Date: 2023-04-27
Thangam Debbonaire: I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. First, on behalf of the 43 staff members who have asked me directly because they want to book their holidays, and all the others who have not, please can we have some recess dates? As soon as we get back, perhaps--there are no business questions next week, so maybe the week after. It is amazing to see that the Leader of the House still has it: the former magician's assistant can abracadabra a brand-new Illegal Migration Bill just like that. That is what it felt like yesterday, with countless Government amendments to their own Bill. Report stage is the new Second Reading. Can she tell us why they were not in the Bill when it was published two months ago, or debated in Committee? Is piling the Bill with last minute amendments not just another tyrannical Tory tactic to swerve scrutiny? We can add illusionist to the Leader of the House's magical talents. She must have conjured up the image in my head of her telling me that she hoped to see the Bill's impact assessment. After so many times of asking for it, I was hopeful. She seemed so confident. She said that she would ask the Home Secretary directly, yet here we are the day after, and here it is not. Could she magic it up now, so at least the Lords can see it before they debate the Bill? It seems that Home Office Ministers cannot even answer the most basic questions on how  the Bill will work. Perhaps the Leader of the House will have a go at just one: does she know how many former RAF bases the Government need to accommodate the tens of thousands of people who will be detained under the new law? I say that she does not, and the Home Secretary will not tell her, either. Has anyone worked it out, or is the Home Secretary just winging it? The Tory party is in disarray. The highly respected right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), a former Prime Minister rightly respected for her work on modern slavery, attacked this Tory Bill for giving traffickers greater leverage over victims to keep them in slavery. The blue on blue continued, with others concerned about safe and legal routes. We had amendments on both those issues, on tackling terrorism and on any number of things that Government Members could have voted for. At the end of business yesterday, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) gave his Minister a tough time over a lack of local consultation on asylum seeker accommodation. That reminds me: just an hour before, Labour had given him the opportunity to vote for--wait for it--an amendment on local consultation on asylum seeker accommodation. Where was he when it came to a vote? Pick a Bill--any Bill--and the Government's utter disdain for this House, its Members, and by extension the British people, is clear. Bills chopping and changing as they wrangle their Back Benchers into place--that is no way to run a rodeo. Poor policy, lazy lawmaking and a gutless Government who know that their policies cannot withstand proper scrutiny. One of our scrutiny tools is Opposition days. The Leader of the House cannot just wave her magic wand to cut the cost of living--she has to vote for it. Why, then, did she and the rest of the Tories vote against Labour's plans on Tuesday to cut the cost of living for her constituents? Thirteen years of Tory Governments crashing and mismanaging the economy. Wages squeezed, inflation at more than 10%, soaring mortgages and rents, food prices rising the fastest in 45 years, and the Government's answer to their own mess is no rabbits out the hat, just 24 Tory tax rises since 2019 and the highest tax burden in 70 years. On Tuesday, Labour gave the Tories another chance to abolish the non-dom tax loophole, so that the super-rich who live and work here can pay their fair share of taxes. Labour would choose to spend that on more health staff and breakfast clubs for kids, but the Tories voted against it. We also gave the Tories the chance to extend the windfall tax on oil and gas profits. Labour would choose to spend that on easing the cost of living crisis by freezing council tax this year. But no, the Tories voted against it. Politics is about choices, and the Government are choosing non-doms and oil and gas giants over working people. Labour will not waste valuable time here on performative Bills that only make people's lives worse, as the Tories are choosing to do. Labour will cut the cost of living, cut waiting lists and cut crime. That is the difference. That is the choice next Thursday. I wish all Labour candidates in the elections the very best of luck.