Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will know that some 20 areas have been included in the second tranche of city deals. Those are not only major conurbations, but cities and towns with a population of about 100,000. Many of the deals include the surrounding rural areas, where an awful lot of economic activity and growth can be generated. I say that advisedly because Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire are promoting a city deal jointly. The Minister for cities and constitution is pursuing that model. He is identifying where growth is happening in order to construct city deals that support that growth.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House take advantage of the relatively light legislative programme—which, in itself, is not a bad thing—to arrange for daily oral statements from Departments on a rota basis to enhance the accountability of the Government? Given the poor quality of debates on unallotted Opposition days, will he scrap them and replace them with extra days for Back-Bench debates? Will he consider creating a Back-Bench week that would be entirely devoted to issues that Back Benchers want discussed?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend tempts me. [Interruption.] Yes—a little bit. However, I will resist that temptation because we are a Government who believe in ensuring accountability and scrutiny in the Chamber. We have deliberately in this Parliament seen through reforms to the Backbench Business Committee, which has afforded time, and from now on in this Session time in this Chamber for that Committee will be in excess of its 27 allotted days. As I said earlier, the same is also true for the Opposition, which is fine and as it should be. We cannot have a sort of closed period for scrutiny and opportunities for debates generated other than from within the Government. Finally, I will take issue again with my hon. Friend. We have just seen the introduction of the 20th Government programme Bill in this Session, which, for a Session of this normal annual length, is broadly speaking what one would expect and what we have seen in previous Sessions. There is no merit in having a large number of Bills as such—perhaps the contrary—but the idea that there is a light legislative programme when we have introduced 20 programme Bills is, I am afraid, simply not true.