Business of the House

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call and congratulate the unopposed Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am very grateful, Mr Speaker. I have had the privilege of being in that role since June 2015, although I have a funny feeling this will be my last term in it, for a whole range of different reasons—[Hon. Members: “No!”] Well, the holder has to be a member of the Opposition. As we speak, the Committee cannot yet meet, but I understand that all political parties have made or are making nominations to the Committee of Selection. As soon as it agrees the nominations, the Backbench Business Committee can get up and running again. I hope that the first meeting can take place as soon as Tuesday 28 November. If it can happen before then, we certainly will try to ensure that it does. I understand from the Clerks that there is already a queue of applications to be presented to the Committee; we will try to get that all together as soon as possible.

Bus drivers and other staff employed by Go North East are on indefinite strike in a pay dispute. They seek pay parity with their company colleagues in the north-west region. The strike leaves constituents almost totally stranded and unable to get to work, places of study, hospitals and shops. Can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Transport about his intentions to bring an end to this dire paralysis in my Gateshead constituency and across the wider north-east region? Go North East provides bus services to a large part of the north-east region, and I am afraid to say it is no go at the moment.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Gentleman on remaining Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, and thank him for all the work he does in that respect. I come here every week to this Dispatch Box with reasons to vote Conservative, and he has furnished us with another one, because we do not want to lose him as Chairman of that Committee. He has my assurance that we are committed to the swift establishment of the Committee. If that cannot be done before the general debate, subject to be announced, that I announced in the business question, we will take a steer from the topics that his Committee has already looked at.

I am very sorry to hear about the disruption to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents’ ability to travel. He will know that that is a concern to this Government. It is one reason why we have brought forward legislation to guarantee minimum service levels in areas such as transport and emergency services. It is incredibly important that industrial action, particularly when it takes place over long periods of time, does not disrupt people’s lives and cause them, for example, to lose their jobs, as has been happening in other parts of the country. I urge him to reflect on whether he could support those measures, particularly for specific sectors, that we will bring forward in this Session.