Business of the House

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 19 January—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill.

Tuesday 20 January—Opposition day (13th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party on Trident renewal.

Wednesday 21 January—Opposition day (14th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 22 January—Debate on a motion relating to the governance of the House of Commons.

Friday 23 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 26 January will include:

Monday 26 January—Remaining stages of the Infrastructure Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 27 January—Second Reading of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill, followed by a debate on a motion relating to accommodation for young people in care. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 28 January—Opposition day (15th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 29 January—Debate on a motion relating to the Iraq inquiry, followed by a general debate on financial support available for restoration of open-cast coal sites. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 30 January—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the remainder of January will be:

Thursday 22 January—Debate on the third report from the Energy and Climate Change Committee on the green deal, followed by a debate on the first report from the Justice Committee on crime reduction policies.

Thursday 29 January—Debate on the second report from the Home Affairs Select Committee on female genital mutilation, followed by a debate on the second report from the Science and Technology Committee on UK blood safety and the risk of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

[Ms Eagle]

May I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business, including all stages of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill next Monday?

Even those of us who feel that the unelected and supersized Chamber at the other end of the building is in need of more radical reform can welcome this Bill. Prior to the creation of Labour’s senate of the nations and regions, it is only right that the Lords Spiritual should consist of women bishops as well as men.

I also welcome the debate that the Leader of the House has scheduled for next Thursday on the report from the Governance Committee. I hope that the House will not only agree to the recommendations but agree on a timetable for implementing them so that we have a new management system in place before Dissolution. Will the Leader of the House tell the House how this will be accomplished if the motion is carried?

The Committee stage of the Infrastructure Bill is due to conclude upstairs today, and the Leader of the House has announced that we will debate it on Report on 26 January. It is over seven months since consideration of the Bill began in the other place, so will he explain why last Friday 60 pages of amendments reforming the electronic communications code appeared out of nowhere? Why is the drafting of the amendments so bad that mobile phone operators have thrown into doubt the Government’s uncosted deal with them to extend mobile phone coverage? Will he now consider extending the Report stage to give the House the time it needs to improve these badly drafted amendments? Is this yet another example of this Government’s competence, or is it simply more chaos?

Despite repeated Government promises that free speech would be protected, last week the Electoral Commission wrote to a range of political blogs warning them about falling foul of the Government’s lobbying Act. Bishop Harries’ commission on civil society and democratic engagement has said that the law is already having a widespread chilling effect on campaigning by charities and other organisations in the run-up to the general election. When does the Leader of the House intend to put section 39 of the Act into effect, as he has only a few days left? Will he now admit that despite all the false promises from Government Front Benchers, this law is having the effect they desired in silencing criticism of the Government and suppressing healthy democratic debate? Does he accept that the only reasonable thing to do now is to repeal this disgraceful assault on free speech?

The Conservative election campaign continues to lurch from one embarrassment to another. First, we had the fiasco of the German road that, it now turns out, was airbrushed to remove all the potholes. This week the Conservatives have unveiled six election priorities, which, amazingly, make no mention of the NHS.

Such is the Conservatives’ popularity that they have been caught spending tens of thousands of pounds buying their own Facebook friends, and now they are so confident of victory that the Prime Minister is running scared of each and every chance to be held to account in debates. He promised to be interviewed by Bite the Ballot in front of first-time voters, which every other party leader has now done, including leaders of the minor parties, such as the Deputy Prime Minister—even he turned up to his appointment with Bite the Ballot. The Prime Minister, however, has suddenly pulled out, absurdly claiming that of the 111 days left until the election there are

“no dates that would work.”

Then we have the saga of the TV debates. The Prime Minister has been clucking for days that he will not do them without the Greens, but he is actually frightened that he would be in for a roasting. Is not it blindingly obvious that that is a fowl excuse?

The Liberal Democrats are not doing much better. After the Prime Minister rebuked the Tory Chief Whip for messing with his mobile phone in Cabinet, the Chief Secretary decided to take the secretary part of his job very seriously and leapt to reinforce the Prime Minister’s message, pointing out that he too had spotted others using their phones during Cabinet. Doesn’t everyone just love a teacher’s pet?

I think that the Business Secretary is jealous. After being unceremoniously dumped as economic spokesman from the farcical Liberal Democrat cabinet within a Cabinet that is apparently designed to shadow the Cabinet while actually propping up the Cabinet, he has insisted that he is still economic spokesman and that his demotion is just a “minor internal matter.” That sounds like how the Tories refer to the Liberal Democrats.

In just a few hours we will learn who has been nominated for an Oscar, and this year I think us Brits have got at least one in the bag: this Government will win the award for best farce.

[Mr Hague]

I welcome the opening remarks of the shadow Leader of the House: we are united in our support of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill and there will be a good deal of time to debate it next Monday. The allocation of time motion will provide for that, including a four-hour Second Reading debate. I hope it will enjoy the unanimous support of the House. We shall see.

When it comes to the debate on the governance of the House, it will be important for us all to listen to the views of the House. The hon. Lady and I have both signed the motion tabled by the members of the Governance Committee. There is a great deal of support for their recommendations, some of which will require legislation in order to implement them, but the majority of them can be proceeded with very speedily. If the motion is passed, the relevant authorities will be empowered and, in effect, instructed to get on with those actions and the necessary recruitment processes.

On the Infrastructure Bill, the Culture Secretary has been working on a tremendous improvement in mobile phone coverage in this country. The hon. Lady asked for more time on Report to discuss amendments. I might have considered that differently had the Opposition used the time they had asked for and obtained on other Report stages, but they did not do so. For instance, they asked for, and we provided, six days’ debate on the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, including two days on Report, but the House rose early on both of those days by several hours. I think the time we have provided will be adequate to discuss the Infrastructure Bill.

I will look at the point raised by the hon. Lady about section 39 of the transparency of lobbying Act, but some vigorous campaigning is already going on without anybody being silenced in the run-up to the general election campaign.

The shadow Leader of the House mentioned the Government’s competence. I pay tribute to her, as I often do, because at least she can remember what she is meant to be talking about when she comes to the House. However, the Leader of the Opposition is having increasing problems recalling things, including whether he said he would “weaponise” the national health service, despite being asked seven times on television on Sunday and being challenged in this House. He could not remember the main issue—the biggest problem facing the country—in his party conference speech, and now he cannot remember what he said about the issue he has most often raised, which makes us wonder whether he would remember anything he was meant to do if he became Prime Minister of this country or, indeed, what the day was on any particular day. She is clearly in a stronger position.

I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition remembers that he promised to freeze energy prices, and that when he stood at the Dispatch Box only 15 months ago he said:

“Nothing less than a price freeze will do”.—[Official Report, 30 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 912.]

Yesterday, the awful realisation at last dawned on the Opposition that had we had a price freeze when they asked for it, energy prices would not now be falling, as they are. The cheapest energy tariff is now £100 cheaper than it was a year ago, meaning that it would be £100 more expensive had we frozen energy prices when they asked for that. [Interruption.] It is no good Labour Members shaking their heads about wanting a freeze because it is all there in motions they tabled in this House. Such motions demanded nothing other than a freeze, including one on 18 June, which stated:

“That this House notes the policy of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition to freeze energy prices for 20 months”.—[Official Report, 18 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 1185.]

Seven months later, energy prices are falling, which would not have been possible. Yesterday, they decided that a freeze meant a cap, but that was the first time they had done so. From my own experience, I can tell the Leader of the Opposition that reaching for a cap when in difficulty is not always a good idea.

I pointed out last week that the Opposition have dropped 12 policies in under 10 days, and they have now been joined by a 13th policy. The Opposition have started to announce their policies in secret, such as their latest one to carpet the countryside with unnecessary wind turbines if they win the next general election, to which they do not want to give any publicity.

The real story about what has happened this week is one of competence: the World Bank has confirmed that the UK is the fastest-growing G7 economy; UK manufacturing is now performing at levels not seen since 2002; and the pensioner bonds launched today will reward people who have worked hard and saved hard throughout their lives.