Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome parts of this Budget because if it works, it will prop up the system for a bit longer, but I am worried that we have seen announcements about the extension of furlough, for example, at a point at which many workers will have already been hit by decisions taken by employers who were worried that such an announcement would not be made today.

The country is crying out for change. It is in debt and there is an uncertain future for many individuals and businesses. Brexit, which I do not think I heard mentioned in the Chancellor’s speech, is hitting businesses and individual consumers very hard and proving costly to the economy, certainly in the short term. The bit that was missing from the Budget is the vision for a country that should be supporting people into decent, affordable homes; that should be properly tackling net zero, on which I will touch in more detail; and that should have a plan for social care, the sector that was abandoned in the early stages of covid.

We should also be tackling the challenging issues in respect of different employment statuses that have caused so much difficulty for so many. In my constituency is represented everything from zero-hours contracts to IR35, self-employment, people employed for tax purposes and people on short-term contracts. Covid has had different impacts on different groups of people.

The Chancellor said he will do whatever it takes but, structurally, the inequalities remain. The poorest get a welcome prop-up with the extension of the uplift to universal credit, but only to September. I am not sure that I can see—I am sure the Chancellor would agree that he does not have a crystal ball—what will suddenly change in September that will mean that people do not need the extra £20 a week.

Structurally, there are real issues. A few figures have been announced today on green initiatives—I have not had a chance to go through the detail in the Red Book—but there is no clear plan. We have targets on net zero and other environmental targets, including on things such as electric or net zero cars, yet there are not enough milestones along the way to the targets, which are coming upon us really fast. I will look in detail at the little bits of money announced today, as my Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, is examining issues relating to the green economy in a series of inquiries.

I welcome the fact that there is finally a bit more support for some of the self-employed people in my constituency—we need to see the detail on that—but it is a whole year late. Like many Members, I have constituents who have lived for a year without a penny of income and did not qualify for universal credit, and sometimes they were in exactly the same position as somebody else who lost their job only a day later. Lives have been put on hold and future plans shredded, and there is no prospect of work for many people in many sectors for many months.

I welcome investment in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions to look at fraud and error. These are small amounts. But it was this very Government who pushed bounce back loans through, as the National Audit Office has said, with very little regard to risk. A slight delay of 24 or 48 hours would have put less risk on the taxpayer for the guarantee on those loans. With regard to some of the furlough schemes, at the early stages it was right to get this out the door, as my Committee has acknowledged, but later, more safety mechanisms could have been put in place. That money is good money chasing bad, in many respects. The risk appetite was high.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentions the risk in bounce back loans. Her Committee—our Committee—has done sterling service over the years on the whole question of tax evasion and the investigation of that. Does she have anything to say to the Chancellor about that, because it is a very large, lucrative area that the Government could pay attention to?

[Meg Hillier]

I have hopes for some of the £100 million that HMRC has been given. In fact, having scanned the Red Book, I see that other money is being added to HMRC. As a Committee—as the right hon. Gentleman, a former Chair of the Committee, will know—we are very keen for HMRC to get money because with every £1 it gets for compliance it brings back a lot more to the Exchequer. We need to look closely at this because there is a challenge in the tax system—for example, as regards high street businesses versus online businesses. It is a complex matter and no one should imagine that there is a simple solution; I know he does not think it is simple. It is something we need to continue to engage with.

On housing, once again we have seen a focus on fuelling demand, not increasing supply. The Chancellor seems to have got off the hook on leasehold issues for constituents of mine, and those around the country, who had dangerous cladding by taking the announcement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government last week as though that is the matter closed.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about leaseholders, as did the Father of the House, and she knows that many are affected in my constituency. Does she agree that it is absolutely crucial that we get clarity from the Chancellor as soon as possible about the consequentials for Wales—he talked about funding across the Union—of those announcements? There needs to be work with the Welsh Housing Minister to sort out the issues around the levy and the tax that have been proposed that are supposed to fund dealing with these fire and building safety issues. It is absolutely urgent that that is done as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier]

I completely agree: it is absolutely urgent for the people living in those homes whose lives are on hold, but it is also important for the Exchequer. If the Chancellor’s announcements do fuel demand for buying housing, that is stymied by the fact that so many people are stuck in homes that are unsaleable and worth nothing, so they are mortgage prisoners. The whole supply system is not working and the demand system is being fuelled in the wrong direction. We have seen homes in my constituency that were being sold at just below the last threshold for this.

My Committee has looked at the Government’s housing policies over many years now. One million new homes in England were promised between 2015 and 2020 and 500,000 more by the end of 2022. Even taking into account the pandemic, we saw, for example, the starter homes project fail completely after nearly £200 million was spent on land remediation alone, with £2.3 billion in total set aside for that in the 2015 spending review. Yet this did not happen because the Government did not even manage to enact the secondary legislation necessary to get it off the ground. Five years later, they finally announced that it was the end of the starter homes project and introduced First Homes, a discount for first-time buyers, and now we are seeing a loan guarantee on 95% mortgages. It is a very muddled policy. I cannot yet see who will benefit, and we will be looking at this in detail.

On net zero and the environment, the Government are setting big targets, but our detailed work in the Public Accounts Committee raises many concerns. This is on top of failures on the green deal, the privatisation of the green investment bank, three competitions for carbon capture and storage—one more was recently announced, but so far the first three have failed—and real inertia on developing proper, long-term commitments to really tackling climate change.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

rose—

[Meg Hillier]

I will not give way as I have already taken two interventions.

It is easy to make announcements; it is much harder to get the system to deliver on them. There is a will in this House, I think, to deliver on this, but the Government have to stop making cheap headlines.

On jobs, only one in 100 young people aged 16 to 24 is benefiting from kickstart. Again, it is a nice headline, but unless it delivers for our constituents, it is not working. We need to act now on making sure that further education is properly funded so that it can plan ahead as, hopefully, we come out of lockdown and into more normal life, and make sure that people are able to be reskilled.

Finally, I welcome the movement—as far as I have read the detail, which is not in full yet—on visas for tech entrepreneurs. This has been a brake on progress in Shoreditch in my constituency. However, we have young people in this country who were brought up in the UK, for whom it is their home and the only country they know, and they are struggling to buy citizenship at over £1,000 apiece, because families cannot afford it. They may pay for citizenship for the main householder, but not for the family. This is something that I feel is viscerally unjust. We have these talented people in our communities, in our constituencies, in our country, who are essentially British but priced out of citizenship. So if we are going to have visas for tech entrepreneurs at an easy rate, why not do that for the young people already in our country who are willing, able and capable of contributing?

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Four and a half years since the referendum, here we are. I accept we have left the European Union, we are in the transition period and at 11 o’clock tomorrow the shutters will finally come down on that chapter of European-British relations, but we have more than a thousand pages in an agreement and a hastily drafted Bill that runs to 80 pages, but that has to be read alongside many other pieces of legislation to be fully understood. We have five hours of debate today and I have three minutes, of which I have already used up half a minute, to talk about how poorly the Government are using this place.

This is not parliamentary scrutiny; in keeping with the festive season, it is much more of a charade. It does not give us the chance to do properly the job that we should be doing. This place does not always make good legislation, and this is clearly rushed legislation.

I have many concerns about this Bill. I have big concerns about Northern Ireland. As someone married to a dual Irish-British citizen, I spend a lot of time on the island of Ireland, and I see the real challenges of what is being put in place, and I saw the lack of thought about that land border right from the get-go in the run-up to the 2016 vote.

The security matters concern me, including SIS II, the European arrest warrant, and Europol. Services are not included in this agreement, despite, as others have said repeatedly, their accounting for a trade surplus with the EU. Professional qualifications and issues affecting musicians and others in the creative industries affect my constituency particularly. As a constituency Member for the City fringe, I am very concerned we still have not bedded in arrangements for financial services.

It is security arrangements that concern me most. They have been massively weakened by this agreement. I spent three years in government negotiating over access to SIS II, Prüm, the European arrest warrant, Europol, Eurojust and mutual legal aid. Those were all things that I dealt with day in, day out with our European neighbours, and we have thrown that away. We have thrown away so much of what we have been fighting, even in the last decade, to get much more closely involved with. We are now attempting to patch together, with more bureaucracy, the same things as we are giving up with this Bill.

The lack of scrutiny and the impossibility of reading the Bill properly make me unable to support it today. I am not voting against it, because I recognise that the votes in 2016 and 2019 give this Government licence to take us out of Europe, but I cannot be complicit in what is a wrecking ball in the name of sovereignty. We now need to drop the “remainer” and “leaver” labels. We need to unite to fill the gaps in the creative and performing arts, in the financial sector, in the recognition of professional qualifications and, above all, in security. It is because of those security measures, in particular, that I cannot be complicit with the Government and will abstain today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We had hoped to go to North Shropshire to listen to Owen Paterson, but the line has gone down. We do hope, Owen, if you are watching and listening, to come to you before the wind-ups a bit later on. We will try our level best.

Covid-19

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The whole objective today is to avoid that second national lockdown—nobody wants to see that. My hon. Friend is right to point the finger at us: we can do this together if we take responsibility for the way we behave, the way we enforce the rules and the way we act in public places. That is how we will get the R down collectively and defeat the virus.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Back in July, the Government introduced the Business and Planning Act 2020, which allowed the sale and consumption of alcohol off the premises for as long as the licence of licensed premises. Today, just weeks later, the Prime Minister has come to the House to say that there will be no sales and no service in hospitality after 10 o’clock at night. Will he explain the rationale behind that 10 o’clock curfew and the Government’s very fast change of plan?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises an important point, and I am grateful to her. As Members from all parties have said, these are not easy decisions—nobody wants to curtail the right of restaurants and other businesses to go about their lawful business. What we have seen from the evidence is that, alas, the spread of disease tends to happen later at night, after more alcohol has been consumed. This is one way that we see of driving down the R without doing excessive economic damage. That is the balance we have to strike.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It has been a pleasure to hear the erudite legal arguments tonight from Members including the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). I am not an erudite international lawyer, so I see it as it is, and perhaps I will put it in simpler terms. It is an utter shambles. It is chaotic.

We have a history of cheap slogans that are now coming home to roost. When people boil down major international issues into three-word slogans and believe that they are true, this is what happens. We had “Take back control”, when we already decided the vast majority of our laws. We had “Get Brexit done”, when it is not as simple as that at all, as we can see from our being here today discussing it. Then we had the “oven-ready deal”—the deal that was then delivered by the current Prime Minister but is now being undermined by his very own Bill. It threw up squarely and clearly the problems between Brexit and the hard-fought Good Friday agreement, and it is now being ripped up and is causing huge problems, playing fast and loose with devolution.

The impact on the independent decision making of the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive is frankly shocking, especially for a party that describes itself as the Conservative and Unionist party, but that is not entirely surprising. This is a Government who think that the law can be applied differentially. We saw it with the shutting down of Parliament illegally before the last general election. We have seen it with the breaking of lockdown rules for some favoured few. Shockingly, we see it now with the breaking of international law. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) says that, if we break international law, it should not be done casually. Well, this seems rushed and casual to me. Less than a week ago, none of us knew that this was coming—perhaps not even the Prime Minister—but it has huge long-term impacts.

This afternoon, I chaired the Public Accounts Committee. We were looking seriously at the Government’s proposals around export strategy; the Government have a target to boost exports, which we would all expect. We were challenging the Department about how it was going to achieve that. There is a real will to deliver it, but what country will trust us now if we pass this Bill, which says that we will legislate our way out of any international deal?

In short, this Government are not competent. They have been cavalier, they are undermining the Union and they are damaging the UK’s international reputation irrevocably.

National Audit Office

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It gives me great pleasure to support the motion proposed by the Prime Minister to appoint Dame Fiona Reynolds, who, as he has highlighted, has had a distinguished career, particularly as head of the National Trust and, more recently, as Master of Emmanuel College. She is the first woman to hold this important position, and I also put on record my thanks to Lord Bichard, who will have given six years of service when he hands over the reins to Dame Fiona in January.

The NAO is crucial in holding the Government to account, safeguarding taxpayers’ money, and, increasingly, under the new Comptroller and Auditor General, Gareth Davies, learning to do better. So it is heartening that the Prime Minister and I agree on the importance of the NAO and the suitability of Dame Fiona to take up this role. Her considerable experience will be well played in the NAO. Of course, the Comptroller and Auditor General determines all the audit procedures, but she will have a pivotal role on the board in making sure that the organisation becomes as modern and sophisticated as it needs to be to deal with the challenges of the modern world. So I fully and wholeheartedly endorse her. This was the first virtual appointment and I have not yet met Dame Fiona, so I look forward to doing so when lockdown restrictions lift still further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The joint biosecurity centre is a very welcome addition to the armoury of weapons that the UK Government have in fighting this infection. It is the case that, for the JBC to work effectively, it needs to work across the whole United Kingdom. I can confirm that devolved Administration chief medical officers and Health Ministers have been working very successfully with the Secretary of State for Health in order to ensure that information can be shared in a way that benefits us all.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

We know that test, track and trace has been slow to get to where it is, but we are glad it has started. However, the key thing, whatever happens centrally, is local tracking and tracing. Hackney Council is a pioneer borough, and we are really pleased that that is the case, but what is critical is that we are not getting the data that will help us track people. For example—forgive the long question, Mr Speaker—if an individual is tracked as having been close to someone who has tested positive, all Hackney gets is the information that they live in the borough of Hackney. That is not enough to act on. When will boroughs get that detailed localised information from central track and trace so that they can act and help attack this virus?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I will be talking to the team who are operating the JBC later today, and I will raise that specific point with them. I am really grateful to her for raising it with me.

Budget Resolutions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I should declare an interest in the Budget as a leaseholder in a block that needs cladding removing, although, happily, in my case, the developer is footing the total cost. Would that all were so responsible!

The Budget is optimistic—that is the polite way of describing it. It is a mix of old announcements repackaged and a very long wish list, and of course the devil will be in the detail of the delivery, which I and the Public Accounts Committee will be examining. It is a privilege to chair the Committee, although it also ruins me in terms of making cheap political promises, and it means I can spot a cheap political promise a mile off. There are missed opportunities in the Budget, on housing, education and social care, and it comes against the backdrop of a looming spending review—supposedly in July, though we understand that coronavirus could delay things—in preparation for which Departments are already facing 5% cuts on normal business.

Let’s not pretend, then, that a wave of a magic wand today and a flurry of promises means that what is being promised will be delivered. There are particular issues that may be quite problematic, which I will pick up on later, but I want to talk first about the proposals on statutory sick pay for coronavirus. I welcome the intent, of course, but so many people are on zero-hours contracts that this serious issue of coronavirus is underlining a systemic problem in our society. We have a two or even three-tier employment system, with too many people not even able to get statutory sick pay. In my constituency, we also have many self-employed people—a rising area of work—and the idea that a claim for benefits will be quick and easy is not realistic. I had the privilege of visiting my local jobcentre and meeting the fantastic team. They are working hard on a personal level to deliver for the people of Hackney on benefits. I did not get the chance to ask them about the Budget, but I think it will be quite hard to set up a scheme in which a load of checks would have to be waived, in which everything would have to be done over the phone, and in which a lot of the normal processes would have to be suspended. That will lead, I fear, to fraud, and particularly to the scourge of overpayment, because it will be difficult to do the necessary checks to make sure that people are getting what they should.

Zero-hours contracts are a growing issue. The Office for National Statistics labour force survey tells us that from October to December 2019, there were 974,000 workers on zero-hour contracts, which is 3% of the workforce. That is a record in both percentage and absolute terms. If we look at younger people, 9.1% of people aged 16 to 24 who are in employment—nearly one in 10—are on a zero-hours contract. The Government trumpet the new jobs that are being created, but we need to be mindful that many of them are part time, low paid and very insecure. It is not surprising that over a quarter of people on zero-hours contracts want an additional job, or a replacement job with additional hours. That is a big concern, particularly in the social care sector, where about a quarter of the workforce are recorded as being employed on zero-hours contracts.

We heard nothing, except in the Chancellor’s peroration, about social care—no solution for that sector. People in the national health service know that without investment in social care, any money thrown at the health service will have limited effect. Given the current situation with coronavirus, it is particularly vital that we protect social care.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Meg Hillier]

I will not, I am afraid, because of the time.

Another issue that I am very concerned about is housing. Money for housing may be a start, but it depends exactly where it is going. According to the Red Book, the money is for an affordable housing fund, but my definition, and my constituents’ definition, of affordable housing is very different from the Prime Minister’s when he was Mayor of London. In high-cost areas such as Hackney, it is vital that housing be properly affordable. I have so many constituents living in really difficult circumstances. As of August last year, there were over 13,000 households on the housing register in Hackney. That is a 33% increase over the past five years, and responsibility for that lies firmly, squarely at the Government’s door. The wait for new housing is life-changing. The wait for a two-bedroom property for someone in the “urgent” band is seven years. For those in the “priority” band, it is three years, and it is six years for those in the “general” band. Madam Deputy Speaker, can you imagine waiting six or seven years to get your child and your family into stable accommodation? I have rafts of examples of people in temporary accommodation who are living in one room in a hostel with their children.

I absolutely welcome the money that the Chancellor has committed to removal of dangerous cladding. So many of my constituents are mortgage prisoners who face bankruptcy, and whose life is on hold, so that money is a welcome step, but—there is a “but”—it is probably not as much money as is needed. It may well be that £1 billion is a drop in the ocean of what is required, and the money is only for properties over 18 metres high, yet the latest Government guidance note includes buildings over 11 metres. The Chancellor spoke quite loosely about removing all dangerous cladding; that is a very wide promise, and in the Red Book, all I see is that detail will be laid out in the spending review that is expected in July, so there is a delay in getting more details, and a further delay before the promise is implemented. If the spending review is delayed because of coronavirus, or for any other reason, people in my constituency and across the country will remain in limbo, waiting to find out what will happen.

I was glad that the Chancellor, in an almost throwaway line, pledged that the Government would pursue building owners and developers to ensure that they paid their share. That is absolutely right. Some of the estimates are high because everything to do with fire safety that has gone wrong in a building is being added to the bill. Frankly, if a developer did not put a fire door in properly, it should not be down to the taxpayer or homeowner to backfill for that; that should be down to the people who made the mistake. The track record shows that for any Government, getting money back from the private sector once there has been a taxpayer-funded giveaway is challenging. I will look closely at the detail to make sure that those who were irresponsible do not get away with it.

An area that is missing from the Budget is Brexit preparations. We are due to leave the European Union on 31 December, yet there was nothing in the Budget about how we will pay for that. On two occasions in the past year, money has been spent like water to prepare for no deal. The Public Accounts Committee has been looking at that. It is very expensive to prepare when we do not yet know what is happening. Businesses up and down the country, among others, are living in uncertain times and will need information, so there will at the very least be an information campaign. Of course, a lot of other Government work is being done to prepare, but there is nothing in the Budget for that on top of what is in existing budgets.

The Chancellor talked about capital investment in further education; I only ask how much will be used to pay off the existing loans that the Government have had to bung to FE colleges because they are so cash-strapped that they were unable to pay back the grants they were given so those grants were turned into loans. That could absorb quite a chunk of money, so I wonder how much is actually for new capital investment that will be invested in vital technical and other education to make sure that we have a workforce fit for the future.

The Public Accounts Committee has looked into carbon capture and storage. There have been two attempts to deliver it and a third competition that delivered nothing. Millions of pounds have been wasted. An £800 million bung to a sector that has not managed it so far, when there is no capacity out there to deliver it, seems to me to be good money after bad. It is a great idea—I would love to see carbon capture and storage work to make sure that our energy-intensive industries can continue—but there is a long way between promising £800 million and getting it delivered. I really do hope that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking at the issue closely and actually has a plan behind the money. The worst thing is just to throw money at something for a cheap headline and not have a plan for delivery.

The health surcharge has a big impact. I have a constituency that is the world in one constituency—the world in one borough—and am proud of that. The many fees that are landing on migrants are having a huge impact on their ability to get on with their lives and become fully contributory members of our society. At £624 per annum—more than double the current rate—the health surcharge is going to mean a huge cost of more than £2,000 for a typical family. If a person applies for discretionary leave to remain, they now have to apply three times before they have the option of applying for citizenship. The fees rack up, at £800 a time for DLR and more than £1,000 for citizenship. It is no wonder that young people and older people are being deported from this country because the law currently says that if they do not have citizenship and commit a crime, they will be deported—many people would be citizens, if only they could afford the cost.

The issue with NHS pensions, which was first identified by the Public Accounts Committee in 2012, is now finally being tackled, eight years later, but at the huge cost of the loss of the experience of doctors that we now need in the NHS to deal with the coronavirus.

There are many promises, but little detail. I assure the Chancellor and the Treasury that there will be plenty of scrutiny from the Public Accounts Committee.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his passion for Africa. We are committed to working with African countries to boost renewable energy potential and cleaner energy alternatives. For example, the Africa clean energy programme is working in over 15 countries to increase the deployment of off-grid renewable energy.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Department invested nearly £300 million of taxpayers’ money in the airport on St Helena. Will the Minister update us on whether aircraft can now land and take off from that expensive airport?

Transport Infrastructure

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. It will be very important to collaborate with appropriate delivery vehicles, such as the charity that my hon. Friend mentions.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to have certainty over HS2, but the Prime Minister has unveiled a raft of big spending projects. Where is the money going to come from?

[The Prime Minister]

The money is coming through the hard work and effort of the British people. This Government will manage our finances prudently and ensure that the economy is not wrecked, as it was by the last Labour Government.

Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

The type of Government we are talking about is the type that has just won a resounding majority at a general election and has the support of the people. I think that is a pretty good answer to his question.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

This does smack of either a deliberate decision to make sure that the mainstream press is being discussed in this way in this House today, or it was just an almighty mistake. Will the Minister, who is a reasonable woman, not use this opportunity to say sorry and that it will not happen again?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady takes us on to very, very sober ground, and rightly so. She has great experience as a scrutiniser in this House, but the fact is that that is the wrong characterisation of what has happened. I have set out what the facts of the matter are: what we are dealing with is standard lobby procedures supplemented by an additional specialist briefing. There is nothing more sinister than that, and I think that even she, who is also a very reasonable Member of this Chamber, is just going a little too far.