Monday 27 January—Second Reading of the NHS Funding Bill.
Tuesday 28 January—Committee and remaining stages of the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill followed by, motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Release of Prisoners (Alteration of Relevant Proportion Of Sentence) Order 2019 followed by, motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2019.
Wednesday 29 January—Opposition day (1st allotted day). There will be a debate on home affairs followed by a debate on homelessness. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.
Thursday 30 January—General debate on global Britain.
Friday 31 January—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the following week will include:
Monday 3 February—Second reading of the Agriculture Bill.
Tuesday 4 February—Committee and remaining stages of the NHS Funding Bill followed by, motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Order 2019.
Wednesday 5 February—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.
Thursday 6 February—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
I thank the Leader of the House for giving the business for the coming two weeks and for the second Opposition day.
I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber when the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), mentioned that the Government might be acting illegally by including Western Sahara in their agreement with Morocco. Under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, that agreement will be ratified automatically in 21 days’ time, giving a time limit of 11 February. Could the Leader of the House find Government time—not on an Opposition day—to debate the treaty?
Will the Leader of the House update the House on possible machinery of government changes? We have heard that some Departments may be merged with or immersed in others. I do not know whether it is just another missive from the self-defined “weirdos and misfits” at No. 10, but could he give us some clarity? I assume that Select Committees will continue to parallel Government Departments, but we need some clarity, especially regarding 31 January.
Just as the other place started to debate the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, the Government threatened to send it to York—I think they might actually have meant Coventry, but that would have been too obvious—but the Opposition accepted the Lords amendments. The noble Lord Dubs of Battersea, who came here on a Kindertransport and who grew up and made an important contribution, wants to secure the same future for vulnerable children today. Like him, we know that children who have family here can make that contribution, so will the Leader of the House explain why, despite important Government initiatives that protect vulnerable children, such as those on human trafficking, they are leaving those children exposed to violence, overcrowding and danger in camps? The Government are facing two ways: laying a policy before Parliament is not the same as an automatic right. I ask the Government to think again. We are a compassionate country.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the right hon. Lady for that last point; I think we should all look on the bright side of life. It is a positive thing to do and good for British politics.
The right hon. Lady mentions having a debate under CRAG on the Western Sahara. The Government will always listen to representations in relation to CRAG. The question is whether it is a suitable use of time. If the Opposition want to make a more formal representation, it will be listened to. However, Opposition days are coming thick and fast, and any such issues could be brought forward under those circumstances.
On machinery of government changes, the tradition of this House is that Select Committees follow what ministries there are, and I imagine that the House would want to follow that precedent, but it is ultimately a matter for the House.
The right hon. Lady also mentioned the stories about their lordships going to York and what fun that might be for them. It occurs to me that when Royal Ascot moved to York, their lordships found it great fun to go up to York. If they could do it for pleasure, I am sure they might have a jolly time going there for business as well.
More seriously, the right hon. Lady mentions the amendment of the noble Lord Dubs. Lord Dubs is one of the most respected figures in British politics, and the campaign that he has continued to wage for vulnerable children is admired across the House and the country. I would just point out that the reason for not accepting the amendment is that it is not the right place for it. Government policy to look after vulnerable children from overseas remains absolutely in place. Some 41,000 children have come into this country since 2010, and 18,000 Syrian refugees—not necessarily children—have already come here, of the 20,000 that the Government promised. The Government are committed to protecting vulnerable children. This is really important. There is no change in policy; it is simply that the Bill was not the right place for it.
The Government are keen to move public sector jobs out of London and the south-east, and northern Lincolnshire is ideal. May I suggest that the public sector workers connected with, say, the renewable energy sector would be ideally located in the Humber region; and that since Grimsby has labelled itself as Europe’s food town for many years, perhaps the Food Standards Agency ought to pay a visit?
My hon. Friend, who represents Cleethorpes with such panache, is quite right to advocate for his part of the country. I am sure that what he says will have been heard and that the Food Standards Agency could probably think of nothing nicer than moving to Grimsby, but that will probably be a matter for it rather than for me.
May I start by asking when Heather Anderson will be appointed to the European Parliament in order to fill the position left vacant by the election of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) to this House? We regard it as being of the utmost importance that our country is fully represented, albeit in its dying days of representation in the European Parliament, in order to oppose the direction that the Government have taken in that body. It would be wrong if either through administrative oversight or a lack of political enthusiasm we were not to be fully represented. Yesterday in the House, the Minister for the Cabinet Office gave a rather lacklustre response to my colleague on this matter. I hope that the Leader of the House can do better today.
Secondly, I note that the Labour Opposition are to have two full Opposition days two weeks in a row. Will the Leader of the House confirm when the third party will be given an Opposition day?
Finally, I want to return to the matter I raised last week—the claim of right for Scotland. Despite a rather awkward moment when the Leader of the House compared the constitutional aspirations of the nation of Scotland to those of the county of Somerset—a move that I thought was rather foolish—he did acknowledge last week that the claim of Scotland is something he agrees with. He seemed to indicate that it was in some way discharged at the Scottish referendum in 2014. Will he confirm whether he believes that the claim of right existed on 19 September 2014 and every day thereafter, or is it the case that a right can be invalidated and extinguished by its exercise?
The hon. Gentleman forgot, absent-mindedly, to ask for a debate on the claim of right, but I am the servant of this House, because there is a claim of right debate on Monday 27 January in Westminster Hall. I am even able to deliver on that which has not been asked for, which is the type of superior service that those on the Government Benches like to offer. The best I can do is to quote his esteemed leader in this House, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who said, “Scotland said no”. Scotland did indeed say no—it said no to separation in 2014. It decided in its claim of right to claim the right to be a part of the United Kingdom, and thank heavens for that.
With regard to an Opposition day debate, I am doing my best to ensure that some time will be made available to the SNP prior to the February recess. It is not an absolute promise, but that is what I hope we will be able to do. As regards the European Parliament, I cannot think why anyone would want to go there for eight days.
The Conservative party, I have absolutely no doubt, is the party of jobs, employment and opportunities. But it is the high street that provides hundreds of thousands of jobs, and it is under enormous challenge from the internet. I worked in business in North Norfolk. Will the Leader of the House grant time for a debate, so that we can level up the competitiveness of traditional bricks-and-mortar stores against this ongoing challenge? Those hundreds of thousands of jobs that are dependent on the high street’s success up and down the land are incredibly important to all of us.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on being a champion for the high streets of North Norfolk and ensuring that they are well represented in the House. The Government take that issue very seriously. The £3.6 billion towns fund will support towns to build prosperous futures. There will be a £280 million tax cut for small businesses, because our manifesto commits us to cut taxes for small retailers and ensure that business rates are manageable. The Government are doing everything they can, but the Government cannot stop the natural evolution of the economy, so it is a question of ensuring that there are advantages for high streets.
I noted with interest the Leader of the House’s announcement that there will, provisionally, be business determined by the Backbench Business Committee in a fortnight. As he knows, I am not the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, as it does not exist at the moment, but I would be interested to know how the logistics of such a debate would be sorted out. The Chair will not be elected until next Wednesday, then we must wait for Committee membership nominations from the various parties, and that needs to be sorted out in time for a debate to be granted and for Members to prepare for it. I am wondering about the logistics of that.
May we have a debate or statement in Government time about the conditions in which refugees and asylum seekers are meant to sustain themselves while waiting for determinations by the Home Office? I am afraid to say that my case load in Gateshead is very heavy, with a huge backlog of cases that are taking many months to sort out—well beyond the six-month and 10-month targets that the Home Office set itself, which have since been abandoned.
It is just possible that the logistics for the Backbench Business Committee may be 24 hours better than the hon. Gentleman suggests. It depends whether this hotly contested post is as hotly contested as it was last time. If it is unopposed, the announcement will be on Tuesday, as I understand it, rather than Wednesday, and then it is a matter for the parties to get their nominations in. I think it is manageable. I can assure him that we have discussed it. The point he makes about determinations from the Home Office for refugees and asylum seekers is one that the new Backbench Business Committee, under whoever’s leadership, may want to consider seriously.
Rutland and Melton is home to not one, not two, but three geographically protected foods. Indeed, Somerset boasts its own Somerset cider brandy. Will my right hon. Friend be so kind as to agree to holding a debate in Government time on how the UK Government can best protect geographically protected foods post Brexit?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to mention anything from Somerset, because she knows that that wins me over to the side of the questioner straightaway. This important issue will be considered in negotiations with the European Union, and I am sure that it will come to the House at some time.
My constituent Allan Russell applied for a three-year renewal to his Access to Work support in October, but despite having chased it up several times himself, it took my office getting involved for his case to be allocated. He is still waiting without funding for transport to work and without Access to Work support. There are many other issues with Access to Work, so may we have a debate in Government time to allow Members to discuss them more widely?
This is a very important issue. Access to Work is there to help people. If the system is not providing speedy answers, the hon. Gentleman is right to raise it here and with Ministers. If he wishes me to ensure that any follow-up answers are received from Ministers, I will be more than happy to do what I can.
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Yesterday the Prime Minister said that the Oakervee report will be published in due course. HS2 is about capacity, connectivity and therefore productivity. The Oakervee report has already been leaked, so when will the Government have a debate in their time? Could it be sooner rather than later? Hon. Members want to table amendments and express their views about which part of HS2 needs to be done first.
The Prime Minister banned everyone bar the Chancellor from going to Davos, but even the Chancellor is not clear about Government policy. He said that the Government’s first priority was to get a trade deal with the EU, despite already having started work on an agreement with the United States—so which is it? The Chancellor also said that
“Britain is better off in”,
and that the single market is a
“a great invention, one that even Lady Thatcher campaigned enthusiastically to create…with no barriers, no tariffs and no local legislation to worry about.”
Now he has said that there will be no alignment. The Food and Drink Federation has said that this sounds like the “death knell” for frictionless trade and that the industry’s margins are very tight, so which is it—frictionless or not?
The Government have signed up to the Paris agreement, so perhaps we could have a debate on how to negotiate with the Government of the United States, who have not signed up to it. Would the Leader of the House schedule a debate or a statement so that we can get some clarity on that?
We have heard that the Prime Minister will be meeting Richard Ratcliffe and other families. The Leader of the House will be aware that the British-Australian hostage Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been asked to be a spy by the Iranian Government in return for her release. She is in the same prison as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri, among others. Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Prime Minister will be meeting those families, and that he will be leaving the negotiations to the diplomatic service? We want these innocent people released as soon as possible.
On a happier note, 20 January was the 755th anniversary of the de Montfort Parliament, where representatives of towns and shires got together here to discuss matters of national importance. We first sat in 1265, and hopefully will continue to sit and will not be abolished.
Sadly, we lost Terry Jones. For some of us, he provided the soundtrack to our lives in those wonderful “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” sketches, some of which I used to repeat in the playground. It was one of those great programmes that the BBC does so well, and we hope it will have the freedom to produce such programmes again. Terry Jones may have had a message for both sides of this House. For the Government, “He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!” And for the Opposition, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”.
The right hon. Lady asks for a debate on HS2. I think we have to wait for the report to come out. I know we are getting leaks and titbits and excitement in the newspapers, but the House of Commons needs to debate once the facts and the papers are brought together rather than doing so prematurely.
On Davos, I am not sure whether the right hon. Lady wished to be there rather than here, if it is still continuing, but the Chancellor was indeed there. British people voted to leave the European Union. My right hon Friend the Chancellor the Exchequer is a democrat; he recognises the result. To hold people to lines they used when supporting remaining in the European Union before the referendum fails to recognise that democratic politicians tend to accept the results of referendums—certainly those on the Government Benches. Our relationship with the US is one of our most important relationships, and therefore what agreements the US has signed up to, or not, does not change the importance of that relationship.
I can confirm that there is a plan for the Prime Minister to meet Mr Ratcliffe. I reiterate that I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising this every week. The behaviour of the Iranian Government is unforgivable, and we need to keep on pressing them to release people who are improperly held.
I am absolutely delighted that the right hon. Lady referred to the anniversary of 1265. It was, of course, a continuation of, not the creation of, Parliament. Prior to those times, the representatives of the shires came—people like me representing their counties—and from 1265, in our generosity, we allowed people from the boroughs to come in too, and so borough Members came in and the towns received their proper representation.
While we continue to look on the bright side of life, I think that answers all the questions for the time being.