Valerie Vaz
Main Page: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)Department Debates - View all Valerie Vaz's debates with the Leader of the House
(4 years ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 30 November will include:
Monday 30 November—Second Reading of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill.
Tuesday 1 December—Motion to approve regulations related to public health.
Wednesday 2 December—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve the draft Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment) Order 2020, the draft Direct Payments to Farmers (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 and the draft World Trade Organisation Agreement on Agriculture (Domestic Support) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft Plant Health (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the draft Plant Health (Phytosanitary Conditions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
Thursday3 December—General debate on the future of coal in the United Kingdom, followed by debate on a motion relating to digital infrastructure, connectivity and accessibility. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 4 December—The House will not be sitting.
Valerie Vaz
May I thank the Leader of the House for the business and ask again about the end of Session? Obviously, that is not going to be in November. I can only assume it will be May, but it would be helpful to know, particularly as we would quite like another Opposition day. I think ours was taken away last time.
May I ask for a statement, again, on the progress of the EU talks from the Prime Minister? I think he has stopped shielding, or hiding from the ERG or CRG or whichever group we have now. We may be in lockdown, but we are not in a Government news lockdown.
The Department for International Development has been abolished and we know that it has gone into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Could the Leader of the House set out what plans the Government have for re-establishing that Department in some form or another, or maybe keeping the Select Committee as it is, given that it needs to look at overseas development aid?
I hope that the Leader of the House will bring back the motion on virtual participation. We all want a much longer debate than we had on Tuesday. Let us remember: it is the Government who prevented participation of our colleagues, pitching one colleague against another through a restrictive and discriminatory definition. It is that stubbornness that is preventing our colleagues from taking part.
Let me quote something that I did not have time to quote on Tuesday. It states that
“the broadcasting hub on the Estate had been substantially improved and augmented”—
that means made better and bigger—
“with additional offsite capacity.”
The House staff think that this can be done. Why do the Government and the Leader of the House not think so?
Let us turn to the spending review. The Chancellor has made available £4 billion of a levelling-up fund. It is a bit like a gameshow now, pitching one community against another—“I’m a levelling-up project, gimme the money!” Last week, I raised the NAO report and the possible misuse of public money whereby one Minister gives money to another Minister in the constituency. I am sure the Leader of the House will know—I know the Government have issues with the Electoral Commission, an independent body—that the shadow Minister for voter engagement and young people, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), has asked the Electoral Commission about the misuse of public funds in relation to ads in targeted seats just before the election, with majorities of fewer than 5,000. They were told, “You’re going to get £25 million of investment in your town.”
If this is going to continue, will the Leader of the House ensure that proper criteria are published? We need to know which Department will be responsible for it, because there are three involved—the Treasury, Transport, and Housing, Communities and Local Government. Better still, why do the Government not just give the money to the local authorities on proper criteria, as they have done for years? Those authorities are all in deficit; they have all been struggling. Even better, give the money to key workers. Public sector workers have had a slap in the face in not getting an increase in their salaries, which is just levelling up after 10 years of Tory austerity.
Under the spending review, the Chancellor has set out funds to support getting people back to work—the Restart scheme. On Tuesday, there was a joint press release with Ministers and Scottish Ministers saying that a really important company, Burntisland, is going to lose highly skilled, specialist jobs that are here in Scotland. Hundreds of employees do not know whether they have a job or not. Could we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to continue these discussions, so that we do not lose those vital jobs?
This is not a party of law and order; this is not a Government of law and order. On Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Education was found to have acted unlawfully in watering down safeguards for protecting children. He excluded the Children’s Commissioner, among others, from his decision making, and 65 separate legal protections were watered down. Can we have an urgent statement?
The Equality and Human Rights Commission found on Wednesday that the hostile environment referred to by the shadow Lord Chancellor breached equalities law. What about the Secretary of State giving a job to his friend, who was first unpaid—an unpaid lobbyist—then became a non-exec director, paid with public money, and then received an access all area pass from another Minister? Could we have an urgent statement? I know the Leader of the House does not like to have people who are overqualified for jobs if they have been members of the Labour party, but having someone who is a friend, who does not go through normal employment practices, is not right.
Parliament Week has been a great success. David Clark and the team have undertaken 8,700 activities and reached over 980,000 people. All of them have done a fantastic job explaining our democracy. On behalf of everyone, I thank David Clark and wish him well in his new post. I understand that he is popping up in an office near you, Mr Speaker—literally near you.
Kylie has been released. Daren Nair of Amnesty International thanked the Australian Parliament and our Parliament for making sure that Kylie’s name was never forgotten, and we want to do the same for Nazanin, Anoosheh, and of course Luke Symons. We want them home before Christmas.
Finally, we remember Bruce Boynton of Boynton v. Virginia, one of the first Freedom Riders. May he rest in peace.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Indeed, may he and all the souls of the faithful departed—especially in November, of course, the month of the holy souls—rest in peace.
I share her agreement that we should congratulate David Clark on what he has done for Parliament Week. May I say that the thanks being given to the British Parliament for Kylie’s release should fall particularly to the right hon. Lady? It is not usual for the Leader of the House to say that his shadow is the person who has really highlighted a cause, fought for it and raised it week after week, but I think the thanks should go much more to her than to me. I hope she will continue to raise these issues, because I think it is an area in which the whole House is in agreement.
However, I am sorry to tell you, Mr Speaker, that we do not agree about everything. The end of the Session will of course come in accordance with the process of successive Government business, in the normal way, and will be announced in the normal way. We will have Opposition days in accordance with the requirements of Standing Orders—I know that everyone waits with bated breath for future Opposition days.
As regards EU talks and when statements will come, I think we will see from what comes after me how good and strong the Government have been in keeping this House up to date, with two important statements coming. I can reassure the House that statements will come when there is something to say, but it is not beneficial for the House to have statements until that time.
The right hon. Lady asked about DFID and the processes with the Select Committee. This is under discussion between the Chairman of the Select Committee and other interested parties, and the Government are looking upon suggestions about it with benignity.
On virtual participation, the right hon. Lady puts herself forward as Gladstone. Mr Gladstone used to think that speaking for four hours was a mere bagatelle; he had hardly cleared his throat in the first four hours. The right hon. Lady spoke for over an hour on Tuesday—with great distinction and panache, it has to be said, and a great deal of support from her right hon. and hon. Friends. I fail to see how sufficient time was not provided when another hon. Member managed to talk out his own amendment, which is Gladstonian in a different way; a way that Disraeli might have noted and commented upon.
It is a great shame that that debate was not allowed to come to a conclusion. The reason it did not was that Opposition Members—the Labour party and the Scottish National party—decided that it should not. It is unusual for an hon. Member to talk out his own amendment. Some may even consider it eccentric, and it is a pity because we had hoped that we could ensure participation for the extremely clinically vulnerable. There was an amendment tabled that would have broadened it, but the House was not allowed the opportunity to express its will by the actions of Opposition Members. That was a choice that they made, rather than allowing a vote in this House that would have settled the issue. It is to my mind a great shame that that is the situation we find ourselves in.
As regards the levelling-up fund, I would have thought that the right hon. Lady would welcome £4 billion to help places that have been left behind to improve, to increase opportunity and prosperity across the country, and to ensure that the House is properly involved so that it is a national programme helping locally. It is a really admirable programme and has widespread support, as does the towns fund. It is really important to understand that Ministers should neither be advantaged nor disadvantaged by the fact that they are Ministers, so the fund was completely properly allocated, and it is right that that should happen to help town centres do better in what are extremely difficult circumstances.
As regards the hostile environment, I was, I am glad to say, on the Back Benches when that was Government policy: it is not Government policy and the hostile environment is not something I have ever been comfortable with. I think someone is either a British citizen or they are not, and if someone is a British citizen they have exact equality and parity with all other British citizens and should not be asked, even in this House, to prove their identity.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I do not, again, accept that representation of what the Chancellor has done. The Government have provided £280 billion of support. There is support available in different forms for many people across the country, and every effort has been made to support the economy as widely as possible. However, I have always viewed it as my role as Leader of the House to try to facilitate meetings between Members and Ministers. I cannot promise a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I will do my best to try to facilitate a meeting with Ministers in due course for the hon. Lady.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I know that it is unusual to take points of order before statements, but this is a matter of extreme importance. At 11.14 am, it was announced that people could find out which tier they were in via a journalist, rather than the statement to the House. I know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is standing outside the Chamber. This is an appalling way to treat Parliament. Could I have your advice on whether that was an appropriate thing to do? The website has crashed because everybody is on it. There is no point in our being in the Chamber, where we should hear the announcement first—we might as well be sitting remotely, which the Leader of the House is not allowing. Could I have your advice on whether this was an appropriate way to deal with important information about the tiers?
Mr Speaker
That is not a point of order for the Chair, but I do have an opinion. This House—and I am sure the Leader of the House totally agrees with me—should be informed first. We keep telling the Government that that is the way that a good Government should treat and respect this Chamber. It is not acceptable to put the information online first. The only good thing is that the website has crashed, so it is not helpful, and we might get the statement first, but it is not acceptable. I say once again in the strongest terms—and I know that the Leader of the House will pass this on—that this House should hear it first. We are elected to hear it first, and the Government should give the House the respect that it deserves. Let us leave it at that.
In order to allow the safe exit of Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House.