Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 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 next week will be:

Monday 4 July—Continuation of remaining stages of the Finance (No. 3) Bill (day 2).

Tuesday 5 July—Conclusion of the remaining stages of the Finance (No. 3) Bill (day 3).

Wednesday 6 July—Estimates day [3rd allotted day]. There will be a debate on the “Prevent” strategy followed by a debate on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Further details will be given in the Official Report.

[The details are as follows: The Prevent strategy: 6th Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee of Session 2009-10, HC 65, “Preventing Violent Extremism”. Afghanistan and Pakistan: 4th Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of Session 2010-12, HC 514, “The UK’s foreign policy approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan”; and the Government’s response CM 8064.]

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

Thursday 7 July—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill, followed by consideration of Lords Amendments to the Fixed-Term Parliaments Bill, followed by a debate on use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and Committees. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 11 July will include:

Monday 11 July—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the European Union Bill, followed by motion to approve European documents relating to civil law.

Tuesday 12 July—Motion relating to the retirement of the Clerk of the House, followed by Second Reading of the Public Bodies Bill [Lords].

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 7 and 14 July 2011 will be:

Thursday 7 July—A debate on intellectual property and the Hargreaves report.

Thursday 14 July—A debate on “The Future of CDC”, the International Development Committee’s fifth report of session 2010-12, HC 607.

Further to your earlier announcement, Mr Speaker, the whole House endorses what you said in congratulating Robert Rogers on his appointment as Clerk of the House and wishes him well in his new responsibilities.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. I associate myself with the congratulations to Robert Rogers on his appointment. We look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role.

We are about to have a statement on police detention following the court ruling. We stand ready to assist with emergency legislation if that is what is needed to deal with the problem. The Leader of the House did not refer to the possibility of such legislation in his statement. Will he tell us the latest position?

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) raised the problem of questions addressed to the Minister for Women and Equalities being transferred to other Departments. Has the Leader of the House made any progress in looking into that? Can we have topical questions on this important area of the Government’s responsibilities?

Next Monday, Andrew Dilnot’s report on social care is due to be published. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that there will be an oral statement? Will he also undertake to find time subsequently for the House to debate these important matters? Talking of which, in view of today’s industrial action, may we have a debate about the Government’s mishandling of the public sector pensions negotiations?

The Business Secretary said recently that he wanted a resurgent manufacturing sector. Therefore, can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Transport on why he awarded a £1.5 billion contract for 1,200 new train carriages to a company in Germany, when it will put some 3,000 British railway manufacturing jobs in jeopardy?

Has the Leader of the House seen the e-mail that was released this week from Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat Member? In discussing the changes to the Health and Social Care Bill, he wrote:

“There is a view that we should keep quiet, say we had a victory and hope no-one notices this stuff—but I think that is not realistic. The plans remain bad for the NHS”.

May we have a debate so that we can sit back and discover whether those views are shared by the coalition Liberal Democrats who still have their seats or whether they are doing what they do on occasion, which is to face in several different directions at once?

Last week, the newspapers reported the Deputy Prime Minister’s plan to give away shares in the publicly owned banks. No sooner had it hit the front pages than a source was briefing that it was back-of-the-envelope stuff:

“He…should know better. This is not the way you make policy.”

A few days later, the Deputy Prime Minister announced the localisation of business rates, again outside the House of Commons. Here are two major policy announcements. In one case, it seems that the Cabinet has not even had the chance to question him, let alone the House of Commons. In the other, we are still waiting for a statement.

May we have a debate on Camnesia? That is not a previously undiscovered Polynesian island, but a previously undiagnosed condition that affects the Prime Minister’s ability to recall the detail of his own policies. As we saw again at yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions, he seems to know nothing about the huge increase in the number of NHS quangos that he is creating.

After all the remarkable U-turns we have seen in the last few weeks, the very special humiliation of last week’s vote on wild animals in circuses took some doing. The issue was extremely clear: it is not right for the entertainment of others to make big beasts do things that do not come naturally to them, which is why we have all felt great sympathy this week for the Justice Secretary. As we have heard, first thing in the morning, there was a hard three-line Whip in a desperate attempt to defeat the motion, but by 4 o’clock in the afternoon it had vanished, along with the Government’s courage, because the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) had made it clear that he would neither be induced nor bullied by the Prime Minister into withdrawing his motion. Can we have a debate to praise the hon. Gentleman—others are trying to bury him—or at the very least to save him from being taken round the back of the bike sheds for a good hiding, as one colleague has apparently suggested? I assume that he did not mean it—perhaps it was just a job application to be a Tory Whip.

Finally, as yet another policy bites the dust, does this not all reveal the fundamental truth about the current occupant of No. 10 Downing street? Unlike his much more resolute predecessor—[Interruption.] Unlike Baroness Thatcher, this Prime Minister is for turning.

[Sir George Young]

As always, we enjoyed that, but there was a slight absence of questions about the future business of the House, from which I take it that the Opposition are perfectly happy with the way in which this Administration are managing the business of the House.

I am grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman said about police detention and bail. We will have to await the statement that is to follow to discover whether emergency legislation is necessary. I am grateful for his offer of support should that be the outcome.

Turning to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), I will share with my right hon. and hon. Friends the right hon. Gentleman’s request to extend topical questions to the Government Equalities Office, which at the moment does not have them because it has a relatively narrow slot. The procedure for transferring questions has not changed at all under this Administration. A question is transferred to the Department that is best able to answer it.

On Dilnot, this is an important issue. That is why one of the first things we did on taking office was to ask Andrew Dilnot to chair this commission, which I understand will report on Monday. It is an issue that should be debated by the House in due course, but I cannot promise a statement by the Government on Monday, which is the date of the publication. It may be some time before the Government come up with their response.

We would welcome a debate on our approach to industrial action and strikes, and I hope that the Labour party might clarify its own views. I see that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said that the Leader of the Opposition was under some misapprehension as to what was going on. However, I am grateful to the him and many other Members for making it into the building today.

The matter of train carriages was dealt with in Transport questions. The contract was awarded under exactly the same procedure that the previous Government used to order new rolling stock, and there has been no change whatever.

I was in the House when the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) raised the issue of local government finance, and I refreshed my memory about the coalition agreement, which committed us to

“promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. This will include a review of local government finance.”

The terms of reference for that review were set out in a statement on 17 March. The review is ongoing, and a consultation document will be published in due course. There has been no dramatic change in Government policy.

The shadow Leader of the House mentioned the events of last Thursday and talked about the vote, but there was no vote at the end of that debate. The Government accepted the motion. He might at some time pay tribute to the coalition Government for setting up the Backbench Business Committee. There would have been no such debate had his party remained in power, because it refused to set up the Committee.

Finally, I admire the right hon. Gentleman’s acting ability in keeping a straight face in his final remarks about the former Prime Minister.