Business of the House

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his gracious welcome of my continuing presence. I am sure that if I am suddenly called away, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), will be more than able to take over for the rest of the session.

The Government are bubbling over with brilliant ideas; I have never known a Government with more ideas coming through. Chairing the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, I see these fantastic ideas. Parliamentary draftsmen are drafting away at the speed of light to prepare an exciting outpouring of Bills, which were announced in the Queen’s Speech and which will be coming through. To say that what we are offering up after the recess is “thin” is absurd. We are having a fundamental Environment Bill, which will legislate for the future of our environment and be a world-leading Bill. We also have the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, which will ensure that we are at the forefront of medical technology. Those are two fundamentally important Bills. If necessary, we will also be dealing with the remaining parts relating to a terrorism Bill safeguarding the nation. Some Members really are hard to please! We then put in an Opposition day, and for the Opposition to complain about Opposition days is like turkeys complaining that Christmas has been cancelled—it seems to me to be an eccentricity. As regards the claim of right, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I have given several times before.

[Mr Speaker]

Let me help the House by saying that I am expecting to run business questions for 45 minutes or thereabouts.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate on pension funds, particularly those in the local government sector? Evidence has emerged this week that in London there is a £17.98 billion deficit between the assets and the liabilities. Clearly the concern is that this is unsustainable, right across the piece. This ranges from Bromley Council having a £59.1 million deficit to Brent Council having an eye-watering £925.7 million deficit. Clearly there is a problem, and we should have a debate in Government time to expose this scandal and make sure that our hard-working public sector employees have their pensions protected.