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Business of the House

I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for giving us the future business. Yesterday, the BBC suspended all phone-in competitions after it found out that yet more had been rigged. As our national public service broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to restore public trust. May we have a debate in Government time on the BBC? This week, the Institute for Public Policy Research called for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Such a policy would be wrong in principle and wrong in practice, and would reflect the Government’s failure to get a grip on illegal immigration, yet, during the deputy leadership campaign, when asked about such an amnesty, the right hon. and learned Lady said:"““People who have worked hard here and paid their taxes should be allowed to stay.””" May we have a debate in Government time on the need to secure Britain’s borders? The right hon. and learned Lady has just announced that the Government’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which was due to receive its Second Reading next Monday, has now been deferred until October, just a couple of weeks before the end of the parliamentary Session. We know that that significant piece of legislation will change in the autumn. Its deferral is an abuse of the carry-over procedure and shows disdain for Parliament. Why will the Government not be honest and introduce the Bill in the next parliamentary Session? Yesterday, in Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that"““the Home Secretary will consult on whether… cannabis should be moved from class C to class B.””—[Official Report, 18 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 268.]" It was the present Government who reclassified cannabis from B to C in the first place, but we will support their U-turn. For the second week in a row, the Prime Minister has announced a reversal of policy in an answer to a planted question rather than in an oral statement that allows hon. Members to put questions to a Minister. That betrays a disregard for hon. Members. Why was this change not announced properly by the Home Secretary in a statement? Yesterday, the Prime Minister also confirmed that Parliamentary Private Secretaries can sit on Select Committee. He gave the feeble excuse that they will not sit on Committees that scrutinised their Departments, but he thinks it acceptable for Members who work for Ministers, and therefore for the Executive, to sit on Select Committees whose job it is to scrutinise the Executive. That betrays a disregard for Select Committees, so can we have a debate on the future of such Committees? Under this Government, 125,000 people have lost their savings because their pension fund went bust. We proposed a lifeboat fund properly to compensate those who lost out through no fault of their own. The Prime Minister had Labour MPs whipped into voting against the lifeboat. Some Labour Members agreed with us and the other place agreed with us. Now, however, Ministers have invoked parliamentary privilege to stop the debate and limit compensation. So much for respecting Parliament and so much for helping those who have lost their pensions. Will the Pensions Secretary make an urgent statement on why he has used parliamentary privilege in this way? The Prime Minister says that he wants to make Parliament the crucible of our political life, but those examples—from just this last week—show nothing but disrespect for hon. Members, disregard for parliamentary procedure and disdain for parliamentary scrutiny. Is it not clear that putting Parliament first is just a new type of spin?