Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 21 July includes:

Monday 21 July—General debate on the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan.

Tuesday 22 July—The Sir David Amess summer adjournment debate. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 22 July and return on Monday 1 September.

The business for the week commencing 1 September will include:

Monday 1 September—General debate on regional transport inequality, followed by general debate on devolution in Scotland. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 2 September—Second Reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.

Wednesday 3 September—Opposition day (10th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 4 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill.

Friday 5 September—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 September includes:

Monday 8 September—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill. Further to the dates that have already been announced for the conference recess, when the House will rise at the close of business on Tuesday 16 September and return on Monday 13 October, Members may also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the November recess at the close of business on Wednesday 5 November and return on Tuesday 11 November.

The House will rise for the Christmas recess at the close of business on Thursday 18 December and return on Monday 5 January.

The House will rise for the February recess at the close of business on Thursday 12 February and return on Monday 23 February.

The House will rise for the Easter recess at the close of business on Thursday 26 March and return on Monday 13 April.

The House will rise for the early May bank holiday at the close of business on Thursday 30 April and return on Tuesday 5 May.

The House will rise for the Whitsun recess at the close of business on Thursday 21 May and return on Monday 1 June.

And the House will rise for the summer recess at the close of business on Thursday 16 July 2026.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Where do we go from there? I call the shadow Leader of the House.

[Jesse Norman]

I doubt if the Leader of the House has ever given a more popular statement to the House of Commons. More seriously, this is a welcome development as it will give guidance to colleagues and their families, and I am sure it will be widely welcomed across the House, so I thank her for that.

I understand that Robert Gibbs, the acting director of catering services, will be leaving on Friday, after 25 years in this House. One shudders to think of the thousands of Members of the House of Commons and their staff whose lives will have been enriched by the joy of eating the food of the catering services under his command, and we thank him very much for his service. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in thanking him for his work.

We are getting close to the end of term and I want to thank all the staff for their service, and, of course, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Speaker and the other Deputy Speakers, and the Clerks for the resilience, courage, determination and poker faces that they have kept through all the business questions that we have had since the beginning of the year.

It may come as slightly more of a surprise to the House that I also want to thank the Leader of the House. No one who has not held that position understands the amount of work that is involved in scheduling and managing the business of this House, let alone the amount of work involved in scheduling and managing the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues. The Leader of the House distinguished herself with her very graceful response to my remarks about my father some months ago, and I thank her again for that. I also thank her for her engagement and humour and, I must say, more than a few groan-inducing puns, of which we will undoubtedly see considerably more this morning and with which she has dealt with questions from colleagues across all parts of this House.

I hope I may register that it is a slight sadness to me that the Leader of the House has not been willing to answer my own questions in the same spirit. I ask these questions not in a personal capacity, but as the spokesman for His Majesty’s official Opposition, whose function is, after all, to hold the Government to account. The refusal to answer genuine, sensible questions is actually a discourtesy not just to the House, but to our wider constitutional framework and ultimately the supreme source of sovereign authority in this country: the King in Parliament. I think any fair-minded person reviewing our exchanges would conclude that my questions are almost always directed at some public purpose, and it would undoubtedly improve business questions and the accountability and authority of the Leader of the House if she were able to engage with them.

In the same spirit, I will raise some serious questions about what the Government’s position is with regard to Northern Ireland veterans. As the Leader of the House will know, hundreds and thousands of men and women went to Northern Ireland not of their own accord, but under orders and in a chain of command on the Queen’s business, to combat the most serious terrorist organisation in the world at the time and to protect human lives and human society. Many of those veterans, including many members of the special forces, cannot respond to the terrible injustice being done to them.

Almost exactly a year ago, barely three weeks after the election, the Government decided to abandon the appeals to the Supreme Court to uphold the key sections of the legacy Act against a High Court judgment in Northern Ireland. In the veterans debate on Monday, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that those sections were “unlawful” as a result of the judgment. Yesterday, in Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister himself said twice that the legacy Act had been “struck down”. Unfortunately, those statements are both untrue and misleading.

There can be no doubt what the law is on this topic. A succession of the most senior judges in recent British history—Judges Steyn, Hope, Bingham, Hale and Reed among them—have made it absolutely clear that a declaration of incompatibility does not mean that the law is unlawful or has been struck down. As the then Senior Law Lord, Lord Bingham, said in 2004, in such cases the validity of the law “remains unaffected”.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is no lawyer, but he should understand that basic point, given his job. The Prime Minister, however, has been a barrister for 38 years, and a human rights lawyer for most of that time. It is inconceivable that he did not understand the distinction. To that extent, he was, whether deliberately or inadvertently, misleading the House.

The Secretary of State appeared to say that he had abandoned these appeals on political grounds. It is plain that the Government are split and have been unable to develop a satisfactory legal remedy in the 12 months since they abandoned the appeals, leaving thousands of veterans, many in their 70s and older, exposed to legal harassment, anxiety and trauma.

I put two serious and substantive questions to the Leader of the House. As the Leader of the House, in upholding the practices, tradition and honour of this House, will she ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister to correct those false and misleading statements to the House? When will we see legislation to address the legal gap that the Government’s decision to abandon these legacy Act appeals has created?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Before the Leader of the House responds, in case I misheard, let me say that the shadow Leader of the House knows we do not accuse colleagues of misleading the House. “Inadvertent” is the language.