Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, before I give the business, I hope you will permit me to place on the record my admiration and thanks for all those who enabled the mourning of Her late Majesty to be so exquisite, including the general public. It was done so well and with much love. We did her proud.

Subject to the House’s agreement of the motion on today’s order paper, the business for Friday 23 September will be:

Friday 23 September—The Chancellor of the Exchequer will make a statement on the Government’s plans for growth. Subject to the House’s agreement, the House will then rise for the conference recess and return on Tuesday 11 October.

The business for the week commencing 10 October will include:

Tuesday 11 October—Consideration of an allocation of time motion followed by all stages of the Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill.

Wednesday 12 October—Second Reading of the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords], followed by a motion relating to the Procedure Committee’s recommendations on proxy voting.

Thursday 13 October—Second Reading of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill.

Friday 14 October—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 17 October will include:

Monday 17 October—Remaining Stages of the Public Order Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving the forthcoming business. I join her in commending the House, Members’ staff and Members across the House for working so hard, both on the lying- in-state and on the tributes to the late Queen. I agree that we did Her late Majesty proud. It was an honour to close the tributes with the right hon. Lady.

May I also commend the right hon. Lady for taking up her role as Lord President of the Council so impeccably and so swiftly? She became the first woman to proclaim a new monarch, and she did so with great poise.

I welcomed the Leader of the House’s response to my question two weeks ago about the appointment of a new Government ethics adviser. She said then that the Prime Minister would get around to it “swiftly”—well, at least she is planning to appoint one. The Government have been missing an ethics adviser for months now, so where is the urgency? Can the Leader of the House tell us exactly where the appointment ranks on the Prime Minister’s to-do list?

An ethics adviser could have offered guidance to the Cabinet Office, which seems to think it appropriate to assist the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) by commissioning legal advice on his behalf. Does the Leader of the House think that what looks like interference in the Privileges Committee inquiry was appropriate? Does she expect the right hon. Gentleman to repay any money that was spent by taxpayers?

On legislation, I do not see in the business statement any listing for legislation on the energy bills crisis, and there does not yet seem to be a Bill. Will there be legislation, when will we see it, and when will we debate and vote on it?

On legislation that the Government seem to be planning to bin in their bonfire of Bills, the Prime Minster indicated that the Bill of Rights Bill and the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will be scrapped, and apparently the Business Secretary has told officials to stop work on the Energy Bill. Can the Leader of the House clarify that by confirming whether the Government plan to drop those Bills?

While we are on broken manifesto promises, we are now told that there is no chance of a trade deal with the US any time soon, despite the fact that it was a No. 1 priority in 2019, that it was then given a deadline of mid-2021, and that there was, apparently, significant progress last summer. I wonder who was the Trade Secretary then, and who was the Foreign Secretary who seems to have messed this up so badly.

I also wish to ask about the swerving of scrutiny. The Business Secretary yesterday announced the fuel bill relief scheme before coming to the House—as previous Prime Ministers and Ministers did—which Mr Speaker had specifically asked the new Prime Minister not to do. Instead of voluntarily providing a ministerial statement, the Business Secretary had to be dragged to Parliament to face questions. Could the Leader of the House have a word with him, please?

The Leader of the House also announced that the Chancellor will make a statement tomorrow—a so-called “mini Budget”—yet it looks as though Members will have only a few hours to scrutinise it, and there are no accompanying briefings from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Just changing the name does not change what the statement is or the need for those economic briefings. What are the Government seeking to hide? Can the Leader of the House tell us why we are getting only half a day, and will any economic forecasts be made tomorrow?

At the end of the day, politics is about choices. This Prime Minister is choosing lifting the cap on investment bankers’ bonuses over putting money back into working people’s pockets. By lifting the ban on fracking, she is choosing to back the fossil fuel lobby over investing in renewable energy. She is choosing to make the British people pay for her energy policy with debt piling up into the future. Labour’s plan to make sure people do not have to pay a penny more this winter would have been funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies’ windfall profits. When it comes to choices, the Tories are choosing to side with bankers and oil and gas giants, while Labour is choosing to side with everybody else.

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

I start by thanking the hon. Lady for her kind remarks. It was a privilege to preside over the Accession Council.

The Government have set out clearly their immediate priorities. The Prime Minister will get to the matter of an ethics adviser, but her priorities, as she has stated, have been ensuring that people in this country can see a doctor and a dentist. Members will not have to wait very long to hear from the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health on that matter. Our priority is also about getting growth back into our economy and building a modern economy through supply-side reform—again, the House will not have long to wait to hear about that plan directly from the Chancellor and to question him on the legislative programme that will follow—and dealing with the cost of living issues, which are of major concern to households and businesses. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy gave us his time this morning to talk through his proposals.

Those are the Government’s priorities, and we are acting on them. It was right that we observed a period of mourning for Her late Majesty. This week is the first opportunity we have had to bring these measures forward and present them to the House, and we are doing so. Those are the priorities of the Prime Minister and her Government.

The shadow Leader of the House raised the question of a trade deal with the United States. There is good news and there is bad news. We wanted a tariff arrangement faster than the US was prepared to move, but we will continue to press it on that. The Opposition can help us in that by outlining to their friends in the Democratic party why this is a good idea for both the UK and the US. We have not been idle in the meantime. She will know that we have been pursuing state-level arrangements on removing non-tariff barriers to trade. We have signed two, with a further 25 states interested, and the first eight that we sign will be equivalent to 20% of the US economy. That is the bad news. The good news is that at long last the Labour party supports a trade deal with the United States, and I am delighted to hear that.

Regarding the handling of business, it is incredibly important that the House hears things first. We want to ensure that the House has the time it needs both to question Ministers in statements and to scrutinise legislation. A wise man once said:

“It is a fundamental constitutional right that this House should be told things first”—[Official Report, 28 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 407.]

That was the former Leader of the House, who is now the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and I will hold him to it.

We have some major challenges facing this country because of the war in Ukraine and an incredibly volatile economy. I do hope we can take the mood of unity and co-operation that has been the flavour of this House in recent days and apply it to these problems together, for the benefit of all the people we serve.