Business of the House

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

We all enjoyed yesterday’s debate in which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor trounced the shadow Chancellor on his economic strategy. The Opposition have left their tax cut open-ended and unfunded. They have not given any definition of what constitutes “growing strongly again” and would simply be adding £51 billion to the deficit at the end of this Parliament.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the accountability of the Government on women and equalities? Today, an oral question on the impact on women of the increases in fees for courses in English as a second language was transferred to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Department has form on this: on 3 March, I raised in questions to the Leader of the House the fact that questions on women and pensions had been transferred. How can we hold the Government to account given that we have only quarter of an hour for questions and no topical questions and given that questions specifically about the impact of Government policies on women are ducked by the Ministers responsible for women’s policies?

[Sir George Young]

I say to the hon. Lady that we have adopted precisely the same arrangements for questions about women as we inherited from the outgoing Government.