Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

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

Yesterday we marked the end of an era with the funeral of Margaret Thatcher and our thoughts are with those who knew and loved her. I rarely agreed with her, but she did break the existing political and economic consensus and I think it is time that we did so again.

We are now entering the final hectic days of this parliamentary Session—if necessary. Next Wednesday it will be five weeks since the Prime Minister was last held to account in this House. Given the likely timing of Prorogation and the state opening on 8 May, it is possible that he will have to be answerable here again only twice before June. Does the Leader of the House agree that this is a completely unacceptable state of affairs? What will he do to ensure that this House stops conveniently going into recess on Tuesdays, thereby letting the Prime Minister off the PMQ hook?

On Tuesday the Communities and Local Government Secretary got himself into a right old pickle with his chaotic plans for a free market free-for-all in conservatory construction. With Labour, Liberal Democrats and Tories uniting against him, he was forced to hint at an unspecified concession, but in the damning words of the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), his colleague around the Cabinet table for two years,

“we will not believe what”

the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government says

“until we see the proposals in black and white.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 196.]

Will the Leader of the House clarify what this mysterious concession might be, or cannot this incompetent Government even organise a concession in a conservatory?

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

George will like that.

[Ms Eagle]

I suspect that the Patronage Secretary has got a few conservatories of his own.

For 60 years, the Agricultural Wages Board has protected vulnerable rural workers from exploitation at the hands of rich landowners, but on Tuesday, without so much as a hint of debate or a vote on the Floor of the House, the Government abolished it. This transfers £240 million from workers in some of the toughest and lowest-paid jobs in rural England directly into the back pockets of their employers. It is a disgrace that such a crucial protection can be removed without so much as a vote or even debate in the democratically elected House. It will take our Opposition day debate for the arguments to be heard, but rural workers protections have already been destroyed. It is clear from the parliamentary timetable that the Government could have made time for the issue to be debated properly. Anyone would think that the Prime Minister was trying to avoid business running on until Wednesdays.

In 28 of the 31 weeks that the Health Secretary has been in the job, England’s major accident and emergency units have missed the target for treating patients within four hours, but at the same time he has handed £2.2 billion of NHS funds back to the Treasury. Will the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement on how Ministers will bring all accident and emergency departments in England back up to the national standards they set? Despite being forced to backtrack once already, the Health Secretary persists with his damaging section 75 regulations, which will effectively privatise the NHS by the back door. The Lords will debate them next Wednesday, so will the Leader of the House tell us when we will debate them in the Commons?

Following the Budget, the International Monetary Fund this week again slashed the UK growth forecast and agreed with us that the Chancellor needs to change course. A year ago, it predicted growth of 2%, but that has now dropped to just 0.7%. Unemployment is rising, real wages are falling and borrowing is shooting through the roof, but the Chancellor’s only growth strategy seems to be to destroy rights at work. When will he get real and admit that his plan is just not working? Our downgraded Chancellor has been busy trying to be a man of the people, attempting to distract attention from his huge tax cut for millionaires by dropping his aitches in a speech at Morrisons—and he was not even very good at that. With a failing economic strategy, a faltering legislative programme and a Government adrift, will the Leader of the House tell the Chancellor that we need a change of course, not a change of accent?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lansley]

I am in favour of paying tribute to Mrs Thatcher in very many ways, but that is probably not one of them.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is naughty because he knows perfectly well that this is not the mother of Parliaments. He is, however, right on one point: because of the Government’s jiggery-pokery, the Prime Minister will answer Prime Minister’s questions only four times in 12 weeks. Even worse, the Chancellor will probably not answer Treasury questions until three whole months have passed since the Budget. The first Treasury questions is likely to be on 18 or 25 June. We could solve all that if the Government fulfilled their promise to bring in a House business committee by the third year of this Parliament. We were generous and allowed that not to be by the beginning of the third year—that is what we all thought the logic meant—but we are now at the end of the third year. I presume that we could use the week after next just to introduce that legislation.

[Mr Lansley]

As far as I could see, the House was happy when I published a calendar for the year ahead last October. Most of the issues the hon. Gentleman raises are a simple consequence of that calendar. In so far as they are not, they appear to be the consequence of his engaging in speculation about the date of Prorogation. The date of Prorogation, of course, has not been set.