Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 10 September—General debate on legislating for the withdrawal agreement.

Tuesday 11 September—Remaining stages of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill.

Wednesday 12 September—General debate on the Salisbury incident.

Thursday 13 September—General debate on proxy voting, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 14 September—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 8 October will include:

Monday 8 October—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 9 October—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

I am delighted that we are bringing forward a debate on proxy voting next week because I know how important that issue is to many Members across the House. It will be an opportunity for all views to be heard. I confirm that the Government will then bring forward a substantive motion, and it is my intention to do so as soon as practically possible. I am fully committed to making progress on this issue, to ensure that life as both an MP and a new parent is more compatible. May I take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to Westminster? In addition to the important constituency work that goes on over the summer, I hope that all colleagues got the chance for some relaxation.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for outlining the business for next week, but it is somewhat surprising that it is so light. In the week commencing 8 October we have business only for Monday and Tuesday, so will the Leader of the House confirm whether Wednesday and Thursday have been cancelled? I do not know whether she heard the Solicitor General on “Westminster Hour” on 5 August, when he said that there was a fair amount of information to get through and that we would have to look at recesses. Now, the hon. and learned Gentleman is a very capable, able and assiduous Minister. Will the Leader of the House indicate whether the Government are considering cancelling recesses and, if so, which ones, because we do need to plan? As one newspaper put it, in a pithy headline, “Christmas is cancelled”.

I agree with the Leader of the House about the debate on proxy voting, which has been scheduled for next Thursday, but does she know about new research, published by the shadow Secretary of State for Health, revealing that nearly half of England’s maternity units were closed to new mothers at some point in 2017, up on previous years? The most commonly reported reasons for closures were capacity and staffing issues. The latest estimate from the Royal College of Midwives is that NHS England has a shortage of 3,500 midwives. May we have a debate on that?

The Leader of the House has said several times that she will be able to provide extra sitting days for private Members’ Bills. Will she announce the next sitting days?

The Boundary Commission has sent its report to the Minister for the Cabinet Office. The Government should have laid it immediately—we all got the email yesterday. In the interests of transparency, will the Leader of the House say when it will be published and when we can have a debate on it?

The Leader of the House has been admonishing lots of people, among them Michel Barnier, warning that

“the European Commission needs to take it very…seriously. They need to stop all of this rhetoric around ‘we don’t like it, we don’t approve it’”,

but that is what some Conservative Members have been saying. They all turned up to the Prime Minister’s house party, but little does the poor beleaguered Prime Minister know they are now playing a different game, and it is called Chuck Chequers. Or are they playing Chaos? The Secretary of State for International Trade said last Sunday that he did not believe the Chancellor’s prediction of the effect on the economy of no deal. There is no solution to the Irish border, but an hon. Member weighs in and says his solution is that people should be inspected just as they were in the troubles. That is deeply disturbing. The people of Ireland chose peace, not to be divided. Or what about the former Minister advising people to invest in gold to shield them from a no deal Brexit at the same time as advocating one? Some people cannot even buy school uniforms, let alone invest in gold.

I do not know whether the Leader of the House has seen the poll of 44 Tory marginals, according to which three quarters of people are dissatisfied with Ministers’ handling of Brexit. It is not just Tory marginals that are dissatisfied; it is the whole country. It is chaos. We are now told that the Budget might be at a different time. Will she confirm whether the Budget will be in October or whether, as some Treasury sources have indicated, it will be in December? Have there been discussions about a change in date? Will it in fact be an autumn/winter Budget?

There is more chaos with the roll-out of universal credit. I do not know whether the Leader of the House has seen the Resolution Foundation report published this week, but low-paid working families will be affected. Can she say whether the Department for Work and Pensions is in a state of preparedness for roll-out so that people do not suffer?

No sooner were our backs turned than the Members’ Centre was renamed the “Customer Services Hub”. Members are not customers. We are trying to do our work. We are sometimes chucked out of Committee Rooms because there are not enough rooms for Select Committees. The centre offered privacy, but now we cannot have it. Will the Leader of the House please look into that?

Will the Leader of the House and other hon. Members join me and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who chairs the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, in opposing the relocation of the Emmeline Pankhurst memorial from Victoria Tower gardens to Regent’s park? The planning application has been made to Westminster Council, and all Members should object. It is right that the memorial overlooks Parliament. This in the week when Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who was overlooked in the Nobel citation despite also being part of the discovery of pulsars, is donating money to encourage women in physics to overcome unconscious bias. We may have come a long way, but, to paraphrase Robert Frost, there are many miles to go before we sleep.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank the hon. Lady for that tour de force across all areas of government. I shall try to do justice to it.

First, on the proposal to move the Emmeline Pankhurst statue, the idea is to move it in order to have a much bigger one in Parliament Square. That is the ambition of the advocates of that proposal. I know there are quite strongly held views, but I just want to clarify that point for the record.

The hon. Lady asks about the cancellation of recesses. There is no plan to cancel recesses. The business managers are looking carefully at recesses. Obviously, we are very much on the front foot in organising, for example, secondary legislation, as well as the passage of primary legislation, to make sure we enable all Members to have the right amount of scrutiny time in this place, while ensuring they have the opportunity to carry out their constituency work and have a bit of a break from time to time.

The hon. Lady mentions maternity unit closures. I share her very grave concern about that. The same thing happened at Horton Hospital in my constituency—the maternity unit was closed for a few hours. This is definitely something the NHS needs to focus on to ensure that those services are available at all times—no doubt about that.

The hon. Lady asks about my own comments. I hold to my own comments that the European Commission needs to take very seriously the Prime Minister’s offer on the table of the future trading arrangement. The hon. Lady will know that the Government’s position is to ensure that we meet the democratic decision of the people of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, which means taking back control of our money, our borders and our laws. It means leaving the customs union and the single market, and leaving the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy. What the Chequers proposal also does is meet the red lines of the European Commission. That is why I argue that it needs to take it very seriously. What the Government are seeking is a good deal for the United Kingdom and the European Union that will enable us, our citizens, European citizens and businesses to continue to work together closely, as we have done in the past.

The hon. Lady asks about the business of the House. We have had some very important business this week. We have made important progress in reforming civil liability law and in dealing with the horrendous issue of upskirting. We have completed the Commons stages of the Tenant Fees Bill, which will make renting easier, ban tenant fees and cap security deposits, all of which are incredibly important. I am sure that she will agree that it is important the House has the opportunity next week to discuss the withdrawal agreement White Paper in advance of the time pressures that are likely on this House when we actually come to consider the withdrawal agreement Bill. It is also vital that the House has the chance to consider the appalling revelations yesterday about the facts behind what happened during the Amesbury and Salisbury incidents. Those are very important debates, so I do not agree with her that the Government are not timetabling important business. She will, of course, be aware that Standing Orders provide for 20 Opposition days in each Session. The Government will, of course, abide by that and bring forward extra days in due course.

The hon. Lady asks about the Budget date. I can tell her that the date will be announced by the Treasury in the usual manner, as it always is.

The hon. Lady asks about Members’ space in Portcullis House and objects to the term “customer services”. Personally, I rather like it, because I think it is important that Members have a place where they can go to ask questions and get problems solved. I will take away her specific point about a quiet space for Members to be able to work in. I think that that is extremely important.

I welcome the hon. Lady back to this House and I look forward to plenty of Thursdays of robust debate.