Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the future business. I note that the business for next Monday has changed. Will she tell us what has happened to the second day's debate on the Planning Bill? Robert Mugabe's actions have directly caused appalling malnutrition and famine in Zimbabwe. His presence at the UN food summit earlier this week, in defiance of EU sanctions, has rightly caused outrage. On 1 May, the right hon. and learned Lady said she would consider a topical debate on Zimbabwe. On 22 May, she said:"““I think that the House will want a debate soon…I will report back shortly””.—[Official Report, 22 May 2008; Vol. 476, c. 403.]" Lord Malloch-Brown is giving a briefing to the all-party group on Zimbabwe next week. That is welcome, but it is no substitute for a full debate in Government time in this House, as promised, on Zimbabwe. So when will we have that debate? Food security is a matter of concern globally, so why was the UK the only country not to send a Minister to the recent meeting of European Agriculture Ministers? I understand that the Environment Secretary was at a meeting of the G8 Environment Ministers, but where was the rest of his team? May we have a statement to the House explaining why no Minister attended? This week, the National Audit Office told the Ministry of Defence that the Ministry had wasted £500 million on eight Chinook helicopters that have never been flown. Today, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has taken the unprecedented step of publicly asking the Government for more funding for our troops. Moreover, he has called for the Government to set out their priorities. Will the Defence Secretary make a statement to the House to do just that, and explain why, when troops in Afghanistan need more helicopters, his Department has wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on helicopters that are sitting in a hangar in Wiltshire? The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has called this a ““gold-standard cock-up””, so why is the debate in a fortnight's time on defence procurement being held on a Thursday, when it will be cut short by an hour and a half? The disclosure by Post Office Ltd that a further 4,000 post offices could be closed, including profitable ones, in addition to the current 2,500 closures, has justifiably angered many people. In London, the current round of closures is pushing ahead, despite the fact that the Mayor has said he will launch a legal case on this matter. This comes on top of the news that Post Office managers have not even agreed on the minimum number of post offices that the service requires. We are lurching from closure programme to closure programme with no end in sight. Members on both sides of the House have highlighted the disastrous consequences of post office closures for their constituents. May we have a statement from the Business Secretary on what strategy, if any, his Department has in place on post offices? Days after the British Medical Association called on the Government to dump the polyclinic plan, a report published today by the King's Fund has found that all patients would have to make ““major sacrifices”” under Government plans to centralise health services, and that the elderly and those in rural communities would be the worst hit. May we have a statement from the Health Secretary on the number of family doctors' practices that would have to close under the Government's plan for polyclinics? Under this Government, rural communities such as those in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies have lost their post office, their local shop and their police station; now they are threatened with losing their family doctor. Furthermore, the Government are pushing up the tax on their elderly family cars. The Government simply do not understand rural communities. May we have a debate on how Government policy is slowly eroding our rural communities? The Government are failing to represent the UK abroad, they are failing our armed services and they are failing our rural communities. The Prime Minister says that he is going to listen, but when is he going to learn?