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Business of the House

Given that the biggest domestic issue has been the failure of the Government to ensure that one of their agencies looked after a huge amount of personal information, will the Leader of the House accept a formal request on behalf of my colleagues and myself for next Thursday’s topical debate to be on the subject of the failure of the Government to protect data across the Government and all their agencies? Will she also ensure that Ministers come to the House to explain their accountability for the failures of civil servants in Government Departments and agencies? When we have had that debate, will the Leader of the House ensure that we have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House on the implications of this week’s serious news for the debate that the Government want us to have on the implementation of identity cards? That proposal must be called into question by the failures of this week, and we need to assess the stupidity of the proposal early, so that we do not waste any more public money by going down that completely unhelpful road. Yesterday, Ministers joined the Director of Public Prosecutions in saying that they were opposed to an increase in the 28-day limit on detention. May we have an early opportunity to question Ministers on the state of the Government’s negotiations on any change in the balance between liberty and security that would put the traditional liberties of the British people at risk? The Government were represented yesterday by a very junior Minister—I am not being disrespectful—at what was meant to be a high-level conference in Rome to mark the 10th anniversary of the international anti-bribery convention. Will Ministers come to the House to explain what the benefit or disbenefit has been to this country of the decision not to continue the investigation into alleged corruption between BAE Systems and the Saudi Government, while we are trying to persuade other countries around the world to adopt strong anti-corruption regimes? Mr. Speaker, you were kind enough to allow me to withdraw my debate on Sri Lanka for family reasons last week. However, the Commonwealth conference is taking place this week, and there are clearly important issues to be discussed, including Pakistan and the terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. Can we be assured that the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister will make a statement on the Commonwealth conference, to allow us to ask questions about those two very troubled parts of the Commonwealth, which are a matter of great concern to people in this country?