Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 21 January—Remaining stages of the Healthcare (International) Arrangements Bill.

Tuesday 22 January—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill.

Wednesday 23 January—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Tenant Fees Bill, followed by a motion relating to private Members’ Bills.

Thursday 24 January—A general debate on Holocaust Memorial Day 2019, followed by a debate on a motion relating to appropriate ME treatment. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 25 January—The House will not be sitting.

I can confirm to the House that a statement and a motion on the Government’s next steps under section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 will be tabled on Monday. A full day’s debate on the motion will take place on Tuesday 29 January, subject to the agreement of the House.

Mr Speaker,

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.”

Let me say, on the eve of A.A. Milne’s birthday, that that is one of my favourite quotes from “Winnie-the-Pooh”—and, as Eeyore said:

“It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine.”

May I wish you, Mr Speaker, a very happy birthday for Saturday?

Finally, I leave the House with an uplifting and rather wise thought from “Winnie-the-Pooh”:

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Leader of the House for her birthday wishes. I am looking forward to the occasion, although probably not quite as much as when I was about to be 15 rather than 56—but there you go.

[Valerie Vaz]

May I associate myself with the Leader of the House’s good wishes to you, Mr Speaker? I am not quite sure about the bit about the fluff in the ear. I do not know whether she suspects that you are not listening to what she says.

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business for next week. I am pleased that she said that the Prime Minister would make a statement on Monday. The Prime Minister said that the motion would be amendable. Can the Leader of the House confirm that it will be, and can she also confirm what the Government Chief Whip said when he jumped up to the Dispatch Box—he said that 90 minutes was not enough to debate such an important issue and that the Government would provide reasonable time to hold the debate and vote by 30 January?

This is the first Government to be held in contempt of Parliament. The Prime Minister has had a vote of no confidence from within her own party. There was a vote of no confidence in the Government yesterday, which the Government won because they have a confidence and supply agreement. Yet again, however, a record was broken: 432 hon. and right hon. Members voted against the Prime Minister’s deal. That was the biggest defeat of a Government in history.

The Leader of the House said in an interview on BBC Radio 4:

“The Government has been collaborating across the House ever since the beginning of this Parliament.”

Can she say with whom? The Leader of the House also said that the Prime Minister will be “speaking with senior parliamentarians”. Can she say with whom—can she publish a list of those favoured ones, or is this another case of divide and rule? The Leader of the House will note that the House voted against a no-deal scenario. That must be off the table, so could she confirm that that is off the table in any starting point for discussions?

This Opposition and Parliament have been working on behalf of the people. Pressure from Her Majesty’s Opposition led to a meaningful vote, a term coined by the shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), and it took a Humble Address for Parliament to be given the impact assessments.

How can we have confidence in the referendum when the donor of the largest political donation in history is being investigated by the National Crime Agency? The leave campaign has been found to have broken electoral law, whistleblowers and journalists have raised alarms about the legality of the campaign, and the previous Government said no analysis of the impact should be given out by our independent civil service.

Yes, the people have voted, but it is our job as elected representatives to look at the evidence of the impact on the country, and not rely on the campaign rhetoric, which we now know to be based on falsehoods. We must rely on the evidence and the facts. So can the Leader of the House confirm whether she will move the business motion to extend article 50 in time? I know friends of the Leader of the House have said she might resign if she had to do that.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) has asked the DExEU Minister to explain why the Government thought it appropriate as a matter of law to proceed under regulation 32, for reasons of urgency, extreme urgency and unforeseeable events, when they handed the contract of £14 million to Seaborne Freight, a company with no ships, no ports and no employees. Can the Leader of the House publish a list of all the contracts that have been awarded under this regulation by any Government Department?

As of last Friday, 73% of the time available for the Government to lay their Brexit statutory instruments has elapsed, but only 51% of SIs have been laid. A previous shadow Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Lord Cunningham, said in the House of Lords that there is a Brexit SI that is 630 pages long, 2.54 kg in weight and includes 11 disparate subjects. The Government are clearly doing all they can to avoid proper scrutiny. Baroness Smith, shadow Leader of the Lords, says that she holds both of them in both hands so she does not have to go to the gym. Can the Leader of the House update the House on the progress of the Brexit SIs that need to be laid before the UK exits the EU?

In yesterday’s confidence vote debate the Prime Minister said:

“when you have worked hard all your life, you will get a good pension and security and dignity in your old age”.

Not if you are a WASPI woman, and not if you are a couple where only one of you is over pensionable age, because a written statement on Monday showed that there would be a £7,000 pension cut for the poorest elderly couples. The Prime Minister said:

“where growing up you will get the best possible education, not because your parents can afford to pay for it but because that is what every local school provides”.

Not according to new analysis by the House of Commons Library, showing that total education spending, including spending on schools and colleges, in the UK has fallen by over £7 billion in real terms since 2010. The Prime Minister said:

“where, when you have children of your own, you will be able to rely on our world-class NHS”.—[Official Report, 16 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1185.]

But not if you are on NHS waiting lists, which have grown to 4.3 million. The number of people waiting longer than two months for cancer treatment has almost doubled since 2010 and £7 billion has been cut from adult social care since 2010, leaving 1.4 million elderly and vulnerable people without care and support. The Prime Minister needs to come to the House and correct the record. It is no wonder that, in his speech, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs focused on the Leader of the Opposition rather than on confidence in his own Government.

May I also ask the Leader of the House if she will in principle talk to the usual channels about proxy voting? I do not want to discuss individual cases, just the principle of proxy voting. What is the timetable for coming back to the House and ensuring that is put in place?

The Leader of the House mentioned the Holocaust Memorial Day debate. The book will be available to sign next week; it was opened this week. On Monday, it is Martin Luther King Day, whose words we must remember:

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all”.

I hope that we all heed those words as we work towards tolerance, mutual respect, justice and opportunity and as we work to find a solution.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her various comments. I can confirm that the debate on Tuesday 29 January will not be limited to 90 minutes. The Government will ensure that sufficient time is available so the House can fully consider the matter for the whole day. The arrangements for the debate are subject to the House agreeing those arrangements, and it will be brought forward as a business of the House motion, which will be amendable and debatable.

The hon. Lady asks about my claim that there have been discussions across the House. She will appreciate that the Government have brought forward 46 Bills, 33 of which have received Royal Assent, and that in a hung Parliament there is considerable collaboration. Nearly 1,500 amendments were tabled to the EU withdrawal Bill, and on many of them the Government sought to do cross-party deals to ensure we could get the business through. By definition, given that 33 Bills have received Royal Assent, there has been a great deal of cross-party collaboration. It is important that she accepts that. Those are the facts. That is the truth of the matter.

The hon. Lady asks what the position is on a no-deal Brexit. She will be aware that, Parliament having passed the EU withdrawal Act, the legal default is that the UK will leave the EU on 29 March and, if a deal has not been voted for, it will be with no deal, unless alternative arrangements are put in place.

The hon. Lady says that the people have spoken and she is absolutely right—the people did speak. She then suggested it is up to Members of Parliament to decide what we do in response. I would slightly disagree with her. The people have spoken and it is our job to fulfil that, in line with the requirements of the people. This House is a servant of the people of this country—the entire United Kingdom.

The hon. Lady asks about progress on Brexit SIs. She will appreciate we have gone further than any previous Government in being open and transparent about the plans for secondary legislation. I remain confident that all required statutory instruments that need to be will be brought forward in time for exit day. I have recently exchanged letters with the Chairman of the sifting Committee to clarify some of the affirmative SIs that need to be brought forward in Committee. More than 300 Brexit SIs have now been laid, which is more than half the SIs we anticipate will be required by exit day and, as I say, we remain confident.

The hon. Lady makes various assertions about what the Prime Minister said. I gently say that from the Dispatch Box the hon. Lady could welcome, as I do, the fact that the economy is 18% bigger than it was in 2010 and has grown for eight consecutive years, that wages have outstripped inflation for eight consecutive months, and that median household incomes are up by £1,400 in real terms since 2010. She should celebrate the fact that more people are in work than ever before, that wages are growing at their fastest rate for a decade, that 1.9 million more children are being taught in good or outstanding schools than in 2010 and that this Government have committed a bigger investment in the NHS than ever before in its entire history. She should celebrate those things, but I fear she does not.

The hon. Lady made a point about proxy voting. It is a serious point, and the whole House knows my view. It is vital that families get the opportunity to spend time with their new babies. I will be bringing forward a motion as soon as I can on this subject. As all hon. Members will appreciate, there are no clear-cut views—for example, on how far it should extend and to what sort of motions it should apply—but I have been consulting broadly on the matter, and I hope to bring that forward as soon as possible.