Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 24 January will include:

Monday 24 January—Opposition day (9th allotted day - 2nd part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National Party, subject to be announced, followed by remaining stages of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 25 January—Remaining stages of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Down Syndrome Bill.

Wednesday 26 January—Second Reading of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill.

Thursday 27 January—General debate on Holocaust Memorial Day 2022. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 28 January—Private Member’s Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 31 January will include:

Monday 31 January—Motion to approve a ways and means resolution relating to the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Dormant Assets Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 1 February—Opposition day (11th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. First, I welcome the newest member of the parliamentary Labour party, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford). As the Leader of the Opposition said, my hon. Friend has rightly concluded that

“the Prime Minister and the Conservative party have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and Government this country deserves, whereas the Labour party stands ready to provide an alternative Government that the country can be proud of.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2022; Vol. 707, c. 321.]

The Leader of the House has demonstrated on several occasions his socialist tendencies, so I remind him that he is also more than welcome, any time he wishes, to come over to this side and join my hon. Friend.

At first, the Prime Minister said no rules were broken, then he said that he did not know about any parties, then he said he did not know whether he was there or not, then he remembered that he was there but did not know that it was a party. This week, the Prime Minister is testing out a new defence: that nobody warned him that the party was against the rules. So could the Leader of the House explain how the Prime Minister, who was literally the one setting and reading out the rules every night, did not understand the rules? It is a very odd defence.

The Office for National Statistics released figures yesterday showing inflation soaring to 5.4%, which is its highest rate in 30 years. Working families are already feeling the crunch, and the triple whammy of an imminent rise in the energy price cap, real wages falling and Tory tax rises make this crisis even worse. Labour would give people security, with fully-funded measures now to keep energy bills low, which would save households about £200 a year, with an extra £400 for families and pensioners who need it most. The Government could have supported that, but they did not. May we have a statement on why they are so out of touch with the reality faced by people across this country that instead of taking action to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, the Chancellor is just looking the other way, trapping us in a high-tax, low-growth economy?

I have asked the Leader of the House numerous times to locate which of the many sofas he perhaps possesses is hiding the Online Safety Bill, so I ask him that again. Last year, the Prime Minister said that it would have completed all stages by Christmas, then he said it would just be Second Reading—Members may be noticing a pattern here–and then there was just a vague commitment that it would happen at some point during the Session. The pre-legislative scrutiny Committee has reported, we have had a Backbench Business debate and still there is nothing. Meanwhile, social media and tech giants roam unregulated and many, including children and vulnerable people, are unsafe online. Please could the Leader of the House confirm when the timetable for this important Bill will be brought forward?

In another example of the Government’s trying to avoid scrutiny, Ministers have taken to trying to slip huge chunks of legislation into Bills through Lords amendments, in a desperate bid to circumvent elected representatives in this place having the chance to debate them, as they did this week in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Will the Leader of the House explain why the Government are forced to sneak in these additional amendments in the other place, hoping that we in the Commons do not notice? It did not work, because the Labour peers voted down those last-minute Government amendments to that Bill. I have to say that, in a foreshadowing of what is happening in this place, it was striking how many Conservative peers also did not support the Government. Labour peers were the ones who voted for alternative plans that provided for strong action against dangerous protests; stronger action against protests on motorways that put lives at risk; an urgent review of drink spiking offences; giving councils powers to prevent anti-vax intimidation outside schools; and making misogyny a hate crime. Tackling violence against women and girls in that way and tackling anti-vax intimidation in that way is something that the Government could have voted for, but they failed to do so. It is the Home Office that is failing to keep us safe. Recorded violent crime has risen and prosecutions have fallen. Tackling crime and violence against women should have been the focus of that Bill, so will he tell us when it will be brought back to this place, so that democratically elected representatives on this side of the House can continue to argue for a better approach?

Finally, let me say that our country deserves so much better than this Government, who have completely lost grip. They are out of touch and out of control, they seem to be out of ideas and they are soon to be out of office.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful, as always, to the hon. Lady, particularly for her offer that I should join them on the other side of the House. My welcome would be even warmer than that given to the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), who has not received the warmest welcome from the young socialists, who are not so keen, or from the Corbynistas, who are not in raptures at somebody who used language about the socialists on online chat groups that is not of the type I would use ever. I fear I would make our friends the stenographers of Hansard blush if I were to repeat such language in this House. Mr Speaker, I think you would swoon if the words he used to refer to his now socialist friends were poured forth. One has to say, “With friends like that”—I will leave others to conclude the rest of the sentence.

We then come on to what the hon. Lady and other socialists have been saying about the Prime Minister. He has rightly apologised to the House for mistakes that have been made. He has apologised to the country for mistakes that have been made, and Sue Gray is carrying out an investigation, but the socialists never want due process to take place. They always want to make the decision before they have the facts. They do not want to do it properly. This Government are doing it properly, and while we were doing it properly, we set up, under this Prime Minister’s leadership, the furlough programme that saved 14 million jobs and that kept the economy going, which means that the economy is now back above its pre-pandemic levels and that youth unemployment is at a record low.

Every statistic on the economy is going in the right direction in terms of economic growth and employment. Getting back to pre-pandemic levels is a real achievement and something of which the Prime Minister can be proud. The Prime Minister got the vaccine roll-out right. Just think what howls we would have now—what they would be saying every week—if, in the end, the vaccine had not worked. It was that bold decision to buy billions of pounds-worth of vaccines early on that has meant that we are the first country to reopen. Have the socialists ever wanted us to reopen? No, of course not, because when the socialists take charge of our lives, they never want to give it up. They objected to our opening in the summer. They wanted a lockdown in the winter. They have grudgingly come round to the fact that we are now able to reopen earlier than other comparable countries. This is the success of the Prime Minister.

That does not mean that every problem is removed. Everyone accepts that inflation is a problem, but, of course, monetary policy is the independent responsibility of the Bank of England—an independent responsibility given to it by one Mr Gordon Brown, who I seem to remember was a socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer who therefore delegated the primary responsibility for inflation to the Bank of England.

On Bills, the Government are looking carefully at the recommendations of the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill, which were extremely helpful. I expect that that Bill will be brought forward at the appropriate time—when it is ready. We like to do things at the proper pace. As a general rule, we like to put carts behind horses rather than in front of them. That is better than having carts and horses misaligned.

Then we get to the socialists’ desire for superglue. Mr Speaker, did you know that they want sales of superglue to go up. They are the advertisers for superglue, or Araldite. They want people gluing themselves to motorways to block up our major arteries, because they got their socialist peers in their fine ermine-trimmed robes to vote to obstruct the highways. That is what you get from socialism, Mr Speaker: control; interference; bossiness; and failure. With Conservatives, you get a growing economy.