Business of the House

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House give us the future business?

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

The business is as follows.

Monday 11 April—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Tuesday 12 April—Debate on a motion on reform of support arrangements for people with contaminated blood. The subject of this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee. The Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.

Wednesday 13 April—Opposition day (unallotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 14 April—Debate on a motion on national security checking of the Iraq inquiry report, followed by debate on a motion on diversity in the BBC. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 15 April—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 18 April will include:

Monday 18 April—Debate on a motion on the introduction of the national living wage and related changes to employee contracts, followed by debate on a motion on educational attainment in Yorkshire and the Humber. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 14 and 18 April will be:

Thursday 14 April—General debate on the pubs code and the adjudicator.

Monday 18 April—Debate on an e-petition relating to funding for research into brain tumours.

[Melanie Onn]

This week we remember those who died in the terrorist attacks in Brussels. It happened so close to home, which is an immediate reminder of how fragile our peace is, and of how important it is for nations to stand together against extremism in all its forms. I thank the House authorities for taking threats to this place seriously, and for the security guide that they have issued. I recommend that all Members note that document and share it with their staff.

I welcome the fact that today we have three women speaking for their parties in business questions. I shall be doing my best to avoid being hostile. When I found out that I would be standing in, I feared that I might have nothing to talk about, but I need not have worried. In fact, so much has happened that I have made my own list.

It has been a truly dismal week for the Government. Ever since the Ozzyshambles Budget, they have been in complete confusion and chaos. This must be a record for the number of Government U-turns in seven short days. First the disgraceful personal independence payment cuts were dropped on a Friday, with the pre-election promise of £12 billion in welfare cuts disowned altogether by Monday; then, yesterday, the Prime Minister said that the Government would fulfil their manifesto commitment on overall welfare cuts.

Can the Deputy Leader of the House explain to me—in simple terms, please—how the £4.4 billion black hole in the budget will be filled? As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) asked on Tuesday, if it was so easy to absorb the £l billion a year U-turn,

“why on earth did the Chancellor introduce it in the first place and frighten the life out of…disabled people…?”—[Official Report, 22 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 1394.]

Nearly 3,000 people in Great Grimsby on disability living allowance will be transferred to the personal independence payment, and they will have had sleepless nights wondering how they were going to manage. Will the Deputy Leader of the House now do what both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister failed to do, and offer her apologies for the stress and anxiety that have been caused to the hundreds of thousands of disabled people by this needless upset?

I welcome the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to his post, although I am not sure how grateful he is to have been dropped into such hot water. It seems that the claws are out already; and let us hope that he does not have a soft shell. Almost immediately after his appointment, he faced calls for him to step down as patron of his local Mencap branch because of his support for the Government’s disability benefit cuts. He is also taking his own constituents to court to force them to pay the bedroom tax. He may be a new face, but it seems that it is just more of the same from the nasty party.

There were more U-turns as the Government changed course on Tuesday to allow the VAT hike on solar panels and the tampon tax to be defeated. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) on that major achievement on the tampon tax. She is a feisty campaigner, having become the first ever Opposition Back Bencher to secure an amendment to a Budget, and all that in her first year. We wait with bated breath for her next target.

On the same day, the Home Office quietly announced that it would no longer be banning poppers—so the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) can relax now. [Laughter.] Ah, the laughter is coming. I can hear it now.

According to the Education Secretary, all Government announcements are really just “consultations”, and not concrete policy, so may I suggest one more U-turn? Following the vote in the House of Lords on Monday, will the Government allow 3,000 children to take refuge in Britain, and when will this House debate the issue? There are 26,000 refugee children in mainland Europe who are travelling without a parent, relative or guardian. It is time for Britain to act in accordance with its best traditions, and to give those children a home and a childhood.

May we also have a statement on the country’s energy security? EDF Energy, the company behind the Hinkley project, told the Energy and Climate Change Committee yesterday that the decision on the nuclear site’s future has been delayed until May, and rests in the hands of the French Government. If the Hinkley project does not go ahead, there will be serious questions about whether the Government can keep the lights on and meet our climate change commitments. Will the Energy Secretary come to the House and make a statement on what she is doing to ensure that this crucial project goes ahead, and what is her plan B if Point C does not proceed?

Many responded to the resignation of the previous Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), by warning “Beware the IDS of March”, but there is really no comparison between the two events. In fact, they could not be more different. The Ides of March marks the brutal end of the career of someone who was in favour of closer European integration, had filled the legislature with his followers, and was feared to be setting himself up as the unfettered leader of his country. That is not quite the record of the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green.

[Dr Coffey]

I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) about what happened in Brussels. She is right to point out that the sentiments of the British people are with the victims there. It is important that we should be alert but not alarmed, and we recognise the ongoing work of the police and the domestic services to ensure that we are all safe.

I should like to pay tribute to Milburn Talbot, who retires as Deputy Principal Doorkeeper today. I know that he will be much missed, including from his role in the parliamentary choir: his dulcet tones have echoed out across the chapel and many concert halls. I first met Milburn, and his lovely wife Christine, back in 2003 at a garden party. His wife is a senior county councillor in Lincolnshire, and he was, rightly, supporting her. After his service in the armed forces and to this House and his dedication to democracy, I really wish Milburn well in the next stage of his life. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

I welcome the hon. Members for Great Grimsby and for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) to their places. My constituency and that of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby have similar attributes in that we are on the coast, where fishing is important and green energy offers a vibrant future. She has not yet knocked the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) off his perch, but she has shown that she is a dab hand at the Dispatch Box. That said, as she is in the “hostile” gang, and it seems that the hon. Member for Rhondda has been neutered, she will have to put her skates on if she wants to get back into the good books of Captain BirdsEye.

What a week it has been. It has been far from dismal. We have had a turbo-charged Budget, backing businesses of all sizes—the frontline of the economy—and providing work to millions more people. I am sure that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby will welcome the fact that more than 600,000 businesses, more than 70,000 of which are in Yorkshire and the Humber, will no longer pay business rates from 2017. Meanwhile the Labour party is between a rock and a hard place, floundering to get off the hook of the fact that it left office with the largest deficit ever. After six years of progress, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have navigated through choppy waters with a steady hand on the tiller. We have weathered the storms and, while there are still storm clouds ahead, our long-term economic plan means that we are ship-shape to reach a safe harbour of economic security, living within our means and working towards tackling the deficit that was at risk of dragging down the country.

The hon. Lady asked several questions, and she can of course use Labour’s Opposition day to debate some of those matters. On the question of personal independence payments and disabilities, I want to stress that we are a one nation Government who want to support everyone to achieve their full potential and live an independent life. In the last 12 months alone, 152,000 more disabled people have moved into work. That represents real lives being transformed as we help people with disabilities and health conditions to move into work and to benefit from all the advantages that that brings.

Dare I say that, even though Labour had the largest peacetime deficit ever, spending on those with disabilities or health conditions will be higher in every year to 2020 than it was in 2010. However, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the House on Monday, the Government will not be going ahead with the changes to PIP and we have no plans for further welfare savings over and above those we have already announced. We have legislated to deliver the £12 billion of savings promised in our manifesto, including those made a fortnight ago in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. We are committed to ensuring that disabled people live their lives free from discrimination, and that is why we have also strengthened the Equality Act 2010 to create a level playing field and to ensure that the law properly protects them.

The hon. Lady referred to the tampon tax, and I want to pay due tribute to the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) in that regard. I will let you into a secret, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member for Dewsbury and I had a bit of a back-and-forth on Twitter, but I am pleased to say that the Government have successfully negotiated—with prompting; I am not denying that—to ensure that we have a zero rate, and I am hoping that that will be introduced in legislation in due course.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby talked about immigration and the refugee children. Everybody is moved by that situation, but I strongly support this Government’s policy of taking the most vulnerable people directly from the camps in the countries surrounding Syria. I think that that is the right approach. She will be aware that, since the decisions were made late last year, the United Kingdom has welcomed more than 1,000 Syrian refugees, and I am pleased that the communities have done their best to ensure that those vulnerable people are made to feel welcome in the United Kingdom.

On energy security, we have just had Energy and Climate Change questions and the hon. Lady referred to EDF and Hinkley Point. Sizewell happens to be in my constituency, and I hope that Sizewell C will follow Hinkley Point C. I assure her that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Energy Ministers continue to have discussions with people at the highest levels of the French Government.

It has been quite a week, Mr Speaker, and many MPs found some pre-recess fun at the British kebab awards last night. I might put in a plug here for the Tiffin cup, which is being promoted by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). The people who found fun at the awards included the Leader of the Opposition, who, after being—dare I say it?—skewered at PMQs yesterday, may be looking for some donors, but instead found plenty of doners.

I hope that all hon. Members enjoy the Easter recess. They are welcome to visit the villages and towns of Suffolk Coastal, spending lots of money if they do—I know that some members of the Labour party do that. Members will need to recharge their batteries, because we have a full agenda of legislation when we come back, including the Finance Bill, further cementing this Government’s long-term economic plan.