Business of the House

Part of Short Money and Policy Development Grant – in the House of Commons at 11:06 am on 11 February 2016.

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Photo of Chris Grayling Chris Grayling Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons 11:06, 11 February 2016

The hon. Gentleman is clearly incapable of keeping his remarks to five minutes.

May I start by echoing the hon. Gentleman’s comments about Harry Harpham? It is always a tragedy when any Member of this House passes away, particularly after such a short time in this House. I am sure I express the sentiments of all hon. Members in sending good wishes to his family.

I, too, extend birthday wishes to Mr Skinner. I suspect he will not join me, although I hope that the shadow Leader of the House, as a great champion of equalities issues, will in celebrating the 41st anniversary of the first woman party leader in this country—a woman who became one of our greatest Prime Ministers, a great leader of this country. I am sure he would want to celebrate her achievement in demonstrating that the Conservative party is the one that creates opportunity for all.

As we heard yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, there is no doubt about the winner of this week’s quote of the week award:

“Oh dear oh dear omg oh dear oh dear need to go rest in a darkened room”.

The surprising thing is that that tweet from Mrs Moon was not about her party leader’s stunning success in launching his local election campaign 2016 in Nottingham, a city which this year has no local elections. Of course her comments came in the wake of her party being briefed on progress in its defence review. The party was told that Trident would soon be as obsolete as Spitfire because of a new generation of demon underwater drones that no defence specialist has ever heard of. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, indeed. This is the madness that has now engulfed the Labour party. And the hon. Gentleman still thinks he has any credibility sitting in the shadow Cabinet.

I am pleased to have been able to confirm that the Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill will receive its Second Reading on 22 February. I place on record my thanks and congratulations to all those who have been involved in the negotiations leading to the publication of the Bill. I am also grateful for the constructive discussions that have taken place between the Government and Opposition parties about the Bill.

The only rather surprising thing is that when the shadow Leader of the House started jumping up and down last week about the Second Reading on 22 February, no one on his side had apparently bothered to tell him that all those discussions were happening. But we know that the hon. Gentleman is not much in the loop with his party these days anyway. At these sessions he asks for debate after debate, but when I give him and his colleagues an Opposition day and they pick their subject, it is virtually never on the subjects he says are important. He has asked for various things this morning. I have given him a new Opposition day, but I bet his party still does not listen to him.

It has not been a great week for the hon. Gentleman. He managed to turn an important debate about domestic violence into one about whether Welsh rugby fans should sing the Tom Jones song “Delilah” at the start of matches. He ended up in a spat with the songwriter, who said that the hon. Gentleman did not even know what the song was about. He may love the sound of his own voice, but right now it is not unusual to find that no one is listening to him.