Business of the House

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It is certainly not right, but I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman might at least have acknowledged that in setting the first ever national living wage, it is this Government who have lifted, very considerably, the minimum levels of pay that low-paid employees around the country can now expect.

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

The right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) asked the Leader of the House what progress has been made in setting up Select Committees to scrutinise the new Departments for Exiting the European Union and for International Trade. He said that discussions are ongoing, but when we get back here on 10 October it will be more than three and a half months since the referendum. We have had very little detail this week of what the Government propose to do, and I—like lots of other hon. Members, I am sure—am being inundated with requests from businesses and individuals in my constituency, asking what the Government are going to do in the light of the vote. Can the Leader of the House guarantee that, when we return on 10 October, those Select Committees will be in a position to get up and running and to scrutinise those Departments to try to get the answers that we have not had this week?

[Mr Lidington]

I very much want that to be the position, and I hope that the ongoing discussions through the usual channels have a successful outcome soon.