Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)]

The business for the week commencing 7 September will include:

Monday 7 September—Remaining stages of the Health Bill (day one).

Tuesday 8 September—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Health Bill.

Wednesday 9 September—Second Reading of the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [Lords].

Thursday 10 September—Second Reading of the Social Housing Bill [Lords].

Friday 11 September—Private Members’ Bills.

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

Monday 14 September—All stages of the Sovereign Grant Bill, followed by a general debate, subject to be confirmed.

Tuesday 15 September—General debate on the potential merits of a full ban on fracking, followed by general debate on World Sepsis Awareness Month. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the conference recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 15 September and return on Monday 12 October.

[Jesse Norman]

The past few weeks have brought news of the deaths of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and Wendell Berry. I am sure that many colleagues will share my sense of shock and sadness at the loss of those extraordinary figures, but also give great thanks for their lives.

Truly, we live in a world of change. Rather unexpectedly, we have a new Government, a new Prime Minister and a reshuffle on the Treasury Bench and among the Opposition. Amid all that risk and uncertainty, I am delighted to say that there has been one beacon of stability, one oasis of calm and one single unmoving axel at the still centre of our politics: I refer, of course, to the Leader of the House and myself. Each of us has emerged phoenix-like, blinking but resolute from the ashes of political reconstruction. I rather fear that, given our longevity and at least the level of banter on the Government side of the Dispatch Box, we will be seen over time as the Morecambe and Wise, or perhaps the two Ronnies, of British politics. I will not invite the House to say which of us is which, but I will simply say to you, Mr Speaker, and to all Members returning from recess, it is hello from me and it is hello from him.

Now to more serious matters. I invite the Leader of the House to clarify where the Government stand on defence spending, given the different briefings and public challenges that the Government and the Prime Minister have received over the past two weeks.

I also have two specific questions, the first of which is about restoration and renewal. The Government have had since February to table a motion on this topic. In view of the new Prime Minister’s spending priorities, it now seems highly unlikely that the ruinously expensive current plans will be put to the House before the end of this year. Seven months have already passed with no action. Will the Government now recognise the delay and use it to give the R and R team time to develop a sane and far less costly alternative?

My second question is about an issue at the very heart of the new Government: the status and functions of No. 10 North. As the House knows well, in our system of Government, a Prime Minister may have political power but No. 10 is not a spending Department and it does not possess independent fiscal authority, yet the new Prime Minister has insisted again and again that No. 10 North will not just be a paper exercise. You see the difficulty, Mr Speaker.

Will No. 10 North have real spending powers of its own? If the answer is yes, then this will be a new kind of cross-departmental Ministry—perhaps a territorial Ministry, like a regional Government but with no defined scope or mandate. We will need to see the legal instruments delegating Treasury authority and functions to it. After all, in this scenario the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not be fully in charge of the public finances. We will have to have new forms of accountability to this House, with a No. 10 North Select Committee and Question Time, so that Members can press the First Secretary of State, or perhaps the Prime Minister, as the ultimately responsible Minister, should the spending decisions that No. 10 North takes turn out as they plan or, indeed, as they do not plan.

However, if the answer is no, and No. 10 North will not have spending power of its own, then ultimately the Treasury and the Chancellor will continue to sign off on its public spending and on any taxing matters. Decentralisation is really important, but No. 10 North will not be a means of decentralisation in this scenario; it will be just another layer of Government. It does not feel like the Government have thought this issue through at all, so I would be grateful for answers to these questions, both now from the Leader of the House and in writing from the First Secretary of State.

[Sir Alan Campbell]

Let me begin by saying that I am sure the thoughts of the whole House are with the people of Nepal and all those affected by the recent devastating flash floods, including the loved ones of 36 missing British nationals. As the Prime Minister said to the House on Tuesday, we will do everything we can to support British nationals impacted in the region and we are working closely with the Nepalese authorities.

This summer has seen a significant number of wildfires that have affected many people. I pay tribute to the emergency services who have been on the frontline of tackling the blazes. I also pay tribute to and thank the farmers who have been brave in their work to protect their livelihoods and their whole communities. I put on record our thanks to them.

I also pay tribute to the two police officers who lost their lives in Cleveland, PC Blades and PC Clough. They devoted their lives to the noblest form of public service: protecting their fellow citizens. Policing is not just a profession, but a calling answered only by those who are willing to place themselves in harm’s way to protect us all. I think also of their colleagues in uniform, not just in Cleveland but across policing, who have lost friends, colleagues and fellow members of the policing family.

As the shadow Leader of the House said, we recently lost a great number of great people from across the world, not least in sport and entertainment, including Billy Boston, one of the greatest and most popular rugby league players of all time—I know that you were a great admirer, Mr Speaker—and Keven Keegan, a football legend who played for Liverpool, Newcastle and England, and who went on to manage the national side. Along with the shadow Leader of the House, I also pay tribute to Dolly Parton. Beyond her legacy as the queen of country music, she will also be remembered through the work of her Imagination Library, which has provided 7 million books to children in the UK, and helped children across the world discover a love of reading.

Earlier this week, the House heard from the new Prime Minister. His Administration will oversee the rewiring of the British state—I will get on to the specifics that the right hon. Gentleman raised in a moment—the rebuilding of the resilience of our communities, and the reindustrialisation of our regions. Later this year, our 10-year plan for Britain will set out plans for stronger public control over those essentials, making them work for people and places once again.

I am pleased—as you are, Mr Speaker—that the shadow Leader of the House survived the reshuffle, and I welcome him back to his place. He was generous in his offer to run my campaign to continue in my role, which was a successful campaign on his part. I was ready to reciprocate, but that proved unnecessary. I am not sure that I am pleased with the way he described us, but I am genuinely pleased that he has remained in post. We do have our political differences, which is an obvious thing to say, but we share a deep respect for this place, and I look forward to working with him going forward. I am not sure about his suggestion that we are either Morecambe and Wise or the Two Ronnies—I think he flatters himself about his sense of humour with that—but we shall see.

There is no confusion, as the shadow Leader of the House suggests, about defence spending. The Prime Minister set out clearly what our position is, and we will have a Budget in the not-too-distant future that will set out what those proposals are. The Prime Minister faced this House on Tuesday for three hours and 20 minutes and then came back to do Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, so there was no shortage of an opportunity for the Opposition to find out exactly what this Government are going to do.

On R and R, the shadow Leader of the House knows, as we have talked about it before, that a set of proposals has been put forward. We have thought deeply about the best time to bring them to the House—he should not assume that he will have to wait that much longer for this House to be given the opportunity to make a decision. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on one thing, which is that the decision has been delayed for too long. As a result, there are costs to that delay, which we are paying whether the House decides to do something about it for the long term or not. I do not agree that the answer is another delay while we go back and look at it again. We have been around that track so many times, which explains why we have got to this place.

On that subject, it is odd when a member of the shadow Cabinet leaves to run for office in London—to begin his support for London—yet criticises the Government, when the Opposition are actually whipped against the restoration of this place, which is the iconic building in London. It is part of a UNESCO world heritage site. This is work that is long overdue, and it will create jobs and opportunities not only in London but throughout the regions of our country. The Opposition cannot have it both ways.

As the Prime Minister has said, it is important that we pursue and indeed go further on the devolution agenda, and setting up No. 10 North will be the biggest transfer of power and decision making out of Whitehall in a generation. I can assure Members that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be in charge of the nation’s finances, and he will set out his proposals; having said that, it is important that we get decisions made closer to where those affected will feel the effects.

I do have some agreement with the shadow Leader of the House on his point about scrutiny by this House. There is an issue, for instance, around how mayors are scrutinised. As power and decision making are transferred away, it raises the issue of how this House will continue to be able to provide that scrutiny. I will take that issue away and think about it more.