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Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for his business statement. He read out a list of those subjects that will be included in the Business of the House motion on 1 November. Does he expect anything to be added to that list and, if so, what? Last week, when pressed for a debate on Iraq, the right hon. Gentleman said in so many words that it was up to the Opposition. For example, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron), he said:"““there will be a five-day debate on the Queen’s Speech. It is a matter for the Opposition, and not for us, but I hope very much ""that one of those days will be used for foreign policy.””—[Official Report, 19 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 1022.]" I can confirm to the House that we will indeed be setting aside one whole day of the Queen’s Speech debate for foreign policy and defence matters. So we are playing our part. Can the Leader of the House confirm that the Foreign Secretary will be available for that debate? I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was willing to come and make a statement today on her local government White Paper, but inserting that statement into today’s business means that today’s international development debate will be squeezed, possibly to only an hour and a half. I ask the Leader of the House to consider redressing that balance in the future, with a longer debate on international development. On Tuesday, the Home Secretary issued a written statement about access controls for those coming from Romania and Bulgaria. He did not make an oral statement, which meant that he could not be questioned about the Government’s policy. But then it does seem to be the case that the Home Secretary is a little reluctant to answer questions in the House. On Monday, Home Office questions covered prisons, asylum applications, detection of rape, reoffending and police pay. Did the Home Secretary answer any of those questions? No. But he did answer two questions on mini-motorbikes and gopeds. So will the Home Secretary come to the House and make a statement on the operation of the Home Office so that Members of the House can question him on his policies and his running of the Home Office? The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation will soon make a decision on the use of the new cervical cancer vaccine. When that decision is clear, will the Health Secretary make a statement to the House on the Government’s policy on the use of that vaccine? May we have a debate on nursery provision? Government guidance means that nurseries cannot charge top-up fees, which means that many private nurseries will probably close, which will cut the availability of child care. We need a debate so that the Government can explain how they can claim to be interested in increasing child care when their policies will cut provision? The Prime Minister has frequently spoken about the need to address climate change. Indeed, recently he told his European Union counterparts:"““We have a window of only 10-15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points.””" On 17 October, the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford university published a document entitled ““Predict and Decide: Aviation, Climate Change and Policy””. The leader of the project, Dr. Brenda Boardman said:"““Unless the rate of growth in flights is curbed, the UK cannot fulfil its commitments on climate change.””" Yet the very next day the Department for Transport issued a document on railway closures, in which it said:"““Where long distance travel might be affected by a closure proposal, domestic air services may also be a relevant alternative.””" May we therefore have a debate in which the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for Transport are brought to the House to explain the contradiction that is occurring in Government policy? Or maybe we should simply leave it to the Foreign Secretary, who of course was talking about climate change earlier this week at the very same time as the Deputy Prime Minister was travelling around the far east doing the Foreign Secretary’s job. Today, the Chancellor is doing the Culture Secretary’s job by talking about competitive sport, although, given the drubbing that the Chancellor was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) in Treasury questions this morning, I suspect that the Chancellor will not be quite so interested in competitive sport in the future. So may we have a statement on ministerial responsibilities?