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Business of the House

The shadow Leader of the House has asked me to restate a position that I stated many times in opposition, and I have no hesitation in doing so. It is entirely clear, not only to me but in the ministerial code of conduct, that announcements of substantive changes in policy should be made to the House in the first instance, and I know perfectly well that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House brought that to the attention of the Cabinet yet again only this week. You, Mr. Speaker, made it very clear in your statement yesterday, and it is our clear intention that it should be the case. I have to tell the shadow Leader of the House that occasionally there will be mistakes—[Interruption.] Even Government Departments sometimes make mistakes, and that is obviously what happened in the case of the Home Office announcement last week. What happened was that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary came to the House to apologise for that mistake, and that is the right way of dealing with it. It is important that we make sure that changes of policy are properly represented to the House, but I say gently to Labour Members that there is very little point in raising as points of order or at business questions issues raised by Ministers that are clearly set out in existing policy in the coalition document. I am so pleased that the shadow Leader of the House bothers to read that document. If it is policy set out in the coalition document, it should be no great surprise that Ministers adopt the policy and are prepared to speak about it. Therefore, it is not the case that that is an inappropriate way of addressing political issues. I shall now deal with the other issues that the right hon. Lady raised. She mentioned an issue relating to housing associations. That is important and I shall take the matter back to the Departments and ask whether it is possible for a clear statement of the position to be given—we will ensure that that is the case. The right hon. Lady asked about the position on the employment figures and the expectations set out by a variety of economists on what might happen. I have to say that I do not always have great faith in what economists predict; nevertheless this is an important issue. What I do have faith in is the newly established Office for Budget Responsibility, which is independent of Government and has set out the figures. I thought that the Opposition supported it. I thought that they saw it, as we do, as being a gold standard of accurate information presented to the House, but they prefer to bang on about figures that they want to choose instead. There will be an Opposition day debate next week, when the Opposition will choose the matters that we will be debating. So she asks for an opportunity to raise these issues with Ministers and she will have the opportunity to raise them with Ministers. Finally, I have to say to her that the figure that was given—the 1.3 million losses that she cited—was coupled with 2.5 million increases in employment in the very same breath. By my simple arithmetic that makes a 1.2 million increase, and the fact that Labour Members cannot do that simple sum explains to me why this country is in the position it is.