Business of the House

I am sure that the whole House will have welcomed the statement that the Leader of the House has just made, not only on forthcoming business, but on freedom of information. As she has said, our systems need to ensure not only that money is properly spent and that there is transparency, but that hon. Members are not prevented from speaking out as they wish to in the House. Two significant Bills completed their passage in the other place almost two months ago, but as yet we have been given no dates for their Second Readings in the House. One is the important Children and Young Persons Bill. The other is the Climate Change Bill—a major piece of legislation of real significance for the future. Will the right hon. and learned Lady now tell the House when the Second Readings of those two Bills will be? The Treasury Committee has accused the Treasury of treating the Bank of England with ““contempt”” because of the Treasury's handling of key appointments. The contracts of three members of the Bank's court of directors expire in two weeks' time, yet none has been told whether they will be reappointed. Added to that, the deputy governor will be leaving next month and as yet no replacement has been announced. During these times of financial and economic uncertainty, it seems astonishing that the Government should be dithering over those key roles. May we have a statement from the Chancellor in which he tells the House who has been holding up those appointments and whether he will follow the appointments guidelines first proposed by the shadow Chancellor and subsequently adopted by the Prime Minister last year? It was revealed this week that failures in the tax credit system have cost the taxpayer £10 billion in the past four years; that is an unacceptable sum for the Government to have given out by mistake. Like other hon. Members, I am sure, I hear regularly from hard-working constituency families that repeated such errors have had a serious financial impact on family budgets. Will the Financial Secretary make a statement on what her Department is doing to improve the performance of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs? This week, the chief inspector of schools said that progress in raising school standards has stalled and that one in five pupils are failing to master basic English and maths when they leave primary school. The Government promised ““Education, education, education””, yet they are still failing our children. Is it not about time for a debate in Government time on standards in our schools? On the subject of education, may we also have a statement from the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families explaining why schools have had to pull out of the Government's flagship diploma scheme because of inadequate facilities and a lack of training for teachers? It has been 11 years since the Government promised to end mixed-sex wards. Despite the claim by the Secretary of State for Health last month that the Government were in touching distance of achieving that, we found out this week that in 64 per cent. of hospital trusts, patients still had to walk past patients of the opposite sex to wash. When will the rest of the Government own up and admit, as Lord Darzi has already done, that they have failed on that manifesto commitment? May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health on the issue, as a matter of urgency? Yesterday, the centre for crime and justice studies at King's College university published a report that clearly showed that the Government's strategy on youth crime is failing. Spending has soared by 45 per cent. since 2000 to £650 million, yet the policy has had ““no measurable impact””. The Government promised to make cutting the causes of crime a priority, yet they have failed dismally. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Justice on the issue, as a matter of urgency? The Government have hit hard-working families. Taxes and prices are up and promises on schools, hospitals and crime have been broken. After 11 years, people feel betrayed and let down. Is it any wonder that they are saying it is time for change?