Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The business for next week will include:

Monday 5 October—Second Reading of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill.

Tuesday 6 October—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information about Victims) Bill, followed by consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords], followed by motion to approve the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No.2) (England) (Amendment) (No.4) Regulations 2020.

Wednesday 7 October—Second Reading of the Pension Schemes Bill [Lords], followed by motion to approve regulations related to public health following the Secretary of State’s earlier announcement.

Thursday 8 October—Debate on a motion on planning reform and house building targets, followed by general debate on the spending of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on support measures for the DCMS sectors during and after the covid-19 pandemic. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 9 October—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 12 October will include:

Monday 12 October—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Agriculture Bill.

Tuesday 13 October—Remaining stages of the Fisheries Bill [Lords], followed by general debate on covid-19.

Wednesday 14 October—Opposition day (12th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 15 October—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill.

Friday 16 October—Private Members’ Bills.

Right hon. and hon. Members will also wish to be aware that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise at the conclusion of business on Friday 23 October and return on Monday 2 November.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business and for announcing the Opposition day and the recess. I also thank him and his office for forwarding all my requests to Ministers. We just need to find a way round the use of “in due course” and “shortly”. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) has received a “soon” on her 10-minute rule Bill on access to benefits for terminally ill people.

We did not get a very helpful response from the Foreign Office Minister, and I would say, in relation to Nazanin, Anousheh and Luke Symons, that we well remember how Jill Morrell kept the names of John McCarthy, Brian Keenan and Terry Waite front and centre so that people would not forget them, and that is what we must do now. These are innocent people who have done no wrong.

Mr Speaker, I know that the whole House—maybe apart from the Government—agrees with your statement and supports it.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that he was announcing a new convention, but I am not quite sure what that means. He said that

“for significant national measures…we will consult Parliament”,

but I thought the Government had to consult Parliament anyway on anything that is supposed to come into effect. He also said that

“wherever possible, we will hold votes”.—[Official Report, 30 September 2020; Vol. 681, c. 388.]

But there is no guarantee of a vote. The Leader of the House will know that the regulations on self-isolation, including the £10,000 fine, came into effect seven hours after publication, but the media were briefed eight days before, so there was plenty of time for a debate.

This so-called new convention only deals with national measures, not local measures, which is what right hon. and hon. Members want to know about, because they want to know what is going on in their constituencies. Last week, the Leader of the House said that there is regular scrutiny and debate, but that is not true, is it? Without the hybrid proceedings, many of our colleagues are excluded from taking part in debates on legislation, so the Government cannot have it both ways.

Let us look at the statutory instruments. Some of them are made through the negative resolution procedure, which means they are signed into law and are debated only if they are prayed against. Mostly, they are administrative and technical, but extending pre-trial custody from 56 days to 238 days deserved a debate, and in any event, the Government decide whether there is time for a debate. What about affirmative SIs? They are laid before the House only after they are signed into law.

Can the Leader of the House say why the majority of the regulations have been made under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, which is meant for emergencies, and not the coronavirus legislation, with its safeguards? Will he guarantee that we will have a debate or even a short statement on any new regulations that are proposed? We want it in the House, not in No. 10 from behind a lectern.

May we have a statement on 16 October, a sitting Friday? The European Council will meet on 15 October. The Prime Minister needs to give a statement to the House on the next phase of the negotiations.

That lack of transparency is everywhere. In the Government’s White Paper on planning, they are removing the requirement to place planning application advertisements in local newspapers. That is already happening in my constituency, where Walsall Council has decided, without any consultation, that it will not do an environmental impact assessment for one of the most important projects there, the route for a sprint bus. It is totally discredited; there will be more traffic; and no one wants it apart from the current Mayor.

Mr Speaker, you mentioned someone who is really good at transparency, and that is Mark Hutton. I, too, agree with your statement and want to pay tribute to Mark Hutton. He has been in this House for 35 years. As you say, one of his greatest legacies is “Erskine May” online, and he was the co-editor, with Sir David Natzler, the 25th edition. In fact, his nickname was “Erskine” Hutton. He always saw the potential of digital, and his advice was quite strategic across the House, both on procedure and how it related to the legal side and on how the House works. When he was at university, apparently he liked directing plays, so obviously he came to work here, because he likes the drama. He has left a great legacy.

The Leader of the House and I were on the Governance of the House Committee, which was very controversial at the time, but Mark managed to get us through that. Also, we agreed the report digitally, and it went through in record time. Mark has not only left online “Erskine May”; he has patiently taught the next generation of Clerks. Mark, we will miss you. Thank you for your work. The House is very grateful, and we hope to see you when you get back—and when we all get back, maybe at a do in Speaker’s House. [Interruption.] We hope you do, Mr Speaker; we are looking forward to your dos.

It is Black History Month. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the birth of Gandhi, and it was lovely to see a photo of Dr Martin Luther King in his dining room with picture of Gandhi. Both of them worked for justice in a non-violent way. Today is also the mid-autumn festival for the Chinese community.

Finally, on behalf of the whole House, I want to send our very best wishes to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who is jumping out of a plane on Sunday, weather permitting, for six year-old Florence, who has a life-limiting disease and a rare genetic condition. He is not on the call list today, but we hope will see him next week at business questions, hopefully without a plaster cast.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We all wish the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and, of course, Florence well. It is a brave thing to do.

I used to live in Hong Kong, and the mid-autumn festival was a public holiday, so I am sorry that I cannot tell the House that we will have a public holiday similarly.

The right hon. Lady began by mentioning the dual nationals and the need to keep their names at the forefront of the national debate, which she has been doing fantastically every week, so that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri and Luke Symons are remembered. The Government are made aware of this every week: the right hon. Lady mentions it to me, and I mention it to the Foreign Office. It is known. We are trying our best, but, as was found with hostages before, it is very difficult to get obdurate states and obdurate organisations to move.

On parliamentary scrutiny of the coronavirus—the issue that the right hon. Lady focused on—I note that Labour Members did not actually take part in large numbers. I think a very small number of them voted yesterday. It is a bit worrying if, when we actually have a vote, the official Opposition sit on their hands, so they call for something and then they are absent without leave. They do not formally need leave, of course, under the procedures of the House; it a long time since attendance was demanded. The right hon. Lady asks but the Whips Office does not necessarily want.

On the debates that we are bringing forward and have brought forward, we have had 40 oral statements in relation to covid in this House, in addition to the urgent questions that Mr Speaker has facilitated. This week, we had a full day’s debate. The whole of Monday after questions was devoted to a covid-19 debate, and of course we had the renewal of the orders yesterday. Next week, we will have a vote. We had a vote yesterday, but Labour Members did not take part. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady is heckling—it is unlike her to heckle—saying, “Vote, vote.” Well, they did not vote. It is not my fault they did not vote. I cannot make Labour Members vote. I have no influence over the Labour Whips Office to get them to turn up and do their job. If they want to sit at home idling away the happy hours not voting—not going through the Division Lobbies—what can I do? I can appeal to your good offices, Mr Speaker. I can ask the Doorkeepers to encourage them. We have set things out in a covid-safe way. But Labour Members decide not to turn up when we give them a vote, which they keep on asking for.

[Valerie Vaz]

We did turn up. Did you listen to the debate?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Not to vote, they didn’t. There will be opportunities to vote on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, and there will be a debate on Tuesday 13 October—which happens to be the anniversary of the birth of Lady Thatcher, so a day of legend and song. On that happy day, we will have a debate on covid-19.

I want to pay tribute, as the right hon. Lady did, to Mark Hutton. Thirty-five years’ service in this House is a pretty good innings. He has been an absolutely authoritative source of advice on procedure and parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary privilege is one of the most interesting topics of discussion: it is such an important part of how we do our work. He has obviously been a distinguished Clerk of the Journals. He has been very ready to give advice to Members on knotty procedural problems. He has been involved with three editions, two as deputy editor and then as co-editor, of “Erskine May”. I must confess that his career is practically what I might like to have had, so in paying this tribute to him, I am a little bit envious of his distinction, his learning and his capability. I served—I think the right hon. Lady may have done as well—on the Committee chaired by Jack Straw looking into the governance of the House. That Committee was handled by the two of them with such effectiveness and subtlety that it came up with a very good answer. I would like to record my gratitude to him, not just personally but also on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.

The right hon Lady mentioned that this is Black History Month. I am a great encourager of all history. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, for countless generations, people of African and Caribbean descent have been shaping our nation’s story, making a huge difference to our national and cultural life and helping to make Britain a better place to be. The more we learn from our history, the better.