Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 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 (Mark Spencer)]

It will be a pleasure.

The business for the week commencing 27 June will include:

Monday 27 June—Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.

Tuesday 28 June—Opposition day (4th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 29 June—Consideration in committee of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill (Day 1).



Thursday 30 June—Debate on a motion on Iran’s nuclear programme followed by, general debate on 50 years of pride in the UK. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 1 July—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 4 July will include:

Monday 4 July—Conclusion of consideration in committee and remaining stages of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.

Tuesday 5 July—Estimates day (1st allotted day). Subjects to be confirmed.

Wednesday 6 July—Estimates day (2nd allotted day). Subjects to be confirmed.

At 7.00pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I hope he had a wonderful time at the Tory party’s summer ball on Monday night. I hear the top prize auctioned off was a £120,000 slap-up meal for four including the Prime Minister, his predecessor and her predecessor. The absolute audacity of Tory MPs telling food bank users that they do not know how to spend their money, when Tory donors seem to be willing to pay the going rate of £40,000 per failed and failing Prime Minister. It is shocking. Tory donors, clearly unaffected by the cost of living crisis, are wined and dined by the Cabinet when working people face inflation at more than 9%, lower pay and backlog Britain grinding the country to a halt. Where in the upcoming business is the Government’s long-term plan to deal with all that?

Perhaps I can offer the three recent Conservative Prime Ministers a conversation starter: 12 years of underfunding and Tory mismanagement of our NHS; and record numbers of people waiting for care and waiting longer than ever before. In Wakefield, since 2019, the people of that great city have lost three local GP practices and 300,000 GP appointments per year, all while the Chancellor puts up their taxes. Does the Leader of the House think it is fair that his Government are asking the people of Wakefield to pay more, for less?

On Tuesday, Labour’s successful motion called on the Health Secretary simply to meet his Government’s own target of recruiting 6,000 extra GPs and to ensure that everyone who needs an NHS dentist can get one. Those are not unreasonable demands, but the Health Secretary cannot even meet them. He has admitted that he is not on track, so can the Leader of the House explain to his voters why his Government are breaking yet another one of their promises? What is the plan? People around the country, including those in Wakefield, will want to see it. Will he ask the Health Secretary to make a statement on how he is going to train, recruit and hang on to the GPs we need? I remind him that they are the Government and our motion passed. They should do their job and at least attempt to sort this mess out.

It is another week of the Government engulfed in Tory sleaze and scandal, instead of dealing with problems in our NHS. I do welcome the fact that they have realised that they obviously need an ethics adviser, but they must get on with recruiting a new one. On Tuesday, Labour’s ethics motion called for urgency. The Tories voted against it, so I ask the Leader of the House: when can we expect to see the ethics vacancy filled? Can he guarantee that the investigations that were ongoing prior to Lord Geidt’s resignation will be completed?

Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) asked the Prime Minister for a straight yes or no on whether he had ever considered the appointment of his now spouse to a government post or one in any other organisation. We hear that No. 10 spoke to The Times after it published an article on this and the story disappeared. There is clearly something going on and it is clearly unethical to use a position as a very powerful person, possibly the most powerful person in the country, to get your partner a six-figure-salary job. The Prime Minister failed to deny this yesterday, so I am asking the Leader of the House now: could he advise us on what conversations were had and how far was this allowed to go?

Last week, the Leader of the House failed to address my question on missing legislation. The proposals on renters’ rights reforms last Thursday are welcome, but they were promised three years ago and all we have got is a White Paper. This is another example of the Government picking an issue, waving it around on a day they need a distraction and dropping it the next. This is no way to run a country. So when will the Leader of the House bring forward the actual legislation and give renters the rights they deserve, for which they been waiting for so long? Whether it is the distraction of sleaze and scandal, missing legislation or countless failed promises, the choice is stark: a Tory Government unable to govern or Labour, a party that believes in democracy, decency and respect, with a plan to deal with backlog Britain and tackle the Tory cost of living crisis. People up and down the country will be waking up this morning, including in Wakefield, knowing that it is time for a fresh start.

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. What is clear is that the Government are getting on with the job. We are making our streets safer; we are recruiting 20,000 more police officers, and we have already got 13,500 of those recruited. We continue to grow the economy to address the cost of living challenge that people face. That is why we have invested £37 billion to help people through the challenges that we face—frankly, the whole world is facing these challenges. We are funding the NHS to deal with those covid backlogs, which is why we introduced the health and social care levy; we are talking about £39 billion-worth investment in our NHS. The Labour party did not support that investment in our health service. We are providing leadership that is needed in these challenging times. We are the strongest supporter of Ukraine. We have delivered the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe, which is why the economy continues to grow.

There was one question that I will address—there was one genuine question in all of that rant: what did I know about the allegation that the hon. Lady made about the Prime Minister’s wife. I can tell her and the House that I was the Government Chief Whip from the moment the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister. I think I am the longest serving Chief Whip since 2010. I was in meetings and rooms with the Prime Minister probably more than any other Minister during that period. I never ever in my political career heard mention of the Prime Minister’s wife getting a role—ever, to be clear.



What we heard in the shadow Leader of the House’s comments was anything at all she wants to talk about, other than the crisis that the unions are delivering to this country as we sit here. Look behind her at those empty Benches. The reason those Benches are empty is that they all ran like rats to get a train yesterday—[Interruption.] Across the House, colleagues had to go and get trains yesterday because of the misery the unions are pouring on to this country. Let us look at some of the working practices they are trying to defend.

Whole teams have to change a socket when one person could do it; they want nine people to go and do it. They want a walking time of one minute to take 12 minutes. [Hon. Members: “Shocking!”] This is absolutely true. A break time starts, and if one of their managers says hello to them during it, the break has to start again because management have interrupted it. Technology now exists with cameras to check the safety of rail lines—a very important job—but the unions insist that they have to be walking checks. Eight rail workers have been killed on the rail lines in the past two years doing those walking checks when technology exists to protect those lives and to look after people on our railways. Best of all, there was a threatened strike over the replacement of a tea urn with a kettle.

That is the sort of thing that these people are defending. I call on the hon. Lady and her friends’ paymasters to get back round the table, talk to Network Rail, and ease the misery that they are imposing on working people up and down this country.