Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 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 of the House for next week is as follows:

Monday 31 January—Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill.

Tuesday 1 February—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 5).

Wednesday 2 February—Opposition Day [10th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on the performance of the Business, Innovation and Skills Department followed by a debate on the future of the Public Forest Estate in England. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion, followed by a motion to approve European documents relating to the Court of Auditors’ 2009 report.

Thursday 3 February—Motion relating to consumer credit regulation and debt management, followed by a general debate on reform of legal aid. The subjects for both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 4 February—Private Members’ Bills.

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

Monday 7 February—Opposition Day [un-allotted day] [half day] [first part]. There will be a half-day debate on a Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru motion.

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.

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

Thursday 10 February—A debate on onshore wind energy.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his statement. Will he clarify what the rest of the business will be on 7 February, apart from the half-day Opposition debate he has just mentioned?

Last Friday, the then Member for Belfast West wrote to you, Mr Speaker, seeking to resign as a Member of Parliament, but as we know, such a letter has no effect, as the only way for a Member to resign is to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. On Monday, the Treasury told the BBC that no such application had been received, and yet yesterday we were informed by the Prime Minister that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had appointed Mr Adams as Baron of the Manor of Northstead.

The Chancellor’s power effectively to disqualify a Member must be exercised correctly. It does not seem that in this case that long-standing precedent was followed, so can the Chancellor come to the House and tell us when he received a letter from Mr Adams applying for the Chiltern Hundreds or, if he received no such application, explain on what basis he appointed Mr Adams to the post previously mentioned, given that “Erskine May” states that those offices are

“given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to any Member who applies for them”?

Does the Leader of the House agree that it is time we changed these ancient ways of enabling Members to step down and moved to a simple system whereby a Member can write to you, Mr Speaker, to resign?

Last week, the Leader of the House said in answer to a question that

“this Government did something that the previous Government refused to do—we set up the Backbench Business Committee”—[Official Report, 20 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 1025.]

I gently point out to him, in the interests of accuracy, that the decision to set up that Committee was in fact taken by the House on 4 March 2010, when we were in government and Members agreed to a motion moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman).

Can we have a debate on the Government’s handling of the economy? Only a few weeks ago, the Chancellor assured us that the recovery was on track. On Tuesday, we discovered that growth has in fact stalled. The Chancellor blamed the snow. It is not the wrong kind of snow; it is the wrong kind of policies. That is why the outgoing director general of the CBI, Sir Richard Lambert, this week warned that the Government have no strategy for growth and criticised Ministers for being

“careless of the damage they might do to business and to job creation”

Yesterday, George Soros said that the cuts could not be implemented without pushing the economy into a recession. Is it any wonder, therefore, that families up and down the country, who are worried about their jobs, rising prices and falling incomes, are beginning to ask themselves whether this lot know what they are doing?

Can we have a debate on the shambolic way in which the counter-terrorism review has been conducted? Last Thursday, the Immigration Minister promised that the draft emergency legislation on detention would be placed in the Library of the House. It has still not appeared. Will the Leader of the House tell his colleagues that when they promise to put something in the Library, Members expect it to be available soon? It is now all too obvious that that legislation is not ready.

In opposition, the Lib Dems criticised the Labour Government’s approach to dealing with terrorism and made another of those firm pledges—a firm pledge to scrap control orders. In the past few weeks there has been a lot of bravado briefing by the Deputy Prime Minister, promising that the orders would go, yet what was announced yesterday? Control orders by another name—with curfews replaced by “overnight residence requirements”. Liberty is very unhappy this morning, saying that control orders have been “retained and rebranded”. Why has that happened? Because the Government have rightly recognised that there is a threat to the public from which we need to be protected, and the responsibility that comes from being in government has finally dawned even on the Deputy Prime Minister.

Following the release of the extraordinary photographs showing the dismantling of the £4 billion fleet of Nimrod long-range reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft, which will then apparently be sliced up in an industrial shredder, can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Defence on the letter that the six former defence chiefs have sent today, describing the decision to destroy the aircraft as “perverse” and warning that it will create

“a massive gap in British security”

Finally, can we have a debate on the machinery of government? Because it is pretty clear, from what has been going on this week, that this Government are not actually very good at governing.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his points. The business for the week after next is always provisional and changes are made, so at this stage I cannot announce the business for the second half of that Monday, but it is unlikely to be Government legislation.

On the substantive issue the right hon. Gentleman raises about Gerry Adams, as the right hon. Gentleman said, Gerry Adams wrote on 20 January making it absolutely clear that he wanted to relinquish his seat and stand in the Irish general election. As Gerry Adams should have known, a Member of Parliament may not resign; there are no means by which a Member may vacate his or her seat during the lifetime of a Parliament, other than by death, disqualification or expulsion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, therefore, in line with long-standing precedent granted Mr Adams the office of profit under the Crown of steward and bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, so we delivered Mr Gerry Adams to the required destination, although he may have used a vehicle and a route that was not of his choosing.

Yesterday, Mr Speaker, you informed the House that, owing to that appointment, Gerry Adams was thereby disqualified from membership of the House by virtue of section 1 of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. You also stated:

“The Chancellor of the Exchequer has exercised his responsibilities”;

and:

“He has done so in an entirely orderly way.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 405.]

During the subsequent exchanges, Members raised the hypothetical possibility of a future Chancellor appointing a Member without a firm application for a relevant post from that Member. I find it inconceivable that such a situation would occur; it is a matter of constitutional principle that a Chancellor does not act without an unambiguous request from a Member to relinquish his or her seat. In this case, that request was a letter of resignation. In addition, there is a protection in the form of provision in the 1975 Act for a Member not to accept any office that would lead to his or her disqualification. I have to say in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s final point on the matter that this law on resignation from the House has served us well for 260 years—and the Government have no plans to change it.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s next point, I am amazed that he raises the issue of the Backbench Business Committee. The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), and I consistently raised the previous Government’s failure to enact the establishment of such a Committee, but my predecessor as Leader of the House refused to bring forward the relevant motions, so it was indeed this Government who established the Backbench Business Committee. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman ventures into that territory.

On the economy, if only the right hon. Gentleman’s party had bequeathed to the coalition what we bequeathed to Labour in 1997, we would not face the problems that we face today. We bequeathed a golden inheritance: fast growth, falling unemployment and decreasing inflation. Let us compare that with what Labour left behind: a trillion pounds of debt for the first time ever, the largest deficit in the G20 and in our peacetime history, and the deepest and longest recession in the G20. He quoted Richard Lambert, who also said that

“the tax and spending policies of the last Government created a substantial structural deficit…That’s what made substantial spending cuts inevitable, irrespective of who won the last election.”

He went on to say that

“public finances in the UK are in a mess, to a degree that threatens our long-term economic stability.”

On counter-terrorism, the Home Secretary made a statement yesterday, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, and answered some of the questions that he has raised. The Government will subject draft emergency legislation on 28-day pre-charge detention to pre-legislative scrutiny. That is currently being drafted and will be deposited in the Library of the House shortly. I was here when my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration made the statement last week. He did not give a specific time when the draft legislation would go into the Library. We will set out the suggested approach for the scrutiny when the draft Bill has been completed, although that is, of course, a matter for the House.

The decision to cancel the Nimrod project was not taken lightly by Ministers and service chiefs. It is a consequence of the £38 billion deficit in the defence budget that we inherited from the outgoing Government. The project was nine years late and involved a cost increase of 300%. None of the nine aircraft was operational, only one was fully constructed and that one had not passed its flight tests. The cancellation will save £2 billion over 10 years. Since the Nimrod MR2 was taken out of service by the previous Government in March last year, the impact has been mitigated by the use of other military assets, including Type 22 frigates, Merlin anti-submarine helicopters and Hercules C-130 aircraft, and by working with allies and partners where appropriate.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 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 next week is as follows:

Monday 24 January—Continuation of Consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 2).

Tuesday 25 January— Continuation of Consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 3).

Wednesday 26 January—Continuation of Consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 4).

Thursday 27 January—Second Reading of the Scotland Bill.

The provisional business for the week commencing 31 January will include:

Monday 31 January—Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill.

Tuesday 1 February—Conclusion of Consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 5).

Wednesday 2 February—Opposition Day [10th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced, followed by motion to approve European documents relating to Her Majesty’s Treasury.

Thursday 3 February—Motion relating to consumer credit regulation and debt management, followed by a general debate on reform of Legal Aid. The subjects for both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 4 February—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 3 February will be a debate on parliamentary reform.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for that statement. Given what we have just heard from the Minister for Immigration, will the Leader of the House please consider bringing forward the Home Secretary’s statement to Monday, as has been suggested on both sides of the House.

The Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill really cannot come soon enough, because it has not been a very good week for the Government’s NHS reforms, has it? On Monday, the Prime Minister was completely unable to explain why spending billions of pounds on turning everything upside down will actually help patients, especially when, as John Humphrys helpfully pointed out, we have seen big improvements over the past 13 years. On Tuesday, the Health Committee called the changes “disruptive”, stating that they were creating “widespread uncertainty” and had taken the NHS by surprise. Could that be because the Prime Minister assured people before the election, when he was going around the country making promises as opposed to breaking them, that there would be no top-down reorganisation?

Yesterday, the Prime Minister could not answer a very simple question from the Leader of the Opposition. Three times he was asked to confirm that waiting times for NHS patients would not rise as a result of what he is doing, and three times he failed to do so. This is very strange. If all the upheaval really is about a better deal for patients, why can the Prime Minister not make that simple promise? Is not the truth that he just knows he cannot do so, because the Health Secretary took his colleagues by surprise with his plans, and the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), has to be brought in because No. 10 got the jitters. It is the same old story: the Tories in charge of the NHS spells trouble. Is that why the Education Secretary yesterday told people from the Dispatch Box to vote Liberal Democrat?

Moving on to another broken promise—namely, that those with the broadest shoulders would bear the greatest burden—may we have a debate on the plan to take the mobility component of disability living allowance away from people living in care homes? When the Prime Minister was asked about this last week, he said that

“there should be a similar approach for people who are in hospital and for people who are in residential care homes.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 282.]

That reply shows exactly why the Prime Minister does not get it. The right comparison for people in care homes is not with those who are in hospital, who do not plan to live there, but with those living in their own homes, and they will continue to get help with their mobility. The Government will have to change their mind on that issue, just as they had to on school sport and are in the process of doing on prisoners voting. It is wrong, it is unfair and it hits those whose shoulders cannot be described as the broadest, and, when those people find out that their current support, which enables them to go to the shops, to church, or to see friends and family, is being taken by the Prime Minister, there will be outrage.

Talking of which, may we also have a debate on the plans to sell off the nation’s much loved woodlands and forests? The last time the Tories were in office, that is exactly what they did, and they are at it again—only this time with Liberal Democrat support. Now, that is very strange, too, because visitors to the Scottish Lib Dem website can find a page opposing the sale of forests. There is a photo on it of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, looking very stern and holding a placard that says “Save our Forests”.

In case Members are somewhat puzzled, it seems that the Chief Secretary is passionately opposed to selling off forests in Scotland but wholly in favour of the sale of forests in England. If there is one thing that is even worse than breaking one’s promise, it is saying one thing in one place and the exact opposite in another—but as all of us know, the Lib Dems are world-class at that. I know that the Leader of the House will agree to my request for a debate, because he supports the procedure whereby petitions with more than 100,000 signatures trigger a debate in Parliament. So if I tell him that the petition opposing the sale of our forests has 160,000 names on it, and it does, can he tell us on what date that debate will take place?

Topical questions have been very effective in helping to hold Ministers to account. Does the Leader of the House agree that we should extend them to those Departments that still do not have them?

Finally, on 8 March we will celebrate the centenary of international women’s day. As the Leader of the House will be aware, for a number of years there has been a debate in the House on that day, so will he join me in encouraging the Backbench Business Committee to mark that special occasion?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the points that he makes. He asks for a debate on the Health and Social Care Bill, and he is getting one, as I have just announced, so all the issues that he has just raised can be dealt with then. We made a commitment, which his party did not, to spend more on the NHS, and we are reforming it to put more resources into front-line services. Against that background, the prospects for those on waiting lists or those concerned about waiting times are better under this Administration than they would have been had his party been elected.

The right hon. Gentleman asks for a debate on disability living allowance, and I recognise the concerns about that. He can have a debate about DLA: again, I announced that there would be a debate on an Opposition motion the week after next, so he can choose to debate DLA. I recognise the concern, but I hope he accepts that there are complicated issues. There are contractual obligations on certain care homes to make provision for some elements of mobility; some local authorities have requirements as part of their contracts with care homes to make provision for mobility; and people in residential homes are by and large sponsored by social services, but some are sponsored by the NHS, so different conditions apply. On the broader issue, we are consulting to see how the specific provisions on DLA will be introduced, and primary legislation will be necessary to make any changes to its mobility component.

Under the previous regime the Forestry Commission sold many thousands of acres without any requirements at all, but if the current proposals go through there will be specific requirements on those who acquire assets from the national forest to continue to make provision for access and other concerns—requirements that do not apply at the moment. So making transfers from the Forestry Commission to other owners will not have the adverse consequences that the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

We had an exchange on petitions that achieve a certain number of signatures, which my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House answered. If the trigger is reached and a petition hits the 100,000 mark, it becomes eligible for a debate, and its future is then decided by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who is in her place.

I have a lot of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman’s point about a topical slot for those Departments with 30-minute Question Times: the Department for International Development and, I think, those for Scotland and Wales.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 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 17 January will be as follows:

Monday 17 January—Second Reading of the Localism Bill.

Tuesday 18 January—Remaining stages of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.

Wednesday 19 January—Opposition Day [9th Allotted Day]. There will be a full day’s debate on education maintenance allowance which will arise on an Opposition motion, followed by a motion to approve a Statutory Instrument relating to proscribed organisations.

Thursday 20 January—Motion relating to the future of the horse racing levy, followed by a general debate on improving life chances for disadvantaged children. The subjects of both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 21 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 24 January will include

Monday 24 January—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 2).

Tuesday 25 January—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 3).

Wednesday 26 January—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (Day 4).

Thursday 27 January—Second Reading of the Scotland Bill.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 27 January will be a debate on a Communities and Local Government Committee report entitled “Beyond Decent Homes”.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement, and may I wish all Members and you, Mr Speaker, a very happy new year?

After a week in which the Government have made it clear that while they will act to make it easier for people at work to be sacked, they will not act on bankers’ bonuses—as we have just heard—thereby breaking a pledge on the very first page of the coalition agreement. May we have a debate on “all in it togetherness” so that the House can discuss just how let down by this Government the British people feel?

On Monday, the Leader of the Opposition proposed that last year’s bonus tax, which raised more money than the Government’s levy, be applied again. On Tuesday, the Chancellor, in what was a truly dismal performance at the Dispatch Box—it was all waffle and wind—had nothing to say about what will actually be done to tackle unacceptable bonuses. Therefore, as the Chancellor is not up to the job, and as the Deputy Prime Minister is not much better—his contribution this week was to ask banks to be

“sensitive to the public mood”—

may we have a statement from the Prime Minister? After all, it was he who made an unequivocal pledge that if bankers

“decide to pay themselves big bonuses...they should know”

that a Conservative Government will step in. He also promised that in banks where the taxpayer has a large stake, no cash bonus would be more than £2,000. Yet yesterday we learned that the boss of Lloyds—which has a 41% taxpayer stake—is in line for a bonus not of £2,000 but of £2 million. What is going to be done about this? What is the Prime Minister waiting for? When is he going to act?

Surely it cannot be that the Prime Minister is afraid about the use of nuclear weapons. I do not mean to start the year on a downbeat note but, as we know, just before Christmas the Business Secretary, who has now left the Chamber, revealed that being in the coalition was like fighting a war:

“They know I have nuclear weapons, but I don’t have any conventional weapons. If they push me too far then I can walk out of the Government and bring the Government down.”

Of course we on the Opposition Benches wish the Business Secretary every success in this endeavour, but it does not say much for the unity of the coalition.

On which subject, the Business Secretary also had this to say—same interview, same bogus constituents—about broken promises:

“They”—

he is referring to his Cabinet colleagues—

“made a pledge not to do anything about universal child benefit. Cameron had personally pledged not to do it, so they had to bite this bullet…they haven’t yet done winter fuel payments, but that’s coming, I think.”

May we have a statement to confirm whether the Business Secretary was right in inadvertently telling pensioners that a reduction in their winter fuel payments is coming?

As we know, the main consequence of the Business Secretary’s comments on the other war he has been engaged in—the one with Rupert Murdoch—was that his responsibilities for media and broadcasting policy were instantly taken away from him. Yet as we have just heard, getting on for a month later there has still been no detailed statement clarifying exactly what areas of policy and which staff have been moved. One result, as you heard earlier this week, Mr Speaker, is that the Table Office is unsure where questions should be directed. This is clearly unsatisfactory and unacceptable, so will the Leader tell us when we can expect a statement on who is responsible for what?

The latest broken pledge is on VAT. It went up to 20% last week, even though before the election the Prime Minister could not have been clearer when he told the British people:

“Our plans don’t involve an increase in VAT.”

May we therefore have a debate on why—first it was education maintenance allowance, then it was child benefit, then it was top-down reorganisation of the NHS, then it was tuition fees, then it was cuts to front-line services, and now it is VAT—the Government have broken one promise after another? Is it any wonder that public confidence in the Government is draining away, because they cannot keep their word, their members are at war with each other, and they cannot find the bottle to deal with the banks?

Finally, as it is the new year, on a consensual note, will the Leader of the House tell the House whether the Government plan to make a submission to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority consultation?

[Sir George Young]

May I begin by reciprocating the right hon. Gentleman’s very good wishes for the new year, and join him in extending those to you, Mr Speaker, and the whole of the House?

We will take no lectures from the Opposition about the banks, because the regime that is currently operating is the one we inherited from them. The right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Government who signed the contract with RBS, obliging it to pay market-based bonuses this year. We regard that framework as wholly unsatisfactory and so we are changing it. We have introduced the most stringent code of practice for any financial centre in the world; we have replaced Labour’s one-off tax on bonuses with a permanent levy on the banks; and, as he will have heard from the Chancellor on Tuesday, we are looking for a fresh settlement with the banks on bonuses, on lending and on transparency. With us nothing is off the table; with the Opposition there is nothing on the table. The shadow Chancellor gave a dismal performance on Tuesday, failing to mention the initiative announced on Monday by his leader: the wish for a permanent tax on the bonuses. That did not feature, in any way, in the shadow Chancellor’s response. Is this evidence of a further rift between the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition?

The second point made by the shadow Leader of the House related to the secret taping of Liberal Democrat Members, and I think that Members on both sides of the House should be concerned about the tactics that were used. I think that journalists posing as constituents, raising fictitious cases with MPs and taping them without their knowledge all risks prejudicing the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituent at his advice bureau. [Interruption.] This does not seem to me to be responsible journalism—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

When?

[Sir George Young]

Shortly.

I was asked two more questions, one of which was about VAT. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of what his party said about VAT before the election? The shadow Home Secretary has said:

“ultimately we made no hard commitment on VAT. That was partly the traditional caution of governments, wanting to keep options open.”

When pressed on this, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), has said:

“The advantage of VAT is it brings in a lot of money. It would have allowed you to have done you know a lot to take down the deficit”.

So it ill behoves Labour Members to criticise us for what we have done on VAT.

Finally, on IPSA, I am a statutory consultee—as Leader of the House—under the relevant legislation, so I will indeed be submitting evidence to IPSA in due course.

General matters

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous]

I agree entirely with that observation. The other Suffolk MPs and I are building on the strategy that has been put forward by Suffolk businesses, and we will take full advantage of the presence in the county of BT, which owns much of the infrastructure and has its research centre at Martlesham. Suffolk offers a unique opportunity for BT to show what can be done in delivering comprehensive high-speed coverage across the whole county, including in those hard-to-reach areas. To move the situation forward in Suffolk, BT needs to provide information on exactly when it intends to intervene and which exchanges in Suffolk it will upgrade. That will allow other, smaller providers to work on a bottom-up basis to consider which of the remaining areas they will be able to reach.

My Christmas message to the Government is to thank them for providing the framework for a 21st century infrastructure, and to urge them to make the necessary investment in East Anglia, so that we can play our part in securing the recovery, rebalancing the economy and creating new private sector jobs.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Have you had any indication that the Business Secretary intends to come to the Chamber this afternoon to make a statement on his policy on News Corporation’s bid to take full control of BSkyB? As you may be aware, it is reported today that the Secretary of State has said that he has

“declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win.”

Given that he is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity in considering that takeover, surely he must immediately step aside from any further involvement with that decision. Can you advise us whether you have been notified that either the Business Secretary or, indeed, the Prime Minister intend to come before the House today to confirm that that is what will now happen?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point of order, which I think I can deal with quite succinctly. I have not received any notification that the Government are to make any comments, whether from the Business Secretary or anybody else this afternoon, on the matter that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, but I am sure that Government Front Benchers will have heard him.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for the week commencing 20 December will be:

Monday 20 December—General debate on firearms control. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister plans to make a statement on the European Council.

Tuesday 21 December—Pre-recess Adjournment debate, the format of which has been specified by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will not adjourn until the Speaker has signified Royal Assent. The House will meet at 11.30 am and be subject to Wednesday timings should it agree to the motion at the end of today’s business.

The provisional business for the week commencing 10 January will include:

Monday 10 January—Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill.

Tuesday 11 January—Consideration in Committee of the European Union Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 12 January—Remaining stages of the Postal Services Bill.

Thursday 13 January—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.

The provisional business for the week commencing 17 January will include:

Monday 17 January—Second Reading of the Localism Bill.

I should also like to remind the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 13 January and 20 January 2011 will now be:

Thursday 13 January 2011—A debate on the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Thursday 20 January 2011—A general debate on anti-Semitism.

May I take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, and all right hon. and hon. Members a very happy Christmas and new year, and to thank all those who have kept the House running smoothly this year, particularly the security staff, the police, the Serjeant at Arms and the team who have kept the House running without interruption? I should also like to thank the staff involved in providing services and a welcome to new Members following the general election, including the Clerks, the Officers and staff of the House, the Doorkeepers and the cleaners. A merry Christmas to all.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. Following the decision of the deputy Chief Whip this morning to break the convention that the party holding a seat moves the by-election writ in the case of seats declared void after an election, which is what happened in Winchester in 1997, can the Leader of the House confirm that nearly 1,000 students in Oldham East and Saddleworth are likely to be disfranchised in this by-election because they will not have returned to university by 13 January, which is the date that the coalition has picked, whereas they would have returned by 3 February, which is the date that we would have moved? Does this not show that the coalition is running scared of the judgment of students at the ballot box?

Does the Leader of the House have any news on when the Prime Minister will come to the House to explain why, week after week, he is breaking promise after promise? When he does appear, will he also explain something else? All summer long, he and the Chancellor have been telling us triumphantly that everyone supports their economic policy. Well, not any more they don’t! What are we to make of the leak of a memo from the country’s top civil servant, Sir Gus O’Donnell, telling the Prime Minister that in case plan A on the economy does not work, he needs to have a plan B? May we have a debate, therefore, on what plan there is to stop unemployment continuing to rise next year, as people in the public sector—including, as the people of Oldham will see, the 1,387 uniformed police officers in Greater Manchester who are to go—are thrown out of their jobs by the very Government they loyally serve?

Last week, the Justice Secretary, having told us he wants prisoners to have the vote, said that prison is not succeeding. A few days later, the Home Secretary flatly contradicted him when she said that prison works. When will the Prime Minister sort out this squabble? Perhaps he could set up a court—assuming he can find one that is still open—summon them both, hear the evidence and deliver a verdict. I suppose, technically, that would mean making a statement on which of these warring Cabinet Ministers is speaking for the Government.

Last week, the ConservativeHome website reported that there was a pretty difficult meeting of the 1922 committee, with a lot of cross MPs, on the subject of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority—I have to say that we all know the feeling. Following last night’s meeting, may we have a statement on what the Government plan to do about IPSA? The grumpiness on the Tory Benches shows that it is not so much the season of good will as seething ill will and loathing. One Tory MP said last night:

“The coalition is an imperial clique”.

I am open to suggestions on who on the Government Benches is Caligula and who is Nero.

The former head of the Prime Minister’s social mobility taskforce, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), talked of sheer hostility towards the coalition leadership. Apparently, he went on to say that it was about a lot of things, including fees and being taken for granted, but especially about the Liberal Democrats being allowed

“to say what they like and do what they like”.

I have a lot of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but has he only just noticed that about the Lib Dems? They have been doing it for years. Will the Leader of the House therefore assure his Back Benchers that there will now be a debate on how to stop Lib Dem Members getting in the way of Tory Members’ upward ministerial mobility?

With all this unhappiness, Mr Speaker, may I join the Leader of the House in wishing you, the Deputy Leader of the House, all hon. Members and all the staff, who serve us so well, a merry Christmas and a happy new year? As for Christmas presents, I hope that everyone gets what they wish for, although I am sorry to say that, for Lib Dem voters, even though their stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hope that St Nicholas would soon be there, they will not be receiving that shiny new tuition fees pledge they were promised, because St Nick has let them down.

[Sir George Young]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response, his Christmas wishes and indeed his Christmas card. Of course, for the Labour party this is always a time of giving. I have been looking through what he has been giving over the past few business questions—he digs deep into his sack each time. He has promised higher spending on child benefit and housing benefit, lower VAT in the new year and more university funding. We all applaud him on his festive generosity, but until the Labour party comes up with a credible way of paying for it all, it will have no more credibility than Santa Claus. I ask him—[Interruption.]People will not believe in the Labour party any more than they believe in Santa Claus unless the Opposition come up with some decent answers.

The right hon. Gentleman could have had a debate on the writ for the by-election. However, the Labour party chose not to do so, so it is a little rich of him to ask me for one now. The Opposition could have had a debate if they had objected an hour ago to the writ being moved. It is astonishing that they do not want the by-election to be held, when their own candidate has said:

“I can’t wait until polling day,”

so what is all the fuss about? The precedent from Winchester quoted by the right hon. Gentleman is simply not accurate. There is a collective loss of memory on the Opposition Benches about what happened in Winchester. The seat was previously held by a Conservative Member of Parliament, and the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip moved the writ. Therefore, in the most recent precedent of a seat being declared void, the Chief Whip of the party previously holding the seat did not move the writ.

Moving quickly through the other issues that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, let me say that the Prime Minister is here every week to answer questions, and he will continue to do so.

On the Sentencing (Reform) Bill, the right hon. Gentleman will know that the Green Paper published last week was a collective document, published by the Cabinet and the Administration as a whole. In the robust evidence that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor gave to the Select Committee on Justice, he made it clear that there was not a cigarette paper between him and the Home Secretary.

On plan A and plan B, at least we have a plan A. The Labour party does not even have one coherent strategy on the economy. Indeed, yesterday the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), criticised the Leader of the Opposition for his performance at Prime Minister’s questions, saying that

“we have a huge responsibility to take these arguments to the country but we can’t do that if we are dividing amongst ourselves.”

On unemployment, the shadow Leader of the House will have seen the forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, which stated that unemployment is set to fall next year and every year thereafter, and that the fall in employment in the public sector is more than counterbalanced by the rise in employment in the private sector.

Finally, on IPSA, the position is absolutely clear. We had a useful debate on IPSA—I think on 2 December—and the Government abide by the resolution, passed without Division by the House at that time, that IPSA should be given an opportunity to review the regime and come up with an alternative by 1 April.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for the week commencing 13 December will be:

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

Tuesday 14 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Superannuation Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Identity Documents Bill.

Wednesday 15 December—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Loans to Ireland Bill, followed by a motion to approve the ninth report 2010-11 from the Standards and Privileges Committee.

Thursday 16 December—Motion relating to park homes, followed by a motion on the work of the Public Accounts Committee. The subjects for both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 December will include:

Monday 20 December—General debate on firearms control.

Tuesday 21 December—Pre-recess Adjournment debate, the format of which has been specified by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 13 and 20 January 2011 will be:

Thursday 13 January—A debate on the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Department of Health.

Thursday 20 January—A general debate on anti-Semitism.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his statement. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us when we can expect the localism Bill to be introduced? Two weeks ago, he said it would appear “shortly”. On the same day, the Minister for decentralisation, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), said it would be published “imminently”. Last week, the Leader of the House said it would appear “very shortly”. However, having searched high and low for this shy and retiring Bill, I can find no sign of it. In a week that has been full of difficulty for the Government, is this Bill yet another little local difficulty that they have not been able to resolve?

May we have a statement on press reports published this week that impostors have been seeking to gain access to the parliamentary estate? It is now clear that a number of individuals seeking jobs here have claimed to be die-hard opponents of lifting the cap on tuition fees, but have turned out to be the very opposite of what they said they were. What can the Leader of the House do to protect us from these potential double agents?

Has the Leader of the House made any progress on getting the Prime Minister to make his much anticipated apology to head teachers and school sports co-ordinators for his disgraceful attack on what they do? When will the heavily signalled U-turn arrive, or is it stuck in a queue behind the localism Bill?

Talking about trust in politics, can we have a debate on the subject? I ask because it is not just the Deputy Prime Minister who has been breaking his promises in recent weeks; it has been the Prime Minister, too—on VAT, child benefit, 3,000 more midwives, no spending cuts to front-line services, the knife crime pledge and education maintenance allowances. On 6 January, at a Cameron Direct event, the Prime Minister said in answer to a question on EMAs that

“we don’t have any plans to get rid of them.”

Two months later, on 2 March, the Education Secretary was even clearer:

“Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won’t.”

What are our young people, many of whom are watching our proceedings today, to make of such behaviour? Did the Prime Minister and the Education Secretary believe what they were saying or not? Either way, it is no wonder that so many young people think, “Well, if that’s the new politics, you can forget it.”

In case the Liberal Democrats think that they can tell us—if they are courageous enough to put their heads above the parapet today—that the Government’s tuition fee proposals will increase social mobility, may we have a statement confirming that scrapping EMAs will make it more difficult for young people from low-income backgrounds even to get to the starting gate of higher education? To make matters worse, the coalition is also destroying the Aimhigher programme, which is all about social mobility.

Turning to this afternoon’s debate, even with a 6-minute limit on speeches, very many Members will not get the chance to represent their constituents today. For a long time now, we have been told that there will be no up-front fees. We have been told that all students will pay back at the same rate according to how much they earn. This week, the Business Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister told their party that the proposals will not put anyone off going to university. If that is the case, can we have a statement on why the Government are proposing that some students from the least well-off households will not have to pay fees in their first year? Either the Government believe what they have been saying—in which case, why make this proposal?—or they have finally accepted what we have been saying about students being put off, in which case their whole argument collapses. We need an answer.

Is it any wonder that thousands of young people are now standing outside Parliament demanding a say on their future, while MPs from both Government parties are scurrying around hiding from them? They were promised a fair system for their higher education, only to discover that this coalition Government, with the support of Liberal Democrats, is about to let them down—and they will not forget it.

[Sir George Young]

I said last week that the gestation period for the localism Bill has been a little longer than anticipated. It is now being delivered at high speed to the parliamentary birth centre by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. As I said last week, I hope that it will be before the House well before Christmas.

On the second issue, the right hon. Gentleman bangs on about the position of the Liberal Democrats on tuition fees, but the Liberal Democrats got their Front Benchers behind a policy on this before the Labour party did. They got themselves organised on Tuesday, but it was not until yesterday that the shadow Chancellor claimed in an article in The Times that there was

“a strong case for a graduate tax”.

I have to say that it is he who is a member of the coalition parties when it comes to tuition fees and funding higher education.

The Government will be delivering school sports, but in a different way from the previous Government; instead of having a centralised PE and sports strategy, we want to redeploy resources and people, putting a new emphasis on competitive sport. In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s specific question, we will be announcing how we will spend the money we have allocated for school sport in due course.

On the education maintenance allowance, we are committed to ensuring that every young person remains in education and training until they are 18. Evidence shows that about 90% of EMA spending goes to students who would have stayed in education anyway. There was an enormous amount of dead-weight. We are replacing the EMA with targeted support for those who face genuine financial barriers to participation.

As for the time allowed for the debate, I think that the right hon. Gentleman is losing his touch. Last Thursday, when I announced the debate, his only question was on when we would have sight of the text on the Government’s proposals. That small spark of interest developed into the conflagration that we saw last night. A business of the House motion was tabled on Friday last week. He could have amended that motion, but the Opposition did not get around to amending it until the debate was well under way and it was far too late. On one of the key issues facing this Parliament, the shadow Leader of the House has been caught asleep at the wheel.

On the other issues that the right hon. Gentleman addressed, those will be the subject of the debate that is about to take place.

Business of the House (Thursday)

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I rise to oppose the motion. I must say to the Leader of the House that I had been expecting a better justification to the House of the thinking that lay behind this timetable motion. Perhaps he is embarrassed by the shambles of the past two days. Those who read The Guardian newspaper, as many of us do, will have read with great joy about the reference to the Liberal Democrats’ hokey cokey when it comes to voting. Perhaps he did not want to be outdone and decided to have his own hokey cokey on this motion. The timetable motion was on the Order Paper for Monday and was objected to. It was on the Order Paper for Tuesday and the Government did not have the courage to move it, and it is back again tonight.

The Leader of the House says that he has not received any representations about the time that will be allocated. I have news for him: he is about to get a lot of representations, and the most important one of all will be when Labour Members all go through the Division Lobby to vote no to this motion.

The content of the motion is not surprising, even though it has changed a little since the version of yesterday and the day before. It is clear that the Government want one thing and one thing only: to spend as little time as possible on this matter, and to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that if only half the Members of the House wanted to take part in the debate tomorrow, that would allow only 50 seconds per Member?

[Hilary Benn]

I do indeed, and that illustrates a point that I shall come to—the inadequacy of the time that the House is being given to debate the matter.

[Kevin Brennan]

Is not my right hon. Friend’s point completely proved by the motion itself, in that the Government chose 5.30 pm as the time for the debate to end when the moment of interruption for a Thursday, voted for by this House, is 6 o’clock? Votes should take place after 6 o’clock on a Thursday, not before. That shows that the Government are not providing enough time.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend. That raises this question: what are the Government worried about in that extra half hour? The truth is that they do not want to listen to any more arguments. Given the problems that they have faced over their handling of tuition fees and their broken promises, that is not surprising. However, it is outrageous—I use that word deliberately—that the Government propose to allow the House of Commons only a few hours to discuss and consider the most fundamental change to student support and the funding of higher education that we have ever seen in this country. It is also breathtakingly disrespectful.

For proof of that, we need only to consider the fact that the debate on this business motion can continue until any hour. In other words, the Government are prepared to spend more time debating the allocation of time than they are prepared to give the House of Commons actually to debate, discuss and vote on their proposals.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend might wish to know that I have been informed that the Government Chief Whip has told the dining room not to bother to put on any extra food tonight, because this debate will be over in an hour’s time.

[Hilary Benn]

I do not presume to comment on the powers of the Chief Whip to see the future, except to say that clearly, in view of the problems we had on Monday evening, his powers are not all they are cracked up to be. The truth, as you will know, Mr Speaker, is that the debate will go on for as long as it takes—it depends on how many right hon. and hon. Members seek to catch your eye.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

Further to the point that my right hon. Friend makes, the Leader of the House said that he is “using the procedures”. What does my right hon. Friend think the Leader of the House meant by that?

[Hilary Benn]

To be honest, I have no idea what the Leader of the House was talking about. It is for him to explain his words. The truth is that the procedure that the Government are proposing to use to give the House time to discuss their proposals is completely inadequate.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Tomorrow, 45,000 students will visit London to make their views known. Does my right hon. Friend agree that giving the House only five hours of debate is an insult to them?

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It shows what the Government think of all those students that they propose to give so little time to debate this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Flello]

Indeed—in some cases the great-grandparents will be here, along with siblings, nieces and nephews, because hundreds of thousands of people object to the Government’s disgraceful behaviour.

[Hilary Benn]

If great-grandparents are concerned, we must be talking about very young students indeed, but my hon. Friend makes a forceful point about the large number of people in this country who are profoundly concerned about the proposals that we are being asked to debate tomorrow. I am sure that they will share the concern that we are expressing at the lack of time that we are being given.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Was it not terribly unfair of the Leader of the House to imply that last week’s Opposition debate revealed that there was ample time? Had he looked at that debate, he would have seen that far more people wanted to make a contribution than the time allowed. He is now making it impossible for hon. Members to represent their constituents.

[Hilary Benn]

That is absolutely right, and I am sure that we will have the same problem tomorrow if the motion is passed.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in 2004, when the House had before it a seven-part Bill, containing 15,000 words, 50 clauses and seven schedules, there were many, many hours for debate? Given that the Government’s proposals are more profound—they introduce a market, which we have never had before in higher education, and the withdrawal of teaching—should we not have more time? Should our democracy not have more time to debate those changes?

[Hilary Benn]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I shall remind the House later in my speech about the time that it had on previous occasions to discuss legislation to do with student support.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is it not important that we have more time to illustrate the importance of the issue, support for which, as has already been pointed out, is not confined to students? We are proud of those students who are marching and demonstrating, but in tonight’s Evening Standard reference is made to a 105-year-old person who has sent a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister to say that she wants to march with her 72-year-old daughter but is unable to do so because she is blind. Does not that illustrate that up and down the country adults are supporting the students because they know that the students are right?

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed they are. I could not have put it more eloquently than my hon. Friend.

[Paul Farrelly]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there could not be a greater contrast between the way in which the coalition Government are handling this and the way in which the Labour Government handled it seven years ago, no matter on what side of the argument one stands? Then the 105-page White Paper was published a whole year before the debate and the changes were introduced only after a general election, so the British public had the opportunity to vote on them.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend anticipates the very point that I will come to a little later in my speech.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that these are wide-ranging proposals that will completely restructure our university system and that five hours is simply not enough time to discuss these issues? Does this not also show that the opposition are running scared of a proper debate on this issue?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend of course refers to those Liberal Democrats who will vote against these proposals—but not enough will vote against them as far as the country is concerned.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Last week in business questions, the Leader of the House said that on Wednesday next week there would be a Second Reading of “a Bill”, demonstrating some indecision on the part of the Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that shows that the excuse that the Leader of the House has just given to Members from Scotland and Northern Ireland about avoiding a Thursday is paltry, because the Government could have scheduled the debate for Wednesday next week?

[Hilary Benn]

They could indeed have done so, but responsibility for that rests with the Leader of the House.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given that students from Plymouth and the south-west have a 10-hour round trip to come up to London tomorrow, they deserve more than five hours for an explanation from the Liberal Democrats of why a pledge to the electorate is worth less than a pledge to the Conservative party in the coalition agreement?

[Hilary Benn]

They do indeed, and—given the inclement weather conditions—those students will probably spend more time travelling than they will having the chance to listen to the House of Commons debating the motion.

There are three principal reasons—to do with time—why the House should vote down this motion. The first is the importance and the consequence of the decision on tuition fees. When one compares the time allocated to the House when previous changes were proposed—and they were much less extensive changes to student support and the funding of higher education than those that will be before us tomorrow—we can see just how inadequate the time that is being offered is. The second reason is the fact, referred to in a point of order earlier, that this debate and vote are being arranged before the promised White Paper on higher education is published and when a whole series of fundamental questions remain about how the new world that the Minister for Universities and Science and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills propose will actually work. I shall come to some of those questions later.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The shadow Leader of the House waxes eloquent tonight. Would it not be more credible to be honest with the House and say that stopping free education is not a smaller issue than the one we will debate tomorrow? That is what his Government did.

[Hilary Benn]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and to you, Mr Speaker, but I am afraid I had some difficultly understanding the point he was seeking to make. He clearly had the same difficulty himself. I will happily give way again if he wants to have another go.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Absolutely. [Interruption.]

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The shadow Leader has just told the House that what we are debating tomorrow is of greater consequence than the reneged promise that his Government delivered upon, which abolished free education altogether. That is a wrong thing to tell the House. Will he explain himself?

[Hilary Benn]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is in urgent need of a history lesson because I do not recognise what he is describing. There is a profound difference. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot have great eruptions of noise any time a Member chooses, for whatever reason, to leave the Chamber. Members will want to listen to Mr Hilary Benn.

[Hilary Benn]

The point is this: there is a profound difference between the previous system, which was a way of raising additional finance for our universities, and the enormous reduction in funding for our universities that this increase in fees is based upon. That is why it is completely different.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that five hours is hardly enough time for the Liberal Democrats to explain their four different positions?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. She anticipates a point I will make later. Of all the issues facing the House at the moment, it is clear that on this issue—for the reasons she has just pointed out—lots and lots of time will be required, so that Members can explain their positions. In the case of the Liberal Democrats, four different positions, at the last count, will have to be explained. There is huge public interest in the matter and, in the light of that, the time proposed is wholly inadequate.

I want to quote what Lord Browne had to say in his foreword to the report, “Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education,” which runs to 64 pages. Lord Browne wrote—[Interruption.] Hon. Members will see in a moment. I quote:

“In November 2009, I was asked to lead an independent Panel to review the funding of higher education and make recommendations to ensure that teaching”—

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks do not refer to the timings or business of the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am keenly attending to the debate, but I know that he—very distinguished man though he is—would not try to tell me how to do my job.

[Hilary Benn]

Lord Browne went on to state:

“Over the last year, we have consulted widely and intensively. Our recommendations are based on written and oral evidence drawn from students, teachers, academics, employers and regulators. We have looked…at every aspect of implementing them – financial, practical and educational – to ensure that the recommendations we are making are realistic for the long term.”

The most important words in that quotation are these:

“Over the last year, we have consulted widely and intensively.”

[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am trying to listen intently to what the shadow Leader of the House is saying, but the hubbub is too great. It is calming down now and we will hear the shadow Leader.

[Hilary Benn]

As I said, the quote from Lord Browne is:

“Over the last year, we have consulted widely and intensively.”

[Interruption.] If hon. Members will be patient, they will see what this has got to do with the business motion before us tonight. Let us compare the length of time that Lord Browne took in preparing his proposals to what is before the House tonight. The Browne committee had a year to consider what it recommended; the House is to be given five hours to consider the recommendations and dispose of them. Everybody else was consulted at length, but MPs are to be given just five hours to express a view.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend can help me. I have been pondering whether any measure of comparable controversy has ever gone through this House with so little debate and in such a short space of time. Can he help me? Is there any example of that?

[Hilary Benn]

In preparing for the debate this evening, I, too, asked myself that, and I struggled to think of another example of when the House had so little time to consider something so profound.

Nobody can be under any misapprehension about the scale of the change that is being proposed. Lord Browne said:

“What we recommend is a radical departure from the existing way in which HEIs”—

higher education institutions—

“are financed…Our recommendations will lead to a significant change”.

The plain truth is that the Browne report, which is radical and significant in its implications, has not even been debated in the House yet. Since the report was published, on 12 October 2010, there has been one urgent question, when the Secretary of State was forced to come to the House and explain what was going on, and one ministerial statement, on 3 November. However, there has been no debate at all on the Browne report in Government time—none.

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I had been watching and listening closely, and I was conscious—I was about to comment on the fact—that a rather animated and protracted exchange seemed to be taking place between the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Whether some sort of private salon was taking place I do not know, but it must not do so. We must listen to the debate, so no taunting should take place at all. Let us listen to Mr Hilary Benn.

[Hilary Benn]

I think I was in the process of giving way to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).

[Pete Wishart]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can take this opportunity to remind the House how many hours the Labour party made available to debate tuition fees on the Floor of the House when the previous Government attempted to hike them up.

[Hilary Benn]

I will gladly do that. If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall come to that point in a moment.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Let me point out to my right hon. Friend that there is indeed a precedent for curtailing debate, and that is where a great deal of consensus exists across the Chamber. Perhaps he can illuminate for me whether there has been some magic movement on the Government Benches in the past few hours, and whether Government Members now agree with us—and with Wales and Scotland—because then we can indeed have a shortened debate.

[Hilary Benn]

It would be very nice if that were the case, but I fear that on this occasion the amount of time that the Government want to allocate is in inverse proportion to the consensus. That is the difficulty that we have. The truth is that if the Government could get away with it, they would much prefer the House of Commons not to debate and discuss the proposal at all, so that they could try to get it through on the nod. I can think of no other change in student support that has been put before the House with so little scrutiny or debate.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I have to say that I find it deeply ironic that so many Members opposite are now raising concerns about the amount of time for debate. I remember that when I was president of Reading university students’ union and was raising concerns with the National Union of Students about the value for money of our affiliation fees, many Members opposite would set the fire alarms off.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I can be held responsible for many things, but I am afraid that the use of fire alarms at the university of Reading is not one of them. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are people chuntering from a sedentary position and urging the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) to name the people who set off the fire alarms. That would be entirely disorderly and we are not going to have it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not know about fire alarms, but people are certainly letting off steam. They have now done so, and we must return to the important subject of the debate on this relatively narrow motion.

[Hilary Benn]

rose—

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Sadly, I did not go to university, but during my time in the fire service, setting off fire alarms was considered to be a very irresponsible act.

[Mr Speaker]

We are all grateful to have the benefit of the hon. Gentleman’s experience, and for that recitation of his curriculum vitae, but we must now return to the debate.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

The sense of outrage that is certainly felt on this side of the Chamber is of course shared by those on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) is not in his place tonight, but he has tabled an early-day motion, which many Members have signed, that makes an eloquent plea for more time.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Can my right hon. Friend seek some reassurance? Should a fire alarm be set off during the debate tomorrow, would the debate be extended?

[Hilary Benn]

I do not think that that is the kind of injury time that the Standing Orders would cover. I am beginning to think that my time at university was somewhat sheltered in comparison to the revelations being made on the Floor of the House this evening. The hon. Member for Leeds North West is making the point that he does not think there has been enough time. He thinks that the proposal should be put to one side so that it can be properly considered.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Earlier, the Leader of the House made the claim—I think it was simply a mistake on his part, rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead the House—that Members on this side of the House had had the opportunity to table amendments to the proceedings. Given that the motion was not taken last night, and appeared on the Order Paper only this morning, am I right in thinking that there has been no opportunity for us to table amendments?

[Hilary Benn]

What happened last night was certainly extremely unusual, and the Leader of the House did not seek to enlighten us this evening as to why the Government pulled the plug on their own proposal. Perhaps he anticipated the debate that we were going to have this evening, and the opposition to the motion that was going to be expressed on this side of the Chamber.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend really wants to help the Leader of the House to find some additional time, so I refer back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds). We were given an indication last week that an unspecified Bill was going to come before the House next Wednesday. The rumour is that it is the long-awaited and much-heralded localism Bill. There is a further rumour, however, that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is more enthusiastic about that Bill than some of his Cabinet colleagues. If that is the case, can my right hon. Friend give us any more information about whether the Bill has been lost in the fog of Whitehall, and whether there might after all be time to debate this business next Wednesday?

[Hilary Benn]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is at the very least extremely tangential to the matter that we are supposed to be discussing, and I know that the shadow Leader of the House would not for one moment seek to dilate on the subject of the localism Bill. I know that he is going to proceed with his speech in an orderly way.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As far as the identity of that Bill is concerned, I was going to observe only that it is a mystery. No doubt all will be revealed to us in due course.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

As one of the new Members of this House, I am uniquely placed to offer my experience of student debt, as one of the people in the House who still carries such a debt. How many people are likely to be able to speak in a five-hour debate? Newer Members are more likely to be carrying student debt, and they would like to offer their own perspectives on the matter.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for us to have more time, precisely so that the experiences of all Members can be brought to bear on this important question, which will affect future generations of students.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

The fundamental issue at stake here is that there are genuine arguments for and against tuition fees and for and against the level at which the Government want to set them. I accept that there are arguments on both sides. It is not only Members who should have an opportunity to debate the details that genuinely concern us all; the public have the right to see their legislators spending a decent amount of time doing so. This is not a partisan point. On an issue as important as this, why must we restrict the time for debate? Why can we not have, purely and simply, more time to debate an issue that Members of all parties and the public are both fascinated and worried by?

[Hilary Benn]

It seems to me that my hon. Friend makes a powerful case. I would gladly give way to the Leader of the House for an explanation. He did not explain in his speech why so little time has been allocated, so perhaps he would like to explain that now. No, he is not inclined to take that—[Interruption.] Oh, well.

[Sir George Young]

If the amount of time allocated for this debate is insufficient, why did the right hon. Gentleman not draw the House’s attention to it last Thursday? When I announced today’s debate on exactly these regulations, he said nothing at all.

[Hilary Benn]

It has been very clear for a long time that Labour Members want adequate time to debate this. The way to deal with it is to consider the proposal before us; we will vote against it tonight because inadequate time has been allotted.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Is it not the case that the shadow Minister failed to spot this last Thursday, failed to move an amendment and has been asleep at the wheel?

[Hilary Benn]

No, I do not accept that. The hon. Gentleman will discover how awake we are on this side when he has to troop through the Lobby to try to vote in favour of this wholly inadequate allocation of time. The really telling comparison is between how this change is being dealt with and how the two previous changes were dealt with. That is why I shall move on to deal with points raised by Members of all parties about how these matters were handled in the past.

The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, the Dearing review, was set up in May 1996 by the last Conservative Government. It deliberated for 15 months and published its report “Higher education in the learning society” in July 1997. There was then a Government statement and a White Paper “Higher Education in the 21st Century”, followed by the publication of the Teaching and Higher Education Bill. That became an Act in 1998 having been debated at proper length. Six hours were allotted to Second Reading alone—an hour more than we are to be allocated tomorrow. There were seven Committee sittings and two days on Report. There is the first comparison.

The second comparison is with the Higher Education Act 2004, which the orders that we will discuss tomorrow are designed to amend. It, too, had six hours on Second Reading—an hour more than we will get tomorrow—and there were 15 sittings in Committee, plus a Report stage.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Are not the proposed changes as significant as the Robbins report and the transformation of universities during the second half of the 20th century? To put through the marketisation of our entire university structure within five hours is absolutely shameful.

[Hilary Benn]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an extremely powerful point.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend refers to the orders under the previous legislation, which had to be debated by both Houses on the affirmative basis, following a review, before any decision could be made on future levels of tuition fees. The Leader of the House has suggested that the reason for this debate is entirely encapsulated in that particular piece of legislation. Incidentally, I was involved in assisting with the drafting at the time, so I remember it well. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the intention behind the drafting of those clauses at the time was wholly different from what is being put forward this evening, in terms of what should come up first for discussion, what evidence should be placed before Members to debate before any decision is taken, and when any decision should be taken according to the two resolutions?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The usual order is that we have a committee of inquiry; the Government make a statement; they publish a White Paper, then a Bill; the Bill is considered and then regulations are made. In this case, the process has been reversed. We are being asked to approve the statutory instruments tomorrow in just five hours, before we even know the framework for the future of higher education, because the White Paper will not be published, we are told, until the new year. The cart has truly been put before the horse.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I have been consistently against tuition fees, and voted against them the last time they were debated in the House of Commons. More importantly, I have signed a pledge with the students union that I will not vote for them to be raised, and I will honour that pledge. Surely we need the kind of debate that we had previously for a Second Reading, so that all those Liberal Democrats who will be breaking their pledge will have the opportunity to explain to students across the country why they are doing so.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. It will be interesting to see how many Liberal Democrats wish to participate in the debate tomorrow.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend has explained the normal Bill process, but is he aware that, as a new MP, I have not seen my postbag filled on any other issue as it has been with concerns about tuition fees? I am concerned to raise those points, so that people in Wirral can have their voice heard. Is he aware of the level of concern in Wirral?

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that to my attention. No Member can be unaware of the huge concern expressed through our postbags, emails and other means, about the nature of the proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The trouble with that intervention is that it has nothing to do with the allocation of time. The hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record, and he was very cheeky.

[Hilary Benn]

The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) may have something to do with the length of time that it would take some of those Ministers to return to cast their vote.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Has my right hon. Friend noticed, as I have, the large number of Liberal Democrat Members who are prevaricating and indicating that they may abstain on the issue? Is there not a danger that abstention could be perceived as voting for the motion? Is that not a good argument for extending the time for debate, so that they can come to a decision?

[Hilary Benn]

That is a powerful point. Last week, I observed that, throughout the ages, Liberal Democrats who have been faced with a tough decision have sat on the fence. I suspect that we will see that tomorrow.

[Angela Smith]

Is it not the case that the proposals before the House tomorrow radically redraw the relationship between the state and the individual? Are they not predicated on an 80% reduction in funding for teaching? Is it not appalling that an SI should be used for such a radical shift in Government policy?

[Hilary Benn]

It certainly is. The 80% reduction is implicit in the statutory instruments that we will consider tomorrow, and it is the cause of those statutory instruments, but we will not have a proper opportunity to debate that.

[Emily Thornberry]

What is a member of the public switching on the Parliament channel to make of this? We could spend more time tonight debating how much time we should be allocated than we will spend debating the proposals tomorrow. How ironic is that? By making petty points about how we should have tabled an amendment here or there to extend the time, Government Members show how out of touch they are. Mothers watching television tonight, desperately worried about their children’s future, will feel that we should be ashamed. Why do we not spend tonight debating this matter, and tomorrow as well?

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with my hon. Friend, but the answer lies in the hands of the Leader of the House, who has shown a willingness tonight to devote more time to debating the allocation of time than he is prepared to give to debating the proposals themselves.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Some of us have universities in our constituencies, and many students will be coming down here tomorrow. It is no wonder that students are adopting an angry attitude in the streets when they find out we will have only five hours for the debate. When the Government were in opposition, they used to complain about our guillotines, and we always gave way on time. I am surprised that the Leader of the House, who is usually a reasonable man, has taken us down this road.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree. I have a great deal of respect for the Leader of the House, but I must say that I do not think he has done his job properly on this occasion.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Will we have an opportunity, in such a limited time, to raise issues that constituents have raised with us, particularly the withdrawal of funds in July next year from the excellent Aimhigher programme, which will pull up the ladder of opportunity? [Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Tipton, who is shouting derisory comments—[Hon. Members: “Taunton.”] I mean the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), but perhaps he will be tipped on tomorrow. Anyway, given the limited time allotted to tomorrow’s debate, I do not believe that we will have an opportunity to raise valid concerns, such as the fact that children from disadvantaged backgrounds such as those in the area that I represent will be disadvantaged further.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful point. Judging by the attendance in the Chamber tonight, and because so little time has been allotted, I fear that there will not be time for all the Members who will want to participate in tomorrow’s debate to have a chance to express their views to the House.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Although on the face of it the issue at stake is tuition fees in England, the proposal will have profound effects on students from Northern Ireland—and, indeed, those in Northern Ireland. Given the restricted time that we will have in which to debate it, it is unlikely that those of us who represent those students will be able to make our case fully tomorrow. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be wise to allow us to do so, in the light of the profound implications both for students from Northern Ireland and for those who study there?

[Hilary Benn]

I agree. The proposal does indeed have profound ramifications and implications for students not only in England but in other parts of the United Kingdom, which is why we need more time.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

In view of the anomalies that the Bill will throw up west of Offa’s dyke, north of Hadrian’s wall and so on, does my right hon. Friend think that there will be enough time for us to deal with the subject of the potential migration flows as students and their families—who know that there have always been cross-border issues over health—suddenly realise that there will also be cross-border issues over tuition fees, and that whereas Scotland and Wales are doing the right thing, the tripling of tuition fees will be rammed down the throats of students in England because of the unholy alliance on the Government Benches?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful point, which I am sure that he and other Members will seek to put to the Minister tomorrow. As he says, time is required for us to be able to consider all the ramifications of the proposals, and the plain fact is that we are not being given enough time to do that.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that members of all generations up and down the land will think that giving the House five hours in which to discuss the denial of access of whole generations, from whole communities, to the higher education that could change the life chances of millions of people is a complete disgrace? Should we not hasten the electrification of the railway line to Wales, so that people can have a proper opportunity to benefit from higher education?

[Hilary Benn]

I think that you would rule me out of order if I commented on the electrification of the railway line to Wales, Mr Speaker.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would you kindly give the House—and me, as a new Member—guidance on how many important debates were curtailed to five hours by the last Government, so that we can introduce some balance to this evening’s debate?

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I believe that I heard a Labour Member refer to a Member on the Government Benches as “the hon. Member for Tipton”. Just in case there is any confusion among my electors, may I make it clear that I represent the beautiful town of Tipton, and that I will be supporting my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the Opposition tomorrow?

[Hilary Benn]

I am sure my hon. Friend’s constituents will be very glad to have heard that clarification.

[Mr Lammy]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that just as this House is being denied a full debate, the Minister responsible for universities, who is on the Front Bench now, has been invited to sit-ins at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies but has not attended? Is it my right hon. Friend’s expectation that the Minister will go and talk to the students who will be gathering in this House and outside before the debate and after it tomorrow—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That may be a point of interest to the right hon. Gentleman, but it is somewhat wide of the terms of the motion. Mr Hilary Benn.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think that the very least the architect of the policy could do, particularly in view of the pledge he signed before the election, is go and talk to students and explain why he has changed his mind.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Many Members have tonight mentioned the fact that constituents of theirs—students and potential students—will be coming down tomorrow to lobby their MPs. Is my right hon. Friend aware that under the “#” tag “name and shame” on Twitter there is a growing list of names of MPs from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties who have refused to meet the students coming down tomorrow? I suspect they are refusing to meet them tomorrow because they will be too busy attending tomorrow’s debate. Does that not suggest that we ought to postpone tomorrow’s debate so that they have time to meet their constituents who are coming down tomorrow?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is mounting evidence that Members are referring to matters outside the Chamber as a not very subtle ruse to try to get their point across in the House, but unfortunately they are then almost always outwith the terms of the motion. We have had a few examples of that, but I hope we will not have any more. Mr Hilary Benn.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Hilary Benn]

Yes, I will.

[Vernon Coaker]

As my right hon. Friend knows, thousands of students from places throughout the country, including Nottingham, will be arriving in London tomorrow. As we shall debate this issue for only five hours, which I think most of those students and their families will find simply incredible, has my right hon. Friend had any discussions with the Leader of the House about informing all those students how this House arrived at that five-hour limit? Have any special arrangements been made to inform them about the decision that has been made to curtail the debate, so that they are properly informed?

[Hilary Benn]

I had hoped that in moving the motion this evening the Leader of the House would have enlightened us on that very point, but I am afraid no elucidation at all was offered as to the amount of time given to us.

I want to come on to one of the problems that we may face tomorrow. Although what is on offer now—

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way? I have an important point to make.

[Hilary Benn]

I will.

[Mr McCann]

I have a specific point I want to make about time. In three minutes’ time, constituents in the frozen Lanarkshire district, which includes my constituency, will be donning several layers of clothing and getting their ice picks and shovels out to dig their way out of their homes, so that they can meet up at their selected departure points and travel down for tomorrow’s debate. They will be leaving Lanarkshire on the M74 at about 9 pm—if they get there in time, given the horrendous weather conditions. They will be travelling overnight to get here, and they will arrive to find that, having spent over 21 hours getting here and knowing that they are going to face the same journey back, this subject will be debated for only five hours. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an outrage to our democracy?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, to whom I listened courteously, but there must be no further dilation on the subject of the motorway network. I do not think that that will aid our debate. I know that the shadow Leader of the House will respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point briefly, and then develop his further arguments.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is an outrage, as I indicated earlier.

I wanted to say something about the amount of time that we may actually get tomorrow to debate this subject. Although the five hours that we have been offered is a 30-minute improvement on the previous period allocated, it is not absolutely guaranteed. That is because although the Leader of the House has just told us that the Government do not intend to make any statements tomorrow, it is possible that some matter may arise. You, Mr Speaker, may receive a request for an urgent question, and if that is granted we would lose time, as we will if Government Back Benchers suddenly decide they want to raise numerous lengthy points of order. If either of those eventualities arose, the British public and Members of the House would be denied even the paltry five hours being offered by the Leader of the House.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

We have all noted the restraint that the Speaker has exercised as people have strayed beyond the terms of this motion. But does he not share the concern that my constituents, and I believe his, will feel when they see the House debating what they see as a technical matter and not debating what they wish us to debate, which is the principle of whether education should be the business of the state or a purely private matter, which it will become as a result of the debate tomorrow?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point; indeed, she anticipates something that I am going to refer to a little later in my speech. It is about the nature of the debate that we may find that we are allowed, or not allowed, to have because we will be debating a statutory instrument rather the White Paper, which has not been published.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Many of the students who have been in touch with me recently have expressed their concern about the fact that the withdrawal of the state from education is directed particularly at people studying the arts, social sciences and related subjects. Does my right hon. Friend believe that there will be time tomorrow to discuss not only the impact of tuition fees, but the very nature of the kind of higher education that we as a society want to value?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. To answer her very direct question, I fear that we will not have enough time to examine that, and many other aspects.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Notwithstanding the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has just said on Channel 4 that his conscience is clear—so he would presumably like to debate this subject at length—does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason why this debate is being curtailed is to protect the Liberal Democrats? The clue to that lies in what Chris Davies MEP says in his blog:

“Splits weaken parties, and sometimes destroy them. The reputation of the Liberal Democrat brand is being undermined with each passing hour as the impression grows stronger that on the issue of tuition fees we are not only divided but clueless…In short, we are creating the impression not just of being weak, but of being a joke.”

We should share that joke with this House, if we had sufficient time to debate this issue properly.

[Hilary Benn]

The point that my hon. Friend has just made illustrates clearly why we need more time tomorrow to examine the position of the Liberal Democrats, in all their splendour.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Is there not a wider and more profound issue at stake here? It relates to legislation, or changes in the law, that are railroaded through this House without adequate time for debate, and what happens when the public outside do not believe that this House has been doing its job properly and scrutinising those changes in the law. When such legislation—the classic example of which was the poll tax—is carried, it will never command the support of the public and the public will never believe that it is being instituted for the right reasons. Are the Government not in real danger of repeating the disaster of the poll tax with this ill-conceived, railroaded piece of legislation on tuition fees?

[Hilary Benn]

My right hon. Friend speaks with unique authority and force on that subject. He is giving the House a very clear warning, because if people do not feel that the House of Commons—their elected representatives—has been given adequate time to debate this very profound change, they will be even more angry than they are already.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I was the principal of a sixth-form college until recently, and I have spent my lifetime working with young people—16 to 19-year-olds. The message being given to young people about how decisions about their future are made in this House disturbs me. What does it say if we cannot give the right amount of time to this, and cannot give them the right message that this really matters, that we care about them—and care enough to share our views in full fashion, over as much time as it takes to make the right decision?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a good point: the House would be setting a very bad example to young people if it were to pass the motion tonight.

[Clive Efford]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one reason why it is dangerous for Back Benchers on both sides of the House, and particularly on the Government side, to allow the Executive to truncate debate or the consideration of a Bill is that it limits the scope of Back Benchers to influence Front Benchers? He will recall that when we were setting the cap that we will discuss in the debate tomorrow—the debate—which we are now debating, it was Labour Back Benchers who threatened not to support their Government, and made them set it lower. We are not hearing anything of that sort from those on the Government Benches tonight. If the desire is there to make a change, it is up to Government Back Benchers, especially Liberal Democrat MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Tomorrow the eyes of the House will be on Liberal Democrat Members in particular. Everybody knows that how they choose to vote will determine whether this proposal goes through or not.

[Clive Efford]

And whether they make that change.

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed. Back Benchers have the opportunity tonight to decide whether the motion will be passed. That is why I hope that as many as possible will join us in the Lobby to vote it down.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As the Leader of the House has ignored the moment of interruption in his motion, by setting 5.30 as the time for the end of the debate tomorrow, is there any procedure by which a manuscript amendment could be tabled during the course of this debate, to extend tomorrow’s debate up until the normal moment of interruption, when any debate on a Thursday should end?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is that it is open to any Member to table a manuscript amendment. Whether the amendment is selected is a matter for the Chair. The Chair would consider a manuscript amendment if and when it were submitted. That is the situation.

[Hilary Benn]

I am sure that the House is extremely grateful for that guidance, Mr Speaker.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that one of the greatest achievements in recent years has been extending participation to young people from disadvantaged communities? Salford university takes 45% of its students from the local area, and that includes many young people who otherwise would not have the chance to go to university. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the curtailment of the debate tomorrow will mean that the voices of those particularly disadvantaged young people will not be heard?

[Hilary Benn]

That is the case. With five hours, there will be an opportunity for only a relatively small number of Members to participate in the debate. The number of Members who have sought to intervene in this debate tonight is a pretty good indication of the number who will want to speak tomorrow.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am new to this House, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is therefore difficult for me to differentiate between posturing and principle, but I think I am getting a lesson in it tonight from the right hon. Gentleman. The idea of debate is not only to make one’s own point but to listen. Too frequently in debates, right hon. and hon. Members make their points and then leave the Chamber. Will the shadow Leader of the House assure us that the Opposition speakers in tomorrow’s debate will be in their places for the entire five hours of the debate? Or will there be a lot of popping in and then popping out when they have made their posturing points?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The point was indeed irrelevant and, I think, inconsequential.

[Robert Flello]

I am grateful yet again to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and for the generosity that he has shown in doing so. I am following his speech with great interest. I look forward to taking part in the debate tomorrow, if I should catch the eye of Mr Speaker or of one of the Deputy Speakers—and, indeed, if there is time. Does my right hon. Friend wish to comment, however, given the short amount of time that will be available, on how much time—should I be able to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair and make my point, along with other colleagues—the occupants of the Government Front Bench will have to respond to the points made by Opposition Members? How will the Government be able to answer the points that we raise, given that there is such a short time for the debate?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The large number of matters that Members will undoubtedly wish to raise tomorrow will only add to the pressure on time, if Ministers are even to begin to attempt to answer them all.

[Emma Reynolds]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who expressed the concern that she has many potentially disadvantaged students in her constituency; I do too, and I should like to have the time to represent their concerns tomorrow. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Leader of the House was disingenuous in suggesting that we had sufficient time—

[Emma Reynolds]

I apologise to the Leader of the House. He said only moments ago that we had sufficient time to debate these issues in the Opposition day debate, but does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the Government made a statement on that day, tomorrow will be the second time they have tried to curtail the time allowed to debate this issue?

[Hilary Benn]

That is indeed the case. The Leader of the House’s idea of sufficient time is not our idea of sufficient time.

[Mr Tom Harris]

In my right hon. Friend’s considered opinion, what would have been the chances of the Deputy Leader of the House supporting this programme motion had it been moved by a Labour Government? Should not this Damascene conversion to the value of the programme motion at least be counted in the top-10 Liberal Democrat U-turns of 2010?

[Hilary Benn]

There are many U-turns fighting to get into that top-10 list, but my hon. Friend makes a good point. Had the roles been reversed, the Deputy Leader of the House would have been fulminating from the Dispatch Box about how outrageous it was. He could have the opportunity to do so now, but I see that he simply wants to remain in his place.

I should like to make a suggestion about how we could guarantee even the inadequate amount of time given so far. We have just had very helpful guidance from the Speaker about making manuscript amendments, and the Leader of the House could amend his own motion to ensure that there would be injury time if an urgent question were to be granted or if extensive time were taken up with points of order. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not a fan of injury time and I suspect that is because the coalition Government are not terribly keen on having a full and open debate on the matter in hand.

There is another reason why more time is required. The measures we are being asked to vote on tomorrow cannot be described as the original proposals of Lord Browne. That is why my earlier quotation was relevant. When Lord Browne produced his report, he said that his proposals had to be considered together, but we now know that the Government’s plans differ from those of Lord Browne. That is very pertinent to the argument about why more time is required, especially when one bears in mind that the Government have had no debate in their own time on Lord Browne’s proposals.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) made, would not a greater amount of time and a longer process allow Back Benchers on both sides and the official Opposition to make alternative proposals so that at the end of the process there would be much greater consensus, as there was in 2004?

[Hilary Benn]

That is indeed the case. Hon. Members are being denied that opportunity because the Government have chosen to put the cart before the horse.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Does my right hon. Friend share my frustration that the Deputy Prime Minister came to my constituency the day before the election to reinforce his pledge not to raise tuition fees, but that because of the lack of time tomorrow I will not have the opportunity to challenge Liberal Democrat Members on why they are breaking that pledge?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I did not hear any remarks myself, and there is quite a lot of noise in the Chamber, which makes it difficult for all Members of the House to hear. It would be best at this time if we could proceed. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing this matter to my attention, but I do not think that it is a point of order.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you very much indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to give way—

[Robert Flello]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you please clarify something for me? Are Government Whips entitled to take part in debate? My understanding is that they are not. If they are not entitled to take part in debate, why is that happening?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

As I understand it, any Member is entitled to speak in a debate in the House. There may be conventions that are normally followed, but remarks, comments or shouting across the Chamber from a sedentary position in order to disrupt the debate are not permitted. I am sure that nobody will do that.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you very much indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to respond to the intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham. Yes, many people in the country have watched the video that the Deputy Prime Minister made in which he uttered the pledge. [Interruption.] It has to do with the time because we need to hear from Liberal Democrats—perhaps we will be lucky and hear from the Deputy Prime Minister in tomorrow’s debate, but who knows?—and we need time for an explanation of what exactly happened between the making of that pledge and the U-turn that he has performed in introducing these proposals tonight.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need more time to get the information about the various proposals that have been trailed through the press this week, which the Government suggest would justify to the House and to the public an increase in fees? Tomorrow’s debate would enable that if there were time. A number of suggestions have been made—for example, on those students who might get financial assistance. Do we not need time to hear the details of that before the House is asked to vote?

[Hilary Benn]

We do indeed. One of the big problems that Members will face tomorrow is that we do not yet have a lot of the information, and a lot of the questions that have been asked have not yet been answered. How on earth is the House meant to make up its mind on a fundamental part of these proposals in the absence of all that?

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats will never be knowingly understood? If we locked two Lib Dems in a room, we would get three political opinions coming out. Five hours is not nearly enough time to try to work out what the Lib Dems think.

[Hilary Benn]

I fear that even five days may leave us none the wiser as to the position of the Liberal Democrats, but we live in hope.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Pursuant to the point of order made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), may I ask you to explain the tabling of a manuscript amendment? There are many new Members here in the House, and people will be watching and listening to the proceedings. Not everyone will be familiar with the tabling of a manuscript amendment, so it would be of great benefit to the House to know how difficult or how simple it is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you—[Interruption.] Thank you very much, Mr Brennan. I am eternally grateful. I would like us to focus now on the debate.

[Hilary Benn]

I happen to have a copy of “Erskine May” and am very happy to lend it to my hon. Friend, as long as he gives it back to me, because I intend to quote from it a little later.

[Thomas Docherty]

I think I heard the Leader of the House correctly when he appeared to indicate earlier that the Government Front Bench might be prepared to restrict the amount of time they take when opening tomorrow’s debate. The concern that many Opposition Members will have, however, is not only that the Business Secretary will not have time to use his fancy footwork to explain exactly how he has made such a U-turn, but that Opposition Members will not have the opportunity to tease out of the Government exactly what their policies mean. It is simply unacceptable to use that substitute in order to avoid difficult questions.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is, indeed, right. The Leader of the House could indicate now what self-denying ordinance or otherwise Ministers will adopt in order to give Members as much time as possible for debate. There is a fundamental problem, however, because Ministers want to say a lot on the matter, and they should rightly have that opportunity, but Members want to raise a lot of points, too, and we cannot fit it all into the five hours for which the motion provides.

[Emily Thornberry]

On the issue of time, and for the 10,000 students who live in halls of residence and attend university in my constituency, I should like to put it on the record that I sat all the way through the previous Opposition day debate, hoping to be called, and would very much like to be called tomorrow.

[Hilary Benn]

I am sure that the occupant of the Chair will have noticed that advance bid, but I fear that tomorrow many Members will end up disappointed because not enough time has been allocated for the debate.

[Paul Farrelly]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of all the details of the business due to come forth tomorrow? Can he satisfy himself that we will actually get five hours and not fewer?

[Hilary Benn]

That is the point I advanced a moment ago, because whether we get the full five hours depends very much on what happens before the debate. I fear that we might not, which shows just how inadequate the motion is.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will recall that before the election the then Opposition objected very strongly to non-English MPs voting on matters such as tuition fees. Has he had any indication or representation from the Government on whether they still hold the same position?

[Hilary Benn]

I am afraid I cannot give my hon. Friend any guidance on that at all. Perhaps a Minister on the Treasury Bench would like to answer his question. I would very happily give way if they wanted to inform the House.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Perhaps one reason why there is no objection to Welsh and Scottish Back Benchers debating the issue is that we in Wales, through the Assembly Government, have not only ensured that students do not suffer the draconian decrease in university course funding, but very importantly decided to cut the teaching grant not by 80%, but by only a very small 38%, improving Welsh universities and providing opportunities at them for higher degrees and research.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point about why we need the time to debate at length the impact that the change will have.

[Steve McCabe]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The clock in the Chamber is not working properly. Is that another device to con us out of more hours for debate?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The clock seems to me to be working fine. If the hon. Gentleman has a problem, perhaps he will come to the Chair. I am sure that Members are riveted by the debate and time will fly by.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to that clock. I fancied that I had been speaking for slightly longer than four minutes, but who knows?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Time is indeed flying. I think that I have worked out how we will have enough time. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) said earlier that if all hon. Members were to speak, we would have roughly 50 seconds each. From the showing tonight, there is no indication that Government Members want to take part in the debate. We will therefore have about one and a half or two minutes each. Does my right hon. Friend consider two minutes to be adequate to reflect the postbags of Opposition Members?

[Hilary Benn]

It is completely inadequate. We have, however, found a solution for tomorrow, because if we could ensure that that is the clock by which the debate is timed, all right hon. and hon. Members might have the opportunity to participate.

[Mr Tom Harris]

Further to the points of order made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), Madam Deputy Speaker. If the Chair were to accept a manuscript amendment, how much time would be allocated to debating that change, and would that time be added on to the time that we already have for tomorrow’s debate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That would not be in order. I therefore suggest that we return to Mr Hilary Benn’s comments from the Dispatch Box.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you clarify—this point is pertinent and not hypothetical—whether a manuscript amendment that is tabled tonight will be discussed tonight or tomorrow?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

If a manuscript amendment were tabled and it was selected for tonight’s debate, it would be debated tonight. As one has not been tabled, the hon. Gentleman is still asking a hypothetical question.

[Hilary Benn]

A moment ago, I was pointing out that the proposals that the Government have decided to adopt are different from those made by Lord. He said that student numbers should rise by 10% over the next three years, that there should be clawback to deter unnecessarily high fees and that there should be the right to go to university, determined by academic qualifications. We need more time to discuss the report, precisely because the Government have not adopted all his recommendations. We have not had a chance to debate that matter.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Is it my right hon. Friend’s view that five hours is enough time to address the points that have been put to me by staff and students at the university of Glasgow, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin)? Indeed, I believe that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was a lecturer at that institution some years ago. I am not sure that he would get a very warm welcome if he went there tomorrow. The staff and students put important points to me, such as the cut of £400 million in the Scottish block grant, the increase in the number of EU students and the hugely damaging effects that there will be on social mobility for a generation of Scottish students. Does my right hon. Friend think that five hours is enough time to discuss those important points?

[Hilary Benn]

Undoubtedly, it is not enough time. My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend enlighten me on whether we will discuss student bursaries in tomorrow’s debate? I believe that should be the subject of its own debate and not be crammed into the five hours that we will have tomorrow. If bursaries are paid for by universities, universities that draw from the poorest people in the population, such as the university of Bolton, will be badly disadvantaged. There will be no similar effect on universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Whether that would be in order is a matter for the Chair. Mr Benn is addressing today’s debate, so perhaps we can get on with it.

[Hilary Benn]

rose—

[Gavin Shuker]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Hilary Benn]

I will respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) before I take any further interventions. She raises precisely the type of matter that needs to be explored properly and fully in the debate tomorrow. The fact that we will have inadequate time means that we run the risk of its not being addressed.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Angela Smith]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As most of us do not have the benefit of having the time to look at “Erskine May” during the debate, may I ask for your guidance on whether a manuscript amendment would have any impact on any attempt by the Government to move the closure of the debate?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I have already explained to Members that if they want specific advice on the tabling or effects of a manuscript amendment, they should speak to the Clerks. Then they will get the answers to their questions about how such an amendment may or may not affect the debate.

[Hilary Benn]

I was about to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter).

[Mr Slaughter]

As the debate goes on, does it not become obvious how grotesquely short five hours is? It took the Liberal Democrats an hour and a half in Committee Room 11 yesterday to narrow down their voting options to four. It will take five hours for the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to explain the different positions that he has taken in interviews over the past week. My constituents want us to get on to the real issue, which will not happen in a five-hour debate.

[Hilary Benn]

It certainly will not.

[Paul Farrelly]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are now only 21 hours, give or take a minute, from now until the moment of interruption tomorrow? Depending on how long the debate goes on tonight, Members may need some time to recover so that they are in full possession of their wits for tomorrow’s debate. Would it not be better to delay tomorrow’s debate until next week at least?

[Hilary Benn]

A very powerful case has been made this evening for providing more time, and given where we are now, the only way in which more time could be provided would indeed be for the matter to be put off until another occasion.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman is going to have another go.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that ending the debate tomorrow at 5.30 pm will provide ample time for the Leader of the Opposition to join the protestors outside?

[Hilary Benn]

The Leader of the Opposition needs no lectures from the hon. Gentleman about talking to students and, more importantly, listening to what students have to say—a problem from which Members on the Government Benches are suffering.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I happen to have in my hand a piece of paper that has miraculously appeared. According to the Speaker’s office, 26 Labour Members have so far applied to speak tomorrow and, we are told, a lot more from the Government side of the House have done so too. Is that not a clear indication that five hours will not be enough time for people to have their say?

[Hilary Benn]

rose—

[Jim Sheridan]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Following on from the comment of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), tomorrow thousands of students will be coming to the capital of the UK from all over the country, wishing to get access to their MPs, because many MPs have temporary notices up in their constituency offices. Can you assure us that those responsible students who come to the House tomorrow seeking access to their MPs will be given access, and that those MPs will be notified that people are looking for them?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am assured that proper arrangements will be made, as always on these occasions, by the Speaker and the House authorities.

[Hilary Benn]

I am not in the least bit surprised that so many Members have put in to participate in the debate tomorrow. The information that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) has just given the House demonstrates the complete inadequacy of the time that we are being offered, because it is very hard to see how all those Members will be able to participate in the debate.

[Robert Flello]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for his continued generosity and his superb speech. Will he give some thought to the fact that we are expecting unprecedented levels of security tomorrow in and around the Palace of Westminster? Right hon. and hon. Members may have difficulty getting to the Chamber to take part in the debate, and some Members who have a burning desire to be here to represent their constituents might take considerable time to get here. Five hours therefore might not be adequate.

[Hilary Benn]

It is very important that Members of whatever party have full and ready access to the House, particularly tomorrow, given the importance of the subject of the debate and the significance of the vote that we will cast—if the business motion is passed—at about 5.30 pm tomorrow.

[Mr McCann]

My constituents will be making their way down for tomorrow’s debate from the frozen north, but may I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to an article in The Daily Telegraph last Thursday on the constitutional implications of having such vastly different tuition fee arrangements in the different parts of the UK, and the difficulties that that will create? Does he think that five hours is enough to discuss those issues?

[Hilary Benn]

Undoubtedly, that is not enough time. If the number of Members who have already indicated that they want to speak is anything to go by, they could have, depending on the length of speeches by Front Benchers, about four minutes each or even less. How can any Member advance a reasonable argument in that inadequate amount of time?

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend will know that the Government’s proposals will deter poorer students from going to university, but allow less able students from public schools to do so because of their financial means. Does he agree that Government Members who have not-very-able children in public schools should declare an interest? Will there be time in five hours to make all those declarations of interest?

[Hilary Benn]

I am not sure that the current Register of Members’ Financial Interests extends that far. Hon. Members will want to make a lot of points in tomorrow’s debate. Indeed, as this evening progresses, we will hear from other hon. Members who will want to speak tomorrow. That reinforces the point that the Leader of the House has now perhaps taken on board; namely, that it would have been much more sensible to have given us enough time to debate the proposals than to debate the problems tonight.

[Gavin Shuker]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) advanced the point that 26 Labour Members have placed a note with Mr Speaker, but it occurs to me that that may not reflect the true number of those who want to speak in that five-hour period. Both Government and Opposition Members may want to indicate their wish to speak tomorrow as we discuss the provision of time tonight.

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed—that may well be the case. As the evening wears on and as the sense of anger grows among Opposition Members at the inadequacy of the time, more Members will probably be encouraged to go to Mr Speaker’s office to indicate that they wish to take part in tomorrow’s debate.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Is it not instructive and illustrative that we will have just five hours tomorrow to debate the Government’s proposals? Does that not tell us, as we heard from the Leader of the Opposition today, just how extraordinarily out of touch the Government are with ordinary working people in this country? The measures will be a strong disincentive to those people to go to our universities. That is why the debate deserves far more than five hours. It is not us who deserves more than five hours, but those students.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I could not put it better myself.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

I shall make a little progress and give way later.

The Government of the day would normally have published a White Paper before asking us to vote on such proposals. I have inquired at the Vote Office, but it does not have a White Paper, because the Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary has not yet published one. On reflection, that is quite extraordinary. We will be asked in a few hours—less than 21 hours—to take a decision that will pre-empt the whole of the Government’s policy on higher education without our having a chance to find out what that is. It is interesting that the explanatory memorandum that accompanies the Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010 states:

“The Regulations raising the basic and higher amounts are the first elements in the reform package to be presented for Parliamentary approval. Without prejudice to their subsequent proper Parliamentary consideration, the Government believes it is appropriate to refer in this Memorandum to the other elements of the funding and finance package in the context of which the new basic and higher amounts are made.”

These are not the first elements: these statutory instruments are the consequences of other decisions that the Government have already made.

[Tristram Hunt]

Is not that very much the point, because what we face tomorrow is a bridgehead for an extraordinary revolution in higher education on which we deserve a full debate about the consequences? Five and a half hours will not begin to do justice to the issue.

[Hilary Benn]

It certainly will not, which is why we need more time.

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Gentleman has now been speaking for an hour and a half. Does he feel like stopping? As we have only five and a half hours tomorrow, will he promise not to make another speech like this one?

[Hilary Benn]

That is a trifle ungenerous, because I am trying to assist the House so that it will have enough time tomorrow to debate this.

Paragraph 8.1 of the explanatory memorandum on the consultation outcome is germane, because it states:

“These Regulations are informed by Lord Browne’s review which took evidence from students, teachers, academics, employers and regulators over a period of almost a year. The need to provide clarity for students and universities about the contributions they can expect to make and receive means that the timetable for laying the Regulations has been highly compressed, and this has prevented a separate external consultation exercise on the Government’s proposals.”

Highly compressed? It is more like “cut and run”, because that is what we are dealing with tonight.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I just put on record how important it is for me that this motion is opposed and we have proper time to debate? Like my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), I put my name down for the Opposition day debate on higher education as a result of the hundreds of families in Walthamstow who have contacted me because they are deeply concerned about the increases in tuition fees. I am serving on the Public Bill Committee considering the National Insurance Contributions Bill tomorrow and so will not be able to participate during the meagre five-hour debate. If we do not have proper time to debate this issue, I fear that I will not be able to raise the concerns of the people of Walthamstow, so I hope that my right hon. Friend is successful.

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I am sure that her constituents, like those of other hon. Members, would wish their representative to have the opportunity to participate in the debate tomorrow.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend may not be aware that the number of Labour Members wishing to speak in the debate tomorrow has now swelled to at least 28. I am one of those Members who sought to speak in the debate last week, but I was unable to catch Mr Speaker’s eye because of the lack of time. In view of the importance that my constituents place on this issue, does my right hon. Friend agree that allocating only five hours is totally inadequate to allow me and my right hon. and hon. Friends an opportunity to articulate the concerns of our constituents so that they feel that their views are adequately taken into account?

[Hilary Benn]

I certainly do. I hope that the force and the number of interventions that I have taken this evening will have some impact on Government Front Benchers and, even at this late stage, they will think again about the time that they have allocated.

[Steve McCabe]

I am another of those who have been denied the opportunity to represent their constituents by the Leader of the House. Should it not be abundantly clear to him now that his motion does not reflect the mood of the House? Will not the watching public suspect that a fix has been attempted because the Government cannot defend the policy that they are about to impose on young people?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The number and strength of the interventions that we have heard this evening are for a specific purpose—to try to win for this House enough time to debate this issue. The fact is that the number of Members who are in their places, especially on the Opposition Benches, is a sign of the anger and outrage that is felt about the amount of time that has been allocated. It is in the Government’s hands to bring this particular debate to an end by saying that they will go away and think again. I hope that the Minister will do so.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Many constituents have contacted me because they want me, as their MP, to put forward their views about the future of higher education. Given that so many hon. Members will want to speak in tomorrow’s debate and will not be able to do so, is not such a compression bringing Parliament into disrepute? If the people of this country cannot have their Members of Parliament raising their concerns on an issue of such importance, there are much wider implications.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with my hon. Friend. People look to the House of Commons to speak for them and they look to us as Members to represent their views. They want us to consider in appropriate depth and with adequate care the proposals that come before us. The number of people who are concerned about what we will be asked to consider tomorrow should find expression in the number of voices that are heard in this Chamber. We will be denied that opportunity because of the inadequacy of the time that is being offered.

[Kevin Brennan]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that journalists in the Committee corridor last night were reporting that the Lib Dems had as much time as they liked in their meeting and could speak for as long as they wanted on the matter without any timetabling of it in private? However, in public and in this Chamber, they are seeking to limit the debate to a mere five hours. Is that not a very telling point?

[Hilary Benn]

It is. If such an approach is good enough for Liberal Democrats in private, it ought to be good enough for the House of Commons in public. We are the voice of the nation.

[Nic Dakin]

My right hon. Friend is being most generous tonight in giving way. The fact that the Government are not listening to people’s voices—we are hearing about that and reflecting that in our contributions tonight—and want to constrain a debate to just five hours or less completely flies in the face of the new politics that the country asked for and the fresh approach that it welcomed.

[Hilary Benn]

It certainly does. As my hon. Friend says, there is a serious issue here. If the public do not think that we have properly considered the matter, it will not build their trust and confidence in Parliament, and it certainly will not build their trust and confidence in the Government—it will damage it.

[Mr Slaughter]

Does my right hon. Friend know that the Deputy Prime Minister is now on Sky News saying that he would love to get rid of university tuition fees, but that he lives in an imperfect world? He says that he hopes that tuition fees will go in the future and blames the Labour party for not supporting him in the past. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Labour party would be happy to vote with him tomorrow against the motion? Should the Deputy Prime Minister not be—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I am sure that the hon. Lady appreciates that I am following the debate very closely. If contributions are not in order, I will say so.

[Hilary Benn]

The Deputy Prime Minister will have to explain his imperfections and I hope very much that he will participate in tomorrow’s debate, because many hon. Members will want to intervene on him.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am sorry that the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) had the discourtesy to interrupt me in that way. The point I wished to make is that it is a discourtesy to the House for the Deputy Prime Minister to be on television doing a mea culpa and trying pathetically to justify himself, rather than being here and explaining why we have only five hours to debate the matter.

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed. Given the number of things that the Deputy Prime Minister has had to say about the tuition fee increase that he intends to vote for tomorrow, the very least he could do is to come into the debate. I hope that he might be able to participate, because many people would like to hear how he explains the change in attitude—the 180° turn—that he has performed in a very short space of time.

[Paul Farrelly]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the ground keeps shifting from day to day? The coalition Government have now admitted that deterrence because of debt is an issue, and they have announced a national scholarship fund. Does he consider five hours to be sufficient time in which to debate all the details of the proposals and to examine whether the Government are, in effect, just making policy up on the hoof?

[Hilary Benn]

It is clearly not sufficient time to debate those matters, which brings me to the second reason why more time needs to be found, which is the nature of the change that the Government wish to make. The proposals on fees that we are being asked to consider tomorrow cannot really be seen in isolation from the wider Browne proposals or the Government’s spending review. The truth is that they are intimately bound up, one with another, which is why the House needs proper time to consider both. As we know, the huge fee increase is a result of the Government’s decision in the spending review to impose on universities not the average cut that they have been applying—a cut of 11%—but an unprecedented 80% reduction in university teaching budgets.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend consider five hours to be enough time in which to debate the £50 million that I understand will come out of the economy in Hull, owing to the changes that will be introduced tomorrow afternoon if the proposal goes through? My constituency, which is a disadvantaged community, relies heavily on the university of Hull. I am concerned that five hours will be insufficient to debate fully the impact on the local economy in my constituency.

[Hilary Benn]

I share my hon. Friend’s frustration, because one of the things that we need time to debate tomorrow is the consequence of the fee increase, which is the result of the 80% reduction. What will that mean for some universities? That is a perfectly legitimate question that Members may wish to ask tomorrow.

[Charlie Elphicke]

In the spirit of assisting the House, let me point out that the right hon. Gentleman has been on his feet for an hour and a half. That is fine, but I invite him to consider allowing Back Benchers to make speeches as well.

[Hilary Benn]

Because of the generosity of the Leader of the House, who has said that debate can continue until any hour, there will be plenty of time for Back Benchers to contribute to this debate.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

And judging by the number of Members who wish to intervene, this is probably just a prelude to the speeches that they will make.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right: Mr Speaker will make a decision on those manuscript amendments in due course, and I am sure that he will ensure that the House knows when he has decided. I call Mr Hilary Benn.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was giving way to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley).

[Barbara Keeley]

My right hon. Friend has been very generous in giving way this evening. Let me touch on the point that he made about the impact on universities. We have already heard a little about Salford university this evening, and about how many local young people attend it. Indeed, there are two Salford graduates on the Labour Benches listening to this debate, and we are very concerned indeed about the possibility of our course—politics and contemporary history, which we both did at Salford university—disappearing. Will there be time in five hours to consider not just the future of social science courses such as the politics and contemporary history course at Salford—which was an excellent course, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) will agree—but the future of this House? Where are the future Labour and other candidates going to come from if these politics and contemporary history courses disappear?

[Hilary Benn]

The importance and the power of a university education is indeed to give people the chance to understand where we come from. If we do not understand where we come from, it is difficult to work out where we should be going.

[Tristram Hunt]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

Speaking of an understanding of history, I shall gladly give way to my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you.

[Hilary Benn]

I bow to my hon. Friend’s expertise in these matters. He illustrates the point that many people are interested in all those subjects, as well as others that he did not have the opportunity to mention. They want us to have the chance to debate these matters tomorrow.

[Mr Bain]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, since he began his speech, it has been reported that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change might not be in the House tomorrow to attend the debate or to vote? Does not that reinforce the argument that five hours will not give him enough time to explain whether he is abstaining or simply hiding in Cancun?

[Hilary Benn]

I have followed with interest the various reports of the movements and non-movements of the Climate Change Secretary who, in fairness, is doing very important work in Cancun because we need a global climate deal. Having seen some of the newspaper reports that we should have offered him a pair, however, it seems to me that the easiest thing would be for him to pair with one of his colleagues who is going to vote on the other side. There is no need for him to come to seek our assistance.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend recall the debates on the national minimum wage, when we sat up all night because the Conservatives were determined to oppose the proposals and fought them every inch of the way? Does he agree that we should be equally willing to fight this legislation, and that we should stay up all night if necessary?

[Hilary Benn]

The determination of Opposition Members to do everything we can to ensure that we get a proper amount of time to debate the issues and the chance to vote the proposals down is evident. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Emily Thornberry]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps you can help me on this point. Is the reason that we can have only a five-hour debate tomorrow the fact that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, finds it difficult to stay awake? I can see him sleeping on the Front Bench—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, my strong impression is that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is beyond the scope of the debate. Secondly, it is longer than is desirable or acceptable. Interventions need to be shorter from now on.

[Hilary Benn]

I wish I could help the hon. Gentleman by answering his question, but I cannot. One of the people who could help him is sitting on the Government Bench, but I do not know whether he will want to intervene on me to give the hon. Gentleman the information he seeks. This provides another powerful reason to have more time tomorrow to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question and many other questions that right hon. and hon. Members will want to ask.

I shall make a little more progress. One issue that the House will need more time to debate tomorrow is the potential financial consequence of the fee increase, which is presaged on an 80% reduction in funding for institutions that right hon. and hon. Members have the honour to represent in their constituencies. We still do not know for certain by how much each university is going to be affected by the introduction of the near-trebling of fees, particularly when universities are also going to be affected by other changes. For example, we know that the regional development agencies are being abolished, that the funds for regional development, some of which have been used in partnership with institutions of higher education, are being reduced and that the local economic partnerships have not been properly established in many places because of the state of chaos. Universities do not know how much they might have to find in the current financial year, never mind the impact that these tuition fee changes will have. This could affect students this year and in subsequent years as the transition from the current to the new system is managed. These are all questions that we need time to debate.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is discussing fees, and the university in my constituency of Bolton South East is one of 20 widening participation universities. As a result of the Browne review and tuition fee changes, it is expected that those 20 universities will collapse and will be unable to carry on serving the needs of the most vulnerable students in our society. Is five hours enough time to discuss the fate of the 20 universities that are likely to collapse?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point—one that I am addressing at the moment: the potential financial impact of these changes on a number of universities. That is precisely one of the points that we need to debate tomorrow, but we have been denied sufficient time to do so on the current arrangements.

[Chris Williamson]

My right hon. Friend has been extremely generous in giving way this evening and I am very grateful to him for his kindness in giving way to me on this occasion. Does he agree that restricting the debate to five hours will give scant time for me to raise the concerns that I know exist in Derby in respect of Derby university? It has been calculated that, as a result of the 80% reduction to which he referred, that university will have a financial black hole of about £30 million. It will find it extremely difficult to increase tuition fees to the level that would be necessary—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, there is the issue of scope. Secondly, I know that the hon. Gentleman, who is a very well-behaved man, would not seek to make a speech when he is supposed to be making an intervention. [Interruption.] Order. He has registered his point, to which I know the shadow Leader of the House will want to respond.

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I believe that my hon. Friend should have the opportunity tomorrow precisely to put that question to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.

[Angela Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. Sheffield Hallam university could lose about £70 million because of this decision. Is it not imperative that Members such as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and myself make a contribution tomorrow, especially given that the Deputy Prime Minister has refused to meet the local student union to discuss the matter?

[Hilary Benn]

I am surprised and concerned to hear that news. It seems from what my hon. Friend says that the right hon. Gentleman is willing to spend more time in the television studios describing the changing positions of his party than he is prepared to spend talking to students who are going to feel the consequences of what he is proposing

I turn to a difficulty that might arise for all Members tomorrow, because all we are discussing—I say “all” in a contextual sense—is two statutory instruments. Here I seek guidance from the Leader of the House and possibly from you, Mr Speaker. The House will be aware of the rules governing the scope of debate on statutory instruments. A little while ago, I promised that I would quote from “Erskine May”, and page 681 states:

“Debate on any statutory instrument, whether subject to the affirmative or the negative procedure, is confined to the contents of the instrument, and discussion of alternative methods of achieving its object is not in order. Where the effects of an instrument are confined to a particular geographical area or areas, discussion of other areas is out of order. Nor is criticism of the provisions of the parent Act permitted.”

Mr Speaker, does that mean that Members will be restricted tomorrow in what they can discuss and what they can say? Does it mean, for example, that Opposition Members who would wish to argue the case for a graduate tax cannot raise it in the debate? Could they be ruled out of order? If right hon. and hon. Members want to refer to the implications of the proposals for other parts of the United Kingdom, will they be ruled out of order? Were that to be the case, it would show how improper is the Government’s decision to bring the statutory instrument before the House tomorrow. If that interpretation of “Erskine May” is applied—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. I am not sure whether his inquiry was a genuine one or a rhetorical one, but he has referred to the fact of the motion and the narrow terms of the statutory instrument, and he raises the concern about how much scope there will be for Members fully to develop their points. It might help him and the House if I point out that the two—the motion and the SI tomorrow—have been conflated for the purposes of the consideration, and the intention of the Chair would be to adopt a broad and generous interpretation of what could legitimately be said in the debate. I hope that that is helpful to Members in all parts of the House.

[Hilary Benn]

It was a genuine inquiry, Mr Speaker, and I am extremely grateful to you for your guidance. When I read that section in “Erskine May”, I was genuinely concerned that Members might be denied the opportunity to have the full debate that we require tomorrow.

[Thomas Docherty]

Has my right hon. Friend noticed, as I have, the silence and lack of activity from Government Members? Is it his view that they agree with us that this is a horrible stitch-up by those on the Government Front Bench, or, as Government Members have suggested, do they also wish to contribute speeches tonight? Does my right hon. Friend look forward to many of them joining us over the next few hours, as we debate this important matter?

[Hilary Benn]

If we do hear this evening the voices of Government Members, I hope that they might persuade the Leader of the House to change his mind about the proposal that he wants us to vote for tonight. We have no intention of doing so.

[Dr Whitehead]

Notwithstanding the clarification about the scope of tomorrow’s debate, does my right hon. Friend accept—bearing in mind that the White Paper relating to the orders will come along later and that details of changes will follow—that if a student got the results of the exam first, then the exam paper, and finally the lecture notes, it would be a rather strange way to go about their university education?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

It certainly would be, although reflecting on the scenario that my hon. Friend sets out, there might be certain advantages, especially for students who had not been applying their minds to their studies. He makes the point, however, that the Government are going about this matter in completely the wrong way.

I am sure that a large number of Members wish to take part in this evening’s debate, as well as the very large number who wish to take part in the debate tomorrow. The third reason that I wish to advance for our need for more time tomorrow is the fact that, as we have already established this evening, Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament on their own could occupy the whole five hours by explaining the multiple positions that they are adopting notwithstanding the efforts of the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Albert Owen]

Following your helpful confirmation, Mr Speaker, that we will debate all the issues, is it not imperative for us to be given an extended period allowing us to discuss the points made by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and others about the Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish perspectives, involving those who are domiciled in their own countries but come to England to study? Is there not a greater imperative for the time to be extended now that we are clear about the boundaries of tomorrow’s debate?

[Hilary Benn]

It is indeed important for the time to be extended to allow full debate. We need time to hear the views of not just the Liberal Democrats who have decided to break the pledge and vote for the fees increase tomorrow, but all the Liberal Democrats who are going to abstain.

We know that the Liberal Democrats have wrestled with their consciences over the last few months, and we know that that has been difficult for them. I think that the House owes them a chance to seek to catch your eye one by one, Mr Speaker, so that they can explain why they have chosen to sit on the fence, and why they believe that that will absolve them of what they have done and clear their consciences. No doubt many Members on our side will seek to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, in order to point out that abstaining will do no good at all, because a betrayal is still a betrayal whenever it is undertaken.

[Robert Flello]

I look forward to catching your eye myself shortly, Mr Speaker, so that I can make my own contribution to the debate.

Does not what we have heard tonight—and what we have had to rely on as a statement from you, Mr Speaker, about the need to widen the scope of the debate—merely underline the shoddy and appalling way in which the measure is being railroaded through the House? Is this what the Deputy Prime Minister meant by “new politics”?

[Hilary Benn]

If it is the new politics, heaven help us all.

This is a defining moment for the coalition Government. It is the moment when the bonds of that coalition will be sorely tested. The trebling of tuition fees, the debt that will be incurred by future generations, the threat to the finances of some universities—all those will be at stake in the debate tomorrow. If that is not an argument for the House to be given proper time in which to debate such matters, I do not know what is. The truth is that the Government have treated the House with contempt, and I urge the House to reciprocate by treating the motion with the contempt that it deserves and throwing it out.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for the week commencing 6 December will include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday 15 December—Second Reading of a Bill.

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

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

Thursday 16 December—A debate on drugs policy.

[Hilary Benn]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 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)]

The business for the week commencing 29 November will include:

Monday 29 November—A motion relating to banking reform, followed by a general debate on the regulation of independent financial advisers. The subject for both debates was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 30 November—Opposition day (7th allotted day). There will be a debate on school sport funding, followed by a debate on tuition fees—both debates will arise on an Opposition motion—followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010.

Wednesday 1 December—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, followed by a general debate on national policy statements.

Thursday 2 December—Motions relating to the publication of information of complaints against Members, power of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to initiate investigations, and lay membership of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, followed by a debate on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. The subject for debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 3 December—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 6 December will include:

Monday 6 December—Opposition day (8th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.

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

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

[The information is as follows: “DFID’s Assistance to Zimbabwe” (8th report from the International Development Committee of Session 2009-10, HC 252); Government response, Cmd 7899.]

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

Thursday 9 December—Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No.2) Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments.

The House will also wish to be reminded that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make his statement on the autumn forecast on Monday 29 November 2010. I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 2 and 9 December will be:

Thursday 2 December—A debate on fisheries.

Thursday 9 December—A debate on the future of pubs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his answer. Will he confirm that there will be the debate on Europe that traditionally takes place before the December European Council? The Foreign Secretary said in the Queen’s Speech debate that it would happen in good time, and this one will be especially important given the problems affecting a number of eurozone countries.

We now know that the vote on lifting the cap on tuition fees will take place before Christmas—in other words, long before the promised White Paper on higher education. As the Government are clearly desperate to get this out of the way, will the Leader of the House assure the House that the necessary orders will be taken and voted on on the Floor of the House, so that every single voter can see every single Liberal Democrat MP who goes through the Aye Lobby and breaks the pledge that they made? It is not so much the new politics, but very old politics—say one thing, do another.

Talking of which, two weeks ago the Deputy Prime Minister said that he should have been more careful about signing the pledge. This morning, we learn that he now “massively regrets” not keeping his word. Can we expect a further statement next week from him that he is now really, really, really sorry about breaking his word, and if so, can we have a debate on crocodile tears and could he lead it?

Last week, the Bill that will reduce by 50 the number of representatives in this House—to cut the cost of politics, we are told—had its Second Reading in the other place. In the very same week, the Government decided to increase by 54 the number of new life peers in the other place. I make that a net gain of four parliamentarians, so can we have a debate on incoherence, and could the Deputy Prime Minister lead that one as well?

Two weeks ago, I raised with the Leader of the House the Education Secretary’s arbitrary decision to take away all the funding from school sport partnerships, which, as we know, have been highly successful in getting more children to take up sport, including 1 million more doing competitive sport. Yesterday, extraordinarily, the Prime Minister chose to describe that as “pathetic” and “failing”. I will give the Leader of the House some other words that have been used by those involved to describe the decision—“unforgivably cynical”, “despicable”, “catastrophic” and “heartbreaking”. May we have a debate on irrational decision making, so that the Prime Minister can first apologise for rubbishing the efforts of all the people who have made this happen and secondly explain why he has not told his hapless Education Secretary to think again?

Christmas is coming, and some geese are getting very fat indeed. I refer, of course, to the traditional start of the bankers’ bonus season. Yesterday, the Prime Minister refused to confirm that he will enact Labour’s legislation to provide transparency on salaries and bonuses of more than £1 million a year, and yet in the very same week we were told that the Minister for Housing and Local Government wants local authorities to require new council tenants to disclose how much they get paid. Apparently, that is in case their earnings are too high, in which case they could be evicted from their homes after just two years. Given that the Government now have one rule for bankers and another for just about everyone else, can we have a debate on double standards? And could that be led by the Deputy Prime Minister as well?

Finally, last week, Lord Young was sacked for saying that we have never had it so good. On the day that the happiness index is officially launched, would the Leader of the House like to take this opportunity to make it clear that the personal happiness that he expressed last week is not at an all-time high? Given that the Prime Minister is ruthless when it comes to people saying the wrong thing, but useless when it comes to Ministers doing the wrong thing, we would hate to lose the Leader of the House simply for being too cheerful.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the range of questions that he asked. On his first question, I would remind him of paragraph 145 of the Wright Committee report, which was accepted by both sides of the House and which we are implementing—something that his party refused to do. Paragraph 145 makes it absolutely clear that the days for the pre-European Council debates are now a matter for the Backbench Business Committee—something that we established, which he and his party failed to do in office. Therefore, the question of that debate falls to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and her Committee, not the Government.

On tuition fees, we hope that the motion that will be tabled by the Opposition on Tuesday will clarify whether the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Leader of the Opposition is in charge of Opposition policy, and whether there will be a commitment to a graduate tax. We wonder whether the shadow Chancellor will wind up that debate, so as to make it absolutely clear that his views are the same as those of the Leader of the Opposition. On the specific question that the shadow Leader of the House posed, the answer is yes: there will be a debate on the Floor of the House and a vote on lifting the cap on tuition fees.

I will take no lectures from the Labour party on the appointment of life peers. We could not conceivably match the record of the Labour party and Tony Blair in appointing people to the upper House, however long we were in office. I gently point out to the right hon. Gentleman that some of those nominated last week for the upper House came from his party. If they want to make a contribution to reducing the size of the upper House, to respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s injunction, it is perfectly open to them not to take their seats.

There will be a debate on school sports on Tuesday, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, but in response to the substantive issue I can tell him that the coalition Government are anxious to devolve decisions down to the local level. We have removed ring fences in local government and education, because we think that it is right to let local people decide how best to allocate the funds. That is what has happened to school sports.

On bankers’ bonuses, we are doing exactly what Sir David Walker recommended. Labour appointed Sir David Walker to look at bankers’ bonuses, and he is absolutely clear that this country should not take unilateral action. We are following the advice of the person whom the previous Government commissioned.

On tenancies, it is important that people do not go around saying that after two years people will be evicted. That is not the policy at all. We are suggesting that some tenancies be initially for two years, and the position reviewed. It is in the interests—[Interruption.] It is in the interests of those on the waiting list that there should be more mobility in the social housing stock, in order to make progress in allocating homes to those who desperately need them.

On the happiness index, mine went down this morning when I heard that England had been bowled out for less than 300, but I am sure that they will rebound. However, I would just ask the right hon. Gentleman how happy he is in a shadow Cabinet where his party leader is being undermined by fellow members, and where they are at war with each other on the 50p tax and the graduate tax, as well as on other issues, such as whether there should be one member, one vote for leadership elections. I think that the shadow Leader of the House will find that we on the Government Benches are far happier than he is.

Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 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)]

The business for the week commencing 22 November will include:

Monday 22 November—Remaining stages of the Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill.

Tuesday 23 November—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.

Wednesday 24 November—Consideration in Committee of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill (day 2), followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010.

Thursday 25 November—Remaining stages of the Local Government Bill [Lords].

The provisional business for the week commencing 29 November will include:

Monday 29 November—Opposition Day (7th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Tuesday 30 November—A debate on banking reform followed by a general debate on regulation of independent financial advisers. The subject for both debates was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee. That will be followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010.

Wednesday 1 December— Remaining stages of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.

Thursday 2 December—A debate on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. The subject for debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 3 December—Private Members’ Bills.

Colleagues will also wish to know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make his statement on the autumn forecast on Monday 29 November 2010.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement.

There were two statements on day one of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill Committee. The first was not time critical and the second was self-inflicted because of a leak—yet another failure to tell Parliament first. Members were somewhat puzzled by the argument used by the Leader of the House on Tuesday in refusing extra time, given that the Government granted extra time for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. If extra time was good enough for that constitutional bill, why is it not good enough for the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill?

Following the point of order made yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), can the Leader of the House explain why, notwithstanding the resolution of the House of 19 March 1997, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), did not tell the House until the very end of Tuesday’s debate, rather than at the beginning, of his intention to write to the devolved Administrations to ask them whether they would like a new power on combining polls?

Yesterday, we had an urgent question from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on the Republic of Ireland’s finances, in reply to which the Minister obviously could not say a great deal. Will the Leader of the House assure us that the Government will make an oral statement in the event that a bail-out that involves the United Kingdom is agreed?

On private Members’ Bills, Mr Speaker, you have had on a number of occasions recently to remind Members about sticking to the subject. Last Friday it seems that one Member treated the House to a poetry reading while allegedly debating the Sustainable Livestock Bill. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how we deal with private Members’ Bills and the Standing Orders relating to their consideration, because it is pretty frustrating when filibustering gets in the way of proper debate and votes?

Last week, I asked the right hon. Gentleman for a pledge that there would be no vote on lifting the cap on tuition fees before the White Paper on higher education is published. He said that he would get back to me. Has he any news? Meanwhile, we learn that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is so worried about having a vote on the Lib Dems’ broken pledge that he sent a rather frantic private e-mail to the Deputy Prime Minister, thoughtfully copying it to The Guardian in the process, in which he said:

“We really need to get it out of the way ASAP.?? The sooner this is over the better!!!”

I would say just this to the right hon. Member for Yeovil and his colleagues: I do not think that it will get any better, because a betrayal is still a betrayal, regardless of when it happens.

The Prime Minister was asked yesterday about yet another broken promise: namely the pledge to increase the number of midwives by 3,000, which he made in The Sun in January of this year. We are told that that promise was not included in the coalition agreement because of a change in the birth rate predictions. May we have a statement on what new predictions were published—presumably by the Office for National Statistics—between the pledge in January and the signing of the coalition agreement on 12 May?

The House will have noted that notwithstanding the Leader of the House’s sterling defence in the past two weeks of the Prime Minister’s decision to put his personal photographer on the civil service payroll, the Prime Minister has now decided that perhaps after all that was not a very good idea. May we have statement on how much it cost first to recruit and then to sack Mr Parsons, and will the Conservative party refund the cost of his salary for the time when he was a very temporary civil servant?

Finally, Mr Speaker, may I ask the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House whether they are happy? I inquire only because it seems that the Government are planning to publish a happiness index. Apparently, we will be asked questions such as, “How satisfied are you with your life on a scale of nought to 10?” As Sir Humphrey might have said, that is a brave thing for Ministers to do, but I feel honour bound to point out that happiness can go down as well as up.