At Business Questions on Thursday, I pressed the Leader of the House over revelations that secret correspondence between the prime minister, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson had not been disclosed to the Leveson Inquiry. My question followed the prime minister’s refusal at PMQs on Wednesday to say if he would surrender this information following a question from Chris Bryant.
The assumption is that at PMQs the prime minister will actually address the questions put to him. He can’t simply decide to throw his toys out of the pram and refuse to answer a question from members. But this is what he did this week – all rather conveniently.
Meanwhile, the Tories favourite issue – Europe – surfaced again this week.
The education secretary, who obviously now considers himself a roving minister, announced that he would vote to leave the EU in a referendum.
It was then reported that a third of the cabinet agrees with him.
So I asked the Leader of the House if we can have a debate on European policy following the European summit, rather than just a statement to give Conservative cabinet ministers who want to sound off, a forum in which to do so. They don’t need to secretly brief the media; they should just come to the House to tell us what they really think!
I was surprised on Tuesday to get an invitation from the Bruges Group to a dinner to mark the 20th anniversary of the Maastricht rebellion. It promised that there would be ‘a rebel at every table’.
Sadly diary commitments mean I am unable to attend what promises to be a fascinating occasion.
But I asked the Leader of the House to say whether the work and pensions secretary – who was one of John Major’s famous back stabbers, would be attending to offer career advice to current backbench Europe rebels?
Finally at Business Questions I raised the war in the Congo. It is the world’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War. It is estimated as many as five million people have died during the conflict – half of them children dying from war, disease or famine. And according to a United Nations report this week the Rwandan Defence Minister is effectively commanding a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Before the reshuffle, the then international development secretary inexplicably reinstated aid to Rwanda despite the US, EU and other major donors maintaining their suspension.
I called for an urgent statement from the current secretary of state to respond to the serious allegations being made in this case.
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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle