Business of the House

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 13 September will include:

Monday 13 September—Second Reading of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.

Tuesday 14 September—Second Reading of the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill, followed by motion relating to the House of Commons Commission.

Wednesday 15 September—Motion to approve Ways and Means resolutions on which a Finance Bill will be introduced, followed by remaining stages of the Identity Documents Bill.

Thursday 16 September—General debate on the strategic defence and security review and future of the UK’s armed forces. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 11 October will include:

Monday 11 October—Second Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.

Tuesday 12 October—Proceedings on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Day 1).

Wednesday 13 October—Remaining stages of the Superannuation Bill, followed by, the Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration.

Thursday 14 October—Business nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 18 October will include:

Monday 18 October—Proceedings on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Day 2).

Colleagues will also wish to know that subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the Christmas recess on Tuesday 21 December 2010 and return on Monday 10 January 2011.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 16 September will be:

Thursday 16 September—A debate on the international year of biodiversity.

I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in sending our condolences to the Prime Minister on the recent death of his father.

[Ms Winterton]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business. On behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I, too, offer our sincere condolences to the Prime Minister and his family at this very sad time.

As the Leader of the House knows, a number of Ministers made announcements during the recess that should properly have been made in the House, and they have since had to be rather dragged here to explain what they have been up to. We know that the Secretary of State for Education likes quite a few goes at getting his figures right, not least when he is announcing cancelled school building projects, but the Opposition are incredulous that after all the hype and kerfuffle the figures he finally released for free schools and academies were only 16 and 32. Can the Leader of the House tell us whether he has been asked to find time for a statement—maybe two or three statements—so that the Secretary of State for Education can confirm that he has not got into another muddle and that the figures he has come up with are indeed accurate?

Given the speech made by the Deputy Prime Minister this morning, presumably in response to the BBC reporting of the effects of the cuts on the regions, is the Leader of the House expecting a statement from the Deputy Prime Minister so that he can confirm that under the Labour Government £1.5 billion per year was to be made available to the regions through the regional development agencies, whereas under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government the regional growth fund is £1 billion over two years? In anyone’s language this is not extra support for the regions, it is a massive cut, and the Deputy Prime Minister should admit that to the House.

With regard to the allocation of time for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, can the Leader of the House tell us whether he thinks there will be adequate time to put right the abject failure of the Deputy Prime Minister to explain why public inquiries into parliamentary constituency changes are to be abolished? It was fairly clear on Monday that the Deputy Prime Minister has employed the services of the Tory grandee “Sir Gerry Mander” as his special adviser, but surely even he must realise that removing the right of local people to have a say in constituency boundaries is not only wrong in principle, but will lead to endless expensive judicial reviews in the courts.

We now have clear advice from the Clerk of the House that the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill is similarly ill thought-out and will also end up being challenged in the courts. Those two Bills are prime examples of the betrayal of the promise of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government to have pre-legislative scrutiny wherever possible. Worse than that, they are in the first case anti-democratic and in the second case unworkable. The only thing the Leader of the House should do is withdraw those Bills, go back to the drawing board and come back with legislation that respects our democracy and respects Parliament. I urge him to do so.

[Sir George Young]

I thank the right hon. Lady for what she said at the beginning of her remarks. I know the Prime Minister will be reassured by what the whole House has said.

On statements, the code that the right hon. Lady refers to says that while the House is sitting statements of major changes in policy should first be made to the House. We propose to adhere to that policy. It does not apply, of course, when the House is not sitting, when the business of government continues. We also went out of our way to bring before Parliament as many statements as we could before the House adjourned for the summer recess. Unlike the previous Government we have brought the House back in September so that we are held properly to account and we do not have the very long recesses she enjoyed when she was a Minister.

On academies, I should hope that the right hon. Lady would congratulate the Government on the swift progress that the Secretary of State for Education has made in getting the Academies Bill through the House and academies up and running. More than 200 schools will become academies this year, and that compares with the four years that it took to open the first 30 academies and the five years that it took to open 15 city technology colleges. More than 200 schools are in the pipeline to become academies, so, far from decrying the slow progress she should welcome the swift, ambitious progress that this Government have made to bring higher standards of education to the nation’s children.

On regional development, I hope that the right hon. Lady heard what the mayor of Middlesbrough said on the “Today” programme. He made it absolutely clear that over the past 15 years his city had become over-dependent on public expenditure, and he was determined to rebalance the city’s economy. He was not asking for huge sums of Government money; he recognised that it was up to himself and the citizens of Middlesbrough to rebuild the economy so that it was less dependent on public sector expenditure. On top of the £1 billion growth fund, there are the incentives, through the national insurance rebates, for new businesses to relocate to those areas that benefit from the scheme.

On the programme motion, I am astounded that the right hon. Lady says that seven days—seven days!—on the Floor of the House for the boundaries Bill is not adequate. We had one day on the alternative vote under the previous Government; we are giving seven days on AV and boundaries. I am absolutely convinced that, in the five days on Report and the two days on remaining stages, she will have ample time to press the Government on the issues that she raised, such as the timetable for inquiries.

Finally, I welcome the fact that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee is looking at the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, and I, like the right hon. Lady, have seen the evidence that the Clerk of the House gave to the Committee. I assume that the Committee, later on in its inquiry, will invite Ministers also to give evidence, so that they can respond. There will be an opportunity on Monday, when we have the Bill’s Second Reading, for Ministers to respond to the points that have been made, and I just remind the right hon. Lady that Professor Robert Hazell said:

“A related question is whether there could be recourse to the courts to enforce the requirements of a fixed term law. The probability is that they would consider the issue to be non-justiciable; an obligation to be enforced in the political but not the legal sphere.”

This may disappoint the right hon. Lady, but the Government have no intention whatever of withdrawing either Bill. We believe that they are in the long-term interest of the country, and we will get them through both Houses as soon as we can.