The week ahead in Parliament

Dominic Cummings appears before MPs on Wednesday

Marcus Rashford and Dominic Cummings feature in the coming week's parliamentary action, as MPs debate the premier league star's child hunger petition and the former prime ministerial guru gives his long-awaited and much-trailed evidence on the government's handling of the Pandemic.

Law-making is gently resuming after the conclusion of the Queen's Speech debate, with the Commons mostly polishing off hangover legislation from the last parliamentary session, while the Lords sink their teeth into the first bills from the Queen's Speech - with second reading debates on relatively uncontroversial measures.

The more contentious parts of the Queen's Speech programme of bills will doubtless arrive in the Chamber for Second Reading in June and July.

Behind the scenes the 20 lucky winners of the Private Members Bill (PMB) ballot, will be besieged by campaigners and supplicants who have particular legislation they want passed.

In particular, the top seven winning MPs will be targeted.

They get first dibs on debating time on the seven Fridays set aside for PMBs.

Those further down the list can hope there's enough time left over for them, after the first bills have been debated on those Fridays - and those who oppose later bills may seek to stop them by padding out the earlier debates, so there is not enough time for them to be considered.

That's just a flavour of the intricate tactics that come into play when PMBs start their journey through Parliament.

The new set of winners are headed by Conservative Red Waller, Mark Jenkinson, followed by some more hardened veterans, Labour's Barrie Gardiner and Karen Harris, former cabinet minister Liam Fox, and former chancellor Sajid Javid, and then two more experienced Labour MPs, Kevin Brennan and Jeff Smith.

Further down the list lurk select committee chairs Chris Bryant and Mel Stride, not to mention grizzled PMB veteran Sir Paul Beresford.

News of their choices will emerge one by one, but the titles of their bills have to be ready for June 16th, when they will receive their formal first reading.

Actual debates might start in July, but may well be postponed until September, when COVID restrictions might be loosened.

Monday 24th May

The Commons opens (14:30) with an hour of defence questions, after which there are often urgent questions or statements on issues that have emerged over the weekend.

The main business will be to polish off the Finance Bill, the legislation to enact the changes made in the Budget, back in March.

There are government amendments down on issues relating to VAT and the Northern Ireland Protocol, while Labour employ the usual opposition tactic on this sort of measure, of putting down amendments calling for reports on the impact of changes made in the budget.

This avoids direct tinkering with its content.

Labour wants to look at the impact on areas like equality, household incomes, and the environment.

There is also a well-supported backbench amendment from Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, calling for a review of public health and poverty effects of the Budget, while the SNP amendment calls for a review of changes to coronavirus support payments.

Westminster Hall is back, with two Petitions Committee debates, first (16:30) on the footballer Marcus Rashford's Child Food Poverty petition, which attracted more than 1,113,000 signatures.

Marcus Rashford's child food poverty campaign is in the Parliamentary spotlight

It calls on the government to support vulnerable children by implementing three recommendations from the National Food Strategy to expand access to Free School Meals, provide meals and activities during holidays to stop holiday hunger, and to increase the value of and expand the Healthy Start scheme.

He gave evidence when the Committee held an inquiry into the issues his petition raised.

Second (18:15) is a petition on International Travel and COVID-19. The petition, which has more than 104,000 signatures, says the government "should class in-person interaction with family members and unmarried partners abroad as an essential reason to travel."

Committee action includes Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs (13:00) quizzing an extensive panel of witnesses on Covid 19 Vaccine Certification.

They include academic experts and witnesses from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, the British Beer and Pub Association and the Premier League.

Public Accounts (14:30) take evidence from suppliers about the scramble to source PPE for frontline health and care workers in the first wave of the pandemic, when the UK bought what was £2.5 billion worth of PPE at 2019 prices, but paid £12.5 billion for it.

In the Lords (13:00) there are questions for ministers on leaseholder bankruptcies caused by the cost of fire safety work and the number of social homes for rent.

Then comes the Second Reading of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill - the first Queen's Speech Bill to be fed into the parliamentary sausage machine.

Bills that start their journey in the Lords tend to be more technically demanding and less politically contentious.

This measure tackles the relatively new trend for freeholders to ratchet up ground rents, year after year.

It requires that, for the first time, ground rents in residential long leases will be set at a 'peppercorn rent' level .

It will ensure leaseholders of new, long residential leases are not charged ground rent for no tangible service.

Tuesday 25th May

The Commons opens (11:30) with an hour of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy questions,

The main legislating is the completion of the Telecommunications Security Bill - a carry-over from the previous session, which gives the government new powers to boost the security of the UK's telecoms networks and remove the threat of high risk vendors, that is producers of components for the networks, for example those controlled by foreign governments.

One of its main targets is acknowledged to be the Chinese company Huawei.

In Westminster Hall, debates on the unduly lenient sentencing scheme (Gareth Johnson, 14:30) and on encouraging more disabled umpires, referees and sports officials (Lucy Allen 16:05) caught my eye.

Committee highlights include Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs (09:30) has a session on the Electoral Commission the quango which polices elections and referendums.

There's an intriguing looking panel of witnesses, including several from the EU and Scottish independence campaigns, plus the former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, and Baroness Stuart, the former Labour MP Gisela Stuart, a member of the Independent Commission on Referendums and Chair of the Vote Leave Campaign Committee.

Health and Social Care (09:30) continue inquiries into children and young people's mental health, and supporting those with dementia and their carers, with evidence from the Samaritans, the Zero Suicide Alliance, NHS Providers and others, and, finally, the Care Minister, Helen Whately.

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (10:00) round off their inquiries into concussion in sport, and sport in communities with Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston.

In this final session of the inquiry, they will ask how the Government is addressing evidence on the links between head trauma in sport and dementia in later life.

In the Lords (12:00) ministers field questions on net migration into the UK (from the MigrationWatch UK founder, Lord Green of Deddington, who has a "regret motion" against some new immigration regulations on Thursday) and on the use of pesticides.

Then comes another new bill, fresh from the Queen's Speech, with the Second Reading of the Professional Qualifications Bill which is designed to allow skilled professionals from around the world to have their qualifications recognised in the UK.

This is a post-Brexit measure replacing the existing framework which derives from EU law.

Wednesday 26th May

The Commons starts with half an hour of Women and Equalities questions, followed, at noon, by Prime Minister's Question Time.

Then MPs turn to the remaining consideration of the Environment Bill - the main aim of which is to set up the Office for Environmental Protection to take over the enforcement role previously exercised by the European Commission, policing, for example, air quality and pollution regulations.

Look out for amendments on such subjects as giving the Hedgehog protected status (Chris Grayling), banning fracking (Labour shadow minister Ruth Jones), making protection of biodiversity a condition for planning permission (Theresa Villiers) and allowing planning authorities to take unlawful tree felling by landowners into account when considering planning applications (Maria Miller).

The Bill also has an international dimension - with clauses aimed at preventing deforestation, and the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the Conservative, Neil Parish, has an amendment to deter investors from putting money into projects which destroy forests, in effect, defunding the deforesters.

Lib Dem Daisy Cooper has an amendment to ensure that fines on companies involved in deforestation are decided independently, and not by ministers.

It is not clear how many amendments will be selected for debate by Mr Speaker, or pushed to a vote, but, as ever in this kind of Commons proceeding, many of those proposing changes are really hoping for the government to bring forward their own proposals to meet their concerns.

In Westminster Hall, (16:50) the Conservative Ben Everitt leads a debate on the potential merits of driverless cars.

The day's highest-profile event will probably be the appearance of the former chief adviser to the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, before the joint inquiry into lessons learned from the pandemic, by the Health and Social Care and the Science and Technology committees, to talk about the government's decision-making (09:30).

The focus is expected to be on decision-making in the early months of the pandemic; the scientific evidence available to ministers; border policy; and the timing of lockdowns and other restrictions, procurement processes, and decisions about community testing and contact tracing.

Mr Cummings, a figure who fascinates Westminster, has already hinted at damaging revelations.

Elsewhere on the Committee Corridor, Transport (10:00) has a rapidly-convened hearing on the far-reaching proposals to reform the Rail system in the Williams Rail Review, first with Sir Peter Hendy, the Chair of Network Rail, and then (11:00) with the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Keith Williams, the Chair of the Review.

Work and Pensions (09:30) takes evidence about children living in poverty from Anne Longfield, who was the Children's Commissioner for England 2015 - 2021, and from Bruce Adamson, the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (15:00) scrutinises an important piece of upcoming legislation, the Electoral Integrity Bill.

This will require people to prove their identity before voting. Professor Toby James from the University of East Anglia and deputy director of the Electoral Integrity Project joins Jessica Gardner from the Electoral Reform Society to answer questions from MPs and Peers.

In the Lords (12:00) questions to ministers range across illegal use of electric scooters and rogue landlords.

Then, peers will be asked to approve the Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations 2021 - the sanctions under the new Regulations have already been used to target 22 individuals allegedly involved in serious corruption in Russia, South Africa, South Sudan, and Latin America.

The regulations allow asset-freezes and bans on a designated person travelling to or via the UK, as well as cancelling any permission to stay in the UK.

Next comes the Second Reading of the Dormant Assets BIll which extends the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008 to cover more types of unused financial asset.

A dormant asset may be a bank account that has been unused for many years, for which the provider has been unable to find an owner.

Since 2011, £745m has been released to fund social and environmental schemes across the UK, although if owners are identified they can reclaim any money owed to them in full at any time.

Thursday 27th May

The Commons opens (09:30) with forty minutes of Cabinet Office questions, followed by the weekly announcement of the Commons future agenda, by the Leader of the House.

The main debates are on two subjects favoured by the Backbench Business Committee, on Dementia Action Week, and on the 2020 Obesity Strategy.

The Committee is only formally re-formed next week, but word was passed that these were the subjects they "would" have nominated.

Incidentally, a focus on debates marking campaign days, or weeks, seems to be becoming an increasing feature of the Backbench Business Committee's choices.

In Westminster Hall (13:30) the former Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the Conservative, Damian Collins, leads a debate on World Press Freedom Day.

And at 15:15 two select committee chairs, Philip Dunne (Environmental Audit) and Darren Jones (BEIS) have a debate calling for the scrapped Green Homes Grant (offering householders up to £10k towards improving energy efficiency of home) to be replaced.

There are 11m owner occupied homes in England which do not meet Energy Performance Certificate C standard, and since scrapping of GHG there has been no support scheme to help improve them.

The two chairs will be calling for the upcoming BEIS Heat and Buildings Strategy to spell out replacement scheme.

The day's committee highlights include Public Accounts (10:00) looking at the £372 billion of taxpayers' money spent responding to Covid19.

The Committee will question senior Treasury officials on the unprecedented levels of public spending over the last year, much of it under emergency laws without the usual checks and controls.

The Treasury Committee (14:30) concludes its inquiry into the lessons from the Greensill Capital affair with Sir Tom Scholar, the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, followed by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak , who's expected to appear at around (16:00).

Scottish Affairs (12:15) looks at renewable energy in Scotland, and Public Administration (14:30) looks at COVID vaccination certification AKA Vaccine Passports.

In the Lords the usual 40 minute question time for ministers is followed by half an hour of questions to the government's Brexit supremo, Lord Frost, the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, fresh from his two select committee appearances in the previous week

The main debates on the report from the Lords Communications and Digital Committee, Public service broadcasting: as vital as ever, and on changes to the Immigration Rules , where there is regret motion from Lord Green of Deddington, on the grounds that the new rules are not sufficiently clear.

Neither House is due to sit on Friday 28th May - and Parliament will be taking its Whitsun break, returning on June 7th.

But if you need a fix of parliamentary action during the break, look out for the annual report from the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the Labour former minister, Meg Hillier, cataloguing the issues that have emerged during a year of unprecedented public spending and pointing to the government departments which have had problems delivering government policy.