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Business of the House

May I begin by reciprocating the right hon. Gentleman's very good wishes for the new year, and join him in extending those to you, Mr Speaker, and the whole of the House? We will take no lectures from the Opposition about the banks, because the regime that is currently operating is the one we inherited from them. The right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Government who signed the contract with RBS, obliging it to pay market-based bonuses this year. We regard that framework as wholly unsatisfactory and so we are changing it. We have introduced the most stringent code of practice for any financial centre in the world; we have replaced Labour's one-off tax on bonuses with a permanent levy on the banks; and, as he will have heard from the Chancellor on Tuesday, we are looking for a fresh settlement with the banks on bonuses, on lending and on transparency. With us nothing is off the table; with the Opposition there is nothing on the table. The shadow Chancellor gave a dismal performance on Tuesday, failing to mention the initiative announced on Monday by his leader: the wish for a permanent tax on the bonuses. That did not feature, in any way, in the shadow Chancellor's response. Is this evidence of a further rift between the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition? The second point made by the shadow Leader of the House related to the secret taping of Liberal Democrat Members, and I think that Members on both sides of the House should be concerned about the tactics that were used. I think that journalists posing as constituents, raising fictitious cases with MPs and taping them without their knowledge all risks prejudicing the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituent at his advice bureau. [Interruption.] This does not seem to me to be responsible journalism—[Interruption.] ... On the substance of the stories, what was reported and what the shadow Leader of the House just mentioned were absolutely nothing compared with what Labour politicians have been saying about their colleagues behind their backs over the past 10 years. Indeed, just before Christmas it was reported that a Labour insider had said:"““Ed Miliband's team are terrified of Ed Balls and Yvette. They think they're going to come and try and kill him. And the reason they think that is because they will.””" Whatever my colleagues said to The Daily Telegraph, at least there were no death threats. We are committed to making winter fuel payments. On the machinery of government, I believe that the shadow Leader of the House was in the Chamber to hear the Business Secretary answer that specific question. The answer is that the details of the change will be set out to Parliament in the usual way and in full. ... Shortly. I was asked two more questions, one of which was about VAT. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of what his party said about VAT before the election? The shadow Home Secretary has said:"““ultimately we made no hard commitment on VAT. That was partly the traditional caution of governments, wanting to keep options open.””" When pressed on this, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), has said:"““The advantage of VAT is it brings in a lot of money. It would have allowed you to have done you know a lot to take down the deficit””." So it ill behoves Labour Members to criticise us for what we have done on VAT. Finally, on IPSA, I am a statutory consultee—as Leader of the House—under the relevant legislation, so I will indeed be submitting evidence to IPSA in due course.