Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Dunne

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady makes a very important plea for her constituents. It is really important to keep businesses and to tackle the cost of living issues that we all face. However, I fear that she knows what I am going to say next: matters of taxation are for the Chancellor.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

May I commend to my right hon. Friend today’s publication by the Environmental Audit Committee of its report on water quality in rivers? I take this opportunity to thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who is in his place, for the opportunity that he has provided us to make a statement on the report in Westminster Hall this afternoon. In our report, we have made recommendations about the strategic policy statement that the Government will shortly be issuing to Ofwat. When that happens, will my right hon. Friend encourage the Environment Minister to make a statement to the House on that policy statement?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am delighted that the Environmental Audit Committee has come forward with that report. I believe it has an absolutely brilliant Chairman who ensures that its reports are always well worth reading, and I am glad that he has a debate about this one in Westminster Hall later. The Osmotherly rules set out how responses will be made to Select Committee reports, and those will of course be borne in mind for the response coming from the Department and the Minister, but I will pass on my right hon. Friend’s request for a statement.

The issue with statements, as my right hon. Friend knows only too well, is the pressure on parliamentary business and the other matters that we have to decide. We have had a demand to receive information and for more time for House of Lords amendments, and we have pressures on Back-Bench business, but I hear his request, and a request from him is always taken seriously.

Participation in Debates

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Dunne

Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I would like to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), the Chairman of the Liaison Committee. I am one of those Select Committee Chairs who do not feel that we are able to fulfil our function—not as a bauble of Parliament as the Leader of the House has just suggested—because we are unable to attend for medical reasons. I have not been able to participate in a debate since the middle of March and I do not feel that I am fulfilling my function as a Member of Parliament properly. This was brought home to me only last week, as I am one of the two current MPs who are commissioners of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and I was unable to participate in the Armistice Day debate on 11 November, despite having asked for a special dispensation from your office, Mr Speaker, which you were quite properly unable to give me.

Also last week, had it not been for the consequences of these new restrictions, I would have been introducing on Friday the only private Member’s Bill that I have ever been fortunate enough to have drawn in the ballot. I urge my right hon. Friend please to give some urgency to his deliberations on introducing this new measure, which I welcome wholeheartedly, to ensure that by the time my private Member’s Bill comes back to this House on Friday 15 January, I will be able to deliver it in person.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I completely sympathise with my right hon. Friend. It must be very frustrating not being able to participate in the activities of the House, and I hope that the proposals being brought forward to help those who are extremely clinically vulnerable will be of assistance. It is important that this House actively holds the Government to account and scrutinises them, and that the legislative programme is proceeded with, and that is exactly the balance that the Government are trying to achieve, by ensuring that scrutiny is properly done and that legislation is properly debated, and by allowing those who have exceptionally difficult circumstances to be able to participate more fully. But it is a balance, and it has been a balance as to what can or cannot be provided all the way through. We have had different requests in different directions for what the resources should be devoted to—hence the question raised by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) as to whether we should close Westminster Hall and use the resources for something else. There is always a balance to be struck.