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Business of the House

Before I respond to the right hon. Lady, may I first pay my own personal tribute to our dear friend Piara Khabra, who died two days ago? He will be much missed on both sides of the House. It is worth recording that he was the last serving Member of Parliament to have served in the second world war. He joined the colours for the Indian army, which is a reminder not only of his bravery but of the fact that hundreds of thousands of people from the Indian sub-continent—Pakistan, India and Bangladesh—fought, and many died, to save freedom in Europe [Hon. Members: ““And the world.””] And the world. To respond to the right hon. Lady, I am certainly not speculating on where the future may lead. I love this job; I am ready to go on and on and on in this post. In return, I thank her for her courtesy and good humour. Owing to their responsibilities to the Commons as a whole, as well on behalf of the Government, Leaders of the House cannot do their job without the co-operation of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benchers and many other hon. Members. It has been a great delight to me to be able to introduce a number of changes. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) was right to say that it was not enough; in the Labour party, it is never enough. However, I hope that the whole House will by now have read the important report that the Modernisation Committee published yesterday morning, which proposes introducing a much greater degree of topicality into the proceedings of the House and to strengthen the role of the Back Bencher. On defence, the amount of investment in defence is a result of a greater degree of sustained real growth in defence spending for more than 20 years. We have invested billions of pounds in new defence equipment for our armed forces. Since all equipment has to be used by, and is for the benefit of, our service personnel, I am quite sure that, without even very much imagination, the Opposition will be able to work questions about that into the forthcoming debate. I have already said that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will give a full report on the proceedings of the European Council, which is taking place now. The red lines for the UK have been made very clear indeed; they were discussed and confirmed today in Cabinet. Rather than reacting to any proposal from the European Union like a Pavlovian dog, it would be worth the right hon. Lady reflecting that quite a lot of what appears to be in the draft articles for the amending treaty is to our benefit—not least a much improved voting system that will give us more weight inside Europe than we have at the moment. What I find so surprising is the synthetic fury of the Opposition, when they have had plenty of opportunities to seek to influence their comrades in arms in the centre-right parties and yet have turned their back on that. It is extraordinary that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the Leader of the Opposition, has refused to go to meet other members of the European People’s party, even though for the time being the Conservative party is still a member of it. On the Public Accounts Committee and consultants, there is always an opportunity to debate PAC reports and I think the right hon. Lady will have noted that, although that spending is significant, it has been reduced in quite a number of Departments. The right hon. Lady referred to speculation about conversations that have taken place, apparently, with the leader of the Liberal Democrats. It is not for me to comment on the Chancellor’s private discussions with the leader of the Liberal Democrats; they are private. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor made it clear that he wants to lead a Government of all the talents and he is very serious about that. Last night, for example, he established a new National Council for Educational Excellence, which includes Sir Terry Leahy and Sir John Rose, whose party affiliations are certainly unknown to me. I suggest, if the right hon. Lady is feeling left out of the speculation, that she would have a greater chance of getting into a Cabinet of any kind if she were invited by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor—an act of unparalleled generosity. All she has to do is to send me her curriculum vitae and I will pass it on, with a high recommendation that she should be included.