Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 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 8 March will include:

Monday 8 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 9 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

Wednesday 10 March—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). There will be debates on estimates relating to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Cabinet Office. At 7 pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Thursday 11 March—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill, followed by consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by all stages of the Contingencies Fund (No.2) Bill, followed by a general debate on International Women’s Day. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 12 March—Private Members’ Bills.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader for the business for next week. I am pleased that, according to the Order Paper, Westminster Hall will be returning on Monday and that the private Members’ Bills are back. Lots of hon. Members have worked really hard to get a consensus on these Bills; I hope they will have a smooth transition.

Our thoughts are with our gracious sovereign and we wish Prince Philip a speedy recovery.

The Secretary of State for International Trade—I thank the Leader for the letter to her—wrote to me in September to say that she would report to Parliament on the Trade and Agriculture Commission. Actually, a written statement has been published—I thought she would have been here in person. In that written statement, she is extending the terms of reference of the commission. She says she wants to put the

“Commission onto a statutory footing and evolving its role to boost scrutiny of new free trade deals.”

I thought it was Parliament’s job to scrutinise trade deals, so I ask the Leader to ensure that she comes to the House. I know she is top of the poll on Conservative Home—how do we get the Leader up that greasy pole? But she needs to come to Parliament. Disregard for Parliament is absolutely outrageous.

So, too, was the trailing of the whole of the Budget; apart from the fact that there was £700 million for cultural activities instead of £400 million, everything else was in the media over the weekend. Mr Speaker, you will know that in 1947—(Interruption.) Not you personally! We all know from our history that Hugh Dalton had to resign when he leaked the Budget.

We have had the worst death toll in Europe, the worst economic crisis, so why is the Chancellor hurting families in the middle of a pandemic and hurting businesses? There is going to be a rise in council tax—in Walsall, an extra £105—a pay freeze for all our millions of key workers; nothing for schools, nothing for maintained nurseries, nothing for our NHS staff, nothing for the police and nothing for the public sector. How soon they forget who supported them in the pandemic—and still there are excluded people.

There was no mention of the child trust funds. HMRC said £1.8 million—it is pounds or young people—have been forgotten. The money is unclaimed. Parents of children with disabilities have had to go to court to try to release that money. That was a Labour Government initiative. The children are now 18. They need to have access to that money immediately, particularly in the light of the pandemic.

In the middle of this pandemic, we have a reorganisation of the NHS. The Government are embarking on yet another reorganisation—fiddling while Rome burns, a massive restructure, so everything is going back to the Secretary of State. It is a power grab. What are we going to see—VIP lounges, VIP fast tracks? And we have had a takeover—in less than 10 minutes, 52 GPs in London were taken over by a United States insurance company. That is absolutely outrageous. While our NHS staff are turning over people in the covid crisis in our A&Es and vaccinating the nation, the very foundations of our NHS have been taken away from them. So can we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on that reorganisation?

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) had an Adjournment debate and a ten-minute rule Bill and she asked the Government to announce the results of their review on how the benefits system is treating terminally ill people. That was first announced in 2019, but there is no date. Time is running out. The Motor Neurone Disease Association and Marie Curie estimate that 6,000 people have died waiting for their benefits. The Leader will have seen the report from the coroner last week on Philippa Day. There were 28 errors. She took a fatal overdose while her payments were cut. They found a letter rejecting her request for an at-home benefits assessment near her. We need an urgent statement from the Department for Work and Pensions on its treatment of vulnerable and terminally ill people.

I know that the Foreign Secretary updated the House, and he said he had met the family of Nazanin and had spoken to the families of all three detained British-Iranian dual nationals, but we have had no more news. Nazanin’s sentence runs out on Sunday, and there is no update on whether Anousheh can speak to his family again—Sherry, Elika and Arian. I pay tribute to Daren Nair, who has had to step down from Amnesty. He has been tireless in his efforts in campaigning. I met him when Richard Ratcliffe was on hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy. We need a further update.

Monday is International Women’s Day and we have the debate on Thursday. It is also Women’s HERstory Month, when we will look back at the history of covid. I pay tribute to the women scientists now: Professor Sarah Gilbert, who designed the Oxford vaccine and led the first trial of the Ebola vaccine, Professor Catherine Green, Professor Teresa Lambe, Professor Katie Ewer and Dr Maheshi Ramasamy. They have all been part of that vaccine.

Finally, on World Book Day, we would like to see tweets of the Leader in his six different outfits as he celebrates it with each of his children.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I begin by joining the right hon. Lady in sending the House’s best wishes to the Duke of Edinburgh while he is in hospital recovering from his operation, and hope that he is restored to full health.

On World Book Day, my children are apparently dressed up today. I think one is dressed as Sherlock Holmes, one is a character from the “Jill and the pony” books, two are dressing up as James Bond, and the third and youngest are dressing up as Harry Potter and wandering round with a wand casting spells on one and all. So World Book Day is being celebrated. Even better, I will be re-showing my podcast of my reading from “Erskine May”, because can you think of anything more joyful to do on World Book Day, or anything more designed to help one enter into happy slumbers, than listening to my somnolent tones reciting from that great work?

To come to the important questions that the right hon. Lady asked, the Foreign Secretary has updated the House on Nazanin. The Government take very seriously the issues of dual nationals held overseas. It is something that I take up with the Foreign Office every week after business questions. The Foreign Secretary is actually going to be here later today with a statement, so there will be the opportunity to ensure that he is reminded of it, if not formally on the Floor of the House, at least in the corridors. But Her Majesty’s Government take it very seriously and have been working on it for a long time.

As regards my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for International Trade, a written statement is a perfectly proper way of updating the House. There is a constant pressure on time in this House; we will no doubt hear later from the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee about how his time sometimes gets squeezed. We simply have to try to ensure that time is used effectively in Opposition days, Back-Bench days, legislation and Budget days, and written statements are a proper way of updating the House.

With regard to the Budget appearing in newspapers beforehand, the main details of the Budget were released to the House yesterday, as is entirely proper, as were the Red Book and the report from the Office for Budget Responsibility. There were general discussions beforehand when things were raised in broad terms, but I do not think that breaks the spirit or the letter of the ministerial code, or indeed of “Erskine May”—although of course as Leader of the House it is my responsibility to remind Ministers that important announcements should be made to the House first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on World Book Day. I always like reading P. G. Wodehouse, which may not surprise the House. There is a wonderful new Wodehouse by Ben Schott called “The Leap of Faith”, and if anybody is looking for something to cheer them up as the lockdown draws slowly to its close, I recommend that. It is perhaps more adult reading than the things the children may be attempting to read, including stories by Roald Dahl such as “The Twits”, “Fantastic Mr Fox” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”—all the old favourites that one can safely recommend.

[Valerie Vaz]

Do you dress up?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The answer, I am sorry to say, is no.

As regards an Opposition day for the SNP, I will, of course, take that up; I am aware of the Standing Order requirements. In terms of the plea to free the Perth and North Perthshire One, the Government do not have a majority on the Scottish Affairs Committee, so I suggest that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) works with all members of the Committee, so that it may come to an agreement to change the times.

Finally, I admire the hon. Gentleman’s gall in asking for a debate on honesty in public affairs—dare I say, motes and beams, and there is rather a beam in the Scottish Parliament at the moment.