- 11:43 am
- Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
- The business for next week will be:Monday 11 March—Remaining stages of the Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords].Tuesday 12 March—Debate on a motion relating to section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.Wednesday 13 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver his spring statement, followed by a general debate on housing.Thursday 14 March—Debate on a motion relating to the NICE appraisals of rare diseases. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.Friday 15 March—Private Members’ Bills.On Tuesday 26 February, the Prime Minister made three clear commitments to this House. I have just confirmed that the meaningful vote will take place on Tuesday 12 March, and I hope that the House will support the Prime Minister’s deal. However, in the deeply regrettable case that the House does not support the deal, I will make a further business statement on Tuesday 12 March in order to fulfil the Prime Minister’s commitments to allow the House to vote next week on whether we should leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement on the 29 March or extend article 50.On World Book Day, we can all agree with the words of Frederick Douglass, the American social reformer and abolitionist, who said:“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”World Book Day’s campaign aims to provide every child and young person in the country with a book of their own. It also offers a great opportunity for many children to go to school dressed as their favourite character. If this Chamber were to join in this morning, my choice would be for the Mad Hatter’s tea party as a theme, with my friend the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) taking the leading role.Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is “Balance for Better”—promoting a more inclusive world, where equality for women is a right, not a privilege. A balanced world is a better world, and the UK has some way to go until we have a 50:50 Parliament. This is something I hope all MPs will push for so that future Parliaments look more like the society they represent.Speaking of balance and equality, I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) is the first male Member to take up proxy voting for baby leave. I am sure we all congratulate him and his family on the arrival of their new baby. We also send our warmest wishes to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and her family on the birth of their baby.Last but by no means least, it is Apprenticeship Week, so I want to thank the many apprentices working in the House to support the work of MPs and of Parliament. I am lucky enough to have the support of apprentices in my brilliant Leader of the House’s office, as well as having my ninth annual parliamentary apprentice who is doing a superb job for my constituents.
- I thank the Leader of the House for the very short business for next week and her very long speech on various other matters. I thought this was business questions.I am absolutely staggered to hear what the Leader of the House says about the business next week. It would have been more appropriate to fulfil what the Prime Minister set out in her statement to this House on 26 February, rather than doing it the other way around and putting in debates that then have to be moved. That would have been more appropriate in the light of the utmost seriousness of what is going to happen to the country in the next few weeks.The Leader of the House seems to be openly in defiance of the Prime Minister. We also see that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs appears to be announcing that the Easter recess will be cancelled. Will the Leader of the House confirm that he said to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that“there may not be an Easter recess”?More Government chaos: the Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill was pulled before it was debated on Monday. May I ask the Leader of the House why, because a very important cross-party amendment was going to be put to the House? Will she say why, and when is it likely to come back?Something else that needs to come back to this House is the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union—[Interruption.] I am really sorry, but the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), has had her go. I need to ask the Leader of the House some questions, so would she mind not speaking so loudly?Something else that has to be brought back to the House is the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. I do not know whether the Leader of the House heard the point of order from the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee yesterday, but he suggested that the Secretary of State is meeting individuals privately and has not said when he is coming to the Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) has made it absolutely clear that the Committee wants to hear from the Secretary of State before the vote on Tuesday. Will the Leader of the House please ensure that the Brexit Secretary—with or without his other half, the Attorney General—appears before the Committee, particular as one of the Government’s red lines was lost in the House of Lords yesterday?
- Just before the Leader of the House responds, I thank her very much, as will other colleagues, for what she said about World Book Day, and I report that my daughter has today gone to school dressed as Pippi Longstocking. I am sure other Members will have examples with which they can regale the House.
- That is very reassuring, and not at all surprising, Mr Speaker. I am sure the whole House will celebrate the fact that maths A-level is now one of the most popular subjects for students to take, and the whole country can be proud that more children are getting a serious and good education. Thank you for sharing that, Mr Speaker—I shall not share what my children have gone to school in, as because they have not dressed up. That is mainly because they are 23, 20 and 15—[Laughter.] It would be a little odd! They used to go as things like Peter Pan. It used to be fun. I remember making many a costume, but sadly those days are behind me.The hon. Lady raised a number of extremely important questions. She asked about next steps. She will appreciate that the Prime Minister’s commitments mean that I have had to announce the business as we know it today. As she appreciates, it is the Government’s intention to seek to win the meaningful vote on Tuesday. Should it be the case that the Government do win it, I would then need to come forward—if I had already announced contingent business, I would have to come forward to change it. What we are expecting, and what the Government are working towards, is winning that meaningful vote on Tuesday. As the hon. Lady will know, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and the Prime Minister herself are very carefully seeking agreement from the European Commission and the EU27 to resolve the outstanding issues on the backstop. It is very important that she understands the reason why the business has been announced as it has.On recess dates, the hon. Lady will appreciate that for decades, if not longer, Leaders of the House have had to say that recess dates are announced and will then take place subject to the progress of the House. I am sure she appreciates that I will have to make that comment to her again.On the Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill and the fact that that business did not go forward, as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), said on Monday, it is right that we take the time to look properly at the proposed amendments and consider their impact with the Crown dependencies, which are separate jurisdictions with their own democratically elected Governments. Taking the time to review those amendments was therefore extremely important.
- For years I have waited, with a degree of patience that verges on indulgence, for any glimmer of insight or glint of inspiration from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). Finally, listening to the wireless this week, the eureka moment came, when she persuasively backed a campaign for all children to be taught something of natural history—our native trees, birds, flora and fauna. One might describe it as “the wind in the willows”. Will the Leader of the House bring an Education Minister to this Chamber to say how schoolchildren will learn about those things, not because they are useful but just because they are lovely?
- I completely agree with my right hon. Friend that learning about natural history—and, indeed, the history of our country and of the world—is absolutely vital for the education of young people. In particular, in the context of the extraordinary peace that has broken out between him and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), I am sure that there is a campaign there somewhere. If they perhaps wanted to seek a Westminster Hall debate, I am sure that that would be widely welcomed across the House.
- I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. I, too, welcome International Women’s Day and join the celebrations around World Book Day today. If we are looking for further Lewis Carroll characters, perhaps we should look at the Government to find out who is the mad March Hare, and possibly who are Tweedledee and Tweedledum.I suppose this is about the closest that the business statement will ever come to being a work of fiction—it is sort of Walter Mitty meets “Waiting for Godot”. What it is not is a tablet of stone. I do not think that anyone in the House believes that the statement will survive the rigours of next week, because Tuesday is when the Prime Minister finally faces her Waterloo, and it is not going to end well. With 22 days left before we leave, on Tuesday the road finally runs out and we approach the end of these chaotic, clueless Brexit days. In the intervening weeks, the Government have wasted all their available time by trying to make their rotten deal more palatable to their Back Benchers while hoping beyond hope that the EU somehow bends to their will. Neither of those things looks like it is going to happen, and the Government will go down to another glorious defeat.There has been lots of talk about postponing that vote, and there is even more talk that this fiction could indeed be the business for next week, and that if the Government are defeated on Tuesday, they will renege on their commitment to hold consecutive votes on taking no deal off the table and extending article 50. We have been here before with the Leader of the House, when she said to me categorically at business questions that the last meaningful vote would go ahead, only for it to be pulled a couple of days later. While we are grateful for all the reassurances that this will go ahead next week, will she write to party leaders today with a cast-iron commitment that the sequence of events, as put forward by the Prime Minister, will be honoured in full? We need to have it written down that under no circumstances will the meaningful vote be pulled and the subsequent votes taken away.
- I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his very precise and specific question. I am very pleased to be able to confirm to him that each of the motions that the Prime Minister has committed to next week would be amendable. The Prime Minister has committed to a second meaningful vote by 12 March. I have just announced that the debate on that motion will take place on 12 March. It will be a motion under section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which will be tabled on Monday. It will be an approval motion as required by the Act and, under the normal procedures of the House, it will be amendable.Under Standing Order No. 16, any debate under an Act of Parliament—which this is—is limited to 90 minutes, so I expect to bring forward a business of the House motion in order to provide more than 90 minutes. The exact details of that will in due course be discussed through the usual channels, and will ultimately be for the House to agree. Only if the Government have not won the meaningful vote on 12 March will the other debates follow. The motions for the House to approve leaving the EU on 29 March without a withdrawal agreement, and on whether Parliament wants to seek a short, limited extension to article 50 will be tabled by the rise of the House on the day before debate, as is the usual practice. I have given the hon. Gentleman as much clarity and assurance as I possibly can.
- Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on re-establishing a new town building programme in the UK? When I represented the new town of Basildon, I found the development corporation and the new town commission to be extremely effective in delivering affordable homes in large numbers and in building a vibrant community, certainly while I was there. Can we have a programme started again?
- My hon. Friend makes a very good point about new towns—although I would have expected him to talk about new cities, which is what he usually does. I had the pleasure recently of visiting the new Bicester garden town with my excellent Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is sitting just in front of him. The Government have backed new towns through their garden communities programme, with 23 towns and villages in the current plans and more to be considered. We have also committed a new £10 million fund to help local areas prepare proposals for development corporations, because we recognise the need for strong delivery vehicles for significant new developments. He will have opportunities to put his views on those proposals in due course.
- I was aware before I left the house that it was World Book Day, but I was still glad to be joined on the bus by the Cat in the Hat, Harry Potter, Snow White and Princess Elsa from “Frozen”—some were not readily recognisable, but I certainly recognised the Cat in the Hat.I am aware that Back-Bench business can be a moveable feast, but if it comes to pass that the debate scheduled for next week has to move, we would look to get repeat time as early as possible, because it is an important debate about the appraisal process for the treatment of rare diseases, and the obstacles to funding for appropriate treatments for muscular dystrophy, phenylketonuria, cystic fibrosis and so on.I would like to give notice of another matter. We have had on the stocks for some time now an application from the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and friends for a debate on world autism awareness, this year being the 10th anniversary of the Autism Act 2009, and we would prefer a debate before World Autism Awareness Week, which is from 1 to 7 April.
- As ever, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me prior notice of upcoming debates. He mentions the Back-Bench debate proposed for next week on rare diseases. I have two young people in my constituency with cystic fibrosis who are both desperate for access to the Orkambi drug, so it is my very dear wish that that debate go ahead. It will not surprise him to know that I am also extremely keen that it goes ahead because that will mean that the House will have passed a previous motion. I will take careful account of what he is asking for.
- Can we have a debate in Government time to discuss the breakdown of the voisinage agreement between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland? The impounding of two Northern Ireland fishing vessels recently shows the Republic of Ireland imposing a hard border while its vessels are still allowed to fish in UK waters off the coast of Northern Ireland.
- My hon. Friend raises a very important matter, and I know she is very knowledgeable in this area. The voisinage arrangement has been in place since 1965 but was suspended by Ireland following a decision by the Irish Supreme Court in October 2016, as she knows. On 26 February, two Northern Ireland fishing vessels were detained, but on 1 March the skippers were not convicted under the Probation Act and the vessels were released. Since the suspension of the arrangement, the UK Government have raised this issue several times and have been clear that we cannot accept continued unequal application indefinitely. We continue to explore solutions to reinstate a level playing field as quickly as possible for the benefit of all our fishermen.
- Unfortunately, skin cancer is very much on the rise in the UK, partly because lots of us have skin like mine with freckles and fair hair and are not really built for the sun, but still go on holiday to Spain and other places and do not cover up properly when the sun is out.May we have a debate on skin cancer, so that more people can be made aware that if they have a dodgy mole, going to the doctor can save their life if it is caught very early; so that everyone covers up their kids, particularly when the sun comes up; and so that no one uses a tanning machine, because, frankly, those things are death machines?While I am here, let me say this. I am nobody special—I am just one of the many, many hundreds of people who have received diagnoses of skin cancer in the last few weeks, including other Members—but I am enormously grateful for the love that many people have shown in the House, some of them people to whom I have been phenomenally rude across the Chamber. I am not going to stop being rude, but may I just say thank you to those who have been truly, truly lovely, including the Leader of the House herself?
- Let me say first to the hon. Gentleman that he is very special to me, and he is very special to many other people both in the House and outside it. He has made some incredibly important points, not the least of which was that his own skin cancer was under his hair. We often put sun cream on the exposed bits, but not necessarily in our hair, because that would be slightly odd. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to wear a hat.