Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Could I please ask the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Penny Mordaunt)]

The business for the week commencing 6 May will include:

Monday 6 May—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 7 May—General debate on defence.

Wednesday 8 May—Consideration in Committee of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.

Thursday 9 May—General debate on miners and mining communities, followed by a general debate on the BBC mid-term charter review. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 10 May—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 May includes:

Monday 13 May—Motion to approve the draft Procurement Regulations 2024, followed by a motion to approve the draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2024, followed by debate on a motion on the risk-based exclusion of Members of Parliament.

Tuesday 14 May—Motion to approve the draft Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (Amendment of Schedule A2) Order 2024, followed by a motion to approve the draft code of practice on fair and transparent distribution of tips.

Wednesday 15 May—Remaining stages of the Criminal Justice Bill (day 1).

Thursday 16 May—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 17 May—Private Members’ Bills.

[Nick Smith]

I thank the Leader the House for the forthcoming business.

I pay tribute to the former Member for Hazel Grove Lord Stunell, who sadly passed away this week. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

I welcome to our Benches my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). His words on how the Government have run down our NHS speak for millions. It is remarkable that the Conservative majority of 80 has been almost halved in four years.

This week, there has been a victory for the victims of the infected blood scandal regarding the deadline for compensation. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for her tireless work on this cause. Could the Leader of the House outline when the timetable for compensation will be set out?

Closer to home, people across south Wales are troubled by the job losses at Tata Steel in Port Talbot. Will the Government work with Tata to ensure that compulsory redundancies will be avoided? Time is of the essence, and there are worried steelworker families across south Wales.

The business for next week is light, with no votes until Wednesday. We can guess why the Prime Minister would want to keep his parliamentary colleagues off the estate. The internal politics of the Tory party have become so febrile that they are getting in the way of good governance. While our constituents face ever higher bills, the Government have simply run out of steam. Tomorrow, we will hear the verdict of the voters. In recent months we have begun to see the runners and riders for the next Tory leadership contest. The Leader of the House says that she has the Prime Minister’s back. Coincidentally, she has been supporting her colleagues up and down the country. Following on from schnapps with Shapps, can we look forward to gin with Jenrick or perhaps Pimm’s with Penny? I am a Scrabble fan, but there is a new game of political Cluedo coming along. Who could be the one to strike the fatal blow against the Prime Minister? Will it be cocktails with Kemi in the garden? My money is on the Leader of the House with the sharpened Telegraph column in the drawing room.

Another possible leadership contender is the Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron. Has he recused himself from part of his role? That point was raised twice last week at Cabinet Office questions, with no clarity provided. Our parliamentary scrutiny is weakened when the Foreign Secretary is out of reach in the other place. Lord Cameron has unanswered questions from Members of this House. He is yet to reply to my letters asking about his time at scandal-hit Greensill Capital. One question was about his use of private planes and personal taxation. We learned this week that Lord Cameron still enjoys VIP air travel. Taxpayers had to foot the bill for his trip to central Asia in a luxurious private jet. How does the Leader of the House think that looks to struggling families across our country dealing with a cost of living crisis?

We wish the Leader of the House, the Foreign Secretary and fellow leadership rivals well. We may well see them touring the TV studios. The Prime Minister has hinted that he may call a general election this summer if his party performs well today, or he may cling on as the clock runs down. Mr Speaker, you can understand the Prime Minister’s hope that something will crop up, but after 14 years in charge it is clear that it is time for change. Each Thursday morning, the Leader of the House puts on a good turn. Some say it is a dress rehearsal for the following Wednesday lunchtime. Who knows? This time it may come to pass.

[Penny Mordaunt]

First of all, I would like to join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Lord Stunell of Hazel Grove, who sadly passed away on Monday. He entered the House of Commons in 1997, leaving for the Lords in 2015. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the coalition Government and I know Members on all sides of the House will mourn his loss. On our Benches, we are particularly grateful to him for being an effective and collaborative Minister in the coalition, working alongside colleagues to bring in the Localism Act 2011 and drawing up the national planning policy framework. I hope that the many tributes paid to him in the coming days will be a comfort to his loved ones.

I join with the many remarks made by colleagues regarding the tragic loss of Daniel Anjorin, and also the incident in Sheffield. My thoughts, and I am sure those of the whole House, are with all those affected, especially Daniel’s family. I also pay tribute to the police for their courage. They often get a hard time from us in this place, but we should never forget the risks they take and the service they do us. I know the House will also be glad to see His Majesty the King out and about with the public again. I wish all candidates in today’s elections good luck.

The hon. Gentleman tempts me, but I am going to resist, because there is nothing I could say that would be more detrimental to the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter)—to his character, his integrity, his standing in his community and his future prospects—than what he has done to himself. I think that is just about dawning on him.

I, too, welcome the progress on the infected blood issue. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Paymaster General has set out the timetable for the body to be established on 20 May. We now have a clear timetable that I hope will give confidence to all those infected and affected by this terrible scandal.

I will certainly make sure that the hon. Gentleman’s comments on Tata Steel are heard by the Secretary of State.

I have to break it to the hon. Gentleman that it is not going to be Pimm’s with Penny. I am more of a pints with Penny person. But yes, I too have read that I am to be installed, rather like a new boiler, into No. 10 next week. I have to say, Mr Speaker, that there is as much truth to those stories as there is to Labour’s assurances to its business community that it is not actually going to do the things that it has been saying it is going to do and has promised its union paymasters.

Let me say again that I support our Prime Minister, and I will continue to support him after this weekend and beyond, because his plan is working. I will do everything I can to ensure that Labour does not get a chance to wreck the nation again. The nation has chosen a new trajectory to protect its border, to enable growth, and to trade more with the world to strengthen its partnerships with allies. Our exports are 2% above 2018 levels, and we are the fourth largest exporter overall and the largest net exporter of financial and insurance services in the world. Trade barriers have led to a £15 billion uplift for UK businesses in the last five years, and since 2010 UK manufacturing growth has been higher than that of any other G7 nation. We are on the right path, and we have to stick to it. I do not want to give Labour the chance to unpick all that we have done, from Brexit to trade union reforms.

The hon. Gentleman asked about a general election, and whether something was going to crop up. I think that something is going to crop up. Whether it is pensions, the NHS, rail, tax or welfare, the Labour party claims that it is going to do one thing but is planning another, and I think that the public will see through that. It is the most audacious deception since the big bad wolf donned a winceyette nightie and asked Little Red Riding Hood to admire his upper dentures, but unlike red Riding Hood the British people have met this wolf before, and they remember that the story does not end well.

The British people remember how disastrously Labour ran our trains, and we have read this week that to improve efficiency, Labour plans to run fewer trains. They remember MRSA-infected hospitals, and they are now seeing the unforgivable state of the NHS in Wales as it struggles with a reduced budget. Labour is responsible for that, as it is Labour that cut the NHS budget. They remember Labour council tax hikes for pensioners and others on fixed incomes, which constituted the largest increase in their outgoings. In government Labour doubled council tax, and in Wales it has tripled it. The British public will look at the council league tables, out today, and notice that the worst services are provided by Labour councils, those charging the highest taxes are Labour local authorities, and the areas with the worst crime rates are Labour-controlled; and where do we see the lowest employment rate, the smallest pay packets and the worst NHS waiting lists in the whole UK? In Labour-run Wales.

Always, every single time Labour is in office, every single time the British people give Labour a chance, they find themselves worse off, poorer and less safe, badly served and with more unemployment, and they see that the nation is weaker. At least those in the Labour party are consistent. So I say to the British people, “Don’t give them the chance to do it again.”

Further business will be announced in the usual way.