Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 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 (Mr David Lidington)]

Mr Speaker, as you said, this is the first business questions since the death of the Father of the House. There is this sense with Gerald Kaufman’s passing of another link being broken with a former political age. His first general election contest was in 1955, when he stood against Harold Macmillan himself in the Bromley constituency—I think without too much expectation of a shock victory on that occasion. Then, of course, he represented successive Manchester constituencies for many years.

This was a man who also served in No. 10 under Harold Wilson and who carried the memories of working alongside him and debating against—in those days through the columns of the press and in his speech-writing capacity, rather than as a Member of the House—his opponents in my party. He went on to serve as a Minister and, for many years, as a senior member of the shadow Cabinet during the Labour party’s years in opposition.

I can certainly say from experience that Gerald’s book “How to be a Minister” is still worth reading—[Interruption.] I suspect that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is looking for ways in which to publicise a second edition sometime soon. I do recall from my reading of Gerald’s book the importance he gave to getting control of your diary and private office at the earliest possible date, and also his sage warning to Ministers to avoid, so far as they could, their numerous invitations to speak at banquets and formal dinners, which inevitably ended with the host denouncing the guest of honour in the most strident possible terms.

Gerald was perhaps most in his element as the Chair of first the Select Committee on National Heritage, and then the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. Even those of us who did not share Gerald’s politics knew that he was a man who was passionately committed not only to his own political party and tradition, but to the importance of the arts and cultural values as something that mattered to people in all walks of life in all parts of the United Kingdom. While his interests and enthusiasm in the field of the arts ranged widely, it was perhaps cinema for which he had a particular affection. I do just wonder what we have missed in not being able to hear his comments on the Oscars debacle that took place earlier this week. I suspect that they would have been fairly forceful and waspish in tone.

We mourn Sir Gerald’s passing and we shall miss him in this House. I am sure that everyone, on whichever side of the House they sit, would want to send their sympathy to his family and friends.

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 6 March—Second Reading of the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill.

Tuesday 7 March—Remaining stages of the Children and Social Work Bill [Lords], followed by a motion relating to the appointment of the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, followed by a motion relating to Standing Orders.

Wednesday 8 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver his Budget statement.

Thursday 9 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Friday 10 March—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 March will include:

Monday 13 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 14 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 6, 9, 13 and 16 March will be:

Monday 6 March—Debate on an e-petition relating to high heels and workplace dress codes.

Thursday 9 March—Debate on the second report of the Scottish Affairs Committee on the demography of Scotland and the implications for devolution, followed by a debate on human rights and political situation in Turkey.

Monday 13 March—Debate on an e-petition relating to sentencing for child abuse offences.

Thursday 16 March—Debate on the sixth report of the Transport Committee, “The future of rail: Improving the rail passenger experience”, followed by a debate on Jobcentre Plus office closures.

Colleagues will also wish to know that subject to the progress of business—I stress that point—the House will rise for the summer recess at close of play on Thursday 20 July and return on Tuesday 5 September.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to spend some time talking about and paying tribute to one of our great parliamentarians and the Father of the House, Sir Gerald Kaufman, who died at the weekend. You paid a brilliant tribute on Monday. His family described his death as the end of an era; it is for us here in Parliament, too.

As the Leader of the House said, Sir Gerald’s great loves were ice cream and films. Apparently he went to see “Singin’ in the Rain” 20 times in all the cinemas in Leeds when it first came out. He worked on “That Was the Week That Was”, the forerunner of “Saturday Night Live”, with the great broadcaster Alasdair Milne, the future director-general of the BBC. He was fearless in his support for justice internationally and for his constituents. His majority at the last election was 24,000, and that was down to his popularity and his care for his constituents. Today—World Book Day—he is remembered for his iconic book “How to be a Minister”. Before I came into this place—before I met Sir Gerald—I bought that book as a present for my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) when he first became a Minister in the Blair Government. Many hon. Members here, as well as former Members who are now in the other place, have told me how they used that book as their bible.

We have some lovely anecdotes. The Clerk of the House reminded me that on your re-election, Mr Speaker, Sir Gerald was quite keen to get the whole process right, and he proceeded with avuncular dignity. I remember the day; it went off absolutely beautifully and you were re-elected. He loved marmalade, so on a Select Committee trip to the Isle of Mull, to cheer him up on his birthday—it was one of the big numbers—he was made orange marmalade ice cream. On a Committee visit to Rome, some Members had not been there before, so before he went to the ambassador’s dinner, he took them to the Trevi fountain and, of course, to have some gelato. Another Member told me that when Sir Gerald was a Minister, he always gave a lift to Back Benchers in his ministerial car because he knew that one day he would be a Back Bencher. We talk about the greasy pole of politics. I think it is more like the luge, actually—you just get battered as you go down.

Sir Gerald dressed beautifully—I always used to watch him in the Tea Room—and that was probably a tribute to his father, who was a tailor. He was a close friend of Harold Wilson, another great Labour Prime Minister. He was loyal, clever and courageous, and he will be missed from this place. We send our condolences to his family and friends.

I thank the Leader of the House for providing the dates of the summer recess. Everyone is rejoicing because we now know we will rise on 20 July. I wonder whether he could give us an indication of when the state opening of Parliament will be. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House is keen to get his outfit ready, perhaps in keeping with the tribute to Sir Gerald.

I know that the Leader of the House has been busy tabling motions. One, in particular, will be considered on Tuesday 7 March. It relates to Standing Order No. 83. Many lawyers like amendments that read “Substitute ‘the’ for ‘and’”, but I might have to explain the motion to other people, so I wonder whether the Leader of the House could publish an explanatory memorandum and tell us why this is being hurried through on the day before the Budget? I know that the motion relates to things that are happening in Scotland.

The Leader of the House is keen on visiting the other place, so he will be interested to know—I do not know whether he has caught this on the news—that their lordships intend to send back the EU Bill with an amendment, which they won by 358 votes to 256. Will the Leader of the House give us some indication of when the Bill is likely to come back to this House? Will it be in the week commencing 13 March or the week commencing 20 March?

On a point that the Leader of the House made last week, I remind him that, as has been pointed out in a cross-party Select Committee report, the Government’s claim that the NHS will receive an additional £10 billion by 2021 does not accurately reflect

“the impact of the Spending Review on health expenditure…If the spending review period is considered—2015–16 to 2020–21—that increase is £4.5 billion”,

not £10 billion. I would be grateful if the Leader of the House cited the alternative figure.

I thank the Leader of the House for providing me with the closing date for the consultation on the new funding formula, which is 22 March. I appreciate that he has also written to me. The Prime Minister yesterday said that we “have had free schools”, as though they are in the past, but that they continued to create more good places. She said no to grammar schools, but was that a no to free schools? The overall funding of new places through free schools is set at £7.9 billion out of a total of £14.9 billion for new places. Will the Leader of the House comment on the latest National Audit Office report, which found that some free schools opened in areas where there were already plenty of places, thus creating spare capacity that could affect the future financial sustainability of other schools in the area? May we have a statement on whether funding for free schools represents good value for money for the taxpayer, and whether it will fix the problem of school places?

I am trying to rush through my points because I am aware that other hon. Members want to make contributions on Sir Gerald’s life. Given that we will have a debate on International Women’s Day after these proceedings, I want to raise two cases of women who have been arrested and placed in a detention centre. Irene Clennell was married to a British husband for 27 years, and her children and grandchild were born here. She has been removed without warning. A 20-year-old student, Shiromini Satkunarajah, who is about to finish her degree, has also been placed in a detention centre with no warning. Will the Government clarify the policy on the deportation of women who are no threat and who have been caught unfairly by these arbitrary decisions?

It is now 10 years since the Corston report on women in prison. Women who enter prison are more likely to be there for non-violent offences. Last year, 12 women killed themselves in prison in England and Wales, and there were 22 deaths of women in prison. The noble Baroness Corston has called for more Government funding for women’s centres. I know from sitting on the Criminal Justice and Courts Public Bill Committee that the Government had committed funding for secure colleges, but they U-turned on that decision. If that money is there and committed, will the Leader of the House have discussions with the noble Baroness about using it to protect existing women’s centres and create a more sustainable model?

Lastly, I welcome the two new Members: the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who is the 456th woman in this place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). It is good to have another Labour Member from the west midlands. I hope that both hon. Members will be inspired by the life and work of Sir Gerald Kaufman, a great parliamentarian. May he rest in peace.

[Mr Lidington]

I happily join the hon. Lady in welcoming our two new colleagues. Apropos of state opening, while I can assure her that my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House has more than one outfit available for such ceremonial occasions, I cannot yet give her the date that she is seeking.

On the hon. Lady’s point about the motion on the Standing Orders, I have already had a similar request from Scottish National party Members for an explanatory memorandum—we will provide one. The proposed change to the Standing Orders is to recognise the fact that the Scotland Act 2016 has devolved to the Scottish Parliament the right to set the main rates of income tax. Our own Standing Orders on English votes for English laws therefore need to be adjusted to take account of the fact that we may well in future have resolutions or pieces of legislation relating to main income tax rates that are specific to England, or to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not to Scotland, because those matters have been devolved. That is the purpose of the technical change to the Standing Orders.

We will return to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill as rapidly as possible after the House of Lords has finished debating it and given it a Third Reading. The Government certainly remain of the view that the Bill is straightforward—it does no more than confer authority on the Prime Minister, as required by the courts, to initiate negotiations by triggering article 50 of the treaty—and we will therefore seek to resist changes that would make the negotiating task more difficult.

The hon. Lady asked about the national health service. The figure of £10 billion is completely accurate. It represents the £8 billion that the head of NHS England said was needed to finance the NHS’s own reform plan, plus a further £2 billion that was allocated to the financial year before the period in which NHS England intended to carry out its reform plan. It is not only that because, in response to the request from the chief executive of NHS England, the Department of Health has front-loaded the funding, so the NHS is getting an additional £4 billion this year to get the reform plan off to the best possible start.

The hon. Lady asked about free schools. I have to say to her that, for me, the key test for free schools is whether there is a demand for them from parents in the area in which they are to be located, because without that, those schools will not be able to survive. The test for free schools, like the test for any other school, is whether they are able to provide the best possible opportunities and life chances, and to improve the achievements of the children sent to those schools. Children only get one chance of an education, and we should be looking for every opportunity to improve the quality of educational opportunities offered to them.

The hon. Lady talked about International Women’s Day and cited two particular cases. Without going into the detail of those cases, the principle is that people—men or women—are detained only if the Home Office or the immigration service has reason to believe that they may be at risk of disappearing and avoiding removal from the country. Such a step is taken only after people have exhausted their rights to appeal and it is clear that they have no further legal right to remain in this country.

The hon. Lady’s point about prisons was perfectly reasonable, but it is one of several important issues to do with prison reform. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary made it clear in her recent White Paper that she is committed to a programme of prison reform that improves the chances of women and men who serve time in prison being treated decently while they are there, as well as giving them opportunities for the type of courses, work and education that mean that they will have a better chance of leading law-abiding lives after their release.