Week in Westminster

By rights, the Redcar MP should have copped the job of presenting the Government's annual whitewash, sorry, report to the Commons in her role as Cabinet Office Minister.

But at the last minute, Tony Blair stepped in, apparently because of parliamentary protocol.

As Billy Hague had decided to respond for the Tories, the Prime Minister had to pad up and open the batting.

That spared Dr Mowlam from the humiliation that not even a rejuvenated Mr Blair could avoid at the hands of Mr Hague over an end-of-term report on how the Government was doing all marked up by, err, the Government.

Fascinating little document, this. Tony and the gang are doing absolutely marvellously but astonishingly, there's still more to be done.

My, they set themselves high standards - ten out of ten but must do better.

STILL on the annual report, Mr Hague was at his music hall best on the priceless gaffe about the opening of the UK Sports Institute in Sheffield this year.

The Richmond MP gleefully compared Mr Blair's school report to a Harry Potter book as he pointed out that not a brick had been laid and the whole institute was now going to be in London.

Even Tony Blair had to smirk at that. But apparently, it takes more than a blatant error to get New Labour to just say ''sorry''.

I hear a Department of Culture, Media and Sport spokesman had contemplated going round the Press Gallery to say the report was not totally wrong as there were sports facilities in Sheffield.

But at his first attempt, the poor lad was quietly persuaded by a considerate hack to pack it in and go sit in a darkened room.

BACK to Mo - with a warning. You're being watched! I cite the following parliamentary question tabled yesterday by North Wiltshire Tory MP James Gray.

He politely asked the Cabinet Office Minister "if she left her ministerial red box unattended on the GWR express from Bristol to Paddington".

Very likely, the response is a ''yes'' as MPs hardly ask a written question they don't know the answer to.

If I was Mo, I'd come clean, tell him that even Cabinet Ministers have to use the loo and then ask Mr Gray whether he had a quick rifle through her papers while she was ''engaged''.

TWO weeks and counting. With the Commons' summer hols bearing down us, Ashok Kumar is in a dreadful sweat.

The MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is desperate to revive the row over the Teesside Development Corporation.

The TDC saga has gone rather quiet since the Government auditors' report into the workings of the defunct agency a few weeks ago.

But campaigning Kumar now has just 14 days left to secure one of his now-famous adjournment debates at Westminster before the three-month Commons' recess deadens any further interest.

And what with Betty Boothroyd's shock decision to quit the Speaker's chair on July 28 - apart from a few summer duties - Ashok must be in even more of a lather.

As we all know, Dr Kumar has a fine line in sweet smiles at Madam Speaker and winning adjournment debates on his favourite subject.

But somehow, I can't see Ashok having quite the same Speaker's Pet reputation if Blaydon MP John McWilliam, one of the first to declare his Speakership candidature, gets Betty's job.

IS THERE no limit to their self-indulgence at public expense? I refer to the impending summer recess refurbishment of MPs' lockers in the Commons.

I shall probably probe the cost of this extravagance on a quiet day in the summer months.

Honourable Members have to clear all their stuff out in the next two weeks.

So I suggest Lawrie Quinn starts now. The Scarborough and Whitby MP this week allowed me a quick peek into his personal cupboard and it was like a teenager's bedroom.

IT'S a small, isolated little place 800 feet above sea level in North Wales but for a few seconds in the Commons this week, it was Trade Secretary Stephen Byers' personal nightmare.

North Tyneside MP Mr Byers was asked by Welsh MP Barry Jones to guarantee the survival of the post office in the village of Llanfynydd in his North Wales constituency.

After a short panic, the Trade Secretary got to his feet and confessed: ''If I could pronounce it, I'm sure I could have!'' Despite a quick spot of coaching from Mr Jones, Mr Byers fought shy of saying the name out loud.

''My mother's Welsh so I've got to be very careful on these matters,'' he quipped.