Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

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

The business for the week commencing 6 December will include:

Monday 6 December—Opposition Day [8th allotted day]. There will be a debate entitled “The Unfair Distribution and Impact of Cuts to Local Government Funding”.

Tuesday 7 December—Second Reading of the European Union Bill.

Wednesday 8 December—Estimates Day [1st allotted day]. There will be a debate on police funding for 2011-12 and the Department for International Development’s assistance to Zimbabwe. Further details for the second of these debates will be given in the Official Report.

[The information is as follows: Department for International Development’s assistance to Zimbabwe (8th Report from the International Development Committee of Session 2009-10, HC 252); Government Response—Cmd 7899.]

At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Thursday 9 December—Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund Bill, followed by a motion to approve resolution on increasing the higher amount which is to be applied under the Higher Education Act 2004, and a motion relating to the draft Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 December will include:

Monday 13 December—Second Reading of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill.

Tuesday 14 December—Consideration of Lords Amendments, followed by remaining stages of the Terrorist-Asset Freezing Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords Amendments.

Wednesday 15 December—Second Reading of a Bill.

Thursday 16 December—Motion relating to park homes, followed by a general debate to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 16 December will be:

Thursday 16 December—A debate on drugs policy.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his answer. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why the programme motion on the European Union Bill published today plans to give the House only four days for Committee consideration and remaining stages? It is a major constitutional Bill, and the time proposed is wholly inadequate, especially when compared with other recent European Bills. I am sure that many Government Members share our view, so will the Leader think again?

On the plan almost to treble tuition fees, we have just had it confirmed that the vote will be next week, so when will we see the text of the proposals? Of course, the question that everybody wants to ask is, how will Liberal Democrat MPs vote?

That brings me to the Deputy Prime Minister, who has continued to hawk his guilty conscience around the television studios. I must tell you, Mr Speaker, that I have not checked overnight to see whether he has given an interview to Kazakhstan state television, but last week he suggested that, after carefully considering all the arguments and weighing up the pros and cons of the proposals, the outcome might well be that Liberal Democrat MPs decide, in a show of resolute unity, to abstain—in other words, to sit on the fence, the traditional resting place throughout the ages of Liberal Democrats faced with a difficult decision.

What a stroke of genius! Why did the Deputy Prime Minister not make a statement to confirm that earlier in the week when he had the chance? Think of the plaudits he would have won from students throughout the country for making a pledge of principled abstention; think of the difficulties he would have avoided; think of the money that would have been saved on all those plane fares to Kazakhstan and back—because the Deputy Prime Minister had to be hustled out of the country to be protected from being asked over and over again, “How are you going to vote?” It is going to be a very expensive betrayal all round.

When the Leader of the House gets on the phone to Astana, will he also ask the Deputy Prime Minister to explain why back in the summer he told the House that an £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters was completely unaffordable, whereas now we are told that a loan of several billion pounds to the Irish banks is affordable? May we have a statement clearing up that minor contradiction?

Last week, the Prime Minister, during his doomed attempt to defend the cuts in school sport partnerships, told us to trust the judgment of head teachers. So, what about the judgment of 60 head teachers from throughout England who, in a letter, describe the decision to scrap the scheme with no consultation as “ignorant”, “destructive”, “contradictory”, “self-defeating” and “unjustified”? I think we could say that they are pretty unhappy, so does the Leader of the House have any news for us about an apology from the Prime Minister for having disgracefully attacked the partnerships and called them a failure? When will the Prime Minister make a statement about the U-turn on which he is clearly now working, much to the discomfort of his hapless Education Secretary?

When the Prime Minister comes to the House, will he explain another U-turn that he has made? Before the election, he said that any Minister who came to him with proposals for cuts in front-line services would be “sent packing”. Yet, that is exactly what we now see, with cuts in front-line policing from the Home Secretary, cuts in school sport from the Education Secretary and cuts to local services from the Communities and Local Government Secretary. When can we expect the Prime Minister to live up to his word, or is it just the promises that he casually made that have been sent on their way?

Finally, talking of sending people packing, and following Lord Young’s unhappy experience, I note that last week the Prime Minister was forced to denounce Mr Howard Flight, even before the ermine had touched his shoulders. May we have a statement from the Prime Minister on the criteria he uses for appointing, first, advisers and, secondly, peers? Given the rate at which they are saying things that are unacceptable, he does not seem to be exercising very good judgment.