Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

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

Monday 9 May—Opposition Day (unallotted day—half day). There will be a half-day debate on the future of the NHS which will arise on an Opposition motion, followed by a motion to approve an instruction relating to the Welfare Reform Bill, followed by a motion to approve a European document relating to trafficking.

Tuesday 10 May—Second Reading of the Energy Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 11 May—Remaining stages of the Education Bill, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to the draft directive on common consolidated corporate tax base, followed by a motion to approve the charter for budget responsibility.

Thursday 12 May—Motion relating to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, followed by a motion relating to reform of the common fisheries policy.

The subjects of both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 May—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 16 May will include:

Monday 16 May—General debate on the middle east, north Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tuesday 17 May—Motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Localism Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Localism Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 18 May—Remaining stages of the Localism Bill (day 2).

Thursday 19 May—Business nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

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

Thursday 12 May—Debate on education performance.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply, and I welcome the further foreign affairs debate that we are going to have.

The House will be aware that heath and forest fires are affecting a number of parts of the UK so, as well as thanking those who are working so hard to contain them, does the Leader of the House anticipate a statement?

On the length of this Session, the right hon. Gentleman was uncharacteristically dismissive in responding to my question last week about when it will conclude. Previously the House has always had a pretty good idea when the next Queen’s Speech would be, so may I urge him again to let us know as soon as he has worked it out?

At business questions last week, my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) asked about the comments made last autumn by Baroness Warsi about the general election. Let me remind the House that she said that there were

“At least three seats where we lost....based on electoral fraud.”

When asked to identify the seats, she replied:

“I think it would be wrong to start identifying them”.

The Leader of the House said that my right hon. Friend had received a “reply” to those allegations from the appropriate Minister. I have read the letter and it does not give one, and my right hon. Friend has now written to both that Minister and the Leader of the House to seek a proper response. However, given that a member of the Cabinet has made an accusation of electoral fraud, can the Leader of the House confirm for us today that Baroness Warsi has passed, either to the Electoral Commission or to the police, the information that she must have had to have made those very serious allegations in the first place?

May we have a statement on the role of OFFA—the Office for Fair Access—in respect of the setting of university fees? Last weekend its assistant director was very clear. He said:

“We are not a fee pricing regulator; that is not our role...we wouldn’t say to an institution we would only allow a fee of ‘X’ or ‘Y’”.

That statement completely contradicted what the Prime Minister told the House on 30 March, which was that

“the Office for Fair Access will decide whether universities can go to that £9,000 threshold.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 334.]

Now that this has come to light, when will the Prime Minister come to the House to apologise for giving Members incorrect information about the powers of OFFA?

May we have a debate on the breakdown of collective Cabinet responsibility? After his threat to sue ministerial colleagues last week, we read that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change this week used the Cabinet meeting to launch a blistering personal attack on the Prime Minister over the content of the no campaign leaflets. He also said this over the weekend:

“To attack your political colleagues in a coalition...for accepting the compromises necessary to allow the Conservatives to implement some of its policies is...outrageous.”

Well, where exactly do we start on that? First, it makes it sound as if the Lib Dems are helpless victims, rather than willing participants. If, however, that is the case, can we have a list so that we know who to blame in future and for what? Secondly, a Cabinet Minister was openly criticising the man who appointed him and it appears that the occupant of No. 10 is completely powerless to do anything about it. I wonder whether the Prime Minister feels that the most annoying man in British politics is now, in fact, the Climate Change Secretary.

Thirdly, we now have no idea who speaks for the Government, so can we have statements on the following matters? Is the Health and Social Care Bill in suspension or not, and if so, for how long? Does the Prime Minister agree with the Deputy Prime Minister’s comment this week that piloting the idea of police commissioners would be “entirely rational”? What exactly is the Government’s policy on the outsourcing of public services? First we were told that that was the future; now we read in a leaked document this week that they are pulling back because it would be politically “unpalatable”. Who is right about internships and family friends? On Tuesday the Deputy Prime Minister told the “Today” programme that Government policy is to end informal internships, yet on the very same programme his boss, the Prime Minister, contradicted him, saying that he has his neighbour coming in for an internship.

As we approach the first anniversary of the coalition, is not the truth that it is already beginning to fray at the edges as both partners realise that a marriage of convenience is no substitute for voting for what you believe in? And on that subject, may I tell the Leader of the House that many people are looking forward to voting for a Labour alternative to this shabby coalition today?

[Sir George Young]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that response, which deserved a far wider audience on the Labour Benches than it received today. While the Leader of the Opposition still struggles to be identified by the “Today” programme, the shadow Leader of the House has at least managed to define himself in these sessions as a sort of Rory Bremner without the accents. The fact that he rarely turns his creative energies to the business before the House for the next week is, I think, a welcome acknowledgement that so far as the running of the business of the House is concerned, I enjoy his full confidence and support.

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the current affairs debate. It shows the value of business questions that when serious propositions are made by the right hon. Gentleman and Members from all parties, the Government can respond to the views of the House and in some cases find time for a debate.

On heathlands, the Government will want to keep the House in the picture, whether by written ministerial statement or otherwise, and I take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion.

As for the Easter recess and when the House might rise next year, the right hon. Gentleman is well ahead of the game. I think I first asked about last year’s Easter recess in October the year before. I went on asking and—I have had to refresh my memory on this point—it was 12 days before the Easter recess in 2010 that I actually got the date from the then Government. For him to ask some 11 months in advance is, I would gently suggest, a little premature.

On the matter of the correspondence between my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio and the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), as the shadow Leader of the House knows a reply was sent by the Minister responsible for constitutional reform. If a reply has been sent by the right hon. Member for Warley, it will of course get a proper response, which will include the specific questions that the shadow Leader of the House raised.

I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that OFFA will decide whether a university can charge £9,000, so my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was absolutely right. Universities can charge that figure only if OFFA is satisfied that the necessary arrangements have been made, for example, to secure access for those on lower incomes. There is no clash there.

Finally, on the whole business of collective responsibility, I am amazed that the right hon. Gentleman should seek to raise this when he is speaking for a party that since losing power has deluged high street bookshops with inside accounts from all the main players, giving us the grisly details of the spats, feuds and briefings within the then Cabinet. Things do not sound much better in the current shadow Cabinet, with one Brownite insider reported as saying that the Leader of the Opposition’s team is “terrified” of the shadow Chancellor and shadow Home Secretary because;

“They think they're going to come and try and kill him. And the reason they think that is because they will.”

The truth is that the tensions within one party that sits on the Opposition Benches are much more damaging than the understandable tensions between two parties during a referendum campaign and local elections. From next week we will be back in business, working together in the national interest to get the economy back on its feet. Our divisions will heal, but Labour’s never will.