Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Penny Mordaunt)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 30 January—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill.

Tuesday 31 January—Opposition day (12th allotted day): debate in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced

Wednesday 1 February—Remaining stages of the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [Lords].

Thursday 2 February—General debate on LGBT history month, followed by a general debate on devolution in Wales 25 years on. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 3 February—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 6 February includes:

Monday 6 February—Debate on motions to approve the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2023, the draft Benefit Cap (Annual Limit) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2023, followed by a debate on a motion to approve the charter for budget responsibility: autumn 2022 update.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for setting out the business. Ministers answering questions from MPs on behalf of our constituents should be a given—it is the most basic form of scrutiny in a parliamentary democracy—but, as we all know, this Government struggle with even the basics. Swerving scrutiny is now the norm. Last week the right hon. Lady said, as a justification for setting off on a pre-prepared political rant, that I had invited her to compare the Government’s record in power against Labour’s. I did not, actually, and she should not need to be reminded that that is not what these exchanges are about. I am happy to take her for a cup of tea and talk about Labour’s record achievements: cutting NHS waiting times and crime; on educational attainment; the minimum wage; laws on equality and human rights; and the world’s first climate change Act—the list goes on and on.

What I would like here, on behalf of the people we represent, is direct answers to important questions on the Government’s failing legislative agenda and their utter disdain for Parliament. Admittedly, if the Prime Minister carries on as he is, the right hon. Lady might be able to dust off her “PM for PM” Tory leadership merch sooner rather than later—I’d like a mug—but until then Parliament requires her to represent the interests of this House, and therefore the British people, in Government.

Seeing as the right hon. Lady did not answer last week, let us have another go. First, on the Tories’ sacking of nurses Bill, they should have published an impact assessment before it even reached the House, yet the final stages are due in the Commons on Monday and we still have not got one. That is despite her saying last week, publicly, that she thought impact assessments were very handy. Well, they are, but they are more than that; they are a crucial tool for parliamentary oversight, especially when a Bill is being rattled through like this one. What are the Government hiding? When will we see their report on what the Bill’s impact will be?

The Leader of the House’s reassurance that the burning through of regulations under the retained EU law Bill will have good scrutiny simply does not wash with the people of Bristol West, or anywhere else. The right hon. Lady is Parliament’s representative in Government, so why is she not backing MPs being given a proper say on behalf of our constituents over workers’ rights to holiday or maternity pay, or over environmental protections? It is literally her job.

The Leader of the House could start by giving us the means to scrutinise properly. Last Thursday, I got no answer on the Government’s half-baked dashboard for EU regulations, so perhaps I could get one this week. Do they have a plan to complete the dashboard? If so, by when? Do they have a plan to square the practical difficulties of getting through thousands of regulations before the end of the year? If so, what is it?

In questions to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) was told that the return of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill was

“a matter for business managers.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 695.]

The problem is that when I have asked the Leader of the House about this before, I have got—you guessed it—no answer. Like everything else that they have lost down the back of the sofa, apparently it is Tory infighting holding the Bill up. I gather that Tory Back Benchers have had to be reassured that it will not be used as a device to crack down on hunting. They want to protect hunting? What a mess! Can the Leader of the House clear this up? When will the Bill be brought back to the House for its remaining stages?

While the Leader of the House is down the back of that infamous sofa, could she try to pull out the football governance White Paper? The Government committed in the last Queen’s Speech to publishing proposals to establish an independent regulator of English football. Could she give my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) a birthday present and find them, please? Since that commitment, we have had flip-flopping, rides on the ministerial merry-go-round, and a promise from the Culture Secretary that the White Paper would be published “imminently”. Labour has supported the introduction of an independent regulator for years. It is urgent for clubs, players, staff and fans. The Government have let them all down. Where is it?

Let me end by noting the fast-approaching 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The Labour party is immensely proud of its part in the peace process, as are many others across the House, of all political dimensions. Will the Leader of the House please allow a debate in Government time so that Members can reflect on what was achieved, and to allow representatives from Northern Ireland to share their views? Does she agree that this moment should not be left to the Backbench Business Committee and we really should have a Government debate?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sure the whole House will want to recognise that we have Holocaust Memorial Day this week. Let me place on the record my thanks, in particular, to all the survivors who help us and new generations to understand what happened and, of course, to redouble our efforts to tackle antisemitism wherever it appears. I also thank the Holocaust Educational Trust. I know that many Members will have relied on it to take them to Auschwitz and elsewhere, and that will have had a huge impact on all Members of this House.

May I also place on the record my thanks to the ship’s company of HMS Queen Elizabeth, who visited Parliament this week, for all they have done for the Atlantic Future Forum?

I remind colleagues that today marks 100 days until the coronation, and I encourage all Members to make use of that moment to bring our communities together and create new projects in our constituencies, which I know is a focus of His Majesty the King.

I anticipated correctly that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) would not ask me today about our £150 million extra investment in mental health support, or the £50 million to supercharge the UK satellite industry, or the crackdown we announced this week on criminal gangs. I am shocked, quite frankly, Mr Speaker, at the suggestion that there are pre-prepared political rants in this Chamber.

I shall attempt to answer the hon. Lady’s questions. I completely agree with her that we need transparency and truth on all the Bills that she mentioned, so I am grateful for the opportunity to correct some of the misunderstanding in what she outlined about some of them.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is not about nurses. Nursing unions have been hugely responsible when they want to take industrial action, and we have great confidence in the minimum service levels that they have put in place. Very explicitly, we are not taking these powers and bringing forward measures regarding nurses at all, and it is quite wrong to suggest that. Instead, we are focusing on where we have deep concerns about minimum service levels—in two blue-light services and in transport. I remind the House that under the current Mayor of London there have been nearly 100 strikes on public transport in London, and I do not think the commuting public, who rely on public transport, can go on like this. So that is what the Bill is doing, which is very well understood by everyone except, perhaps, those on the Labour Front Bench.

There is clearly an ongoing misunderstanding about the way in which the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will work, and about the scrutiny that will be applied to it. Committees in both Houses are dedicated to looking at that, but there are clearly measures that we will want to continue; we have been explicit about, for instance, environmental protections and protections for workers, to which we are committed. Just last Friday we passed additional measures to protect workers’ tips in the hospitality industry, and this week we have proposed measures to introduce a statutory code so that practices such as firing and rehiring no longer take place. Let me gently remind the hon. Lady what her own party did to its workers at their headquarters in July 2021, when it put many of its staff on very insecure contracts.

We will protect workers’ rights and we will protect environmental standards, but there will be some EU law on our statute book that does not work for the modern economy, and that is what we will focus on and reform. I hope the hon. Lady will appreciate that, and will start focusing on what our economy needs rather than misinterpreting the way the Bill will work and the scrutiny that surrounds it.

I am delighted that the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, a private Member’s Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), completed its Committee stage this week. That is another step towards ensuring that we protect endangered species around the world which some people wish to go and shoot and bring back and turn into ashtrays: it is a huge step forward. We care deeply about the welfare of animals, which is why we introduced the important measures in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill.

I have placed on record all the work that has been done by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) on football governance, which is a subject close to my heart because I helped to save my club, Portsmouth, in the largest and fastest ever community buy-out in the country’s history, and that club is thriving now. Improving football governance is a priority, and in the course of my work I have been looking at bringing it forward—I would say “soon”, but the hon. Lady has banned me from saying that. Further business will be announced in the usual way.

The hon. Lady made a very sensible suggestion about the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, which was an incredibly important moment for our nation and for Northern Ireland. I will certainly take up that suggestion and see whether we can accommodate it.

Tuesday was National Compliment Day, so I will end by paying the hon. Lady a compliment: these exchanges are always a pleasure.