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Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business. Last week, I raised the issue of the length of time that the Treasury has taken to respond to some MPs' correspondence. We should perhaps be grateful that it replies at all. May I ask the right hon. and learned Lady for a further statement on what appears to have become common practice in the Department of Work and Pensions? Ministers there are passing MPs' correspondence to their various agencies for a response, even when the matter concerns Government policy. If the issue is administrative, of course it is right for the relevant body to reply, but I am aware of a number of cases in which a Member has sought clarification from a Minister on departmental policy, only to receive a totally inadequate response. Yet that response did not come from the Minister, who had passed the buck to the Child Support Agency, and the CSA then in turn stated that it was unable to comment on the issues raised in the letter as it could respond only to operational matters. Does the right hon. and learned Lady agree that it is highly disrespectful to this House, and perhaps also incompetent, for Ministers to delegate correspondence in this way? Will she endeavour to inform the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that, when a Member writes to a Minister, it is the Minister who should reply? May we also have a statement from the Work and Pensions Secretary on the abject failure of the Government's flagship welfare reform policy, Pathways to Work? This scheme was established—at a cost of £129 million this year alone—to help people get off incapacity benefit and find employment. However, statistics released by the Department yesterday show that fewer than one in 10 people who have started on the programme have actually managed to find work. How on earth do the Government plan to deal with the grim rise in unemployment that we are facing, and which has been caused by the recession, when the track record of what they have tried to do already seems such a dismal failure? May we also have a debate on the Government's strategy for reducing the alarming rate of teenage pregnancies? Yesterday, it was revealed that young people who took part in a £5 million Government scheme that aimed to help tackle the problem by encouraging 13 to 15-year-olds to talk to each other about sex were twice as likely to become pregnant than a similar group. That is a sad indictment of the Government's failure to develop a coherent strategy. The fact is that Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe: more and more young girls are seeking an abortion, and the higher rate of sexual activity is leading to an alarming increase in sexually transmitted infections among teenagers. May we have a full day's debate on this serious national issue so that we can help to develop a much more thoughtful response to the underlying problems and encourage young people to be more careful with their body and their life? May I once again seek from the Leader of the House the guarantee that I have not yet received, even though I have asked for it many times, that the House will be comprehensively updated on how the Government intends to compensate those who lost out from the collapse of Equitable Life? We need that before we rise for the summer. Her response at Question Time yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) revealed a perhaps wilful, misunderstanding of the difference between proper compensation and ex gratia payments. They are not the same thing, and the ombudsman called for compensation. The right hon. and learned Lady will note that 307 Members have now signed EDM 1423. [That this House notes the Parliamentary Ombudsman has taken the unusual step of using powers under the 1967 Act to present Parliament with a further and final report on Equitable Life; also notes that the Public Administration Select Committee's second report on Equitable Life, Justice denied? concluded that the Government response to the Parliamentary Ombudsman's report was inadequate as a remedy for injustice; recognises the vital role the Ombudsman plays in public life; reaffirms the duty of Parliament to support the office of the Ombudsman; believes the Government should accept the recommendations of the Ombudsman on compensating policyholders who have suffered loss; welcomes the formation of the All-Party Group on Justice for Equitable Life Policyholders; and notes with regret its necessary formation and the fact that over 30,000 people have already died waiting for a just resolution to this saga.] Given the scale of the concern about the Government's reaction to the ombudsman's report and her subsequent damning second report, will the Leader of the House confirm that the matter has been discussed at Cabinet level? Will she give us an assurance today that the House will have an opportunity to cross-examine the Chief Secretary to the Treasury next week? She keeps declining to confirm whether the promised statement will be an oral or a written one. The House requires an oral statement, and will she now give an absolute guarantee that that is what it will be?