Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

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

The business for the week commencing 7 December will include:

Monday 7 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill.

Tuesday 8 December—Motion to approve ways and means resolutions related to the Taxation (Post-Transition Period) Bill.

Wednesday 9 December—Consideration of a procedural motion, followed by Second Reading and Committee of the Taxation (Post-Transition Period) Bill.

Thursday 10 December—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments followed by general debate on the future of the high street.

Friday 11 December—The House will not be sitting.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business, but it is dummy business, because this is a dummy Bill next week. It has not even been published. I checked in the Vote Office this morning, and I checked online and it has not even been published. So could the Leader of the House try again when he responds? It is not actually a real Bill.

There is a very important day on 16 December, when the EU votes on a final deal. It is also the day that we come out of tiers. I just wonder if 17 December is an appropriate day for the House to be pencilled in to rise. They are two important debates. Could the Leader of the House say exactly when the House is likely to rise? We would like to know because we need to plan. If we are going into the following week, it would be important for us to know.

We have had the dummy Bill, but we have also had fake news. The approval of the vaccine has got absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, so I hope the Leader of the House will take back his tweet. It is great that the vaccine has been authorised and will be rolled out next week, and I want to pay tribute to all the scientists, the lab technicians and the volunteers who stuck their arms out to keep us safe. It is a reminder that certain things know no boundaries and that people can work together for the common good of humanity. I always think that the Opposition are very constructive, so I am pleased that the Government have taken up the suggestion of a Minister for vaccines. What I am concerned about is that he is doing two jobs. We had a Minister for snow, although I do not think many people will remember that, and a Minister for floods, and they just did that one job. Will the vaccines tsar now be accountable to the Minister and will the Minister be accountable to us? Could the Minister make a statement next week, so we know exactly where we are on the roll-out of the vaccine?

Yesterday, the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations published its criteria. Care UK has asked that unpaid carers be vaccinated immediately, and I do not know what the process is for feeding that into the Committee. Black and minority ethnic communities have also been hard hit by the virus, and we should also look at that, as well as multi-generational households.

The Government seemed to be fighting the rebellion this week rather than the virus, and almost 3 million people, despite the spending review, have been excluded from Government support. People are confused. In Walsall, we were in tier 2, infection rates came down, hospital admissions came down, but now we are in tier 3 and in with Birmingham. I know that the Leader of the House has got special dispensation for parts of north Somerset to be taken out of tier 3. I think they were linked with Bristol. I think the Secretary of State for Health has said he is going to look at that on 16 December, so that Somerset is all in one group. How do we do that in Walsall?

Can the Government now release all the data modelling of the sectoral impacts and potential job losses as a result of the tier lockdowns? Even Ministers do not know the difference between tiers—I think it is the Scotch egg test. But surely it cannot be right that details of contracts given under the pandemic will not be allowed to be published. A Minister in the other place, I think, said that they are not going to do that. It is like telling us all not to eat the sweets while the Government raids the sweetie jar behind our backs.

I know that the Secretary of State for Education has already been here, but on Friday he announced special funding for schools for the short-term covid workforce. That was put on the website on Friday, when the House was not sitting. Then there was a written statement on Monday. Could the Secretary of State come back and explain exactly why schools have not been compensated for everything from the time they were allowed to open in September? They have had to pay for heating—they have to keep schools ventilated, as well as keep up with the heating costs—and PPE, and some of them are putting food bags together for their children. But the key thing is that insurers are not even paying out. This is force majeure: this is a pandemic. Could the Secretary of State come and make an announcement on how schools will be supported?

I know we had Transport questions earlier, but may I ask the Leader of the House, given that there is going to be a border in the Irish sea, if he will take up the Irish Government’s suggestion that Father Christmas gets a travel corridor and is an essential worker?

Finally, let us remember people with disabilities. It is the International Day of People with Disabilities, and every day should be a day of disabilities, as we make this world more accessible for everyone.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Mr Speaker, I wonder, with your leave, if I may begin by saying a few short words of thanks to the Cabinet Office’s parliamentary adviser, Dr Farrah Bhatti, whose secondment to Government is coming to an end and who is returning to the House service as a Principal Clerk. Farrah Bhatti joined the Cabinet Office as parliamentary adviser in April 2018 on secondment to Government to advise Ministers on parliamentary procedure and handling. The period of her secondment has seen some unprecedented challenges and events in Parliament, including a number of meaningful votes and the response to the covid-19 pandemic. Throughout her time, Farrah has been a great servant both to the House and to the Government, bringing her invaluable wisdom and advice to successive business managers and Ministers. She is unbelievably knowledgeable, in the best traditions of the clerkly hierarchy. I try to ask her impossible questions, and she always—invariably —knows the answer. May I put on record that in the last 17 months, while I have been Leader of the House, any good procedural recommendations have come from her and any mistakes have been exclusively my own? I have a feeling that the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) will think there have been one or two of those. But may I finish by saying that Her Majesty’s Government’s loss is very much the gain of the House of Commons, and I am sure the whole House will want to wish her well in moving on to her new post?

To come to the right hon. Lady’s questions, I completely agree that we should recognise disability day, and we should ensure that we recognise and value everybody in this country as equal and of great importance to our society and to our nation. I can also reassure her that Father Christmas will be able to have a travel corridor. He will be able to come in, and he will not have to be vaccinated. I have six children who are waiting with bated breath, and who are filling out lists. The lists, Mr Speaker! You would not believe how long they are. Schleich is very popular with my infant daughter, and every possible item of Schleich seems to be on this list for Father Christmas, so I hope he can carry it all in his bag. [Interruption.] I see the Whip on duty, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), is asking what Schleich is. They are these little toy horses and things like that, and they are very popular.

Now to the areas where we do not agree so much. First, it is a real Bill that will be coming forward—a real Bill—on the EU taxation provisions, once we have ended the transition period. We will be doing the Lords amendments on Monday, and we will be pushing back all the amendments that were made in the Lords, including the ones relating to clause 5, and ensuring that we can put the best interests of the whole United Kingdom first. These are really important pieces of legislation. The right hon. Lady also mentioned Brexit and the vaccine—

[Valerie Vaz]

When will it be published?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It will be published. Bills are published before we vote on them. Patience! It is coming, as is Christmas, of course. [Interruption.] Christmas is coming —because we are in Advent. Dear me, I would have thought that, as a former cleric, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) would know the difference between Advent and Christmas, but there we go.

As regards Brexit and the vaccine, the UK should be really proud that our regulator got in first. We notice that the European regulator is a bit sniffy about it, wishes we had not done it, and that Germany and France and other European countries have not managed to do the same thing. We have, we are leaving—draw your own conclusions, Mr Speaker, as I am sure the British public will. We are now free of the dead hand of the European Union and will be even more free of it on 1 January. This is a huge British success that we should be proud of and pleased about.

The right hon. Lady talks about the Minister for vaccines. I remind her that Harold Wilson had a Minister for drought, so Ministers have had all sorts of responsibilities over the years. My hon. Friend the Minister will be doing a very important job in ensuring that the roll-out goes to the priority cases first, and the number of vaccines that has already been secured will ensure that we are able to have a very thorough programme. This is very good news because it is the beginning of the end. We should welcome that and be pleased about it.

In terms of tiers, the idea that Somerset is the same as Bristol is a ridiculous one. Somerset and Bristol are clearly different things. One is the great historic county of Somerset, and Bristol is a city important in its own right, but nothing like the same as the great historic county of Somerset. Bath and North East Somerset have a much, much lower number of cases per 100,000 than Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset. The whole county council area of Somerset is also in tier 2, along with Bath and North East Somerset, which is the right place for it to be.

The right hon. Lady mentioned support for businesses. I would just reiterate that £280 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent to protect jobs, businesses and public services across the United Kingdom. This is an enormous package of support, including £1 billion of support for schools to help people catch up. If she has questions for the Secretary of State for Education, they should have come a little bit before me, during his statement, rather than afterwards.

Finally—Scotch eggs. We had better finish on Scotch eggs, because I know this is a matter of great interest. I refer to the elephant bird. Do you know, Mr Speaker, that the egg of the elephant bird, which is now extinct, could weigh up to 22 pounds? That is quite a big egg. If you turned that into a Scotch egg, it would unquestionably be a substantial meal. If, on the other hand, you were to take a quail’s egg and make that into a Scotch egg, it would be a mere snack. In between, the great British people will make their mind up, along with publicans up and down the country, as to whether it is a snack or a substantial meal.