Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 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 (Penny Mordaunt)]

May I start by associating myself with the many remembrances and tributes that have been paid to our dearly missed late colleague, Sir David Amess? Mr Speaker, I hope you will allow me to say that of the many organisations Sir David supported, perhaps the best known is the Music Man Project. Next week will see the first ever live performance of its new Christmas single, the first record it has ever produced. In its efforts, it is being supported by a little-known backing group called the Royal Marines Band. I hope all Members will buy a copy of the single and support this amazing cause.

The business for the week commencing 17 October will include:

Monday 17 October—Subject to the House agreeing a motion on today’s Order Paper, the House will sit from 2 pm in order for any Members who wish to take the oath or make the affirmation to do so. Oral questions will then take place in the usual way from 2.30 pm, followed by consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Energy Prices Bill.

Tuesday 18 October—Remaining stages of the Public Order Bill, followed by consideration of a motion relating to the Committee on Standards reports into the code of conduct and its recommendation relating to appeals and a procedural protocol in the House’s conduct system.

Wednesday 19 October—Opposition day (5th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 20 October—Debate on a motion on NHS dentistry, followed by a general debate on investing in the future of motor neurone disease. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 21 October—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 24 October includes:

Monday 24 October—Consideration of out-of-turn supplementary estimates relating to HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, followed by proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Adjustments) Bill, followed by consideration of a resolution relating to stamp duty land tax (reduction), followed by all stages of the Stamp Duty Land Tax (Reduction) Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business, and I join her and Members across the House in their tributes to our lost friend, David Amess, who will be very much in our thoughts in the coming days.

I am glad that yesterday’s motion on proxy voting seems to have inspired the right hon. Lady to press ahead with other important matters of House business, such as the Standards Committee recommendations on the Members’ code of conduct, which I have been calling on the Government to introduce for months—and now here it is. But, as with everything from this Government, it is half-baked. It appears that they are planning to bring in only the bits on appeals. Why? Will she tell us which of the other recommendations to raise standards for MPs she does not like? Is it the one about banning MPs from doing paid consultancy work? We know the reputational damage that has caused to Parliament recently. Is it the one about increasing the transparency of Members’ interests? Or are they just planning to shelve these measures altogether? Have they simply given up on standards in public life?

Despite the hard work of civil servants, Members continue to raise with me the long delays and inadequate responses that they experience when making representations to the Home Office on our constituents’ behalf. The Department said that it aims to answer all queries by the end of February 2023 and to return to its 20-day service standard by March. That is not good enough. It is important that Ministers provide MPs with the timely, quality responses that we are entitled to and that our constituents deserve. I have written to the Leader of the House on that issue and I look forward to receiving a response addressing my concerns, including the impact on our staff workload and our constituents’ lives. Will she talk to the Home Secretary about the importance of providing responses to MPs?

It is a pleasure to be back at business questions after party conference season. I hope that the right hon. Lady was watching the Labour conference as closely as I was keeping an eye on hers. It looks like she had a great time, all things considered. It is amazing what can get you cheers and applause at a Tory fringe event these days. I think I saw the right hon. Lady saying, “Our policies are great but our comms are sh—shocking”; let us go with that to keep it parliamentary. On comms, I agree, but people across the country know that her Government’s policies are sh—shocking too; I might as well make it work twice. Government Ministers know that themselves or they would not keep U-turning on them. It has been one policy for the pre-record and another for the time it is broadcast.

If only the Government had listened to Labour, because just before the Chancellor’s mini-Budget turned into a major disaster, I asked the Leader of the House whether Members could receive economic briefing papers and an independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecast, and have a proper chance to scrutinise the Chancellor’s tax cuts for the richest 1%. Labour does not ask for those things just for the sake of it; we are His Majesty’s loyal Opposition and it is our job to hold the Government to account on behalf of the people we all serve. It is the role of the House to examine and scrutinise the work of Government.

As the House’s representative in Government, has the right hon. Lady made that point to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor? Have the Government learned? Will they publish the OBR document as soon as they get it? Can the Leader of the House guarantee that her Government will never again seek to swerve scrutiny in such a catastrophic way that working people are left to pick up the Government’s very expensive bill?

“Funereal” and “unspeakably bleak”—just some of last night’s savage stream of consciousness flowing from the 1922 Committee of Tory Back Benchers. Oh dear, oh dear. The country’s economic outlook is almost as grim as the faces on the Government Benches during Prime Minister’s questions. The Leader of the House could not even muster a nod for her Prime Minister, and why would she? They have crashed the economy, sent mortgages and prices sky-high and damaged the UK’s reputation on the world stage, and we are all left paying the price. This is a Tory crisis made in Downing Street. The Government must end this “roll the dice” economics, reverse their Budget and abandon their failed trickle-down approach, because only Labour—the party of sound money—will get this country back on track and deliver a fresh start for the British people.

[Penny Mordaunt]

First, let me address the hon. Lady’s comments about my facial expressions: my resting face is that of a bulldog chewing a wasp, and people should not read too much into that.

Let me address the hon. Lady’s questions. The motion next week will focus on appeals, but I will also update the House about other measures. It is not that we are not doing them; it is just that we particularly want to press ahead with the appeals issue. A lot of my work has focused on ensuring that we can do something swiftly about the declarations issue. I have already spoken to the Chair of the Standards Committee about it, and we are bringing other things forward, including a motion on Tuesday’s Order Paper about the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

I completely agree with the hon. Lady about questions, and particularly about the issues at the Home Office. I have already raised the matter with the Home Secretary; on receiving her letter, I summoned the permanent secretary to come and see me to discuss the matter in detail. I know that it is a concern for many Members of the House. We need to ensure that the Home Office can meet demand.

I am guilty as charged: I was playing to the crowd as I was addressing a room full of communications professionals. That was my profession in a former life, and they always get the blame for things, even when it is not their fault.

With regard to the other issues that the hon. Lady raises, our prime concern in this Government is to deliver for the people of this country. That means delivering the Prime Minister’s plan of modernising our economy, tackling people’s priorities on the cost of living, ensuring that they can get access to healthcare and supporting business. We are facing unprecedented challenges, particularly the war in Ukraine, which is not just a war against the people of Ukraine but an economic war against every hospital, every school, every business and every household in this country. We are determined to win that war.

With regard to our record—against a backdrop of having no money left when we came into office, I remind Opposition Members—we are the party that has held down fuel duty, has introduced a living wage and has created a modern welfare system that saw millions through the pandemic. Labour’s legacy systems would have collapsed. In this Parliament, we are investing £4 billion in skills. We have introduced T-levels. We have doubled free childcare. We introduced the triple lock. Millions of households will be getting direct payments to protect the most vulnerable this winter. We have modernised the universal credit taper rate and provided £1,400, on average, to help households to combat rising energy prices. We have made the largest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade. We introduced the Tenant Fees Act 2019. Those are all things that protect vulnerable people.

Our record is nearly 4 million people back in work since 2010, unemployment halved, 2 million more women in work and 1 million more disabled people in work. [Hon. Members: “More!”] I shall not indulge myself any longer, but that is the Conservatives’ record. It is Labour and those on the Opposition Benches who are anti-more money in your pocket, anti-better public services and anti-protecting the most vulnerable. It is the anti-growth coalition whose—[Interruption.]