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Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business for the next two weeks. True to his word, the Education and Inspection Bill was published by the end of February—just. There is, of course, considerable interest in this issue. The Prime Minister has described the reforms as the crux of his agenda and"““extremely important to the future of a Labour government””." I ask the Leader of the House again whether he will allow two days of debate on Second Reading to ensure that hon. Members have proper time to air their views on the Government’s reforms. There is growing concern about the impact of avian flu on the United Kingdom. Indeed, the Government’s chief scientific adviser has said that it will be with us for a number of years. Given the different views on the value of vaccination and public interest in this matter, may we have a debate in Government time on avian flu and the Government’s strategy for handling it? I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have seen the letter in The Times today from Sir David Attenborough, co-signed among others by the executive director of Friends of the Earth, the director of conservation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the executive director of Greenpeace. The letter refers to the proposal by the Natural Environment Research Council to close five out of the nine centres of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. It says that the cuts are ““scientifically flawed”” and"““will . . . have a serious detrimental effect on the Government’s ability to make policy that is based on sound scientific research.””" Given the significance of climate change, to which the issue relates among other things, will the Leader of the House arrange for publication of the evidence given by DEFRA to the NERC review and for a debate on the issue? In business questions recently, hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised the Government’s proposal to remove the Post Office card account. We have had interesting debates on the different meanings of ““interim”” and ““temporary””. I understand from papers placed in the Library that it is not clear that it was made apparent to those signing contracts with the Post Office that the account was either interim or temporary. Given that the Post Office has said that it could run the mail service on only 4,000 branches, which would mean a cut of more than 10,000 post office branches, and given that many constituencies throughout the country, including mine, are already reeling from the impact of post office closures, will the Leader of the House make Government time available for a debate on the future of the Post Office, and in particular on the Government’s strategy on whether or not they want to keep our rural and suburban post offices? Finally, yesterday, in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on the present inquiry by the Cabinet Secretary, the Prime Minister said:"““We will, of course, examine any allegations that are made, and reply to them fully.””—[Official Report, 1 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 254.]" Will the Leader of the House confirm the Prime Minister’s position?