Bob Blackman

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for 4 December in the Chamber. I understand that the House may be suspended for a period on that day because of a state visit, so will he give consideration to protected time for those two very heavily subscribed debates? Will he also indicate whether we will get time in the Chamber on 11 December? Our backlog of debates is such that if we had every Thursday between now and the Easter recess, we could fill every single one. I note that the House rose very early yesterday. If the Government are having a problem with business, we can always put on debates to allow colleagues from the Back Benches to debate what they wish to debate in Government time. If we are given Thursday 18 December, it will be the traditional pre-recess Adjournment debate for Christmas. Our forthcoming business in Westminster Hall is as follows. On Tuesday 25 November, there will be a debate on the potential impact of immigration reforms on humanitarian visa routes. On Thursday 27 November, because of the Budget debate in the main Chamber, there will be a Select Committee statement from the Business and Trade Committee, followed by debates on the impact of extended producer responsibility for packaging and on protecting children from domestic abuse. On 2 December, there will be a debate on the adequacy of funding to support homeless people, and on 4 December, there will be a debate on a comprehensive acquired brain injury action plan, followed by a debate on seafarers’ welfare. Today is the 80th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg trials. Earlier this week we had a very good briefing at the all-party parliamentary group for the Holocaust memorial and education centre from Adam Wagner, a renowned human rights lawyer. Twenty-four Nazis were put on trial, and the trial lasted 11 months. At the end of it, 22 of them were sentenced to either very long prison sentences or death; amazingly enough, two were acquitted. It would be very helpful if we could have a statement from the Education Secretary on incorporating the business of the Nuremberg trials into the national curriculum, because this was the first time that human rights law started to come to the fore, particularly on war crimes and crimes against humanity. Could the Leader of the House arrange for that to happen?