Business of the House

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we welcome back the shadow Leader of the House. We were entertained last week by her deputy, but mainly at his expense, so it is good for her party that she is back. She invented one or two new words in her question—[Interruption.] Well, to pick up on the Prime Minister’s invention a couple of weeks ago, we on the Government side know the definitions between those words: sadism is when the shadow Chancellor insists on giving us a speech; and masochism is when we ask him to read it out again.

The hon. Lady noted the debate on the firefighters pension scheme, which we have of course found time for next Monday. She asked about the spare room subsidy, which in our view is a basic matter of fairness, as has been explained many times. That will be discussed in the debate next Wednesday. She asked about the Government’s 100th defeat in the House of Lords in the course of this Parliament, which certainly shows a certain independence in the upper House, but of course that does not mean that the Government agree with its conclusions. It is crucial that judicial review continues to hold public authorities to account for the right reasons. In the Government’s view, the reforms strike a fair balance between limiting the potential for abuse of judicial review and protecting its vital role as a check on public authorities. We are disappointed by the outcome of the votes in the Lords and will now consider our next steps before the Bill returns to this House.

The hon. Lady attacked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for failing every test on the economy. Is not one of the tests reducing the huge deficit that was left behind by the previous Administration? Is not one of the tests reducing unemployment to a much lower level than we were left with? Is not one of the tests having 2 million apprentices in this country that we did not have before? Is not one of the tests keeping inflation under control? Should not one of the tests be having the fastest growing economy in the G7, as now confirmed by the OECD? I am not sure what the Opposition think the tests are if they think they have been failed. Those are the key tests of a successful economy, and they have come about only under this Government. She referred to poverty. The official figures show a reduction of 600,000 people living in relative poverty in the past four and a half years, including 100,000 in the past year. Only a continuation of our approach will succeed in continuing to reduce it.

The hon. Lady aligned her questions with the speech that the Leader of the Opposition is meant to be giving today, for which we should be grateful. It is clear that he has now finally remembered the deficit but is unable to think of anything to do about it. We understand from the now published recollections of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), that the Leader of the Opposition does not get “much of a look-in” from the shadow Chancellor on economic policy. That is exactly the same kind of dysfunctional relationship that we saw in the previous Labour Government, and it ended up with Britain having its biggest budget deficit in peacetime history. If Labour Members have now finally remembered the deficit, I hope they will choose it as one of their subjects for next week’s Opposition day debate, because then we can ask them why, if they believe that the deficit should be lower, they have opposed the entire £83 billion of welfare savings in this Parliament. That would be a debate to look forward to.

[Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Next week, will my right hon. Friend be publishing a Command Paper and making a statement to the House on English votes for English laws? Can he confirm that every party aspiring to government after the next election has addressed the English question? Will he promise that we will have a debate and an early vote on the options?

[Mr Hague]

I do intend to publish a Command Paper next week setting out options on, among other things, the question of English votes for English laws, and I will certainly seek to make a statement about that. The same three parties that contributed their policies to the Command Paper on Scotland were asked to contribute to this Command Paper. So far, there has been no sign of the official Opposition supplying any policies or ideas to put into it, and it will therefore reflect the views of the two parties in the coalition. I hope that we can have an early debate and, indeed, a vote on these issues in the new year.