Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 16th 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 20 June will include:

Monday 20 June—Second Reading of the High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill.

Tuesday 21 June—Opposition day (3nd allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 22 June—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill.

Thursday 23 June—General debate on investing in the future of motor neurone disease, followed by a general debate on the national food strategy and food security. Business determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 24 June—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 27 June will include:

Monday 27 June—Committee of the whole House on the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill (day 1).

Tuesday 28 June—Conclusion of Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business, but all we can conclude from his statement is that, whether it is failing to deal with the Tory cost of living crisis or just adding to backlog Britain, this is a Government with no plan. They continue on with reckless undermining of British institutions and principles that we on this side of the House are proud of.

And now the Prime Minister adds to his own labour market shortage after losing his second ethics adviser in just 14 months. There is a reason why even his hand-picked referees cannot defend him: it is because the Prime Minister is indefensible. He should come to this House and come clean about the events that led to Lord Geidt’s resignation. I am glad that Labour’s urgent question finally pushed the Government into announcing they would publish the resignation letter, but why was it not published earlier? Why has it not been published yet? Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to come to this House and answer questions after it is published? Does he have any answers to the questions put by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) during the urgent question on concerns, which I share, about the impact of all this on public faith in our democracy?

Meanwhile, Labour, the party of patriotism, stands up for our world-renowned broadcasting industry. On Tuesday, in our successful Opposition day motion, we called on Government to reverse the decision to sell off Channel 4. That provides great entertainment, quality news reporting, good jobs around the country—including in Bristol—and projects British values and creativity overseas, so could the Leader of the House tell us why the Government are prioritising selling off Channel 4 over dealing with food, energy and fuel bills?

Not happy with selling off our country’s most treasured institutions, Government are also selling out our global reputation. Breaking international law with the Northern Ireland protocol legislation damages our standing on the world stage, and it does not solve the problem. It does look like the Government are deliberately making things worse to distract from their own civil war. Ministers say that it is normal only to publish a summary of legal advice, but this does happen to be the only Prime Minister to have broken the law while in office. So I ask the Leader of the House: if the Government have nothing to hide, will he undertake to publish the legal advice in full?

This morning, we heard that more than 150 men who worked at the British embassy in Kabul are still in Afghanistan. Many have applied to come here, but have not heard back from this Government, and many have been tortured, which is shameful. The Home Secretary told us only yesterday that there are supposed to be safe and legal routes here. This needs sorting. Will the Leader of the House get the Government on to this today?

Last week, a BBC investigation revealed shocking abuse and safeguarding failures in children’s homes run by Calcot Services for Children. At the same time as these alleged incidents, the company recorded massive profits. We have not had a response from Government, so could the Leader of the House please ask an Education Minister for a statement?

The Government’s failure to tackle backlog Britain is piling misery on to millions. Waiting lists in Government departments cripple our economy, cost the taxpayer billions of pounds and prevent people from getting on with their lives. Just look at the Home Office. We have families forced to pay for fast-track passport services and millions wasted on failed outsourced contracts, including a courier service—you could not make this up—that is losing hundreds of passports. This is a Home Office in freefall.

Labour called for an apology from the passports Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—but he cannot even tell us the scale of the backlog. He said work continues to recruit more staff over the summer. Where is the urgency? Given the Home Office’s well-known top-down culture of fear, I am sceptical that it will be able to fill the jobs. So could the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to make a statement telling us exactly how many outstanding passport applications there are and how she plans to recruit more staff?

It is worth mentioning that backlog Britain seems to extend to the Government’s own legislative agenda. The renters’ rights reforms announced today are welcome, but they were promised three years ago. All we have is a White Paper. When will they bring the legislation forward and give renters the rights they deserve?

Downing Street is now Britain’s boulevard of broken dreams—a Queen’s Speech in disarray, failure to tackle the Tory cost of living crisis, writing off billions to fraudsters, selling off British institutions, selling out Britain’s reputation and no grip on backlog Britain. A party unable to govern ought to make way for one that can. Labour will get the country back on track.

[Mark Spencer]

We are getting into a regular pattern, where the hon. Lady basically stands up and has her weekly rant. She started with Lord Geidt. We have just spent an hour debating that and the Minister I think answered those questions. Those letters will be published very soon and we await that. She went on to talk about the sale of Channel 4. I think we had a slight glimpse of Labour party DNA, where apparently public is good and private is bad. Actually, that does not stack up. Channel 4 is a great TV station and releasing it into the private sector, and allowing it to flourish and compete with other great private sector programme providers, will allow it to continue to be a world leader. We look forward to it flourishing within the private sector.

Afghanistan is a very important issue and the Government managed to get out 15,000 people under very difficult circumstances. I acknowledge that there are people who struggle to get out, and we continue to help people to find safe routes to get to the United Kingdom. It was a huge success to get in there and get thousands of people out in the middle of a war zone, and the people involved in that process should be commended.

The hon. Lady went on to talk about waiting lists and passports. The statistics are out there: 91% of people get their passport within six weeks and we continue to recruit more people. I acknowledge that 91% of people getting their passport within six weeks means that 9% of people are struggling to get their passport. That is why the Home Secretary is bringing on more staff. She has brought 750 on already. More are coming before the summer. We acknowledge that we need to get people their passports, so that they can enjoy a summer holiday post covid as we move forward.

The hon. Lady made passing reference to the backlogs in the NHS. That is why we introduced the health and social care levy to help fund the NHS and provide support to get the backlogs down post pandemic. It is disappointing that the Labour party decided not to support that investment in the NHS and not to address those challenges. We can see through it—Labour just likes to complain. It does not have a plan. It just wants to criticise the Government because it does have not a plan, and it will do anything it can not to talk about its union bosses who are going to call strikes and make people’s lives a misery. It just wants to throw mud and criticise, to hide the fact that it does not have a plan for the country and the British people.