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Business of the House

12.30 pm

Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire): Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for next week?

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 8 November--Conclusion of consideration of Lords amendments to the Greater London Authority Bill.

Supplemental allocation of time motion followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Food Standards Bill.

Tuesday 9 November--Supplemental allocation of time motion followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Immigration and Asylum Bill.

Wednesday 10 November--Until 2 o'clock, there will be the usual debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Consideration of Lords amendments to the House of Lords Bill.

Thursday 11 November--The House will be prorogued when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.

The House may also be asked to consider any Lords amendments that may be received.

Sir George Young: The House is grateful for next week's business. Will the right hon. Lady tell us whether there will be oral questions on Thursday, the planned date of prorogation?

Clearly, the Government have a lot of business to complete in the few days that remain of this Session. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the House finished its business early. We are now confronted with significant congestion, with guillotine after guillotine on important Bills and hundreds of amendments to the badly drafted Greater London Authority Bill. Would it not have been common sense to take the House of Lords Bill on Monday and Tuesday of this week to minimise the rush and chaos next week?

What statements are planned by the right hon. Lady's colleagues? We know that the Chancellor will be making a statement on Tuesday when, hopefully, he will respond to the case made by the road transport industry and get off the fuel escalator. When will we have a proper debate on that statement and on today's damaging Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, which shows that taxes are rising faster here than anywhere else in Europe?

Will the Home Secretary be making a statement on fox hunting to clarify the confusion there? Will the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food be bringing us up to date with progress in lifting the ban on British beef?

We will have completed this Session without the usual defence debate, without a debate on the royal commission on long-term care, without the usual small business debate and with the Government in growing disarray on tax, welfare, beef and hunting, and with their programme in this House in a shambles. In Parliament, this has been not a year of delivery but a year of disaster.

Mrs. Beckett: Whether there will be oral questions on Thursday will depend on the progress of business. It is a matter that can be discussed through the usual channels.

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The right hon. Gentleman referred to the House rising early and the handling of the Greater London Authority Bill. I accept that there is a substantial number of Government amendments to the Bill, but, as he is well aware, many are in response to concerns that were properly aired and considered in this place, which I am afraid is in no way unprecedented. The right hon. Gentleman also asked about statements planned. It was not clear to me whether he was pressing for fewer statements so that there would be more time to consider amendments, or for extra statements.

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): Both.

Mrs. Beckett: That is typical. In other words, whatever one does not get, one will complain about.

As to what is planned, the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) is correct to say that the Chancellor is to make the pre-Budget statement on 9 November, as has already been announced to the House. We will endeavour to keep to a minimum the number of other statements because we believe that that will be helpful to the management of the House and to Members' expectations. There will be a debate on the issues raised by the pre-Budget statement in the debates to follow the Queen's Speech, but the right hon. Gentleman knows that it would be unusual to have a debate immediately after it.

It is not accurate to say, as the Conservative party and the right hon. Gentleman have said, that the OECD report shows that taxes in the United Kingdom are now rising faster than elsewhere in Europe. From memory, I think that nine countries have a higher tax burden than ours. On anyone's measurement, the tax ratio in this countryis lower than the Conservatives predicted in their pre-election projections for the handing of our financial affairs. The only way in which the Conservative party can even begin to support the nonsense that its members speak about tax is to include the windfall tax, which funds the new deal, and which is consequently extremely popular.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): It is still a tax.

Mrs. Beckett: Yes, it is, but most people would not feel it valid to include it in the figures in the way that the Conservatives choose to do.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the Home Secretary would make a statement about how fox hunting will be handled, and my right hon. Friend will make such an announcement when he is ready to do so. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; he will know that discussions continue--

Mr. Forth: It's a shambles.

Mrs. Beckett: The shambles happened when the Conservative party presided over the BSE crisis. Unlike Conservative Members, we have resolved the problem rather than boasting about resolving it while utterly failing to do so. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has consistently kept the House informed and I am sure that all hon. Members will recognise how meticulously he has done so.

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The right hon. Gentleman was right to say that we have not yet debated the Defence White Paper. As has been explained, that is a consequence of the changes required following events in Kosovo. I have told the right hon. Gentleman that I expect an announcement. The Department of Health has said that it hopes to say something about long-term care before Christmas, and I will be happy to schedule a debate on that matter when I can do so.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the lack of the usual small business debate. In fact, that debate was an innovation introduced by the Government.

I completely dismiss the right hon. Gentleman's general comments. This has not been an easy Session; it was never going to be so, given our determination to finish business that has been outstanding for 88 years, namely reform of the House of Lords. We shall complete that business.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley): Will the Leader of the House initiate a debate, perhaps in the next Session, on the economic situation in the north-east of England? Only this week, 400 jobs have been lost at the last mine to close--Ellington colliery. In the new year, a power station will close with the loss of 300 jobs, and 100 jobs are going at Blyth harbour. Down the road, at Spennymoor, 100 jobs are being lost in the tobacco industry. The situation in the north-east is serious. We seem to be haemorrhaging jobs, but nothing is being done.

Mrs. Beckett: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. News of job losses is always unpleasant, no matter in what industry they occur, and it is particularly difficult when several announcements come together. My hon. Friend will know that the Government try to assist in areas where that happens. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) has secured a debate on the coal industry next Wednesday morning. The Government's action on the economy is designed to achieve steady and sustainable growth so that we can deal with issues, such as that which my hon. Friend raises, as they arise. In the debates on the Queen's Speech, we will have an opportunity to focus on a range of issues, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will take the opportunity to do so.

Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall): Does the Leader of the House recall that the Labour party, in its manifesto, said--on the basis of discussions with the Liberal Democrats--that it was committed to reforming the business of the House in order to avoid the sort of nonsense that we face over the next seven days? Does she agree that the lack of any attention to real priority in the organisation of business this week, and the inadequate time that has therefore been allowed for important legislation--not least on matters of concern raised by those on her Back Benches--gives the lie to the idea that any modernisation of the business of the House has truly taken effect? She said that this was an exceptional Session. Can she guarantee that this time next year, we will not have the ludicrous brinkmanship from which we are suffering now?

Mrs. Beckett: I presume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the behaviour of the House of Lords. He talks about a lack of attention being given to priority, but the

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Government have taken great care in handling priority issues. He suggests that there has been insufficient time, but the record of our debates shows that all the issues that we have still to resolve have received many hours of scrutiny both here and in the House of Lords. I fear that such a backlog or traffic jam at the end of a Session is a feature of our present parliamentary system. That was particularly likely to happen this year, largely because of the time that the Lords spent on the House of Lords Bill. I do not attack that, because it is perfectly acceptable, sensible and reasonable for the House of Lords to spend considerable time discussing its future. The time spent on that has taken time from what would usually have been available for the Government's legislative programme. If one includes the 15 hours in the Privileges Committee, 165 hours were spent on debating Lords reform, of which 111 hours were on the Bill itself. That would have made a serious hole in the time available for discussing any Government's programme, and it has had a knock-on effect. The hon. Gentleman talked about the staging of business this week, but we can only deal with such matters when they come back from the Lords.

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