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Business of the House

When the hapless Home Secretary and his hopeless Ministers come to the Dispatch Box on Monday for Home Office questions, would it not be a good idea if they simply stayed to answer all the other questions that are bound to arise as a result of the events of the past few days? It is simply not acceptable for the Home Secretary to say that when he finally found out about the fiasco to do with police national computer entries he applied additional resources as a matter of urgency, as we now know that those resources were requested back in October. Dangerous prisoners have absconded, and that is unacceptable, especially if there is the slightest suspicion that they were in open prison because of a failure of assessment or overcrowding in the secure estate—that is not a criticism of the open prison system. This is a matter of proper concern to the House, and we should have a debate on public safety. I welcome the debate on Iraq, although I regret that it will not be on a substantive motion and that the Prime Minister will not open it. We need an urgent statement from the Prime Minister on the implications of President Bush’s decision announced yesterday, particularly as it appears to be contrary to the advice of his military commanders. Many of us do not accept the apparent belief of the Prime Minister that US action in Baghdad can have no conceivable effect on the security position in southern Iraq, and on that basis we need a statement. Before further damage is done to the reputation and integrity of the City of London, can we have a debate on corruption, so that we can learn when Britain intends to meet its Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development commitments on bribery and explore the roles and actions of the Attorney-General? For the benefit of businesses, perhaps we ought to list those countries in which United Kingdom companies can, apparently, engage in corrupt practices in the national interest, and those in which they cannot. Lastly, I thank the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) for rehearsing again my lines from previous business questions on the traffic light scheme. May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to a new reply from the Department for Work and Pensions? When asked how many questions fall into each traffic light category, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) said:"““As there is no formal departmental monitoring system in place related to the trialling, the information on numbers is not available.””—[Official Report, 19 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 1997W.]" In a separate answer, it was said that the Department does not keep formal records. That is a trial of which the Home Office would be proud.