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Business of the House

I hope that the Leader of the House enjoys his trip. I can well understand his desire to leave the country after the flak that he got last week for delaying the debate on police reform. I am afraid that the Deputy Leader of the House will have to take the flak in his place this week. Does the Deputy Leader of the House realise how angry Members on both sides of the House are that the Government have again published another week’s business and there is still no sign of the reinstatement of the debate on police reforms, even though there are several days on which business is light? The deadline for forces to submit their plans for merger with their neighbours is 23 December. It is simply iniquitous that the House is not being given the chance to debate these matters before that date. One way of making time would be to postpone the Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill until January. It introduces a new disciplinary system for the three armed services and, as Admiral Lord Boyce said recently, the armed forces currently feel under legal siege. Ministers have had months to prepare and it is not right that the Government are now planning to rush the measure through when the Opposition and those interested in it have had so little time to consider it. It is a 250-page Bill and, as yet, there are no explanatory notes for one of the most complex measures in the Session. It is not acceptable to rush it through. Last week, the Leader of the House dismissed my request for an urgent statement on reports that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, Lord Drayson, may have been responsible for a company that sold substandard vaccines to the armed services. Does the Deputy Leader appreciate the importance of those reports? When will Ministers brief the House on what they are doing to investigate them? The Leader of the House has also consistently ignored my request for a statement on the forthcoming Hong Kong trade talks. They are a fortnight away and the future of millions of people in the developing world depend on them. Hon. Members of all parties want to express their views to the Government. Why are we not being given an opportunity to do so? When will the House be given a chance to debate the Turner report on pensions? Statements of the sort that we had yesterday inevitably allow only a limited number of hon. Members to ask questions and raise points of concern. The report is sufficiently important to be debated as soon as possible. Are the splits in the Government so bad that Ministers are trying to bury it without letting Members of Parliament have the opportunity to debate it?