---

Business of the House

I endorse what the hon. Lady said at the beginning of her questions about St David's day and the 200th anniversary of Pugin's birth. On the serious issue of Syria, we had Foreign Office questions on Tuesday. She will know that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has issued a written ministerial statement today. She may also know that the matter is likely to be raised at the European Council meeting later today, and I have announced that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a statement on that on Monday, so there might be an opportunity to report progress then. I join her in paying tribute to those journalists who have risked their lives, and in one case lost her life, to bring the truth to the rest of the world, going to the most dangerous places in the world, showing the hardships that people endure there and broadcasting the realities to a wider audience. On Leveson, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister dealt with this yesterday, and I gently remind the hon. Lady that it was the coalition Government who set up the inquiry to get to the bottom of exactly what has been going on. We had an urgent question on the Health and Social Care Bill on Tuesday, which my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary answered. The Bill continues to be improved by amendments tabled from both sides of the House, and from both Houses, as it goes through Parliament. It was a Labour Secretary of State for Health who had a motion of no confidence passed in her by one of the royal colleges. We have no intention of dropping the Bill. I asked the hon. Lady last week which particular clauses she wanted to see dropped. Does she want to drop clauses 22 and 25, which make it explicit that patients should have more choice and be much more involved in decisions about their care? Does she want to drop the clauses placing a duty on key organisations to integrate health and social care services? Does she want to drop the clauses that remove the arbitrary private patient cap, which stifles groundbreaking new treatment by organisations such as The Royal Marsden? The Government have passed to the Backbench Business Committee responsibility for the subjects that it chooses. It has chosen Magnitsky, social care and a wide range of important issues which have been brought before it by Members from both sides of the House. The Committee may have taken the view that the health Bill has been adequately debated in this House since it was introduced more than a year ago. It has probably had more debate than any other Bill in recent history, and that may be why the Committee took that decision. We have just had DEFRA questions, and I watched the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), answer questions about circus animals. As the hon. Lady knows, we have put out a written ministerial statement— ... Putting out a written ministerial statement is not ““sneaking it out””. ...Nor, as my hon. Friend says, is answering questions about it on the same day. There could hardly be a more open process of bringing a matter before the House. Finally, under the Labour Administration there was an e-petitions system that ended up in Downing street and got nowhere. We have introduced a much better system, whereby if a certain threshold is reached the petitions are eligible for debate. Some of the best debates that we have had have been as a result of the e-petitions system, introduced by this Government, and we are proud of it. Ever since I have been a Member, there has been a full day's debate on Wales to coincide with St David's day. Today that debate is being seriously curtailed by the Backbench Business Committee. I understand that not a single Conservative MP petitioned for today's Back-Bench business debate, so is one right in assuming that the Labour party wishes to curtail debate on Wales because it wishes to curtail debate on Labour's stewardship in Wales and, in particular, Labour's stewardship of the health service in Wales? My hon. Friend poses some interesting questions about the mentality of Welsh Labour MPs, but however short the time available for that debate is, I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will criticise the stewardship of the NHS in Wales and at the same time outline the steps that the coalition Government have taken to support growth in the Principality.