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Business of the House

My Lords, this is an unusual Motion. The last example—which was much more far-reaching and prescriptive—was a Motion personally introduced by the Leader of the House in 2019. Frankly, in many ways, this is an undesirable Motion. It should not be left to any other party in this House to ensure that time is given for a Government to be held to account—a point made vehemently by my noble friend Lord Deben. It is the duty of a Leader of the House—who, we are all very pleased to see, survived a vicious night of the long knives in the Labour Party—to enable scrutiny of government policies. While the noble Baroness has survived, may I say how sad we are to see so many outstanding Ministers in this House—the noble Lord, Lord Timpson; the noble Lord, Lord Livermore; the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, who, as we have just heard, was felled with his whole department; the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman; and so many others—leaving the Government? We thank them all for their service to the House and to this country.

Before anyone gets too excited about all this, let me tell the House that all this Motion asks for is that the new Government should allow a short take-note debate tomorrow to answer to Parliament on their policies. There will be no vote and nobody’s holiday will be interfered with, whatever the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms might tell people afterwards. It would be an opportunity for the Government to set out the policies of which the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, has just said they are so proud. If the Leader of the House tells the House that she will give adequate time for debate and scrutiny in Parliament on the new Government’s strategy and all their new announcements tomorrow, and indeed all this week, then I can withdraw my Motion.

These are unprecedented circumstances. Only once before in the whole of British history, in 1963, has a Prime Minister taken office having not put himself before the British people at the previous general election—and, what is more, during a recess of the House of Commons. All recent Prime Ministers taking office in similar circumstances have made themselves available to Parliament. Contrast that with the new Prime Minister’s convenient entry to No. 10 on the first working day after the Commons had adjourned for the Summer Recess, and the unseemly finagling of changing Commons business to deprive the Opposition of our scheduled Opposition day debate, for fear that we might vote for the House of Commons to sit this week and hold the Prime Minister to account. Having suppressed scrutiny by the Commons last week, is this now to be followed by imposing a Whip—I thought we had heard that Mr Burnham did not like Whips—to suppress scrutiny of the Government in this place? It looks as though the Prime Minister is bending over backwards to avoid telling Parliament what his plans are.

However, yesterday, outside Parliament, while Parliament was sitting here, he declared grandiloquently that he would be

“a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last forty years … A new political model”—

one that, incidentally, includes putting someone who resigned on a propriety and ethics issue in charge of propriety and ethics, and putting someone who resigned over a housing issue in charge of housing. I have heard of thumbing the nose at the so-called establishment, but there are points when it can look a little rich.

The Cabinet met earlier today to discuss the Government’s new ideas. The noble Baroness the Leader was there. So can your Lordships’ House—can this Parliament, sitting here in this place—not be told the barest outline of this new political model, the new economic model and the 10-year plan? For example, will tax overall go up or will it come down? Will welfare spending rise or will it be cut? What is the fiscal strategy? Already, the Government have talked or briefed outside Parliament about cutting energy bills, lifting the personal tax allowance, nationalising Thames Water, the biggest council house programme since the war, giving mayors more funding, creating a national care service, more overseas aid, cutting student loan repayments, more employment support and ending homelessness.