Business of the House

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

The business for the week commencing 8 March will include:

Monday 8 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Tuesday 9 March—Conclusion of the Budget debate.

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

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

Friday 12 March—Private Members’ Bills.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hear, hear.

Did I hear “Hear, hear” from Mr Speaker?

You did indeed.

Mr Speaker—heckling from the Chair I always take as a great compliment.

I always say it’s in agreement with the Leader.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The right hon. Lady talked about pay increases. It is worth bearing in mind that the majority of public sector workers will receive pay increases. The lowest paid will all get a £250 pay increase, and NHS staff will also get a pay increase, so those who have done the most and who are the least well-off will benefit, even as we try to claw back the huge amount of debt that has been built up in dealing with the pandemic. Some £407 billion of support has been given to the UK economy, spread across the whole of the United Kingdom. I think there is a weakness in the Labour party’s argument—it can only slightly carp at the edges—because the scale of the support is so great that there is no opposition to it.

The NHS reorganisation is a fundamentally important thing to do. We have been through a pandemic and people will have noticed that there are things that could be done better. When something happens, it is human nature to think what we would do better if we were to do it again, and to have a reform Bill—the White Paper has already been issued—is an exceptionally sensible thing to do. It will build on the success of the NHS over the past year in the face of a huge challenge, in which, it is worth bearing in mind, there has been a huge private sector contribution. The right hon. Lady carps about some private sector activity, but the vaccination programme has been done with and through the help of the private sector. The pharmaceutical industry, which is a profit-making industry, is the thing that has meant that we are leading the world and delivering the vaccine to the British people.

Finally, on the issue of end-of-life benefits, the right hon. Lady raises a point that is extremely complex. That is why the Department for Work and Pensions is continuing to look at it. I have raised it with the DWP recently, in response to questions in the Chamber. There are no easy answers. Everyone wants to ensure that people are looked after at the end of life, but it is not always clear exactly how long people will live for. Again, that is part of the human condition.

One of the issues that blight so many of us is potholes. In my constituency, that includes roads such as Talbot Drive, Mill Hill Lane, Stockbridge Road and Burnham Gate, but I am very pleased that Conservative-controlled Lancashire County Council has made tackling them a key priority. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way in which we can tackle potholes across Lancashire is by supporting our excellent Conservative candidates in the local elections in May?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of potholes. Apparently there is a fantastic new machine from JCB—a remarkable, successful British company—that fills potholes remarkably quickly. I am particularly pleased to hear how good, sound Conservative councils are fixing roads up and down the country. The people of Lancashire clearly made the right choice in the 2017 local elections. They are good at making the right choice for who to represent them.

I think the hon. Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) should have asked for a debate as well, at the end of his question.

Well, in a manner of speaking, we are having one now, are we not, Mr Speaker, about the enormous success of Conservative councils? That is something to which I always like to devote as much time as possible in this House. We want more pothole-free areas under more Conservative councils after the first Thursday in May.

Well, after that let us go the Scottish National party spokesperson, Owen Thompson.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. My extended transition to the role of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) continues. I again make the plea to the Leader of the House to use everything within his gift to encourage some common sense and free the Perthshire One.

Last week the Leader of the House told me:

“We have in this country one of the most honest public sectors of any country in the world.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 1096.]

I am sure, therefore, that he will be very concerned at the news that the international community does not seem to be convinced. The Government have been put under review by the Open Government Partnership, a global coalition for transparency and anti-corruption. Will the Government now ensure that time is set aside to debate and demonstrate that criticisms of secrecy over contracts and accusations of cronyism are being taken seriously and not swept under the carpet, to give the public confidence in the Government and remove any suspicion of corruption? Of course, a simple first step would be to back my Ministerial Interests (Emergency Powers) Bill—I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is well aware of that.

I am slightly surprised that we only have one week’s future business, when we have had the luxury of two weeks’ notice or sometimes even more previously. I also hoped that we would have notice of an Opposition day debate for the Scottish National party. Could the Leader of the House update us on when that might be possible and when we might see future dates for Friday sittings for private Members’ Bills?

Finally, I would like to add my comments on World Book Day. I am sure the Leader of the House will agree that books can transform lives, improve our children’s attainment and boost wellbeing. Projects such as Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which has worked with the Scottish Book Trust to provide a free book every month to looked-after and adopted children up to the age of five right across Scotland, are an amazing way that we can continue to do this.

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