Business of the House

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May I point out for the benefit of the House that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) tends to be at business questions every week and, in my experience, he has never been averse to repetition?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Perhaps I will strike a slightly discordant note, although I get on very well with the Leader of the House as a fellow Yorkshire MP whom I have known for a long time. The world is almost in meltdown in so many places—the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza and the Israeli conflict with Gaza—and he has left the deck at a crucial time. Many people in our country will ask, “Why? We are looking to him as a seasoned and experienced Foreign Secretary to play a leading part in that”, so my welcome is tempered. May we have an early debate on the situation in Gaza? There is time next Monday or Tuesday. The world is distressed indeed at the recent deaths, so may we have a debate soon?

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Last week I met my local nurses’ union in the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow to discuss nurses’ pay and conditions and hospital car parking charges. May we have a statement on nurses’ pay and hospital car parking charges so that we can do everything possible to alleviate the problems that lower-paid nurses are facing and ensure that all nurses are paid fairly? [Interruption.] I also ask my right hon. Friend to suggest to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) that he keeps his trap shut, because the Opposition do not have a policy on this—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is enough. It is unlike the hon. Gentleman, who is a very competent parliamentarian, but that was tasteless. Also, I say in all courtesy to the hon. Gentleman, whose interest and commitment I always seek to accommodate, that his question was simply too long.

[Mr Hague]

To give a short answer, my hon. Friend is a strong champion of the national health service, particularly in his constituency, and he is right to recognise the great service given to all our constituents by nurses in the NHS. That is why our priority has been to staff the front line properly, including with over 4,000 additional nurses since the last general election. All NHS staff will receive a rise of at least 1% in each of the next two years. I know that he will continue to raise his concerns, including in the Back-Bench business debate on hospital car parking charges that he has secured in September.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I welcome the Leader of the House to his new role and thank him for the dedication, energy and enthusiasm that he put into the role of Foreign Secretary. Before he became Foreign Secretary, he played a key role on an individual level in negotiating the coalition agreement, going through it line by line, paragraph by paragraph. He will remember that in chapter 24 at the bottom of page 27 are the words:

“A House Business Committee, to consider government business, will be established by the third year of the Parliament”.

Consensus was achieved when those words were written, and I know my right hon. Friend attaches huge importance to upholding the tenets of the coalition agreement. In the last year of this Parliament, will he introduce the Hague reforms, to allow the House of Commons to timetable its own business as long as it allows the Government to get through their legislation?

[Mr Speaker]

That could be the Hague-Hollobone-Bone reform.

[Mr Hague]

That would be quite a mouthful, Mr Speaker. I remember pretty much every line of the coalition agreement—I certainly remember every minute of negotiating it, which was quite a painstaking process. My hon. Friend is right that that commitment is in the coalition agreement, and as he knows it was raised earlier today by two of our hon. Friends. I know there are strong feelings about this issue and consensus on it in part of the House, but I do not think there is consensus across the whole House. I would be happy to discuss the matter further with my hon. Friend, but I do not envisage the situation changing at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

These are, of course, very important issues. It is one of a long list of issues on which hon. Members have asked for debates today. It is evident to the House that it is not possible to agree to debates on all of those subjects. The hon. Gentleman gives his opinion. It is also true that the Government are investing more in the roads than at any time since the 1970s, and, with HS2, more in rail than at any time since Victorian times. Important announcements about transport infrastructure across the north of England have been made recently by the Chancellor and the Transport Secretary, so it is important to have a look at those.

[Mr Speaker]

I think I can speak for the whole House in saying that we are extremely grateful to the Leader of the House and to colleagues for an invigorating and therapeutic series of exchanges.