here - United Kingdom Parliament

1675 6 JUNE 2013 Business of the House
1676
Business of the House
11.4 am
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab): Will the Leader of
the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew
Lansley): The business for next week is as follows:
MONDAY 10 JUNE—Second Reading of the Anti-Social
Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill.
TUESDAY 11 JUNE—Remaining stages of the Children
and Families Bill, followed by motion to approve a
European document relating to section 10 of the European
Union Act 2011.
WEDNESDAY 12 JUNE—Opposition day [2nd Allotted
Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion.
Subject to be announced.
THURSDAY 13 JUNE—Debate on the 10th anniversary
of the Iraq war. The subject for this debate was nominated
by the Backbench Business Committee.
Colleagues will wish to be reminded that the Prime
Minister of Canada will address both Houses of Parliament
on this day.
The provisional business for the week commencing
17 June will include:
MONDAY 17 JUNE—Second Reading of the Pensions
Bill.
TUESDAY 18 JUNE—Motion to approve a European
document relating to the reform of the common agricultural
policy, followed by motion to approve a European
document relating to enhanced co-operation and a financial
transaction tax, followed by motion to approve a European
document relating to the European elections 2014.
WEDNESDAY 19 JUNE—Opposition day [3rd Allotted
Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion.
Subject to be announced.
THURSDAY 20 JUNE—Business to be nominated by the
Backbench Business Committee.
I should also like to inform the House that the
business in Westminster Hall for 13 June will be:
THURSDAY 13 JUNE—Debate on the seventh report of
the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee
on dog control and welfare.
Ms Eagle: This week marks the 100th anniversary of
the death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison, who
threw herself at the King’s horse demanding votes for
women. As the battle for women’s suffrage raged, she
was at its forefront, being imprisoned on multiple occasions
and force fed 49 times. She has a connection with this
place because she hid in St Mary’s Undercroft so that
she could register as a resident here for the 1911 census.
She is also known for throwing things at Chancellor
Lloyd George.
Since women won the vote, just 35 have entered the
Cabinet and today we make up only 23% of the House
of Commons. Does the Leader of the House agree with
me that, on this centenary, we should have a debate in
Government time on women’s progress in the UK?
Under this Government, women’s rights are going
backwards: as carers, service users and public sector
workers, women are bearing the brunt of Government
cuts and women’s unemployment is the highest it has
been for a generation. No wonder the Government
forgot to do a gender impact assessment of their first
Budget. I suggest that if Emily Wilding Davison were
alive today, she would still find reasons to throw rocks
at the Chancellor.
I wonder whether the Leader of the House recalls last
October’s Back-Bench business debate on the badger
cull. The vote at the end of that debate instructed
the Government not to proceed with the cull, but the
Government just ignored it and started anyway. The
Government have lost Back-Bench votes on circus animals,
badgers and the Royal Fusiliers, and since starting to
lose votes on Back-Bench motions so frequently, they
have simply stopped opposing them. Today, we have a
motion on the effects of pesticides on the bee population.
Will the Leader of the House let us know whether the
Government intend simply to let the motion pass without
a vote, and if they do, will the will of the House be
ignored again?
The Commons is abuzz with speculation about the
end of the greatest No. 10 love affair of all time. Their
eyes met at a press conference in the garden and they
accepted each other with open arms, but the Prime
Minister was unfaithful with his Back-Bench EU deal
and now the Deputy Prime Minister has gone to the
papers over his child care demands. They have been
kidding themselves for a while, but the Queen’s Speech
showed us that they did not even have the energy to try
any more. Their mouse of a legislative programme has
already unravelled, with No. 10 at panic stations over
another lobbying scandal, the EU Back-Bench Bill, and
the third U-turn of the Session in the abandonment of
the appalling plan to increase ratios for child care
providers. It is hard to believe that the House has sat for
only 11 days since the Queen’s Speech was unveiled.
It is the job of the Leader of the House to co-ordinate
the Government’s legislative programme. I know he
likes expensive top-down reorganisations, but this is
ridiculous. To be fair to him, though, it is not as if his
Cabinet colleagues are faring any better. The Education
Secretary has been so busy positioning himself to be the
next Tory leader that he has forgotten to do the day job.
According to a damning report from the Procedure
Committee, his Department is very late in answering
half of all written questions tabled by Members, and
answers only one in five written named day questions in
time. During the recess the chairman of the Tory party
was told off by the UK Statistics Authority for making
things up. He joins a long list of his Cabinet colleagues
languishing on the statistical naughty step, including
the Prime Minister, the Health Secretary and the Work
and Pensions Secretary. So may we have a debate about
sanctions that could be applied to Ministers who do not
answer questions in a timely fashion or get censured for
misusing statistics?
Perhaps we should also have a debate about
performance-managing the Cabinet. Such a debate could
start with a look at the NHS. Since 2010 the number of
people waiting in A and E for more than four hours has
doubled. The ambulance queues have doubled, but
instead of taking responsibility, the Government have
tried to blame immigrants, women doctors and a 10-year-old
GP contract for a problem that has only just emerged.
Of course, they are only following the Chancellor’s lead
after he blamed the flatlining economy on the snow, the
rain and various bank holidays, including the royal