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Business of the House
12.31 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for the coming 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 20 November--Motions relating to Westminster Hall and Thursday sittings.
Motion on the Immigration Appeals (Family Visitor) (No. 2) Regulations 2000.
Tuesday 21 November--Supplemental allocation of time motion followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill.
Motion relating to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.
Wednesday 22 November--Consideration of Lords amendments to the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill.
Motion relating to the coal operating aid scheme.
Thursday 23 November--There will be a debate on European affairs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House. That is the pre-Nice debate as you will recall, Mr. Speaker.
Friday 24 November--There will be a debate on the Sixth Report from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee on the Environment Agency on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
The provisional business for the following week will include:
Monday 27 November--Consideration of Lords amendments to the Freedom of Information Bill.
I should also like to inform the House that the business for the remainder of November in Westminster Hall will be:
Thursday 23 November--Debate on the Ninth Report from the International Development Committee on the effectiveness of EU Development Assistance.
Thursday 30 November--Debate on "Opportunity For All: Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion".
Mrs. Browning: I thank the right hon. Lady for the business for the coming week, but wish to express a little disappointment that she was not able today to announce the date for the rising of the House for the Christmas recess. I mention that for a particular reason--not because Opposition Members are anxious to leave our green Benches, but because we are extremely anxious to receive from the Leader of the House a reassurance that the Prime Minister will come to the Dispatch Box and report on the Nice summit to the House before we go home for Christmas.
This is the third time that I remind the right hon. Lady of the fact that, given the importance of the Biarritz summit which the Prime Minister attended--and where he approved, with other Heads of Government, the EU charter of fundamental rights--but has not yet come to the House to answer questions on, it would be unacceptable for him to dodge giving the House a full report on the Nice summit before the House rises. Given that the Queen's Speech is now the latest that it has been
since the 1920s, I hope that the Leader of the House will reassure us that the Prime Minister will find time to come and report on the Nice summit before the rising of the House.Will the right hon. Lady consider a debate on the NHS national plan? In his statement earlier in the week, the Secretary of State for Health made the most cursory reference to what is supposed to be a major plank of Government health policy, yet Members have yet to have the opportunity to question the Secretary of State in detail about the plan, which we would very much like to do. I hope that that, too, can be fitted in before the House rises for Christmas.
After 6 December, it is likely to be the last Session of this Parliament. There is much unfinished business, so I would be grateful if the Leader of the House would consult with her colleagues across Departments and consider the issues that have been the subject of a great deal of publicity. Sometimes, the Government have announced--with great flourish and not a little spin--from the Dispatch Box that they intend to embark on major consultation about various policies. When those great plans are then consulted on, many receive such a negative response from people who know something about the subject that the plans are kicked into the long grass and the House never hears about them.
Proposals for the reform of alcohol licensing laws were announced on 10 April. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has received several assurances that the responses to the consultation on those proposals would be laid in the Library. They are not there yet, but we hear that the consultation could be reported on outside the House, in the next few days, by the Minister responsible. I hope that the right hon. Lady will use her good offices to ensure that such consultations are considered and reported back to the House.
At the Department of Trade and Industry, the consultation on the proposal for employment agencies is now 18 months old--and it has caused great uncertainty among employment agencies. However, the House has not yet had a chance to hear the responses from people in that sector.
We are coming to the end of this Parliament and I inform the Leader of the House that I am compiling a list of unfinished business. It covers the great changes that the Government have said, with great flourish, that they would make, but which they kicked into the long grass once they received responses from people outside. The Government hope that such issues will go away. We do not have short memories, and I am compiling a list for the Library. I hope that the Leader of the House will do the same, and that, at next week's business questions, she will tell us how the Government intend to deal with their unfinished business.
Mrs. Beckett: I am not yet able to give the hon. Lady the date for the Christmas recess, but I shall do so as soon as I can. I was a little surprised by her justification for asking about the date. Nothing is more far fetched than the notion that the Prime Minister would not report on the outcome of the Nice summit. He has reported faithfully on every official summit, and there has never been the slightest suggestion that he would do otherwise.
The hon. Lady will recall that she raised the issue of the Biarritz summit, and I became confused between Biarritz and Nice. No Prime Minister has ever reported on the outcome of informal summits, and I see no reason for my right hon. Friend to begin to do so. However, he has always faithfully reported on the outcome of the proper summits. I take slight exception to the hon. Lady seeking to convey the impression that he might in some way try to avoid doing so.
As for the suggestion that there will be something to conceal from the House because of the major changes that the Prime Minister will make at the summit, I know that the hon. Lady heard him yesterday remind Conservative Members of the 30 occasions on which they gave away the rights to qualified majority voting in the Maastricht negotiations. She said that she has a list, but I have a little list of all the changes that the Conservative party has made to taxation and similar issues since it took us into the European Community. The Government are not attempting to evade their responsibility.
The hon. Lady asked for a debate on the NHS national plan. I am sorry that she did not welcome the outcome of the statement made the other day. Her health authority received an increase in funding of 8.3 per cent., but I understand why the Conservative party wants to draw a veil over such issues--it pretends that nothing is happening.
The hon. Lady referred to unfinished business and said that she was compiling a list. That is fine. She added that Conservative Members did not have short memories, but, I am sorry, I have to take issue with her on that. The Conservative party wants legislation on many issues, such as alcohol licensing, and complains that the Government have not introduced it. Her memory must be extremely short if she has forgotten that the Conservative party has not only complained about every piece of legislation that we have introduced, but said that the legislative programme was far too heavy. However, I should not be surprised by that--the Conservative party says that we are spending too much, but then demands spending increases. After complaining for months that we have introduced too much legislation, she wants us to introduce more.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney): May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to an outstanding report on arms licensing, which was produced this Session by four Select Committees, and, in particular, to its chief recommendation that the four Committees be allowed to conduct prior scrutiny in the next Session? Given the timing of that recommendation, the weight that it carries--it has been unanimously approved by four Select Committees--and the importance of the issue, will she give a positive response to that recommendation and provide an opportunity to debate that important report?
Mrs. Beckett: I will certainly draw my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of the relevant Department. I must admit that I have slightly lost track of the timing on that matter. As for having a debate on the report, if the House agrees on Monday--it will, of course, be a free vote because it is a House matter--to the Modernisation Committee's unanimous recommendations on Westminster Hall sittings, there will be even more time to debate Select Committee reports. I think that two thirds, rather than half, of Westminster Hall's time will be available for such debates. That will obviously create more opportunities.
On the issue of prior scrutiny, Departments will have to consider that carefully because of its implications and the time that it would take, but I will certainly draw his remarks to the attention of the relevant Ministers.
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