Business of the House

John Lamont Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)]

With permission, I shall give the business for the week commencing 20 October, which includes:

Monday 20 October—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill.

Tuesday 21 October—Committee of the whole House of the Sentencing Bill.

Wednesday 22 October—Consideration of a Lords message to the Renters’ Rights Bill, followed by a debate on a motion related to financial assistance to industry, followed by a motion to approve the draft National Health Service (Procurement, Slavery and Human Trafficking) Regulations 2025, followed by a general debate on devolution in Scotland. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 23 October—General debate on Black History Month.

Friday 24 October—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 27 October includes:

Monday 27 October—Remaining stages of the Victims and Courts Bill.

[John Lamont]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I want to start by paying tribute to Lord Ming Campbell, a former Member of this place and former leader of the Liberal Democrats. He was a hugely respected parliamentarian, and I know he will be much missed. I would also like to express my deepest sympathies to those killed, injured and affected in the horrific terrorist attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester.

I am substituting today for the shadow Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who is in Poland with the Defence Committee. What an interesting conference recess it has been. I was in Manchester for a fantastic Conservative party conference, but also out and about at home in my beautiful constituency in the Scottish Borders. From spending time with the Scouts in Hawick to fighting LNER’s plans to cut the number of train services in the Borders, it has been a busy few weeks. We have seen six party conferences during recess. The SNP maintains its age-old obsession with independence rather than sorting out Scotland’s struggling NHS, schools and transport system. The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) continued auditioning to become a circus act, and the Labour party continued its own internal chaos, drama and division. We had a direct challenge to the leadership of the Prime Minister, with the Mayor of Greater Manchester no less, Andy Burnham, parading himself around as the next leader, an act he managed to keep up for just a few days, before he scuttled out the back door of the conference centre. How embarrassing for the—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Snell, I thought you were the man who had sent me a letter about going on the Chairmen’s Panel. This is not the way to get a good interview.

[John Lamont]

How embarrassing for the Labour party. I am sure the Leader of the House is relieved to no longer be the Government Chief Whip, although perhaps he thinks he could have done a better job than his successor at attempting to manage the increasingly rowdy mob lurking behind him.

The Labour party conference was also deeply disrespectful to this House, with Government policy announcements galore. It was like a King’s Speech scattered over four days, with major policy announcements, all made to the party members and trade union barons in Liverpool, not to this House, where Members have had to wait for over two weeks to hold Ministers to account. That is simply not acceptable. What will the Leader of the House do to ensure that this Government show MPs and this Parliament the respect we deserve? The most controversial announcement was the plan to introduce digital ID. Can the Leader of the House confirm when that legislation will come before Parliament, so that MPs can finally scrutinise what is being planned?

I visited many local businesses in the Scottish Borders during recess, and they are quite frankly terrified of what the Chancellor plans to do to them in her Budget; and yesterday, the Chancellor admitted what we all knew. She is going to raise taxes in the Budget once again, because this Labour Government have destroyed our economy. Unemployment is up by over 17% since Labour came to power, with another rise this week, fuelled so sadly by rising joblessness among young people. The International Monetary Fund says we will have the highest rate of inflation of any country in the G7. That is the reality—more people’s jobs and livelihoods on the line, people’s household bills getting bigger and bigger, and a cost of living crisis. The Chancellor should listen to the challenges facing households and businesses across the nation. Will the Leader of the House say whether the Government will set out a plan for how they will help households across the UK with the increasing cost of living?

In contrast, the Conservative party conference in Manchester could not have been more different from Labour’s—costed, bold plans for a stronger economy and stronger borders; reducing the cost of buying a home; cutting the cost of people’s energy bills; reducing the size of the welfare state; leaving the European convention on human rights to take back control of our borders; cracking down on crime; and much, much more. While we have been doing the hard, detailed work to decide which taxes we will cut, the Chancellor was deciding which ones she wants to put up.

Finally, I know that Members are deeply concerned at the collapse of the China spying trial. Earlier this week, the Government claimed they could not publish the evidence relating to the collapse of the trial because the Crown Prosecution Service would not allow it, a claim that the CPS said was completely incorrect. There are key questions for the Government. What additional evidence did the CPS request from the Government? Did the Prime Minister authorise the withholding of that information? Was evidence withheld by the Government to win favour with the Chinese Government? This House deserves to know the truth. We need to see the China files. Yesterday, a number of Chairs of House of Commons Committees met the Director of Public Prosecutions, and there will now be a formal inquiry. Will the Leader of the House ensure that all parts of the Government fully co-operate with that inquiry? China remains a real and present threat. Unless the Government act, all of our security is at risk.

[Sir Alan Campbell]

First, I welcome the shadow Deputy Leader of the House to his place for his inaugural address. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) also makes his debut today, so I find myself in the unusual position of being somewhat of a veteran of business questions on only my second outing.

As ever, due diligence led me to Wikipedia to find out a bit more about the shadow Deputy Leader of the House. I discovered that he was the fastest MP to take part in the 2018 London marathon, with what I am told is a commendable time of three hours, 38 minutes and three seconds. Genuinely, that is not only an impressive achievement, but the fact that then and since then he has raised a great deal of money for charities is to his credit. I also note that in 2014, he became the first UK politician to complete an Ironman triathlon. It seems fitting that in Margaret Thatcher’s centenary year, I find myself up against the Conservative party’s new iron gentleman.

I want to associate myself completely with the hon. Gentleman’s words about the terrible Manchester attack, which has rightly been condemned on both sides of the House, and with his words of tribute to the late Ming Campbell, who was, as he said, hugely respected as a dedicated public servant and a tireless champion for his constituents. As the late Denis Healey would say, he was a politician who had hinterland.

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the murder of Sir David Amess. He dedicated almost four decades to this House and to his constituents. We remember him fondly and with respect, as we do our friend Jo Cox, and we recommit ourselves on these occasions to the values that brought them and us to public service. We also need to remind ourselves of the importance of the language and tone of our debates and deliberations.

Let me turn to the questions posed by the hon. Gentleman. As an athlete of some renown and a marathon runner, his description of the Manchester conference reminded me of one of my favourite films, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”. I stand second to none in respect for Parliament. We will be bringing forward digital ID legislation in due course, but we did bring it to the Floor of the House in a statement at the earliest opportunity, on Monday this week.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the economy, I genuinely believe that anyone on the Conservative Benches who stands up and says anything about the economy should begin with an apology, because theirs was the only Government in recent times where living standards were lower at the end of the Parliament than they were at the beginning. As for the detail of the Budget and whether there is a plan, of course there is a plan for growth. He knows that he will have to wait until 26 November for any details of that.

In terms of the evolving situation regarding the matter of China, I am the fourth Minister this week to stand at the Dispatch Box to potentially face questions about that. The hon. Gentleman rightly pointed to a key meeting that took place yesterday between the DPP and Committee Chairs. I am a firm believer in strong, independent Select Committees, and I am quite sure they will do a fantastic job, should they put their mind to that—it is not for me to tell them how to do it. Of course, I expect that Committees will get the full co-operation for everything they seek from the Government.