Correcting the Record

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Sunderland]

My understanding is the same. It is difficult to compel any Member to do what he or she does not want to do, but as the Leader of the House said earlier, this is a matter for the House. It may be that a track record of poor behaviour may attract further attention from the House authorities and the House itself.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is doing a sterling job of reporting from the Procedure Committee. Pulling some of the threads and discussion together, would it be appropriate for the Procedure Committee to look at publishing, perhaps in the form of a written statement and possibly at the end of term, a list of people who have offended?

Amendments to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I start by thanking the Leader of the House for outlining the position in relation to the motion. This is a good time to thank the people who started off the whole process of setting up the ICGS, who may have moved on before they had a chance to be thanked. It was a difficult task from the start, and they have done incredibly well. As the Leader of the House has said, Alison Stanley reviewed the process and then undertook an 18-month review, which was published on 22 February. I thank her for her diligence in her work.

The Commission discussed a report on the proposed changes, and that is now before the House. It includes amendments made in response to the 18-month Stanley review, and additional changes to policies and procedures. I want to deal with the response to the Stanley review. We have the introduction of a time limit from 28 April 2022, such that

“a complaint may not be brought more than one year after the incident…complained of.”

At present, there is no time limit on non-recent cases. Stanley suggested two years, acknowledging that tribunal cases have a time limit of three months. The Commission report states that the time limit will be one year from the date of the incident complained of.

The independent investigator will also be able to consider at the initial assessment stage

“whether the complaint has already been fully and fairly considered in another context.”

If it has, there will be grounds for rejecting the complaint. We know of incidents where staff have taken a complaint through the normal grievance procedures and also through the ICGS. As the Leader of the House outlined, we cannot have this double jeopardy. Again, the definitions are being aligned with the Equality Act 2010 to include all the protected characteristics. The 18-month review found that the combination of a factual accuracy check and the right of the complainant to seek a review of the investigators’ findings had delayed some cases substantially, but the factual accuracy check remains available for both parties to correct factual inaccuracies.

I turn to the policy and procedural changes. These will use the same words for both the complainant and respondent for all bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct cases. It is also stated that the existing procedure documents have been shortened and amended to make it clear that they provide an outline only of the procedure, and that further detailed information on the different stages of the process is available from both the ICGS team and the relevant decision-making body.

The Leader of the House has not clarified some of the questions that were asked. I find it concerning that the procedures should be in lots of different places and that they are not in a usable form. We have Standing Orders and “Erskine May”, so things are out there and transparent. We also have obiter dicta from his podcast about how Parliament works. Making it obscure and asking the team in the relevant decision-making body does not give clarity, certainty and transparency. People should not have to go to different places to find out what the procedures are. I am happy to work with him and anyone else to ensure that the procedures are published in full, so that everyone is aware of them. Again, victimising a complainant for bringing a complaint would be treated as an aggravating factor.

I turn to the vexatious question that has been before the House on the change to the drafting in relation to non-recent cases, which was agreed in July—that it should be possible to complain about the conduct of any former member of the parliamentary community, be they Clerks or anyone else, whether or not they hold a parliamentary pass when the complaint is made. As currently drafted, there is an “and” in paragraph 4.3, as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) said. The person has to hold a parliamentary pass, and the change is to whether or not former members of the parliamentary community—whether it is a Clerk, a Member or anybody else—hold a parliamentary pass. I think that that offends the principles of natural justice, one of which, I remind hon. Members, is procedural fairness—the right to a fair hearing. That means that people know the rules by which they are being judged and that people act fairly, act in good faith, without bias, and give each party an opportunity to state their case.

Procedural fairness, in my view, is not changing the rules and making them apply retrospectively. The Leader of the House did not actually say whether the rules were retrospective or not, so I ask him to confirm whether any changes made today will apply to the current cases that are going forward. I know that he suggested that it was about the decision maker, but actually, as the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) pointed out, it is an individual decision maker. They are all separate and they are all different. That is why there should be a set of rules that everybody can see and everybody can apply. In no quasi-judicial situation do we ever have different decision makers making different decisions on a rule that is not clear. The amendment sought to clarify that, so I hope that the Leader of the House will too.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I apologise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I did not hear the opening comments from the Leader of the House because I was chairing a Committee meeting in another building. Following as closely as I can what the shadow Leader of the House is saying, as I understand it—on this particular paragraph 4.3, about passes—I presume that she would not have any objection to a change in the rules saying, “Passes used to be required but no longer will be required”, as long as that applied only to future cases. It seems rather strange that it should be said, “We are not changing the rule—we are just clarifying what the House meant previously, and when it previously said that the person has to still hold a parliamentary pass, what it really meant was that he or she did not have to be holding a parliamentary pass at all.” That is surely not a clarification of the rule; it is a change of the rule and, therefore, it should be forward-looking and not retrospective, should it not?

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. I think he missed the earlier discussion about the lack of clarity around that, but it should not be the case that current cases are subject to a changes of rules. To me, that is a breach of natural justice. We cannot have different decision makers applying the rules as they interpret them. In my view, we cannot have changes in procedure to cases, because each case will be dealt with differently, but as it was set out—as the hon. Member for Christchurch read out paragraph 4.3—it is fairly clear that there are the two limbs and therefore that any changes should apply to future cases.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I obviously agree with the right hon. Lady’s assessment of the importance of getting proper clarity and ensuring that we are not going to have retrospection, but may I also draw her attention to the sentence in paragraph 3 of the Commission report? I think my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House misunderstood that. It says that the changes that we are discussing were

“recommended by staff for clarification and updating of the documents.”

I am not referring to the Alison Stanley recommendations; this is something completely different. These changes that are causing us concern were recommended by staff. Is it unreasonable to ask whether we can see the document in which those recommendations were made and see whether some of the staff who made those recommendations may themselves have been involved or know decision makers?

[Valerie Vaz]

I do not have an issue with clarity. In fact, I think it is really helpful to see the thinking behind why the changes are being made, so unless there is some confidentiality issue, I do not see any problem. We are here discussing this, and we are not getting any clarity on it—certainly not from the interventions, or from the responses. There is no clarity on this, and I wish there were. There could be. That actually helps to make a system much fairer and work better, so I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

Let me move on to the next part of the Stanley report. She found in her review that those with a BAME—visible minority—background were less likely to have used the ICGS helplines compared with their white colleagues. She was concerned that several surveys

“carried out across Parliament have indicated that these groups are more likely to report that they have experienced bullying and harassment, sexual misconduct or discrimination.”

Despite that finding, there are no specific recommendations in the report that try to remedy it. Certain things have been remedied, but not others. In the light of the current climate, with Black Lives Matter, they should be considered.

Interestingly, in the introduction to its 2019 report “Stand in my shoes”, which has been published again on the intranet for Stephen Lawrence Day, ParliREACH stated that its findings confirmed its view that

“there is insufficient focus on and actions to challenge racial bias (both conscious or unconscious), and that many BAME”—

visible minority—

“staff expend effort each day to defend their right to work in Parliament and to progress through the organisation.”

It found that only 54% felt

“confident…to raise issues of concern”,

and 56% felt “comfortable being themselves”.

We know from other regulatory bodies that regulate professions, such as the General Medical Council and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, that BAME—visible minority—figures are over-represented among those complained about. The Alison Stanley review recommended that

“demographic analysis of the Helpline usage statistics”

should be

“carried out as soon as possible”.

I hope that the Leader of the House will ensure that that is undertaken, because it is unclear whether that recommendation has been implemented, or whether there are any other measures taken to address this issue.

I want to draw hon. and right hon. Members’ attention—they may not be able to see this in some of the reports—to the costs of the ICGS. Its budget for 2021-22 is £1.8 million. We have investigators. I recall from the start of setting up the ICGS that we wanted it to be as fair as possible. Some 28% of those investigators are police officers: these are not criminal matters, although if they are criminal they should go to the criminal justice system, and that is what they are there for.

I think there are many barristers on the Attorney General’s panel, even the C panel, who are not very expensive—they are quite cheap—who could do the investigations cheaply and weigh the evidence in a proper way in a fair system. In the end, we all want a system that works. We want to stop bad behaviour. It is in all our interests to have a fair system that is transparent so that we abide by the rules of natural justice and we get justice for all. In that sense, I support the motion.

As there will not be another opportunity to do so unless the Leader of the House schedules more business, I want to say a few thank yous at the end of the day. The Parliamentary Digital Service is getting us all back to Parliament. We have a message from PDS to turn off and turn on our computers. It is showing us what to do as more people return to the estate. I specifically want to thank Ian Doubleday in Norman Shaw South, who has been really helpful in enabling Members to come back, and in keeping us and Members’ staff safe.

I pay tribute to one of our senior doorkeepers, Ray Mortimer, who has been here since 2003. He has led the Speaker’s procession for eight years, and the procession to the Lords during state opening twice. He has been through six Serjeants at Arms and three Speakers, and is on his fifth Prime Minister. His good friend, mentor and boss—in capital letters—Phil Howse said:

“Ray has been a superb asset not only to the doorkeeper team but to the House, dedicating the past 18 years to delivering fantastic service. His colleagues will miss his knowledge and guidance to the team. He is going from one house of drama”—

here—

“to another, the Marlowe theatre in Canterbury. We wish Ray and his wife Sam good luck and all the very best for the future, and thank him for his amazing public service and the loyal service to the House of Commons.”

I am sure the whole House agrees.

From me, on a personal level, and just as the Leader of the House said, Ray is always good fun. He is always ready with advice about what is going on in the Chamber. He is extremely supportive of Members, all our work and the smooth running of the Chamber. He is always smiling and in a good mood. We will remember him as our little Ray of sunshine. Thank you, Ray, from all of us.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 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 (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

Before I do, may I join you, Mr Speaker, in thanking the digital and broadcasting services? They worked over the whole of the Easter recess last year to make this possible. They gave up most of their holiday during most of last year to make our hybrid proceedings work, and thus ensured that there has been proper parliamentary scrutiny throughout the whole year and that our democracy has remained strong and effective. Our thanks are most sincere and heartfelt because they have done something of the utmost importance for our nation.

On the business statement for the week commencing on 26 April, the business will include:

Monday 26 April—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Financial Services Bill, followed by consideration of Lords message on the Domestic Abuse Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the National Security and Investment Bill, followed by a motion to approve the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (High-Risk Countries) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 392), followed by a motion relating to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 150).

Tuesday 27 April—Consideration of Lords message on the Fire Safety Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve the draft Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2021, followed by a motion to approve the Trade and Official Controls (Transitional Arrangements for Prior Notifications) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 429).

Wednesday 28 April—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve the draft Double Taxation Relief (Federal Republic of Germany) Order 2021 and the draft Double Taxation Relief (Sweden) Order 2021, followed by a motion to approve the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (Coronavirus) (Extension of the Relevant Period) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 375), followed by a motion related to the Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 184), followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve the House of Commons Commission report on amendments to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme.

Thursday 29 April—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

The House will prorogue when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.

I am pleased to announce that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 22 July and return on Monday 6 September.

[Valerie Vaz]

I join you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House in the thanks that have been expressed. I want to thank the Clerk of the House for his leadership in ensuring that the whole staff of the House, the broadcasting and everything else enabled us to be the first Parliament in the world to be a hybrid Parliament and to carry on with our business.

I also want to congratulate Lord Fowler on retiring and Lord McFall on becoming the new Lord Speaker. Staying with the Lords, I want to pay tribute to Frank Judd, who served as an MP in Portsmouth from 1966 to 1979 and was a Minister in the Wilson and Callaghan Governments. He was a director of Oxfam before being appointed a life peer in 1991. He was an outstanding Member of both Houses. May he rest in peace.

We had Foreign Office questions on Tuesday, and there was nothing about Nazanin or Anousheh. Mehran Raoof’s friend has contacted the Foreign Office to ask for help. He has a trial coming up on 28 April, but has not been allowed to see his lawyer. He needs a Foreign Office representative to be at the trial and he also needs a doctor. I wonder if the Leader of the House could ensure that the Foreign Secretary is aware of that. It would have helped if the Foreign Secretary had updated the House on Tuesday about the permanent adjournment —it looked like a continuous adjournment—of the court case, even though a Government Minister has said the debt should be paid. I am not sure why the Foreign Secretary did not update the House on the citizens.

A statement was put out yesterday at 5 pm on the cuts to overseas development aid, and it is quite upsetting really that that was not announced in the House on Tuesday. This is a massive cut and it is going to have a huge effect on the way Great Britain is seen in the world.

I wonder what Her Majesty’s official Opposition have done because we do not appear to have received the business, whereas other Opposition parties have. Normally, we get the provisional business the day before, but I think we are off the bcc and cc lists. Would the Leader of the House kindly tell us what we have done wrong when we do not get the business?

Last week, the Leader of the House did not answer my questions on the independent adviser on ministerial standards. There has been no list of Ministers’ financial interests for nine months and no list of donor meetings. He will also want to correct the record, I am sure, because he said that Greensill did not get public support, when in fact it did: it got it from the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme. So the lobbying did pay off. Greensill is the only supply chain finance firm accredited for CLBILS, despite not being regulated by the Bank of England or the Financial Conduct Authority. What is so special about Greensill and what is so special about Dyson? He took his business out of the UK.

Now, the Prime Minister was wrong. The shadow Chancellor has asked me to ask the Leader of the House to remind the Prime Minister that there were companies making ventilators in this country—Siemens and Airbus, to name a few—so I wonder if the Leader of the House could pass that on. She cannot find the Chancellor—we would like to know where he is—otherwise she would have passed the message on.

The Government are doing it again. The Cabinet Office and the civil servants are saying, “Please don’t do this.” They are going to appoint the head of space policy at Amazon to the Government’s own OneWeb, in which they have invested £400 million. This person will be working at Amazon as well as working with the Government. The Leader of the House needs to look at that. They have their own project, Kuiper. They are clearly going to have a competitive advantage. This is another case of fix it and flog it.

It is disappointing that the Leader of the House did not tell the House last week that the Prime Minister might have been in India. We got it from the presidential-style announcement in the £2.6 million press conference room, which is now going to be abandoned. It is good because the Prime Minister is not a president. It is odd to spend £2.6 million, and there is no mirror and no comb. The really nice spokesperson went from announcing geek of the week on “Peston” to leak of the week—effectively, it was a leak because those announcements should have been made in the House. She is now going back to geek of the week at COP26. She will have the same difficulty because she will have to explain contradictory Government policy. While the Government are about to reduce new emissions, they are still considering proposals for the first new deep coal mine in 30 years. Could we have a statement ruling that out before COP26?

It was announced not in Parliament but by press release that mobile phone masts up to 30 metres tall are about to get the green light to be put up in our countryside. That is a 20% increase on the current maximum. The shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), has said rural communities have become an afterthought. He wants everyone to be encouraged to take part in the rural England policy review to protect our countryside. Could we have a statement on that in the House?

I know the Leader of the House eats “Erskine May” for breakfast, but he does not seem to be absorbing anything. He knows that the job of Parliament is to hold the Executive to account, but he has presided over the marginalisation of Parliament. It is not me or the socialists saying that, but a paper by Professor Meg Russell, Dr Ruth Fox, Dr Ronan Cormacain and Dr Joe Tomlinson, which referred to no scrutiny of regulations and no meaningful debate. The House of Commons Library—I would not call it a bastion of socialism—said that Ministers can spend up to £469 billion before they get parliamentary approval of departmental spending plans. It would be interesting to hear what the Leader of the House thinks about that. Could we have a debate on restoring Parliament and the checks and balances on the Executive?

Later, there will be an apology for how black and Asian soldiers were treated. George Floyd is a movement. He died at the age of 46. A knee was on his neck for double the amount of time that I have been speaking. It was the right verdict. A young man who was about to become an architect would have been 46 today. We remember Stephen Lawrence; today is Stephen Lawrence Day.

Mr Speaker, you will be pleased that the fans got it right—no super league. They will be singing “Que Sera, we’re on the way to Wem-ber-ley”. We will all be going to Wembley, not just Leicester City and Chelsea, but we wish them well for the FA cup.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes, of course, we are right to commemorate Stephen Lawrence and Lord Judd— may both their souls rest in peace—and to congratulate Lord McFall on becoming the Lord Speaker. I am sure that you and he will have an excellent working relationship, to the benefit of both our Houses, Mr Speaker.

I am sorry that the right hon. Lady thinks she has not been doing the job of scrutiny very well over the last year, and that the procedures we have had have not been satisfactory and therefore the Opposition have been incapable of holding the Government to account. That is really the problem of the Opposition, in failing to use the tools to hand, of which there have been many. We have ensured that any serious change in the rules has been subject to a debate and a vote; we have had legislation passed and when it has been emergency legislation it has had the agreement of the Opposition; we have operated by consent—a year ago, when we introduced the hybrid measures, they were with the consent of the Opposition to do that, to ensure that scrutiny could continue. We have had really effective scrutiny available to the Opposition, if only they had chosen to use it. If they have not used it, that is their problem not mine, because we have made sure that Parliament has been at the centre of the national debate and that we have been able to sit. MPs have an unquestioned right to attend Parliament if they wish and if they do not wish to do so, they are able to Zoom in. So I completely dispute the interpretation of the proceedings we have had over the past year, and this is why we were all thanking the broadcasting and digital team for the work they have done.

On Nazanin and Anousheh, I will of course pass on to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary the points the right hon. Lady has raised, but I must make it clear that there must be and is no linkage between the improper, unlawful detention of British citizens and any debt that there may or may not be between the United Kingdom and a foreign state. Those two issues must always be separate.

As regards overseas aid, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is appearing before the Select Committee today, so it is only right that the statement was made yesterday—it will no doubt form the basis for much of the questioning he will face. This is a proper way of ensuring that Parliament is respected and that the rights of Parliament to hold the Government to account are maintained.

On the issue relating to the adviser to the Prime Minister on the ministerial code, an announcement is going to be made on that shortly. A recruitment process has been under way. The key is that the lobbying did not pay off; as was clear from the messages between my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and the former Prime Minister, the lobbying did not lead to any change.

Then we come on to the terrible muddle the Opposition are in about procurement of ventilators. An Opposition spokesman said:

“The Ventilator Challenge is an example of how UK manufacturers, a world class workforce…have come together”.

They were all in favour of it. The Public Accounts Committee said that this national effort is undoubtedly a “significant achievement” and a “benchmark for procurement”. So what the Prime Minister did was to ensure that things happened. This is the dither and delay of the socialists. They do not want to do things; they want to put the process ahead of succeeding. It is not, as used to be the socialists’ mantra, that the end justifies the means, but that the means justify the ends, so if the ends had been no ventilators but they had followed some endless bureaucratic process that took six months, the socialists would be happy. Instead we got on and did it, and we got 30,000 ventilators in a matter of weeks—that was up from 9,000. It was a phenomenal achievement, and let us praise Dyson for all that he has contributed to British manufacturing, the huge success that he has been and the commitment—£20 million of his own money—that he put towards ventilators. That is a proper patriotic gesture by a man I hold in the highest esteem and we should praise.

As we are praising people, let us also praise Allegra Stratton, who has made a marvellous contribution to the Government and will do so for COP—the conference of the parties—as well. In her various roles, she has succeeded in holding politicians to account. I remember being quizzed by her in one of her various journalistic roles. Indeed, I was “geek of the week” on one occasion on the Peston show. Some Members may think I am geek every week, but I once got that particular award. I note that the office that has been so nicely done up is the Privy Council office. As Lord President of the Council, perhaps I should be putting in a claim to use it for a good and worthy purpose of Privy Council business.

As regards any coalmining planning applications, once called in they are, as the right hon. Lady knows, in a quasi-judicial process and it would be wrong of me to go into the details of them. Let me finish by reiterating the point that if there has not been proper scrutiny, she knows where the failure to scrutinise has come from .

House Standards System: Confidentiality and Sanctions

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement and for setting out the motions so helpfully. Let me start by saying that the inquiry started, I think, in June 2019, and I encourage hon. and right hon. Members to look at the Committee’s 12th report, which was published on 30 March 2021.

I am slightly concerned that the report states, at paragraph 5, that the Committee

“consulted the two largest Opposition parties represented in the House about the revised proposals.”

I was first written to by the Chair of the Standards Committee on 8 March 2021. I felt that I needed to consult our business managers and senior leaders of our party, but it would have been helpful if all leaders of all parties were consulted. That would have been a much more transparent way of looking at these matters. Although the report states that we were consulted, from the evidence that was published it looks like I have had nothing to say, and that I cannot write or I cannot read, or whatever, but there is copious correspondence from the Leader of the House and the Chair of the Committee at pages 13 to 29. I hope that, in the future, the Chair of the Committee will find a way of consulting in time.

It would have been helpful, too, if the note from the Speaker setting out clarification—it appeared this morning, after hon. Members were put on the call list— had been published either the day before or well in advance, so that hon. Members could have known exactly what was being debated today.

Other than that, I thank the Leader of the House for encouraging the Chair of the Committee to engage with the Opposition, I thank him for his statement today, and I note the reports.

Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for outlining the work that is going to be undertaken on the Sponsor Body, I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) for all the work he has done, and I wish the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) well in her future work.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 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 (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 19 April will include:

Monday 19 April —Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (Day 1).

Tuesday 20 April —Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (Day 2).

Wednesday 21 April—Motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to counter terrorism, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, followed by a debate on the sixth report from the Committee on Standards relating to confidentiality in the House’s standards system and the seventh report from the Committee on Standards relating to sanctions in respect of the conduct of Members, followed by a motion relating to membership of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body.

Thursday 22 April—Debate on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, eight report of Session 2019-21, on Government Transparency and Accountability During Covid 19: The Data Underpinning Decisions, followed by a debate on a motion on mass human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region. The subjects for those debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 23April—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 26 April will include:

Monday 26 April —If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve the Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2021; followed by a motion to approve the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (High-Risk Countries) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2021, No.392); followed by a motion relating to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) (Amendment) (No.7) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No.150).

[Valerie Vaz]

Follow that, as they say. I thank the Leader of the House for the business. I note that there is the possibility of proroguing on 29 April, and we only have the business up until the 26th, so we look forward to a further announcement.

I start by sending my condolences and those of Opposition Members who have not had the opportunity to send them to our Gracious Sovereign and her family on the sad passing of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip. We must remember him not just as the Queen’s consort but as a husband of 73 years. I know that the country will want to remember his good works, his deeds and his wonderful personality as he is laid to rest on Saturday. May he rest in peace.

Yet again, we have to have the Prime Minister come back to clarify his remarks. Yesterday, he said at Primeand Ethnic Disparities, but it is a Government report. They set it up: it is out of No. 10 and out of the Cabinet Office. It is totally discredited, as at least 20 organisations and individuals listed as stakeholders have distanced themselves from the report.

It is not clear what this took into account because the 2017 McGregor-Smith report, commissioned by the then Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), on race in the workplace, said:

“In the UK today, there is a structural, historical bias that favours certain individuals.”

The racism at work survey published in 2019 said that over 70% of black, Asian and minority ethnic workers had been racially harassed at work in the last five years. Between October and December, 41% of black people aged 16 to 24 were out of work compared with 12.4% of their white counterparts. Forty years on from the Brixton riots, black unemployment for that quarter was at the same level as it was as in 1980s. I urge the Leader of the House: please could we have a debate in Government time on the report? There are too many unanswered questions.

Today marks 32 years since the Hillsborough disaster, and the families have worked tirelessly in campaigning for an inquiry, and that is why it is important to get the inquiry right on the Greensill debacle. I do not know whether the Government think the country is stupid, but we are absolutely incredulous at asking a person who serves as a non-executive in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to lead the inquiry. The Minister for the Constitution and Devolution said yesterday that she has had to suspend him as a non-exec. The legal profession is brimming full of talent in lawyers with absolutely no connection with the Government, BEIS or anything. Why do we not have one of them?

The Prime Minister said yesterday that it is a difficult line with the civil service and “boundaries” are blurred—that was his word—but, no, civil servants do not have two jobs. A secondment is a temporary assignment. Yes, they should get the experience of both places—the private sector and the civil service—but not at the same time. This is an abuse of power. The Government are only making appointments when it is “one of us”—one of them—just as they are doing with the board of Channel 4.

It matters because this is about public money, and public money cannot be found for NHS workers and their agreed 2.1%, but it can be found for Greensill. It matters because council tax payers have to stump up £100 now, yet Greensill is bailed out. It matters because, as the shadow Chancellor said, Greensill met Treasury officials 10 times, whereas those excluded—entrepreneurs, small businesses, the self-employed—have got nothing out of these schemes and met Treasury officials once. It matters because this is public money and it should be used in the public interest. It is like having Lex Luthor in the heart of Government, but I want to tell the Government that there is no kryptonite on the Opposition Benches, and we will fight for truth, justice and the British way of fairness.

I know that the Leader of the House talks about transparency and accountability all the time, and I know he tries very hard to do that. He has seen the way Simon Case has acted—immediately—on the civil servants, so why has Sir Alex Allan’s post not been filled and when will the statements covering relevant ministerial interests be published? We should have had two a year, but the last one was in December 2019. I think the Government will look sleazy if they do not publish them. Former Prime Ministers released quarterly lists of donors meetings. I think the Government will look sleazy if they do not publish that, so I ask the Leader of the House: when could we have those published?

To coin a phrase, can I ask the Leader of the House to push the team at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for an update on Nazanin and Anoosheh, who has had a 67th birthday in prison? They are all in Vienna discussing it, and we need an update.

We have lost some incredible people in the House, and I want to pay tribute to Dame Cheryl Gillan. I worked with her on the all-party parliamentary group on epilepsy. She brought to the House and put on the statute book the Autism Act 2009, which means we value people on the spectrum and know they have hidden talents. She did that through her tireless campaigning for 29 years as a Member of Parliament. We will not forget; it seems like only yesterday that she was berating the Leader of the House for changing the hybrid procedure.

Ian Gibson was a geneticist and a former MP for Norwich North from 1997 to 2009. He was Chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee and joint manager of the parliamentary football team. I met him through the Manufacturing, Science and Finance union. He was so kind to people starting off on their political journey.

James Winston was valued and respected across both Houses and by all parts of the Chamber. He worked with Members in pursuit of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, and we mourn his loss, especially at this time.

Then there is Shirley Williams—Baroness Williams. Despite being the daughter of George Catlin and Vera Brittain, she managed to carve her own way. She was absolutely brilliant as an Education Secretary and as a parliamentarian in both Houses. I saw her when I was at university. She really was, as the magazine headline said, “Sweet Williams”. She was wonderful and would have made a great future Prime Minister, as her father once suggested. She screen-tested for the “National Velvet” film, and I want to say something positive at the end: Rachael Blackmore should be congratulated on being the first woman to win the Grand National.

Finally, we cannot process this year, but I hope the whole House will join me in wishing all the Sikh community a happy Vaisakhi.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I join the right hon. Lady in wishing the Sikh community a happy Vaisakhi. I also join her in commemorating so many people who have died. This is a particularly sad business questions, because there are so many people of the greatest distinction to commemorate.

The House paid its tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh, the longest serving consort and the longest serving member of the Privy Council in the Privy Council’s history. The tributes were extremely touching and represented the heartfelt sorrow of the nation at the passing of someone who supported our constitution and our way of life.

We are all saddened by the death of a Member, Dame Cheryl Gillan, who was just such a lovely person. She came to some of the meetings held in the run-up to the various Brexit debates. She was always advising goodwill, kindliness and respect for the views of others with steely principles underlying that. That degree of kindliness as well as sense of purpose is something that we respect in Members of Parliament, but also have great affection for, and I think that is important, too.

We also mourn Peter Ainsworth, who was one of the first people to come and campaign for me when I was selected as the candidate for North East Somerset. He was a committed supporter of the party. The right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) also mentioned Ian Gibson, a distinguished former Member, and James Winston. There is also Robert Howarth and Paul Marland, who was a long-serving Member of Parliament. He was very much thought of as being a dutiful Member, who served his country in the traditional way that people like me perhaps have the greatest admiration for. Of course there is also Baroness Williams of Crosby, and I hope I will have an opportunity to say a little more about her later on in proceedings. On a happier note, I congratulate Rachael Blackmore on winning the Grand National, but it is mainly a sad day, and that is one bit of solace and happiness.

To come to the right hon. Lady’s detailed questions, she raises some very important points. The report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is very important and makes an important contribution to the debate. It has made 24 recommendations, which the Government are considering. I think it is right that we look at the progress made in this country and recognise how different the experience in this country is from the United States, rather than assuming that everything here is the same as the many problems they have in other countries. We should recognise success as well as understanding that we always have further to go. The fundamental recognition that there is equality under the law for everybody in this country is something that we can welcome and ought to be positive about. I am sure that this matter will be discussed in this House on many occasions and raised in many different ways, because it is a subject of fundamental importance about the type of country we are.

The right hon. Lady raises serious questions about Greensill Capital and the relationships between it and Government. It is right that the review is taking place under Nigel Boardman to understand primarily, as a starting point, the use of supply chain finance. Until we understand where it started—why the Government were using supply chain finance, which prima facie is something that we would not think a Government would do—we cannot understand what has happened subsequently, so it is the right review to be taking place.

Mr Boardman is highly respected. He is a non-executive director of BEIS. He has stood aside from that during the period of this inquiry, but he is a very distinguished lawyer and I think that he will bring considerable expertise to the report. It is right that this matter is looked at fairly and properly, and it will also be looked at by a number of House of Commons Committees, which will do so with the full power and authority of the House of Commons and the ability to send for persons and papers.

The right hon. Lady is right to say that public money should be used wisely and properly. In that context, she is not right to say that Greensill was bailed out, because it was not. That is the whole point: the lobbying was done, but the lobbying did not succeed. I think that is something that should reassure us about the propriety of the way this Government are run. Who someone knows and how they are connected does not mean that they get what they want. That, ultimately, is the test of whether a Government are operating properly, and this Government are operating properly.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

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

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 12 April will include:

Monday 12 April—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 13 April—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Wednesday 14 April—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a motion in the name of the Official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 15 April—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Domestic Abuse Bill.

Friday 16 April—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 19 April will include:

Monday 19 April—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (day 1).

Tuesday 20 April—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill (day 2).

Wednesday 21 April—Motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to counter-terrorism followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill.

Thursday 22 April—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 23 April—The House will not be sitting.

May I announce to the House that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the Whitsun recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 27 May and return on Monday 7 June?

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business, and of course for the Opposition day. It is the 19th allotted day, so it would be useful to know when this Session is coming to an end and when we are going to prorogue and have a Queen’s Speech.

I note that there is a motion on the Order Paper, which I hope will be passed, allowing an extension of the procedures until 21 June. I think they have all been quite useful. The numbers of cases and deaths are now slightly rising; I noticed that they were going up as of yesterday.

I know the Leader of the House will join me in condemning the rise in hate crime against Asian people, particularly Asian people in America, and the deaths of the Asian women last week.

Yesterday, the shadow Deputy Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), spoke of the loss of a generation in his family—his parents-in-law and his mother—and he and the Leader of the Opposition called on the Prime Minister to set up an inquiry. The Leader of the House will know that nurse Mary Agyapong was sent home after collapsing and then died, so it is really important that we start looking at best practice, at where things are going wrong and at what is happening.

I will try this again. Arj Singh is the deputy political editor of HuffPost UK. He is not a “cheat”, he is not a “knave” and he is not a “fool”. There was no clipping—the shearing season has not started yet—and it was not poor-quality online journalism because it was in The Times. The headline was:

“Ignore human rights and strike trade deals”,

and the Foreign Secretary has admitted that it was verbatim: he said that that is exactly what he said. I note that the Leader of the House did not apologise in his podcast to the journalist in question; I wonder whether he could do so today. We want sanctions; we do not want trade deals. A seven-year-old was shot in her father’s arms in Myanmar.

I thank the Leader of the House for his assiduousness in dealing with everything that I raise in business questions. I got a response from the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, the right hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), who said that Mehran Raoof had not requested consular assistance, yet Amnesty International has labelled him a prisoner of conscience. Richard Ratcliffe has said that nothing has been decided on Nazanin, and there is nothing on Anousheh or on Luke Symons. They have still not been returned to their families. I do not know whether the Foreign Secretary is going to update us, or when they are likely to be coming home to their families.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said that she had seen a newspaper exclusive that Dr Harries may be in line for a promotion. I am not sure that it is acceptable to announce that first as an exclusive to a newspaper and then as a written statement which was published yesterday. What is this new UK health security agency? Why have things been rearranged while we are in the middle of a pandemic? Why has the Secretary of State for Health not come to the House to explain what this agency is, so that we can ask questions? Worse still, 18 written statements have been published today, according to the Order Paper. That is not acceptable at all.

Could we have an urgent statement—there is still time before we rise for Easter—on the Department for Work and Pensions having been held to have an unlawful policy on regulations? It is charging people by taking fines from their universal credit.

I would also like a statement and clarification on whether turning the green belt into a car park is a new Government policy. The current Mayor of the West Midlands wants to turn a meadow off Walstead Road into a car park so that people can drive there and then get on the Sprint route. He thinks that Transport West Midlands is not under his jurisdiction, but it is. He also says that he does not want to build on green spaces, but he is building that right in the town centre. Could we have a statement on whether there are different Government policies for the west midlands on the green belt, housing, buses and cars?

I wonder whether the Leader of the House can help me with another matter. A constituent rang yesterday. He said that he exports saddles and that when he did so to a customer in the Netherlands, the customer was charged €200. He said that he thought that we had a free trade agreement with the EU that would protect his business. Can the Leader of the House please tell him what he can do? I presume that it will be Lord Frost who will answer that.

May I now wish some people a happy retirement? I have heard that Dido Harding might be leaving Test and Trace next month. No announcement has been made to the House. It would be useful to find out about that. More importantly, Dr Chris Handy from Accord Housing in the west midlands is to retire. He started there 50 years ago with 24 employees and a few hundred homes. Now he has 3,500 staff, 13,000 homes and a fantastic eco-home, which he has innovated. He has written books on the law of social landlords and “Housing Association Law and Practice”. He has given voice to some of the most vulnerable and has helped them to find homes after coming out of prison. He will be missed, so I say thank you to Dr Chris Handy for his innovation at Accord.

The Lord Speaker is also stepping down in April. I thank him for all his work over the past four years. He has made a great contribution, and I know that he will campaign on HIV and AIDS. Tomorrow is International Epilepsy Day, so I hope that everyone will be wearing purple.

Finally, 365 days ago on Tuesday the world shook, and it is still shaking now. We all know someone close who has died in the pandemic, and I wish everyone a very peaceful Easter.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I join the right hon. Lady in wishing everybody a happy Easter? I also thank everybody who ensures that the House of Commons runs so efficiently and so effectively. There is always an appropriate time—there is never an inappropriate time—in which to thank the Doorkeepers for their magnificent work. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] They are such a visible show of the dignity of the House of Commons when they are seen on television and such an unfailing help to Members. I also thank everybody else who is involved behind the scenes, who have been here when Members have been zooming in. Without them, Members would not have been able to zoom in. It is the behind-the-scenes staff who have allowed us to do our constitutional duty and I am sure that we would all like to record our thanks.

May I join the right hon. Lady in paying tribute to my noble Friend, Lord Fowler, who is retiring? He has been a very distinguished public servant—a statesman, it would be fair to say. He is famous for many things, not least for developing the term, “Retiring to spend more time with his family”, which became code when people left Government at one point for perhaps more profound disagreements, but, none the less, on this retirement, I hope that he genuinely will be spending more time with his family.

I do not know Dr Chris Handy, but what the right hon. Lady says of him is so impressive. Trying to give people a second chance and getting prisoners to have homes is a very important statement about the society in which we believe, so I wish him a very happy retirement.

The Queen’s Speech is scheduled for 11 May, and that has now been announced. The motions that are being laid before the House and which will be debated with the motions on the coronavirus restrictions will take us through to 21 May and are based on the advice that the Government are using on the road map.

I share the right hon. Lady’s criticism, shock and outrage at hate crimes that lead to people being killed. Society must do absolutely everything to stop that. The law must be upheld and the law must be enforced.

On online news organisation, I refer to what the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said last week:

“We regret that this audio has been deliberately and selectively clipped to distort the Foreign Secretary’s comments.”

The effect was to leave a fundamentally false impression in the mind of the reader. This is why I encourage all journalists to ensure that quotes fully reflect the audio available. I hope that the right hon. Lady agrees with that and would do the same. Let them huff and puff, but they will not blow this particular House down.

The right hon. Lady rightly raises, every week, the issue of dual nationals held improperly overseas. The Foreign Secretary obviously takes this very seriously. We have discussed before the limitations of what Her Majesty’s Government can do, but within their powers, Her Majesty’s Government do what they can. There is regular engagement not only with the families concerned to offer them support, but with the Governments concerned to try and pursue the interests of those British nationals held overseas. I think the treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is so outrageous that the Iranian Government should be ashamed of how they have treated her.

The changes to Public Health England were announced some months ago, so I do not think it is unreasonable that further information is becoming available and is made available to the House in a written ministerial statement—half the time the right hon. Lady asks me for more statements and then, when we give more statements, she says we have too many and that is unfair. It is inevitable; we have had so many oral statements recently—I think we have had five this week and six last week, in addition to the urgent questions that have been asked—so there has been real effort to keep Parliament up to date. There are always constraints on the time available, so there are often things that we would like to give statements on but we cannot have a third statement on a particular day. That is the normal organisation of business and it is perfectly reasonable. Before a recess, all Governments always put out a larger number of written statements for the very obvious reason that there is an obligation in the ministerial code to tell Parliament first. Anyone who has worked to a deadline will know that the deadline of a recess encourages Government Departments to put out their statements, quite rightly.

Let me finish on the wonderful achievements of the Mayor of the west midlands, who has done such a fabulous job in making the west midlands a place where people want to do business and are succeeding in doing business. It has been an area of prosperity under his excellent and benign leadership. I visited, in the right hon. Lady’s constituency, a fantastic brownfield site development that was being led—energised—by the Mayor for the west midlands, and I wish him every possible success in the upcoming local elections, where I am sure he will triumph because he has been so good at doing his job.

Electoral Commission

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for moving the motion. May I start by thanking the outgoing chair of the Electoral Commission, Sir John Holmes, for his four years of service in what is a very important role? I am sure many hon. Members will remember that, before chairing the Electoral Commission, Sir John spent his career working in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as a foreign affairs adviser to two Prime Ministers of two different parties. We thank Sir John for his leadership and his work to support our democratic process.

As the Leader of the House set out, the panel was appointed by Mr Speaker to oversee the selection process for Sir John’s successor. I want to place on the record my thanks to all those who served on that panel: my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), Philippa Helme, Tony Hobman and Sarah Laessig.

The full transcript of the interview on 1 March 2021 with seven hon. Members and Mr Speaker is available, as the Leader of the House said, in the report of the Speaker’s Committee. In recommending John Pullinger, the panel said:

“John gave full and wide-ranging answers that persuaded us that he had the knowledge and experience necessary to perform strongly in this role. He had a clear appreciation of the range of issues the Commission was facing and of the complexity of its stakeholder base.”

We remember John fondly as the Librarian until 2014. He then became the UK national statistician between 2014 and 2019. He developed and delivered a strategy to enhance the trustworthiness, quality and value of official statistics to support political debate and decisions. He said that it is

“unacceptable for people to either not use evidence, or to misuse it.”

He has also helped to strengthen democracies in places such as Myanmar and Iraq. That emphasis on transparency and evidence-based decision making means that he is suitable for the role, which safeguards the integrity of our electoral process.

The Electoral Commission, like the Office for National Statistics, is independent of Government. John Pullinger therefore has experience to lead this organisation in an independent, robust and accountable way. We in the Opposition thank the Committee of Selection. We are pleased that John Pullinger has agreed to take this position after a rigorous interview, and we wish him all the best in his new role.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 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 (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 22 March will include:

Monday 22 March—Consideration of Lords message relating to the Trade Bill, followed by consideration of Lords message relating to the Fire Safety Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [Lords], followed by a motion relating to the membership of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of the chair of the Electoral Commission.

Tuesday 23 March—Second Reading of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill.

Wednesday 24 March—General debate on online anonymity and anonymous abuse, followed by general debate on support for the hospitality industry throughout the covid-19 pandemic. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 25 March—Motion to approve regulations relating to public health and motions under the Coronavirus Act 2020 relating to the renewal of temporary provisions, the one year status report and a motion relating to the extension of parliamentary proceedings during the pandemic.

At the conclusion of business on Thursday 25 March the House will rise for the Easter recess and return on Tuesday 13 April.

The provisional business for the week commencing 12 April will include:

Monday 12 April—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 13 April—Second Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business.

On Monday, it will be the fourth anniversary of the death of PC Keith Palmer. Mr Speaker, I know that you will arrange for the flags to fly at half-mast.

There are various dates knocking around regarding the possible date of the Queen’s Speech. I do not know why the Leader of the House does not just come out and say it. Perhaps I can suggest a date—something like 11 May.

I note that the Leader of the House has arranged for the extension of the Coronavirus Act 2020. Could he be clear about exactly how long that debate will be? The other place is debating it for five hours. There was some query, Mr Speaker, about whether we could extend the time of the debate, and you told the Health Secretary that it could be longer than 90 minutes, so I hope that the Leader of the House will confirm that.

The motion is interesting. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether it is amendable? The shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), has suggested that there are some aspects of the Act that do not need to be renewed because they have not been used. For example, emergency powers to register nurses and social workers—not used; powers for the Home Secretary to vary the time for urgent warrants—not used; suspension of the requirement to hold inquests with a jury—not used. Can there be a chat about that after the statement later? We would be treating right hon. and hon. Members, and this House, with disrespect if we did not have a long opportunity to debate that motion.

It would be a pity to rush through it, especially because I know that the Leader of the House will join me in condemning the description of the Department of Health as a “smoking ruin” by the special special adviser who got a pay rise greater than the NHS nurses, who actually got a pay cut. That is a disgraceful thing to say about people who have worked extremely hard—flat out—during the pandemic. We know that the Government are finding it difficult to answer our questions, which is why we need an inquiry for those who have been bereaved by this terrible pandemic. The Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), have both met the bereaved. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has met the bereaved families. That is why we need an inquiry. If we are going to open up after 21 June, we need to know the lessons learned. Inquiries are very simple to set up now. I am pleased that the Council of Europe is reopening the inquiry into the Pat Finucane case; that will be important so that his family, including the hon. Member for Belfast North (John Finucane), can find the truth.

The Leader of the House will know that the Procedure Committee has been extremely assiduous and published its eighth report of this Session. I thank the Chair and all members of the Committee, some of whom do lots of different jobs at the same time. The Committee has called for all the temporary orders to be extended until 21 June. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether he agrees with that? There is a bizarre sentence at paragraph 26 that I do not understand, in which the Committee recommends that the House

“reverts to all aspects of its pre-pandemic practice and procedure.”

I am not sure when, or what exactly that means. Will the Leader of the House clarify the Government’s position on that?

The Prime Minister promised the fishermen an El Dorado. I wonder whether he knows that that is a mythical city. Perhaps he was talking about the bit where they covered themselves in gold. Either way, tell that to the Jersey fishermen who blockaded the port in protest; they are desperate. It is more desperado than El Dorado. The Office for National Statistics says that there was a drop of 83% in fish exports in January, and that UK goods exported to the EU have fallen by 40% and imports by 28%. These are not covid-related falls, because there are no similar shifts in non-EU countries. We need a statement from the Secretary of State for International Trade, and we need her to publish the impact assessment on the EU trade deal, as the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), has called for. The Secretary of State is publishing all the minor deals, but not the main one.

We also need the Foreign Secretary to come to the Chamber to explain why his private comments are different from his public comments. It appears that the Government are allegedly pursuing an unethical foreign policy. He wants to do deals with countries that do not care about their people—for example, Myanmar. I am sure that the Leader of the House will have been shocked by the image of a nun standing in front of the army there, pleading with them not to shoot at the protesters; 90 people have died. There is no point just having sanctions against a few generals. We want them against all the generals. I do not know whether the Leader of the House has seen pictures of the Myanmar Parliament, but members sit there in a block, unaccountable—sometimes not even moving.

How we cheered when the tags came off Nazanin. But it is a farce that she had to go back to court again. And there is nothing about Anousheh and the other innocent people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has asked me to raise the case of Luke Symons. His parents and his granddad Bob want to know what is going on. We need to indulge in more diplomacy, and we have an ally in the President of the United States.

Finally, Sunday is international day for the elimination of racial discrimination. It is also World Poetry Day, but that is not an invitation to the Leader of the House to respond to me in verse.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Mr Speaker, my verse gets worse and worse.

I thank the right hon. Lady for reminding us that it is the fourth anniversary of the death of PC Palmer, who died in the service of the House. We keep his soul and his family in our prayers. He is a model of public service, of courage and of the type of policing of which this country is so fortunate, in the general rule of things, to be a real example—of police who are of their community and for their community, and who, unarmed, face unknown risks. We continue to mourn and commemorate him.

The right hon. Lady asks when the new Parliament will be. That will, of course, be announced in the normal course of events, as she knows perfectly well. It is one of those things that she has to ask me and I have to give the same answer every week, and we will no doubt carry on doing that for some time. [Interruption.] There is a little bit of electronic interference coming in—I do not know where that is coming from.

The debate on Thursday the 25th will be an all-day debate. Obviously, that will be subject to statements and urgent questions, but other than that we will be debating this very important issue throughout the whole day. It is obviously right, as the right hon. Lady says, that it should be properly debated. The reason why it is important to extend the Coronavirus Act 2020 is that the furlough scheme will be going on for the whole of the six months. The basis for the furlough scheme is the Coronavirus Act, which provides for only six-month extensions, but that is something that it will be doing throughout that period. As other things wax and wane, the Government have already announced that one thing will continue during that period, so the Act is needed.

May I put in a word in defence of Dominic Cummings? He is an excellent public servant who has done a great deal for this country, and he worked with a pay cut when he was first appointed. He took £40,000 less than he was entitled to, and then his pay reverted to its normal level. I am not sure that many other people working in the public sector take that level of pay cut, and I think that shows his commitment to the public service. He did a great deal for this country, not least through his energetic and effective campaigning in the Brexit referendum, but also in providing energy for Her Majesty’s Government. He is an important figure. His evidence was interesting, though it was not evidence that one agrees with in its entirety. I think my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has done an absolutely fantastic job over the past year and is an example of how politicians ought to behave and, perhaps most importantly, to lead Departments.

As for an inquiry, as has been said by Professor Van-Tam, the time for that will be when the pandemic has ended. The worst thing to do now would be to interrupt the enormous amount of work being done in dealing with the pandemic by having an inquiry, but of course it will be looked into in due course.

Her Majesty’s Government will reply to the Procedure Committee in accordance with the Osmotherly rules, which, as is well known, is how replies are made. As I have said before on the Floor of the House, when we asked people to give consensus, to accept, that we had to have these extraordinary measures, it was on the basis that they were temporary. If it were to be the will of the House to adopt some things permanently, it may wish to do so, but we must go back to normal first and then decide what we wish to implement. Otherwise, we would have got the consensus by cheat, and I am not in favour of cheating.

As regards support for fishermen, there has been a £23 million exceptional fund provided immediately and £100 million for them to improve their fleets over coming years, so there is support for fishermen. Maintaining more access to our own waters is going to be a benefit, though I do not think I ever called it an Eldorado; I am not sure that that is a phrase I have used.

The Foreign Secretary’s comments were shockingly distorted by low-quality journalism. It is a cheat that journalists sometimes use of editing text or a recording. It was done to Roger Scruton by the New Statesman, and it has now been done to the Foreign Secretary. It is a very cheap level of journalism, and it is not a proper way to behave. He was absolutely clear that there are behaviours that mean we cannot trade with people—he said that—if only people had bothered not to clip the recording unfairly, improperly and, broadly, dishonestly. We should look at that type of poor-quality online journalism. It is not the sort of thing that would happen in The Times.

I have so much sympathy with what the right hon. Lady says every week about Nazanin, Anousheh and Luke Symons. They are being worked for by the Foreign Office in ways that it can; Luke Symons’s case is particularly difficult, obviously. The Prime Minister spoke to the President of Iran recently about Nazanin. There is no excuse for the Iranian Government holding her. She ought to be released. These trumped-up charges are improper and wrong, and they reflect on a regime that does not acknowledge the rule of law. We should make it clear that the fault lies with the Iranian Government, not with Her Majesty’s Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Mr Speaker, I am glad to say that those who occupy premises on the parliamentary estate are allowed to keep pets—they are allowed to keep parrots, dogs, cats and tortoises, I believe.

[Valerie Vaz]

And tarantulas!

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Indeed, allegedly, some people even keep tarantulas, though I do not believe that that particular right hon. Friend of mine is resident or has been resident in the House. Pets play a very important role in people’s lives and create great happiness. As has often been said in politics, “If you want to have a friend, buy a dog”, though I am sure that is not true for many right hon. and hon. Members. The Minister for Housing revised the national model tenancy agreement this January, making it easier for tenants with pets to find private landlords who will accept them. The key change was to remove restrictions on responsible tenants with pets, encouraging landlords to offer greater flexibility in their approach to pet ownership. A private landlord ought to accept a request from a tenant to keep pets where the landlord is satisfied that the tenant is a responsible pet owner and when the pet is suitable in relation to the nature of the premises at which it will be kept. This aims to strike the right balance between protecting private landlords from situations where their properties are damaged by badly behaved pets while ensuring that responsible pet-owning tenants are not unfairly penalised. I hope that helps my hon. Friend.

Point of Order

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I rise to make a point of order in relation to what the Leader of the House said earlier. He may have inadvertently misled the House when he used words like “cheat” and “editing a recording” about something that I raised in relation to the Foreign Secretary. I have had this statement from the journalist in question and from the Huffington Post:

“We did not edit any recording passed to us and quoted it in full.”

Could I have your guidance on what the Leader of the House could do? If the Leader of the House is not prepared to repeat what he said outside, he must withdraw it and apologise now; otherwise, he is casting aspersions on the integrity of a journalist. Could I have your guidance please, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

Obviously, the point has been raised, but it is not for me to judge on it. However, the Leader of the House is here, and I look to see whether he wishes to respond and clear the matter up.