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Business of the House

I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for giving us the future business. In the current cycle of oral questions, important issues such as local government and justice are squeezed into 30-minute sessions. Will the Government introduce a new cycle of questions to change that in the new Session of Parliament? Yesterday, the Health Secretary told the House that the report on obesity ““deserves discussion in Parliament””. Will the Leader of the House commit to such a debate in Government time? Will she also confirm that there will be no single equalities Bill in the Queen's Speech? Will she tell the House why she announced that not to Parliament but to guests at a drinks party at the Labour party conference? Will the right hon. and learned Lady explain why the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which was given its Second Reading last week, amends the Legal Services Bill, which has not even passed through Parliament yet? Amending a Bill before it becomes law is incompetent even by this Government's standards. On the subject of criminal justice, according to a leaked Ministry of Justice document Labour's flagship scheme of open-ended sentences for violent criminals could be scrapped. Whether from the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice, Labour's answer to violent crime is always the same: let the perpetrators out of prison early. May we have a debate on crime and punishment? This week, the Committee on Standards in Public Life revealed that nearly 400 Labour party donors, candidates, and election agents have been given jobs on Government quangos in the past year. May we have a debate in Government time on public appointments so that we can discuss Labour's government by stealth? In the latest Government flip-flop, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has said:"““It's not wrong that the tax system should recognise…marriage””," and that there is a"““metropolitan myth that Labour people are all a bit liberal””." As one of those metropolitan liberals, will the right hon. and learned Lady commit to a debate in Government time on how to support families in the tax system? We have just had Treasury questions, but groups representing large and small businesses say that the new Chancellor's changes to capital gains tax risk"““serious damage to this country's entrepreneurial culture””." The Business Secretary is apparently going to lobby the Treasury on this, and I understand that, in Treasury questions, the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) raised the issue of the lack of consultation on the measure. May we have a debate in Government time so that the House can consider in full the consequences of that crippling tax change? Two and a half years ago, the EU referendum Bill—the European Union Bill—was introduced to Parliament, yet the Prime Minister will go to Lisbon today to agree the renamed constitution without a referendum. The Government's representative on the convention says that he has"““copped out from a specific promise made to voters””." Last week the Leader of the House could not even bring herself to defend the Prime Minister's decision not to hold a referendum, so perhaps she, too, thinks that he has copped out of his promise. After his tantrum before the European Scrutiny Committee, will the Foreign Secretary make a separate statement on the Floor of the House on why the Government are depriving the British people of their say?