Business of the House

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 22 November will include:

Monday 22 November—Remaining stages of the Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill.

Tuesday 23 November—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.

Wednesday 24 November—Consideration in Committee of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill (day 2), followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010.

Thursday 25 November—Remaining stages of the Local Government Bill [Lords].

The provisional business for the week commencing 29 November will include:

Monday 29 November—Opposition Day (7th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Tuesday 30 November—A debate on banking reform followed by a general debate on regulation of independent financial advisers. The subject for both debates was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee. That will be followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010.

Wednesday 1 December— Remaining stages of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.

Thursday 2 December—A debate on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. The subject for debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 3 December—Private Members’ Bills.

Colleagues will also wish to know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make his statement on the autumn forecast on Monday 29 November 2010.

[Hilary Benn]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement.

There were two statements on day one of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill Committee. The first was not time critical and the second was self-inflicted because of a leak—yet another failure to tell Parliament first. Members were somewhat puzzled by the argument used by the Leader of the House on Tuesday in refusing extra time, given that the Government granted extra time for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. If extra time was good enough for that constitutional bill, why is it not good enough for the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill?

Following the point of order made yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), can the Leader of the House explain why, notwithstanding the resolution of the House of 19 March 1997, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), did not tell the House until the very end of Tuesday’s debate, rather than at the beginning, of his intention to write to the devolved Administrations to ask them whether they would like a new power on combining polls?

Yesterday, we had an urgent question from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on the Republic of Ireland’s finances, in reply to which the Minister obviously could not say a great deal. Will the Leader of the House assure us that the Government will make an oral statement in the event that a bail-out that involves the United Kingdom is agreed?

On private Members’ Bills, Mr Speaker, you have had on a number of occasions recently to remind Members about sticking to the subject. Last Friday it seems that one Member treated the House to a poetry reading while allegedly debating the Sustainable Livestock Bill. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how we deal with private Members’ Bills and the Standing Orders relating to their consideration, because it is pretty frustrating when filibustering gets in the way of proper debate and votes?

Last week, I asked the right hon. Gentleman for a pledge that there would be no vote on lifting the cap on tuition fees before the White Paper on higher education is published. He said that he would get back to me. Has he any news? Meanwhile, we learn that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is so worried about having a vote on the Lib Dems’ broken pledge that he sent a rather frantic private e-mail to the Deputy Prime Minister, thoughtfully copying it to The Guardian in the process, in which he said:

“We really need to get it out of the way ASAP.?? The sooner this is over the better!!!”

I would say just this to the right hon. Member for Yeovil and his colleagues: I do not think that it will get any better, because a betrayal is still a betrayal, regardless of when it happens.

The Prime Minister was asked yesterday about yet another broken promise: namely the pledge to increase the number of midwives by 3,000, which he made in The Sun in January of this year. We are told that that promise was not included in the coalition agreement because of a change in the birth rate predictions. May we have a statement on what new predictions were published—presumably by the Office for National Statistics—between the pledge in January and the signing of the coalition agreement on 12 May?

The House will have noted that notwithstanding the Leader of the House’s sterling defence in the past two weeks of the Prime Minister’s decision to put his personal photographer on the civil service payroll, the Prime Minister has now decided that perhaps after all that was not a very good idea. May we have statement on how much it cost first to recruit and then to sack Mr Parsons, and will the Conservative party refund the cost of his salary for the time when he was a very temporary civil servant?

Finally, Mr Speaker, may I ask the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House whether they are happy? I inquire only because it seems that the Government are planning to publish a happiness index. Apparently, we will be asked questions such as, “How satisfied are you with your life on a scale of nought to 10?” As Sir Humphrey might have said, that is a brave thing for Ministers to do, but I feel honour bound to point out that happiness can go down as well as up.