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Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
I apologise that we do not have our normal cohort of Ministers here this morning. One of our colleagues tested positive for covid yesterday, and the Foreign Secretary is at a very important meeting with our NATO partners, where she will raise the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is serious, with Republika Srpska attempting de facto secession. We fully support Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. We are working with allies to support the peace stabilisation force EUFOR, enhance NATO’s posture and support the High Representative.
Derek Twigg
I thank the Minister for the answer. It is obviously important that we are strong, with the rest of the democracies in Europe and NATO, in our position regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina. What assessment have the Government made of Russia’s influence on what is happening in that country?
Vicky Ford
We see a concerning pattern of Russian behaviour. The aim is to hamper Euro-Atlantic integration in the region. The UK’s approach is clearly set out in the integrated review. The UK takes the threat from the Russian state extremely seriously and we will continue to call out Russian aggression.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
It is clear that the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has worsened considerably as a result of the separationist ambitions of Republika Srpska, which is backed by the Russian Federation. Can my hon. Friend the Minister tell me what discussions the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has had with the new High Representative and what steps we are taking as a nation to try to stabilise the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Vicky Ford
We are fully committed to supporting High Representative Schmidt. At the NATO foreign ministerial meeting in Riga today, the Foreign Secretary will focus attention on Bosnia and Herzegovina and encourage greater engagement from the alliance to play an enhanced role. She will call on allies to contribute personnel to the NATO headquarters in Sarajevo and to support work to counter disinformation and strengthen defence reform. The UK will do its part.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I am sure that all hon. Members present are deeply concerned about the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina developing rapidly into conflict. What steps is the FCDO taking to assess the risk of atrocity in the region and take preventive action? What conversations has it had with civil societies of the Federation and Republika Srpska to encourage dialogue? How is the Foreign Secretary using her development programmes in the western Balkans, alongside diplomatic and security levers, to address the drivers of conflict?
Vicky Ford
As I said earlier, the political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina is serious, which is precisely why the Foreign Secretary will raise it today. We are working hard to prevent it from becoming a security crisis, but the risk of miscalculation or exploitation remains. The hon. Lady asked about UK aid. Our embassy in Sarajevo supports a range of programmes that promote stability, security and prosperity, and targets programmes in support of civil society and media freedom.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Given the current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is it time to look again at the rulings of the Dayton accords? Are the UK Government willing to put in the political effort to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated?
Vicky Ford
It is extremely important that the mistakes of the past are not repeated, which is precisely why my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will raise the issue with her NATO counterparts today.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
Many of us remember the 1990s and the horrors of the first major war since the second world war. We also remember the horrors of Srebrenica, where Muslims were massacred by the Serbs. Should the Government not be speaking to the Americans and engaging with NATO to see what can be done to stabilise the situation? I remember observing the elections in Bosnia. It was a very delicate democracy then; it is even more delicate now. It is urgent that the Government act.
Vicky Ford
Let us be clear that Srebrenica was a genocide, as confirmed by international courts. We must not forget the victims. The UK has urged all political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region to reject hate speech; to condemn any glorification of the perpetrators of genocide and war crimes; and to respect the courts. It is precisely because it is so important that we work with our NATO partners that the Foreign Secretary will raise the situation in Riga today.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The Foreign Secretary will also be discussing Belarus with NATO partners today.
We remain deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Belarus. The UK has imposed over 100 sanctions designations. The action by Lukashenko to engineer a migrant crisis is an attempt to undermine Poland and others in the region. The Prime Minister emphasised our commitment to Poland’s security when he met the Polish Prime Minister last Friday. The UK will continue to work closely with our partners in holding Lukashenko to account.
Mrs Miller
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. The situation in Belarus is truly disturbing. More than a year on from the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, over 30,000 people have been detained, with widespread allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and hundreds of civil society activists and human rights defenders being detained. What can my hon. Friend do for those who are detained—for example, Mikita Zalatarou, who was just 16 when he was arrested, and has allegedly been tortured and kept in solitary confinement?
Vicky Ford
We are appalled by reports that there are now over 850 political prisoners in Belarus, and we strongly urge the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those held on political grounds. We are supporting mechanisms through the UN, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and independent non-governmental organisations to investigate human rights violations in Belarus and hold those responsible to account. As I said earlier, we have also taken direct action through over 100 sanctions designations.
Daniel Kawczynski
The Minister will have seen the appalling scenes on the Polish-Belarus border and the way the brutal dictator Lukashenko is instigating hybrid warfare against Poland by using these vulnerable refugees in trying to get them across the border. Will she give me an assurance that our Government are doing everything possible to help our Polish allies stand up against this absolutely appalling conduct by the Belarus authorities?
Vicky Ford
I completely agree, and the UK is absolutely standing side by side with Poland. The UK and Poland have a long history of friendship and are NATO allies. Already a small team of UK armed forces have been deployed, following agreement with the Polish Government. They are exploring how we can provide engineering support to address the ongoing situation at the Belarus border. The UK regularly deploys military personnel to work with partners and allies across the world. The UK also led on a G7 statement condemning the Belarusian regime’s orchestration of irregular migration across the border, and as I have said, this will be discussed in Riga today.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The House is obviously united in its condemnation of the dictatorship in Belarus and the illegitimacy of the role of the so-called President Lukashenko. However, in the past, sanctions regimes imposed by other European countries and our own have been eroded for very little in return, and the stranglehold of Lukashenko is still there. Will the Minister guarantee that we will work with the EU and the world community, and maintain sanctions until such time as they are genuinely effective in changing this regime?
Vicky Ford
We have already imposed over 100 sanctions designations, including on Lukashenko himself. We are absolutely committed to supporting the people of Belarus, and we stand together to impose costs on this regime for its blatant disregard of international commitments. The sanctions are imposed under our human rights sanctions regime as well. We keep all potential listings under close review, and we obviously continue to discuss these issues with international partners.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
What assessment have the Minister and the Government made of Lukashenko’s statement in the past couple of days that, in any furthering and deepening of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Minsk will not stand by and be neutral? Would that not be bad not just for people in Ukraine, but for those in Belarus?
Vicky Ford
As Belarus’s closest ally, Russia is uniquely placed to exert pressure on the Belarusian authorities to end their campaign of repression and to engage in this dialogue, and we urge Russia to do so. There must be a transparent and peaceful process to allow Belarusians to determine their own future, and we want to see a reformed Belarus that has a good relationship with Russia and other European partners, but we have been consistently clear in engaging Russia with the fact that violence, harassment and arbitrary detention must stop.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The weaponisation of vulnerable refugees seeking to escape conflict in the middle east by Belarus is a gross infringement of their human rights. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to raise and express international concern at this gross abuse?
Vicky Ford
My hon. Friend raises an important point about abuse and humanitarian issues. We are supporting humanitarian partners to help alleviate the suffering of migrants at the border, including through our contributions to the disaster relief emergency fund, organised by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. We are also president of the G7, and on 18 November the Foreign Ministers signed a statement, on which we led, calling on the Belarusian regime to provide the international organisations with immediate and unhindered access so that humanitarian assistance can be delivered.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The UK is committed to the global fight against poverty and promoting equality, and despite the seismic impact of the pandemic on the UK and the global economy the UK will still spend over £10 billion of aid in 2021. We remain one of the largest official development assistance spenders in the world, and we will review the impact of projects through the spending cycle, as is standard, in order to inform future spending decisions.
Mr Speaker
I think you have answered the wrong question, Minister; Question 3 has been withdrawn.
Vicky Ford
I am so sorry.
Nigeria is a very important country to the UK and we are deeply concerned by the increasing insecurity in Nigeria. I raised the question with the Foreign Minister Onyeama at a bilateral meeting at COP26 in Glasgow, and I hope to visit Nigeria myself next year to have further such discussions. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the UK is a staunch champion of the right to freedom of religion and belief, and in July 2022 we will host an international ministerial conference to energise collective efforts on this agenda.
John Cryer
When the hon. Lady meets the Nigerian Foreign Minister in the future—I hope she does so in the near future and repeatedly—will she ask exactly what the Nigerian Government are doing to protect their own citizens? Many of us have constituents with relatives in Nigeria who have been the victims of torture, rape and murder, and at the moment exactly what the Nigerian Government are doing does not seem particularly clear.
Vicky Ford
Nigeria faces multiple serious and complex security challenges, including terrorism in the north-east and separately intercommunal conflicts and criminal banditry in the north-west and middle belt, and intercommunal violence is spreading into the south-east and south-west. It is very serious. The UK-Nigeria security and defence dialogue will take place next month, and we will discuss co-operation to tackle issues related to violence in Nigeria such as human rights, defence, counter-terrorism and organised crime.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Is it not extremely regrettable that there is virtually no publicity in the west about what is happening to Christians in Nigeria, amounting almost to genocide? Can we not put more pressure on the Nigerian Government, and can we not proclaim the fact that black lives matter everywhere, not just in the west?
Vicky Ford
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Islamic State West Africa and Boko Haram cause immense suffering not only to Christians but often to those of all faiths who do not subscribe to their extremist views. We condemn all incidents of intercommunal violence in Nigeria. This can also have a devastating impact on communities, and religion can be a factor in the intercommunal violence, but the root causes are extremely complex, including competition for land, water and resources, criminality and failures of government, so the British high commissioner and her team are working closely with state governors and local community and faith leaders as well as non-governmental organisations active in peacebuilding and reconciliation.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
The decision by the Israeli authorities to designate six Palestinian NGOs, and the evidence that forms the basis of those designations, is a matter for the Government of Israel. The UK maintains its own criteria for designation. We continue engagement with a number of those organisations on human rights issues and respect the role that NGOs and civil society organisations play in upholding human rights and democracy.
We are in contact with the Alliance for Middle East Peace regarding its concept of an international fund. The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), met it on 8 September to discuss that.
Marsha De Cordova
It has been more than five weeks since Israel designated six well-known and respected Palestinian NGOs and human rights organisations, and there is still no credible evidence to justify it. The EU has said that it has received no new evidence and no convincing answers to its queries. Does the Minister share my concern that the designation of these NGOs is a clear attempt to silence the peaceful defence of Palestinian rights, and will she call on the Israeli Government to immediately revoke the designation?
Amanda Milling
As I set out, the decision to designate these six Palestinian NGOs is a matter for the Government of Israel. The UK maintains its own criteria for designation. We continue engagement with a number of these organisations on human rights issues and respect the role of civil society organisations in upholding human rights and democracy. As I say, it is a matter for the Government of Israel, but we have our own position.
Andrew Gwynne
On the creation of an international fund for Israeli and Palestinian peace, the Government have previously said that they have not yet committed to join the fund because the US has
“not yet approached us to discuss it.”
Why has the Minister not shown some initiative and contacted United States Agency for International Development administrator Samantha Power about taking one of the two international board seats to support this exciting opportunity for collaboration?
Amanda Milling
As I mentioned, the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa met the executive director of ALLMEP on 8 September, and UK officials are in contact with it to better understand the concept of the international fund. The UK Government share the objective of increasing understanding and dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer and I have to say, frankly, that it was entirely inadequate and wholly unconvincing. It is telling that, in answering the previous question, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), praised the role of NGOs in other countries, yet we are seeing NGOs being shut down in the state of Israel on entirely dubious legal grounds, with no evidence base, and the UK Minister seems to be washing her hands of the matter. I am offering my support to the UK Government, as are Labour Members. Surely we must do more to create and help save the civil space within the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. These six NGOs are fulfilling that. Have the UK Government seen the evidence, and will they commit to helping to keep that civil space open?
Amanda Milling
As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary mentioned, civil society is important. We continue our engagement with a number of these organisations on important human rights issues, and we respect the role of NGOs and civil society in upholding human rights and democracy.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Most of us on the Conservative side of the House welcome the Government’s decision to proscribe the so-called political wing of Hamas, but will my right hon. Friend outline the pact that has been drawn up following the visit of the Israeli Foreign Minister to the United Kingdom a couple of days ago?
Amanda Milling
As my hon. Friend said, the Foreign Secretary hosted the first UK-Israel strategic dialogue with Israeli Foreign Minister Lapid. They held substantial discussions on how to broaden and deepen our bilateral relationship, including by co-operation across science, technology, trade and innovation.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The human rights situation in the north-west and south-west regions of Cameroon is deeply concerning. Around 2.3 million people need humanitarian support and my Department has planned £5 million of humanitarian aid this year, which will help those affected by the crisis. We are urging all actors, including the Cameroonian Government, to remain engaged in efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Alex Norris
The Biya Government’s hard-handed approach to calls for reform from those living in the Anglophone region has led to violence, 765,000 persons being displaced from their homes, and 800,000 children out of school. We have a long-standing connection to Cameroon and I am glad to hear from the Minister about efforts so far, but will she make a full-throated commitment today to a peaceful resolution to the crisis, and say what diplomatic efforts will be made by her and her colleagues over the next few months to bring it about?
Vicky Ford
We will continue to work with partners, such as the US and France, to raise the north-west and south-west crisis in multilateral forums. We urge all parties to remain engaged with the Swiss-led process to promote a peaceful resolution to the crisis. As I said, our planned humanitarian aid to Cameroon this year will be £5 million, which will help to support the World Food Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically for the most vulnerable populations in those regions.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
In her time as International Trade Secretary, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) blocked a genocide amendment against Chinese persecution of Uyghur Muslims, resumed the sale of UK bombs used against civilians in Yemen, and signed trade deals with human-rights-abusing tyrants from Egypt to Cameroon. Does the Minister recognise that the shoddy trade deal signed with Cameroon—a trade deal even Donald Trump would not sign because of human rights concerns—was not only a missed opportunity to insert clauses relating to genocide, mass killings of civilians and modern slavery, but, as her past record demonstrates, suggests that the Foreign Secretary does not give a jot for human rights or standing up against tyrants?
Vicky Ford
The UK and Cameroon signed an economic partnership agreement in March this year, which ensures the continuity of our trading arrangements. It is a development-focused agreement. The EPA recognises that the trade access provided is vital to the livelihoods of many, many Cameroonians. We are very clear that using trade to support development and prosperity does not have to come at the expense of protecting human rights. We continue to press the Cameroonian Government to uphold the principles of human rights and democracy which underpin the EPA.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
The Government are clear that we want a relationship with China that allows us to manage disagreements, defend our values and preserve space for co-operation where our interests align. We have taken robust action in response to our serious concerns about human rights in China. For example, on Xinjiang, we have led international efforts at the UN, imposed sanctions and announced a range of supply-chain measures.
Christine Jardine
Following the litany of abuses against the Uyghur Muslims and in Hong Kong, and, most recently, the international concern about the treatment of tennis star Peng Shuai, both the US President and the Prime Minister have admitted that they are considering a diplomatic boycott of the winter Olympics. Does the Minister agree that that has now taken on renewed urgency, and will she urge the Prime Minister to think about a boycott?
Amanda Milling
Taking a couple of points there, on Peng Shuai, we have called on the Chinese authorities to ensure her safety and we are following her case very closely. Everyone should be allowed to speak out without fear of repercussions. All reports of sexual assault, anywhere in the world, should be investigated. No decisions have been made by the Government on attendance of the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics next year.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
It has now been published that, in a number of speeches back in 2014, President Xi drove his authorities to carry out the genocide that is going on in Xinjiang among the Uyghur. China is a country that has trashed an international treaty with the United Kingdom over Hong Kong and is arresting everybody who disagrees with it and persecuting them. What more does it take for my Government to make a clear decision that they will not attend the winter Olympics and will not allow officials to do so? The other day, the Leader of the House indicated that no tickets had been bought. That is not good enough. Can we now have a clear answer that we will not attend and neither will our officials?
Amanda Milling
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. We have taken robust action in relation to human rights issues in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and we have imposed sanctions on those responsible. As I said, no decisions have been made on Government attendance at the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics in 2022.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that, over the weekend, documents emerged that clearly demonstrate that the orders to commit genocide in Xinjiang are coming from the very top of the Chinese Communist party, including from Chen Quanguo and President Xi Jinping himself. For several months, Opposition Members have been calling for a full diplomatic and political boycott of the Beijing winter Olympics in response to those atrocities, but the Government continue to sit on their hands. In the light of this profoundly disturbing new information and amid deep and growing concern about the treatment of tennis player, Peng Shuai, does the Minister think that it is appropriate to send members of our royal family to the Beijing Olympics to rub shoulders with the very people who are orchestrating these horrific crimes against their own people?
Amanda Milling
As I said in previous answers, we have taken robust action in response to our concerns. The hon. Gentleman raises a number of issues including that of Peng Shuai, the tennis player. We have imposed sanctions, but in terms of attendance at the winter Olympics, no decisions have been made.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The UK has a close working relationship with the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, collaborating together in NATO and in the Joint Expeditionary Force. The Foreign Secretary hosted the Baltic Foreign Ministers at Chevening on 11 October and they discussed working together to strengthen NATO, shared security concerns and UK-Baltic economic co-operation. The Foreign Secretary will discuss security of the Baltic states with her counterparts in Riga today.
Sally-Ann Hart
The Governments of the Baltic states, as well as their citizens, suffer from persistent, strategic and aggressive Russian propaganda and misinformation, designed to undermine confidence in the Governments of the Baltic states, NATO and other institutions and to sow social and ethnic tensions. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to work with our NATO and European allies and with the Baltic states to help to build their cyber-capabilities, communication strategies and resilience?
Vicky Ford
The UK and Baltic states are close partners in international efforts to tackle disinformation. The UK’s counter-disinformation and media development programme is providing funding in this financial year across the Baltic states. The programme builds collective resilience to Russian information operations through strategic communications, exposing disinformation and supporting independent media and civil society.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
We remain deeply concerned about the situation in Ethiopia and continue to engage with and call upon all parties to press for a ceasefire. Since the state of emergency was declared, I have spoken with African Union High Representative Obasanjo, making clear our support for his mediation efforts, as well as with President Kenyatta of Kenya and AU Commissioner Bankole. I recently urged the Ethiopian State Minister Redwan to engage with these mediation efforts. Our Foreign Secretary spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister Demeke on 5 November and our ambassador has spoken with the President, Prime Minister Abiy and leaders in Tigray, consistently calling on all parties to stop fighting, declare a ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid to flow.
Wera Hobhouse
The conflict in Tigray has dramatically escalated in the past year. My constituents in Bath who have family detained in the capital in Ethiopia have not heard from them for the best part of this year. Can the Minister outline what efforts have been made with the international community to ensure that all those who are unlawfully detained across Ethiopia are released?
Vicky Ford
As I have said, the situation is incredibly challenging. When I spoke to Minister Redwan, I urged him to end the mobilisation of civilians and ethnically targeted arrests. There is a growing risk of uncontrollable ethnic violence, which is doing huge long-term damage to the social cohesion of the country. As I said in my statement on 24 November, we may see the conflict move closer to Addis Ababa, and we are strongly urging all British nationals to leave now while commercial flights are readily available.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for Ethiopia, may I thank the Minister for all the work that she is doing on this terribly difficult issue? We recently saw the Prime Minister of Ethiopia taking up arms himself and urging others to do so, which demonstrates the seriousness of the situation. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to fear that the very existence of Ethiopia may be at stake and at risk. Does the Minister feel that the United Nations could be doing more to bring about peace in the country?
Vicky Ford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a truly tragic situation. Civilians have experienced appalling, outrageous abuses, including widespread sexual violence. We are fully supporting the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in her calls for further timely discussion of the report of the joint human rights investigation and its recommendations at the UN in Geneva.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The crisis in Ethiopia and Tigray has catastrophic implications for civilians, the region and the globe. We have seen shocking atrocities over the past year, including war crimes and sexual violence. We are now hearing warnings of potential genocide from former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and from Lord Alton in the other place, and deeply concerning reports of further apparent incitement this weekend in the media, which I have raised with the Minister. What assessment has the Minister made of those very serious reports and warnings? What are we doing to protect and secure UK citizens who are still present in Ethiopia? What are we doing to bring to justice all those who are committing or inciting such atrocities?
Vicky Ford
The hon. Gentleman raises a number of points; I thank him for continuing to look at this serious situation. It is really important that we keep spreading the message that British nationals, whatever their circumstances, should leave Ethiopia now while the airport remains available and there are flights. We have asked all sides not to use inflammatory language; it is making the situation even more dangerous, and the impact on civilians is very severe.
We have provided humanitarian aid of up to £76.7 million in badly needed support for people in north Ethiopia, which makes us the second largest donor to the humanitarian response. That support has gone into Tigray, Afar, Amhara and eastern Sudan; it includes critical food aid, safe drinking water, medical care and support for women who have been victims of sexual violence.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
May I congratulate the Minister on the excellent job that she is doing of standing in for the Foreign Secretary?
A genocide is happening in Tigray. What work is the Minister doing with our partners in the United States, the EU and other western countries to send a message to Prime Minister Abiy that no international aid can be channelled through the Ethiopian Government until the genocide stops? Why does he still have that Nobel peace prize? Is it not high time that he was stripped of it?
Vicky Ford
I thank my right hon. Friend for his praise. I am not sure I am doing that brilliantly!
We are continuing to work extremely closely with our partners in the United States and the United Nations, and I met the African P3 partners during my recent visits to New York and Washington. It is particularly important that we are also supporting the efforts of Obasanjo, Bankole and President Kenyatta to bring all people to a ceasefire. As for the Nobel peace prize, that is a decision for the Nobel Committee itself.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The UK is committed to ensuring that people in the poorest countries receive vaccines. We were a leader in setting up the international COVAX facility, which is providing equitable access for 92 lower and middle-income countries, and we champion equitable access through our G7 presidency. Our commitment of £548 million makes us one of COVAX’s largest donors. COVAX has delivered more than 475 million vaccine doses to the poorest countries, and that figure will rise to 1.8 billion by mid-2022.
Kate Osamor
The shockingly low vaccination rates in low-income countries should shame the global north, and made the omicron variant all but inevitable. The Government have been quick to impose travel restrictions on southern African countries, but where was the urgency when it came to ensuring that people on the African continent were vaccinated? My question to the Minister is this: is it not time for the Government to drop their opposition to the intellectual property waiver on covid-19 vaccines, of which South Africa was one of the key supporters, and to provide whatever vaccine capacity and technical support they can offer to speed up the roll-out?
Vicky Ford
We are fully committed to doing all that we can to get vaccines out to poorer countries, but when it comes to delivery, there are three different issues. The first is supply, the second is the need to ensure that the local health services are able to deliver the vaccine, and the third is, sadly, the very serious issue of vaccine hesitancy in many countries. COVAX did experience severe challenges in obtaining vaccine supplies owing to export bans, but supplies are now increasing. We in the UK have already delivered 16.1 million doses through COVAX, an additional 9 million AstraZeneca doses will be sent out in the coming weeks, and, most recently, we delivered 5.2 million doses to the Philippines last Saturday.
The UK is engaging intensively and constructively in the trade-related intellectual property rights—TRIPS—waiver debate, but in the meantime we must continue to push ahead with pragmatic action. For example, we have sent UK emergency medical teams to 11 African countries, where they are providing training and advice for health workers in respect of issues including vaccine confidence.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased that Labour has recognised that International Development must remain a Cabinet role, and it is an honour to be able to continue our work to tackle poverty and inequality around the world.
The UK has blocked international agreements to increase the supply of vaccines, has only donated a fraction of the promised doses to low-income countries, and continues to stockpile doses. As a result, hundreds of thousands of doses have expired and have been destroyed, including 600,000 in August alone. In addition, the Government slashed the aid budget for programmes tracking new covid variants. Labour Members warned of this repeatedly, knowing that the virus would continue to mutate unchecked.
Can the Minister tell the House how many surplus vaccines the UK will have by the end of 2021, and why the Government have repeatedly refused to speed up the process of donation to other countries? Will she ensure that we airlift those vaccines immediately?
Vicky Ford
Not only did we set up COVAX, but we are one of its largest donors. We have committed ourselves to donating 100 million doses, and that is part of the G7 commitment to sharing 870 million by 2022. Furthermore, we are helping many countries to set up their own vaccine manufacturing. Last Thursday I visited the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal, which, thanks to help from the UK with the delivery of a business plan, now has the necessary investment to ensure that it will be one of the first manufacturers of covid vaccines in Africa.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
A small proportion of those who are vaccinated against covid-19 suffer adverse reactions. Can my hon. Friend explain why, under the COVAX compensation scheme, we give more generous compensation—paid for by our taxpayers—to citizens in foreign countries than we give to our own citizens who suffer adverse consequences from the covid-19 vaccine?
Vicky Ford
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, but I think it is a question for Department of Health and Social Care Ministers. I will ensure that he gets an answer.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
We remain concerned about the political and human rights situation in Zimbabwe and our embassy is in contact with Mr Haruzivishe’s lawyers regarding his appeal. We regularly urge the Government to live up to their own constitution by ensuring that the Opposition, civil society and journalists can operate without harassment. I reinforced these messages to President Mnangagwa at COP26 on 1 November. The UK will continue to support the Zimbabwean people and to help Zimbabweans to secure their constitutional freedoms.
Ruth Jones
I thank the Minister for her answer, but overnight we saw more news of Opposition supporters in Zimbabwe losing their lives at the hands of the authorities. Zimbabwe is a beautiful country and it can and should be playing a leading role in southern Africa, so can the Minister explain what discussions she has had with the African Union and the Southern African Development Community about political repression in that country?
Vicky Ford
We are deeply concerned about the civil rights situation and about the reports of the recent death of the opposition MDC Alliance supporter Nyasha Zhambe Mawere on 26 November. We continue to urge the Government to carry out proper investigations and to ensure that those responsible are held to account. Our sanctions designations are holding to account those individuals who we believe to be responsible for human rights violations, and these include those responsible for the deaths of demonstrators in August 2018 and January 2019. Those restrictive measures are not targeted at or intended to impact the wider economy or the people of Zimbabwe; they are targeted at those who commit these atrocities.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
Since the last oral questions the Foreign Secretary has launched a campaign to stop sexual violence in conflicts. Last week she launched the British international investment, which will invest billions in honest and reliable infrastructure and technology in low and middle-income countries. She has visited south-east Asia to deepen our economic, tech and security ties with partners including Indonesia, and yesterday she hosted the first UK-Israel strategic dialogue with her Israel counterpart Yair Lapid in London. Today she is meeting NATO allies in Riga, delivering the message that we must act together to stand up against Russia’s malign activity. Obviously, two of my other colleagues are unable to be here today, for reasons that have already been set out.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the Minister for her reply. I want to put on record my personal thanks to the Foreign Secretary for her strong personal support for freedom of religion or belief. Do Ministers agree that FORB for all is a fundamental strand of the network of liberty that the Foreign Secretary has so powerfully spoken of recently, integrally connected as it is with so many other freedoms, such as speech, association and even life itself? Where FORB is violated, we see a whole range of abuses, such as racism, gender inequality and societies that are more prone to violent extremism.
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is a real passionate champion. Promoting freedom of religion or belief for all is one of the UK’s long-standing human rights priorities and a key pillar of the integrated review. Where FORB is under attack, other human rights are often threatened too. We used our G7 presidency to defend and advance these fundamental freedoms, and next year’s international ministerial conference, to be hosted in London on 5 and 6 July, will play a key role in shaping the network of liberty.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
The deaths of 27 people should have acted as a sobering moment for the British and French Governments. These were human beings, not migrants, but instead both Governments have engaged in a petty public spat. This incompetence is costing lives. How can the Government hope to maintain good relations around the world with a Prime Minister who is more interested in burning bridges than building them?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
I welcome the shadow Foreign Secretary to his place.
It was a tragic incident that happened in the channel last week. I extend my condolences, as I am sure everyone in the House does, to the families of those people who lost their lives while trying to get across to the UK. As the Prime Minister said, this was a shocking, appalling and deeply saddening loss of life.
The Prime Minister spoke to French President Macron on 24 November, and they agreed on the urgency of stepping up joint efforts to prevent these deadly crossings and to stop the gangs responsible for putting people’s lives at risk. The Prime Minister, as we know, wrote to President Macron on this issue.
UK and French Ministers discuss issues in the UK-France bilateral relationship. That includes the Home Secretary, who is working closely with her French counterpart on the issue of small boats and is in regular contact with him.
Mr Lammy
Three months ago, the Prime Minister promised to “shift heaven and earth” to help evacuate Afghans in danger, yet many have been left behind, including female judges, as I first raised on 16 August. The perception is that we have turned our back on those who champion the rule of law and democratic freedom, and who stand up to oppression. What impression does the Minister think this gives to our allies across the globe? When will the resettlement scheme actually be up and running?
Amanda Milling
When we look back at what happened with Operation Pitting, we have to remember the sheer scale of the evacuation from Afghanistan: the number of British nationals who were evacuated, the 5,000 locally employed Afghan staff and the 500 special cases of particularly vulnerable Afghans, including Chevening scholars, journalists, human rights defenders and judges.
The resettlement scheme will provide protection for the most vulnerable who are identified as at risk, and it will be announced by the Home Office in due course.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Amanda Milling
Iran’s destabilising activity risks regional peace and prosperity, and we regularly raise Iran’s destabilising role in the region at the UN Security Council. We have more than 200 UK sanctions designations in place against Iran under various UK sanctions regimes, including against the IRGC in its entirety. We continue to support our allies’ security, including through close defence partnerships across the middle east. We work to strengthen institutions and build capacity in more vulnerable countries.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
Amanda Milling
Colombia is an FCDO human rights priority country. We regularly raise human rights concerns with the Colombian Government and in multilateral fora. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), visited Colombia last week and spoke to Vice President Ramírez about the human rights situation.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his passion for high-quality jobs in Dudley. We are building a network of liberty with our friends and allies. It will include new technological partnerships to embrace the opportunities of a global economy shaped on innovations in tech. In June, the Prime Minister agreed to develop a new, landmark bilateral technology partnership with President Biden to enable a new era of strategic co-operation between our countries. The AUKUS alliance will deepen security and defence-related science and technology with the US and Australia.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Amanda Milling
On the points about humanitarian aid, we are doubling our assistance for Afghanistan, taking it to £286 million in this financial year. At the end of October, the Prime Minister announced an allocation of a further £50 million to provide more than 2.5 million Afghans with food, health, shelter and warm clothing.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Amanda Milling
British people who are currently in red list countries should check the Department’s travel advice for the latest rules on returning to the UK. If they need to change their travel plans, they should speak to their airline or travel agent. Consular staff are available 24/7 to provide assistance to any British national who needs help overseas, through a call to their local consulate, embassy or high commission.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government promised that they would not abandon the Afghan people, yet millions are teetering on the edge of famine, with winter fast approaching. Will the Minister stop with the meaningless pledges and start with meaningful action? She will have seen the harrowing report from John Simpson and the powerful words of David Beasley, from the World Food Programme, who said:
“imagine that this was your little girl or your little boy, or your grandchild about to starve to death…We let any child die from hunger. Shame on us. I don’t care where that child is.”
A failure to act is a betrayal of those people. So will the funds be disbursed to save lives in Afghanistan today?
Amanda Milling
Afghanistan faces one of the largest food security crises in the world. We are aware that the crisis is approaching levels where there is severe, acute malnutrition, which is why we have doubled UK aid for Afghanistan to £286 million this year. In addition, between April and November this year we have disbursed more than £55 million, including life-saving humanitarian support for emergency food, health, nutrition, shelter and water sanitation. We are providing a lot of support.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
As well as the Prime Minister’s promise to bring vulnerable Afghans to refuge in this country, other Ministers suggested that they travel to neighbouring countries as the first step. I have constituents who took those Ministers at their word, but the Afghanistan resettlement scheme is not open, as we have noted, and those who fled are told to apply for expensive visas, with prohibitive salary requirements. Will the Minister at least agree to speak to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister and urge them to fulfil their promises without delay?
Amanda Milling
The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will welcome up to 5,000 vulnerable Afghans in its first year and up to 20,000 over a five-year period. As I have set out previously, the Home Office will make an announcement in due course.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
Amanda Milling
My hon. Friend is a passionate voice for his constituents in Bury North. We recognise the human rights concerns in Indian-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, including the continuation of some temporary restrictions in Indian-administered Kashmir. We encourage all states to ensure that their domestic laws are in line with international standards. Any allegation of human rights violations or abuse is deeply concerning and must be investigated thoroughly and transparently. We have raised our concerns with the Governments of India and Pakistan.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
In the run-up to the winter Olympics, the Chinese Government have made clear their international standing in terms of their attitude in the South China sea and their attitude to Taiwan, the Uyghur Muslims and Members of this House. Internationally, China should be a pariah; why are we not joining an international approach to ensure that it is regarded as such?
Amanda Milling
The hon. Gentleman raised several different issues. As I set out in earlier answers, the Government are leading international action and taking robust action in respect of some serious concerns about a number of different areas relating to China. As I said earlier, in particular we have imposed sanctions in relation to those responsible for the atrocities in Xinjiang.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Amanda Milling
Officials are in regular contact with host Governments in order to understand their requirements and update FCDO travel advice, so travellers should always consult that advice for the latest covid-19 restrictions. Covid certification is a devolved competency; Welsh residents can use the NHS covid pass to evidence their vaccine status but cannot use it to evidence proof of recovery.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
On genocide, when we say, “Never again”, we must mean it. Will the Minister commit to introducing an atrocity-prevention strategy for every country—the countries-at-risk-of-instability process just does not go far enough—and specifically to support civil society peacebuilding in Republika Srpska to prevent future conflict and atrocities in Bosnia?
Vicky Ford
Most atrocities sadly occur in and around armed conflict and the Government have dedicated significant resources to the prevention of conflict. We do not believe we have to have a separate strategy for atrocity prevention because we are committed to a more integrated approach to Government work on conflict and instability that places greater emphasis on addressing the drivers of conflict, on atrocity prevention and on the strengthening of fragile countries’ resilience to external influence.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Further to my constructive Adjournment debate on the British Council with the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), and given the fact that the FCDO’s overall budget is to increase by 21% over the coming three-year spending review period, I seek clarity from those on the Front Bench as to whether the Government still intend to cut funding to the British Council, which will mean it will have to close a further 20 overseas offices on top of the 20 that it is already having to close.
Vicky Ford
Let me be clear: the British Council’s budget has not been cut. We agreed in the spending review settlement an amount of £189 million, which is a 27% increase in funding on the previous year. While we had to make difficult decisions on cuts in other areas, we actually increased the money that we are providing to the British Council. We have reviewed the physical Council presence in countries as part of a wider modernisation process. I visited the British Council in Senegal last week, and its work was outstanding.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I have a wonderful Tamil community in Croydon, and they still feel the devastating impacts of the civil war. May I add my voice to those from across this House for sanctions against General Silva who has been accused of great crimes? Does the Minister have some words of comfort on this point for my constituents?
Amanda Milling
As the hon. Lady will be aware, we do not comment on any possible future sanctions.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
On a recent visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina with the all-party group for the armed forces, which was duly declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, our overall impression was one of hope for the best, hope that the Republika Srpska will recognise the genocide, hope that the geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina will hold together, and hope that the whole thing will survive, but, none the less, fear that it might not. Does the Minister not agree that of incredible importance right now are messages from this place—particularly messages to the Bosnian Serbs—to say that we are watching what is happening in Bosnia very closely indeed and that the questions that we are asking today and in the debate on Thursday are of immense importance, as they say to the Bosnian Serbs that we care, that we will not allow a return to what happened all those years ago and that we support the Dayton agreement?
Vicky Ford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: voices in this House matter. It is excellent that the serious situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been raised by colleagues a number of times today and that it will be debated on Thursday, but it is also important that our Foreign Secretary is in Riga with her NATO counterparts, and that she will be focusing her attention on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Is the Minister aware of the drastic shortages of drugs being faced by hospitals in Malawi, not least anaesthetics, which is having an impact on the treatment of women, particularly those trying to give birth. What discussions will she have with counterparts in the country to try to address these shortages, and what impact does she think that the proposed 50% cut in the UK’s aid budget to Malawi will have on its ability to respond to this kind of crisis?
Vicky Ford
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising access to women’s health in Malawi, and I will write to him on that specific issue. However, one of the announcements that we made at the time of the Budget was that, thanks to increased funding, we are able to restore funding to girls’ education and to humanitarian aid.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to John and Ceri Channon from my constituency who, following the tragic death of their son, Tom, in Majorca in the summer of 2018, have worked tirelessly with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Minister for Europe, and the embassy in Spain to enhance the various authorities’ response to tragic accidents overseas, resulting in Tom’s Check, which was reported in the news today?
Amanda Milling
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I know that he has met my ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), and also the family. Consular staff have been providing support and advice to Tom’s family following his really sad death in Magaluf in July 2018. As well as the virtual meeting that he has held, consular officials in Spain have had meetings with local authorities to understand the procedural investigations that have taken place to ask whether they can do more for the family.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government’s response on Afghanistan is simply not good enough. Yesterday, I met with a democratically elected Member of Parliament from Afghanistan who set out the escalating human rights atrocities as well as the humanitarian situation. Will the Minister urgently meet with MPs from Afghanistan to talk about the situation and put aid in the right places to stop this crisis from getting worse?
Amanda Milling
As I have mentioned in a number of answers, we have doubled aid for Afghanistan. This is being provided via UN agencies and non-governmental organisations—not directly to the Taliban—to ensure that it is reaching the people who really need it, and helping those who are most vulnerable and for whom it is intended.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
There is a huge global appetite for Government-to-Government partnerships with the UK, with significant commercial benefits to be unlocked. Will the Minister undertake to work with the Department for International Trade to build UK Government-to-Government capability, so that we cease to lag behind our competitors?
Vicky Ford
We are absolutely committed to deepening our economic partnerships across the world, because they bring jobs and investment home to every region and nation of the UK, as well as helping other countries.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
That is the end of questions. I let them run on a little because there were long answers and we did get confused—not to worry.
Points of Order
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Amid the first lockdown, the Prime Minister promised NHS and social care staff from overseas that they would be refunded the unfair annual £624 charge that they have to pay to use the NHS that they themselves work in. It was big, front-page news at the time, and he was pressured into it by the Leader of the Opposition, the trade unions and his own Back Benchers, including members of the Health and Social Care Committee.
I have asked Ministers countless times in written questions, in the Chamber and face-to-face in Select Committees, but none has been able to tell me the number of successful refunds of these unfair NHS charges. Yesterday, a written answer from the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), finally admitted that the Government know the figure; they just do not want to publish it yet. As long as the figure is not published, I can only assume that it is because the number is actually a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of health and social care heroes who are eligible—another broken promise to the people to whom we owe so much. May I request your advice, Mr Speaker? Given that the Government are ducking and diving—
Mr Speaker
Order. Sorry, but we cannot get into a full debate. I have to try to answer the hon. Member’s point of order, which I thank her for giving me notice of. She will know that I do not have responsibility for the content of ministerial answers, but I note that the answer that she was given says that
“this information is currently unvalidated. The Home Office is considering whether this information can be verified and released”.
There are genuine questions and concerns. I am sure that the Government want to be transparent in the way in which they deal with questions. I suggest to the Home Office: get it answered quickly, and then we will have no further points of order on this matter.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Five days following Storm Arwen, thousands of my constituents—as well as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and Members in Cumbria and North Yorkshire—remain without electricity. This morning we were informed by Northern Powergrid that the damage is more extensive than initially realised, with some households potentially facing weeks without electricity. Our towns and villages are fully pulling together, but given the scale of what is going on—including issues such as water pumps not being available to feed animals and get water to households—it is clear that more action is needed.
My understanding is that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy offered military aid to the civil authorities—MACA—this weekend, but that Northern Powergrid refused it. Mr Speaker, if you have not had notice of a statement from the Government, will you let me know how we can ensure that the Government are doing everything possible to support our communities and constituents in the north Pennines?
Mr Speaker
I have great sympathy with the hon. Member. Power cuts really do destroy lives, especially with the current cold weather, and the pressure that has been put on different constituencies and constituents. I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me notice of his point of order. I have been offered no statement by the Government; nothing has been forthcoming. Given the concern of many Members, I am sure that he is aware that there are other ways of pursuing this matter, including possibly applying for an urgent question. I am not sure what the answer will be, but it might be a good way forward. Who knows—it may encourage the Government to come forward with a statement.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This is the second day running that no Minister has come to this House—I have submitted an urgent question bid as well—to answer on the issue of the very worrying power cuts around the country, right across the United Kingdom. My concern is specifically for more rural communities such as mine in Cumbria and those in in Shropshire and Lancashire. I am very concerned. I spoke to residents just overnight. Places such as Torver, west of Lake Windermere, and the Cartmel peninsula have now been without electricity for four nights and may face a fifth night without power. What is clearly needed is support for Electricity North West engineers who are working really hard around the clock to solve this problem, so we need to bring in the Army, as has been mentioned. We also need to bring in generators so that no community is without energy for a fifth successive night. Can you give me guidance, Mr Speaker, as to how we can bring Ministers to this House to act on this most urgent issue?
Mr Speaker
I think this is the best advice I can give: first, we do not normally discuss UQs, but I cannot grant a UQ unless you put in for it. [Interruption.] No, we have never received it. You may have put it in late. I can tell the hon. Gentleman—and the Clerk at the Table is here—that we have had no request. You cannot request it by just saying it yesterday; that is not an application. We have received no application, so I suggest you check with your office or somebody. Secondly, of course we have sympathy and of course we should be doing more. In fairness, I think this was answered yesterday, when it was raised, by the Deputy Speaker. Of course we have complete sympathy. We do need a statement. If a statement is not forthcoming, I suggest again that a UQ, if applied for, may be considered, but I can assure Members that I have had no request for a UQ as yet.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker, which I have not given you notice of and which actually is for you. I have been noticing over the last few Question Times that there is a growing trend of Back Benchers on both sides of the House reading long questions word for word rather than using notes or even actually memorising a question. I just wonder whether it might be worthwhile, if you have a view on this, putting out an email to colleagues with some guidance about how to do questions in the House. Can I suggest that it can be slightly less boring—although I know I can bore for Britain—if people ask questions in an extemporaneous manner rather than laboriously reading them word for word for word?
Mr Speaker
When I first came into the House, a little bit later than the hon. Gentleman, you did not read questions but always asked questions. You only had a note as a back-up in case you began to struggle. I always thought it was better when people would ask a question briefly, off the cuff, and move on. I think the problem is that people read pages, hence what happened earlier. It is covered in the book of conventions. I think it is important to know that we have that book here. I suggest, as the hon. Gentleman has put this on the record, that people read it to bring themselves up to speed as to the best practice in the Chamber. Thank you for raising it and it is certainly on the record now.
Microplastic Filters (Washing Machines)
Tuesday 30th November 2021
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Microplastic Filters (Washing Machines) Bill 2021-22 View all Microplastic Filters (Washing Machines) Bill 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require manufacturers to fit microplastic-catching filters to new domestic and commercial washing machines; to make provision about the promotion of the use of microplastic-catching filters in washing machines and raising awareness about the consequences of microplastics from washing machines for pollution in rivers and seas; and for connected purposes.
I thank colleagues who have co-sponsored my Bill and all colleagues across the House who have given their support on this issue. We do not often think about plastic pollution when we wash our clothes. However, all our clothes and garments shed what are known as microfibre plastics. Microfibre plastic pollution is one of the most pervasive and preventable forms of microplastic pollution, with 35% of total microplastics released into the environment being shed from clothing. ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” and the University of Portsmouth recently carried out an investigation that found a large amount of airborne microplastics in our homes. It is estimated that we are breathing in between 2,000 and 7,000 microplastics a day—just think about it. But we can do something now for those microfibres we release through washing machine cycles. Microfibre plastics are tiny fibres that can shed from our clothes during the wash cycle. Due to their tiny size, they are too small to be caught by existing washing machines and can end up in the wastewater system, where they are caught, or remain in sewage sludge, which can be spread on to our growing crops, or are released into rivers and marine environments. Research by the University of Plymouth has found that one wash cycle can release up to 700,000 microfibres into our wastewater system—that is 700,000 in every wash cycle.
Microplastics can then escape from the wastewater treatment works, polluting our rivers and seas. These microplastics, which can contain chemicals, can be ingested by fish and other small aquatic creatures and travel up the food chain, and we then enjoy them on our plate when we eat our fish fingers or other aquatic produce. We are ingesting these microfibre plastics. Research led by the University of Manchester has found that the River Tame in Greater Manchester contains such enormous levels of microplastics that it is one of the most polluted waterway systems in the world. Investigators found 517,000 plastic particles per square metre of sediment. That figure is extremely concerning for all of us, the environment and aquatic life.
As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on microplastics, I have been working with that favourite civil society stakeholder, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes. It is a wonderful organisation that has long campaigned on this issue through its “End Plastic Soup” campaign. Many of us will remember just a few years ago, when it came to Portcullis House and demonstrated in a bowl of water what microfibre plastic pollution looks like.
The all-party parliamentary group has also worked with a range of stakeholders including academics, environmental groups and, most importantly, global washing machine manufacturers. The group’s report, published in September 2021, put forward a series of important holistic recommendations, with the support of the Women’s Institute and stakeholders, on what policies would be needed to help reduce the effects that microplastics have on the environment. Today, I am introducing this Bill to encourage the Government to work with washing machine manufacturers to set standards to ensure all new domestic and commercial washing machines are fitted with a microfibre plastic-catching filter.
I emphasise the importance of also tackling the issue at source. We must encourage textile and clothing manufacturers to make garments with sustainable thread that has a reduced shedding rate, so that the garments do not shed microfibres in the first place. However, adding filters to washing machines is a solution that is achievable in the short and medium term and can be enacted quickly by this Government. Through my work on the all-party parliamentary group on microplastics, I am aware of several companies that make microfibre-catching filters for washing machines. The technology for this solution is already available. For example, the company Grundig, which is part of Beko group, has made its own washing machine called the FiberCatcher, with a filter fitted inside. I understand it is one of the world’s first integrated systems and is currently on the market.
I am proposing that the Government work with manufacturers, which are very keen to help with the solution, to set standards for microfibre-catching filters to ensure that all new domestic and commercial washing machines are fitted with a filter that captures a high volume of microfibres in the wash cycle. What I am proposing in the Bill is not novel. Other countries, such as France and Australia, have already pledged to look at this and are working with manufacturers to install microfibre-catching filters.
It is incumbent on us all to ensure that the environment is left in a better condition than when we found it. I was inspired, as I am sure were you, Mr Speaker, and all Members of this House, by Sir David Attenborough when he produced and presented the BBC’s “Blue Planet II” documentary, released only four years. It opened all our eyes to the damage we have caused to marine life through our use of plastic. Plastic breaks down, but it does not biodegrade. Microfibre plastic pollution is a huge problem, and the Government should explore all avenues to tackle the different types of pervasive plastic, in addition to the already excellent work that the Government are doing generally to tackle other sources of plastic pollution.
I urge the Government to consider my modest Bill today and to work with washing machine manufacturers—the door is open with them—which want a solution to ensure that microfibre plastics do not become an even bigger problem. With legislation such as what I am proposing, the UK could become a world leader in tackling microplastic pollution. This is a way forward for us all to continue to enjoy the health and hygiene that washing our clothes brings and to increase the fashion industry as well, while ensuring that we stop polluting the marine environment, as we currently do at a terrible rate.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Alberto Costa, Philip Dunne, Caroline Lucas, Tim Loughton, Derek Thomas, Mr Jonathan Lord, Mrs Pauline Latham, Alexander Stafford, Andrew Selous, Jim Shannon, Patrick Grady and Holly Lynch present the Bill.
Alberto Costa accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 January 2022, and to be printed (Bill 205).
Business of the House (Today)
Ordered,
That, at this day’s sitting,
(1) notwithstanding paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Union documents), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the motions in the name of Maggie Throup relating to (a) the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings) (England) Regulations 2021 and (b) the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 not later than three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this Order;
(2) notwithstanding paragraph (2)(c) of Standing Order No. 14 (Arrangement of public business), the business in the name of Ian Blackford may be entered upon at any hour and may be proceeded with, though opposed, for three hours; and proceedings shall then lapse if not previously disposed of;
and, in respect of both items of business, Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.—(Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.)
Public Health
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
15:48 - The House divided: - Ayes: 434 / Noes: 23 - Question accordingly agreed to.
16:04 - The House divided: - Ayes: 431 / Noes: 36 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
The motion just agreed by the House provides for both motions in the name of the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) to be debated together. The questions on each motion will be put separately at the end of the debate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)
I beg to move,
That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings) (England) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 1340), dated 29 November, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29 November, be approved.
Mr Speaker
With this we shall take the following motion:
That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 1338), dated 29 November, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29 November, be approved.
Maggie Throup
In September, the Government set out their autumn and winter plan for fighting the virus, which could be implemented to ensure that the NHS is not overwhelmed. Although we are not implementing the entirety of the plan now, we are taking steps to respond to a potentially potent mutation of the virus. We have taken great steps in our fight against the virus, having delivered nearly 115 million vaccine doses so far, and more every day, with almost 18 million people having also received their booster jab, including me.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Will the Minister deprecate those public appointees who, notwithstanding the clear proportionate advice of the chief scientific adviser, have been on the airwaves telling people that they should not socialise, to the huge detriment of people’s wellbeing and of an industry struggling to recover from earlier lockdowns?
Maggie Throup
I am sure the people my right hon. Friend is referring to will have heard him loud and clear. We all enjoy socialising but, as he will appreciate, we are in a difficult situation. However, we also have personal responsibility.
We are confronted with an emerging threat, which is familiar but not yet well known. The measures that we are putting in place are proportionate, precautionary and balanced, and are being made in response to the specific threat.
Late last week, the challenge arising from the latest covid-19 threat from the variant of concern known as omicron emerged. Public health officials in South Africa shared information on the omicron variant and it was identified as a coronavirus variant of concern. Thanks to our world-leading genomic sequencing experts at the UK Health Security Agency, we were able to identify that some cases of the new variant are present in this country. So far, we have identified 14 cases in the UK and, unfortunately, we expect to find more in the coming days.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
The Minister mentioned the UK Health Security Agency, the head of which my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) was referring to. Dr Harries said two things this morning. First, she said that people should not socialise. Secondly, she also implied—only implied, to be fair—that people should work from home. When the Prime Minister was asked about that, he made it clear that that was not the Government’s position and that people should follow the advice. I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer and I do not think that is quite what she said. Could she be clear that Dr Harries was speaking only for herself, not for the Government?
Maggie Throup
As my right hon. Friend said, the Prime Minister said that we are putting these measures in place, about which I will speak more. I cannot speak for any other person who goes on the airwaves.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Dr Harries is a public health professional who therefore understands what public health measures need to be taken to secure our wellbeing against the pandemic. Why are the Government not listening to what public health professionals are advising?
Maggie Throup
I reassure the hon. Lady that we listen to the advice of health professionals all the time, but today we are debating statutory instruments on face coverings and self-isolation following travel.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Is the Minister seriously saying that it is not for Ministers to have any particular view on officials employed in the Department going out and taking a position that is at odds with the Government’s public policy? If it is now the policy that even Department employees can take their own personal positions, we are facing chaos and the overturning of long-standing Government principles.
Maggie Throup
I reiterate that I cannot speak for other people. I am setting out the measures today that we implemented this morning in a timely fashion, and it is those measures that we are considering. From the Government’s point of view, that is the legislation that we are implementing.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I support what the Minister is putting forward. What happens here will happen in Northern Ireland, as the Minister in Northern Ireland has said that he will follow the instructions and guidelines from Westminster. We are aware of the variant and we are aware at this stage that our vaccinations may be enough to combat it. If we hand wash, distance and wear a mark, surely we cannot do anything other than support the measure. Does she agree that other hon. Members should adopt the same attitude?
Maggie Throup
I speak for myself in saying that I have changed my habits with regard to hand washing since the pandemic began, much to the detriment of my skin. We can take simple measures that have been put in place that have no impact on other people but help to protect us and others indirectly.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
The Minister is being incredibly generous. Can I clear up something for the travel industry and the airline industry? There is an SI on travel restrictions, not least PCR tests on day two, as I understand it. They are not being debated today. Why not and when will they be?
Maggie Throup
Today, we are debating some travel restrictions about self-isolation, but the other restrictions are covered by different legislation and therefore they are not relevant to this debate.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Minister mentioned hand hygiene. Is she aware of a study published in The BMJ on 20 November that showed that hand hygiene was as effective as mask wearing? Does she agree that anything we do here needs to be firmly evidence-based? Can she say why we have focused on mask wearing in the regulations and not, for example, if our aim is to improve public health, mandating for alcohol gels in hospitality venues?
Maggie Throup
My right hon. Friend, with his medical background, makes a good point that I will take away and look into further.
I will return to my speech. Accordingly, our scientists are investigating omicron to determine, among other things, how quickly it is likely to spread and what the impact may be on the immunity that many of us have acquired through vaccination.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Will the Minister give way?
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Vicky Foxcroft
I thank the Minister for giving way. On the point of immunity, many people who are immunosuppressed are extremely worried. I have asked the Secretary of State on several occasions whether he will consider doing antibody testing so that those people have some idea whether they have any protection or they need to adjust things in their working lives.
Maggie Throup
I have heard the hon. Lady talk about that before and I take the point seriously. It is partly about antibodies and partly about T cells; the science behind it is obviously quite complex. I will take that point away and get back to her.
Maggie Throup
I will give way once more and then I must make progress.
Mr Wragg
My hon. Friend is the kindest of Ministers. On the question of the new variant’s severity, I wonder if she has data to hand about whether any of the new cases of omicron in this country that she mentioned have been detected in patients hospitalised with covid.
Maggie Throup
I am not aware of that, and it may not be in the public domain due to confidentiality. I must make some progress.
Meanwhile, the Government have responded quickly to introduce a temporary and targeted package of precautionary measures to combat the risk of transmission. The aim of the package is to buy our scientists time to investigate and gather information on the omicron variant, and to continue to build the protection that vaccination provides.
The package comprises the requirement for people to wear face coverings in shops, shopping centres and transport hubs, and on public transport; the requirement for those returning from abroad to take a PCR test by day two and to quarantine until they receive a negative PCR test; the requirement for people to self-isolate if they are identified as a close contact of a confirmed or suspected case of the omicron variant; the addition of 10 countries to the red list; and the requirement that those arriving from those countries in Africa quarantine in a managed quarantine service for 10 days.
Across England, at 4 o’clock this morning, face coverings became mandatory in all shops and shopping centres, which includes supermarkets, banks and close-contact services such as hairdressers, and on public transport.
Several hon. Members rose—
Maggie Throup
I must continue.
They became mandatory in transport hubs, including taxis and private hire vehicles. From the same time, close contacts with confirmed or suspected cases of the covid-19 omicron variant will be legally required to self-isolate. These measures will remain in place until the end of the day on Monday 20 December. By this point, we will review the measures to see whether they remain necessary. We do not wish to keep any measures of this nature in place any longer than is absolutely necessary. However, these measures are an important step in the fight against the virus, particularly while we wait to discover the full implications of the threat from omicron.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The word “mandatory” was used but is that not just a word in the statutory instrument? In practice is it not unenforceable? As Darren Pearce, the manager of Meadowhall shopping centre, said in evidence to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, “The biggest problem we had last time was about trying to get face coverings to be worn. I saw a group of young people going to Meadowhall, saying very loudly, ‘If they ask you, just say you’ve got asthma.’ Then they say, ‘We’ve got asthma. We’re exempt’, and there is nothing anyone can do, is there?” That causes all sorts of tensions with the shop assistants and with other people wearing face masks, who feel that some people are getting away with it. What is the Minister going to do about that situation?
Maggie Throup
I find it quite intriguing that the Labour party has been calling for this measure for some time and, now we are introducing it, it is unhappy about it.
Maggie Throup
I must make some progress.
In July, when we lifted most of the remaining restrictions at step 4 across England, we made it clear that our response to the pandemic was not over. The vaccination programme continues to be a huge success and vaccines remain the most important weapon in our fight against the virus. However, as we enter this uncertain time, we must do more and we must do it quickly.
Maggie Throup
I know I keep saying I will take one last intervention, but I give way.
Mr Harper
I am very grateful. I listened carefully to what the Minister said about the timing. The Government have said that they are going to review these measures after three weeks and she is right—on the face masks, the regulations expire on 20 December—but the self-isolation SI has no expiry date, which means it will run all the way until the main statutory instrument expires on 24 March 2022. Why is that?
Maggie Throup
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I would like to reassure him that we will continue to update the House over the next few weeks, that we will not continue to have these regulations in place for any longer than is necessary, and that—[Interruption.] If I may just finish. The type of regulations he is referring to are reviewed under legislation every four weeks and are more likely to be reviewed every three weeks. I understand his point and I do take it very seriously. I wish we were not in a situation where we have this conflict, but I reassure him that I take his point very seriously and these measures will not be in place for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
Maggie Throup
I give way to the hon. Lady, who has been trying to intervene.
Daisy Cooper
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) raised a question about the enforcement of mask wearing. One of the major problems being faced by GPs in my constituency of St Albans is that some people are refusing to wear masks because, “The Prime Minister didn’t have to when he went to a hospital”, so could I ask the Minister how she intends to lead by example when half of her own colleagues are still refusing to wear masks on the Benches opposite?
Maggie Throup
As I said earlier, we are mandating the use of face coverings. I think we are in a different situation now with regards to that.
Maggie Throup
I will allow one more intervention and then I will move on.
Dr Murrison
The Minister is really being most generous and I thank her very much indeed. Our right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) is absolutely right and I fear that, inadvertently, she has not given the fullest answer that she might have done to this. The fact is that motion 3 on the Order Paper expires on 20 December, yet motion 4 expires on 24 March 2022. Can she explain the logicality of that? I also observe that, given the extraordinary restriction on liberty that this potentially offers, most Members of this House would be more than delighted to return after the House rises for the Christmas recess in order to reaffirm our support for the measures that she has put before the House today.
Maggie Throup
I have listened to my right hon. Friend very carefully, as I did to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and I reiterate that we will not keep these measures in place for a day longer than we need to.
Maggie Throup
I must make progress.
Given the potential severity of the consequences of not responding swiftly to this new variant, the Government have taken decisive action to bring back compulsory face-covering wearing in an array of settings. Face coverings are again compulsory in shops and on public transport, unless an individual has a medical exemption or a reasonable excuse.
Maggie Throup
I will continue.
The requirement to wear face coverings is not new. We have asked people to do their bit to stop the spread of the virus before, so we are again asking people to play their part, this time to help slow down any transmission of this new variant of concern.
Maggie Throup
No, I must make progress. I have been very generous with my time up until now.
However, anyone who has an age, health or disability reason for not wearing a face covering need not wear one, and they need not provide proof of their exemption. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has found that face coverings are likely to reduce transmission through all routes by partially reducing the emissions of and exposure to the full range of aerosols and droplets that carry the virus. This includes those that remain airborne and those that deposit on surfaces.
Several hon. Members rose—
Maggie Throup
I must make progress.
Scientific evidence also shows that all types of face coverings are to some extent effective in reducing the transmission of covid-19 in all settings. This is through a combination of source control, which limits the spread of the virus from a person, and protection to the wearer. Laboratory data shows that even non-medical masks, such as cloth masks made of two or three layers, may have similar filtration efficiency to surgical masks. As ever, we are guided by the advice of our scientific and medical experts. We will keep these measures under review, and we will take further action if necessary.
Mr Betts
Will the Minister give way on the point of exemptions?
Maggie Throup
No, I must make progress.
The self-isolation regulations were introduced to provide a legal requirement to self-isolate for individuals who have been notified that they have tested positive for covid-19 or that they are a close contact of a positive case. On 16 August, thanks to the success of the vaccine roll-out, we were able to introduce a number of exemptions to self-isolation for close contacts, including for those who are fully vaccinated or under the age of 18 years old. Given the greater threat that may be posed by the omicron variant, we have reviewed the application of these exemptions. This latest amendment to the self-isolation regulations is targeted at helping to slow its spread. From 4 am today, all individuals notified by NHS Test and Trace or a public health official that they are a close contact of a confirmed or suspected case of the covid-19 omicron variant are legally required to self-isolate for a period of 10 days, regardless of their age or vaccination status.
Maggie Throup
No; I have been very generous up until now.
Anyone who has been notified as testing positive for covid-19, regardless of the variant, will continue to be legally required to self-isolate. We appreciate that self-isolation is not easy and that it places a burden on people, but we also know that it is highly effective in limiting the spread of the virus. The Canna model estimated the impact of testing—
Maggie Throup
I really must make progress.
The model estimated the impact of testing and tracing and self-isolation on covid-19 transmission from June 2020 to April 2021. During the period of the study, the model found that testing, tracing and self-isolation had a critical impact on identifying cases of covid-19 and reducing onward transmission. The model found that between 1.2 million and 2 million infections have been directly prevented as a result. Additional assistance is available to those who are being required to self-isolate through the range of financial and practical support measures that the Government have put in place.
I am confident that these two sets of regulations represent proportionate precautionary and targeted action in the face of the new covid-19 variant, the risk of which we still do not yet fully understand. [Interruption.]
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. In fairness, I think the Minister has been very generous with her time, and I would say that I am sure we have some capacity to get more speakers in if they so require.
Maggie Throup
Together, the impacts of these regulations should combine to help slow down the spread of the omicron variant and give us valuable time to assess how effective our vaccines are as a shield against this new variant. We are committed to reviewing these measures in three weeks’ time, when further scientific analysis should help us determine whether they are still needed, or whether they need to be extended or strengthened to support us in our wider fight against covid-19. I hope colleagues will join me in supporting these regulations, and I commend them to the House.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak for the Opposition in this important debate.
The omicron variant is a sobering reminder that this pandemic is not over. We need to act with speed to bolster our defences to keep the virus at bay, and to keep each other safe throughout the difficult winter period. We on these Benches were critical of the Government’s slow response to the delta variant—slow to protect our borders, slow to act to reduce transmission in the community—so we welcome swifter action with regard to the omicron variant and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) said in this place yesterday, we support the measures laid out in these two statutory instruments, one on face coverings and one on public health restrictions. It is right to be acting urgently given the seriousness of the threat, but it is sad to be debating these SIs after the fact; we need to build public confidence in whatever measures we bring in and it is always better to discuss them beforehand, rather than afterwards, to show that parliamentary scrutiny really matters.
Mr Harper
I am very pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman say that about parliamentary scrutiny. He will know that yesterday I asked the Government for assurances if they were to want to extend or strengthen these measures after the House has risen for the Christmas recess, as I feel that if that is the case the House should either continue sitting or be recalled. In answer to my question, the Leader of the House suggested that it would be up to the House. I therefore ask this of the hon. Gentleman speaking for the Opposition: if the Government were to bring forward strengthened measures or want to extend them after the House has risen, would the Opposition support the House being recalled so that we can debate and vote on the matters in advance, or is he prepared to give the Government a blank cheque?
Alex Norris
My predecessor as Member of Parliament for Nottingham North had a strong record on recall of Parliament in 2003 and would smite me down if I were to dismiss the right hon. Gentleman’s question out of hand. It is a hypothetical question, however, and I am not going to be drawn on that, but I will say this: when we were getting through the backlog of such SIs over the summer I said to the Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), that I would have met at any hour at any time to get through some of them, since they were weeks and weeks delayed at some points. I have not changed my view on that.
Karl MᶜCartney
On that point, does the shadow Minister therefore think we should come back before Christmas, or maybe after Boxing day and before new year if the House is to be recalled?
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman’s question makes me think he has some plans to book; if he is trying to book a weekend away, he should not let me set those dates for him.
Turning to the regulations, and starting with the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings) (England) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 1340), it is right to reintroduce masks on public transport, in shops and other settings including banks, hairdressers and post offices for those who are not exempt. This measure should never have been abandoned. While mask wearing in public spaces forms part of the Government’s plan B, it was always part of the Opposition’s plan A rather than an emergency measure, as was encouraging working from home where possible.
Rachael Maskell
I am slightly confused by these measures, because the risks are the same in any indoor setting; whether on public transport, in a shop or in some other indoor space, the risks still exist. Can my hon. Friend tease out why there is an inconsistency in these regulations?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend makes a good point that I will cover shortly. Of course the measure should apply to public transport and shops—and also to the House of Commons Chamber, but I will get to that shortly.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
Last night I walked past the shadow Cabinet room and there was quite a party going on inside, and I popped my head round the corner and there was a lot of drinking and shuffling going on. That is fair enough, as those are the rules at the moment—knock yourselves out, it’s nearly Christmas—but why is it okay to come into the Chamber and tell us all one thing in front of the cameras and do something completely different behind closed doors?
Alex Norris
If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to redress grievances as to what Labour party parties he has and has not been invited to, I am the wrong person to address those concerns to.
In order to build confidence in this issue, I ask the Minister to publish the guidance she and her colleagues have relied on that says that public transport and shops are areas of likely transmission but hospitality spaces, for example, are not. We do need to build confidence.
Anyone who has taken journeys on public transport in recent months will have seen at first hand a lack of compliance; that is of course just the Prime Minister, but beyond that all of us will have seen it on the tube and elsewhere on our commute.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
Like the hon. Gentleman, I have travelled on the tube in recent months and seen a lack of compliance, but enforcement on the tube is of course handed over to Transport for London officers. Does the hon. Gentleman think the Mayor of London should be doing more to enforce mask wearing on the tube?
Alex Norris
We will now start to see how effective these regulations are—they have only been going for nine and a half hours—but I will shortly address my reticence about members of staff whose primary job has not traditionally been to enforce such measures now being put in that position. That gets to the point my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) was addressing.
Mr Betts
The issue is that enforcement is impossible when people can just claim an exemption and we are not allowed to ask, “Why have you got an exemption; can you prove it?” Does my hon. Friend agree that we should have had a system in place from the beginning where if people wanted an exemption—a medical exemption is what the Minister called it—there had to be medical confirmation that they were entitled to it because they had a medical condition that meant wearing a mask was damaging to their health?
Alex Norris
We are after the fact now on that, but I think we have to protect the principle that we do not expect people to wear masks if doing so is detrimental to their health. That is the right level of proportionality, but we are reliant on good faith and people not abusing that, and I would be disappointed to hear of cases such as those my hon. Friend raised.
I particularly want to raise with Ministers a point about shop workers. Our hard-working shop workers have given us so much during the last 20 months. They have kept open the vital community assets that mean we were all able to be fed and watered. In return they have faced increasing violence and abuse. It should be made very clear that they are not being asked to police this; I hope the Minister will do that and also give more detail, as colleagues clearly wish to hear it, about how enforcement will work in practice.
The largest number of infections is now in those aged under 20, with the peak at approximately 10. This is a big part of continuing transmission, yet the changing and drifting policies on masks have created confusion across schools, colleges and universities. Can the Minister confirm what the new requirements are across all settings?
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I am very pleased that compulsory mask wearing has not been extended to the hospitality sector, as that would have been deeply damaging to businesses. What is the position of Her Majesty’s Opposition on this issue, because I think I heard something slightly different just now from what I heard yesterday?
Alex Norris
It is hard to answer given that this is not on the face of these regulations, so I have asked the Minister to be clear about why that differentiation was made, and then all Members would be able to make a judgment as to whether that was a wise decision.
Alex Norris
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman before; I do not rule out doing it again, but will not do so immediately.
On ventilation, which links in to education settings, throughout this pandemic we on these Benches have called for a radical upgrade in the ventilation of public buildings, particularly schools. We know that is not something we can just click our fingers and do; it is more expensive and time-consuming and much harder to do than asking people to wear a mask, but it is a particularly effective intervention. Some 18 months into this pandemic, can the Minister update the House on how many public buildings now have proper ventilation systems as a result of decisions taken during the pandemic?
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
Have the Opposition done any analysis of how much it would cost to implement ventilation en masse across educational settings?
Alex Norris
The hon. Member goes slightly further than I did in saying that ventilation should be rolled out immediately across all schools. Of course, that would have significant financial implications. It would also, of course, be very good for British business. We are saying that, as has been clear throughout the pandemic, better ventilation in public buildings should be a significant part of building regulations in general. What I seek from the Minister is a sense that any of that, never mind all of it, has been done at all.
Dr Murrison
Can the shadow Minister cast his mind back to the debates we had on smoking in public places? If he is suggesting properly engineered extraction ventilation, we dismissed that during those debates—although many of us would have liked to have seen it as an alternative to an outright ban—because of the sheer engineering cost of doing it. Or is he proposing simply opening windows? What exactly is he proposing when he says we need to improve ventilation? At one extreme it is going to be murderously expensive and virtually impossible, and at the other it is simply opening the window.
Alex Norris
I cannot cast my mind back to that debate—I believe I had just started secondary school when it took place—but I can foresee the issues that were raised. I would not do down the idea of opening windows; that would be a good thing to do in and of itself, and I would support that. What I am saying is that there are certain places where that will work less effectively, and we ought to have some sense, certainly building by building, of what might be an effective measure. As I said, I do not think this is something that we can just click our fingers and do easily, but I would like to get a sense that we have tried to do any of it at all, and I have yet to get that. I hope the Minister will disabuse me of that.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I raised the issue of ventilation last summer—we have known for a long time that covid is airborne—and I wrote to the Chancellor on two occasions asking him at least to remove VAT, to help businesses and public bodies that pay VAT to afford ventilation. Sticking 20% extra on the cost of a ventilation system seems quite weird in the middle of a pandemic.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention, which gets to the root of the matter. We have been talking about ventilation for a long time. What I would really like to hear from the Minister is whether any progress whatsoever has been made in this area.
I turn to statutory instrument No. 1338 regarding self-isolation. The regulations introduce new rules for self-isolation after contact with a person who is suspected to have contracted the omicron variant of the virus, removing the exemptions to self-isolation. As we saw in the summer, this will be frustrating for those who would otherwise have been able to avoid self-isolation requirements by being vaccinated and who will now have to stay at home for the full period. However, as we wait to see how our vaccines and antivirals respond to the new variant, it is right that we prioritise caution and seek to limit community transmission as much as humanly possible. The Minister may have sensed colleagues’ eagerness to know more about this requirement. I hope that she will tell us when she thinks she is likely to have enough information about the variant to return to Parliament and say whether the Government feel that the regulations ought to remain.
There is, of course, a significant gap in the fence of these regulations. The gap has existed throughout the pandemic, and it is bewildering that we in the Opposition are still having to raise it. It relates, of course, to fixing sick pay. We have learned during the pandemic that the overwhelming majority of the British people want to do the right thing to protect themselves, their family and each other, but that falls short when they are forced to pit it against their need to feed their families. In both rate and availability, sick pay has proven insufficient to protect families against that horrendous choice.
These regulations will be weakened. They will be weakened when people ignore their symptoms and go to work, weakened when people say they are self-isolating and they are not, and weakened when people turn the app off to avoid being a close contact. Surely Ministers have learned this lesson over the last month. I am surprised that we did not hear more from the Minister about that.
The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) raised the regulations relating to red list travel. My understanding is that we are not discussing those today because they were laid via the negative procedure, but the elements relating to testing will have an impact on SI No. 1338. Last week, we suggested that the Secretary of State should begin PCR testing for those entering the country, so I am pleased the Government have listened and included day-two PCR tests in the measures announced yesterday, but there are still holes in our defences on international travel.
I am keen to hear from the Minister how she and her colleagues reached the decision to introduce only day-two testing, and not to reintroduce pre-departure tests. I am keen to know the scientific basis behind that. We have heard many reports of private tests not being followed up, especially, perhaps, by those offering the cheapest prices. What are the Government doing to enforce this and to ensure that bringing back day-two PCR tests, which we support, is effective?
I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, because I am conscious of how many colleagues wish to speak in the debate. This is a concerning moment in the pandemic. We have learned over the last 18 months that it is vital that we act decisively at such moments. We are pleased to see these regulations come forward—indeed, in the case of mask wearing, it was premature to stop at all—but there is much more to do if we are to avoid being back here in the coming days and weeks, including working from home where possible, fixing sick pay and improving ventilation. The actions we need to take are clear. It is time for the Government to meet the moment.
Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
I shall be brief, but I have a number of concerns about the regulations, the first of which is about the manner in which they have been introduced. I am glad that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) made this point in opening his remarks. Why on earth did the regulations come into force at 4 am today when we are here now, at 20 minutes to 2 in the afternoon, debating them? Surely it would have been possible to have a debate yesterday, or indeed to delay their implementation until this afternoon. I think that indicates a rather casual attitude to parliamentary scrutiny that persists in Government.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has asked important questions about what will happen if the regulations are renewed after the three-week period, when the House is not sitting. We still have no clarity as to whether the House would be recalled or whether the regulations would simply be extended for a period of weeks without the House having the opportunity to comment.
Mr Harper
It is also worth saying that one of the things we get from Ministers when we press them on these things is about parliamentary time, but my hon. Friend will know that the House normally sits until 10.30 pm on a Monday. Looking at yesterday’s performance, the House got to the Adjournment debate at about quarter past 7. There were hours yesterday when the House could easily have debated both these measures, which means we could have debated them before they came into force. Even the Opposition agree that that is invariably the better solution when it is at all possible.
Sir Graham Brady
Absolutely. As a former Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend knows very well that there is always parliamentary time available when the Government want to do something; it is only when they are reluctant to do something that parliamentary time becomes elusive.
There is a further question as to why only one of the instruments before us has an expiry date in the regulations. Surely it would have been better to put an expiry date in place, which would have required some positive action to renew or extend the regulations if that was deemed necessary.
There are also serious concerns about the efficacy of what is proposed. We know enough about covid by now that we can see which interventions are ineffective. We can see that even full lockdowns possibly delay the spread of covid but do not eliminate it. In this instance, I am intrigued to know from the Minister exactly what action the Government propose if their research finds that this new variant is effective in evading the vaccines. Surely they do not propose to return to a full lockdown, knowing that that would simply defer the problem for a period of days, weeks or months.
Dr Murrison
If my hon. Friend recalls, the reason for lockdown was to reduce a potential impact on the national health service. Does he agree with me and everyone who has opined on the subject that there is no conceivable way in which our NHS is going to be overwhelmed by this? That would be a remarkable thing, since 90% of us have antibodies right now. Therefore, a justification for a lockdown falls away completely.
Sir Graham Brady
I am grateful to my medically qualified right hon. Friend for that intervention. He is of course right that that is unlikely. There would have to be some evidence of a very different kind of variant of covid for it to pose any kind of threat of that sort. He is also right to point out that when we first went into a lockdown, it was intended to protect the NHS for long enough for us to increase capacity in the service for a three-week period. The first lockdown then spread into three months. That is the most important thing the House should be guarding against: the mission creep that allows Governments simply to introduce restrictions and further restrictions, and then extend them, getting into the habit of regulating what we do. That is my most important concern of all.
In the summer of 2020, the Prime Minister said that it was time to move on and time to start to trust people to make decisions for themselves. I rejoiced at that and thought what a wonderful thing it was that we were moving to a point where we would advise people, inform people and make sure they had the best evidence to make decisions in their own lives. Now, however, we see the first instinct of the Government when we do not even have any evidence that the omicron variant is worse in its effects. There is some suggestion from South Africa that it might be less severe, but the Government’s first instinct is to introduce further compulsory measures and regulations relating to self-isolation and to face coverings in some settings but only until 20 December, plus measures that affect the travel industry, particularly the move back to PCR tests on day two.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We are about to have another pingdemic as we approach Christmas, to the huge disadvantage of enterprises across the country. It fundamentally undermines the other main effort of the Government, which is to increase vaccinations. One of the advantages of being vaccinated is not having to self-isolate if in the company of someone who is infected. If that is taken away, one of the incentives—the principal incentive—to get vaccinated is removed.
Sir Graham Brady
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a very serious concern that we might be entering a world where we lurch from one set of restrictions to another, where no business and no individual can get used to the idea of the freedoms they are able to exercise or what restrictions might be in force at the time.
What really concerns me—I think we all know and recognise this—is that we are dealing no longer with a pandemic, but with an endemic virus that will be with us for many, many years and probably forever in some form. Further variants will emerge. They might do so every couple of months or every year. We tend to have a new flu strain on an annual basis and some are much worse than others. But surely, we need to get back to an assumption that people will make decisions for themselves and have control over their own lives. We cannot move, as we appear to have done, to an environment in which the Government simply assume they can instruct us whenever there is the first small evidence from anywhere in the world of a new strain that might behave in a different way, and new and potentially swingeing public health measures are put in place. I ask Ministers to consider the implications of that and for looking at other diseases. Will we start to treat other diseases and viruses in the same way, assuming the best thing to do is to compel people and instruct them on what actions they need to take?
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
My hon. Friend is starting to explore the issue of what happens when there is a variant. What we see from the Government thus far is a load of new measures and, possibly, the pharmaceutical companies saying, “We can make a new vaccine for that within about 90 days”. We would then have many months to get it in everyone’s arm. Having done that and gone back to a sense of freedom, another variant would emerge and we would be on that track all over again. Has he considered the madness of that type of policy?
Sir Graham Brady
We should all be afraid of the madness of that kind of policy. The difficulty is that 18 months ago, when some of us started raising these concerns, it was possible for some people to suggest that we were being fanciful. We have now lived it for 18 months and we can see this reaching ahead. We think back to when the Coronavirus Act 2020 was renewed again, taking us through to spring next year, and the assurances we were given that that would be the last time. I thought we would not need this kind of legislation again, but we see the Government’s immediate assumption that they should reach for new controls, new compulsion and new rules to inflict on the British people. We need to move away from that and back to a world where we trust people, engage with the public and recognise that the Government are there to serve the people, not the other way around.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Happy St Andrew’s Day to all Scots across the parliamentary estate, whether they were born in Scotland or are adopted Scots like myself.
We are in the early days and need more research on omicron, the new variant of concern, but clearly it is heavily mutated, including mutations that suggest increased transmissibility and mutations associated with immune escape, and that is what is causing the concern. Cases are surging in South Africa, but we do not yet have proof that those surges are directly related to omicron. One thing that has emerged from South Africa is evidence of the reinfection of people with previous proven covid infections, which we have not seen often during the pandemic.
The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) talks about people’s freedom to choose, but the people they might infect—especially those who are immunosuppressed or vulnerable—have the choice removed from them. It is a network. If Members have ever seen the little gif where someone drops a ping-pong ball on to mousetraps, they will realise how things spread. You may have a choice. I, as an immunosuppressed person, may therefore not.
Dr Whitford
We do not suffer the same deaths, hospitalisations or outcomes from flu. [Interruption.] Well, we don’t. Look at 170,000 deaths over the last 18 months in the UK. We certainly have bad flu winters where we can get up into the teens towards 20,000, but we have never got close to 170,000 over 18 months.
Mr Harper
I know the hon. Lady has a great deal of medical experience, but she is referring to a period when we did not have vaccination. Am I not right in thinking that in a vaccinated population, the case fatality rate of covid is not remarkably different from that of influenza?
Dr Whitford
We are still seeing hospitalisations and deaths in people who are doubly vaccinated. The reason we are delivering boosters in all four health services is because that immunity is waning. What we are concerned about with omicron is that if it is able to immune escape, it could push us backwards. Therefore, we simply do not want it to become re-established and undermine the achievement that vaccines have made.
The British Medical Journal review, to which the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) referred, showed that masks had as big an impact as hand hygiene, so surely we should do both. Neither of them has a major economic impact. We are not talking about locking down. We are not talking about shutting businesses. We are talking about everyone trying to protect everyone else, so that they can continue to be active and continue to be out in society.
It is important to remember that even if our current vaccines were shown to be less effective against omicron, they would not have no impact. We already see that impact on delta with regard to spread: the reduction is only about 50% but it has markedly reduced hospitalisation and death. We would therefore still hope for that with omicron, so pushing vaccination and encouraging people to get boosted remains as important as it always was. Delta is still by far the most dominant variant circulating in the UK.
There is no evidence as yet of differing symptoms or severity, but one of the weaknesses of the data from South Africa is that the initial outbreaks were in students. Young people tend to get milder infections and we do not yet know what omicron will be like in an older or more vulnerable population.
We have one advantage in the diagnosis of omicron: the S gene, which is one of the three genes that common PCR tests look for, is missing. That means that rather than having to wait for genomic testing, which takes quite a long time, we get a heads-up or an early warning on the PCR test. There is a sub-group with S-gene dropout, which means that the chances are that it could be omicron. Those patients could be warned and their samples can then be sent for full genomic testing. In Scotland, a retrospective review of recent PCR results looking for S-gene dropout has identified the nine patients with omicron. I assume that similar work is happening in the other nations across the UK. In contact tracing of the nine patients, there is no evidence of a connection to either COP26 or the South Africa rugby game, but tracking continues.
PCR testing is, therefore, even more important. Lateral flow tests—which, hopefully, we are all doing regularly before coming here—cannot detect variants. It is a simple yes/no that someone does themselves, with no access to take further analysis. Lateral flow tests had been allowed as part of travel testing. In the Netherlands, 600 passengers arriving from South Africa were tested and one in 10 were found to have covid—an incredibly high incidence and much higher than we have anywhere in the UK—and a fifth of those cases were already omicron. Omicron is not just in southern Africa or in the UK. As a result of the use of lateral flow tests, it is probably already more widespread than we think. It is therefore welcome that today the Government returned to PCR testing for travellers rather than lateral flow tests, and that they are quickly re-establishing quarantine, but people should have a PCR test before they travel. It is rather like shutting the stable door if we find that someone is positive when they have just spent eight hours on a plane with hundreds of other people.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Is the hon. Lady not concerned, as I am, that there is too much emphasis on PCR testing for tracking variants of concern? During a three-week period in July, there were 500,000 PCR tests, of which 7,000 were positive for covid. Only 5% of those 7,000 were tested for variants of concern, so this is not quite the silver bullet on variants of concern that she might hope it would be.
Dr Whitford
I was not claiming that it was, because genomic testing takes a couple of weeks generally and it is therefore too late for someone to isolate. What I am saying is that with this variant, as in alpha but not in delta, the missing S gene means that on that initial test—which takes six hours or until the next day, or whatever it is—we already get a heads-up that we are dealing with an omicron case. We can go on to do the genomic analysis, but we can say to the patient, “We think you have this variant. You need to isolate thoroughly and for longer.”
Craig Mackinlay
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing her medical knowledge to the House. It is very interesting, particularly on the S gene. I do not know what magic goes on in a lateral flow test. We put the drips in at one end and then one band, hopefully, appears and not two. Could a lateral flow test be adapted to be specific for this type of variant?
Dr Whitford
I think we would be talking about redesigning the test for a whole new antigen. I mentioned just one advantage that we get from PCR testing, which basically looks at genes—I will not talk about the whole long name and what PCR stands for—and the benefit is that we get a heads-up. I do not think it is feasible on any reasonable timescale to change lateral flow tests, so we are lucky that this one has S-gene dropout and that we will get an early warning.
One issue with focusing only on a day-two PCR and then, if someone is negative, they are released—unlike what is being discussed for domestic isolation—is that the incubation period of covid, generally, is much longer than two days. It has generally been reported as an average of five days and it can extend for longer. If someone who may have had contact arrives in the UK, gets a negative PCR result on day two and then goes about their business, there is a real danger that that is a false reassurance. That is why the Scottish and Welsh Governments have asked for a Cobra meeting to debate the evidence on a four-nation basis and to discuss having at least an eight-day isolation period for travellers, with a negative day-eight test required before people can be released.
The Prime Minister should listen on that, because one issue that we had in Scotland when we tried to maintain stricter and broader hotel quarantine was that the majority of long-haul passengers arrive through hubs such as Heathrow. The devolved nations have no ability to have an impact on that and we should be working with the Republic of Ireland to make the whole common travel area safer from the point of view of how we move about inside it.
Karl MᶜCartney
The Government Benches are not as sparsely populated as the Opposition Benches—and I do welcome the Opposition Members who are here—but considering what is happening later, am I right to presume that the Scottish National party, which the hon. Lady speaks on behalf of, will be supporting the Government in the vote at the end of the debate?
Dr Whitford
The reason that my colleagues are not here is that the debate is largely about the regulations in England and we do not normally vote on English matters. We have not normally voted on England’s covid regulations, but the one related aspect in these proposals is the testing and isolation of travellers. We support that but we think that it should go further.
On domestic precautions, Scotland never got rid of mandatory masks on public transport, in shops and in schools. We have not heard the Minister refer to whether the Government are planning to reintroduce mask wearing in schools. At the moment, with vaccination and its impact, we are seeing that the bulge and peak of cases among those who are unvaccinated is moving down to younger and younger teenagers and primary school children. If there will not be masks in schools, is there a plan to install CO2 monitoring and ventilation? How do we reduce the incidence in schools?
Mark Jenkinson
The hon. Lady perhaps answered some of this question, but will she set out her assessment of the impact of mask wearing in Scotland on case numbers? Is what has happened with younger children not just testament to how well we have done at keeping them apart and proof that we cannot hide from the virus when we come back together?
Dr Whitford
It is very difficult at the moment. Cases go up and down and we swap positions. At the moment, Scotland has the lowest incidence of cases at 349 per 100,000. Northern Ireland has the highest at well over 600 per 100,000. Obviously, we have whole baskets of measures, so it is harder—other than in the review that the Royal Society published last June and in the BMJ paper from a week ago—to pick out exactly which measures are having the impact. The BMJ found that masks and hand hygiene were equal in their impact and, in fact, bigger in their impact than physical distancing. To me, they enable people to engage and enable people who are vulnerable to feel safe and to come out, because otherwise, those who were shielding will be stuck in their houses all over again.
Although mask wearing was not mandatory in England, it has remained in this Government’s guidance if someone is in a busy public space. I am sorry to say that that guidance has been undermined by what Members on the Government Benches have demonstrated on television every day. Initially, when we came back in the autumn, approximately five people wore masks, then the number more than doubled to 14, and after the measure was pushed, the proportion rose to about two thirds. On the day when mask wearing in busy places is meant to be promoted, about a third of Government Members are still not wearing masks.
People will be led by the example of not just the Prime Minister, but every one of us.
Dr Whitford
I have given way a lot, and lots of other hon. Members are waiting to speak.
As for the Leader of the House’s nonsensical claim that people cannot catch covid from their friends, I have to say that words fail me—and as Members can well believe, that is not a common occurrence. It is clear that the most common spread is within households. If the Leader of the House thinks that husbands, wives and children are not friendly with one another, I really worry about his home circumstances.
It is early days, but we should be following a precautionary approach. As Dr Ryan of the World Health Organisation has always said: go early and go hard. In the last three waves, the Government often delayed making decisions until the problem was proven. I welcome the changes that they are making to try to get ahead of the curve this time, but as well as taking action on masks, they should advise those who can easily work from home to do so. They should promote “hands, face, space” again, to push it to people who may have got a little complacent.
The Government should also look at how to support the installation and improvement of ventilation. Covid is airborne. Hon. Members will remember how smoke used to hang in a pub before the smoking ban. Any Member who has ever worked in pubs, as I did as a student, will know that smoke would still be hanging there the next morning. That is the issue with poorly ventilated spaces, as we have seen from the outbreaks associated with Committee Rooms in the House.
The arrival of such a variant was inevitable. Last spring, we heard warm words about a global response to a global crisis, but while more than 85% of adults in the UK have been double-vaccinated, the figure is less than 4% in low-income countries, including many that have not been able to vaccinate their healthcare workers.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Does the evolution of an immune escape variant, which omicron may be, occur because of a vaccinated immune population or because of a naive population?
Dr Whitford
I think that its emergence in southern Africa would suggest that it is from a naive population. One of the issues with our complacency here and reliance on vaccination while allowing very high case numbers is that through Darwinism it can pre-select for vaccine-resistant variants and mutations. Those are the ones that will get a grip; the ones that are vaccine-susceptible will not, because we are so vaccinated.
Allowing high spread, which means common mutations, is a problem wherever it happens, but in the naive populations in the global south there is a real danger. They do not have testing, they do not have the materials, they do not have genomics and they do not have vaccines, so the danger is that they will therefore get a variant that builds up and eventually comes to Europe and to the UK. Sending occasional batches that are almost out of date, as was reported recently to us in the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, does not allow Governments in the global south to prepare and use vaccines within date.
The UK is still among the countries blocking a TRIPS waiver. We must realise that it is not a matter of just sharing some leftover doses. We need to massively increase global population, which means sharing intellectual property and sharing technological expertise. If anything, this variant should be a reminder that no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
’Tis the season to be jolly, Mr Deputy Speaker. As my colleagues know and as you know, I am always jolly, but it is not particularly jolly at the moment. [Interruption.] I did not hear that—I shall pretend that I did not.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), whom I remember shadowing me well when I was a Health Minister. She makes very many good points, as always. Her point about vaccinating the rest of the world is absolutely right—I agree completely—but we certainly should not throw away intellectual property, because it would leave absolutely no incentive for us to produce what we have produced in this country, which is what has saved so many lives around the world. However, she is absolutely right that we should be doing more through our overseas aid effort to help the rest of the world.
It was bad enough when the extension of the Coronavirus Act 2020 was nodded through without a vote. There has been lots of excitement and flurry recently about Members of Parliament and the work that we do. There is now one Labour Back Bencher, one Liberal Democrat—albeit that she is one twelfth of the parliamentary party—and one Democratic Unionist party Member in the Chamber. I understand why SNP Members are not here in force, because they rightly do not vote on English matters, but I think that this is something that the public should be concerned about. We are making an impact on their lives today, and it is a disgrace that this House is so empty.
Is anybody other than the Minister going to speak in favour of the regulations today? In the House of Commons, in my experience of 11 and a half years, you do not just have to win the vote; you have to win the argument as well. Of course the Government will win the vote today, because the Opposition—who always say “How high do you want us to jump?” when the Government propose new restrictions on our lives—will pretend to ask difficult questions while voting for the restrictions anyway. They said that they would vote for them before they had even seen the published regulations. Frankly, I think that that is a derogation of duty from Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Okay—now I will try to be nice. I know Jenny Harries of the UK Health Security Agency well; I worked with her when I was a Health Minister. I am sorry to return to this point, but for the benefit of Ministers on the Front Bench, she said to the media this morning that people should not socialise
“when we don’t particularly need to”.
She also urged people to decrease social contact.
I understand that Downing Street has had to dismiss and distance itself from those comments this morning, and rightly so. Jenny Harries is a very careful and very professional public servant—as I say, I know her well—and she does not just say things off the cuff without thinking. If what she said is not the Government’s position, we need to know. The Minister is quite right to say, as I would have said myself, that she cannot speak for others and cannot comment on what others say, but she can say what she thinks and what the Government’s position is; that is the duty of a Minister at the Dispatch Box. If the Government do not agree with that position, it should have been said at the Dispatch Box this afternoon—ample opportunity was given for it to be said. But if that position is the policy of the Government, we are in completely different territory.
As for the regulations before the House, I do not even know where to start. They are the fly on the back of the rhinoceros. Let me start with the face coverings regulations, which expire on 20 December. I have to say that I do not much like them—I think that they go against the individual choice that my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) talked about—but it is not a huge imposition on my life to wear a mask when I am in the Chamber. I choose to do so. Nor is wearing masks a huge imposition on the lives of my constituents, many of whom I see wearing them in all sorts of settings, including outside—that is their personal choice. To be honest, the face coverings regulations do not bother me greatly.
The self-isolation regulations bother me a great deal more. Under new regulation 2B(1)(ba)—I know; how are the public meant to follow this?—of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020, if one child in a class of 30 has had close contact with someone who
“is suspected of, or confirmed as, having an Omicron variant”,
presumably the other 29 are out. We are not just looking at a pingdemic in our economy and in our businesses; we are looking at a pingdemic that will devastate education again. After everything that we have learned—everything that I have felt in my own family—are we really, seriously, going to do that to our children again?
Mark Jenkinson
The explanatory memorandum tells us that the regulations make provision for
“NHS Test and Trace to notify an individual that they are a close contact”.
In fact, the detail of the legislation makes such provision not just for NHS Test and Trace, but for anyone in a local authority involved with communicable diseases.
One of my children was sent home before the school holidays to isolate for 10 days, despite being confirmed by the headteacher as not having been a close contact. That had a significant impact on the rest of the family, as hon. Members can imagine; it was based on the advice of a director of public health that the whole year group should isolate. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this is lockdown by default, through activist directors of public health and others?
Steve Brine
I do not think I would call directors of public health “activists”, although I understand that some of them play it very differently from us. It is the job of this place to get legislation and regulations right, and if we draft them in a way that makes them so wide, so loose and so flexible that any director of public health could be an “activist” if so minded, it will lie at this door, not that door. I should like the Minister, in summing up the debate, to define “suspected”, because I think there is an element of the Salem witch trials in this. What is a “suspected” case? I should like an answer from the Dispatch Box, please, before I am asked to vote for this measure.
I said in the House yesterday that the regulations, in and of themselves, were relatively mild. I have already talked about face coverings. What concerns me is the chilling effect that this is having on the rest of our society. The fact that No. 10 Downing Street, the centre of government, has taken to the national newspapers today to ask head teachers not to cancel nativity plays because of the announcement that we made on Saturday night makes me ask, “What on earth are we doing?”
We should think of the effect that this is having on confidence, on society and on hospitality. Those in hospitality have put everything into this Christmas in order to survive and to save their year. There is nothing in these regulations that says Christmas parties must be cancelled—unless, of course, Dr Harries is in charge—but there is everything in the language and the narrative coming out of the Government right now that is causing Christmas parties to be cancelled left, right and centre. I have seen organisations in my constituency cancel events that were due to happen within the next few weeks, on a “just in case” basis. These regulations will have a chilling effect, and we should not underestimate that just because it is not written in black and white.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Business Secretary should have been involved in these decisions? Does he share my concern about that? I have received several emails from travel companies in my constituency whose potential bookings have dropped off a cliff because of the cost of PCR tests. My hon. Friend mentioned a “chilling effect”, but it goes deeper than that: there is also a huge impact on business. If these regulations are to be implemented, it must surely be done hand in hand with the Chancellor and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Steve Brine
Having been a Minister of the Crown, I hope that the regulations have been through the right-round process, albeit an accelerated right-round process, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. It will worry the travel industry that the regulations that have not been subject to a motion today are not being debated in the House—and yes, I am greatly concerned. I have to say that I agree with the Opposition about departure testing. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, have introduced it. I do not think that the Opposition have had an answer from Ministers about why they have not chosen to do the same, and I should like to hear an answer in the Minister’s winding-up speech.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend has touched on an important point about the process within Government to ensure that all aspects are considered. What normally happens is that regulations are thought about and there is a right-round process—which, for the benefit of those listening to the debate, means that all Government Departments have the opportunity to provide an input. One thing we have discovered is that in the case of covid regulations, that right-round process does not operate in the normal way. Through my hon. Friend, I ask the Minister to clarify in her winding-up speech whether, as these regulations were being drafted, other Departments were consulted and given the usual opportunity to provide an input, or whether this was done purely in the Department of Health and No. 10 Downing Street.
Steve Brine
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments, which will have been heard on the Treasury Bench.
I do not understand the timing here. What will we really know in three weeks’ time that we do not know now? This causes me to question the three-week rule. South Africa does not give us the insight into the progress of the virus, and of this variant, that we were able to take from, say, Italy—with a broadly similar European population—this time last year. South Africa has a much younger population, and, sadly, a greatly under-vaccinated population. As we heard from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, it was spreading like wildfire among students, who, of course, are younger and fitter and therefore less susceptible to serious illness as a result of this variant.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous in giving way. Does he accept that the evidence from South Africa so far suggests that there have been very few hospitalisations, while we in the United Kingdom are introducing regulations that are causing economic disruption, are causing people further anxiety, and will disrupt all of Christmas because of this variant when we do not even know whether it will have a severe impact on the UK in any event?
Steve Brine
I do accept that, and I also accept that the scientists who discovered the variant said on the media at the weekend that this was often a less serious disease than the delta variant. However, notwithstanding the point that I have just made about the people whom it has affected in South Africa—younger, unvaccinated people—given that numbers are so small in this country, I fail to see how we will be any the wiser in three weeks’ time. That may explain why the isolation regulations will apply until next March. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me, through an intervention now or in winding up the debate.
Finally, let me return to the situation in my constituency. I have raised this matter twice in the House. This morning I spoke to the Winchester City primary care network, which is responsible for some 62,000 people who are on its roll. PCN patients will be contacted if they are in one of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s groups 1 to 9, if they are clinically extremely vulnerable or if they are over 50, and will have been offered a booster. The PCN expects that process to be complete by 17 December, and by the middle of January it will start to offer the booster to others. From that date onwards the booster will be offered to those aged 18 and over, following the welcome announcement from the Secretary of State during his statement yesterday.
Many of my constituents do not live in the area covered by the Winchester City PCN, but have access to vaccinations at the Badger Farm community centre. If they consult the NHS website, they are offered the opportunity to go to Salisbury, Portsmouth or Southampton. That is not easy access to the booster. In my constituency there is no easy walk-in access to it, and I am inundated by questions from constituents about why they cannot have such easy access in Winchester today. The difference between what is being said on television and by Ministers from the Dispatch Box and the reality of the access available on the frontline is growing, and it is a problem.
Steve Brine
I know that the Minister has been looking into the matter for me. We have not teed this up, Mr Deputy Speaker, but she is kindly going to intervene.
Maggie Throup
I want to reassure my hon. Friend. I heard what he said yesterday, and I have asked my office to look into it further. I will get back to him as soon as I can.
Steve Brine
I greatly appreciate that. The Minister is a good friend, and I know she is sincere. This morning I sent her some correspondence between me and the head of the new integrated care system in Hampshire, where we are trying to make progress with this. If “boosterism” works—in the context of covid-19 and this variant, which is where it probably does work—that will be all to the good, but let us get those boosters, and let us make it easy for people to get them.
I will end by reiterating that I am ambivalent about the face coverings regulations, but the isolation regulations concern me greatly. I am concerned about the timing and the conclusion of their application, and about their chilling effect, and unless I hear a very good answer to my question about the definition of “suspected”, I will not support them today.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats will support the regulations, but we have grave concerns about whether the Government are doing enough to protect people, to protect the NHS, and to buy scientists the time that they need in order to learn more about the new variant.
We know that masks are effective. We know that they reduce transmission, and they are a small price to pay for the guaranteeing of all our other freedoms. They also allow the clinically extremely vulnerable to leave their homes, which many of them have not done for a very long time. They continue to shield, cut off from society, because they do not have the confidence even to enter a shop or board a bus. I am worried by the Secretary of State’s pledge to abandon masks in a few weeks’ time if omicron proves to be no more dangerous than the delta variant, because the delta variant is still dangerous, and the NHS is already on its knees before we go into the worst of the winter.
I wish there were more support for those in self-isolation. For too long, the support has been too stingy and too hard to access. We must create a sense among people that it is their civic duty to self-isolate if they are asked to do so, and if the Government ask people to self-isolate, they must step up and provide proper financial support. I would also like to see the reintroduction of the encouragement to “work from home if you can” from the Government. The colleagues have also mentioned ventilation, on which the Government have been far too slow to act. In schools right across England, people have been crying out for ventilation for months and months, but the Government have been dragging their heels.
Alec Shelbrooke
I want to pick up on the hon. Lady’s comment about working from home. I say gently to her that a great many of my constituents have businesses that thrive on footfall in the city centre of Leeds, and that the working from home encouragement had a devastating impact on their ability to earn a living. When people say, “Let’s just work from home again”, they must recognise that there would be a very large economic impact on a great number of my constituents if that were to happen.
Daisy Cooper
I take that point. We know that many of these measures often result in a lose-lose situation. A real problem over the past 18 months has been the way in which people have tried to frame this as public health versus the economy, because for me, having a strong and healthy workforce and a strong and healthy economy are two sides of the same coin. Notwithstanding that, I am encouraging the Government to ask people to work from home where they can, in order to strike the right balance that would reduce levels of transmission. I am not suggesting a blanket mandate for everybody to stay at home; I am suggesting encouraging people to work at home where they can, in a balanced way.
Dr Murrison
I am listening carefully to what the hon. Member has to say. Does she agree that the group in society that has really borne the brunt in the past 18 months is young people? They have been particularly affected by so-called work from home, and their mental health in particular—which I know her party takes a close interest in—has in many cases been devastated. I commend to her the best available evidence as published last week. As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) pointed out, that evidence suggests that two interventions—that is to say, mask wearing and cleaning our hands properly—may well have some impact, but to be honest the evidence for social distancing is pretty thin. Would the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) perhaps like to reconsider the sort of swingeing measures that she appears to be recommending?
Daisy Cooper
I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention, but I respectfully disagree with him. What we have learned over the past few months, from public health directors in particular, is that the more measures we take, the better protection we have. It is not an either/or. If we wear a mask, wash our hands and limit the amount of time spent in close proximity to someone else, we limit our overall chances of either catching covid or passing it on. The more measures we can take, the better. Notwithstanding that, when I was talking about working from home, I was not referring to children studying at home. I was talking about the working population. I recognise that there have been enormous impacts—
Daisy Cooper
Ah, okay. I thought the right hon. Gentleman was talking about schools and young people. Of course there have been major issues for young people, but when I was talking about working from home, I was talking about the working population. On the question of students at universities, of course there needs to be a balance. Many universities got it wrong during the pandemic, and I said so at the time. I was utterly appalled when some universities put railings around the student accommodation. We need to strike a balance. This is about reducing our contacts to reduce transmission. There is nothing to prevent university students from going in to study, if that is the point that the right hon. Gentleman was trying to make.
Dr Murrison
How on earth does the hon. Lady think that we can mandate or suggest that people work from home but then expect students to tip up? University is about being taught, and being taught requires people to go to work. Or have I missed something?
Daisy Cooper
Something appears to have been lost in translation here. I am not entirely sure whether the right hon. Member is referring to students or to the academics who teach them. I am talking about encouraging people to work from home where they can. There are of course examples where people will need to go into work, and they can change the ways in which they work, but working from home has been proven to reduce levels of transmission.
I am concerned that we are talking solely about the new variant, and that the mantra around putting in place restrictions to protect the NHS appears to have stopped. I worry that the Government appear to have lost their tongue. Ambulance services across the whole of England are at their highest alert level: level 4, or code black. That means that there are people in the back of ambulances who cannot get into hospitals. The NHS 111 line has had more than 1 million calls abandoned after 30 seconds this year, when they should be answered within 20 seconds. We have GPs who are reducing their hours or resigning because of the workload and the abuse. Some of them are really worried and saying that they will not to take on the contracts to deliver the booster jabs because of the expectation that they will still have to do the same amount of work seeing their patients and that if they are required to do the booster jabs as well, that will mean longer waits for other appointments. They are not getting the support they need in that regard, and I hope that the Minister will respond to this point. We have record backlogs—
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I very much agree with the hon. Lady’s comments, and I wish that she had amplified them more in regard to the ambulance service. I represent a large rural constituency, as many colleagues do, and if people are waiting for ambulances because people are queueing at the acute sector because others cannot be discharged, that is going to lead to huge problems during the winter months. Does she agree that that is something we should all keep at the forefront of our minds?
Daisy Cooper
I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. I have tried to raise that issue as often as I can through various means, and that is probably all I can say on the matter. Back in October, I tabled a written question to the Government to ask how many ambulance services were at level 4, and it took a couple of attempts at chasing that up before I got a response. I believe that hon. Members would benefit from having time to debate the issue in this House. In my own constituency of St Albans, there have been some incredibly tragic cases. A woman lost her baby because she was stuck in the back of an ambulance for many hours without being able to get into the local hospital. Another constituent lost their partner because they were stuck in the back of an ambulance for 12 hours and then died a week later because they had not been able to get that emergency treatment—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Important though this matter is, the hon. Lady does appear to be straying. Could she please get back to the regulations that we are discussing?
Daisy Cooper
The point that I am trying to make is that the Government are framing the introduction of these specific restrictions in terms of whether or not there is extra transmissibility from the new variant. My concern is that they are not talking about whether we need these restrictions, and perhaps others in the future, because of the pressures on the NHS in its broadest sense.
Sammy Wilson
The hon. Lady is making an important and relevant point. Would she not accept, however, that these restrictions place a burden on businesses, on people’s individual freedom and on the operation of the education system, all to deal with a problem that is not going to go away as long as we have patients going to accident and emergency because their GPs are not seeing them, and as long as we have patients taking up beds in hospitals because they are not going into care? This will not be solved simply by introducing more regulations that put the burden on private industry because of the failures of the health service.
Daisy Cooper
I disagree with some of those points. As a liberal, I believe fundamentally in giving people the most personal freedom they can have up to the point at which it interferes with the personal freedom of others. We hear a lot in this House about personal freedom, particularly from those on the Conservative Benches, but there is very little discussion about our broader responsibilities to others. That is the challenge that we as legislators have in this House: it is about getting the balance right. I do not think this is about putting restrictions on businesses because of the failures of our health service. GPs in particular are struggling with their workloads and with the abuse resulting from campaigns against them that are being led by national newspapers. If we had a stronger workforce to deal with these issues, and if the NHS had not been run into the ground, we would have more frontline health workers to deal with these problems right now. However, I am mindful of the Deputy Speaker’s entreaty to stick to the regulations, to which I now want to return.
As I said at the start, we will support these regulations. I agree with other Members that it is vital we have full scrutiny of any decision to repeal, extend or renew the regulations in any shape or form in the coming weeks. I implore the Government to take action and consider these restrictions in the light not only of this new variant but of the overall pressures across our NHS, whether on GPs, ambulance services or elsewhere.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper). I absolutely agree with her when she says she wants to maximise personal freedom. Unfortunately, most of her speech seemed to be about quite the reverse. I do not understand the lack of consistency, or perhaps I do, because I have been familiar with the Liberal Democrats over so many years.
There is a fundamental fallacy in the hon. Lady’s argument about masks, which is brought out in paragraph 7.4 of the explanatory memorandum:
“Evidence demonstrates that face coverings are effective, when worn correctly, at reducing virus transmission.”
Very few people wear their face mask correctly. The World Health Organisation’s advice says that people should wash their hands as soon as they take off their face mask, that they should discard temporary face masks and that they should wash their hands again when they put on a fresh face mask.
I had a discussion with Mr Speaker on this subject some months ago and, while we were having that discussion, one of our colleagues came into the Tea Room wearing a mask, took it off and put it on the breakfast table. I said to Mr Speaker that it really makes my point. Frankly, if we are talking about public hygiene and public health, the Government should be saying, “If you think you want to wear a mask, go and wear a mask but, for crying out loud, make sure you don’t contaminate yourself and others by not wearing it correctly.”
I cannot support these oppressive, authoritarian and dictatorial regulations, which are neither necessary nor desirable. They will have an adverse effect on lives, livelihoods and the mental health of our constituents. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care considers that
“the requirements imposed by these Regulations are proportionate to what they seek to achieve, which is a public health response to the threat.”
Where is the evidence? The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), adduced no evidence whatsoever, and there is no regulatory impact assessment—the excuse is that the regulations will be in force for less than a year. Why is there no regulatory impact assessment? Why are we being asked to support a policy for which there is no evidence?
If there had been a regulatory impact assessment, there would be a requirement on the Government under the regulation rules of the Cabinet Office to put forward the possible alternatives to these regulations. We need goal-setting requirements, rather than prescription. More and more prescription seems to be the Government’s recipe.
To take an example, why is a shopkeeper not allowed to permit people to shop without wearing a face covering, provided those people have had a proper vaccination? Why is the keeper of a small shop not allowed to keep their front door open and allow people to go in and out without the need to wear a face covering—there would be adequate ventilation—or perhaps, as some small shops in my constituency do, have a one-in, one-out rule so that there is only one person in the shop with them? Why are we not allowing shops to have that freedom?
If we want to have a consistent policy, why are we treating those who have been fully vaccinated in the same way as those who have not been fully vaccinated? That seems to be wholly inconsistent with the regulations introduced by the Government in relation to people who work in care homes, and they propose to bring in similar restrictions for those working in the health service. If, having required those people to be double-vaccinated, we are saying that they are not in a privileged position when it comes to going into their local shop, what is the point of depriving those who have not been double-vaccinated of their right to work? There does not seem to be any consistency.
Daisy Cooper
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the major incentive for people to be vaccinated is to reduce their own chances of hospitalisation and death, not just so they can go to the local pub, shop or anywhere else?
Sir Christopher Chope
I hope the hon. Lady accepts that people should be free to make their own decision on whether they wish to be vaccinated. I am therefore extremely nervous about backdoor proposals to require vaccine passports. I do not believe people’s freedom should be conditional on taking compulsory medication, which is why I am against the provisions in the Health and Care Bill on compulsory fluoridation. To that extent, I am probably on the same side of the argument as she is.
A mood of increasing intolerance is being engendered towards those who have a reasonable excuse for not wearing a face covering. Paragraph 7.8 of the explanatory memorandum makes it clear
“people do not need to show proof of this reasonable excuse”
but that is not being promoted by the Government. Regulation 5 says:
“For the purposes of regulations 3(1) and 4(1), the circumstances in which a person (“P”) has a reasonable excuse include”—
this is the important point—
“those where P cannot put on, wear or remove a face covering because of any physical or mental illness or impairment, or disability…or without severe distress”.
That is one reasonable excuse, but there are many others. The Government seem to be rather conflicted or muddled, because paragraph 7.8 of the explanatory memorandum says:
“Nobody who has a reasonable excuse and is therefore not wearing a face covering should be prevented from visiting any setting because of the requirements in these Regulations. Furthermore, people do not need to show proof of this reasonable excuse under the Regulations.”
In other words, people do not have to show a face covering exemption certificate, such as this one from Hidden Disabilities. I see quite a lot of people wearing these certificates but, as soon as people have to wear them, they are asked questions, “Well, what are your disabilities?” Most of my disabilities are well hidden, and I intend to keep them hidden. It is unreasonable that we should be creating an environment in which people are being challenged, and being encouraged to be challenged, on their personal and private health.
That brings me to the conflicting content of paragraph 12.3 of the explanatory memorandum. It may just be a misprint, but it says:
“The Department has also included a range of exemptions to ensure that this policy does not unfairly discriminate against those with protected characteristics. Furthermore, the policy will be supported by a communications campaign that will make clear that some people are exempt from these regulations and people should be challenged by members of the public for not wearing a face covering.”
Surely it should say “should not be challenged”. I do not understand it, because paragraph 15.3 says:
“Maggie Throup, the Parliamentary under Secretary of State”—
she is sitting on the Front Bench—
“can confirm that this Explanatory Memorandum meets the required standard.”
If it was indeed a misprint, the explanatory memorandum does not meet the required standard. If it is not a misprint, it is a serious contradiction within the explanatory memorandum and seriously undermines people’s freedom to go about their business without having impertinent remarks and questions put to them by busybodies acting on behalf of enforcement authorities.
Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend has been a Member of this House far longer than I have. Is there a mechanism where that could be clarified before today’s vote?
Sir Christopher Chope
The mechanism is for the Minister to intervene on me, and I am happy to give way to her, to say that it is a misprint, or it is a deliberate confusion—it is to confuse the punters, so we can have it both ways. That might be the response of a Liberal Democrat, were there one on the Front Bench. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that serious point.
Obviously, people out there will be wondering about exemptions and reasonable excuses. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who chairs the Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, drew attention in his intervention to the fact that young people are going around in shopping centres saying that they have a reasonable excuse for not complying with the regulations and for not wearing face masks. What is the problem with that? If people have a reasonable excuse for not wearing face coverings, let us not get too fussed about it. That is why these regulations are part of a scaremongering propaganda campaign on the part of the Government that is designed to try to stop or restrict social interaction between social animals who happen to be living in the United Kingdom. That is potentially the most damaging aspect of the regulations before us today: they are designed to suppress freedom of the individual and to suppress social contact and they are doing that through unreasonable fearmongering.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Yesterday, I intervened on the Secretary of State and during his statement he repeated to me:
“we will not keep measures in place for a day longer than necessary.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 679.]
With that assurance in mind, I thought I would come to listen to this debate and speak on behalf of the transport sector, which relates to my Select Committee, willing to support these measures as proportionate measures in circumstances where we do not know whether the new variant will have an impact on transmissibility and on our vaccine effectiveness. On regulations 1340, on face coverings, I can get there in that regard because they expire on 20 December and they are well set out. I have concerns about the way the transport sector is somewhat singled out, albeit with retail, as perhaps being an unsafe setting, whereas hospitality is marked differently. If we put £10 billion into the rail network alone just to keep it going, sending out a message that it is a less safe setting than a pub or restaurant will not be the way to give people confidence to get back on to that network which we need to survive.
I also have concerns about what happens on the buses, given what I witnessed today. That may well have been because people had not tuned into this debate and did not realise that these regulations had already come into force. People are still getting on board without a face covering. Despite the powers given to drivers to ensure that they do not do so, there is no questioning and on they go. Not only does that wind people up, but it leaves others thinking, “What’s the point in bothering? If not everyone is wearing a mask, what’s the purpose of anyone wearing one?” However, I can get there on those regulations because of the unknowns that we need to deal with.
One of the wonderful things about coming into this Chamber is to be educated. I might make the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) has made: perhaps more of us can come here and be educated. I have grave concerns about the issues around regulation 1338, on self-isolation. If the aim is for us to be covered for no longer than is necessary, why do they have no end date and default to 24 March? The impact of these regulations is even greater than our having to wear a face covering for longer periods because, as has been mentioned, we could well be back to “pingdemic” territory.
I emphasise that the regulations mean that, regardless of a vaccination having been given, one has to self-isolate for a period of time if there is a suspicion that one has been in contact with someone who has the omicron variant. Right now, and perhaps for the period up to 20 December, I can understand that the suspicion would perhaps be linked, as the transmission rates are slower to build—one would hope that would be so for the next few weeks—to whether one had been in contact with someone who had been in South Africa, or something on those lines. If, however, we move to 24 March and the variant has spread fast but, as we hope, it has not had a negative impact on the vaccine, we could see the default option being, “I have come into contact with somebody who has covid. I did not know whether they had omicron or not, because that does not tell me that. Therefore, I must be cautious, as we are always told to be. Therefore, I must self-isolate.” Then we could see the whole country being pinged again, as it has been before.
The situation could even be worse than that. If it turns out, as is currently being discussed in South Africa, that although the strain may transmit quickly it may not have the same impact as even the delta variant, stopping people being out and about may make things worse, because they will not get the antibodies that we want them to get. Surely those on our Front Bench are aware of that. The beta variant was a variant of concern, and the amber-plus regulations were brought in, as there was a concern that beta would have been worse against the vaccine than delta. It turned out that one dose of AstraZeneca was more effective against the beta strain than two doses of it were against delta. So variants of concern can quickly turn out not to be a concern at all.
That is why we must make sure that our legislation stops and is flexible and nimble, yet these regulations will roll on until 24 March. That is what our job in this place is about; I can agree in principle that there is a need to take measures, but I cannot vote for legislation that does not actually do what I believe the Government intended it to do. There are options, and they can be used right now. The Minister could stand at the Dispatch Box and find a way to reassure those of us who have the same concern. Alternatively, the default option for me is to vote against this legislation, not because I disagree with the principle, but because I disagree with voting for legislation that I know to be poor, badly drafted and not to meet the intention. Surely we should not be stubborn and pig-headed when legislation does not work; we should fix it or we should vote against it.
I have one last point to make in relation to a motion that I thought would be before us but is not—one that deals with the restrictions on travel and the introduction of PCR testing. Yesterday, the Secretary of State also reassured me that PCR testing would not be expensive and that we would not be at the mercy of unscrupulous providers, as we saw happen during the summer. A wise person just told me about an incidence of a three-hour PCR test, which many will need to take in order not to have to self-isolate—that is good for the economy—costing more than £200. Why are these regulations being laid under the negative procedure? We need to be discussing that legislation and finding the pitfalls, as we have with the regulations before us—I applaud my colleagues for doing so this afternoon—yet they are not even being brought forward.
Alec Shelbrooke
I wish to return to the point I made earlier, and I wonder whether my hon. Friend shares my genuine concern. As he said, we are here today because of a variant that has been discovered. More variants are going to be discovered and the cost of the PCR test will make people think carefully about going abroad, and that is going to have a devastating impact on the high street, travel agents and holidays. Does he agree that this issue has to be taken as a whole, and that it cannot be separated out so that every time there is a variant we say that we have to shut everything down?
Huw Merriman
I do agree with that, and it is a good point for me to end on. Let us look at not just the consumer, but those who work in aviation. Some 5,000 jobs have been lost on a monthly basis since February 2020 in that area; this has been an absolute disaster for the aviation and international travel sector, and for those who want to trade around the world. We had just started to see the easing of restrictions, with no damage to public health at all. My right hon. Friend is right to say that we need to learn lessons. It is okay for us to take tentative steps perhaps this once, on a limited basis, but we cannot keep shutting down parts of the economy every time there may be a variant of concern. Otherwise, to quote the Prime Minister, we will never “live with” this virus.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I understand the dilemma that the Government face and are in. There are two main questions that we need to ask and to which we all—including the Government as much as anyone—want to know the answer: first, what is the state of the omicron variant’s resistance to our vaccine programme? Secondly, if someone becomes infected, is their illness weaker or worse than it would have been with the delta variant that we have got used to? In some ways, it does not matter what happens with the vaccine if the omicron variant does not cause bad illness. Frankly, if it does not cause bad illness, I do not care about this thing at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) just made an interesting point: if, as we all hope, the omicron variant is weaker than the delta variant in terms of illness and effect, we are going backwards a long way today, because we will all have to lock down when we get the text, email or phone call to tell us we have been close to somebody with the new variant. That makes little sense at all.
Let me address the proposals before us in some sort of order. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), I do not have too many concerns about the face-mask regulations: they are an extension of rules that we have pretty much got used to and there is very little difference from what I have been doing on public transport, where I have been wearing masks religiously. I am still a little bemused as to how a fairly flimsy mask with a filter size that is far greater than a coronavirus particle can somehow be the salvation, but so be it. I am not terribly concerned about that.
We are, though, left with a gross absurdity that will perhaps face everyone in the House over the next few weeks. When someone goes to the off-licence on the way to a party later, it might take them only 45 seconds to get their tiple of choice but they will have to wear a mask on pain of a fine. They can then make their way to a house party, with 100 people or perhaps more—perhaps an infinite number of people—where it will be enclosed, warm, cosy and friendly and they can take that same face mask off. Really? It is an infantile proposal and we are in danger of falling down the same absurdities as we fell down before, with the madness of the couple who could walk across a golf course but dare not play on it. This is the absurdity that I have voted against previously and will vote against again.
Let me move on to the self-isolation requirements. I am afraid that the proposals mean we are going to fall into a new pingdemic. There is nothing in the regulations, in anything the Minister has said or in anything else I have heard to date to say that the testing regime will be backed up with proper genome sequencing at the right rate, so we can get back to a situation in which people can be told, “No, your contact was not omicron. You’re fine.” My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester picked up on a very dangerous phrase in the regulations, and that is “suspected of”. I do not know what that means. I know what “confirmed as” means—to be confirmed through a proper genome-sequence test—but what about “suspected of”? When people get that phone call, text, email or ping from the NHS—if they have been daft enough to have the app on their phone—are they now going to hear, just because the words “suspected of” have been added, “Thou shalt be held indoors for 10 days”? This is where we end up with mission creep and the chilling effect that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned.
I am going to be somewhat concerned about going to that Christmas party or that pub, because I have friends and family coming round for Christmas day. This legislation is going to have a dangerous pingdemic effect, either through a proper pingdemic or just through the effect of fear. I asked the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who spoke for the SNP and is knowledgeable on these matters, whether we might be able to get a new lateral flow test that is specific to omicron, but I think the answer is possibly no. We are in a confused state and I am concerned that the regulations will shatter businesses that are getting ready for Christmas. With the support of Opposition parties, sadly the regulations are likely to go through.
I am somewhat confused, as are many other Members, that we are not considering the regulations on travel today. It seems somewhat bizarre. There is a new requirement for a PCR test within two days. I am afraid we have seen far too much of what I call wild-west behaviour out there when people try to obtain a test. We have a well-established, well-working, accurate and fast PCR network that has stood up throughout the whole country. For instance, I can go on the NHS website and organise a PCR test tonight, probably within a mile or two of where I live, and I would probably get a result back tomorrow. The system works very well and that is to the Government’s credit. We went down a stage, for good reason, and said that lateral flow tests for people who travel in are fine. We are now back to the confusion—do lateral flow tests work or do they not work? If they work, surely that will do; if they do not work—if they are not reliable—why on earth have we spent billions of pounds over the past few months and why are everybody’s draws and cupboards full of these things, which are handed out like candy in the streets? It is something of a nonsense.
We have not yet discussed the regulations on the travel restrictions, so perhaps we have a chance of changing them for the good. We are introducing new requirements so it is only fair that we offer the ability to meet those requirements within the NHS PCR testing system, either for free or at a minimal cost. That way, we will not have these situations involving what I have described as wild-west companies that have not served us well.
Sadly, we are allowing ourselves to go back into a rabbit hole, and I am concerned that we will never get out. Last year, before we had the big vaccine roll-out, there were reasonable reasons, although I did not support them, for the levels of restrictions: we were waiting for the cavalry of the vaccinations and wanted to protect the NHS from being overloaded. We did that, it all worked and we got back to a semblance of normality. But we have a new variant, so we introduce new measures, then await a new vaccine formulation, then wait another few months to get that into people’s arms, and then we might be able to go back to normality—but then we will find another new variant and do it all over again. This has to stop. We have to live with this ever-changing virus. Enough is enough: it is done.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I see five people standing; the debate has to finish at 3.58 pm and we all want to give the Minister sufficient time to be able to respond to the number of important questions asked during the debate, so will people be mindful of the length of their contribution?
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I shall endeavour to be mindful of that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and shall try to put some of those questions on the record for the Minister.
As many Members have said, and the chief scientific adviser agrees, covid is going to be with us forever and variants are going to be with us forever. This is the first test that we—the Government, the House and society—face in respect of how we deal with covid in a post-vaccine world, where we have vaccines and have vaccinated most of our population. It is important that we do not mess this up and fail that test. It seems to me that we need to respond calmly and proportionately, so I give the Government credit for resisting the calls for the economically damaging measures in plan B. Working from home, for example, does have significant economic consequences, as we saw from the Treasury’s own analysis. Vaccine passports are both illiberal and, as we have seen from the evidence—or lack of evidence—from Scotland, ineffective, so they are the worst of all worlds. They are an ineffective and illiberal policy, and we certainly do not want them introduced here.
Before I deal with the measures, I want to pick up on the point about the NHS made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats. She is absolutely right that the NHS is facing significant pressure, but it is not facing pressure from the number of patients in hospital because of covid, which is around 6% of total bed capacity. The NHS is under enormous pressure dealing with the significant number of patients who were both unable to be treated and scared away from the national health service during the pandemic. We must be careful not to repeat the mistake and scare away a whole new set of patients, as it will take the NHS another very significant period of time to deal with them. There is nothing about the measures that she suggested that will deal with those pressures; they will just make them worse.
Daisy Cooper
Although I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s assertion that covid accounts for 6% of patients in hospitals, I urge him to think about the impact that covid in-patients have in the hospital setting. We know, for example, that for every one patient being treated, an entire ward can be taken out, because it has to be cleaned and if a staff member catches covid, they have to take time off work. I have asked the Government to produce an assessment and provide this House with the details of the impact of covid patients on the availability of beds, staff and elective procedures. Will he support me in asking the Government again to provide that assessment so that we can take an informed decision in this House as to whether these restrictions are necessary and how they may or may not help?
Mr Harper
I support the hon. Lady’s general call for transparency, but my point about the numbers is not an assertion; it is about looking at the data and seeing how many patients are in hospital because of covid. That information is published. It is not an assertion, but a fact. Secondly, if hospital trusts do what my trust does, they put covid patients together in hospital. My trust currently has one ward full of patients. It clearly has an impact, but it is not the thing that is causing the biggest problem. The biggest problem in my trust is that it has at least three or four times the number of patients who are not able to be discharged because of inadequate social care. That is the point that I have made several times in the House.
Mindful of your admonition to be relatively brief, Mr Deputy Speaker, let me touch on the regulations in front of us. On the face-covering regulations, they are relatively not damaging economically. I listened carefully to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), and I agree that it is disappointing that we have moved away from a model where the Government lay out the evidence and the arguments and allow people to make their own decisions. That was a big choice that the Government made last year, and I am very disappointed that they have moved away from it. Weighing against that—this was set out very clearly by the Chairman of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), a distinguished former public health Minister—is that at least those regulations have quite a tight expiry date, and they will expire in three weeks’ time. Although I do not like the move back to mandating, I am prepared on this occasion—balancing up the pressures, and because there is an expiry date—not to oppose the regulations, but I will not support them either.
On the self-isolation regulations, I am afraid to say that I am much more concerned, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, for two reasons. First, while Ministers have been clear that the regulations will be reviewed in three weeks—I will press the Minister on what we might learn in those three weeks—the regulations are not time limited; they amend another set of regulations that do not have an expiry date until March next year. Although the Minister tells me that they will not be enforced for a day longer than necessary, she must recognise that, given the events of the past few weeks and how Ministers handled, among other things, the standards measures, there has been a diminution in trust between Back Benchers and Ministers. Ministers must work hard to rebuild that trust. Having open-ended statutory instruments that do not expire for many months—when they are telling us that the measures only need to be in place for a few weeks—is not, I say respectfully to the Minister, how to build that trust.
Secondly, there is the point that my hon. Friend made. Let us remember that we are making the law, which should always be clear, precise and specific so that people know what their legal responsibilities are and what they are not. I am afraid that reference in the regulations to people who are “suspected” or “confirmed” as having the omicron variant, with no detail about what that is, is simply not good enough. I was trying to be genuinely helpful to the Minister when I intervened on her. I wanted to give her the opportunity to set out in her opening remarks—and I hope she will do so in her closing remarks—how the Government determine whether someone has the suspected omicron variant and what measures have been taken in terms of the scripts that are used by NHS Test and Trace, the information provided to people whom it contacts, the training that staff undergo, and, indeed, whether the app is to be changed to deal with the new regulatory approach. I am afraid that nothing in the regulations that I have seen gives me any confidence that those matters have been properly thought through. Despite what the Minister may or may not say at the Dispatch Box, the law should be clear in the regulations, and it simply is not. On that basis—how the regulations are drafted—I will oppose them.
Mindful of your instructions, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have only a couple more points. When I said that I was worried that the regulations would trigger a new pingdemic, it was picked up in a number of publications. Politico’s London Playbook, which is much read in the Westminster village, said that a Government insider, trying to allay concerns about a pingdemic, had argued that, because people no longer check into restaurants or pubs, they will not be contacted by NHS Test and Trace. They said that contact tracers are really only interested in catching contacts of cases coming into the country on planes. If that is true, I would suggest that the £30,000 million-odd we spend on Test and Trace is not terribly useful. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed at the Dispatch Box whether what that Government insider has said is Government policy.
It has also been reported in the Financial Times that officials in the Department of Health and Social Care are drawing up contingency plans to require masks in many indoor settings, with a possible work-from-home order over Christmas. Apparently, these plans are being worked on by officials. Will the Minister confirm whether officials are working on such contingency plans? If they are not working on them under instructions from Ministers, can she, as a Minister, instruct them to stop working on such contingency plans and focus on the Government’s actual policies?
My final point is the one that I made yesterday. Ministers have said that they will review the measures in three weeks’ time, as of yesterday. That would be 20 December, when the House will have risen for the Christmas recess—I touched on this in my intervention on the Opposition spokesman. If any of the measures are to be extended, or if further measures are to be brought in, it would be unacceptable for Ministers to do it by decree, which is effectively what the Minister at the Dispatch Box did with these two orders. They should be brought forward to this House for a debate in advance of their coming in. If we have to sit in the days running up to Christmas, so be it. Many people in this country work over the Christmas period in many industries serving the public. We are better paid than most of those people, so if we have to come here and do our jobs, working on behalf of the public, to scrutinise the laws that affect their lives, then I for one am very happy to do so. It would be a failure of the responsibilities that Ministers have if they do not seek to keep the House sitting or recall it if they wish to take those powers. Ministers are accountable to the House and to our constituents through us, and they would be wise never to forget it.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I refer to the declarations that I have made relating to the Covid Recovery Group.
I am especially pleased to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), with whom I agree. I will try to elaborate on some of the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who made a particularly brilliant speech.
My starting point is that today’s debate is not really about the incremental inconvenience of the mandating of face masks. I repeatedly chose to wear one on the train recently when it was not mandatory to do so, but that is not the point today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West implied, the issue is that we are taking away the public’s right to choose what they do, based on flimsy and uncertain evidence. We do not know the extent to which this new variant will escape the vaccines and we do not know how harmful it would be. This debate goes to the heart of the nature of the society that we are creating.
The hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) talked about the harm principle. I entirely endorse the idea that our liberty should be constrained by the harm that we do, but in an intervention my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West made the point about flu: now that we have got the case fatality rate down to a comparable level with that of flu, we should be living with coronavirus like we live with flu. As my hon. Friend asked, are we going to manage other diseases like this?
Let me turn to the point that I really want to flesh out. The Government’s approach seems to be to say, “Better safe than sorry. You can’t be too careful.”. The trouble is that we really can be too careful. There is a problem that I call tunnel vision and my friend, Professor Paul Dolan from the London School of Economics, calls situational blindness, whereby we end up looking only at the disease. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester has set out brilliantly the harm that will be done to children. I cannot begin to understand the psychological harm to children of being in masks all the time; we cannot go back and repeat the experience of a missed nativity play, and so on.
The economic cost of the coming pingdemic will be huge. Only today, the problems that Virgin Atlantic will have were on the front page—and fleshed out in the business section—of The Daily Telegraph. If the Government keep going down this path in these circumstances, when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean said, the disease is going to be endemic and we must learn to live with it, and if we panic every time that there is a new variant—and there will be new variant after new variant—we will make entire sections of our society uninvestable, such as airlines, hospitality and tourism—many of the things that give us joy, hope and something to look forward to.
Where is the hope from the Government? I know young people who are demoralised and depressed, and who have been telling me that we will go back into lockdown, and I have been saying, “No, because the vaccines are working and I do not believe that Conservative Ministers will do this to us”, but we have already started to see the scope creep, the mission creep, and the goalposts perhaps being slightly unshackled from the ground, ready to be moved.
Today’s debate is not about face coverings or the coming pingdemic through self-isolation measures. It is about how we react and the kind of nation and civilisation that we are creating in the context of this new disease. What is the relationship between the state and the individual? Are we to be empty vessels or mere automata—things to be managed, as if a problem? Or are we free spirits with, for want of a better term, a soul? We are free spirits with a soul—people who deserve the dignity of choice and the meaning in our lives that comes from taking responsibility. It is possible that meaning in our lives comes from little else. This is a fundamental choice between heading towards heaven and heading towards hell. If we continue to react to these fears and uncertainties by taking the authoritarian course, without impact assessments—because the regulations are only temporary, you know—we are embarked on that downward course.
Even loneliness shortens lives. Again, Paul Dolan has been very clear with me that loneliness cuts lives short, and yet we find an official going beyond Government policy to say that we should not have unnecessary socialising. The most extraordinary set of choices are being taken because of an overwhelming, narrow focus on the one issue of coronavirus. It falls on Ministers to provide the lead, the breadth of thinking, the vision and the values to set out what broad kind of society we are trying to create. Where are we going as a society and civilisation? What will be our redemption and salvation? How will we provide that hope for our future? I believe that it will be by having faith in one another. The public are not fools. We are not here to govern idiots. I have faith in the British public that they can choose for themselves to do the right thing: to wear a mask when it is sensible, to pay attention to the level of cases, to choose for themselves whether they go to a restaurant, and, indeed, to choose whether they visit vulnerable relations in care homes—I could tell a sad story about that point.
Before I finish, I need to put on the record one constituency case. I have a 75-year-old constituent who is stranded in South Africa, with flights out of the country cancelled. He has a pre-existing anxiety disorder and will run out of medication in a matter of days. He is struggling to find accommodation, and now has to find a local source of new prescription medication. If that man is suffering for the greater good, let my hon. Friend the Minister say so. The rights of individuals really matter; justice is about how individuals are treated. Yes, of course we should care about overall social outcomes, but the rights of individuals really matters, and how we treat those people really matters. That man matters. He should not be stuck in South Africa. He planned to go there and come back, and his plans have been cut short, causing him immense suffering.
There is no plausible path set out before us that leads to a genuine public health emergency, yet the Government are choosing to react in this way. As a result, I am afraid that the Government are choosing that downward path towards, frankly, hell—the hell of minute management of our lives by edict, with nothing that we can do about it and not even a say in advance in Parliament—and, incredibly, a clear majority of this House is going along with it. Some of us today have to take a decision to vote no to everything. I, for one, intend to chart a course towards heaven, and I hope that hon. Members will come with me.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow such a powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker).
Today’s debate is fundamentally about uncertainty—uncertainty about omicron. It looks spooky, and it seems to be out-performing other variants in Africa. Why? Who knows. We do not know whether it is going to be more harmful or less harmful; we just do not know.
The problem with these restrictions is also uncertainty. Their direct effect is certainly not trivial. They are going to batter the international travel sector, which has already taken an absolute battering over the past two years. They will yet again have a disproportionate impact on children, when we see the collapse of bubbles in schools because of omicron and our children having to wear face masks at disproportionately high rates compared to adults; yet again, children are going to be the most affected. Sadly, that has been the story of the pandemic thus far.
The real harm from these restrictions is the, “Here we go again.” That is how I felt when the 5 pm press conference on a Saturday was announced again. In the click of a finger, I was back to 2020. I think that everyone at home watching was starting to worry and think, “What is going to come next? Here we go—is this the start of the ratchet again, moving monotonously and inexorably towards higher and increasing restrictions?”. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) was exactly right when he said that it is this chilling effect that does, and is doing, the most harm.
Immediately, I started thinking, “Shall we hold off on ordering the booze for my 40th birthday party in a couple of weeks? Shall we just wait and see what happens?”. There are stories of countless events that we already anticipate will be cancelled, thinking, “Let’s hold off on making clear arrangements about seeing our parents at Christmas” and “Let’s just hold off on ordering the goose or the turkey”. All this has a snowballing impact.
I remember, as I think many people do, when it was just three weeks to flatten the curve. Heaven forbid that because of this chilling effect, people at home say to themselves, “You know what, actually? That lump I found? Let’s not bother the GPs. They’re too busy—too much to deal with, with covid.”. That is a serious and severe concern.
There is a final uncertainty that gives me the most trouble: how much we will really know in three weeks’ time. We know that it takes three weeks to get from infection to hospitalisation and three weeks from hospitalisation to get to death. We have only just started finding our domestic omicron cases. Will we really know from our domestic data in three weeks’ time what on earth omicron looks like: what it is doing, how transmissible it is, and the impact it is having on our NHS? Can we really compare international data with ours? We have had a phenomenal vaccine roll-out. We celebrate the impact of our vaccine roll-out and the booster: it is far better than many other nations’. Are we really comparable in those terms, whatever data ends up coming out across the world? I am really uncertain that we will know in three weeks’ time what is going to happen and what our next steps, if anything, should be.
In the face of the uncertainty that all of us are feeling, where can we find confidence? I would argue: here. Here is where the public find confidence, because they see us standing here debating and scrutinising, raising their points and concerns, chewing over in the most minute detail the SIs that are coming forward, and challenging the Minister on why we are doing what we are doing—having a great debate across the House on these issues. They see this and they have confidence that whatever we do in going forward, and whatever impact we are having on people’s day-to-day lives, we have scrutinised it—that we are here representing them and making sure that we make the best possible decisions.
We have some big decisions to take in three weeks and I do worry about what is going to happen then. Will the data from omicron be bad, will it be good, or will it be “not sure”? Parliament must be able to debate this, being recalled if necessary or, better yet, not going into recess until we have the data so that we know what our next steps should or should not be. For me, in terms of ending uncertainty, I would be grateful if the Minister gave certainty that Parliament will have its say whatever happens in two or three weeks’ time in terms of our response to the omicron variant or wider variants that may pop up between now and then.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
It is pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I thank them for their fantastic leadership on this issue.
I want to develop one point specifically: I believe that Government must take a balanced view. I accept the argument made by various people, including the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), that the precautionary principle is good. I think we can be criticised for potentially not acting quickly enough at the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, but overreaction is not good. We have had a damaging obsession with a very narrow view of what we perceive to be health. The poorer you are and the younger you are in this society, the higher the price you have paid, and that is not acceptable.
I look at this debate and this motion in the context of some dreadful forecasts and dreadful assessments that have driven Government’s nervousness. I want to explore them and put them on record because I believe it is in the public interest, but I do so within the terms of the motion. I want to look particularly at Imperial College and Professor Ferguson. I have a great deal of respect for them and I will be careful how I phrase this, but I am concerned that some of the forecasting we have had has had a track record in, frankly, getting it wrong repeatedly. In 2001, Professor Ferguson predicted 150,000 human deaths from foot-and-mouth; under 200 died. In 2002, he predicted between 50 and 50,000 deaths from BSE; in the end, 177 died. In 2005, he said that 150 million people could be killed by bird flu; 282 died. In 2009, a Government estimate based on his advice said that a “reasonable worst-case scenario” for swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths; in the end, 457 people died. I am happy to be corrected on any of those points, but that is the publicly available information.
Moving forward to covid, Ferguson predicted 85,000 deaths in Sweden; in fact, 6,000 Swedes have died. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, said in September 2020:
“We looked at the”
Imperial
“model and we could see that the variables that were put into the model were quite extreme...Why did you choose the variables that gave extreme results?
I love experts—don’t get me wrong; I know we sometimes have our issues with them—but it is helpful if they are right, if only very occasionally. Johan Giesecke, Sweden’s former chief epidemiologist, said that Ferguson’s models were “not very good”. The Washington Post quoted Giesecke as saying that Imperial’s forecasts were “almost hysterical”. This is the forecasting that has been, in part, driving Government action.
In this country, oncology professor Angus Dalgleish, in this country, described Ferguson’s modelling as “lurid predictions”. He said that Ferguson and his colleagues were getting it “spectacularly wrong”. He said:
“Unfortunately, we have a Sage committee advising a government that is devoid of any scientific expertise, on speculative concepts such as the R number”—
which we now all know is the reproductive rate—
“and the need for everyone to stay indoors, even though the evidence strongly suggests that people are less likely to catch Covid-19 outside.”
So some of the scientific evidence may have actually driven the rising covid rates in the same way that going into hospital may have been the place that people caught covid and died from it.
Viscount Ridley has criticised Ferguson’s modelling. Lund University has applied Ferguson’s models and found a massive difference between his predictions and what actually happened. Professor Michael Thrusfield from Edinburgh University said that Ferguson’s previous modelling of foot-and-mouth was “severely flawed”.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in highlighting the predictions that are wrong, but the unfortunate thing is that politicians then jump on to them and quote them. For example, the Health Minister in Northern Ireland, on the basis of Mr Ferguson’s predictions, talked about deaths “of biblical proportions” and scared the life out of people.
Bob Seely
The hon. Gentleman makes the point most eloquently. Politicians then become fearful. They think, “What if the worst-case scenario is right?”, and lose faith in more balanced predictions.
John Ioannides from Stanford University said of Ferguson’s modelling that
“major assumptions and estimates that are built in the calculations seem to be substantially inflated”.
He is a serious customer, Professor Ferguson, and Imperial has an impeccable reputation. I pay respect, overall, to their work, and I do not seek to criticise for the sake of it; I want to highlight that bad forecasting and bad modelling drives bad Government decisions that then become illiberal and intolerant of other people who have more balanced views.
More recently, in July 2021, Ferguson predicted 100,000 cases, saying that it was “almost inevitable”. Yet we got nowhere near there. The US forecaster Nate Silver, who is very good at predicting US elections, said:
“I don’t care that the prediction is wrong, I’m sure this stuff is hard to predict. It’s that he’s consistently so overconfident.”
The political scientist Professor Philip Tetlock agreed with Nate Silver, adding:
“Expect even top forecasters to make lots of mistakes…When smart forecasters are consistently over-confident, start suspecting”
other factors in play, such as
“publicity or policy-advocacy games”.
I make no such allegations.
More recently, I understand that this summer Professor Ferguson predicted upwards of 100,000 cases. They topped at just over 30,000. In an interview with The Times, the good professor said that his prediction was off because the football messed up his modelling. That for me comes to the essence of the problem with forecasting. When someone can predict 100 million deaths and no one dies but someone gets a sore thumb, they can say mitigations were taken by Government. When a forecaster’s work becomes verifiable, we can see when he predicts and gets it wrong. When that forecast comes up against reality, reality kicks in and makes a fool of the forecast and sometimes, sadly, a fool of the forecaster. Every time Professor Ferguson’s forecasts have been verifiable, they have been seen to be very badly flawed, and this is a serious man and a serious university.
To sum up, if we look at the forecasts made about covid, just like the forecasts for so many other things, reality changes those forecasts and very often undermines their credibility, so we need another set of factors to guide us. Members on the Opposition Benches and on this side have said we need principles. We need a precautionary principle, but we need a sense of balance so that we do not overstep the mark, damage our society, damage our young people and damage poorer people by seeking to control when we need to learn to live with this. My final question to the Minister is: will the Government look into forecasting and perhaps hold an inquiry into the success of forecasting and what we can learn from it, so that we do it less badly in future?
Finally, going from the theoretical to the very practicable, and on a point related to the Isle of Wight, we are not getting the boosters in the Riverside Centre. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) raised a specific point about his constituency, and in the same way, will the Minister please look at getting more booster jabs to the Isle of Wight and our Riverside Centre?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The last contribution before the Minister responds is from Dr Andrew Murrison.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I record my interest as a practising doctor. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) that there appears to be a problem with the availability of slots for vaccinations, and that was before the Government announced this week that we were to expedite the booster programme. I am concerned about that, and I hope the Minister, who has commented briefly on that already, can confirm she has a cunning plan to ensure that people who need to be vaccinated are vaccinated and in particular that those vaccines reach the elderly and the vulnerable. At the moment, I have severe concerns about the availability of those slots, if not the vaccines themselves.
I will be supporting SI No. 1340 today on face coverings. I am mindful that we have to rely on the best available evidence. The evidence for a lot of these non-pharmaceutical interventions is more common-sense than actual. It seems to me to be a minor imposition to ask people to wear a face mask, particularly given the evidence published by The BMJ last week on this matter, which we have referred to already. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) in particular spoke about it.
I am more concerned about SI No. 1338 for two reasons. While SI No. 1340 expires on 20 December—or, at least, Ministers can decide whether to continue it on that date—there is no such luxury contained within SI No. 1338. That seems to be illogical. When pressed earlier, I regret to say that the Minister, who was very good at taking interventions from hon. and right hon. Members, did not address that point. She needs to explain to my satisfaction, and that of other Members, why 20 December stands in SI No. 1340, but it is 24 March for SI No. 1338. It seems that there is an appetite in the House to return here, if necessary, to reconfirm or refute the need for these measures to continue into the new year. I hope that the Minister has heard that loud and clear.
I for one would be more than happy to be here well past the time at which we rise, and right up to Christmas if necessary, and the reason for that is this: the things we have been discussing today touch heavily on the liberties and livelihoods of our constituents. These things are not trivial; they are of vital importance, and all actions have consequences. I am worried about things like this because of the messaging it gives off. It will be very difficult for businesses deciding whether to invest. They will look at SI No. 1338 and think, “Good gracious me, this will go on and on and on.” While they have been happy to go along with some of the impositions that we have had over the past 18 months, they are now coming to the point where they are thinking, “This could basically be the new normal. This will go on and on, and on what basis will we continue to invest in our businesses if every few months we have these kinds of things and goodness knows what else that may follow?” I am worried about that.
I am also deeply worried, as other hon. and right hon. Members have pointed out, about this “suspected of” bit. That seems to me to be rather clumsy and I am not comfortable with it. Presumably, anybody showing any coronavirus symptoms could be “suspected of” having the omicron variant.
The World Health Organisation touched on a potential solution to that at the weekend, which is the Thermo Fisher PCR test. I assume that it relies on the detection of the S-gene dropout that has been referred to, which could expedite the diagnosis of omicron as opposed to straightforward coronavirus. I wonder whether the Minister could reflect on that and say whether her understanding is that such a test would be the basis on which we would decide whether somebody was suspected of having it, because that could shorten the length of time that people are required to be out of action and might make No. 1338 slightly more palatable for those of us who have concerns about it.
I disagree with some hon. Members about what will change in three weeks’ time, because I think a great deal will change, as a number of international authorities have made clear. Indeed, the doctor who first found the variant, Angelique Coetzee, seemed to be of that view in her upbeat assessment of how it is affecting her patients, as is Dr Anthony Fauci, the adviser to the President of the United States. Many international authorities are saying that in two weeks’ time, we should be a lot further along the journey of understanding how the variant behaves.
That makes sense because, in two weeks’ time, if the variant is a problem, we will presumably see an uptick in hospitalisation at least among the vulnerable population. It is wrong to suggest that everybody in South Africa is young and vibrant; of course it has its fair share of elderly, vulnerable and frail people and of people with comorbidities. In two weeks, I expect there will be at least some indication of whether it will be a problem. We should also keep in mind that it might be part of the salvation, rather than the problem, because we do not know how the virus will behave. Some viruses mutate downwards and others mutate upwards. We must hope for the former not the latter, but at the moment we simply do not know, which is the basis of my support for No. 1340.
There is an assumption that perhaps southern Africa is not sophisticated in healthcare terms, but I gently make the point that the Republic of South Africa certainly is sophisticated. It has been the victim of its own generosity in having invested heavily in sequencing. It is a bit like the UK in relation the Kent variant: if we look, we will find. We need to be careful about suggesting that other healthcare economies are not up to spec, because I do not think that is necessarily the case for South Africa.
I also observe that yesterday, 25 deaths were attributed to covid-19 in South Africa and the seven day average is 35 deaths. Many of us are captivated by the covid graphs; I check them daily. I confess that I do not generally obsess about South Africa, but recent events have made one focus on its graph, which is bumping along the bottom. We are in no way seeing a wave as yet, although we may yet do so, but we need to be careful about suggesting it will be a major problem, as Angelique Coetzee and others have been.
The Government are right to be cautious—of course they are—but we also need a sense of proportion. We need to understand that everything we do in this place with regard to regulation has a consequence for liberty and livelihoods, for the economy in general and for young people in particular. I made that point in connection with the apparent suggestion of the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) that it was a no-cost measure. We need to be careful about the impact that it all has on young people and especially on mental health.
Bob Seely
Does my right hon. Friend share my frustration that we have all these charts about covid, but we have never had them in context—how many people are born, how many people die, how many people die of flu, how many people die of other illnesses—so we have become fixated by something when there are many other causes of death in this country that, frankly, claim many more people, and by taking this out of context we create unnecessary fear?
Dr Murrison
Yes, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The point about that is of course that the national health service at the moment is running very fast to catch up because for the past 18 months, necessarily, it has not been doing a lot of the elective work in particular that it would have wanted to do. That is actually going to be a problem, I think, for years to come. What I would say is that there seems to me to be very little likelihood of our NHS being overwhelmed this winter. There are always pressures at this time of the year, and an overwhelmed NHS was the absolute cornerstone of Government policy towards this particular public health emergency at the start. Those things are not there now, and I think that we just need to contextualise a lot of what is going on.
Of course we need to reduce the number of admissions to the NHS, particularly to ITUs, for covid-19. It is a huge burden for the NHS, and it prevents us from doing other things, but we are certainly not in the position now that we were in this time last year. So while I will certainly be supporting No. 1340, I am afraid that I will not be able to support the Government in respect of No. 1338, because of the lack of a sunset provision similar to that enjoyed by No. 1340 and also because I am very concerned about “suspected of” and what that might mean in terms of a chilling effect on schooling, the economy, liberty and livelihood.
Maggie Throup
I am pleased to bring this wide-ranging debate to a close. We are now almost two years on from when this virus first emerged in Wuhan. Since then, science and disease have been locked in a battle for ascendancy. For the last year, science has been on top as the global effort on vaccines has dramatically reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death for those who catch covid-19, but we know from the history of previous diseases that they mutate and change, so that vaccinations and treatments become less effective. That is why only one disease, smallpox, has been eradicated, although we are close to eliminating polio, too.
The virus is fighting back, and we must respond. To those who say that the regulations we have debated—the reintroduction of face coverings in some settings and self-isolation requirements for close contacts—are an imposition on our liberties, I agree, but they are a necessary imposition to slow the spread of a new variant and allow science to catch up. However, there is a balance to be struck. Too many restrictions have a crippling effect on social and economic life, as well as adding to the burden of mental illness. For those who say that the regulations we have debated are not enough, I say that they will buy us time to understand this new variant better. That is why they will be reviewed in three weeks’ time.
We will continue to closely monitor all the emerging data on the new variant. We have committed to review all of the measures in three weeks’ time, ahead of the face coverings regulations expiring. Restrictions will not be in place any longer than necessary. We do need to learn to live with this virus, but it is right, in the face of a potential threat, to take balanced and proportionate measures, and we will continue to closely monitor all the emerging data on the new variant. Overall, I would like to reiterate that this will be a moving picture over the coming weeks. We will get a better idea of its nature in the next couple of weeks. Its transmission advantage, vaccine escape and severity of infection are some of the things we are looking at as we observe how the variant develops in southern Africa and the rest of the world, too. Alongside that, the scientists will continue to study it in the lab, but it will be several weeks before we get a clear picture. The most important thing is that the world keeps sharing information and findings as new cases emerge. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for raising an inconsistency in our explanatory memorandum at paragraph 12.3. For clarity, I will read out the section as it was intended:
“Furthermore, the policy will be supported by a communications campaign that will make clear that some people are exempt from these regulations and people should not be challenged by members of the public for not wearing the face regulation.”
I trust that that reassures my hon. Friend on the matter and on the seriousness with which the Government take supporting those who are exempt from these requirements. I will be working with officials to rectify this.
With respect to omicron-positive cases, NHS Test and Trace will work with the positive case and/or their parent to identify close contacts. Contacts from a school setting will only be traced by NHS Test and Trace where the positive case and/or their parents specifically identify the individual as being a close contact. There is likely to be a small number of individuals who will be most at risk of contracting covid-19 due to the nature of the close contact. I reiterate that the direct contact will be by NHS Test and Trace, rather than via the covid app.
My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) talked about suspected cases. My right hon. Friend hit the nail on the head: many of the laboratories processing the PCR tests will be able to test for the S-gene dropout and that will give a very good indication of cases of the omicron variant. While it does not provide 100% confirmation, we can get that information very quickly and at the same time the test result is reported and that is ahead of any genomic sequencing.
Maggie Throup
I want to continue as many points have been raised and I was very generous in giving way when opening the debate.
A debate on this subject would not be complete without the Opposition spokesman asking about financial support for those in self-isolation. I reassure the Opposition spokesman that anyone who is legally required to self-isolate as a contact or positive case will be able to apply for a test and trace support payment or practical support such as the medicines delivery service if they meet the normal eligibility criteria. The latest figures show that almost 363,000 people have received a test and trace payment since the scheme began, and over £180 million has been paid out. The help is there.
We have set out proportionate and balanced measures which do not include limiting socialising. It is the Government who set policy and guidance, which is what the public should follow. The Secretary of State updated the House yesterday on the changes to the JCVI guidance for boosters and the NHS will be issuing instructions on how that guidance should be operationalised shortly.
These regulations are precautionary and proportionate, helping to safeguard the gains made by our fantastic vaccination programme, which has seen almost 18 million people across the UK get a booster jab already. The Government have acted rapidly and reasonably to ensure that science retains the upper hand in the struggle with the virus and I commend these SIs to the House.
Question put.
Opposition Day
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:26 - The House divided: - Ayes: 214 / Noes: 320 - Question accordingly negatived.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before the debate begins, I have to remind Members that, as “Erskine May” says:
“Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. Parliamentary language is never more desirable than when a Member is canvassing the opinions and conduct of his opponents in debate.”
The reason why that matters in this particular debate and does not really occur in other debates is that this debate is on a substantive motion directly relating to the conduct of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson).
In this debate, because it is on a substantive motion of this kind, arguments intended to criticise or defend that conduct are in order. Therefore things may be said that the Chair would not normally permit in other proceedings. However, those speaking in favour of the motion should set out their arguments clearly. Intemperate abuse is as out of order on this motion as much as on any other.
I am quite sure the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) will already have borne in mind all that I have just said.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House censures the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, for frequently violating the sixth Principle of Public Life, for seeking to undermine the recommendations of the Standards Committee on Owen Paterson, for regularly ignoring independent advice on matters such as international treaties and breaches of the Ministerial Code by his ministers, for putting forward proposals to diminish the powers of the Electoral Commission, for ignoring independent advice concerning the granting of peerages to Conservative party donors and nominations to public bodies such as Ofcom; and further calls for his ministerial salary to be reduced by £41,567 per year.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your guidance to the House on conduct in this debate. I am sure you will want to join me in wishing everyone a happy St Andrew’s Day.
Ian Blackford
Happy St Andrew’s Day to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to all hon. and right hon. Members.
The Scottish National party tabled this motion of censure against the Prime Minister because we believe in a very basic principle, and we believe the public do, too: those in power deserve to face consequences for their disastrous actions, and they need to be held to account.
The charge sheet against the Prime Minister is, indeed, damning. In the past few weeks alone, he ripped up anti-lobbying rules when one of his own was found guilty, he is attempting to restrict the right to judicial review and he is seeking to undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission. But it did not start there, and it definitely does not end there.
Since coming into office a little over two years ago, the Prime Minister has been up to his neck in scandals involving cash for honours, cash for contracts, texts for tax breaks and even cash for curtains. As the motion states, he is constantly breaking the sixth principle of public life, the duty to be truthful.
Month after month, scandal after scandal, the charge sheet gets longer and longer, but not a single person is held to account. If the public are to have confidence in this place, that needs to change, and it needs to change today. Because unless the Prime Minister faces consequences—unless he is censured—he will not just think he has gotten away with the mess he has made over the last few months; he will think he will be able to do it over and over again. Let us be very clear: if the Prime Minister is not properly censured today, it will also be final proof that the Tories really do believe that its one rule for them and one rule for everybody else.
I remind Conservative Members that we have all been witness to events over the past number of weeks. They might want to forget what has happened, but the public definitely have not. The Tories marched through the Lobby—
Ian Blackford
I will give way in due course. The Tories marched through the Lobby to undermine our parliamentary standards process, to tear up the rule books, all in order to protect a friend of the Prime Minister who was found to have broken the rules. This whole sorry episode showed this Parliament at its very worst—and, trust me, that is saying something. The Government Chief Whip and the Leader of the House are easy scapegoats, but we all know that this was orchestrated by a Prime Minister who thinks he is untouchable, who thinks he can do as he pleases. This is a Prime Minister who thinks he can change the rules at will and who believes that if the rules become inconvenient, they can simply be changed. So the question stands today: how much does it really take for Tory MPs to say enough is enough?
How far standards have fallen is shown by the fact that the charges I have made against the Prime Minister are not even in dispute—they are all matters of public record. The Prime Minister has even admitted that in managing these scandals he personally
“crashed the car into the ditch”.
It tells us all we need to know, though, that he did not even have the decency to admit that in the House of Commons. He only felt the need to admit his mistakes and apologise to his Back Benchers in the Tory 1922 committee, and it was only because they were muttering about mutiny. I am not sure that apology counts if he only did it to try to save his own skin.
But no matter how much the Prime Minister tries to publicly wash his hands of responsibility for his actions, the public have already cast their verdict. The Tories may be sliding in the polls, but it is as nothing compared to the hammering the Prime Minister is taking in the court of public opinion. In the last week, his approval ratings have hit an all-time low, and there is one only simple reason behind it: the public know that that the Prime Minister is at the rotten core of all these scandals.
A natural comparison has been drawn with the Major Government in the early 1990s, but even that comparison fails to properly get to the scale of corruption that has occurred, much of it in plain sight. The difference between this Prime Minister and John Major was that Major took action to address the sleaze and corruption. This Prime Minister is at the centre of the sleaze and corruption—he is orchestrating much of it. I am afraid corruption is the only proper word—the only honest word—for what has been going on. As I said at the weekend, the Leader of the Opposition—I do wonder where Opposition Members are—is now very fond of repeating the line that when it comes to the Prime Minister
“the joke isn’t funny anymore”.
But in truth it was never funny, and we are all now living with the consequences of having a man like this in Downing Street.
It is also important to reflect on just how damaging recent weeks and months have been to the public’s faith in politics. Because each and every one of these scandals erodes standards, erodes trust and ultimately erodes democracy itself.
In the middle of the Owen Paterson scandal, the Prime Minister said:
“I genuinely believe that the UK is not remotely a corrupt country and I genuinely think that our institutions are not corrupt.”
The problem for the Prime Minister is that the public disagree with him: a recent Savanta ComRes poll found that 54% of those asked thought that the UK Government were corrupt. If the Prime Minister wants to know why, he has only to look in the mirror.
In the eyes of the public this is a UK Government who have normalised sleaze and are now trying to normalise corruption. This is the Tory Government’s attempt at a new normal in which no one is held responsible, no one is held to account and no one ever—not ever—resigns. That is exactly why consequences are so important and why this censure motion matters: it can only ever become a new normal if we all put up with it. [Interruption.] This is a debate that matters to people in the United Kingdom. We can hear the behaviour and the catcalling of Government Members and it sums up the attempt to shut down democracy and our right to raise these important matters in this House.
A new normal becomes possible only if we do not hold the Government to account and do not make them answer for their actions. I genuinely ask Government Members, if they have any interest in maintaining some dignity and decency in public life, finally to hold the Prime Minister to account and censure him for his abuse of power.
Let me take one example of that abuse of power: the cash-for-honours scandal. Fifteen of the Tory party’s main treasurers who happened to hand over £3 million to the party were somehow given life peerages in the House of Lords, as if by magic. Twenty-two of the Tory party’s top financial backers all happen to have been given peerages since 2010. In total, this group has stuffed Tory party coffers with £54 million— [Interruption.] “Hear, hear!” That sums it up. The Conservatives see it as a virtue that if someone gives multimillion pounds to the Conservative party, they end up in the House of Lords. My goodness! What price democracy?
Let us take Lord Cruddas, a leading donor to the Vote Leave campaign who, let us not forget, bankrolled the Prime Minister’s Conservative leadership bid. He personally gave up to £4 million in donations to the Tory party and affiliates. His reward? An ermine robe and a seat in the House of Lords. What is worse is that the Prime Minister personally overruled the House of Lords Appointments Commission that advised against his appointment. That was the very first time that the watchdog’s recommendation has ever been ignored. Three days after Lord Cruddas was introduced to the House of Lords, what happened? He handed £500,000 to Conservative central office. I will gladly give way to anyone on the Tory Benches who wants to stand up and justify that level of sleaze.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I hesitate to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I hope he will be very careful about precisely what he says about any Member of the House of Lords because, of course, any Member of the House of Lords is also a parliamentarian. It is of course in order for the right hon. Gentleman to examine the conduct of the Member who is the subject of the motion, but that does not extend to other Members of Parliament, including those in the Lords.
Ian Blackford
What I am reflecting on is the behaviour of the Prime Minister that puts Members in the House of Lords, when the House of Lords Appointments Commission has ruled against their appointment. I have given the opportunity to anyone on the Tory Benches who wishes to rise to defend the actions of putting Tory donors in the Lords. It is £3 million for a peerage in the House of Lords. What a price to be able to undermine our democracy!
Tommy Sheppard
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. As no Government Member wishes to intervene on him, I wonder whether he might agree with me on this: is it not somewhat ironic that SNP Members demonstrate more probity and more respect for the rule of democracy than does the current Prime Minister, and is this not yet another compelling reason why Scotland should be an independent country, so that we can have a system of governance that is fair, democratic and transparent?
Ian Blackford
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course, he is absolutely correct. We are speaking about the House of Lords. The House of Lords is the second largest parliamentary Chamber in the world. The only Chamber that is bigger is the Communist Congress. My goodness, what an advert for democracy! The fact is that these unelected Lords have a say over our democracy. The juxtaposition—the point that is made by my hon. Friend—is an important one. Today, we are discussing the behaviour of the Prime Minister and why he should be sanctioned. Yet in Scotland, just seven months ago, the people of our country were given the right to have a say in their Government. Crucially, they were given a right to have a say on the future of our country as an independent country, because the SNP made it very clear in that election that it was about a mandate for an independence referendum. Indeed, the Conservatives made it clear that a vote for the Conservatives was a vote to stop Scottish independence, and what happened?
We are talking about democracy and respecting democracy, so let us tell the Conservatives a few harsh truths. In the four elections that we have fought in the Scottish Parliament that we have won, we have increased our vote at every election. We received just short of 48% of the popular vote at that last election. That is a higher share of the vote than any party has had in any election in the United Kingdom for the past 50 years. On the topic of respecting democracy, of respecting the people’s sovereignty, then Boris Johnson must recognise that the Scottish Parliament, where there is a majority for Scottish independence, has the right to call that referendum.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Will the right hon. Gentleman please refer to the Prime Minister as the Prime Minister and not by his name? If he could just re-say that last sentence, I would be so pleased.
Ian Blackford
The point is that the Prime Minister must respect democracy. He denies democracy when he stuffs the Lords with his Tory donor friends, but he must respect democracy when people in Scotland have voted for a Parliament that has a right to call a referendum to take us out of this toxic Union and find a way back for us as an independent country in the European Union.
Mr Goodwill
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He understands, I think, that a debate tends to be a two-way thing and not just a diatribe delivered to the House.
May I politely suggest that, if he wishes to restore confidence in this House, he could have chosen a subject for debate today that was of relevance to the people of Scotland—global warming, education, health—and not this rather lame subject, which, I suspect, is something of no consequence whatsoever to most people working very hard in Scotland.
Ian Blackford
Really, really. We are talking about corruption and sleaze—about a Prime Minister who forces Conservative MPs to go through the Lobby to get one of their own off a charge against parliamentary standards, and who rewards those who give money to the Tory party. That is exactly a subject of importance to the people of Scotland.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
Not only is it an important subject; how the Prime Minister behaves is fundamental to our democracy and to how Parliament works. [Interruption.] We have a Prime Minister who comes to the House and fails to tell the truth. That is fundamental to how our democracy works, so it is more than important—it is fundamental.
Ian Blackford
I agree. I will come to the subject of truth and honesty later in my speech. It is noticeable that when the hon. Lady, who speaks with some authority on these matters, is trying to speak, once again the Conservatives try to shout us down. What a look that is to the people watching this debate.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman is being incredibly kind in giving way, particularly on this subject. I just wondered if he might take the opportunity to update us on the missing donations and the fraud investigation into the First Minister’s husband—your party’s chief executive.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Do not shout at the right hon. Gentleman. We all have to hear his answer. While I am on my feet, I would be grateful if the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) would in future use the word “he” and not “you” when referring to the right hon. Gentleman.
Ian Blackford
Let me respectfully say to Government Members that I will give a guarantee, a promise and a commitment right here and now that all moneys raised by the Scottish National party for the purposes of fighting an independence campaign—every penny—will be spent on independence campaigning, because that is what we are about. There is a big difference in those who fund the SNP and the independence campaign, because—I will make another promise—not one single member of the SNP who gives to us willingly will end up in the House of Lords; they will be funding the SNP and the independence movement to ensure that we deliver on our promise to take Scotland out of this Union.
There is another important point about how deeply damaging all these scandals are. Every day that the Prime Minster spends concentrating on how he will somehow avoid scrutiny is a day not doing the basics of what his job demands. It is also becoming clearer just how damaging and dangerous it is that chaotic governance now defines Downing Street. That would be bad enough in normal times, but it is totally unforgivable in the middle of a pandemic.
In the real world, away from the shambles in No. 10, people are suffering not only from the pandemic, but from a Tory cost-of-living crisis. Inflation is running at 5%. Rising day-to-day costs and rising household bills are the main focus for families. While all the political stories on sleaze have been going on and taking up time at Downing Street, the political decision to cut universal credit has been hitting homes hardest. The shameful cut to universal credit was not just the wrong policy; it came at the worst possible time for families this winter. We are left with a UK Government who are not only up to their necks in sleaze, but hitting families at the same time. In Scotland, I am proud that we have a First Minister who understands the pressures that family finances are under, and a Government who listen and respond. I am proud that at the very same time that the Westminster Government are cutting universal credit by £20 a week, the SNP Scottish Government are raising the Scottish child payment by £20 a week.
One of the public’s real angers about these scandals is the deep dishonesty that has been so openly on display. The truth and the Prime Minister have always been strangers. I say that in sadness and not in any anger. Let me just take a few examples. On 4 March 2020, the Prime Minister said:
“We have restored the nurses’ bursary”.—[Official Report, 4 March 2020; Vol. 672, c. 829.]
That was completely and factually untrue. On 17 June 2020, the Prime Minister said that there were
“400,000…fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010.”—[Official Report, 17 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 796.]
Both the Office for National Statistics and the Children’s Commissioner have confirmed that that is false. On 7 November 2019, the Prime Minister told Northern Ireland businesses, in person, that the protocol would mean
“no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind”—
once again, completely untrue. It is right to be careful in terms of the language that we use in this House, but when it comes to language it is also right to be accurate and honest. On the basis of all the evidence, I can only conclude that the Prime Minister has repeatedly broken the sixth principle of public life. I can only conclude that the Prime Minister has demonstrated himself to be a liar.
I think there is a misguided sense among those on the Tory Benches that they have gotten past the scandals of the past few weeks. The Prime Minister thinks that, if he blunders on, people might not forgive, but they will forget. Not for the first time, the Tories are badly wrong and badly out of touch, because they just do not get that the depth of anger among the public is very real and is not going away. I know that people in Scotland are looking on at a broken Westminster system that has never felt more remote, more arrogant and more corrupt.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate, and do Conservative Members appreciate, the damage that has been done when to be able to use the word “liar” in this place is now passed as fair comment and accepted, and the damage that that is doing to our democracy?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Let us just be clear about that. It is preferable that such words should not be used in this place but, as I said before the right hon. Gentleman rose to his feet, this is a very specific and particular motion and the right hon. Gentleman is examining the conduct of a Member of this House—indeed, the Prime Minister. Therefore, I cannot stop him from using the word that he has just used. I would prefer it if he put things in different terms, but I do not think that he has strayed past the rules. I think he is perfectly in order. However, it would be better if other Members did not make comments such as those just made by the right hon. Lady because what she said is not actually quite correct. Please, let us just keep it as moderate as possible.
Ian Blackford
I was dealing with the sixth principle of public life. I have laid out for the House three examples—I could have given many more—of where the Prime Minister has not told the truth. I regret, in the context of where we are, that I had to make that point, which is important, because if we undermine honesty and truth in this place, what are we left with? That is why we have brought this motion today and that is what I am asking hon. Members right across this House to reflect on, because there is overwhelming evidence that the Prime Minister has broken that principle of public life. I am asking each and every Member in this House, particularly on the Government Benches, to examine their conscience on the basis of the evidence and think very carefully before they go through the Lobby tonight. The public are angry at what has happened in this place. The public are angry about the Member I mentioned earlier who had been sanctioned by the Standards Commission and who the Prime Minister sought to get off. There will come a time when the public will judge this House and this House should reflect very carefully on that tonight.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly agree that this is an issue of conduct, but it is also a question of leadership. We have a Prime Minister in the middle of a pandemic who has failed to learn. At the beginning of this crisis, he boasted about shaking hands with covid patients; now he is mask-less in a hospital and too weak to tell Members of his own party to put on a mask. We desperately need not just an improvement in conduct, but an improvement in clear communication and leadership from this Prime Minister.
Ian Blackford
I agree with the hon. Member. [Interruption.] Perhaps we should just calm down; there will be opportunities for people to participate in the debate. This issue of leadership and conduct is important. This saddens me, but when we are facing a new variant, and we do not know what the scale of that challenge will be, the obvious thing for everyone to do is to seek to protect themselves, but more importantly to protect others and to lead by example and show leadership. I commend colleagues across the House who are sitting here wearing masks today, but my goodness, there are far too many who still do not get it and do not accept the responsibility they have for each other, and they are even laughing about it as I say that. It comes from the Prime Minister.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Ian Blackford
Let me just carry on for a second, because this is important. The way we conduct ourselves and interact with others is important. I commend the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), for the courtesies she always showed to Opposition parties, for how the protocols were followed and for the way we had a relationship with No. 10. It grieves me that I can tell the House that we as the third party and, I believe, the Leader of the Opposition have no relationship with No. 10. We are disrespected and disregarded by a Prime Minister who does not understand his obligations to public life, and that is yet another example.
Drew Hendry
Is it not telling about how complicit those on the Government Benches are that, when my right hon. Friend was reading out the list of untruths peddled by the Prime Minister, there was deathly silence? The only time they were animated was when my right hon. Friend called it for what it was.
Ian Blackford
I ask Government Members to reflect. Most people in this House are decent people. People come here to provide a public service, and I say to hon. and right hon. Members on the Government Benches that they are being let down, we are being let down and these islands are being let down by a Prime Minister who simply does not know how to behave. On that note, it will be interesting to see how the Scottish Tories vote tonight, and we will be watching. They are a group who never fail to see conspiracy at Holyrood, but somehow always fall deathly silent when it comes to sleaze and corruption overseen by their own Prime Minister.
In truth, this debate is not about the Scottish Tories—I will leave them to explain their own hypocrisy—but what the public expect when standards and rules are so clearly broken by their political representatives. They expect consequences, and they expect censure. Let us also be clear about this: if we fail to censure this Prime Minister today, we will have failed that public duty for accountability. Not only that, but it will reveal something very telling; it will show a Westminster system that is broken beyond repair and a Prime Minister who believes himself to be above the law of the land.
The only comfort I take is that fewer and fewer people in Scotland can possibly look at the broken, corrupt, self-serving Westminster system and conclude that it produces a secure basis for the future of Scotland. We all know that Scotland can do much better than this; we can do better than this broken Westminster system and we can do better than this Prime Minister. We will do so much better when our country chooses independence. I commend the motion in the name of myself and my hon. and right hon. colleagues.
The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
It is a pleasure to start by wishing SNP Members, and the whole House, a happy St Andrew’s Day. It is always an auspicious occasion in the Scottish and British calendar.
I must confess some surprise that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), on this rare opportunity to engage in serious debate with the Government—I have not been to a pantomime in some time—instead opted to launch pantomime season in November, complete with an over-the-top characterisation of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who he clearly wishes would disappear in a puff of smoke. When it comes to fanciful fairy tales, however, the Scottish National party is expert. I venture that neither this House nor the people of the country will appreciate the over-the-top performance, or recognise the absurd depiction of the hugely popular Prime Minister of this country, who returned to the House with an 80-seat majority and who is getting on with the job of building back better.
To take one element of today’s rather long-winded and unfocused motion, improving standards in public life, the Prime Minister has made positive and constructive proposals on the topic in a bid to find cross-party consensus and a way forward. To take another point, the reform of the Electoral Commission, there is nothing in the Government’s plans to reform the regulation of the electoral system that will allow Ministers or Parliament to interfere in the outcome of complaints or investigations, so the motion is also in error in that regard. It is a courtroom tactic in some jurisdictions—not in this country, of course—to throw enough mud that some of it might stick, but I think we know that when we see it.
Michael Ellis
I will give way more than the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, but not yet.
For my part, I relish the opportunity to set a different scene for the House of what the Prime Minister is achieving for the people who returned him to No. 10, many of whom voted Conservative for the first time. At the election, he made a clear commitment to spreading opportunity more fairly and to uniting our country.
Higher skills, higher wages, higher productivity—that is the United Kingdom that the Prime Minister promised to create and is creating, and SNP Members know it. He got Brexit done. Since, he has been using our hard-won freedoms outside the European Union—the catastrophists on the Opposition side do not want to accept it—to serve the interests of the whole precious United Kingdom with policies that encourage innovation and growth throughout the whole United Kingdom and that deliver for the whole United Kingdom.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The Minister is making a good case. Does he find it strange that SNP Members are posing as defenders of democracy when they would not accept the result of the Brexit referendum in the UK or of the Scottish referendum on staying in the Union?
Michael Ellis
SNP Members are fair-weather friends to democracy, which, clearly, they support only when it goes their way.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
Will the Minister give way?
Michael Ellis
I will give way, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will say why the SNP did not choose to debate the vital topic of education in Scotland.
Stewart Hosie
The Minister is speaking dutifully and gushingly about the Prime Minister; he is painting a picture that nobody in the country recognises. For the sake of completeness, perhaps he will explain, if things are going so swimmingly, why Conservative Back Benchers have sent letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee?
Michael Ellis
The right hon. Member’s statement is obviously disproven by the fact that the Prime Minister won an 80-seat majority—the biggest Conservative Government majority since the early 1980s.
The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister is taking care of the people’s priorities, not focusing on the polemics of the SNP. He is looking at what the people care about most—
Michael Ellis
I will give way, and perhaps the hon. Member could answer why it is that the SNP has not chosen to speak about health and the national health service in their precious parliamentary time. [Interruption.]
Kirsten Oswald
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am not sure what he was asking me because, over the noise of his colleagues’ barracking, I could not actually hear him. He may have been asking me why we did not choose devolved topics in the Chamber, and I think that that somewhat answers itself.
The Minister speaks about the people’s priorities. I have to say to him that the people’s priorities are not stuffing the House of Lords with unelected donors and cronies, but worrying how they are going to put food on the table because of the cuts his Government are making to universal credit.
Michael Ellis
This Prime Minister of course takes care of the people’s priorities, looking after what they care about the most and keeping his promises to them, while SNP Members play political games—they are not very good at them either.
This Government are responsible for there being more nurses, more police officers, more money for schools and more money for the pupils in those schools, because people care about their health, they care about their safety and they care about their children’s educations. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is focused on improving our infrastructure, too. He is boosting public services to get us on the road to recovery from the pandemic. What exactly does that look like? It looks like £3.7 billion to build 40 new hospitals, three quarters of them outside London and the south-east; 50,000 more nurses and 20,000 more police officers; and a further £4.7 billion in the core school budget by 2024-25, meaning a total cash increase of £1,500 per pupil by that date compared with 2019-20, so we are actually delivering.
This is not the polemics or the pantomime of the SNP; this Government are delivering. It is not just talk; it is a £36 billion package to reform the national health service and social care, tackling the issues that successive Governments have ducked for decades. Thanks to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, this Government will deliver around £12 billion a year in extra funding for our health and social care services over the next three years. This is in addition to our historic 2018 settlement for the NHS, which will increase its budget by £33.9 billion a year by 2023-24.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Will the Minister give way?
Michael Ellis
I will give way, and perhaps the hon. Member could answer why she is not talking about matters that are more important to the people of this country.
Marion Fellows
I really do thank the Minister for giving way. Can the Minister confirm that he actually understands what devolution means; what matters are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and are debated there; and what matters should be debated here, such as the motion in front of him?
Michael Ellis
This Government have proven they know what the people want of this country, and we did so by the 80-seat majority behind me.
We are rolling out the fastest vaccination programme in Europe, allowing us to live with the covid virus, without significant restrictions on our freedoms. Almost nine in 10 people aged 12 and over have now received a first vaccine dose—that is a huge achievement—with eight in 10 having also received a second dose. The latest data shows that vaccines have saved almost 130,000 lives and prevented over 260,000 hospitalisations.
What else? This Prime Minister has launched our plan for jobs, helping people to get back into work, earn more money and gain the skills that our economy needs. This includes our £2 billion kickstart scheme, which has already got 100,000 young people into work, our £2.9 billion restart scheme, helping over 1 million long-term unemployed people find work, and our lifetime skills guarantee, offering 11 million adults a free qualification. And it is cutting taxes and boosting wages. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) should listen: the fact of the matter is it is cutting taxes, boosting wages and helping working families—
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am slightly confused, because I am struggling to find which points the Minister is making that are in any way relevant to the motion on the Order Paper. [Interruption] Can you guide us?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am awfully sorry but there was a lot of noise; will the hon. Gentleman give me the second part of his point of order again?
Owen Thompson
I am struggling to understand what points the Minister is making that are in any way relevant to the motion on the Order Paper and seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to how we could focus on those issues?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I see what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the content of the Minister’s speech. The Minister is constructing his argument and I am sure he will come to his razor-sharp points very soon.
Michael Ellis
Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, because of course the Scottish National party motion is about the conduct of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I am telling the House and the SNP what the Prime Minister has achieved—his conduct.
Let us look at the infrastructure uplifts: £600 billion into transport and broadband upgrades, including £96 billion for the railways, the biggest investment in our rail network for a century. That is one of the multitude of things that the Prime Minister has delivered—reliable and faster rail journeys across the north and midlands. Thanks to the integrated rail plan, we will build three new high-speed rail lines, electrify or upgrade three existing main lines, improve local services, and integrate them properly with HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, all bringing benefits to passengers 10 to 15 years sooner than under previous plans.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is also investing in our local streets so that we can all feel proud of where we live. Again, let me remind Members where the money is going: £4.8 billion via the levelling-up fund to help regenerate town centres and high streets, upgrade local transport, and invest in cultural and heritage assets; £2.4 billion for 101 towns deals investing in local economies—
Michael Ellis
I gave way last time and it really was not worth it.
There is also the £150-million community ownership fund to protect valued community assets.
In getting Brexit done, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have turned their attention to immigration. The Nationality and Borders Bill will break the cruel business model where criminal gangs exploit.
Ian Blackford
The Minister knows I have some affection for him, and he is doing a marvellous job at deflection, but it is noticeable that there is no attempt to offer a defence of the behaviour of the Prime Minister because, quite simply, there isn’t one.
Michael Ellis
The feeling is mutual but I am defending the conduct of the Prime Minister, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that he has no answer to this large litany of achievement.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
The Minister accuses SNP Members of not having an answer. It is very interesting that the Minister is going through the Conservatives’ programme for Government and manifesto and is making some fairly ambitious claims about what has been achieved, but we are not debating that: we are debating the character of the Prime Minister. Will the Minister focus his remarks on that please?
Michael Ellis
The conduct of the Prime Minister is the subject of the debate, and the conduct of the Prime Minister is the maintenance and running of this Government and that is what he has been achieving.
Going back to the point on immigration, we have seen the tragic consequences in the recent incident off Calais and our thoughts are of course with the families and loved ones.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. For the sake of clarity, we are not debating the character of the Prime Minister; we are debating the conduct of the Prime Minister. That is the subject of the motion.
Michael Ellis
Exactly, Madam Deputy Speaker; thank you.
The principle behind the Bill is that access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers to leave safe countries such as France and Belgium. These are the things that are being delivered, and we have always been clear about the need to do everything we can to prevent people from risking their lives and embarking on these perilous attempts to cross the sea.
Our United Kingdom is the most successful political and economic union the world has ever seen. It is the foundation on which all our businesses and citizens have been able to thrive since 1707. This Government are committed to protecting and promoting its combined strengths, based on those hundreds of years of partnership and shared history.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend is giving lots of examples of how the conduct of the Prime Minister is helping the lives of the British people. One recent such example affecting Scotland in particular was the COP26 summit held in Glasgow. Does he agree that that is an example of how the Prime Minister is putting the priorities of the people first, and of why this debate is a missed opportunity for the Scottish National party to discuss what matters to the people of Scotland?
Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—it is yet another missed opportunity by the Scottish National party.
I remind those on the SNP Benches that this Government are committed to investing and levelling up across Scotland. We are delivering, after all, an average funding boost of £4.6 billion per year through the Barnett formula over the spending review period. That will enable investment in transport, schools, housing, health and social care. That takes the total that Scotland receives in Barnett-based funding to £41 billion per year—an increase of 2.4%—to spend on public services, boost growth and support families with the cost of living. In fact, current public spending per person in Scotland is £1,828 higher than the UK average, while revenue per person is £382 lower.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Jake Berry
One thing that my right hon. and learned Friend has failed to mention and that I am sure he will want to take the opportunity to celebrate is the Government’s Borderlands deal. That sees people from Scotland and the true north—Carlisle in Cumbria, and Northumberland—coming together to invest together across the borders in their community. As the Minister who had the privilege of negotiating that deal, I found it refreshing to see that the border is of no relevance to many people, because they have friends, family and businesses that cross it. With this Government and the devolved Administration in Scotland, they celebrated that partnership along the border, which strengthens not just our United Kingdom but England and Scotland too.
Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, of course. He speaks with the authority of an expert on the subject, and the expertise shows.
What the numbers that I have been citing mean is that every person in Scotland benefits from over £2,000 extra in spending than the UK average. I remind the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber that we have confirmed that we will be providing over £170 million through the levelling-up fund for eight Scottish projects, including the new futuristic aerial roundabout in Falkirk and the redevelopment of Inverness castle, not to mention the £1.5 billion of funding for 12 city and growth deals—they don’t talk about that, Madam Deputy Speaker. That includes over £500 million for Glasgow, backing a deal worth around £1.2 billion—one of the largest in the kingdom—that is set to deliver 29,000 jobs over its lifetime. This Government have been levelling up every part of the country since the day we took office.
Indeed, the pandemic has shown clearly that we are at our strongest when we work together towards a common goal. Through both the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme, we protected over 14.5 million jobs and livelihoods across the United Kingdom. Thanks to the Prime Minister, almost 1.1 million Scottish jobs were protected through the peak of the pandemic, supporting livelihoods across Scotland. The UK Government have supported nearly 100,000 businesses in Scotland—SNP Members do not talk about the businesses—with over £4 billion in loans through the bounce back loan scheme and the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme. It also goes without saying that the UK Government secured access to the covid-19 vaccine for Scotland, saving lives and stopping the spread of the virus.
In conclusion, we continue to make sure that we will use the broad shoulders of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as a platform to unleash and deliver opportunity across the whole of our precious United Kingdom.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) for the Opposition, it might be helpful for colleagues to know that there will be a time limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
A very happy St Andrew’s Day to all in the Chamber.
I take no particular pleasure in debating this motion, but it is, of course, a pleasure to follow the Paymaster General, the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) and the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who opened today’s debate. I have to say that I find it strange to see massed ranks of Conservatives in the Chamber for this debate, when they appeared desperate to flee the Chamber no fewer than two weeks ago for the debate on publishing Owen Paterson’s contracts.
Anneliese Dodds
If the hon. Member is about to justify why he was not here for that debate, I look forward to hearing from him.
Gary Sambrook
Talking of massed ranks, where are all the Labour Members? I saw on Twitter yesterday a graphic that said Labour was back in business. I am not too sure what business, but it is not the business of this House. Is it not the case that the reason they are not here is that they have no plan, no vision and no credibility to run this country?
Anneliese Dodds
I regret that the hon. Member seems terribly confused. I am sorry about that. This is an SNP Opposition day debate. As I will go on to explain, sadly it is his Government who lack a plan and lack, in regard to this motion, the necessary competence and credibility against corruption. If he could answer on those subjects, I would be very grateful, because he was not in the Chamber for the debate on the contracts. He certainly did not speak in it. I suspect he was not willing to do so. Indeed, it seems easier for some to defend the indefensible than to stand up for transparency, probity and the public interest. All I can say is that I really hope, for the sake of Conservative Members in the Chamber, that those in charge of junior ministerial appointments are watching carefully.
Dawn Butler
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that on the Labour Benches we believe that the “Ministerial Code” should be followed, that Ministers should be compelled to come to the House and tell the truth, and that if they do not tell the truth, they should be dealt with as the “Ministerial Code” states they should be. Unfortunately, they are led by the Prime Minister, who is the chief liar in charge.
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will come on to the “Ministerial Code” because it is, sadly, highly relevant to this debate given the appalling way in which it has been treated by the Conservative Government. Indeed, the overall Conservative attitude, that rules simply do not apply to this Prime Minister or his Government, is genuinely dragging our politics through the gutter. I see that the motion references the sixth principle of public life—honesty—but I would have referenced the other principles too: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness and leadership. On those principles, the current Prime Minister is, unfortunately, falling short, the Conservative Government are failing to get a grip, and working people are paying the price.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
The hon. Lady talks about honesty and integrity. Could she please confirm how many Labour MPs have ended up in the nick over the past 10 years?
Anneliese Dodds
The major difference between my party and the hon. Member’s is that wherever we in the Labour party see rules being broken and inappropriate action, we act against it. We do not try to change the rules and stitch up the system for our friends—that is the major difference.
In my reading before this debate, I came across quite a curious piece that I am sure many Government Members will have seen: the Prime Minister’s foreword to the “Ministerial Code”. It commits the Government to upholding—I am not making this up—
“the very highest standards of propriety”.
The principles of public life are lauded as “precious” things that
“must be honoured at all times”—
that, from a Prime Minister who tried to rip up the standards system to save one of his friends who was found to have engaged in an egregious case of paid advocacy by the Committee on Standards.
The foreword also states that there should be “no bullying”—that, from a Prime Minister who refused to sack his Home Secretary after an independent adviser on standards found that she had broken the ministerial code because her approach to staff had
“on occasions... amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying”.
The foreword states that there should be “no harassment” —that, from a Prime Minister who imposed a three-line Whip to keep one of his MPs in Parliament after he was found by an independent panel to have sexually harassed a member of staff.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I am hoping that the hon. Lady will use this opportunity to apologise to my predecessor Ruth Smeeth for the bullying and harassment that she faced from Labour party members simply for being Jewish.
Anneliese Dodds
I will, of course, respond to the hon. Member’s comments because, just as I said to his hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), when the Labour party finds action that is inappropriate, we act. We have changed our systems. We have made sure that we comply with what is required of us. If the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) wishes to defend his party happily allowing a Member who has been found to have engaged in sexual harassment to be back on its Benches, that is up to him. It is his decision.
In that foreword on standards, again, the Prime Minister states that there should be:
“No misuse of taxpayer money”—
that, from a Prime Minister who gave us the VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts, with £3.5 billion of taxpayers’ money given to party donors and Conservative cronies who were recommended by Conservative Ministers, MPs and Downing Street officials. Those contracts so often failed to deliver while our nurses and care workers struggled and while many British firms’ offers of help were passed over.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
Is the hon. Lady really denigrating the efforts to get hold of PPE, and does she not know the history? The Labour party also put forward proposals and Labour party members and Labour donors also helped in that huge effort to get PPE.
Anneliese Dodds
I am slightly surprised to hear that the right hon. Member wishes to draw attention to what took place in that regard—
Anneliese Dodds
No, because I will respond to the right hon. Member’s point. He asked whether I was aware that Labour MPs and others were making recommendations. I am absolutely aware, because we were all trying to do that to ensure that we had the best response, but the difference was that they were not entered into that VIP lane. One can see that in the list of firms that was recently published. If he wants to state that among that list, there were Labour MPs’ names rather than those of his Conservative colleagues, he must have been looking at a very different list from me.
Matt Hancock
I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight; I hope that after I speak, she will withdraw those comments and that the Labour party will no longer use that argument. The contract with Excalibur Healthcare Services, which is run by a Labour donor, was introduced from a Labour MP through me. The very good man who runs Excalibur Healthcare, in fact, helped to launch the Labour party’s science manifesto in 2005, so she can now withdraw the allegations. What she should say is a big “thank you” to everybody who helped to get PPE when it was so badly needed.
Anneliese Dodds
I really regret the fact that instead of responsibility being taken and it being stated that the system will be changed for the future, we are seeing an attempt to rewrite history. I was not the one who stated that Conservative-related actors were more likely to obtain contracts; the National Audit Office pointed it out. Yes, Labour figures were making recommendations to have a better response, as I mentioned a moment ago, but in doing so we were focused on those who could genuinely aid our response. We were not focused on pub landlords, for example, or on others who had had no prior experience in the field.
Anneliese Dodds
I do not want to upset the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I am very happy to take another intervention if you do not mind.
Matt Hancock
If I may, I will set the record straight on one further point. I have heard this point about the pub landlord; I just want to tell the hon. Lady and the House and put it formally on the record—after which I hope that the Labour party will stop this slur—that the gentleman in question never got or applied for a contract from the Government or the NHS at all. That is a fabrication pushed by the Labour party—it is a load of rubbish. What was happening, however, was that a huge range of people were helping out with the national effort, including members of the Labour party.
Anneliese Dodds
No, I will not give way. [Hon. Members: “Withdraw!”] And I most certainly—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. We have had a perfectly reasonable exchange between the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) and the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). We do not need shouting about it. We are dealing here in facts and good argument, not shouting.
Dawn Butler
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the Government have lost every court case when they have been taken to court in regard to procurement contracts and corruption, does that mean that the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) needs to apologise for what he has just said and withdraw it?
Madam Deputy Speaker
No. I appreciate what the hon. Lady is saying, but it is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. Perhaps she might like to address it later in the debate.
Anneliese Dodds
It is indeed the case that facts have been laid out in courts of law; they stand for themselves.
I have to say that at a time when our national health service and our care workers and volunteers up and down the country are yet again supporting the covid effort, I think that it is incredibly important that this Government be transparent. [Hon. Members: “Withdraw!”] I will not withdraw what I have said, but I hope that the Conservative Government will withdraw what they have said about not being transparent—a point that I will come to in a moment.
The foreword written by the Prime Minister says that there will be
“no actual or perceived conflicts of interest”.
Sadly, we know that there have been so many. Peerages have apparently been handed out to anyone who can meet the £3 million entrance charge and agree to a stint as Conservative party treasurer. David Cameron and Lex Greensill were given the run of Whitehall to beg for access to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. More than half a billion pounds in testing contracts was handed over to a company advised by a Conservative former Minister, without competition and behind closed doors, with a second contract dished out to Randox Laboratories after it had failed to deliver on the first.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) for the comments that he has just made. If he believes in transparency—
Anneliese Dodds
Indeed. Well, transparency reveals facts, does it not? I therefore hope that he will encourage his Government to do what this House stated only two weeks ago that they must: publish the minutes from the meeting between Lord Bethell, Owen Paterson and Randox over the award of money-spinning contracts. Parliament decided that that must happen two weeks ago, and the Deputy Speaker reminded Ministers to do it in a timely fashion last week, but they are still dragging their feet. They say that they cannot possibly make the minutes public for another two months. That seems like rather a long time in which to establish the facts, does it not?
If those vital minutes simply do not exist, Ministers should do the right thing and come clean about it here today, rather than pretending to spend the next two months looking for them. I offer the Minister, and indeed those sitting on his Benches, the chance to do that right now. I offer them the chance to intervene and let us know whether the minutes exist or not. No one is meeting my gaze, so it seems clear that we shall have to wait until the end of January to know what is happening about those minutes.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
I was not planning to contribute to the debate, but the hon. Lady has been talking about conflicts of interest and timely waits, and she also said earlier in her speech that when the Labour party sees people breaking the rules, it acts. I have written to the hon. Lady twice, and I have written to the Leader of the Opposition a number of times over the last few months, about her former flatmate Ruth George, who has an atrocious record when it comes to anti-Jewish racism. It was she who said, when Luciana Berger quit the Labour party, that she and other members of her group were funded by Israel. Will the hon. Lady respond now to that conflict of interest, and agree that she should not be in the Labour party any more?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. He should not be attacking personally in that way.
Anneliese Dodds
Just for the record, as the hon. Member stated in his own letter, those issues have been taken up and dealt with. [Interruption.] He said that in his own letter. Perhaps he needs to go back and reread it.
We surely cannot stand idly by and allow this situation of cronyism to continue. The current regime of standards and rules on the conduct of Ministers relies too much on convention, in these unconventional times. It gives the Prime Minister the power to act as judge and jury even when his own conduct is in question. That is why my party, the Labour party, has come forward with a five-point plan to clean up our politics, to strengthen and uphold standards in public life, and to protect taxpayers’ money from the egregious waste and mismanagement that we have seen during the pandemic.
We would start by banning second jobs for MPs, with only very limited exemptions, to make them focus on the day job, not the one on the side. We would stop the revolving door between Government and the companies that Ministers are supposed to regulate, banning ministers from taking lobbying, advisory or portfolio-related jobs for at least five years after they had left office. We would stop Conservative plans to allow foreign money to flow into British politics, and we would create strict rules to stop donations from shell companies. We would end the waste and mismanagement of taxpayers’ money with a new office for value for money along with reform of procurement. Finally, we would establish a new, genuinely independent integrity and ethics commission to sit across Government, with the power to investigate Ministers, take decisions on sanctions for misconduct, and ban former Ministers from taking any job linked to their former roles for at least five years after leaving office.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
I am very confused by what the hon. Lady has said, because I am under the impression that three current Front-Bench Labour parliamentarians in the House of Lords work for lobbying companies. How can you say what you have said at the Dispatch Box—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must not refer to the hon. Lady using the word “you”, because that is me.
Alexander Stafford
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. How can we talk about these issues when current members of the Labour Front Bench work for lobbying companies? It is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Anneliese Dodds
I regret the fact that the hon. Member is confused. There appears to be a fair amount of confusion this afternoon. Labour has set out those measures for MPs, and we have made it very clear that we would not stand back, as his party appears to be doing. We would take that action because we are determined to clean up politics for the future. Indeed, those measures are urgent and necessary because the current system relies on having a Prime Minister who respects the rules and understands that there must be consequences for breaking them.
Labour set out those radical proposals for reform because it is so urgently needed. When it comes to cleaning up crony contracts, we are insisting on transparency because we have to learn from the mistakes made by the Conservatives, not least during this crisis, and I am afraid that we also have to learn from mistakes made by any party, including the SNP. I regret that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, was not more reflective on the actions of his own party today. The SNP Government had already been criticised for treating journalists and politicians differently in their responses to freedom of information requests when the SNP’s Health Secretary tried to have freedom of information requests suspended. Disturbingly, it has been revealed that an SNP Cabinet Minister then directly intervened to try to prevent the publication of statistics on care home deaths before the Holyrood elections. The Financial Times newspaper has had to battle to force the SNP Government to reveal the total cost of their guarantee to Sanjeev Gupta’s businesses, which appears to be to the tune of more than half a billion pounds. Labour believes that sunlight is the best disinfectant, in Whitehall and in Holyrood.
Rules are there for a reason: to regulate our Parliament and its elected representatives; to uphold standards in public life; and to protect our institutions from the cancer of cronyism and corruption. As the Prime Minister has discovered in recent weeks, ripping up these rules is thankfully easier said than done. But while he fails to take action to strengthen the system, working families in our country continue to pay the price. In response to what the Minister tried to set out before, I say to him that they have been paying the price. They have been paying the price with the longest squeeze on living standards in this country since Napoleonic times, with rising fuel prices and no plan to tackle them, with life expectancy falling in many parts of our country and with 5.5 million people on NHS waiting lists. They are also paying the price with rail in the north being scaled back, and they will pay even more of the price with the Conservatives’ working-class dementia tax. The Minister tried to claim that his Government were delivering what the people of this country wanted, but they do not want the Conservatives picking their pockets, they do not want their incompetence on public services and they do not want their sleaze, graft or corruption either.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you and the whole House a happy St Andrew’s day. I have come to this debate today because it strikes me that the SNP motion is pitiful politicking and that the people of Scotland deserve better. They want to see real solutions to real problems. Unfortunately, it is part of a pattern for the SNP to put ideological purity ahead of the interests of the people of Scotland. We heard that from its leader here, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who argued that independence was not the most important thing on the minds of the people of Scotland, but we know why SNP Members have brought this debate to the House today: it is merely so that they can find another way to make the argument for independence, which they lost so comprehensively when it was put to the people of Scotland five years ago.
Today, SNP Members are calling for the censure of the Prime Minister, but what they should be doing is working to improve the lives of the people of Scotland. The flop of a speech from the right hon. Gentleman demonstrated that they are losing this argument. He read out a list of allegations that were comprehensively demolished by the Minister in his excellent speech. At the heart of those allegations was that the Prime Minister is ignoring advice, but the problem with the SNP is that it ignores not only advice but the decisions of the people of Scotland and this country in every referendum that it has seen. The problem is that the SNP has not seen a referendum result that it likes, so it ignores the results and asks for a rematch.
On the substance, I will not go into the SNP’s failures in education, but Scotland once had the finest education system in the world. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber did not even mention covid-19. I will not dwell on the huge economic cost of independence, but one piece of evidence from the Prime Minister’s tenure that completely undermines the SNP’s case is the vaccine programme. Because SNP Members are losing the argument on substance, they focus instead on politicking. Conceived through UK-funded scientific work involving researchers from universities across the UK, and indeed across the world, the Oxford vaccine is a UK success that shows Britain at her best.
Critically, we bought vaccines for the whole of the UK so that everybody in Scotland and the rest of the UK were the first in the world to access them. Even better, it was a joint effort. People who are Scottish and British and in this Union get the best of both worlds: a UK vaccine delivered locally by the NHS in Scotland, working with local councils, and we could bring in the British Army when we needed reinforcements. It was a huge team effort. All four nations rolled out the vaccine together.
I pay tribute to my then Scottish opposite number, Jeane Freeman. She deserves plaudits for putting pragmatism ahead of ideology. Her only problem was when the First Minister of Scotland would get involved and cause all sorts of problems by trying to politic with the programme instead of delivering the programme.
Finally, why do I, as an English MP, care about this? It is because our Union brings together the best for Scotland, England and the United Kingdom, and for my constituents, too. We should get away from this politicking and concentrate on the things that really matter.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock). If he carries on reading out his briefing notes, he might get a job in the Government one day.
There is an old adage in politics: it is not enough simply to win a vote, one needs to win the argument, too. This Government are rather different, though. They will use their majority to win votes, although sometimes they try to avoid those votes, but they rarely put in the effort to win an argument, other than by blunt force and soundbite. This has led to a catalogue of nasty, unnecessary and deeply undesirable decisions. There has been a procession of decision making based on half-truth, anecdote and inaccuracy.
Take the Elections Bill, or more accurately the voter suppression Bill. Up to 3.5 million people may not have suitable identification, and the Government’s own pilots indicated that some 325,000 people could be denied a vote in a GB election. The Government have persuaded nobody of the Bill’s necessity, but they are bashing on regardless.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the difference between winning an argument and winning a vote. Is the 2014 Scottish referendum not an example of the SNP winning neither? Despite that, the SNP continues to bash on regardless, as he says.
Stewart Hosie
We are here. We did not make a unilateral declaration of independence. We have not rushed into a second referendum. What we have done is win another mandate, and we will hold the referendum in line with the wishes of the people, because that is what democracy actually means.
The proposed changes to the Electoral Commission will give this Government unprecedented and unchecked power by allowing Ministers to set the commission’s agenda and purview, thereby enabling them to change which organisations and campaign activities are permitted a year before an election. That is Executive interference in the electoral process, about which we should be deeply concerned.
On a related topic, we have a boundary review that will reduce the number of MPs in Scotland and Wales and increase the number in England. If every single vote were cast the same way, it would not affect the SNP. The polls say we would still return 48 Members, but in England the Tories would go up and everyone else would go down. Looking at the failure to tackle dark money, the boundary changes, the evisceration of the Electoral Commission and the voter suppression Bill, it is no wonder that the public smell a rat.
Then there is cash for honours. When my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) asked the Prime Minister whether such practices should end, he seemed to defend it. Rather bizarrely, he said:
“Until you get rid of the system by which the trades union barons”
whoever they are—
fund other parties, we have to…we have to go ahead.”
There is a world of difference between organisations coming together to campaign for things they believe in, and selling honours for cash, which is illegal. Of course, the Tories always defend their own, trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook and conflating his issue with a general change to the standards process. That was never going to wash.
Drew Hendry
My right hon. Friend is talking about illegality. We should never forget that it is this Prime Minister’s Government who introduced the phrase into the lexicon—into this House of Commons—that it is okay to break the law as long as it is in a “specific and limited” way.
Stewart Hosie
Limited and specific lawbreaking is still lawbreaking. I was also struck by the fact that the Government almost boasted about their intention to break international law, not by way of the “little Britlander” exceptionalism we are used to, but in a way that would have made the UK an international pariah.
I could add that this Government lost a key battle in the Tory covid cronyism row when the National Audit Office ordered them to name the VIP lane firms given public contracts. I could also talk about the disgraceful but, apparently, routine use of WhatsApp and Signal messaging systems, which have options to make messages disappear and which it appears have been used to avoid scrutiny of decisions made during the covid crisis. I could talk about the fact that the High Court granted a judicial review of the rules regarding the retention of records. But my favourite was when the Supreme Court ruled that the Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen that Parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful. Defeats in the courts, judicial reviews, trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook, cash for honours, voter suppression, weakening the Electoral Commission, ignoring dark money and unlawful prorogation—that is a pattern of self-serving, self-seeking behaviour, and an approach to governance that is grubby to say the least and smacks of dishonesty.
Stewart Hosie
No, I will not. The rot starts at the top. The fish rots from the head down—that is the Prime Minister. The buck should stop with him and the process to end this should end today with support for this motion.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
First, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you, and all right hon. and hon. Members of this House, a very happy St Andrew’s Day. He is by far and away the best saint, in my humble opinion. But it has not been a very happy St Andrew’s Day for many of my constituents because, as we sit here debating this today, thousands of them remain without power, lights, heating or internet connectivity as a result of Storm Arwen. Hundreds remain without water—
Matt Hancock
Does my hon. Friend not think that it would be a better use of time to debate that rather than this motion?
Andrew Bowie
I thank my right hon. Friend for asking that question, because I do think that. I am angry that, while constituents of mine—[Interruption.] SNP Members might heckle and make light of the fact that Scots are freezing in their homes and have no access to services at this time, but I am angry that we are here debating this when people in Finzean, Strachan, Kincardine O’Neil and many other places in my constituency are dealing with a catastrophe and a crisis. It was not outwith the realms of possibility for the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) to table a motion for today to debate how the Scottish and UK Governments might work together to support all those across the UK who have been affected by Storm Arwen, but we are here debating this motion. Indeed, as of earlier this afternoon, the First Minister of Scotland—Scotland’s most prolific social media activist, it would seem—had yet to post any comment—
Andrew Bowie
She may have now, but that was not the case before I came into the Chamber.
Andrew Bowie
I will not give way because before I came into the Chamber she had not. The power went off on Friday; today is Tuesday. The First Minister of Scotland had not made one comment in relation to the fact that 72,000 Scots were without power over the weekend. I thank my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for expressing his concern last night and offering the Scottish Government any support that the UK Government could give to support my constituents and, indeed, constituents throughout the rest of Scotland.
When the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber announced at the weekend, in his typical understated fashion, that he would table this motion, he said he would do so to be the “real opposition” and to hold the Government and the Prime Minister to account for our “disastrous actions”. I have to admire the brass neckery, if nothing else. One might suggest that, if SNP Members did not spend so much time playing politics down here at a time of crisis in Scotland, they might have noticed that at home in Scotland the SNP is supposed to be a real Government.
If we are going to talk about disastrous actions by Governments—I just wish I had time to go into them all—let us look at the record of the SNP in government in Scotland over the past 14 years. On drug deaths: failure, with 1,264 deaths in 2019. That is 15 times worse than Germany, 35 times worse than France and three-and-a-half times worse than the rest of the United Kingdom.
On education: failure, with Scotland under the SNP having fallen in the science, reading and maths rankings. We have the lowest scores in maths and science since Scotland started to participate in the programme for international student assessment—PISA—20 years ago. Literacy and numeracy rates are declining, the attainment gap is widening and someone is now more likely to go to university if they are from a deprived background in England than if they are from a deprived background in Scotland. That is a shameful record.
On Scotland’s NHS, 25% of GP practices have unfilled vacancies and 500 consultant posts are vacant in Scotland’s hospitals. I could go on.
The north-east of Scotland: not failure, just abandoned. North sea oil workers have been told that they have no future by the SNP’s partner in government. The First Minister has declared that there should be no more exploration in the North sea and that Cambo is a bad idea. The SNP Government are reneging on their plan to dual the A96 and have failed to deliver the money for improved rail journey times that they promised in two manifestos, and their broadband roll-out is going to be five years late. That is not so much disastrous SNP action; the SNP is missing in action when it comes to the north-east of Scotland.
All that, while more than 50,000 Scots were without power at the weekend and many were without water. While the nation recovers from Storm Arwen; while many people worry about the new strain of covid; while businesses recover from the past two years; while teachers work hard to support those kids who have been left behind; while doctors and nurses slog away to deal with the backlog and support all our constituents; while Police Scotland does more with less; while oil and gas workers worry about their future—what does the SNP choose to do today? Point scoring, petty politics and, frankly, a stunt that is wasting the time of us all. It is little wonder that the First Minister’s popularity ratings are in free fall, support for independence is on the decline and independence now ranks eighth in the priorities of the Scottish people.
This motion is on the conduct of the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson); I just wish I had any confidence in the conduct of the Scottish Government and how they are running my country.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
Two weeks ago, I stood in this spot and spoke about how parliamentary time was being wasted by the Prime Minister wanting to save one of his own corrupt former MPs; today, we have the opportunity to stand here and consider why we should put up with this.
We and people outside this place are living in a society of staggering inequality. We have thousands relying on food banks, with wages pitifully low and the cost of living extremely high, yet we have a Prime Minister who oversees the consistent approach of raiding benefits, keeping wages low and increasing taxes for the working poor, yet rewarding big business and those of accumulated wealth while turning a blind eye to wealthy tax dodgers. He is a Prime Minister with his own agenda—a Prime Minister who is a democracy denier, stood on a hill of sleaze. That is exactly why it is right that we have brought forward this motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford).
The Prime Minister’s Government and his leadership have failed—from Brexit lies on buses to gleefully telling of handshaking with covid patients lying stricken in hospital beds. We have seen cash for honours, cash for contracts, texts for tax breaks, cash for curtains—I am trying to fit all this in—and handouts for wallpaper. Time and again, we see who he really is—a natiform metaphor for corruption, collusion and institutional sleaze engrained in this Tory party. We need always to remember that those who hide vast sums of money or hoard their wealth in offshore accounts are not hiding it from the authorities—oh, no, Madam Deputy Speaker—in the UK, they are the authority. The Prime Minister himself registered on his interests his stay at a luxury Spanish villa as being provided free of charge by the family of Lord Goldsmith, who, by mere coincidence the Tories will claim, had been handed a peerage and a ministerial job after an electoral defeat. Yet, at Cabinet Office questions last Thursday, the Minister had the temerity to claim:
“There is no link between party donations and nominations to sit in the House of Lords.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 436.]
In the same session, in relation to the contributions—or lack of—of the Tory treasurer in the Lords, the Minister said that it was about, “Quality not quantity”. Apparently, this is our democracy in action.
Let me make this clear: in my opinion, there is nothing noble about the men and women who are sitting in that place—nothing—and even less so when they buy their place in there and their ermine robe—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman should not be directly criticising members of the House of Lords. So I want him to readdress that in his speech. He must not continue to do that. He should move on to his next subject.
Steven Bonnar
Let me clarify, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am speaking about the whole House of Lords and not any individual within it. If anybody has to buy an ermine robe with a £3 million back-hander, I think that says it all. Where is the democracy in that? What happened to true and honest representation? Does anybody with any credibility truly think that we get that from this Prime Minster? He may argue that it is his right to appoint members to the House of Lords and, in this excuse for a democracy, indeed it is, but when will it start being the convention to stand up for those in dire poverty? When will it be this place’s convention to effectively tackle homelessness? When will it become the convention that those sitting in that place have to earn their place on merit, based on the number of votes they receive and not the number of notes in their pockets? I hope that this motion today is the first step in doing so.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
At a time when we are dealing with the aftermath of an unexpected global pandemic, a booster vaccine programme to deliver and an economy to keep firmly in recovery, I find it astounding that the SNP has used its parliamentary time today not to further the interests of the Scottish people, but to play party politics with its base.
The leader of the SNP in this place, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), has exposed what his main priority is: to get a news headline for his party conference this weekend. At a time when we have seen the emergence of a new covid variant, the tragedy that we saw last week, the people who have been left without power after Storm Arwen, imagine this being your first choice for a debate. It is nothing but political theatre designed to further an obsession with independence. All that the SNP has achieved today is exposing what the Scottish people already know—the priorities of the SNP could not be further removed from the priorities of the Scottish people.
Just last week, YouGov published a poll that found that the three most common priorities for the Scottish people—indeed these were in line with the priorities of the British people—were the covid recovery, healthcare and the economy. Yet what did we see at the SNP’s annual conference this week? The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber spoke for more than 15 minutes. How many times did he mention the NHS? Not once. How many times did he mention failing standards in Scottish schools? Not once. Yet how many times did he mention independence? Seven times. In his opening speech today, I think he made double digits.
With the eye of the SNP tilted so firmly away from their own delivery of public services, it is little surprise that under their leadership schools have plummeted down the international league tables, A&E waiting times are near their worst level on record, and Scotland has the highest drug death rate in the whole of Europe. All those issues are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and have been under the SNP’s stewardship for 14 years.
Claire Coutinho
Yet instead of focusing on those issues or the other important issues on which we could be focusing for the Scottish people, again SNP Members are simply trying to drive us further apart from one another.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I heard SNP Members saying, “Not true”, but they did not intervene on my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) and they are not intervening on my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). Do they have any answer to her charge sheet?
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point.
I think that SNP Members will agree that during the pandemic we have seen the strength that our family of nations, working together, can achieve, including: the procurement of vaccines through Kate Bingham’s much lauded work with the vaccine taskforce; the British Army deploying personnel to help the ambulance service and providing mobile testing units in all the different nations; and the full financial power of the United Kingdom Treasury, pooling and sharing all our resources to stand shoulder to shoulder with the British people across all four nations, and support livelihoods through the UK furlough scheme.
Let us briefly talk about the SNP’s single issue, on which they focus to the detriment of all others: dividing our family of nations. My parents were so pleased to have been welcomed to Britain when they moved here in the 1970s. Like so many others, they viewed these islands as a shining city on a hill—a beacon of optimism and opportunity. With a mum who still works for the NHS in England and a cousin who works for the NHS in Scotland, I know at first hand how the people of Britain are woven together. Our bond is more than constitutional. It is emotional; it is shared family ties.
As we emerge from a difficult couple of years, our focus in this place should be on supporting the people and families of this country, and dealing with their priorities, not on the endless constitutional obsessions of the Scottish National party.
Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). I commend her on reading her briefing notes so very well. She says that we in the SNP do not know the priorities of the Scottish people, but I gently remind her that the Tories do not win elections in Scotland.
Over the course of the pandemic, the UK’s economy has shrunk at the fastest rate for a century, and unemployment has grown to one of its highest rates. At the exact same time, Britain created a record number of billionaires. There are now 171 billionaires in this country. While the rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer. When this Tory Government should have been lending a hand to the most vulnerable in society, some of those on the Government Benches chose to line their own pockets and the pockets of their rich mates, and the Prime Minister did nothing.
Let us be absolutely clear: the policies that this Tory Government have introduced and continue to implement are none other than an attack on working-class communities. My constituents of Airdrie and Shotts are in continual contact with me, outlining how Tory policies are impacting their day-to-day lives, and they have raised genuine concerns that the Prime Minister simply does not understand the hardships that people face. Rather than looking after his mates, the Prime Minister should be listening to the public. He is not here today, but I want to put on record how his policies are impacting my constituents.
Ms Qaisar
No, I am going to make progress.
A constituent wrote to me saying,
“I am a single woman that has learning difficulties. A £20 per week cut in my income would have a huge impact on me. I have struggled with my bills till the pandemic—the extra money has helped me out a lot.”
The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), is in his place and I have a few questions for him. How many people who are on universal credit does the Prime Minister know? And how many people does the Prime Minister know who have donated money to the Conservative party and subsequently joined the Lords?
Dawn Butler
The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. Government Members seem to forget the subject matter of this debate. Watching the Peter Stefanovic video that has more than 40 million views might help to jog their memory. They might also want to sign my early-day motion 383 about the ministerial code, and watch my “The Big Narstie Show” performance, in which I did a little rap about the Prime Minister.
Ms Qaisar
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention and I highly encourage Conservative Members to go and have a look.
I have previously spoken in this Chamber on the Nolan principles of public life by which we are bound. The Prime Minister’s actions have potential to bring shame on this House, with scandal after scandal bringing it into disrepute. Yet there has been no independent investigation to hold those responsible to account. The deception and dishonesty of this old boys network is entrenched in Government and in the Lords. I simply cannot comprehend that in the Scotland Office we have a Government Minister who in May this year was rejected by the Scottish electorate but, just months later, handed a peerage and a Government role. How is this democratic? [Interruption.] Exactly—it is not. Since the Prime Minister arrived at the Dispatch Box he has created 96 peers in less than two years, so the unelected House of Lords is bigger than the elected House of Commons. I ask again: how is this democratic?
The Prime Minister has frequently violated the sixth principle of public life. His attention should instead be on creating policies that help the most vulnerable in society. That starts by retaining the universal credit uplift and scrapping the two-child limit, along with scrapping the national insurance hike.
The pandemic has worsened household finances. To prevent a generation of people being failed, this UK Tory Government need sustainable and long-term solutions.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar). I wish hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House a very happy St Andrew’s Day.
It was a slight surprise to see on the Order Paper a motion in the name of the SNP that did not mention independence, but the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) managed to get it in in his perfectly scripted intervention—the first that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) took. I understand why SNP Members have chosen this topic today. I understand why they want to keep making the case for independence—because it is brilliant for their social media clips. It allows them to stand up here, express their faux outrage, and post those clips on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and all the others. But it does not improve the lives of their constituents. Call me old-fashioned, but that is what I came here to do. I came here to represent my constituents of Burnley and Padiham and to make their lives better. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) made the point crystal clear when he explained what his constituents are going through right now. SNP Members had the chance to talk about those issues and they chose not to. They chose not to table an urgent question. They chose not to have a debate in the House. They chose to ignore what is happening to people up and down Scotland and the rest of the country.
SNP Members spoke about the Elections Bill. The right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) said that we had not made the case for the changes being made in the Bill. That is not true. If anyone reads the Conservative manifesto that delivered the majority on this side of the House, they will see that we proposed changes on ID for elections.
Aaron Bell
I served on the Elections Bill Committee and the evidence we heard from Tower Hamlets, Peterborough and all over the country does make that case very clearly. We took on the arguments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) in that Committee and defeated them.
Antony Higginbotham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, which highlights perfectly my point about faux outrage: all that SNP Members come here for is to do clips for social media. They do not want to be here. I get why they do not want to be here; I understand their desire for independence. But given that they are here, they have an obligation and a responsibility to represent their constituents in the best possible way, and we could have focused this debate on a much better subject.
SNP Members have put forward a number of examples that they sought to use to highlight his conduct, but they were very selective in doing so, so let me give them some other examples. Why do we not talk about the vaccine roll-out, led by the Prime Minister, which was the quickest in the world? Why do we not talk about the fact that the Prime Minister decided he would be the first Minister for the Union? Why do we not talk about the fact that the Prime Minister launched the Union connectivity review, because he cares about linking the four corners of the UK? Why do we not talk about the UK shared prosperity fund? Why do we not talk about the fact that our armed forces are growing and that, as a result of the plans announced by the Defence Secretary, they are growing for the first time in Scotland, too? We could have focused this debate on far bigger issues that matter to people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it is a shame that the SNP did not.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
It is fitting that we are holding this debate on St Andrew’s Day, as he is not just the patron saint of Scotland, but a fisherman. That was yet another broken promise of the Prime Minister, who swindled and betrayed fishermen after the Brexit deal that he barely seemed to have read, let alone understood. He claimed that the UK was an
“independent coastal state with full control of our waters”.
The truth, as always, is sadly very far removed from the rhetoric. The fishing industry was a convenient tool for charlatans to sell Brexit, before the fishermen were sold out and stitched up.
I find it interesting that this debate has seen a defence of a kind of the Prime Minister from Government Members, but I have not yet heard a single one of them challenge any line in the motion as inaccurate. Their desire to change the terms of the debate and talk about anything but what is in the motion only leads me to conclude that they agree. If they disagreed or they could challenge it, they would do so, and that simply is not happening.
We all make mistakes. Anyone can see that and accept that. Where genuine errors occur, they need to be put right at the first opportunity, but we do not see that with this Government. Instead, we have an ever-increasing timeline of misinformation languishing on the record, a failure to stand up for the best possible standards in public life and a Prime Minister who will seemingly do anything he can to adjust the rules to fit the narrative he wants to achieve.
There are channels through which the Government should be held to account, including in this place. This Prime Minister is doing everything he can to avoid that, up to illegally proroguing the House. Under his leadership, we have a Government who have been mired in sleaze, corruption and cover-up. Colleagues have listed a litany of such failures. Government Members have had the opportunity to challenge these points, and they have not. Even Peppa Pig could see what is there in front of them, regardless of how much they might have missed.
As Burns said,
“facts are chiels that winna ding”.
If the behaviour of this Government becomes normalised, the self-regulation of checks and balances that operate in this democracy break down. Those are the depths to which this Prime Minister seems to be willing to take us.
Some might say that the issue in the motion is not a talking point on the doorsteps—I have heard that suggestion from some Government Members—but people in my constituency of Midlothian are absolutely scunnered by the behaviour of this Government. It puts every one of us to shame that this is seen as the top standard that can be achieved. People are dismayed. There seem to be no consequences for appalling behaviour. It would not apply in any other walk of life. In no other job could the actions of the Prime Minister be failed to be held to account, yet in this place, he can just change the rules. This censure motion can begin to put things right. It can be a start on the trajectory to ensuring that we are held in a far higher regard. While sleaze and dishonesty continue to sit at the heart of this Government, these issues will continue to haunt us all.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
This has been an interesting and fiery debate. I have listened carefully to every contribution. It has fundamentally been about the approach to governance; the conduct—not the character—and actions of the Prime Minister; and the principles of public life.
When I think about those principles, I think of words, which Members have read out, such as accountability, leadership, probity and transparency. We all agree with those things, but we have to then think about how they are translated in one’s conduct and actions. I put it gently to SNP Members that working hard for the people who elected us is a pretty good way to put in place the principles of accountability and leadership.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Bim Afolami
No, I will make some progress.
Let us look at the contrast between what the Prime Minister is doing and what is happening in Holyrood. There is a new covid variant. We do not know how serious it will be, but it is right that we should be watchful. The economies of the United Kingdom and of Scotland are on the brink of recovery. In the face of that, the SNP’s priority is an independence referendum. Is that working hard for the people who elected it, bearing in mind the challenges that exist?
Ian Blackford
I commend the hon. Gentleman for at least trying to address the topic, but I gently say that the First Minister of Scotland went to the Chamber today to address the covid crisis. The First Minister and I, in my speech to the SNP conference, have made it crystal clear that our first priority is dealing with that. The difference is that the First Minister of Scotland went to the Chamber to answer Members. We have repeatedly asked the Prime Minister to make covid statements here, as he should. He does not do that; he does press conferences. He should be accountable to Members, but he has failed to be.
Bim Afolami
Where I would gently disagree with the right hon. Gentleman is that the position of the Deputy First Minister, Mr Swinney, has explicitly been that independence is the priority. The First Minister has said that, regardless of what happens with covid or the economy, she wants another independence referendum by the end of 2023.
Let us look at another aspect of working hard for the people who elect us and of translating those principles of accountability and leadership and the things in public life that we say we care about. Between 2007 and 2019, the rate of job creation in Scotland increased by about 5%. For the rest of the United Kingdom overall, the increase was about double that. Rather than focus on increasing the rate of job creation in Scotland, the SNP in Holyrood went into coalition with the Greens, whose website—I checked it myself—says explicitly that they want a universal basic income and that they think negative growth is manageable. That is not the action of a Scottish Government who are concerned about working hard for the people who elected them.
Let us turn to another issue, such as drug deaths, which many Members have already mentioned. Scottish drug deaths are the highest in Europe, but the response of the SNP is to decriminalise class A drug possession.
We would all agree that making long-term decisions in the public interest is another good way to implement and translate the principles of accountability, leadership, transparency and probity—all the things that we come to the House to do. What have the Government, led by the Prime Minister, done? On the vaccine roll-out, they opted out of the EU vaccine scheme, which was a brave decision at the time, because lots of people said that it would damn us to being at the back of the queue. In fact, we are at the front. On the green industrial revolution and the 10-point plan, we were lauded internationally at COP26 for our leadership on that issue. On the decision we made on social care, a subject that so many Governments have ducked, I suspect—dare I say it—that the Prime Minister was given advice saying, “Look, this is a really difficult issue. Is it right that we do it?” and the Prime Minister said, “Yes, we need to tackle social care, and we need to come up with a plan that is fairer and better for everybody in this country.” That is what dealing with the long-term interests of the people who elected us is about.
To finish by paraphrasing what the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) said in his speech, even Peppa Pig can see that this Government and this Prime Minister are taking the right actions, and the SNP is not.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I truly wish it was a privilege and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). Has he heard of the word “mandate”? Actually, the one he knows really well is “deflection”.
I had hoped that the Prime Minister would step up to the mark when he assumed high office. I tell my granddaughters that I am disappointed, not angry, when they conduct themselves badly, but I am truly disappointed and angry, but not surprised, with the current Prime Minister, given his predilection for saying what he thinks people want to hear, and changing his mind and breaking promises when it suits.
I wish Scotland were not part of this Union, but while we are, SNP MPs like me must and should censure the current Prime Minister for dishonourable conduct that reflects badly on the UK both here and internationally. The Prime Minister seems to believe that it is okay to say one thing and do another, or to plough ahead with policies, in the middle of a pandemic, that cause real hardship to ordinary families and even more so to our vulnerable communities. Woe betide any person or organisation that gets in the way of what the Prime Minister and the Conservative party see as their divine right to govern how they like. Their attacks on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and on MPs who disagree are vile and undermine all independent checks, which are supposed to protect us all from abuses of power. The Westminster system is broken, and the sooner Scotland can break free of it, the better.
This Prime Minister thinks he can say or do what he likes without hindrance. We as MPs owe it to our constituents to challenge him and his Government to disabuse them of that notion, hence this motion today. Pork barrel politics is now the norm for this Conservative Government. It is much more likely that a Tory marginal seat will receive Government funding than an area that truly needs and deserves it. Seven out of 10 Cabinet Ministers were in low-priority most developed areas, but first in line for significant funding. As we say in Scotland, they do not even put a face on it. The Good Law Project has mounted a legal challenge to the levelling-up fund allocation to assess whether the funding is based on Tory ministerial bias and toeing the party line on certain issues. The Prime Minister believes in helping cronies and Ministers, and the devil take the hindmost. He enjoys unaccountable power, and can and has dismissed independent advice on alleged breaches of ministerial rules.
I want to focus this speech on how what the Prime Minister has done affects disabled people and families with disabled children. We are still in the middle of a public health crisis and inflation is now running at 5%, energy companies are failing, the cost of heating our homes is even higher and mortgage increases are likely. These things worry people in Scotland and the rest of the UK—I work hard for my constituents, and I challenge this Government on a daily basis to make their lives better—but none of this seems to concern this Prime Minister. What matters to him is money and protecting those who have it. There is yet another case going through the courts raised by two employment and support allowance claimants who are claiming that the Department for Work and Pensions acted unlawfully and discriminated against disabled people by not giving the uplift to those on legacy benefits. This sleazy UK Government, headed by a Prime Minister who does not understand how disabled people struggle to live, must look to the Scottish social security system, which is based on the principles of dignity, fairness and respect.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
On this happy St Andrew’s Day I have had haggis, Irn-Bru and an SNP debate; I can recommend two out of the three any time of day.
Since arriving here in Parliament in 2019 it has always struck me that the SNP is just a one-trick pony, ignoring its own failings on health, education and the economy to put its own selfish case forward for independence. But it is losing the argument—we know that by the poll results—so SNP Members have adopted a new tactic: to besmirch the good name of our great Prime Minister. Maybe they should tell us where the missing £600,000 is and explain why senior members of their party stood down from its national executive committee earlier this year. Their own MPs are asking difficult questions yet the leadership remains silent. Maybe they should apologise to the people of Scotland for the state of their education system, which is failing thousands of Scottish children while they bang on about leaving the Union and rejoining the European Union. Maybe they should explain to the people of Scotland why, despite being in power for 13 years, they have the worst health statistics in the world. Frankly, they should be ashamed of themselves, instead of wasting parliamentary time on a pointless debate that will achieve nothing, and they should explain why after 13 years in power Scotland is going backwards.
Marion Fellows
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask the Member to withdraw the remark about the worst health record in the world? I want to save him from embarrassment in the press.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am sure the hon. Lady will understand that I am not responsible for what the hon. Gentleman says. I am sure—[Interruption.] Order. I am sure that if he feels he has said anything that is incorrect, he will want to correct the record.
Lee Anderson
I might make a slight correction here: perhaps I should have referred to the drug deaths, which are the worst in the western world.
What we need to chat about is the Westminster leader of the SNP, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who has been very quiet about the £270,00 he has rinsed from outside earnings since he was elected to Westminster in 2015. It would take the average worker in Scotland 11 years to earn that much money yet he stands over there every single Wednesday talking about poverty when his greedy snout is firmly in the trough; and remember this is on top—
Madam Deputy Speaker
No, no: it was made very clear at the beginning of this debate that we were not going to insult each other. The motion is about the conduct of the Prime Minister so perhaps we can take the temperature down a little.
Lee Anderson
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am just trying to create an argument and my closing comments will back up what I am saying now.
The right hon. Gentleman has not even apologised for the drunken loutish behaviour of his own MPs who during a trip to Gibraltar just a few weeks ago were spotted staggering around—
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. He is straying a long way from the motion. He is also referring to certain Members; I do not know whether they are here or not, but he should have notified them if he was going to refer to them. I suggest he resumes his speech and bears in mind the points I have made, because I would hate to think the public were looking at us and thinking that this has just become a slanging match.
Owen Thompson
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Member is making clearly erroneous accusations against Members that are simply not true; I ask for your guidance on how the Member can remove those comments and correct the record.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I think I made my views very clear. First, it is very important not to make references to Members who are not here if the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) is accusing them of something; secondly, I hope we can maintain an element of courtesy in this debate—although it is not going well so far in the hon. Gentleman’s speech.
Lee Anderson
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am going to apologise to the SNP, and we can clear this up straightaway. I apologise about the Gibraltar comments. I have spoken to some of my constituents who would like to see some of the MPs breathalysed next time they get off an aeroplane in Gibraltar. That will clear it up straightaway.
Now, all this nonsense from the SNP is in sharp contrast to our Prime Minister, who has got Brexit done by leaving the EU, delivered a £36 billion package to sort out the national health service and social care, delivered the fastest vaccination—
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not think it was a bit rich for the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) to start talking about public spending in constituencies served by Conservative Members when we have some of the poorest constituencies in the country voting Conservative these days because the working people trust this Prime Minister?
Lee Anderson
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his sensible intervention. I only have to look at my constituency, Ashfield, one of the poorest in the country, and at neighbouring Bolsover, Don Valley and Rother Valley—all those places have had millions of pounds of investment. The Prime Minister has also launched our plan for jobs, helping people get back into work. We are cutting taxes, we are boosting wages—we are helping working families.
I am going to stop picking on the SNP, because I want to talk about the massed ranks of the Labour party. I am struggling to see them at the moment. Despite pretending to be bothered, they could not be bothered to turn up today. They seem to think that there is a war raging in France at the moment and that it is acceptable for thousands of illegal migrants to cross our channel every single day. They really need to get a grip.
Another sign that the Labour party has lost the plot is that it wants to replace our armed forces with “human security services”—a shift from the classic armed forces to a gender balanced, ethnically diverse human security services tasked with dampening down violence. Imagine that, Madam Deputy Speaker: a peace-loving British tank—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. This is a motion about the Government. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman needs to bring his remarks to a close. I want him to resume his seat. I call Wendy Chamberlain.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Several weeks ago, during the Standing Order No. 24 emergency debate on standards, Mr Speaker said that he wanted to see the House at its best. Sadly, I do not think we are seeing that today.
We have spent the afternoon listening to a list of instances of poor conduct committed by the Prime Minister, which is the focus of the debate, and I find that I have little to add to that list. Like many Members, I have had correspondence from people who just want this Government and this Prime Minister to behave properly on a variety of issues, and I agree with them. I know that campaigners in North Shropshire are hearing similar on the doorstep.
Previously, I have talked about my children, and the difference between saying sorry because you have been caught and actually apologising for wrongdoing. The fact that we are here yet again just shows that that message has not got through. It is not enough to change the subject when you have made an error of judgment; you must make it right, and not simply because it is politically opportune to do so. True contrition involves not doing the same thing again and taking the right actions.
What actions are those? Let us start with full support for the Standards Committee recommendations relating to the code of conduct, which were published yesterday. Let us talk about proper enforcement of the ministerial code. Let us talk about a willingness to support procedural changes to make this House modern, relevant and democratic in its workings.
Turning back to the motion, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) said at the weekend that in bringing this debate forward, he would be acting as the “real opposition” to this Government, but this is not a formal motion of no confidence and it will, sadly, have no meaningful outcome. Real opposition means taking real action and demanding real answers. I point out that it was not the SNP but myself and Liberal Democrats who secured the debate on parliamentary standards—I acknowledge that that was welcomed by the right hon. Gentleman’s party—that took place immediately following the initial standards vote. That was what forced answers to be given to the House and actions to be taken in relation to those matters.
I think we could have debated this topic today in a manner more likely to bring those on the Government Benches who have expressed displeasure at recent events to a position where some kind of consensus could be reached. That would have been a way of chipping away at the Government majority, which I am sure will be in full force this evening. Digesting the Standards Committee report would be a clear way forward for this House on an issue that affects us all.
There are vital issues that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber could have chosen to debate with his party today. His colleague in the Scottish Parliament, the Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery, was just this weekend arguing that his party is the only one that cares about devolution. If that is the case, why are we not discussing that, given how vital the right hon. Gentleman’s counterparts in Holyrood believe it to be? Is it partly because the reality is that the SNP is not really all that fussed about devolution at all, when what it wants to do is end it and cut Scotland asunder from the rest of the UK? Devolution means devolving powers to where they can be best utilised and to the maximum benefit of the public.
The current Scottish Government, led by the SNP in coalition with the Scottish Greens, like to centralise power just as much as those on the Conservative Benches in the UK Government. There is no evidence of any support for real devolution from the right hon. Member’s party. I am a Liberal Democrat, a Scottish Liberal Democrat—a party with a long history of supporting, in over 20 years of the Scottish Parliament, not just devolution but federalism. Powers and funding should be national, regional or local depending on the requirement. But perhaps I am wrong. I hope the right hon. Member and his party will explain why, if his party feels so strongly about devolution, it is not the issue in the motion we are debating.
As the MP for the town of St Andrews on St Andrew’s Day, I think we could have used this Opposition time more productively than what has been afforded to us this afternoon.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
I rise today on behalf of the people of Rother Valley to put on the record our strong and unwavering support for the Prime Minister and the transformative work he is doing for our communities and areas like ours across the north and the midlands. There is no doubt that this Prime Minister gets things done. I have been very disappointed by the tone of the debate. SNP Members, in typical SNP fashion, snipe from the sidelines—they are literally doing it now—and make wholly unsubstantiated claims for purely political gain. This Prime Minister, however, focuses on the job at hand of levelling up for everyone. It is clear that he is radically improving public life. To prove that, my constituents would point to a panoply of evidence.
First, and very importantly for those on the Conservative Benches and the people of the country, this is the Prime Minister who got Brexit done where others failed. He achieved Brexit when we were told that we could not leave and there was no deal that we could make. Despite that, he overcame the gridlock and delivered on what the people wanted, Brexit, which was no easy feat. He secured a deal that everyone else said was impossible and negotiated an unprecedented free trade agreement with the European Union, which no other country in the world enjoys. Crucially, he achieved a full and complete Brexit: not some Brexit in name only which was advocated by many of the liberal elite, but a full and proper Brexit.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
Given that Northern Ireland now has access to the single market as part of the island of Ireland and voted to remain within the European Union, why has Scotland not been offered the same opportunity?
Alexander Stafford
I am a bit unsure about the hon. Gentleman’s point, because the United Kingdom as a whole voted for Brexit, including a large number of people in Scotland, lest we forget—an awful lot of people. I think we should all obey the will of the people. As we have already established, when we talk about standards, SNP Members do not like listening to the will of the people, whether on Brexit or independence. They are having their cake and eating it.
Another aspect that my constituents—even SNP constituents—care passionately about is the roll-out of the fastest vaccine programme in the world under this Prime Minister. By taking the brave choices and backing myriad horses, almost nine in 10 people aged 12 and over have now received a first dose of the vaccine. Undoubtedly, the Prime Minister’s actions have led to the saving of thousands upon thousands of lives.
The Prime Minister has placed great emphasis on inventing and manufacturing vaccines here in Britain. We must recognise the Prime Minister’s foresight in placing bets on multiple vaccine options, in over-ordering doses, in ensuring the provision of boosters and in backing our British scientists and companies. Not only that, but we have provided vaccines to the rest of the world, leading the way at the G20 on vaccine donation, committing 100 million doses, including the entire Janssen UK supply and half of the UK Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines for countries in need.
Turning to Rother Valley, this Prime Minister has the backing of Rother Valley and is delivering for it. There is his support for the green industries of the future, with visible Government support for ITM Power and Government measures to protect Sheffield and Rotherham steel.
We have heard about the levelling-up fund, from which Rother Valley was pleased to get £11 million. Contrary to what SNP Members claim about the funding going to well-off areas, £4.5 million of that went to a town that they may only have heard of called Maltby. It is one of the most deprived parts of the country—in fact, it is in the lowest 5% for poverty in the entire country. I therefore believe that people there should get that funding. It is right.
The Prime Minister has listened to the people of Rother Valley and scrapped the HS2 2b arm, which is great. The area has received much coronavirus support throughout, including from bounce back loans and the like. On top of that, the Government are delivering the biggest increase in police numbers in 10 years. Government funding and the police precept will mean that, by 2022, police numbers in South Yorkshire will rise by 228—[Interruption.] Despite what SNP Members may be chuntering—there are not many of them, admittedly—by 2023, there will be more police than there were in 2010, so we are overdelivering.
Let us look at the evidence for why the people back the Prime Minister. I point to the local election results in Rotherham this year: the last time we had election results, we got a grand total of zero Conservative councillors, but this time in May, we had 20. That is the biggest increase of any council in the country and the most Conservative councillors that have ever represented Rotherham. In Rotherham, that bastion of socialism since time immemorial, Labour came within 94 votes of losing their majority. If that is not a backing for this Prime Minister, his way of doing things and getting things done, and his action, I do not know what is. Surely the test of all politicians is election results and, in May this year, the electorate gave its resounding support to the Prime Minister.
I believe that this House offers its full backing to the Prime Minister, and that Rother Valley and those areas that need levelling up support him to get things done.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. There have been a lot of interventions. As a result, I will have to take the time limit down to three minutes. I have been able to warn the next speaker, but I urge colleagues to be aware that if they continue to take interventions, not everyone will get in.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The fact is that we are here today because we have a Prime Minister who has spent the past two years undermining the very institution of liberal democracy.
On cash for honours, it is one thing to bestow meaningless medieval titles on people but it is quite another when those titles guarantee a seat for life in this building, subject to zero democratic oversight, zero elections and zero accountability—but it was ever thus. In the days of Maundy Gregory and Lloyd George, there was a price list for honours: £10,000 for a knighthood and up to £50,000—£2.7 million in today’s prices, funnily enough—for a peerage. At least that predated the introduction of VAT and kept prices down for eager customers.
When the law finally caught up with Mr Gregory, he was fined £50 and got two months in jail. He is still the only person to have been convicted of selling honours and, even then, he escaped any prosecution over the sale of British honours—instead, he was collared for punting Vatican ones. That fact alone is incredible given all that we know about the past 100 years of the Lords and political honours, but his sentence also tells a tale about the establishment’s attitude to someone caught in the act: they simply are not interested. Not a single person has ever been convicted of selling British honours. If someone believes that that means that honours have not been sold, I have a bridge or two I can sell them—not a garden bridge or a bridge to Northern Ireland, because only a mug would think that those were feasible.
The British establishment, with the Prime Minister at its apex, has shown over decades that the House of Lords is unreformable. The plain fact is that the Lords’ main function is not to revise and amend legislation as part of democracy’s checks and balances, because the only checks that are required for appointment to the House of Lords need to be made payable to Conservative central office.
The Prime Minister has shown himself time and again to be unfit to decide who sits in that place. He is not the first, but he is possibly the worst. He has used his untrammelled powers over honours to stuff what is supposed to be an upper Chamber of Parliament full of cronies and chums. He should be thoroughly ashamed, but it is not even clear that he has the ability to feel shame.
It is time for Scotland to rid itself of this stink and follow a different course. Whatever challenges independence will bring—and there will be challenges—we will at least have a functioning democracy based on accountability and plurality, rather than the absolutely rotten system that we live under today. We will also no longer live under the Prime Minister and his open contempt for democracy.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
I must say that I find it utterly bizarre that we find ourselves here this afternoon, once again wasting valuable parliamentary time, all because SNP Members are so desperate to deflect from their own insecurities and failures. It is laughable that they want to accuse our Prime Minister of ignoring advice when the policy of ignoring is precisely what their party stands for. The good Scottish people voted to remain a part of the United Kingdom, but SNP Members will not take the final word of their own constituents as exactly what it is; instead, they seek to overturn it. Theirs is a policy of division.
The SNP nationalists consistently let down Scottish people on healthcare, with accident and emergency waiting times near the worst level on record. Their First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, stumbled and floundered over her devolved nationalist Government’s record on the NHS, covid recovery and the economy in a recent TV interview: all she appeared to do was blame the pandemic. In her time as First Minister, the number of people waiting more than 12 weeks for treatment increased by 427% for out-patients and 1,590% for in-patients.
Who supported the Scottish people, Scottish businesses and the Scottish Government through the pandemic? It was the UK Government, led by our Prime Minister. It was the UK Government who implemented the furlough scheme supporting more than 900,000 individuals. It was the UK Government who supported 175,000 self-employed workers in Scotland, with a total claim on the UK taxpayer of nearly £1.7 billion. It was this UK Government who secured access to the covid-19 vaccine for Scotland, saving lives and stopping the spread of the virus. It is this UK Government who have secured the booster jabs to protect and save lives as we face uncertainties over the omicron variant.
But I do not think that SNP Members care about any of that. They do not care about what really benefits their residents; they care only about holding on to their seats. For them, it is about division. To fuel their own separatist fires, they want English Members in this place to come out berating Scotland and its people. I have news for them: all the colleagues I know love Scotland and the Scottish people. Even Labour MPs, although they are absent today, love Scotland—why, they even had a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who were Scottish.
This personal attack on the Prime Minister is nothing more than an act of political desperation by a party that is covering up its failings. Soon we will have not just painted windows on ferries that it cannot build, but painted images on the Opposition Benches for a party of Christmas past. The SNP is running out of ideas and running out of time.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Madam Deputy Speaker,
“The Scotch—what a verminous race!”
So says a racist poem that calls for the “comprehensive extermination” of the Scots—a poem that the current Prime Minister thought merited publishing when he was editor of The Spectator. We know that he thinks that
“a pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country…than a pound spent in Strathclyde.”
That is his view of our place in the Union. We have already heard the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) telling us to be grateful for what we get.
The Prime Minister has suggested that it is English subsidies that pay for Scottish Government policies such as free personal care and free tuition fees. He has also called for the abolition of the Barnett formula. Not long ago, he told Tory Back Benchers that devolution was Tony Blair’s “biggest mistake” and a “disaster”, so it is both bizarre and pathetic how the Scottish Tories defend this man and his attitudes.
The Prime Minister tried to woo us with the Union bridge, but we did not need the feasibility study to tell us that it was a stupid idea and that it could not be done. Meanwhile, while he kept trying to find money for his vanity project, the Scottish carbon capture cluster—the most advanced such project—has been ditched in favour of two clusters in the north of England that are targeted at the red wall seats. Yet again, that is our place in the Union according to the Prime Minister.
This is also the Prime Minister who helped to inflict Brexit on us—a man happy to be on a bus with a slogan that was a downright lie, with a leave campaign that broke the rules on the use of data and was partly funded by dark money.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I will take the point of order, but I feel quite strongly that the debate should not be constantly interrupted by points of order which are, in fact, matters for debate.
Paul Holmes
As a new Member of Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker, I need to ask your advice. Is it acceptable in the House to use the word “liar”, and to accuse a Member of lying?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman may not have been in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate, but the Chairman of Ways and Means made it very clear that, in the particular circumstances of this debate, some language that could not normally be used is allowed because of the nature of the motion.
Alan Brown
For the record, the slogan on the bus was a downright lie.
This is a Prime Minister who gave us an illegal prorogation of Parliament, and was willing to break international law. This is a Prime Minister who clearly does not respect democracy, and is seeking to undermine it further. We have the introduction of voter ID, and lifetime votes for expatriates because he thinks that that they are more likely to vote Tory. He has given himself the power to call an election. We have seen the attack on the Electoral Commission, the privatisation of Channel 4, the attempts to install Paul Dacre as chair of Ofcom, and the secret freedom of information clearing house. All those are further levers to manipulate and to hold on to power. Moreover, this a man who once conspired to have a reporter beaten up, and who was sacked from his own job as a journalist for lying in a story. As we have heard, he also continues to stuff the House of Lords with cronies and donors. It is outrageous that he suggested to the Liaison Committee that that was necessary to counteract the power of trade unions.
All this explains why the Prime Minister rushed to the defence of Owen Paterson over paid lobbying. So many of my constituents ask me how I can put up with the antics in this place, but one thing I can tell the Tories is that this is driving people towards independence.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Any member of the public who has the misfortune to stumble across the debate will be appalled that, at the time of a pandemic, a migrant crisis, endless illegal crossings of the channel and numerous other real concerns that are filling up my inbox, SNP Members are indulging themselves with this non-issue in a transparent attempt to generate a few cheap headlines. I am interested in how they alighted on the sum of £41,567. Is that so that the British Prime Minister would make less money than the leader of the SNP in Scotland? I am not sure because in general the job of the Prime Minister, the most responsible role in the country, is already remunerated annually for less than that of countless public sector bureaucrats and managers, many of whom earn twice or even three times the Prime Minister's salary for a fraction of the responsibility. As they are so interested in fairness, SNP Members will presumably be demanding a debate on that anomaly as well—or perhaps not.
The only person who is not justifying his salary is the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who, instead of serving his constituents and allowing the rest of us to do the same, prefers to waste all our time on this infantile debate. That says far more about him than it does about our Prime Minister.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
With or without invoking parliamentary privilege, it is sadly fair comment and no libel when we consider the conduct of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and how it has become unbecoming of a Prime Minister. That prompts the question of how and why we have reached this point. Today’s debate should not be partisan and it should not be about the failings of a single man, because this place made him and it has so far enabled his conduct to take place. There needs to be a discussion of how far we are willing to go before we reset the course of a failing ship of state so that it can sail straight.
For too long this place has insulated itself from criticism and failure by burrowing deeper and deeper into the traditions and virtues of history. It remains entrenched in the conventions of a time when landed gentlemen indulged in debating skills, all the while legislating to protect their own vested interests, two sword-lengths apart. You would wonder, would you not, Madam Deputy Speaker, what has changed. Its chronic reluctance to overcome adversarial politics and to modernise means that its vulnerabilities can be, and have been, easily exploited by some for personal or political gain. This place lent itself to that.
We need to do better to remedy the sheer immensity of the challenges that we face. We have all talked about that, but we have been so adversarial about it, haven’t we? We have used it as a pantomime charge to throw against one another. It is a consensual rather than an adversarial politics that lies at the heart of Plaid Cymru’s co-operation agreement with the Labour Welsh Government, which was ratified this weekend. The conduct of this Prime Minister necessitates it. It has brought Labour on board with several key Plaid Cymru pledges, including free school meals for all primary school pupils, the devolution of the management of the Crown Estate, a commitment to take radical action to address the second homes crisis and, yes, long-term reform of the Senedd, to name but a few. This is the politics of the 21st century, and not a museum piece. The behaviour of this Prime Minister has necessitated it.
We want to work with other parties to achieve social, economic and environmental progress, and this agreement does that. It also brings about the stability, consensus and ideas needed in our political system to ensure that we rebuild from the pandemic and act swiftly to achieve net zero. I look forward to hearing support from the Labour Benches here and the parliamentary Labour party for the only place in which Labour holds Government in the United Kingdom.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
It could have been so much better today. We had a precious chance to debate the issues that are most important to the people of Scotland, and SNP Members know what those issues are, because every opinion poll tells them that it is not independence. Fewer than 13% of Scots put it in their top three issues. In fact, the top three priorities for Scotland are healthcare, the economy and education, and it is just the same in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are together in this in our United Kingdom. But that is no good, because the job of the SNP is to sow division and to drive a wedge, because it has one issue—independence—irrespective of the views of the Scottish people.
If we look at healthcare, we can see why SNP Members are so silent on it. Any debate on the SNP’s health performance over the past 14 years would be a disaster for it. Even before covid, waiting times for referrals in England averaged 12 days—room for improvement—but in Scotland, waiting times for out-patients were 32 days and for in-patients 45 days. That is not an accident. That is the choice of the SNP. We have already heard about the drugs scandal. If we want to debate a scandal in this House today, we should debate the SNP’s drugs policy.
What about the economy? SNP Members do not want to talk about that either, because of the massive support from the United Kingdom Government for millions of people and businesses across Scotland, including the furlough schemes; the 99,000 Scottish businesses helped through business support; the billions invested in locally driven partnerships and projects from the shared prosperity fund, the levelling-up fund, the community ownership fund and the global Britain investment fund; and of course the Union dividend of £2,800 for every adult and child invested in Scotland every year. So we had better not talk about the economy.
That is before I have even mentioned the third issue: education. The SNP used to want to talk about that. In 2015, Nicola Sturgeon said:
“Let me be clear. I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people, then what are you prepared to do? It really matters.”
She was right. It really does matter. But after a decade of devolved power, Scotland has fallen below England in the PISA standards for reading, maths and science. The SNP does not want to talk about that.
So what is left? An obsession with constitutional change and a debate on how much the Prime Minister should be paid. This matters. Just yesterday, the First Minister ordered the Scottish Government to divert resources to prepare for a referendum—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I have to keep people absolutely to time.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
It would be remiss of me not to start my contribution to a debate on the Prime Minister by reflecting on the characteristics of my own toddler back at home. He is fast approaching two, and he is developing a cute personality. He likes to re-enact or imitate the noises that cars make. Sometimes he loses his place, by complete chance, and does not know what he is saying or doing. I think it is adorable. Of course, my toddler is a massive fan of Peppa Pig, although he has not yet been to Peppa Pig World, and long may that continue. The House will imagine my surprise that I have not had a phone call asking whether he can deliver a keynote speech to the CBI, as the Prime Minister did.
On a more serious note, the veneer and the laughter that encapsulate the Prime Minister and that got many Conservative Back Benchers elected are disappearing like snow off a dike. The reason is simple. It is because the Prime Minister breaks his promises, whether it is protecting the triple lock on pensions, protecting the international aid budget or not raising taxes. That breaking of promises breaks trust with the public, which is why his poll ratings continue to plummet. That is before we get to the reality of the corruption and sleaze we have seen in the past few weeks and months, with the VIP lanes for Tory friends, families and donors, the Owen Paterson scandal and the fact that people with £3 million can get themselves a seat in the House of Lords.
It is not just at home that the Prime Minister’s reputation is plummeting; it is plummeting abroad, too. When we needed leadership at COP26, we got Kermit the Frog, belching cows and, of course, our Prime Minister sitting beside David Attenborough without a mask. On Brexit, our relations with the European Union are a complete and utter boorach. Last week, when people were dying in the channel as they tried to get to this country, the Prime Minister sought to do diplomacy via Twitter. That is a lesson in how not to do diplomacy.
I will break from the norm and agree with some Tories. I hope the Prime Minister stays in post because, when it comes to Scotland’s independence referendum, I sincerely hope he is in the vanguard of the push to protect their precious Union.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
I would like to say what a pleasure it has been to listen to the single transferable Whip’s speech that seems to have passed from one end of the Tory Benches to the other, but I am comparatively early in my parliamentary career and I have no wish to be hauled up for misleading the House.
Plenty of criticism can be made of policy, but the bit that everyone on the Government Benches, from the Minister to the Back Benchers, seems to have completely missed is that this debate is about the probity and suitability of the current occupant of No. 10 Downing Street to be there and to continue carrying out his duties as Prime Minister.
When I first started taking an interest in politics, I was a student during the tail-end of John Major’s time in Downing Street. There were scandals aplenty then, like now, from the petty and the embarrassing through to the corruption of cash for questions and the outright duplicity of the arms to Iraq affair. It was hard to imagine that the UK might ever again be led by a Government so chaotic, so lacking in scruple, so willing to bend the truth and so willing to hawk themselves around the broadcasting studios to assert that forwards is backwards and black is white, yet here we are. Although we can all no doubt highlight points along that trajectory where things really started heading for the ground, I do not think any reasonable person could dispute that the present holder of the office of Prime Minister has taken us to this nadir of public trust in Government and politics.
It is all part of a pattern of behaviour. If you want a photo opportunity in a hospital but can’t be bothered to wear a mask, just ignore the instruction to wear one. If you don’t like the Electoral Commission investigating who funds your party, your takeaways or your flat renovations, emasculate the Electoral Commission. You don’t like the fact that people without ready access to ID tend not to vote for your party—try to introduce voter ID. You don’t like the fact that voters in devolved nations don’t elect enough representatives of your party to have any influence—try to bypass devolution. You accidentally create a border in the Irish sea—just pretend it does not exist and tell people that black is white.
This Government clearly think the rules do not apply to them; it is one rule for the Government and another rule for everybody else. It comes from the top, led by a Prime Minister who clearly does not think that there are any rules at all or that if there are, they should not apply to him.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that for all this talk of the levelling-up agenda, when it comes to Scotland it is clear that it is a scorched earth agenda? Whether we are talking about carbon capture in his part of the country or the Valneva contract to deliver 100 million vaccines, which we need right now, this Prime Minister is not capable of doing the very basics and telling the truth.
Richard Thomson
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she says it very eloquently and succinctly. We have a crisis of confidence in this country. We have a crisis of confidence in the Prime Minister, who is clearly not fit for the job with which he has been entrusted. This is being aided and abetted by the silence and complicity of far too many Conservative Members, and I cannot wait to see which Lobby the Scottish Conservative contingent, in particular, chooses to go through this evening.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Because of that intervention, I am afraid that the final speaker is going to be able to have only two and a half minutes, unless the SNP spokesperson would take a little less.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Ministers and Government Members have been trying all afternoon to treat this debate as though it was not serious—as though it was a Westminster bubble story that will go away or in which our constituents are not interested, but that is not the case. Constituents have been emailing me since I came here in 2015, as they have been observing this place and its shenanigans. We are talking about practices and behaviour that would not be allowed or tolerated in the lives of our constituents or in workplaces up and down the country. They see a Parliament led by a Prime Minister for whom rules do not apply and consequences do not exist. They see grubby, manky, tawdry lies repeated again and again. My constituents see the Prime Minister at that Dispatch Box saying things that are not true. Like me, they find it bizarre that this is the only place where calling out a lie gets you in more trouble than telling one.
It is not for the Paymaster General or those on the Tory Benches to tell me what is important to my constituents and what they feel is important. My constituents have contacted me to tell me that they believe the House of Lords—that repository of those who have lost their seats, the donors and the cronies—should be abolished. Constituents have contacted me on the need for an urgent inquiry into the covid-19 scandals, to get the truth of where these VIP lanes have led. They have contacted me angry about the Electoral Commission being undermined by this Tory Government, about the Elections Bill, about voter ID, which will suppress their democratic rights, and about the shameful behaviour of Conservative Members seeking to change the standards to protect their pals.
My constituents care deeply about fairness and democracy. They are increasingly appalled by the behaviour of this UK Tory Government and this Prime Minister, and many of them are now seeking an alternative.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
This has been some debate. I have to say at the outset that I did not think our modest little motion would trigger Tory Back Benchers in the way it has done. There have been some amazing speeches in response to what we put forward, in a very reasonable motion about the behaviour and conduct of the Prime Minister. I wish to discuss their speeches, because some of them were truly fascinating and I want to go into some of the details.
First, however, I wish to congratulate my colleagues on some outstanding contributions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) was absolutely right to highlight and list that litany of sleaze and corruption. He reminded us of the Nolan principles of public life. He was right to use the “L” word. I have been 20 years in this House and it has not become commonplace for that to be used here, but today it is the only word that is appropriate—no other alternatives can be found. It is the only way we can describe some of the Prime Minister’s conduct. The Chairman of Ways and Means was absolutely right to make her ruling today because there is no other way to describe what the Prime Minister has said to this House. I am reluctant to use the word, as I have been in this House so long, but lie it is.
There were some great speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie); from my hon. Friends the Members for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) and for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar); from my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson)—that was a fantastic speech; from my hon. Friends the Members for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown); from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), whose toddler I would rather have addressing the CBI than the Prime Minister any day; from my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson); and from the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts).
Then there were the Conservative speeches. Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, where do you start? First, Conservative Members come here and tell us that we should not be debating this motion and should be debating something else. They said exactly the same thing the previous time we had an Opposition day. Perhaps we should ask the Leader of the House for permission and to tell us exactly what we should debate on our own Opposition days. What a hard neck Conservative Members have: they pockled half a day from our Opposition day so that they could discuss the wearing of face masks in England. If they do not know what pockled means, let me tell them: it means misappropriating, taking away and stealing, which is exactly what they did today.
I thought we were doing Conservative Members a favour: I thought they would all be queuing up and jumping over each other to get to their feet to defend the Prime Minister and tell us what a wonderful character he was, about all his attributes, that he was the most honest man in the world and that he was corruption and sleaze-free. But none of them did it—not one. [Interruption.] There was one, and I think somebody else might have mentioned just how valuable the Prime Minister is to them, but none of the rest of the Conservative Members were even going to prepare to start to defend their Prime Minister. They wanted to talk about absolutely everything other than what the motion is about. They tried to get us to talk about everything else other than the motion, but let me tell them that although they think it is unimportant, it will be their downfall.
Conservative Members actually believe their own rhetoric and that nobody cares about Tory sleaze and corruption, but it is all anybody is talking about. Why do they think their opinion poll rating has dropped by something up to eight percentage points? It is not because the SNP is not debating education or health; it is because Conservative Members are mired in a sleaze and corruption scandal on the scale of those in the 1990s. That is the reality of what people are discussing the length and breadth of the country and that is why their ratings are falling.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. The Intelligence and Security Committee stated recently:
“Russian influence in the UK is the new normal. Successive Governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance”
and with
“connections…to UK companies and political figures.”
That is corruption at the heart of the British Government, is it not?
Pete Wishart
Absolutely and utterly. It would take all day—longer than I am allowed—just to list the corruption and sleaze in even the scantiest of detail. Conservative Members are up to their necks in it. They might wish, as they have been doing all afternoon, that the public did not care about it, but the public care very much. I will tell them who they have to blame: the very man mentioned in the motion. It is their Prime Minister who has led them to fall in the polls. I thought they would be rushing to join us this evening—come and roam in the gloaming with us in the Aye Lobby as we censure the Prime Minister—because he has treated them appallingly, almost to the point of cruelty. They are having to defend themselves against their constituents. They are actually having to say to their constituents that Peppa Pig is not a Government Minister, such is the confusion that abounds. They should join us tonight: they know it is the right thing to do. The Prime Minister has treated them appallingly and they should help us this evening.
The Prime Minister has gone from being Conservative Members’ brightest Brexit asset to being their biggest liability. Forget about being led to the top of the hill; they have had to carve out a new gorge and mountain range for the amount of mountaineering they have had to do. That is why they should help us. They thought they would saunter to their next election victory, but the Prime Minister has sorted that.
I have to say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber that I am a bit conflicted by the motion. I am conflicted not in the sense that I do not think we have a disgrace of a Prime Minister—somebody who should not get within several feet of Larry the cat, let alone the No. 10 sitting room—but because this Prime Minister is the best recruiting sergeant that we have for the cause of Scottish independence. What would we do without him? [Interruption.] They are all agreeing with me on the Government Benches. He is! More than anybody else, he has made sure that the cause of Scottish independence has been promoted in the way it has and we have to thank him for that. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that I am a little bit conflicted. I will back the motion because the Prime Minister is useless, because he is corrupt, because he is sleazeworthy, and because he lies to this House, but, by God, what a job he has done for the cause of Scottish independence. For that, we have him to thank.
As I have been thanking people over the course of this debate, it would be lax of me not to also thank the Conservative Back-Bench Members. I thank them for their efforts today—they were absolutely fantastic. Something that they always forget when they get up and make their stupid speeches is that the people of Scotland are watching them. They were enamoured by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson)—he is not in his place, which is really unfortunate—because of his disgraceful speech. People of Scotland watched these speeches and thought, “Why on earth would I want to be in this minging midden with these people speaking about my nation in such a way?” For that, I thank the Tory Back Benchers most sincerely. They have done a stellar job today in ensuring that Scottish independence happens.
There is a whole list of things to talk about, but there is just one issue that I will touch on—[Interruption.] My Tory fans are really backing what I am saying today. There is one issue that we really need to touch on because it has been mentioned so often by my hon. Friends: it is that place down the end of the corridor. What a place! The House of Lords is now Ground Zero of Tory corruption. The fact is that all but one of the last nine Tory treasurers were in that place. I looked up all of them. I was looking for philanthropy, good causes and charities, but the only thing that unites them—the only one defining feature—is this rare ability to be able to give £3 million to Tory coffers.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is veering very close to the line here. He must not accuse individuals from the House of Lords. I know that he will want to be finishing off quite soon.
Pete Wishart
I will obviously follow your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not referring to individuals. I am referring to that place down the corridor.
Hardly any of the Labour party turned up today; two Back Benchers came along. I say to them all, “Help us! Help us to clean that place out”. They should not accept any more Members of the House of Lords, for goodness sake. We have this one opportunity, with all this Tory corruption going on.
I was listening to the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). I like her. She is one of these genuine Labour Front Benchers. But there was nobody else from the Labour party today. What is that about? This is serious stuff. This is the behaviour of the Prime Minister. We are talking about his conduct generally and we need to make sure that the Labour party is with us in order to take this on.
We will not stop this. We want out of this House. Scotland will be an independent nation. We will not be here for much longer. The Scottish people are observing how business is done here, and they do not like it one bit. They do not like the speeches from the hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies on the Back Benches. They cannot stand this Prime Minister. More and more, the Scottish people are looking at this place and deciding that what they want is a nation of their own, a country that they can design in their own fashion and not have it determined by a Tory Prime Minister, and they are going to get it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
May I start by wishing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and colleagues across the House, a very happy St Andrew’s Day. Perhaps after this heated and charged debate, we might all enjoy a little of Scotland’s national drink to toast what unites us and what divides us.
I will endeavour to reply to as many Members as possible in the few minutes that I have. I apologise if I am not able to pick up on everyone’s comments. As it is St Andrew’s Day, it is probably appropriate for me to start by referring to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) who is, sadly, not in her place at the minute, but her seat contains St Andrew’s. She made a couple of important points, but this debate is a wasted opportunity today. If the real concern for the separatists on the SNP Benches was to take forward the debate on standards in public life, we could have had a debate on the Committee’s report and some of the related issues on that, but, no, they chose not to do so. The hon. Lady also suggested that the centralising power of the Scottish Government could properly be examined—issues that really matter to people in Scotland. But no, we did not discuss that.
It is disappointing but not entirely surprising that we have spent our time today responding to the desire of SNP Members once again to engage in the divisive, splitting-up policies that appeal to their fan base in the wake of their recent conference. Perhaps, as my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) pointed out, it is to give them fresh social media clips to post on Twitter and elsewhere. It was pointed out to me during the debate that SNP command and control was tweeting about this debate using an old photograph of the Chamber, so unless SNP Members have had a complete costume change during the debate, perhaps this is the fresh material that they need.
Of course, I did not expect SNP Members to arrive here with a long list of the ways in which membership of the Union benefits Scotland, or the many ways in which this Government are investing in the future of Scotland as we navigate our way through the pandemic. They want to talk of the Prime Minister’s conduct. I am happy to talk of the Prime Minister’s conduct in securing for Scotland the roll-out of the covid-19 vaccine, saving lives and stopping the spread of the virus. Today, the conduct of the Prime Minister has been to set out how we are going to ramp up the booster programme to give us the best possible defence against the current variant.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Lady must forgive me; I have to respond to a lot of her colleagues.
We could have been debating the important issue of how we respond sensibly to this new variant. Of course, I would not expect the SNP to highlight the way in which this Government have supported thousands of businesses in Scotland, with more than £4 billion of loans through the bounce back loan scheme and the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme. It took 13 minutes only for the reality to be revealed—that this is actually all about separation and the SNP’s desire to achieve it. That is what this is all about, not the real issues that are of importance to the people of Scotland.
Let me turn to the contribution of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). I do feel some sympathy for her, given the massed ranks of two colleagues with her—two and half perhaps; I am not quite sure where Labour is with that. The hon. Lady said something quite surprising. She said that Labour Members are not here today because it is an SNP debate, as if that exempts them from talking about these issues. Has Labour given up in Scotland? Does it fall solely to the Conservative party to be the defender of the Union? I really think that her colleagues should take a little bit more interest in this matter.
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) made a hugely important contribution, spelling out the reality amid all the false accusations about the procurement of vital equipment during the early stages of the pandemic. We were in a race against time to get that equipment, and he rightly spelt out what happened. This nonsense about crony contracts is just not fit for purpose. He also made the important point that our vaccine programme was UK-funded, using universities across the UK; that is the reality of the Union.
The right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), for whom I have a lot of affection—we have worked collaboratively on issues affecting his constituency or nearby—made a number of accusations that I really cannot allow to lie. First, he said that we were engaged in various acts of voter suppression regarding voter ID. I have to reveal to him that we already have voter ID in one part of the United Kingdom—Northern Ireland—and there is no evidence that it suppresses voter turnout. He also cited the boundary review, as if it was unnecessary. I looked up the electorate in his constituency, which is approximately 66,000. I have nearly 100,000 electors, and is it not a basic point of fairness that we each represent approximately the same number of voters? His final point was to reference a Supreme Court judgment. He seems to have forgotten that the Supreme Court recently ruled against the Scottish Government when they tried to exceed the powers of the devolution settlement—and this is a party that talks about respecting devolution. I have to say it was off the mark.
I am not going to be able to respond to many more contributions, but I do have to respond to the very important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). At the moment his constituents are without power, heating and basic services. He wants to know how this Government and the Scottish Government can work together to help those people in his constituency. That is what we should be debating today, not partisan red meat to throw at the fanbase to cover up internal divisions over the next steps to independence.
This Prime Minister is passionate about the United Kingdom. He is setting out some of the long-term solutions to the challenges we face, like on social care—an issue that has been ducked by Government for too long. That is the conduct of this Prime Minister. It is a Prime Minister I am proud to serve in this Government, and I urge colleagues to reject the motion before us tonight.
Question put.
Business without Debate
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With the leave of the House, we will take motions 6 and 7 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Public Health
That the draft Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 (Amendment to Schedule 3) (England) Order 2021, which was laid before this House on 1 November, be approved.
Transport
That the draft Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2021, which was laid before this House on 8 November, be approved.—(Mr Marcus Jones.)
Question agreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6), and Order, 17 November),
Airport and Ground Operations Support Scheme Winter 2021-22 Renewal
That this House authorises the Secretary of State to undertake to pay, and to pay by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, sums exceeding £30 million with an estimated total sum of £44 million, to be made available, through the extended Airport and Ground Operations Support Scheme announced in the Budget, to eligible commercial airports and ground operators to compensate for the continuing damage caused by Covid-19 to the aviation sector, on the basis of business rates liabilities or Covid-19 losses, whichever is lower, from October 2021 - March 2022, subject to certain conditions and a cap of £4 million per eligible company.—(Mr Marcus Jones.)
Question agreed to.
Committee on Public Accounts
Ordered,
That Kemi Badenoch be discharged from the Committee on Public Accounts and Helen Whately be added.—(Bill Wiggin, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
NICE-Approved Products: Patient Access
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I rise to address the challenging issue of access for patients to medicines and medical devices. We all believe absolutely passionately that we should have access to doctors and nurses, good hospitals and operating theatres, but I think the pandemic has shown beyond question that access to medicines and medical devices goes hand in hand, and without that we do not have the NHS that I think we all believe everyone deserves.
What is the problem? The problem, I shall explain, is as follows. When a medicine is approved, it goes through two processes: first, with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which checks whether or not a drug is actually safe and does effectively what it says on the tin; and then it goes to a separate process run by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which looks at cost-effectiveness and value for money. The theory goes that, once those two hurdles have been passed, the medicine is then accessible to anyone. It is very clear in the NHS constitution, which explains that there is a legal right for people to have NHS NICE-approved drugs if it is right for their particular circumstances. Indeed, the NICE guidelines say that there should be automatic adoption, if clinically appropriate and relevant, within 90 days of approval. So where is the problem?
The problem is partly in the system and partly in the words. The words in the constitution are effectively caveated: people can have a medicine if it is right for their particular circumstances. Likewise, according to the NICE guidelines, it will be automatically adopted if clinically appropriate and relevant. The challenge is that, in the current system, NICE will approve medicines for the condition for which they are most cost-effective, so in this country we do not have the ability to approve a medicine for multiple conditions—multiple indications, in the jargon. It is what is most cost-effective that gets approved, and others do not, and there is not a system, either than paying privately, to ensure that the medicine that has been approved for the condition for which it is most cost-effective is available to those with other conditions, but that medicine may in fact still be the only possible solution.
Assuming we get over that hurdle, there is a second hurdle, because not only must NICE have approved the drug, but it has to go on the approved list of drugs locally in the local health authorities—now integrated care systems. The problem is that to get on those formularies, somebody has to put it on those formularies. Currently, while in theory under the NHS NICE guidelines there is a system, it does not actually happen. There is currently a drug for multiple sclerosis, and research shows that people are still waiting after 150 days for it to go on the formularies in something like 25% of the local health systems across the country. So the system, fundamentally, does not work.
What does this result in? It results in a postcode lottery. If someone has type 1 diabetes, it is absolutely crucial that they monitor their condition. There is a device, a flash monitor, that is state of the art, and research shows that the uptake across the country varies between 16% and 65%. What is most worrying is that those parts of the country with the greatest levels of deprivation have the lowest levels of uptake. We all think we have access to medicines for cancer given that we now have the highly innovative and very welcome cancer drugs fund. However, that drugs fund is only relevant when the particular drug is approved for a particular type of cancer. So there will be some drugs—Avastin, for example—which those with the appropriate cancer can get through the CDF, but those with a different type of cancer or who do not fit the profile again have to pay for it privately, costing £252 to £1,088 per cycle, which is every three months.
Sadly, NICE does not approve much for those with skin conditions. For those with mastocytosis—blotches on the skin and boils causing vomiting and diarrhoea—the only solution is usually NICE-approved food allergy drugs, but they are approved for NICE allergies not skin conditions so they have to be paid for privately. For cystinosis, the accumulation of amino acids, which gives rise to kidney problems and kidney damage, the drug Procysbi has been approved by NICE but, bizarrely, there seems to be no uptake of that to date at all. That is important because that drug is, unlike the existing drug, a slow-release drug and therefore mums and dads do not have to keep waking up their kids in the middle of the night to give them the next dose, which, as we can imagine, takes a real toll on family life.
For those with an obesity problem there is a good solution in Saxenda, but that is approved for diabetes. So those whose obesity does not give rise to diabetes will not get access except by case-by-case approval. I am pleased to say that Imperial has finally accepted and approved.
How are we going to resolve some of these issues to make sure there is no longer a postcode lottery? First, let us look at the simple case of those drugs that are deemed to give the most health benefit and are therefore in theory approved and people can get hold of them. What can we do to make sure they do actually finally appear on those formularies and how can we then make sure the system for take-up is actually in place? One of the problems is that there is nobody sitting in these health bodies who monitors NICE drugs coming up, and therefore no one who looks to see whether in their health community they may be of benefit.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing a debate on this topic. As she says, this is about NICE-approved products as well as drugs. One of those products is cognitive rehabilitation therapy, an important intervention for those with dementia, enabling them to live independently for longer. However, despite being listed in the NICE recommendations there is a barrier to delivery. Occupational therapists and other staff in memory clinics do not have the capacity to deliver programmes that are National Institute for Health Research and Alzheimer’s Society-funded. Does the hon. Lady agree that the NICE recommendations must address not just drugs but also products?
Anne Marie Morris
I could not agree more. It is crucial to realise we are talking not just about medicines and drugs but also devices and, as the hon. Gentleman says, the processes, which are often the connection between the medicine, the device and the patient.
Within these health bodies, there is no training and nobody specifically focused on monitoring innovation, and there is no obligation to prescribe. Even more peculiarly, for these drugs there is an agreement between the industry and the NHS, the voluntary payment scheme or VPAS, under which manufacturers that are members of the scheme effectively agree with Government when the medicine or device is approved that it will be supplied at a well-discounted price. In addition, there is an agreement that sets a cap so that if, as it happens, more prescriptions are written for that particular drug, it is agreed that the extra cost that the NHS has incurred will be reimbursed by the manufacturer.
So if there is excessive prescribing—we assume that is why there is an attempt to limit how much goes on to formularies—why is that a problem when we have the VPAS scheme? It is a problem because the scheme does not the pass the benefit, other than the reduced price, down to the local health authority. The money is put into a separate pot, and that pot is then used generally to support the NHS writ broadly; it is not ringfenced, either for medicines or to be used, as it could be, to support local health authorities—integrated care systems—when their budgets are put under pressure, which is why they do not want too many things on their formularies. This would help them pay the price.
It seems to me, Minister, that there are some solutions here. You will be aware that I raised three of them in proceedings on the Health and Care Bill. To deal with the imperfections of the current arrangements, if those drugs that were approved by NICE—we are talking about the most cost-effective drugs—were mandated to be on formularies within 28 days automatically, so no one had to decide whether they went on or not, that would be a good system. It would also ensure that the decision was in the hands of the clinician and not of the bureaucracy of the health authority.
It seems to me, Minister, that the second suggestion I made—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is quite important not to address the Minister directly; he should be addressed through me.
Anne Marie Morris
Thank you for the correction, Madam Deputy Speaker.
My second proposal is that there should be an innovation officer specifically appointed to look at and manage these issues. Failing all else, there should be a final provision that specifically puts an obligation on the health authority to provide any NICE-approved medicine. Then, as a matter of practicality that is not a matter for the Health and Care Bill, there should be a new arrangement under which the NHS would agree that this pot, rather than going into the general NHS coffers, is put aside specifically to reimburse local authorities.
What about the second category—those drugs that are approved by NICE but not used for the most cost-effective indication? That is called off-label prescribing. We know that a drug in that category does what it says on the tin and we know that it is cost-effective, but it is not sufficiently cost-effective to have got a tick in the box from NICE. Access then is a matter for negotiation between the integrated care system, the NHS and the manufacturer. Often, the starting point will be the list price, but bear in mind that that list price is a lot more than the NHS is paying. The result is that in different health authorities and different hospitals, different patients are offered different costs to be able to access the drug.
There is a real problem on top of all this. To ensure that there is no gaming of the system between access to private healthcare and state healthcare, someone cannot mix the two—quite rightly, we do not want gaming of the system so that people can effectively jump waiting lists—so there is an agreement to enable people to do a bit privately and then jump straight back into the NHS. If there is an episode where someone takes a drug and pays for it privately, technically they cannot then have the ongoing monitoring of their cancer—screening and so on—on the NHS. Individual health authorities recognise that that is rather absurd when we are talking not about a private patient with health insurance but about someone for whom the only way to get the drug is to pay for it, but that recognition is not universal.
So what is the solution for this one?
We need to look at NICE, supported by NHS England, accepting multi-indication approvals. That means a drug company can take a drug and apply, at the same time, for the drug to be approved for different health issues that have different ranges of health benefit. Clearly, the NHS will say, “Hold on a minute. I am not going to pay the same price for something which delivers less health benefit.” That means we need a system of differential pricing, so that a different amount is paid by the NHS for the drug, depending on the use to which it is to be put. That is entirely possible. It is done all over the world.
The Office of Health Economics put out a report, an international study, just this month on “Payment Models for Multi-Indication Therapies”. It concluded:
“Inflexible uniform pricing does not optimally support innovation and access. The most important consequence is lost treatment opportunities for patients.”
I respectfully suggest that the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care might sensibly look at that. I also suggest, given the clear importance of payment support through industry, that as we move to the next iteration and renegotiation of VPAS, the agreement under which the industry agrees reduced pricing for mass purchase above a certain cap, it will reimburse the Government. That renegotiation needs to include provision for the multi-indication approvals process and differential pricing. 2023 is not very far away and I urge the NHS and the Government to take it forward very quickly. Meanwhile, there should be agreed standard pricing which is effectively paid for and underwritten by the pot set aside as a result of the cap.
There is one final area that needs to be addressed: drugs approved by NICE through a managed access agreement. For some treatments—typically gene therapy, where you are taking body fluids out, effectively changing the genetic make-up, and then putting them back in again—a hub needs to be set up in a hospital. Often, when drugs are approved, exactly how they are going to be delivered is not approved at the same time. Those drugs and processes need to be agreed not just in principle, but together with a package that ensures they can be implemented. As things stand, it can often take three years and much argument before hubs are established and the funding can then flow.
In summary, I ask for a number of things. First, my three new clauses to the Health and Care Bill would require local health system formularies to include NICE-approved drugs within 28 days. Secondly, there ought to be included in the Bill an absolute obligation to provide NICE drugs. It would then be for the individual health authority to work out how to provide them, but there should be an underpinning payment mechanism provided by the NHS. Thirdly—again, I have tabled a new clause on this—we need an innovation officer to ensure the system runs smoothly and that the things that would give best benefit are put on those formularies.
Fourthly—forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, there are eight of these—I would like the Government to look very closely at a multi-indication approval system, fifthly, at a differential pricing system and, sixthly, at an appropriate VPAS agreement for 2023. My last asks are about how the money is used. Seventhly, the pot of money, an accumulation of money paid by industry because more of the drug was prescribed, should be made available to local health systems, the integrated care systems, to cover the costs that are not in their mainstream budget. Finally, we should put in place a formal delivery mechanism for every managed access treatment to ensure that it is not just a promise, but actuality. I wonder whether it might therefore be appropriate for this Minister, the life sciences Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—and the innovation Minister, Lord Kamall, to meet me, because all three have a critical role, given their involvement in access, industry and licensing. I wonder whether it might be possible to persuade them to accept my three amendments to the Health and Care Bill.
It might also be helpful if these matters were raised with the National Audit Office, which could review the current system and look at whether it offers value for money. That would be a very good use of their time. I am sure that the doughty hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, might also be interested in looking at this issue. After all, value for money is critical.
In conclusion, we have a world-beating system but, as it currently stands, it does not provide value for money for all. It does not serve the best interests of all patients, and it does not serve the best interests of delivering the UK life sciences strategy. Indeed, I have one constituent who moved house from Devon to Southampton so that he could get a medical treatment.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
As ever, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing this debate and I pay tribute to her work in this area. That work has been sustained for as long as I have been a Member of the House—I was first elected in 2015—but I suspect that this area was of interest to her long before then. I pay tribute to her for her continued engagement on this area, which is not always top of the news or top of the political agenda, but is hugely important none the less, so I pay tribute to her work in this space.
I reassure my hon. Friend that the Government share this priority. She is right—I characterise this in these terms and I hope that she will not demur from this—that although the NHS workforce is the beating heart of our NHS, it is beholden on us to give them the tools that they need to be able to use their skills to treat and support the maximum number of possible patients in the most effective way. I think that is a fair reflection of the point that she made at the outset.
Edward Argar
That is an encouraging start. That is why NICE exists. It plays a vital role in supporting patient access to new treatments. Through its technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies programme, NICE makes recommendations for the NHS on whether all new medicines represent value for money for the taxpayer.
NICE aims to publish guidance on new medicines as soon as possible after licensing and is committed to publishing draft recommendations on medicines around the time of marketing authorisation, wherever that is possible. It has a well-earned reputation as a world leader in the field of health technology assessment and it is right that, where NICE recommends a medicine or a medical device, it should be available to patients who stand to benefit. Value for money is important and I will come to that. I suggest that whether the NAO or the Public Accounts Committee wish to look at this is a matter for them, but as my hon. Friend said, she may wish to take that up with the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who may well share her interest—I would not wish to presume, but the hon. Member may well.
Making treatments available is why NHS England and clinical commissioning groups are already under a statutory obligation to fund any treatment recommended by NICE through its technology appraisal or highly specialised technologies programmes, usually within three months of guidance. I will turn to my hon. Friend’s point on timing shortly. This will also be a statutory obligation for integrated care boards. As my hon. Friend has set out, the NHS constitution states that patients and the public
“have the right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE for use in the NHS, if your doctor”—
the treating clinician—
“says they are clinically appropriate for you.”
That is an important point, because we rightly rely on clinical judgment in such circumstances. As my hon. Friend will be aware, NICE recommends the vast majority of new medicines—indeed, in 2020-21 it recommended 100% of them, often thanks to commercial agreements negotiated between NHS England, NICE and companies in parallel with the NICE assessment process—but it is right that that clinical appropriateness filter is there.
I am conscious of time, but before I turn to specific points that my hon. Friend made, I would like to say a few brief words about the success of the cancer drugs fund in supporting patient access to new medicines. The cancer drugs fund was originally introduced to support patient access to medicines that NICE was unable to recommend as cost-effective. Since 2016, however, the fund has been linked to the NICE appraisal process and supports patient access to promising new medicines where the evidence is not mature enough for NICE to recommend routine funding at that point. This has benefited more than 73,000 patients, who have been able to access 91 medicines through the cancer drugs fund, treating more than 200 cancers.
We are building on that fabulous achievement with our manifesto commitment to extend the cancer drugs fund model to non-cancer treatments by creating an innovative medicines fund. I think that there are lessons that we can learn from the cancer drugs fund. NHS England has also recently launched a consultation on proposals for the establishment of the innovative medicines fund. I encourage anyone with an interest to engage; knowing my hon. Friend, I suspect that she has probably pre-empted me and done so already.
I turn briefly to medical devices and treatments. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was quite right to highlight that, although debate often focuses on drugs and specific medicinal or therapeutic treatments, we also need to look more widely at medical devices and at treatments that take other forms than therapeutic treatment. I know that he takes a close interest in the treatment and support of those with dementia, as I did before I was a Minister; I am grateful, as ever, for his contribution to the debate.
As hon. Members will know, NICE can also make recommendations on treatments through its clinical guidelines programme. Guidelines provide authoritative, evidence-based guidance for healthcare professionals and play an important role in driving best practice in the health and care system and supporting improved patient outcomes. However, they often make dozens of recommendations that can be complicated to implement at a local level. For that reason, they are not mandatory, but I assure the House and my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot that the Government expect the healthcare system to take guideline recommendations fully into account in designing services that meet the needs of the local population and in working towards their implementation over time. It is right, however, that that implementation reflects local circumstance and is done at a local level.
I turn to local formularies; time is getting short, but I may also turn briefly to the eight points that my hon. Friend made—let us see how we do. She has raised concerns, not only in this debate but during the Health and Care Bill’s passage through the Commons and in conversations with me, that despite positive NICE guidance, some medicines are not available to NHS patients because they are not included on local formularies. In addition to the statutory funding requirement that applies to NICE-recommended treatments, NICE’S guideline “Developing and updating local formularies” recommends that, when NICE approves the use of a medicine through a technology appraisal, it should be automatically adopted into local formularies.
The standard contract mandated by NHS England for use by commissioners stipulates that providers must ensure that formularies include all NICE-recommended treatments. That process should take place within three months, allowing services a realistic timeframe to prepare for the introduction of a new technology. I appreciate that my hon. Friend went a little further on tightening the timeframe and the compulsion element, but given the complexity of some new treatments, I think that three months probably remains an appropriate timescale. I suspect that she will continue to push me on it, but at the moment I believe it is the right approach.
My hon. Friend is right that the system needs monitoring. She called for an obligation on integrated care boards to report uptake of new medicines annually, which is effectively monitoring. I am pleased to say that the Government support the view that uptake of NICE-recommended medicines should be monitored. Since 2013, NHS Digital has published an innovation scorecard that reports, at a national and a local level, the uptake of selected medicines that NICE has recommended in the last five years. I believe that it is more appropriate and proportionate that that information is collected and published by a single national body using agreed methodology, rather than multiple organisations that may have different ways of measuring and presenting the data.
My hon. Friend made a number of other points. Given the time constraints, I fear that I cannot address them all, but I will reflect carefully, as ever, on what she has said. Given that neither of them are present in the Chamber, it is a pleasure, as always, to agree on their behalf that my noble Friend the innovation Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—the life sciences Minister—will be delighted to meet her to discuss the matter in more detail. I am very grateful to her for bringing this evening’s debate to the House.
Question put and agreed to.