Business of the House

The business for the week commencing Monday 6 September will include:

Monday 6 September—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.

Tuesday 7 September—Second Reading of the Elections Bill.

Wednesday 8 September—Opposition day (5th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 9 September—Remaining stages of the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill, followed by general debate on the legacy of Jo Cox. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 10 September—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 September will include:

Monday 13 September—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill.

I should like to take this opportunity to wish farewell to someone who has worked first in the House of Lords and then for the Government to support the legislative agenda. Talitha Rowland will be leaving her role as head of the Cabinet Office’s Parliamentary Business and Legislation Secretariat after the summer recess. For the past three years, in not always easy circumstances, she has been ensuring that this House has had a good, well thought through legislative programme. Her contribution as a civil servant to the business of this House has been formidable. It was, of course, Talitha and her team who worked so hard behind the scenes to prepare for the state opening and Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, delivered on 11 May.

So, having been busily digesting the end-of-term report cards prepared for my children by their excellent teachers, I thought I might attempt one of my own for the House on the progress made in delivering the Government’s legislative agenda. The Government remain committed to delivering their ambitious legislative programme, which will level up opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom, supporting jobs, businesses and economic growth and addressing the impact of the pandemic on public services.

Between the end of the Easter recess and Prorogation, seven Government Bills received Royal Assent. Six Bills were carried over from the previous Session, including the Finance Bill, which has received Royal Assent and is now the Finance Act 2021, and 25 Government Bills are currently before Parliament, including the Health and Care Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill, the Building Safety Bill and the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill. That is not to mention the more than 200 statutory instruments laid before the House since we returned from the Easter recess.

The Government’s legislative programme is about unleashing the potential that exists in every part of the United Kingdom. It is a principal function of Parliament to deliver for voters by making laws—a point that I hope is fully grasped by all those who have worked so hard to keep the House operating this term.

As we come to this recess, I join you, Mr Speaker, in thanking all the members of the staff and, as we end the virtual proceedings, in thanking the virtual Parliament team—the broadcasting team—who, from a standing start, worked absolute wonders. It is worth remembering that when we went away for the recess at Easter 2020, people wondered how Parliament would be able to sit at all, yet we were back just a few weeks later. That was a terrific achievement. Keeping Parliament going, although it mainly seems seamless, in fact requires a great deal of work behind the scenes.

I also want to thank everyone else who works here for all they have done to keep the parliamentary show on the road. I thank the distinguished Clerks, who keep their knowledge for us and present it to us in a way that ensures that we legislate properly. I thank the Doorkeepers, those founts of knowledge—as long as the Whips are not listening, I advise any Back Benchers present that if they ever want to know whether there will be a vote on a particular day, they should ask the Doorkeepers, because they will tell you and they will almost always be right.

I would like to thank the cleaners. It is amazing that they have been here the whole way through the pandemic: they have been going round sanitising everything every single day, and they do so without our normally seeing them. They do their work discreetly and quietly and they deserve our gratitude. I also thank the facilities team and the catering staff—it is true that, like Napoleon’s armies, politicians march on their bellies, so we are very lucky to be so well catered for.

I thank the security staff, the police and Hansard—I am always grateful to Hansard because it takes the stuff that I unleash and turns it into pearls. I am very grateful for the grammatical enhancements, improvements and terminological additions that ensure that all our speeches are so elegantly phrased, although it is worth remembering that Dr Johnson got so fed up with writing better speeches for Whigs than they had actually delivered that he gave up reporting on Parliament. I hope that when my speeches are transcribed they will not have that effect on the current generation of Hansard reporters.

I thank everybody and wish everybody a most enjoyable recess.

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I will come to my own thank you list shortly, but I turn first to his report card. He really sounds as if he has been marking his own homework—or perhaps he has been on a creative writing course; I don’t know. Contrary to what he says, the Government’s past year has been so chaotic that if I were going to give them a report that covered any more than the past week, we would have to sit through recess. If they wanted to be graded, it would be Fs across the board. It would take a lot more than summer school and their own lacklustre education catch-up plan before we saw any improvements.

The Government are clearly desperate for a summer recess, but I am afraid that for the rest of us it is another summer of chaos, thanks to them: 1 million children off school last week, businesses facing closure, supermarket shelves empty, millions forced to isolate over the summer— and they will not be able to do so from a country residence—and now more chaos in the sporting arena, as Australia and New Zealand have pulled out of the rugby league world cup on safety grounds. Can the Leader of the House please confirm that it will go ahead and it will be safe?

All this, and the Government still cannot make up their mind about whether to follow the NHS app or about who is exempt. On Sunday, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor clearly thought that it was one rule for them and another for everyone else. The Minister for Investment wrote to businesses saying that the NHS app was an “advisory tool”, and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), said the same on Tuesday morning, but then No. 10 came out and said that it is crucial people isolate when told to do so. Yesterday, the Prime Minister—the Chequers one, Zooming in for PMQs—offered no answers, so for the avoidance of doubt, will the Leader of the House please clarify what the Government’s position actually is?

The hon. Lady makes a very important point about the number of deaths from covid. It is right that the House should pause briefly to pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died, and to think of those who have lost family members and friends:

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.

On the hon. Lady’s political points, it really is the pushmi-pullyu Opposition. We have complaints about the Government’s immigration policy from an Opposition who opposed the Nationality and Borders Bill. We have complaints that we are not being tough enough on stopping people coming into this country, yet our efforts to make it tougher are opposed.

This country has a proud record on ensuring that there are routes for refugees. We have settled 25,000 refugees over the past five years, and a further 29,000 refugees through family reunion. We have to make our borders safe. We have to have safe routes for those who have a genuine fear of persecution, but we have to stop the people traffickers.

The Opposition have become the party of people traffickers. They do not want to do anything effective, and they cry crocodile tears while opposing the Government’s efforts to be effective in dealing with our borders. [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] They are the ones who should be ashamed. They chunter on the Opposition Benches, but they could not even find enough speakers to fill up the time available for debate. We ended up with only Members on this side of the House speaking because the Benches on the other side were empty, aside from the most distinguished hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is always in his place and always doing his duty, unlike some others I could think of.

As we come to the summer, we still have an ongoing pandemic. Yes, the restrictions have been reduced, and yes, we are able to make decisions for ourselves, which is quite right, but it is also right that people who are pinged should isolate. That is the Government’s strong advice. If you are rung up by Test and Trace, Mr Speaker, which I hope you are not, it is the law that you must isolate. If you are pinged by the app, it is the strong advice of the Government that you should isolate. Advice and law are different, but the Government are right to give a very clear indication of what ought to happen.

I will just say that I am meeting the chief executive of the rugby league in about 10 minutes, and I just want to reassure the Leader of the House that the competition does need Australia and New Zealand so that we can beat them.

I echo your words, Mr Speaker, but very much include you and your brilliant team in the praise that has been handed out. This is the finest Parliament in the world and that is in no small measure down to the people who run it. I wish everyone a very happy summer.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on delays at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which are having an impact on drivers and businesses in general? The DVLA works terribly hard but I understand that the coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on staffing levels. Constituents are complaining about it. I hope that during the course of such a debate we would try to address those urgent issues.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this, because it has been raised with us all as constituency MPs. The DVLA’s service is currently not good enough and it has been hindered, unfortunately, by industrial inaction by members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which has made the problems of the pandemic worse, by the Welsh Government’s additional social distancing requirements, which have reduced the number of staff on site, and by an increased demand for its services, which has led to delays in dealing with paper applications. Her Majesty’s Government are working to put that right and the DVLA has, for example, leased an additional building to accommodate additional staff. Driving licence applications made on paper are likely to take six to 10 weeks to process, although there may be additional delays in processing more complex transactions, for example if medical investigations are needed. I will obviously pass on my hon. Friend’s concerns to the Secretary of State and there will be the end of term Adjournment debate to raise any further issues of this kind later today.

We now go to Pete Wishart via video link.

As you have rightly noted, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am participating virtually in what will be the last opportunity for me to make use of these simply amazing facilities. There was no way that I was venturing down to covid central this week in the middle of a raging pandemic. These facilities have been a great parliamentary innovation, allowing all Members to participate equally during the pandemic, and ensuring that all our constituents, regardless of where they are in the UK, have a voice and are being represented. It almost feels like democratic vandalism now to tear them down, but it also feels like madness to remove them when infections and hospitalisations are doubling weekly with the out-of-control Johnson variant. We have absolutely no idea where we will be when we come back in September.

Freedom day, of course, became farcedom day when the Health Secretary caught covid on freedom eve and half the Cabinet ended up as casualties of the pingdemic. This is the Government who could not organise a drunken event at happy hour in a nightclub where people may or may not need to be double vaccinated. Does the Leader of the House agree that the first thing we need to do when we return in September is have a debate to take stock of exactly where we are and what facilities we might require so that we can continue to represent our constituents?

With shops throughout the country reporting empty shelves due to a combination of covid, pingage and Brexit, a serious shortage crisis is coming and we might need at some point to recall this House. What provisions are in place if that is required, particularly as we might have a predicted 100,000 cases per day?

Let me follow Mr Speaker in paying tribute to the technical staff who delivered this facility at almost unprecedented speed. I wish all the staff—the Leader of the House has mentioned them all, although I do not have time to do so in the time available to me—a well-deserved break. We simply have an amazing team on this estate. I know that he is off to see the rugby league representatives, but I also commend Mr Speaker for his leadership during this past year. When this House needed someone to get us through, it got the man from Chorley. I thank all his deputies, including your good self, Mr Deputy Speaker, for all the work you have done to ensure that order continues in this House. We will see you all in September—have a great break, everybody.

You are a wonderful man.

Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that Mr Speaker has been the pilot who weathered the storm, and we should raise a toast to him in that capacity. I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has started his holiday early, and clearly seems to be enjoying it already from his fastness in Perthshire. I thought he might be in mourning today, because it is of course the anniversary of the battle of Falkirk in 1298, which was not one of the most glorious events in Scottish history. The victory of Edward I on that occasion is one of which we are all aware.

On the hon. Gentleman’s points on this House, let me say that this House works better when people are here; we do a better job of representing our constituents and of holding Ministers to account. Speaking as a Minister from the Dispatch Box, I can honestly say that remote participation is a doddle. It is so much easier than having that immediacy and spontaneity that we get from someone in the Chamber coming up and aiming to catch us out. Having the call lists makes life much easier for Ministers. We are here—I say this as a Minister, from the Dispatch Box—to make Ministers’ lives testing, so that we hold them to account to seek redress of grievance for our constituents, and to check that Government policy is as well thought through as it should be. That leads to better government, because policy is then better thought through, better known and better argued for. We have a duty to be back for the good of democracy. I am sorry to tease the hon. Gentleman for going on holiday a day early, but actually that is the effect of virtual participation.

Cash is used by many people to buy essentials, and constituents of mine such as Joseph from Drayton are very concerned that with the expectation now that people will pay with contactless cards, both their access to cash and their ability to pay with it will be restricted. My right hon. Friend will have seen the Telegraph Money “Keep Cash” campaign, which I warmly welcome. May we have a statement from the Government that makes it clear that people who want to be able to access and use cash will always be able to do so?

I thank my hon. Friend, whose constituency I much enjoyed visiting last week. He has a fine and beautiful constituency, with some of the greatest technological innovation in the country going on in it. I am also grateful for his question and for his support for the campaign by Telegraph Money. I reiterate what I said last week to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight): the Government indeed recognise that access to cash remains important to millions across the UK, and we are committed to legislating to protect access to cash and ensuring that the UK’s cash infrastructure is sustainable in the longer term. So there is a one-word answer to give my hon. Friend: yes.

I am afraid to say that today is the second of two days running that are sad days for the Scots. As the Leader of the House has said, today is the anniversary of the battle of Falkirk, and yesterday was, sadly, the anniversary of the death of Robert Burns in 1796. Being a Scotophile, I know of these things. I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the return after recess and for writing to Ministers in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on my behalf following last week’s business questions. Applications for Backbench Business debates continue to come forward, and I assure him that he will have willing takers for any time he can furnish us with after the recess. I also add my thanks to all the staff of the House for everything they have done in the last year to keep us all going. In particular, I thank our Clerk of the Committee and all the Committee staff who help the Backbench Business Committee to function so very well.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the distinction with which he chairs his Committee and manages to keep so many Members of the House happy, even with the difficult job he has of balancing the many, many requests that come for debates.

Button batteries are found in many household items, from hearing aids and LED lights to birthday cards. My constituent, Harper-Lee Fanthorpe, tragically discovered the devastating effects of ingesting a button battery when her life was recently cut short at only two years old.

In 2019, the US recorded 3,467 ingestions of button batteries, with 53% of those by children under six. The data in the UK is unknown, but button battery ingestions pose a significant and considerable health risk for children. The effects of ingesting button batteries and what we can do as parliamentarians to make them safer merit a full debate in this House, so will the Leader of the House ensure that parliamentary time is made available?

My hon. Friend raises a very important and sad issue, and I know that the whole House will want to send its condolences to Harper’s family.

The Government are working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, the Child Accident Prevention Trust and the British and Irish Portable Battery Association. The Office for Product Safety and Standards has produced safety messages on how to keep children safe. It is obviously important that children are kept safe and that this risk is understood more widely by parents. I note that my hon. Friend presented her Button Batteries (Safety) Bill yesterday, and it will receive its Second Reading, according to the will of the House, on the first sitting Friday after the recess. I will, of course, pass on her comments to my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

I once said in a debate on the 1950s-born women’s pension issue that wasps are a nuisance. They are pests and they buzz around. If we bash them away, they get angry, and when they get really angry they sting us. The WASPI women are nuisances; they are pests; they will not go away; and they are stinging. This week, the ombudsman found maladministration in how the Department for Work and Pensions treated those women. Today, the House rises for the summer recess with no statement on this issue or an opportunity for Ministers to be questioned. There is great interest and support for this issue across party lines. I am co-chair of the all-party group on state pension inequality for women, along with the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Will the Leader of the House please guarantee that, in the first week back, DWP Ministers will come to the House and make a statement specifically on this issue? If not, what mechanisms does he think will be available to ensure that we make it happen?