With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a short statement to update the House on tomorrow’s business. The business for tomorrow is now: Wednesday 15 July—A general debate on Iran—[Interruption.]

Shocking!

Order. Mr Stafford, do you want to leave now? I will not have shouting like that again. Are you going to answer me?

I apologise.

Apology accepted.

The general debate on Iran will be followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to national security. The business for the remainder of the week is unchanged. Thursday 16 July—The Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. The subject of which has been determined by the Backbench Business Committee. The House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 16 July and return on Tuesday 1 September. I will make a further business statement on Thursday.

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

This is a total humiliation and embarrassment for the Government. Yesterday they published an emergency change to Government business in order to ram the Hillsborough law through this House, with no notice and an absolute minimum of scrutiny. Now they have backtracked again on their own business and cancelled the Opposition day that they themselves had scheduled. Why is that? Let me read the motion that caused so much consternation in the Whips Office and in No. 10: “That this House calls on the Government to bring forward a motion to change the date it adjourns to Monday 20 July to enable the new Prime Minister to make a statement about his plans for Government.” In other words, the Government changed the business and refused to delay the activity of this House by even one day to permit the Prime Minister, as he will be, to make a statement and to answer questions about his intentions and plans. The Government have a majority of more than 150, but they could not trust their MPs to vote the right way on that motion and they could not bear the idea of a new Prime Minister facing any scrutiny before September. Let me remind us all that that Prime Minister has been chosen by a coronation, not a contest, with no known platform, almost no known policies and no idea of his priorities or his Cabinet team. The Government pushed us to take an Opposition day tomorrow, but they cannot bear the scrutiny, and now they are cancelling it. To do so by hiding—thoroughly distastefully, I am afraid—under the very distressing news of what is happening in Iran, when a Minister could have made a statement today or tomorrow on that issue, is completely disreputable. The Government are not even cancelling the Opposition day for legislation. They could have kept the day for the Representation of the People Bill, but they are cancelling it for a general debate, with no votes. This is the worst possible exit for a Prime Minister—it is a desperate attempt to create a legacy, as though that could alter two solid years of failure—and the worst possible start for a new Prime Minister. People across this country will see what has happened, and they will conclude that this is a man who is frit, running scared of public scrutiny before he can even take office.

If I may, I will introduce some facts into the situation. I appreciate the frustration of Members when business is changed at short notice and when debates are postponed, but they will appreciate the importance of the House being able to discuss the escalating and fast-moving situation in the middle east before the recess. The right hon. Gentleman, who knows that I hold him in high regard, may want to take away the word “distastefully” and have another think about that. What is distasteful is the crisis erupting once again in the middle east. This is an opportunity to update the House, and for Members to give their views on this matter at the earliest opportunity. The right hon. Gentleman reads out a motion that, he tells us, was to be tabled for tomorrow. I have to say that that is the first I have heard of the motion; no such motion was tabled for the Opposition day tomorrow. We did not see the words of the motion. A decision was made on whether the House should debate an unfolding international crisis. The right hon. Gentleman talks about what might happen on Monday. He had the opportunity yesterday to raise the question of whether the future Prime Minister would come to the House on Monday. Others raised that issue, but he did not.

I raised it in the Daily Mail!

The right hon. Gentleman might have raised it in the Daily Mail, but he did not raise it in the business statement yesterday, unlike others across the House. As for his suggestion that there should be a statement tomorrow, I remind him that if the business tomorrow was as he asks for it to be, there would be no statement. We do not have statements on Opposition days.

The Leader of the House says that there will be a motion on a statutory instrument on national security. I hope that is the SI that will finally allow us to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been sufficiently behind much of the anti-Jewish hatred that we see in this country, and has been one of the most destabilising forces when it comes to our democracy and our safety. Is the Leader of the House able to confirm what that SI is about? Will he give us hope that the IRGC will finally be banned tomorrow?

I hope to be able to confirm that in due course, but my hon. Friend is not far off.

I understand that usually, if the Government want to make a statement relating to foreign affairs, we get a statement from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, so I hope it will not be a habit of the House to change the whole business to Back-Bench debates, rather than giving us a formal statement from Government Ministers. While we are on the subject of Opposition days, it would be remiss of me not to highlight that the Leader of the Opposition recently said: “The fact is we are the smallest opposition party in history—we don’t have enough MPs.” I suggest to the Leader of the House that if the Government want to allocate more Opposition day debates to the Liberal Democrats, we will gladly take them. [Interruption.] The Opposition have come out in force today—well done on coming out today. More broadly, the country will be wondering why, although we have effectively known for weeks who the new Prime Minister will be, it will be months before he faces any parliamentary scrutiny on his plans. Will the Leader of the House explain how this situation has been allowed to happen? Does he agree that our constituents deserve answers about the new Prime Minister’s plans much sooner?

The reality is that if a new Administration is formed on Monday, it will take some time to get that Administration into place. As I said yesterday, there are no plans to change the recess dates; those dates were set for the convenience of Members, to enable them to plan ahead. The work of the Government will continue through the recess, and I am sure that once the next Prime Minister is in place, he will come to the House, following recess, to update it on his plans.

Is the Leader of the House as surprised as I am by the faux outrage from so many Conservative Members? Would it not have been better to see them in the Lobby with us, voting to increase workers’ rights and the minimum wage, and to lift the two-child benefit cap?

I absolutely welcome many of the Conservative hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who are present, because we do not often see them in this place. Mr Speaker, it tells you something about the state of the modern-day Conservative party when its Members can turn out en masse for this statement, but not for debate on some of the big issues of the day.

The Leader of the House had nothing to do with this decision on the business. He knows that, even at the height of Brexit, once an Opposition day debate was agreed, it was agreed. My constituents want to know what the new Prime Minister will do on defence, for small businesses, and on energy, and the decision to not allow the House the opportunity to question the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is thwarting that desire. Can I urge the Leader of the House to remind the new No. 10 that there will be a point during this summer when the new Prime Minister will wish he had sought consent from this House, and will totally regret the decision that has been made today?

The right hon. Gentleman was a very distinguished Chief Whip, but I fear that he is looking back at when he served in that role with rose-tinted spectacles. I remember both what we did to his party, and what it did to us. Opposition days are not set in stone, in the way that he is suggesting. Had we known what the motions were, that might have informed the debate on this decision, but I remind the House that there is a crisis escalating across the middle east. As for the future Prime Minister, the work of the Government will continue through the recess, and once the Prime Minister is in place, they will come to the House at the earliest opportunity following the recess.

The Leader of the House is usually a very thoughtful and considerate man, but my recollection is similar to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith); it is that once a date had been agreed through the usual channels, it was usually stuck to. It certainly was in all circumstances where it was agreed with me. Will the Leader of the House make contact with the office of the right hon. Member for Makerfield, and have a discussion with him, so that the Leader of the House can report back to the House on Thursday on whether a date will be made available next week for the right hon. Member for Makerfield to make a statement to this House about his plans and ambitions for the Government and this country?

The right hon. Gentleman—who, again, was a very distinguished Chief Whip—might well agree with the former Chief Whip sitting next to him, but that does not make them right. I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman is correct about what happened once a date was agreed, but if he is, that was because of the right hon. Gentleman’s decency in using the usual channels in that way. Perhaps there otherwise would have been a greater degree of uncertainty. As I have said, when the new Prime Minister is in place, he will come to the House at the earliest opportunity, following recess, and update the House.

The Leader of the House knows that I have enormous respect for him, and I am sure that this is quite a difficult statement for him to make, particularly as the right hon. Member for Makerfield will face unfavourable comparisons with Boris Johnson, who did come to this House and make a statement before the summer recess. However, can I change the subject? We are expecting a statement on local government reorganisation on Thursday. Now that tomorrow is not an Opposition day, could the Leader of the House find a way for that statement to be made tomorrow, rather than on Thursday?

As I recall, Boris Johnson was appointed before the summer recess, and there was time for him to make a statement. If I am incorrect, I apologise, but I am confident that was the case. The right hon. Lady raises an interesting question about whether tomorrow not being an Opposition day creates space for statements. I will take that question away and think about it.

My time as Chief Whip may have been a little shorter than that of the Leader of the House, but I would gently remind him that it is highly unusual for an Opposition day to be pulled in this way. Sadly, the crisis is in this place. We are on the cusp of a new Prime Minister coming into office; the general public expect to know his plans, and they expect us in this place to have the opportunity to scrutinise those plans. I urge the Leader of the House to go to the man who we expect to become Prime Minister this week, have a serious conversation with him, and ask him whether he will do the decent thing and come to this place.

I am not sure that it is in the right hon. Lady’s interest for us to debate her time as Chief Whip. I agree that this is unusual, and it is not a decision that has been taken lightly, but I point out to her and to Opposition Members that the situation in the middle east is unusual. We could well be in the midst of a greater conflagration in that region. She talks about a crisis in this place; she is suggesting that scrutinising the Prime Minister is more important than the crisis that is unfolding in the middle east. She is a shadow Foreign Office Minister. I find that statement incredible.

The middle east has been in a state of rolling crisis for months and months, yet the Leader of the House comes to this place and says that things have got so bad that we need to do this extraordinary thing—which is unprecedented in my 25 years in the House—in order to discuss it. This is from a Government who have a marginal impact on the conduct of affairs in the middle east. Will the Leader of the House commit to a very low bar for a recall of this House over the summer recess to discuss the middle east? What he is saying is that there is such a low bar, and that if anything happens in the middle east beyond background, we need to come back to this place to debate the matter.

The right hon. Gentleman is a very distinguished Member of this House, but I do think that the Opposition are talking lightly about what is unfolding in the middle east. This Government have brought statements and debates about Iran to the Floor of the House, but the Opposition are suggesting that nothing that is happening out there is sufficient to merit a debate tomorrow, before the recess, in which the Government can set out their position, and hon. and right hon. Members can set out their views and inform the Government. I think that this is the right way to go about it. If there is need for a recall of the House during the recess to discuss this or any other matter, that will be considered in the usual way.

Of course, the Speaker would want to agree whatever proposal was brought forward.

When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No. 14(2)).” Why is the Leader of the House seeking to usurp that right and put his own plans in place instead?

I am not seeking to usurp that. What I am saying is that I have also been in this place for the past 25 years, to jog the hon. Gentleman’s memory, and it has happened. It does happen on occasion. [Hon. Members: “When?”] Look, I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the dates off the top of my head, but I am absolutely confident that it happened. It happened during his Government—the Government whom he supported. It happened, and I think the record will demonstrate that. This is a highly unusual situation. We are heading towards a recess; the House needs an opportunity to discuss this situation further, and that is what I am seeking to provide.

The Leader of the House will know that I have huge regard for him, and I wager that he thinks this decision is as disgraceful as we do. When he was Chief Whip, he would never have stood for the disdain that his party has shown for tomorrow’s Opposition day debate. My constituents want us to debate and know the plans of the new Prime Minister. That should be given to this House. How can my constituents not now deem that the disdain that this Government have shown for this Parliament over the past two years will carry on under the new Prime Minister? How will my constituents not think that this Leader of the House and this new Prime Minister are running frit from the feelings of my constituents and the wider country?

I will not get into the disdain that the hon. Gentleman’s Government, of whom he was a firm supporter, showed for this House, because we simply do not have time. As I have said, when the new Prime Minister is in place, he will come to this House and set out his plans for the future. I will not try to speak for the hon. Gentleman, whom I hold in equally high regard, about what his constituents think, but if he thinks they are not concerned about the situation in the middle east, our brave servicemen and women in the region and the economic impact of what is happening, he needs to go and talk to them.

Does the House not deserve to know what the new Prime Minister thinks about this unfolding crisis? Perhaps he will be speaking in the debate tomorrow.

I am sure that when the Prime Minister is in place, he will be coming to this House at the earliest opportunity following recess, and he will set that out. [Interruption.] Let me just answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I expect that when Ministers get up tomorrow to open or to respond to the debate they will set out Government policy. I do not expect that policy to change, even though the Administration might change. The Government will be setting out the plans for the summer. Even if we have a different Prime Minister and a different Administration, I am not sure that the policy will change in the way that the right hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting.

The Leader of the House was a Whip of long experience, along with the hon. Member for Bridgend (Chris Elmore). I find it hard to understand how the Whips Office has fallen so far that the usual channels did not know what the motions would be tomorrow. Who is the Leader of the House trying to convince? One of those motions would have been to censure the Energy Secretary. The Leader of the House has made it clear that the crisis in the middle east has a direct impact on this country because of the energy crisis, yet we will not be able to censure the Energy Secretary for the tens of thousands of jobs he has seen disappear in the oil and gas industry. Perhaps he might act when there is one job on offer. Will the next Government carry on making statements outside of this House? That is what will happen all summer, basically disregarding this House, for which you, Mr Speaker, have admonished those on the Treasury Bench on several occasions.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for informing those on the Government Benches what the other topic was going to be for the Opposition day debate. [Interruption.] I am standing at the Dispatch Box, and Mr Speaker knows the importance I put on Ministers telling the absolute truth when they stand here. I was totally unaware until the right hon. Gentleman just told us—[Interruption.] No, I was totally unaware of the topic, not just the wording. That illustrates his point about the usual channels, because the usual channels, funnily enough, are a two-way process. It is about the Opposition saying to the Government, “This is what we are going to raise”, and then making sure that the debate rises to that, because the Government are informed in sufficient time. If he has a problem with how the usual channels are working, he might want to talk to his side.

The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) was elected less than a month ago. He will be Prime Minister on Monday, by which time we will be on an almost 50-day recess. He will be appointing a Cabinet in that time, some of whom will not have to come to this House to answer questions until the middle of October, after the conference recess. We do not know what his plan is. He was elected leader of the Labour party without a contest, and our constituents have the right to know. The point of our motion was to give them the opportunity to know his plans for the country. Why is that too much to ask?

I just point out gently to the hon. Lady that I have already said that the Government will continue during the recess. I expect that decisions and announcements will be made, and there was never going to be an opportunity for every new or existing Secretary of State to be brought to this House to answer questions. That is what we will do when the House reconvenes in September. I am sure that those Secretaries of State and the new Prime Minister will want to set out the Government’s plans at the earliest opportunity.

Again, the work of the Government will continue through the recess. The Prime Minister will make a statement to the House at the earliest opportunity. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman did not mean to do so, but he must not downplay what is happening in and around Iran. If he wants to talk about embarrassing performances, let me gently remind him of what he said from the Dispatch Box as a Minister. He might want to turn around to his right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), the former Chief Whip, and apologise: because of the mess he made on that day, she lost her job.

Tomorrow, the Conservatives were going to ask for Parliament to sit for one more working day, so that the new Prime Minister could come here and set out his agenda for the country, which we could then scrutinise on behalf of all the people we represent. Instead, there will be a general debate which, no matter the topic, can have no actionable outcome. We will have no chance for a month and a half to scrutinise the Prime Minister’s plans. I ask the Leader of the House genuinely: how does he think that looks to the people who send us here?

I thank the hon. Lady for reminding us what tomorrow was going to be about, because we did not know. [Interruption.] Well, we might have known tomorrow, but we certainly did not know today. [Interruption.] That is the point, actually, because if the Opposition wanted to set up something that the hon. Lady says is so important, why was no motion tabled to set out what the debates would be? It is all right for the Conservatives to prepare for that, apparently. [Interruption.] If that is the case, it is irrelevant. I am talking about a situation that is erupting once again in the middle east. People who are listening to or watching this debate will be doing so with a degree of incredulity, seeing the Conservatives preferring to go down a route of playing some weird political game while the middle east is on the brink of conflagration.

The Leader of the House is a decent and honourable man, and the fact that he is so clearly rattled this afternoon shows how uncomfortable he is with the statement that he has delivered to us. As he knows, the purpose of that Opposition day debate was to have a vote to delay recess by one day to scrutinise the new Prime Minister. My constituents want to know if the new Prime Minister will put up their taxes. Will he spend more on welfare? Will he fund our armed forces properly? Will he curtail my constituents’ right to a jury trial? The truth is that our new Prime Minister is already running away. He is frit, is he not?

As I have said before, and I say again, when the new Prime Minister is in place he will come and make a statement to the House, and set out his plans on those and other matters. The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of taxation—[Interruption.] Hon. Members might want to listen to this, because it answers a question that they have asked before and to which I now have an answer. The universal credit vote was blocked on 7 September 2021 by Jacob Rees-Mogg, who scrapped an Opposition day in order to vote for a national insurance rise.

Metal prices being what they are, if we were to take the amount of brass neck on show here today and melt it down, we could fund defence properly. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that the ship of state will sail on regardless throughout the summer, but my constituents want to know whose hand is on the tiller and what course will be set. Is that so unreasonable? If Manchesterism is so fantastic, why can the right hon. Member for Makerfield not come here and tell us all about it?

That is because on the day the Opposition were suggesting my right hon. Friend should come here and make that statement he will be putting together a new Administration—presumably appointing a new Cabinet, and then a new Administration. He will be setting out—[Interruption.] If Members want to scrutinise an Administration, they should at least provide an opportunity for the Prime Minister and the Administration to be in place. However, that is not the reason why tomorrow’s business is being altered. Tomorrow’s business is being altered because we are on the verge of a conflagration, and a decision was made without knowledge of what the motions would to be for tomorrow. A decision was made that it was appropriate for the House to consider that matter, rather than the motions that were yet to be tabled.

The Leader of the House will know that I hold him in great respect, but over the two years for which I have been in this place, I have seen a pattern of behaviour in the final week before the recess—business is announced at the very last second, particularly when it concerns local government reorganisation—and we are seeing an increase in that behaviour in relation to this important issue. The Leader of the House is being disingenuous. He is suggesting that this is a binary issue: that either we ask the new Prime Minister, as of Monday, to come to the House one extra day late, or we discuss Iran. I think that that is an insult to my constituents, and I ask once again that the Leader of the House reconsider his position.

I am slightly alarmed by the constant references to the respect in which I am held. I think today may constitute a seminal moment in that regard. This is not a binary issue. It is about deciding, with a relative shortness of time given that the House has voted for the recess to start on Thursday, what we believe should be the priority for the House to discuss. Should it be the conflagration in the middle east, or motions that we had yet to see?

On Tuesday 24 March 2026, the Leader of the House tabled a statement by the Chancellor on a Conservative Opposition day. So it does happen: he has done it himself. More to the point, however, I have always held him in high esteem for representing both sides of the House, and he has made it incredibly clear that this Iranian debate is super-important. Will he therefore undertake to write to the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) to ask him to come to the House and take part in that debate, so that at least the country has a hint of an understanding of the momentous and important discussion that is to take place tomorrow?

The hon. Gentleman’s first point was that it happened to us, or we did it. I understand, because I would have been angry at the time. I can assure the House that I would have been very angry, and I understand the anger on the Opposition Benches. What I am saying, however, is that the decision is a choice between an issue relating to the international situation, which we need to discuss before the recess, and motions that we were yet to see. As for writing to or otherwise contacting my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield, I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend will know that the business for tomorrow has changed, and he will now know what the topic is, and if he wishes to come here to make his views plain on that particular issue—or if any other Member wishes to do so—that is a matter for my right hon. Friend.

The right hon. Member has highlighted that, in his view, this is not a binary choice between a debate on the middle east and holding the new Prime Minister to account. I wonder whether I might therefore offer him a solution. Why do we not have the debate tomorrow—it is clearly important, and no one on this side of the House is saying otherwise—and then have a vote, which is also in the right hon. Member’s gift, to return on Monday anyway? We were essentially doing the Government a favour by tabling the motion, because ultimately we all want to hear from this new Prime Minister. With the exception of a few lucky people on the Labour Benches, nobody knows what he is planning to do. For the benefit of my constituents in the south-west, I want to be able to raise his obsession with No. 10 in Manchester. I want to hear his views on defence, welfare, taxation and special educational needs. Those are the things that I believe the House deserves to hear directly from the new Prime Minister before we return in September. Might the right hon. Member consider that pretty simple solution, which would give everyone what they want?

As I have said, the new Prime Minister will wish to come to this place, and, on the points that the hon. Lady has raised, he will want to answer questions; but let me give her a different scenario for what tomorrow might have looked like if it had been an Opposition day. We could have had a motion which, perhaps, the whole House could have got behind, about the dangerous international situation—[Interruption.] We could have done that, because we could have risen to the occasion. But what we got—the shadow Leader of the House read it out—was a party political motion. We did not know that, but it turns out to be proven—[Interruption.] Let me be clear: we did not know the wording of the motion. We did not know what that was. But let me just say this. I do not appear to be so all the time, but I am always optimistic. Sometimes I expect Opposition parties to use Opposition days to rise to the occasion. Unfortunately, however, I am disappointed yet again.

I am normally a temperate man, but this is a farcical situation. I have huge respect for the Leader of the House, but I suspect that he has come here with gritted teeth, because the reality is that our constituents want to hear from the new Prime Minister. In fact, the Leader of the House has given a compelling reason for Parliament to sit for a further day next week. If the situation in the middle east is as precarious as he suggests, and if there are challenges facing our country, for us to have a Prime Minister who was elected not by the majority of this country but by one constituency, on a mandate that he has not set out, and through a leadership contest that has had no scrutiny whatsoever, is an affront to democracy.

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman at all. The work of the Government will continue throughout the recess. What the Government will set out tomorrow is our position on the situation in the middle east. If, heaven forbid, there is a need to recall Parliament or indeed we return to this matter in September, even with a new Prime Minister, I do not expect there to be a major difference in that regard. The hon. Gentleman knows that this is a matter of the highest importance to our constituents. [Interruption.] There is no statement today because we are changing the business for tomorrow to give Members on both sides of the House the opportunity to make their case, perhaps in an extended way, rather than simply in a statement. That is what this important issue tomorrow deserves.

The final question goes to Lancashire.

This is a farce. It is a charade. We are all puppets in a political pantomime being orchestrated by the new Member for Makerfield. I did not realise that the right hon. Gentleman wanted a job in the reshuffle so much that he would put himself through this. Today the Table Office cleared, or had had sight of, the motion for tomorrow. The right hon. Member for Makerfield has been avoiding scrutiny from the press; he has avoided scrutiny from his own parliamentary party through an uncontested leadership election; and now he is trying to avoid scrutiny from any Member in this place. Does the Leader of the House at least recognise that that is not a good tone for an incoming Prime Minister to set, and that it does not bode well for his future if that is how he is going to conduct himself as Prime Minister of this country?

I think the hon. Gentleman is making a bid for a role that does not exist but could be created: the shadow Minister for clichés. As I have said, the new Prime Minister will come to this House and set out his plans, but we deemed the crisis unfolding across the middle east to be of sufficient priority to change tomorrow’s business. I apologise that that is the case. Nobody wanted to do it, but that is what the importance of the situation demanded. I am sorry if the Opposition cannot get their head around that.