Business of the House

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business. Following on from this morning’s Energy and Climate Change questions, I remind the Leader of the House that the Energy Secretary gave a commitment a month ago that he would require action from the energy companies on fuel prices, or would take action himself. One month on, no action has been taken. This morning, the Energy Secretary committed to give a report to the House on his meeting with the energy companies, which takes place on Monday. Will the Leader of the House confirm that that report will be given via an oral statement to the House to give Members an opportunity to question the Energy Secretary, and when will that statement be made? The issue of the programme motion on yesterday’s business has just been raised again in questions to the Leader of the House. I know that business questions are about future business, not past business, but I ask the Leader of the House whether she really learned anything from yesterday’s debate. Does she not realise the strength of feeling in this House when the Government unnecessarily curtail House business in this way? Frankly, what happened yesterday was a gross discourtesy to the House and an example of gross mismanagement of business. Will she give a commitment that in future she will put the interests of the House ahead of those of the Government and give sufficient time for Back Benchers to be able to express their views? This week, the World Economic Forum confirmed that the UK has, for the second successive year, fallen in world gender equality rankings. Taking into account issues such as the gender pay gap, economic participation and educational achievement, the WEF now ranks the UK below nations such as Latvia and the Philippines. The report highlights the importance of making use of the full potential of women in the workplace. Will the right hon. and learned Lady, in her role as Minister for Women and Equality, therefore make a statement to the House to confirm whether the Government will support our Equal Pay and Flexible Working Bill? The right hon. and learned Lady has made much of the fact that the Government will bring forward an equality Bill in the next Session. As she is the Minister for Women and Equality, the expectation was that she would lead the Bill through the House of Commons, but we now learn that that will be done by the Solicitor-General—indeed, her headed notepaper describes her as ““Solicitor-General and Equality Bill Lead””. I understand from the Library that in the past two decades only four Bills have been taken through the House by a Law Officer. Why has the right hon. and learned Lady been sidelined in this way? We very much welcome the independent investigation announced by the Government yesterday into the tragic case of Baby P in Haringey. Will the Leader of the House confirm that the findings of that inquiry will be made public, and will the Children Secretary come to the House to make a statement on those findings in the new Session? On a more general point, can we at some stage have a general debate on the social work profession? Most social workers do a vital job in exceptionally difficult circumstances, but the chief executive of the NSPCC said yesterday that they did not have enough training and support and were heavily engaged in paperwork and bureaucracy. I think that a debate on social work would be appropriate and timely. Finally, last year, in his Mansion House speech, the Prime Minister spoke of"““an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London””." Within months, there was the first run on a UK bank for a century. In April this year, he said to the House:"““even in difficult global times, we are continuing to create jobs and continuing to bring unemployment down.””—[Official Report, 23 April 2008; Vol. 474, c. 1309.]" Figures released yesterday show that unemployment has gone up to 1.8 million—its highest level for 13 years—so it is now higher than when Labour came to office. People are losing their jobs, businesses are going under and homes are being repossessed. I ask the Leader of the House yet again: when can we have a general debate in Government time on the state of the economy?