Business of the House

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:34 am on 20 October 2011.

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Photo of Angela Eagle Angela Eagle Shadow Leader of the House of Commons 11:34, 20 October 2011

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his answer. I certainly hope that the business remains the same until we get to Monday because we have had two very drastic changes in less than 24 hours.

I pay tribute to the outgoing Serjeant at Arms, who will be sorely missed when she leaves in the new year. She is the first woman to hold the post and she has served the House with distinction for 18 years.

Never let it be said that business questions does not achieve results. Just 24 hours after my first appearance here as shadow Leader of the House last week, the Prime Minister answered my call to include more women in his Cabinet. If he is going to take my advice that quickly, I start today by calling for an immediate general election.

[Interruption.]

They are already out there campaigning.

At the beginning of the week we all saw the astonishing pictures of the Minister of State, Cabinet Office taking his regular early morning strolls in the park. He is well known for his wisdom. He recently startled a group of his own Back Benchers by announcing that the Government would run out of ideas by 2012. Some of us think that they already have. He then upset the Deputy Prime Minister by saying:

“We don’t want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays.”

Now it appears that the Prime Minister’s policy supremo and blue-sky thinker has developed a penchant for al fresco filing and is the subject of two official investigations as a result. Is not the real problem that he has been throwing away the wrong things? Next time he is out for an early morning stroll in the park he should be throwing the Government’s failing economic strategy and their wasteful NHS plans in the bin, rather than disposing of his constituents’ private details. Can we have a debate on Ministers who think that the rules do not apply to them?

Speaking of which, in his statement yesterday the Leader of the House said that it was time to move on from the scandal engulfing the former Secretary of State for Defence. Will he accept that we cannot move on while serious questions remain? In that context, it has been widely reported that the former Secretary of State used his then parliamentary office to run his discredited charity, Atlantic Bridge. Has the Leader of the House conducted an investigation into this issue, and if so is he satisfied that no parliamentary rules were broken by that unusual arrangement?

If yesterday saw the House at its most combative, Monday saw the House at its most consensual. The injustice and raw emotion still felt by the Hillsborough families was movingly reflected in this House on Monday in one of the most powerful debates I have witnessed in all my time as a Member of this place. Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the Backbench Business Committee on the speed with which it facilitated that important debate? Members on both sides of the House now recognise the urgent need to release all the documents relating to the disaster to get finally at the truth and bring some comfort to the families. Following the disgraceful comments yesterday by Sir Oliver Popplewell, who accused the families of harbouring conspiracy theories, will the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to join Opposition Members in condemning unreservedly those crass and insensitive remarks.

The Leader of the House has just announced last-minute, wholesale changes to next week’s business. There have been two major changes to business in less than 24 hours, and the right hon. Gentleman has brought forward the Public Bodies Bill and shifted the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill back by a week. That Bill has been ambushed by Tory hangers and floggers, and torn to pieces, both in the press and by the legal profession. It is all too obvious that the Ministry of Justice is in a mess and cannot even bring its Bill to the House.

The most revealing announcement from the Leader of the House was about the Government’s decision to rush forward the debate proposing a referendum on

Britain’s membership of the European Union from Thursday to first thing Monday. Fifty-nine Conservatives have already declared their intention to defy their leader, and there are reports that at least five ministerial aides are on the brink of resignation, so is that not proof of a growing Tory mutiny that has the Prime Minister running scared, the Whips Office in a panic and a Government split from top to bottom? Will the Leader of the House confirm that if he thought he could have got away with it, he would have scheduled this debate on Sunday evening during “Songs of Praise”?