Business of the House

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

The business for the week commencing 22 April will include:

Monday 22 April—Consideration of a Lords message to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, followed by debate on a motion on hospice funding. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 23 April—Second Reading of the Football Governance Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords messages to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.

Wednesday 24 April—Remaining stages of the Renters (Reform) Bill, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 25 April—Debate on a motion on Lesbian Visibility Week, followed by debate on a motion on the Buckland review of autism employment. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 26 April—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 29 April includes:

Monday 29 April—Consideration in Committee of the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill.

Tuesday 30 April—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill.

Wednesday 1 May—Remaining stages of the Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords].

Thursday 2 May—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the early May bank holiday at the conclusion of business on 2 May and return on Tuesday 7 May.

May I take this opportunity to put on record my deepest sympathies to Mr Speaker on the loss of his dear father, Doug Hoyle? I remember him as a real character and an important figure in the Labour movement over many decades, serving both as an MP and then as a peer. He was a proud northerner and represented the traditions of the Labour movement. I know that he was incredibly proud of Mr Speaker, and I know how much Mr Speaker and Cath cared for him in his later years. My thoughts are with them both.

The attacks by Iran on Israel have rightly been condemned by all sides of the House. Thankfully, its intentions were thwarted, and we join together in calling for restraint and de-escalation in the aftermath. We cannot let those recent events deter or distract from international efforts to bring about a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza and create the conditions for a lasting two-state solution.

As global conflict increases, it is unacceptable that the Government have rejected recommendations from the cross-party Procedure Committee for the Foreign Secretary to be accountable in this House. It is simply not the case that he or the Government have been “forward-leaning” in that regard, as the Leader of the House has said. Statements by his now deputy—the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—have been few and far between, and his appearances at Select Committees have all but dried up.

Many times in these exchanges, the Leader of the House has assured us that Members would have the opportunity to question the Foreign Secretary, saying that

“When the Procedure Committee brings forward measures… I am sure those measures will be put in place”—[Official Report, 30 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 1061.],

I join the hon. Lady in formally conveying my sympathies to Mr Speaker on the loss of his father; I have spoken to him privately, and written to him as well. I also congratulate 3 Dads Walking on being awarded the petition of the year by the Petitions Committee for their important work on suicide prevention, and wish all colleagues—18 of them in total—and everyone else running the marathon good luck.

On Monday evening, the very special Jewish festival of Passover begins. Like their ancestors before them, Jewish families around the world will gather around their Seder tables to retell the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt. However, this year many of them will be leaving an empty seat open at those tables for those still held captive by Hamas in Gaza. I hope this will be the last Jewish holiday where they are unable to celebrate with their families, and wish chag sameach to all those celebrating. I also thank all hon. Members for their resolve and support with regard to Israel’s security—that is an important message that we send from this House.

The hon. Lady mentions the issue of the Foreign Secretary, and the Government’s work in that regard, being accountable to this House. Since the Foreign Secretary was appointed, we have had eight Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office statements, three prime ministerial statements on foreign affairs, a general debate in Government time on the situation in the Red sea and 17 Westminster Hall debates responded to by FCDO ministers, as well as oral questions in both Houses. We are sticking with the usual precedents of both Houses.

The hon. Lady asks me to comment on defence, and I am very happy to compare this Government’s record with the last Labour Government’s record. We have had the largest uplift to the defence budget since the end of the cold war. When we came into office, we inherited a defence budget and equipment programme with a £71 billion black hole, on Royal United Services Institute figures. I remember from my own constituency that Portsmouth, Faslane and Plymouth were having to state the case to continue to be naval bases in this country. The previous Labour Government knew their record with members of the armed forces was poor, because in 2005 they disenfranchised all of them by changing the rules on voter registration.

Order. Before we proceed may I, on behalf of Mr Speaker, thank the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House, and all other Members who have expressed their sympathy to him on the loss of his father? Lord Hoyle, Doug Hoyle, was a dedicated parliamentarian, an inspirational, kind and amusing gentleman, and a very proud father. He will be very greatly missed, and I am sure the whole House will join me in sending our sympathy to Mr Speaker and his family. Our thoughts will be with them as they make arrangements for Lord Hoyle’s funeral.

I call the Father of the House.

We will remember Doug Hoyle’s smile, we will remember him with a smile, and I remember that he got elected eight months before I did.

Questions on the Cass report in this House were followed yesterday by those in the other place, and the Lords Minister said that he would respond to a number of points in writing. If information is given by the Minister that was not given to this House, could it be put in a written statement or put in the Library? Many of the points, especially those made by Baroness Hayter, were important. We need an inquiry into how things got into the state that had to be exposed by the four-year review by Dr Hilary Cass, for which we all thank her.

One thing that has not yet happened, but may happen in the next week or two, is the publication of the report from the Select Committee on the Holocaust Memorial Bill through its hybrid procedure. It is coming later than we anticipated, and may contain some interesting recommendations or decisions. Will the Government say, as soon as possible, whether they intend to go on trying to ram this proposal through? They have already spent more than £30 million achieving nothing in the last eight and a half years, so will they have a roundtable and consider spending £20 million getting a memorial up in the next two years, during the lifetime of some of the holocaust survivors, and moving the learning centre to the Imperial War Museum?

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I will certainly ensure that his request about the Cass review is undertaken. He knows that a process is being gone through at the moment for the memorial, and I will again ensure that the relevant Secretary of State has heard what he said today. There are also questions to that Secretary of State on Monday, and he may wish to make use of that opportunity.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

May I associate myself with the remarks about Passover and about Mr Speaker’s late father, and send my sincerest condolences to him and his family?

Since we last met for business questions, the Leader of the House has been keeping busy, and I thought that one of her social media posts on X during the recess was particularly eye-catching. Indeed, it was unique because it asked her constituents to contact her directly, so outraged was she by a burning injustice. It started:

“Damn right. I know many people will have strong feelings on this…email me…and I will make sure your concerns”

are heard. Those are such strong feelings that you may wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, what caused that righteous anger, which was not just from the Leader of the House but from Members across the Chamber.

Was it children getting sick swimming through human faeces in the rivers of England, or perhaps the endless strikes in the NHS in England? Was it arms sales to Israel, or an economic crisis that was triggered by a former Prime Minister, now saviour of the west? Was it the cruel, immoral, illegal and ruinously expensive Rwanda scheme? Perhaps the angry post was just a response to the Leader of the House’s constituents in Portsmouth, who are now furious—rightly enough—about the likely demolition of the brand new border control post in Portsmouth, which is among a herd of such white elephants around the UK, and a direct result of the right hon. Lady’s ongoing Brexit confusion that will cost a fortune. No—that was not what prompted the outburst. The Leader of the House and many of her colleagues were furious about England’s new football top—“damn right” they were.

So, no, the farce of the doomed border post on the right hon. Lady’s doorstep has not figured in the busy social media output we see from her. Her Government’s disastrous Brexit import charges are none the less coming in on 30 April, causing even more costly confusion and raising very real concerns about food shortages, as well as her own local difficulties. May I ask the Leader of the House for an urgent debate on these new Brexit charges and the ongoing catastrophe of Brexit, which Scots rejected, yet are forced to suffer the ill effects of? Her constituents will be interested to hear an answer—ideally before she wastes more time launching into another anti-Scotland video script.

First, I should thank the hon. Lady for her concern about Portsmouth port, which is doing very well. We have a brand-new passenger terminal and an enormous number of new ship visits, which are projected to increase our local economy by £300 million over the next few years. That is in addition to massively increasing and diversifying the freight coming into that port. I hope she will welcome the news that the United Kingdom is exporting more and has just become the fourth-largest exporter in the world. We are doing very well.

I am always keen to facilitate my constituents who wish to make complaints to all sorts of organisations in their ability to do that. I just say to the hon. Lady that our nation’s flag is important to the people of Portsmouth. I suggest that she might like to think twice before she mocks that view. These things and these traditions are important. They are not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

The hon. Lady has been busy, too, during the recess, penning articles about how much my colleagues and I hate Scotland and the Scottish people. She has done it again in her opening remarks and her questions to me. At some point, she will have to say why she thinks that is the case. I know that the Scottish rugby team has being doing well against England, but that is not grounds to justify her accusations against me. The SNP seems hellbent on exposing hate where there is none. I understand that of the 9,000 hate crimes reported under the SNP’s new law, with 3,419 made on 1 April alone, only nine will qualify under this new law, and seven of those nine have now been dismissed. Police Scotland deserves our thanks and our sympathy. I am sure that those police officers joined the force to do something much more helpful for their communities. It is only the Conservatives who have stood against this lunacy, and we will continue to do that. Other parties had the opportunity to repeal this law and chose not to. We on the Government Benches know that laws and movements based on hate and division always try to curtail freedom, and we know that in the end such movements always fail.

I associate myself with your remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker, about the late father of Mr Speaker.

The Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), is with his family right now, because his daughter-in-law is still extremely ill. I am sure the whole House will send our sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

On behalf of the Backbench Business Committee, I thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for the allocation of time for the hospice funding debate. I hope that will take place on Monday. It is heavily subscribed, I believe, and a lot of Members will want to take part. We have now filled our Chamber time. On 2 May, there will be a debate on security in the western Balkans and another on pension schemes. On 9 May, if we are given the time, there will be debates on miners and mining communities and on the BBC mid-term charter review, both of which are popular matters for discussion. We have also allocated all the time available to us in Westminster Hall. If the Leader of the House has more time that she needs to allocate to the Backbench Business Committee, we can readily fill up that time if she wishes.

The Mayor of London made a solemn promise before the last mayoral election that he would not expand the ultra low emission zone to outer London. No sooner had he been re-elected than he started a consultation on expanding ULEZ to outer London. The fact that 66% of respondents objected seemed to have no bearing on his decision; he immediately introduced ULEZ to the whole of outer London, and people are suffering as a result. At this election, he is promising not to introduce pay per mile if he is re-elected. Can we trust him? Not a bit of it. The reality is that his adviser—

This is a speech. Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Order. If the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was out of order and had to sit down, I would tell him so. I do not need the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) to tell me how to conduct the affairs of the Chamber.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. One of the Mayor’s key advisers has let slip that the Mayor is planning to do precisely that if he is re-elected. Can we have a debate in Government time on promises made at elections and promises broken?

First, I thank my hon. Friend for stepping up in place of the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. I am sure that all Members will join him in sending our thoughts and love to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and his whole family at this difficult time. I also thank him for the advert for future Backbench Business Committee debates.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the abysmal record and broken promises of Labour’s London Mayor, whose war on motorists will, I am afraid, continue. He is targeting people through the ULEZ and low-traffic neighbourhoods, which disproportionately hit those on low incomes. Meanwhile, Transport for London is not in a financially stable position, and every year, 15,000 fewer homes are being delivered than the Mayor promised in his London plan. Labour has a record of failing not only those in Wales, Birmingham, Nottingham and countless other places, but Londoners, who will be safer with Susan Hall. I urge all hon. Members to support her.

The Prime Minister has said that he would hold a general election in June or July if the results of May’s election were not that bad for his party. May I ask the Leader of the House to persuade the Prime Minister to consider the good of the country when considering and deciding on the timing of the general election?

I thank the hon. Lady for that innovative question. Dates of elections are way above my pay grade, but I will again urge everyone to vote Conservative when that opportunity arises.