Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?
Conservative and Unionist Party MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire since (elected).
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| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | MP | Hereford and South Herefordshire | – present | elected | — | Party history |
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Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House very much for that update. As the House will be aware, this is a day of very mixed feelings as we mourn the deaths and injuries sustained in the Spanish high-speed rail disaster yesterday. In a far happier vein, it is impossible not to celebrate the triumphs of Harry Kane in the Ballon d’Or—the first British winner for 25 years—and of giant-killing Fleetwood Town in conquering Arsenal in the Carabao cup. Just in time for Halloween, we learn that the SNP Government in Scotland have assembled an army of nearly 800 ghost workers on the public payroll, costing taxpayers £27 million a year. The jobs have vanished, but the salaries remain. One of those people has been non-working in the NHS for 17 years. That is the SNP in a nutshell. Needless to say, the Scottish Government have no plans to change that state of affairs, and with hundreds of people being paid to pretend that they have jobs, it is the perfect metaphor for this Labour Government. So to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who spoke after the usual orgy of pre-briefings to the media yesterday. To his credit, he avoided some of the more lunatic ideas of his colleagues. He tried his best, but frankly Harry Kane or Fleetwood Town—hell, Fleetwood Mac—would have done better with that Budget. It was a Budget for a May general election, not for the future of Britain. As Helen Miller from the Institute for Fiscal Studies put it, <span id="440" class="column-number" data-column-number="440"></span>there was “lots of fiddling”, but no “clear, coherent vision”. It means that disposable household incomes are falling, the tax burden is at a historic peacetime high, and growth forecasts are falling, with not even the whiff of a strategy for growth yesterday. Worse still, as noted economist Paul Johnson pointed out, the Budget implied back-end loaded spending cuts in “most areas of public service spending of 2.6% per year between 2028-29 and 2031-32.” His verdict was that this is “not honest politics, nor is it honest economics”. Those are his words, Mr Speaker, not mine, and I think it is well known that Mr Johnson is not a Conservative. There is something even more troubling here. Britain is walking a fiscal, monetary and security tightrope, but yet again, the Government’s response has been to postpone difficult decisions, spin the plates, ladle on the fudge and hope that nothing goes wrong. Now we have persistent speculation, despite attempted rebuttals, that the Prime Minister may call a general election—what an extraordinary abdication of responsibility that would be. The message would be this: yes, Britain faces profound economic and international uncertainty, so let us add a little extra disruption to that with an entirely unnecessary election, more than two years before one is required and, while we are at it, let us reopen the constitutional turmoil of another EU referendum to boot. The British people would surely say, “We gave you Labour people a majority of more than 170 to sort out the country’s issues. You have replaced your own Prime Minister and your Chancellor. You have failed to deliver the change you promised, and now you want another election because you are simply too frit to make the decisions required.” Britain needs growth, stability, financial strength and national security. Instead, it is getting short-term fixes, deferred decisions and political manoeuvring. This is not a strategy for governing Britain; it is an absolute failure of leadership. The Chancellor could not even meet his own test for defence spending, over which he supposedly resigned. The Prime Minister has talked endlessly of his desire to “rewire the state”, and the Chancellor said the same in terms yesterday. We have a huge debt burden, stretched public services, rising interest rates and growing defence commitments. There is the escalating threat of external shocks—Ukraine, Iran, inflation, AI, trade wars, extreme weather, another pandemic—so will the Leader of the House now explain, in his usual candid way, without prevaricating or blaming others, why those two men have demonstrated absolutely zero interest in actually taking any of the serious decisions required to address those issues?
Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House very much for that business. As the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and others said yesterday, in this week of the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, let us never forget its victims, including 116 children, and its terrible cost to their families and their community. On a far happier note, the House will shortly come together in celebration of the Clerk on his retirement, but let me pay a personal tribute to Tom now for his unfailing genius, sense of service and courtesy to the House, and the assistance he has given us all as Members over 30 years. As a jobbing trumpeter, coming very much from the opposite end of the quality spectrum, I can testify that Tom is a superb jazz pianist. Like any great jazzer, he has a remarkable ability to improvise under pressure while never losing sight of the underlying material—as in the gig, so at the Table. That is no small achievement with 650 would-be Miles Davises all playing in different keys.
Some are more in tune than others, Mr Speaker. Among Tom’s heroes is Art Tatum, who was famous for taking a familiar tune and turning it into something almost unrecognisable. Tom has often performed the reverse feat with Members’ legislative amendments: taking something almost unrecognisable and turning it into something more familiar.<span id="1289" class="column-number" data-column-number="1289"></span> Mr Speaker, I hope that you and the Leader of the House will forgive another toot from me on my constituency trumpet. This week has seen the publication of a brilliantly positive new report by Policy Exchange on our new engineering university in Hereford, NMITE—the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering. Among other things, the report highlights that, thanks to the university’s accelerated degrees, it offers at least 20% better value for money for students than elsewhere. For local students, it is almost half the cost of an equivalent chartered engineering degree anywhere else. The report goes further—I think this is a matter of general interest to the House—by identifying 57 suitable towns and cities across the UK, including Hartlepool, Grimsby, Barnsley, Burnley and Scunthorpe in the north alone, in which the model could be rolled out across the country. I would be delighted to discuss with colleagues how we could do so with any areas and constituencies that may be interested. I end, if I may, on a more serious note. In May 2024, Lord Walney’s report, “Protecting our Democracy from Coercion”, made more than 40 recommendations to tackle political intimidation and disruptive extremism. More than two years into their term of office, this Government have yet to respond fully; indeed, Ministers abolished Lord Walney’s position last year. When they did so, they promised that his report would continue to shape the Government’s approach to political violence, yet they rejected key recommendations in passing the Crime and Policing Act 2026, including stronger powers to prevent particularly harmful marches. They did that despite very strong appeals from Jewish community groups facing the present rising tide of antisemitism—groups that are still more concerned, be it said, after the Green party’s appalling resolution that Zionism is racism. The threat is clear, and I know that this is an issue of particular concern to you, Mr Speaker, on behalf of all of us. Ninety-six per cent of Members of Parliament responding to the Speaker’s Conference in 2025 reported harassment, intimidation or abuse. It is a matter of public record that, last September, arson destroyed the constituency office of one of our colleagues, and that another and their son received death threats. Peaceful protest is fundamental to democracy, of course, but so is the right of every person to live free from intimidation, and the right of every elected representative and their staff to be able to serve without intimidation, abuse or coercion. Will the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to publish a full, recommendation-by-recommendation, response to Lord Walney’s report, and will he arrange a debate in Government time on that response so that the House can collectively scrutinise what the Government are doing and propose to do to meet these dreadful threats?
Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for the business. I associate myself with everything that was said in the previous urgent question about the fiasco of the sustainable farming incentive. We meet today on the fifth anniversary of the death—the murder—of Sir David Amess. I know that all colleagues will want to join me in celebrating David, his perennial optimism, his beaming smile, his enormous gift for friendship, and his unfailing energy in assisting and supporting his constituents. The independent report into his murder led by Sir Robert Buckland cannot come too soon. I have three matters to raise. The first relates indirectly to David Amess. As the Leader of the House will know, at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, the Prime Minister described the man charged with the murder of our former colleague Ann Widdecombe as the man “responsible” for her murder. That statement breached the legal presumption of innocence, discussed a case that is sub judice and misled the House. It must have been inadvertent, but there has been no clarification yet—
As I think I said, whatever took place was inadvertent, but there has been no clarification from the Prime Minister or any Minister, no withdrawal of the remark and no apology. That is deeply disrespectful of this House and of the Chair. Will the Leader of the House correct the record, withdraw the remark and apologise on behalf of the Prime Minister? Secondly, as the House will know, Manchester City have been found guilty by an independent commission of 114 of the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League, including inaccurate financial reporting, undisclosed remuneration and failure to co-operate with the investigations. This week, having previously been neutral on the issue, the Prime Minister sought to distance himself personally from the club and its owners. Otherwise, he and Ministers have remained remarkably quiet, especially since his club, Everton, had an eight-point deduction for two breaches—112 fewer than have been found here—just three years ago. Will the Leader of the House set out the Government’s position? Do they regard the breaches as extremely serious, or do they believe that a few eggs may have been broken, but broadly speaking everything is all right? When will we get a statement from the Sport Minister on the subject? Finally, last November, I highlighted the severe flooding suffered by Ewyas Harold in my constituency. Homes were inundated, people and businesses were evacuated, and families were left with huge financial and emotional costs. Insurance premiums have gone up—if insurance remains available at all. The school, the doctors’ surgery and access for emergency services were cut off. Other nearby villages, including Clodock, Kentchurch and Allt-yr-ynys were similarly afflicted. Yet now, 11 months later, despite an all-parties meeting that I convened last March and repeated representations to Ministers, the Environment Agency and Herefordshire council, there has been no substantive progress. The Government Office for Science believes El Niño is likely to be bigger than ever this year. My constituents are deeply anxious that floods this winter will drive them yet again from their homes and businesses. Fixing that does not require some vast engineering project. Better drainage, watercourse maintenance, management of run-off and other practical mitigations could all make the difference. However, the residents are in a Catch-22 situation that will be familiar to many people across this House: no one in authority is taking any responsibility, but people are not allowed by law to help themselves. The works could all be done legally, quickly and effectively this year by local companies at less than half the cost of the EA’s framework contractors, but that is prohibited. No one will come to the aid of these people, but put one foot into the watercourse just to clear the debris, and they risk prosecution. I have made a formal Budget submission to the Chancellor on that matter. Will the Leader of the House now take it up personally with the Chancellor and the Environment Secretary and make funding this scheme the first order of business for the Government’s new floods resilience taskforce?
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In his response to a question at Prime Minister’s questions earlier, the Prime Minister said: “Can I start just by recognising, with the charges that have been laid against the individual responsible for the murder of Ann Widdecombe”. He did not say the individual “accused of” her murder; he spoke of the individual “responsible for” her murder. A man is innocent until proven guilty. The presumption of innocence goes back to Magna Carta and it applies without exception, but the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has just publicly spoken as though a man awaiting trial has already been convicted of murder. It is directly contrary to the rule of law, it is a breach of the presumption of innocence, it is misleading to the House and in any other forum it would be a contempt of court, which could be used to suggest that the defendant had been prejudged on the merits of a case. The Prime Minister needs to apologise. May I ask your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to whether the Prime Minister needs to apologise, to withdraw the statement and to correct the record immediately?
Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?