Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for the week commencing 7 May will be as follows:

Monday 7 May—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 8 May—Remaining stages of the Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [Lords], followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, followed by motion relating to a statutory instrument on criminal legal aid.

Wednesday 9 May—Remaining stages of the Data Protection Bill [Lords] followed by motion relating to a statutory instrument on education (student support).

Thursday 10 May—Debate on a motion on redress for victims of banking misconduct and the FCA, followed by debate on a motion on compensation for victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 1 May—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 14 May will include:

Monday 14 May—Second Reading of the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [Lords].

It does not happen often, but today it appears that there is competition for the highlight of the week that is business questions, and some Members seem to think they should be elsewhere. Voters across England will be casting their votes in council and mayoral elections, and we should celebrate again our vibrant democracy. All of us in this place know how much courage it takes to put oneself forward for election, and I am sure the whole House will want to join me in wishing good luck to all candidates today. I also say a big thank you to all the volunteers who man the phone banks and do the leafleting and canvassing. They do so much to support free and fair elections in the United Kingdom.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House and associate myself with her comments about all those public servants out there. I am not sure what is happening in Northamptonshire, but I do not think they are having elections. I also thank her for presenting the forthcoming business, but we still get only a week and a day. As I am sure she will agree, it is very beneficial to Members to know what is coming up, because they want to prepare.

I wanted to make a point of order about this, Mr Speaker, but I did not want to misuse the system: many people are upset about what the Leader of the House said last week about the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 2018. At business questions, she accused the Opposition of being “tardy” in making a request for the debate on the statutory instrument

“having prayed against the SI one month after it was laid.”

In reality, however, it was prayed against well within time. She also wrongly claimed that it had been

“too late to schedule a debate within the praying period without changing last week’s business”.—[Official Report, 26 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 1030.]

But she and I both know that we have done that many times, and sometimes I have been monosyllabic in agreeing with the change of business.

At Justice questions last week the Lord Chancellor said that the Government are waiting for information from the Labour party. Will the Leader of the House please correct the record and say that the Opposition had prayed against the regulations, and that there was nothing else that we needed to do? They were prayed against on 22 March, and the praying period ended on 20 April. The Opposition were waiting for action from the Government. She will know that time stops on a statutory instrument when the House is not sitting for more than four days, so perhaps there was some confusion about that. Will the Leader of the House please correct the record and say that that had nothing to do with the Opposition?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) has prayed against the Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2018, No. 410, and the Detention Centre (Amendment) Rules 2018, No. 411. When will that debate be scheduled? The statutory instruments were laid two days before the Easter recess.

It seems that the Government are playing KerPlunk with our money resolutions, pulling out Bills at will—[Interruption.] Hon. Members remember it! The Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill has got its money resolution, but there is nothing about the Property Boundaries (Resolution of Disputes) Bill, which was ahead of that Bill. When will we have a money resolution on the boundaries Bill?

I thank the Leader of the House for her letter on the statutory instrument tracker. She has made good progress on that, but the Hansard Society got in touch with me and said that it took them about seven years to get a unique statutory instrument tracker. It is very good and people have used it, so I wonder if there could be co-ordination between the two so we can do what you want to do, Mr Speaker, which is to make the House open, accessible and transparent to everyone.

I do not think the Leader mentioned the debate on nurses’ bursaries on Wednesday. I hope that is still on, because it is a vital debate. We are against the abolition of postgraduate nurses’ bursaries, which are so important to upskilling people and dealing with the skills shortage. A debate would be timely, because a Macmillan Cancer Support report published on Monday revealed that hospitals in England have vacancies for more than 400 cancer nursing specialists. Macmillan’s chief of nursing, Dr Karen Roberts, is concerned that cancer nurses are being run ragged and that some patients may not be receiving the specialist care they need. We all know someone who has been through the whole process—I know of two friends—and cancer nursing specialists are absolutely fantastic when people are going through such a difficult time. They need help and support, and we cannot have them doing two or three jobs at the same time. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health on the problems facing the NHS cancer workforce?

The breast cancer screening scandal is taking place on the Health Secretary’s watch, and according to the King’s Fund, there is a £2.5 billion funding gap in social care. There has been no statement on the collapse of Allied Healthcare, which is one of the biggest providers for the elderly and the vulnerable. We need to know what impact assessment has been made, because the company is currently in a voluntary arrangement that means that it does not have to pay into the pension fund. May we have an urgent statement on that next week?

Last week I raised the article in The House magazine on restoration and renewal, which announced that the shadow sponsor board should have 12 members, with five external members, including the chair, but a majority of parliamentarians representing the main parties of both Houses. External members of the board will be appointed and a former first civil servant commissioner will chair the panel. I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could say when that decision was made and who made it. She will know that the Olympic sponsor body was chaired by the noble Baroness Jowell, so there was always accountability to Parliament. Representatives of all the main parties chair Select Committees and carry out their roles with distinction. A non-parliamentarian chairing the sponsor body is not recommended in the joint report and was not in the motion, so will she please make a statement to update the House on what has actually been agreed on restoration and renewal?

The Leader of the House may have some influence over the members of the Brexit Cabinet Committee, so will she suggest that, instead of just talking in that Committee and positioning themselves as the next Prime Minister, they actually visit the borders in Ireland and Dover? They could practice their power stance—you can’t see it, Mr Speaker, but I am doing it right now and it is quite scary—and we could enjoy our bank holiday. The Leader of the House and I have scheduled a sunny day for the spring bank holiday—we wish everyone a very happy and restful weekend.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a number of issues, and I will try to address each one.

As the hon. Lady will know, it is perfectly normal for the Government to give as much notice as possible of future business while still being able to meet the changing schedule.

I am glad the hon. Lady is pleased that the Government have brought forward time to debate negative statutory instruments that have been prayed against. She asks specifically about the statutory instrument on nursing bursaries. That has been brought forward for discussion next Wednesday. She says that the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 were not too late in being brought forward. I gently remind her that the convention is that where a reasonable request has been made for Government time for a statutory instrument that has been prayed against, the Government will seek to give that time. These are all parliamentary conventions, but she will appreciate that there was not much time and it would have required an emergency change to the business for me to have been able to comply. I hope that that settles that issue.

The hon. Lady asks about money resolutions on private Members’ Bills. I was delighted to bring forward for debate the money resolutions on various private Members’ Bills, and others will be coming forward in due course.

The hon. Lady asks about the statutory instrument tracker. As she acknowledges, I wrote to her telling her about the tracker, which the Parliamentary Digital Service is bringing forward to enable Members to have more information in a more timely fashion about statutory instruments, and I am glad she welcomes it.

The hon. Lady asks about nursing. I am delighted, as I am sure she is, that there are 12,900 more nurses on our wards than there were in 2010 and that the Government have introduced the nursing associate role and the nursing degree apprenticeship, both of which routes mean that people can train and earn as they learn. We have committed to training up to 5,000 nursing associates in 2018 and up to 7,500 in 2019. That is good news for our fantastic NHS and will provide more support for our hard-working nurses, who are under pressure.

The hon. Lady raises the issue of breast screening. She will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health came to the House yesterday to make a statement—as soon as he found out what had happened—and has commissioned an independent review of the NHS breast screening programme to look at these and other issues, including processes, IT systems and further changes and improvements that could be made to the system to minimise the risk of this happening again. The review is expected to report in six months, and as she will know, my right hon. Friend has also promised that every woman failed through this error, if registered with a GP, will be contacted by May. It is incredibly important that we put this right.

Finally, the hon. Lady asks about restoration and renewal. A paper on governance went to the House of Commons Commission a couple of months ago. She was at the meeting of the Commission where the papers were circulated, discussed and agreed to. The Commission has, therefore, agreed the governance arrangements.