Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)]

The business for the next week is as follows:

Monday 16 January—Second Reading of the National Citizen Service Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 17 January—Opposition day (18th allotted day). There will be a debate entitled “Impact of leaving the EU on the rural economy”, followed by a debate entitled “Impact of Department for Work and Pensions policies on low income households”. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party.

Wednesday 18 January—General debate on exiting the EU and security, law enforcement and criminal justice.

Thursday 19 January—Debate on a motion relating to Kashmir, followed by a general debate on Holocaust Memorial Day 2017. Both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 20 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 23 January will include:

Monday 23 January—Second Reading of the Local Government Finance Bill.

Tuesday 24 January—Consideration of Lords amendments followed by a motion relating to the charter for budget responsibility.

Wednesday 25 January—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 26 January—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 27 January— Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 19 January will be:

Thursday 19 January—General debate on decommissioning of in vitro fertilisation and other NHS fertility services.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business, although I am concerned that it appears we are not going to rise for the summer recess. We still do not have a date. I warn everyone to be prepared to work through the summer. I wish Members and staff a very happy new year. We are going to need all the wisdom and strength we can get for the task ahead.

Following on from your remarks, Mr Speaker, hon. Members have raised with me the issue of extending the time for Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions. Never before has the reasonable voice of Britain been so needed in international affairs. Questions could just be extended by an hour. We have excellent diplomats with institutional memory who can make a big difference in the world.

May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to two reports from the Procedure Committee that may have got lost in the Christmas revelry? The press release for the report published on 18 October had the headline: “Procedure Committee rails ‘against handouts and talked out’ Private Member’s Bill”. Sadly, there was a further incident on Friday 16 December, in relation to a private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), when one speech took one hour and 17 minutes. The vote, with 133 Ayes to 2 Noes, showed the will of the House to be clearly in favour of the Bill. It cannot be right, therefore, that Members who wanted to speak in favour of the Bill could not do so.

One of the report’s recommendations is that you, Mr Speaker, invoke Standing Order 47, which would put a time limit on the consideration of private Members’ Bills. Since I have been in the House, this Standing Order has been used in every single debate apart from on Fridays. In a letter to the Clerk of the House, the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), indicates that this change may need a resolution of the House. A further report of the Procedure Committee, on 14 December 2016, recommended the use of Welsh at Westminster in the Welsh Grand Committee. This was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who indicated to me that it is cheaper to do that here. The Official Reporters say there would be no problem with that. Rather than eat into Back-Bench time, could those two resolutions be taken together in Government time?

We need clarification on the waiting time target. Is it for urgent or non-urgent cases? Earlier this week on a radio programme, the Secretary of State for Health said that Simons Stevens is running the NHS. May we have confirmation that it is the Secretary of State who is running the NHS? We had the bizarre scene of the Secretary of State running down the road. I thought he was doing his 30 minutes’ activity as required by the Health Department, but he then jumped into his car. Having served on the Health Committee for five years, I know about the chaos of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. In an unprecedented move, the passage of the Bill was paused by the then Prime Minister. The shadow Secretary of State for Health has written to the Secretary of State for Health with 25 questions. Will the Leader of the House provide those answers within the target time?

Returning to Brexit, a report before Christmas from the other place, “Brexit: financial services”, confirmed that London was ranked as the leading financial services sector in the world and called for a transition period to protect jobs. Page 3, paragraph 2, in the summary of a report by the Environmental Audit Committee, states:

“The Prime Minister has indicated that the UK is likely to leave the single European market and the Customs Union.”

I had not understood that to be settled Government policy. That is why we need these proper debates. The EAC calls for a new environmental protection Act while negotiations are ongoing and a list of zombie legislation—legislation transposed into British law but not updated. It is possible that the confusion has arisen because the Departments have proliferated like amoebae. It cannot be right that, according to figures from the House of Commons Library in December 2016, the Department for Exiting the European Union has only 300 staff, while the Department for International Trade has 2,709 staff. DExEU is getting £94 million a year, while £26 million is going to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DIT, but DIT has taken staff from the FCO. We need clarity.

We, Her Majesty’s Opposition, have a proposal. In view of the judgment about to be handed down by the Supreme Court on the triggering of article 50 at the end of March, the Leader of the House should consider a review of what each Department does, because the British public will never forgive this Government if they see people dying on trolleys while vanity Departments are set up to keep hon. Members inside the tent rather than outside it. The task before us is enormous, but we need to remember the reasons we joined the EU and why there was a vote to leave. That way, all views can be respected and we can negotiate from a position that protects jobs, workers’ rights, the environment and our security. We need to do what is best for the UK, not base our approach on the rhetoric of the campaign and a clueless Government.

[Mr Lidington]

I join the hon. Lady in wishing you, Mr Speaker, and House of Commons staff a happy new year.

The hon. Lady mentioned the duration of Foreign Office questions. I accept that there is a great deal of demand from Members across the House to put questions to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and his team, but in fairness I think she will acknowledge that there have also been several opportunities to question Foreign Office Ministers when they have volunteered oral statements, responded to urgent questions, spoken at Backbench Business Committee debates here, as is happening again later today and next week, on Kashmir, and in Westminster Hall. It has always been the case, since I have been in the House, that the allocation of time for questions between different Departments has been a matter for discussion within the usual channels. If the Opposition want to put forward ideas, obviously the Government will look at them, but in fairness one has to say that if time were added to Foreign Office questions, it would have to be subtracted from some other House business, and that needs to be weighed in the balance too.

On the Procedure Committee, the very last thing I would accuse my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) of is ranting. Whether I have agreed with him or not on particular issues, he has always expressed his views in a civilised manner, and the Government will respond to the Committee’s report in the way we do to other Select Committee reports.

The hon. Lady made various points about exiting the EU. On article 50 and the changes within Whitehall, we must not underestimate the reality that the decision the electorate took in the referendum represented a profound and far-reaching change to the policies pursued by successive Governments and to the character of the UK’s international relationships, which for half a century have been built very much around our membership—whether aspiring to it or operating within it—of the EU. It seems perfectly reasonable that, in those circumstances, there should be a reconfiguration of resources and Departments in Whitehall to deal with the complex task of handling the negotiations that lie before us. It is not just the Department for Exiting the European Union that is involved. Many Departments throughout the Government are also involved, at ministerial and official level. On the question of the single market and the customs union, let me repeat what the Prime Minister has often said: one of the core objectives of our negotiation will be to achieve the best possible freedom for British companies to continue to operate within, and trade with, the single European market.

The hon. Lady’s request for an early reply to the questions asked by her hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) will obviously have been noted by the Ministers concerned, and I will ensure that it is properly reported to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. As for waiting time targets, the Secretary of State made very clear during yesterday’s debate that we continued to be committed to the four-hour target, and that we took pride in it.

It is worth noting that despite the pressures being experienced this winter, NHS staff, through their immense professionalism and hard work, have been treating record numbers of patients at A&E departments in hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. It is also the case, however, that NHS England’s director of acute care has estimated that about 30% of the people who currently present themselves at A&E departments really ought to be seen elsewhere in the NHS, or might even benefit from self-treatment at home. It seems sensible for us to think actively—in terms of national policy but also, critically, in terms of local NHS organisations—about how we can provide alternative sources of advice and routes to treatment for people who do not actually need specific A&E services.