Business of the House

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

The business for the week commencing 23 January includes:

Monday 23 January—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Northern Ireland Budget Bill.

Tuesday 24 January—Remaining stages of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 25 January—Remaining stages of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (day 2).

Thursday 26 January—A general debate on Holocaust Memorial Day. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 27 January—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 30 January includes:

Monday 30 January—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill.

Tuesday 31 January—Opposition day (12th allotted day), a debate in the name of the Leader of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Wednesday 1 February—Remaining stages of the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion to approve the “Charter for Budget Responsibility: Autumn 2022 update”.

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

Friday 3 February—Private Members’ Bills.

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business, and for her good wishes last week. As she is about to find out, I am indeed back to something approaching full voice. I put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), who so ably stood in for me.

Yesterday, the Leader of the House voted against Parliament taking back control: against MPs deciding which retained EU laws we should drop, repeal or replace—laws covering workers’ rights, environment protection and national security. Does she really think these important issues are best left to the whim of the revolving door of Government Ministers? They are hardly exemplary lawmakers given the chaos they have caused over the last few years. Our primary job as MPs is to legislate; this is what we do. Can I ask her, as Parliament’s representative in Government, whether she made the case in Cabinet for MPs to be given a proper say on behalf of our constituents? Does she not want the British people’s elected representatives to take back control any more?

We must be given the means to scrutinise the Government properly on these laws. It is how parliamentary democracy works—the clue is in the name—so why have the Government only introduced a half-finished online dashboard of EU regulations they plan to scrap? Do they plan to complete this dashboard, and if so, when? Should the public not know if laws are slipping through the cracks and set to be scrapped by accident, and how does the Leader of the House plan to square the practical difficulties of getting through thousands of these this year? This is not making Brexit work.

Can the Leader of the House tell us what is happening with the media Bill, please? It contains important provisions to promote our great British broadcasters on smart devices as well as safeguarding public service broadcasting in the streaming age. The Channel 4 debacle and the general Government chaos have caused unnecessary delay. I understand that we are only going to get a draft Bill. Is that correct, and when will there be a proper announcement?

Happy Chinese new year to everyone and congratulations to HMS Oardacious, which I mentioned in a previous session, on its record-breaking row across the Atlantic.

It is very good to see the hon. Lady back and in full voice, and I am glad she has been paying attention to my speech—I am very flattered by that. Before turning to her specific questions, she invited me to compare and contrast our record against hers. Let me take just one example—waiting lists is a topic on our minds at the moment. We obviously had a huge catch-up job to do during covid and new diagnostic centres are bringing down those waiting lists, but let us look at the figures for those waiting more than a year for treatment. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, before the pandemic, under 10 years of a Conservative Government, the figure was 1,643, and when covid hit this autumn it was over 400,000. That is the scale of the challenge we face and is what I was concentrating on in my speech. It is the same story all over the UK: waiting times are longer in Wales. But what were the figures under Labour? With no covid—and, let us be fair, after 10 years of a Labour Government—they were 578,682.

Would the hon. Lady like me to go on to talk about Labour’s treatment of junior doctors, or the scandal of MRSA or C. diff infections in our hospitals, or the lunacy of private finance initiative schemes which saw us paying £300 to change a lightbulb, or the treatment centres that had machines that went “ping” but did not treat any patients? I could go on, but let me address the points she has raised.

The EU retained law Bill has good scrutiny: it has dedicated Committees both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. We can do a number of things focusing on and prioritising particular areas of reform or carrying over laws if we think that is the right thing to do.

I understand the pitch the hon. Lady and her party are making to be the party of taking back control; indeed this week Labour announced legislative plans and a take back control Act. There were no details of course, so let me suggest what that might look like. A take back control act might have been voting with us to deliver Brexit; it might have been walking through the Aye Lobby on our borders Bill, or championing new trade agreements, or supporting us in the competition Bill and the Procurement Bill or the EU retained law Bill or—I live in hope—supporting us on the legislation we will bring forward to tackle small boats. All those Bills increased fairness and freedom for our citizens, improved wage growth and gave improvements to consumer power, improvements to help businesses grow and improvements to speed up the take-up of scientific breakthrough.

Of course, solar panels have their part to play, but Gainsborough is going to be ringed with 10,000 acres of solar panels, more than the rest of the east midlands combined. May we have a debate on this issue and particularly on Government guidance on whether solar panels should be put on good agricultural land? There is a presumption against solar panels on grade 1, 2 and 3a land, but not yet on 3b land, and all the leadership candidates in our election promised they would shift solar panels from good agricultural land in places like Lincolnshire to urban areas and roofs or warehouses; may we have an urgent debate please?

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that important point. That would be a good topic for a debate. I am sure that he knows how to apply for one and that it would be well attended. Given that Environment questions is not until much later in February, I shall write to the Department on his behalf to raise his concerns.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have had this role for only a few weeks, but I was under the impression that I would get a few more relevant answers to my questions. Instead, what I get every week is rubbish prepared lines read out by the Leader of the House—performance art, if you like—written by someone who either has no knowledge or care for Scotland and its people or whose aim is to make Scotland sound like a basket case, because cynically they know that mud sticks if something is repeated often enough, even if it is not true.

Perhaps we should have a debate on the quality of ministerial answers to questions. As a political opponent, one cannot help but be grateful for this weekly illustration of the contempt in which the Westminster Government hold our beautiful country and indeed the voters who inconveniently keep rejecting the Leader of the House’s party and supporting mine. It is almost as if our electorate can see through the drivel that they are being fed. If her aim is still to be Prime Minister for the whole of the UK—while it lasts—I am not sure whether annoying great swathes of Scotland’s people is really the way to go about it, but far be it from me to dissuade her.

May we also have a debate about unintended consequences? Just this week, a senior Minister dismissed the views of a holocaust survivor. The Government have also continued to infuriate NHS workers, rail workers, ambulance drivers, union members, trans groups, Scottish independence supporters, the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government, and shunted through a Bill that will snarl up many hundreds of civil servants in red tape—one could not make it up—simply because of their blinkered hatred of the EU. Finally, there was the decision to use a sledgehammer to crack the delicate nut of devolved relations through the use of the “governor-general” clause. If the Government keep that up, they will not have any friends left—apart from their many generous corporate sponsors.

Despite it all, I will attempt another question, because this is important. Yesterday, I was pleased to see the Government shifting their position on trans conversion therapy, but sadly they seemed to backtrack the very same day. Will the Leader of the House assure us that that she will use her good offices with her colleagues and make every effort to prevent the forthcoming Bill from being used to stoke culture wars, as her colleagues attempted recently in the Scottish Parliament? I am sure she agrees that trans people deserve nothing less.

I shall try to make my answers incredibly relevant. The hon. Lady raised questions of relevance and unintended consequences, and she mentioned blinkered hatred. She will know that in our sessions, which I enjoy very much, I am a great campaigner on relevance. I always try to make my answers relevant. I hope that, one day, the SNP will make its questions relevant to the issues facing the people of Scotland, such as healthcare and education, and all those things that they want their Government to grip, and not be so focused on constitutional reform, important though that is to the SNP.

The hon. Lady talks about unintended consequences. In all seriousness, we do not have to believe in the union of the United Kingdom to recognise that we all have a duty of care to every citizen in every part of the UK, no matter which part of the UK we are from and represent. That means having a regard for the social fabric and the social contract of the UK. The power that she refers to has been in existence for nearly 25 years—it is only marginally younger than the deputy leader of her group—and this is the first time that we have used it. It is not like we just discovered it down the back of the sofa. What has happened is a significant and rare thing, and is a serious thing. The powers were created as part of the devolution process in part because of the potential of such a scenario. It is because we have been placed in this position—the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would have serious implications for the working of the Equality Act 2010—that we have done what we have done. It would have been better if the SNP had had regard to those unintended consequences; it is not as if they were not aware of them. The Minister for Women and Equalities raised the issue in correspondence and meetings with their Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, and officials had been raising it for some time. Given where we are and the worry that the issue will cause people, I hope that we can resolve the situation swiftly and in a spirit of co-operation and pragmatism. Our citizens, including those who are trans, deserve that.

Yet again, my constituency office in Wellingborough has been attacked; this time a brick was thrown through the window. Luckily, nobody was hurt. If whoever did that thinks that I am going to be intimidated, they are wrong. Like Members across the House, I came to this place to serve my country and constituents, and to stand up for what I think is right.

Perhaps more important are the staff in my constituency office. There is absolutely no reason for them to be put in danger. I wonder whether the Leader of the House could arrange a debate in Government time about our staff, the work they do and the fact that they should not have to put up with this nonsense.

I am sure that I speak for all Members in the Chamber in saying how sorry I am to hear that my hon. Friend’s office has been attacked in that way; I know it has happened on numerous occasions before. Like the House authorities, I am sure, I would be very happy to assist if there is anything further we can do to deter and find the perpetrators of this horrible act.

My hon. Friend is quite right. All of us in this place have pretty thick skins, and we choose to do this job and face the dangers that come with it. But our staff should not expect such things to happen to them. I have also taken representations from staff in this place about what they have to endure from particular protesters, who are clearly protesting against us as individuals and Members of Parliament, but staff are caught up in that as well. That is quite wrong. I hope my hon. Friend will come to see me. We will see what more we can do to protect him and his staff so that they can go about their business as his constituents wish them to.

I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish the Leader of the House and Members across the House “Gong hei fat choy!” for this weekend—the beginning of the year of the rabbit in the Chinese calendar, I believe.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the Backbench Business Committee day on Thursday 2 February. We propose a debate to commemorate LGBT History Month on that date; we are going to assess which other bid to accept for the second debate on that day. I ask Members across the House, as they did last week in numbers, to continue submitting and supporting bids for Backbench Business Committee debates, both here in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall.

In response to the earlier urgent question on the levelling- up fund, the Minister told us that over 500 bids, valued at £8 billion, had been received and that 111 bids, valued at £2.1 billion, had received awards. But those awards are one-off payments, while local authorities across the country have been stripped of about £15 billion a year in lost revenue support grant. My own local authority in Gateshead has lost approximately £180 million per year in real terms. Can we have a debate in Government time about local government finance and the total inadequacy of the council tax system to properly fund our councils and the services that our constituents desperately need, week in, week out?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for advertising forthcoming debates, which is always very helpful to colleagues, and thank him for working so constructively with my office to ensure we plan time well and give people as much notice as we possibly can of those opportunities.

I fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. All Members will want to lever in as much funding for their constituency as possible. There is a very good tool on the Government website, gov.uk, which maps all the funding going into constituencies via the very many funding streams there are, so people can get a good overview about what is happening where and why. We had to deal with a situation when we came in to make sure the Government were balancing their books. We also felt it was incredibly important to hold council tax rises down. Under the Labour Government they rose by 110%. He will see if he goes on to that tool that we are putting enormous amounts of money into areas, particularly those that have been deprived of funding for many years.

Several schools in my constituency have contacted me about the proposal to extend the school working week to 32.5 hours for those in the voluntary sector. May we have a statement from an Education Minister to explain when the proposal will come in, if additional resources will be provided and if it will be discretionary for headteachers? Will headteachers be allowed to discuss with their governing bodies whether they wish to have a longer school day, or indeed a shorter one?

The measure that was introduced is a non-statutory expectation. I would think and hope those discussions would take place. With regard to additional support, Education questions is not until late February, so I will write to the Department for Education on my hon. Friend’s behalf and ask that it contacts his office with further details of the support that is available.

In November, I asked the Leader of the House whether we could have a debate on leisure services, given that so many of our leisure services are facing huge problems. Yesterday, people in Birtley in my constituency heard that their swimming pool is likely to close very soon. May I urge her to arrange a debate in Government time, so we can all discuss the issues relating to leisure services reviews and cuts that are facing our residents?

I thank the hon. Lady for again raising this very important issue. I think, if memory serves me correctly, since she last asked us for a debate we have had one on community sport and leisure facilities. The next Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions is on 26 January and I encourage her to raise the issue then. It is a vital issue. I am a big fan of swimming pools. They teach our young people life skills, as well as help to keep people fit and healthy, so I thank her for raising that important point.