Sittings of the House (22 March)

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

Yes, we intend to press the amendment to a vote.

Surely the Prime Minister cannot have taken to heart the content of last December’s leaked Liberal Democrat memo, which urged senior Liberal Democrats to spread the message that

“The Conservatives can’t be trusted to build a fairer society”

and to remind voters that the Tories only want to look “after the super rich”. I am sure, given those comments, that the Deputy Prime Minister would be welcomed to the Dispatch Box the day after the Budget to support all its content. Perhaps he might also be asked by the Tories on the Government Benches why the Liberal Democrats keep sending out press briefings criticising the Government’s tax policies just after the Chancellor has finished announcing them.

Last December, for example, the Liberal Democrats were caught out saying:

“The only tax cuts the Conservatives support are ones for the very rich. At the General Election, their priority was to cut inheritance tax for millionaires. In the Coalition, Liberal Democrats have blocked these plans.”

After all, just this week the Business Secretary has expressed his

“deep disappointment at the lack of capital investment in the economy”

while declaring himself the shop steward of the newly formed “National Union of Ministers”, fighting cuts to his own departmental budget openly in any TV studio and newspaper that would have him. I can see why the Prime Minister might be reluctant to let his deputy fill in for him at the Dispatch Box given that level of loyalty, so perhaps he should just bite the bullet and do it himself.

If our amendment were carried, all it would do is restore a status quo that has been long experienced in this Parliament: the Prime Minister comes to this House regularly to be held accountable during Prime Minister’s questions for the policy and the behaviour of his Government. That is even more vital after major Government announcements, such as Budgets. It cannot be acceptable that we are expected to put up with a month-long gap between the Budget and the next appearance by the Prime Minister to answer questions at that Dispatch Box.

If the Government resist the amendment to the sittings motion, it will become emblematic of their wider disdain for parliamentary accountability and even for democracy. After all, they have had no democratic mandate for the economic policy that they have pursued since June 2010, because the Liberal Democrats fought the election espousing a completely different economic policy from the one that they now support. The Government have had no democratic mandate for their disastrous top-down reorganisation of the national health service. They explicitly ruled it out during the general election, but now they pursue it with the certainty of zealots and the competence of Mr Bean.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Would the hon. Lady remind me what democratic mandate Tony Blair had to take this country to war in Iraq?

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

A vote in the House.

[Sarah Newton]

That was the very same Prime Minister who did not even allow a debate in the House on a votable motion. It is preposterous for the hon. Lady to deny that from the Dispatch Box and say that our Prime Minister does not put himself before the House on a regular basis for it to scrutinise what this Government are doing.

[Ms Eagle]

I know that the hon. Lady was not a Member when there was a vote on Iraq, but there was a vote in this Parliament, and a very large majority for the action that was subsequently taken in Iraq.

[Sarah Newton]

Action, not war.

[Ms Eagle]

There was far more of a mandate. Indeed, the Conservative party, which was then in opposition, supported that.