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Business of the House

If I may continue in the spirit of good will, I thank the right hon. Lady, who is an absolute pleasure to deal with in the way that things have to be dealt with. She is a very important advocate for her own party, but does so with enormous charm. I am not winning her over to conservatism, but it is always a pleasure doing business with her, and indeed with the Scottish National party spokesman, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). It is a pleasure working with all the people we work with in the House.

The right hon. Lady paid tribute to David O’Nions—may the souls of all the faithful departed, by the mercy of God, rest in peace, and I hope that he will be commemorated properly. She also raised, quite rightly, the people held illegally. I do write to the Foreign Secretary every week after business questions to ensure this is highlighted, and will do so again. I am very grateful to her for raising these points, because I think it is important that they remain at the forefront of the political debate.

The right hon. Lady made a point about Opposition day. Yes, it is indeed the feast of the Epiphany, and we are hoping—though this may be the triumph of hope over experience—that we will see some wisdom from the Opposition on that day. It is a hope that has been dashed many times in the past.

The right hon. Lady also asked about how business has been organised. Business has been organised so that the key Bills will receive Royal Assent today: therefore, we have achieved what we needed to achieve, and the one thing outstanding is an unknowable. We have to wait and see whether or not a deal will be achieved, in which case there will be legislative consequences. I am very flattered that she listens to the Moggcast—informative and interesting podcast that it is, done fortnightly through the auspices of ConservativeHome—but that is not a statement of what is going to be going on in the House. It is a discussion about theoretical aspects, and the question that was raised was “Theoretically, could a treaty be ratified ex post facto?” The answer I gave was that this would be legally extremely abnormal and open to challenge, so I am not sure that the right hon. Lady paid as close attention as she ought to have done, although the episode is still available to be downloaded and listened to should she wish to spend Christmas paying closer attention to precisely what I said.

As regards the vaccines Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), he was here in the House a couple of days ago for questions. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has been absolutely assiduous in updating the House, and there will be a statement from the relevant Ministry after I have spoken. The right hon. Lady suggested that taxes were going to be going up; I do not know how she knows this, because the Chancellor guards these matters very closely to his own chest in the period before a Budget, so that will be a matter for him. However, the manifesto commitments of the Conservative party were extraordinarily clear in relation to our being the party of low taxation.

Regarding procurement, the procurement had to be done quickly. The right hon. Lady has criticised the communications, but it was absolutely essential to see that the messages were getting across effectively—to see whether they were the messages that worked, that persuaded people to change their behaviour, because it was the most extraordinary level of change in behaviour ever known in this nation. People were not allowed to visit each other’s homes; people were not allowed to go to the shops, or to restaurants. We had to know that the message was getting across effectively, and therefore having a degree of focus group and research into how effective it was seems to me a sensible use of Government—taxpayers’—money.