Business of the House

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head up to Gateshead and the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]]

Of course, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) is a member of the Backbench Business Committee, so he would be asking himself for a debate.

I thank the Leader of the House for the business statement and for announcing the Back-Bench business for next Thursday. The first debate will be on a motion on the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on refugee communities, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali). The second debate will be on achieving the ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030, in light of the covid-19 pandemic and public health reorganisation, the lead Member for which is my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy).

The Home Office had a huge backlog of cases and processing applications by refugees and asylum seekers prior to the pandemic. The Home Office has now contacted my office to ask my staff whether they would accept verbal updates on individual cases, as it says it does not have the capacity to do it in writing. That would mean we would have to take note of what was being said and relate that to the constituent concerned, which is most unsatisfactory. The system was a mess before the pandemic and it is now a mess that is getting worse, leaving constituents completely in a void. May we have a statement from the Home Secretary about what is happening in the Home Office and its immigration management system?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

First, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the work he does as Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee and for bringing forward important debates that have support across the House. The point he mentions is clearly not one that Members must feel under any obligation to go along with. We expect responses from Departments to be proper responses. It is not for us to take notes of conversations and pass them on, because that is likely to lead to misunderstanding, error and imprecision. I will certainly take this up with the Home Office afterwards, but I would make the general point that the Government have been absolutely clear in all their guidance that people should work from home if they can do their job. If there are people in any sector who cannot do their job at home, and are therefore failing to answer MPs’ correspondence because they are all working remotely, they ought in fact to be going into work. That is what the guidance says.