Business of the House

Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?

The business for the week commencing 30 November will include:

Monday 30 November—Second Reading of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill.

Tuesday 1 December—Motion to approve regulations related to public health.

Wednesday 2 December—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve the draft Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment) Order 2020, the draft Direct Payments to Farmers (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 and the draft World Trade Organisation Agreement on Agriculture (Domestic Support) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft Plant Health (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the draft Plant Health (Phytosanitary Conditions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.

Thursday3 December—General debate on the future of coal in the United Kingdom, followed by debate on a motion relating to digital infrastructure, connectivity and accessibility. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 4 December—The House will not be sitting.

May I thank the Leader of the House for the business and ask again about the end of the Session? Obviously, that is not going to be in November. I can only assume it will be May, but it would be helpful to know, particularly as we would quite like another Opposition day. I think ours was taken away last time.

May I ask for a statement, again, on the progress of the EU talks from the Prime Minister? I think he has stopped shielding, or hiding from the ERG or CRG or whichever group we have now. We may be in lockdown, but we are not in a Government news lockdown.

The Department for International Development has been abolished and we know that it has gone into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Could the Leader of the House set out what plans the Government have for re-establishing that Department in are form or another, or maybe keeping the Select Committee as it is, given that it needs to look at overseas development aid?

I hope that the Leader of the House will bring back the motion on virtual participation. We all want a much longer debate than we had on Tuesday. Let us remember: it is the Government who prevented participation of our colleagues, pitting one colleague against another through a restrictive and discriminatory definition. It is that stubbornness that is preventing our colleagues from taking part.

Let me quote something that I did not have time to quote on Tuesday. It states that

“the broadcasting hub on the Estate had been substantially improved and augmented”—

that means made better and bigger—

“with additional offsite capacity.”

The House staff think that this can be done. Why do the Government and the Leader of the House not think so?

Let us turn to the spending review. The Chancellor has made available £4 billion of a levelling-up fund. It is a bit like a gameshow now, pitting one community against another—“I’m a levelling-up project, gimme the money!” Last week, I raised the NAO report and the possible misuse of public money whereby one Minister gives money to another Minister in the constituency. I am sure the Leader of the House will know—I know the Government have issues with the Electoral Commission, an independent body—that the shadow Minister for voter engagement and young people, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), has asked the Electoral Commission about the misuse of public funds in relation to ads in targeted seats just before the election, with majorities of less than 5,000. Votes were told, “You’re going to get £25 million of investment in your town.”

Indeed, may he and all the souls of the faithful departed—especially in November, of course, the month of the holy souls—rest in peace.

I agree that we should congratulate David Clark on what he has done for Parliament Week. May I say also that the thanks being given to the British Parliament for Kylie’s release should fall particularly to the right hon. Lady? It is not usual for the Leader of the House to say that his shadow is the person who has really highlighted a cause, fought for it and raised it week after week, but I think the thanks should go much more to her than to me. I hope she will continue to raise these issues, because I think it is an area in which the whole House is in agreement.

However, I am sorry to tell you, Mr Speaker, that we do not agree about everything. The end of the Session will of course come in accordance with the process of successive Government business, in the normal way, and will be announced in the normal way. We will have Opposition days in accordance with the requirements of Standing Orders—I know that everyone waits with bated breath for future Opposition days.

As regards EU talks and when statements will come, I think we will see from what comes after me how good and strong the Government have been in keeping this House up to date, with two important statements coming. I can reassure the House that statements will come when there is something to say, but it is not beneficial for the House to have statements until that time.

The right hon. Lady asked about DFID and the processes with the Select Committee. This is under discussion between the Chairman of the Select Committee and other interested parties, and the Government are looking upon suggestions about it with benignity.

On virtual participation, the right hon. Lady puts herself forward as Gladstone. Mr Gladstone used to think that speaking for four hours was a mere bagatelle; he had hardly cleared his throat in the first four hours. The right hon. Lady spoke for over an hour on Tuesday—with great distinction and panache, it has to be said, and a great deal of support from her right hon. and hon. Friends. I fail to see how sufficient time was not provided when another hon. Member managed to talk out his own amendment, which is Gladstonian in a different way; a way that Disraeli might have noted and commented upon.

We might disagree on that.

I am sure that Members across the House have been approached, as I have, by local NHS leaders who are looking for venues that they can use to carry out what will be the Herculean effort of vaccinating our population, should a vaccine be approved. Will the Leader of the House encourage businesses and property owners in constituencies across the country to step forward and make venues available where they can to help in that national effort?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Throughout the pandemic, one of the most heartening signs was the huge national effort by so many people across the country to rise to the challenge. The NHS does have a tried and tested track record for delivering vaccination programmes and will work with existing partners across the healthcare system to ensure a covid-19 vaccine can be deployed both safely and effectively. Detailed planning is under way, building on the NHS’s expertise in delivering immunisation programmes, and that includes consideration of the settings required to vaccinate the public against covid-19. We are grateful for the support that businesses have offered. My hon. Friend cites Hercules, and this will be one of the 12 labours of Hercules as it is rolled out.

I ask again: can we have a proper debate in which Members discuss and decide, on a free vote, the nature and extent of virtual participation in the proceedings of this Parliament while the pandemic lasts? The procedural shenanigans displayed by the Government on Tuesday, when they engineered call lists to conjure up a debate where none had been planned, were an affront to democracy. The attempt by the Leader of the House to suggest that those of us who argue for every Member to have the right to remote participation were in fact trying to deny that right to colleagues who are clinically vulnerable is offensive. I say to him in all sincerity that he is in grave danger of losing the confidence of the House, which he needs to perform his constitutional role. I hope that, rather than producing a glib response or a puerile putdown, he will demonstrate thoughtfulness and leadership, and allow elected Members to decide this matter.

The Leader of the House has made much of the need for democratic debate and scrutiny to continue, but yesterday the biggest change in public policy in a decade was announced in the spending review, with no opportunity to debate, amend or agree. We must debate public sector pay if the Government intend to cut the wages of those key workers they applauded from the steps of Downing Street. We must debate overseas aid if the Government are to slash support for the world’s poor, severely damaging the UK’s global reputation in a manner that would make Trump proud. These are not manifesto promises. The Government have no mandate for them, and they ought not to become the policy of the land without a vote in Parliament.

Finally, I come to the tragedy of Brexit—just five weeks to go and no deal in sight. Last week, I got no answer about the shared prosperity fund. Today, I want to ask for a debate on plugging the £170 million black hole left in Scotland’s rural economy as payments under the LEADER scheme end following withdrawal from the common agricultural policy. The silence on this is reckless and damaging to Scotland’s rural economy.

To misquote P.G. Wodehouse, it is never difficult to tell the difference between a member of the SNP with a grievance and a ray of sunshine. It seems to me that the cloud across any ray of sunshine can always be provided by the hon. Gentleman. What does he say to us today? He says that a debate of over two hours is undemocratic. It was undemocratic to have a debate—that, I think, is an unusual view to hold—and then he thinks that a democratic vote, of 52% of the people of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, is a disaster. He seems only to like the votes that he wins, but the SNP, fortunately, does not win votes across the United Kingdom at large and lost a very important vote in 2014.

Why I think the hon. Gentleman should be a ray of sunshine is that he should be asking for a debate on the £2.4 billion extra announced in the spending review yesterday that is going to Scotland. He should be celebrating the fact that £1,633 extra is attributed to public spending per capita in Scotland against the United Kingdom average, and he should celebrate the fact that £8.2 billion of UK taxpayer money has gone to Scotland to help it fight the coronavirus. The evidence is that the United Kingdom is extraordinarily strong as a single United Kingdom, with taxpayers coming together to help one another.

I notice that the hon. Gentleman carefully avoided the fact, when he talked about the House’s confidence, that in Scotland, confidence may be ebbing away. I noticed that the SNP lost a vote in the Scottish Parliament yesterday over publishing the legal advice given to the Scottish Government on the judicial review brought by Alex Salmond. They were very happy to vote for the Attorney General to release his advice here under an Humble Address—sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, or are they just turkeys waiting for Christmas?

The week before lockdown, I had the privilege of meeting Sam Edwards and David Bruce, two serving Royal Marines, and Junior McIlhiney and Will Schweppes, two marine veterans. They were training in my constituency, in Hamble, to row the Atlantic unaided next week in aid of the Royal Marines Charity as part of the Cockleshell Endeavour. Will the Leader of the House join me in wishing them well in their endeavours next week, and encourage people to donate to their worthwhile campaign? Can we have a debate on services for veterans, where we still need to make much more progress?

May I indeed wish them well in the work they are doing to raise funds for the Royal Marines benevolent fund? I think it is a terrific effort. Do we not all admire the Royal Marines in this country, I perhaps most particularly, because my campaign manager in every election since 2010 has been a former Royal Marine? I know what fine members of the community they remain, even when they have left military service.

Veterans’ mental health is of great importance, and the Veterans’ Mental Health Transition, Intervention and Liaison Service is for serving personnel approaching discharge from the military, reservists and veterans with mental health difficulties. The veterans’ mental health complex treatment service provides intensive care and treatment that may include

“support for drug and alcohol misuse, physical health, employment, housing, relationships and finances, as well as occupational and trauma focused therapies.”

It is very important that this is supported. It had £16 million of spending last year and over 10,000 referrals up to the end of 2019, but my hon. Friend is right to raise this important issue.

It is important that the whole House supports the Royal Marines and their endeavours to raise money, not least in memory of one of the most courageous events of the second world war, and the Cockleshell heroes.

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement, and also for writing to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on my behalf and on behalf of my constituents following last week’s exchanges. I also thank him for announcing the Backbench Business for next Thursday, the first item of which will be a debate promoted by the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) on the future of coal in the United Kingdom, and the second a debate promoted by the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) on digital infrastructure connectivity and accessibility.

Can we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the offshoring of British jobs by companies that this Government have supported through the pandemic? In particularly, I am thinking of Rolls-Royce transferring jobs overseas from its aero-engine plant in Lancashire.

First, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. May I just add a point on correspondence? I have made it very clear in this House that I will do everything I can to help Members get replies from Ministers, whether to written questions or to letters or emails that are sent in. It may be worth reminding Members of the courtesy the other way round: it is customary for Members to sign letters to Ministers themselves, not to get them sent by their members of staff. Members cannot expect ministerial responses to letters that are not sent by them personally. In my role as representing both the House to the Government and the Government to the House, I hope that both sides of that will be followed through.

As regards a statement by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Gentleman raises an issue that is obviously important—if the Government are supporting businesses, one would expect them to be very committed to being active in this country, rather than taking jobs overseas—and I will raise it on his behalf with my right hon. Friend.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the future management of c2c rail services in my constituency? The service used to be known as the “misery line”. It then became the “happy line”, but unfortunately it has now become the misery line again, because, inexplicably, timetable changes have been made, with trains cancelled, but the trains and platforms are overcrowded. That is totally unacceptable during this coronavirus pandemic.

We always want happiness rather than misery, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. I note the c2c has announced recently that it is

“introducing a more sustainable and resilient timetable, which should result in fewer short-notice cancellations.”

That sounds like one of those pieces of verbiage we sometimes get from bureaucracies, but we await this with interest, and I am sure my hon. Friend will remind the House if it is not delivered upon. In the meantime, I will raise his point with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

Yesterday, the Chancellor told me that the Government grants to councils to use to support their local economies could be used “as they see fit”, but that was not true, because many freelancers and self-employed people do not qualify for schemes such as the one announced by the Liverpool City Region Mayor, Steve Rotheram. These people do not qualify for the national schemes, they do not qualify for the local schemes, and they do not quality for universal credit either. So will the Leader of the House confirm that the Chancellor was wrong yesterday? Will the Leader of the House admit that it is time the Government stepped up and dealt with the burning injustice facing so many of our working people who have been left behind in this crisis?