Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 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 Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 1 February will include:

Monday 1 February—Opposition day (16th allocated day). There will be a debate on a motion relating to cladding and building safety, followed by a debate on a motion relating to border security. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.

Tuesday 2 February—Second reading of the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 3 February—Motion to approve statutory instruments relating to sanctions, followed by a motion to approve the draft Value Added Tax (Miscellaneous Amendments to Acts of Parliament) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the Value Added Tax Act 1994 and Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1544), followed by a motion relating to the Travellers’ Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by a debate on a petition relating to grooming gangs. The subject for this debate was determined by the Petitions Committee.

 Thursday 4 February—General debate on the future of the UK space industry, followed by a general debate on the towns fund. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 5 February—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 February will include:

Monday 8 February—Second reading of the Armed Forces Bill, followed by a motion to approve the Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2021.

Tuesday 9 February—Motion to approve the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2021, followed by a motion to approve the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2021, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Trade Bill. 

Wednesday 10 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.

Thursday 11 February—General debate relating to the publication of the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the UK’s commitment to reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 12 February—The House will not be sitting.

Hon. and right hon. Members may also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the constituency recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 11 February and return on Monday 22 February.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thought hon. and right hon. Members would like confirmation of this information. The motion for the recess is on the Order Paper.

[Valerie Vaz]

The question is, did the Leader of the House know before the Prime Minister announced it? But I thank him for that. He did not really give clarity on the end of the Session—I wonder whether he could do that.

This week, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) raised the issue of Anoosheh Ashoori in an Adjournment debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) wrote an article in The Telegraph, which was a timely reminder that Nazanin has less than 40 days before her sentence comes to an end. Both Nazanin and Anoosheh have been punished for visiting their parents in Iran. Now that President Biden has lifted sanctions in Yemen, Luke Symons must not be forgotten either. I do not think the Minister gave my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East a very helpful response.

The motion to carry over the Environment Bill was agreed. Talk about flip-flopping—on 13 December 2019, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to make Britain the “cleanest, greenest” country “on Earth”, yet the Government did not accept our Opposition amendment enshrining in the Bill the World Health Organisation air pollution guidelines that needed to be done by 2020. As for lifting the ban on bee-killing pesticides, we have just got our bees back—they are important pollinators. Will the Leader of the House look at whether, when the Bill comes back, the Government will accept this, given that President Biden has said that there is an “existential” climate emergency?

Unless we all tackle the climate emergency—-the scientists say that winters are becoming wetter and wetter—we will have more floods. Can we have clarity on what the Prime Minister meant when he said last year that he will “get Bewdley done”? Bewdley did not get done. It got flooded. When Labour was in power, we increased flood defences by 33%, and that was then cut by the Conservative party, but it was never restored back to the 33% higher level. Can we have a statement on this, or better still, can the Leader of the House publish the data from the Environment Agency that said that one in 20 of our flood defences are in disrepair and that more than 3,000 of those, which pose risk to life and property, are “almost useless”?

I know that the Leader of the House has announced the Adjournment of a week. He will remember that the bailiff-enforced evictions ban will expire on 21 February, so will he look at having a debate on the affirmative regulations, as they will run out then?

I know that the Government have a difficulty with having women spokespeople, but International Women’s Day is coming up, so could we have a debate on that in Government time?

People think of the recess as half-term, but many parents, teachers and teaching assistants will not have one. A headteacher wrote to me to say that

“the way we are working is unsustainable and at some point we will have to put our own health and the welfare of our own families first.”

He asked for clarity before the Prime Minister had made his announcement about 8 March. He wanted to know the conditions for schools to reopen after lockdown; how a return to schools would operate and whether it would be phased or by rota or bubbles; and what the role of lateral flow testing would be. He also wanted honesty over whether education staff would be prioritised for the vaccine, and to know the timetable for the consultation following cancelled exams. And he pleaded with me—he said, “I beg of you”—to ask the Government to establish the guidelines before they make an announcement. Could the Leader of the House ensure that the Secretary of State for Education comes to the House to make a statement before we run into difficulties with the Budget announcements?

Why did the Conservative party want to know the ethnic background of 10 million voters? Why has it acted illegally? It says that it is the party of law and order, but on Tuesday the Information Commissioner told a Select Committee that the Conservative party had acted illegally. Could we have a statement to say that all the data that was harvested has been destroyed?

On flip-flopping again, apparently businesses have been told that they need to set up in the EU if they want to get anything done. Ministers actually said that they had to go to Ireland so that they could be part of the single market. Could we have clarity on that position and whether or not it is better for them to be in the EU?

In another flip-flop, it has been announced that there is not going to be a bonfire of employment rights. I think that announcement was made to the media, so could we have a statement in the House?

I did not attribute it to him, but it was Clive Myrie’s moving film on our NHS workers that showed how difficult it is. Although the rates are going down, we have lost 100,000 people. People need to realise that they need to abide by all the rules.

Finally, I want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day yesterday, and thank your staff for setting up the lighting of the candle. There will be an important debate later, but that represented, on the day itself, light over darkness.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I begin by agreeing so much with the right hon. Lady, and by thanking you, Mr Speaker, for arranging a very sombre and moving ceremony? How right it is that we remember one of the greatest tragedies, if not the greatest tragedy, that the world has ever suffered. The debate later is very important.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the 100,000 deaths. This is, for every family affected, a deep sadness, and we pray for the souls of the departed. We look forward to a brighter future as the vaccine is rolled out and people are protected from this terrible and deadly disease.

I am sorry that the right hon. Lady was not satisfied with the response given to the Adjournment debate in relation to people held illegally, particularly Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose sentence, as the right hon. Lady said, comes to an end in 14 days. We expect people who are held improperly to be released. We expect states to observe the rule of law, and we hope that she will be released. The right hon. Lady is always right to raise this case, which I take up with the Foreign Office every week on her behalf.

I am glad that the right hon. Lady welcomes the announcement of the forthcoming recess. She asked if I knew about it. Yes, I did know about it, she will be reassured to know, and I think the motion formalising it is in my name, so it is lucky that I knew about it, too.

The Environment Bill is being carried over because, as much as anything, the House of Lords’ legislative programme—the Government’s legislative programme, delivering on our manifesto commitments—is very full. It turns out that when we do things remotely, they sometimes take longer than they did when people were physically present. Some inevitable delays are caused by the covid crisis, but that does not reduce the Government’s commitment to environmental improvement. The Prime Minister has set out the 10-point plan, and COP26 will take place in Glasgow later this year. This Government are a world leader in environmental improvement, and that will carry on being the case.

With regard to flooding, the £5.2 billion of taxpayers’ money announced last year is going ahead and will be implemented to provide more flood defences, protecting hundreds of thousands more homes. That shows the Government’s commitment to protecting people’s homes. The right hon. Lady also asked about repairs. Some £120 million has been set aside for repairs, so again that is taking place.

On the specific request for a debate in Government time on International Women’s Day, the right hon. Lady will remember that last year the Backbench Business Committee had not yet been set up, and therefore the Government provided time for the debate. The Backbench Business Committee knows that, when it was set up, one of the things that it had responsibility for was the International Women’s Day debate, as it has for the debate later today on Holocaust Memorial Day. These very important debates come out of the Backbench Business Committee’s allocation.

I completely understand the right hon. Lady’s frustration in relation to schools, with five children of my own being home schooled—although, I must confess that the burden is falling primarily on my wife, rather than on me. This is something that parents are finding difficult, because it is hard. But to ask for clarity in an uncertain situation is, I think, simply not reasonable. Things are developing all the time, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. We had a new strain that turned out to be more virulent, but now we have progress with the vaccine roll-out, so we have to deal with events as they arise. It is not possible to set out with complete clarity what will happen and be certain that that is what will happen, because of the unknowable nature of the progress of the virus and the responses to it.

With regard to EU businesses, we are much better off being out of the European Union. That is what the country wanted and what we have delivered, and we are seeing the benefits day by day. It is really good news that we are out. The Government have not advised businesses to set up in the European Union—that is a fiction.

Finally, the Government have been great supporters of employment rights in this country, but then the Tories have always been great supporters of employment rights. If I may claim Elizabeth I as the first Tory, as I am tempted to do, an Act of Parliament was passed in her reign—