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Business of the House

On the grounds that we should sometimes talk about what the rest of the country is talking about, there is a case for the topical debate next week to be on planning for adverse weather conditions. I welcome the statement from the Foreign Secretary on the case of Binyam Mohamed that will follow business questions. I suggest, however, that we may need a statement from the Prime Minister, because the ruling from the court case makes it clear that the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is under the Prime Minister's tutelage, was asked to look at this matter, but 42 relevant documents were not given to it. This is a matter of the greatest gravity on the issue of the rule of law, and the Prime Minister needs to tell the House exactly what has happened. May we have two statements on Iceland? We need one on the position of the Government and the regulatory authorities in relation to Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander in the Isle of Man and Guernsey, so that we can be sure that the Government have acted appropriately to protect the interests of United Kingdom depositors in that bank? The second should be on the apparent liquidation of Baugur and the impact that that will have on a huge number of retail jobs in this country. In Prime Minister's questions, my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) asked about the Competition Commission's proposals to protect primary suppliers from the oligopolistic attitudes of the major retailing supermarkets. The Prime Minister said that my hon. Friend was ““absolutely right””. When will legislation be introduced to set up a statutory ombudsman for the supply chain, as recommended by the commission? Last week, I drew attention to the credibility gap between what the Prime Minister says will happen and what actually happens. He said that the Government would accelerate capital programmes to deal with the recession; certainly in the case of colleges, they have stopped. He said that he would require energy companies to bring down prices; they have not. He said that he would require banks to increase lending and stop paying bonuses; they carry on regardless. He said that there would be a mortgage deferral scheme; two months later, it is not there. He announced an increase in house building, but last year only half as many houses were built as in the year before. May we have a debate on why it appears that nobody takes a blind bit of notice of what the Prime Minister actually says?