Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

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

The business for the week commencing 1 November will be as follows:

Monday 1 November—Remaining stages of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Day 1). In addition, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister plans to make a statement on the European Council.

Tuesday 2 November—Remaining stages of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Day 2).

Wednesday 3 November—General debate on the report of the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

Thursday 4 November—General debate on the strategic defence and security review.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 November will include:

Monday 8 November—Remaining stages of the Finance (No.2) Bill.

Tuesday 9 November—Opposition Day [5th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. The subject is to be announced.

Wednesday 10 November—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to economic policy co-ordination.

Thursday 11 November—General debate on policy on growth. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 12 November—Private Members’ Bills.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. Further to last week’s exchange about the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, and his letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), the Government have published in draft a series of statutory instruments for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The one for Scotland is 205 pages long, and runs to 97 clauses and nine schedules, but Members will have no opportunity to debate or decide on the statutory instruments before the Report stage of the Bill begins next Monday.

The Government have just tabled 28 pages of amendments for Monday, some of which refer to the orders we have not yet had the chance to discuss, so, for the third time, may I ask the Leader of the House to explain to the House how this treatment of Members squares with what the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is in charge of the Bill, said would happen? He gave us an assurance that

“on matters to do with elections this House should get to pronounce before the Bill goes to the other place…we will seek to achieve that.”—[Official Report, 18 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 653.]

The Leader of the House has not achieved that, and the questions are: why and what will he do about it?

I turn to another matter on which there is considerable concern on both sides of the House. May we have a debate on the confusion surrounding the proposed changes to housing benefit? Yesterday, the Prime Minister could not explain why it is fair that someone who has been looking for a job for 12 months, but has not been able to find one, despite their best efforts, will have their housing benefit cut by 10%. Nor could he offer any advice to families who will be affected by this change and by the housing benefit cap. Instead, he simply said that the Government are not for turning.

Meanwhile, also yesterday, the Work and Pensions Secretary was said to be listening to MPs’ concerns. Well, there are plenty of concerns on the Government Benches and in City Hall. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has called the plan for a cap harsh. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) said that the proposals have ignored some of the huge logistical problems, and the Mayor of London has described them as draconian. Then, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—the third of yesterday’s men, and the person who is actually responsible for housing—told listeners of the “World at One” that they did not need to worry because

“these new reforms don’t come in until 2013”.

In fact, the housing benefit cap will come into operation next April.

We have a Prime Minister who cannot justify the policy, a Communities and Local Government Secretary who does not understand the policy, and a Work and Pensions Secretary signalling that he might change the policy. In truth, the word “shambles” does not do justice to this mess, but it does make a compelling case for a debate, so may we have one?

As the Leader of the House has just announced, the Backbench Business Committee has chosen a debate on economic growth for 11 November. Will he persuade the Prime Minister to take part, so that he can try to explain how the loss of nearly 500,000 public sector jobs will help the economy to grow; how depriving universities of most of their funding for undergraduate teaching will enable the economy to compete; and how the absence of any central Government support for the new local enterprise partnerships will help them to make use of the regional growth fund? Is it any wonder that Richard Lambert of the CBI said this week:

“The Local Enterprise Partnerships have got off to a ropey start. So far, it has been a bit of a shambles”.

All in all, it has been a shambolic week for the Government.

Mercifully—and finally—there is one bright spot. Tomorrow, the House will for the second time extend a very warm welcome to the UK Youth Parliament, which will be debating in this Chamber. We have offered an annual invitation up until the next general election, but does the Leader of the House agree that the House should now make this a permanent fixture in the parliamentary calendar, so that every year henceforth we can celebrate the contribution that young parliamentarians make to the life of this country?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. On the first issue, the undertaking given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has been honoured. On the territorial orders, the statutory instruments updating the rules for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales were tabled on 25 October. The orders were necessary to update the rules for elections, and they will be debated in the forthcoming weeks. The amendments to which the right hon. Gentleman refers were tabled as we said they would be, and they are required to deal with any consequential changes needed to reflect the new orders in time for debate. Everything we have done on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill has been to ensure that the House of Commons has the opportunity to debate the referendum rules, and that is what the Bill is about. We tabled the combination amendment a week before it was due to be debated in Committee and we laid the territorial orders in time to ensure that relevant amendments to the combination provisions could be covered on Report.

On housing benefit, we are trying to do what the right hon. Gentleman’s former Cabinet colleague, James Purnell. was also trying to do. This is what he said:

“The next issue to consider is housing benefit…so that people on benefits do not end up getting subsidies for rents that those who work could never afford.”—[Official Report, 10 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 546.]

That is the thrust of our reforms to housing benefit. People who receive housing benefits should have the same choice on housing as people who are not in receipt of housing benefits. That is what is behind the reforms that we are proposing.

On the specific issues that the right hon. Gentleman raises, the housing benefit bill has almost doubled in 10 years, and is now some £20 billion. The caps to which he refers save some £55 million in the first year. That needs to be put in perspective. Of the 700,000 families in London who receive housing benefit, only 2.5% will potentially be affected by the cap.

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard my right hon. Friend the Housing Minister refer on the “Today” programme to £140 million of discretionary payments, available to those in receipt of housing benefit, at the hands of local authorities who need help to cope with the transition to a new regime. Against the background of the need to save public expenditure, the proposals we have introduced—some of which do not come into effect until 2013—are justified.

The right hon. Gentleman asks for a debate on housing benefit. There is a debate in Westminster Hall on the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department for Work and Pensions. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions is holding an inquiry into housing benefit, and Lord Freud will give evidence next Tuesday. I have announced an Opposition day the week after next, and it is perfectly open to the right hon. Gentleman to choose housing benefit as a subject in that debate. Indeed, it may come up in the main debate today.

The Office for Budget Responsibility says that unemployment will fall next year and every year after that. Employment is forecast to increase by about 1.4 million over the next five years.

I welcome the arrival of the members of the Youth Parliament in this Chamber tomorrow, and you will welcome them formally, Mr Speaker. I have no objection at all to the Youth Parliament becoming an annual event, but that will require the approval of the House of Commons.