Peter Bone
Main Page: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)Department Debates - View all Peter Bone's debates with the Leader of the House
(10 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hague
I am grateful for the warm welcome from the right hon. Gentleman. The United Kingdom remains very strongly engaged not only in the work to find those schoolchildren—we have military assets that have been joining in that—but in working with the Nigerians to ensure that a vastly greater number of girls are able to go to school in Nigeria. When I hosted the Foreign Minister of Nigeria here last month, I announced British assistance to help a million more girls go to school in Nigeria. I know that my successor as Foreign Secretary will want to keep the House updated and it is Foreign Office questions next Tuesday.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) stepped down from the role of Foreign Secretary and became an excellent Leader of the House. He was the House’s representative in Government, not the Government’s representative in the House. I am sure my right hon. Friend will follow that example. He is very committed to the coalition, and he will know that it is a coalition agreement to have a business of the House committee by the end of the third year of this Parliament. It is slightly past the third year of this Parliament, so when are we going to have that business of the House committee?
Mr Hague
I join in my hon. Friend’s tribute to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who was not only an extremely energetic Foreign Secretary but successfully applied himself to the rigours of this job too, and I will follow his example in doing so, although there is a bit of both in representing the House in the Government and the Government’s views to the House. That is understood. These things have to be reconciled. My hon. Friend is a doughty champion of the cause of a business committee. I will be very happy to discuss that with him but, as I pointed out earlier to our hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), no consensus has yet been established on that.