Business of the House

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

It would be a pleasure.

The business for the week commencing 6 June will include:

Monday 6 June—Second Reading of the National Security Bill.

Tuesday 7 June—Opposition day (1st allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the Official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Wednesday 8 June—Second Reading of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

Thursday 9 June—General debate on social housing and building safety followed by a general debate on the Government’s strategic priorities for OFWAT. The subject for the second debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 10 June—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 June will include:

Monday 13 June—Remaining stages of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill.

Tuesday 14 June—Second Reading of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill.

Wednesday 15 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the Official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 16 June—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 17 June—The House will not be sitting.

Right hon. and hon. Members might 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 21 July and return on Monday 5 September. The House will rise for the conference recess at the close of business on Thursday 22 September and return on Monday 17 October. The House will rise for the November recess at the close of business on Wednesday 9 November and return on Monday 14 November. The House will rise for the Christmas recess at the close of business on Wednesday 21 December and return on Monday 9 January. The House will rise for the February recess at the close of business on Thursday 9 February and return on Monday 20 February. Sitting Fridays will be announced in due course. I hope that that information is welcome news to right hon. and hon. Members.

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us not only the forthcoming business but the recess dates, for which members of staff have been asking me. I am very grateful: he went further even than I asked, so fair do’s—Brucie bonus time!

I start, and I am sure the Leader of the House will join me, by wishing the Queen well on her platinum jubilee. I look forward to the Chamber commemorating that historic milestone later today. She has shown remarkable leadership and dedication to public service over 70 years.

I also invite the Leader of the House to join me in congratulating Labour’s sister party in Australia on its positive campaign in the election down under. I am inspired by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s victory, ousting a stale Conservative Government who were out of touch and out of ideas.

Yesterday, the damning verdict on Downing Street’s law-breaking parties was published. Can the Leader of the House say whether anyone in Government received a copy of Sue Gray’s report in advance of its publication and whether they attempted to change it? Failures of leadership and judgment at the heart of Government are mentioned in the report, and it was particularly sickening to learn of the total lack of respect for and poor treatment of staff, with security staff being mocked and cleaners left to mop up. Will he clarify whether any of those who mocked staff are special advisers? If so, has the Prime Minister sacked them? If not, why not?

The report concludes that those at the top must bear responsibility for a culture that allowed such flagrant disregard for the rules. Yesterday, the Prime Minister seemed too busy focusing on saving his own skin to deal with the Tory cost of living crisis. He also said that all senior leadership in No. 10 has changed, which I found a little odd. Does he not count himself as senior leadership?

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that you would be in Doncaster celebrating its city status, for which I know you have been campaigning for a long time.

I join the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) in celebrating the Queen’s 70th jubilee. It will be a huge opportunity for the country to celebrate and get together to recognise a huge achievement in public service by Her Majesty. I also join her in congratulating the Australian Government on their success. We look forward to working with them on trade and international matters as we move forward.

We then got into the usual flurry of accusations and snipes. Of course, the hon. Lady started with the Sue Gray report. I am glad that Sue Gray has finally managed to get her report out there. It identifies the ongoing challenges in No. 10 but, as the Prime Ministers made clear, he has addressed the culture in No. 10 and changed the senior management team. I think he was also shocked, as many colleagues would be, by the treatment of security and cleaning staff. That is why yesterday the Prime Minister went around and apologised in person to those security and cleaning teams on behalf of those people who were rude to them. I think that was the right thing to do. The Prime Minister has made it clear that the culture has now changed within No. 10, and he is now focused on what matters to the British people: the global fight against inflation, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and making sure that our constituents’ priorities are the Government’s priorities, as they always have been.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He will be here at this Dispatch Box very soon, and I will not pre-empt what he is about to say, for no other reason than that I do not know. I look forward to hearing what the Chancellor says. What I do know is that this Chancellor has already announced £22 billion-worth of support. He is a Chancellor who, instead of giving us knee-jerk reactions and political gimmicks, thinks through the economic and fiscal plans that he will bring forward and makes sure that in those plans he gives genuine support to those who need it, while not incentivising people away from making long-term investments to continue to pay the Exchequer the tax from their successful businesses. That is the appropriate thing to do.

I thank the Leader of the House for his kind comments about Doncaster’s city status. We are all absolutely delighted.

I was delighted to welcome the Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) to Staffordshire last week to officially open the mountain biking venue for the upcoming Commonwealth games. It has been announced that our county town of Stafford will be part of the Queen’s baton relay. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right not only to have a debate on the UK’s ties across the Commonwealth, but to ensure that we deliver a positive economic legacy for people and businesses in Stafford?

My hon. Friend is a huge champion for Stafford and Staffordshire. I know that she secured the baton coming to Stafford, which will be an opportunity for her community to celebrate the Commonwealth games. There are huge economic opportunities for the country in our hosting the Commonwealth games in the west midlands in the near future. I know that my hon. Friend will make the most of making sure the legacy of those games will be felt around her constituency, and I congratulate her on the work she is doing.

I call the SNP spokesperson, Pete Wishart.

I add to the congratulations on Doncaster being named a city. Dunfermline, my hometown in Scotland, was also added to that list. There is only one issue that our constituents want debated, and that is the fallout from the Sue Gray report, the appalling culture at No. 10 and why this Prime Minister is still in his place. The Prime Minister might think that moving on at lightning speed to do something he could and should have done weeks ago on the cost of living crisis will make this go away, but it will not. It simply will not go away.

Our constituents are utterly furious and they are simply not satisfied with the Prime Minister’s mealy-mouthed apologies and his drivel about being humbled. They want us to debate why it was okay for No. 10 to have parties to say goodbye to employees, but no other workplace in the country was offered that facility. They want us to debate why there is one rule for this Government and another rule for everybody else in the country. They want to know why things got so out of hand at those parties that people ended up being sick, fights broke out and walls were stained with wine. They want to be told why it was okay to demean and belittle the staff whose job it was to clean up that mess, and to humiliate the security staff charged with keeping the circus safe.

Mostly, our constituents want their MPs to make sure that the Prime Minister hears, in pristine detail, the sacrifices that they all made in abiding by those rules while he oversaw and was responsible for an organisation that gratuitously partied. This is not going to go away. The people of the United Kingdom want the Prime Minister gone, and in democratic countries the people usually get their way. It is up to Conservative Back Benchers to either get rid of him or go down with him. Let us have a debate led by the Prime Minister and let us hold this rotten delusional Government to account properly.

I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Dunfermline on securing city status, but I think that is as far as I can go in agreeing with him. He speaks of what he says is the one topic that everybody wants to debate, but my experience is that people are sick and tired of hearing about it. They want the Government to focus on what actually matters to them—the global fight against inflation and an aggressive Russian state invading Ukraine and causing huge ripples around the world in energy and food prices. The hon. Gentleman says that that is the one topic that people want to debate, but it is the only topic that he wants to talk about. I thought he might have congratulated the First Minister on becoming the longest-serving First Minister in Scotland. After seven years, he might want to accept some responsibility for the disastrous performance of the Scottish Government and what we have seen in Scotland. They have let down schoolchildren; one academic in Scotland has said that

“governing became the servant of campaigning”.

That is why their education system is in tatters and drug deaths are at their highest level, and have been for seven years in a row. That says everything about SNP Members: they are more interested in stoking division and trying to challenge the Union than delivering for their constituents.

I am obviously delighted that your campaign paid off, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Doncaster got city status, as I was born and brought up there. Next week, the Government will announce the city of culture 2025. One of the four finalists in that competition is Bradford. Were Bradford to win that accolade, it would build on the strong cultural offer it already has, including the Brontës in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), the world heritage site of Saltaire in my constituency and the fact that Bradford was the first ever UNESCO city of film. Given that the House will not be sitting next week, and that winning would provide a huge boost to the whole district, which has been overlooked for far too long, and to the city, which has been punching below its weight for far too long, will the Leader of the House speak to his Cabinet colleague, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and join me in lobbying her to announce that Bradford is the city of culture 2025?

I trust that my hon. Friend was in his place for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions this morning to lobby the Secretary of State directly.

I did not get called.

Well, I cannot speak for Madam Deputy Speaker in failing to call the hon. Gentleman. We are always pleased to hear from him and I am surprised that he did not get called. Of course, I wish Bradford well and the other three cities that are bidding for city of culture. We await with anticipation the announcement of which city it will be. I am sure that whichever is the winner, it will be a great opportunity to visit and see the culture of that city.

I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

Can I, too, add my congratulations to Doncaster? I visit it every week—on the way up and on the way down—albeit briefly.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing two weeks’ business and for the veritable flurry of recess dates. I can give advance notice that the first debate in Backbench time on Thursday 16 June will be a debate to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the dreadful Grenfell Tower fire.

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I again congratulate him on the work his Committee does. I think the Grenfell debate will be a great opportunity to remember what was a terrible and tragic event. I know he will continue to bring such matters to the House, and I congratulate him on his work.

In November 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer approved the creation of another £150 billion of new money by the Bank of England and extended the guarantee against losses on all the bonds the Bank holds, making it a Treasury liability. Can we have an early statement or debate in Government time on how that has worked out, what impact it had on inflation and what impact it might have on the public finances?