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