Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mark Spencer)]

It will be a pleasure.

Monday 18 July—Consideration of a motion of confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

Tuesday 19 July—Consideration in Committee of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill (day 2).

Wednesday 20 July—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill (day 3).

Thursday 21 July—General debate on UK sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption, followed by the Sir David Amess summer adjournment debate. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 21 July and return on Monday 5 September.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I note the pleasure, on all sides of the House, at the forthcoming Sir David Amess debate. I wonder if it will be the opening dispatch from the deputy Leader of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), opposite my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden).

I am surprised to see the Leader of the House in his place, as all we can gather from his statement and everything else we have heard from his party this week is that his Government are done. They have given up on governing. Tories are running scared, blocking Labour’s vote of no confidence—another new low; morally and constitutionally bankrupt to the bitter end. It is a core convention that the Government must be able to command the confidence of the House and that Opposition motions of no confidence are given time. That has been the case for centuries. Indeed, the Tory party itself tabled a very similar motion on 2 August 1965, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, which states, and I quote because I have checked it:

“deplores the Prime Minister’s conduct of the nation’s affairs.”—[Official Report, 2 August 1965; Vol. 717, c. 1070.]

That is what we want to do.

So, I ask the Leader of the House, why was that Tory motion acceptable, but Labour’s motion is not? I think we know why, Mr Speaker. It is clearly a political decision: a Tory party clinging on to a law-breaking national embarrassment brass-neckery—I am not sure whether I have used that word correctly, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) used it yesterday—of a Prime Minister. Labour’s motion is entirely orderly and the Leader of the House knows it. I have checked. So, could he please point to the part of “Erskine May” where it says the Government can now choose to accept or reject or dictate the wording of an orderly motion of no confidence purely on a political whim?

The Leader of the House announced today that the Government have tabled a motion of confidence in themselves for Monday. What makes him think that it is right for the Government to dictate to Her Majesty’s Opposition which orderly motions we can table? If they do not want any sort of confidence motion, do you know what they could do, Mr Speaker? They could get rid of the Prime Minister now. He should not be in No. 10 Downing Street a single day further.

I am afraid it is the Government’s incompetence that means the Online Safety Bill has been delayed yet again. I see just now chaos online between Tory Ministers and leadership candidates in their opinions on that. I am sorry, but the Government have had years to bring in this Bill. I called for it for months from the Dispatch Box. They could have brought it in months and months ago. Delaying it means inaction on making children safer online and on tackling fraud and scams. It is on them, Mr Speaker. How long is the Leader of the House going to delay the Bill this time?

From flagrant breaches of long-standing constitutional conventions to not turning up. After spending all her time deciding whether or not to join the circus that is the Tory leadership contest, the Home Secretary just did not bother turning up to be scrutinised by the Home Affairs Committee yesterday. Can the Leader of the House please tell us what it is about passport delays, asylum delays, rising crime, falling prosecutions, record low rape charges and record high fraud that makes the Home Secretary run away from the Select Committee? Lots of preparation goes into these sessions, not just from Members on all sides but from staff. Will the Leader of the House please remind his Cabinet colleague about the importance of just turning up? We have a Prime Minister hinting that he will not turn up to his last Prime Minister’s questions; and with ambulance services in crisis, instead of coming to this House yesterday and telling us what he is going to do about it, why was the Health Secretary somewhere else, tweeting support for a leadership candidate? Will the Leader of the House ask the Health Secretary to take some responsibility, come to this House and make a statement on why the longer the Tories are in power, the longer patients wait?

We can believe the former Chancellor when he said this week that he has no working-class friends, because literally none of them here are doing any work! But this is serious: the Prime Minister has already done untold damage to our country and to standards in public life. He has repeatedly been caught disrespecting the British people, and his pattern of behaviour as Foreign Secretary shows that he is potentially a risk to national security. Those on the Tory Benches are all complicit. They know that he is not fit to govern—they told the public so just days ago—and they are now propping him up until September. He must not be allowed to stay over the summer, when he will have no parliamentary scrutiny and can do whatever he wants.

This situation needs more than challenging the Tory at the top. Conservative Members have failed to remove the man they admitted was entirely unfit for office, and they are all culpable. Labour will act in the national interest and vote with no confidence in this failed and frankly dangerous Prime Minister and his Government, because we need a fresh start with a Labour Government who will reboot our economy, end the cost of living crisis, revitalise our public services, re-energise our communities, unite our country and clean up our politics.