Business of the House

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question because, as a former Secretary of State for Transport, I am interested in promoting use of the railway. The issue that he has raised is a technical one for Network Rail, but I will raise it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to see whether we can make some progress and expand that route for the use to which my hon. Friend has just referred.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House must not keep hiding behind this wretched Wright Committee recommendation abolishing debates on Europe. I know that we have had specific debates on this and that, but the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is absolutely right to say that we need a broad debate on Europe, particularly at this stage of our historic relationship with the EU. The Backbench Business Committee carries out its Daily Mail rent-a-petition, rent-a-debate duties, but it is for the Government to provide time to discuss this vital issue for our nation’s future.

[Sir George Young]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that if we had not implemented the Wright Committee’s recommendations, he might well have been one of the first to criticise us for going back on a clear election commitment. The fact of the matter is that the Government have given some of the power and patronage they used to have away. We have given it to the Backbench Business Committee, which gets roughly one day a week, and it is up to that Committee to decide what it does with that time. One set of debates that was handed over to that Committee, along with the defence debates, was the pre-European Council debates. The Committee has chosen not to have such a debate. That is a consequence of setting up the Backbench Business Committee and transferring the days to it.