Business of the House

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

The business for the week commencing 9 November will include:

Monday 9 November—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.

Tuesday 10 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Ship Recycling (Facilities and Requirements for Hazardous Materials on Ships) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft Food and Feed Hygiene and Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of a lay member to the Committee on Standards.

Wednesday 11 November—A general debate on remembrance, UK armed forces and society, followed by a general debate on covid-19.

Thursday 12 November—Debate on a motion on the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on refugee communities, followed by a debate on a motion on achieving the ambition for a smoke-free England by 2030, in the light of the covid-19 pandemic and public health reorganisation. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 November—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 16 November will include:

Monday 16 November—Remaining stages of the Pension Schemes Bill [Lords].

I thank the Leader of the House for annoucing the business. I should like to start by thanking Parliament’s Education and Engagement team for all the excellent work they have done to support UK Parliament Week. They have enabled all our constituents to understand what it is to participate in a democracy so that we know that every vote counts and that they will all be counted equally.

Will the Leader of the House please tell us when this parliamentary Session is going to end? They usually last about 12 months, and it would be useful to know because we would quite like another Opposition day and, as he knows, we get them pro rata. The private Members’ Bills have now been moved to next year. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has asked whether the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill could be looked at by the Government so that it can be taken forward earlier, rather than waiting until next year.

I am pleased that the Leader of the House has realised that voting in the way we vote at the moment is unsafe and that he has extended proxy voting, but I want to remind him that the Procedure Committee said in its fourth report that

“the system of remote voting used in May was a more effective means of handling divisions in the House under conditions where the division lobbies could not be used in the traditional way”.

I do not know whether he has seen the record, but even those hon. Members who are on the estate have a small “p” next to their name to indicate that they have cast their vote by proxy. This will give the impression that some hon. Members are not here when in fact they are, so we need to look at that.

I wonder whether the Leader of the House could explain how he thinks democracy works, when some hon. Members can take part only in urgent questions and statements, and Members who are being careful and responsible but cannot be here cannot take part in debates. Debates are the very stuff of what we do, ergo this is not a democratic process. I know that he will be aware that “Parliament” comes from the old French word “parlement”, which means “a place to speak”.

The right hon. Lady is so right and puts it so well. We will remember them. I am very glad that there will be a chance on 11 November for a debate in the House where remembrance may take place properly, in a year when the full remembrance that we normally have will be curtailed. I am pleased that we are able to have time for that debate.

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for once again raising the case of Nazanin, Kylie, Anousheh and Luke. As always, the proper processes of this House are being used, and the Government are being held to account with urgent questions. I will say one thing: it is very important not to conflate any question of money with the proper treatment of people who are held improperly. The British Government have a very clear policy of not connecting the two, and it would be open season on British citizens if we were ever to be in a position of paying for people’s releases. It is fundamental that those two are not conflated.

May I echo the right hon. Lady’s comments on UK Parliament Week? It is a fantastic week, and we would have done much more had we been able to go out and about. Mr Speaker and I would have been up and down the country making speeches and receiving plaudits for Parliament and all the work it does.

And me!

And the shadow Leader of the House too. We would have shared a charabanc as we went around the country praising Parliament. It is none the less a very important week, and we should be really proud of our democracy and proud that Parliament is here doing its duty. That, I am afraid, is where the right hon. Lady and I fall into a level of disagreement. It is so important that we are here to do our job—that we are here to debate and to challenge. She says that some Members cannot be here for debates. I recognise that, and I sympathise with them, but they are debates; that is the point. We have seen how many times somebody comes on to complain that they cannot come here, and the connection goes down. We have seen in the House of Lords remote voting fail, so business does not happen.

Once!

Once and we lose a day’s business and have to do it all again, whereas we have a system that is tried and tested, works and means that we are leading by example. We expect teachers to be teaching; we expect MPs to be voting. We expect people to do their job at their place of work when they cannot do it from home, and we cannot be a proper scrutinising legislature without being here in person; that is of fundamental importance.

I note the right hon. Lady’s appeal on the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill. It is on the list for private Members’ Bills. It is very difficult to find extra time. There was a suggestion that the sitting Fridays be moved, which the Government listened to and accepted. That is the situation that we are in. Changing the PMB Fridays does allow a few more people to work from home one day a week, which slightly helps with the overall balance of risk. I therefore think that we will have to come back to all private Members’ Bills in the new year.

The right hon. Lady asked a question on procurement that is important and a crucial act of parliamentary scrutiny, but which is also misplaced. The two positions are not contradictory. It is the job of this House—and has been for centuries—to ensure that public money is well spent. That is why the Public Accounts Committee is so highly respected. In defence of what the Government have done, when we go from a standing start to try to ensure that the country deals with a pandemic, we have to act quickly. Our usual processes for procurement assume that there is plenty of time. In this instance, there was not.

Let me give the House some of the facts. There is now capacity for 519,000 tests a day. We have delivered over 10 million testing kits to 14 million care homes. This type of work has had to be done extraordinarily quickly. On vaccines, we have secured early access to over 350 million vaccine doses through a portfolio of promising new vaccines, to ensure that we are best placed to get the vaccine when one is tested and turns out to be workable. The increase in personal protective equipment delivery has been phenomenal. To do this, things have had to be done quickly. Yes, of course, they must be scrutinised—that is absolutely right—and when they are scrutinised, the Government will have turned out to have behaved with impeccable propriety.

Throughout the pandemic, places of worship have helped to maintain social cohesion. They have mitigated the impact on the mental health of worshippers, and, more importantly, have been a sign of hope. Churches, Islamic centres and synagogues across Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich have gone above and beyond to become covid-safe environments. Will my right hon. Friend, as a man of faith himself, join me in commending their efforts to protect the health and wellbeing of worshippers, and will he look to undertake an urgent review of places of worship so that they can continue to provide these most vital of services during these difficult times?

The relationship between Church and state is one that sometimes proves rather difficult. Who can forget 29 December 1170, when Thomas à Becket was murdered in his own cathedral by the agents of the state sent by Henry II? The relationship between Church and state has not always been smooth. It was a great matter for discussion by medieval scholars, who concentrated on Luke 22:38: “there are two swords”. The question is which sword is superior—the spiritual sword or the temporal sword. The temporal authorities often think that the temporal sword is the superior sword. The ecclesiastical authorities were very happy to argue with that, and Pope Boniface VIII put it at its highest level in his 1302 papal bull “Unam Sanctam”, which claimed that all secular authorities were secondary to the spiritual authorities. We have seen this argument rage over the centuries, with greater powers taken by the state and then freedom of religion reasserting itself. My hon. Friend raises a point of fundamental importance, but the hope that we may all take—the reassurance that those of us who have faith may be certain of—is that the highest authority is unquestionably immortal, invisible and only wise, and even outside the control of the House of Commons.

And I always thought that the Templars were too powerful, and that is why their power was taken away.

It has been five days since the Prime Minister announced an England-wide lockdown and the major U-turn regarding the furlough scheme, and all week we have been trying to clarify whether furlough support will be in place just when England is locked down, or whether it will be available beyond 2 December if devolved Administrations are required to take similar action. On Monday, the Prime Minister suggested that it would be available to devolved national Governments, only to have a series of Ministers deny this as the week progressed. It is bizarre that such a simple question still does not have a clear answer. Can the Leader of the House confirm whether the Chancellor’s statement that will follow will clear up the ambiguity? In either event, can we have a debate on how to improve the capacity of devolved Administrations to deal with the covid pandemic and prepare for recovery, including through their relationship with the UK Treasury?

Following the rather shambolic way in which the lockdown in England was leaked last weekend, the Government have much to learn about how they communicate. Can I raise the specific matter of how they communicate with Members of Parliament? There is an increasing tendency for Ministers to provide online briefings to Members, and this is welcome, but often the notice of such briefings is insufficient to allow Members to participate. Will the Leader of the House ensure that Ministers improve their communication with Members, including using Parliamentary Private Secretaries to reach out to their Opposition counterparts?

Finally, I return again to the question of remote voting. The latest changes to proxy voting are welcome, and they can only have come about because the Government accept the logic of not requiring Members to queue up physically to vote. If that is the case, why not complete the circle and simply switch the remote voting system back on? That way, MPs can exercise their own discretion on behalf of their constituents, rather than having to delegate their vote to others.

I do apologise for the fact that no picture was put up of the SNP spokesperson when the line went down—the sound quality was good, although the screen is just a blank at the moment—but I will ask the Leader of the House to respond.

It is a great pity that we could not see the hon. Gentleman’s cheerful countenance, cheering us all up and bringing sweetness and light to this Chamber, as he does on a weekly basis.

The point the hon. Gentleman raises on the furlough scheme has been responded to by the Prime Minister any number of times with considerable clarity—that it is a UK-wide scheme. That is how it is operating and has operated. It continued until 31 October, and was then renewed. It remains a UK-wide scheme, and that is as it should be. I have pointed out to the hon. Gentleman before, but it bears repetition, that the UK taxpayer has provided £7.2 billion of funding to Scotland and saved 779,500 jobs under the furlough scheme, in addition to the £770 million for the self-employment scheme. The United Kingdom, as a single entity, has protected the interests of Scotland, and will continue to do so.

On communication, I think the hon. Gentleman is advocating a counsel of perfection. Of course it is important to try to give notice, but it is also important to try to ensure that briefings are provided quickly, and getting that balance right is something the Government strive to do. I think, by and large, that right hon. and hon. Members appreciate the opportunity to have briefings, and that we should not delay briefings because of the risk of some people missing the relevant notification.

As regards voting in person, people need to be here—they need to be here to speak in debates, they need to be here for legislative procedures—and people are still free to go through the Division Lobbies. They have the opportunity to use a proxy if that is what they choose to do. We are a party that believes in choice, liberty and freedom.

The Leader of the House may have seen the sad news this morning that hundreds of Argos stores will close, including the one in Alfreton in my constituency, which is a terrible blow for the employees and for the high street. Could he find time for a debate on how we can reinvigorate our high streets once this covid crisis is over?

Yes, I had indeed heard that sad news. It is a real problem, and high streets are facing enormous challenges, mainly from developments that were taking place before the coronavirus, but exacerbated and made faster because of the coronavirus. The Government have of course got the £3.6 billion towns fund that is helping high streets, and I think there is more work to be done on that. As regards a debate, I think that is a question for the Backbench Business Committee.

Let us head up to Gateshead and the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.