Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 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 28 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 29 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Wednesday 30 March—Remaining stages of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (Day 1).

Thursday 31 March—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (Day 2).

Friday 1 April—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 4 April will include:

Monday 4 April—Opposition Day (14th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

Tuesday 5 April—General debate on Britain’s contribution to humanitarian relief in Libya, followed by a general debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment. The latter debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 31 March 2011 will be:

Thursday 31 March 2011—A debate on high-speed rail.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. The House will welcome today’s statement on Libya and will look forward to being further updated.

The Welfare Reform Bill will involve a large number of regulations being presented to the House. Will the Leader of the House assure Members that they will appear in good time to allow for full parliamentary scrutiny?

The Government gave a clear undertaking that they would talk to the Opposition about their draft legislation to increase—in a terrorist emergency—the number of days for which someone can be held from 14 to 28. To date, the shadow Home Secretary has not been consulted, despite a number of requests to the Home Secretary. Will the Leader of the House encourage his colleague to respond?

On section 44 stop-and-search powers, the Home Secretary has got herself into a difficulty and has had to introduce, by way of a remedial order, the new provisions on stop and search that were due to be included in the Protection of Freedoms Bill. She has done that by means of a written statement, thereby denying the House the chance to debate and scrutinise the change before it was made. May we have an explanation of why that happened?

Given that just about everything that we heard in yesterday's Budget statement had already been leaked to the media in advance, could the Leader of the House look at a different system for next year? Perhaps the Chancellor could get up, simply say, “I refer the House to the briefing I gave the newspapers a few days ago,” add anything new and sit down. Then we could move straight on to the Leader of the Opposition and the debate. It might help some Members to stay awake.

Will the Business Secretary make a statement on the failure of the Government’s much trumpeted one in, one out policy on new regulations? For the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—the Department meant to be leading on the policy—it has been a case of 46 regulations in since May, and no regulations out. In fact, the majority of Departments have introduced more regulations than they have removed.

It seems that the policy is being observed only by the Liberal Democrats, although in their case they are applying it not to regulations, but to their principles. One principle out—opposition to trebling tuition fees; one new principle in—helping to undermine the NHS. We also read with interest that the Liberal Democrats are planning to issue a pocket-sized card listing every one of their many achievements in government. Will the Leader of the House find time for a statement on that? After all, it would not take very long.

May we have a statement from the Health Secretary explaining why the latest polling results from Ipsos MORI on public satisfaction with the NHS have still not been published, six months after they were submitted to the Department of Health? It is reported that they show that more members of the public than ever believe that the NHS is doing a good job—not exactly the message that Ministers have been seeking to convey. This is a very curious case of Ministers trying to bury good news.

Also on the health service, we read with great interest this week that the Deputy Prime Minister has told his MPs that he will be “taking the lead” in reining in his own Government’s plans for the national health service. He is said to be determined to make changes to the Health and Social Care Bill, which is currently in Committee, and a senior party source said that he had decided to “front up” the issue with the Health Secretary.

This is quite extraordinary, and presents a bit of a parliamentary challenge for the Leader of the House. Now, the right hon. Gentleman is a reformer, so I wonder whether he would be prepared to break new ground by organising a joint statement at the Dispatch Box from the Deputy Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, so that they can slug it out under the full glare of parliamentary accountability. Or perhaps we could make use of the Procedure Committee’s welcome recommendation—published in the last hour—that we allow the use of iPhones and iPads in the Chamber in place of paper, and the two members of the Cabinet can have an online argument instead. It could probably work, as long as Vodafone kept us all connected.

Finally, on Westminster council’s infamous ban on feeding the homeless, I am sure that the Leader of the House was as pleased as I was to read last week that a Home Office spokesman had said:

“The Home Secretary has no plans to ban soup runs.”

I am delighted that the coalition—if I may describe it as such—between the right hon. Gentleman and me has forced the Government finally to make their position clear. Will he simply confirm for us today that when Westminster’s draft byelaw is put to the Department for approval, it will be treated with the contempt that it deserves and sent packing?

Members’ Salaries

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I think that the House recognises why the Leader of the House has tabled this motion, especially at a time when many in the public sector face a pay freeze, as he pointed out. To put it starkly, the public would find it hard to understand it if we got a pay rise when they are not getting a pay rise. That is why we will support the motion.

As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, we face this decision because the Senior Salaries Review Body is currently responsible for determining MPs’ pay, and it sets the salary in line with salaries in the civil service, using a fixed formula. He was right to point out that the chairman of the SSRB hinted in his letter that it would have done something different if it had not been bound by the formula. However, as the Leader of the House will be aware from the interventions that he took, there is no hiding the unease that Members throughout the House feel at being asked once again to vote on their pay, just when we thought we had got rid of the responsibility following the decision taken by the House in 2008. I therefore welcome what he said at business questions last week when I asked him about his intention to initiate IPSA taking responsibility for MPs’ pay, as is required in the legislation that he mentioned. He said that he would do so “shortly”, and that must be right, because the sooner responsibility is transferred the better, not least because we should not be taking decisions such as this.

Finally, although the motion is only about pay, we will in due course have to consider the question of deferred pay, in other words pensions. It would be very helpful if the Deputy Leader of the House, if it is he who winds up the debate, could say something about how the Government intend to handle the matter in the light of Lord Hutton’s recent report, and about the likely timetable for pensions, too, being handed over to IPSA, subject of course to the House being fully satisfied about the protection of acquired rights.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

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

With permission, I should like to make a short statement following on from the announcement that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has just made.

The business for the week commencing 21 March will now be:



Monday 21 March—Motion relating to the United Nations Security Council resolution on Libya, followed by motion relating to Members’ salaries.

Tuesday 22 March—Remaining stages of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 23 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 24 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

The provisional business for the week commencing 28 March will remain the same.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his statement. The House should have an opportunity to debate the resolution that the United Nations passed yesterday evening and above all, its consequences for the people of Libya and, in particular, for the deployment of British forces. I also welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement that there will be a substantive motion before the House on Monday and the fact that it will be available later today. It is right that the House should have the chance to debate and vote, as was the case eight years ago today and in 1991, a few days after action began in the Gulf war. Will the Leader of the House assure us—I am sure that it will be the case—that the House will be kept informed of developments, with statements, as appropriate, from the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support for the revised timetable. We plan to table a substantive motion later today that the House will debate on Monday, and to keep the House informed. We had a full day’s debate in Government time yesterday, a substantive statement from the Prime Minister today, and we will have a debate on Monday. I can give the right hon. Gentleman the undertaking he has just sought.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 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 the week commencing 21 March will be:

Monday 21 March—Remaining stages of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords], followed by a motion relating to Members’ salaries.

Tuesday 22 March—Remaining stages of the Scotland Bill.

Wednesday 23 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 24 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

The provisional business for the week commencing 28 March will include:

Monday 28 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 29 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Wednesday 30 March—Remaining stages of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (Day 1).

Thursday 31 March—Remaining stages of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (Day 2).

Friday 1 April—Private Members’ Bills.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his reply.

Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in expressing our deep sorrow at the continuing suffering of the Japanese people as they seek to deal with the many disasters that have befallen them? Did he hear this morning’s report of protestors being fired on and killed in Bahrain, and will he join me in condemning that?

On Monday’s motion on the Senior Salaries Review Body report, will the Leader of the House indicate when he proposes to give effect to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority taking responsibility for MPs’ pay?

The humanitarian emergency response review is due to report shortly. May we have an oral statement from the International Development Secretary?

Two months ago I raised with the right hon. Gentleman the suggestion of extending topical questions to all Departments that do not currently have them. He said that he had a lot of sympathy with my proposal. Can he tell us when he plans to implement it?

It has been a very bad week for the Government’s NHS reforms, with revolting Lib Dems, 21 of whom failed to vote with the Government yesterday, angry doctors and Ministers reduced to pleading that their Bill has been misunderstood, a sure sign that they have lost the argument. Mind you, it takes a special kind of political genius to turn those whom they say they want to help—general practitioners—against them, so I have to hand it to the Secretary of State for Health. The more he talks about his Bill, the more he destroys public confidence in it.

Will the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government come to the House to explain why he decided to attend the recent meeting of the Young Britons’ Foundation, an organisation whose president has described the NHS as a 60-year mistake and whose chief executive has called for it to be scrapped? Was the Secretary of State there to pick up tips on how to destroy local government from people who want to destroy the NHS?

May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on figures from his own Department that show that the housing benefit changes will leave 450,000 disabled people an average of £13 a week worse off? People are worried about having to leave their homes, which might have been specially adapted to their needs. What a waste of money. Can the Leader of the House reassure them that that will not happen?

Last week I raised Westminster city council’s odious new byelaw banning the distribution of free food to the homeless. Now we discover that the council has an accomplice: the Home Secretary. Will she make a statement during the report stage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill to explain why clause 149 will give local councils the power to seize and retain property in connection with any contravention of that byelaw? It means that, as well as fining people up to £500 for giving out free food, Westminster city council will be given the power to seize, if it so wishes, the soup, the urns, the vans, the ladles, the bread, the tea bags and anything else that is distributed.

The byelaw will apply to an exclusion zone that includes Westminster cathedral. Will the Leader of the House clarify for us and for the Archbishop of Westminster whether, if there is a service of holy communion in the open air outside the cathedral, under the byelaw and the Bill, priests would face a fine and communion wine cups and wafers could be seized by zealous officials of Westminster city council? What on earth would St Patrick, whom we celebrate today, make of all that? It is quite clear that Westminster city council’s Tory members have completely taken leave of their senses, but why on earth are the Government helping them in this madness by a shabby piece of legislative complicity?

Finally, while we are on the subject of nasty Conservatives, I am afraid that I must tell the House that yet another private Member’s Bill trying to cut the minimum wage has made an appearance. This time it is the Training Wage Bill, which is due to be debated tomorrow. I was delighted that after my criticism of the previous Bill it mysteriously vanished from the Order Paper. Will the Leader of the House join me in condemning this Bill so that we can perhaps make it disappear as well?

[Sir George Young]

I endorse what the right hon. Gentleman said about Japan and Bahrain. In the debate that is to follow shortly, he might find that the Foreign Secretary will say much more about Bahrain and touch on the humanitarian issues in Japan and what is happening to UK citizens there. I certainly endorse what he said about the need for Bahrain to move towards democracy and not deal violently with those who are protesting peacefully.

On IPSA and the debate on Monday, the Government support the independent determination of MPs’ pay, as I said in my written statement of 20 January. I fully intend that that debate should not lead to Members routinely voting on their salaries, so I can confirm that I will commence the relevant parts of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 shortly to allow for fully independent determination of MPs’ salaries in future.

On DFID, the right hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development made a full statement to the House on 1 March about the humanitarian work and the Department’s aid reviews, and since then the House has been kept informed about what we are doing in Christchurch, Japan and Libya. The humanitarian emergency response review, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, is an independent review and, therefore, slightly different from the reviews that were the subject of the statement at the beginning of the month, but of course I will pass his views to my right hon. Friend about that very important report, which is being undertaken by Lord Ashdown.

On health, we had an extensive debate yesterday, but I was slightly disappointed at the relatively few Opposition Members in attendance, indicating a slight lack of interest in this very important subject. During the debate, we made clear our commitment to the NHS: we are spending more on it than the outgoing Labour Government planned to spend; we want to address the decline in NHS productivity that the Public Accounts Committee referred to earlier this year; and we want to drive up outcomes.

On housing benefit, the right hon. Gentleman will know that local authorities will have at their disposal substantial discretionary funds to avoid exactly the sort of situation to which he refers—people being displaced from their homes because of any shortfall in housing benefit as we introduce the changes. I very much hope that those discretionary funds, which have been increased, will be adequate to avoid the problems that he outlines.

On Westminster city council, I do think the right hon. Gentleman’s imagination slightly ran away with him, given what he said about the byelaws. I understand that the council has invited him to see what it is doing and how it is approaching the rough sleeping initiative, and I hope that he will accept that invitation. I hope also that that will give the council an opportunity to allay some of the concerns that he has raised. I pay tribute to the work of the nuns at Westminster cathedral, who run The Passage, a very sympathetic approach to helping those who are homeless, and I very much hope that Westminster city council can work with the volunteers and work as a team to address the problems of homelessness, which I think he and I would both like to see resolved.

Now—

[Hilary Benn]

Topical questions.

[Sir George Young]

Topical questions, yes.

On topical questions, it is indeed my intention to make progress. A number of Departments answer questions for only 30 minutes, and at the moment there are no opportunities to answer or, indeed, to ask topical questions. I am having discussions with ministerial colleagues to see whether we can change that. The most urgent one relates to DFID, where there has been a direct approach from the shadow Secretary of State, and I hope to make an announcement relatively soon, once I have completed the necessary consultations with my ministerial colleagues.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 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 14 March will be:

Monday 14 March—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 2).

Tuesday 15 March—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 3).

Wednesday 16 March—Opposition Day (13th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a document relating to section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008.

Thursday 17 March—General debate on north Africa and the middle east.

Friday 18 March—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 21 March will include:

Monday 21 March—Remaining stages of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords], followed by motion relating to Members’ salaries.

Tuesday 22 March—Remaining stages of the Scotland Bill.

Wednesday 23 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.

Thursday 24 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 24 March 2011 will be a debate on the future of the coastguard service.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. Has he seen today’s news of the killing of civilians in Zawiyal and of the arrest and torture of three BBC journalists? Will he join me in condemning that action and in expressing support for those standing up against oppression and those who are bringing us the truth in their reports? These are voices that Colonel Gaddafi is desperate to silence.

When may we expect to have a statement on Lord Hutton’s pensions report? Why will the Report stage of the Scotland Bill be on 22 March, given that the Government have made it clear they will introduce a new clause, one that was not part of the Calman recommendations and on which consultation does not close until 13 May? Should not this House consider it first?

Last week, the role of prayers at the start of our proceedings was raised, and the Leader of the House will, of course, be familiar with Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in”.

While we reflect on helping those in need, may we have an urgent statement from the Communities Secretary, because it seems that his Department is supporting Westminster city council’s plan to make it an offence to feed homeless people in one part of central London? Under its proposed byelaw entitled, with an Orwellian lack of irony, “Good Rule and Government (No. 3)”, anyone found offering free refreshments—that is, soup, bread and water—to homeless people will be liable to a fine of up to £500. Westminster city council also wants to outlaw the act of lying down or sleeping in a public place. When this was first reported, many people refused point blank to believe that it was true, myself included. We thought, “This has to be a joke. Isn’t helping the homeless what the big society is meant to be all about?” But it is not a joke. It is, in fact, the shocking face of 21st-century Tories in the richest borough in the country, supported by the Communities Secretary. Their big society hides a big, nasty, spiteful stick. Does the Leader of the House agree that those who thought of this should be ashamed of themselves?

Last week, the Leader of the House was asked by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) who would take over if the Prime Minister was incapacitated. I would be surprised if it was the Foreign Secretary, but we were all rather puzzled that the Leader of the House seemed so unwilling to answer. I have with me the Government list and it is pretty clear: listed under the Prime Minister’s name is that of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) as the Deputy Prime Minister. Surely if the Prime Minister cannot act, his deputy will take over. Yet, on reflection, and after recent events, I think that every one of us in the Chamber can sympathise with the Leader of the House’s evident reluctance to say that that is the case. Does he have an answer for us today by any chance?

Has the Deputy Prime Minister given the Leader of the House an indication that he is planning to make a statement about the size of the election deposit? I ask because concerns have been expressed in the past week that losing £500 might have a big financial effect on small parties that are finding it very difficult to attract votes, such as the Liberal Democrats. Before Conservative Members laugh, I should remind them that the Tories came behind the UK Independence party in the by-election.

Finally, may we expect a statement from the Transport Secretary on whether he thinks the cost of a return rail ticket from Sheffield to Barnsley is too expensive? I ask because presumably the difficulty in raising the considerable sum of £5.40 was the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister was unable to make the 15-mile journey to support his candidate in the by-election—not that it would have done any good. Or was it because the Lib Dem candidate spoke the truth last weekend when he said that

“in towns like Barnsley, where the Lib Dems once harvested votes as a party of protest, they now attract derision as a party of government”?

How true, and how like a Liberal Democrat to tell us what he really thinks only once the ballot box has closed.

[Sir George Young]

May I begin by agreeing with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the BBC journalists? I watched the BBC news last night, and what they went through was horrendous. We should never underestimate the risks that many people take in order to bring this country, and indeed the rest of the world, the truth about what is happening in countries such as Libya. I am sure that the whole House will agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Lord Hutton’s report was published today and I suspect that something might be said about it in the Budget, which would be an appropriate time to respond.

The right hon. Gentleman may have seen the exchange of correspondence on the Scotland Bill between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the shadow Secretary of State, which says that in dealing with the Bill we are following a process that has been supported by the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative party leaders in Holyrood. The motion that they have promoted states that they look

“forward to considering any amendments made to the Bill with a view to debating them in a further legislative consent motion before the Bill is passed for Royal Assent.”

As regards Westminster city council, it is 20 years since the rough sleeping initiative was started—in fact, I was Housing Minister at the time. Enormous progress has been made in reaching out to rough sleepers and I applaud the successor Government for what they did to roll out that initiative and apply it to other parts of the country. The debate is ongoing about whether those who generously supply food should be encouraged to do so in buildings, where people have access to help and support and to the housing and training they need, or whether they should continue to operate in a more unstructured way. The issue is slightly more complicated than the right hon. Gentleman has just implied, but I hope that Westminster city council will work with voluntary organisations and those who are trying to help the homeless in a way that not only reaches out to people but encourages them to abandon a lifestyle that is not in their best interests and to access those who can help them into training and jobs.

I thought the issue of succession might come up again. The practice is the same now as it has been under successive Administrations: the Prime Minister remains Prime Minister at all times but arrangements appropriate at the time will be put in place as necessary. That procedure has been adopted under successive Administrations.

Finally, let me turn to the subject of by-elections. The right hon. Gentleman may want to have a look at how well his party did in the Henley by-election before he and his colleagues draw too many conclusions about the loss of deposits. I welcome the new hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and congratulate him on achieving a more respectable turnout than the shadow Leader of the House managed when he was first elected in 1999 on a turnout of 19.9%. The BBC dropped all pretence of impartiality and ran the story, “Benn limps in after dismal vote”.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for the week commencing 7 March will be:

Monday 7 March—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 1).

Tuesday 8 March—Remaining stages of the European Union Bill.

Wednesday 9 March—Second Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill.

Thursday 10 March—There will be a general debate on the future of the coastguard service, followed by a debate on a motion relating to UN women. Both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 14 March will include:

Monday 14 March—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 2).



Tuesday 15 March—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (Day 3).

Wednesday 16 March—Opposition Day [13th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a document relating to section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008.

Thursday 17 March—General debate on north Africa and the middle east.

Friday 18 March—Private Members’ Bills.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. Given that the Government must have known that they wished to make a statement today, can he explain why a motion was not tabled yesterday to protect the time for today’s Opposition day debate, so as to allow the statement to be made at the normal moment?

I welcome the Back-Bench debate—I asked the right hon. Gentleman for one before the recess—on the momentous changes that we are seeing in the wider middle east and the hopes that we all have for the people of Libya at this difficult time. We look forward to the participation of the Foreign Secretary and the Development Secretary. We acknowledge the efforts now being made to help those affected in Libya, but can we have a commitment that there will be an oral statement following the inquiry that is under way into what went wrong at the beginning with the rescue of British citizens from Libya? There is a great deal to learn.

When the Deputy Prime Minister was asked whether he was in charge while the Prime Minister was away in the middle east last week, he replied:

“Yeah, I suppose I am. I forgot about that.”

Although we would love to forget that too, perhaps that explains why British oil workers in the desert were also forgotten about, until one of them managed to phone the “Today” programme last Wednesday morning to describe their plight. What is the point in the Deputy Prime Minister being in charge if he does not know it, and if neither he nor the Prime Minister could manage the simple task of convening a timely meeting of Cobra given that British citizens were at risk?

Will the statement also cover the Prime Minister’s strange excuse on Monday that if the UK had sent in planes earlier, the scheduled airlines might have stopped flying? In case he did not notice, they stopped flying anyway. While the Turks, the French, the Germans and the Belgians—and Belgium does not even have a Government—managed to fly their citizens out, the UK Government’s aircraft was still stuck on the runway at Gatwick in a no-fly zone all of its own. Will the statement also deal with why the Prime Minister decided yesterday to confirm that facilitation payments were made to help the evacuation? I make no criticism of those payments if that is what it took to get our people out, but I am surprised that the Prime Minister should say this publicly, because all he has done is advertise to others that in future they can demand money of us.

There is a pattern when it comes to handling crises: a Security Minister who did not tell the Prime Minister for six whole hours that a bomb had been found on a plane at East Midlands airport; a Defence Secretary who sacks RAF personnel days after the daring rescue in the Libyan desert; a Deputy Prime Minister who does not even know what his job is; and a Prime Minister who was caught napping and who could not bring himself to repeat to the House the apology that he made to the press about this mess. There is one word that sums this up: incompetence.

Can we have a statement on what has happened on compensation for the relatives of British citizens killed or injured in terrorist attacks abroad? As the Leader of the House knows, the Labour Government put that on to the statute book and the coalition promised to implement it, but as the months pass, people are asking: when will the Government keep their word?

Can we have urgent clarification from the Health Secretary that family doctors will not be able to make profits from GP commissioning, and that GP practices will not be partially floated on the stock exchange? The latest poll shows that 89% of doctors think that competition will lead to services being fragmented, while two thirds fear that competition between providers will reduce the quality of patient care. Government Members should be very worried as more is revealed about what the Health Secretary has in store for the NHS. They will know the feeling—whispered conversations in the corridors: “Why are we doing this?”, “Doesn’t sound right to me. It’s pretty unpopular”—only this time it is not trees; it is people needing medical care.

Finally, has the Leader of the House seen the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Bill being proposed by five of his Conservative colleagues, which is down for debate this Friday? Its purpose is to allow the protection of the national minimum wage to be removed in certain parts of the country. Remembering that under the last Conservative Government there was no law to prevent jobs from being advertised at £1.50 an hour, we are reminded by this Bill what the Conservatives really stand for. They will not repeat the bankers’ bonus tax on people getting millions, but some of their Members seem determined to cut the wages of people who earn £5.93 an hour. Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in condemning this outrageous proposal?

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 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 the week commencing 28 February will be as follows:

Monday 28 February—Motion relating to the big society. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 1 March—Second Reading of the Protection of Freedoms Bill.

Wednesday 2 March—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be debates on Sure Start children’s centres and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the details of which will be given in the Official Report, followed by a motion to approve the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in force of sections 1 to 9) Order 2011.

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

[The details are as follows: Sure Start Children’s Centres: 5th Report from the Children Schools and Families Committee of session 2009-10, HC 130; Government response—4th Special report from the Education Committee of session 2010-11, HC 768; and HMRC: Oral evidence taken before the Treasury Sub-Committee on 8 February 2011, HC 731-ii, and 19 January 2011, HC731-i; oral evidence taken before the Treasury Committee on 15 September 2010, HC 479; 7th Report from the Treasury Committee of session 2009-10, Administration and Expenditure of the Chancellor's Departments 2008-09, HC 156, and Government response, Cm 7917; 8th Report from the Treasury Committee of session 2006-07, The Efficiency Programme in the Chancellor’s Departments, HC 483, and Government response, 1st Special report from the Treasury committee of session 2007-08, HC 62”.]

Thursday 3 March—Opposition day (12th allotted day) (half-day) (first part). There will be a half-day debate on a Democratic Unionist party motion, subject to be announced, followed by proceedings on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Friday 4 March—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 7 March will include:

Monday 7 March—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (day 1).

Tuesday 8 March—Remaining stages of the European Union Bill.

Wednesday 9 March—Second Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill.

Thursday 10 March—There will be a debate on a motion relating to UN women. This debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee, followed by a further debate on a subject to be nominated by that Committee.



I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 17 March 2011 will be:

Thursday 17 March—A debate on articles 9 and 13 of the Bill of Rights and the role of Parliament in dealing with all grievances and the importance of freedom of communication between constituents and Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. I thank him for his clarification this week on the Scotland Bill, although the publication of the Scotland Bill committee’s report at Holyrood is, of course, only part of the legislative consent motion process, as the Scottish Parliament then has to debate the report and the legislative consent motion and vote on them. Given that the Secretary of State for Scotland has described this as the biggest transfer of fiscal powers since the Act of Union, we should wait until the process has been completed in Holyrood before proceeding with Committee stage here.

In the light of the significant developments in the middle east, do the Government have plans for a debate?

On police numbers, will the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to come and explain why she is now three weeks late answering a named-day question tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)? Is it because the Home Secretary cannot think of a way to square her commitment not to cut officers from the front line with the 1,500 police officers and staff who will go in West Yorkshire, the 480 in Merseyside, the 1,500 in Kent and the more than 1,000 in Devon and Cornwall? When senior officers are describing these as the

“biggest budget cuts for a generation”,

I think that my right hon. Friend—and the public—deserve an answer to her question.

It has been another very bad week for the Government. Youth unemployment is now at its highest level since 1992—the last time we had the misfortune of a Tory Government. One in five young people are now without work, and we discover this week that the Tories’ latest scheme for helping the young unemployed is to flog off internships with top banks at £3,000 a time at a ball to raise funds for the Conservative party. That is not so much social mobility as upwardly mobile socialising.

May we have a debate on the quality of ministerial decision making and briefing, as it has also been a very bad week for Ministers? The Prime Minister claimed yesterday that the Government are running the biggest back-to-work scheme since the 1930s—funny that, because, as historians will point out, Britain did not have any Government employment schemes worthy of the name at the time. The Education Secretary was bang to rights in court for an “abuse of power”, the Defence Secretary had to apologise to front-line soldiers for sacking them by e-mail, and the Environment Secretary has been put in special measures by the Prime Minister over the forest sale fiasco.

I welcome the statement that we are about to hear following the Prime Minister’s decision yesterday to take an axe to his own policy. I did say to the Leader of the House that the Government would have to change their mind. I wonder whether coalition Members feel any sympathy for the Environment Secretary, given that she has been briefed against this morning by No. 10 for a crazy policy that I suspect was foisted on her by the Treasury. There she was two weeks ago, racing ahead doing what she thought was wanted, and then last week she got nervous and started to apply the brakes. Now the Prime Minister has grabbed the steering wheel, and the sound of crunching gears can be heard all over Whitehall as reverse is engaged. At least we will be spared a new regulatory body to deal with privatised forests: presumably, it was to be called Ofcut.

May we have a debate on the latest bank bonuses? Last week the Chancellor trumpeted his bonus deal and called for an end to banker bashing. A couple of days later, the Business Secretary contradicted him—not for the first time—when he railed against the

“extraordinarily large bonuses which most people cannot understand”

as being

“offensive”.

No wonder—this week we saw reports that the bonus pool at Barclays is going up. There we were thinking Project Merlin was named after a wizard: now we learn it was a bird. Presumably the Chancellor had an image of himself swooping down, talons extended, to seize offensive bonuses from the mouths of greedy bankers. Now we know that he was just dropping them off. When it comes to being tough on bankers, the Chancellor is not so much a bird of prey as a great bustard flush.

Finally, will the Communities and Local Government Secretary come and explain why he criticised local government for a 78% increase in chief executives’ pay when it now turns out that this figure was actually for pay rises for chief executives in FTSE 250 companies? If the Secretary of State cannot even get the simplest facts right in his vendetta against local government, is it any wonder that local government has completely lost confidence in him?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s response, although I hope that he managed to clear all his questions in advance with the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor, as the latest leaked memo from Labour HQ has revealed is required of him and every other member of the Opposition Front-Bench team.

On the legislative consent motion, as the right hon. Gentleman said, I wrote to him and the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) following our exchanges last week, and I placed a copy of the letter in the Library. It is our understanding that the Scotland Bill committee in the Scottish Parliament will publish its LCM in the week commencing 28 February. Today’s business statement has provisionally allocated 7 March for day one of the Scotland Bill.

On police numbers, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is entitled to a reply to her named-day question. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the former Home Secretary had said that he could give no guarantee that there would be no reduction in police numbers were Labour to be re-elected.

On youth unemployment, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) said in 1995:

“Our plan is nothing less than to abolish youth unemployment.”

They left government with youth unemployment 240,000 more than when they came in. So we will have no more of that.

On internships, I welcome the announcement by you, Mr Speaker, that—with support from the Commission—an internship scheme will be initiated in the House. I encourage all hon. Members to take part in it. It is right to encourage internships and to give access to internships to those from all income groups.

On bonuses, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that there was no bonus regime under his Government. Indeed, they signed a contract with one of the banks that obliged it to go on paying bonuses at market rates. It was this Government, not his, who introduced a regime and a deal with the banks. So we will have no more on that.

As the right hon. Gentleman anticipates, we will shortly have a statement on forests.

On the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, I understand that a press statement was put out by his Department on the matter.

It has been a challenging week for the Government, but it is the week in which we have established the big society bank, with several hundreds of millions of pounds to underpin charities. It is a week in which we have put a major constitutional reform Bill on the statute book. It is also a week in which we have published the Welfare Reform Bill, the biggest reform of the welfare state for 60 years. So the coalition Government are determined to make progress with our social, economic and constitutional reforms and we will not be deflected from that task.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 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 the week commencing 14 February will be as follows:

Monday 14 February—Second Reading of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 15 February—Motion to approve a money resolution on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution on the Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill.

Wednesday 16 February— Opposition Day (11th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.



Thursday 17 February—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2011 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2011.

The House will not adjourn until the Speaker has signified Royal Assent.

Colleagues will wish to be reminded that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the February recess on Thursday 17 February and return on Monday 28 February.



The provisional business for the week commencing 28 February will include:

Monday 28 February—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.



I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 3 and 10 March will be:

Thursday 3 March—A debate on the Public Accounts Committee’s report on tackling inequalities in life expectancy in areas with the worst health and deprivation.



Thursday 10 March—A debate on the Work and Pensions Committee report on changes to housing benefit announced in the June 2010 Budget.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply.

We are due to have the Committee stage of the Scotland Bill at some point. Our clear understanding is that the legislative consent motion from Holyrood will be finalised before we start consideration in Committee. Will the Leader of the House confirm that that is still the case?

This week, we learned that more than half the donations to the Tory party have come from City financiers. A party spokesman denied that City donors were influencing policy, but may we have a debate on this?

Scarcely was the magic ink dry on Project Merlin—that was some conjuring trick—than the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman in the other place, the noble Lord Oakeshott, could contain himself no longer. He called the deal “pitiful”, the Treasury negotiators incompetent and arrogant—I wonder who he could have been thinking of—and he then said this about the bonus deal:

“Whether....paid in cash or shares....a multi-million pound bonus is still a multi-million pound bonus whether you have to wait two years to buy the yacht.”

Clearly, this was all too much for the truth deniers on the Treasury Bench, and especially his colleague the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who, it seems, sacked him live on television. Does this not all show that when it comes to the Conservatives and the “spivs and gamblers”—not my words, but those of the Business Secretary last September—they certainly are all in it together?

The truth deniers have taken another battering this morning. Some 88 Liberal Democrat council and group leaders have signed an extraordinary letter in The Times attacking their own Government. This is what they say:

“Rather than assist the country’s recovery....the cuts…will do the opposite.”

They accuse Ministers of

“chastising and denigrating local authorities through the media”

and the Communities Secretary of letting them down. May we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State so that he can finally admit that getting rid of a few chocolate biscuits and cutting a few salaries is not going to do it, and that the price of his policies will be paid by shut libraries, disappearing Sure Start centres, people losing their jobs and volunteers discovering that there is nowhere left to volunteer? That is why the big society is now in big trouble, and why advisers at No. 10 are trying to blame each other for the mess. So may we have a debate on the deep sense of betrayal that many in the voluntary sector feel, because having been marched up the big society hill, they now discover that on the other side there is not a pot of gold, but a precipice? Is that what Lib Dem MPs really signed up for last May?

To cap what has been a terrible week for Ministers, we heard this morning the sad news that the Deputy Prime Minister has had to cancel his trip to Latin America because the Government have been defeated again in the House of Lords on their gerrymandering Bill. Frankly, I am surprised that the Deputy Prime Minister has not taken the opportunity to flee the country after the battering he received on television last night from angry students. Still, Rio de Janeiro is just about waking up to the news that it will not be enjoying his company next week, and I would not be surprised if the students there try to bring forward the carnival and take to the streets to celebrate.

The House was surprised to discover this week that the Department for International Development gave nearly £2 million of its precious development budget not to vaccinate children or put them into a classroom, but to help pay for the costs of the Pope’s visit to the UK. May we have a debate on this extraordinary use of our development spending, and will the Leader of the House assure us that when the DFID aid reviews are complete they will be reported to the House by the Secretary of State in an oral statement?

Finally, I have been reading the Leader of the House’s blog again and very interesting it is too. I was particularly intrigued to see that he described answering business questions as

“like being in a pub quiz”.

As he invites me, and as almost everyone in the country now accepts that the cuts are being made too fast and are too deep, I will ask a question that is puzzling many people and perhaps he can provide the answer: why on earth should anyone vote Lib Dem in May? And for the bonus question: why should anyone vote Tory either?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that. I note that in our exchanges over the past four months he has never actually challenged the business that I have laid before the House. I hope that there is a broad consensus on the way in which the Government are conducting the business and putting it before the House, and that that is commanding support on both sides.

On the legislative consent motion, it is indeed our intention to secure that before we reach the appropriate stage in proceedings on the Scotland Bill, and I will contact my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to confirm that. We would be more than happy to debate party funding and draw attention to the fact that some 80% of the Labour party’s funding comes from the trade unions, whereas my party has a much broader base. Any notion that we are over-influenced by any donations we may get from the City might have been destroyed by the statement on Wednesday, when £800 million was extracted from the banks in the City. I hope that will put an end to that particular myth.

On the statement made yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, it was the Labour party that gave a substantial sum of money to the banks and got absolutely nothing in return. By contrast, as the right hon. Gentleman will have seen from the statement that we made yesterday, we secured substantial concessions from the banks—on lower bonuses, on more support, and on money for the big society bank. He needs to contrast the deal that we got with the deal that his party totally failed to secure.

I have indeed read the letter in The Times today from the Liberal Democrat councillors, and let me just remind the right hon. Gentleman of what it said:

“Local government has made efficiency savings of 3% in each of the past eight years—in stark contrast to the runaway spending of central government under the previous administration. We’ve also been planning for further saving since the true state of the economy became apparent six months ago.”

So that is where they are coming from.

On the next issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised about local government, we had a substantial debate yesterday about local government. The fact is that we are borrowing an extra £400 million every day to plug the gap between spending and income, and that means tough decisions for all Departments, including the Department for Communities and Local Government. The right thing to do is now to sort out the deficit and end Whitehall domination of local government.

On local government funding and closures, may I remind the right hon. Gentleman of what the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) said when she was Culture Minister? She published a libraries consultation paper, in which she said:

“I don’t think Government should prevent authorities from taking local decisions to close libraries if that makes sense locally and the needs of the community are taken into account”.

We hope that local authorities will respond to the challenges that face them and that they will have a comprehensive and efficient library service, which is what they are required to do by statute.

On the Deputy Prime Minister’s movements, the Bill on which we are debating Lords amendments next week is a Bill that he is sponsoring and it is entirely appropriate that he should be here to support it in the House. On the Department for International Development, the Catholic Church does a fantastic amount in terms of aid to underdeveloped countries and it seems entirely right that we should have recognised that in the support we gave to the Pope’s visit. Finally, we look forward to the local government elections and we are confident of not only retaining the seats we have, but winning even more seats from the Opposition, who are still in total denial about the problems that they have left this country with.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for the week commencing 7 February will be:

Monday 7 February—Opposition day (un-allotted day) [half-day] [first part]. There will be a half-day debate on Government policy on the cost of fuel. This debate will arise on a Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru motion, followed by motions relating to the 10th report from the Standards and Privileges Committee on the registration of income from employment and the eighth report of session 2008-09 from the Standards and Privileges Committee on all-party groups.

Tuesday 8 February—Second Reading of the Education Bill.

Wednesday 9 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.

Thursday 10 February—Motion relating to voting by prisoners. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 11 February—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 14 February will include:

Monday 14 February—Second Reading of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords].

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 17 February will be a debate on a Transport Committee report: Priorities for investment in the railways.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. On his submission to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority review, which has been published this morning in a written statement, may I welcome what it says about the need for fundamental reform? That view is forcefully shared right across the House, and we all hope that IPSA will listen.

On counter-terrorism, the shadow Home Secretary has offered cross-party talks to draft emergency legislation, but it is still not in the Library. The Government said in their review last week that using a statutory instrument would be very difficult in the event of a major incident. May we have an update?

Last night, we saw just how unpopular the plan is to sell off our woodlands and forests, with several Members on the Government Benches voting against the Government. Lib Dems will have noticed that they do not have a single Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I pity them, having to reply to all those e-mails to explain why they voted for a policy that they must, in their hearts, loathe. At least their president, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), had the courage to speak out and vote with us on that. May we have a detailed statement from the Environment Secretary on the extraordinary claim she made this week, which was repeated by the Prime Minister yesterday, that the reason for the sale is an apparent conflict of interest between the Forestry Commission’s roles as a regulator and as a seller of timber? As a former Environment Secretary, may I tell the Leader of the House that, in my three years in the job, not a single person raised this matter with me? The House is entitled to know what the Secretary of State has discovered in just nine months that none of her predecessors worried about in the 90 years since the Forestry Commission was founded. This is a bad policy looking for an excuse.

I must hand it to the Government, however, and give them credit where it is due. Given that the proposal might not even save any money, it takes a special kind of genius to unite just about everyone else against it. The truth is that people do not agree with it and they do not want it; even No. 10 is now briefing that it does not think it has been very well presented. So not for the first time I say to the right hon. Gentleman that the Government are going to have to change their mind.

Talking of which, there has been much comment this week about the Prime Minister having to come to the rescue of the Health and Social Care Bill because it, too, has been poorly presented. Will the Prime Minister come to the House to explain whether he blames himself for that, given the revelation this week that he is having trouble persuading his own brother-in-law, an NHS cardiologist, that the upheaval is a good idea? His brother-in-law is apparently worried that hospitals will be disadvantaged. If the Prime Minister cannot even reassure his own family about the proposals—and the Health Secretary certainly cannot persuade the House—is it any wonder that the public are not buying them? Will the Leader of the House ensure that we have enough time in Committee properly to consider the Bill, because, to judge from the Second Reading debate, there are still far more questions than there are answers?

May we have a debate on one of the greatest achievements of the previous Labour Government: Sure Start? [Interruption.] It is interesting to hear Conservative Members jeering Sure Start. Before the election, the Prime Minister went up and down the country—we have certainly heard that one before—saying that he was strongly committed to it. He promised that he would back it. He even had the nerve to criticise my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) for trying to frighten people about this; and his right-hand man, who is now the Education Secretary, said:

“On Sure Start, we won’t cut funding”.

It could not have been clearer. Except that we now learn that the budget is going to be cut. A survey by the Daycare Trust and 4Children shows that 250 Sure Start centres are expected to close in the next 12 months, and six of them are going to be chopped by the Tories’ own flagship borough, Hammersmith and Fulham. It is no wonder that parents are worried sick. Another week, another betrayal. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why anyone should now trust any promise made by the Prime Minister before 6 May?

Finally, I have not only been reading the Leader of the House’s submission to IPSA; I have also been reading his blog. Musing on hard times, he wrote:

“I predict that The Times list of the most popular girls’ names in the year may include a new one—Austerity.”

May I predict in return that, when it comes to boys’ names this year, Dave, George and Nick are not going to be very popular? If the right hon. Gentleman is looking for alternatives, may I suggest Complacency, Incompetency and, as for the Deputy Prime Minister, that is a really easy one: Duplicity? What is in a name? A lot!

[Mr Speaker]

I think I will take the last observation as a joke, but in any other context the use of the word “duplicity” would not be appropriate. I am sure, however, that good humour is what was intended by the shadow Leader of the House.

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed it was, Mr Speaker.

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman’s punchline did not work.

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about IPSA. I am absolutely clear in my own mind that we must adhere to the principle of the independent setting of our allowances; we cannot go back to the bad old days. I am equally clear that we must stick with the principle of transparency. On the other hand, IPSA must recognise that the allowances are meant to support us in the job we were sent here to do: fighting for our constituents, holding the Government to account, and scrutinising legislation. In many respects, the current administration and structure of allowances get in the way of our doing that job. I therefore very much hope that IPSA is able to respond to the representations I have made, and to those which I hope other colleagues will also make, and that it will come up with a revised system that enables us to get on with the job we were sent here to do.

On control orders, I welcome the opportunity of cross-party talks, and I will certainly pursue with the Home Secretary the issue the right hon. Gentleman raised.

We had an extensive debate on forests yesterday, and a lot of the exchanges today were also focused on the forests, so I cannot promise time for an extra debate. I welcome yesterday’s debate however, in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs dismissed many of the myths surrounding our proposals, explained that this was an opportunity to improve the levels of public benefit from our woodlands, and drew attention to the fact that the previous Government sold off 25,000 acres of woodland with a bare minimum of protection. There will be no further debate on that subject for the time being therefore, but we are, of course, consulting and listening, as both the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday.

On the health reforms, we are simply carrying out the policy of the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). This is what he said to the Liaison Committee a few years ago:

“We have been asking in people from the private sector to review what we can do to give them a better chance to compete for contracts…so the independent sector increases its role, will continue to increase its role and, in a wider and broader range of areas, will have a bigger role in the years to come.”

He went on to say:

“The test at the end of the day is not private versus public, it is value for money, and it is not dogmatic to support one against the other.”

I therefore hope the Opposition will support what we are doing: driving forward the agenda set out by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

On Sure Start, there are sufficient resources in the programme to maintain the existing structure of Sure Start children’s centres, so I reject the accusation that was made.

The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) asked for more time for the Health and Social Care Bill. The Opposition did not vote against the programme motion setting out the time available for the Bill, so it is astonishing that he should raise that subject now.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s final point, perhaps Prudence would have been a more appropriate name.

Parliamentary Reform

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing for us this debate, with the support of the Backbench Business Committee. The turnout shows how many hon. Members want to discuss the subject. For me, what ran like a thread through all the speeches this afternoon was a passion for this place because of what it can do for the people whom we represent. That is why this issue matters.

Like others, I pay tribute to those who have worked to bring about reform, including, certainly in the past year or so, the Wright Committee. I pay tribute to the former Leader of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and to the current Leader of the House for the work that they have done to improve the way in which Parliament operates.

The other thing that has been striking about today’s debate is the number of hon. Members who have come along and said, “My mind has been moved by my experience in the House.” It is very encouraging to see so many newly elected Members here. People’s minds have also been moved by the quality of the argument and the force of the case that has been put. We owe a lot to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion for the cogent and forceful way in which she has argued the case.

The hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) referred to recent events surrounding the resignation of the hon. Member for Belfast West. The Leader of the House has been so good as to come and listen to the debate, although he is not winding up. When I suggested a change in the system, because I believe that if a Member wants to resign, they ought to be able to write to the Speaker and say, “I hereby resign from the House of Commons,” the Leader of the House chided me slightly by saying that our procedure for the Chiltern hundreds had stood us in good stead for, as I recall, some 260 years and the Government were not inclined to change it. His reputation as a reformer goes before him. I trust that that is not an argument that we will hear deployed too often when we come to debate some of the other changes that have been discussed this afternoon, because the response to any proposal put forward by hon. Members should be that it will be considered on its merits. We certainly should not argue, “Well, we’ve always done it this way.” We should argue the case, listen to the different views—we have heard a very wide range of views this afternoon—and make a decision.

The work of the Wright Committee and others has meant that real change has happened. The election of Select Committee Chairs and membership has been a very important step in taking those positions away from the power of Governments and Whips and putting them in the hands of hon. Members. Select Committees are a very powerful force in the House. The change has been an important assertion of the principle of independent scrutiny of what the Executive do.

More urgent questions have been granted. I pay tribute, if one can without breaching parliamentary order, to Mr Speaker, because he has certainly increased the number that are granted. The fact that more Back Benchers are now called to ask questions—business questions and others—has helped to re-energise the Chamber.

For me, however, the most significant change of the lot has been the creation of the Backbench Business Committee. In fairness, a reading of history would probably suggest that the Executive really grabbed control of time at some point in the 17th century. The creation of the Backbench Business Committee has wrested back for Back Benchers the opportunity to determine what we debate, how we debate it and whether it is put to a vote. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) for the skill with which she has chaired the Committee and for the really open way in which she and the other members of the Committee meet every week and say to hon. Members, “Come and tell us what you want to discuss.”

The salon, so christened by the Leader of the House, is an open and transparent way for Members to have the chance to say, “This is what we would like to discuss.” It is a profound change, and we are still getting to grips with it, but one occasion crystallises the force of the change in my mind. That was the first of the Backbench Business Committee’s debates, on contaminated blood, which included a vote. I have never encountered such a thing in my time in the House. We have seen that same force in this afternoon’s debates, and there will be another example next week with the debate on voting rights for prisoners.

[Mr Bone]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point. On transparency—he was discussing votes—does he share my desire that, in order for people to see what is really going on in Parliament, if voting is organised by the business manager, in other words it is whipped, it should be displayed in public and recorded in Hansard? If the party is whipping people to vote in a particular way, those outside should be able to see it.

[Chris Bryant]

They could tweet it.

[Hilary Benn]

From a sedentary position, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) suggests how it could be done.

I am not convinced that that is the most urgent of the reforms that is needed. The truth is that there is a tension here. On the one hand, we are members of parties; some are on their own and others have more around them, but that is part of the reason why we are elected to this place. We may or may not have great qualities as individuals, but we are elected because of what we represent, but that bringing together enables Parliament to do business. The other part of the tension is how that impinges on Members exercising their independent judgment, a point that I shall return to in a moment.

I welcome the Procedure Committee’s report on ministerial statements, and its inquiry into sitting hours. I sense that we have a moment for further reform. Today’s debate demonstrates that, not least because there are long-standing Members here today who have expressed an interest and shared their views with us, and there are many new Members here—a large number of new Members. That is why the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has done us such a great service. One thing that struck me today, which is not always the case in all debates, was that as the hon. Lady spoke—indeed, as all hon. Members spoke—every one of us was listening intently to what was being said, which is how it should be. That is a characteristic of Westminster Hall, and sometimes—and sometimes not—it is a characteristic of the main Chamber, which tells us something about the importance of our discussion.

Turning to the specific proposals, I agree that we should consider ways to provide greater certainty about when votes are taking place, and I am all for considering ways to speed up the process. However, the chance for Members to come together collectively is important, and it is the reason for the proposed change. On sitting hours, I am in favour of returning to 11.30 am to 7 pm on Tuesdays, and I am in favour of moving private Members’ Bills to Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. It is wrong that Members should have to make a choice on a Friday between their constituency responsibilities—many choose to exercise them, myself included—and considering legislation. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), I agree that Bills should be disposed of by a vote and not by trying to talk them out.

[Joan Ruddock]

I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm that when we sat three hours earlier on Tuesdays, it was possible for all Parliament’s business to function perfectly well, including the Speaker, the Committees, the staff and everyone else. Those hours have huge value, because they provide the scope for private Members’ Bills and the certainty of Friday being a constituency day.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely. The neatness to the solution of having private Members’ Bills on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings is this. One of the arguments against the old hours was that, “Well, the place is dead in the evenings,” but there would be plenty to discuss for those who wish to stay and take part. That would acknowledge the fact that we have responsibilities to our constituencies, which we all understand, and would not put us in a bind.

As for amendments and explanations, I am absolutely in favour of the recommendation. We had an experiment, but not everyone did so. A simple way to ensure that everybody does it is to say that those who want to table an amendment must offer an explanation or it will not be considered.

Turning to the broader questions, many hon. Members have mentioned balancing competing pressures on time, and we happen to be sitting in one of the solutions. The Adjournment debates that take place in Westminster Hall are hugely important for Back Benchers who want to raise issues and get an answer from Ministers. A number of ideas relating to that have been suggested by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) and others. The Procedure Committee has recommended that we use this place to question Ministers on written ministerial statements, which is a most sensible suggestion that I hope the House will adopt. The other question is who should control the time, as we seek to expand it to deal with the competing demands.

The second matter is the fundamental one of the balance of power between the legislature and the Executive.

[Chris Bryant]

By convention, constitutional Bills are dealt with entirely on the Floor of the House. In practice, the process of going through them line by line means that we end up with fewer hours of debate. I wonder whether there is a means of having those debates in Westminster Hall, so as to allow a longer debate, more in the style of a normal sitting on the Committee corridor, but with the votes still being held in the main Chamber.

[Hilary Benn]

That would be one way of addressing some of the pressures that we have been discussing. I shall return in a moment to how we could take it all forward.

I was a local councillor for 20 years and, picking up on a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher), when I was first elected to the House, I was astonished at the lack of scrutiny of expenditure, because councillors went through every year’s budget line by line. We have a lot of means by which to hold the Executive to account, if we choose to exercise them, and we can discuss ways to acquire more means. My right hon. Friend has made a number of suggestions on that point.

The third question is how Parliament is seen and covered by the media. I regret the fact that there is more commentary and sketch writing about what is said in Parliament than there is reporting of what parliamentarians say. It is a bit like “Match of the Day” having about five minutes of football and 55 minutes of analysis. We have to get the balance right, but it is up to us.

We should think back to the tuition fees debate, when a wide range of views was expressed. That day, the eyes of the nation were on Parliament. My son told me that he went to the bar at university and saw something that he had never seen before—students watching the Parliament channel on television. On that day, people were looking to us, because we were debating something important. When the bankers appeared before the Treasury Committee—those folk had contributed somewhat to the economic difficulties that we face—people were interested in the process.

The fourth question is how we legislate. I agree with the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and others about the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny. With the benefit of some ministerial experience, I can say that Governments of all colours do not draft perfect legislation. The notion that the Government should unveil legislation in the House and then repel all boarders, wherever they come from, is nonsense. The act of scrutinising legislation, both pre-legislative and in Committee, means that we end up with better legislation, which is what we want. That process tests the legislation, and things that have not been thought of are exposed. I agree with those who say that we should have the chance to vote on proposals, and not see them slip off the edge of the Order Paper. The Government should have the courage of the argument and respect the vote.

Turning to how representative we are, we have not touched on House of Lords reform, because that would have taken all of our time, but I am wholly in favour of the second Chamber being 100% elected. It should be part of the system of checks and balances while recognising that the first elected Chamber should ultimately have its way.

Where do we go now? We need a process to take forward the ferment of ideas that we have heard this afternoon, and we must not lose the moment—for reasons that many Members have mentioned. The Procedure Committee, which is ably chaired by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight)—I am sorry that he is not well and we have sent our best wishes to him—is the furnace from which the ideas should come. The ideas should be presented to us; we can debate them and then have a chance to vote on them. Completely different views have been expressed this afternoon, which is great. In the end, though, we have to have a mechanism for deciding whether or not we are going to do something. Voting is a wonderful way in which we can try to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable.

Finally, why does this all matter? My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) expressed it on behalf of us all when she said that people look to this Parliament to be the forum for national debate. They want to see that their voices are heard. They want to see us solving their problems and they want their hopes and aspirations realised by what we do. In the words of the prayer, we seek

“to improve the condition of all mankind”—

I would change that to humankind—and it is good to reflect on that when we start the day. The truth is that our democracy is our best and only hope of doing those things; it is our Parliament, so let us make it work for the people whom we have the privilege of representing.