Business of the House

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The answer to the last question is yes. The written ministerial statement from the Treasury says:

“However, if the House were to negative the motion, rejecting the government’s assessment of the fiscal circumstances, then the government would consequently return to spending 0.7% of GNI on international aid in the next calendar year”—

so that is from January 2022—

“and with likely consequences for the fiscal situation, including for taxation and current public spending plans.”

The motion will be: “That this House has considered the written ministerial statement relating to the Treasury update on international aid, which was laid before this House on Monday 12 July.” The debate will be for three hours and the decision will be binding on Her Majesty’s Government.

Votes have consequences and if the motion were to be negatived, that would be a significant consequence for our fiscal situation where, I remind the House, more than £400 billion has had to be spent because of the coronavirus pandemic and yet we remain one of the most generous nations in terms of overseas aid. This is merely an effort to facilitate the House in debating an issue that is of concern to many Members because, unfortunately, some missed the opportunity to do so on the estimates days.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

Obviously, it was only on Thursday last week that we had the previous business statement, so I guess my first question to the Leader of the House would be, what has changed in the time from Thursday till today? Clearly, it is welcome that such an opportunity is being presented, but it does appear to me to be highly unusual that a general debate is being used as a mechanism to allow this vote to take place, especially when the Government themselves are bringing it forward. Is there a particular reason why the Government are using a general debate, rather than any other more substantive mechanism, to bring this forward? Beyond that, may I ask the Leader of the House what time or protected time will then to be allocated to the other items of business that were already on the agenda for tomorrow?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

What has changed? Well, I do my best to facilitate the House, and very distinguished hon. and right hon. Members wanted further debate because, as I have mentioned, they had rather forgotten their early education on how estimates days work and therefore wanted a further debate. It is being provided in this way to allow the House to come to a clear decision. It will be a yes or no answer. Does this House wish to see the public finances kept under reasonable control, does it recognise that there are limits to what we can do and does it recognise that there are in fact generous billionaires who are giving money for overseas aid, which should be enormously welcome, or on the other hand do we want to hard press our hard-pressed taxpayers even further? That will be the question for the debate tomorrow, and a very clear answer can be given.

On the timings for the debates tomorrow, most of them are set out in Standing Orders, so debates under an Act are always for 90 minutes, and the motion relating to English votes for English laws, on which I think the hon. Gentleman and I will be on the same side, will have an hour.