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Business of the House

12.31 pm

Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): Will the Leader of the House please give us the business?

The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Peter Hain): The business for the week after the summer recess will be as follows:

Tuesday 7 September—Second Reading of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 8 September—Opposition day [16th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 9 September—A debate on the European constitution on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Friday 10 September—The House will not be sitting.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the first sitting week in October will be:

Thursday 14 October—A debate on the UN international year to commemorate the struggle against slavery and its abolition.

As we rise for the summer recess, I thank on behalf of the House all the staff of the House for their hard work, courtesy and support for all of us. I also record my personal thanks to the parliamentary Clerks across Whitehall for their assistance and support. I wish you, Mr. Speaker, all hon. Members and, more importantly, the staff of the House a happy and, I hope, relaxing recess.

Mr. Heald: May I associate all on these Benches with those remarks about the staff, the Serjeant at Arms, you, Mr. Speaker, and the Clerks Department?

The Leader of the House has announced the business for September, but may I ask for an urgent oral statement later today from the Minister for the Cabinet Office about the jurisdiction of the ombudsman in the reopened inquiry into Equitable Life? The ombudsman has stated that the Government Actuary's Department is not within her jurisdiction, but that she would like to include it in her inquiry, and she has written to the Minister requesting that that happen. The matter is hugely important to our constituents, who have lost so much financially through the crisis, not to mention the misery, anxiety and distress that they are suffering. May we have an urgent oral statement and will the Leader of the House ensure that the necessary order to make that happen is laid today?

After yesterday's announcement of deep cuts to our armed forces, may we have an assurance that a full debate will take place in Government time when we come back after the recess?

Yesterday, the Leader of the House issued a written statement designed to stop the abuse by Ministers of the reply, "I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy in the Library", which is a way of burying bad news because the true reply never appears in Hansard. Will he consider making a short oral statement in September on
 
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that and on delays in replies to parliamentary questions? His solution to the problem is that Ministers will simply abandon questions unanswered at the end of a Session.

Last year, there were 1,550 "will write" replies, and on the last day of the Session, the Home Office alone put out more than 150 "will write" replies. Is the Leader of the House seriously saying that 1,500 questions a year will now simply be abandoned by Ministers, so that instead of burying bad news, they never give it at all? Will he also explain why, according to the Library, there are still 427 of those replies where Ministers have never got around to writing and placing the letter in the Library?

Finally, as an end-of-term report—a sort of tidying-up exercise—can the Leader of the House tell us now, or will he make a statement, more than six months after these matters were first raised with him, what he is doing to review the Osmotherly rules, so that Select Committees can receive the documents and witnesses that they need so that we do not have to call in an outsider every time we want a serious inquiry? What is he doing to give legal effect to the Sessional Orders; what is he doing to have a vote on the Tuesday sitting hours; and what is he doing to change the Standing Orders to allow the European Scrutiny Committee to sit in public, as it has asked to do? In his youth, he used to take direct action. He would reclaim the streets from the National Front. He would tear up cricket pitches to stop the tours. May we have some of that sense of urgency now with those parliamentary questions?

Mr. Hain: That was a nice seasonal rant—was it not?—and very enjoyable it was too. [Hon. Members: "Answer then."] I am about to give the answers. On the Osmotherly rules, I will meet the Liaison Committee at its meeting, probably in October, at a date still to be fixed. The Liaison Committee has asked me to report back to it on that issue, and I am doing precisely that.

On the Sessional Orders, when we are ready to come forward, we will do so, as I have already promised. I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman asks me about the sitting hours and whether the European Scrutiny Committee should sit in public. He asks me what is going on. He is a member of the Modernisation Committee, which I chair. In fact, he sits right next to me, and quite a congenial companion he is. Both subjects—sitting hours and providing the House with greater opportunities to scrutinise European matters—are before us now. In fact, we were discussing sitting hours yesterday, so I do not know what on earth he is on about. Perhaps I should not be surprised by the standard of those questions: the shadow Leader of the House is not even in the shadow Cabinet. [Interruption.] The previous shadow Leader of the House was in the shadow Cabinet, of course.

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): Look what happened to me!

Mr. Hain: Yes, look what happened to the right hon. Gentleman. His successor has been demoted—[Interruption.] Since I have been provoked in such an outrageous fashion, let me say that it is interesting that the shadow Leader of the Lords is in the shadow Cabinet, whereas the shadow Leader of the House is not. It rather indicates the Conservatives' view of the House.
 
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On Equitable Life, I understand the important issues that the hon. Gentleman raises. There is real concern among policyholders, and right hon. and hon. Members have properly raised this with me in the past. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—who, of course, is an Officer of the House—is entirely independent of the Government. The decision that she made and the reasons for it are matters for her, but we will co-operate fully with the commissioner's investigation. Only this week we received a request from the commissioner to extend her jurisdiction to cover the Government Actuary's Department. We are considering that request and will respond to the commissioner as soon as possible.

On defence, which the hon. Gentleman also raised with me, he referred to defence cuts.

Mr. Heald: Deep cuts.

Mr. Hain: Well, we know about deep cuts—the deep cuts mounted by the Conservative party when in government. The Conservatives cut planned defence spending by 15 per cent. when the shadow Secretary of State for Defence was Minister of State for the Armed Forces between 1994 and 1997. We have now had the largest sustained increase in defence spending for 20 years. In real terms, the increase will be 1.4 per cent. a year over the next three years—a further £3.7 billion of defence spending over the spending review period, which will continue to make our fighting forces the best in the world.

On the "I will write" issue, the shadow Leader of the House must do his job and try to oppose me. I understand all that—we all understand it—but he really should concentrate on the facts. What I did in this instance—with your encouragement, Mr. Speaker, because we share concern about the "I will write" situation—was to say that rather than a Minister replying, "I will write" and placing a letter in the House of Commons Library, which means that is not accessible for inspection by hon. Members with ease or members of the public, the replies will be put online and in Hansard so that everyone will be able to see them. That represents an advance for parliamentary scrutiny, so I cannot for the life of me understand why the hon. Gentleman thinks that it will bury bad news. The replies will go online immediately and will be printed in Hansard. The fact that letters that Ministers would previously have put in the Library will be available for inspection by everybody represents an advance in parliamentary accountability, which has been a feature of everything that I have done in the past year as Leader of the House.

Mr. David Heyes (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab): Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great consternation in my constituency and, indeed, the whole of Greater Manchester about the announcement on Tuesday that cast a shadow over the expansion of light rail in our area? Expectations for Metrolink are at the heart of all our ambitions for economic regeneration in Tameside and Oldham, so its loss would be a tragedy. I am heartened that the Secretary of State for Transport confirmed that the door has not closed on Metrolink
 
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and that his officials will work with the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority to find a way forward. Will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House ensure that there will be an opportunity for the Secretary of State to come to the House after the recess to report on the progress that I hope will be made during the summer to get the Metrolink extension to Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham back on track?

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