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Business of the House

My thanks to the Deputy Leader of the House for that information. The Government promised that, in place of a referendum, we would have line-by-line scrutiny and 20 days of debate on the Lisbon treaty. But the House has been given only 14 days of debate, and last night a group of defence amendments was never even reached. Failing to debate such an important and weighty issue as the defence of our country is unacceptable. Will the Deputy Leader of the House commit to giving an extra day of defence debate? We found out this week that, to meet Government targets, seriously ill patients are left for hours in ambulances instead of being admitted to accident and emergency. Over the past 15 months, such deplorable treatment of patients has led to at least 44,000 delays being reported. May I suggest that we have a topical debate on the Government's obsession with targets and the impact that it is having on patient care? Having lost the personal details of 25 million people and subjected millions of families to the appalling mismanagement of tax credits, staff at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs are now in line for record bonuses of £23 million. That is almost £1 for every person whose details have been lost. Will the Chancellor make a statement to explain why the Government are rewarding a Department that has failed our families so badly? The Government have spent £800 million trying to cut the number of students dropping out of university. But more than one fifth of those students are still dropping out, which is a decrease of a mere 1 per cent. over eight years. Spending £800 million for a 1 per cent. return is a scandalous waste of taxpayers' money. We need the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills to make a statement to the House on the disastrous failure of his policy. Only a small number of illegal immigrants are ever deported from the UK. But we now find that a large number of those people are turned back by the country to which they are deported and returned to the UK because the Home Office has messed up their paperwork. Even when the Home Office tries to deport someone, it cannot get it right. We need an urgent statement from the Home Secretary on the continued mismanagement of her Department. Finally, two years ago, Tony Blair promised that our troops would get anything that they needed for their protection. But this week, commanders in Afghanistan have said that they do not have funding for helicopters that they desperately need. The Government coroner says that troops have inadequate equipment, and there are reports that defence cuts may be as much as £3 billion. This cannot be right. We need a statement from the Secretary of State for Defence urgently, explaining why the Government are failing properly to protect the brave men and women who daily put their lives at risk in some of the most dangerous parts of the world. This is a Government who have reneged on their pledges to Parliament, failed patients, let down our future generation and betrayed our armed forces. This is a Government who are staggering from one disaster to another. They are incapable, incompetent and in a mess. The British people know that they deserve better and they are not impressed.