Business of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

2nd reading & 3rd reading
Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 5 July will include:

Monday 5 July—Remaining stages of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

Tuesday 6 July—Second Reading of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill.

Wednesday 7 July—Opposition day (4th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party, subject to be announced.

Thursday 8 July—General debate on fuel poverty, followed by debate on a motion relating to the implementation of the recommendations of the independent medicines and medical devices safety review. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 9 July—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 12 July will include:

Monday 12 July—Second Reading of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill.

Tuesday 13 July—Remaining stages of the Armed Forces Bill, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of the Chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

Wednesday 14 July—Second Reading of a Bill.

Thursday 15 July—Debate on a motion relating to the Northern Ireland protocol, followed by debate on a motion relating to the Peking winter Olympics and Chinese Government sanctions. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 16 July—The House will not be sitting.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business, and we can discuss later the apparent absence so far of a motion to change rules about recall.

Mr Speaker:

“It’s extraordinary. I don’t understand.”

And:

“I think the social distancing rules are very important and people should follow them.”

Those words were spoken last year by the now former Health Secretary, when a scientist admitted to meeting his girlfriend indoors, breaking covid rules, and now we know that the former Health Secretary broke the same rules. He also flouted rules on procurement, handing out contracts to dodgy mates; he let down staff and residents of care homes with his not-really-a-ring-of-protection around them; and much more. For instance, what sort of Health Secretary hands out contracts for personal protective equipment to his pub landlord, from a pub called—I am not making this up—the Cock Inn? A few weeks ago at business questions, the Leader of the House referred to the former Health Secretary as a “successful genius”. Does the Leader of the House wish to amend that judgment?

This May, the rules were that there should be no indoor social gathering of two or more people from different households. We have all seen the CCTV footage of the former Health Secretary and the former non-executive director of his former Department—that is not a work meeting. However, does the Leader of the House know where Government cameras are in Departments? Is there a list? If not the Government, who put the cameras there, and how?

On “The Moggcast” this week, the Leader of the House said that

“if a man were to appoint his wife to be a non-executive director you would hope that the Cabinet Office knew that the lady was married to the man”.

He clearly agrees that it matters who a Secretary of State appoints to check his or her work, so will there be a review of the appointment process, and will the Government publish details of the appointment of this specific former non-executive director?

This week, the British people have felt the joy of football victory. Keen followers of business questions will know that football is not my sport, but even I witnessed both the goals and the joy. I am a great fan of joy, and may there be more joy on Saturday. However, in light of the concerns about covid outbreaks associated with Euro matches, what reassurance will the Government give about protection for the remaining matches, and does the Leader of the House understand the bemusement of amateur choirs, which are still not allowed to sing indoors, when they see football fans cheering indoors? Can he explain why VIPs and business execs are exempt from travel restrictions when others, who are very ill, cannot even get a response to an application to isolate at home, instead of in a hotel, on medical grounds? It is rules for all of us, and no rules for Government and their mates.

A year ago, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work said that the review of the six-month rule for terminally ill people would be published “shortly”. Last week, the Leader of the House said that it would be published “soon”. On Monday, the Minister said that it would be published “very soon”, and then said the same about the disability strategy promised two years ago. Yesterday, the Prime Minister gave a “soon” about the Online Safety Bill. Will the Leader of the House tell us how long is “soon”?

Thanks to months of campaigning by steelworkers, their trade unions and MPs, yesterday the Government finally acted to protect steel jobs, but just saying “soon” does not help people who are worried about their jobs and livelihoods. Will the Government learn that lesson?

When Ministers break rules, the Prime Minister rewards them instead of sacking them. When the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government helped out a Tory donor mate, the Prime Minister did not sack him. When the Home Secretary was found to have bullied her own staff, he did not sack her. When the Education Secretary messed up, well, pretty much everything, he did not sack him, and that saga continues, owing to children missing months of school and a catch-up plan that does not catch them up.

And no, this is not just Westminster bubble stuff. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, it hurts people. They feel betrayed. People dutifully watched No. 10 press conferences to check rules, and in following rules, people struggled, some lost jobs, some could not hold the hand of a parent at the end of life or be at their funeral, but they stuck to the rules, even when that really hurt. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister cannot get his Ministers to stick to any rules. What consequences does the Leader of the House think there should be for Ministers breaking rules?

People hate hypocrisy. They know it when they see it, and they have seen it again this week: the man who set the covid rules breaking the covid rules, and the Prime Minister just waving his hands in the air. The Leader of the House will say, “There’s a new Health Secretary and the vaccine roll-out is great.” Yes, we are eternally grateful to scientists and the NHS for the vaccine—we are all queuing up—but that does not change Government rule breaking and why this matters. When will the Government stop breaking their own rules? It really is one set of rules for the people, and for the Government and their mates, it is no rules for them.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think the hon. Lady’s fox was shot some time ago, because my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) is the former Health Secretary, and the word “former” is quite an important one. We have had references to association football, and my right hon. Friend has been replaced by the super-sub—the Jack Grealish of politics—in the form of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), the new Secretary of State, who has come on with great effect and great panache.

The hon. Lady challenges me on what I said about the great genius of the former Secretary of State. I stick by that because he worked incredibly hard for 15 months. If I may resort to Dryden once again, the hon. Lady will know:

“Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”

Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend made a grave mistake, for which, because the rules are enforced fairly, he resigned. He resigned the day after the story was printed in the newspapers. Here we get the splitting of hairs between the resignation and the sacking. The man has gone. He has lost his job, as has the non-executive director in the Department of Health and Social Care with whom he seems to be closely associated. That is quite the right way for it to have happened. My right hon. Friend is no longer in office.

The hon. Lady complains about procurement, but that is not what the Opposition were saying a year ago, when they specifically asked the Government whether we would

“now commit to provide local public health services and Public Health England with ‘whatever it needs’ to build up the test, trace and isolate regime so obviously needed”.

The Opposition made a strong demand that that should take place very quickly. Of course, it was done quickly. What did the Opposition do? They very helpfully set out 10 proposals for the Government, and No. 3 was:

“Test, test, test. For testing to be effective, Government should provide capacity for widespread, regular community testing. Everyone showing symptoms should be able to access a test within 24 hours.”

On and on they went, asking the Government to do exactly what the Government were doing, but now, a year later, they complain that we did it quickly. What did they want? Did they want us to do it with torpor, inactivity and idleness? Well, we would not have got very far with it if we had. Last year they said we should do whatever it takes, but this year they say that doing whatever it takes was wrong. There is a word for that, Mr Speaker, but it is not parliamentary, so I will not use it. It was quite right of the Opposition to ask for what they did a year ago. It was right for the Government to do it and it had to be done at speed.

I am delighted that the hon. Lady wants to spread joy. As we all know, joy cometh in the morning and this morning is a morning of joy for us all. She asks about remaining matches. Now, I do not know the specific plans for football, but I can inform the House about the plans for anyone intending to go to the match between England and Pakistan at Lord’s, a one-day match on 10 July, which I will be going to. I got the circular from the MCC—the Marylebone Cricket Club—yesterday. One will be required to show either that one has been double vaccinated within a fortnight or that one has had a recent test, so there are procedures in place. This is one of the test events—it is actually a one-day match, not a Test, Mr Speaker, but you get the point—where things will be carefully kept in order to ensure the safety of people going there.

The hon. Lady thanks the Government for bringing forward the duties for the steelworkers. I am grateful for her thanks and support for the robust action the Government have taken. That is being done quite properly in the right way to ensure that the steel industry is protected where it needs to be.

Then we get into an obscure argument about the Westminster bubble. It is unquestionably true that there are some issues which this House is beset by. I think that deciding how many angels dance on the pinhead of a resignation or a sacking is one of those and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was right to say so yesterday.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con) [V]]

Good morning, Mr Speaker. Two weeks ago, my right hon. Friend promised to chase up local government Ministers for failing to answer my questions about the consultation in Somerset. I know he has chased them and I do thank him enormously for that, but I am beginning to understand why the Ministry and the Government kept this a secret. The results of the survey attracted only 5,000 responses—a pathetic 1% of the Somerset population—but 111,000 people cast their votes in the referendum organised by the district councils and a huge majority voted in favour of the two unitaries. This referendum cannot be ignored by Ministers because of democracy and legality. They will damage themselves if they do. This deserves a debate in Government time to be able to talk about the land of King Arthur and what a marvellous honourable people they are.

[Mr Speaker]

Let’s be on the level on this one then.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Ah, Mr Speaker, your puns are getting almost as bad as mine.

What I would say to my hon. Friend is that he is tempting me in the right direction to have a debate on the great advantages of the county of Somerset and the fact that Alfred’s coming out of the Levels and defeating Guthrum is the foundation not only of England, but actually the United States and Australia. All that flows from that comes from Alfred defeating the Danes, otherwise it would have been a different kettle of fish. So I sympathise with his desire for a debate, but I think the specific issue is more suited to an Adjournment debate. The Government will of course take into account the responses that have come in to the discussion on how the county of Somerset should be administered, but what I would say is of fundamental importance is that actually bureaucratic boundaries are not what people in Somerset mind about. They care about their whole historic united county. That is what matters to my constituents and to his, and bureaucratic boundaries are comparatively trifling.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP) [V]]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. I suppose the first thing to do is to acknowledge this week’s sporting success: I am sure the whole House will want to congratulate Andy Murray on his stunning progress to the third round at Wimbledon. And apparently there was some football game on, too. Now that we are getting rid of EVEL, English votes for English laws, how about we get ESEV, English sport for English viewers, so that Scottish viewers of the BBC do not have to endlessly watch that Gazza goal scored against us and are spared the endless references to 1966 when we are watching Croatia or Denmark?

May we have a debate about ministerial resignations? After the departure of the Health Secretary, the public just do not know what it takes to get the sack anymore. This was a Health Secretary whose tenure was littered with unlimited disastrous policy decisions and riddled with cronyism, overseeing the largest death rate in Europe. But it was not that that brought him down; it was issues around having an affair. Does the Leader of the House not think that that is akin to Al Capone going down for tax evasion?

Today marks the beginning of the end of furlough, and there is no statement from the Chancellor. That will add thousands of pounds of costs to businesses across the country and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that it will lead to lay-offs and redundancies, so why no statement? We also need an urgent update on the settlement scheme, given that the Home Office is unable to cope with the outstanding backlog and that there is ongoing confusion and chaos. Sometimes, it seems the Government are more interested in sausages than people.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Well, haggis to that, I think. When the hon. Gentleman complains about references to 1966, I would say “pots and kettles”, because we often hear from the SNP about 1314. I think 1966 is a little more recent history than 1314.

On the furlough scheme, this was well announced and well planned, and we are getting back to normal. The date of 19 July is a terminus and, to carry on the railway comparison, we are on track. It is therefore right that businesses begin to get back to normal. Bear in mind that £407 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent supporting the economy. Fourteen million jobs and people have been protected through the furlough and self-employed schemes at a cost of £88.5 billion. There is not unlimited money and it is right that the scheme is withdrawn at the point at which the pandemic’s emergency provisions are drawing to a close.

As regards the settlement scheme, I think that through the scheme 5.3 million or so EU member state nationals have been dealt with, out of 5.6 million applications so far. A generous deadline was set and it has been handled extraordinarily well and efficiently by the Home Office. Officials there deserve considerable gratitude from the nation for handling it so smoothly considering the very much higher number of eligible people than the Office for National Statistics thought were in the country.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) [V]]

We recently celebrated UK National Marriage Week. As we come out of lockdown and welcome back larger weddings, may we have a debate about marriage, recognising that we do not want to price people out of marriage? That is not least because this week the Centre for Social Justice pointed out that those born into well-off families have a 96% chance of having two parents but, in our poorest communities, the figure is 28% and falling. While we all agree that single parents deserve all the help they can get and that so many do a great job, does the Leader of the House agree that if we as politicians are serious about levelling up, we should not hold back from also supporting marriage and the stability that it provides to give children a positive start in life?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question and for the excellent work of the Centre for Social Justice, founded, of course, by our right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). Its findings are important and clear. My hon. Friend is right to be supportive of marriage, and it may not surprise her to hear that I am very supportive of marriage. It is a foundation stone of our society and has been for millenniums. It is fundamental.

I think the issue here is tonal as much as anything. The Government and politicians should support, encourage and foster marriage, but they must not be harsh on those who are not married. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in her tone to say, “Yes, we need to support people who are single parents but recognise the great benefits to children of being within a couple and a family.”

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

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the Backbench Business Committee debates for 8 and 15 July. On 15 July, as has been said, the Committee proposes debates on the Northern Ireland protocol and on the Beijing winter Olympics and the Chinese Government.

The levels of demand at the Backbench Business Committee remain high, but, alas, we do not have further time to allocate that we know of before the summer recess. We have pre-allocated all potential slots in Westminster Hall, and we have already pre-allocated subjects for debate on Thursday 22 July, should we be allocated that time.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We do our best to facilitate the Backbench Business Committee by announcing time, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is grateful for the time that has been made available.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Recently, I joined my local police for a series of visits around Blackpool. I was travelling in a car with PC Jeff Blincow and Sergeant Helen McLaren when we spotted a man carrying a foot-long machete and repeatedly punching a young woman. Without hesitation, the officers got out of the car. After a short chase and the use of PAVA spray, they were able to get the man to the ground and arrest him. The bravery and professionalism of the officers was second to none, and they deserve immense respect and admiration for their actions. Had they not acted so quickly we could have seen a serious incident, with the loss of life. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking Jeff and Helen, and indeed all police officers, for the brilliant job they do, day in, day out, in protecting our communities. Does he think it would be in order to have a debate in this House to recognise the work of our serving police officers?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I begin by wishing my hon. Friend a very happy birthday? I hope he will have a suitably covid-secure celebration later on today. What he has raised in this House is of fundamental importance. We are so lucky to have the police who serve us in this country. We know that in this House by the police who are here on duty to protect us, not knowing what risks they may face. Therefore, I do thank PC Jeff Blincow and Sergeant Helen McLaren, and commend them for their bravery, and I am glad to be able to bring to the attention of the House the fact that what they clearly did on that day is a model of good policing. We are improving the police and increasing their number, so that there will be more of them to do this work. There will be 20,000 extra police officers over the course of this Parliament, of whom 8,771 have so far been recruited, because police on the streets make us feel safer. As regards a debate, my hon. Friend may wish to raise this matter again during the Report stage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill on Monday, so there is an opportunity immediately to hand.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Several of my constituents have had a frustrating experience when trying to book a driving test at the Stockport test centre. Sadly, this experience is replicated across Greater Manchester and England as a result of processing delays at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Will the Leader of the House urge his colleague the Transport Secretary to come before this House to make a statement and explain why Ministers chose to block a deal that would have brought an end to the industrial dispute with the Public and Commercial Services Union at the DVLA over health and safety? Is this not another case of this Government putting ideology ahead of the needs of the public?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Obviously, there is a regrettable backlog in tests because of the pandemic. That is being worked through. The number of tests being done at test centres is increasing. The number of tests being done by driving testers has gone up by an extra one a day, as I understand it, to try to work through this backlog. It will take time and this is, of course, unfortunate, but there are consequences of the pandemic, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the undeniable failure of the pubs code to stop unfair business practices that are continuing against tied tenants in public houses throughout the country? A clear example of this is the experience of Christian and Samantha Gibbs, the current tenants of The Major in Ramsbottom. Despite not owing a penny to their landlord, Stonegate, and running a fantastic community pub, they have been given notice that their tenancy will be brought to an end. In my view, that is a clear breach of the fairness principle in the pubs code.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this to the attention of the House. We want to support pubs across the country. As he knows, the pubs code is overseen by the Pubs Code Adjudicator, which is itself overseen by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The code was put in place to help support tenant pub landlords, and I urge him to raise this matter with the adjudicator if he believes, as he does, that the code has been broken by his constituents’ landlord. The Government published their report on the first statutory review of the pubs code in November last year, which found that the code is consistent with the principles set out in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. The review also set out changes that the Government believe can be made to improve the operation of the code. I encourage landlords to behave well towards their tenants; that is how they make their profit and earn their living, and reward their shareholders, which they have a fiduciary duty to do.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP) [V]]

Under the Government’s previous green deal scheme, more than 3,000 Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Systems customers in Scotland were mis-sold home improvement works, which were often unnecessary and always financially detrimental to the household. I have received assurances from various Ministers and Secretaries of State—who accepted that HELMS defrauded thousands—that it would be sorted. We now have households that have issues with these works, but as the six-year mark since HELMS directors dissolved the company has passed, there is no recourse for those constituents. Can we please have a debate on this important issue?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise an important and complex constituency issue. I am sorry that he has not received the information that he had hoped to. I will, of course, take this matter up with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on his behalf.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

Our national health service has been under incredible pressure over the last 18 months, as we all know, and now it has a new Health Secretary. In April, the Care Quality Commission conducted an inquiry into and review of Northwick Park Hospital, which serves my constituents. The A&E department was given a glowing report and has shown dramatic improvement, which is good news for everyone. However, the same cannot be said of the maternity service. This is a very bad report indeed. I cannot go into detail at the moment, but clearly the CQC has published this, so could we have a statement to the House from the Health Secretary or a Minister on what extra support will be provided to Northwick Park Hospital so that the maternity unit is returned to the service that should be provided, and expectant mothers will receive the help and care they need to deliver healthy babies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This is a deeply troubling matter. The House will know that there have been similar problems; the scandal at Telford and Shrewsbury particularly comes to mind. For the women, children and families affected, this is a terrible situation. I assure my hon. Friend that NHS England and NHS Improvement are spending an additional £95 million on maternity services to support the recruitment of 1,200 midwives, 100 consultant obstetricians and implementation of the immediate and essential actions arising from the Ockenden report. I will pass on my hon. Friend’s remarks to my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and ensure that the matter is taken with the seriousness that it unquestionably deserves-.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD) [V]]

The Leader of the House will be proud, as I am, of the high animal welfare and environmental standards of British farmers. The Australian trade deal looks likely to betray those farmers by allowing lower standard Australian farm produce to undercut them. Given that this deal will set a precedent for every subsequent trade deal, will he allow time for MPs to debate it, as was done with the Japan deal last November, when his right hon. Friend the International Trade Secretary said that that was the “first of many debates” about negotiated trade deals? Will he keep faith with British farmers and keep the promise made by his right hon. Friend?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have more confidence in my farmers; I think they can compete with the best in the world. The Australians are fantastic farmers who have high standards of animal welfare. We should not be so frightened, nervy and feeble in feeling that a bit of competition from Australia will do us harm. It will do us all good, and our farmers will flourish and prosper as they get access to new markets too.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

I need not remind anyone in this House about the scale and horror of the child sexual exploitation scandal that blighted Rotherham and affected many of my constituents, including courageous whistleblower and campaigner Sammy Woodhouse. That these children—because that is what many of them were when the abuse took place—were failed so monumentally by the system in the first place is horrific, but living as a survivor of sexual exploitation or any form of sexual assault is fraught with many issues, particularly for those girls and women who became pregnant as a result of their ordeal and are now trying to raise a family.

The children born to survivors of sexual assault should not, as currently happens, be automatically identified as being at risk of abuse, and their mothers, many of whom have been failed once already, should not be threatened with the removal of their children on the basis of no other evidence than that they themselves were once victims. Does the Leader of the House agree that these women and their children should be better supported by social services, and can we have a debate in Government time on the disturbing findings of “The Case for Change” report, published by the chair of the independent review of children’s social care, so that we may right this historic wrong, which is still victimising survivors of child sexual exploitation and sexual assault today?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

What my hon. Friend brings to the House is really rather shocking. It should certainly not be the case that women who have themselves been abused should be deemed as being at risk of being abusers purely because they were abused. That is wrong, unfair and unjust and I am troubled that he should say that that is the case. I will take this up on his behalf with the Home Secretary and the Education Secretary, because the abuse scandal in Rotherham is one that has left many scars and troubles for families and for individuals who were abused, and they should not be suffering further. They should be getting the support that my hon. Friend talks about.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Can we have a debate about ministerial bad habits? When I was a Government Minister, it was unthinkable that we would have conducted Government business on private email accounts and absolutely unthinkable that, as a Minister, I could have held 27 meetings with companies that were seeking Government contracts, resulting in £1 billion-worth of contracts being awarded, and that those meetings could have mysteriously disappeared from my diary for a whole 12 months. The Leader of the House likes quoting Dryden. I remind him that Dryden said, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” These bad habits of Ministers in Government will lead to a Government of grifters, cronies and chisellers, and they have to stop.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am not sure that email was invented when the hon. Gentleman was last a Minister, but perhaps it had come into its early stages. It is absolutely right that Ministers had meetings with people who were going to provide personal protective equipment. I refer him to what I said to the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire). It needed to be done urgently, the Opposition were encouraging us to do it urgently, and it was done urgently and effectively to ensure that supplies were brought in.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I join you, Mr Speaker, and others in wishing Mr Ian Davis MBE a long, happy retirement. He has been a magnificent servant of this House and has great musical talents. My goodness, if he ever wrote a book, it would be well worth buying and would be a top seller.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on proposals to allow the parents and guardians of disabled children access to their savings? Some 200,000 disabled children are locked out of the savings from children’s trust funds, and it is quite wrong that those parents have to go to court and spend a great deal of money to get those savings.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I absolutely agree about Ian Davis. He has been a fabulous servant of this House and a kindly and helpful figure to Members—particularly new Members when trying to find out how to approach the Speaker to ask to be noticed in a debate and so on—with a phenomenal knowledge of who the Members are, recognising all of us from a remarkably early stage in our parliamentary careers. He has been a model public servant, as you, Mr Speaker, set out yesterday, in both his military career and his service to this House, and he will be greatly missed across the House.

As regards the very important issue that my hon. Friend raises, I understand that the Ministry of Justice and HM Treasury are currently working together, as a matter of priority, to ensure that parents and guardians can secure the legal authority that they need to act on their child’s behalf as straightforwardly as possible. The Government have announced that those who need to apply to the Court of Protection to access funds in a mature child trust fund can access fee remission, allowing for the court fees to be waived, but I will pass on his concerns to both the Chancellors: the Lord High Chancellor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

On 27 May, in response to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme decision on suspending Members not being subject to a recall petition, the Leader of the House said that he would deal with the discrepancy in

“the most straightforward way possible”.—[Official Report, 27 May 2021; Vol. 696, c. 564.]

Will he provide a separate statement to the House about how he intends to resolve this issue? He will recall that, on 27 May, I praised him for his honesty about what should happen in these cases. I agree with him that it is frankly ridiculous that Members can technically be suspended and subject to recall for the misuse of stationery but not when sexual misconduct has been proven. I ask the Leader—I plead with him—to close the loophole and solve the problem as quickly as possible, because it is not fair to victims who make complaints when Members who are found to have conducted themselves completely improperly as Members can simply carry on regardless. It is not acceptable.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I fully recognise the widespread view across the House on this issue. I assure the hon. Gentleman that consultations are taking place—earlier this week I spoke to staff representatives—because the reason for not engaging recall was a bottom-up view, not a top-down view. It is really important that any changes are made with the support of the staff, which I believe is now there. It is a matter for the Commission rather than for the Leader of the House, but I will facilitate bringing forward the necessary motions required to put things into practice. There is also discussion with the chairman of the independent expert panel, Sir Stephen Irwin, about how best to do things. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the wheels are in motion and there is great support across the House and, indeed, from the shadow Leader of the House, with whom I have a meeting later today, to ensure that things are done in a timely manner.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his excellent response on schools last week, but may I please press him a bit further? Parents in Bracknell and beyond are telling me that entire classes and year groups are still being isolated because of one positive covid test; that extracurricular activities are being banned, not least for year 6 leavers; and that parents cannot attend sports days, even when they would otherwise be outside and distanced. Headteachers will be beholden to the unions for as long as they are permitted to use their judgment. Something has gone very badly wrong. Does the Leader of the House feel, as I do, that the only way to get children back to school and living normal lives is for the Government to mandate it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am, obviously, torn on this matter, because I believe in local decision making. I believe that headmasters and headmistresses throughout the country can show leadership. Some sports days are going ahead. I will be going, on 7 July, to the Hill House School field day, which is going to be arranged in a covid-secure manner. I encourage the leadership of schools to work with the regulations in a way that is allowed and that means things can happen. It is sometimes easier, administratively, to stop things and say no than it is to look at how to be positive and allow things to happen. I reiterate the point that I made last week: while in some cases a whole class may be required to isolate, many settings use seating plans and other means to identify close contacts in order to minimise the number of individuals who need to isolate. Yes, we should push from the top, but there should also be a response locally, from individual schools, to try to ensure that children get to school as often as is possible.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Campaigners such as Ailsa MacKenzie gave evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee two years ago and secured a commitment from the Department for Work and Pensions to place a remedial order to extend eligibility for widowed parent’s allowance and bereavement support payments to cohabitees with children. Given that 60 days—not including recess—are required to consider the proposal, will the Leader of the House liaise with the DWP to ensure that the remedial order is put in place as soon as possible, so that people such as Ailsa MacKenzie and their relatives and family get this state support?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point and is so right to be defending his constituents. Yes, I will take this matter up with the DWP and try to facilitate what he asks for.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

Last week, I was at the excellent West Rise Junior School with Ms Somerville and year 6. They are super-motivated in their work on the environment, and I committed then to step up to the challenge of plastic-free July. Will my right hon. Friend publicise this initiative throughout the House, perhaps join me himself and, more importantly, allow time for a debate so that we can share our collective experience to understand what the barriers are to success in this initiative? We all know that making small changes can make a huge difference to our carbon footprint.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to campaign in this way. We all have our own private responsibility to reduce the amount of plastic that we use. I am not sure that I can guarantee a plastic-free July, because I might want a glass of water at the Dispatch Box and we have plastic cups here rather than glasses, but I must confess that my hon. Friend is pushing with my own personal preference. I have never liked those cups of coffee in disposable cups, which I think have a rather nasty taste; having it in china cups—preferably Spode china cups—is infinitely preferable. I encourage people to use glass, china and other things that may be used more than once.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Today, 750,000 businesses across England have lost their business rates relief, but, in Wales, the Welsh Labour Government have extended rates relief for a year and provided new support for businesses impacted by the pandemic. Can we have an opportunity to impress on Ministers the need to do more, help shops and businesses get back on their feet, and follow the Welsh example?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have mentioned already, £470 billion of taxpayers’ money has been given in support to business, and a 66% business rates cut for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses exists for the next nine months, so there has already been very significant support. The strength of the United Kingdom is that Wales has had £8.6 billion of UK taxpayers’ support, which is supporting more than 360,000 self-employment scheme claims and over 468,000 jobs in the furlough scheme. That is an indication of the strength of the United Kingdom, but the taxpayer has already been leaned on to a very considerable extent, and there is not unlimited money.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House was pretty clear at the Procedure Committee on Monday that he has converted—well, he has not converted, as it was always his position, alongside the SNP—to see the back of the EVEL Standing Orders. It seems that they will, nevertheless, be switched on when the Standing Orders for the procedure during the pandemic lapse at the end of term. He will switch them on only to switch them back off again at some point. Rather than that, can we not have a debate and a vote on all the hybrid proceedings before the summer recess so that we can decide what we want to retain and what we want to change?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have great zeal for ridding this House of EVEL.

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

The Croydon bottleneck is a major rail junction for the Brighton main line, but also serves suburban London, such as Carshalton and Wallington. Congestion here is causing massive delays and also prevents more frequent rail services from being run to outer London, which the Croydon area remodelling scheme is designed to fix. Can we have a statement from the Department for Transport about Government support for this scheme so that we can deliver additional rail services to Carshalton and Wallington?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Improving track layouts, remodelling the Selhurst triangle and constructing new tracks and two new platforms at East Croydon station would remove the bottleneck, which causes delays and disruption, improving the punctuality and speed of services. As I understand it, Network Rail has consulted on proposals to unblock the Croydon bottleneck and progress is expected later this year. I understand the concern that this must be to my hon. Friend’s constituents as so many of them are likely to be dependent on this service.

Let me say how much I enjoyed visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency recently, going to the Sutton vaccination centre and meeting Wendy, who was the subject of a Commons mention. May I say how surprised I am that he has managed to find something in his constituency that is not the fault of an incompetent Lib Dem-run administration? I hope that next week he will try harder.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Colton confirmed what the Prime Minister himself had repeatedly denied in this House, which is that the withdrawal Act, which we in the DUP rejected in this House on all three occasions, has repealed article 6 of the Act of Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We are no longer equal partners in trade. The consequences for Northern Ireland from the Government deal are clearer than ever before. The Northern Ireland protocol has the potential to derail the democratic process. As summer approaches and opinion can potentially become inflamed, this House has a role to play, as the decision has emanated from the Government here. This House can and must change this for the sake of long-lasting peace. Will the Leader of the House agree to a very urgent debate in this House so that Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom can be clearly laid out?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The court judgment was unquestionably an important one, and it is clear that the protocol, as it is currently operating, is presenting significant challenges for the people and businesses of Northern Ireland. We will continue to work through those issues with the EU to try to find a way forward to ensure that the protocol is implemented in the proportionate way intended. That is how we hope to sustain peace and prosperity for everyone in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom is fundamental. It is just as much a part of the United Kingdom as Somerset is, and there is no court judgment or ruling that could possibly remove part of the United Kingdom from our United Kingdom. We must all do everything we can to support Northern Ireland within our United Kingdom and to ensure that the trade flows that go with it and that underpin the economic success of our United Kingdom work properly.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

I have many major businesses headquartered in my constituency, and they have raised concerns about the inability of senior executives to travel to the US at the moment. Certain things often cannot be done by video conference call. For instance, many of them own subsidiaries in the US that they cannot go to manage and oversee, and many have major investors in the US whom they need to meet. May I stress to my right hon. Friend the importance of getting a US-UK travel corridor for business up and running? Would he contemplate a debate on that subject?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In my business life, I have spent a lot of time going back and forth to the United States for business purposes to see investors, so I completely understand the importance of the issue that my hon. Friend raises. The Prime Minister and President Biden have made it clear that this is important and look forward to bringing about the return of safe transatlantic travel as soon as possible. The newly formed joint UK-US expert working group is now under way, and we are working closely with our US allies on delivering on this important goal. Entry into the United States is, of course, a matter for the United States, but there is a clear business case for the need to solve this issue as quickly as possible for both the United Kingdom and the United States.

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

I have had emails from constituents who wish to seek exemption from hotel quarantine on the grounds of the serious ill health of themselves or their family members. They have mentioned the difficulty of booking a quarantine hotel, the splitting up of families and the substandard food and accommodation. Further, when I have written to the Department responsible for the exemptions, I have not had the courtesy of a reply. Will the Leader of the House allow time for a debate on this issue in Government time? Will he also pass on my observations to the Secretary of State for Transport and ask him to meet me to discuss this issue, as I am not getting an answer from his Department?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If Members from either of the House are having problems getting answers from Departments, I will always use my office to try to facilitate an answer as soon as possible. In the cases to which the hon. Lady refers, getting answers urgently is obviously important, and I can give her the assurance that she asks for.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) [V]]

I recently had the pleasure of meeting my constituents Paul and Ruth Fisher, both of whom have played vital roles in our country as key workers. This young couple bought a new-build property from a large, well-known developer in 2019, but soon discovered that the property was substandard, although finished beautifully, with the ceilings not level with the floors and with outside walls also not level. The issues have yet to be resolved.

Sadly, soon after the purchase, Ruth was diagnosed with breast cancer and is currently receiving palliative care. My heartfelt best wishes go out to both of them and to her family. May I ask my right hon. Friend for a debate in Government time to consider situations such as Paul and Ruth’s, paying particular attention to the need for an independent watchdog or ombudsman designed to help others like my constituents to reach a satisfactory settlement with large developers? That simply is not the case at the moment.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. The House’s sympathies will be with Ruth and Paul in these appalling circumstances. It is quite wrong for developers to sell substandard homes. Developers of new-build homes must meet their responsibilities, resolve issues quickly and treat homebuyers fairly when things go wrong. I sympathise with my hon. Friend, because as a constituency MP, one has sometimes found that developers have not been good at responding when there have been complaints, and there has been very little recourse. The building safety Bill will include provision for the new homes ombudsman scheme to provide stronger and effective redress for new-build homebuyers and to hold developers to account. This reform is long overdue, and it will be welcomed across the House.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I heard the answer that the Leader of the House gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), but we have to have the right checks and balances in place.

The Health Minister Lord Bethell held a series of meetings with companies that went on to win contracts worth over £1 billion, and the week in question was omitted from his diary. That raises questions about the role of civil servants in the letting of these contracts. Where is the monitoring officer for the letting of these contracts, and who signs them off?

We need a statement in this House on the role of the civil service when it comes to such issues so that we can reassure ourselves that civil servants are not being bullied into silence and that they are holding Ministers properly to account and making them abide by the rules. I suspect that the only reason why we know about the meetings is that a civil servant leaked the emails because they knew that wrongdoing was going on.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think that a fundamentally foolish point. There were 27 meetings, nine of which led to contracts being awarded by my noble Friend Lord Bethell on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government when we were under great pressure to act. That was exactly what the Labour party was asking for. It asked that whatever was necessary should take place—it wanted speed, urgency and decisiveness. That was what the Government delivered. The Government had to get on with awarding contracts to ensure that supplies were in place.

The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If normal procurement procedures had been followed, it would have taken three to six months to award contracts—we would have been halfway through the pandemic before we had had a single extra piece of PPE. Would he have wanted such incompetent service? Is that what the Labour party would have done? Would it have just fiddled while Rome burned or would it have got on with things, as my noble Friend did?

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I championed town and parish councils long before the great Jackie Weaver made them go viral on t’interweb. But Nailsworth, Stinchcombe, Stonehouse and other councils across the Stroud district were quite dismayed at the removal of the option for virtual proceedings, and I would like to see that reversed. Will my right hon. Friend provide an update about the Government’s work in this area and let us know when Parliament will be looking at this particular issue?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We are grateful for the efforts that councils made to allow meetings during the period from 4 April 2020 to 6 May 2021, when the emergency regulations made under section 78 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 applied. Extending the regulations to cover meetings after 6 May would have required primary legislation.

The Government carefully considered the case for legislation and concluded that it was not possible to bring forward further emergency legislation on the issue. We launched a call for evidence on 25 March, which closed on 17 June, to gather views and inform a longer-term decision about whether to make express provision for local authorities to meet remotely on a permanent basis. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is now reviewing the response to the consultation, and the Government will respond in due course.

I would say that we are all welcoming getting back to normal, and I think the whole of society wants to get back to normal as soon as possible.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

When the Prime Minister’s chief adviser blatantly broke the rules despite the huge sacrifices made by the British people, the Prime Minister backed him; when the Home Secretary breached the ministerial code, he backed her; when the Housing Secretary was busy awarding planning permissions to Tory donors, he backed him; and when the Health Secretary broke the very rules that he had been passionately preaching to the rest of us, the Prime Minister backed him by saying that he considered the matter closed.

Would the Leader of the House be kind enough to facilitate a debate in Government time on integrity, British values and the ministerial code and to ensure that the Prime Minister attends the whole session, so that he can learn some of the basics?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We are fortunate in having a brilliant and effective Home Secretary who gets on with her job. We are also fortunate in having an extremely effective Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who believes in building the houses that people will be able to live in and in ensuring that we are a home-owning democracy. My right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is no longer in office—a point that seems to escape Labour Members.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Radcliffe in my constituency is a proud town with a rich heritage and a strong identity that has unfortunately been forgotten for far too long by the Labour council, but this Conservative Government are delivering for the town. They have given it a brand-new high school, and hopefully the levelling-up fund will also go some way towards providing civic and leisure facilities in the heart of the town. Will my right hon. Friend provide time for a debate on the benefits of the levelling-up fund for forgotten towns like Radcliffe?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The £4.8 billion levelling-up fund will spend taxpayers’ money to improve everyday life across the country, from transport projects to high streets. My hon. Friend does not have long to wait for a decision on the scheme; the decisions will be announced in the autumn. There is so much to do.

Even in our own Parliament, we have to level this place back up. I want to say how marvellously you have done, Mr Speaker, in saving 95% of the cost of doing up the Speaker’s House. People may not know this, but there was a proposal for a very lavish temporary home for the Speaker, and Mr Speaker, as a model defender of taxpayers’ money, has saved 95% of that cost. I hope that other people, when spending taxpayers’ money, will do the same.

[Mr Speaker]

I am now suspending the House for three minutes for the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.

Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 56), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Question put forthwith, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

I beg to move,

That Marta Phillips, Dr Simon Thurley and Simon Wright be appointed as external members of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body under Part 1, Schedule 1 to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019.

The House will be relieved that I do not intend to detain it long. The 90 minutes available for this debate may be more than is necessary, but it may help if I explain that I am bringing this motion forward on behalf of the Sponsor Body. Schedule 1 of the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019 states that the Sponsor Body must consist of between two and four external members, excluding the chairman. The current external board members were appointed on 1 July 2018, when the Sponsor Body was still in shadow form. Their appointments were confirmed by the House on 24 March 2020, as the body became a statutory organisation. Under the Act, a member must be appointed for a fixed term of not more than three years, although they can be reappointed. Their terms will therefore expire no later than 31 June 2021.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am not going to delay people for long either. I just wonder: we are doing all this appointing of people to the Sponsor Body, but are they ever going to mix a bucket of cement?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think it unlikely that Marta Phillips, Dr Simon Thurley and Simon Wright will mix buckets of cement on the estate of the Palace of Westminster. I am glad to say that work is going on. I have reported already to the House that the fire safety work has taken place and been tested across the estate, and I think that eight miles of pipe have gone in. Preliminary works are under way to make the preparations: Derby Gate is almost completed, and there will be a move of MPs into Richmond House. Many things are happening that will allow the restoration and renewal to take place, so I hope that that gives some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman. It is important that we keep up the pace to get to the full restoration and renewal. As for the individual members of the Sponsor Body mixing cement, that may be something they did in the earlier stages of their careers, but I do not think they will be doing it tomorrow.

A recruitment process for external board members has been undertaken by the Sponsor Body in recent months, and the interview panel included the chairman of the Sponsor Board, a parliamentary member of the Sponsor Board and an independent panel member. Following the recruitment process, the Sponsor Body has reappointed three of the four current external board members. I am grateful to all the external members of the Sponsor Board for their work so far. Today’s motion will approve the reappointment of Marta Phillips, Dr Simon Thurley and Simon Wright, and I therefore commend this motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I had not intended to respond, but as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned the archives I would like to say that I entirely agree with him. It is extremely unfortunate that the Victoria Tower, a purpose-built archive, should not continue to be used for that purpose. I am deeply concerned about the lack of engagement there has been with Members of this House about the proposal, which many of us felt was rather sprung upon us. I am delighted to note that there seems to be cross-party consensus, with the shadow Leader of the House in favour of keeping the archive in the Victoria Tower. I hope that that will be taken on board by other authorities.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee on Standards

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

I beg to move,

That, in accordance with Standing Order No. 149A, Ms Mehmuda Mian be appointed as lay member of the Committee on Standards for a period of six years, with immediate effect.

The motion gives the House the opportunity to approve the appointment of Ms Mehmuda Mian as a lay member of the Committee on Standards for a period of six years. I move the motion on behalf of the House of Commons Commission, which concluded that Ms Mian will bring the necessary skills and experience to the Committee’s work that the recruitment process was intended to deliver. Her appointment will also contribute to maintaining a diversity of experience, gender and background among the seven-strong team of lay members.

Ms Mian is a solicitor, with significant non-executive regulatory and governance experience. She is presently a non-executive director of Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and a board member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, both since 2015. She is also a disciplinary committee member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and an associate director of the Lokahi Foundation. In addition, she has previously served as a non-executive director of the Disclosure and Barring Service at the Independent Safeguarding Authority, and is a trustee of the BBC. She had earlier roles as a commissioner at the Independent Police Complaints Commission and as a member of the Police Complaints Authority.

The lay members of the Committee on Standards play an essential role in providing an independent voice to the Committee’s decisions. When lay members were first proposed over a decade ago, the rationale given by the Committee on Standards in Public Life was that it would be a step towards enhancing public acceptance of the robustness and independence of the disciplinary process for Members of Parliament. The independent and impartial status of lay members is therefore critical to maintaining confidence in our process.

The first three lay members of the Committee were appointed in 2012, and the Standing Orders were amended in 2015 to increase the number of lay members to seven. The term of office of the first tranche of lay members came to an end on 30 March 2017, and on 15 March 2017 three further lay members were appointed by the House to replace them. Two of the four lay members recruited in 2016 came to the end of their four-year terms on 18 May 2020; the other two had been appointed for six-year terms. On 10 November 2020, the House appointed one further lay member. The other vacancy remained unfilled.

Today’s motion will restore the full complement of lay members. This debate reflects the House’s important role in approving such appointments. Should the House agree to the appointment of Ms Mian today, I would like to take the opportunity to wish her well as she takes up her new role. I commend the motion to the House.

Business of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 28 June will include:

Monday 28 June—Second Reading of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill, followed by motion relating to the appointment of lay members to the Committee on Standards, followed by motion relating to the membership of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body.

Tuesday 29 June—Estimates day (1st allotted day). There will be debates on estimates relating to the Department for Education; and on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Wednesday 30 June—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on an estimate relating to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. At 7 pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Thursday 1 July—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill, followed by general debate on Windrush Day, followed by general debate on Pride Month. The subjects for these debates were recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 2 July—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 5 July will include:

Monday 5 July—Remaining stages of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

Tuesday 6 July—Second Reading of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill.

Wednesday 7 July—Opposition day (4th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 8 July—General debate on fuel poverty, followed by debate on a motion relating to the implementation of the recommendations of the independent medicines and medical devices safety review. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 9 July—The House will not be sitting.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business.

It is stretching the bounds of my football knowledge to know to send Scotland commiserations and to wish Wales and England good luck, but it is heartfelt. Meanwhile, in my own game of choice and on my own patch, Gloucestershire county cricket ground welcomed the Indian and English cricket teams last week, and the women really showed just how exciting the beautiful game can be.

I thank the Leader of the House for working constructively with me on repairing the inconsistency between the independent complaints and grievance process and the parliamentary Committee on Standards for triggering recall for MPs. I hope that the Member currently suspended recognises that these changes would have applied to him. Given that his constituents cannot currently remove him, he should do the decent thing by staff, Members and the public and resign.

The Government are letting people down. They use covid as an excuse for problems that they promised to fix years ago. They cannot blame all this on the past 18 months. They have had four years since Grenfell to fix the cladding and fire safety crisis affecting millions of innocent residents, many with Tory MPs. Why are the Government letting them down? It is nearly two years since the Government announced their review on support for terminally ill people. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) said last week, thousands have died since then waiting for a decision. Why are the Government letting them down?

It is nearly two years since the Prime Minister said that he already had a plan to fix social care. Since then, thousands of people have had to sell their homes to pay for care, and millions have been turned down for support. Why are the Government letting them down? It is three years since the Windrush scandal broke; yet victims still wait for compensation and some have died waiting. Why are the Government letting them down? Then there is the harm facing the world’s poorest people, with cuts to aid commitments made before the pandemic. Lives will be lost. Why are the Government letting them down?

The Government have blamed waiting times in the NHS on covid, but before the pandemic more than one in six patients were already waiting more than 18 weeks for a routine treatment. Why are the Government letting them down? Climate change has been around for a while; yet the Government are all mouth and no delivery. The Committee on Climate Change is sounding alarm bells. Why are the Government letting us all down?

The Government are letting down rape victims, with conviction rates plummeting for years before the pandemic. At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, the Prime Minister appeared not to understand the anger of rape victims such as those who have told me of appalling delays from before the pandemic, and the anger of those of us who represent them. Ministers mention £4 million for advocates for sexual violence victims, but that is just £15 per reported rape victim per year. They refer to police officers being recruited, but they have cut more than 20,000 experienced skilled officers over the past decade.

Recruiting new police now does not help rape victims who have already waited years, unable to move on with their lives. In the final insult, the Prime Minister flipped away from the subject and back to his scripted-for-clipping punchline, referring to the Opposition as jabbering while the Government jabs—after my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) had asked about rape. Why are the Government letting rape survivors down?

Here is a list of questions for the Leader of the House. Will the Government sort out the cladding crisis once and for all, and bring that plan to estimates day next Tuesday? Will the Leader ask the Prime Minister to find his plan for social care, wherever he has mislaid it? Will the Leader ask the Home Secretary to apologise to victims of the Windrush scandal who have still not received compensation?

Will the Leader ask the Health Secretary to come to the House with a plan to give the NHS the resources that it needs? Will he ask the Chancellor to present a funded plan for the essential measures to tackle climate change? Will the Government give us a vote on aid cuts? Will the Leader ask the Cabinet to do the right thing by rape victims and support Labour’s Bill on violence against women? Will the Government stop letting people down?

Finally, Ministers are fond of pivoting to “But the vaccine!” to divert attention. I have news for them: British people are not stupid. They know when the Government are pulling a fast one. They know that it was scientists who researched the vaccine, and it is the NHS that vaccinates. British people deserve better. They deserve the best. The Government, who should be getting on with learning the lessons of the covid crisis by launching an inquiry urgently, are instead shamefully using it as cover for all the ways that they are letting the British people down.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am, as always, very grateful to the hon. Lady for her list of questions, which she was kind enough to give to the House twice—once in her long list and then in a shorter list of much the same questions.

The hon. Lady mentioned the football. I am very sorry that Scotland is no longer in. As I said last week, I had a vested interest in that, but I wish England and Wales well. Let us hope that we have a final, if this is possible—I do not know how the draw will work—between England and Wales. Then we will all be on the edge of our seat, some of us not knowing which part of our heritage to back. There was a very interesting cricket match between New Zealand and India and I congratulate New Zealand on winning the first multinational Test series to make them world Test champions.

I agree with the hon. Lady about the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts), who is currently suspended. As I have said before, I think that a Member in such a situation should resign. I would not criticise his constituents for feeling that someone who had been found guilty of something so serious was not an ideal representative.

The hon. Lady accused the Government of pulling a fast one with the vaccine. I agree—it was remarkably fast: an incredibly fast delivery and service of a vaccine that means that millions of people have now received both doses. I think that that applies to over 60% of the country and all the highest risk categories have had the opportunity to get both jabs. That is a success of the NHS—indeed, the NHS that has been properly funded by the Conservatives since we have been in office, effectively since 2010. It is a great achievement, for which the British people, in their wisdom—as the hon. Lady rightly said—will thank Her Majesty’s Government, under the inspired leadership of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

We come to the variety of issues that the hon. Lady raised. I think she is trying to show up the Leader of the Opposition for not asking such a range of questions and sticking rigorously to one subject on Wednesdays. On building safety and cladding, £5.1 billion of taxpayers’ money has been provided to fund the cost of remediating unsafe cladding for leaseholders. The remediation works are either completed or under way on 96% of the high-risk residential buildings that were identified at the start of last year. That is important and continues to be rolled out. It is right that that is being done, and the Building Safety Bill will provide further details on how we deal with the remaining problem. A great deal of work has already been done, and not all forms of cladding and not all high-rise buildings are dangerous.

The hon. Lady referred to climate change. The Government have a most remarkable and successful record on climate change. From 1990 to 2020, there has been a 43% cut in emissions with 75% economic growth. This is the key. We are not going to be Adullamites; we are not going to be cave dwellers. We are not going to make constituents have miserable lives. We are going to improve the standard of living of the people of this country, and make the country greener, too. That is why Her Majesty’s Government is the first major economy to commit in law to net zero by 2050, with the target of cutting emissions by 2035 by 78% on their 1990 levels.

The Committee on Climate Change does not want us to eat meat. I disagree with them. I like eating meat and my constituents like eating meat, and I will not be told by fanatics not to eat meat. Let us be meat eaters. Let us support our agriculture. The Opposition always go on about the need to protect our farmers, then they join forces with the anti-meat brigade. There is a discontinuity in that approach.

As regards Windrush, 13,000 documents have been provided so far and £20 million out of £30 million of compensation has been paid. The Prime Minister apologised yesterday for the terrible situation that was created, but I thought what he said was inspiring: that we should think of Windrush as the Mayflower; as an occasion when something great happened to our nation—something really important when people came—that we should celebrate and rejoice, rather than its being something that is thought about in terms of failure.

On aid, the hon. Lady asks and I give. I do my best as Leader of the House, and on the second allotted estimates day:

“There will be a debate on an estimate relating to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.”

A vote will take place if people shout, “No.” There are votes on estimates if people want them. It is a matter for the hon. Lady and the Opposition Whips to decide whether they wish to divide the House.

The Government introduced the end-to-end rape review because of the failures that had become apparent and the need to make things better. It is worth pointing out that the Leader of the Opposition was Director of Public Prosecutions for quite a time, so one would hope that the fact that there are problems in the Crown Prosecution Service does not come as news to him. It is clear that too many victims of rape and sexual violence have been denied the justice they deserve as a result of systemic failings. That is why an action plan has been set out with clear measures for police, prosecutors and courts in order to return the volume of rape cases going through the courts to at least 2016 levels by the end of this Parliament, with steps to improve the quality of investigations, improve the culture of joint working and, for the first time, make sure that each part of the criminal justice system will be held to account through performance scorecards.

This is what the Government are doing—it is real and genuine action—and then we get the cheap point about gibbering and jabbering and drooling Opposition. That is what the Opposition do: they gibber and jabber and drool, and they do this the whole time on all sorts of subjects. The Prime Minister gave full and comprehensive answers on rape yesterday—I heard him; I was listening to him—but then he made the general point about the vacuity of Opposition. The hon. Lady sometimes manages to prove my right hon. Friend’s points.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware that the town of Marlborough in my constituency has the widest high street of any town in England. This proved very helpful on Monday, when I boarded a coach at one end of the high street, which drove me down to the other end and then performed a, frankly hardly necessary, three-point turn before coming back and depositing me outside the iconic Polly Tea Rooms, where I presented the mayor with a certificate confirming Marlborough’s status as a coach-friendly town. Will he join me in congratulating the town on this and particularly Belinda Richardson, the brilliant tourism officer for the area, and join me in urging the Government to support not just international tourism, which badly needs more help and sector-specific support, but our domestic tourism industry?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Very much so. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Belinda Richardson on the work she does for tourism in Wiltshire. Dare I say it, but my general view of Wiltshire is that it is a very nice place to pass through before one gets to Somerset, but I would recommend that people take the opportunity to ask their charabancs to stop, and get out and use the tea rooms in Marlborough. It is of course on the old A4—the old coaching route through to Bath—and they can then go on to Bath, passing through my constituency into the constituency of the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who I can see is in her usual place. The city she represents is one of the most beautiful in the world.

[Mr Speaker]

The Perthshire One has been released. Let us go to the SNP spokesperson, Pete Wishart.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Free at last, and it is good to be back. Can I thank the Leader of the House for his support and understanding during my long confinement, and my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for standing in for me so stoutly, as he always does? Now I am back, I have of course one simple task: to secure something for the Scottish press by gently encouraging the Leader of the House to say something provocative and inflammatory about Scotland. Knowing the Leader of the House as I do, I know that he will oblige me in giving me the headline I seek.

Can I sincerely congratulate the England team on progressing to their historic place and getting beat by Germany on penalties? I also congratulate the Welsh team. It is of course a fantastic feat to get through to the last 16 again. I know the tartan army’s most unlikely new recruit will be gutted at Scotland’s departure. Apparently, he is to go to the Caledonia bar in Leicester Square, where he has left a “See You Jimmy” wig. It is known to be his because it is attached to a top hat, so I hope he will be dispatched soon to reclaim it.

Will the Leader of the House now bring forward the necessary changes to Standing Orders to rid this place once and for all of the total disaster and absolute waste of time that is English votes for English laws? This piece of uselessness has been in abeyance for over a year, and such is the impact that the quasi-English Parliament has made on this House that nobody even knows it is not in operation any more. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said that EVEL is a hindrance to the Union, so what better incentive than that to get rid of it once and for all.

Lastly—and this is where I hope the Leader of the House helps me out and obliges me—we need a debate about strengthening the Union, because the Government are simply all over the place and seemingly doing everything possible to help our cause. In one week—this week—they tried to gerrymander the franchise before ruling out once again a vote in which they seek to cheat their way to victory, while the strains of “Strong Britain, great nation” bellow out from the children of England in a gesture that is not in the least bit creepy, ominous or embarrassing, so can I thank him for all his efforts in the course of the past week? As the red wall languishes in ruins and the blue wall is breached, the SNP tartan wall stands strong, impregnable and reinforced by the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is a pleasure to have the hon. Gentleman back, as he has shown with his stylish question. I am all in favour of strengthening the Union and I am glad he is too. I used to think there should be a special seat preserved invariably, as it is in law, for the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), as he is such an ornament to the Union Parliament. I am beginning to think that something similar should be done for the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), because we have missed him and his style is very welcome in this House.

The Union has been fundamental to the success of the roll-out of the vaccine and, indeed, in dealing with the pandemic, as we have benefited from the furlough payments. It has shown that as one country we are genuinely better together. I think the hon. Gentleman is a little mean, uncharacteristically, about a children’s song. He and I are both old enough to remember “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma”, which was No. 1 on the hit parade in 1980, when I was an 11-year-old. These charming, sweet-natured songs are a feature of public life which pop up every so often, and I think it should be welcomed and one should suffer the little children to come unto us, rather than being a bit miserable about it.

As regards EVEL, evil is to be opposed in favour of good as a general rule, but if we are to take the alternative spelling, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: it has been suspended for the past year and nobody has noticed. There is a fundamental principle, where I share his view, of the absolute equality of every Member of this House, be they Front Bench, Back Bench, Minister, non-Minister or even the Speaker. One of the great advantages of our system of not having a special Speaker’s seat is that the Speaker is one of us, even though primus inter pares. That principle is of the greatest importance. I will be appearing before the Procedure Committee on Monday and I imagine this will be an important part of the discussion. I want to hear its views, but what was reported about my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s views is not a million miles from my own.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) [V]]

May I, too, wish the Welsh team good luck on Saturday? I have a Welsh grandfather and a Welsh father, and my family will be cheering loudly. Does the Leader of the House agree that Wales desperately needs a freeport to boost jobs and investment, and that the Welsh Labour Government continue to stall, dither and delay, while opportunities to bring an economic renaissance to Wales and, I hope, to my constituency of Anglesey are squandered?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my hon. Friend that freeports are very important; the programme will be of great value to the whole UK. I am sorry that the Welsh Government, of course a socialist Government, are dragging their feet on the issue. One would have thought that they would want to encourage innovation, free trade, competition and the prosperity of the whole nation. As highlighted in our “Plan for Wales”, published in May, the Government remain committed to establishing at least one freeport in Wales as soon as possible, to attract new businesses and investment, and create jobs and opportunity in areas that need them the most. I recall that she has raised this matter with me before and I will take up her concerns with my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Wales and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.

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

I am very grateful to you, as always, Mr Speaker.

May I welcome the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) back to his place? He is truly, in so many different ways, top of the Scots’ pops.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business, and I hope he will use his best endeavours to give the Backbench Business Committee as much time as he can before the summer recess. We have a range of applications and they are still coming in. Subjects we would like to try to get debates on include: giving babies the best start in life; the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on personal and household debt; the Timpson review and the effect of school exclusions; the failures in the criminal justice system highlighted by the collapse of the trial regarding the Hillsborough disaster; COP26; and progress towards the national ambition to reduce baby loss. And there are many, many more.

May I also let the Leader of the House know that I am, among other things, chair of the all-party group on parental participation in education—Parentkind. I wonder whether he will join me in welcoming this week as the first National Parent Teacher Association Week, which seeks to promote and celebrate the hugely positive impact parents can make in assisting schools in the education of their community’s children?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s request for time before the recess. I always try to do my best to facilitate Backbench Business and, indeed, Opposition days, but there is a lot of Government business as well. I note that it will be Parent Teacher Associations Week. The work done between parents and teachers to improve schools is important, and I thank him for his work on that.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I join other colleagues in saluting the work of children’s hospices, such as Little Havens in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). Will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the full resumption of face-to-face consultations with general practitioners? They have done magnificent work in challenging times. It is good that more than half of face-to-face consultations have been resumed but, judging by my constituents’ emails and letters, they really miss seeing their GP in person.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the fact that it is Children’s Hospice Week. The work that people do in children’s hospices is truly remarkable. It must be such hard work for the carers to do.

To come to my hon. Friend’s question, NHS England and NHS Improvement have regularly issued guidance on the importance of continuing to offer face-to-face appointments. All practices should offer face-to-face consultations where appropriate—I reiterate, all practices. There will be a role for telephone calls and virtual consultations, but face to face, if needed, must happen. The figures are more encouraging. In March 2021, an estimated 28.6 million appointments were booked in general practice in England, of which 15.8 million were face to face, so 55.7% of all appointments.

[Mr Speaker]

I will just put on the record Derian House Children’s Hospice in Chorley, which provides a high-quality service to support families.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will be aware of the continued internment, persecution and torture of Chinese Muslims at the hands of the state in that country. This is not a criticism of the Foreign Secretary, because he has come to this House and made a number of statements on the situation there, but not for quite a while, and on the basis that the situation in China is not only not getting any better but certainly getting worse, from everything that we can gather, may we have a statement or even a debate before the summer recess?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, as I think it is one of the greatest seriousness. The Government have announced measures to ensure that no British organisations are complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang, including through supply chains. Alongside 44 countries, on 22 June the UK issued a joint statement at the UN General Assembly Human Rights Council expressing deep concern at the situation in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet. Unfortunately, the Chinese Government are behaving badly in all those areas.

The raid on Apple Daily, the independent newspaper in Hong Kong, is something we should be very concerned about, because of the guarantees that were given in the joint declaration to the people of Hong Kong. I will raise the hon. Gentleman’s point with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I cannot promise a statement, but the hon. Gentleman is right to keep the pressure up on this Government about our relations with China, which are of fundamental importance.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is among the most forthright defenders of the rights of this House and an eloquent supporter—perhaps the most eloquent supporter in this House—of the democratic principle, so when will he respond positively to the statement that you, Mr Speaker, made from your Chair at 3.30 pm on 14 June, when you instructed the Government to bring forward a vote on the breaking of our promise on the 0.7% commitment?

My right hon. Friend knows perfectly well that the estimates are not the right route—the estimates have never been voted down—and, in that connection, I refer him to a speech made from that Dispatch Box on 24 July 1905 by the then Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, which set out the position on estimates very clearly. In forthright defence of this House, will my right hon. Friend ensure that before the summer there is a vote on this terrible decision that was made by the Government, which has done such damage to our international reputation and which is leading to the avoidable death of more than 100,000 people?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The estimates are voteable. There will be a full day’s debate on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which will be an opportunity for my right hon. Friend to raise any issues that he wishes to on that occasion. There can be votes on estimates, and there have been votes on estimates. It is a perfectly reasonable parliamentary procedure to use. So the Government are facilitating the debate that my right hon. Friend asks for, but we are also following the law that he will be aware of that was passed in relation to the 0.7% commitment, which requires that a statement be laid before this House if that target is not met in a particular calendar year. The Government are following and will follow—have every intention of following—the law that was passed by Parliament; that is what Her Majesty’s Government do.

But in these financial circumstances it is absolutely right that we are reducing our overseas aid commitments. We have seen a significant decline in our national income. We have faced £407 billion being needed within this country to maintain the economy during the pandemic. We remain one of the most generous donors in the world, with a level of overseas aid higher than that which any socialist Government in this country’s history have achieved—something that they carp about now but when in office did nothing about.

So we are delivering; we have delivered, we are right to do so, and there will be a debate, because it is always the right of this House to debate the subjects that it sees fit to debate. If the Opposition want other debates they can have them on Opposition days; there have been no such Opposition day debates, so clearly the Opposition do not want to be saying to the people in Batley and Spen that they want to spend their money abroad, do they? So they are running away from it, and the Backbench Business Committee has not had a debate either, but the Government are providing one in due course.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

May I add to the shadow Leader of the House’s list of ways in which this Government are letting people down by saying that health and care workers in Wales were given a very well-deserved bonus by the Welsh Labour Government in recognition of their service and sacrifice during the pandemic, but this Government have chosen to take most of it away from those on the lowest incomes by reducing their universal credit? So may we have an opportunity to convey to Department for Work and Pensions Ministers just what a disgrace this is?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The pay rise in the NHS and the public sector generally is more generous for the lowest-paid workers, and that is obviously right, but as I was saying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), there are limited resources and we have to be realistic about this. Our national debt has been growing at a very rapid rate because of the funding needed to pay for the pandemic, and this country—this nation—has to live within its means. I am afraid the socialists always forget that they eventually run out of other people’s money.

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

In January the Foreign Secretary said that the Government intend to strengthen the Modern Slavery Act 2015; can the Leader of the House update the House as to when we might get the opportunity to debate that, and does he agree that one way in which we could strengthen the Act is by tackling inadvertent exposure to modern slavery in investment portfolios?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government are committed to introducing financial penalties for organisations that fail to meet their legal obligations under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act; that will require changes to primary legislation, which will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. In March 2021 the Government launched an online modern slavery statement registry, and we are now encouraging all organisations in the scope of the legislation to submit their statement to the registry, but in future we will mandate organisations in scope of section 54 of the Act to submit their statement to the registry as part of the planned changes to strengthen the legislation. I will of course pass on my hon. Friend’s concerns to the Home Secretary.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The Leader of the House has accused the Opposition of moaning and complaining. Let us just call that opposition—and clearly he is not suggesting that a one-party state is a better system, although I sometimes wonder.

Because the Government have changed the pre-covid target for patient care volumes, many of my constituents have found it very hard to get NHS dentist treatments; they can get a check-up but they cannot get the treatment. What was a difficult situation has been made worse and lots of people go untreated. These changes have meant that many dentists are only able to offer treatment privately, which is simply unaffordable for many of my constituents. Can we have a statement from the relevant Minister on what the Government are doing to support dental practices that offer NHS services?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The job of the Opposition to oppose, but that does not always mean that such opposition is well informed or particularly enlightening. I think it is fair for the Government to point that out. For the record, no, I would not want a one-party state; I happen to think that good opposition leads to better government. If only we actually—no, I will not go into that. I would like to come to the hon. Lady’s question, because it is of fundamental importance.

I think all of us, as constituency MPs, have been in touch with our local dentistry services, which have been finding things difficult. The Government are continuing to work closely with the NHS to increase access to dental services while protecting staff and patients from covid-19 infection.

The latest published annual figures show an increase in the number of dentists delivering NHS services. Nearly 7,000 NHS dental providers in England have received over 400 million free personal protective equipment items via a dedicated PPE portal, which is helping to ensure safe treatment. We are maintaining exemptions from NHS dental charges for the most vulnerable and nearly half of all dental treatments—over 17 million—were provided free of charge in the latest year. There is obviously more to be done, but, in these very difficult circumstances, headway is being made. I will however pass the hon. Lady’s comments on to my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

Canons Drive in my constituency is part of a conservation area with 300-year-old trees. There are unique examples of wellingtonia, redwood and cedar trees. Harrow Council is considering an application to remove the tree preservation orders on the trees, which would eventually lead to them being felled because insurance companies are claiming that they are causing damage to the neighbouring housing. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on protecting tree preservation orders and preventing the felling of these unique specimens that were part of the Duke of Chandos’s historical estate?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Is it not right for me to comment on individual cases, but as a general principle, trees are objects of great beauty and their antiquity tells us something. It reminds us of our nation’s history and our island’s story. It is obviously for councils to make such decisions, but damage being caused by a protected tree is not in itself a justification for felling that tree. In the first instance, my hon. Friend might want to apply for an Adjournment debate on these three particular trees.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

The Trussell Trust’s “State of Hunger” report has found that the pandemic has plunged people into even deeper forms of debt, with almost 95% of those referred to food banks experiencing destitution and unable to afford the essentials. May we have a statement or even a debate in Government time to consider what plan we have to prioritise and tackle this scandalous need for food in the 21st century rather than talking about more royal yachts?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I thank the hon. Gentleman for continuing to come to business questions even when he is not formally representing his party? It was a great pleasure to cross swords with him in the last few weeks.

The Government are making great efforts and have made great efforts over the last decade to help families in poverty. Since 2010, a full-time living wage employee is now £5,400 better off. Just before the pandemic in 2019-20, household income saw its strongest annual growth for nearly 20 years. Inevitably, it has been set back by the pandemic, but the uplift in universal credit has been a help. The figures on total people in poverty, children in poverty and pensioners in poverty are all very significantly improved on 2010. I accept that there is more work to be done, but the picture is not all doom and gloom.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Last Saturday morning, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), I attended an event organised by the Grimsby and Cleethorpes Water Rats, who, along with other things, run a junior relay team who at this very moment—if all has gone to plan—are involved in a cross-channel swim. We were joined by Brenda Fisher BEM, one of Grimsby’s famous daughters, who swam the channel in 1951. Will my right hon. Friend arrange a debate in Government time in which we can consider the work of such voluntary organisations that organise structured, disciplined routines for our young people and provide so much for our local communities?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

First, I congratulate the Grimsby and Cleethorpes water rats on their brave and bold endeavour and Brenda Fisher on what she did 70 years ago. Of course, my hon. Friend will not be taking part personally, I believe, because it is widely known in Cleethorpes that he walks on water and therefore does not need to swim the channel. He is absolutely right to highlight the good work done by voluntary organisations and I am grateful to him for doing so at business questions.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

My constituent Alex recently received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions with a personal independence payment review form requesting supporting evidence that is difficult to acquire under pandemic conditions due to a lack of regular GP appointments. This is not long after he received a PIP extension. According to the benefits advice service Benefits and Work, this has been a persistent issue in recent months, with many PIP claimants reporting similar problems across the UK. Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate or a statement in Government time on the execution of PIP reviews during the pandemic?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am always happy to facilitate right hon. and hon. Members’ inquiries about individual constituents, so if the hon. Lady wants to send me the details of Alex, I will ensure that they go to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The answer that I gave earlier about GP appointments applied to England, because this is obviously a devolved matter, but I reiterate that face-to-face appointments are available if needed and appointments more generally are available, so I do not think that that should be, at this stage in the pandemic, an obstacle to getting any information that is necessary. On the hon. Lady’s general point on PIP reviews, I think that DWP has worked extraordinarily well during the pandemic to make sure that people who need money have got it in a timely fashion.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab) [V]]

The Climate Change Committee’s annual report published today is stark. It mentions serious gaps in policy and strategy, lack of detail around key areas such as planning, decarbonisation of homes, oil and gas and even failing to produce a net zero strategy in the year that we host COP. This is a Government who are quick to promise but fail at every turn to deliver, and the longer that they delay, the more severe and irreversible the damage becomes and the more likely it is that we suffer serious drought, heatwaves and floods, with the immense impact that has on people and livelihoods. To ensure that climate action is at the heart of all policies and all Departments, will the Leader of the House agree to allowing for far more time for this Parliament to debate the report and to scrutinise and properly hold this failing Government to account?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I said earlier, I am not interested in eating less meat; I want to eat more meat and I want my constituents to be able to as well. The Government’s record since 2010 is formidable. They have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 26% between 2010 and 2019. Renewable electricity generation has more than quadrupled since 2010. The year 2019 was the cleanest on record with more than half of UK electricity coming from low-carbon technologies. As I said earlier, we have cut emissions by 43% since 1990, with 75% economic growth. We are targeting a reduction in emissions by 78% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. We are on the right path to net zero by 2050, but we have to do this with economic growth. We are not fanatics; we are sensible and proportionate in what we are trying to do and we have been doing it with considerable success since 2010.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]]

Some us have noticed that the English votes for English laws provisions have been suspended and we regret that they still are, but will the Leader of the House at least commit to keeping his promise that the changes introduced to respond to the pandemic will be temporary and will be reversed, and, if he wishes to change the EVEL rules, that there will be a vote in this Parliament to do so?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Any change to EVEL Standing Orders—and it is worth bearing in mind that the EVEL Standing Orders take up slightly over 10% of all our Standing Orders. They are particularly impenetrable. The learned Clerks never struggle, but if it were not for the fact that the learned Clerks never struggle, even they might struggle with the intricacies of EVEL. But my hon. Friend is absolutely spot on: these changes could not take place without the support of the House.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab) [V]]

Yesterday, I met my constituent Anthony at the travel day of action. His business, like many others in the sector, has been extremely hard hit by the Government’s failure to stand up for the travel sector. He told me that we urgently need greater clarity on how countries can be added to the green list, more information on the transatlantic taskforce and a proper package of financial support. Can we have a debate in Government time on what the Government will do to save the travel industry?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have said before, if the hon. Lady wishes to raise specific points about Anthony, her constituent, I will always try to facilitate those being taken up with the right Government Minister. The Opposition are slightly inconsistent on this, because on the one hand they complained bitterly that the border was not closed fast enough, and on the other hand, they want the travel industry to be supported. Those are two conflicting objectives. I point out that there has been very significant support for all industry, including £407 billion of taxpayers’ money. We have protected 14 million jobs and people through the furlough and self-employment schemes at a cost of £88.5 billion, and the travel industry is obviously eligible for those. Everyone wants to get back to normal—to normal travel and normal routines—but the pandemic is still raging in many parts of the world, and it has to be done in a proportionate way.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Current covid policy dictates that if a single child tests positive for coronavirus at school, the entire class is sent home and forced to isolate for 10 days. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is risk aversion gone mad and that we owe it to our children to get back to normal? Will he please raise this as a matter of urgency with No. 10 and the Department of Health and Social Care?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because he was kind enough to warn me of his question and therefore I have had the opportunity to find out what the precise policy is and put it on the record. While in some cases a whole class might be required to isolate, we know that many settings are using seating plans and other means to identify close contacts and minimise the number of individuals who need to isolate, so it is not an absolute rule, but a matter of judgment. I hope people will use their judgment wisely.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), no one is taken in by the Leader of the House’s sophistry on this subject. Everybody knows that he is seeking to avoid giving the House a meaningful vote on whether it agrees with the Government’s decision temporarily to reduce the amount of aid being sent to the poorest countries in the world. There is no need for him to dilate widely on this; he used to occupy a semi-recumbent position over there and regularly criticised the Executive for exactly this kind of jiggery-pokery. Why does he not come clean with his own side and allow a proper vote—not one rolled up with all such other expenditure in the estimates, but one that would truly meet the test set for him by Mr Speaker?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I object to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Trivialising the estimates does not understand their importance. One of the fundamental things that this House does is approve the expenditure proposed by the Government. It is lost in the mists of constitutional time. It is a debate on the whole of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s budget, and it is possible to vote against it. It is a full day’s debate, but I challenge the Opposition again: if they want to debate this so much, we have given them lots of Opposition days, so why have they not used one on it? It is because they do not really want to get this message across to their voters, because it is a policy that has enormous support with the electorate. Our ultimate bosses like this policy. They back this policy and they think it is proportionate under the economic circumstances. The law set out very clearly what the requirements were with the 0.7%: if the target is not met, a statement must be laid before this House. If the hon. Gentleman does not like the law, he should have put down an amendment when the Bill was passed.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

I had expected that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster would by now have come to the House to set out the balance of arguments over covid status certification and the ethics, practicality or necessity of such a project. Does my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House share my view that if terminus day is to live up to its name, there will be no need for this scheme to go ahead?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I said last week, the terminus is Paddington, not Crewe. It is the end of the line, not an interchange, and that must be the key part of terminus day. Lots of evidence has been gathered in relation to covid status certificates. Final decisions have not been made, but the Government will update the House on the road map as it continues. My hon. Friend’s point on terminus is right; it is an end point, and so it should be.

[Anum Qaisar-Javed (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Yesterday in the news, we found out that this Government used taxpayers’ money that should have been spent on covid recovery on polling on independence. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) had a two-year battle with the Government and they are now having to release information on secret polling. This Government are also attempting to change the franchise on who can vote in an independence referendum. Then, on Friday, we had the song, “One Britain One Nation” that young people across the country are supposed to be going to sing, but in fact many Scottish schoolkids will not even be at school. I request that my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) does not remove the Whip from me, but it is actually quite a catchy song, I must admit. I am sorry, but I do not actually have a question, only a request—that the Leader of the House comes to Scotland to visit my constituency of Airdrie and Shotts. I extend that invite to all Government Members, because it turns out that they are fantastic advocates for Scottish independence.

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say it is business questions and it might be helpful to have a question? I think you did have one asking the Leader of the House to come and visit, so I am sure that will do fine.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is an offer too good to refuse, Mr Speaker. I very much hope that I shall be able to visit the hon. Lady’s constituency. The work undertaken on attitudes to the Union was a reasonable thing to poll on. It is really important when developing a communication strategy to work out how it will land most effectively. There was a great deal of work to be done to communicate the messages about staying at home, working from home, wearing facemasks, and so on and so forth. I think this was completely proper and justifiable and I imagine that other Governments in similar circumstances would have done much the same.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

A couple of weeks ago, at my new constituency office in the heart of Bolsover town centre, I was delighted to launch the Bolsover high street taskforce. Along with local stakeholders, I look forward to helping to unleash Bolsover’s tourism potential and delivering a town centre that all residents can be proud of for many decades to come. With that in mind, can we have a debate in Government time on the importance of supporting businesses in our high streets and making sure that we have sustainable high streets for many decades to come?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think the knowledge that my hon. Friend will be in Bolsover high street will have the crowds flocking there for selfies and autographs, and to deliver some election literature in due course. The high streets taskforce has meant that 70 local authorities will receive targeted, in-person support as they battle against changing consumer habits, and I am delighted that Bolsover is benefiting from this. In addition, 57 local areas have been confirmed as recipients of our £830 million future high streets fund, which will support local areas to prepare long-term strategies for their high streets and town centres. Generally speaking, if MPs are in their high streets, that does encourage people to visit them, and they can do little constituency surgeries there, Mr Speaker—I am sure that happens in Chorley all the time.

[Mr Speaker]

Of course it does.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]]

Schools spend the pupil premium on things like extra teaching staff, breakfast clubs, laptops, and tailoring support to their most disadvantaged pupils. However, due to the Government’s inexplicable decision to base pupil premium funding for the next financial year on data from October rather than using the up-to-date January figures as usual, north-east schools could lose out on up to £7.6 million for the 5,700 north-east pupils who became eligible for free school meals between October and January. The Education Secretary has ignored pleas from the North East Child Poverty Commission and others to put this right. May I urge the Leader of the House to make time for a debate in Government time on ensuring that schools in regions such as the north-east that have experienced some of worst learning loss do not lose out on even more funding?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady missed a chance to question the Secretary of State for Education, who was here on Monday. Obviously there always have to be cut-off dates to allow for figures to be run and for decisions to be made, and after those cut-off dates there will then be the next year’s figures to work on for future years. All government depends on data on particular dates, and this is not unreasonable.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

At half-past 3 last Sunday morning, police officers responded to a call about a man vandalising a bus stop in Kettering town centre. Officers were surrounded by a gang as they arrived at the scene, and an unruly mob turned on them. A 22-year-old man was arrested for attempting to kick one of the officers; a 21-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of assault. That sort of violence against police officers going about their duty in difficult circumstances to protect the public is completely unacceptable, but sadly it is a growing problem. I know that the Government have recently increased the penalties for assaults on emergency workers, but may we have a statement from the Government that the courts will not shy away from applying those stiffer sentences when perpetrators are brought before them?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises a very serious and troubling matter. It is disgraceful that these attacks on the police should take place. As he knows, clause 2 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will increase the maximum penalty for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months’ to two years’ imprisonment. The aim is to ensure that the law provides emergency workers with sufficient protection to enable them to carry out their duties and that the options available to the courts to sentence offenders who assault emergency workers are proportionate, reflect the seriousness of the offences committed and provide the victims with a sense that justice has been done.

Naturally, the courts are independent, but it is right that my hon. Friend raises the matter in the House so that the general public concern is taken on board across the nation. He may want to raise the issue again at Justice questions on Monday, but I will certainly pass on his concerns to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

There is a crisis in the haulage industry, with a chronic driver shortage that the Government have been warned about time and again. Martin Reid, the Scottish director of the Road Haulage Association, has said:

“For a long time, we have been running short of the numbers required for haulage drivers, so throwing Covid-19, Brexit and recent tax procedures into the mix has created a perfect storm.”

There is a very real concern that the sector will be unable to maintain integrated supply chains this summer and beyond, so can we have a debate on promoting careers in driving and on what contingency plans may be required in the short term?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman has just missed Transport questions, where he might have got a more comprehensive answer from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport. [Interruption.] He was there, so he could have asked the Secretary of State.

Obviously it is important that we have the right training in place and that we have efficiency in driving tests. There is a backlog with driving tests for all motorists, and it is important that that is made up as soon as is practical.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

When my constituent Bas Breeze visited the National Memorial Arboretum, he was very disappointed that among the many monuments there was none to the territorial soldier. He rightly makes the point that these volunteers have made a huge contribution to the British Army’s efforts, particularly in the world wars. Will my right hon. Friend please secure a statement on whether that might be rectified so that their contribution can be recognised?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter, especially in the same week as Armed Forces Day. The Territorial Force, as it was in the first world war, the Territorial Army, as it was in the second world war, and the reserves, as they are today, are commemorated at the National Memorial Arboretum. Territorial Force, Territorial Army and reserve units are integral to the same regiment or corps as their regular counterparts and are therefore commemorated equally with those individual regiments and corps memorials. For example, the Royal Artillery memorial garden at the NMA commemorates all those who have served with the Royal Regiment of Artillery, be they regular, territorial, conscript or reserve; no distinction is made. If my hon. Friend wishes to raise the matter further, Defence questions are on 5 July.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Since the Conservative party came into power in 2010, per-pupil school funding has been cut by nearly 10%, more than 750 youth centres have been closed, more than 800 public libraries have been closed, more than 1,000 Sure Start children’s centres have been closed, the education maintenance allowance has been scrapped, university maintenance grants have been scrapped, tuition fees have trebled, a two-child welfare cap has been introduced and more than £34 billion has been cut from social security. It was not the phrase “white privilege” that did this; it was the Conservative party. Will the Leader of the House give Government time to discuss the real causes of working class kids—white, black and brown alike—being neglected, not the nonsense that his colleagues are spouting this week?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is worth reading paragraph 29 of the excellent report by the Education Committee. It says:

“Schools should consider whether the promotion of politically controversial terminology, including White Privilege, is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act 2010. The Department should take steps to ensure that young people are not inadvertently being inducted into political movements when what is required is balanced, age-appropriate discussion and a curriculum that equips young people to thrive in diverse and multi-cultural communities throughout their lives and work. The Department should issue clear guidance for schools and other Department-affiliated organisations receiving grants from the Department on how to deliver teaching on these complex issues in a balanced, impartial and age-appropriate way.”

The Government’s record is a remarkably successful one. We have committed more than £3 billion to education recovery. Some £1.4 billion has been announced recently, including £1 billion for tutoring and £400 million for teacher training. That is on top of a £14.4 billion three-year school funding settlement, which will see a rise of more than £840 per pupil by 2022-23, compared with 2019-20. The pupil premium will increase to more than £2.5 billion this year, which will enable schools to support pupils with extra teaching, academic support or activities such as breakfast clubs. This is a proud record. The work done by the Education Committee has been extremely helpful in highlighting the fact that those who have really been left behind have not been left behind because of racial consequences, and that they need more support. It is also worth noting that, since 2010, the number of children in absolute poverty has fallen by 100,000, so, overall, it is a way of seeing things forward and ensuring that children get the education and support that they need.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

I recently spent a sunny Saturday afternoon at Charlesworth & Chisworth Cricket Club on verification duty for a world-record attempt, as James Butterworth ran the longest-ever bowling run-up: over 5 km, going through two different parliamentary constituencies. After all that, thankfully, he did not bowl a wide. This was all done in in aid of raising funds for new practice nets for the club. With that in mind, can we have a debate on grassroots sports and support for them in this country, so that fantastic clubs such as Charlesworth & Chisworth can get the equipment they need to produce the next generation of first class test cricketers?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I believe that it is Yorkshire Tea National Cricket Week, so it is a good occasion on which to be raising this matter. The previous recordholder was Sameer Khan Yousufee, who ran two and a half miles before getting to bowl. I am a bit worried about the over rates—if they keep on bowling at that rate the dismal rates that we get in test matches will be even slower, though I do wonder quite how fast Wes Hall or Michael Holding might have bowled had their run-ups been even longer than they were. I am also quite intrigued by the commentary. How would even Henry Blofeld keep going for the quarter of an hour or so—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) heckles me to say that she is sure he would. She is probably right, but it would be quite a challenge to keep it up for all that time. It is absolutely brilliant that we should have this record. I am glad that a wide was not bowled and hope that it was not a no ball either. We should do everything we can to encourage grassroots cricket; it is part of our nation’s story, something that we can be proud of and one of our great exports to the rest of the world.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

That is the most incomprehensible answer that I have ever heard the Lord President give, but I appreciate that that is my failing, not his, in an understanding of the subject. I will now suspend the House for three minutes, so that preparations can be made for the next item of business.

Business of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 21 June will include:

Monday 21 June —Opposition day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion relating to planning, followed by a debate on a motion relating to steel. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.

Tuesday 22 June—Second Reading of the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill.

Wednesday 23 June—Consideration in Committee of the Armed Forces Bill.

Thursday 24 June—General debate on the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, followed by a general debate on UK defence spending. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 25 June—The House will not be sitting.

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

Monday 28 June—Second Reading of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill.

Tuesday 29 June—Estimates day (1st allotted day). Subjects to be confirmed.

Wednesday 30 June—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). Subjects to be confirmed. At 7.00 pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Thursday 1 July—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill, followed by a general debate on Windrush day, followed by a general debate on Pride month. The subjects for these debates were recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 2 July—The House will not be sitting.

I am pleased to announce the remaining recess dates for the rest of this year. Subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the conference recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 23 September and will return on Monday 18 October. The House will rise at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 9 November and return on Monday 15 November. Finally, for the Christmas recess, the House will rise at the conclusion of business on Thursday 16 December and return on Tuesday 4 January.

We often talk of parliamentary democracy in sweeping and even grandiloquent terms, but its day-to-day success rests on the hard work of unseen officials. Yesterday the Prime Minister paid tribute, as you have, Mr Speaker, to Sir Roy Stone, the departing principal private secretary to the Chief Whip, who came to his current post at the start of the millennium, after serving Margaret Thatcher, Sir John Major and Tony Blair in Downing Street. While Sir Roy did not waste any time on my appointment in making it clear to me that the term “usual channels” was best kept away from the Floor of the House—in fact, I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to use it—I intend to break the rule today, to make it clear that, when people mentioned the usual channels actually they meant Sir Roy. He was and has been the usual channels for the past 20 years. He is, as you pointed out, Mr Speaker, only the fourth person to have held this particular set of responsibilities since Sir Charles Harris’ appointment a century ago.

Over the last 21 years, Sir Roy has kept the parliamentary show on the road—not least in helping to smooth occasionally troubled waters in recent years, working phantasmagorical wonders behind the scenes and accomplishing feats of which Houdini would be proud, to ensure that the show went on. A predecessor of mine, Richard Crossman, described the job as

“a little round ball-bearing which makes the huge joint work that links the Opposition and Government Whips’ Offices.”

That does not quite do it justice. Sir Roy himself would say that he is an honest broker. This is nearer the mark, but underplays his significance. Instead, Sir Roy’s occasional declaration that this or that politician is offside is nearer the mark, because it invites comparison to a popular game known as association football, where referees may instinctively understand what is appropriate and what is not.

My own view is that Sir Roy has been a guardian of our constitution and its proprieties, the keeper of the democratic clocks, devoted to maintaining the position of and the balance between our constitution’s weights and counterweights: Executive and legislature; Front Bench and Back Bench; Opposition and Government. I cannot think of a more important or solemn duty, but Sir Roy has proved himself the sort of man who performs near miracles with considerable regularity. He has been an inspiration and a teacher who we will all miss enormously; and, to his great credit, he still has much more to give. I wish him and his family every possible blessing.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business. I know that the staff of the House who have been asking me about the recess dates will be very pleased to hear them, given the hard year that so many of them have been through.

Every day, we sit here under the protective shield of our loved friend, Jo Cox. We can hear her voice. We are inspired by her. She mattered then; she matters still. Her life made a difference to millions and we miss her very much. This week especially, we send our love to her family.

Mr Speaker, the Opposition—particularly the Whips Office—join you and the Leader of the House in saying a big thank you to Sir Roy Stone, who is retiring this week after 44 years of service. We want him to know how much we appreciate him.

In this Cervical Screening Awareness Week, I encourage all women to take up the screening when offered, and to encourage other women to do likewise.

The British people deserve to have a competent Government, but this Government, unfortunately, are anything but competent—hopeless, in fact. This is costing the country dearly. Four years on from the Grenfell tragedy, where on the business is the plan to make all homes safe from fire and the law reforms to give tenants true voice—something that the survivors and bereaved people were promised?

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced yesterday what he called an economic support package, but it consisted of just one single measure, which does not a package make. Failure to help businesses who have lost thousands of pounds because of the covid measures extension—itself needed only because of other Government incompetence—will cost many people’s jobs. Hopeless.

Similarly, the Prime Minister came back from a weekend with a few mates in Cornwall, describing something as a global vaccination programme that is anything but: 870 million doses of vaccine is a fraction of the 11 billion that the world actually needs, and his level of leadership at the G7 a fraction of what the country needs. The Government are not preparing the UK for the impacts of climate change, according to the Climate Change Committee; the Ministry of Justice is having to remove children from Rainsbrook secure training centre because it cannot keep them safe; there is little hope for young people who have lost months of education; social care is failing vulnerable children; trade deals are undermining farmers and fishers; and exports are down. Hopeless.

Will the Leader of the House please explain to people who own homes with fire defects, to the world’s poorest people, to businesses losing money, to care workers and people who need care, and to our children and young people why the Government could not get around to arranging the business to sort out problems that are predictable, predicted and fixable?

There is now a steady stream of Government announcements on major matters that Members have to find out about from journalists, instead of here in this Chamber: covid regulations, parliamentary rules on English votes for English laws, the publication of the review on rape prosecutions—and that’s just this week. Does the Leader of the House agree that this is, at best, not in the spirit of the ministerial code, and, at worst, treating our constituents with contempt?

The British steel industry supports tens of thousands of jobs, but the Trade Remedies Authority’s decision to withdraw steel safeguards plunges steelworkers, their families, and communities that rely on the industry into a deeply precarious situation. Will the Government bring forward emergency legislation so that Ministers can reject the Trade Remedies Authority’s recommendation, temporarily extend current safeguards and protect British jobs in steel?

When will the Leader of the House bring in the rule changes that he and I both know are urgently needed to allow constituents to petition to recall their MP when the independent complaints process finds them to be a bully or sexual harasser?

Finally, I did not need leaked texts from one hopeless person, about another hopeless person, moaning about a third one; I only needed to listen to the care workers in Bristol West to know that there is not, and never was, a ring of protection around them and the people they care for. Why did the Prime Minister keep on as Health Secretary someone he thought was hopeless in a global health crisis? Why?

The British people recognise incompetence and waste when they see it, they know what is right and what is not, and they know when a Minister is hopeless. The Leader of the House is always welcome to listen to the people of Bristol West, as I have been listening to the people of North East Somerset. My constituents and his share a strikingly similar view of his hopeless Government, and a shared belief that we all deserve better.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady has very kindly promoted me. Of course, the Government are not mine but Her Majesty’s, and that is not a role to which, I confess, I aspire.

As regards text messages, there is a great line from Dr Johnson:

“In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.”

I think the same applies to text messages, which are essentially the trivia, the flotsam and jetsam, the ephemera of life, and fundamentally unimportant. The fact that the hon. Lady finds them so exciting shows how little she has to go on.

As regards bringing in rules relating to recall, the hon. Lady is a member of the Commission. May I remind her that, as shadow Leader of the House, she has that role that goes with the job? The Commission will be meeting on Monday. It is up to the Commission to deal with Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme-related matters; it is not the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government. Obviously, the Government have a view on this, but this House is not run by the Government, and it is really important that people understand that; it is run by the Commission, on behalf of all Members.

That ties in with the hon. Lady’s point about EVEL. There may always be discussions in Government about how the procedures of this House operate, but the procedures of this House are a matter for this House. In that, many Members may notice that EVEL has been suspended over the last year, without any great consequence or complaint—nobody seems to have minded very much—and it is therefore worth considering how it will operate in the future. We should always bear in mind the fundamental constitutional equality of every Member of this House, regardless of the size of their constituency, the location of their constituency or, indeed, whether they are a Minister or shadow Minister, Front-Bench or Back-Bench.

There is a fundamental equality of Members of this House, and that is an important constitutional principle—as is the one that announcements are made to this House. I would point out that over the course of the pandemic, I think we have had 40 announcements made at the Dispatch Box by the Department of Health and Social Care, many of them by the Secretary of State himself. There has been one most sitting weeks during the course of the pandemic. I think the record of the Government in keeping the House informed is actually extremely good.

The hon. Lady then makes a broad list of socialist complaints about how the Government are operating, but what would we expect? The left like to say these things, but they are an awful lot of nonsense. First of all, trade deals. Free trade makes every country in the world that adopts it better off. Our deal with Australia is fantastic. For those who like Australian wine, Australian wine will be cheaper. The deal is good for consumers, but it is good for farmers too, because we want farmers who can be competitive and can succeed. I know that there are not many farmers in Bristol—poor old Bristol—but farmers in North East Somerset are competitive. They are able to succeed. I know that the SNP is worried that the farmers it represents are not efficient enough. I do not believe that; I think Scottish farmers are very efficient too.

I am as proud of Scottish farmers as I am of Somerset farmers, and they can be world leaders, as the Prime Minister was a world leader at the G7, with an amazing list of successes to his name, including a billion doses of the vaccine next year for developing countries. The vaccine that will go out will mainly, of course, be the Oxford vaccine. Why? Because the Oxford vaccine is being done at cost price because of a deal so successfully done by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—the brilliant, the one and only, successful genius who has been running Health over the last 15 months. He has done so much to make not only the country but the world safer.

There is going to be $2.75 billion for funding the Global Partnership for Education to help ensure that all children go to school around the world, and G7 leaders signed up to the UK’s target of getting 40 million more girls into school. That is just the beginning of the success that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister achieved at the G7.

Then we get carping about the support being given for people during the pandemic—some £407 billion of taxpayers’ money. A socialist thinks that money grows on trees, but the truth is that eventually they run out of spending other people’s money, and that is something that has to be remembered. The furlough scheme is going on until September. The cut in VAT continues. The reduction in rates continues. The support is there, and it is very considerable, but we believe on this side of the House in faintly living within one’s means. One day, this money will have to be paid back. There is not a bottomless pit. There is not a magic money tree.

The hon. Lady mentions the building safety Bill, but we have been getting on with it. An amazing amount has been done already. Some 95% of high-risk residential buildings have either been completed or have work under way—that is, the buildings over 59 feet high. Some £5.1 billion of taxpayers’ money—money that, as I said, is not growing on trees and has to be earned by people going out to work—will be found to fund the cost of remediating unsafe cladding for leaseholders, but as the Prime Minister said yesterday, not all high-rise buildings are dangerous. It is not axiomatic that a high-rise building is dangerous. It is important to bear that in mind.

May I finish on a much more consensual note? The hon. Lady is so right to remember Jo Cox, whose shield, as she pointed out, is behind her, and which we see from the Front Bench every day when we are in the Chamber. Eternal rest grant unto her, and all the faithful departed.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I am sorry to say that it came as no surprise to me when Labour voted against tougher sentences for rapists and child rapists this week. My constituency of Dudley North has been waiting for a new police station in the centre of Dudley for many years, as was promised by the Labour police and crime commissioner. Will my right hon. Friend agree to explore this issue with me, and perhaps with the Home Secretary, and agree to a debate on the effectiveness of police and crime commissioners more generally?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The socialists, as always, are weak on crime and weak on the causes of crime, and they have shown their true colours in the recent refusal to support tougher sentences for violent criminals. Unfortunately, socialist police and crime commissioners have been failing their constituents. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue to hold his local PCC to account and at the highest level, because the Government are continuing to back the police and to support the public in fighting to bring down crime.

I am glad to see the Minister for Crime and Policing, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), just behind the Speaker’s Chair. We are taking the landmark Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill through Parliament at the moment, which will tackle serious violence throughout the country. We have hired nearly 9,000 additional police officers and are well on track to meet our target of 20,000 new officers this Parliament. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) for the important issue that he raises.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I echo the comments of the shadow Leader of the House and the Leader of the House on Jo Cox. It is important that we all continue to remember her and share our thoughts with her family in what will obviously be a very difficult week.

I join the tributes to Sir Roy Stone. In my time in office, he has been a great help and support. I know that view is shared by others who have held this post, including my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), in the Whips operation for our party. It was always great to have the ability to have that conversation and to get advice from Sir Roy over that time. I am sure he will be missed. I wish him very well in whatever he decides to go on to do next.

Tuesday saw the publication of a written statement from the Cabinet Office announcing new measures to update campaigning regulations in the upcoming elections Bill, including a crackdown on loopholes exploited by third-party campaigners and the introduction of digital imprints. I am glad to see that. The Government here are following in the footsteps of the Scottish Government in introducing digital imprints, but we need assurances that these measures will only be the beginning of the legislation, and that it will be continually updated in the light of ever-changing circumstances. Can we have a debate on these new measures in Government time to give Members a chance to feed in at this very early stage?

This week is Loneliness Awareness Week. Particularly given the year we have all had, will the Leader of the House join me in thanking organisations such as the Red Cross which have helped to reach out to people struggling alone during the pandemic? Will the Government set out how they plan to build a more connected community after covid, ensuring that those most at risk of loneliness are able to access the support they need?

This week I bring good news: the Perthshire One has been freed. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) shall be returning to his rightful place from next week. In my final effort, may I ask: there is a historic backlog of Opposition days that our party did not secure. Could consideration be given to that?

Finally, Mr Speaker, if I may, both our nations are independently represented at the Euros tomorrow evening. While I have a dream, I am sure that many would agree that neither the Leader of the House nor I are perhaps the best examples of who could boogie, but will he join me in wishing both teams all the very best—for a Scotland victory? [Laughter.]

[Mr Speaker]

I’m not sure about the last bit.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I may be willing to go further than the House would expect, because the corridor of the Chairman of Ways and Means has a sweepstake and in this sweepstake I have been fortunate enough to draw Scotland, so I shall have very divided loyalties tomorrow. But I am glad to say that it is very encouraging for the Union. I was pleased to see Wales do well yesterday—the Rees side of me was coming to the fore. I am looking forward to supporting whichever side does best, because I have an interest in all three of them doing well.

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will be returning to his place, but it has been very enjoyable crossing swords with the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), who brings a great tone to these exchanges.

Loneliness Awareness Week is important. It is something that is very hard for Government to take control of, although we have a very distinguished Minister for loneliness. We have to try to work with civic society, with people such as the Red Cross and the Samaritans, to help people as we begin to get back to normal. As we do get life back to normal, that will help to reduce loneliness.

As we are on what is happening during the week, it is worth bearing in mind that 18 June is Waterloo Day, a day always of celebration in this country. We can celebrate it all together, which will make us less lonely. It is also a wonderfully Unionist day. I do not know if you know this, Mr Speaker, but there were Scottish, Welsh and Irish regiments there: the Black Watch, the Gordon Highlanders, the Royal Scots, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, the Welsh Regiment, the Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Inniskilling Dragoons. I think Sharpe was there with the Prince of Wales’ Own, but I am not sure that that was a real regiment or whether it was invented for the purpose of fiction. No doubt other wise people will be able to tell us. So that date is happening, too.

Finally, on digital imprints and so on, the Second Reading of the electoral integrity Bill will be an opportunity to debate what may go into it. I can confirm that when it comes forward there will be an opportunity to do that, but I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. I would say that it is always open to the Government to learn from what the devolved authorities do. We want to work collaboratively with the devolved authorities, even if we have an ultimately different vision for our nation.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I also join the tributes to Sir Roy Stone?

May we have a debate in Government time on the imminent changes the Government are to make to the NHS integrated care system boundaries to make them co-terminus with upper-tier local authority boundaries? This is in fact a wholesale reorganisation of NHS commissioning in areas such as Essex, Waveney and the Frimley ICS, which covers parts of Berkshire, Surrey and Hampshire. Why is this being done before we have even seen the legislation that is necessary to make it effective? Who is advising Ministers to implement this major change, when they should be leaving things be while we catch up with the massive NHS waiting lists? Why has there been so little consultation with MPs about this until very late in the day? Why is NHS England withholding a consultants’ report which Ministers promised to us last week? It has still not been given to us and is apparently the basis on which the decisions are being made, but we are not allowed to see it. There is a real failure of scrutiny here.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this point. There are issues of scrutiny around arms-length bodies, which are of fundamental importance to this House and are rightly brought to the Floor of the House. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that NHS England is a quango and is not invariably under direction from Ministers. However, the point he makes is a very serious one and I will ensure it is taken up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

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

I echo the sentiments expressed about our late colleague, Jo Cox, whom we commemorate this week. I also add my best wishes to Sir Roy Stone for a very long, happy and healthy retirement, which he fully deserves. He has been of great help and assistance to me during my time as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the Backbench Business debates on 24 June and 1 July, when we will commemorate Windrush Day and the end of Pride month. If we get time on 8 July, we have a debate lined up on the independent medicines and medical devices safety review—the Cumberlege report—regarding historical dangerous flaws in elements of healthcare. Lastly, the Backbench Business Committee is having an additional meeting at 1 pm today to determine the subjects for the estimates day debates that the Leader of the House has announced for 29 and 30 June.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good plea for time on 8 July, because I was part of the all-party group that was very brilliantly chaired by the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who worked so hard on the Primodos issue, so it is one I take very seriously. Unfortunately, the particular interests of the Leader of the House do not necessarily determine how business is set, but his appeal is heard.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I join others in paying tribute to Sir Roy and remembering the murder of one of our own, Jo Cox. Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on erecting a permanent memorial to Dame Vera Lynn? Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of her death. At 11 am on the white cliffs of Dover, a public appeal will be launched to raise the memorial and a record will be released called “Unforgettable”. I would like to thank you, Mr Speaker, for your support for this project and the starring role that you will be taking.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We are looking forward to your karaoke efforts in due course. It seems to me, as my hon. Friend raises this question, that we could try to turn the white cliffs into Mount Rushmore and have a statue of Dame Vera Lynn there, but then I am worried that because they are made of chalk, it might not be as lasting as Mount Rushmore has proved for American Presidents. He is so right to raise this, and I know that he had an Adjournment debate on the subject on 11 May. Dame Vera Lynn was inspirational to this country at one of its lowest points and was held in the highest affection, and she continues to be fondly remembered.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) [V]]

Today is Clean Air Day, yet independent analysis has found that almost a quarter of schools across the country are located in areas with high levels of small particle pollution, exceeding the World Health Organisation limits. This means that an estimated 3.4 million children are learning in an unhealthy environment. Given that air pollution has already been linked to increased asthma, obesity and mental disorders in children, can we please have a debate in Government time about finally introducing ambitious legal limits on air pollution?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is so right to raise this very important issue. It is worth reminding the House of the terrible scandal involving the Blair Government, the European Union and the German car manufacturers, which encouraged everybody to buy diesel cars, pumping out particulates and nitrous oxides and lowering the standard of our air quality. The Government are involved in a project to improve this. They are doing what they can to see that cleaner cars are in use and that there are general policies to remove noxious substances and, particularly, particulates from our air.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

During the height of the pandemic the Government quite rightly introduced restrictions to protect the most vulnerable members of society in care homes, but I wish to raise with my right hon. Friend the experience of Frank Thompson and his wife of 57 years. Mrs Thompson is in residential care in Warrington. Prior to lockdown, Frank visited her every day, from 8 am in the morning until 8 pm in the evening. During the lockdown, he did not get to see her at all. As restrictions were eased in May and the road map moved forward, everybody in the care home was vaccinated, Mr Thompson was vaccinated and the care staff were vaccinated, and Mr Thompson was allowed to see his wife for 30 minutes once a week.

The hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) mentioned that this week is Loneliness Awareness Week; even those in care homes suffer loneliness. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is now time for the Government to be clear with those who provide care that the rights of residents are crucial to ensure that they do not suffer loneliness and that their families can get reasonable access to see them?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises an important and sensitive point. Members from all parties will be concerned about this issue and will have heard from constituents suffering difficult circumstances in visiting family and friends in care homes. The liberalisation of care home visiting rules was announced in the latest covid regulations. Residents will be able to spend more time with family and friends, including overnight stays, as part of the easing of visiting restrictions announced today. From 21 June, people admitted to a care home from the community will no longer have to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival, so residents will have a less disruptive introduction to their new home.

This has been a really difficult time for people in care homes. As the Prime Minister himself said, we will soon reach the terminus day, and the terminus means the end. Some people have thought it means an interchange, but it is Paddington, not Crewe. When we reach the end, the restrictions will go.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

The British Government are responsible for a grave injustice on the Chinese community in Liverpool. After the second world war, thousands of Chinese merchant seamen were forcibly deported back to China without the knowledge of their families, and it would be decades before they found out the real truth. In March, I asked the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to acknowledge this crime and provide an apology to the descendants of those families. I have not had a response, and that was more than three months ago, so will the Leader of the House provide time for a debate in Government time to discuss and debate this most important issue?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is always important that the Government recognise mistakes that may have been made by predecessor Governments. I encourage the hon. Lady to seek an Adjournment debate in the first instance, but if there is correspondence awaiting a reply that she was expecting, I will of course take that up, via my office, to ensure that she gets a reply.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

The Royal Oak Inn, just up the road from my home in Glossop, is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. It was built in 1818 and first opened its doors in 1821, serving thirsty travellers heading over the Snake Pass between Manchester and Sheffield. It is a lovely pub and I have enjoyed drinking in it on a number of occasions, and it used to be run by my good friends George and Jean Wharmby. Instead of people being able properly to celebrate the pub’s 200th anniversary, its future has been cast into doubt, as a planning application has just been submitted for the pub’s demolition. May we have a debate on how we can reform our planning laws to strengthen protections for historic pubs such as the Royal Oak?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I sympathise with my hon. Friend: we want planning applications to appreciate and understand local heritage and culture. A listing scheme is in place to try to protect buildings, and means of buying community assets have been in place for some years now, but we need new homes as well. It is about trying to get the right balance in the planning system to protect what needs to be protected but to develop where development is needed. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has been doing an excellent job in engaging with Members of Parliament and listening to and understanding their concerns about planning, but we have this balance to achieve. I hope that, in the meantime, my hon. Friend will manage to get to the Royal Oak before any planning application is completed and drink a yard of ale. We look forward to seeing the picture on Instagram.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

You have just missed a lovely exchange on a tribute to Dame Vera Lynn, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have to admit that I use her for my own purposes whenever people struggle to pronounce my name, as I say, “Just think of Dame Vera Lynn.”

Home Office delays in granting indefinite leave to remain mean that two of my constituents have been refused student finance. In one case, the deadline was missed by just three days. If they pay their fees for this year, the rules stipulate that they are privately financing their course and they will have to pay the student fees for the whole length of the course. That would put them into severe financial difficulties and this has already taken a huge toll on their mental health. May we have a statement from the Department for Education outlining how some discretion could be applied on student finance in situations where delays to granting indefinite leave to remain have been caused by the Home Office?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is very concerning when one arm of the Government causes a cost to be created with another. The requirement for a student to hold the status on the first day of their first academic year is a condition defined in the Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011, and Student Finance England does not have any discretion in that. However, I would be very happy to help the hon. Lady, and any right hon. and hon. Members, in liaising with the Home Office if there are delays. I visited the Home Office parliamentary team in Croydon recently, and they do an excellent job, with very high demand put upon them. However, if there are cases that have urgent consequences, I would be more than happy to do anything I can to facilitate a speedier response.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I refer to the case of a brutal attack on my constituent Gwen Kaplan. Three years ago, her neighbour was attacked by her boyfriend outside their house. Mrs Kaplan opened her door and tried to help. The attacker then smashed her window, got into the house, smashed a hole in the bathroom door and proceeded to stab Mrs Kaplan on the scalp, face, neck, shoulder and hand. He was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years. Her application to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority was rejected. She appealed and was rejected again. The chief constable of Humberside, Lee Freeman, wrote to the authority in support of her, but to no avail. Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the work of CICA, when we may consider the criteria by which it makes awards?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This is a deeply troubling case, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter and for holding the CICA to account. The criminal injuries compensation scheme’s rules are approved by Parliament and are independently administered. Under the current approach, strict eligibility criteria apply and awards under the scheme are determined in accordance with a detailed tariff of injuries. All applicants have the right to request that their initial decision is reviewed and, if dissatisfied, they have the right to appeal to the independent first-tier tribunal. I assume from what he said that Mrs Kaplan has already done that, so I will pass on his concerns to the Lord Chancellor.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

My constituent Olivia Dickson is 13. Last year, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. What Olivia and her family do not understand is why, with five children in the UK diagnosed with cancer every day, there has been such a dearth of research into treatment; we are still using adult-focused treatments developed decades ago. So may we have an urgent debate or statement on what specifically the UK Government will do to make swift progress on this vital research and how they will support children’s cancer charities, which have been hard hit by covid, to make sure that the research is progressed as a matter of priority?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is so right to raise this case. Cancer in children is such a worry for parents and so difficult to deal with. Carrying out research is fundamental. It is amazing what advances have been made in cancer treatment in recent years. I will pass on her comments to those at the Department of Health and Social Care, because I think it would be better if she had a full answer from them.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Terminally ill people and their families should not have to spend their final months grappling with the cruel benefits system. On 11 July, it will be two years since the Government announced their review into the welfare system for the terminally ill, and in that time thousands of people have died waiting for a benefit decision. When, with just weeks to go until the recess, will a Minister come to the House and announce the scrapping of the six-month rule?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Once again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue. The reason that it has taken so long is that it is not an easy one to determine. It is very hard to know with any certainty how long life will last, and that problem is difficult for a system to deal with. The uncertainty makes it problematic to find a good solution, whereas everybody wants a system that is sympathetic to those in their final weeks and months. I will take this up once again with the Department, but it is not torpor that means that there has been no full response; it is simply the complexity of the issue.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con) [V]]

My right hon. Friend knows, as we all do, about the patience of King Alfred: he had to wait 25 years before the Danes stopped bothering us. I sincerely hope that Ministers will take less time to answer my questions about official consultation on local government reform in Somerset. Two months ago, I asked a series of parliamentary questions on how many responses were received and how many genuine Somerset residents took part in the Government’s consultation. Since then there has been silence. This is rather strange. The district council has just held a full and fair independent referendum. Two thirds of registered electors supported its plan. All the figures are public and were sent straight to the Secretary of State. Why do the Government’s own consultation results remain secret? King Alfred would not stand for it and neither should we. Can we have a debate in this House as to what on earth is going on in local government?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I understand that there were some problems with the district council’s website, which did not have entirely the desired effect, and it caused some considerable and understandable distress to people who were linked to a website of ill-repute. There are questions to be raised about that. However, with regard to hon. and right hon. Members not receiving responses to written parliamentary questions, it is part of my job to chase that up, and I will do so for my hon. Friend.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I find it astounding that we will not have a statement from the Chancellor today following the vote yesterday on extending the public health measures. In my constituency, I know that businesses, charities and my community are really, really struggling. York, as the Leader of the House will know, depends on 8 million people visiting it each year. It is a visitor economy and, with tourism down, people are really struggling, and yet the Chancellor seems invisible. Can the Leader of the House take a message back from my city to say that we expect the Chancellor to bring forward a statement on Monday, so that we can scrutinise what measures he will give to our communities to help them survive this next season? Otherwise, there may not be a future for them.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The shadow Leader of the House asked me on Tuesday for a statement by the Treasury and one was provided on Wednesday. I wish I could say that it was immediate cause and effect, but it was in the pipeline anyway. The push from the hon. Lady moved us in the right direction. That statement was in relation to the Treasury support around the pandemic. It is worth bearing in mind, as I have said already, the total amount—£407 billion—that has already been spent on supporting 14 million jobs and people through furlough and self-employed schemes. Furlough continues until September. There are retail grants of up to £18,000 for retail, hospitality, leisure and personal care businesses. The business rates holiday continues to the end of June, but then tapers for another nine months. The 5% VAT cut continues until the end of September. Of course, I share the concern of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell); it is a really difficult and uncertain time. The extension to the terminus date of 19 July is one that nobody wanted, but it was necessitated by events. The end is now in sight. The support has been extremely generous and, I am glad to say, effective, as we see the economy beginning to bounce back. However, I will of course pass on her comments to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Could we have a debate on the subject of working from home? It has been reported that a consultation will soon be launched. What is being done to support those who wish to return to their place of work, but are prevented from doing so by their employers? Loneliness and isolation have become endemic during this pandemic, and people’s experiences of working from home have been very different. We must have a balanced debate about relying on assumptions, not least because of the implications for our public transport system and the prosperity of our towns and cities?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about this. The guidance is clear that if people need to go into work, they are allowed to go into work. If employers think that they need their employees to come into work, they are entitled to ask them to come into work. Even within the civil service, managers are advised to accommodate requests to work in the office when home working is not suitable for wellbeing reasons. These can be a whole variety of reasons—it could be loneliness, or it could be the unsuitability of the accommodation, in that particularly younger people who are part of the workforce do not necessarily have an excess of space in their flats in which to work.

It is really important that we get back to normal. We want to have vibrant towns and cities, we want people coming back into work, and we want commuting systems—trains, buses and so on—that are financially viable, and that means people coming back to work. The sooner we get back to normal the better, but in the meantime, anyone who wants to go into work should have a conversation with his or her employer and say, “I want to come back into work”, and employers should facilitate that.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

I am increasingly concerned at the exploitation of vulnerable customers through energy suppliers and providers’ pricing strategies, such as the exclusion of existing customers from the cheapest available energy tariff on offer. Could we have a statement from Government or a debate about including exclusive tariffs in Ofgem’s cheapest tariff messaging rules? This is a scandalous loophole that we need to address.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this point, and I think it goes wider than electricity tariffs. I do not tend to tell personal anecdotes, but when my car insurance with Churchill came in at £2,800 earlier this year, I managed to get it from LV=, the people who sponsor the cricket, I am glad to say, for under £600. It is quite extraordinary how existing customers are taken for a ride. I would encourage hon. Members and all our constituents to shop around, but I am also glad to say that the Financial Conduct Authority has introduced rules on this recently that will help protect people from this type of rip-off. My example, I do feel, shows that just a little bit of going online to shop around can save a very significant amount of money.

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

I have been alarmed by reports this week that Sandwell Council’s cabinet was due to sign off a reduction in the number of SEND—special educational needs and disability—transport contracts awarded from 20 to just two. Following interventions in the media by Councillor David Fisher and others, this decision has been deferred. Both of these companies are owned by the same person, a former council employee and the son of a former Labour deputy leader of Sandwell Council, who is named in the damning Wragge report, in which both father and son are revealed to have been involved in land deals, among other interesting activities. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the way that Sandwell Council is continuing to let down residents of the borough with these very questionable dealings and misuse of public funds?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises something extraordinarily troubling. There are problems sometimes within councils, and I understand that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is monitoring the situation at Sandwell Council closely following a recent report. Councils have an absolute duty to manage taxpayers’ money responsibly, and must be held to account when they do not. I understand that the Wragge report highlights that hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money were misused by a cabal of councillors. I know that the Home Office was alerted to its findings at the time, but I will of course pass on my hon. Friend’s concerns to the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. It may also be something that the police ought to be looking into. This sounds like a really serious prima facie case.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I know you will be pleased at last night’s result, and I know the Leader of the House is very proud of his Welsh roots and congratulated the Welsh team earlier. Can he pass on my commiserations to the Prime Minister, who I know is equally proud of his Turkish roots, on the 2-0 defeat of Turkey last night? It was a good reminder to him that Wales is in the tournament, which of course he did not realise last week.

I want to raise the serious issue of my constituent Luke Symons, who is still incarcerated in Yemen by the Houthis. I have asked on behalf of Bob Cummings, his grandfather, for a meeting in the near future with the Foreign Office Minister concerned. Do the Government have any plans for further debates or statements on the situation in Yemen, and in particular the plight of this young man, who has done nothing wrong other than hold a British passport?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point about the Prime Minister’s Ottoman antecedents, although as the Ottoman Empire has fallen away, I have a feeling that he was probably more behind Wales than Turkey yesterday.

With regard to Luke Symons and the issue in Yemen, the Government are working closely with our partners in the region to ensure that Mr Symons is released and reunited with his family as soon as possible, and that work continues. I view it as part of my role to try to facilitate meetings between hon. Members and Ministers when they request it, so if the hon. Gentleman has any difficulty in that regard, I hope he will contact my office.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

In Rugby, we are providing new homes 25% faster than the rate in the country as a whole. The consequence of all those extra residents is that 83% of people now live more than 15 minutes’ drive of a major accident and emergency unit. The residents of Rugby have time after time expressed a firm wish for that service to be provided at our local Hospital of St Cross. NHS commissioning has already been raised this morning, so I wonder whether any debate could also consider how population changes should drive the provision of NHS services.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will certainly raise that with Health Ministers on behalf of my hon. Friend, and there was a health Bill referred to in the Queen’s Speech, so there will be an opportunity to debate these issues at length in due course. The health infrastructure plan will deliver a long-term rolling programme of spending in health and infrastructure, including district hospitals. These hospitals have benefited from our £600 million critical infrastructure risk fund and our £450 million spending to upgrade A&Es. University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust has received £2.2 million from the critical infrastructure risk fund to address the maintenance backlog at St Cross and £3 million for an emergency department expansion, as part of the A&E upgrades investment, so there is a recognition that there are population pressures, and spending does seem to be following accordingly.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I can understand why the Leader of the House would want to dismiss the text messages published by the Prime Minister’s former adviser, but if he were a member of a family who had lost someone in a care home in the last year, I do not think he would dismiss them so lightly. These messages expose the fact that the Government knew that there was not a protective ring round our care homes and that testing of people being discharged from hospital to care homes was not taking place. If we are to be subjected to this public spat between the Prime Minister and his former adviser continuously, should we not, in the interests of those who lost someone, be calling the public inquiry now, or at least have the Prime Minister here to answer questions on this?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Prime Minister is regularly here to answer questions. He was here yesterday at considerable length, both with Prime Minister’s questions and then with a statement, so there are many opportunities to raise these points directly. For some reason the Leader of the Opposition either had not noticed or did not want to discuss these text messages.

It is right to have the inquiry at the point at which the pandemic has ended and a considered view can be taken. There is some difficulty with the Opposition’s position. On the one hand, they complain that there was not enough equipment and on the other hand they complain that procurement was not done according to the most bureaucratic systems. They cannot really have it both ways.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

On Sunday, we commemorate World Refugee Day, when we commemorate the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, who were forced out by jihadists and are still refugees in their own country. But on Monday, we celebrate International Day of Yoga, which is India’s gift to the world. Can we arrange for statements to be made to the House next week on these two vital subjects, which the House should attend to and, indeed, could celebrate by using Monday for some yoga exercises before the House meets?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am not sure I shall be joining in with the yogic flying exercises, which I think were the policy of the National Law party, which stood in previous elections. World Refugee Day, however, is very important. This country has a proud and long record of providing a place of safety for refugees. One of the really important things about the changes that are going to be made to our immigration system is that they will protect those who are in genuine fear and who come here as refugees, and will make this country continue to be a safe place for them to come.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]]

Emerging from the pandemic as a healthier country is one of the Government’s key priorities for this Parliament, but communities that already face some of the country’s worst health inequalities, such as West Denton in my constituency, have, sadly, seen their local fitness facilities close for good during the pandemic. Reducing health inequalities is essential to delivering on the commitment to level up the poorest parts of the country, and access to modern local fitness facilities is a key part of that. That is why the Government should back Newcastle City Council’s levelling-up fund bid to develop a new, state-of-the-art, net zero carbon leisure development in the Outer West of Newcastle. Could we please have a debate on using the levelling-up fund to manage the recovery in a way that helps people to lead healthier lives?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady is so supportive of the levelling-up fund. It is a great opportunity to help communities across the country have additional resources so that they can improve their local communities. Engagement from MPs is greatly to be encouraged, so I thank the hon. Lady for her enthusiasm for Government policy.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Learner drivers in Kettering who are currently awaiting a test date are being offered November as the earliest available time, if they are lucky. If we are going to get our economy moving again and give people their lives back, particularly young people, that is simply not good enough and urgent action is required. Could we have a statement from the Department for Transport and urgent action from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency to increase the number of driving tests being made available in Kettering and across the country, so that the huge backlog caused by the covid restrictions can be reduced far faster than currently planned?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I notice that the use of private cars has increased post pandemic, as people are very keen on driving, as I must confess am I. I assure my hon. Friend that the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has in place a number of measures to increase the number of practical driving tests. After lockdown, it went to six rather than seven tests a day, but since 14 June it has gone back to seven tests a day per examiner, which increases capacity across the national network by an average of 15,000 to 20,000 tests a month. My hon. Friend may wish to raise this at Transport questions on 24 June, but yes, we are going to have backlogs and we have to make a really big effort to get Britain moving, and most of us want to move in our motors.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his kind words for Scotland tomorrow evening, as we will be playing a country that Conservative Members regularly remind us is aspiring to achieve its own independence.

On a more serious point, cancelled flights mean that individuals such as my constituent Mohammad Gohar find themselves stuck abroad after having visited dying relatives. They are now struggling to get back because the Department for Work and Pensions has, in its wisdom, decided to stop their universal credit because they have been abroad for three weeks. That seems a very-heavy handed approach. Could we have a debate or a statement on people who find themselves stuck abroad after having visited dying relatives, to ensure that they do not have their universal credit stopped and can have the money to find themselves the way back home?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman raises a difficult point. There are very sensible rules in place for normal times, but these are abnormal times. Therefore, when, because of a reduction in flights and the complexities of international travel at the moment, people are delayed, through no fault of their own, there is certainly an argument for sympathy. What I do not know is whether the system that Parliament has passed into law allows for any discretion. However, if the hon. Gentleman gives me the details, I will take the case up directly with the Department for Work and Pensions on his behalf.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Many of my constituents who live in Silsden and Steeton have been waiting years for a pedestrian bridge to be built over the extremely busy A629 dual carriageway so that they can safely get from one side to the other. In fact, five years ago, £700,000 was secured by my predecessor, Kris Hopkins, for Bradford Council to carry out a feasibility study into this project, which has only recently been completed. We need to get this bridge built, so will my right hon. Friend permit Government time for a debate so that I can continue to raise this, so that we can get the funding we desperately need to secure this bridge once and for all?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend has successfully raised it on this occasion. I think a debate on a bridge is probably more of an Adjournment debate; justifying a day’s debate in Government time might upset other hon. and right hon. Members. However, I can tell him that £51.3 billion of taxpayers’ money will go to local government next year—a 4.6% increase, the biggest year-on-year increase in core spending power in a decade—so I encourage him to lobby his local council. There is a further £45 billion to help local authorities support their communities and local businesses, including £4.5 billion for Yorkshire and the Humber. I understand that the socialist council of Bradford has not been working very fast, but sometimes the tortoise comes through, so may I suggest he give the tortoise a prod?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Leader of the House will be very aware of deep concerns in Northern Ireland that this Parliament and this Government have on a number of occasions gone over the heads of the people of Northern Ireland and their elected representatives and imposed legislation on marriage, abortion and the Northern Ireland protocol without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. Now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland proposes to do the same on legislation related to sensitive matters on the Irish language and other cultural issues. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland comes to the House to make a statement on this at the earliest opportunity? This goes against all that is democratic. The Northern Ireland Assembly is the correct place for legislation. Again, unfortunately and disgracefully, this place rides roughshod over regional Administrations and the democratic process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman and I normally see eye to eye on most issues, but on this I must diverge from him. The New Decade, New Approach deal was an historic achievement that brought to an end the three-year political impasse in Northern Ireland. Commitments in that deal were negotiated and agreed by all parties in the Executive, but there has now been a delay, a problem, in bringing forward some fulfilment of those commitments. That is why the Government have now committed to delivering these important commitments through the United Kingdom Parliament. I say to him, as a Unionist, that ultimately it is this Parliament—and we rejoice in it being this Parliament—that is the uniting focus of our nation, so when something is agreed at a political level and then not implemented, it is absolutely right that it should be implemented through this Parliament. I happen to think that the other changes, which were done when there was no clear majority in this Parliament, were done for more political, rather than constitutional, reasons.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On Monday at 3 o’clock, the media were given an embargoed statement on covid road map changes. At six o’clock, there was a glitzy press conference featuring the Prime Minister. It was not until 8.30 pm that evening that the Secretary of State came to this House to make a statement. Mr Speaker has already said that that is unacceptable, and he is meeting the Prime Minister. I will not ask the Leader of the House to comment on that, because the Speaker has ruled, but I would guess privately that he was making similar noises within Government. However, I ask my right hon. Friend whether he would like the Government to adopt my private Member’s Bill, which will be presented on Monday and which would increase his authority? He is an extraordinary parliamentarian and a great Leader of the House, but if this House in the future was to elect the Leader of the House—from the governing party—he would have further authority and could not at any time be put under pressure or removed. Will the Government adopt my private Member’s Bill, and then I will not need to present it on Monday?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Flattery may get you everywhere, but not on this occasion, because I think the question misunderstands the role of the Leader of the House. Up until Lloyd George, who handed the post over to Bonar Law, the Leader of the House was the leader of the governing party in the House of Commons—the Prime Minister when the Prime Minister was in the House of Commons and somebody like Stafford Northcote when Disraeli was in the House of Lords. The role of the Leader of the House is to ensure that Government business passes through the House, and that cannot be done by somebody who is not an integral part of Her Majesty’s Government. It could not be done in the way that a Chairman of a Select Committee does their job and has a mandate from the House of Commons, or indeed the Speaker does his job and has a mandate from the House of Commons.

So I fear that constitutionally my hon. Friend’s proposal does not work, although I can reassure him that the Leader of the House has a dual-facing role and also has to make representations to Government on behalf of the House of Commons. Members may have noticed that when it comes to issues relating to written questions not getting a reply or correspondence not being replied to in an efficient way, I do my best to ensure that the Commons’ views are represented.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his business statement and responding to questions for over one hour. We will now suspend for a few minutes for covid protection measures.

Business of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

I should like to make a short business statement. Hon. and right hon. Members will be aware of yesterday’s announcement to extend covid restrictions until 19 July. As a consequence of that announcement, further regulations are needed. Therefore, tomorrow’s business will now be:

Wednesday 16 June—Consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by a motion to approve the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Other Provisions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 705), and a further motion that will provide for the current arrangements for parliamentary proceedings during the pandemic to continue until the summer recess.

I shall make a further business statement as usual on Thursday. Mr Speaker, you have asked me to advise hon. and right hon. Members that they will have until 3 o’clock today to apply to speak in tomorrow’s debate.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for an advance copy of his statement and for co-operation over the process.

In section 9 of the ministerial code, “Ministers and Parliament” general principle 9.1 states:

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament.”

As you noted, Mr Speaker, and as I too noted yesterday in my point of order, that was not followed yesterday in relation to a major announcement by the Prime Minister.

The Leader of the House regularly and correctly says that Members of Parliament have been sent here to represent constituents and should be able to scrutinise Ministers of the Crown in order to stand up for said constituents, and he has always been known as a man of the House and our representative to Cabinet. Does he agree with that statement in the ministerial code?

Given the motion that is being brought forward tomorrow, linking back to yesterday’s announcement, does the Leader of the House believe that the Prime Minister has abided by the letter and spirit of that statement, which is in bold at the top of section 9? If he does not, what will he do to make representations on our behalf to the Prime Minister? Does he understand that the Prime Minister’s absence from this House to take questions about that important announcement affects our ability to represent our constituents? Will there, therefore, be some mention of this over the course of the next 24 hours from the Prime Minister?

In addition to the package of motions that the Leader of the House has announced for tomorrow, will there be a statement from the Chancellor on an economic package of support, and a statement from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or the Department for Work and Pensions about extending support for businesses and individuals who will be affected by the extension? In particular, will the Government now acknowledge that it is essential to provide payment for people asked to isolate who cannot work from home but are on low wages or in insecure work?

Will the Leader of the House ask his colleagues, in addition to the motions tomorrow, to come forward urgently with packages of support? Businesses such as hospitality businesses, which have stocked up and taken on staff who cannot be furloughed, and others, now face a series of cliff edges. That is relevant to the motions tomorrow, because they will affect what happens to those businesses, and many are on the edge.

The motions will also cover extending the rules for this place until recess, which I welcome. Does the Leader of the House agree that we need to discuss fully those rules and what we can learn from the hybrid Parliament?

As we have this business statement, can I ask the Leader of the House this? He has not included in this statement parliamentary time to close the anomaly between the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme and the parliamentary Standards Committee in relation to recall, when an MP is subject to suspension on the recommendation of the ICGS. Will he cover that in his business statement on Thursday, given that it is an urgent piece of business? We have no idea when another case of sexual harassment or bullying may come forward.

Finally, on a related issue, you, Mr Speaker, may have seen the footage of a journalist with parliamentary credentials being harassed outside No. 10. Has the Leader of the House been in touch with the necessary authorities to ensure that that does not happen again?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is always important that statements are made to this House and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was here yesterday to answer questions, but I understand, Mr Speaker, that you are seeing the Prime Minister later today to discuss that and to ensure that everything is done as it ought to be done. I am confident that the Prime Minister follows the ministerial code in all his doings and that has been shown over recent times to be the case.

The hon. Lady asked for further statements to be made. That is a perfectly reasonable request for her to make. I remind her that £407 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent so far, that the furlough scheme continues until September—so comfortably beyond the date that has been set, or will be set if the regulations are approved tomorrow—and that other packages, such as rate relief, also continue.

The question of statements is always a difficult one. There will be a debate tomorrow and Members will want to contribute to it—it will go until 7 o’clock. Any statements eat into time for that and these are all matters that could be raised in the course of the debate as well. So the House, essentially, has to work out for itself how it best wants to manage its time to ensure that these important issues are discussed fully in the time available tomorrow.

As regards the hybrid Parliament, Mr Speaker, you wisely advised yesterday that we should extend it until the recess, rather than doing it to just a couple of days before. I am like the centurion’s servant—say go and I goeth, say come and I cometh—and, therefore, those are the motions that we have brought forward. That is sensible and proportionate. It may be useful to the House to say that that will also apply to Select Committees, which will continue to be able to use hybrid proceedings until the parliamentary recess.

On the issue relating to recall, discussions are taking place. I had a meeting with one of the union representatives earlier this week. I know that the hon. Lady is having discussions. There may be an opportunity to discuss it at the Commission on Monday. So it is something under very active consideration, and I hope that we can come to a conclusion that is satisfactory to everybody.

As regards policing in the metropolis and security outside Downing Street, the hon. Lady’s question is perfectly timed because the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing are on the Front Bench at this very moment. I am sure that they will encourage the constabulary to attend to their duties.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I also thank the Leader of the House for advance sight of the statement.

I agree with the shadow Leader of the House that it is critical for us to get clarity on the extension of support schemes and mechanisms. Perhaps the Government could take this opportunity to close the gap for the excluded who have not had any support to date. As we continue to extend, perhaps something could be drawn forward in due course.

Although all of us want the restrictions to end at the earliest possible opportunity, yesterday’s statement was welcome in recognising the reality that we face. Looking at that reality and the fluid situation, however, I ask the Leader of the House this. We are extending the virtual proceedings in this place only to the recess. Should something happen over the summer recess before we return in September, will we have no opportunity to consider what may be necessary at that stage because we had effectively ended the availability of the procedures in July, rather than even on the first day back? We could return on the first day back, in full attendance, simply to have to move measures on such proceedings. I am not trying to be a killjoy; I am just looking at the practicalities: what if these situations present themselves?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. He raises a fair point. I think the answer must be—as the Prime Minister and, I think, Professor Whitty, have said—that ultimately we are going to have to live with covid, and we cannot have this semi-functioning Parliament indefinitely. We ultimately have to get back to normal. We have to have the bustle and energy that Parliament requires to hold the Government to account. Dare I confess that it is much easier for the Minister at the Dispatch Box when there are about 20 people in the Chamber than when there are about 400? As somebody who believes in the benefits of parliamentary scrutiny, I actually think it is quite a good thing when Ministers face some fast bowling at the Dispatch Box, rather than my lumbering, slow balls which are the best that I can achieve on the cricket field.

On the extension of support, as I mentioned, a lot of support does continue. That gives me the opportunity to mention the wonderful support that the United Kingdom has been able to give: £14.5 billion of extra money has been spent in Scotland thanks to UK taxpayers across our whole country, supporting over 900,000 jobs in the furlough scheme and over 535,000 claims for the self-employment scheme. I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is beginning to see the virtues of a United Kingdom.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not quite sure he agrees, but there we are.

I am now suspending the House for one minute to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.

Business of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. I join you in your good wishes to Tony.

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

Mr Speaker, as you are just leaving the Chair, may I too wish you a happy birthday, before you depart? I do not think we will sing.

The business for the week commencing 14 June will include:

Monday 14 June—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.

Tuesday 15 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 16 June—Second Reading of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill.

Thursday 17 June—General debate on the Misuse of Drugs Act, followed by a general debate on the UK’s preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative and the G7. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 18 June—The House will not be sitting.

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

Monday 21 June—Opposition day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Tuesday 22 June—Second Reading of the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill.

Wednesday 23 June—Consideration in Committee of the Armed Forces Bill.

Thursday 24 June—General debate on the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, followed by business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 25 June—The House will not be sitting.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business. Can he share with the House the reasons why the business for next week appears to have changed?

This is a great country, full of amazing, inspiring people, and this week is the Government’s opportunity to showcase our great country and its values at the G7 in Cornwall—leading, not just hosting. Yet instead of leadership, what do we have? The UK teetering on the brink of a trade war with our nearest allies, including some G7 guests, over sausages. This is about the meaning of the Northern Ireland protocol, an international agreement that the Prime Minister literally negotiated. I wonder if he actually read it, or maybe he got a classmate to do his homework.

The UK is the only developed economy and the only G7 participant to be cutting aid for life-saving global programmes. We have a Government who do not even dare to put that to a parliamentary vote.

There is no news of when Nazanin and others trapped in foreign jails for crimes that they did not commit will be reunited with their families.

We have a call to get the world vaccinated—but not until the end of next year. The virus is still mutating and none of us is safe until everyone is safe, so I urge the Prime Minister to put party politics aside and take Labour’s plan for global vaccination to the G7.

To demonstrate the extent of his commitment to tackling the climate emergency, the Prime Minister flies to Cornwall by private jet. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) stands ready to advise the Prime Minister on train times for his return. While he is on it, perhaps the Prime Minister could sort out his failed green homes scheme. He should be leading the G7 by example and inspiration, not just putting out the place cards for dinner, so will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to showcase what this country has to offer instead of his own lack of leadership?

I am disappointed that the Government have not taken responsibility for the loophole that means that a Member can be subject to a parliamentary recall petition by their constituents for an expenses charge but not for serious sexual harassment. A Member who has been sexually harassing staff will return to Parliament within weeks and shows no sign of resigning. Staff are worried and constituents have every right to be concerned, so will the Leader of the House confirm that the public can use the parliamentary petitions process to trigger a debate about the matter? Will he tell us why that Member is still, apparently, a member of the Conservative party? Will he bring forward the motions needed so that the people of Delyn can decide whether they want to ditch their MP?

On the domestic agenda, again there is failure. The Secretary of State for Education feels our children’s future is worth just 50 quid per pupil, compared with £2,500 in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Labour has an actual catch-up plan that Parliament voted in favour of yesterday. If the Government will not do the right thing and adopt Labour’s plan, will the Secretary of State for Education explain to the House what it is about breakfast clubs, mental health support and small group tutoring that he objects to?

It is Carers Week, and carers and people who need care in Bristol West want me to ask the Prime Minister where his plan to fix social care is. It was announced 687 days ago; how many more years will they have to wait? The Government have repeatedly ignored crises in health and social care over the past decade, and they failed to act on the 2016 pandemic preparedness report. They continue to ignore disabled people, people with long-term illnesses and those needing mental health support during the pandemic. They have paid no attention to the exhaustion of heroic key workers who just keep on going and need hope that things will get better soon. The Government continue to use the pandemic as their personal cash machine; the least they could do is announce the public inquiry. The Leader of the House said last time that we should not have the inquiry while the virus is still raging. He cannot have it both ways: it is either raging or it is not. If it is, the Government need to learn now the lessons about what is going wrong. There is no excuse for delaying the inquiry.

Successive Tory Governments have run down public services, eroded working people’s ability to pay rent and feed their families, and left productivity stagnant. That is in stark contrast to the Labour Government, who left the country with the brilliant Sure Start scheme for early years; thousands more police, nurses and doctors; the shortest waiting times on record for key treatments; and low crime rates—plus an economy that was recovering well after the global financial crisis. This Government announce a few tutors here or some more nurses there, but it is a drop in the ocean compared with the destruction of the past 11 Tory years. It is not just the pandemic: children need tutors because Tories cut education; crime rates soar because Tories cut police numbers; and rape victims wait years for justice because Tories cut the justice system. And now they expect people to be grateful for the thin gruel they are offering. No wonder the people of North East Somerset are voting Labour.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady may have fallen into the nostalgic trap—I am sometimes accused of falling into one myself—of looking back at a golden age past but forgetting the reality of the misery of the last socialist Government. That socialist Government left us with an annual deficit of £150 billion a year, the worst financial crisis that we had seen in decade after decade and a situation in which, as one of her own Members said, there was simply no money left. Much though I think we should admire, like and revel in our past history, we have to remember the failures of socialism and that every socialist Government that this country has ever had, at the end of their complete term, have left unemployment higher than when they came into office.

As regards police, we now have over 8,000 more police, meeting our promise to recruit more than 20,000. We are ensuring that the police are on the streets so that we are kept safe. We have reformed education with the advent of more academy schools, which are raising standards. The hon. Lady blamed the need for tutoring on the Conservative party, whereas, actually, the need for extra tutoring and the fact that a package of £3 billion in total has been provided to help children is because of the pandemic. That seems to have passed from her mind. It is quite right that the pandemic should have an inquiry, as the Prime Minister has promised, and that will be set up by the end of this parliamentary Session, because it is right to look at it when the decisions have all been taken and we begin to see the proper consequences of it.

The hon. Lady talks about leading in the G7. That is precisely what the Prime Minister is doing; he is showing the clearest possible leadership. The vaccine roll-out in the rest of the world will be helped enormously, and particularly, by the Oxford-AstraZeneca drug. Why? Because of the agreement made with Oxford-AstraZeneca to provide it at cost price. That is the fundamental difference that means that it can be afforded, to allow it to spread across the world, helping millions upon millions of people—leadership by the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister will call upon the G7 leaders to make commitments to vaccinate the entire world against the coronavirus by the end of 2022. He is calling for emissions cuts and is hosting COP26 later in the year. It is an extraordinary degree of leadership that is being shown among the democratic nations that are showing the way, encouraging people to have freedom and democracy.

The hon. Lady seems to want to ban British sausages from Northern Ireland, but let us not fuss too much about sausages. Sausages are important and they may be a nice thing to have for breakfast, but the scandal is that the European Union takes it upon itself to think that life-saving cancer drugs may not go freely between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is not the act of a friendly organisation. This is an act of an organisation playing games, playing ducks and drakes with the peace process. There is a brilliant article by David Trimble in the newspaper today setting out the risk that the European Union is taking. We should be absolutely clear that the protocol was there to respect the integrity of the United Kingdom, as well as to help the single market. It cannot have one side but not the other.

Then the hon. Lady came to things that can perfectly well be catered for by Opposition days. There are dates that have been announced over the next two weeks. If she wants to debate membership of this House for individual Members, I call upon her to put down a motion; it is up to her to do it. If she wants to have a debate on overseas aid, I call upon her to do it, but no sensible Government would be continuing with overseas aid at its previous levels in the current financial circumstances. It is extremely sensible to cut our coat according to our cloth. That is what Her Majesty’s Government are doing, and that is quite right. It is the proper thing to do and it still means that, as a percentage of GDP, we are one of the most generous donors in the world, and we are giving more than was ever given by that socialist Government of happy memory that I started with. Do we not remember what the hon. Lady was saying at the end—how glorious it was by 2010? They gave away less money then, so they do not have that much to be proud of. We as Conservatives do.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Alongside the Arts Council, I had a really wonderful visit to meet On:song in Stroud. It is a fantastic music organisation that has used the culture recovery grant not only to survive through the pandemic, which caused it an awful lot of difficulties, but to use its skills and diversify to reach and help many more people across the country. That is hugely important Government support, yet other Stroud businesses in the supply chain side of events and culture are really struggling to be heard and understood for grants. I am thinking about Freemans Event Partners and CORE Lighting—fantastic organisations in my patch. The reality is that big events, sporting festivals, exhibitions and weddings cannot go ahead without them. Does my right hon. Friend agree about the importance of supply chain businesses, and will he consider granting a debate on the Floor of the House to explore how we can bring their key expertise into use?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her support of the culture recovery fund, which has so far distributed over £1.2 billion of taxpayers’ money, supporting more than 5,000 individual organisations and sites. There will be a further £300 million in the culture recovery fund this year. She is right to say that the pandemic has had a severe effect on supply chain businesses, including those in my own constituency. I believe that they are eligible to apply for grants from local councils, and I suggest that businesses in her constituency do that. I cannot promise her a debate, though the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), might be about to raise a question, and I am sure that he would like to hear about that issue as an item for debate, because it affects many hon. and right hon. Members. I will obviously raise her concerns with the relevant Department.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I, too, send my best wishes to Mr Speaker on his birthday and to Tony Reay on his impending retirement. It is always sad to see someone moving on, but it is a great opportunity for them all the same.

In previous weeks, I have raised issues about openness and transparency, and, again, I find that it is a case of here we go again. This week, it is the Cabinet Office that has been found guilty of acting unlawfully in handing out lucrative contracts to an ex-colleague. This goes on and on. When can we have a debate in Government time to consider the Government’s processes of openness and transparency so that we can shine a light on a clear way forward now that my Ministerial Interests (Emergency Powers) Bill is no more, having fallen at the end of the previous parliamentary Session?

This week, we have also had a great deal of debate around the cuts to foreign aid, so I simply ask the Leader of the House: when will this House have a chance to have a substantive vote on that subject?

We are very quickly approaching 21 June, at which point the hybrid virtual covid procedures come to an end. Obviously, we have always said that this House would look to be in step with the public, but as we are still at this stage unclear what that date will mean for the public, can the Leader of the House add anything to give a bit more clarity? Beyond that, even when things do change, what consideration can be given to the particularly unique medical circumstances in which some Members will find themselves which result in their not being able to attend Parliament? What can we do to support them to make sure that the communities they represent are not disenfranchised? It could happen to a number of Members at any time; only last week a Member of this place, who is also a Member of the Scottish Parliament, was tracked and traced and had to isolate at very short notice.

Finally, we have seen protected time for Opposition day debates in the Government’s approach to scheduling statements, but over the past few weeks I have noticed that Back-Bench business time has been quite severely constrained by the number of statements made. Can we consider what can be done to make sure that the most time possible is made available for those important debates?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I join the hon. Gentleman and Mr Speaker in paying tribute to Tony Reay? More than 40 years’ service in this House is truly terrific; it is a real model of public service. I know that everyone who has worked with him has found pleasure in doing so. It is always important that our security team is as friendly and welcoming as it is. We have a first-class team in the Palace, and to have one of its number retiring after such distinguished service is well worth commemorating.

Let me come to the point on Back-Bench business time. I am not unsympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says. It is purely a balance: Members put in urgent questions, they want to hear statements, and we want to finish at a regular time. There are other ways of proceeding. We could, if Members wanted it, have irregular times of ending, but that has not been mood of the House in recent years. It is about trying to get the balance right. I think it is proper to prioritise Opposition days, because that is fixed time for the Opposition, and it is a long-standing convention that we protect that; we also try to do that when the hon. Gentleman’s party has an Opposition day debate.

That leads me to the hon. Gentleman’s point on foreign aid. We will have four days of business over the next fortnight that is not controlled by the Government, so if there is a mood in the House to debate things, a motion may be put down either through the Backbench Business Committee or for an Opposition day. It is important to remember that although Standing Order No. 14 gives the Government control of the Order Paper, it does not stop other matters being raised in a number of ways of which right hon. and hon. Members are aware. Although 21 June—the longest day—is fast approaching, we will know more next week, so we will have to wait and see what the overall Government policy is then.

The hon. Gentleman refers to openness and transparency. Is it the infamous kimono-wearing fox killer who likes bringing all these cases? I am interested in his case with his builder which we might find out about at one time or another; we keep our eyes open and breath bated for that result to come out. The Government won in two of the three cases—there was no bias—and the courts recognised the need to act quickly. That is my fundamental point: the reason we have the vaccination success is that the Government moved swiftly. We could not wait three to six months to issue contracts in the normal way, and that was a perfectly proper and reasonable approach.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I join other Members in wishing our Speaker a very happy birthday and Mr Reay, after 43 years of service, a long, happy and healthy retirement.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on violent crime, including stabbings and disorderly behaviour? Embarrassingly, as we move towards city status in Southend, the formerly quiet areas of Chalkwell and Leigh-on-Sea have seen crimes involving knives and disorderly behaviour. That has been a result of gangs moving into the areas and drug dealing. Present measures are simply not working.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important and troubling issue. As constituency MPs, we all see the terrible effects of violent crime and we should never be complacent in tackling it. So far, between 2019 and 2022, the Government will have spent more than £105.5 million of taxpayers’ money to develop 18 violence reduction units and over £136.5 million to support an enhanced police response. We have also spent £200 million on early intervention and prevention support initiatives through the youth endowment fund to support children and young people at risk of exploitation and involvement in serious violence, and the Government are taking urgent action to tackle knife crime and keep people safe. We have, according to the latest figures, recruited 8,771 additional police officers as part of our commitment to hiring an extra 20,000 police officers. I understand that, when crime hits, such bald statistics do not necessarily provide immediate comfort, but I hope they give reassurance that this matter is being taken very seriously and is being tackled.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now go to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.

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

I thank the Leader of the House for the business statement and for announcing the Backbench business for 17 June. We have just had it confirmed this morning that the second debate on 24 June will be on UK defence spending. We also understand that there are to be two days of Estimates debates in the last week of June, and in order to facilitate that I am afraid to say that applications to the Backbench Business Committee must be made by no later than 6 pm this forthcoming Tuesday, 15 June.

Lastly, as chairman also of the all-party parliamentary group for football supporters, may I express my ongoing sympathy for and solidarity with the bereaved and traumatised families of the 96 Liverpool fans killed at Hillsborough 32 years ago? I hope that the Backbench Business Committee can facilitate a debate in this Chamber as soon as possible, having received an application from my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) just this week.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about the 96 deaths at Hillsborough, which were the subject of the urgent question that has just passed; it rightly continues to be remembered in this House. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for telling us that the debate on 24 June will be on defence spending, which, interestingly, was one of the subjects specifically given to the Backbench Business Committee when it was set up, and for his very clear notice on the Estimates days, which I hope the relevant parties will listen carefully to and take to heart.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con) [V]]

I join the House in wishing Mr Speaker a happy birthday and passing on our thanks and best wishes to Mr Tony Reay.

Owing to a £10 million shortfall between the Government’s generous financial support and the cost of maintaining its existing global network, the British Council is in danger of having to close the largest number of overseas offices in its near 90-year history. Before the Government make a bad decision—they are due to announce their decision in the coming week—that runs counter to global Britain and will damage our soft power, will my right hon. Friend make time for a debate so that the House can discuss this important matter, further to my urgent question earlier this week? We want the Government not to fall at the final fence.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The British Council is undoubtedly a crucial part of the UK’s presence overseas and a key soft power asset. As the Minister for Asia said in response to the urgent question on Tuesday, the Government

“value the influence of the British Council. We agreed a 2021-22 spending review settlement totalling £189 million, which is a 26% increase in funding from 2020-21.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2021; Vol. 696, c. 832.]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter again and will reiterate his concerns to the Minister, but in terms of a further debate, the Backbench Business Committee is undoubtedly the right place to apply for one.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab) [V]]

I am sure the whole House will join me in offering condolences to Dea-John Reid’s mother, Joan Morris, and the whole family, after he was tragically murdered on 31 May. My hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) and I are working with the family, the black churches and the authorities to ensure unity. Will the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to come to the Chamber to debate this issue and to provide funding to reduce knife crime? It is not sufficient for the Leader of the House to quote figures about measures that have not worked. I urge him to listen to the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who made the same point, and provide a real debate in the Chamber.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I join the hon. Gentleman in passing condolences to the family of Dea-John Reid. He is right: there is nothing I can say at the Dispatch Box about how policy is developing and the amount of money that has been spent that will bring great comfort to a bereaved family in these most saddening circumstances. It is always a long-term project to increase the safety of our streets and to reduce knife crime. In this context, it is important that there are more police, as the numbers going up will make our streets safer overall, but I absolutely understand from what he says that it is too late in this particular instance. We mourn with the family, and we must make every effort to ensure that fewer families are affected in future, because the loss of a child is the greatest blow a parent ever faces.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

On Oxbridge colleges, I was very pleased to see the Prime Minister intervene and object to the appalling news that Magdalen College, Oxford had taken down a portrait of the Queen, but of course, this is not an isolated incident. Today I hear that 150 academics at Oriel College, Oxford are refusing to teach because the Rhodes statue has not been taken down. This week we also heard the disturbing news that Churchill College, Cambridge is considering changing the name of the college, to make it seem more inclusive. I know that, historically, there have been lots of eccentric, left-wing academics at Oxford and Cambridge, but given the sheer frequency with which these events are cropping up, will my right hon. Friend provide time for us to discuss what we can do to prevent the woke-ification of Oxbridge colleges?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As for Magdalen College, it is not exactly 1687-88. It is a few pimply adolescents getting excited and taking down a picture of Her Majesty. It makes Magdalen look pretty wet, but it is not the end of the world. I would not get too excited about that, although it amuses me to speculate as to what would happen if one of Her Majesty’s subjects suggested taking down the stars and stripes in an American university. It might not be enormously well received. As the pimply adolescent in question is, I think, an American citizen, he might like to think about that. He might think that taking down the US flag in an American university was a bridge too far even for the most patriotic Briton.

As regards the academics’ refusing to teach, I am half tempted to say that one should be lucky not to be taught by such a useless bunch. If they are that feeble, what are you missing and what are they doing there? Why do they not have any pride in their country, in our marvellous history and in our success? Rhodes is not a black and white figure. Perhaps they are not learned enough to have bothered to look up the history of Rhodes, which has been written about quite extensively now, in any detail. As I say, he is a figure of importance, interest and enormous generosity to Oxford. Do they want to give the money back to the descendants of Cecil Rhodes, or are they intending to keep it to themselves? We must not allow this wokeness to happen. As for the idea of changing Churchill College, perhaps we should introduce a Bill to rename Cambridge Churchill and call it Churchill University. That would be one in the eye for the lefties.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I prefer the Fen Bog Poly—that might be a better name for it.

In fairness to the Leader of the House, he has always been very good in saying that Ministers should reply to Members’ correspondence. In fact, last July he said:

“Ministers are aware that it is a basic courtesy that replies come from Ministers, not from officials”.—[Official Report, 16 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 1684.]

In May, my latest letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer was replied to by an M. Milgate—I do not know who that is—of the correspondence and inquiry unit at Her Majesty’s Treasury. I have some sympathy for them, because I know that there has been a huge increase in the amount of correspondence, but when, in a parliamentary question, I asked the Treasury to tell us how many letters from Members were answered by Ministers and how many were answered by officials, the answer I got from the Exchequer Secretary was:

“It is not possible to provide the breakdown the Member has requested.”

Not only are they not answering some of our letters—I do not know if they are picking on me in particular, but they are not answering mine, and I do not know if they are answering the Leader of the House’s letters written in a constituency capacity—but they cannot even tell Members of this House how many of the letters from Members of Parliament are being answered by officials and how many by Ministers. Is that acceptable, and why is the Leader of the House impotent in persuading his Ministers that they have to answer our letters?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

They do have to answer Members’ letters; it is a basic courtesy. I have received letters from officials rather than Ministers, and I am afraid I send them back saying that is not good enough and that I expect a response from a Minister. I remind hon. Members and right hon. Members that letters ought to come from them. Some hon. Members get their members of staff to send letters and I am afraid that they then receive from my office—

[Kevin Brennan]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

No, I understand that the hon. Gentleman is not in this category. It is just a reminder to the House that the courtesy works both ways. Is it indiscreet of me to say that I receive the most charming hand-written letters from the Deputy Speaker asking me to follow up with individual Departments, which I have done? They seem to get responses quite quickly when we intervene in that way. It really should not happen like that. I make this offer to all right hon. and hon. Members: if they are having problems of this kind, they should please contact my office and I will follow it up. It is our fundamental right to receive redress of grievance for our constituents from individual named Ministers. When I was at school, if a piece of work was not good enough, it got a little tear at the top of the page and was given back to you. I suggest that that is what Members do to letters they get from officials.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

Next week, we have the reporting back of the reviews into social distancing and other measures and the plans and guidance for life beyond 21 June. In answer to my question on 12 May, the Prime Minister kindly confirmed that we would get the opportunity to debate this hugely important guidance before it is implemented. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on when that might be?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

No decisions have yet been made and the Government will set out the conclusions of the review ahead of step 4 shortly, at which point I am sure that the House will have the opportunity to consider the next steps. The Government have been assiduous in updating the House throughout the pandemic and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has been particularly good at coming to this Chamber in person. That will continue to be the case. Any decision on guidance following the reviews will be based on the latest data and we must allow appropriate time for them to be assessed. We have of course committed—and I reiterate this commitment—to, where possible, make time for votes on regulations of national significance, which may apply to England or UK-wide, if necessary, before they come into force. That commitment remains.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The UK is the leading English language teaching destination, bringing students from over 150 countries to Britain to study English, and there are several excellent schools in Bath. While the students are there, they become part of our local community and they will play an important part in the economic recovery of our city. The sector alone is worth £1.4 billion to the overall economy and plays a vital role in building our relationships with countries across the world. However, in 2020, ELT schools lost over 80% of their business, and it will be one of the last sectors to recover. May we therefore have a debate about the measures needed to support this industry before many of these valuable and viable schools close for good?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The overall support given to the economy, as the hon. Lady will know, is over £400 billion, and businesses in all areas have been able to access specific grants, or there have been discretionary grants from councils to help them. There is inevitably a limit to the support that can be provided, and it is not unending either, but the overall package has been as generous as was conceivably affordable and has therefore helped to maintain many businesses.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) [V]]

May we have a statement on the roll-out of family hubs? There are now well over 150 family hubs across England and Northern Ireland offering a range of services such as reducing parental conflict, walk-in help for young people with mental health concerns, one-stop shops for families with children with special needs, post-separation support, and help to tackle money worries. Does the Leader of the House agree that, as we build back better after the pandemic, supporting families is vital?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I completely agree that, as we build back better, and indeed as we level up, support for families will be absolutely crucial. They are the building blocks of our society. Throughout a year of lockdowns and periodic home schooling, families have been under immense strain, and the Government are determined to champion the family hub model. The Government are establishing a national centre for family hubs that will provide expert advice, guidance and advocacy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education recently announced that the Anna Freud Centre has been awarded the contract to run the national centre. May I join my hon. Friend in commending the work of Dr Samantha Callan, who has worked tirelessly nationwide to promote family hubs over many years?

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

It is 100 years since Glasgow’s world-famous Barras market was founded by Maggie McIver. The market claimed that you could buy anything from a needle to an anchor, and it is the home of the Barrowland Ballroom. May we have a debate on the future of our markets and the contribution that they make to our culture and society—and, given the number of second-hand goods you can buy, to our net zero ambitions?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I commend the market for its 100th anniversary and its ability to provide everything that you could possibly need to buy, either a needle or an anchor. There is probably more popular demand for needles than anchors, but it is none the less useful to be able to get an anchor. I encourage the hon. Lady to seek an Adjournment debate so that she could specifically praise this admirable market. I think that would inform the House and would be beneficial to Members more widely.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Protecting the glorious English countryside from unsuitable, unplanned and unwelcome development in the wrong places is one of the key functions of our planning system, yet it would appear that, under the Planning Inspectorate’s interpretation of the Human Rights Act 1998, one group of people—Gypsies and Travellers—seem to be exempt from the rules and regulations that apply to everyone else, and they can effectively build whatever they want wherever they like. Can we have action from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to allow local planning authorities to effectively enforce against intentional, unauthorised development in the open countryside by Gypsies and Travellers without being overruled by a warped interpretation of the Human Rights Act?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. Local planning authorities already have a wide range of enforcement powers, with strong penalties for non-compliance to tackle such situations. However, as set out in our recent planning White Paper, we intend to strengthen those powers and sanctions, including around intentional unauthorised development. Under planning law, national planning policies and local planning policies to guard against unsuitable development apply equally to all applicants who wish to develop. Planners may also take into account the specific needs of individual groups when making decisions on the development, and every case needs to be treated on its merit.

On the subject at hand, I hope that my hon. Friend is assured by the progress of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will give the police additional powers to remove unauthorised Traveller encampments. We must be careful of spurious human rights claims; otherwise, we will have people in the City of London saying that it is their human right to build 100-storey tower blocks, and that would be ridiculous.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Polls show that a large proportion of the public believes that the Government’s allocation of covid contracts is corrupt. Yesterday, the High Court found that the Minister for the Cabinet Office broke the law in the allocation of one covid contract to a firm run by his former adviser. Given all that, does the Leader of the House not agree that, to restore confidence in this House—confidence that is being undermined day after day by the allocation of covid contracts by his Government—the Minister for the Cabinet Office should be sacked, and the House should take tough action against such contracts?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

No, I do not agree with that awful nonsense, as I have set out very clearly before. There was a pandemic—the hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten this—and there was a need to crack on with things. He would have fiddled while Rome burned. It is nice to see him back, incidentally; it is good of him to come to the Chamber. He would have ignored the whole thing while some great bureaucratic process could wander through an endless discussion, and red tape would be tied into pretty little bows before things were done. We needed the vaccine. We needed Test and Trace. We needed to have a system that got messages out to people. The judgment yesterday found that there was no bias, and that it was reasonable to act swiftly. That is really important to understand, so no—I am with good sense and good government, not with the infamous fox killer.

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con) [V]]

I join others in wishing many happy returns to Mr Speaker. I hope that he is right now consuming a slice of lunchtime cake.

I live in hope that the Government stick to the 21 June road map. More delay would be a disaster for businesses and livelihoods across the country, but if the Government do decide to extend phase 3, my understanding is that no additional parliamentary approval would be required until the current regulations expire on 30 June. Should there be a delay, will my right hon. Friend make time for such a decision to be fully debated in this House, as of course any such restriction of our liberties should be?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The suggestion of cake has reminded me that there is a test match on, so I hope that the “Test Match Special” team may find a spare portion of cake to send to Mr Speaker to wish him well on his birthday. To come to my hon. Friend and neighbour’s very important point, the Health Secretary said on Monday:

“It is still too early to make decisions on step 4… So we will assess the data and announce the outcome a week today, on 14 June.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2021; Vol. 696, c. 670.]

Like my hon. Friend and, I think, all of us in this House, I hope that it will still be possible to open up on the 21st, but we have to be sensible about this.

We will of course continue to involve the House in scrutinising our decisions, with regular statements and debates, and the ability for Members to question the Government and their scientific advisers. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), we have committed that, for significant national measures with effect on the whole of England or UK-wide, we will, wherever possible, consult Parliament and hold votes before such regulations come into force. I hope that that gives my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) the comfort that he requires.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Since 2010, funding from central Government for my local force, Greater Manchester police, has been cut by £215 million, resulting in thousands fewer officers and support staff. In my constituency of Stockport, the impact of the cuts has been drastic. There has been an increase in antisocial behaviour, but we know that increased policing alone is not the answer to rising rates of crime and antisocial behaviour. In a 2016 survey by Unison, 83% of respondents reported increased crime rates and incidents of antisocial behaviour in areas where youth and other relevant services had been cut. Will the Leader of the House allocate Government time for a debate on policing, youth services and mental health provision in Greater Manchester? Does he agree with me that we need to invest in young people in all communities and not strip away vital public services?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I would say that there have been problems with Manchester policing that have absolutely nothing to do with the Government and are more local political matters, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman is fully aware of. Expenditure on policing is increasing, as I have said. Well over 8,000, and heading towards 9,000, extra police officers have already been added. This is a national effort to ensure that our streets are made safer. It is important that we continue to do that, and that we support the police in the very difficult job that they do and give them the support they need to carry out their onerous duties.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

In business questions last January, I raised the horrendous experience of my constituent Alison with her ex-partner and the Child Maintenance Service. Following that intervention, the CMS agreed that the rate of repayment was unacceptable and that they would continue recovery action against her ex-partner for significant arrears.

Earlier this year, a repayment plan was agreed without consulting Alison and recovery action will now not proceed, despite previous assurances. My office has contacted the CMS to request a conference call on the issue, but has had no response. Can the Leader of the House use his good offices to request inter-vention from the appropriate Department for Work and Pensions Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will do that, and I will ask my office to get in touch with the CMS. The CMS ought to be responsive to Members. I have said before that I have found it one of the most difficult organisations to deal with, as a Member of Parliament for my constituents. I have great sympathy with the hon. Gentleman and I am grateful that he has raised this point. The CMS must respond to Members of Parliament; that is the duty of that type of agency.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am very much in favour of the Government’s policy on reducing overseas aid this year. We will still be giving ten thousand million pounds in aid, which is a higher proportion than France, Italy or, of course, the United States of America. But the House has a right to decide on this issue. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that it is very strange that the Government have given the opportunity, via an Opposition day this week, an Opposition day on 14 June and an Opposition day on 21 June, when that vote could definitely occur?

The Backbench Business Committee has been kind enough to announce the subjects of its debates in advance. Why are the loyal Opposition not telling us today that we are going to have that debate on Monday? Is it because they are pretty sure they are going lose the vote and the House will support the Government?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I must defend Her Majesty’s Opposition, because we changed the date of their Opposition day debate, so it is reasonable for them not to have put the debate forward. My hon. Friend lays down an interesting challenge to them, because they know the policy is hugely supported in the country. Polling indicates that a majority of Labour supporters support the policy, let alone Conservative supporters, who support it overwhelming. So, let us see, as time’s winged chariot passes along, whether or not they are brave enough to put their money where their mouth so often is.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I must now suspend the House for two minutes to make the arrangements for the next business.

House of Commons Commission (External Members)

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)]

I beg to move,

That, in pursuance of section 1(2B) of the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978, as amended, Louise Wilson be appointed to the House of Commons Commission for a period of three years with immediate effect; and Shrinivas Honap be appointed to the House of Commons Commission for a period of three years commencing on 1 October 2021.

Before turning to today’s motion, I am sure that the House will want to join me in thanking Jane McCall, who served as an external member on the Commission for over five years and finished her time in post at the end of April. In addition, Rima Makarem’s three-year term will end on 30 September, and, owing to other commitments, she has given notice that she will not be seeking an extension to her appointment. Having served alongside both of them on the Commission, I am most grateful for their contribution and the valuable external perspective and commitment that they brought to their roles. They always had a particular interest in value for money, which is one of the things that we should take most seriously in the House as guardians of taxpayers’ money. I am grateful for what they have done and wish them well in their future endeavours.

Today’s motion gives the House the opportunity to agree two new external members of the Commission. In February, the Commission endorsed the recruitment process to appoint new external members. The full details of that process are set out in the Commission’s report on the nomination of candidates for its external members, HC 223, which has been tagged to today’s debate.

In March, a sifting panel, consisting of the then shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), the Clerk of the House and the secretary to the Commission, Marianne Cwynarski CBE, shortlisted four candidates for interview by the selection panel. The selection panel comprised Mr Speaker, me, the right hon. Member for Walsall South, Isabel Doverty, who is a former civil service commissioner, the Clerk of the House and the secretary to the Commission. Interviews took place in April.

Following that process, the selection panel recommended to the Commission that Louise Wilson and Shrinivas Honap be nominated as its new external members, with Louise replacing Jane McCall and, in due course, Shrinivas replacing Rima Makarem. Should the House agree to these appointments, it is expected that both will also serve on the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee and that Shrinivas will replace Rima Makarem as chairman of that committee.

As the Commission’s report sets out, Louise Wilson is a business leader with an international career combining commercial expertise with extensive non-executive experience in the public, private and charitable sectors. She established her career at Accenture and gained global marketing and commercial expertise at Procter and Gamble, PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company—she is very fizzy, I should think, with all that experience at those drinks companies. She founded an international marketing and sponsorship company and, following London’s successful bid, served as the client services director of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic games. She has previously undertaken non-executive roles across a range of business and charitable organisations spanning education, heritage, culture, visitor attractions, faith and diversity. These have included roles at Historic Royal Palaces, the University of Nottingham, the David Ross Education Trust, the International Women’s Forum, the Harvard Vatican Leadership Trust, the Marketing Group of Great Britain, the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and, currently, the Northern Ireland Office and the National Emergencies Trust.

Shrinivas Honap is a chartered accountant by profession and served with Vodafone, Capita, KPMG and Egg during his executive career. He currently holds a number of non-executive roles, including as chairman at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, non-executive director and chair of the Audit Committee at UK Atomic Energy Authority and at the Rural Payments Agency. He has recently been appointed to the Civil Service Pension Board and also serves as a lay member on the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and a panel member at the Competition and Markets Authority and on the Pensions Determination Panel.

The Commission believes that both candidates bring a diverse range and depth of experience and that this will hugely benefit the work of the Commission in the coming years. As a member of the Commission who interviewed them, I add my own very strong personal recommendation. We interviewed two exceptionally strong candidates and the House is very fortunate that they put their names forward and are willing to serve. As such, the House of Commons Commission—I am, in bringing this motion, acting for the Commission—recommends that the House appoints both candidates as external members, each for an initial period of three years. I hope that the House will agree to their appointments today and I commend this motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Before I reply to the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), may I pay tribute to a most distinguished member of the Commission who has stood down? If I may say so, Madam Deputy Speaker, you have been a great person to work with on the Commission—always sensible, moderate and seeking consensus, and not using it for party political purposes. Of course, you are no longer party political in these roles, and what fun it was being on the Commission with you. I record our gratitude for the bacon sandwiches, which were particularly appreciated and were, I think, thanks to your lobbying. I thank the shadow Leader of the House and the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for their contributions and support. I note the hon. Gentleman’s comments about Thursday mornings, but sometimes in this place a vote is necessary to get what one wants, and it may be that that is what he needs to do. 

On the important points raised by the right hon. Member for Warley, I am not keen on the metropolitan elite any more than he is. I tend to think that they have a set of views that are not particularly my views, or those of my constituents in rural Somerset, so I think his criticisms need to be considered carefully. First, senior executive leadership does not exclude trade unionists or people who have worked in the public sector, and there are senior leadership and executive roles in bodies that are not big business. Indeed, the House has taken people who have not been involved with big business but have been involved in the public sector, and trade unionists would be welcome to apply. They obviously run complex organisations, and the suggestion that they would be excluded is unfair. It is obviously right that the House expects people to have been senior in whatever they have done, whether that is an entrepreneur, a headmaster or headmistress, someone who has run a hospital, a trade union leader, or somebody who has worked for a big company such as Coca-Cola, and that is a broad category to have.

On the question of politics, we have debated this issue before, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that being involved in politics is something one should wear as a badge of honour. It is part of being involved in civic society, and that applies to all parties, not just to those in one of the major parties, and not even if someone is just a good Tory, like me. Whatever, party someone belongs to, they are contributing to society. But—there is inevitably a but—on the Commission, the politics is provided by Members of the House, and there is no point trying to change the balance of the Commission from the balance in the House by appointing outsiders who are political. It is simply a question of appropriateness for the role that they are to fulfil within this House. I think that is fair. Members of the House can be party political if they want to on the Commission, although it tends to work well by consensus,  but to appoint external politicians would, I think, border on the eccentric. I have great confidence in the two people we have chosen today, who I think will be a real pleasure to work with.

[John Spellar]

I would understand if the right hon. Gentleman were arguing, for example, that a political leader of a council might change the balance of the Commission, but if we are trying to get expertise, they would also be used to running large organisations. He rightly said that the Commission tends to work with a degree of consensus; it is not divided. Many other countries managed to encapsulate that. They appoint people to public bodies in the full and public knowledge that they have been politically active. I still do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman thinks that should be a major debarring factor.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I hope I was making clear, I think it debars from the Commission, where politicians are already appointed. It inevitably does not debar from other public sector appointments, where that may be perfectly reasonable, and where people may be appointed because of their connection to a political party if we are seeking a political balance. As I said, I have particular confidence in the two people we are appointing today. I think they will be first class and make a considerable contribution to the Commission and the work of this House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his kind words. It was a great pleasure to be on the Commission, and very enjoyable working with all those who served on it.

Question put and agreed to.



Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission

Resolved,

That Lilian Greenwood be discharged as a member of the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission and Mr Nicholas Brown be confirmed as a member under Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019.—(Tom Pursglove.)

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Resolved,

That Thangam Debbonaire be appointed to the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in place of Valerie Vaz, until the end of the present Parliament, in pursuance of paragraph 1(d) of Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, as amended.—(Tom Pursglove.)

House of Commons Members’ Fund

Resolved,

That Sir Alan Campbell be removed as a Trustee of the House of Commons Members’ Fund and Mr Nicholas Brown and Craig Whittaker be appointed as Trustees in pursuance of section 2 of the House of Commons Members’ Fund Act 2016.—(Tom Pursglove.)

Business of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 7 June will include:

Monday 7 June—Remaining stages of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill.

Tuesday 8 June—Second Reading of the Compensation (London Capital & Finance Plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Bill, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of external members to the House of Commons Commission, followed by a motion relating to the membership of the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission, followed by a motion relating to the membership of the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

Wednesday 9 June—Opposition day (1st allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 10 June—General debate on support for the aviation, travel and tourism industries, followed by a general debate on world press freedom. The subjects for these debates were previously recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 11 June—The House will not be sitting.

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

Monday 14 June—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.

Tuesday 15 June—Second Reading of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill.

Wednesday 16 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 17 June—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 18 June—The House will not be sitting.

On Tuesday, the independent expert panel published its report on the conduct of the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts). I thank Sir Stephen Irwin and the panel for their work on this and other cases. The IEP has recommended the sanction of a six-week suspension, and a motion has been tabled so that the House can agree this after business questions today. The House will know that the sanctions determined by the independent expert panel fall outside the scope of the Recall of MPs Act 2015, which provides three conditions for a recall petition process, one of which is a suspension of a period of at least 10 sitting or 14 calendar days. For a recall to be initiated under the Act, the sanction must be applied on the recommendation of the Committee on Standards, or another Committee of the House of Commons concerned with standards of conduct. The independent expert panel is not a Committee of the House of Commons.

It may help if I remind the House of the background to the approach taken. The current arrangement was widely accepted at the time of the creation of the IEP. In particular, staff groups had made representations that recall would be an inappropriate consequence in independent complaints and grievance scheme cases. It was felt that the opening of a recall petition could have implications for the reporter’s confidentiality during the six weeks for which the recall petition is open and during any subsequent by-election campaign, should the 10% signing threshold be reached. In turn, it was felt that that could have an impact on the willingness of future complainants to come forward.

There was also concern about ensuring the independence of the process as far as possible, while recognising that it should, of course, be for the House to order suspension. However, that is not to say that there have not been concerns about the discrepancy between ICGS and non-ICGS cases when it comes to the interplay with the recall Act. I, too, have always been concerned by this matter. Following a case of this severity, in which it would be honourable for a Member to stand down after the withdrawal of the Whip, we need to look at whether the process is striking the right balance between independence, protecting the confidentiality of complainants and ensuring consistent outcomes across different types of conduct case. I can therefore confirm to the House that I have asked the chairman of the independent expert panel for his views on whether changes should be made to the current process to enable recall to be triggered. In my view, any changes in this regard should be made in the most straightforward way possible, and my preference would therefore be for a non-legislative solution.

This is ultimately a matter for the House, and the House of Commons Commission has always been involved in the establishment and running of the ICGS. I will look to work closely with you, Mr Speaker, and other members of the Commission, including of course the shadow Leader of the House—she has helpfully written to me this morning, and that is an important step forward in this process—on this and other matters.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for that statement and for his words just then, which I will return to shortly, but, first, may I wish you, Mr Speaker, all colleagues and staff a safe and productive recess?

If a Member is suspended from Parliament for 10 or more sitting days by the Standards Committee for a breach of the code of conduct, their constituents can remove that MP and cause a by-election under the Recall of MPs Act, but when the independent expert panel recommends suspension for sexual misconduct under the independent complaints and grievance scheme, they cannot. This is a loophole, and we can work together to fix it. I am encouraged by what the Leader of the House said and the tone in which he said it. I would like to work with him to go further and quicker, and I agree that there are non-legislative solutions.

In what other job could someone who has carried out sexual misconduct not face losing that job? As the House will know, the Member found to have carried out sexual misconduct by the panel this week lost his appeal and will shortly be the subject of the motion on the Order Paper, as the Leader of the House said. Knowing the Leader of the House as I do and from his words, I know we share common cause here. There are workable solutions to what will be a stain on us all if the public see someone who has carried out sexual misconduct keep their job in this place.

According to advice I have had this week from House staff, to whom I am truly grateful, this could be done in various ways, without legislation. Of course, as the Leader of the House said, ideally the Member would do the honourable thing and resign forthwith, but retrospective rule change is possible, permissible and could apply, because this is above party politics. It is about the Government doing the right thing, and it is about maintaining safe working for our staff, because Parliament should be a beacon of good practice. Process should not be a shield for unacceptable behaviour.

If the Member does not resign, he should be subject to recall and, if he is not, we run the risk of appearing as if this House does not take sexual misconduct seriously, which of course we do. As the Leader of the House said, I wrote to him this morning to offer to work with him to close the loophole urgently and seek solutions. I hope he will consider either meeting me today or speaking to me over recess so we can sort this out.

On doing the right thing, if the Prime Minister insists on having cosy chats with anti-democratic purveyors of hate, will he promise to challenge them on their antisemitism, their homophobia and their undermining of the rule of law, starting with Viktor Orbán this week?

By contrast, 51 years ago this week, a Labour Government passed the Equal Pay Act 1970, after women campaigned for equality. This pandemic has set working women back, so will the Government mark the anniversary by reinstating mandatory gender pay gap reporting, and will they publish the long-awaited review into rape prosecutions so survivors in Bristol West and beyond can have hope of justice?

This week, we have had more chaos as people in Bedford, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Hounslow, Kirklees and North Tyneside found out that they had been subject to local lockdowns by stealth, without notice to them or their elected representatives. People trying to do the right thing cancelled events and family get-togethers they have waited so long for. The Government, having failed to act promptly on the surge of covid in India, which will have contributed to the increases in the variant, decided a buddy scheme would help people who were asked to isolate. Can the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how she expects a buddy scheme to pay the rent or feed children? Can he ask her instead to bring in adequate payments for people asked to isolate? Will he also ask the Culture Secretary to sort out guidance for amateur choirs so that people in his constituency and mine can sing together again, as they already can in sports stadiums?

Finally, I ask the Leader of the House and all hon. Members to look at the National Portrait Gallery’s online exhibition, “Hold Still”. These photographs of people in the UK in 2020 tell a painful story of sacrifice, generosity, courage and the love that British people have given each other in this national crisis: children touching a care home window as grandparents touch the other side; a smartly dressed man all alone watching a funeral online; a mother kissing her baby for the first time through a plastic sheet; hands held tightly, tears shed, the anguish of people caring for covid patients who sadly died and of those who love them. They are people who love this country. They deserve the best from their Government: one who prioritise good jobs and a strong economy, fix social care and affordable housing, protect the NHS and education, and halt climate change. I believe they are not getting that from this Government. They deserved a Government who took notice when the Opposition and the scientific experts argued for urgent action—not one who mocked and delayed, costing people dearly, but one who heeded all the recommendations of the pandemic preparedness exercise.

So that the Government can finally learn as quickly as possible the lessons of the past 14 months, and so that people can trust what they do next, will the Leader of the House now ask the Prime Minister to give us the date, scope and timetable of the public inquiry into his Government’s handling of the covid crisis, with survivors and bereaved people at its heart? From the top down, the Government owe the British people that. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and stay safe over recess.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I join the hon. Lady in wishing everybody an enjoyable and restful recess? It is a much calmer approach to Whitsun this year than it was last year. I thank everybody for all they have done in the period between Easter and now.

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her constructive comments in relation to recall. It is not so much a loophole as an active decision that was made in response to the views expressed by staff groups. They were concerned about issues relating to confidentiality if recall were allowed on ICGS cases. They were also worried about the requirement to involve a Committee in the House of Commons. In my opinion, those worries are not proportionate to the need to be clear that this House and all politicians think that sexual misconduct is at the most serious level of misbehaviour. It is frankly ridiculous that we have a higher sanction for somebody who uses a few envelopes incorrectly than for somebody who is involved in sexual misconduct, although I reiterate the point on my feelings about how an hon. Member would behave in these circumstances. But I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s offer of support and I think, Mr Speaker, with the Commission, we can come up with a sensible solution.

On the visit by Viktor Orbán, Hungary is a very important ally of this country. It is crucial that we have sensible relationships with our allies, but that we are clear to our friends where we disagree with them. That is important not just with Hungary but with the whole range of countries we deal with. But Mr Orbán will be a very welcome visitor to this country.

The hon. Lady refers to the pay gap between men and women. Although it has been narrowing recently, the Government have been pushing forward with a considerable number of strategies to continue the equalities work that has been going on in this country for many decades, has seen considerable improvement and is a major part of the Government’s levelling-up objective. We should level up across every part of this country and ensure we have economic prosperity.

The hon. Lady mentioned stealth lockdowns. I think “stealth lockdown” is an odd way—dare I say, an eccentric way—of looking at it. What is changing is that we are moving from a situation of absolute law, like the Ten Commandments—people know what they can do and what they cannot do—to saying that there are guidelines that wise people will follow. We are trusting the people as the lockdown comes to an end. That is the right way to be going: with both guidance and the clarity of law passed by this House.

The hon. Lady makes a fair point about amateur choirs. I remind the House that I am the patron of the Mendip male voice choir. That is something that I take great pride in and I am looking forward to hearing them back in full voice in due course, but that is currently under stage 4 of the lockdown process.

The hon. Lady challenges the record of this Government. I think it is a record of which we can be very proud. That is not to say that no mistakes were made at stages during the pandemic—a pandemic that nobody knew about and nobody predicted, which came upon us like a thief in the night—but none the less, enormous strides were made. The economic provision that was made means that our economy is bounding back as well as almost any economy in the world, with £407 billion of taxpayers’ money ensuring that the structures of the economy were maintained, so that businesses, as demand comes back, have the supply to meet it in a non-inflationary way. There was the roll-out of the vaccine, a decision taken directly by the Prime Minister, with the vaccine tsar reporting directly to the Prime Minister. It is a terrific success and one this nation can be proud of. There is the ability we have had to ensure that the NHS was not overrun—that the NHS was able to cope—and the fantastic work that the NHS has done in supporting this country. There is our ability to send vaccines to some of the poorest countries in the world and to provide funding to help some of the poorest countries in the world. So not only have we done it for ourselves—not only have we got a record of which we can proud in this country—but we are helping globally.

We should recognise that, but, of course, there is a continual learning process about what went right and what went wrong and to do more of what went right and less of what went wrong. That is what is happening and there will, of course, by the end of this Session of Parliament, be an inquiry established to look into it all.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

Two police stations in my constituency are under threat of closure—one from the lease expiring and the other is likely to be sold by the Mayor of London. Given this Government’s enormous investment in the police, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to keep a physical police presence in north Kensington, and will he contemplate a debate on police stations generally in central London?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises an exceptionally important point. It is vital for MPs to campaign to ensure the safety of their constituents. We are recruiting as a Government—as a nation—20,000 additional police officers, and the latest published figures show that we have recruited 6,620 of them so far. It is worth remembering that the Mayor of London is the police and crime commissioner for London, so I welcome my hon. Friend scrutinising his distinctly poor record in office. The safety of Londoners should be his absolute priority, when it seems that he prefers to spend his time hiring press officers—marvellous though press officers are, I think police officers may be better at keeping the streets of London safe. I would recommend an Adjournment debate in the first instance, but she is right to hold the Mayor of London to account and to hold his feet to the fire.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I welcome the statement from the Leader of the House in regard to the independent expert panel. It is critical that there is confidence that all the processes in place are robust and that there is an equality of outcome. Central to all that is the importance of confidentiality. That is such an important point in all such cases.

Earlier this week, the Government published a number of statutory instruments regarding the space industry. Obviously, we are very keen in Scotland to see space playing a key part in the economy moving forward. However, the industry has been waiting for many months now for the Government’s space strategy. With the new regulations laid before Parliament this week, some clarity about the strategy would go a long way to helping to ensure that we knew where we were going. Can we have a debate in Government time to discuss the space strategy to see where and what that will actually look like?

A constituent got in touch with me regarding their elderly grandfather and his settled status documentation. He does not have biochipped documentation and having been in Scotland for a long time, this is now very unsettling to them. Could the Leader of the House help me to secure assurances from the Home Office that a lack of biochipping will not prevent my constituent’s grandfather from receiving a settled status outcome?

Although I fear I might be taking a long shot here, I wonder whether the Leader of the House might join me in welcoming the findings of the Scottish Government’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission—perhaps not, but I am sure that the proposals will be welcomed by all my constituents, who are keen to see a fairer and more socially just future for Scotland. Can we have a debate in Government time to consider how the UK Government might learn lessons from the Scottish Government’s approach in this regard to help to deliver a fairer society?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments on the independent expert panel and on confidentiality. It is very encouraging to see how much desire there is to work across the House to come to a sensible solution.

On the space industry, all the world’s a stage, but beyond it there is an even bigger stage for the hon. Gentleman and others to investigate. I hear that there have been reports in the newspapers—I think it was in the Telegraph—that the Americans are getting frightfully excited about people coming from outer space and UFOs, and that even former President Obama is getting interested. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman wants a debate on little green men or whatever else may come from outer space, but the Government are developing a strategy. It is an important part of the future that so much space investment is going on and that that will be a United Kingdom-wide activity.

With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, the grandfather who requires settled status: yes, of course if the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details I will take the matter up with the Home Secretary on his behalf. The system has provided 5.4 million people with settled status—it has worked well, but it is obviously important that it is fair to everybody.

The hon. Gentleman finished by asking whether I would join in the Scottish Government’s social justice and fairness scheme; he thought that probably I would not. What I thought we might have a debate on, perhaps—if he would like to ask me this—is not the policy of the Scottish Government, which they can debate in the Scottish Parliament, but the amazing contribution that the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom taxpayer have made to supporting all parts of the United Kingdom during the pandemic—the £14.5 billion of extra UK taxpayer spending that has gone to Scotland via the Barnett formula, the £1.2 billion for the self-employment scheme for 430,000 claimants, and the nearly 900,000 jobs that have been saved by the furlough scheme. I think we could debate that at considerable length. Should there ever be time for an Opposition day for the SNP, I hope that that is what it will bring forward.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

In the absence of the Whitsun Adjournment debate, I, too, wish everyone a very happy recess.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on forced adoptions? On Tuesday, on behalf of the Movement for an Adoption Apology, I handed in a letter to the Prime Minister’s office simply asking for an acknowledgment of the wrongs that have been done, including to a constituent of mine, and an apology on behalf of the Government institutions involved in what went on.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This is a matter that the House has debated previously. The Government have expressed, and let me re-express, our deepest sympathy to all those affected by historical forced adoptions. Successive Governments have amended legislation to ensure that that practice cannot happen again. The Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002 changed the law so that adoption has to be agreed to by a court. There is a requirement to be certain that any written consent is real. Adoption agencies, now mainly local authorities, are covered by statute and inspected by Ofsted, so the situation that prevailed cannot prevail again. That is quite right and proper, and the distress caused to families is a matter of the gravest concern.

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

May I inform the House that the Backbench Business Committee has been re-established? It met yesterday and is now open for business for this parliamentary Session. I welcome the announcement of Thursday 17 June as the first day of Backbench Business debates. We anticipate another round of estimates day debates before the summer recess; the Committee will invite applications for slots shortly after the Whitsun recess. If Members wish to submit debate applications for consideration by the Committee at its next meeting, a week on Tuesday, will they please ensure that they submit them no later than 2 pm on Friday 4 June?

I place on record my thanks to the Members who sat as members of the Committee during the last Session but are no longer members of it: the hon. Members for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe), for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). I thank them for their service on behalf of Members of this House. I also welcome to the Committee my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), who joined the Committee this week.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is so nice to have a satisfied customer.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con) [V]]

Now that the UK has left the EU, we are free to change the VAT system and introduce a new sales tax regime, possibly localised, which will put downward pressure on taxation. May we have consideration of a debate on ending VAT and introducing a more flexible sales tax system?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of our new-found freedoms from the EU to set taxes how we please. We are no longer bound in to a complex agreement with the European Union and can therefore have our own competitive tax system. I am certainly intrigued by his idea that we should have local competition in tax systems, which they have in the United States, where some States have high sales taxes and others have lower sales taxes, and so on. It may be more difficult in a relatively small island, but it is worth noting that VAT is a broad-based tax on consumption designed to ensure the fair treatment of both consumers and businesses, and has been adopted not just in the European Union but by, I think, 170 countries. It may be that going away from VAT would not just be a statement of our Brexit independence, but go against a system that actually works quite well globally.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The final criminal trials relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster collapsed yesterday, 32 years after 96 wholly innocent children, women and men were unlawfully killed by the negligence of others, primarily the South Yorkshire police, who should have been protecting them. No one responsible has been held accountable by our criminal justice system for those deadly failures. This catastrophic failure of justice seriously compounded the grief, pain and anger of the families, who yet again yesterday had to endure hearing on national media outlets the very slurs that the police statements at the heart of this prosecution were being changed to promote, namely that the Liverpool fans attending the match caused the disaster, something that has been utterly and comprehensively disproved by the 2016 inquest verdict.

Does the Leader of the House accept that the law now needs to be changed to prevent this utter failure over three decades from ever happening again to any families bereaved by public disasters? There will be more families bereaved by public disasters. Will he arrange a statement from the Lord Chancellor and a debate in this House, so that those of us who have proposals to stop this kind of thing ever happening again, for example in the public advocate Bill and the public authority accountability Bill, can again bring them to the House?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is so right to raise this matter. It is the greatest scandal of British policing in our lifetimes, and the pain is still with those families. The thought of the number of children who were killed is something that makes the whole House grieve. When nobody is held to account for that, it surely indicates that something has gone wrong in our criminal justice system. The hon. Lady is therefore right to say that we must do things that make sure this never happens in future, because though there may be nothing further that can be done in the criminal justice system now, we cannot allow this ever to happen again and have no accountability not just for the terrible events that happened but for the wickedness of the cover-up. The hon. Lady is so right to highlight the cruelty of blaming the families for the misery that was inflicted upon them.

I will of course take forward any ideas the hon. Lady has to the Lord Chancellor. I will seek to get replies to any questions she may have. I cannot, as she knows, immediately promise Government time, but she knows there are other ways of getting debates going in this House. It is worth remembering the early success of the Backbench Business Committee in having a debate on Hillsborough in about 2010, which helped to at least get some answers, if not necessarily the full legal conclusion that many would have liked and felt would have been just.

[Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)]

The Duffield beacon in Workington was erected and first lit to mark the Beacon Europe celebrations in 1992. Built by British Steel apprentices from Workington Rail, it stands today as a monument to our steel industry. Independent councillors who now run the town council have launched a sham consultation on fictitious health and safety grounds, offering Workington constituents a Hobson’s choice: whether the beacon should remain and never again be lit, or be chopped in half. May we have a debate in Government time on the protection of important local monuments such as the Duffield beacon?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to ensuring that this country’s heritage is appropriately protected. That is why planning rules have been amended to ensure that the removal of unlisted historic monuments requires an application for planning permission. Local planning authorities are responsible for determining such applications, and local people will be able to make their views known through the application process. However, there is nothing worse than pettifogging bureaucracy trying to stop a local monument being lit, used, admired and enjoyed, and he is absolutely right to bash his local council for its silly behaviour.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

May I place on the record my thanks to the Leader of the House for the integrity that he has shown this afternoon in setting out his view that if a Member is found to have committed sexual misconduct, it is a curse on all our houses and it is the right and honourable thing for that Member to resign? I pay tribute to him for that. I know that he cares deeply about this House, the Members in it and the purpose for which we are all elected to serve our constituents.

Will the Leader of the House provide a statement from Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers to update us on what is happening with the Government’s much-celebrated levelling-up fund? There was what can only be described as an embarrassing session of the Welsh Affairs Committee today, where Ministers seemed unable to clarify how the additional streams of funding will work into years 2, 3 and 4; whether funding will be available in the long term beyond the first year; whether Members of Parliament can support one substantive bid, one transport bid and three additional bids, and what happens if a bid fails. There just seems to be continuous confusion, so I would be grateful if he could provide some clarity from Ministers.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am always happy to take on individual questions and pass them through to Ministers, but the levelling up of the country is a major ambition of this Government. Forty-five new town deals worth £1 billion are already there, the UK community renewal fund has been launched, and the first round of the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund has been announced. I seem to remember from last week that the deadline for applications is Waterloo Day. At least we know when the deadline for applications is, and I suggest that MPs should support lots of applications for their local area. Always support your local area in trying to get money out of central Government; that seems wise advice to Members of Parliament.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con) [V]]

May we have a statement on whether churches and other places of worship will be able to operate without any mandatory restrictions from 21 June, or when England moves to step 4 of the Government’s road map? In the meantime, can choirs—I have many wonderful choirs in my constituency—be brought into line with the current guidance for other non-professional music activity indoors, as was the case between August and December last year?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

On choirs, the issue is essentially the budget of risk. When people sing—particularly if they sing loudly—there is a greater risk because more droplets are spewed out into the atmosphere. The restriction on choirs is well thought through and proportionate, but the hope, obviously, is that on 21 June, when we get to step 4, choirs will be able to come back and church services will return to normal. Step 3 has seen some improvements in church services getting back to normal, although it has to be said that some of the things that were banned and considered dangerous were some modern excretions into church services that I was not too sorry we did not have for a bit.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I am intrigued that the question I asked the Leader of the House last week has widespread support. I hope that he got his birthday song sung to him, and I wish him happy birthday again in retrospect.

In my constituency, GPs’ practices are under severe pressure. I pay tribute to them for their dedication and commitment during the past 14 months. As we come out of lockdown, GPs are facing a tsunami of cases because so much of routine practice had to be put on hold. The extra pressure will hit a workforce that is already on its knees, so may we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—I realise that he is rather busy at the moment—on what the Government plan to do to support GP practices with extra resources, including for mental health support?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government are seriously tackling mental health issues and considerable additional funding is being provided for mental healthcare, which is at the heart of the NHS long-term plan. There will be £2.3 billion extra by 2023-24 to support 380,000 more adults and 345,000 more children. As regards GP practices, things are beginning to get back to normal and people are entitled to face-to-face consultations if they need them. Over the past year there were 56,900 more people working in the NHS, and the Government are recruiting 6,000 more doctors in general practice during the course of this Parliament. Steps are being taken very much in line with what the hon. Lady asks for. She pays tribute to her local GP practices and her local NHS; as we share an NHS area, may I join her in that? We are extraordinarily lucky to have such dedicated and hard-working people. This is an opportunity to thank Ian Orpen, who was the chairman of the clinical commissioning group for the area and did such a sterling job for a long time before retiring recently.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Two weeks ago, nine-year-old Jordan Banks was tragically struck by lightning and died in my constituency while playing a game of football. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will join me in passing on heartfelt condolences to his family and friends and thanking those in Blackpool who are now organising events to celebrate his life. Football has a unique ability to bring communities together and this tragic event, as well as Blackpool playing in the football play-off final on Sunday at Wembley, has brought the whole town together. Will my right hon. Friend look to hold a debate in Government time to celebrate the positive impact that community football clubs such as Jordan’s team, Clifton Rangers, can have in our communities?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I join my hon. Friend in sending condolences to the family and friends of Jordan Banks and praying for the repose of his soul. I know that clubs have played a crucial role in bringing communities together in the pandemic and, of course, bringing communities together when there is sadness. It is such a wonderful thing that football clubs are paying tribute to Jordan. It builds a whole community: young and old come together behind the team they all support and admire, whether it is successful or not. I wish both Blackpool and Lincoln luck in their match on Saturday.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]]

I concur with the call from my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for a Hillsborough-type law.

Last week, the roof and part of the building of Northwich station in my constituency collapsed. It was a miracle that nobody was killed or seriously injured. I, and other disability campaigners and councillors, have been calling for a considerable number of years for investment in and modernisation of that facility, plus those across the north. Will the Leader of the House find time to debate real investment in the rail infrastructure in the north of England?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The level of investment in the railways is unprecedented since Victorian times—which you may think suits me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have always had rather an affection for Victorian times. As regards the roof at Northwich station, I will pass that issue on to the Secretary of State for Transport on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

The recent monsoon-like conditions have created flooding in my suburban constituency, particularly in Kenton and parts of Edgware, caused by the flooding of the Kenton brook. Unfortunately, Harrow Council, which is responsible for some of the maintenance of the sewers and the overflow, blames the Environment Agency. We have tried to get the Environment Agency to take prompt action. Because of over-development and front gardens being lost so that people can put in driveways, the normal soakaways are not available. May we have a debate in Government time on flooding in urban and suburban areas, so that we can call on the Environment Agency and other partners to ensure that they carry out their duties in a proper way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises an issue that is a matter of concern across the country, and flooding does have a terrible impact on people’s homes and on families. The Government announced a record £5.2 billion of taxpayers’ money to be spent on flood and coastal defences, which is double the previous spending, to protect 336,000 properties. The Environment Agency’s flood and coastal risk management strategy will prepare us for more extreme weather and build a better prepared and more resilient nation—it is building back better against floods. The responsibility for drainage is really with local authorities, which are meant to clean their drains and deal with surface water, so he is right to highlight the failures of his local council. As regards a debate, I believe he has a certain influence with the Backbench Business Committee, so he may wish to use that to get the debate he seeks.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]]

My constituent Anna Slwinska was enrolled in her company pension scheme with Halliburton. When she was made redundant, she was given six months to transfer her pension pot. She initiated the process within the timescale, but Capita, the administrator, says that it did not receive the second of two forms and has kept all her money. The pensions ombudsman says that there is nothing it can do. So may we have a debate in Government time about the fact that sharp practice in the pensions industry may discourage people such as my constituent Anna from saving for their retirement?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for raising this case in relation to Halliburton, Capita and her constituent Anna. Our job as MPs is to seek redress of grievance individually for our constituents. If there is anything I can do to help achieve that redress of grievance for Anna, I will do it, because sharp practice should not lead to people losing their pension and therefore people being discouraged from preparing for their old age.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

First, on behalf of my constituents in Hyndburn and Haslingden, I would like to send my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Dr Ron Hill MBE after his sad passing. He was not only a former Olympic marathon runner, but a true local hero.

One of the biggest concerns that my constituents raise with me is speeding, particularly on roads such as Hud Hey Road, Blackburn Road, Manchester Road and Stanhill Lane. Will the Leader of the House allow a debate in Government time so that we are able to discuss what further measures can be taken to stop careless drivers putting at risk the lives of local residents, such as mine in Hyndburn and Haslingden?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I join my hon. Friend in sending condolences to Mr Hill’s family. I know that he was a very important, well-known local figure. Not only should drivers obey the speed limit, but my hon. Friend was right to highlight careless driving. It is not always speed, but sometimes the carelessness and lack of consideration for the area that they are driving through that leads to the greatest number of accidents. The enforcement, advertising and decision making on speed limits is a local matter, so in her constituency it is a matter for Lancashire County Council, and the local police force has the responsibility for enforcement. However, it is worth pointing out that the Department for Transport launched a call for evidence last autumn as part of a wider roads policing review—an examination of roads policing in England and Wales and its relevance to road safety. The Government will publish their responses in the summer and I hope they will be reassuring to my hon. Friend.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP) [V]]

I am sure that the Leader of the House agrees that Lord Hall has very serious questions to answer regarding the re-employment of Mr Martin Bashir at the BBC. Will the Leader of the House let me know whether there is any mechanism that can be deployed, or that has indeed been examined, that would allow for the removal of Lord Hall’s title and privileges here in the other House, because of the alleged serious breaches that he has been engaged in? Is that being examined and is there a process, given the serious nature of his misdemeanour?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I notice a slightly raised eyebrow or slightly furrowed brow, because by convention we would not talk about individual peers in a disobliging way. There is an ancient practice for removing peerages, which is by Bill of attainder, but looking at the Clerk at the Table, I do not think that it has been used in at least the last 200 years, and probably not beyond the early part of the 18th century, so it may be that a Bill of attainder is an unlikely procedure.

There is a procedure for removing the peerages of Lords who go to prison for a certain period, which came in relatively recently. The House of Lords has exclusive cognisance of its own affairs and can, of course, suspend peers in certain circumstances. It was on the cusp of suspending all sorts of peers for not attending the valuing everybody training, but it seemed to step away from that, in the end, when a particularly distinguished noble baroness was one of the people who had not done that training.

There are mechanisms, but they are at the highest end of our constitutional activity for the most serious misdemeanours, and whether it would be right to go into them in a specific circumstance is a matter I cannot go into at the Dispatch Box.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]]

In the last week, two of my constituents—both British citizens—have received letters from the Home Office telling them they will lose their pension unless they apply for EU settled status. Please will my right hon. Friend do his best to extract a statement from the Home Office as to what data sharing is going on across Government that has led to those errors, which have alarmed pensioners in my constituency and, I assume, elsewhere?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend? I remember her being questioned by the Brexit Committee, when I was on it, about the settled status scheme, which has been an absolute triumph. It started with the work of my right hon. Friend, and 5.4 million people have now settled and secured settled status. She has done a service to 5.4 million people, which is an amazing achievement. It has given certainty to all those people.

Mistakes happen. When they happen, they must be put right. The examples that my right hon. Friend mentions sound particularly ridiculous—a British citizen should not have to apply for settled status—and I cannot understand why that would have happened or how that information has been shared, but I will certainly take up those specific cases with the Home Office.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The scandal of fire and rehire continues, and there seems to be no movement at all from the Government to address it. It is three months since the Government received the ACAS report. If we cannot have legislation to ban this outrageous practice, can we have a Government statement responding to the ACAS report, so we understand where the Government are on this scandal?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very sympathetic to the issue the hon. Gentleman has raised. We have discussed it in the House before, and there is a considerable degree of agreement that fire and rehire is a disreputable negotiating tactic and gives capitalism, of which I am a great supporter, a bad name. The Department is considering the ACAS report, and I am afraid that my line is the same as before: information will be brought forward soon. Unfortunately, “soon” is rather an elastic concept in the bureaucratic world.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

Will my right hon. Friend make parliamentary time available for a debate on markets and how, post-pandemic, they can play a crucial role in the regeneration of town centres throughout the country? Will he join me in welcoming my local council’s levelling-up fund bid to ensure that the world-famous Bury market not only continues to play a crucial role in the economic and social life of my town, but develops as a multipurpose community hub?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very sympathetic to what my hon. Friend has said: local town markets draw people in, and they are a highlight that people go into town to use. They often offer all sorts of attractive things for people to buy, and as we normalise after the pandemic, I think they will be a great attraction. Bury market, as my hon. Friend says, is historic, and I wish him every success with the levelling-up fund bid. I cannot necessarily add my imprimatur to it because I would then be asked endlessly for my support for bids across the country, which might exceed the amount of money available.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Those who have been bereaved or left with long-term illnesses during the pandemic cannot fail to be alarmed by yesterday’s evidence from the Prime Minister’s former close adviser. These matters are now in the public domain: allegations that Government adopted a policy of herd immunity, and that they ignored the scientific facts and delayed lockdowns, leading to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. The truth needs to be examined in the future—I accept that—but surely people deserve some answers now. If we are not to get an immediate public inquiry, the Prime Minister should make a statement about the decision not to hold an inquiry sooner, so that at least we can represent our constituents and ask him questions based on the evidence to the Select Committees yesterday.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Prime Minister was asked about the inquiry yesterday. An inquiry will be set up in this Session, and it is right to do that at the point at which events are more under control. It would not be right to do it while the pandemic is still raging. Evidence was given yesterday by somebody who played a very important role within the Government and who was a very active part of the decision-making process, and who now seems to have turned himself into Achithophel. The lines that come to mind are:

“In Friendship False, Implacable in Hate:

Resolv’d to Ruine or to Rule the State.”

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I need to finish this session by about 25 past at the latest, because we have two very well-subscribed debates to follow. If I am to get everybody in, I must ask the remaining speakers to ask short questions, and I am sure that the Leader of the House will respond with shorter answers.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

Last week was, of course, Dementia Action Week, and when I met with the Alzheimer’s Society, it presented several worrying statistics, one of which showed the rise in the use of anti-psychotic drugs. Based on the stats in Oxfordshire, fewer than one in five of the people who had been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs actually had a diagnosis of psychosis. Will the Leader of the House please get a statement from the Department for Health and Social Care about what lies behind that rise in the use of anti-psychotic drugs in people who do not actually have psychosis?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that deeply concerning issue. NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to monitor the monthly data published by NHS Digital on the prescribing of anti-psychotic medication for people diagnosed with dementia. However, the issue he raises needs a fuller answer, and I will take it up with the Department on his behalf.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate and votes in this House before the hybrid proceedings lapse on 21 June? We cannot just have some return to the status quo ante as if the past year and a bit has not happened. He was once a champion of Back Benchers and the right of this House to decide its procedures for itself, so will he ensure that debate happens in good time so that we can plan the way forward for the House and the estate more generally?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The emergency provisions were brought in on the basis that the status quo ante would be restored, and then the House could decide in an orderly and proper way what, if anything, it wished to keep. It would be cheating Members who supported the temporary measures if they were to be made permanent before they had lapsed and we had gone back to normal.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from Sammy Steven, who is a customer at the Papworth Trust on Foundation Street in Ipswich. It does fantastic work supporting the disabled community and adults with learning disabilities in Ipswich. When the lockdown started, they were very down and did not know how they were going to cope, but the exceptional work done by the staff and volunteers made it work. They became journalists and created a “Lockdown Journal” to write about their experiences, so that they will remember them for ever more. They also tried out new things, becoming poets and music instructors. Will my right hon. Friend find time for us to debate how we fund and structure services to support adults with learning disabilities, so that we think positively about what they can do and not always about what they cannot?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend puts it absolutely correctly. We should always think about what people can do. We should always be positive as a society. I am so glad to hear about the work of the Papworth Trust. Organisations like that are a lifeline of support for some of the most vulnerable in our communities, and everything that can be done to support them should be done.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if essential local services such as a post office need to close temporarily, there should be measures such as transport links, like a minibus, to nearby post offices or a temporary solution based nearby so that elderly residents are not cut off from this important service? May I request that we have a debate on this subject?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If this is a specific case, I think an Adjournment debate is the most suitable approach. The Government are strongly supportive of ensuring that everyone in the country, especially the vulnerable, has access to essential services via the post office within their local community. As 99% of the population are within three miles of their nearest post office and 90% are within one mile, I do understand that if one is shut for a temporary period, that can be difficult for some local residents.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The headline-hogging antics of Dominic Cummings have meant that the Tory Islamophobia inquiry’s conclusion that this was fuelled by PM’s comments about Muslim women as letterboxes and bank robbers and the 2016 smearing of Sadiq Khan has gone unnoticed here. When public buildings all over the UK were illuminated this week in solidarity one year on from the racist murder of George Floyd, there was not a peep here. Can the Conservatives demonstrate how serious they are about these issues and give Government time and legislation so that levelling up applies everywhere, and to ethnicity, not just to electorally expedient geography?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Conservative party commissioned the report, has accepted the results of the report, and has accepted all the recommendations, which will be implemented in full. It has recognised, as the report did, that there may be some individuals who have views that are improper and wrong, and are not suitable to be Conservatives if they hold such views, and it has dealt with people and disciplined people who have fallen into that category. I think it is an issue that the Conservative party has shown it takes enormously seriously and has dealt with. I would say to the socialists on the Labour Benches: motes and beams, motes and beams.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

The last bank in Knaresborough closed earlier this year, and I have been concerned at the lack of access to cash and financial services in the town, and particularly the impact on business. Conservative councillors Ed Darling and Samantha Mearns are working to bring extra cash machines to the town to replace the ones lost, and the borough council is working with Barclays to bring its mobile services to the town over the months ahead. However, there will clearly be an impact on the local community, and it will not be the only local community facing this challenge. May we have a debate on the impact of the loss of banks and associated financial services within communities to look at the ideas that are available to help people when this happens?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government recognise the importance of cash to the daily lives of millions of people across the UK, particularly those in vulnerable groups, and are committed to protecting access to cash for those who need it. Inevitably, decisions on opening and closing bank branches are commercial decisions, but the Government believe that the impact of branch closures should be understood and mitigated where possible. The major high street banks have signed up to the access to banking standard, which commits them to ensure that customers are well informed about branch closures and options for continued access to banking services such as the post office, as 95% of business customers and 99% of personal banking customers can carry out their everyday banking at 11,500 post office branches in the UK. Steps are taken, but I know that the matter concerns many Members across the House and it may well be suitable for a longer Back-Bench business debate.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Welsh language has been spoken on these islands, indeed on this island, since long before the English language arrived on our shores. In fact, the Welsh epic poem “Y Gododdin” describes a battle in the 6th century between Anglo-Saxon invaders and Welsh-speaking warriors from the south of Scotland. The battle took place in modern-day Yorkshire. Does the Leader of the House agree that we should have an early statement from the Culture Secretary to give clarity on the improved funding needed for the Welsh language broadcaster S4C so that it can help to ensure that Welsh, spoken daily by half a million people in the UK, continues to survive and thrive in the digital age?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Welsh is unquestionably a beautiful language of great antiquity in this country. My mother’s father was a Welsh speaker, so this is not the Rees bit of me but the Morris bit of me that very much values Welsh heritage and culture and, of course, its continued use as a daily language. It may be better for the Welsh Government to take up these matters, because it is for them to promote the Welsh language, though I am aware that S4C is in a slightly different category.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

I recently met Katie from my constituency to discuss endometriosis. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will recall that we recently recognised Endometriosis Month, yet women still have to wait, on average, eight years for diagnosis, and that has been made worse by increasing backlogs due to covid. Can he allow time for a debate on what can be done to benefit all those unfortunate enough to suffer from endometriosis and to help to ensure that gynaecology theatre times are not the last element to be considered with regard to women’s health and the reopening of the health service?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Endometriosis can be a very debilitating condition that affects around one in 10 women of reproductive age, and it is therefore important that the appropriate care is available to those who need it. I note my hon. Friend’s point that it takes, on average, eight years for a diagnosis. On 8 March, the Department of Health and Social Care launched a call for evidence to inform the development of the first women’s health strategy for England. Consultation closes on 13 June. Within that call for evidence, both the online survey and written submissions seek information on gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis. I encourage women with experience of this issue, and MPs on behalf of their constituents when it has come to their attention, to respond to the call for evidence so that we can identify areas for further work. It has previously been raised on the Floor of the House, and the Government are aware that it is a very serious issue for many women.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. I shall now suspend the House for two minutes to make arrangements for the next business.

Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster.

Building works have long been on the minds of those in Westminster—ever since the 8th century, in fact, when St Peter and an accompanying heavenly choir descended from above to suggest to a passing fisherman that a church dedicated to him might be constructed on a site very close to where we stand today. Over the years, the view from that spot of raised ground on a marshy island between the Thames and two branches of the Tyburn has featured more than its fair share of scaffolding—the embankment of the Thames; the small palace of Edward the Confessor transformed into a sprawling complex of buildings; the construction of Westminster Hall; and the building of, first, a monastery and then Westminster Abbey itself, not to mention the creation of the neo-Gothic masterpiece whose preservation we are debating today.

Throughout the centuries, those bustling about Westminster have assented to these works because they recognise the importance of this place at the centre of our national story, and so it continues to this day, as we saw in the recent state opening when Her Majesty set out the Government’s plans to level up from within a building now receiving significant attention once again.

Such has been the zeal with which politicians of recent decades have concentrated on delivering for their constituents, however, that the present Palace of Westminster has been somewhat neglected. The Joint Committee on which I sat concluded in 2016 that the short-term fixes and sticking-plaster solutions that had prevailed in the post-war environment could no longer keep pace with the building’s deterioration. Although it recognised the limitations of the assessments before it at that stage, its recommendations for action were accepted by the House in early 2018.

Some cynics say that nothing has happened since then, but in fact, we have been a veritable hive of activity—not with bees on the roof, but with work to fix the cast-iron tiles that has made considerable progress. The encaustic tile restoration programme has been completed, in the final instance by Mr Speaker himself, who deserves congratulations for the splendour of our encaustic tiles, made in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan). Some of these significant projects upon which the building’s future depend have been able to commence and even reach a degree of completion. The risk of a serious fire has been significantly reduced, with real progress towards proper compartmentation and the installation of over 8 miles of piping for the basement’s sprinkler system.

The Elizabeth Tower’s restoration is now nearing completion, and we all look forward to hearing Big Ben’s bongs resound once again. Indeed, they were bonging earlier today, though in a slightly random fashion; we look forward to them bonging the right time, as if we had dialled the speaking clock. The escalating cost of that project underlined the importance of our establishing the right governance structure for a programme of this magnitude. That has been achieved for restoration and renewal through primary legislation diligently piloted through the House by my illustrious predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom).

The Sponsor Body and the Delivery Authority set up as a result have been able to start conducting preliminary work, including the first of 100 detailed surveys of the Palace, to help them more fully understand the scale of the challenge before them. As a result, the programme remains on track to begin its main phase as planned—again, so wisely by my predecessor—in the mid-2020s. However, its ultimate approval is a matter for Parliament, and will proceed only if we can achieve the broadest possible consensus across the House.

That is why today’s debate matters, because it fires the starting gun on what amounts to a critical phase for the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster. The coming months are an important period, during which we, the parliamentarians—the custodians of Westminster’s history, but also those responsible for protecting taxpayers’ interests—make our expectations clear, so that when the fully costed proposals are put before us in early 2023, we are able to approve them full-throatedly, safe in the knowledge that we are doing the right thing for our constituents and for our country in preserving both the cockpit of our democracy and the means of its proper functioning.

[Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)]

Clearly, value for taxpayers’ money is a massive concern for residents right across Bishop Auckland, so will there be a limit on the spending for this restoration project?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend puts her finger on the nub of the issue. The business case will be brought forward in early 2023, and this House will have to approve it. At that stage, we will decide whether the amount being asked for is an amount we feel our constituents can afford.

Earlier this year, the Sponsor Body published its own initial thoughts on how to proceed in its strategic review. That reflected work completed in 2020, before the full extent of the pandemic’s implications for R and R could be appreciated. It recommended that a period of vacation of the Palace remained necessary and that the main temporary facilities for the Commons should continue to be provided on Parliament’s secure northern estate. However, the past 15 months have shown that we are able to function for a time without every facility and, indeed, without a full Chamber. Doing so will always reduce our effectiveness—I am no great fan of remote proceedings, and I am delighted that this Chamber will be back to its bustling norm once restrictions are lifted—but I recognise that during the pandemic we have seen that some of the ancillary services the Joint Committee considered essential to be physically present next to the Chamber have turned out not to be so. It also seems reasonable to consider how technology might be used on a stand-by basis—in case of an emergency recall, for example.

Those are the sorts of things that we must collectively think about so that we can be clear what we are asking for. So many of the assumptions made just a few years ago now seem out of date. To decant or not to decant, that was the question. I have no opposition to a full decantation if it were nobler in the mind to suffer it, other than that it, as with the entire programme, needs to represent the best value for money, not a vehicle for a consummation devoutly to be wished. Given the efforts now under way to explore a maintained presence, it may be that we can take arms against a sea of troubles. Yes, we are likely to bear fardels because of the scale of these works, but the idea of Members being marched out of the Palace of Westminster for an entire Parliament or longer now appears more fanciful than it once did.

I am encouraged by the current explorations into whether a maintained presence is possible in the Palace of Westminster during the works and look forward to the conclusion of the Sponsor Body’s explorations in this regard. That is precisely the sort of issue on which it is quite right that guidance is provided by parliamentarians, who need to ensure that during this period our ability to conduct effective scrutiny is not unduly hindered.

The strategic review contains eight so-called stretch objectives, which set out how the works might go beyond the “do minimum” basics. Do we want to install systems that provide the best levels of comfort? Given the pressing priorities elsewhere on public spending, the answer seems obvious to me, but the Sponsor Body cannot proceed unless we spell it out to it. Do we want to meet the legislative, statutory and planning obligations when it comes to questions of sustainability, or do we want to exceed them? Members will be aware that discussions around environmental priorities have already changed since 2018, given the Government’s commitments towards becoming carbon neutral and the impact this change would have on energy inputs.

On the question of disabled access, I hope that we can all agree on a cost-effective approach which provides disabled Members with accessible workplaces and visitors with access to the key democratic parts of this building. On the question of accessibility, the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) has already made clear her commitment to championing accessibility for people with autism. Her contribution on this point is one I welcome and take seriously. It is a good example of the kind of cross-party working which can help us to shape the plans.

There will, of course, be more detailed conversations on that as we consider whether we need disabled access “to all users to all areas of the building”. These can build on the opinions already heard and the information already received from many Members as part of the Sponsor Body’s strategic review. I know the Sponsor Body also wants to consult around issues like a secondary debating chamber within the Palace, for example, or how best Members would like to use the available space. The next phase of this process, involving more formal consultation, will take place over the summer when Members will be invited and encouraged to share their views directly. If I could put in a plea from the Sponsor Body: please do take the opportunity to express your views to it.

As its work progresses, each period of engagement offers the chance to give ever more detailed views as the specific proposals for restoration and renewal are further developed. For this to be useful, Members must be invited to prioritise what matters most, where money must be spent and where it can be saved. Members will need to know the cost and benefits of each aspect of the schemes, so the choices and pay-offs between paying least and getting best value are understood and grasped by all of us. Ideally, each idea would have a clear price tag attached.

The Sponsor Body will be inviting the wider parliamentary community, including Members’ staff and administration staff, to take part in this consultation period, too. But Madam Deputy Speaker, it is the views of Members as the representatives of taxpayers whose voice I want to amplify today. It is, after all, our constituents and our constituents alone who give us a seat in this place and whose views we represent. When we knock on doors at election time, we need to be able to look them in the eye and explain why the public funds devoted to this project are not being spent on local schools or hospitals or other public services. We want to level up the country, not the Palace of Westminster, so we must be clear that we are concentrating on vital works. We do not want

“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue

Unto the rainbow, or with taper light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

Our more modest requirement is merely that our democracy should be able to function properly during the period of the works and thereafter. The building’s primary purpose should not be as a museum or a tourism hotspot or as another Disneyland. It should not be, to misquote a famous advertisement campaign of the Victoria & Albert Museum, “An ace caff with quite a nice parliament attached”.

The United Kingdom’s Parliament is a place of work and has been for centuries; a collective endeavour where our primary shared goal is legislating. That is how we make a difference to the lives of our constituents. We should have the confidence and the pride in our role as lawmakers to explain this and to shape the programme accordingly. So I look forward to hearing the views expressed in this debate today and I hope Members will come forward as more details emerge throughout the year: Members of all parties, of all regions and nations, Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike; newer Members who may still be around throughout the period of the works; and time-honoured Members who understand the value of a give-and-take proper in-person debate in the Chamber, just as much as they do the usefulness of a quiet word with the Minister in the corridors of this building.

During the rest of this year and beyond we will be doing what those before us have done for centuries in Westminster: using the power of this sovereign institution to improve people’s lives. Yet as we do so, we should probably also spare a moment or two to attend to playing our part in shaping Westminster’s long history as the centre of our national life, of our island story. So when, eventually, St Peter returns with his heavenly choir, he will look from his abbey across to a building that he will be able to report back to a carpenter’s son is one that he can be proud of. In that spirit, I look forward to the remainder of this debate with bated breath, and I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I begin with the point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and by you, Mr Deputy Speaker: our mutual friend, Mike Weatherley, whose death was sadly reported today? He and I coincided—we were elected to Parliament at the same time—and he was a friend to every Member of this House. He was a kindly, good, decent, hard-working person. We send our deepest sympathies to his family and pray for the repose of his soul.

This has indeed been an excellent debate. I am grateful to everyone who participated, particularly the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), who has taken a very constructive and thoughtful approach to this matter. I think that we can work together, because it is one of those occasions where there is much more agreement than perhaps there appears to be on the surface. I will try to go through that and, at the same time, try to respond to all the contributions that have been made.

First, let me record my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for representing us on the Sponsor Body, for the work that he is doing, and for the extremely measured and thoughtful approach that he characteristically takes, pointing out to us that ultimately we will have to make choices. We will have to decide on what we want, to consider phasing, and to work out how much is renewal and how much is straight restoration. This will be fundamental to how the scheme is costed in the end.

I also thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who unfortunately is not in her place for the wind-ups. Given that she was the Leader of the House, she knows where this programme began and piloted it through its beginning stages very successfully. She made some important points about recognising that the work has to be done. That is fundamental. There is nobody who disagrees with that at all. The work needs to be done, and it needs to be done as soon as is practicable. There has been absolutely no delay in my period as Leader of the House. Indeed, I would argue the reverse.

Interestingly, my right hon. Friend gave an example of the stone falling on to the car of our right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General. That was not at the Palace; it was at Norman Shaw. That is why the works that we are doing have to be phased, and the work on Norman Shaw is taking place. I can tell the House that the plans for Norman Shaw are under way and the proposals are being made, and, as we are not now intending effectively to bulldoze Richmond House, they are going ahead faster. The planning permission went in, I think, in March and the work on Norman Shaw North should have its own decant in December 2021, with external works commencing in January 2022 and completion of the project in October 2025.

I have to tell the House that if we were continuing with the Richmond House programme, were waiting for that to happen and had not used Richmond House as the decant option for Norman Shaw, we would not even have started on Norman Shaw until 2025, let alone completed it. I must therefore reject the idea that things have not been happening.

Derby Gate, which of course creates some of the space for people moving out of Norman Shaw, will see people moving into it on 31 July this year. The preliminary works are taking place, and they are taking place faster because we have been trying to get the scheme under control. That is the second part of the work. The first part was to recognise that it needed to be done, but the second part was to look at the cost.

When I became Leader of the House, in one of my early meetings on restoration and renewal, it was suggested to me—this is not a formal forecast—that the cost range was likely to be £10 billion to £20 billion. That is ridiculous. It is not an amount that even those of us who are most committed to the project think is reasonable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said in his excellent speech that the figures for Richmond House had risen to £1.6 billion. I knew that the combined cost of moving the two Chambers was £1.5 billion, but my right hon. Friend was suggesting £1.6 billion just for Richmond House.

The right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), as always, made a thoughtful contribution in which he spoke about decant. My opposition to decant has never been decant per se; it has always been a means to an end on cost. We were getting schemes that were so ridiculously expensive that one had to push back and say, “Surely there is a better and cheaper way of doing it.” Whether we can get it down to the £46 million suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, I am not certain, but £1.6 billion is not proper stewardship of public funds.

[Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about cost, but we of course do not know what the cost is until the business case comes through, and I think that needs to be clear. Is he really suggesting that if we do the work around us, that will be cheaper than if we move out and do it in one hit and then come back?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have not begun to suggest that, and I am very glad that the hon. Lady has intervened on me, because the figures given by the Public Accounts Committee on the £127 million of running costs that we are expending are not very well explained in the Committee’s report. If she wants to explain them, I would be delighted to give way.

[Meg Hillier]

The figures quoted are from the National Audit Office, and the full details are in the National Audit Office’s work. They are then simply quoted in the Public Accounts Committee report. It is National Audit Office work that is done to get those figures in the report.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Those figures seem to relate to the £44 million spent on the Northern Estate project, the £24.6 million for Canon Row, the £15.9 million for fire safety, the £12.6 million for the Elizabeth Tower and the £4.8 million for IT, almost all of which will continue regardless of how R and R is done. Therefore I am concerned about the impression being given by this figure that there is a massive increase in cost because we have not yet moved out. I do not think that is accurate, but if the hon. Lady would like to give more elaboration on the figures, I would find it very helpful.

I have tried to look for further details to understand what is being quoted in that £127 million figure that was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire and alluded to by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I think it is important to get an understanding that a lot of the costs we are being told are extra are actually preliminary, because we are getting on with the work to get things ready.

There is the crucial work—a number of people have mentioned Notre Dame—on fire safety. We should bear in mind that the fire safety work has been tested and completed, with the exception of the Victoria Tower, in the past few months, and includes: 7,112 automatic fire detection devices; 1,364 locations for fire stopping compartmentation, dividing the Palace into 16 compartments; 4,126 sprinkler heads in the basement of the Palace, so the risk that we have heard about of a conflagration from the basement is very, very significantly reduced; and the 8 miles of pipe that I have referred to before.

It is really important to understand that a lot of work is already going on and ties in with the outline business case, which is being carried out to schedule by the Sponsor Body and the Delivery Authority. That is the right way to proceed, because a number of people have mentioned the Elizabeth Tower, including the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, and what went wrong there with the cost going up from £29 million to £80 million. The key thing we learn from that is that we need to do the outline business case in detail.

I actually think that had we said to the British people, “To redo Big Ben, a national symbol, would cost us £80 million”, the British people would have said that that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I think the criticism came because the expense rose as the process unfolded. We want to ensure that that does not happen with restoration and renewal and that we get a figure that is realistic.

[Shaun Bailey]

Just to touch on that very briefly, if I understand my right hon. Friend correctly, it is not so much that we have an aversion to public expenditure; what I think he is trying to say is that we should be up front with the public about exactly what that looks like. Am I correct in understanding what he is trying to say there?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Absolutely, but within limits. The £10 billion to £20 billion would, I think, test the patience of most of our voters. That is why I do not think that this House should go blindly into approving or delegating this scheme without knowing precisely what the cost is. This debate is therefore important, because the outline business case is being worked on as we speak. Those involved have begun the survey work, and they are getting on with it, which is really important. But if they come back to us in early 2023 and say, “The cost is going to be £10 billion to £20 billion.” there will be a vote in this House to approve it or not. I have a nasty feeling that if it is at that level, we will not approve it, and yet the work must be done. So now is the time to give the message that we are willing to accept a little inconvenience and to have more restoration than renewal, and that while we have to ensure that disability access is done properly, we recognise that the last percentage of disability access is the most expensive. There are therefore compromises that we will be called upon to make.

[Meg Hillier]

On the Elizabeth Tower—I alluded to this, but perhaps I should quote directly from the NAO report—Parliament’s internal auditors identified, among other things,

“inadequate project governance; high turnover of project staff; and poor cost estimation.”

That really encapsulates the things that we do not want to get wrong with this project. It will cost a lot of money, but we need to be sure that we have had proper governance and proper cost destination and that we are presenting to the public a figure that is real, even though it will not be cheap.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am absolutely at one with the hon. Lady, and I am grateful for that helpful intervention. That is why the outline business case is being worked on now. We hope to have some preliminary idea about it early next year, with the vote on it in 2023.

Let me return to some of the individual contributions. My neighbour and right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) emphasised the symbolism, the need to get on with things and the stonework. It is important that, under the Act, the Commission—I can assure the House that the Commission is very aware of this—is allowed to carry out repairs before the R and R body takes over. We have scaffolding up, so it seems sensible to try to do repairs where we can. There is no point in having scaffolding, as it currently is, just acting like the slips, waiting to see what catches come its way, although of stonework rather than cricket balls. So I agree with what my right hon. Friend said.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) seemed to want to become Old Father Thames, which was a rather charming way of suggesting how we should rebuild the Palace. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) emphasised the limits on public money, as did the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He also encouraged, as did many others, UK-wide working and opportunities, and pressed for answers on timescales, which we will get in the outline business case.

I find myself in a very high level of agreement with my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who pointed out that this is a place of work. Although it is nice that tourists come to see it, that must not interfere with its work as a legislature, and if we need to do building work in August, it cannot be open to the public in that time. Getting that priority right is very important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said, “Get on with it!” I hope that I have persuaded him that we are getting on with it, and that is what everybody wants to do. As I have set out, the preliminary works are very much already happening.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West wanted a date for the Elizabeth Tower, and I will give him a date. I am told that the bells will ring in early 2022. Now, “early”, when used by the civil service, is one of those things that I have learned about in my brief time in Government, and early 2022 could mean some time in December, but it would be early December. However, there is a better promise, which is that the scaffolding will be down by summer 2022—“summer”, of course, is an equally elastic term. What particular point in summer, I do not know, but we are almost there. The bells were being tested this morning, and it was really rather wonderful to hear them—it was uplifting. My hon. Friend made the crucial point, which was so helpful to the argument, that the Richmond House planning would have delayed us until 2027, which would have been an added complication and problem with the whole programme.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) brought his own experience to bear in a very interesting way, and talked about how we look after customers. He said that we do not inconvenience them, but that we sometimes have to recognise the need to keep going regardless.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) made an inspiring and sparkling speech. She was against gold-plating, as am I, and did not want a blank cheque in these economic circumstances. She reminded us of Churchill’s view of how buildings shaped our democracy. She also talked about what it would look like to our constituents if we decided to do things in a sort of Liberace way—I am not very keen on doing things in a Liberace way. [Interruption.] I am being mobbed out from the Front Bench by the Deputy Chief Whip. As he has 330 votes in his pocket, I must not ever dare to disagree with him; otherwise, Government business might become problematic.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) mentioned opportunities and the need for there to be a plan for jobs. I think his basic plea was for every member of his constituency to be employed on the parliamentary estate. He referred to apprenticeships. Apprenticeships will be important and will have a long-running benefit for the heritage of this country because the stonemasons who are trained here will then be stonemasons who work on our great cathedrals and other heritage buildings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) mentioned the symbolism of this place and told us very clearly—I think this is the right way to put it—that we cannot duck the question. If we duck the question, we will end up grousing, to carry the bird thought through. But that is what we are doing now: we are not ducking the question.

I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) spoke. I fear that even now, nearly 18 months after the general election, one’s heart still leaps at the thought that Sedgefield is a Conservative seat. Leaving that little point aside, he mentioned what an iconic institution this is with its 1 million visitors. Follow the cash, as his old boss used to say to him, is what we must definitely be doing. The important point is that it is very hard to future-proof in terms of technology, because we think we are future-proofing but the technology goes off in some other direction that we did not think about. So we have to be open to a variety of opportunities.

This is a long-term project and it will come at very considerable cost to the taxpayer. The solutions we arrive at must therefore be the best option for the preservation of the Palace of Westminster and in the public interest, prioritising value for money. This is fundamentally a parliamentary project. I cannot remember who said that actually it is a fundamentally House of Commons project, because the symbolism of this House as the democratic House is what people think about when they look at the Palace of Westminster. I have the greatest admiration and respect for their lordships, but when people look at this palace, they think of the home of the world’s oldest democracy. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset made that fundamentally important point. It is a parliamentary project. It is a House of Commons project. We are the ones who are accountable to taxpayers.

I have set out my Government’s views and other hon. and right hon. Members have set out theirs. I am confident that the restoration and renewal programme team will listen to those carefully, and in the coming months the Sponsor Body will engage with MPs and peers to seek their views on how the proposals should develop. It is vital that parliamentarians give their time, energy and expertise to this process so that collectively we shape a programme that safeguards both the Palace of Westminster and taxpayers’ money, and will make St Peter proud.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

If there is a Liberace candelabra going spare, I can think of no more fitting place than the Leader of the House’s modest office.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster.