Business of the House

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)]

The business for the week commencing 23 February will include:

Monday 23 February—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill, followed by Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Universal Credit (Removal Of Two Child Limit) Bill.

Tuesday 24 February—Opposition day (18th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the Liberal Democrats, subject to be announced, followed by debate on a motion relating to the charter for Budget responsibility.

Wednesday 25 February—General debate on Ukraine.

Thursday 26 February—General debate on St David’s day and Welsh affairs, followed by general debate on Government support for bereaved children. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 27 February—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 2 March includes:

Monday 2 March—Second Reading of the Representation of the People Bill.

Tuesday 3 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make her spring forecast statement, followed by consideration of Lords amendments.

Wednesday 4 March—Estimates day (4th allotted day). At 7pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Thursday 5 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill, followed by general debate on contributions of Commonwealth troops in world war one, followed by debate on a motion on the future of palliative care. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 March—The House will not be sitting.

The House will no doubt be interested in recess dates going forward. Members may wish to know that subject to the progress of business, and further to the dates that have already been announced, the House will rise for the summer recess at the close of business on Thursday 16 July 2026 and return on Tuesday 1 September 2026. The House will rise for the conference recess at the close of business on Tuesday 15 September 2026 and return on Monday 12 October 2026. The House will rise for the Christmas recess at the close of business on Thursday 17 December 2026 and return on Monday 4 January 2027.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Tuesday 1 September clashes with my birthday, but we can discuss that later. I call the shadow Leader of the House.

[Jesse Norman]

On behalf of all Members, I thank the Leader of the House for giving us those recess dates, which will be widely welcomed.

Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest of all United States Presidents, so perhaps this is a fitting moment to talk a little bit about public service. I congratulate the Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Rev. Mark Birch, on his new job at Westminster Abbey, and I welcome his successor, the Venerable Andrew Hillier. We thank them for their service.

I note that the International Olympic Committee has banned a Ukrainian athlete from wearing a helmet of remembrance for his fellow athletes who have been killed by Russia—talk about public service.

Otherwise, the news has once again been filled by a succession of the most appalling misjudgments by the Prime Minister. These include decisions by him to ignore both public evidence and private advice, and to appoint to the House of Lords not one but two men with continuing connections to convicted paedophiles. It has been confirmed today that the Prime Minister was aware that his nominee, Matthew Boyle, had campaigned for a man charged with distributing indecent images of children two months before the Prime Minister appointed him.

The fallout from the Mandelson scandal has so far included the departures of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and his head of communications, one after 18 months and the other after just a few weeks in post. We now have the leaked news that the Prime Minister’s personal choice of Cabinet Secretary is being forced to step down after barely a year in post. As they say at the BBC, deputy heads must roll.

Of course, no Government are free from scandal—goodness knows, I can say that from personal experience—and certainly not the previous ones, as the House will know well, but let there be no deflection or fudge on this matter. There has been nothing to compare with this catalogue of personal misjudgments by a Prime Minister for perhaps 60 years. Every sitting day, the chaplain leads the House in prayer for public service, that we as a House may

“never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices”.

Every Member of the House knows those words, but that is precisely what these people have failed to do.

I will end on a positive note with a truly uplifting story from this week. Some years ago, my constituents, Sam and Emily Stables, set up a brilliant charity called We are Farming Minds in Herefordshire. It is dedicated to supporting farmers struggling with poor mental health. Sam is a sheep farmer himself, and he knows only too well from personal experience how immensely difficult, stressful and lonely life can be on a farm—still more, given all the recent troubles that farmers have had to endure, including outbreaks of tuberculosis and other diseases, a dysfunctional farm payments system, increasingly burdensome regulations, and of course, most recently, the farm tax.

On average, a farmer commits suicide every week in this country. On Monday, however, Sam embarked on a walk of hope from Ross-on-Wye to London in support of Yellow Wellies’ Mind Your Head Week and of greater public awareness of mental health in the farming community. By my calculations, he is coming through the Chilterns right about now, heading for High Wycombe. With luck, I will find him this afternoon on the trail around Beaconsfield. That is what real public service looks like. Let us all take this opportunity to send our deep thanks to Sam and Emily, and to their volunteers and supporters, for their extraordinary work.

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[Sir Alan Campbell]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in recognising the vital role that trade unions play in improving lives of people across the country. The Government have worked very closely with trade unions and with businesses to deliver the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation through the landmark Employment Rights Act. The Act is a key pillar of the Government’s plan to make work pay, which will grow the economy, boost wages and reduce insecure work, and improve people’s lives.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Over the last few weeks, there has been a national debate raging that, so far, this place has been pretty silent on. It is on the matter of student loans. I know what some on the Government Benches may be thinking, but I am not prepared to duck difficult subjects.

Let us face it: the student loans system has changed beyond recognition since its introduction, and that is one of the key complaints of graduates. Maintenance grants have been scrapped in favour of loans, which means that the poorest students now arrive at university with the largest debt. Interest rates, tied to inflation, have soared in recent years; following the period of high inflation, people have been saddled permanently with much larger debts than they expected. Thresholds have been repeatedly frozen, including by this Labour Government at the last Budget, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates will add around £3,000 on average to people’s debt pile.

All that means that the agreement that students struck has been repeatedly, and unilaterally, changed by the lender after the agreement. I do not believe that would be tolerable in any other walk of life. When the Chancellor was challenged on this last week, she said that the system is “fair and reasonable”. I do not agree, and I think many graduates do not agree, so will the Leader of the House organise a debate in Government time on the changes that have been made to the student loans repayment system?

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[Sir Alan Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising an issue of such importance, and I am genuinely sorry to hear about the cases that he raises. We are committed to building a national care service based on a high quality of care and greater choice and control. I will ensure that Ministers have heard his concern. If he wants to seek a meeting with Ministers to brief them more fully on what is happening in his part of the world, I will arrange that meeting.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I thank the Leader of the House for mentioning the stabbing at Kingsbury high school. The good news is that the two children who were stabbed are in a stable condition, and the suspect has now been charged with multiple charges, including attempted murder. The police investigation is clearly ongoing, and we cannot comment on it any further.

I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for stepping into the breach at very short notice when the previous debate that the Backbench Business Committee had allocated for Thursday 26 February was withdrawn.

As the Leader of the House has mentioned, estimates day debates are coming up on 4 March. We are open for business for applications by a week tomorrow; we will then decide which debates will be allocated time.

When we return, the business in Westminster Hall will be as follows. On 24 February, there will be a debate on Government support for healthcare systems in Gaza. On Thursday 26 February, there will be a debate on Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2026, followed by a debate on the impact of VAT on independent faith schools. On 3 March, there will be a debate on strengthening community cohesion. On 5 March, there will be a debate on the importance of local museums, followed by a debate on World Book Day.

When we return on 23 February, it will be the third anniversary of the hunger strike by Vahid Beheshti outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. He has had terrible privations as a result of this hunger strike, and no Foreign Office Minister in either the previous Government or the current Government has even had the courtesy to visit him. Given the circumstances in Iran, with more than 30,000 civilians being murdered by the tyrannical regime, Vahid has been calling for the proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for the last three years. Can the Leader of the House arrange for a Minister to at least meet Vahid so that he can convey his reasons for carrying out this hunger strike?

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[Sir Alan Campbell]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in congratulating Grant McFarlane and everyone else involved in Fèis Phàislig—if I pronounced that correctly.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

One more time?

[Sir Alan Campbell]

That is easy for you to say, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I said before, volunteers are the golden thread that runs through our communities and we celebrate them and great Gaelic traditions.

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[Sir Alan Campbell]

I do not think there is a need for such a debate, because I am still—I am hesitating here—a member of His Majesty’s Government, as Ministers are members of His Majesty’s Government. That does not mean that, for outward-looking communication purposes, “UK Government” is not an appropriate term. I genuinely do not understand why this is such a difficult concept, but I will certainly bear the hon. Gentleman’s comments in mind.

While we are here, let me commend the hon. Gentleman for following his new leader’s advice on not working from home. It is a shame that many of his colleagues do not do the same—we rarely see them—but he is an assiduous attender of these sessions, and I thank him for that. I would have described him as a flag-bearer for Reform, but I know how excited he gets about flags.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The Whip on duty has confirmed that the Leader of the House is still the Leader of the House.

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

South Staffordshire Water is forcing water meters on homes in my constituency, stating that it is “necessary for sustainability”, but residents were never properly informed, with some only discovering the meters after they were installed. My constituents and I find this unacceptable. Can we have a statement on the communication standards that utility companies must meet when imposing such programmes?