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Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. Further to last week's exchange about the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, and his letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), the Government have published in draft a series of statutory instruments for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The one for Scotland is 205 pages long, and runs to 97 clauses and nine schedules, but Members will have no opportunity to debate or decide on the statutory instruments before the Report stage of the Bill begins next Monday. The Government have just tabled 28 pages of amendments for Monday, some of which refer to the orders we have not yet had the chance to discuss, so, for the third time, may I ask the Leader of the House to explain to the House how this treatment of Members squares with what the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is in charge of the Bill, said would happen? He gave us an assurance that"““on matters to do with elections this House should get to pronounce before the Bill goes to the other place…we will seek to achieve that.””—[Official Report, 18 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 653.]" The Leader of the House has not achieved that, and the questions are: why and what will he do about it? I turn to another matter on which there is considerable concern on both sides of the House. May we have a debate on the confusion surrounding the proposed changes to housing benefit? Yesterday, the Prime Minister could not explain why it is fair that someone who has been looking for a job for 12 months, but has not been able to find one, despite their best efforts, will have their housing benefit cut by 10%. Nor could he offer any advice to families who will be affected by this change and by the housing benefit cap. Instead, he simply said that the Government are not for turning. Meanwhile, also yesterday, the Work and Pensions Secretary was said to be listening to MPs' concerns. Well, there are plenty of concerns on the Government Benches and in City Hall. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has called the plan for a cap harsh. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) said that the proposals have ignored some of the huge logistical problems, and the Mayor of London has described them as draconian. Then, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—the third of yesterday's men, and the person who is actually responsible for housing—told listeners of the ““World at One”” that they did not need to worry because"““these new reforms don't come in until 2013””." In fact, the housing benefit cap will come into operation next April. We have a Prime Minister who cannot justify the policy, a Communities and Local Government Secretary who does not understand the policy, and a Work and Pensions Secretary signalling that he might change the policy. In truth, the word ““shambles”” does not do justice to this mess, but it does make a compelling case for a debate, so may we have one? As the Leader of the House has just announced, the Backbench Business Committee has chosen a debate on economic growth for 11 November. Will he persuade the Prime Minister to take part, so that he can try to explain how the loss of nearly 500,000 public sector jobs will help the economy to grow; how depriving universities of most of their funding for undergraduate teaching will enable the economy to compete; and how the absence of any central Government support for the new local enterprise partnerships will help them to make use of the regional growth fund? Is it any wonder that Richard Lambert of the CBI said this week:"““The Local Enterprise Partnerships have got off to a ropey start. So far, it has been a bit of a shambles””." All in all, it has been a shambolic week for the Government. Mercifully—and finally—there is one bright spot. Tomorrow, the House will for the second time extend a very warm welcome to the UK Youth Parliament, which will be debating in this Chamber. We have offered an annual invitation up until the next general election, but does the Leader of the House agree that the House should now make this a permanent fixture in the parliamentary calendar, so that every year henceforth we can celebrate the contribution that young parliamentarians make to the life of this country?