Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 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 would be a pleasure.

The business for the week commencing 6 June will include:

Monday 6 June—Second Reading of the National Security Bill.

Tuesday 7 June—Opposition day (1st allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the Official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Wednesday 8 June—Second Reading of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

Thursday 9 June—General debate on social housing and building safety followed by a general debate on the Government’s strategic priorities for OFWAT. The subject for the second debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 10 June—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 June will include:

Monday 13 June—Remaining stages of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill.

Tuesday 14 June—Second Reading of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill.

Wednesday 15 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the Official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 16 June—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 17 June—The House will not be sitting.

Right hon. and hon. Members might also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the summer recess at the close of business on Thursday 21 July and return on Monday 5 September. The House will rise for the conference recess at the close of business on Thursday 22 September and return on Monday 17 October. The House will rise for the November recess at the close of business on Wednesday 9 November and return on Monday 14 November. The House will rise for the Christmas recess at the close of business on Wednesday 21 December and return on Monday 9 January. The House will rise for the February recess at the close of business on Thursday 9 February and return on Monday 20 February. Sitting Fridays will be announced in due course. I hope that that information is welcome news to right hon. and hon. Members.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us not only the forthcoming business but the recess dates, for which members of staff have been asking me. I am very grateful: he went further even than I asked, so fair do’s—Brucie bonus time!

I start, and I am sure the Leader of the House will join me, by wishing the Queen well on her platinum jubilee. I look forward to the Chamber commemorating that historic milestone later today. She has shown remarkable leadership and dedication to public service over 70 years.

I also invite the Leader of the House to join me in congratulating Labour’s sister party in Australia on its positive campaign in the election down under. I am inspired by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s victory, ousting a stale Conservative Government who were out of touch and out of ideas.

Yesterday, the damning verdict on Downing Street’s law-breaking parties was published. Can the Leader of the House say whether anyone in Government received a copy of Sue Gray’s report in advance of its publication and whether they attempted to change it? Failures of leadership and judgment at the heart of Government are mentioned in the report, and it was particularly sickening to learn of the total lack of respect for and poor treatment of staff, with security staff being mocked and cleaners left to mop up. Will he clarify whether any of those who mocked staff are special advisers? If so, has the Prime Minister sacked them? If not, why not?

The report concludes that those at the top must bear responsibility for a culture that allowed such flagrant disregard for the rules. Yesterday, the Prime Minister seemed too busy focusing on saving his own skin to deal with the Tory cost of living crisis. He also said that all senior leadership in No. 10 has changed, which I found a little odd. Does he not count himself as senior leadership?

On the cost of living crisis, one in eight energy customers is already struggling to pay their bills, and that is before bills are expected to go up by a further £800 in October. We know that the Chancellor will make a statement shortly and we will of course scrutinise his proposals carefully, but why has it taken so long? It really does look as though the Government delayed their support for struggling families so that they could time the announcement as a distraction from the Sue Gray report. Every day, the Government have dragged their feet, as they continue to do, refusing to introduce Labour’s windfall tax on oil and gas producers. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been added to the bills of households across the country.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I agree that it is important that Members are able to hold Ministers to account in this place first, yet it has been widely trailed in the media this morning that the Chancellor will be making the inevitable screeching U-turn that we all knew he would have to make eventually. Will the Leader of the House please remind his colleagues that major policy statements should be made by Ministers in this place first, not briefed to the media?

I am sorry to have to bring this up again, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have cleared it with the Clerk, the Table Office, and the other Madam Deputy Speaker, the right hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing). I want to make that clear. There have been allegations made about the Conservative party’s failure to take proper action following allegations put to it about alleged child abuse by a parliamentary candidate. Will the Leader of the House now attempt to restore victims and survivors’ faith in the Conservative party’s safeguarding processes? He could do that now by committing to an independent inquiry into the party’s handling of such issues.

Months ago, we were promised fresh data on response times to written parliamentary questions and ministerial replies to MPs’ correspondence. I am glad to say that after pressure from those on the Opposition Benches, a written statement on the subject is on the Order Paper today. However, it does not solve the problem of the long wait that Members’ staff are experiencing, not only as regards Parliamentary questions but when calling MPs’ hotlines, such as those in the Home Office. Constituency offices are even starting to receive significantly higher phone bills for the office as a result. Will the Leader of the House urge the Home Secretary, just as an example, to increase capacity for the hotline so that Members and our staff—it is usually our staff—can best support constituents, such as those constituents who cannot get passports not just for a well deserved holiday but for ID for a job or somewhere to live?

With a Government too busy plotting how they will get away with it, as cited in the Sue Gray report, rather than introducing a proper plan to deal with soaring inflation, falling wages and a stagnant economy, it is now time for Tory MPs to act and remove the Prime Minister, who has lost the confidence of the British people.

[Mark Spencer]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that you would be in Doncaster celebrating its city status, for which I know you have been campaigning for a long time.

I join the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) in celebrating the Queen’s 70th jubilee. It will be a huge opportunity for the country to celebrate and get together to recognise a huge achievement in public service by Her Majesty. I also join her in congratulating the Australian Government on their success. We look forward to working with them on trade and international matters as we move forward.

We then got into the usual flurry of accusations and snipes. Of course, the hon. Lady started with the Sue Gray report. I am glad that Sue Gray has finally managed to get her report out there. It identifies the ongoing challenges in No. 10 but, as the Prime Ministers made clear, he has addressed the culture in No. 10 and changed the senior management team. I think he was also shocked, as many colleagues would be, by the treatment of security and cleaning staff. That is why yesterday the Prime Minister went around and apologised in person to those security and cleaning teams on behalf of those people who were rude to them. I think that was the right thing to do. The Prime Minister has made it clear that the culture has now changed within No. 10, and he is now focused on what matters to the British people: the global fight against inflation, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and making sure that our constituents’ priorities are the Government’s priorities, as they always have been.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He will be here at this Dispatch Box very soon, and I will not pre-empt what he is about to say, for no other reason than that I do not know. I look forward to hearing what the Chancellor says. What I do know is that this Chancellor has already announced £22 billion-worth of support. He is a Chancellor who, instead of giving us knee-jerk reactions and political gimmicks, thinks through the economic and fiscal plans that he will bring forward and makes sure that in those plans he gives genuine support to those who need it, while not incentivising people away from making long-term investments to continue to pay the Exchequer the tax from their successful businesses. That is the appropriate thing to do.

The hon. Lady finished by mentioning parliamentary questions. Yesterday, I appeared in front of the Procedure Committee to answer questions. It is a challenge that I recognise; we need to do better. As a constituency MP, I understand that many across the House will certainly be frustrated by the progress or the speed of return of some answers to parliamentary questions. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, the global pandemic affected the speed with which some Departments answered, because they were focused on dealing with the pandemic. That excuse has now passed. We need to see an improvement in the response from different Departments.

However, I gently say to the hon. Lady—I know she is in her happy place when she is sniping from the sidelines—that this week we have seen the Labour party this week vote against the Public Order Bill, putting it on the side of Extinction Rebellion, not on the side of hard-working people. Extinction Rebellion are the people who seized an oil tanker full of cooking oil. We have seen Labour vote against the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, because it has no interest in addressing the challenges that Northern Ireland faces. The shadow spokesman actually said that

“the rights of victims and veterans are equal to the rights of terrorists”.—[Official Report, 24 May 2022; Vol. 715, c. 193.]

The Labour party put itself in completely the wrong place this week. It will do anything it can to avoid taking responsibility and making the difficult decisions that this Government are having to take in the interests of the country.