Welcome to this meeting of the Backbench Business Committee. For those watching us online or on their TV screens, we have been delayed because of Divisions in the main Chamber, so apologies if you have been waiting with bated breath to hear these applications. The first application is from Mike Martin MP on seizing frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine. Over to you, Mike.

Thank you, Chair. I will ask my colleagues to introduce themselves.

Tim Roca, Labour Member for Macclesfield.

Julian Lewis, Conservative Member for New Forest East.

Michael Payne, Labour MP for Gedling.

Welcome.

As you know, Chair, currently British Government policy is that the interest on frozen Russian assets is used to fund the war effort in Ukraine. There is a further argument, which we would like to explore with this debate, which is the seizing of the assets themselves to fund the war in Ukraine rather than just the interest. This would amount to some $300 billion across the G7, which is quite a sizeable amount of money which has a very serious chance of changing the course of the war in Ukraine. That is the headline. I will go into a little bit of the context about the war in Ukraine, if I may. As you know, we are at a critical turning point in the war. We have a rapidly shifting geopolitical environment with President-elect Trump and some of his previous comments about support for both Ukraine and NATO. As you will know, it is predominantly the NATO alliance that is supporting Ukraine in this war against Russia. Hitherto, the United States has provided approximately 50% of the funding that the western alliance has given to Ukraine to combat this illegal Russian aggression. If American support diminishes or is otherwise taken away, Ukraine would be in a very serious spot. Obviously for Europeans—I use that term in the geographic sense; of course, the UK is part of Europe and certainly part of NATO—that is nothing short of catastrophic for us. So, while we as the co-signatories of the application all recognise that seizing the assets is not without its issues, there are ways to do it. Czechia and Estonia have seized assets and used them for funding the war in Ukraine. We would like to have a debate to explore that. The motion calls on the Government to explore how the UK with allies might go about seizing all those assets, of which there are some $300 billion within the G7.

Lovely. Do your colleagues have anything to add?

Mike has made, as it were, the right-of-centre argument, so, just for perversity I will make the left-of-centre argument, which is to say that there are other aspects to this as well. What is all this dirty Russian money doing in the cities and chancelleries of supposedly democratic western countries? It will be absolutely fascinating to see the arguments put against this. If we want to insulate ourselves from being infected with dirty money of this sort, this is a good way; it is probably the best possible paradigm case you could bring. To be more serious now, Mike has rightly emphasised the crucial significance of Russia not seeming to emerge from the conflict rewarded for its aggression. Given the debate’s topicality, I would have thought, particularly if it were held in the main Chamber, that there is a good chance of the media—if properly prepared—being interested in covering it.

I would simply reinforce the points that Mike and Julian have made. There is clear cross-party support from the Back Benches for this debate, which is really important. It is obviously very topical, as Julian has pointed out, and because of the incoming Administration and some of the comments made by figures likely to form part of that Administration, there is an urgency if this action was to be contemplated by NATO allies and the UK itself. So I think it is quite a timely application.

Your application is for a Chamber debate, and you have got a substantive motion which is divisible. The first slot we can offer you is Thursday 9 January, and that would be the first slot after any statements, urgent questions and so on. Would you be able to take that slot?

Yes.

Okay. Any questions from colleagues?

It is more of a comment than a question. In recent Backbench Business debates, we have seen lots of Members cross-party being incredibly supportive of an application and then not showing up to the debate. As a Committee, we are really keen to see these debates. You have definitely demonstrated that there is lots of interest, and you have got 25 names across parties, which is brilliant. I ask that you communicate with those who have shown an interest, as well as further MPs, so that we can have as robust a debate as possible on that day.

Absolutely. Can I ask if the debate will be in the morning or afternoon on the 9th? Do we know?

Obviously, the House sits on a Thursday at 9.30 am and there are oral questions till 10.30 am. If there are no urgent questions, we then have business questions and any statements, so it could start as early as 12.30 pm—that is unlikely, I have to say—or it may be much later. Obviously, we will have two debates, and the Speaker or Deputy Speakers will apportion the time between the two debates, depending on the number of speakers that have put in to the Speaker. As Jess was saying, we are monitoring those who sign applications and those who turn up and actually speak. It is important that people who support an application do turn up, because we do not want criticism from the Leader of the House saying that we are not using our time effectively. When we are finishing at 4.30 pm in the main Chamber in Government time, I do not want Backbench Business time to be similarly criticised.

Understood, Chair.

The Clerks will be in touch, and we will try to schedule the debate for you. Martin Wrigley made representations.

Your application is on south-west railway services

All through the south-west, we are facing difficulty with our train services. One of the big things that is coming up is six years of potential delay due to current plans for the area called Old Oak Common. Old Oak Common was the terminus for HS2 for the north coming into London, which will now be going by tunnel through to Euston. Current plans indicate that we will have not only seven years of disruption while that 14-platform station is built, but permanent disruption on all the trains from the south-west, with every train stopping for between five and 15 minutes. The scheme is offering nothing at all to the residents of the south-west, and I have the support of pretty much all the MPs along the line down through Bristol and Swindon down to Cornwall, Somerset and Devon. We are looking to see what can be brought forward to provide mitigation for those in the south-west, and certainly to emphasise the need to finish the Dawlish rail resilience programme. Remember the Dawlish rail line hanging over the sea? I declare an interest: that is my town and I was the mayor of Dawlish just after that happened. That programme has not yet been completed, and the final phase of securing the cliffs has yet to be done, so we could see another blockage there. At the moment, there are few plans to show what advantage the residents in the south-west will see from the HS2 work coming in that will disrupt them. We are looking to try to establish the most important things to the area and to air the issues around the problems with the railway going down into the south-west.

You may or may not know that we have allocated a debate for next Tuesday in Westminster Hall on the impact of Old Oak Common on rail services to the west of Wales.

I didn’t know that, and we have something tomorrow as well.

Max Wilkinson has submitted that request and it has been granted. That debate is taking place next Tuesday already. That doesn’t mean to say that you cannot have a debate on the effect in the south-west, but I am just gently saying that there is one already going on. You have applied for a Tuesday morning, and I presume Transport would be answering this.

Yes.

So it has to be the week when Transport is answering in Westminster Hall. It is your application, so if we agree it, it will go on the waiting list, because we do not know yet when Transport will next be answering. Any other questions, colleagues?

May I briefly add something, Chair? I am just searching through the Back-Bench Members who have signed your application, and many of the same names came up for the other debate that you mentioned, Chair. I think you will probably have entirely the same people coming to speak at both debates, to be honest.

I think that is likely, but this is causing great consternation with all our residents. We are trying to demonstrate that we are considering their needs, and balancing them with the needs of terminating HS2 is important for fairness.

Okay; the Clerks will be in touch. Dawn Butler made representations.

Your application is for pay gaps in the workplace.

Thank you. Your application is for a Tuesday in Westminster Hall. We can offer you the first week back after the Christmas recess, which will be on 7 January at 9.30 am in Westminster Hall. We are assuming or taking the view that the answering Department would be Women and Equalities. Could you take that if it was offered?

Having just done a Westminster Hall debate, I would manage the expectations of all the people on your list; realistically, not all of them will get to speak in the debate. Obviously you have a lot of Labour names, but I would manage their expectations.

The only problem with a main Chamber debate, which I would not be against, is that you would need more names from the Opposition. If you are going to do a Westminster Hall debate, which we will discuss in a minute, you have got a lot of names.

Having a Westminster Hall debate does not preclude you coming back for a Chamber debate in the future, maybe with a motion about what you want to be done after you have heard from the Minister on what they propose to do.

Your application is on the UN International Day of Education.

This is an application for a debate on the UN International Day of Education, which is actually on 24 January. That is not a sitting Friday, but we would like it to be as close as possible to that date, so the preference would be for the Thursday. We have cross-party support on this. The Members who have signed it are either on the all-party parliamentary group; or from the International Development Committee; or have had an interest, such as Helen Grant, who has been an education envoy in her role under the previous Government; or are members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Those are the people who have signed the application, so they would have an interest in it. The reason why this is important is that education is obviously of huge importance, particularly in developing countries. SDG4, which is the right to access primary education for all children and have positive outcomes, must be met by 2030, so we want to monitor what progress is being made in relation to that and how effective UK aid has been in achieving that. There is currently a review of official development assistance spending, which is being led by Baroness Minouche Shafik, so that will be based on the five Labour missions to see how effective the targeting of that money will be, particularly in relation to education. We want to see what the Government are doing and how effective they will be, because this is an area of change and something that we want to ensure that we are on top of. That is really where we are. I am being proactive and seeking a date towards the end of January, for obvious reasons. I did not want to miss the boat, which is why the application has come in so early.

We encourage early applications, particularly when a date is involved. The only thing I would say about the date, particularly if it is for the main Chamber, is that it is likely to coincide with the application for Holocaust Memorial Day, which I am sure the Committee would want to allocate to the main Chamber. It is likely to be a full day’s debate. It normally is, because so many people want to contribute. The opportunity will be either for Westminster Hall, as you have applied for, if you wanted that particular date, or you could potentially have an earlier debate, because we are still taking applications for the main Chamber for 16 January, as well as looking to the future. We also have gaps in Westminster Hall after Christmas, right the way through.

I think Westminster Hall would be fine on that Thursday, if that were a possibility, but I leave it in your hands. I appreciate that there are other debates, but to hold the debate as close as possible to the day would be my preference.

Okay. Lovely. I think you have quite a substantial number of speakers. Would you be able to fill a three-hour session, or just the 90-minute debate in Westminster Hall?

I think three hours would be a push, but we will do our best.

Our point is that we will allocate you the time. If we get another application for that date, then you would only have the 90 minutes. I am just looking at whether, given the number of speakers that wish to participate—

There is interest, and I will get back to them and make sure that they do take part. This is not just people who have a development interest. It is also an opportunity for anyone who has an interest in education to highlight things that are happening in their local areas.

Okay. Are there any questions from other colleagues?

My only question would be what the answering Department would be for the debate.

It would probably be FCDO, because of the development links, as it is linked to SDG4.

Okay. For a Thursday, that will not matter. It is only for Tuesdays that it matters, but that is fine. Thank you very much. We will be in touch. Helen Morgan made representations.

Finally, we have Helen Morgan with an application for a debate on backlogs in the NHS.

Thank you, Chair. I have brought this application because we have a significant problem with backlogs across a range of different services in the NHS, whether that is the 7.5 million people waiting for elective care or the significant deterioration in ambulance waiting times that we have seen over the last few weeks and months. We have backlogs in meeting cancer referral and treatment times, backlogs in scanning and backlogs in less-reported areas such as gynaecology. There is considerable interest from Members across the House in having a debate on those topics, because in the absence of health-related legislation, we have been restricted to oral questions to discuss those issues with Ministers. I have a reasonable number of potential participants from both sides of the House considering contributing to the debate.

Thank you. Your application at the moment is for the main Chamber. Would you accept a Westminster Hall debate if we offered it?

Yes, I would accept a Westminster Hall debate if you offered it.

We would be in a position to offer you 19 December straightaway, and you could have the whole afternoon in Westminster Hall.

That is fine, in terms of my diary. I am just concerned that I would not be able to drag all those people here to speak in it, given that it is the final day before recess. I would be concerned that if you had allocated some time, and not enough people came to speak, you would put their name down.

Okay. Thank you, Helen. We will be in touch.