Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(1 day, 11 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)
The business for the week commencing 17 November will include:
Monday 17 November—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill.
Tuesday 18 November—Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill.
Wednesday 19 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Border Security, Asylum And Immigration Bill, followed by Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Property (Digital Assets) Bill [Lords].
Thursday 20 November—Debate on a motion on the subject of international Men’s day, followed by debate on a motion on an injury in service award. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 21 November—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 24 November includes:
Monday 24 November—Remaining stages of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (day one).
Tuesday 25 November—Remaining stages of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (day two).
Wednesday 26 November—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver her Budget statement.
Thursday 27 November—Continuation of the Budget debate.
Friday 28 November—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 1 December includes:
Monday 1 December—Continuation of the Budget debate.
Tuesday 2 December—Conclusion of the Budget debate.
Jesse Norman
I am sure I speak for many Members when I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the whole of the Speaker’s Office for the work you have put in to make this past week of remembrance so memorable. The gardens of remembrance, the projection of images from the second world war on to the Elizabeth Tower, the wreath laying in Westminster Hall and much else—all these things, I know, took a huge amount of organisation, co-ordination and hard work, so I thank you and your office. I draw colleagues’ attention to the launch of the project to build the remembrance clock at the national arboretum, and hope that they will dig deep to support that.
In the spirit of exchanging news stories that have developed over the past two or three weeks, I will, if I may, set out a raft of intriguing items. Nine former four-star generals have condemned the Government’s treatment of veterans on Remembrance Day. One million more people than a year ago are now claiming universal credit without any requirement to look for a job. The Chancellor gave an unexpected early press conference—apparently to prepare people for major tax rises—and the Prime Minister acknowledged yesterday the rise in national insurance. Junior doctors have announced a five-day strike, starting tomorrow, in pursuit of a 26% pay rise, on top of the woefully inadequate—as they see it—29% received last year. No. 10 Downing Street has insisted that the Prime Minister has full confidence in Morgan McSweeney, and that he—or perhaps Mr McSweeney —will still be Prime Minister at the next election.
It has rightly been said that our country has moved from being post war to being pre-war. In recent weeks, we have seen a marked escalation of the conflict in Ukraine: Russian forces have made gains in and around the city of Pokrovsk, threatening to cut transport routes and displace thousands more civilians, and missile and drone attacks on energy and transport infrastructure have intensified, with serious consequences for Ukraine’s ability to sustain its economy through the winter. These developments follow reports of a significant increase in Russian arms production and continued circumvention of sanctions through covert oil and gas shipments. At the same time, international aid flows have slowed, and Ukrainian forces are facing actual or potential shortages of money, ammunition or equipment.
All that, I suggest, underlines the need for Parliament to take stock. Three years into the conflict, the nature of the war is shifting, and now demands renewed strategic co-ordination among Ukraine’s allies. In that context, I ask the Leader of the House to commit to keeping back 4 December for the Backbench debate on Ukraine requested by my brilliant hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and agreed by the Backbench Business Committee.
By my calculation, we have not had a general debate on Ukraine on the Floor of the House since February this year, and not on a substantive motion since 2023. The debate would allow the House to review the current worrying state of military preparedness and humanitarian situation, the position on frozen Russian financial assets held in Europe, the status of occupied territories that Russia wrongly claims for itself, and the Government’s approach to long-range defensive support and sanctions enforcement. Right hon. and hon. Members could examine the diplomatic context, test Government policy and cross-departmental co-ordination, and bring the diverse range of expertise and knowledge across the House to bear on a crucial issue facing the entire continent of Europe. Above all, it would allow this House of Commons, as an institution, to brief itself in full and demonstrate the strong sense of unity that exists in this country on the vital defence of our sovereign ally, Ukraine. The House has been steadfast in its support for Ukraine, and rightly so, but, as the conflict evolves, we must ensure our response evolves with it. It is possible that the Leader of the House’s genius for prognostication and intelligence-gathering may have already caused him to form a supportive view of this request, but, if not, I ask very much that he have the Government make time on 4 December for that timely and important debate.
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)
The business for the week commencing 3 November includes:
Monday 3 November—Second Reading of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill.
Tuesday 4 November—Opposition day (12th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.
Wednesday 5 November—Consideration of Lords message to the Employment Rights Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.
The House will rise for the November recess at the conclusion of business on Wednesday 5 November and return on Tuesday 11 November.
The provisional business for the week commencing 10 November includes:
Tuesday 11 November—General debate on the contribution of the armed forces to mark Remembrance.
Wednesday 12 November—Opposition day (13th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.
Thursday 13 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
Friday 14 November—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 17 November includes:
Monday 17 November—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill.
Jesse Norman
I thank the Leader of the House for that update.
I know the whole House will want to join me in sending our very best wishes to the victims of the hurricane in Jamaica, and now also Cuba, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
I want to pay a personal tribute to Prunella Scales, who died this week. She was a magnificent actress, the linchpin of a great acting dynasty and—as was her husband Timothy West—a wonderful reader of audiobooks.
Among the news this week have been the following items: the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), has been elected as deputy leader of the Labour party, and has vowed to work constructively with No. 10 Downing Street; the Director of Public Prosecutions has publicly contradicted the Prime Minister in relation to the collapsed China spying case; the Labour party has fallen in the polls to a record low for a recently elected Government; and Irish citizens may now be forced to have digital identity cards to work in this country under the Government’s new plans.
I would like to raise with the Leader of the House two important issues, one directly relating to the recent business of the House. As a former Chief Whip, he will know that the first question at Prime Minister’s questions always follows a simple formula: the Prime Minister is asked to list their engagements; he or she typically presents public condolences or congratulations and comments on an issue—often an international issue—affecting the whole House; and then says, “This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others,” and so on.
Unfortunately, since taking office last year, the present Prime Minister has increasingly misused his first engagements question. Two weeks ago, he used it to avoid making a full statement to the House about China, which I do not think can have pleased the Speaker’s Office. This week, he used it to try to score a series of partisan political points—by my counting, the eighth time he has tried to do this since taking office. This is an abuse of procedure, and it is a discourtesy to this House. Its effect is to turn an open question into a party political broadcast. It undermines a valuable opportunity to bring the House together every week on a matter of public importance before the usual knockabout of PMQs begins. It is unworthy of the Prime Minister’s office and unworthy of the Prime Minister, who is a very decent human being. Therefore, may I politely invite the Leader of the House to ask the Prime Minister to desist? [Interruption.] And may I wish him good luck in doing so?
My second issue concerns the so-called graduate premium. The Government hold an extremely powerful set of data known as the longitudinal educational outcomes —or LEO data—which link people’s school results, university records and later earnings. Many people in this House—including, perhaps more than any of us, the Leader of the House—will know that education can transform people’s lives for the better. This dataset can show what happens and how it does so in detail, but most of the data remain entirely hidden. Only limited figures have been published, such as average graduate earnings five years after university. The Government also have information on what happens to those who do not go to university, but this too is withheld, so we still cannot answer questions that are crucial for many people. How financially worthwhile is a particular course or a particular institution? How effective are apprenticeships? What difference does university really make?
The secrecy weakens public trust and good public policy. Families and young people are being forced to make major life choices without clear facts, because no member of the public or, indeed, Member of this House can see which courses or institutions genuinely improve this kind of opportunity. It seems that the Government themselves will increasingly use the data to shape policy, but without making those data public. People go to university for many different reasons, and financial returns are only part of the story, but these data are gathered at public expense and describe public outcomes. With the right safeguards, they should be open for review and for public debate and discussion. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has explained exactly how, so will the Leader of the House ask his colleagues in the Department for Education to make the LEO data public soon?
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)
The business for the week commencing 27 October will include:
Monday 27 October—Remaining stages of the Victims and Courts Bill.
Tuesday 28 October—Opposition day on a motion in the name of the official Opposition—subject to be announced.
Wednesday 29 October—Remaining stages of the Sentencing Bill.
Thursday 30 October—General debate on property service charges, followed by a general debate on the ageing community and end-of-life care. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 31 October—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 3 November includes:
Monday 3 November—Second Reading of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill.
Jesse Norman
In addition to the tributes that were paid earlier this week, I believe I will be speaking for all Members in mourning the death on Monday of our former colleague Oliver Colvile. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Oliver entered the House with me in that glorious parliamentary generation of 2010. He was nationally famous for taking a wicket in India on live television for the Lords and Commons cricket team, and for his memorable call in 2015 for hedgehogs to become a national emblem of the UK. As he pointed out in this Chamber,
“hedgehogs are prickly in character, have a voracious appetite and a passion for gardens, and have a noisy sex life.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 351.]
He said that he left it to the Deputy Speaker to decide which of those traits he himself possessed.
The Leader of the House has rightly put some distance between himself and his predecessor in electing not to engage in political knockabout, and I am four-square behind him on that. In that spirit, I will content myself by simply noting some of the news this week. The UK has just recorded net borrowing of more than £20 billion in September, the highest of any month since 2021. The Crown Prosecution Service has been forced to abandon the most consequential trial of Chinese spies for many years. Four people have resigned from the grooming gangs inquiry panel and the leading candidate to be chair has withdrawn. Newspapers have been briefed by No. 10 that the new Cabinet Secretary will be removed in the new year, after barely 15 months in his post. A person deported under the Government’s one in, one out programme has immediately returned by dinghy, reportedly citing his terror at being in France.
The Leader of the House may or may not wish to comment on those issues, but there are two specific items affecting many Members of this House that I bring to his attention. The first is the imminent closure of the fruit and vegetables aid scheme. As he will be aware, the UK fresh produce sector is worth more than £3 billion and is a significant part of the UK farm economy. There has been a plan in place for some time to grow that sector rapidly over the next three years through public and private investment in equipment, technology and infrastructure, but the current scheme closes at the end of this year without any movement to date on this crucial issue from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Will the Leader of the House therefore ask the Secretary of State to pick up this issue as soon as possible, push ahead with the plan and make a statement to the House, so as to avoid risk to the horticulture sector, local food production, jobs and national food security?
The second issue relates to the Government’s new local government fair funding review. As the House will know, this is a fraught area of concern for Members across the House, and I declare a particular interest, since it appears likely that Herefordshire council—my own county—will face a funding gap next year of around £27 million, or 11% of its net budget. That is a gigantic sum, which comes on top of the withdrawal of the rural services delivery grant, which supported so many local services. It is entirely unclear what the rationale for such a cut could be, especially for what is a relatively poor and sparsely populated part of the country. I also note, and bring to the attention of colleagues across the House, that the new formula will create serious problems for many local authorities up and down this country, including London boroughs.
The need for reform is clear, but the Government are still consulting barely six months before the new formula is due to be rolled out. Haste is the last thing anyone needs in an area of this complexity and delicacy. May I impress on the Leader of the House the need for care and deliberation from the Government in how this consultation is carried out and then implemented? Will he in turn express this concern to ministerial colleagues and give proper time for these issues to be debated at the length they deserve in this Chamber?
Sir Alan Campbell
I am pleased to see the shadow Leader of the House back in his place this week. I just inform him, if he did not already know, that last week we discovered in his absence that he has a highly capable deputy in the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who may or may not be joining us in deliberations later.
I join the shadow Leader of the House in paying tribute to Oliver Colvile, who the House will remember fondly as the MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport from 2010 to 2017. Our thoughts are with his family. Apart from his other achievements, not least in seeking to save hedgehogs, my understanding is that he never broke his party’s Whip and therefore would have been a Chief Whip’s dream, I can assure the House.
We also remember this week that it is 59 years since the Aberfan disaster, when 144 people lost their lives, including 116 children. We must never forget. Today also marks the launch of the Royal British Legion poppy appeal. We remember those who served and gave their lives in the service of our country, including those who were Members of this House.
I also pay tribute on a personal level and give my thanks to Kate Wilson, who is leaving the Cabinet Office this week. Her career has spanned three decades, and she supported successive Governments’ work in Parliament on behalf of the office of the Leader of the House of Commons and the Government Chief Whip’s office, and I hope the whole House will join me in wishing Kate the best in her future endeavours.
I also join with you, Mr Speaker, in wishing England all the very best in their rugby league match on Saturday against Australia. We wish England well.
I turn to the shadow Leader of the House’s points. First of all, it is true that we need to get the balance right in these questions between serious matters and, from time to time, knockabout. I have spoken to him privately about this, and I am committed to ending some of the knockabout—but given the list that he presented, he is tempting me. As some of the issues might come up in questions later, the only thing I will say is on my starting point last week on questions about the economy: any Conservative Member who asks a question on the economy should begin with an apology.
On the substantive matter that the right hon. Gentleman raises—the food and vegetable aid scheme—he is a strong advocate for the industry and particularly for his beautiful county of Herefordshire, where I understand it has been a great year for apples, but not always for other veg and fruit. I will draw his remarks to the attention of the DEFRA Minister, who I am sure will be happy to meet him if he seeks a meeting, and who will also keep the House updated on that matter.
On local government funding, I will respond by saying that the current system of local authority funding has left some places behind—there is no doubt about that. It is not a fair system. The previous Government understood this very well in their fair funding review, but, as with many issues, they just did not deliver on it. We will make good on our commitment to introduce improvements to align funding with need, and that will be the first time that has happened since 2013. We will also publish our response to the fair funding review 2.0 later this autumn, which will be followed by the publication of the provisional multi-year settlement. In the usual way, there will be plenty of time to debate that.
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the new Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
Mr Speaker
I welcome the new Leader of the House and thank the previous Leader of the House. I am looking forward to this session!
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)
Probably more than I am, Mr Speaker. [Laughter.] The business for next week is as follows:
Monday 15 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Employment Rights Bill.
Tuesday 16 September—Second Reading of the Sentencing Bill.
The House will rise for the conference recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 16 September and return on Monday 13 October.
The business for the week commencing 13 October includes:
Monday 13 October—General debate on baby loss. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Tuesday 14 October—Remaining stages of the Mental Health Bill [Lords].
Wednesday 15 October—Remaining stages of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill.
Thursday 16 October—Second Reading of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill.
Friday 17 October—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 20 October includes:
Monday 20 October—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill.
Jesse Norman
I thank the Leader of the House for the business.
On this 24th anniversary of 9/11, I know the whole House will want to join me and, I am sure, the Leader of the House in sending our best wishes to the families and the friends of the victims of those horrendous terrorist attacks.
So, too, our best wishes go to those grieving the murder of Charlie Kirk in the USA, and to our own great colleague, the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), for the terrible news she has had this morning.
I thank the recently departed Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). She and I had our disagreements; I do not think there is much doubt about that. She supported the wrong football team, and I struggled to get her to answer my questions, but she was diligent and effective in responding to Members across the House, as well as in Committee. Without getting too teary about it, I will even miss her appalling puns.
But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Hurricane tax dodge blew away the Deputy Prime Minister and destroyed the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted phase two, but it has brought us the former Labour Chief Whip! He was a history teacher, and there cannot be many better forms of public service than that. After his distinguished career channelling industriously away in the usual channels, I warmly welcome him blinking into the bright lights of the Dispatch Box.
I had somehow thought that, having plumbed the depths of incompetence over the summer, the Government would now settle down a bit. How naïve—how desperately foolish—I was. The No. 10 team were obviously taking the mickey. They were laughing at us. “You think this is incompetent?”, they said, “We have hardly got going. We can do vastly better than that. Resets are for wimps—let’s have a full-blown crash reshuffle. Let’s have a new Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, as well as a new Deputy Prime Minister. And let’s undermine the Chancellor of the Exchequer by ostentatiously lining up the former Chief Secretary to replace her. The markets will really welcome that. Even better—let’s have an election for deputy leader of the party. People are already scared to death about all the taxes coming in the Budget, but they will be completely reassured if we run a Labour leadership election at the same time. Ideally, we can make the deputy leader a former Cabinet Minister whom the Prime Minister has just abruptly fired. That’ll be good for stability. Oh, and we can go further! We can actively undermine relations with our closest ally if we throw in a major scandal over the Prime Minister’s personal choice as ambassador to the USA.”
If only this were a joke—instead, it is a tragedy. It is like we are trapped in an unending episode of “The Office”, with the Prime Minister as David Brent. The unions are ratcheting up their pay demands. The RMT is holding seven days of rolling walk-outs. The tube has come to a standstill. The only people who probably will not be affected are junior doctors in London, who have voted to have strikes until the new year, so they will be staying at home anyway. As the former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies remarked, it all shows how “staggeringly unprepared” Labour was for government, and it is we across this House and all our constituents who are paying the price for their arrogance and negligence.
The Leader of the House will only just be coming up to speed now, of course—one perfectly understands that—but, if I may, I would make one early request of him, with the utmost seriousness. He will know that many thousands of veterans, including hundreds in my constituency and in his, have had their lives thrown into uncertainty and bad—desperate, in some cases—anxiety by the Government’s decision to repeal the Northern Ireland veterans legislation, the Northern Ireland (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. That was more than a year ago now. The Government promised a legally sound and effective legislative solution to the problem they had created, so could the Leader of the House let us know—now or in a written update before the recess—when the Northern Ireland Secretary will come to the House and publish that solution?
Sir Alan Campbell
First, may I add my tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for her excellent work as Leader of the House over the last year? She spearheaded the revival of the Modernisation Committee, which was a manifesto commitment, and oversaw the packed legislative programme that formed the basis of this Government’s first King’s Speech. I know that I am among many MPs across the House who want to thank her for her diligence and hard work.
I would also like to express my thanks to Colin Lee, the Clerk of Legislation, who retires this week, having joined the House service in 1988. MPs from across the House have valued his wise counsel over many years, and I know the whole House will wish him well.
I know that the House will also share my sadness about the death of Sir Roger Sands, who was Clerk of the House from 2003 to 2006. Sir Roger was a distinguished servant of the House for 41 years, and the House will want to convey our condolences to Lady Sands and Sir Roger’s family.
I thank the shadow Leader of the House for welcoming me to my place. Before I turn to his remarks, I should caution him, and indeed the House, that the last time I answered a question at the Dispatch Box was in the same year that the iPad was released. Both you and I, Mr Speaker, had a little more hair and of a darker hue. At the time the average price of a pint of beer was £2.91—there are people sat behind me who were not even old enough to buy alcohol then.
I am looking forward to these sessions with the shadow Leader of the House. We have been in the House together for a decade, but I cannot claim to know him particularly well, so I also went to Wikipedia to find out a bit more. He is a philosopher, a historian and an author of note. It is clear that he is a thinking Conservative, which is an increasingly rare commodity.
I associate myself with the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about the anniversary of 9/11, and about the death of Charlie Kirk. Let us remember that, in these circumstances, Mr Kirk’s family have been robbed of a father and a husband. There is no justification at all for political violence, whatever the views of the person involved.
I know that there will inevitably be a degree of knockabout about the state of the Government, and indeed of the Opposition, at business questions. I am happy, any day, to have a debate on the comparison between this Government’s 14 months and the right hon. Gentleman’s disastrous Government of 14 years. The only thing that we were unprepared for was the scale of the state that this country was in.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s substantive point about Northern Ireland, he knows that those are difficult matters and that the Government have given a commitment to bringing forward legislation. It is important that reassurances are in place, and I can tell him that the Government will be saying something shortly.
Let me finish with this. The shadow Leader of the House and I both have a deep respect for Parliament. I can give him and the House the reassurance that I take my responsibility, both as the Government’s representative in Parliament and as the House’s representative in Government, very seriously indeed.
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)
The business for the week commencing 8 September will include:
Monday 8 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill.
Tuesday 9 September—Second Reading of the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill.
Wednesday 10 September—Remaining stages of the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords].
Thursday 11 September—General debate on regional transport inequality, followed by general debate on suicide prevention. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 12 September—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 15 September includes:
Monday 15 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Employment Rights Bill.
Tuesday 16 September—Second Reading of the Sentencing Bill.
The House will rise for the conference recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 16 September and return on Monday 13 October.
Hon. Members will also wish to note the written statement made this week confirming that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will deliver her Budget statement on Wednesday 26 November.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Leader of the House.
Jesse Norman
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope you and everyone in this Chamber had a very good summer break, with just the right proportions of sun, sleep and family.
If I may, let me start with a double round of congratulations: first, to the Prime Minister on his 63rd birthday this week, putting him squarely in the prime of life; and secondly, to my brilliant colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who has just been appointed to the giddy heights of shadow Deputy Leader of the House. That is the reshuffle that really matters. As befits a former lawyer at Freshfields, he will bring his forensic intellect to scrutinising the Government.
I had been planning to talk about the Government’s performance over the summer, taking into account the escalating union demands for pay, the rise in inflation, unemployment and gilt yields, and the record number of small boat crossings in the first half of the year. I think it is fair to say that the past few weeks have been a total shambles for the Government. Little wonder that the Prime Minister has undertaken yet another of his performative Government resets to distract the media and the general public. He insists that everything is absolutely fine, which is doubtless why it is all being changed round yet again. They cannot blame these things on the previous Government, though doubtless the Leader of the House will try.
There can, however, be only one topic today, and that is tax. In the real world, it seems that those of us poor souls who actually do pay tax are about to be confronted with a massive tax-raising Budget, perhaps with a particular focus, it has been rumoured in the media—or kites have been flown—on property taxes. Last year, the Chancellor increased spending by £70 billion, funding half of that through taxes and half through increased borrowing.
Of course, it seems that the only person who will not be paying more tax is the Deputy Prime Minister. I like and rather admire the Deputy Prime Minister—uniquely among the Government, she at least has a policy of trying to reduce taxes. We just heard the Solicitor General talk about Government taking a strict line on fraud; I did not hear so much about taking a strict line on tax fraud—[Interruption.] Or potential tax fraud, but we now have a situation in which the Deputy Prime has tried to dodge paying £40,000 in tax on her third home after demanding that previous Ministers should resign over tax scandals. It appears that she failed even to look at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs guidance on the internet as to whether higher rate stamp duty was payable. That guidance is readily available and is straightforward. It is hard to imagine that any qualified tax adviser—let alone any individual seeking to question their own tax arrangements—would not have taken a look or know about it.
The Deputy Prime Minister signed a deed for what appears to be an off-the-shelf trust scheme from Shoosmiths, the solicitors. Was that crafted to avoid tax? We need to know more about what disclosures she made to the civil service about her three homes, what review was carried out and what advice she was offered. I hope the Prime Minister’s adviser will look at those issues, in addition to all the other issues he is looking at.
Does the Leader of the House believe that Cabinet Ministers—let alone the Deputy Prime Minister of this country—should be using schemes to dodge tax? Should the Secretary of State responsible for housing be flipping her own main residence to avoid paying tax due on it? Does she concede that there is the appearance of very serious impropriety about these proceedings? Does she see how difficult they have made the situation for her colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is planning to put a Budget in front of this House that will include tax-raising measures, many of which will likely be focused on property? Above all, Labour—and every Labour Member stood by this—made a solemn commitment to maintain the “highest standards” in office in its own general election manifesto. Does the Leader of the House accept that this conduct by the Deputy Prime Minister massively falls short of that, and that it discredits both the Prime Minister and the Government as a whole?
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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 (Lucy Powell)
The business for the week commencing 21 July includes:
Monday 21 July—General debate on the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan.
Tuesday 22 July—The Sir David Amess summer adjournment debate. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
The House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 22 July and return on Monday 1 September.
The business for the week commencing 1 September will include:
Monday 1 September—General debate on regional transport inequality, followed by general debate on devolution in Scotland. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Tuesday 2 September—Second Reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.
Wednesday 3 September—Opposition day (10th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.
Thursday 4 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill.
Friday 5 September—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 8 September includes:
Monday 8 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill. Further to the dates that have already been announced for the conference recess, when the House will rise at the close of business on Tuesday 16 September and return on Monday 13 October, Members may also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the November recess at the close of business on Wednesday 5 November and return on Tuesday 11 November.
The House will rise for the Christmas recess at the close of business on Thursday 18 December and return on Monday 5 January.
The House will rise for the February recess at the close of business on Thursday 12 February and return on Monday 23 February.
The House will rise for the Easter recess at the close of business on Thursday 26 March and return on Monday 13 April.
The House will rise for the early May bank holiday at the close of business on Thursday 30 April and return on Tuesday 5 May.
The House will rise for the Whitsun recess at the close of business on Thursday 21 May and return on Monday 1 June.
And the House will rise for the summer recess at the close of business on Thursday 16 July 2026.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Where do we go from there? I call the shadow Leader of the House.
Jesse Norman
I doubt if the Leader of the House has ever given a more popular statement to the House of Commons. More seriously, this is a welcome development as it will give guidance to colleagues and their families, and I am sure it will be widely welcomed across the House, so I thank her for that.
I understand that Robert Gibbs, the acting director of catering services, will be leaving on Friday, after 25 years in this House. One shudders to think of the thousands of Members of the House of Commons and their staff whose lives will have been enriched by the joy of eating the food of the catering services under his command, and we thank him very much for his service. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in thanking him for his work.
We are getting close to the end of term and I want to thank all the staff for their service, and, of course, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Speaker and the other Deputy Speakers, and the Clerks for the resilience, courage, determination and poker faces that they have kept through all the business questions that we have had since the beginning of the year.
It may come as slightly more of a surprise to the House that I also want to thank the Leader of the House. No one who has not held that position understands the amount of work that is involved in scheduling and managing the business of this House, let alone the amount of work involved in scheduling and managing the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues. The Leader of the House distinguished herself with her very graceful response to my remarks about my father some months ago, and I thank her again for that. I also thank her for her engagement and humour and, I must say, more than a few groan-inducing puns, of which we will undoubtedly see considerably more this morning and with which she has dealt with questions from colleagues across all parts of this House.
I hope I may register that it is a slight sadness to me that the Leader of the House has not been willing to answer my own questions in the same spirit. I ask these questions not in a personal capacity, but as the spokesman for His Majesty’s official Opposition, whose function is, after all, to hold the Government to account. The refusal to answer genuine, sensible questions is actually a discourtesy not just to the House, but to our wider constitutional framework and ultimately the supreme source of sovereign authority in this country: the King in Parliament. I think any fair-minded person reviewing our exchanges would conclude that my questions are almost always directed at some public purpose, and it would undoubtedly improve business questions and the accountability and authority of the Leader of the House if she were able to engage with them.
In the same spirit, I will raise some serious questions about what the Government’s position is with regard to Northern Ireland veterans. As the Leader of the House will know, hundreds and thousands of men and women went to Northern Ireland not of their own accord, but under orders and in a chain of command on the Queen’s business, to combat the most serious terrorist organisation in the world at the time and to protect human lives and human society. Many of those veterans, including many members of the special forces, cannot respond to the terrible injustice being done to them.
Almost exactly a year ago, barely three weeks after the election, the Government decided to abandon the appeals to the Supreme Court to uphold the key sections of the legacy Act against a High Court judgment in Northern Ireland. In the veterans debate on Monday, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that those sections were “unlawful” as a result of the judgment. Yesterday, in Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister himself said twice that the legacy Act had been “struck down”. Unfortunately, those statements are both untrue and misleading.
There can be no doubt what the law is on this topic. A succession of the most senior judges in recent British history—Judges Steyn, Hope, Bingham, Hale and Reed among them—have made it absolutely clear that a declaration of incompatibility does not mean that the law is unlawful or has been struck down. As the then Senior Law Lord, Lord Bingham, said in 2004, in such cases the validity of the law “remains unaffected”.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is no lawyer, but he should understand that basic point, given his job. The Prime Minister, however, has been a barrister for 38 years, and a human rights lawyer for most of that time. It is inconceivable that he did not understand the distinction. To that extent, he was, whether deliberately or inadvertently, misleading the House.
The Secretary of State appeared to say that he had abandoned these appeals on political grounds. It is plain that the Government are split and have been unable to develop a satisfactory legal remedy in the 12 months since they abandoned the appeals, leaving thousands of veterans, many in their 70s and older, exposed to legal harassment, anxiety and trauma.
I put two serious and substantive questions to the Leader of the House. As the Leader of the House, in upholding the practices, tradition and honour of this House, will she ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister to correct those false and misleading statements to the House? When will we see legislation to address the legal gap that the Government’s decision to abandon these legacy Act appeals has created?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Before the Leader of the House responds, in case I misheard, let me say that the shadow Leader of the House knows we do not accuse colleagues of misleading the House. “Inadvertent” is the language.
Standards
Jesse Norman Excerpts(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
I thank the Leader of the House for those words. I would like, in supporting the motion, to add one small cautionary note. It has been relayed to me, both by constituency staff and by other bodies, particularly the trade unions, that there is a concern that it might be possible to connect the names released in the official public register with the email addresses used by staff. I would be grateful if the Committee devoted some consideration to that concern, among the other issues that it will wish to reflect on further, to ensure that this ruling is as good and effective as possible.
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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 (Lucy Powell)
The business for the week commencing 14 July includes:
Monday 14 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill, following which the Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration.
Tuesday 15 July—Opposition day (9th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.
Wednesday 16 July—Second Reading of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion relating to the Committee on Standards’ third report of Session 2024-25 on register of interests of Members’ staff, followed by a general debate on giving every child the best start in life.
Thursday 17 July—General debate on the global plastics treaty, followed by a general debate on ageing community and end-of-life care. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 18 July—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 21 July will include:
Monday 21 July—General debate on the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan.
Tuesday 22 July—The Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
The House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 22 July and return on Monday 1 September.
Jesse Norman
I am not going to let this moment pass—I am sure no colleague would wish me to—without again reminding everyone present that this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings. On 7 July 2005, 52 people were killed in four separate attacks and 700 more were injured, many of them grievously. I know that the whole House will want to join me in mourning the victims of these dreadful crimes and in sending all our best wishes to their families and loved ones.
While we are on the subject of anniversaries, the House will need no reminding that 2025 is 760 years since Simon de Montfort convened the first representative Parliament. Perhaps even more significantly, this year marks 800 years since the year 1225, when the charter we now know as Magna Carta was agreed as a statute and, indeed, became the first of all our statutes. To that extent, it is 1225 and not 1215 that should be recognised as the birth date of Magna Carta. [Interruption.] I am pleased to hear that wide array of support from the House—thank you. I thought it was an important point to put on the record.
For the Government, of course, the past week marks an anniversary of a somewhat less glorious and happy kind: their first full year in office. As a House, it falls to us to ask how the Government have done. It would be right to focus in the first place on their shockingly negligent and abusive treatment of our Northern Ireland veterans, but that is the topic of a Westminster Hall debate next Monday, so let us focus on wider issues.
Labour pledged to deliver the highest economic growth in the G7. In reality, UK growth has failed even to beat the G7 average. Labour promised to meet NHS waiting list targets for 92% of patients, but the current figure stands at 59.8%—just one percentage point better than a year ago. Labour vowed to smash the boats and the boat gangs, yet small boat migrant numbers are up by almost 50% compared with this time last year. Perhaps we can forget the pledges.
How, then, is the UK economy actually doing? Well, we know that the Office for Budget Responsibility has cut its growth forecast to just 1%, inflation is higher than a year ago and unemployment stands at its highest for four years. So diminished is the Government’s standing in international markets that the Institute for Fiscal Studies recently pointed out that the UK now faces higher borrowing costs than almost all comparable countries. It is two full percentage points higher than Germany and higher even than Greece and Italy.
I am afraid to say that the Government have stored up more pain to come. The junior doctors have now voted in favour of further strikes through the autumn and into the new year. They had a 22% increase last year, the House will recall, and they are now looking to their Labour brothers and sisters for a scarcely believable further 29%. That is before we include their pensions. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has, as the wildly overrated Aneurin Bevan said in 1948, “stuffed their mouths with gold”, and they are already coming back for more.
What has the media reaction been to all this? Internationally, The Economist described the Prime Minister’s first year as “wasted”. Time called it “a catalogue of errors”. The normally sympathetic New York Times commented that Britain’s Prime Minister is
“fading away before our eyes”.
Even supportive British newspapers have not been able to disguise their dismay. The Financial Times has bewailed Labour’s “drift”, and The Guardian its “lack of vision”—not my words, but those of some of the most respected newspapers in the world.
Finally, what do the poor, suffering public make of all this? We know what a laser focus those in 10 Downing Street keep on the polls, and it will not have escaped their notice that the Prime Minister’s approval rating is now at -35. No Government in recent times have ever lost public support after an election faster than this one. How mortified the Prime Minister must be to be wrenched back almost weekly from the perfumed chanceries of Europe to the grimmer realities of domestic politics.
We need not dwell on the pieties and pomposities of Labour’s pronouncements about stability and trust before the July 2024 election. These are the facts, they speak for themselves, and they say only this: must do better—a lot better.
Lucy Powell
May I join the shadow Leader of the House in marking the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings? We all remember that day well, and I am sure that the whole House will want to remember all those who died and those who were affected by it.
May I also take this opportunity to welcome the newly announced new director of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, the highly qualified Miriam Minty, who will be starting in September?
As the shadow Leader of the House said, this week we welcomed the French President to the UK for a state visit. I thought his address to both Houses on Tuesday was excellent and historic, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, your team and all those involved in organising it. I thought that it underlined the deep and enduring relationship between our two great countries. The visit concludes today with a summit, and I will ensure that the House is updated at the earliest opportunity on any agreements that we come to as part of that.
I have to say it is a bit galling that, week in, week out, the right hon. Gentleman raises the proposed strike action by junior doctors, which is extremely disappointing. We do not think strike action is necessary, given that the NHS is finally moving in the right direction. Strikes would put that recovery at risk, affecting patients and letting down our collective obligations to those we are here to serve. We have delivered a very generous pay settlement, but we are keen to work constructively. The Health Secretary’s door remains open—he will be in the House shortly.
Our approach is very different from that which the Conservatives left us. They left the NHS on its knees, with waiting lists at a record high, and with over half a million appointments and operations cancelled due to strike action in just one year. And it was not just the doctors; the rail strikes cost the economy over £1 billion, the teachers’ strike lost 600 teaching days in one year, and the Conservatives went to war with public sector workers week in, week out. I did notice, though, that the Leader of the Opposition is today giving a speech in which she will talk about the “ticking time bomb” that has been left. Too right there is a ticking time bomb—it is the Conservatives’ ticking time bomb. We all know that they left mines all over the place, and we are having to sweep them out.
The right hon. Gentleman wants to know how our first year in office is going, and I am happy to tell him. We promised 2 million extra NHS appointments, and we have delivered a million more than that. We said that we would get waiting lists down, and they are coming down month on month. Interest rates are coming down. Net migration is coming down from a record high under the Conservatives. We have secured three trade deals—trade deals that they once hailed but never delivered, and we have got them going. We have created nearly 400,000 new jobs since the election. We have recruited an extra 3,000 new police officers. We have built nearly 200,000 new homes, established Great British Energy, extended the warm home discount to 6 million more households, expanded free school meals for half a million more children, and opened free breakfast clubs. We have banned bonuses for water bosses who have been polluting our rivers, and wages grew more in our first 10 months in office than they did in the Conservatives’ last 10 years in office. I am happy to debate him any time on our record, and I thank him for the opportunity to do so today.
I do feel slightly sorry for the shadow Leader of the House when, coming here week in and week out, it is just going from bad to worse for the Conservative party, is it not? Perhaps that is why he goes so deep into history in his questions, because he does not want to talk about recent history. He is one of the first up this morning after—let us be honest—a big defection overnight, the latest in a long line of those fleeing the sinking ship. Personally, I would not put have put Jake Berry—best friend of Boris Johnson and former chair of the Conservative party—down as a likely defector. It really is that bad for the Conservatives. However, I could not have put it better myself, when Jake said
“we’ve got a Conservative Party that doesn’t seem to know what it stands for any more… the Conservatives have lost their way. They’ve abandoned their principles. They’ve abandoned the British people.”
He is right, isn’t he?
Having said that, and we cannot pass this by, that defection does not make up for what has been a terrible week for the Reform party, especially when it comes to, shall we say, HR matters. The bigger story for Reform this week is that it really is becoming the party of sleaze and scandal, and of dud and dodgy personnel. I do not think this is really the right moment for it to start ditching its vetting procedures. Even though it has only a handful of MPs, its Chief Whip seems to have had a busier week than ours, and that is saying something. I am not sure if Reform will welcome our partnership with the French on tackling the small boats this week, but it is already enthusiastically implementing a policy of one in, one out.
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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 (Lucy Powell)
The business for the week commencing 7 July is as follows:
Monday 7 July—Second Reading of the Pension Schemes Bill.
Tuesday 8 July—Remaining stages of the Football Governance Bill [Lords].
Wednesday 9 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
Thursday 10 July—General debate on the attainment and engagement of boys in education, followed by general debate on children’s health. The subjects for these debates was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 11 July—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 14 July will include:
Monday 14 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill, following which the Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration.
Tuesday 15 July—Opposition day (9th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.
Jesse Norman
I am sure the Leader of the House and all Members will want to join me in recognising this year as the 81st anniversary of the announcement by the Government of a national health service, by Sir Henry Willink in 1944.
Most of us wishing to celebrate an anniversary would probably have a bit of a party—maybe get a few friends round, order in some pizza and put up decorations. Only the Labour party would seek to celebrate its first year in office with the kind of Charlie Foxtrot multidimensional legislative omnishambles that we have seen in the past few days.
Given their three massive reverse ferrets of recent weeks, I must say I had thought that the Government had perfected the art of the U-turn. After all, they had had U-turns on winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit cap—each, in its own way, a little masterpiece of slow-motion dithering and indecision. But then, the other day, the Government upped their game significantly by executing a comprehensive 180° U-turn on their decision to hold a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, having repeatedly said that it was not necessary. Brilliantly, the Prime Minister managed to U-turn at the same time on his own speech about the UK being an island of strangers.
I naively believed that that was the state of the art—the Government had maxed out on U-turns and nobody could be more bewilderingly incompetent than that. How wrong I was. On Tuesday, we saw something that was almost unheard of in the 750 years of our Parliament—a Minister pulling out his chainsaw and disembowelling his own Government’s flagship welfare Bill in mid-air on live television from the Dispatch Box. Really, Mr Speaker, that outstrips my poor powers of description. We need the pen of a Shakespeare or a Thackeray to do it justice; it is the quintessence of cock-up.
But, actually, Mr Speaker, this past week has been much worse even than that. Just as Nick Clegg was defined by his U-turn on student fees, so the Prime Minister will be defined by this moment: a new and supposedly reforming Government with an enormous majority have been unable not to cut, but to reduce the rate of increase in public spending on benefits, let alone make any serious actual reforms to protect people.
There has been a remarkable complacency about this Government and this past week has shown it up. They regard disagreement as something to be ignored or crushed: they do not answer questions at the Dispatch Box; they obfuscate on written questions; they try to ignore the Opposition; they dismiss the House of Lords; and they spurn their own Back Benchers.
Loyal Labour MPs, concerned about disabled people, have been trying to get a hearing on this issue for months, only to be repeatedly rejected, and this has been the result. Three things follow from it. First, there are the immediate consequences. It will be next to impossible now for the Government to achieve meaningful reform of the welfare system. They have shown that they have no ability to make savings. Taxes will go up while the economy continues to stall. Little wonder the gilt market exploded during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday.
Secondly, the Prime Minister has opened the door to future rebellions. Indeed, he has gone further than that; he has written the playbook for them. Doubtless, he will have a reshuffle sometime soon. Loyal dissenters will be punished, the talented cast out, and Select Committee Chairs bought off, but that will make no difference. There will be others—the Select Committee Chairs have shown that they are a powerful new force in Labour politics.
Finally, the Prime Minister has massively damaged his own reputation. He has endlessly harped on about the need for professional competence and moral seriousness, but this has been a year in government that started with a host of undisclosed personal gifts received and has ended with utter political humiliation. He has shown that he is in office, but not in power. What is the point of this Government? No one knows, not even the Prime Minister.
Lucy Powell
I start by sending all our condolences to the friends and family of Liverpool football club star, Diogo Jota, following the shocking news of his and his brother’s death in a tragic car accident. It came only two weeks after his wedding and after winning last season’s premier league. I am sure the thoughts of the whole House are with his family, friends, Liverpool teammates and former Wolves teammates. I also send my best wishes to the Lionesses at the start of the Euros.
Tomorrow is Action Mesothelioma Day. I commend all the campaigners who continue to fight for justice for those who have died or are ill as a result of asbestos cancer. My dear friends and former colleagues, Tony Lloyd and Paul Goggins, sadly no longer with us, were real champions of this cause and I pay tribute to them.
May I take this opportunity, Mr Speaker—I would rarely do this—to put on record how proud I am of my friend, the first female Chancellor, who has been doing a very difficult and formidable job. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Quite honestly, she has more class than most Opposition Members—including, I am sure, some on the Front Bench. As the shadow Leader of the House has asked me to do so, may I update the House on the universal credit Bill, as it will soon be renamed? I completely acknowledge that how this business was managed was not the way that it should have been. The process did not live up to the standards to which I and the Government hold ourselves. However, as I said last week, we value the contributions of Members, especially those with particular experience of and interest in these issues. Critical to any good legislation is that it reflects parliamentary opinion, and I believe the Bill now does that. I think it is actually a good thing that we are prepared to listen and change, but Members should rest assured that we will take stock and reflect on how we can do things better going forward.
The Bill as amended, and the Timms review alongside it, now reflect the reform and safeguards that the House wants to see, and we will consider its remaining stages next week. The Bill’s title will become the Universal Credit Bill, as it will be narrower in scope. It will focus on ending the perverse incentives in universal credit, protecting the incomes of those currently in receipt of the universal credit health element and ending the reassessment of those with the most severe conditions, and clause 5 relating to personal independence payments will be deleted. Any future changes to PIP will come only following the Timms review, co-produced with disabled people and the bodies that represent them.
We can all agree that the welfare system needs reform and needs to be sustainable. The Conservatives should quite frankly be ashamed of their legacy, which needs addressing. It is a legacy of one in 10 working-age people on sickness or disability benefits; a legacy of a generation of young people with no mental health support and too few opportunities; a legacy of over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, many unable to work; a legacy of stagnant growth and no plan for job creation. It is this Government who are tackling those long-term challenges.
The shadow Leader of the House wants to talk about the Government’s anniversary. I am really happy to talk about our anniversary, because I am proud of our first year in office: our 10-year NHS plan coming out today, and waiting lists coming down month on month; a new, ambitious industrial strategy, creating job opportunities around the country; mental health support and the skills revolution; British jobs for British workers, with decent pay and conditions; the biggest investment in affordable and social housing in 50 years; finally clearing up our rivers and seas; bringing the railways into public ownership; creating GB Energy and getting bills down; half a million more children getting free school meals every day, and new free breakfast clubs; wages going up, and the biggest ever wage rise for the lowest-paid workers. That is the change that people voted for, and that is the change that we are bringing in.
Tomorrow is another anniversary—one that the Tories do not want to talk about: their worst ever election defeat. They were utterly rejected, and one year on, it has got no better for them—it is just getting worse and worse. They have not learned, they have not reflected, they have not apologised. The shadow Leader of the House talks about U-turns, but no one knows more about changing position and changing direction than the Conservatives. They changed Prime Ministers three times in three months! They went from austerity one month to spaffing money up the wall the next. One moment it was levelling-up, and the next it was funnelling money into the shires—from Brexit opportunities to Brexit disaster. One day they had an industrial strategy, the next they ripped it up. They were for net zero, then against it. They could not even cancel HS2 properly. In 14 years they have had more positions than the Kama Sutra. It is no wonder they are completely knackered.
Business of the House
Jesse Norman Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)
I shall. The business for the week commencing 30 June includes:
Monday 30 June—Second Reading of the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill.
Tuesday 1 July—Second Reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
Wednesday 2 July—Consideration of Lords message to the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.
Thursday 3 July—Debate on a motion on financial redress for 1950s women impacted by Department for Work and Pensions maladministration of state pension age changes, followed by a general debate on mobile phone thefts. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 4 July—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 7 July will include:
Monday 7 July—Second Reading of the Pension Schemes Bill.
Tuesday 8 July—Remaining stages of the Football Governance Bill [Lords].
Wednesday 9 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
Thursday 10 July—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 11 July—Private Members’ Bills.
Jesse Norman
I am afraid to say that the past week has been another horror show for the Government. This is Armed Forces Week, as the House will know. It is a time to celebrate and champion all those who serve and have served in our armed forces, and nowhere more than in my own county of Herefordshire. We must also note that, far from celebrating the armed forces, this Government deliberately opened the door last year to unfair and vexatious prosecutions of veterans who served decades ago in Northern Ireland, and they have kept that door open.
What else? The original Abortion Act was debated for more than a year, but the Government allowed no notice for public debate on the abortion amendment last week, and they gave just two hours of debate in the Chamber on the biggest change in abortion law in nearly 60 years. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the issue, that is a scandalously bad way to make legislation.
What else? Defence Ministers were left out of the loop on the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and were unable to say whether they supported this action by our closest ally. A Government Whip resigned, expressing her deep concerns over the welfare Bill, and the Government have promised to bring the Bill forward next week, as we have just heard—let us see if they do.
Talking of U-turns, the Government, having only just U-turned on the winter fuel payment, and again on grooming gangs last week, have prepared themselves for a U-turn on the two-child benefit cap less than a year since they suspended seven Labour MPs for voting against the cap.
This is just one week. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister’s personal reputation has continued to plummet? Only yesterday, The Times of London said:
“Not quite a year has passed since his landslide general election victory and already his political stock is trading at junk status, akin to a Zimbabwean dollar or Weimar papiermark.”
Mr Speaker, you may recall from your intimate knowledge of German history that the papiermark was a monetary instrument that led to hyper-inflation and political collapse. That is coming from The Times of London.
Shall we dig a little bit further into one specific reason why the Prime Minister’s reputation might have fallen so much? Following the record pay settlements of last year, the junior doctors have announced that they are “excited” at the idea of six months of strike action. Meanwhile, hospital consultants are balloting to see if they will strike as well. Doctors received a 22% increase last year after Labour took office, and now the junior doctors are apparently demanding a further pay increase of 29%. These are eye-watering numbers and, of course, we will all end up paying if the increases are granted, but I am afraid this is exactly what we would expect from a Government who have taxed and splurged the cash since the election.
It is hardly surprising that the unions now think they have an open door to extract money from the Treasury, and the Government have actually made the situation even worse through their rolling programme of nationalisation, and by abolishing NHS England. Whatever else it may have been, NHS England acted as a firebreak on union lobbying, because it operated semi-independently of Ministers. By abolishing it, the Government have now removed one of the few means they had to face down extortionate demands for more pay and more restrictive practices.
The same is true with the railways: as each one is nationalised—including South West Railway only last week—so the obstacles to the unions’ demands are progressively being removed. The House will recall the massive pay settlements given to the rail unions last year, with no attempt to negotiate any efficiency gains. It is only a matter of time before those unions come back for more, as the doctors are doing. These are not pay bargains; they are an abject surrender. Of course, Ministers themselves do not mind—after all, 90% of them are reported to be union members. As far as I can see, the Leader of the House is an exception: she is not a union member, and all credit to her for that.
Jesse Norman
Ah, okay. I am very sorry to say that the Leader of the House has corrected me. She is, in fact, a union member and therefore fully complicit in the same problem.
The Treasury itself is now the only hold-out against union demands. Little wonder the Chancellor has looked so unhappy and out of sorts—and that was before the Deputy Prime Minister started leaking memos calling for billions of pounds a year in tax increases. The unions know the Government are vulnerable, and they have come back for more. Labour Back Benchers also know that the Government are running scared and, led by their Select Committee Chairs, they are starting to get organised. Can the Leader of the House positively and personally now confirm that the welfare Bill vote will take place next Tuesday?
Lucy Powell
May I start by wishing two Deputy Speakers a happy birthday? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
As the right hon. Gentleman said, this is Armed Forces Week, when we thank and show our support for the men and women who serve, or who have served, in our armed forces over many years. It is nice to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place again this week, because we have missed him quite a bit recently, but I might gently suggest that if he had been here last week, he could have asked last week’s questions last week instead of asking them this week.
He asks me about the welfare Bill. As I have just announced to the House, the Second Reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill will take place next Tuesday, and the remaining stages of the Bill will take place on the Floor of the House the following week. I want to reassure colleagues that we take parliamentary scrutiny and the process of Bills extremely seriously. That is what our parliamentary democracy is all about: Bills are introduced; principles are considered at Second Reading; and the details receive robust debate and discussion, and are often amended in Committee, before we consider Third Reading. As the House would expect, the Government actively engage with parliamentary opinion throughout a Bill’s passage, as we are doing intensively with the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
I am sure that the whole House can agree that our welfare system needs reform. Too many people are consigned to benefits for life without support to work and to get on. During the pandemic in particular, the number of those on sickness and disability benefits rose significantly, and the previous Government did nothing to re-engage people with the labour market afterwards. One in eight young people are now not earning or learning. Many post-industrial communities have been scarred over generations by worklessness and little job creation. As constituency MPs, we have all seen the inadequate and, frankly, degrading nature of disability benefits reassessments.
Addressing these deep-seated problems is at the core of our Labour principles and what we are trying to do with our welfare reforms. I just remind colleagues that these include: the biggest permanent increase to the standard out-of-work benefit since 1980; an end to reassessments for all those with serious health conditions; creating a more holistic and professionally-led assessments process; the biggest back to work programme in a generation; the right to try work; and ending the era of consigning people as unable to work.
To be clear, it is the Conservatives’ legacy that this Government now have to sort out—their legacy of one in 10 working-age people on sickness or disability benefits; their legacy of a generation of young people with no mental health support and poor skills; their legacy of over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists; and their legacy of inaction on welfare reforms over years and years. Quite honestly, the right hon. Gentleman has a brass neck, because the Conservatives have written the book on Government chaos, have they not? There were three Prime Ministers in three years; they sent the markets into chaos, with Budgets done on the back of a fag packet—they really did write the book on that one—there was by-election after by-election for misconduct; over 40 Ministers resigned in a single day; billions were wasted on crony covid contracts; public services were left on their knees; and industrial action was sweeping the country, costing us all dear. All of that left ordinary people paying the price with higher bills, higher mortgages and longer waiting lists.
However, this is not just about welfare reform; it is also about the context in which this sits in, and that is what this Government are getting on with doing—this Government’s mission to create good, decent, well-paid jobs in every community; this Government’s mission to bring down waiting lists and deal with the deep-seated health inequalities in this country; this Government’s mission to tackle child poverty; this Government’s mission to build more affordable and social housing, giving people a bedrock in life; and this Government’s mission to revolutionise skills and opportunities for young people. That is this Labour Government, with our Labour values, getting on with the job and delivering for people.