation of the packed legislative programme that he has brought to the House of Commons for the start of the new year. I notice that he has not announced the date for the Queen’s Speech, despite the fact that Paul Waugh of PoliticsHome announced it on his blog last week. We wait to hear some time in the future whether he was accurate.

We learned this week that the Committee stage of the Local Government Finance Bill is being taken on the Floor of the House—virtually the only Government business to be taken on the Floor in the next couple of weeks. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that over the past 30 years, only five local government Bills have been treated in this way: the 1984 and 1985 Bills that abolished the Greater London council; the 1987 Bill on block grants and rate limitation; the 1991 Bill on rate capping; and the 1999 Labour Bill that finally restored democratic government to London. Will the Leader of the House explain what in this local government Bill requires it to have its entire Committee stage on the Floor of the House? The Government are obviously struggling to fill the Commons calendar, so in the spirit of new year bonhomie, and wanting to help the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask him whether he could make time for a debate on the Government’s mishandling of their legislative programme?

On fat cat salaries, the Prime Minister, in his new year tour of the TV studios, announced that shareholder votes on executive pay would now be binding. However, in November he announced that his idea to address exorbitant boardroom pay was to appoint more women to boards, and in October he told us that the solution was boards asking themselves, “Is this the right thing to do?” Over the past year we have had plenty of press releases from No. 10, but FTSE 100 bosses have put their own salaries up by a staggering 49%, while average earnings have gone up by just 1.4%. To prevent the Prime Minister from touring the TV studios once a month with the latest wheeze, will the Leader of the House explain to him that if he is serious about dealing with fat cat salaries we need action, not more press releases? When will we get it?

Perhaps the Leader of the House could also have a word with the Chancellor and inquire when we can expect a response from the Treasury to Will Hutton’s report on fair pay in the public sector. In June 2010 the Chancellor announced—in yet another press release—that this was an “important review” and that it would play a “crucial role” in developing Government policy. Will the Leader of the House enlighten us as to what has happened since the report was published 10 months ago?

Given the defeat that the Government suffered last night on their shocking plans to deny benefit to cancer sufferers, will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the tiny band of Liberal Democrats who joined Labour and the “Cross Benchers” in standing up for decency and fairness? Rather than using parliamentary time in this place to reverse the three votes that the Government lost last night, may we instead have a debate on fairness, to remind the Liberal Democrats why they claim they came into politics in the first place?

The Leader of the House will understand the concern over the safety of PIP implants. The Secretary of State for Health announced yesterday a “rapid review” of the safety of people seeking cosmetic interventions. Can the Leader of the House confirm when the review will conclude, and will he assure us that the Health Secretary will make a statement to the House when it does?

The House is growing weary of rapid reviews being announced by press release. Last November, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) promised that the Government would publish by the “end of the month” proposals to clamp down on the access that lobbyists have to the Government. Since then we have had Mr Collins of Bell Pottinger boasting of the access to those at the top of Government that he can arrange for his clients, and now Mr O’Shaughnessy, one of the Prime Minister’s top aides, has signed up to another lobbying firm. What we have not had is the promised consultation. The last time the Leader of the House was asked about this, at the beginning of December, he told the House that the Government would publish proposals “in a few weeks”. Given that the consultation is now long overdue, will the Cabinet Office Minister return to the House to explain what has gone wrong? While he is at it, will he also explain the Government’s policy on freedom of information?

Before Christmas the Information Commissioner launched his first ever probe into a Government Department, because the Education Secretary and his advisers were communicating using the Education Secretary’s wife’s e-mail account. Given that the Secretary of State announced this week—not to the House—a new policy on information technology lessons in schools, perhaps the Leader of the House could arrange for his colleague to have some IT lessons himself, so that if he wants to communicate secretly with his advisers he can set up his own e-mail account, and will not need to use his wife’s.

Finally, Mr Speaker, may I wish you and all Members a happy new year? Will the Leader of the House join me in urging all Ministers to adopt a new year’s resolution to make announcements to this House first? After all, the ministerial code requires them to do so.

[Sir George Young]

I begin by echoing the hon. Lady’s good wishes to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House, for a happy new year. She began in a traditional way by asking about the Queen’s Speech. I am delighted that she is looking forward to the next one, which will be packed with legislative reform from the coalition Government, and I hope that she will warmly welcome it when it arrives. She will have to contain herself for a little longer, however. The date of the Queen’s Speech will be announced in due course in the usual way. In the meantime, I have given hon. Members some certainty about the House’s sittings: I have announced them up to October this year. By contrast, my predecessor gave the House two weeks’ notice of the Easter recess in March 2010. The House now has a degree of certainty about when we shall meet, and hon. Members can plan their work-life balance accordingly.

On Parliament’s work programme, I hope that the hon. Lady is not going to denigrate the work that the House is doing. This week we had two statements on Tuesday, on the referendum in Scotland and on High Speed 2. We had a statement yesterday on breast implants, as well as two Opposition day debates; I hope that she is not going to say that those were not worth having. Later today we shall have two important debates arranged by the Backbench Business Committee. As I have said before, this place is not a legislative factory. We are not going to make the mistake that the previous Government made of introducing too much ill-considered legislation.

The hon. Lady asked why we were having the Committee stage of the Local Government Finance Bill on the Floor of the House. I have in front of me a list of 18 non-constitutional Bills that went to a Committee of the whole House between 1997 and 2010, so let us not have any nonsense about this being unprecedented.

Let me give just one example of what the previous Government did. The Digital Economy Act 2010—50 clauses and three schedules—was rushed through the House during wash-up, without consensus, on the Floor of the House. Here we have a 10-clause Bill with three schedules and we are allowing three days for Committee. I hope the House will support what we are doing, as more than 600 experts on local government will be at hand here and able to take part in the Bill’s proceedings.

On executive pay, let me remind the Opposition that they did nothing about it for 13 years. By contrast, we consulted and we will set out in our response the action we will take to tackle irresponsible directors—something Labour did not do—and we are going to require greater transparency for directors’ pay and salary. We shall give shareholders a greater say through binding votes, and allow them to block unjustified pay-offs for failure. An announcement will be made in due course by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I will, of course, pursue the matter of fair pay and the Government’s response with the Chancellor, and find out the date of the response for which the hon. Lady asked.

There will, of course, be an opportunity for the Government to consider in this House yesterday’s votes on the Welfare Reform Bill in the other place. I make the simple point that if we do not reverse those amendments we will need to make savings from other areas. Of course the Government will look carefully at what has happened in the other place. It is worth making the point that the amendments that were carried would not have affected the position of those in the support group—the most vulnerable—whose entitlement to benefit would remain unaffected. Nor would the Government’s proposals have affected those on means-tested benefits. It is a question of getting the balance right on the extent to which applicants draw on their own resources or on the resources of taxpayers. Let me remind the hon. Lady of what the Leader of the Opposition said in his speech of 10 January:

“in these times, with less money, spending more on one thing means finding the money from somewhere else. When someone wins, someone else loses.”

She might like to remember that when we come to debate those amendments.

On yesterday’s statements by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, he announced three reviews in connection with what went wrong with the breast implants, and I know he will want to keep the House informed as those reviews make progress.

I am surprised that the hon. Lady raised the issue of lobbying. For 13 years the Labour Government did nothing about lobbying, yet she now criticises us for taking time to come up with the paper on our proposals. The consultation document will be published shortly, and there was no breach of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments rules by Mr James O’Shaughnessy.

Finally, I have announced an Opposition day on Monday, and I wonder whether the Opposition are going to compound the confusion they caused with their last one. On Tuesday their leader talked about responsibility regarding the deficit, but just hours later the Opposition voted against our modest measures for sorting out the mess in local government finance. On the very next day they tabled two motions that, far from reducing the deficit, would have increased it. They opposed every cut and promised to spend an extra £87 billion that we do not have, and they were in denial about the mess they created when they were in government. I wonder whether the time has not now come for another relaunch by the Opposition.