Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

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

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

The business for next week will be:

Monday 14 January—Continuation of debate on section 13(1)(B) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

Tuesday 15 January—Conclusion of debate on section 13(1)(B) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

Wednesday 16 January—Second Reading of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill.

Thursday 17 January—Debate on a motion on mental health first aid in the workplace, followed by debate on a motion on children’s social care in England. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.



Friday 18 January—The House will not be sitting.



I would like to follow the remarks made by a number of Members this week and offer my condolences following the sad passing of Lord Ashdown and Lord Foster, two much-loved and popular figures who gave so much to politics and to their parties. Their families are in our thoughts.

I know Members will have been as shocked and appalled as I was to witness the abuse levelled at our colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I hope we can start this new year in Parliament by setting a good example for others to follow.

Finally, I hope all hon. Members had a calm and restful break over Christmas. I would like to wish everyone a happy and productive new year.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business, albeit just one week’s. I join her in paying tribute to Lord Ashdown and Lord Foster, who were both very great servants of this House. I, too, want to express our solidarity with the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). She should never have been treated and abused in that way while going about her lawful business. Other hon. Members are also suffering these difficulties. They are doing so quietly because there are cases ongoing.

May we have a date for an Opposition day debate please? We have not had one since 13 November. The Leader of the House helpfully gave us the Easter recess dates. She knows what I am going to ask: when are the May dates? The House needs to plan.

This is a Government without a majority. They are in crisis and in denial about the crisis. The Government have faced two defeats in one week, breaking records. This is the first Government to be defeated on a Finance Bill since 1978. Our constituencies, businesses, the science community, the NHS, security and this House have made it clear that the Government should rule out a no-deal Brexit, yet the Government have refused to do so.

In fact, the Government are making plans for no deal. That is why this House, elected by our constituents, cannot rely on Government mantras or a Cabinet who discuss the fantasies of 50-year-old swingers and arrange a no-deal scenario with 89 lorries when 10,000 lorries use the channel ports, and when contracts are being given out for services that do not exist. A concerned House voted for an amendment to ensure the Government come back within three sitting days, because they cannot be trusted.

How many times over the years have we heard it said in this place, “No, this can’t be done”—“No, women can’t have the vote”, “No, women can’t be on the Floor of the Chamber. They have to be up in the Gallery”, “No, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act can’t be altered”? In fact, it can be done. A well-respected former Attorney General tabled an amendment and Parliament rose up, because the evidence was clear.

In December, the Government agreed and tabled a motion, and the vote was agreed for 11 December, but the Government pulled the vote. The Government said no to this House, no to a vote, and treated a democratically elected Parliament with contempt while themselves being in contempt. Will the Leader of the House categorically confirm today that the meaningful vote will take place on Tuesday 15 January?

There are no new amendments, legal or otherwise, to the agreement. It is the same old agreement. Nothing has changed, other than a written statement by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster yesterday announcing the publication of a policy paper on UK Government commitments to Northern Ireland—warm words and reassurances, but still the same old agreement. The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) has called this “cosmetic” and “meaningless”. Can the Leader of the House say whether a new agreement will be tabled before Tuesday, or will the House be voting on the same old agreement?

On Monday, the House debated the fifth report of the Committee on Standards. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) intervened on the Leader of the House and asked what she meant when she said that the purpose of the review

“will be…to address outstanding areas, such as how to incorporate into the scheme visitors to constituency offices”.—[Official Report, 7 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 125.]

Several colleagues have approached me and said they are unclear what she meant. Will she explain, in a letter to all Members, what that means, and will she ensure that all Members are consulted?

Later that day, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) made a point of order to clarify another matter. He said that

“if there is no order of the House that a debate must end at a particular time, and if Members are standing at the moment of interruption, then that debate should continue at another time, when time becomes available”.

Madam Deputy Speaker said:

“I took the decision that the Question ought to be put to the House”.—[Official Report, 7 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 135.]

I do not recall the Leader of the House challenging the Chair on the ruling. Can the Leader of the House respond to all the questions that I and other Members might have asked if the debate had continued and tell us when she will respond?

On a slightly different matter, will the Leader of the House look at the delays in the personal independence payment appeals? A constituent of mine sent in an appeal in July 2018. My constituents are still waiting for an appeal date. It seems that the Department for Work and Pensions has missed all evidence submission deadlines, and my constituents have been told they will have to wait 27 weeks for an appeal. This is unacceptable and is affecting the most vulnerable.

On a happier note—well, I am not sure about that, but it was a significant day—yesterday saw the official launch of the MPs’ guide to procedure. I was pleased to see that the Chair of the Procedure Committee was there, along with the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). Four hundred copies have been given out. That shows what the House staff can do and their tremendous talent. Every single page, including the design, layout, words and review, was done in-house. We should nurture that talent in-house and thank everybody who took part—all their names are on the inside cover. In particular, I should mention those you mentioned in your foreword to the guide, Mr Speaker: John Benger, Mark Hutton and, of course, Joanna Dodd, who had the unenviable task of editing the whole thing. It is a very good tome.

May I add my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and the hon. Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) on their knighthoods, and that great public servant, Roy Stone, who served this House so well? In particular, I should also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell). I have always called him Sir Alan!

Sadly, next week will be the last in which Fiona Channon will serve the House. She has been here since 1999 and has had roles in the Estates Team and the Committee Office. She has always undertaken her duties with efficiency and courtesy and has been incredibly professional serving this House so well. She will be missed. She is only down the corridor in the House of Lords, but I hope she will come back. Fiona, thank you very much for everything you have done to help us function.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank the hon. Lady for the warm gratitude that she showed to those who work so hard in this House. I absolutely share that, and I particularly point to Fiona Channon, who has done so much in this place, and to Sir Roy Stone, who has done so much in the Whips Office for a very long time.

The hon. Lady asks when there will be an Opposition day debate. As she will appreciate, there is a lot of important business at the moment, but the Government will, of course, abide by our obligations to provide Opposition days. I note her point about the May recess, but I am glad that she acknowledges that we have just announced an agreed Easter recess.

The hon. Lady asks if we will rule out a no-deal Brexit. As she will appreciate, that is the legal default position. Members of the House have the opportunity next Tuesday to vote for a deal that would rule out no Brexit, and I encourage them to take that opportunity. She asks me to confirm that, as I have just announced, the meaningful vote will take place on Tuesday 15 January, and I refer her to the business of the House that I have just read out.

The hon. Lady asks about the point of order that was raised concerning visitors to constituency offices. She was on the working group on the complaints procedure, so she knows full well—I am surprised that she is asking me—what the group decided about the question of how to deal with complaints from people who come to our constituency offices, sometimes with very grave problems.

We, as Members of Parliament, always seek to help our constituents, but sometimes we cannot do so for various complex reasons, as all hon. and right hon. Members will know, and constituents sometimes take against the result. The working group, which the hon. Lady was a part of—and you, Mr Speaker; we had regular conversations about this—decided that in order for the complaints procedure to get up and running for six months, we would deal at a later point with the complexities of people with various mental health issues and grievances that might not be valid in a complaints procedure sense. We agreed in the House that the question of how, if at all, we could deal with the complaints of constituents in our constituency offices—either to our constituency staff, or to us, as Members—would be looked at in the six-month review of the complaints scheme, which kicks off on 21 January. I will, of course, be delighted to write to all hon. and right hon. Members on that point, for clarity.

On the hon. Lady’s point about the talking out of a vote the other evening on the Standards Committee report, I can absolutely reassure her that both the Member who raised the point of order and the actions of the Deputy Speaker were entirely in order. You might want to confirm that, Mr Speaker, but that is a matter for you. The advice I have taken is that both were entirely in order.

With regard to PIP, if the hon. Lady wants to write to me, I will of course take up her serious constituency matter. I point out that this Government have ensured that there has been an £8 billion increase in real terms since 2010 in the amount of money that we spend on supporting people with disabilities.