Business of the House

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is indeed a matter of public interest. It is quite extraordinary that a charity should be paying someone so much more than the Prime Minister earns, or, even more shockingly, than Mr Speaker is paid. He stays in his seat for hour after hour in a very diligent way, and I think that if he were paid an hourly rate, he would find that he received less than if he worked at McDonald’s. It is very impressive. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will have to catch your eye in due course, Mr Speaker, before we run out of time.

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. It is a matter for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, but charities must report on the number of staff who are paid more than £60,000 a year in income bands in their annual report and accounts, and the Charity Commission has asked Marie Stopes International to provide an explanation of its chief executive officer’s quite extraordinary salary.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I am afraid that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) is no longer in the Chamber, but when he was in the Government, he promised that the next comprehensive spending review would provide £90 million for refuge funding. I note that not a single penny piece has been provided in this week’s review, and I now find it difficult to know what to believe when things are said from the Dispatch Box, but will the Leader of the House give me a commitment that that money, which was promised and planned for—and the Domestic Abuse Bill—will appear in the Queen’s Speech?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The general principle is that if commitments have been made from the Dispatch Box to spend money, those commitments are incumbent on the Government. They were made, and they continue. I cannot guarantee spending commitments—I am not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in case the hon. Lady had not noticed—but I share her concern about this important issue, and, if it will satisfy her, I will write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to clarify the position.