Business of the House

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

I certainly share the hon. Lady’s pleasure at the award to the Clerk of the House.

The business for next week will include:

Monday 18 June—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Canada Trade Agreement) Order 2018, followed by a motion to approve European documents relating to EU trade agreements: EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, followed by a general debate on acquired brain injury.

Tuesday 19 June—Opposition day (14th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 20 June—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, followed by a general debate on NATO.

Thursday 21 June—Debate on a motion on the importance of refugee family reunion, followed by a debate on a motion on the future of the Erasmus+ scheme after 2020. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 22 June—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 25 June will include:

Monday 25 June—Remaining stages of the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [Lords].

The shocking and heartbreaking scenes a year ago today at Grenfell Tower will stay with us all forever. That night, 72 lives were tragically lost, and the lives of so many were changed forever. The strength, dignity and determination shown by the survivors and the families of all those affected have been truly inspiring, and I pay tribute to them all.

Our overwhelming priority over the past year, and going forward, is to ensure that the survivors of this terrible event get the homes and the support they need and the truth and justice they deserve. A minute’s silence will be held across the United Kingdom at 12 noon today in remembrance of all those who lost their lives and all others who were affected. We will not forget them.

[Mr Speaker]

Just before we proceed to questions, I wish to say this: I thank very warmly the shadow Leader of the House and then the Leader of the House for what they said by way of tribute to the Clerk of the House, Sir David Natzler. For those who do not know—many will be aware of this—David joined the House in 1975 and he has served with distinction and without interruption for 43 years, and we look forward to him continuing to serve us. In serving us, he applies his intellect and his energy to facilitate the House and he does so with the keenest and most admirable spirit of public service. David, you are much appreciated in this place.

In reference to what the Leader of the House very appositely said about Grenfell, a lot of Members will want to take part in the minute’s silence, and a number of Members will be taking part in commemorative activity much later today.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for the tribute to Sir David. We are used to using the “Sir” after his name, but now we will have to move it to before.

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I am glad that we are having another Opposition day, and pleased that she thinks the Opposition can fill in the gaps in the business of the House.

I have a gentle reminder to the Leader of the House. She may want to let the House know when we will have an updated draft of the list of ministerial responsibilities, as there has been a change in Home Secretary and another resignation by a Minister. We also have a Foreign Secretary who says that negotiations are in meltdown; that the Government lack guts; and that he wants the leader of another country to negotiate—that sounds like no confidence in the Prime Minister. We then have a Brexit Secretary who threatened to resign until he got his backstop—I thought we only had backstops in rounders. She may want to keep the list of ministerial responsibilities in draft form.

The Government said that the White Paper sets out their negotiating position, but there is no White Paper. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that no one has any information about the content or the title of the White Paper, except that it will be published after the meeting of the European Council on 28 and 29 June, which therefore means that it will be in July. It is like the emperor’s new clothes: the Government are strutting about saying that we are negotiating, but there is nothing in it. When will the White Paper be published with content?

Will the Leader of the House confirm whether the subcommittees looking at the customs agreement, or a customs partnership, are still meeting? I ask that because she will know that the amendment that was agreed yesterday referred to a customs arrangement, so it seems that there is a name but no content.

The Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s Question Time that the Government have a position and that it needs parliamentary support. That is not the constitutional role of Parliament as I understand it. The previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, understood the role of Parliament. On 29 August 2013, he said with regard to military action that, even without a motion, it was very clear that

“the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the Government will act accordingly.”—[Official Report, 29 August 2013; Vol. 566, c. 1556.]

So Parliament can direct the Government; this is a parliamentary democracy.

What is going on in the rest of the country? This week is Carers Week, and many hon. Members attended the event in the Attlee Suite. There are 6.5 million carers in the UK, saving the economy £132 billion a year. When can we have a debate on the future of social care funding? I congratulate the founders of John’s Campaign, who have been fighting since 2014 for the right of carers to stay with people with dementia. Nicci Gerrard’s father, Dr John Gerrard, had dementia; his family faced restricted visiting hours and he deteriorated. Together with Julia Jones and Francis Wheen, they presented the chief nursing officer for England with a book of pledges by NHS acute trusts that allowed unrestricted visiting hours. It reminds me of the words of Margaret Mead, who said:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

They should be congratulated on their personal efforts.

Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate on students? There were 146 student suicides in 2016—the highest number in records going back to 2001. Perhaps she could combine it with a debate on the report on tuition fees by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, which found that the student loan book will grow to over £1 trillion over the next 25 years. Interest rates are set to rise to set to rise to 6.3%, but the Committee has suggested that they should be at the same rate—1.5%—that the Government use when they borrow. The report says that the system of fees and loans is “deeply unfair”. For instance, nurses will pay back £19,000 more than lawyers.

May we have a debate on our early-day motion 1383 that we tabled on 12 June, praying against the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Cooperation and Information Sharing) Regulations 2018, which seek to hand over large amounts of student data to various unaccountable organisations?

[That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Cooperation and Information Sharing) Regulations 2018 (S.I., 2018, No. 607), dated 21 May 2018, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23 May, be annulled.]

As the Leader of the House and you, Mr Speaker, have said, today marks the first anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire. We remember the 72 people who lost their lives, the survivors and the families.

This Saturday is the second anniversary of the death of our dear friend and colleague Jo Cox. We know that a number of our colleagues in this House are facing threats to their lives, and we stand by them.

As England play Tunisia on Monday, I hope that the House will join me in remembering three generations of Walsall football club fans—Joel Richards aged 19, his uncle Adrian Evans and his grandfather Patrick Evans—who died in the attack in Tunisia three years ago.

On a happier note, there is still time to arrange an EqualiTeas event, to remind us of the journey that women have taken from behind the grille to the Floor of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. I echo her sentiments about the victims of Grenfell, and I congratulate you, Sir David, on your very well-deserved knighthood.

There are weeks when you get a sense that the tectonic plates have shifted and things will never be the same again—and no, I am not referring to Scotland beating England at cricket. The people of Scotland have been observing this place very closely this week. They have seen this Government disrespecting our Parliament and treating its institutions with utter contempt, with 19 minutes to turn the devolution settlement on its head—19 minutes in which no Member of Parliament from Scotland was selected to speak. Those were amendments designed in the unelected House of Lords, and we the Members of Parliament elected by the people of Scotland have had no opportunity to debate them. What sort of democracy is on offer in this House?

I warned the Leader of the House about giving—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, look at the Government Back Benchers braying and shouting, just as they did yesterday; it is no wonder the people of Scotland are appalled by their behaviour. I warned the Leader of the House about giving sufficient time for debate, and she singularly refused to listen. She has to take responsibility for what happened the other day. She is in charge of business. I do not want to hear anything about Labour Members taking up the time for votes. Yes, they have the tactical guile of the Foreign Secretary at an ambassador’s ball, but they can vote on what they wish. It was she who designed that programme motion, and it was she who had to make sure that time was protected for debate.

Surely now the time has come for us to stop the practice of going round and round in circles for a headcount vote. Over two-and-a-half hours were wasted standing in cramped Lobbies when we should have been in this Chamber debating important issues to do with the repeal legislation. Nothing could be more useless and counterproductive, and we must end this nonsense.

Lastly, the people of Scotland are now watching fully the events here, and more and more of them are saying, “Enough.” If this is the way Westminster treats Scotland, Scotland will make its own decisions about its own future.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that the Leader of the House will want to respond fully to his inquiries, and the opportunity for that will arise shortly. However, it seems to me that it would be seemly for us to prepare for our one-minute silence.

We shall now observe a one-minute silence in respectful memory of those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire a year ago today. I had been intending to invite all present to join us in this commemorative silence, but it has not proved necessary to do so because everybody is so minded.

The House observed a minute’s silence.

[Mr Speaker]

Colleagues, thank you.

[Andrea Leadsom]

In the light of what happened at Grenfell, it hardly seems right to dive straight back into debate. Nevertheless, that is what we must do.

I thank the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for his comments, and I of course accept his right to challenge in every way in this Chamber. I say to him that the Government’s programme motion, which was approved by the House—by 321 votes to 304—provided six hours in total, with three hours for each set of amendments. As you said, Mr Speaker, there was no constitutional or procedural impropriety. It was up to Members, if they did not like the programme motion, to defeat it. There were 11 votes, which took about two hours and 40 minutes, leaving very little time for the devolution amendments the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It was of course a matter for the House to choose to divide on a number of issues that were broadly similar to one another, each of which was won by the Government with a double-digit majority.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the lack of debate in general on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. I say to him that, prior to the 12 hours of debate on the Bill this week, Parliament had collectively spent 258 hours debating the Bill, including a total of 15 hours on the subject of devolution, so it is simply not the case that there has been no debate on this matter. Across both Houses, 1,390 amendments have been tabled, of which 1,171 were non-Government amendments. There has been an enormous amount of debate, and there continues to be a huge amount of debate.

On the subject of the Sewel convention, I say to all SNP Members that we have followed the spirit and letter of the devolution settlement at every stage of the process. The devolution settlement itself envisaged situations in which the UK Parliament might be required to legislate without the consent of a devolved Administration. On this issue for the UK, we have sought to work closely with—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is rather unseemly. To be fair, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) asked a question and the Leader of the House is in the process of answering it, so he should not be conducting a side discussion with some Government Back Bencher. [Interruption.] Somebody says it is “uncouth”. I am always rather gentle and understated, so I would not say that. [Interruption.] Order. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire is still doing it; it is a rather obsessive characteristic of his. Let us hear the reply of the Leader of the House.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman did tweet at 10.37 am to ask all his followers to watch the business question, so he obviously had something in store for us.

I would like to finish the point. The Government have tried very hard to reach agreement with all the devolved Administrations. Since the Scottish Government walked away from an agreement, they have offered no new proposals to try to bridge the gap. Their demand for a veto on how the UK internal market operates is just not acceptable, and that was never how devolution was intended to work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Leader of the House has previously met my requests for debates on acquired brain injury and on knife crime and encouraged me in my campaign for nuclear test veterans, so mindful of my earlier question on Network Rail felling trees, may I turn her attention to the local authorities that, irrespective of emissions, in Newcastle, Edinburgh and Sheffield are felling thousands of trees, and the Campaign to Protect Rural England tells us that greedy developers are building on land from Howard’s End to Watership Down? Will she ask the Environment Secretary to turn his brilliance, shining a light, on how we can build a sylvan future of hedges and haymaking, forests and fields? I want no less for the next generation—as I know you do, Mr Speaker—than Arcadia.

[Mr Speaker]

Not for nothing is the right hon. Gentleman regarded as a specialist and perhaps even a rarified delicacy in the House.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I love the way that my right hon. Friend puts his questions and tempts me to always deliver on his requests, which is a very clever way of approaching business questions. He will appreciate that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is totally committed, as was I when I was doing that job, to improving our environment and to being the first generation that leaves our environment in a better state than we found it in. That means ensuring many millions more trees are planted and that we protect those precious trees, including those that are on Network Rail land. Housing, Communities and Local Government questions are on Monday. He might like to raise his specific point directly with Ministers then.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am not aware of the specific circumstances that the hon. Lady raises, but I would say—and I am sure you would say, Mr Speaker—that language in the Chamber is a matter for the Chair. Nevertheless, Mr Speaker and I have both made clear that unacceptable language—threatening, violent and offensive language—should not be used at any time, let alone in the Chamber. What I can say to the hon. Lady is that cross-party a number of us are working on an independent complaints procedure that will change the culture in this place and ensure that all people who work here, regardless of their position and what they do in this place, will be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

[Mr Speaker]

As I think the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) knows—and I respect her sincerity and the force of what she has just said—I indicated earlier in the week that I simply did not hear the term used at the time. However, I emphasised, once it was brought to my attention, that I utterly deprecated it. It is not a term that should be bandied about in the spirit of political polemics. As the hon. Lady says, it is something that touches a lot of people very deeply. I echo what the Leader of the House says: we should weigh our words carefully.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

May we have an urgent debate on the Home Office’s very welcome but seriously overdue commitment to move to a fairer funding formula for the police? Back in 2004, damping was brought in, which means that many police forces such as Bedfordshire received millions of pounds less than the national funding formula says they should get. In Bedfordshire, that equates to 90 police officers. May I ask the Leader of the House to convey to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, as well as to the Home Secretary, the real anger on this issue of the people of Bedfordshire at the way their police force is underfunded by this unfair issue of damping?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend raises two very important points. I certainly join him in wishing Harry Kane the best of luck.

My right hon. Friend is right to raise the subject of the Mayor’s plans for low-emission zones in London. I know that there are grave concerns about the Mayor’s tendency to take credit for things that go well and blame central Government when anything is not going his way. It is for him to take action against the appalling air quality in certain parts of London, but it is also for him to facilitate the ability of innocent citizens to go about their daily business, whether for work or to hospital and so on. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that challenge to the Mayor.

[Mr Speaker]

As an Arsenal fan, I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that I hugely look forward to Harry Kane deploying his brilliance for England, much more than I ever look forward to him deploying his brilliance for Tottenham. He is a great player and a great representative of our country.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and I have been campaigning for the visa cap on doctors that is affecting recruitment to North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust to be lifted so that patients needing treatment can get it sooner rather than later. There is speculation that this change is about to happen. Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Government will come to this House shortly and announce that it is taking place?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

I recognise that the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues are unhappy about procedures in this House in recent days. What I would say to him is that there has absolutely been adherence to all Standing Orders, procedural conventions and rules on Divisions of the House, and there has absolutely been nothing untoward going on. There is not the need for a debate—[Interruption.] It is entirely disrespectful that—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have to try to re-establish some seemliness of exchange. The hon. Gentleman asked a robust question, and I do not think anybody objects to that, but he should then listen to the reply, and to heckle the Leader of the House noisily as she replies is discourteous.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There is no point saying anything further to the hon. Gentleman.