Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for tabling this motion, and all those involved with producing the House of Commons Commission report, “Extending the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme”, which was published on 15 July.

In May 2019, the Commission unanimously agreed to consult on its approved proposal for dealing with non-recent cases by using the existing ICGS and employing specialist investigators for both assessing and investigating non-recent and recent cases. The consultation was launched on 21 May and closed on 14 June. The responses to the Commission’s public consultation were overwhelmingly supportive of its preferred option. Respondents included current and former staff of MPs and the House service, the Centre for Women’s Justice, the trade union side, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Accordingly, at its meeting on 24 June 2019, the Commission agreed to include non-recent cases in the ICGS—hence, this motion. Until now, the ICGS has been available to all those who make up the parliamentary community. Paragraph 8 of the Commission’s report sets out necessary changes to open the ICGS to non-recent cases and to former members of the parliamentary community.

I pay tribute to the staff who are currently working on Dame Laura Cox’s third recommendation; we know how hard they work. Every time Members say that things have to be done quickly, there are a lot of hard-working staff who have to carry out that work as soon as possible. The staff team are currently working on ways to implement a fully independent complaints system, and will be helped by a working group of experts in constitutional law, constitutional history, human resources and procedure, as well as consulting Chairs of various Select Committees and party representatives. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) is one of those consultees. A statement has been published today, and I urge everyone to read it on the intranet and respond to it. She made a point about the Commission, but everything is open. The decisions are published on the intranet, and questions to the Commission can be answered in the Chamber by the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) or tabled.

I have a simple question for the Leader of the House: can he tell us the timetable for the report following the consultation and the completion of that work? He might know that, or he might want to ask his officials. In the circumstances, Her Majesty’s Opposition support the motion.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 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 (Mel Stride)]

The business for the week commencing 15 July will include:

Monday 15 July—Remaining stages of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2019.



Tuesday 16 July—Second Reading of the Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion relating to the inter-ministerial group on early years family support. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 17 July—Second Reading of the Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill [Lords], followed by a general debate on the Gemma White report, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the changes to the independent complaints and grievance scheme.



Thursday 18 July—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a debate on a motion on the Bishop of Truro’s review on persecution of Christians overseas, followed by a general debate on the spending of the Department of Health and Social Care on non-invasive precision therapies. The subjects for these debates were recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 19 July—The House will not be sitting.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business for next week. I note that the Government have found time for the debate on the Gemma White, QC, report and the amendment to the independent complaints and grievance procedure. The report came out at 10 am today. I have not had an opportunity to look at it in detail, but Labour Members wish to thank Gemma White, QC, for the time and effort she has put into her report. We will look seriously at the detail of the recommendations and work on a cross-party basis to make Parliament a modern workplace, and I encourage all Members to undertake the Valuing Everyone training, as it is a very good training session.

Just two weeks are left until this House rises for the summer recess, but we still do not have the conference recess dates. Can the Leader of the House give us any advance on returning on 3 September? Will he give an undertaking that when a new Cabinet is formed, on 24 July, a new list of ministerial responsibilities will be published as soon as possible? The last one was published in December 2018.

I am sure the Leader of the House would like to correct the record: last week, when I raised the Conservative candidates’ spending spree, which totals £100 billion—these are uncosted policy changes—he claimed that the Labour Opposition are spending “£1 trillion”. As a former Financial Secretary, he can do better than just pulling figures out of thin air. He will know that Labour’s 2017 manifesto was the only one that was costed. I would be happy to arrange a meeting for him with the shadow Chancellor to go through all the costings.

What chaos: a future Prime Minister refusing to support his own ambassador in the face of verbal abuse. It is disgraceful that there was a malicious leak of emails. Sir Kim Darroch was doing his job. The Secretary of State for International Trade vowed to apologise to the President’s daughter, an unelected representative. What on earth is he doing meeting the President’s daughter, and why is he apologising to her and not to Sir Kim Darroch? Was this an official visit, when he met the President’s daughter, and was Sir Kim excluded from that meeting? Was the abuse of our ambassador about removing an obstacle because they would rather negotiate in a golden lift away from those who serve our country and want the best for our country? As the head of the diplomatic service has said, we stand in solidarity with Sir Kim Darroch.

On Monday, the Leader of the House said that he would “take on board” my request to find time for a debate on the message from the House of Lords on setting up a Joint Select Committee, and that he would give it “further thought.” Does he have any further thoughts? We are happy to debate it on an Opposition day, if he will give us one. I do not think that it is for the Opposition to go to the Backbench Business Committee to request time for a Backbench Business debate.

The Leader of the House will know that the Bank of England estimates that a worst-case Brexit will involve border delays and markets losing confidence in Britain, which could shock the economy into a 5% contraction within a year—nearly as much as during the global financial crisis. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, raised the “ugly prospect” of customs checks and political instability in Northern Ireland in a no-deal situation, which he said would

“put many businesses and many people under a great deal of strain”.

Philip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, said this week that

“everybody should be worried about what happens in a no-deal situation. We would be taking a step into the unknown.”

Mr Rycroft said that leaving with no deal would be “fraught with difficulty”.

The economy is going backwards: we have now had a third quarter of falling productivity, which decreased by 0.2%, and manufacturing has hit a six-month low. Deutsche Bank is sending people home with boxes; the last time we saw that was in the global financial crisis of 2008. Before the Leader of the House says anything, let me remind him that it was not Labour brothers who did that; Lehman Brothers was responsible. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has repeatedly refused to rule out no deal, so I ask again: please will the Leader of the House give us time to debate the Lords message?

Will the Government explicitly rule out proroguing Parliament to force a no-deal Brexit? The Opposition stand with Sir John Major, who said that he would seek a judicial review in the courts if the new Prime Minister tried to suspend Parliament to deliver a no-deal Brexit. The former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), said that, were that to happen, it would be

“the end of parliamentary democracy”.

Yesterday, United Nations experts voiced their “deep concern” over Iran’s “consistent pattern” of denying life-saving medical treatment to detainees, and the UN said that the continued detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a mockery of justice. Will the Leader of the House update the House on what steps the Government have taken this week to free Nazanin?

Finally, the UK Parliament newsletter reminds us that on 11 July 1859, Big Ben rang out for the first time. We wish to hear him or her again.

[Mel Stride]

I echo the hon. Lady’s comments on Gemma White, whom I thank for that report. As the hon. Lady pointed out, we received it only at 10 o’clock this morning so, as you will appreciate, Mr Speaker, I have not had time fully to digest the full findings of the Gemma White report on the bullying and harassment of MPs’ parliamentary staff, but I am sure that Members from all parties will share my concern at the initial reports, at least. Let me be clear that there should be absolutely no place for bullying and harassment in this place. We all bear a responsibility to uphold the proper standards of dignity and respect in Parliament.

As you know, Mr Speaker, over the past year, we have made significant progress that will help to bring about meaningful culture change, but more remains to be done. Indeed, as I have announced today, we are bringing forward a motion that will implement the important recommendation in Dame Laura Cox’s report that historic cases should be in scope as part of the independent complaints and grievance scheme. Our Parliament must be a safe place, free of bullying and harassment, and I am determined to play my part in delivering that.

The hon. Lady raises a number of other points. First, I thank her for welcoming the three hours of protected time that we have set aside to debate the Gemma Wright report on Wednesday next week. That will be followed immediately by one hour of protected time to cover the motion that will be tabled on the Laura Cox 2 recommendation.

The hon. Lady rightly raises the importance of the Valuing Everyone training. I urge everybody in the House to go on that training course. It is relatively short, but extremely important. I have written to all my Conservative colleagues in this House to urge them to take on that training, and I raised the importance of it at—let me just say—a very senior level of government.

The hon. Lady asks about the recess. The answer is that we will come back in due course with an announcement on the recess arrangements post the recess when the House rises on 25 July. She raises—as I think she did with my predecessor, to be fair—the publication of ministerial responsibilities. I will look into that and undertake to come back to her very quickly with an answer on when we expect that to be updated online.

The hon. Lady raises the profligacy—although she did not term it in that way—of the Labour party’s spending commitments and my £1 trillion price tag. I think that I will decline the invitation to meet the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter, because I have a volume of information that supports the assertions that I have made in this respect, not least, I believe, the £175 billion price tag on the nationalisations of the various utilities that the Labour party has in its sights.

The hon. Lady raises the important matter of Sir Kim Darroch. The Minister of State has clearly just answered an urgent question very thoroughly on that matter and put forward the Government’s very firm and resolute view on what has happened. She raised specifically the conversations that the Secretary of State for International Trade has had with members of the White House, and I know that he will be aware of the comments that she has made.

The hon. Lady raises the Joint Select Committee and the message from the Lords that we have received and asks when we will be responding to that. I am keen that we do so this side of the recess, and I am in discussions currently with our end of the usual channels in that regard.

The hon. Lady raises the matter of Deutsche Bank. I think that some 18,000 job losses are anticipated there, although it should be pointed out that this is a global retrenchment, not just one that affects the City of London. The Government’s record on employment is, of course, exemplary. We have the highest employment in our history and the lowest unemployment since 1974.

Once again, the hon. Lady also raises the issue of proroguing Parliament. The main thrust of her point was that this should not be used as a device for us to go into a no-deal situation without Parliament expressing its opinion on the matter. As I have said from this Dispatch Box in the past, I do not believe that that would be a desirable situation. The Government do not believe that that would be a desirable situation, not least because it would put the monarch in the awkward position of being involved in what is essentially a political decision given that it is Prorogation based on the advice of the Prime Minister, but ultimately granted by the Queen. I will also say, as I think you have suggested, Mr Speaker, that it seems inconceivable that Parliament will not have its opportunity to ensure that it has appropriate time to debate at the appropriate time these very, very important matters for our country.

The hon. Lady returns to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I can assure her that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office remains very robustly engaged with the Iranian authorities, and I have now taken it upon myself to ensure that my office keeps closely in touch with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in that regard, as indeed it has done very recently, particularly and not least because of the totally understandable concern that I share with the hon. Lady about her welfare and the desire that we all have in this House that she be released as quickly as possible.

Finally, Big Ben was mentioned. May I share the hon. Lady’s joy in referencing 11 July 1859? We do want to hear the bells again. An interesting fact that not many people may know is that this bell can actually be heard all around the world because the World Service has a live feed of it when it chimes, and that is the live bell that we hear when Big Ben is alive and whole.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mel Stride)]

I should like to make a short business statement regarding the business for tomorrow and the remainder of this week.

Tuesday 9 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill.

Wednesday 10 July—Second Reading of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, followed by general debate on tackling climate change, protecting the environment and securing global development.

Thursday 11 July—General debate on 20 years of devolution followed by debate on a motion relating to leasehold reform. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee on the recommendation of the Liaison Committee.

I shall make a further business statement in the usual way on Thursday.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

May I thank the Leader of the House for providing an extra day to debate the very important issue of Northern Ireland? As he is amending the business for this week, will he consider allowing a debate on the message from the Lords on setting up a Joint Committee? It has to report by 30 September, so could he further amend the business?

[Mel Stride]

First, may I thank the hon. Lady for her thanks—let us keep the thanks going—for the additional time for the Northern Ireland Bill? This important issue was raised during Thursday’s business statement, both by the hon. Lady and by the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), and I am pleased that we have managed to come to an arrangement for extra time.

I take on board the hon. Lady’s comment about the message from the Lords in respect of the Joint Committee, and I will give that further thought.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 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 (Mel Stride)]

The business for the week commencing 8 July will include:

Monday 8 July—Consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by all stages of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill.

Tuesday 9 July—Second Reading of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill.

Wednesday 10 July—Motion to approve the draft Environment (Legislative Functions from Directives) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, followed by a motion to approve the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2019, followed by a general debate on tackling climate change, protecting the environment and securing global development.

Thursday 11 July—A general debate on 20 years of devolution, followed by a debate on a motion relating to leasehold reform. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee, on the recommendation of the Liaison Committee.

Friday 12 July—The House will not be sitting.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. He announced the Northern Ireland Bill for Monday. As I understand it, the Bill will be published only later today. Despite a motion allowing amendments, there will be a window of only about half an hour for hon. Members to table amendments. This is a really important Bill, and the Opposition were happy to work with the Government to ensure that they get certainty on the Bill. Will the Leader of the House have discussions with the usual channels to ensure that we get scrutiny of this important Bill? We have always approached Northern Ireland on a cross-party basis, so I ask him to please think again.

Last week, I raised the issue of a debate on the Cox report, and the Gemma White inquiry is coming up. Can the Leader of the House update us on when the House is likely to be able to consider that motion?

I know that the Leader of the House is interested in tweeting: perhaps he could tweet a clarification. Last week, I raised the issue of the Government’s Value Added Tax (Reduced Rate) (Energy-Saving Materials) Order 2019, and he said that it was an EU requirement under its regulations. In his answer to a parliamentary question in 2018, when he was a Treasury Minister, he said that

“it is right that Member States have flexibility in applying VAT on different products”.

Will he look again at whether it is possible for VAT to be changed on those materials, especially given the Prime Minister’s commitment to reduce emissions to zero by 2050? The Leader of the House said that it was not something that he would necessarily have brought forward, so I ask him again whether the Government have any plans to scrap VAT in this important area.

Perhaps the Leader of the House could also tweet the answer to this question. Who said that

“in a disruptive no-deal exit there will be a hit to the exchequer of about £90bn.”?

It was his right hon. Friend and former Treasury colleague, the Chancellor. I do not remember seeing no deal on the ballot paper. We did not get the sectoral analysis until we asked for it in the Chamber. The Leader of the House may say “It’s the will of the people”, but the people did not have the full information when they made their decision. I do not know whether he is aware of the message from the other place about the amazing cross-party support for a motion to set up a Joint Committee to consider a no-deal Brexit, which passed by 245 votes to 99. We all praise Select Committees, and this would be an important Select Committee because it would be a Joint Committee of both Houses. The motion would require the Select Committee to report by 30 September. As I am sure the Leader of the House knows, the first Council meeting will take place on 17 October, which is why it is important for us to have a discussion to decide whether we will sit through the conference recess and whether conferences will go ahead or Members will be here. It is an important time for the EU, so perhaps he will consider having a statement next week on those issues.

The Leader of the House wrote a lovely article in “Red Box” saying that he sees

“a large part of my role as promoting parliament—to do what I can to ensure that people trust and understand its vital role”.

Does he agree with a former Leader of the House, now a Government Whip in the Lords, Lord Young, who has said that he views with alarm the promises made by Tory leadership candidates? The shadow Chancellor has costed those pledges, and the total for the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is £57 billion and for the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt) it is £43.4 billion—more than £100 billion in total. Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that both candidates were misleading people by implying that the Treasury’s Brexit war chest would fund their spending pledges and that if they intended to borrow more, they had not said how much. It is making Parliament look absurd that the candidates can make those pledges to win their election. The people one of them will govern will not even have a say. What can the Leader of the House do to stop candidates misleading people?

It took an urgent question for the House to talk about what happened with Serco. A screaming headline in The Law Society Gazette reads, “Serco subsidiary to pay £19.2m for lying to MoJ about tagging profits”. This is absolutely appalling. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), was very helpful earlier—he is a very helpful Minister—but I think that we need a statement in Government time.

I invite the Leader of the House to visit the all-party parliamentary group on legal aid next Monday, when we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949, along with young legal aid lawyers. I am surprised that there are any left, but it will be good to see them there. The Leader of the House will know, I am sure, that since 2010 the number of cases assisted by legal aid has dropped from 900,000 to 15,000. This is about the rule of law and access to justice. If the Leader of the House could ensure that the Government will automatically fund legal aid for the families of victims of terrorist atrocities—a subject that I raised with him last week—that would be a nice way of celebrating the anniversary of the Act.

I know that you, Mr Speaker, went to see Richard Ratcliffe when he was on hunger strike. I saw “Speaker Bear” sitting on his chair. Both Richard and Nazanin have now ended their hunger strike. I said to Richard that I would raise Nazanin’s case from the Dispatch Box every week until she was freed. Will the Leader of the House please make representations, as the Foreign Secretary seems to have gone missing and is making promises that he cannot keep? I know that great things are in store for the Leader of the House, not least because he has a wonderful mentor in the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). Will he please stand in for the Foreign Secretary and raise the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe? She is innocent, and she must be freed.

Earlier this week, Mr Speaker, you mentioned the loss of two of the House’s leading black and minority ethnic officials, Kamal El-Hajji and, of course, our own Speaker’s Chaplain, the Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin. Kamal was the first person with a BME background to be appointed to the role of Serjeant at Arms, and the Rev. Rose is now the Church of England’s first black female bishop. We are sorry that she could not be the Bishop of London, and I know that she was trying to be a Canon of Westminster, but I think that was taken away from her. She has been a great comfort to everyone on the parliamentary estate. She has been here during debates, and she has talked to us one to one. She has been a reassuring presence, and we are grateful for both her presence and her prayers. We wish the two of them well in their future endeavours.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. I shall come to them in a moment, but let me start by saying that I have some bad news. Unfortunately, I have had to cancel the holiday that I suggested last Thursday. The hon. Lady did not, I think, take my offer seriously, as she never replied to it. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was prepared to join us and provide the musical entertainment, but the appearance fee that he demanded was utterly disproportionate to his talent. Two pounds fifty and a couple of cans of Irn-Bru was a generous offer, and the hon. Gentleman should have accepted it. I mean, who does he think he is, Pete Wishart or something? Perhaps not.

Let me now deal with the hon. Lady’s questions. She rightly raised the business for Monday, and asked whether there would be time for sufficient scrutiny of the Northern Ireland Bill and the tabling of amendments to it. All I will say to her is that we are very aware of the importance of both those matters, and discussions are taking place in the usual channels.

The hon. Lady asked me about a potential debate on the Cox report. We did, of course, have a debate on that report recently, but she also raised the important matter of the Gemma White inquiry, which will be reporting soon. We are at one in respect of the desirability of a debate on that matter, and I am already engaged in discussions with my end of the usual channels with a view to such a debate.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of energy-saving materials again, and asked whether VAT was or was not applicable. More specifically, she asked whether it was a requirement of the European Union that we apply it at a certain level. That is my understanding, but given that the hon. Lady has pressed me again, which may mean that she has some information on this matter that she is keeping to herself—perhaps I am wrong; I do not know—I will check with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General, who I believe is the Minister responsible for that particular issue and tabled the statutory instrument.

The hon. Lady also raised the matter of the £90 billion that the Chancellor has referred to in respect of a potential no-deal exit from the European Union. Of course that is a figure that has been out there for quite some considerable time, not least in the analysis that the Government provided some months ago—an across-Whitehall report on the potential impact of no deal on the Exchequer.

The hon. Lady also raised the matter of the Joint Committee proposed by the House of Lords, and referred to the vote on that. We will of course consider that proposal very carefully when it comes to this House, but I would point out to the hon. Lady that there have been numerous opportunities in the past to debate at length the potential consequences of no deal. None the less, we will take the Joint Committee proposal seriously and have a very close look at that as a potential vehicle for further discussion of that matter.

The hon. Lady referred very generously to my lovely article, which was rather a kind way of introducing her remarks on that, and then she plunged into the costs of the various promises that the two candidates in the Conservative party leadership contest may have been putting forward. At one point she totalled them up to the dizzying heights of £100 billion, which pales into insignificance compared with the £1 trillion that her own party seems to be putting forward in additional borrowing, or indeed in additional tax to be raised from the hard-working men and women up and down our country.

The hon. Lady referred to Serco, but of course we have had an urgent question just this morning on the matter. She made some important points about legal aid. Justice questions are on Tuesday and, as I mentioned last week, the Justice Committee is looking at precisely the issue she has raised around the availability of legal aid to the suspected perpetrators of atrocities compared with its availability to those who have suffered as a consequence of their actions.

I applaud the hon. Lady for raising Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe again, as I know she intends to at the Dispatch Box every week as the shadow Leader of the House. I can once again assure her that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and others have been very engaged in ensuring that somebody who went to Iran simply for the purposes of a holiday and meeting family and friends is not incarcerated in the way she has been.

Finally, may I also welcome the hon. Lady’s comments regarding Rose Hudson-Wilkin and her appointment as Bishop of Dover? She will be much missed by this House, but will be a great asset and of great benefit to Dover.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mel Stride)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 1 July—Estimates day (6th allotted day). There will be a debate on estimates relating to the Department for International Development and the Department for Education.

Tuesday 2 July—Estimates day (7th allotted day). There will be a debate on estimates relating to the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. At 7 pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Wednesday 3 July—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) (No.3) Bill, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the Draft Capital Allowances (Structures and Buildings Allowances) Regulations 2019, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2019, followed by debate on a motion on whistleblowing. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 4 July—Debate on a motion on ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans, followed by general debate on the functioning of the existing law relating to assisted dying. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 5 July—The House will not be sitting.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for announcing the business for next week. The Chair of the Backbench Business Committee seems to be the de facto Leader of the House once again, because he is setting the agenda with debates on two days—lucky him.

The motion for the House to rise on 25 July was passed on Monday. I understand that the results of the ballot for the Tory party leadership will be out on Tuesday 23 July. The Prime Minister may have to go to Buckingham palace on Wednesday 24 July, and then the new leader of the Tory party will also have to go to the palace—possibly on the Thursday—to confirm with our gracious sovereign that he has the confidence of the House. Many hon. Members are concerned that there may be no time to question the new Prime Minister before the House rises, so will the Leader of the House assure us that he will make time for the new Prime Minister to make a statement and answer questions from hon. Members?

Last week, the Leader of the House said that the House would return on 3 September. Some press reports suggest that he has been involved in discussions about the House not rising for the conference recess. Will he confirm whether those discussions have taken place, whether and when the conference recess will start, or whether the House will sit during our conferences?

It is no wonder that ambassadors are saying that the UK’s standing around the world is diminished. On the one hand, the Government said that they are setting net zero carbon targets for 2050, but on the other hand the Treasury introduced its Value Added Tax (Reduced Rate) (Energy-Saving Materials) Order 2019, which is in effect a steep VAT increase for the installation of energy-saving materials. More importantly, is the Leader of the House aware of the point raised by my noble friend Baroness Smith of Basildon, the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords? The Prime Minister said that Labour peers were blocking the motion relating to climate change targets, but it is a regret motion, not a blocking motion, and it seeks to improve the proposals. Baroness Smith said that she regrets the lack of detail in the SI, because it leaves shipping and aviation out of the targets. Will the Leader of the House ask the PM to apologise to my noble friends in the other place? The Prime Minister was plain wrong, and I have the relevant exchange here if it would be helpful to the Leader of the House.

The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) withdrew the dangerous bendy buses from London, and they have since been removed in Swansea, York, Bradford and Leeds. Despite that, the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, has proposed bendy buses for a route between Walsall and Birmingham. It is a wholly inappropriate use of public funds, because a perfectly good service already exists and local people are opposed to the decision. Will the Leader of the House use his good offices to ensure that the Mayor understands that bendy buses are dangerous and unwanted? The Mayor said that the buses were being introduced for the Commonwealth games. The Government have announced a funding package for the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth games, with 75% coming from central Government and 25% being raised locally. However, there was no news of consequential funding for Wales, and the Secretary of State for Wales did not mention that yesterday. I am pretty sure that the Government have to provide such funding, so will the Leader of the House ensure that the Secretary of State writes to the First Minister of Wales to explain whether Wales will receive it?

More than 40 Members have signed early-day motion 2368, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) and calls on the Government to automatically fund the legal representation of all victims of terrorist atrocities and their families.

[That this House expresses concern that victims of terrorist atrocities are not automatically eligible for legal aid; regrets that a recently published government review rejected introducing automatic non-means-tested legal aid funding to bereaved families after a state-related death; notes that state organisations involved in deaths from terrorist attacks have access to legal teams and experts at public expense; recognises that in France victims of terrorism, and their families, are automatically eligible for state-funded legal representation; and calls on the Government to automatically fund the legal representation of all victims of terrorist atrocities and their families, inclusive of all coroner hearings and inquests.]

Lawyers acting pro bono on behalf of families of the victims of the London Bridge terror attack have had their legal aid applications denied. At the same time, Government agencies have used public funds to hire some of the best legal teams to represent their interests in court. Families of victims of the March 2017 Westminster attack have also been told that they are unlikely to receive funding for the inquest, which ended last year. This is an insult to victims of terror, and the Government need to reverse it as soon as possible.

It is Armed Forces Day on Saturday to honour the men and women who make up our armed forces, and we had a good debate on that this week. At this very moment, the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Defence Secretary are announcing our five pledges to support the forces and their families—fair pay, decent housing, a voice for servicemen and women, an end to privatisation, and support for forces children—but there has been a real-terms pay cut for our servicemen and women over the past seven years. The starting salary of an Army private is now £1,150 lower in real terms than in 2010.

Sunday 30 June is the United Nations International Day of Parliamentarism. In total, there are 272 Chambers of Parliament, with more than 46,000 Members, and there has been no shortage of demand for you, Mr Speaker, to visit other countries. It has been helpfully pointed out by certain people that your ambassadorship and valuable insight into the workings of this Parliament are so important. On Sunday we can celebrate how the parliamentary system improves the day-to-day life of people across the world. That allows us to raise the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, which I will do every week from this Dispatch Box until she is free. Turning to the hypocrisy of President Trump, he brought his family on a state visit while presiding over a policy that separates families. With Oscar and his daughter Valeria lying dead, I am sure every single parliamentarian around the world, and the whole House, joins me in saying, “May they rest in peace.”

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks, which I will address in detail in a moment.

First, Mr Speaker, I join the Prime Minister who earlier this week rightly congratulated you on having served as Speaker for 10 years. The Prime Minister said it does not seem like 10 years, to which an Opposition Member was heard to mutter that it seems more like 20, which was a foolish and misguided remark, as I am sure you would agree.

I have been feeling somewhat guilty since last week, as I invited several regular attendees of business questions to join me on holiday over the recess but did not extend the invitation to you, Mr Speaker. Do please join us. It is just £500 for the week, which you will be pleased to know includes all flights.

I concur with the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) about the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who has indeed shown his worth in allocating time on the Order Paper. I congratulate him on the important debates he has secured for the coming week.

The hon. Lady specifically asked about the recess motion to which the whole House agreed. The Government are clear that there should be an opportunity for the new Prime Minister to appear before this House before the recess and, in the event that there is any doubt in the matter, I have no doubt that Parliament will express itself. Hopefully that is now sufficiently clear.

The hon. Lady also asked whether there will be a recess to accommodate the conferences. All I can say is that that will of course be a matter for the new Prime Minister, but it is usual for time to be set aside for the conference recess. One might reasonably expect time to be made available in the usual way.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of the VAT rise for energy-saving materials, but she did not point out that, in fact, the rise is due to EU regulations and an EU requirement. In the absence of that imperative from the EU, it is not something we would necessarily have brought forward.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the House of Lords regret motion relating to the climate change targets. I understand her point about the meaning of that motion, which will have been noted by this House. The main point remains that, as a Government, we have taken a leading step on tackling emissions and climate change, and that step should not be downgraded or overlooked in any way

The hon. Lady also raised the issue of bendy buses in and around Walsall, and I believe she was seeking my assistance in reaching out to the Mayor of the West Midlands. If she needs any assistance, I am happy to do that, but I am sure that if she were to approach the Mayor directly, he would, in his usual manner, be very accommodating and wish to engage with her.

The hon. Lady also asked whether I could prevail upon the Secretary of State for Wales to ensure that he writes to his counterpart on the matter of consequential costs arising from the Commonwealth games, and I will be happy to do that. As this has been raised at the Dispatch Box this morning, I know that that message will have been heard. She also raised the issue of legal representation for the victims of terrorism. I believe that the Justice Committee will shortly be considering these matters in some detail, which may be of interest to her, and of course a lengthy debate on just this subject took place in Westminster Hall a short time ago. I wish to echo the hon. Lady’s words on Armed Forces Day, which is on Saturday. We owe all our brave men and women a huge debt of gratitude for all that they do to keep us safe in these islands.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the UN International Day of Parliamentarism and rightly registered the fact that you, Mr Speaker, have played such an active role, over time, in making sure that the ideals of our mother of Parliaments and all the good things that flow from that are promoted across the world.

Finally, the hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who went to Iran on holiday to see relatives and has been incarcerated for far too long. Our thoughts are with her, with her family and with her husband, and I assure the hon. Lady that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continues to work hard to try to secure her release. Indeed, the Prime Minister has raised this specific matter with the Iranian authorities and leadership on more than one occasion.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 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 (Mel Stride)]

The business for the week commencing 24 June will include the following:

Monday 24 June—Second reading of the Kew Gardens (Leases) (No.3) Bill [Lords], followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019.

Tuesday 25 June—Second reading of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill.

Wednesday 26 June—Opposition day (un-allotted half day). There will be a debate on a motion on immigration in the name of the Scottish National party, followed by a general debate on Armed Forces Day.

Thursday 27 June—Debate on a motion relating to the contribution of co-operatives and mutuals to the economy, followed by a general debate on the children’s future food report. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 28 June—The House will not be sitting.

Colleagues will also wish to know that subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the summer recess at the close of business on Thursday 25 July, and will return on Tuesday 3 September.

[Valerie Vaz]

That is very helpful to all Members.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for suggesting the business. I am pleased that we now have a recess date, but can the Leader of the House tell us who will be at the Dispatch Box on Wednesday 24 July?

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

How can he know that?

[Valerie Vaz]

Well, that is what I am asking him. I am asking him when the identity of the new Prime Minister will be confirmed. I understand that all the results will be out on 22 July; perhaps he could let us know. I am pleased to learn that the House will sit in September, and I am sure that the Leader of the House will announce the conference recess dates as well. I think it is only fair to the outgoing Prime Minister that she knows when her last Question Time will be, and, more important, only fair to us—to Parliament.

The Leader of the House will know that we have had a busy week. He will also know that on Tuesday we had a Back-Bench debate about the Cox report. When is he likely to table a motion for a debate in Government time? It may be necessary to change a Standing Order, so will he find a date as a matter of urgency, before the House rises on 25 July?

I know that Back-Bench debates are important, but there is a backlog of very important legislation. The Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill, the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill need Report stages, and the Trade Bill is again stuck in the other place. When are we likely to debate those Bills?

Ministers are so occupied with their bids to become the next Prime Minister. Only after dropping out of the Conservative leadership race did the Health Secretary order a root-and-branch review of NHS food. Parts of the country have been unsettled by torrential rain, homes have been left without power and roads have been flooded in Lincolnshire—people in Wainfleet are in tears—but there has been no statement from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I know that there have been questions to him, but there has been no specific statement about the people in Wainfleet. The Home Secretary has said that he will put 20,000 more police officers on the beat if he is elected leader, but the Government have cut the number already. He is merely repeating a commitment made by Her Majesty’s Opposition.

As for the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), he has been careless with his words. He has said that his comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had made “no difference”, but they were used at her trial. He has put a woman’s life at risk and separated a family. For the record, Nazanin was on holiday visiting her parents. She has been in jail for three years. I met Richard Ratcliffe yesterday, and other Members have visited him too. Will the Leader of the House raise Nazanin’s case with both the former and the current Foreign Secretary, and send the Iranian Government the message that they should show the international community their seriousness, and free Nazanin and reunite the family now?

A motion scheduled for next Tuesday is to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019. The motion is a step in the right direction, but why are we waiting until 2050? Heathrow is already the largest single source of carbon emissions in the UK. Plans published on Tuesday revealed that Heathrow airport will construct a third runway by 2026 and complete its 50% expansion by 2050. This includes diverting rivers, moving roads and rerouting the M25 through a tunnel under the new runway. The Government’s own figures show that nearly 1 million households are to face increased daytime noise from allowing a further 700 flights a day. May we have a statement on the new plans for the expansion of Heathrow airport, including the environmental impacts?

It is Children’s Hospice Week this week. Hospices across the country are under threat, including one in my constituency, Acorns. It employs 70 people to care for 233 Black Country children and their families. It is facing closure due to lack of Government funding. I met my constituent Mark Lyttle, a bereaved parent, who spoke about his daughter Isabella, who was cared for by Acorns. Mark said Acorns Walsall extended and improved her quality of life and provides the family with ongoing bereavement help, because, sadly, Isabella passed away earlier this year at the age of 11. Black Country MPs across parties are working to save this hospice, and it is the only one of the three in the area to close.

I know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care should be accountable. We have heard the phrase “A bedpan dropping and we hear it Whitehall,” but so much for accountability: at this stage we have to write to the Health Secretary and the head of NHS England, and the Prime Minister said yesterday that they would match-fund what the clinical commissioning groups put forward. May we use the good offices of the Leader of the House to raise this with the Health Secretary? We need the Health Secretary to make the decision so that children’s hospices, particularly Acorns, have their long-term funding. We cannot crowdfund and fundraise to save a children’s hospice.

The third anniversary of Jo Cox’s murder was on 16 June. The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) is working very hard on one of Kim Leadbeater’s key asks for all of us: to focus on the humanitarian emergency in Syria, one of the issues that mattered most to Jo, by highlighting the plight of civilians trapped under the merciless bombing in Idlib.

It has been a busy week for me and the Leader of the House. Yesterday we agreed that we would save the education centre. It is also Refugee Week, and the education and engagement service will be providing a workshop to the refugee and migrant centre in Walsall, “An introduction to your UK Parliament”. I am pleased that that is going ahead and that education is also to be part of any restoration and renewal.

Finally, I offer my commiserations to the Scottish football team but wish the Lionesses well in the next stage of the World cup.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her various questions, which I will go through in some detail in a moment. I also thank her for welcoming the recess dates, which I think we are all relieved have now finally been announced.

Having just announced the summer recess dates, an idea has occurred to me. We meet as a merry band on Thursdays—we are like a tightly knit club—and I wonder if this recess we might perhaps keep the camaraderie going, and all go off on holiday together. I would be happy to hire a bus or a charabanc, Mr Speaker, and as the new Leader who, as you know, has brought such a powerful sense of direction and renewed purpose to this House, I would be happy to drive it. Nothing would give me more pleasure than for my new-found friend, the shadow Leader of the House, to join me. She would be serenaded of course by the ever-cheerful hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) on the pipes, or maybe the banjo, and accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) displaying his musical prowess on the spoons while spouting Wordsworth and Keats and John Clare and regaling us with cheery tales of those halcyon Victorian times when small boys cheerfully shinned up chimneys and widespread malnutrition and rickets were a mere footnote to a far happier age. And as the sun slips below the horizon we will hear the extraordinary tales of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) explaining how he quietly took over the entire business of government with his Backbench Business Committee. Or perhaps we should stick to our original plans.

The hon. Lady raised several important points. First, she asks who will be at the Dispatch Box when Parliament goes into recess. Of course, that is unknown; I have no crystal ball. There are four finalists, all extremely strong candidates, and we will have to wait and see. I can offer her a membership form for the Conservative party so that next time she can participate in the excitement and fun. I was grateful to receive her satisfaction, however, at our having set out the situation for September and at the fact that we will be sitting from early that month.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Cox report. Her request for a debate would need to be taken up through the usual channels, but I have taken her request on board—it is the second time she has raised it with me—and undertake to come back to her later today at least with something by way of a response, even if it is to say that I have asked the usual channels at my end of the usual channel to consider it seriously. She also asked about various pieces of future legislation and when they will be coming forward. They will come forward in due course. On flood defences, which she mentioned, we have of course just had Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions, which was an opportunity for Members to address that issue.

The hon. Lady made various important points about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has now spent three years in jail in Iran. I can assure her that, whatever may or may not have been said by others in the past, the Government are working extremely hard to do whatever they can to ensure her imminent release. She also raised carbon emissions, which she will know the Government have reduced by 25% in terms of greenhouse gases since 2010. We have now had over 1,700 hours of producing power in our country without the use of coal, which is the longest stretch in the history of power production in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Lady made some very important points about hospices, particularly relating to the care of children, on which subject there will be an Adjournment debate on 1 July in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson). The hon. Lady may wish to attend and urge others to do likewise. I would certainly be prepared to facilitate the approaches she requested to the Secretary of State for Health in terms of funding.

The hon. Lady made some very important points about Jo Cox and the excellent work of Kim Leadbeater and her concerns about humanitarian aid in Syria. In that regard, we have a proud record in this country and have allocated some billions of pounds of assistance. Given that she also referred to Refugee Week, I should remind the House that we have agreed to take 20,000 refugees and 3,000 children from Syria.

Like the hon. Lady, I was pleased that during the remaining stages of the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill yesterday we underscored our commitment to education in this place, and, like her also, I commiserate with our Scottish colleagues on the football result yesterday while also cheering on the England team.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Well, what a beautiful reply from the Treasury Bench. I must say to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) that I have just received his most gracious, handwritten, borderline poetic letter in his illustrious capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Lebanon, and I intend to reply by hand—although probably not, as he would prefer, by the use of the quill pen—similarly graciously and within a very short timeframe. My response to his request will be in the affirmative, and I expect that he will wish to dance round a red telephone box, if he can find one, in appreciation of my reply.

[Valerie Vaz]

Is it in verse?

[Mr Speaker]

My letter is not in verse. I know my limitations. I cannot compete with the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on that front.

Cox Report: Implementation

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mel Stride)]

indicated assent.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

indicated assent.

[Tom Brake]

The shadow Leader of the House is nodding as well. I think there is a collective desire to ensure that we run the Commission more effectively than has perhaps been the case so far. I am sure that all the players on the Commission will want to support that initiative.

I agree that, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said, action has not been taken as swiftly as it should have been in relation to the Cox recommendations. However, there are some challenging deadlines, some of which I have mentioned, and they are on the record. We are meeting on 24 June, and there is an undertaking from the Commission to take decisions and agree action plans at that point. We are therefore very close to having to take some of these critical decisions. This is all on record and in Hansard, and many Members are here and have listened to this. I am sure that they will therefore want to know the outcome of the meeting on 24 June, and have assurances that the Commission will actually take the decisions that it has undertaken to take there in order to start to address the concerns that the right hon. Lady and, indeed, others here have about the lack of speed with which some of these decisions and actions are being taken.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire; I am going to break with tradition by calling him “Mr Wishart”.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady cannot do that. This is not fair because I am now obliged to call her to order, so the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will call me old-fashioned, which I am not—just because I approve of the tie he is wearing, on behalf of his mother.

[Valerie Vaz]

You are a lovely Deputy Speaker, Madam Deputy Speaker. Things go past you, and you call out some things and not others, but we are very grateful to have you in the Chair.

I apologise to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I was a bit late trundling over from Norman Shaw South, and the preceding statutory instruments finished quicker than I had anticipated. I thank the right hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for applying for this debate, and the Backbench Business Committee—chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)—for granting it and finding time for it. I also thank the new Leader of the House. He has just got the job and has been thrown in at the deep end, having to respond to something that has been going on for quite a while. However, he is very welcome and I have appreciated all the discussions we have had so far.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke wondered about who makes appointments to the Commission. As she will know, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) replies to questions; time is made available for him to be held accountable for what the Commission does in the House.

[Tom Brake]

What the shadow Leader of the House has just said is quite important. My role as spokesman for the House of Commons Commission is to provide a factual response to the queries that Members raise with me, not to drive the policy of the House of Commons Commission.

[Valerie Vaz]

The right hon. Gentleman also makes press statements when requested to do so.

[Jess Phillips]

I would like some answers about how the decision is made on who is the Commission’s spokesperson. I do not know whether it is a paid role.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I was just coming to who appoints us to the Commission, so maybe I can answer my hon. Friend’s question. As a member of the shadow Cabinet, I am appointed by the Leader of the Opposition; the Leader of the House is in the Cabinet, so he is appointed by the Prime Minister. We serve on the Commission because the Commission is responsible for the House staff, and this is related to the business of the House.

I think that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington was appointed before I was. It was appropriate to have him as the voice of the Commission because he is not a Member of a main party. Obviously, there is a staff to support him and, no, he is not paid. I hope that clarifies the situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has a lot of power, as she is a deputy editor of The House magazine. I do not know whether or not she was elected to her post. Anyway, I look forward to being in the magazine because I have not been in it for a while.

[Tom Brake]

To complete the clarification of my role, there have in the past been requests to hold an election among the Liberal Democrats for this post. When a party has a relatively small number of MPs, the competition for the posts that are available is not usually very extensive, and therefore the probability of an election is quite restricted. If two Liberal Democrats had wanted to perform this role, there could have been an election that Members of the House could take part in, but there was no competition.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Also on the Commission are the Chairs of the Finance Committee and the Administration Committee, plus two non-execs.

The Commission appointed Dame Laura Cox to do the report as a result of the “Newsnight” allegations. Because it was very clear that the Commission did not want to be involved as elected members—as you will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker—we tasked the non-execs, Dame Janet Gaymer and Jane McCall, to draw up the terms of reference for the report and to find someone of the stature of Dame Laura Cox who was willing to produce it. It was a completely independent process both in terms of the report and picking the person—it was not interfered with at all by the Commission.

Dame Laura Cox published her report on 15 October. She made three fundamental recommendations that we on the Commission felt merited urgent consideration. We did that at our 24 October meeting and issued a statement on the same day agreeing to all the recommendations. Dame Laura Cox chose not to come to the Commission—not to answer questions, because we did not want that, but just to say what she wanted to say. She said that she had written her report and that was the end of it. I was therefore pleased when the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) said that when Dame Laura came to her APPG, she was able to talk about details of the report. The Commission confirmed that it was then up to the House to take forward these recommendations, to which we were all fully committed. Part of our statement said that we would expect to see them progress as quickly as possible.

The Clerk of the House then worked with members of staff to ensure that the recommendations were put in place. Dame Laura did not say in her report how she wanted the various strands set up—that had to be done from scratch. It was down to the Clerk and the staff he worked with to work on how the three recommendations would be implemented. The House of Commons debated the report in the Chamber on 5 November and agreed to the Committee on Standards report, “Implications of the Dame Laura Cox report for the House’s standards system: Initial proposals”, on 7 January 2019.

We all take this seriously and we all take responsibility for it. Every Commission meeting—the minutes are available on the parliamentary intranet—has been dominated by the deliberations that we have had on this. We appreciate that these are complex matters. Progress has at times been slower than we would wish, but I consider that we are now making good progress. It could be faster, and we will monitor that.

The first recommendation was that the valuing others policy and the revised respect policy should both be abandoned as soon as possible. That decision was taken immediately and they were suspended immediately.

The second recommendation was that the new independent complaints and grievance scheme be amended to ensure that House employees with complaints involving non-recent allegations can access the new scheme. That is because the Commission had made the clear recommendation that, for simplicity and consistency, recent and non-recent cases should have exactly the same process. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley made that point. We were advised by Speaker’s Counsel, the Commissioner for Standards and the trade union side. The public consultation closed last Friday. The responses will be reviewed, and there is an excellent prospect that this will be in place very soon. Dame Laura Cox said that she wished that we had waited until the publication of her report before the ICGS was in place because she had some recommendations to make about that. She felt that it was important that everything should be taken together.

The third recommendation was that steps should be taken, in consultation with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and others, to consider the most effective way to ensure that the process for determining complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment brought by House staff against Members of Parliament will be an entirely independent process in which Members of Parliament play no part.

In paragraph 379 of Dame Laura’s report, she said that there was a

“general reluctance of Members to judge the misconduct of other Members, or even to assist in the investigations”.

The Commission considered how to take that forward, and the previous Clerk, David Natzler, came up with a form of consultation that included Members. Her Majesty’s Opposition agreed which of our Members would serve on that group. A general agreement was required among all parties through the usual channels that the people on that group should, as we say in equity, have clean hands —they should have no involvement whatsoever with the Commissioner for Standards or the Committee on Standards or any other involvement; that was the sticking point.

As a result, on 10 June, the new Clerk announced that a staff team would be created to take the lead on producing options on implementation. That team will include people with procedural and legal knowledge, as well as expertise on the operation of the ICGS. I, too, want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who will know that all the groups in which we were involved had a wider spread, as alluded to by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). The trade unions, the Members and Peers Staff Association, and lay members all made an important contribution. Different voices were heard. It was hard work, but it was good that we could produce a report that we all agreed and signed up to.

The group that will take forward the third recommendation will talk to the union side, lay members of the Committee on Standards, party whips, Dame Laura Cox and the Chairs of the Select Committees on Standards and on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, as well as the Chairs of the Women and Equalities, Liaison and Procedure Committees. There will be a wide view, and a wide consultation. I know Members feel that the Commission or individuals have to drive things forward, but it is important to consult staff, Members and anyone who wants to make a contribution, so we should widen it out and hear those voices. Consultations do not take place quickly. People have to be given time to be consulted, but there is a way to push things forward.

The options will be presented to the Commission, then a consultation will be opened. The House authorities were quick to appoint Julie Harding, who took up her post as Independent Director for Cultural Transformation on 18 February 2019, and has been appointed for a one-year fixed term. Her new role was established to set a transformation strategy for change. She has met many of us. I do not know whether she has met the Women and Equalities Committee, but it would be worth her while doing so, as well as meeting other Committees.

Steps have been taken to change the culture. The House Service launched a new diversity and inclusion strategy on 26 March 2019. Responding to the recommendations of the Cox report is a key element of that strategy. As the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire said, over 1,000 staff from the House of Commons and the Parliamentary Digital Service have attended or booked to attend the valuing everyone training, including 49% of managers. The aim is that all staff and Members should complete the training by June 2020. Thirty-three Members, and 147 of their staff have attended or booked to attend the training sessions. I agree with the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington that the training should be compulsory. As a lawyer, I had to undertake continuous professional development. The Bar Council did it as well, so I would see venerable, elderly QCs attending those training sessions. When I first became a councillor in Ealing in 1986, we had to undertake equalities training. Whenever I conducted an interview as a member of the civil service, I went through training, so it is really important that training is compulsory.

Sarah Davies, our new Clerk Assistant, is also now Managing Director of the Chamber and Committees Team. It has adopted standards of service for all Select Committees, ensuring that all Select Committee members know what they can and cannot expect from staff. A staff member now sits on the Strategic Estates Team board, ensuring that staff issues are heard at the highest level. The Commons Executive Board—the board just below the Commission that manages the House—has undertaken a 360 degree feedback exercise and coaching from Julie Harding on behaviour as part of its broader commitment to cultural change.

The ICGS is supported by two helplines—the independent bullying and harassment helpline and the Independent Sexual Misconduct Advisory Service—and all their details are published on Parliament’s website. The most recent figures show that, between 1 January and 31 March, there were 293 calls and 10 investigations were launched. I suppose it would be a tribute to our success if behaviours change and there are fewer and fewer investigations, and we hope that will happen with changes in all behaviours.

As has been reported, Alison Stanley was absolutely remarkable in the way she conducted her six-month review, which was very important for us to have. That review was put in place, and there is also an 18-month review of the processes. We need to have these reviews because we must constantly monitor and improve our processes. The Commons Executive Board and the Commission will consider the review.

Dame Laura highlighted the gendered and racist dimension to bullying and harassment. Paragraph 123 states:

“Some areas of the House were described as having a particularly bad reputation for sexist or racist attitudes”.

Of the 200 people who came forward to give information to the inquiry, the majority—nearly 70%—were women. We know there will be other reports that will steer future decisions and change. We are awaiting the report from Gemma White QC, who I am sure will make further recommendations, and it is right that the House has time to debate them.

I have only two minor asks of the new Leader of the House, who I know has a very big in-tray. May we have a debate on the forthcoming report and Alison Stanley’s recent six-month review before the House rises? During the debate on the Cox report on 5 November, I asked the then Leader of the House what discussion she had had with Government

“to ensure the allocation of proper resources and extra staff to make this work”.—[Official Report, 5 November 2018; Vol. 648, c. 1287.]

Will the Leader of the House say whether further resources will be available for the further recommendations of the Cox report and the other important reports?

Every time we talk about delay, we must remember that, down below, staff have been working incredibly hard. In the last eight months, they have made some major moves forward, and we should always remember that. I know that when we first set up the review of the ICGS, staff were actually doing other jobs as well as doing the job of ensuring that we came to our proper conclusions. I particularly want to thank everybody who has worked on producing those reports and those—whether House staff or in the special unit—who are continuing to do that work. I also thank Dame Laura Cox for her report, and Alison Stanley.

Everyone who works here, in whatever capacity, knows that they play a vital role in ensuring that our Parliament and our democracy thrive. It is essential that everyone who works in a modern Parliament knows the boundaries of acceptable behaviour in a safe and secure workplace. Her Majesty’s Opposition’s position is very clear: we will work with the Leader of the House and the House of Commons Commissions to push forward all the key recommendations in full.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mel Stride)]

The business for the week commencing 17 June will include:

Monday 17 June—Second reading of the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Bill.

Tuesday 18 June—Motion to approve an ecclesiastical Measure relating to church representation and ministers, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Specified Scottish Authority and Barred Lists) Order 2019, followed by debate on a motion relating to progress of implementation of the recommendations of the Cox report. The subject of this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 19 June—Remaining stages of the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill.

Thursday 20 June—Debate on a motion on refugee family reunion, followed by a general debate on court closures and access to justice. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 21 June—The House will not be sitting.

Tomorrow marks two years since the devastating Grenfell Tower fire. The survivors and bereaved have endured so much with such dignity, and I know that the thoughts of the entire House will be with them at this time.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. My copy of the statement is on two pages; I wonder whether the second page is intentionally blank—we seem to have only one week’s business.

I thank everyone, including the Clerks, involved in the new edition—the 25th—of “Erskine May”, which is also available online, so lots of people will be able to look it up and hold the Government to account for what they do in the Chamber.

It looks as though the Backbench Business Committee has taken control of the business next week. Will the Leader of the House consider giving us an Opposition day? It seems that the Government have gone into the cupboard—it is a bit like “Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard”. I keep thinking of nursery rhymes, what with the 10 green bottles standing on a wall in the leadership election—

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Blue bottles.

[Valerie Vaz]

Yes, blue bottles. The Government have gone to the cupboard, and lurking in there is the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Bill, which was published only yesterday but has its Second Reading on Monday.

I know that last week was the Leader of the House’s first week, but he said that he would come forward with the recess dates “in due course.” Parliament and the country have no idea what is going to happen after July and in September and October. The Leader of the House must have had some discussions; will he provide a bit more clarity on when he will announce the dates for the summer and conference recesses? This issue cannot be part of the campaign promises. The Leader of the House is Parliament’s voice in Government. Parliament is not irrelevant, particularly at this time, when we have a minority Government.

One of the many governmental powers that can be exercised without statutory authority, by convention, is the Dissolution of Parliament, or Prorogation if it is the end of the Session. The sovereign acts on the advice of her Ministers. We know that the breaching of conventions is not illegal, and we are talking about a convention, but the courts can look at it. It is outrageous, morally and constitutionally, for candidates in the Tory leadership election to suggest that they will put our gracious sovereign in a position to prorogue Parliament. Will the Leader of the House rule that out today?

At least three candidates have said that the UK will leave the EU without a deal, even though Parliament has expressly voted against it. Will the Leader of the House rule that out today? He must have seen the Cabinet note warning that the country is still unprepared for leaving on 31 October. It said that we need four to five months—that is at least until November—for trader readiness, and six to eight months to ensure that adequate arrangements are in place to build stockpiles of medicines. Should we not have a debate on whether the country is actually ready for leaving on 31 October?

The candidates are saying that they will renegotiate the withdrawal agreement. Are negotiations still ongoing? Is anyone talking to the EU? May we have a statement on the current discussions with the EU? Instead, we are getting a string of policy announcements, none of which is costed, none of which has been put to the electorate, and none of which has been agreed by the Chancellor. Handouts to the highest earners, according to the Resolution Foundation, would see 83% of gains going to the richest 10% of households, with the biggest beneficiaries, as a proportion of their income, being those on £80,000. The shadow Chancellor has said that the money involved is more than we spend every year on justice or children’s social care. I am pleased that the Leader of the House mentioned Grenfell, but not a single one of the candidates has said what they will do to prevent another Grenfell.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that employment figures have risen in the west midlands. I ask the Leader of the House to kindly ask the Prime Minister to correct that, because business leaders in Greater Birmingham have warned this week that stagnating employment statistics in the west midlands present a concerning picture. Unemployment fell by 0.1% between February and April, but the figures remain significantly above the national average, second only to the north-west. Why is employment stagnating in Tory Britain? May we have a debate on employment in the west midlands?

This week, the National Farmers Union organised an event at which farmers in the west midlands spoke of the terrible uncertainty of a no-deal exit and of how they need to use places such as the Netherlands to grow spinach, particularly in October when our growing season is coming to an end. May we have debate on the effect of no deal on the food and farming industry?

In Carers Week, in Tory Britain, there are around 7 million carers in the UK, 58% of whom are women. Hon. Members will have seen the display of the Multiple Sclerosis Society in the Upper Waiting Hall. One in three people with MS are not getting the care that they need. When will the Government publish the social care Green Paper?

The Leader of the House will have heard the words of the outgoing ambassador in Singapore, who said that people outside the UK have described the UK as beset by division, obsessed with ideology, and careless of the truth. All the major investment is going to Germany and France, but, worryingly, this is what we are hearing: £350 million to the NHS, free television licences for the over-75s, trade deals are easy, no deal is better than a bad deal, and strong and stable. You cannot run a country on rhetoric. The Government may have won the vote yesterday, but we will try again for the good of the country and for our reputation in the world.

May I ask the Leader of the House to kindly join me in wishing the Opposition Chief Whip a very happy birthday, as he has worked selflessly all his life for the good of the party and for the good of the country as a Minister and in Opposition? We wish him a very happy birthday.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We all wish the Opposition Chief Whip a very happy birthday.

Parliament as a Workplace

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

There are some heavyweight names attached to the motion: that of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), who opened the debate with an outstanding, wide-ranging speech. It was right to bring this matter to our attention and to keep it on the agenda.

Before my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) goes off to do his bit in childcare, I have to say that it is good to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge has dispatched him to do that. It would be interesting to hear from him on what it was like to be the child of an MP. It certainly did not put him off. He was also an older child of another MP—both his father and his mother were Members of Parliament. It is good to see him in his place, but we accept that he has other duties to go and do.

Many Members are probably not aware that the sitting time changes were thanks to Dame Joan Ruddock, who pulled together a group of cross-party Members. We consulted and voted on the various proposed times. It is pleasing that the Health Secretary, a hands-on-dad, was also involved.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) was part of a group of new MPs, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge, who contributed to an important Fabian Society pamphlet about change. I wrote the introduction. I did not agree with all the suggestions in the pamphlet, but it was good to see that new Members were proposing changes.

A number of reports have been published. Many Members have referred to “The Good Parliament” by Professor Sarah Childs, which was commissioned by the Speaker and published as long ago as 2016. Its 43 recommendations address three parliamentary dimensions. Even before its publication, people were making trivial remarks such as “Oh, it is about everyone using the same toilet.” Professor Childs had to arrange many meetings to try to convince people that hers was a serious and hard-hitting report.

As I have said, the report identified three parliamentary dimensions. The first was “Equality and Participation”, which asked

“how a diverse group of MPs might be selected for, and elected to, Parliament”.

The second, “Parliamentary Infrastructure”,

“covers everything from the buildings and furniture of Parliament to the official rules and working practices”.

The third, “Commons Culture”, looked beyond the formal rules to examine the parliamentary culture and its effect on diversity.

Who selects parliamentary candidates is a matter for the parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is not present at the moment, has put the responsibility for all-women shortlists squarely on Tony Blair. I would say to him that many members of the Labour party, women and men, fought long and hard to secure all-women shortlists. As a result, 49% of the parliamentary Labour party are women. That movement rose from the grassroots to the higher echelons of the party, and 1997, when so many women were elected to Parliament, was an important milestone.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Lady agree that some fantastic organisations are working to improve diversity in the House, notably Operation Black Vote? I mention OBV by way of an apology to her and to the Leader of the House, because I have to attend an event that it is hosting here this afternoon. The event will finish by 5 pm, and if I do not leave I will miss the opportunity to support and, perhaps, mentor a person from OBV to ensure that people from ethnic minorities are better represented in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I congratulate Sir Simon Woolley on his elevation in the Queen’s birthday honours. It is well deserved. I mentored someone from Operation Black Vote last year. It has an incredibly good set of people who come from different backgrounds; the person whom I mentored worked in social care. That is the kind of organisation that we need to have.

I do not know if you are aware of this, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Commissions of both Houses have responded to the UK gender-sensitive parliament audit, the first ever such audit produced in the UK. The Commissions are monitoring and publishing annual progress against four of the audit’s priority recommendations. The kind of recommendations that they are prioritising are

“Developing a parliamentary policy for children and families”,

informed by good practice in other Parliaments;

“responding to the Cox report, and…forthcoming inquiries”

on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct; awareness of the support available to MPs, peers and staff

“to address abuse and threats via social media”;

and making information

“more readily available on the different groups or organisations in Parliament with specialist knowledge…and clearly signposted”

in order to

“support parliamentarians to take account of gender impacts in their work”.

We are pleased that the monitoring will continue.

Many Members have mentioned restoration and renewal, which gives us an opportunity to focus on the physical aspects. We need to make life much easier for people with disabilities or hearing difficulties. In new buildings such as Portcullis House, it is much easier for those with hearing difficulties to hear people. Everything possible has to be done to make Parliament accessible.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke is right: a number of reports are coming out and we must make sure we do not lose sight of any of them. They need to be pulled together; the House authorities are aware of that, and certainly the Clerk of the House has his eye on how they will all pull together.

[Mrs Miller]

I have a genuine question: the Clerk of the House is not responsible to Members here; how do we solve that problem? It is very difficult for Members to know who is responsible for these things, because the Clerk cannot come to the Floor of the House.

[Valerie Vaz]

I did not mean that they were responsible; ultimately it is a matter for the Commission to pull those reports together. Reports will come to the Commission and will then be disseminated. I do not know whether the right hon. Lady is aware of this, but many of the responses given to the Commission are disseminated; if she checks her inbox and the parliamentary intranet she will see that everything that goes on in the Commission is published, as are any reports that need to be brought to people’s attention.

There is political will on this. It is not just a matter for the Leader of the House and the Opposition parties. We will work together, but certainly the Commission is the governing body at this stage, until things change—if they do; and if people want a more accountable Commission, that is what will happen. At present, however, these matters are for the parties nominated to the Commission, and the Clerk of the House. It is not for individual MPs to take it on themselves to do these things, although I have to say that when individual MPs have good ideas and take them to various places such as the Commission, they come to fruition. The right hon. Lady sat on the Speaker’s reference Committee; I know she is not on it currently, but that shows that there are good things that people can pull together. Things can and do happen.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Lady think the current House of Commons Commission is accountable, and if not would she support change?

[Valerie Vaz]

Well, we are all elected, and we are all appointed by our parties; we also have two non-executives who sit—[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says we are appointed, but the Leader of the House and I are on it by virtue of our parties through the usual channels; that is the way it works. I am sure she is not casting any aspersions on the previous or current Leader of the House. It is an interesting way of working. The Clerks—the House authorities—have to be responsible for the way the House operates, and then things are done through the Commission. the fact that we have a Commission is very good. I sat on the House of Commons Governance Committee; we heard evidence on how things it works, and things changed as a result of that. There is an opportunity, if Members wish, to have another House of Commons Governance Committee—whether the Leader of the House and I would be on it, I do not know. The work is disseminated, however, as the right hon. Lady will see if she checks the intranet.

Of course we also have the Cox report, and Alison Stanley has now reported on whether the independent complaints and grievance scheme works. Her report makes for interesting reading. A unit has been tasked with implementing some work. We have a newly appointed independent director of cultural transformation, Julie Harding, who is doing town hall meetings with staff and trying to understand what goes on in order to get cultural change, and that will continue.

In a previous debate, I said I did not know what was happening to Professor Sarah Childs’ recommendations, and suggested that we do what is normally done to keep track of projects: have a Gantt chart, on which we collect all the recommendations. As the right hon. Lady is Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, I wonder if she might look at the report three years on, and commission a further inquiry on where we are on Professor Sarah Childs’ report and how many recommendations have been actioned. People thought the proxy voting was going to be difficult, but it has been as smooth as possible and works really well.

The right hon. Lady’s Committee produced a report on women in the House in January 2017, and I notice that the Government rejected all six of the recommendations in their response in September. One recommendation was that all the parties should aim for 45% of their Members of Parliament to be women. Her Committee also said that section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 should be implemented. The Government responded that they did not want to do that, and that they would rather just talk to the political parties, but I wonder if the Leader of the House could take that away and look at it, and perhaps report back at a later date. Many hon. Members have touched on the fact that we are becoming a diverse Parliament. I have to say that 31 of the 52 minority ethnic Members are from the Labour party; 19 are from the Conservatives, one is from the Lib Dems and one from the Independent Group. Exactly half are women, so we are getting it right on that score.

Another important report, “Race in the workplace” by Baroness McGregor-Smith, was published on 28 February 2017. It found that people are still being held back in the workplace because of the “colour of their skin”, which is costing the UK economy the equivalent of 1.3% of GDP a year. She said that if black and minority ethnic people progressed in the workplace at the same rate as their white counterparts, the UK economy could be boosted by £24 billion. The McGregor-Smith review made 26 recommendations. One urged the Government to create a free online unconscious bias training resource that would be available to everyone in the UK, and to develop a simple guide on how to discuss race in the workplace. Two years on from that review, I ask the Government and the Leader of House to assess where we are on that. As Baroness McGregor-Smith said:

“The time for talking is over. Now is the time to act.”

More importantly, on 28 February2017, the Government launched a business, diversity and inclusion group to bring together business leaders and organisations to develop ways of removing barriers in the workplace and monitoring employees’ progress. The then Business Minister, the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), chaired the group. She immediately wrote to the FTSE 350 companies, asking them to drive increased diversity in the workplace and to take up the McGregor-Smith review, but sadly there are still just six women chief executive officers in the FTSE 100 companies. More needs to be done. According to a recent report by Green Park, there are only five BAME CEOs in FTSE 100 companies, and 48 FTSE 100 companies had no ethnic minority presence on their boards in 2018.

Hon. Members will know that we always talk about the gender pay gap, and that is important because this Parliament not only looks at itself but also looks outside. A key figure shows that in 2018 women worked for free for 51 days of the year because of the gender pay gap. We must close that gap as soon as possible. We Labour Members feel that we have a proud record on progressing women’s rights. We brought in the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Equality Act 2010 and the minimum wage, and we introduced Sure Start. Our shadow Cabinet is nearly 50% women, and we hope that that will continue. The important thing is that many people outside this place perhaps cannot afford the things that we can, such as their own workplace nursery. If we were to implement our policies, the extension of the 30 hours of free childcare would make an important difference to women in the workplace generally, whether or not they ended up in here, and families on the lowest incomes would be eligible for additional subsidised hours on top of the 30 hours.

It is vital that we make this place fit for the 21st century for everyone who works here, who visits and who wants to come here. We all want our Parliament and our democracy to thrive, so we should be continuously looking for opportunities to improve it, and I know that all Members, whether new or old, are constantly doing that. As we look for opportunities here, we must recognise that changes can be made through legislation, and that as we change ourselves, we can also change society to make it more equal.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 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 (Mel Stride)]

The business for the week commencing 10 June will include:

Monday 10 June—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions (Termination Awards and Sporting Testimonials) Bill, followed by a debate on a motion on the mineworkers pension scheme. The subject of this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 11 June—Motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Enforcement) (Amendment) Order 2019, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Child Support (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019, followed by a general debate on the UK voluntary national review on the sustainable development goals.

Wednesday 12 June—Opposition day (unallotted day). There will be a debate on inequality and social mobility, followed by a debate on discrimination in sport. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.

Thursday 13 June—Debate on a motion on social housing, followed by a general debate on making Parliament a more modern, family-friendly and accessible workplace. The subjects of these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 14 June—The House will not be sitting.

May I, on this particular occasion, extend the best wishes and thoughts of the whole House to all who are assembled in Normandy today to reflect on and commemorate the D-day landings?

It has been a very crowded field, with many runners and riders, but here I am as the new Leader of the House, and also as the new Lord President of the Council, which means that I have become a leader without an election and a lord without having to be elevated to the peerage. For having quietly achieved that during these tumultuous times, I think I should be congratulated.

[Mel Stride]

Indeed I have.

I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). In so doing, Mr Speaker, may I say that I hope that we can continue in the warm and familiar spirit that characterised your relationship with my predecessor, and hope that I can benefit from your continued indulgence? My right hon. Friend travelled the length and breadth of our country to press the case for our Parliament. She pressed hard to protect the very fabric of our Parliament with all her work around restoration and renewal. She fought for the piloting of proxy votes to make this place a more family-friendly environment. She worked particularly hard to change the culture in the Palace of Westminster so that there should be no place for bullying or harassment of any kind. We owe her a great debt.

I would also like briefly to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), who stood in at such short notice on the previous occasion and performed with such oratorical brilliance and dexterity. His are big shoes to fill, not least because he has very large feet.

For my part, I will strive to be an effective voice for Parliament in Government and to conduct myself in a consensual and inclusive manner. My door will always be open to Members right across this House—especially, of course, to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), and all those who speak for their parties and the Committees of this House.

Beyond these walls, I will play my part to defend our democracy, in a world in which the public square has too often become a place of misinformation and abuse. This House is precious, yet sometimes fragile. When it is degraded, we are diminished, but when it is at its best, we are all enriched.

[Valerie Vaz]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new position and congratulate him on his appointment. Perhaps we can talk later about whether he is going to give a speech every time he announces the business; I am happy to have the extra time too. I thank him for giving the forthcoming business and for restoring our Opposition day. I am pleased that he is starting off in the right way—long may that continue.

Can the Leader of the House confirm the dates for the summer and conference recesses? I ask that not because I do not want to be here—we do want to be here—but because I have heard rumours that the House might rise on 19 July. There is a new timetable for the election of the Conservative leader, and we need to ensure that the House is not in recess when the new leader—effectively the new Prime Minister—takes up his or her post. Does he agree that it is vital for the House to have an immediate opportunity to test whether the new leader of the Conservative party commands the confidence of the House?

I remind the Leader of the House that he holds democracy in his hands, which is a very precious thing. This is a minority Government, and he needs to respect that. Can he confirm the status of the confidence and supply agreement and whether it will have to be renegotiated with the new Prime Minister? I am sure that he has been briefed, but I will give him the figure again: it is 715 days since the Queen’s Speech. This is now the longest continuous parliamentary Session since the Acts of Union in 1800.

The Leader of the House is the voice of the House in Government. Can he assure the House that he agrees that Parliament is sovereign, and that Parliament has voted against a no-deal scenario? I say that because there are many candidates up and down the country coming here to have coffee and tea and talk to their colleagues, and they are saying various things. I am sure that he still respects his former colleague at the Treasury, the Chancellor, who said that the Conservative party is at risk of losing its “reputation for fiscal responsibility” as candidates fighting for the top job have made “unfunded” spending and tax-cutting pledges. Are those meaningful or un-meaningful pledges? Are they new policies? We need to know. As a former Treasury Minister, he knows that when someone makes a public spending commitment, they have to honour it. One of them is even talking about repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Given that they have all been in the Cabinet, why did they not do those things at the time? Does that mean they are not very good at persuading their colleagues?

This Government are failing in their duty to bring forward important legislation. The Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill, the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill all need their Report stage, and the Trade Bill is stuck in ping-pong. Can the Leader of the House update us on when those Bills are likely to get their Report stage and when the Trade Bill will return to the House?

The House has resolved that there is a climate and environment emergency. I do not know about other Members, but I am already getting emails from people about the Environment Bill. The Environment Bill is required to put in place a domestic structure of environmental governance, but has yet to be published and is only in draft form. The draft Bill seems to exclude our cultural heritage from future environmental improvement plans. When the Leader of the House is having strategy meetings with his candidate, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, can he ask him when the Environment Bill is likely to come before the House?

All the while, the UK manufacturing sector contracted in May for the first time since July 2016. The justice system is under threat while barristers are considering strike action in a dispute over legal aid rates and prosecution fees; that is about the rule of law. A shortage of qualified staff has become hospitals’ most pressing concern. The Royal College of Radiologists recently said that the shortage of cancer doctors “puts care at risk”. Also at risk is the community of Scunthorpe and, we learn today, the community of Bridgend.

Also at risk are children in Northamptonshire. Yesterday two Northamptonshire serious case reviews of the murder of two toddlers were published and widely reported, and they said that there was a serious failure, after child protection workers, police and the local authority missed crucial opportunities to intervene. An Ofsted inspection last year said that social workers and staff are inundated and are “drowning in work”. When will the Government make a statement on this horrific incident, and what steps are being taken to ensure it never happens again?

Mr Speaker, you can see why we need such debates. Given that the Government do not have much business or refuse to put business before this House, could the Opposition have that time because we could put forward how we see the future of this country? That is important because—and I join the right hon. Gentleman in saying this—on this day more than ever, we want to remember and thank the 22,442 British troops who gave their lives over the summer of 1944. They worked together to ensure, and they still ensure, peace and our freedom, fighting antisemitism, racism, fascism and injustice. Let us get this place and this country working so that we honour their sacrifice.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and particularly for welcoming me to my new role. I very much look forward to the great pleasure of working closely with her in the weeks and months ahead.

The hon. Lady asked several questions. She initially asked about recess and when we will be coming forward with the dates for recess. These matters are being considered in the normal manner at the moment, and I will come to the Dispatch Box to announce those dates in due course.

The hon. Lady raised an interesting question about a vote of no confidence and whether such a vote would be permissible. I think the desire to put forward such a motion is really something that originates from her side of the House, so I would suggest she speaks to the leader of her own party. I am aware that there is a lack of communication between the Back Benches and the Front Bench, but I did not realise that there is a lack of communication between the Front Bench and the leader of her own side. She would do well to speak to him in that respect.

The hon. Lady also raised the matter of the confidence and supply agreement. It is of course an agreement between the Conservative and Unionist party and the Democratic Unionist party, and I am therefore confident that it will not be affected by any change in the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist party.

The hon. Lady specifically asked whether Parliament is ultimately sovereign. Of course, the answer to that is very simple: it is yes. Parliament is the sovereign body within our constitution.

The hon. Lady raised—rather bravely, I thought—the issue of tax cuts, among other measures. That comes from a party that has pledged unfunded spending commitments approaching £1 trillion in total, and one can only imagine the kind—[Interruption.] I am looking at the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), who is smirking away at the thought of all those tax cuts, which he knows he will be bringing in in the course of time. Meanwhile, our party has of course reduced tax left, right and centre, including the latest increase in the personal allowance in the last Budget, taking up to 3 million or 4 million of the lowest-paid people out of tax altogether since 2010.

The hon. Lady quite rightly turned to the issue of legislation and the Bills that will come before this House. I would remind her that no less than 44 Bills have received Royal Assent in this Session. To go back to her point about tax, that includes the last Finance Bill, which reduced tax for no less than 32 million hard-working people up and down our country.

Perhaps I should finish by saying that it is our joint desire to get business through the House—it seems we both have such a desire—and I very much look forward to working closely with the hon. Lady to make sure that the views and aspirations of those right across this House are fully met.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

In joining those congratulations, it seems opportune to point out that the women’s parliamentary football team scored a great victory last night—2-1, I am advised—at a match in Battersea Park.

[Valerie Vaz]

They lost.

[Mr Speaker]

I was told they had won 2-1. By all accounts it was a splendid performance, and I think colleagues will wish to congratulate all members of the team. [Interruption.] I note the sedentary chunter of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), which probably would bear repetition, but I will spare the House at this time.