Business of the House

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising those points. As she said, I am not the Minister responsible for the Bill, but I am happy to respond. This is a crucial piece of legislation and, as she said, there is urgency in getting payments out. There is a complicated set of requirements, so officials have taken some time to ensure that they get the details right.

The hon. Lady is right that the Bill will be debated on Wednesday and, given the short notice, the Leader of the House has made arrangements for Members to be able to table amendments as flexibly as possible. She slightly contradicted herself by saying that there has been a delay and that now the Bill is being rushed. It is important to get these things right, but, given the factors out there in the economy, it is also important that people can access these payments as quickly as possible. Of course, I will feed her thoughts back to my ministerial colleagues and to the Leader of the House, but I hope she can appreciate that the Government are trying to be as efficient and flexible as possible in helping Members when we come to debate the Bill next week.

Question put and agreed to.