The business for the week commencing 22 November will include:
Monday 22 November—Remaining stages of the Health and Care Bill (Day 1).
Tuesday 23 November—Remaining stages of the Health and Care Bill (Day 2).
Wednesday 24 November—Second Reading of the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.
Thursday 25 November—General debate on freedom of religion or belief: 40th anniversary of the declaration on the elimination of religious intolerance, followed by a debate on a motion on alcohol harm. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
The provisional business for the week commencing 29 November will include:
Monday 29 November—Second Reading of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL], followed by a motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill.
Tuesday 30 November—Opposition day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party, subject to be announced.
Wednesday 1 December—Consideration in Committee of the Finance (No.2) Bill.
Thursday 2 December—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business and also his colleague, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), for his various cries. I look forward to seeing him on a Friday.
Today is Equal Pay Day, but it is not a day for celebration. Today, 10 million women in the UK now face working their entire careers without seeing equal pay. This is up from 8.5 million just a year ago. Can the Secretary of State for Women and Equalities or the Work and Pensions Secretary, or both, come to this House and explain why, under this Government, we are going so far backwards and what they will do about it?
What a week! The Leader of the House and I have seen rather a lot of each other across the Dispatch Boxes, and we have also seen the true extent of the Government’s blasé attitude towards corruption. The Prime Minister’s letter, which I believe was sent to Mr Speaker on Tuesday, said that banning MPs from taking roles as paid political consultants or lobbyists would stop them from, “exploiting their positions”. But this Government seem to be saying one thing one day, and then doing entirely another the next—making rules to break them, and facing no consequences for their egregious actions. They could have voted yesterday for our motion, which would have guaranteed—guaranteed—this House a vote on strengthening standards and in a timetable, but instead they chose to support a wrecking amendment, with no clear timetable and no guaranteed vote, and that could see as few as just 10 Conservative MPs affected. Does the Leader of the House agree that such partisanship and what appears to be naked self-interest should never override upholding the principles of public life?
While we are on the Prime Minister and the subject of standards, news outlets are reporting—I do not know whether this has been confirmed—that he said that he had “crashed” the Government car into a “ditch” as a result of the advice that the right hon. Gentleman said, I think, that he gave to the Prime Minister over the affair of the former MP for North Shropshire. Can we have a debate in Government time on dangerous driving and whether that should take place on the Estate?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. May I begin with the issue of cricket? As somebody who has followed cricket since his childhood, I think I can say that this is a matter of shame to all cricket lovers. I look back to when I followed Somerset county cricket in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when we had the most wonderful players from the West Indies—Joel Garner and Viv Richards particularly, but there were others, too. They were so inspirational, and encouraged excitement in cricket and made everyone in Somerset feel that they were part of our county and huge contributors to it. I am afraid that what has been going on in Yorkshire fills many cricket lovers with sadness. The England and Wales Cricket Board has a strong responsibility to ensure that this is stamped out and dealt with much more thoroughly than it has been so far.
The hon. Lady started by asking about equality. It is worth pointing out that the Government have pushed very hard to ensure that women get the opportunities that they deserve: there is a higher percentage of women on FTSE 350 company boards than ever before, and we have introduced shared parental leave and pay, and doubled free childcare for eligible parents, to help to ensure that women in the workplace have as strong a position as possible. Those policy principles and precepts will be kept to.
The hon. Lady then came to some more controversial matters and talked about partisanship. Well, I have a word or two to say about partisanship, because yesterday the Leader of the Opposition had to apologise to the House and withdraw a word that he had used, which today the same man has tweeted about the Prime Minister. That is not only extraordinarily partisan, but it is enormously disrespectful to this House and to Mr Speaker. To have to withdraw a word in this House, and then scuttle out like a beetle and tweet it, is utterly disrespectful to the House and is not the sort of cross-party leadership that one might expect.
Last Sunday, this country quite rightly paused to reflect, and to honour those men and women who risked or gave their lives in world wars and other conflicts. It is less well known that this Sunday we come together at the Cenotaph to honour the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, with a parade where veterans and children of veterans honour those who risked or gave their lives. Could we have a debate in Government time on all the other people who gave or risked their lives so that this country and Parliament could be free?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to my attention, because I did not know that the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women had a parade on the week after Armistice Sunday. I congratulate him on bringing that to the attention of the House. I also congratulate the association on its work and on the commemoration to recognise one’s gratitude to the veterans from the Jewish community who served in Her Majesty’s forces—or His Majesty’s forces, as they then often were—and to ensure that their contribution, along with the contribution of others, is not forgotten. It may be difficult to facilitate a debate immediately, but remembrance should be discussed in this House.
May I start by congratulating the Leader of the House? I congratulate him on actually still being here. I mean, he has defied every single rule and principle of political gravity by ensuring that this disastrous period of sleaze now goes into its third week. But at least he has had the good grace to concede that it was all his fault and that it was he who encouraged the Prime Minister to pursue this disastrous action. It might have been the Prime Minister who crashed the car into the ditch, but it was the Leader of the House who provided the directions.
When the history books are written on this sorry saga and detail how this rotten Government lost their momentum, their lead and their authority, there will be a chapter that starts, “And Jacob Rees-Mogg rose to his feet to oppose the report from the Committee on Standards.” To still be here after all this, the Leader of the House must know where the top hats are buried. We need at least two days of debate on all the issues around Government sleaze and corruption, and we need to see the Prime Minister leading those debates. The Leader of the House has ensured that this is the issue that is consuming the public, so I am almost certain that he agrees that we must now satisfy that public demand.
We definitely need a debate about the House of Lords, because there are huge public concerns about how people get a place in it. The Prime Minister yesterday all but conceded that donors are given a place in the House of Lords for their contributions when he said to my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil):
“Until you get rid of the system by which the trades union barons fund other parties”,
we have to go ahead—conceding that money buys people a place in the legislature that allows them to define, determine and amend the laws of this country.
One could never accuse the hon. Gentleman of being knowingly understated. We have had “disaster”, “sorry saga”, “rotten”, “sleaze”, “corruption”, “huge public concern” and “dramatic” all in about a minute. I do wonder whether he is capable of lowering the tone even further than he normally does, or of lowering the temperature and raising the tone at the same point.
It is so absurdly overstated; we have spent quite enough time discussing ourselves in this House in the last 10 days or so. For example, I return to the Finance Bill. It is a bit of a concern that when we have a debate that could go to any hour on something that affects the livelihoods of every single one of our constituents, the Opposition are too idle to turn up, but when we are talking about ourselves, they want even more time to focus a little bit more on our own concerns. On the idea that there is this huge public concern about the House of Lords, well, the hon. Gentleman must move in very different circles from those in North East Somerset, because the number of letters that I receive on House of Lords reform can be counted in single digits most years.
My right hon. Friend and I are great advocates of the power of the people, because the voice of the people is the voice of God. I say to him—because we both come from the heart of what made Britain as we now know it—that we need elections in Somerset. There is discussion that the local authority now wants all elections put back to 2023, which would be six years since we have had an election in the county that we both love. That is not acceptable. There are severe concerns from all political parties, including my own, that this should not happen again. It is not good for democracy. Gag the people, and they will come back at us. Therefore, I ask for time in this place to debate the ability to have elections when we should be having them, because, as I said before, the voice of the people is the voice of God.
Vox populi, vox Dei, as my hon. Friend says. It is obviously important that there should be local accountability and elections, but sometimes when there is significant upheaval in local government, elections are postponed until the new body has settled down. It is all a question of getting the balance right.
I apologise to Members for missing these proceedings for the two weeks prior to the recess, but I am afraid to say that three weeks ago today I tested positive for covid. I can honestly say to Members across the House that it is still worth taking precautions because, despite being double-vaccinated, I had some rather unpleasant symptoms and it is best avoided.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business, notifying Members of Backbench business on 25 November and notifying us of an allocation of time on 2 December. I hope that we will be able to bring forward two important debates on that date. What we have provisionally pencilled in at the moment are debates on the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dayton peace accord, and economic crime. I hope we can bring those forward. I hope that before Christmas I could have a meeting with the Leader of the House to make sure that we are up to date with our time allocation from the Backbench Business Committee’s perspective.
May I say how glad I am to see the hon. Gentleman back in his place? I thank him for his courtesy in letting my office know that he was not going to be here in previous weeks, and I hope he is fully restored to good health. I am grateful to him for announcing the Backbench business that will be forthcoming, and of course I look forward to having a meeting with him at a time of his convenience.
May we have an urgent debate on the provision of increased general practice capacity when thousands of new homes are built? This should happen with as much certainty as the sun rising in the east every morning. We really can do better and we need to do so urgently.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this point, because I think all of us as constituency MPs have come across it when there have been developments in our area. Trying to bring various bodies together to make sure that that is considered is important and something that MPs rightly get involved with. We obviously need more home ownership and we need to build the houses for it, but we need to make sure that the infrastructure is put in place as well. This often, in many ways, becomes a matter of local politics, when it is important to address it at the local level, but I will pass on my hon. Friend’s concerns to the Secretary of State.
I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) raised this with the Leader of the House two weeks ago. I have many constituents appealing to me for help about access to their state pensions. They were advised as early as July of this year, with impending retirements in November, to apply for their pensions. They still have not received confirmation of what state pension they are receiving or indeed when they will receive it. I now have three constituents who tell me that they cannot retire at the end of the month because they have no idea what their incomes will be. I know that the Leader of the House has raised this previously, but I would be exceptionally grateful if he could arrange for a Department for Work and Pensions Minister to come to the Floor of the House to make a statement, or for a written statement from the Secretary of State, to resolve the issue. We cannot have pensioners not having access to what is rightfully theirs.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue again. It has been a problem for some of my own constituents too, and I have therefore raised it at a constituency level as well as on behalf of the House. As I have said before, one of the very useful purposes of this session is that, if there is a general problem that gets raised by several hon. and right hon. Members, that gives me the opportunity to take it up. The DWP had hoped that the problem would be sorted by now, but I am hearing that it is not. I will therefore take it up with the DWP again and try to provide more information for the House on what progress is being made.
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on prescribed drug dependence, I pay tribute to Dr Anne Guy, Dr James Davies and Luke Montague for their support for this really important work. Dr Davies recently published research showing that the NHS spends £500 million a year on unnecessary and habit-forming drugs, mostly antidepressants, that people should not be on any more. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this really needs attention, and will he find time for a debate on the over-prescription of habit-forming drugs?
20 of 63 shown
It is not just on the subject of standards where the Government show nothing but contempt for this House. I am afraid to say that I have raised numerous times with the right hon. Gentleman the fact that Members are still not receiving timely, or in some cases any, replies to letters, written questions or calls to MP hotlines. I know that the Leader of the House shares my concern, so could he take it up again, please?
I am afraid that, at the last business questions, the Leader of the House stated that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) had received a response to his letter to the Prime Minister sent more than a year ago on Islamophobia. I am sure that the Leader of the House did not intend to make this mistake, but, unfortunately, it seems from what I am told that the response that he referred to was from the Conservative party chair, not the Prime Minister, and related to a completely different letter. I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could correct this and clarify. My hon. Friend has now written to the Prime Minister again, so can he also ensure that the Prime Minister finally replies to this letter before the end of this year’s Islamophobia Month?
The shadow Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), asked a named day question all the way back in September on the amount of covid-19 vaccines that had reached their expiry date. This week, it was publicly announced that around 600,000 doses were thrown away in August, but my hon. Friend has still not received a substantive response to her question, which is so critical for our global response to covid. Will the Leader of the House take this back to his Cabinet colleagues and impress on them once again their responsibilities to this House?
This is not my specialist subject, but the annual fisheries negotiations are due to conclude shortly, which is important in ensuring that we reach a good deal for British fishing. I ask the Leader of the House to allocate Government time to debate this, before the December fisheries council?
On behalf of the very many staff who have asked to be able to plan for next year, especially after this past year, will the Leader of the House please give us the recess dates for 2022 next week? They have a right to know those dates, as they have to plan around us and they need to be able to book that holiday to be with their families.
Finally, this week, Azeem Rafiq has given us distressing, but, unfortunately for many of us, not surprising evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee about his experience of racism—in this case in cricket. It is abundantly clear that there has been an acute failure of leadership—in his case, at club and national level—and that, sadly, this is part of a more widespread problem. There should be no place for racism in sport, in this House, or anywhere in our society. Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to make sure that the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket’s inquiry into racism in cricket is taken seriously, and that it cannot be swept under the rug, as it has been so many times before?
The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition then went further and tweeted inaccurately about his own motion yesterday, so perhaps he did not even know what he had put his name to. That is partisanship, whereas the Conservative Government have been trying to put things right by ensuring that by 31 January—a clear deadline, in spite of what the hon. Lady said—the Committee on Standards can report, and can do so in a way that makes it clear how the rules can be improved following the 2018 report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, led by the noble Lord Bew. We are the ones who are trying our best to be cross-party against a barrage of partisanship, and we are trying to ensure the highest possible standards.
As regards the letter mentioned by the hon. Lady, my understanding is that the party chairman was replying on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but I will obviously look into that, check and respond.
Fishing negotiations are an important matter for the House, but I am sure that the Backbench Business Committee can look into finding time for that important debate.
Finally, the shadow Leader of the House wants to go on her holidays. I quite understand that it is a very important matter, although I think that some Labour MPs may have been on their holidays already this week because the Finance Bill, which can go until any hour and sets out the major principles of legislation from the Budget—one of the most important things that the Government do—fell short. It finished early! Where were all the socialists keen to make their arguments about how the finances of the nation should be guided? It does not surprise me that the hon. Lady, and her hon. and right hon. Friends, are keen to book their holidays, but to facilitate them I will bring forward recess dates in the normal way.
Lastly, may I thank the Leader of the House for advancing the cause of Scottish independence in the most dramatic, compelling and convincing way possible?