The business for the week commencing Monday 18 October will include:
Monday 18 October—Second Reading of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill.
Tuesday 19 October—Motion under the Coronavirus Act 2020 relating to the renewal of temporary provisions, followed by Opposition day (7th allotted day—first part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.
Wednesday 20 October—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Environment Bill.
Thursday 21 October—General debate on COP26 and limiting global temperature rises to 1.5° C, followed by a general debate on World Menopause Month. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 22 October—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 25 October will include: Monday 25 October—Second Reading of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill.
Mr Speaker, I wonder whether I might add a tribute to Mark Kelly. I am sure the House will want to join me in paying tribute to Mark for his 37-year service to the Government, which saw him spend 23 of those years providing outstanding service to the Government and this House as senior private secretary to the Government Chief Whip. He was really the man who made things happen in this place. Mark will shortly be moving away from London with his family. During his time in post he has been an exemplary provider of support and advice to successive Chief Whips, Leaders of the House, and countless Members from all parts of the House. As a loyal and skilful deputy to Sir Roy Stone, Mark’s parliamentary expertise and calm and friendly style has been an essential fixture of the parliamentary landscape. He will be greatly missed.
Mark has always been very proud of his Welsh heritage. He is a staunch Wrexham supporter and has been a mentor and guide to many civil servants, and others, who have had the privilege of working with him and learning from him. As he leaves his post we wish him and his family well, and send him the combined thanks of the House for his essential contribution to our constitution. I have a particular reason for regretting his departure, because he is being replaced by my outgoing private secretary and head of office, Robert Foot, who has been a terrific and steadfast worker and supporter of the business managers going back to 2007. We are very lucky to be surrounded by dedicated individuals such as Mark and Robert, who have dedicated their careers to supporting the work of this House in so many different ways. We are grateful to them all.
I would like to reiterate the loyal service that Mark Kelly has given to this House. I have to say that he will be missed. We thank him, we wish him well, and of course we wish Rob Foot well in his new place.
I thank the Leader of the House for the business, and I join him in his fulsome tributes to Mark Kelly and Robert Foot. Congratulations to both of them on the new stages in their lives. We thank them, of course, for their loyal and dedicated public service.
I am very pleased to see a debate on COP26 after the recess. I have asked for that at previous business questions, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for that.
Today marks the 2,000th day of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention in Iran. A demonstration is taking place outside to raise awareness of her case, that of Anoosheh Ashoori, and those of countless others imprisoned there. When will the Government bring them home?
This week, the Government showed us again just how out of touch they are. Last week, I raised the soaring cost of living and I was told to use an Opposition day to debate it, so that is what we did. We raised energy prices, childcare, rents, taxes, fuel, rail fares and food prices, all of which are going up, before we even get to the empty shelves. The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), questioned the Government on that and more, but still no answers.
Last week, the Leader of the House attempted to boast about his Government’s record on child poverty, but they are pushing 200,000 more children into poverty by cutting universal credit. It is not too late to cancel that cut, and it is certainly not something to boast about. The Prime Minister had no trouble being Scrooge last year, so it is no surprise that this cut comes 11 weeks before Christmas this year.
If the Leader of the House wishes to trade numbers, I can remind him that the last Labour Government took nearly 1 million children out of poverty. That is what good Governments do when they choose to prioritise what matters for our children. Instead, this Government are deliberately choosing to make working families bear the brunt of their failures.
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady in giving thanks to the staff of the House, who have made sure our September return has gone so smoothly, as we head off for the conference recess. As I was saying about Mark Kelly, we are incredibly well served in this House by the teams who support us and make sure that we are able to get on with our key democratic responsibilities.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her thanks in relation to the work my office has done in helping her with a particularly knotty problem. I remind all Members of the House that if ever they are finding difficulties in getting answers from Departments, I view it as the role of the Leader of the House to try to facilitate answers as far as I possibly can. That applies to all Benches, Front and Back, and all parties.
On the Afghanistan resettlement scheme, the Government have committed to 5,000 this year and up to 20,000 in future years. The numbers that have been dealt with so far are very large—200,000 emails have come in—so this is, as everybody knows, a work in progress, but one that is very important.
As is seeking the release, on the 2000th day, of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I hope the hon. Lady is reassured to note that the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), raised the issue and said that it was quite inexcusable for Nazanin to still be detained by the Iranian authorities, as one of the first things she said as Foreign Secretary. I think it is extremely reassuring that the Government are publicly saying that this must happen, but there are limits to the power of the Government in enforcing rogue regimes into doing what we want. That has been the case for too long, but it is inexcusable that Nazanin is still held. The Government will push the Iranian authorities as far as we can.
I join others in praising Mark Kelly, who really does know where the bodies are buried.
Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the subject of World Animal Day? Unfortunately it falls on 4 October during the recess, but if we have a later debate it will give the House an opportunity to talk about animal welfare generally, cruelty to animals and the welfare of farmyard animals, which my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) so ably mentioned yesterday?
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”.
I have done what my hon. Friend asks before he asked for it—before he rose to his feet—because on Monday 25 October there will be the Second Reading of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, which will be an opportunity for him to raise those important points. We also have the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, which is in their lordships’ House and will come back to us in due course. The Government are very committed to following many of the policies that my hon. Friend has suggested.
I join in the tributes to Mark Kelly. When I was Chief Whip of our group and the representative of all the minority parties, Mark Kelly gave us nothing but kindness and great advice. I am sure that he will be sorely missed. I congratulate Rob Foot, who I know will be missed in the Office of the Leader of the House.
Here we are, barely back, and we are just about to take another break so that we can participate in the proceedings of voluntary organisations of which we just so happen to be a member. We will be taking a month off when the UK is facing an autumn of discontent and when hard-pressed families are facing one of the biggest assaults on their weekly income. As this House abandons its station to go to the conference hall and seaside resorts, there are universal credit cuts, energy prices going through the roof, a carbon dioxide crisis, driver shortages, farming chaos, fishing chaos, export prices, the ending of furlough and a Brexit killing a nation. This nonsense of a conference recess has surely run its course and must now come to an end.
We also face an environment crisis, but hey, we have the Prime Minister telling us all to grow up as he quotes Kermit the Frog. Maybe he should have got Kermit the Frog to negotiate a trade deal with the Americans while he was there—maybe we could even get Fozzie Bear to solve the energy crisis. How dare anybody even start to refer to them as a bunch of Muppets?
I know now that there is absolutely nothing that will encourage Conservative Members to take the safety of their colleagues seriously in this House. Their pathetic defiance in refusing to wear a face mask is almost like a pathological childishness. When we come back, will the Leader of the House agree to a meeting with all parties and your good self, Mr Speaker, so that we can agree a joint approach to safety in this workplace and so that at least we do not have the ridiculous spectacle of a House divided by face masks, where Conservative Members defiantly do not wear one but everybody on our side of the House does?
There was a Speakers conference: an enormously successful conference of the G7, which was held in your constituency of Chorley, Mr Speaker, and included very significant Speakers, including Nancy Pelosi from the United States. I think that the hon. Gentleman was intending to congratulate you on a successful conference there. Otherwise I am slightly puzzled by his geography, because I was unaware that Manchester was a seaside resort, but perhaps he knows something that I do not.
As is now becoming traditional, I thought that I would give the hon. Gentleman a date that I discovered from The Times this morning: it is the anniversary of the battle of Salamis in 480 BC, when the Athenians beat the Persians and Xerxes was defeated. I am sure that that will be of interest to the hon. Gentleman, although it is quite hard to see how it relates to Scottish independence.
As regards the question of wearing masks, I do not know whether you are a reader of tabloid newspapers, Mr Speaker, but a certain very senior figure in the socialist party was photographed travelling on a train without a face mask. I do wonder whether there is one rule when the cameras are on and everybody is under vision, and another when people are on railway trains not expecting to be snapped.
I presume the Leader of the House meant the Labour party. That aside, before I call Rehman Chishti, I want to thank all the staff who have worked hard and made this House safe. They are due to have a break and, as much as the SNP spokesperson might like to cut it, they deserve it and need it. I also offer a big thank you to my team, the security team and all those who came up to help ensure that we had a great Speakers’ G7 in Chorley. It involved solid business, with real resolutions coming out of it.
On that point, Mr Speaker, may I thank you for all that you have done to ensure that our House can operate? To you and your team, from all of us, thank you.
I am reluctant to raise this sensitive but important matter with the Leader of the House. Both of us are men of faith, and it is important to give credit where it is deserved. A certain event took place at Edgbaston cricket ground on Saturday 18 September when, as my right hon. Friend will know, Kent beat Somerset to be crowned champions of the T20 cricket competition. Will he join me in congratulating Kent on their well-deserved win against Somerset? Will he also allow a debate on the Floor of the House to support grassroots cricket across the country?
Fortunately it was T20, and therefore my heart did not grieve too much, but I am of course delighted to congratulate Kent on their victory. My earnest hope and desire is that I shall live to see the day when Somerset win the county championship. We are one of the few counties never to do so in all our history, and I hope that my hon. Friend will join me in thinking that it would not be unreasonable to let Somerset do it at least once.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business. I reiterate my appeal of last week to right hon. and hon. Members across the House to look at their calendars and check whether they want to submit an application to the Backbench Business Committee for a debate to commemorate a specific anniversary or campaign day, and that they do so well in advance. That helps the Committee to manage the business and gives notice to the Leader of the House that date-specific debate applications are in.
I truly and with all my heart wish that food banks did not need to exist, but they do, and therefore they need to be supported, as they are by communities across the whole country. However, food banks in my constituency and across the north-east are already struggling with demand. Can we have a statement on what the Government will do to support food banks given the anticipated huge spike in demand as we approach winter once the £20 universal credit uplift is withdrawn and fuel bills go up again?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point about the calendar, and I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will take that to heart, because it does make the scheduling of business between the Backbench Business Committee and the Government easier and smoother.
The Government have done a great deal during the course of the pandemic and continue to do a great deal to support families in difficulty. The welfare system received an extra £8 billion in the financial year 2020-21. When schools were closed, over £450 million of supermarket vouchers were provided so that families could feed their children, and things of that kind are continuing. As I mentioned earlier, there is the 30% increase to Healthy Start vouchers and further money for breakfast clubs. The people who donate to food banks and act in a charitable way are to be commended, and the support is there through the welfare system to ensure that people have the money they need to feed their families.
Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 415 highlighting the serious concerns of thousands of Harlow residents about the Stort crossing proposals, which could have a devastating impact on the beautiful environment and wildlife of the Stort valley in Harlow?
[That this House understands concerns that the Stort crossing proposals will have on the beautiful environment of the Stort Valley in Harlow constituency; further understands the threat that those proposals pose to local wildlife and ecosystems; recognises the concerns on those proposals raised by hundreds of local residents; further recognises that the plans for that problematic development have been inherited from the previous Labour Council who agreed to the proposals in the 2020 Local Plan; notes that Harlow Conservative Councillors voted against the 2020 Local Plan; further notes the upcoming Planning Committee meetings of both East Herts Council and Harlow District Council at which this planning application will be considered; and calls on the Government to put pressure onto the developers to reassess those plans and go back to the drawing board.]
Unfortunately the problem was inherited following a decision made by a previous Labour council. Will my right hon. Friend praise the constructive “Save Our Stort” campaigners who, rather than block the M25 and harm commuters, have campaigned and demonstrated passionately to cherish a beautiful part of our town? We call upon the developers to go back to the drawing board on the proposals.
I do of course praise my right hon. Friend’s constituents—they are some of the most civilised constituents in the country, and are brilliantly represented by my right hon. Friend, who always ensures that their concerns are highlighted—and I also compare them with what we must now call the hippie-crites: the people who have been blocking the M25, and who turn out not to be insulating their own homes while lying down in the road to inconvenience and cause danger to others. We know that a lady did not recover from a stroke as well as she would otherwise have done because of the delays caused, and of the risk caused to the police. I commend my right hon. Friend’s constituents for campaigning peacefully, respectfully and in a civilised manner. As he knows, planning decisions are a matter for the local council and are rightly made at a local level, but I am sure that what he has said in the House will be heard by the developer, who will want to maintain community support.
We know that the Leader of the House is keen to see MPs return to the Chambers of Parliament; and, indeed, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority refused to fund appropriate maternity cover for me on the basis that people needed to be able to speak in the Chamber. In order to speak today, I have had to abandon my baby leave proxy vote—or else be reprimanded by the House authorities for speaking in the Chamber, which makes Parliament one of the few workplaces in the country where, when a new mother comes in for a “keep in touch” day, she is rebuked rather than supported.
I know that some in this place are not fans of mothers, in the “mother of all Parliaments”, but I am sure that the Leader of the House is not among them. Will he meet a cross-party delegation of MPs to discuss how we can ensure that everyone in this Parliament upholds the law on maternity cover and leave?
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The increase to the energy price cap means that from next month, half a million more families will be plunged into fuel poverty. I know that the Leader of the House will say that the current energy crisis is global. That is true, but it is also true that it has been made far worse by choices that this Government have made and continue to make. Ministers are not denying that people will face the impossible non-choice between heating and eating this winter. We already pay the highest energy bills in Europe—something the Prime Minister promised his Brexit deal would fix—but here we are, with bills set to get even bigger.
Just yesterday, over 800,000 customers saw their energy supplier go bust, but this morning the Business Secretary refused to admit the scale and severity of the crisis and the economic hardship facing working people. The shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), when she was Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee back in 2019, warned of the fuel crisis we are now in. A Minister replied that
“the UK’s gas system is secure and well placed to respond effectively to unexpected changes in supply and demand”.
Well goodness me, Mr Speaker. I am not sure what the Government consider to be a “secure and well placed” system, but what we have is the opposite.
Government decisions over the last decade have undermined our energy security and resilience, with domestic gas storage capacity eradicated, new nuclear stalling, the Swansea bay tidal lagoon rejected, renewables subsidies scrapped, and no long-term reform of the broken energy market, which Ofgem warned the Government about just months ago. So I ask the Leader of the House: why did the Government choose to ignore those warnings?
Carbon emissions from buildings are now higher than in 2015. Some 14% of carbon emissions come from poorly insulated homes that are too expensive to heat, yet the Government cut £1 billion from the green homes grant before scrapping it altogether, they have a missing heat and buildings strategy, which has been delayed month after month—year after year, actually—and people up and down the country are forced to choose between overpriced heating and overpriced eating. Will the Leader of the House ask the new Housing Secretary to come to the Commons with a proper retrofit plan?
I would like to place on the record my thanks to the Leader of the House and the members of his office, some of whom are in the Under-Gallery, for being incredibly helpful to me and my team over the past few weeks. They have helped us solve a problem that I cannot describe at the moment, but I just wish to place that on the official record, because we are very grateful to him and his team for the trouble they have taken.
Although the Home Secretary finally appeared in the House this week, quite rightly, to update us on the incident in Salisbury and the further charging to come, we still have no update on the delayed Afghanistan resettlement scheme. I wonder whether the Leader of the House could ask the Home Secretary to come back after the recess and explain why there has been such an unacceptable delay, but really to present the scheme and implement it in full as soon as possible.
Before I close, I would like to congratulate Anika Tahrim, who was on your Speaker’s intern scheme, Mr Speaker, and was based in the Leader of the Opposition’s office, and thank her for her hard work. Finally, I would like to thank all the staff in this place who have ensured our safe return after summer. I hope everyone gets to have a peaceful and productive conference season, and I look forward to seeing everyone in October.
Coming on to the litany of complaints about what the Government have been doing, I notice there was indeed an Opposition day. I am glad that my suggestions for Opposition days are being taken up by the Opposition. We could make this a formalised system and perhaps I could always choose Opposition day topics of debate. However, I noticed there was not an enormous number of speakers. There was more in length than there was in number, which is interesting in showing the enthusiasm that the Opposition had for debating this money, but let us go through the Government’s record.
There are 100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty than in 2010. In total, there are 700,000 fewer in absolute poverty than in 2010. In 2019-20, there was a 3% chance of children being in absolute poverty if both parents worked full time, which is why it is so important to ensure that work is available. Since 2010, we have seen 650,000 fewer children in workless households. We have also increased the universal credit work allowances, giving parents and disabled people an extra £630 a year in their take-home pay. Great steps have been taken in particular to help children: the £220 million holiday activities fund; the 30% increase to the healthy start vouchers, providing £4.25 a week to eligible parents with children under four; and more money being invested in breakfast clubs. So great steps are being taken and are being successful in reducing poverty, as the absolute numbers show.
The hon. Lady then went on about the energy issue. Well, we know that energy prices fluctuate; that is part of a market system. They are fluctuating across the world. We do have a robust energy system. We have a system that ensures that supplies continue. There is a certain irony, is there not, when half the time the socialists have wanted us to close everything down? They do not much like energy, because they think we should have hairshirt greenery, whereas the Government are in favour of technological greenery. What does that mean? It means economic growth, so what have we had? We have had 78% economic growth since 1990 with a 44% reduction in emissions. It is getting that balance right. People need to be able to afford to heat their homes, but we also need to green the environment and the economy, and that is what is being done. There has been £9 billion of taxpayers’ money to support the efficiency of our buildings, while creating hundreds of thousands of skilled green jobs. Over 70,000 green home grant vouchers, worth over £297 million, have already been issued.
This is a story of success and I am very grateful, although the hon. Lady does not raise it as I would like, for the amazing support we receive from her in highlighting how we have reduced child poverty, ensured there is an energy supply and ensured a greener economy. It is a success of this Government and I am delighted it has been recognised by the socialists.
Lastly, may I wish you a good conference recess, Mr Speaker? I do not know whether there is a UK Speakers’ party in which you might be the Chair. I also want to say to the Leader of the House as he goes off that I just hope Sir Toffalot here will manage to find a face mask on his way to Manchester.