Business of the House
Debate between Judith Cummins and Joy Morrissey(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
It is an honour to be responding to business questions as we march on to the recess. I know that the Leader of the House has had a challenging few weeks, but I want to start by thanking her for everything that she has done to advocate for Members in this House.
This morning, we have learned that the Government have been prevented from signing their Chagos surrender deal by the High Court. When will the Prime Minister come to the House to explain this latest humiliation and masterclass in how not to negotiate in Britain’s interests?
I know that Members across the House often say things in the Chamber and elsewhere that they regret. I know, too, that the Leader of the House has said that she regrets her words on rape gangs, but it is for the victims of those rape gangs to decide whether those regrets are enough. It is time for the Government finally to take action on this scandal. Will she grant a debate, in Government time, on the rape gang scandal, and commit the Government to the national inquiry that the victims deserve?
At the previous business questions, I called on the Leader of the House to ask the Chancellor to U-turn on her disastrous economic policies. Since then, things have got even worse. This week, inflation, which stood at 2% when Labour took office, has surged to 3.5%. Today, public sector net borrowing hit £20.2 billion, the fourth highest figure for the month since records began. We have had a disastrous Budget followed by an emergency one, and it looks like the next one could be catastrophic.
It seems that the Deputy Prime Minister has also had enough of the Chancellor’s economic policies. The difference is that we on the Conservative Benches want the tax raids on businesses and households to be reversed, but the Deputy Prime Minister wants more tax and more spend. Yesterday, the Prime Minister would not rule out more tax rises either. I think that we can all see what is coming: £40 billion of tax rises last autumn was never going to be enough for this Government—a Government who are tough with the vulnerable, but weak with the unions.
The Deputy Prime Minister may be on leadership manoeuvres, but it is quite a shopping list of new taxes that she is after—although, curiously, further taxes on second homes were not included. It is the people who save hard for their retirement and build businesses who are next in the firing line for the tax-raid obsession of this Labour Government. To pensioners, farmers and business owners we can now add savers to the list of people whom this Government seem determined to make poor. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate, in Government time, on the Government’s economic plans, so that the Deputy Prime Minister can also come and set out her tax plans for the House. I would be very interested to see the tag-team operation there.
If the Deputy Prime Minister is otherwise engaged, perhaps we could turn our attention to yesterday’s welcome U-turn from the Prime Minister. I understand that he has always been gifted with the most flexible of principles, but it was quite a sight yesterday to see him admitting to promising a U-turn on punishing pensioners without any date for that U-turn, or an explanation of whether it would benefit all or just some pensioners. Crucially, we did not hear an apology from him. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the winter fuel payment U-turn, so that the Chancellor, or the Prime Minister, can come to this House and apologise to pensioners and set out when they will give pensioners the certainty that they can heat their homes next winter?
Let me conclude—[Hon. Members: “More!”] Ah, thank you. We are watching the Government in a slow-motion car crash, with no economic plan but to tax and spend as fast as they can. It is not the gingerbread man; it is tax, tax as fast as they can.
We are watching a Prime Minister who is having to undo the decisions of his own Government in the space of just months but who cannot bring himself to apologise. The Government are already showing that they have failed to learn the lesson of all socialist Governments: they eventually run out of everyone else’s money. This Government seem determined to run out in record time, and the only losers will be the British people.