---

Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business. I also thank her for giving us an insight into the speech that she will give on 24 January in the debate on the SSRB report. I note that she was attempting to make a statement to the House on the Government's position before the Government have published that position and before Members have seen the SSRB report. On an entirely different subject, can the right hon. and learned Lady ensure that at around the time of St. David's day we have a debate on Welsh affairs? Yesterday, the Prime Minister was less than convincing when he tried to explain his ever-shifting policy on ID cards. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has written to him and has not received a reply. When will the Prime Minister make a clear statement to the House on his position on ID cards? Last year, the Government graciously accepted the Modernisation Committee's recommendation to have topical debates, yet only the first debate was genuinely topical. Since then, the right hon. and learned Lady has selected subjects to match the Government's news agenda. Will she now listen to the House and agree to a topical debate on Sir John Tooke's report on the shambolic handling of the recruitment system for junior doctors? Yesterday, despite the importance of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, we had only one day to debate its remaining stages. Many amendments were not debated. Can the right hon. and learned Lady make a statement on why the consideration of this important Bill was cut short? In November, in response to a question from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister promised to make available in the Library details of the preventing violent extremism programme. Despite repeated promises from Ministers, the information is still not there. When will it be placed in the Library? When the Prime Minister still claimed to be a change, he promised to"““entrust more power to Parliament””." Since then, the Government have made no fewer than 28 policy announcements to the media before Parliament. Just this week, we have had press briefings on the NHS, nuclear power stations and deactivated firearms. When will the Leader of the House ensure that her ministerial colleagues, including the Prime Minister, do what he promised and put Parliament first? Every week, she tells us that she puts Parliament first, yet every week her colleagues treat Parliament with disdain. Another of the Prime Minister's changed policies was that there should be a deep clean of hospitals to fight superbugs. Yet now we know that only 50 out of 1,500 NHS hospitals have had a deep clean. The cost of the treatment is coming out of existing budgets, and the Health Secretary thinks that it is all a waste of time. When will the Health Secretary come to the House to make a statement on the Prime Minister's deep clean programme? Yet another of the Prime Minister's new policies was, notoriously, to promise British jobs for British workers. However, as we now know, 80 per cent. of new jobs go to migrant workers, the Government have lost a court ruling on foreign junior doctors, and the Government are weakening the resident labour market test. Will the beleaguered Work and Pensions Secretary take a break from the mess that he has created and make a statement to the House on the mess created by the Prime Minister? Do not those examples tell the sad truth about this Prime Minister? In the words of his own right hand man, he simply cannot claim to be the change, and is not that why his latest relaunch is doomed to fail?... I asked about that....The Health Secretary said that they are.