Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 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 (Mel Stride)]

The business for the week commencing 15 July will include:

Monday 15 July—Remaining stages of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2019.



Tuesday 16 July—Second Reading of the Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion relating to the inter-ministerial group on early years family support. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 17 July—Second Reading of the Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill [Lords], followed by a general debate on the Gemma White report, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the changes to the independent complaints and grievance scheme.



Thursday 18 July—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a debate on a motion on the Bishop of Truro’s review on persecution of Christians overseas, followed by a general debate on the spending of the Department of Health and Social Care on non-invasive precision therapies. The subjects for these debates were recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 19 July—The House will not be sitting.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business for next week. I note that the Government have found time for the debate on the Gemma White, QC, report and the amendment to the independent complaints and grievance procedure. The report came out at 10 am today. I have not had an opportunity to look at it in detail, but Labour Members wish to thank Gemma White, QC, for the time and effort she has put into her report. We will look seriously at the detail of the recommendations and work on a cross-party basis to make Parliament a modern workplace, and I encourage all Members to undertake the Valuing Everyone training, as it is a very good training session.

Just two weeks are left until this House rises for the summer recess, but we still do not have the conference recess dates. Can the Leader of the House give us any advance on returning on 3 September? Will he give an undertaking that when a new Cabinet is formed, on 24 July, a new list of ministerial responsibilities will be published as soon as possible? The last one was published in December 2018.

I am sure the Leader of the House would like to correct the record: last week, when I raised the Conservative candidates’ spending spree, which totals £100 billion—these are uncosted policy changes—he claimed that the Labour Opposition are spending “£1 trillion”. As a former Financial Secretary, he can do better than just pulling figures out of thin air. He will know that Labour’s 2017 manifesto was the only one that was costed. I would be happy to arrange a meeting for him with the shadow Chancellor to go through all the costings.

What chaos: a future Prime Minister refusing to support his own ambassador in the face of verbal abuse. It is disgraceful that there was a malicious leak of emails. Sir Kim Darroch was doing his job. The Secretary of State for International Trade vowed to apologise to the President’s daughter, an unelected representative. What on earth is he doing meeting the President’s daughter, and why is he apologising to her and not to Sir Kim Darroch? Was this an official visit, when he met the President’s daughter, and was Sir Kim excluded from that meeting? Was the abuse of our ambassador about removing an obstacle because they would rather negotiate in a golden lift away from those who serve our country and want the best for our country? As the head of the diplomatic service has said, we stand in solidarity with Sir Kim Darroch.

On Monday, the Leader of the House said that he would “take on board” my request to find time for a debate on the message from the House of Lords on setting up a Joint Select Committee, and that he would give it “further thought.” Does he have any further thoughts? We are happy to debate it on an Opposition day, if he will give us one. I do not think that it is for the Opposition to go to the Backbench Business Committee to request time for a Backbench Business debate.

The Leader of the House will know that the Bank of England estimates that a worst-case Brexit will involve border delays and markets losing confidence in Britain, which could shock the economy into a 5% contraction within a year—nearly as much as during the global financial crisis. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, raised the “ugly prospect” of customs checks and political instability in Northern Ireland in a no-deal situation, which he said would

“put many businesses and many people under a great deal of strain”.

Philip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, said this week that

“everybody should be worried about what happens in a no-deal situation. We would be taking a step into the unknown.”

Mr Rycroft said that leaving with no deal would be “fraught with difficulty”.

The economy is going backwards: we have now had a third quarter of falling productivity, which decreased by 0.2%, and manufacturing has hit a six-month low. Deutsche Bank is sending people home with boxes; the last time we saw that was in the global financial crisis of 2008. Before the Leader of the House says anything, let me remind him that it was not Labour brothers who did that; Lehman Brothers was responsible. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has repeatedly refused to rule out no deal, so I ask again: please will the Leader of the House give us time to debate the Lords message?

Will the Government explicitly rule out proroguing Parliament to force a no-deal Brexit? The Opposition stand with Sir John Major, who said that he would seek a judicial review in the courts if the new Prime Minister tried to suspend Parliament to deliver a no-deal Brexit. The former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), said that, were that to happen, it would be

“the end of parliamentary democracy”.

Yesterday, United Nations experts voiced their “deep concern” over Iran’s “consistent pattern” of denying life-saving medical treatment to detainees, and the UN said that the continued detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a mockery of justice. Will the Leader of the House update the House on what steps the Government have taken this week to free Nazanin?

Finally, the UK Parliament newsletter reminds us that on 11 July 1859, Big Ben rang out for the first time. We wish to hear him or her again.

[Mel Stride]

I echo the hon. Lady’s comments on Gemma White, whom I thank for that report. As the hon. Lady pointed out, we received it only at 10 o’clock this morning so, as you will appreciate, Mr Speaker, I have not had time fully to digest the full findings of the Gemma White report on the bullying and harassment of MPs’ parliamentary staff, but I am sure that Members from all parties will share my concern at the initial reports, at least. Let me be clear that there should be absolutely no place for bullying and harassment in this place. We all bear a responsibility to uphold the proper standards of dignity and respect in Parliament.

As you know, Mr Speaker, over the past year, we have made significant progress that will help to bring about meaningful culture change, but more remains to be done. Indeed, as I have announced today, we are bringing forward a motion that will implement the important recommendation in Dame Laura Cox’s report that historic cases should be in scope as part of the independent complaints and grievance scheme. Our Parliament must be a safe place, free of bullying and harassment, and I am determined to play my part in delivering that.

The hon. Lady raises a number of other points. First, I thank her for welcoming the three hours of protected time that we have set aside to debate the Gemma Wright report on Wednesday next week. That will be followed immediately by one hour of protected time to cover the motion that will be tabled on the Laura Cox 2 recommendation.

The hon. Lady rightly raises the importance of the Valuing Everyone training. I urge everybody in the House to go on that training course. It is relatively short, but extremely important. I have written to all my Conservative colleagues in this House to urge them to take on that training, and I raised the importance of it at—let me just say—a very senior level of government.

The hon. Lady asks about the recess. The answer is that we will come back in due course with an announcement on the recess arrangements post the recess when the House rises on 25 July. She raises—as I think she did with my predecessor, to be fair—the publication of ministerial responsibilities. I will look into that and undertake to come back to her very quickly with an answer on when we expect that to be updated online.

The hon. Lady raises the profligacy—although she did not term it in that way—of the Labour party’s spending commitments and my £1 trillion price tag. I think that I will decline the invitation to meet the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter, because I have a volume of information that supports the assertions that I have made in this respect, not least, I believe, the £175 billion price tag on the nationalisations of the various utilities that the Labour party has in its sights.

The hon. Lady raises the important matter of Sir Kim Darroch. The Minister of State has clearly just answered an urgent question very thoroughly on that matter and put forward the Government’s very firm and resolute view on what has happened. She raised specifically the conversations that the Secretary of State for International Trade has had with members of the White House, and I know that he will be aware of the comments that she has made.

The hon. Lady raises the Joint Select Committee and the message from the Lords that we have received and asks when we will be responding to that. I am keen that we do so this side of the recess, and I am in discussions currently with our end of the usual channels in that regard.

The hon. Lady raises the matter of Deutsche Bank. I think that some 18,000 job losses are anticipated there, although it should be pointed out that this is a global retrenchment, not just one that affects the City of London. The Government’s record on employment is, of course, exemplary. We have the highest employment in our history and the lowest unemployment since 1974.

Once again, the hon. Lady also raises the issue of proroguing Parliament. The main thrust of her point was that this should not be used as a device for us to go into a no-deal situation without Parliament expressing its opinion on the matter. As I have said from this Dispatch Box in the past, I do not believe that that would be a desirable situation. The Government do not believe that that would be a desirable situation, not least because it would put the monarch in the awkward position of being involved in what is essentially a political decision given that it is Prorogation based on the advice of the Prime Minister, but ultimately granted by the Queen. I will also say, as I think you have suggested, Mr Speaker, that it seems inconceivable that Parliament will not have its opportunity to ensure that it has appropriate time to debate at the appropriate time these very, very important matters for our country.

The hon. Lady returns to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I can assure her that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office remains very robustly engaged with the Iranian authorities, and I have now taken it upon myself to ensure that my office keeps closely in touch with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in that regard, as indeed it has done very recently, particularly and not least because of the totally understandable concern that I share with the hon. Lady about her welfare and the desire that we all have in this House that she be released as quickly as possible.

Finally, Big Ben was mentioned. May I share the hon. Lady’s joy in referencing 11 July 1859? We do want to hear the bells again. An interesting fact that not many people may know is that this bell can actually be heard all around the world because the World Service has a live feed of it when it chimes, and that is the live bell that we hear when Big Ben is alive and whole.