House of Commons
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Prayers
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Oral Answers to Questions
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
Stirling has today submitted its bid to be the UK’s city of culture 2025. Winning the bid would bring investment and international attention to the town, and I am sure that every Scottish MP will join me in wishing Stirling the very best for the competition. As I am sure you are aware, Mr Speaker, today—2 February—is also Groundhog day. Of course, in Scotland, every day feels like Groundhog day with the SNP’s incessant calls for another independence referendum.
Turning to question No. 1, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), and I have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues about improving cross-border connectivity. The UK Government are currently considering the recommendations from the Union connectivity review and a formal response will be published shortly.
Felicity Buchan
Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that the Scottish Government refused to engage with the Union connectivity review, and does he share my hope that these party political games will stop and that the Scottish Government will work with the UK Government to improve transport links for the people of Scotland, such as vital improvements to the A1 and the construction of the Borders railway to Carlisle?
Mr Jack
I do share the disappointment that the Scottish Government did not engage in the Union connectivity review. In fact, the Cabinet Secretary for transport, Michael Matheson, instructed his civil servants not to engage with Sir Peter Hendy, the author of the review. But the UK Government have invited the Scottish Government to work closely in partnership to consider the recommendations and identify solutions that work best for all people in the United Kingdom.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
There is no doubt that the UK Government speak a lot about improving connectivity with Scotland, but what is the Secretary of State specifically doing to improve connectivity between the UK Conservative Cabinet and what they refer to as the political lightweights of the Scottish Conservative party?
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Rail links between England and Scotland are crucial in promoting regional interconnectivity not just to London, but to premier resorts such as mine of Southport. Would my right hon. Friend commit to meeting me so we can discuss putting the link back in through the Burscough curves to connect Southport better with Scotland?
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
With the pandemic leading to more and more people looking to holiday in the UK, what discussions—notwithstanding the comments about the refusal of the Scottish Government—has the Secretary of State endeavoured to have with the Scottish Government about harnessing that new-found demand and supporting important transport hubs such as Edinburgh airport and Haymarket station in my constituency to facilitate improved connectivity?
Mr Jack
As the hon. Lady will know, connectivity is important. It is not just about air; it is also about rail and road. We are very keen to improve connectivity because we realise that that leads to economic growth and improves people’s livelihoods. We are engaging with the Scottish Government in a spirit of good will with a view to improving connectivity for all parts of the United Kingdom.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
The Moray full deal and the Falkirk heads of terms were signed in December. We now have nine deals in implementation and three in negotiation covering all of Scotland. The Government have committed over £1.5 billion for the deal programme in Scotland.
John Lamont
I am sure that the Minister is aware of the Scottish Government’s strategic transport review, and no doubt he will share my disappointment at the very lukewarm support for the extension of the Borders railway to Hawick, Newcastleton and on to Carlisle. Does he agree that this Government should show their full support for the project and tell us when the feasibility study for the Borders railway extension will be started?
Iain Stewart
I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s disappointment. When we signed the Borderlands growth deal, I was determined that the feasibility study for reopening the full Borders line should be in there. I am keen to see that work starting as soon as possible, and we will soon respond to the Union connectivity review, which also references that line. This is a classic example of where the Scottish Government should stop obsessing and spending their time, resources and money on yet more independence preparations and instead deliver on projects that really matter to the people of Scotland.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Borderlands region will see £20 million less investment in its city region deal from the UK Government than from the Scottish Government. Why is that?
Iain Stewart
If the hon. Lady looks at the full package of investment that is going into the Borderlands deal, she will see that this Government are full square behind that area. It really is disappointing that it comes down to this petty point scoring when the whole point of the city region and growth deal is that all parts of government—local, Scottish and UK—work together on delivering the priorities that are determined by local people.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Talking about the Borderlands growth initiative and the growth deal, does the Minister agree that it is extremely important and beneficial to the whole region, and that Carlisle has become the regional capital of parts not just of England, but of Scotland? Does he also agree that south Scotland recognises the importance of Carlisle’s economic performance to the whole region? Does he further agree that that helps to support the Union?
Iain Stewart
I absolutely agree that the Borderlands growth deal is unique in that it straddles the border. The economic footprint of the region is incredibly important. Last year I held a meeting in Carlisle with local authority leaders and other stakeholders to discuss not just the growth deal, but how it can be the starting point for a proper economic partnership that straddles the border and delivers for my hon. Friend and his neighbouring constituencies.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
This Government are committed to upholding and strengthening the United Kingdom. My Department works closely with our partners across Government and with Scottish stakeholders. This Government are delivering record investment in Scotland and are ensuring that the many benefits of the Union are shared across the United Kingdom.
Stephen Kinnock
The Leader of the House recently described the leader of the Scottish Conservatives as “a lightweight figure”. Does the Secretary of State believe that that comment helped to strengthen the Union?
Mr Jack
I have made my position very clear: I do not think that Douglas Ross—[Interruption.] Well, I made it very clear in the Scottish media, which hon. Members may not have noticed, but that is fair enough. He is the leader of the Scottish Conservatives and was put there by the membership, and we are a constitutionally devolved organisation. He is doing a very good job and holds Nicola Sturgeon to account, and he has my full backing.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
On the Union, this Government are committed to delivering freeports across the United Kingdom, including at least one in Wales. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the creation of at least one freeport in Scotland will result in investment and thousands of jobs and demonstrates why our Union is so effective at delivering for our communities?
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The Sue Gray report released on Monday was utterly damning about the Prime Minister’s conduct, yet the Secretary of State continues to back him against the wishes of his own Scottish Conservative leader, who I notice is not in the Chamber for Scottish questions. We now know that the Metropolitan police are investigating no fewer than 12 incidents in Downing Street, with more allegations every day. It is little wonder then that a recent poll found that the Prime Minister is as unpopular in Scotland as Alex Salmond. Does the Secretary of State think that the Prime Minister, in refusing to do the decent thing and resign, is good for the Union or helps those who want to break it up?
Ian Murray
What is Groundhog day, Mr Speaker, is the Secretary of State’s defence of this broken Prime Minister.
Tomorrow, the Bank of England is projected to raise interest rates, and inflation is running at a 30-year high. There will be much anxiety in Scottish households that Ofgem will announce the raising of the energy price cap, leading to a massive hike in bills. Last night, my colleagues and I voted to give every single Scottish household support towards the cost of their spiralling energy bills. Under Labour’s fully costed plans, we would save every Scottish household £200 and save £600 for over 800,000 Scottish households hardest hit by the cost of living crisis. That is proper action on this crisis for those both on and off the grid, like many thousands in the Secretary of State’s constituency. Given that the SNP did not back these plans in the vote last night either, why are Scotland’s two Governments refusing to take any action whatsoever to help Scots with spiralling energy costs?
Mr Jack
The UK Government are taking action. The energy price cap is being maintained and will be renegotiated—that is ongoing work for the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We are providing a £140 rebate on energy bills for 2.2 million households with the lowest incomes, and we have the £300 winter fuel payment for pensioners.
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
The strength of any Union rests upon the confidence people have in those who are running things. I know that I disagree with the Minister’s political judgment, so let me appeal to his business judgment. Hypothetically, if he were handed evidence that the man running his company had been incompetent and dishonest, and was subject to a police investigation, bringing the entire company into disrepute, would he let him carry on in the role, or would he expect him to step back?
Mr Jack
As has been said many times at this Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister is very sorry for what happened—he has apologised. He has said that if he could have done things differently, with hindsight, he would have done. It is also the case that no one has said that he is the subject of a police investigation. The police are looking into the events that have been passed on to them by Sue Gray, and we will wait for the outcome of that inquiry.
Mhairi Black
I find it quite incredible. Many of the public believe that this Prime Minister has a long history of racism, homophobia and misogyny. He has lost numerous jobs due to his level of dishonesty. He has presided over 150,000 deaths and the loss of nearly £5 billion of public money to fraudsters. Eighty per cent. of people in Scotland want him to resign, and the leader of the Scottish Tories wants him to resign. Let me ask the Minister this: as Scotland’s only representative in Cabinet, what would it take for him to ask for the Prime Minister’s resignation?
Mr Jack
The Prime Minister is doing a fantastic job. He is focusing on the things that matter: delivering on the recovery from this pandemic, the vaccine programme that he backed early on, the booster programme that he led before Christmas, trade deals that will improve outcomes for Scottish food and drink, and many other things. He is a very good leader. The hon. Lady is absolutely prejudging the outcome of the police inquiry.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
Following the reference to confidence by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black), I welcome the publication of the levelling-up White Paper, and the Government’s commitment to decentralising the UK shared prosperity fund to local areas in Scotland and Wales. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an example of confidence in local decision-making, of real devolution and of good Union working?
Mr Jack
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—I know that he is a great champion of the Union. The levelling-up paper, which will be launched today, will contain a lot of initiatives and show that we are using structural funds to practise real devolution by giving that money directly to local authorities.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
The UK Government remain focused on the issues that really matter to people in Scotland, including recovery from the pandemic. My Department continues to work closely with both the Scottish Government and UK Government Departments on the ongoing implementation of the Scotland Act 2016.
Margaret Ferrier
Yesterday, Holyrood backed a motion rejecting voter ID measures in the Elections Bill because they would disenfranchise Scottish voters. That is an indication of the strength of feeling for people across Scotland, and in my constituency, that the UK Government are not giving them due consideration through the legislative process. Can the Secretary of State confirm what plans the Government have to extend Holyrood’s legislative powers?
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
Communities across Scotland have benefited and will continue to benefit from our focus on levelling up. Particularly for coastal communities we are investing a further £100 million over the next three years for transformative seafood projects that will help to rejuvenate our coastal communities.
Jacob Young
The petrochemical and oil and gas industries are vital to coastal communities across our United Kingdom, in Teesside and in Scotland. Will the Minister confirm that this Government are committed to supporting our petchem sector and further oil and gas exploration in the North sea, which will inevitably help us achieve net zero, not hinder it?
Iain Stewart
Yes, I can. The Government are committed to delivering a North sea transition deal, which will be a global exemplar of how a Government can work with the offshore oil and gas industry in partnership to achieve a managed energy transition. This deal between the UK Government and the oil and gas industry will support workers, businesses and the supply chain through this transition by harnessing the industry’s existing capabilities, infrastructure and private investment potential.
Cherilyn Mackrory
This Government’s multimillion-pound investment in the fishing industry will benefit coastal communities right across the UK, from Cornwall to Scotland. Does my hon. Friend agree that only by boosting coastal communities and spreading opportunity to every corner of our country can we succeed in our mission to improve the lives of everybody in our great nation?
Iain Stewart
Indeed I do. The Government have gone well beyond their manifesto commitment to replace European Union funding, by investing an additional £100 million over the next three years for these transformative seafood projects that will rejuvenate the industry and our coastal communities. Levelling up is about helping communities across the UK, and that means building back better, spreading opportunity, improving public services and helping to restore and celebrate pride in our coastal communities.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The world-leading European Marine Energy Centre in Stromness was developed as a consequence of access to EU Interreg funding, money to which we no longer have access. Does the Minister agree that the UK’s shared prosperity fund should be the source of replacement funding for organisations such as EMEC that no longer have access to Interreg funding? What is the Scotland Office doing to make that case within government?
Iain Stewart
I had the pleasure of visiting Stromness last summer, when I saw for myself the huge potential that Orkney has to lead the country in renewable energy. I continue to speak to the leader of Orkney Islands Council to explore all the ways in which we can help to fund these exciting projects.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Many coastal communities, including in my constituency, benefit from improved coastal shipping. What actions has the Secretary of State taken to assist in introducing a direct ferry service from Scotland to critically important export markets in Europe?
Iain Stewart
I was pleased to reply to a debate that the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues spoke in a couple of weeks ago on exploring the potential for restoring the Rosyth to Zeebrugge link, which, for commercial reasons, ceased operating a few years ago. There are lots of potentials for reopening that. It is primarily a matter for the Scottish Government, but I am happy to work with him and his colleagues to explore all these opportunities.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The ScotWind allocation announced last week has the opportunity to create thousands of jobs in Scotland. The reality is that in its time in office the Scottish National party has created lots of highly-skilled jobs, but they are not in Scotland—they are in China, Poland, Portugal and elsewhere. The Scottish Government failed to put in place sufficient demands for local procurement as part of awarding the contract; it is particularly disappointing for coastal communities, who can see offshore wind turbines being installed but cannot see the jobs. What discussion has the Minister had with the Scottish Government about ensuring that the supply chain for ScotWind creates jobs in Scotland and across the UK?
Iain Stewart
I agree with the basic point the hon. Lady is making. Referring back to the answer I gave the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), may I say that if we look at renewable energy as a whole, we see that there are enormous opportunities to develop that technology in Scotland, through our contracts for difference round, which is as big as all the other rounds put together? Huge investment is going in, in offshore wind and in tidal, and I will continue to explore every avenue to make sure that this country is able to secure the lion’s share of that industrial capacity.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
Eight projects in Scotland have received a share of more than £170 million from round 1 of the levelling-up fund. Those projects will create new jobs, boost training, grow productivity and deliver tremendous economic benefit to Scotland.
Suzanne Webb
With all the news on the levelling-up White Paper today, will my right hon. Friend update the House on progress towards the fund’s second round? There will be as many bidders in Scotland as there will be in my constituency, where we are keen to move forward with a bid to regenerate Lye.
Mr Jack
Unsuccessful applicants who have passed the gateway stage will be offered feedback to support future bids. They will also be encouraged to reapply. Round 2 of the levelling-up fund is due to open in spring this year, and more information will be shared in due course.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
I feel for the Secretary of State having to come to the Dispatch Box to defend his Government’s appalling record on spending for the devolved nations. Their broken promises on fully replacing EU funds look to set Wales back more than £1 billion over the next few years. Will he confirm exactly how the Government plan on plugging that gap? The shared prosperity fund will see all the devolved nations lose out on vital funding and is simply not good enough.
Mr Jack
To be absolutely clear, regarding funding to the devolved Administrations, the first comment I would make to the hon. Lady is that the settlement for Scotland this year of £41.6 billion is an increase of £4 billion and is the highest settlement that the Scottish Government have received since 1998, so since devolution began. Regarding the UK shared prosperity fund, the European regional development fund and the European social fund are absolutely being replaced with no reduction whatever, as per our manifesto commitment.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend inform the House of what engagement he has had—or other UK Departments have had—with the Scottish Government and, in particular, with local authorities in Scotland to ensure that levelling up is truly a levelling-up exercise across the whole of the United Kingdom?
Mr Jack
As my hon. Friend knows from when he was in the Scotland Office with me, we have had a lot of engagement with Scottish local authorities. We have been very clear that we will deliver the levelling-up money and work with those local authorities to practice real devolution.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
The Union connectivity review recognised the importance of the A1 and recommended that the UK Government should seek to work with the Scottish Government to develop an assessment of the east coast road and rail corridor. The Government will respond to the UCR and publish that response in due course.
Grahame Morris
On the day that the levelling-up agenda has been published, will the Secretary of State tell the House what steps he is taking to devolve powers and finance to the northern regions, so that we can strengthen ties with the Holyrood Government independently of Westminster, so increasing rail capacity, trade and opportunities for business?
Iain Stewart
I know how passionate the hon. Gentleman is about transport matters as I had the pleasure of serving with him on the Select Committee on Transport for a number of years. If he reads through the levelling-up White Paper, which came out today—I appreciate that it is quite a weighty tome, so he might not have had a chance to digest it all yet—he will see in that the measures to which he is referring. We can encourage better connectivity between the different economic centres of the UK. I would be absolutely delighted to see a strengthening of that corridor between Scotland and the north-east of England.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
My office and I have regular discussions with the Ministry of Defence on all matters relating to defence in Scotland, including defence investment with industry and commerce in Scotland, which totalled almost £2 billion in 2020-21.
Ben Everitt
Scotland is home to the Royal Navy Submarine Service, including our essential independent nuclear deterrent, which protects the whole of the UK. As President Putin continues to escalate his military posture and the aggression on the Ukrainian border—let us be clear that it is President Putin escalating this and not the Russian people—does my right hon. Friend agree that our commitment to defence investment in Scotland, including in Trident, is important, indeed vital, to Scotland’s security as part of the UK and as part of NATO? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I need to finish these questions. It is in good order that you hear your own Secretary of State.
Mr Jack
Mr Speaker, you will not be surprised to hear that I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The UK’s independent nuclear deterrent, which is Trident, based at the HM Naval Base Clyde, exists to deter the most extreme threats not only to the United Kingdom but to our NATO allies. Our nuclear deterrent is the ultimate assurance against current and future threats and remains essential for as long as the global security situation demands.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
This Government have consistently said that the best way to support people’s living standards is through good work, better skills and higher wages. Our plan for jobs is working, the economy is growing and unemployment is low. The national living wage, the universal credit taper and allowance changes are putting more money in people’s pockets.
Alyn Smith
The UK energy market is demonstrably broken. Surely that is of concern to all of us in all parts of the House. I am particularly concerned about rural energy prices and disparities between urban and rural areas. Competition law and energy law are reserved to this place. Will the Minister support my call for an investigation into uncompetitive energy practices? If he will not, would he care to come to the city of Stirling and explain to the people of Stirling and Scotland how the UK energy market is working for them?
Iain Stewart
First, let me welcome the city of culture bid by the hon. Gentleman’s home city. I am always happy to visit Stirling—in fact, I believe that I am coming up to visit in the next couple of weeks. I am very happy to meet him to discuss the measures to which he refers, but energy prices are rising globally. That is a consequence of the coronavirus restrictions easing and demand coming back, together with other geopolitical factors, so I would put the points that he raises in that global context.
Speaker’s Statement
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, I wish to make a statement about the House practices regarding accusing Members of lying or of deliberately misleading the House. I recognise that there are frustrations around the House’s practices.
First, let me say that there are means by which accusations of lying may be brought before the House, including by means of a substantive motion. The Scottish National party did so on its Opposition day in November. However, Members may not accuse each other of lying or of deliberately misleading the House unless such a substantive motion is under consideration. “Erskine May” is clear that it is
“to preserve the character of parliamentary debate”,
which I take to mean to stop it descending into fruitless cycles of accusation and counter-accusation.
It also says:
“Expressions when used in respect of other Members which are regarded with particular seriousness, generally leading to prompt intervention from the Chair and often a requirement on the Member to withdraw the words, include…charges of uttering a deliberate falsehood.”
It is important to stress context. Similar words said in different proceedings might attract a different response from the Chair depending on the subject being debated, tone and other considerations. In general, though, the Chair will not tolerate accusations of lying or of deliberately misleading the House. That is the long-standing practice of the House, as set out in “Erskine May” and followed by successive Speakers and Deputy Speakers.
Of course, long-standing practices may change—for example, if the House decided that it wanted a different approach, perhaps informed by a Procedure Committee inquiry—but it is not for me to change the practice unilaterally. Therefore, I ask Members to respect this approach. I know feelings run high on important issues we discuss, but there are plenty of ways of making strong feelings felt within the rules and without placing the Chair in the invidious position of having to order Members to withdraw or seeking their suspension.
Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, I would like to point out that the British Sign Language interpretation of proceedings is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.
Speaker’s Statement
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
We now come to tributes to Jack Dromey.
Jack made his mark long before he came into this House, in particular as a fearless, energetic trade unionist. I remember campaigning him with him in the ’80s and ’90s to save the Royal Ordnance factory in Chorley. He was positive, down to earth, and determined to help working people—characteristics that remained with him throughout his career. I have to say, as somebody who knew Jack and worked with Jack: he was innovative; he was absolutely visionary. We sat down, upon a closure where thousands of jobs were going to go, and Jack said, “We’re in this together; we will stand shoulder to shoulder with the people whose jobs are at risk.” He said, “We’ve got to look beyond what kills people. We can do something different. Let us look for alternatives that save people’s lives.”
The expertise that was in Royal Ordnance Chorley was second to none. Of course we had to fight for the jobs in the first place. It became a choice between Glascoed and Chorley, and Jack said, “With the land values we know where British Aerospace will be.” In the end we came up with real alternatives. We had seen Lockerbie. We had seen the destruction and the loss of life, and in Chorley they designed a cargo that stopped the plane coming down. That was the vision of Jack, who said, “If we can’t save the jobs in making bombs, let us save jobs by finding an alternative to save lives.” So that is my personal experience of Jack Dromey. I knew him on other occasions, but I have to say: he was inspirational to me and he has been inspirational to many others in this House.
Since his election to this House in 2010, he proved to be an exemplary Member of Parliament. He was an assiduous and effective campaigner for his constituents. As a Front Bencher, he was trusted to lead for the party in particularly sensitive areas such as housing, policing, pensions, and, most recently, immigration. While he was a robust Front Bencher, he always demonstrated respect for his opponents and was well like and admired across the House. Nobody could fall out with Jack Dromey.
While we mourn a colleague, it is Jack’s family who will of course feel the loss most deeply. I know the whole House will join me in expressing our condolences to the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). Harriet, I know that all Members of this House will join me in saying to you and your family that we are so sorry for your loss, and it is a sad loss for this House.
I will now take brief points of order to allow for tributes to an esteemed colleague.
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 7 January, this House suffered the loss of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, Jack Dromey, and it is right that we should come together now in tribute to his memory. Let me offer my condolences, on behalf of the whole Government, to the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and her family.
Although Jack and I may have come from different political traditions, I knew him as a man of great warmth and energy and compassion. I can tell the House that one day—a very hot day—Jack was driving in Greece when he saw a family of British tourists, footsore, bedraggled and sunburned, with the children on the verge of mutiny against their father: an experience I understand. He stopped the car and invited them all in, even though there was barely any room. I will always be grateful for his kindness, because that father was me, and he drove us quite a long way.
Jack had a profound commitment to helping all those around him, and those he served, and he commanded the utmost respect across the House. He will be remembered as one of the great trade unionists of our time—a veteran of the Grunwick picket lines, which he attended with his future wife, where they campaigned alongside the mainly Asian female workforce at the Grunwick film processing laboratory. Having married someone who would go on to become, in his words,
“the outstanding parliamentary feminist of her generation”,
Jack became, again in his words, Mr Harriet Harman née Dromey.
Jack was rightly proud of the achievements of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, but we should remember today his own contribution to this House during his 11 years as the Member for Birmingham, Erdington. He was a fantastic local campaigner who always had the next cause, the next campaign, the next issue to solve. I was struck by the moving tribute from his son Joe, who described how Jack was always furiously scribbling his ideas and plans in big letters on lined paper, getting through so much that when Ocado totted up their sales of that particular paper one year, they ranked Jack as their No. 1 customer across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Jack combined that irrepressible work ethic with a pragmatism and spirit of co-operation, which you have just described so well, Mr Speaker. He would work with anyone if it was in the interests of his constituents. As Andy Street, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, remarked:
“He was a great collaborator always able to put party differences aside for the greater good… Birmingham has lost a dedicated servant... And we have all lost a generous, inclusive friend who set a fine example.”
While Jack once said that he was born on the left and would die on the left, I can say that he will be remembered with affection and admiration by people on the right and in the middle, as well as on the left. Our country is all the better for everything he gave in the service of others.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
On a point or order, Mr Speaker. Since the sudden passing of our friend Jack, tributes from every walk of life have captured the essence of the man we knew and loved: larger than life, bursting with enthusiasm and ideas, and tireless in the pursuit of justice and fairness. Jack channelled all those attributes into representing the people of Erdington, into a lifetime of campaigning for working people, and into his greatest love, his family.
The loss felt on the Labour Benches is great. The loss to public life is greater still. But the greatest loss is felt by another of our own, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). She and Jack were married the best part of 40 years ago. The annual general meeting of the Fulham Legal Advice Centre may not sound like the place to find romance, but that is where Jack and Harriet met, with Jack addressing the meeting, and Harriet inspired to blaze a new trail—one that eventually led her to the place she holds today, as an icon of the Labour party and of this Parliament.
When we hear Harriet talk about Jack, one word comes through time and again: “encouraged”. It was Jack who encouraged her to join Brent Law Centre. It was Jack who encouraged her to stand as an MP—the first pregnant by-election candidate. It was Jack who encouraged her to run to be the Labour party deputy leader. When Harriet became the first woman in 18 years to answer at Prime Minister’s questions, Jack sat in the visitors’ gallery with their children, beaming down with love and admiration. I am so glad to see Jack’s family here today, beaming down with the same love, affection and pride.
The sense that Jack was always on your side is felt across this party and across the trade union movement. You can always get a measure of someone by how they treat their staff or those who rely on them. One of Jack’s former employees has said that whenever they met new people, he would always say that she was the real brains of the operation and he was merely the bag-carrier. His humility and sense of humour were legendary.
Shortly after Harriet’s book came out, a staffer had a copy of it on their desk. Jack roared with laughter as he saw a photo of himself in his 20s, barely recognisable with the prodigious thick beard. “Good grief!” he exclaimed, “What was Harriet thinking?” “What? Putting the picture in the book?” replied the staffer. “No,” Jack said, “marrying me!”
I was fortunate enough to work alongside Jack when I was a new MP in 2015. Our friendship endured, and as I gave a speech in Birmingham just a few weeks ago, it was Jack’s face that I saw in the audience, beaming up at me. He texted me the next day saying how much he had enjoyed it. That was two days before he died, which brings home the shock of his sudden, tragic passing.
Jack cut his teeth as a campaigner who spoke truth to power. He picked battles on behalf of working people, then he won them. It would be impossible to list all those victories today. He led the first equal pay strike after the Equal Pay Act 1970 was brought into law; he supported Asian women to unionise against a hostile management at Grunwick; and, even this year, he campaigned for a public inquiry on behalf of covid bereaved families.
Jack was a doughty campaigner, dubbed “Jack of all disputes”, who was feared by his opponents, but he was also deeply respected and liked across the political divide. Each and every one of us is richer for having known him. We will all miss him terribly.
The funeral service on Monday was beautiful and moving. Today, our hearts go out to Harriet, Joe, Amy, Harry and Jack’s grandchildren. The loss and grief they will be feeling cannot be measured or properly described. It cannot be wished away or pushed down and ignored, because great grief is the price we pay for having had love. We all love Jack and, even though he may no longer be with us here, that love will always live on.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
May I say through you, Mr Speaker, and through the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) the mother of Amy, Joe and Harry, that the personal was very well covered in St Margaret’s two days ago? The political has been covered by the press and by Gordon Brown when he spoke at the service. I would like to contribute a parliamentary word and a trade union one.
The parliamentary one is that Jack showed what can be achieved if, by chance, you cannot have ministerial office during your time here. For those who come here thinking that being a Minister is the only thing that matters, they are wrong.
Secondly, I believe that if we could have more people who have had serious, continued trade union experience coming into this House, the House of Commons would be better for it, and I hope that that will not just be on one side of the House.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Over recent months, we have been forced to gather here far too often to remember colleagues who, very sadly and often suddenly, have been lost to this Parliament.
Jack Dromey is another Member of this House who has gone well before his time. On behalf of myself and my colleagues in the Scottish National party, I want to extend our deepest sympathies to all who knew and loved Jack. My thoughts, of course, are most especially with the Mother of the House; she has lost a constant companion at her side. She and the family bear the biggest burden of the loss of someone who was at the very centre of all their lives.
I would also like to extend sympathy to Jack’s beloved party, because we all know he was a Labour man through and through. I will also remember Jack as one of the feistiest campaigners in this place—a man rooted in trade union politics, rooted in the rights of workers, and a man who never lost an ounce of that spirit when he entered this Parliament. That fighting spirit extended to causes and campaigns far and wide, and I know that it extended to strikes and protests in Scotland, too. He was a true friend of Scottish workers and a champion of workers everywhere.
Jack was true to the cause and that is probably why he was so good at working cross-party and winning support and friendship across this place. My friend, the former Member of this place, Neil Gray, worked very closely with him on the Pension Schemes Act 2021 and he still speaks so fondly about Jack’s determination and his passion to make sure that that Bill was amended. He would often bound up the stairs to my office to seek my and my party’s support for various campaigns not just for him, but more often, for Harriet.
I will finish by sharing one story that I read about Jack, which I thought was both very telling and very touching. Apparently, a few years ago, a great admirer of the Mother of the House from the feminist movement approached Jack and said, “I always feel a bit nervous around Harriet—I am so in awe of her,” only for Jack to reply, “Me too. Even after all these years.” Today, we can assure Jack and his family that many of us were in awe of him, too. We deeply admired the way he conducted himself and the way he carried himself every day of his life. He left his gentle mark on so many and he will be greatly missed. May he now rest in peace. God bless you, Jack.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me, exceptionally, to speak from the Front Bench on a very difficult occasion. What an honour, my dear Jack, and what a sadness it is to speak of the friend I got to know from the other side of the Aisle.
For three years, Jack was the shadow Pensions Minister and we became close. We would meet, talk and plan, and sometimes agree to disagree, but always with equanimity. Politics is adversarial and heated. The media encourage us—in fact, demand of us—to be aggressive and mean-spirited. Jack did not play that game. Others have spoken of his decades of work for the union movement, of his being a loving father and a devoted husband, and even of his management of truculent children on a deserted Greek road. I want to talk about two things. First, he is the best example I know in 11 years in the House of Commons of cross-party working. Many used to joke about how often I would exchange texts with Jack. We worked together and we got results. I would give him briefings on all future legislation, ongoing inquiries and difficult issues. That requires a lot of trust, and such trust can go wrong, as we all know. But he never used confidences unfairly or for quick political gain. I believe that we and this House work better for such a thing. During the process of the Pension Schemes Bill, we spoke or sent texts to each other more than 110 times—I counted them up. Without his help, the Bill, in particular, the measures on collective defined contributions, and the work with the Transport and General Workers Union, would not have happened as they did.
Secondly, I want to talk about Jack’s kindness and generosity of spirit. My children died in childbirth in June 2020 and I want to share with the House what he said when I tried to return to work, as we had two Bills to do that autumn. He saw that I was struggling at this Dispatch Box on 29 June. He sent a text to me afterwards and I wanted to share it with the House:
“Guy, I know we both have a job to do, but I was not comfortable today. I feel for you, and your wife, my friend. We will build work around you. My thoughts are with you. Please take your time. Best wishes, Jack”.
Jack Dromey was, in my opinion, a man made in the Teddy Roosevelt spirit: kind but combative; passionate but polite; and always in the arena, always striving for the benefit of others. There can be no finer compliment than saying that “The Man in the Arena” quote, which is my favourite, applies utterly and totally to Jack. Farewell my friend, it was an honour to know you.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
My husband Henry introduced me to Jack and Harriet when we got together in the ‘70s. We were, as ever, at some conference, Jack was, as ever, preoccupied with fixing some vote, and I was in total awe of Harriet and Jack. Fortunately, I got the seal of approval and we have been friends now for nearly 50 years. Those who knew him well know what a generous, kind, funny, enthusiastic, interested and interesting, loyal, unselfish and consistent friend Jack was.
Jack’s life was filled by his total passion for social justice, his tribal loyalty to the Labour party, his consummate determination to be at the heart of any and every campaign that might help to make the world a better place, and his relentless optimism that he would always win. Jack’s life achievements were so many, his campaigns so eclectic, that it is impossible to capture everything in a short tribute. I want to focus on his work before he became an MP. From the Grunwick strike to fighting to maintain the Rosyth and Plymouth dockyards, from corralling the first ever equal pay strike at Trico to observing the Luanda mercenary trials in Angola, seeking to stop the execution of three British mercenaries, wherever there was injustice, Jack was there. I remember Jack in the ‘70s leading the occupation of Centre Point in London, when London was littered with empty new office buildings while the homeless slept on the streets; in the '80s, when he bravely led the trade unions to oppose Militant in Liverpool; in the ‘90s, when he served on Labour’s national executive committee and worked to modernise the Labour party and make us fit to govern; and in the noughties, when he organised the cleaners’ strike here in Parliament when they were earning as little as £5 an hour.
Finally, two personal memories. In all our fantastic adventurous holidays together, whenever we arrived at a new destination, Jack’s first question was always, “What’s the wi-fi code?” He was not looking for a local restaurant. He was not finding a place for us to have a drink. His first priority was always, “Is everything okay in Erdington?” On new year’s eve, we would always have a sing-song, me playing the piano and everybody else singing. Each year, Jack, with his great singing voice, would give us a solo performance, that harked back to his Irish roots, of “Danny Boy”, with the women joining in to help him with the high note at the end. We always brought in the new year with a bang.
Our grief at his loss is an expression of our love for the man. Jack will continue to live on in all our todays and tomorrows as we take forward the campaigns he worked on and enjoy the successes he achieved. Thank you, Jack, for everything, and for just being you.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
It is a privilege and an honour to speak today about Jack, who I am proud to call my friend and colleague in this place. He was my parliamentary neighbour, as his constituency inside Birmingham city ran alongside the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, and there were many mutual issues affecting our constituents, on which we worked seamlessly, constructively and enjoyably together.
Jack’s arrival in Birmingham was somewhat unexpected, not least because those of us keenly watching the outcome of the selection contest had been advised that this was an all-women shortlist, but we quickly established a rapport. The thing I learnt early on about Jack was that he was a brilliant negotiator. Faced with a brick wall, his instinct was not to pound his way through it, but to skilfully manoeuvre around it wherever possible. And he was ineffably charming and patient. He had a considerable knack locally of bringing people of different persuasions to common positions. He did it at times of great anxiety in the automotive industry in the west midlands with Caroline Spelman, our former colleague from Meriden, with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and, most recently, with me working on Afghans coming to Birmingham from Kabul.
All of which leads me, finally, to a story about Jack’s negotiating powers and—forgive me for name dropping, Mr Speaker—about his relationship with the Marquis of Salisbury, a former colleague in this place, Conservative Minister and Member for South Dorset, Robert Cranbourne. When his lordship was a Defence Minister, he held regular meetings with the unions in Whitehall. These meetings sometimes ran for four hours and meaningful results were slow in being achieved, but during particularly drawn-out moments the Marquis, as he is now, would catch the eye of the then senior trade union negotiator, as he then was, Jack Dromey. After one such meeting, his lordship rang up Jack to suggest that it would perhaps be better if they sorted out the business beforehand, possibly over lunch, and, to Robert’s relief, Jack willingly agreed. “Where should we go?” asked Jack, to which the Marquis replied, “I wonder if you might like to come to White’s, my club in St. James’s,” to which Jack replied, “Ah, I’ve always wanted to go there.”
And so affairs of state and the Ministry of Defence were congenially sorted out by these two distinguished public servants. On the first occasion, as various chiselled-featured members of the British establishment walked through the club’s hallowed portals, Jack drank orange juice, but on the final occasion, after a particularly successful negotiation had been concluded, glasses of vintage port were consumed. As he stepped out on to the street, Jack thanked his lordship for his kind hospitality, and as he left said over his shoulder, “By the way, please don’t tell Harriet where we’ve been. And especially do not mention the vintage port!” [Laughter.] For the avoidance of doubt, Mr Speaker, I can of course confirm that this was a workplace event. [Laughter.]
As we remember an adopted son of Birmingham taken from us far, far too soon, let us remember the words of Harry, Jack and Harriet’s son, who with both sadness and pride spoke of the quality, but not alas the quantity, of the years they all had together.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
To the tributes already paid, I add the profound sympathies of both myself and all the Liberal Democrats who sit on these Benches. As a relatively new Member of the Commons, I confess that I did not know Jack that well, but what I did know I really, really liked.
I first met him in a mindfulness meditation class, which he, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and I attended with other MPs as we sought to find some calm in the storm of the 2017 to 2019 Parliament. I dare say that it was, at times, hilariously awkward. I remember Jack taking those classes with great humour. He oozed wisdom and kindness, and I think it was that shared experience that meant that, when we caught each other’s eye while passing each other in the Lobby, he would ask how I was, and he really meant it. Since his passing, I have learned that that kind man, whom I liked so much, had a similar effect on pretty much everyone he met. The tributes today are proof of how respected he was across the political spectrum. While a trade union man through and through, he was a pragmatist. He would work with anyone who could deliver his aims and shared his values.
Part of Jack’s appeal and great strength was that he was so obviously driven by his values and by a deep desire to help people. Quite simply, Jack Dromey was one of the good guys. I think it says it all that he worked to the last. In that final debate on Afghanistan, he urged Parliament and the Government to take a more compassionate approach to those in the world who need us the most and said:
“Our country has a proud history of providing a safe haven to those fleeing persecution.”
He also spoke of our country’s most fundamental values
“of decency, honesty and fairness.”—[Official Report, 6 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 129WH.]
Jack embodied those values.
To the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, to their children, Harry, Joe and Amy, and to the whole family, there are no words, but I hope that from today’s tributes they can take some comfort in knowing the impact that Jack had and how he affected not just this House but the whole country.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
Jack made a big impression as soon as he was elected to this place in 2010 and was appointed to the Front Bench straight away. I was a rookie Minister and he was my shadow. It was a forbidding prospect because Jack came with such a reputation, as the Leader of the Opposition attested, as one of the big trade union leaders of his day, used to rallying mass meetings and getting his own way. It was with a little trepidation that I committed myself to going head-to-head with him for many weeks in Committee for what became the Localism Act 2011.
However, I was quickly to discover that Jack’s success was based, as evidenced today, on his charm, persuasion and forensic mind. He had a tremendous impact as we spent those many weeks together. In fact, so persuasive was Jack’s oratory and work in Committee that, much to the Whip’s consternation, he incited my first rebellion—as the Minister taking the Bill through Committee! [Laughter.] His remarks were so persuasive that I could find no argument against his amendment and declared that I would accept it, and we did, despite the fact, as former and current Ministers will know, that my speaking notes had “RESIST” in bold type. It is objective to say that Jack’s powers were simply, literally, irresistible.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) attested to Jack’s brilliant work in forging alliances irrespective of party. He mentioned the work that Jack did with our former right hon. Friend Dame Caroline Spelman, his constituency neighbour. They stood up in particular for manufacturing industry interests that created jobs in their constituencies and across the west midlands. That joint work was vital during turbulent times; when investment decisions were being considered, showing the unity of purpose of the local MPs projected nationally was very important.
Jack’s lifetime of knowledge, experience and passion for manufacturing industry made him an authority, carrying universal respect and the confidence of employers creating jobs. I was therefore honoured when Jack asked me, after Caroline stepped down at the last election, to continue that partnership with him. We met regularly with businesses and trade union leaders, not only in his beloved automotive sector, but in aerospace, chemicals, life sciences and food and drink. He is greatly missed by the leaders of those sectors.
Ministers from the Front Bench and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), as well as the Prime Minister, have attested to what an effective advocate Jack was. He achieved what he did through kindness, enthusiasm, optimism and encouragement, but not without drawing on his trade union skills of organisation and tenacity. His achievements and how he won them made him respected across this House and across the country. He represents, as does the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the very best of this House.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I will start by saying how great it is to see the Mother of the House, our inspiration, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), in the Chamber today, and her family. I knew Jack for years and years; I could probably speak for the next two hours about all the campaigns we worked on together, first as Transport and General Workers Union officers and then as MPs elected to Parliament at the same time.
There are a couple of campaigns that I will talk about particularly. The first, which many people in this Chamber will remember, was when Kraft took over Cadbury. Seven factories were taken over by Kraft, and Jack led the trade union campaign to protect their jobs—a very successful campaign, by the way. As part of that campaign, which I got involved in at Jack’s behest, we went to see the then Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson.
Before the meeting—this is just the sort of thing Jack would do—he discovered that Peter’s favourite chocolate was fruit and nut, so we got a cardboard box roughly the size of Westminster Abbey and filled it with Cadburys Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut before having a very constructive and successful meeting—I wonder why it was so constructive and successful? I must add that I remember saying to Jack before we went in, “Jack, Peter’s quite a lean sort of bloke. He obviously looks after himself. Do you think some of that chocolate might be surplus to requirement?” So by the time we got into the meeting the box was a bit lighter than had originally been the case.
The second campaign, which again was successful—even more successful, actually—was one that is largely forgotten now, involving S&A Foods. I ask hon. Members to bear in mind the name, because that will be important. S&A Foods was a big agricultural combine, largely producing strawberries, about 30% of the British strawberry market. Its workers were largely migrants and very badly exploited. It was a big workforce: I am talking 4,000 to 5,000 people working on the land in the west country picking strawberries, but just for three months a year, and being very badly treated.
Jack got involved in that campaign and, as he always did, threw everything at it. He worked his heart out on getting recognition, getting better terms and conditions and improving the lives of those thousands of people working on the land. That became quite a big deal at the time, and I remember Jack and I going to a meeting of Transport and General Workers Union members and officers afterwards.
Jack always had about 50 things going on in his brain at the same time—that was just the way he was—so as he rose to speak to the members, he was not really concentrating on his words. He opened his speech by saying, “Right, what I want to talk to you about now is S&M”, and I could see the faces of all these pretty traditional—for those who knew the T&G—trade unionists faces dropping, going, “What!”. I was nudging Jack, saying, “Jack, it’s S&A, not S&M—that’s something entirely different.” I think.
As I said at the beginning, I could talk at great length about all the campaigns I did together with Jack. He was always an inspiration. He always led from the front, and he was very largely successful. He was one of the most successful trade union officers industrially in the past 50 or 60 years, or something like that, and often in difficult conditions. Jack had one overriding aim, and that was to improve the conditions and the lives of the people he and we represented. In that, I think he was successful, and in that, I think he left the world better than he found it.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I do not remember the first time I met Jack, but that is probably because when I did, I walked away feeling like I had known him forever. He was gentle, sweet and naturally mindful—by which I mean that, unlike some colleagues, his eyes were not darting around to see if there was someone more interesting or important to speak to. If you had his attention, you held his attention.
To me, he was always so kind. He never defined me by my politics or my football team, but as a person. He always asked about my family and, whenever we had a conversation about my son Freddie, he would regale me with tales and the occasional picture of his grandchildren, accompanied by a beaming smile and sparkling eyes. His adoration of his family was clear to see.
Jack was exceptionally polite. Like a child who can spot an ice cream shop from a mile away, Jack it seems could spot a colleague who needed a confidence boost. He always had a word of praise for anyone downhearted about their performance in this place—a cheeky, “Well done”, a smile as he sat down, a kind tribute in his own comments. He was quite simply a lovely colleague.
I am sure he was prone to arguing with the sat-nav or left his shoes in a perilously dangerous place, but from the outside he looked like a pretty perfect husband, one who loyally and lovingly supported his wife at a time when Parliament was even more challenging for women that it is today. I hope that most of us think that we have a Jack at home, but I still reckon that he could have made a fortune giving consultancy on how to be the long-suffering but supportive male other half. This House has lost someone special, but my heart does not break for us; it breaks for the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and his three children and grandchildren. As I sit down, I remember his warmth and gentleness. I send my love to them today.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to add a contribution from my party. I apologise that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) was unable to be here. He lost his brother last week and the funeral was yesterday, so I will make some comments on behalf of my party.
I came to this House in 2010. I had some relationships and experience in the council and the Assembly, but I knew that this was a bigger place, with more MPs and more people. I looked about, to know who to watch to learn the ropes and the trade. In my opinion, Jack Dromey was one of the people to look at, because, whenever he spoke, had I been going to leave the Chamber, I would sit down. I wanted to hear what he was going to say. That was the sort of gentleman he was.
My last engagement with Jack Dromey was in Westminster Hall—that will be a surprise to people that I was in Westminster Hall, but I was. On that day, Jack Dromey was there as a shadow spokesperson to speak on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. We had a good debate and a good response from the Minister. Afterwards, as I always do, and others do, I thanked Jack Dromey for his significant contribution on a subject that he loved and wanted to add to, and he thanked me in his turn. The Backbench Business Committee had given us the privilege of a debate, but Jack Dromey thanked me for at least requesting it. It is hard to believe that that was on 6 January. Less than 18 hours later, I got a message from the girl in my office to tell me that Jack had passed away. I said, “You’ve got it wrong. I saw him yesterday. That just cannot be right.” Unfortunately, it was right.
Jack Dromey was a man of strong principles, with a devotion to service. His legacy is of a fighting spirit and relentless optimism, and it is one to which each of us on these Benches can and should aspire. Jack, I feel, was a master of all campaigns. If he was campaigning for something, be on his side, because that was the winning side. All of us, both on this side of the House and across the Floor, are the poorer for his absence.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family—with Harriet, our friend and colleague, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the children—as they face the coming days without this wonderful man, so suddenly taken from us all, but they will have fantastic memories.
I am sure that you will agree, Mr Speaker, that the message that must go to his family today is that they are not alone with their grief and that this House and this great family of MPs and staff are united behind them.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
No one could have failed to be moved on Monday by the incredible tributes to Jack from his three children, Harry, Joe and Amy. All of us know the pride that Jack had in his family, but we felt it, too, on Monday, and also their pride in him.
Jack had that wonderful way of making you feel that everything was going to be alright. It did not matter what scrapes he had got you into, it was all going to be okay. I was lucky to work with Jack on so many campaigns. He was just so formidable on so many different things. If we despaired, he always had some good new idea to pick us up, and then he would be off running with it and we would be racing to catch him up. If we got too highfalutin, he would remind us what they were saying in the Dog and Duck. If we faltered, as all of us do from time to time, he would be there to tell us that we were brilliant and not to lose faith.
Jack was a fabulous feminist. We all saw the support that he gave to Harriet over so many decades. We heard from Amy, Jack’s daughter, on Monday that true feminism at home meant also making sure that Harriet never had to learn how to use a washing machine. I have to say that I was so proud when I heard that. I have known Harriet and Jack since I was in my 20s, and have avoided, wherever possible, using the washing machine at home, and have resolutely refused to learn to cook. I must tell Amy that she got me into a bit of trouble on Monday, because Ed, who was sitting next to me, turned and glowered at me and said, “So, it was all Jack and Harriet’s fault.” I just said that I had learned from the very best.
Jack did not just support Harriet; he supported so many of us as women parliamentarians and women in the trade union movement. One woman trade unionist told me that, many years ago, Jack had encouraged her when she was a young mum to put herself forward in the trade union movement. That would have been pioneering enough at that time, but what he also did when he spied her husband standing at the back holding their child was to find him and tell him what an incredibly important and noble job he was doing in supporting her, too.
Jack also had that amazing special ability to bring people together at a time when politics can feel so divided. We heard how, when he died, he had tributes from the five biggest manufacturing groups in Britain and also the five biggest trade unions, which is a unique reflection of the industrial alliance that he had worked so hard to bring together. In the Labour movement, he not only straddled the left-right divide, but had strong roots in both our liberal and our communitarian traditions. Unusually, his politics and values throughout his life bound together that fierce support for equality, feminism, anti-racism and individual rights, with those deep roots in community, solidarity, family and faith in the dignity of work. He brought that all together. We need more Jacks.
I was with Jack the afternoon before he died. Every conversation that I had with him that day was just pure Jack. I doubted something that I had done, but he said that it was brilliant—I am sure it was not. We talked about Christmas, and he said how wonderful his grandchildren were. He then went on to speak in a debate in Parliament and make a passionate and patriotic case for the Government to do the right thing by vulnerable Afghan refugees. As a last act in Parliament, it was entirely fitting and a demonstration of his persistent decency and solidarity.
Most of all, Jack was an optimist. He loved life and he loved people. He made lives better because he believed that things could be better. So many of us have learned so much from Jack that we will make sure that that legacy carries on.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
Jack Dromey was my mentor, my teacher, my political partner and my friend for almost a decade and a half in Birmingham. Like for many of us here today he was like a father to me; indeed, he was at school with my dad, at Cardinal Vaughan in west London, part of that extraordinary generation of second-generation Irish kids: sharp, chippy, pushing, determined to make a contribution to social justice.
It didn’t always start smoothly: my godfather, Spud Murphy, then a prefect at Cardinal Vaughan, used to talk to me fondly about having to give Jack a clip round the ear for smoking behind the bike sheds at school. But Jack was not a rebel without a cause: his cause was social justice, and he fought for it his entire life. His glorious life was one long crusade for the underdog; he fought for them whenever and wherever he found them. His campaigns in Birmingham are innumerable: he fought for more police numbers, he fought for covid families, he fought for the food bank, he fought for Erdington High Street, he fought for manufacturing jobs, he fought for the factory at GKN—and this was all just in the last week of his life.
As you will know, Mr Speaker, Jack brought a particular approach to all his campaigns. It generally started with a very, very long list of bullet points, and Jack would start off by saying, “Just three points”, and we would tease him as he got to, “And seventeenthly”, but he brought to every single one of his campaigns what he used to fondly say was a certain “je ne sais quoi”. He made sure that at the core of every single one of his campaigns were the stories, because we have all been educated in the legend of Joe and Josephine Soap in the Dog and Duck in Erdington. He also brought to all his campaigns not just the art of coalition building but incredible calm, along with persistence. He used to very proudly say that his nickname in the union was “Never snap, never flap Jack”, and he reminded me of that very often as I was losing my rag over the last year and a half.
On the last day of Jack’s life we were working together on a book about the future of our great region, the heart of Britain, and as ever he brought to that an extraordinary optimism. He put the green industrial revolution at the core of what he wrote, and this is what he wrote:
“I am passionate in my belief that change is possible. However, as my experience as an MP for a constituency with high levels of inequality and poverty, it is crucial that any change is not just ambitious in the objective of dealing with climate change, but radical in creating opportunity for all. There is much to do and little time to achieve it before it’s too late.”
I say to the Mother of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the family watching today, like you we have all struggled with the shock of loss. I myself have found comfort in the words not of an Irish poet but of a Greek, who wrote centuries ago:
“Even in our sleep, pain…falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
The wisdom we draw from Jack Dromey’s life is very simple: we should all try to be more Jack. Our community, our country, and this House of Commons will be a damn sight better for that.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my colleague and friend from Birmingham, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), and what I want to say is going to be all about Birmingham. Jack did not sound like me. He was not groomed as I was, just as a child loves their parents no matter what, to love Birmingham, because it was given to me at birth. Jack did not have that, and he loved it way more than me. He would talk about Birmingham in terms that made it unrecognisable to me. I love the place, don’t get me wrong, but Castle Vale, while I love it, is not a place of great beauty. The Aston expressway is not a thing to behold, yet when Jack talked about Birmingham and Brummies, he felt so much as if he was from the tradition of the place of my birth. I think much of that is to do with his Irish ancestry, which so many of us in Birmingham have, but there could be no greater advocate for the city of Birmingham.
I know that many people want to speak, so I will touch slightly not only on Jack being an honorary Brummie—not even “honorary”, Jack Dromey was a Brummie through and through, without question—but on him being an honorary sister. The first time I ever spoke in this building, it was Jack Dromey who sat next to me. He put his arms around me afterwards and said, “I am so proud of you. I am so proud to see you here”—mainly because I was a girl from Birmingham and he loved Birmingham. The last time I ever sat in this place with him was just a week before he died, and we had just been put on the same team together, the shadow Home Affairs team. He said to me, as I sat down from asking a question of the Home Secretary, “It is so delightful to be completely outsmarted and outflanked by brilliant women.” That came as no surprise to me. I say to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), all her family and her children that Birmingham will truly miss Jack Dromey. All the love of a sometimes not very beautiful place is with you and your family.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
Jack and I were both elected in the 2010 general election, and he was my constituency neighbour, but because he was selected relatively late to be our candidate in Birmingham, Erdington, we did not get to meet until we were both newly elected Birmingham Members of Parliament.
I remember in those early weeks lugging around a massive rucksack that basically had a mobile office in it, having no idea of the lobbying required to get ahead in the race for an office in this place. Jack came over to me—we had only spoken a couple of times at this point—and told me that he had secured a whole suite of offices in Portcullis House. On hearing that, I was immediately insanely jealous, but he went on to ask whether I wanted to share them with him. Of course, I went from insane jealousy to all but falling at the man’s feet with gratitude. He laughed and said he simply had to rescue me from my flipping bag, because it was practically the same size as me, and he could bear it no longer. That set the tone for our friendship—lots of gentle mickey-taking and loads of laughter.
I was always struck by how ready Jack was—we have heard so much about this today—with his praise and encouragement. It is something that his children spoke so movingly about at his funeral. Jack would always stop you, text you or drop you a note to say he had seen you make a speech or give a TV interview—whatever it might be—and that it was “first-class, absolutely brilliant, the best of Labour.” He never hedged his bets when it came to praise, did Jack, but he really believed in generous and uncomplicated affirmation not just of his loved ones, but of his friends and colleagues. The sincerity meant it always mattered to the person on the receiving end. It always made a difference.
Not every conversation with Jack was quick. He would stop you to talk about the famous “three or four quick things,” but I soon clocked that the correct number was calculated by taking the number of things Jack said he wanted to talk about, multiplying it by two and adding three. It seemed to work every time, and Jack always got a promise out of you, or maybe more than one promise, to attend a meeting, to look into something or to join one of his campaigns.
In one of our more recent conversations, he told me he wanted to talk about campaigning—four quick things were actually 11—and at the end I laughed and said, “Jack, mate, how is it that your four quick things have now led to 10 absolutely urgent, immediate priorities for my to-do list?” I soon regretted admitting those 10 priorities, because he then laughed wholeheartedly and said, “That’s the target from now on, Shabana: 10 things to be added to the to-do list.”
It is difficult to believe that a man so full of energy, positivity and generosity is gone. He leaves an immense legacy, not just as a titan of the labour movement but as a thoroughly decent, good man. Jack Dromey was first class, he was absolutely brilliant and he was the best of Labour.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
It goes without saying that the loss of Jack has shocked us all, and our hearts go out to Harriet and her family.
Jack was, as we have heard, respected across this House. He was an extremely generous person, often giving praise to his colleagues and associates whether they wanted it or not. I am privileged to chair the Tribune group of Labour MPs, of which Jack was an enthusiastic member. On many occasions, he would stop me somewhere en route as he rushed off to a meeting to tell me what a wonderful job I was doing of organising the Tribune group. On one occasion, when he was particularly effusive with his praise, I stopped him and said, “Jack, not even my mother would believe what you are saying.” He just carried on undeterred, thinking his message had not got across.
No matter how much he was over the top with his praise, he always left you feeling better after speaking to him. He felt the Tribune group had a lot to offer the party, and we met regularly to discuss the issues of the day. Jack would always keep the discussion well grounded and to the point. When we were losing sight of the bigger picture, he would intervene, “Just a few quick points, may I, chair?” He would then set out his opinion, always carefully thought through, with an anecdote here and a shaggy-dog story there—sometimes long and sometimes short, depending on the audience—and always with a twinkle in his eye. He would then bring us back to the point, with the apocryphal question, “What do Joe and Josephine Soap in the Dog and Duck think?” I heard about Joe and Josephine so many times that I feel I have been to the Dog and Duck. I actually got to the point where I googled it, and there is no Dog and Duck in Birmingham. We will miss him in those discussions and, above all, we will miss his dynamism and enthusiasm, which spurred us on; and I will miss his encouragement in keeping the Tribune group going.
We are both proud long-term members of the Transport and General Workers Union. He had been a high-ranking official, becoming deputy general secretary, and I was a lowly lay member of the transport section. We got to know each other when he came to this place, and we found we had a number of mutual acquaintances from the trade union, mainly because my region—the London region—was very influential in the union, and my branch, the cab section, was very influential in London.
Many of the people in my branch were on the broad left of the trade union, and Jack back then was a member of the broad left. There is no questioning Jack’s left-wing credentials. He built a long reputation on the campaigns he fought and won as a trade union official. His determination to stand up for social justice was legendary even then, over 30 years ago, and he continued this struggle in his parliamentary career.
The negotiating skills he honed as a trade union leader enabled him to forge alliances across the divide in this place and to get things done for the people of his adopted Erdington. In my opinion, there will always be a bit of London that is Erdington, and that is Jack’s legacy for them. Jack’s indefatigable campaigning on behalf of the trade union and labour movements touched six decades. He changed the lives of countless people who will never know what he did for them.
One last thing we had in common is that 16 months ago I became a granddad. Nothing made Jack smile more than when we talked about the unalloyed joy of being a granddad. It is probably those chats that I will remember most when I think of Jack. So Jack, if out there, in a parallel universe, there is a Dog and Duck with Joe and Josephine in it, perhaps sometime in the future—not too soon—we will sit down with a pint and find out finally what they actually think. It was an honour and a delight to have known you.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
Thank you for squeezing me in, Mr Speaker.
I had known Jack for about 12 years, since he was first selected to stand in Birmingham, Erdington, and I am still a councillor in Kingstanding in his constituency. I have to confess that Jack and I did not always see eye to eye on every issue. I think the first time we met was on Aylesbury Crescent in Kingstanding, where we did not exactly meet on equal terms; we actually had a few coarse words. But whenever I or anyone had a debate with Jack, including in public meetings, we would always get the wink and nod after the little dig or political point, and I respected that enormously.
I last saw Jack at Penny Holbrook’s funeral, about a week and a half before he passed away. My heart goes out to everybody in the Erdington constituency Labour party, because they have had a terrible year, with so many people sadly passing away. Within five minutes, Jack and I were talking about MG Rover. He said, “I remember one particular day”, and I looked at him and said, “Of course you were involved with MG Rover. Why wouldn’t you have been?” We had a long conversation about it. I think he was talking about the situation in 2000 or 2001, when he said, “We went into a meeting with the Phoenix Four”—they thought that the success and the campaign had been won—“I have no shame in telling you that I cried in that room that day”. That is because the issue meant so much to him, because of the thousands of workers at the site and what the company meant to the community.
Then, of course, Jack went on to talk about his grandchildren, as he was playing with another small child at the funeral. He was having a good laugh about the height jokes that his son Joe made to him all the time. We left on good terms that day.
Jack had a very good sense of humour. We have a WhatsApp group for all Birmingham MPs, who will remember that just a few weeks ago—Jack being Jack—he tried to organise something that could have politically shown up me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on a police debate. My right hon. Friend and I have never been so quiet in a WhatsApp group before: because Jack had got the wrong WhatsApp group! He had accidentally got the all-party one, rather than the Labour one. The argument on tactics started between the other MPs, when all of a sudden someone noticed that my right hon. Friend and I were in the group. I saw Jack the next day and he came up to me with a big, beaming smile. I will not repeat what he said because there were a lot of expletives, although it was something along the lines of, “I’m a bit of an idiot, aren’t I?”, but he smiled and joked about it.
Jack was a good man who fought passionately for the city that is my home. Many of us will him terribly.
Mr Speaker
I am very concerned about leaving enough time for the Mother of the House, who is going to sum up at the end. Can we please be brief because there is a lot of business ahead and the family are waiting?
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I rise as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who chairs the group, apologises that he is not here; he is at a funeral today.
Jack was a valued and prominent member of the Ireland and the Irish in Britain group—the community from which he came. Shortly after my arrival here in 2015, he welcomed me not only as a new MP, but as a fellow child of Ireland’s 33rd and, frankly, finest county: county London. “Where are your parents from?”, he asked. “Mine are from Cork and Tipperary”, he proudly did say. His father was a labourer, his mother a nurse—the people who came here to rebuild England. Their work and experience underpinned and drove his politics and dedication to public service. In the trade union movement, he always saw the parallels between his own parents’ struggles and those of newer migrant communities, and he built links with those new migrant communities—most recently with the Polish community at an event at the London Irish Centre.
Jack’s support for the Gaelic Athletic Association in Birmingham and across Britain was a significant part of his involvement with the community. It is no surprise, given that his grandfather, Jack Doherty, was a hurler who played for Tipperary in several All-Ireland finals in the early 20th century. It was a very proud moment for him to take part in the St Patrick’s day parade in Birmingham—which had not taken place for decades because of the pub bombings—alongside the Erin Go Bragh GAA Club, based in his Erdington constituency. Just last year, engaging in the cross-party work of which we have heard so much today, he worked with colleagues on both sides of the House to save Páirc na hÉireann, the home of Gaelic games in Britain ensuring that a generation of children in the west midlands can continue to enjoy Irish culture and sport.
Jack’s son Joe described at Jack’s funeral how he had beamed when visiting the construction centre named after him, imagining his own dad—newly arrived on these shores—knowing what would become of his son. Jack was so proud, as many of us were, when there was an event here in Parliament to honour him and other sons and daughters of that generation of Irish construction workers who had helped to build Britain. He was one of a relatively small band of us MPs who are as proud of the people we came from as we are of the people we represent now, being both British and Irish. Jack also had a strong sense of justice. In the week when we mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, his involvement in the pursuit of democratic, peaceful politics on the island of Ireland and good relations between our two countries was recognised by the Irish Government and by the Irish ambassador to the UK, Adrian O’Neill, who attended Jack’s funeral on Monday.
Being Irish was very important to Jack, and Jack was very important to Ireland and the Irish community in Britain. We will miss him. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
I first met Jack during the Longbridge dispute, when we, as Members of Parliament, were getting together to do our best to save that huge industry in Birmingham. Unfortunately we all know what the result of that was, but Jack always tried his best. I met him next when we had an issue with the HP Sauce company, which was pulling out of Birmingham and going to Denmark. I joined him when he said, “I am going to lead this campaign on behalf of the trade unions.” We had a couple of conversations and meetings and decided to organise a rally. We all walked through Aston for about a mile and a half to the factory, and spoke to the workers there. Eventually, as a result of Jack’s tenacity, we managed to secure better terms and conditions for the people who had been expecting to lose their jobs.
That is what Jack was about. He was a great man, and from that day onwards I realised that he was someone whom I wanted to know better and become closer to. So when my friend and his predecessor as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington, Siôn Simon, decided that he was going to move on, one of the first things I did was speak to Jack. On Friday evenings Jack was usually with his family, but one Friday evening Siôn and I met at a curry house where he and I and a couple of other friends tended to go to transact business, and I said, “Siôn, if you are leaving, perhaps we should speak to Jack Dromey, because he is a great guy, and we want someone like him who understands a community like Erdington which contains industries and a huge number of working people.”
When I called Jack he was in Ireland, listening to a recital being given by his daughter Amy. He texted me saying, “Can we speak tomorrow? I am at this recital, and I can’t talk to you now.” He contacted me the next day. The local Labour party then went through the necessary procedure, and selected him because it believed that he was the right person.
Jack was always at the forefront. Recently when a young lad, Dea-John Reid, was stabbed to death, Jack and I, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), turned up and spoke to representatives of the black churches and the community. I hope that our action has prevented any further uprisings.
Jack was always there. He was always there for the community, and he was always there for me. When I became frustrated by local authority issues, the following day he would either call me or come and see me in Portcullis House and try to explain how I could make progress.
Let me end by sending my condolences to the Mother of the House, to Joe and to Amy, and by changing an adage around: behind every strong woman there is a strong man. May Jack rest in peace.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I want to pay a very short tribute,
because we have heard so much from both sides of the House that encompasses so accurately Jack’s many qualities. When he came to the House, he was fully formed as a political activist and one of the greatest trade unionists of his generation. He had the abilities to ensure that social justice was advanced. He never gave up, and he was optimistic. He loved and was proud of his wife—he was a feminist before many of us knew what that word meant—and was unashamed to be Mr Harriet Harman. He was a very rare, very talented, very kind and gentle man who was the best of the Labour and trade union movement. We will all miss him terribly.
Condolences, obviously, to the Mother of the House and to his fantastic children, who are in the Gallery. As someone who was fortunate to benefit from Labour party romance, I always looked up to Harriet and Jack’s law centre romance as something that I should follow.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Jack Dromey has been in my life for a very long time. I was a candidate in Taunton—an eminently winnable seat for Labour—and because I was from the Transport and General Workers Union as well as a Co-operative, this young man suddenly pitched up for a day to help me, so we have known each other since 1974. He was really suspicious of me at first—there I was, a university academic standing as the Labour candidate—but he found out that I had served an apprenticeship at the ICI paint factory in Slough and we became great friends. Ever since that day, we worked together—we started the all-party parliamentary manufacturing group—and did wonderful campaigns together. He was not just a colleague or a comrade; he was a mate.
When you are serious about politics, you come here on a Thursday morning, to make the Leader of the House’s life a misery, and Jack was a member of that club. I still see him there. Jack was so warm and generous, and he had a way of worming things out of you. He had a big family, and I have four children and 12 grandchildren. We used to compete, and I know more about his family than you could ever believe because he would tell me. He would ask of my family, “How are you getting on? What stage are you at?” but I bored him because everything he had to say was more exciting than what we were doing.
The fact about Jack was his passion. As Chair of the Education and Skills Committee and then the Children, Schools and Families Committee, I have always been passionate about children’s issues, and he was passionate about families and children. He once said to me, “Barry, if you are a Member of Parliament and you care about the job, you cannot bear to think of a child in your constituency going to bed tonight with nothing in their tummy.” He was compassionate, he was funny and he was wise. I was with him and John Smith one night when we raised a glass of champagne and said, “Nothing but the best is good enough for the workers.” Jack, we love you, miss you and will work to be even better than we are because of you.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I first met Jack when I was a young researcher working for the then MP Oona King and he was at the Transport and General Workers Union. She had secured a private Member’s Bill to ensure that cowboy contractors did not do shoddy work in council homes or treat their staff badly, but she was double-booked for a meeting with senior officials—that was not uncommon for her—and I was terrified, because she said that I had to sit in and work out what the Bill should contain. She said, “Don’t worry—Jack Dromey will be there. Let him do the talking,” and of course what happened was that Jack mobilised the business community and trade unions and got the Government to support our Bill. Despite its not getting through, the Government supported the measures, and Oona, Jack and others managed to change many thousands of people’s lives by improving the work done in council homes. That legacy continues up and down the country, including in my constituency. I often look at those blocks of flats and think, “If Jack and others hadn’t done that work, people’s lives would have been much worse.”
When I arrived in Parliament, Jack was always there, as others have said, providing constant encouragement. Even when I was going through very tumultuous times in my constituency and in managing the politics there, he would have very encouraging words, constantly giving me confidence and constantly supporting me whenever I needed it.
In his last speech in Westminster Hall, which I had the privilege of chairing, he said that
“the bravery of our service personnel and Government officials who stayed on the ground in Kabul, at great personal risk during Operation Pitting, represented the very best of Britain.”—[Official Report, 6 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 129WH.]
He told the Government how important it was to act to protect Afghani people for what they did.
Jack represented the best of British—the best of our country—and he is greatly missed by all of us. He was family to me, and I know to all of us across this House and in his constituency. My thoughts are with the Mother of the House and the family. Jack will be greatly missed, but he will always live in our memories and in what we go on to do. That is his legacy.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Jack Dromey had a fierce heart for justice, and combined with his inherent kindness and decency, he was able to achieve so much for so many, and we have heard much about that today.
First, I want to pay tribute to Jack on behalf of my constituents. When Jack was not in Birmingham, Erdington, his home was in Dulwich and West Norwood. He and the Mother of the House are familiar figures in our community, valued and faithful supporters of our local independent businesses, kind and generous neighbours, and friends to so many. A few weeks before Christmas, I spotted from my car the lovely scene of a pair of grandparents taking a grandchild for a walk, before realising some moments later that this was Jack and the Mother of the House. Since Jack’s untimely death, so many of my constituents have expressed their shock and sorrow, and have told me how much they will miss Jack.
Secondly, and briefly, I want to pay tribute to Jack as a tireless champion of early years education, and maintained nursery schools in particular. Jack understood the transformative impact that high-quality early years education can have on reducing inequality and disadvantage, and he understood that every child, no matter their background, deserved the best. As the recently appointed shadow Minister for children and early years, I have spent the last few weeks meeting people who work with small children, and so many have mentioned Jack’s powerful advocacy for their profession and how much he will be missed.
Jack was a friend to all of us, especially to colleagues with less experience, to whom he offered support, a listening ear and, always, wise counsel. Jack is irreplaceable, most of all to his family and to the Mother of the House, for whom there is so much love in my constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood and across the wider Lambeth and Southwark Labour family.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I think we all thought that Jack would always be here because the whole of his life was devoted to being there for others—the workers he represented, the constituents he was so proud to serve and the family he loved. I simply want to say that it was such a privilege to be at his funeral on Monday. As we have heard, his children spoke so beautifully about their father, with so much love and joy, and I am absolutely certain that he was looking down on them from on high, bursting with pride. Amid the laughter and the smiles, and the tears and the stories, there was a moment in the service when a shaft of sunlight came through the window and illuminated the nave, and I like to think that it was illuminating also the essential truth about Jack’s life. Although it was cut short, he used every single day that he had in trying to build a better world—oh, what an example for the rest of us to follow!
Mr Speaker
I am now going to bring in the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). May I just say, Harriet, that this shows how the House can be at its best, and that it is at its best because of the love for you, Jack and your family?
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of myself and my family, I warmly thank all hon. Members who have spoken today. I say to everyone from all the around the country who has sent us cards, emails, texts, tweets, and who have posted on Facebook, that the memories they have shared with us, and the respect that they have shown for Jack, have given so much comfort to me and his beloved family as we face the total shock of his sudden death from heart failure just three weeks ago.
Jack hated inequality and oppression, and his life’s work was a steadfast focus on supporting those who were fighting against it. His roots in the Irish working-class immigrant community, his solidarity with black and Asian people fighting against inequality, and his respect for middle-class people who, though not suffering hardship themselves, wanted to work to end it for others, made him the polar opposite of the culture wars and the living embodiment of the coalition that is the Labour party. He spoke up for people and they heard him, and that made them stronger, whether they were those he worked with or those he had never met.
Much has rightly been said about Jack’s support for me in my work. It was phenomenal and it was unswerving. But it was not just because I was his wife; it was a matter of principle. Jack believed that men should support and respect women, and he detested men who he saw holding their wives back in their own self-interest.
For all of us who received it, Jack’s support was a super-power. It made us all walk taller; it made us all feel stronger. We will so miss him. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your tribute, for your kindness to me and to his family, and for allowing us this time today to pay tribute to Jack.
IOPC Report on Metropolitan Police Officers' Conduct: Charing Cross Police Station
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on the Independent Office for Police Conduct report on police officers’ conduct at Charing Cross police station.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
As the House is aware, the Independent Office for Police Conduct yesterday published the findings of an investigation into bullying and discrimination at Charing Cross police station between 2016 and 2018. The report makes extremely disturbing reading. It describes abhorrent behaviour and misogynistic, racist and homophobic communications between officers, which appear to have become commonplace. On a personal note, as someone who knows the Met well, I cannot begin to describe my horror at the revelations in the report.
It is right that individuals found to have committed gross misconduct have been dismissed and cannot re-join policing. However, this is obviously about more than individuals; it is about how a toxic culture can develop and fester in parts of a police force—a culture that is allowed to go unchallenged until a brave officer blows the whistle or a message is discovered on an officer’s phone. These events have a corrosive impact on public trust in policing and undermine the work of the thousands of diligent and brave police officers who keep us safe every day. I am grateful for the work of the IOPC in investigating these allegations, and I expect the Metropolitan Police Service and the Mayor of London to implement the report’s recommendations as soon as practically possible.
We are also taking action to address these issues. The Home Secretary has established the Angiolini inquiry, which has now started, and Dame Elish is examining the career of Sarah Everard’s killer. While focused on that case, she will be considering whether the culture in the places where Sarah’s murderer worked meant that alarm bells did not ring earlier. In the second part of her inquiry, we expect a light to be shone on wider policing, including on those cultural issues.
In addition, at the Home Secretary’s request, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire rescue services is currently inspecting forces across England and Wales to judge their vetting and counter-corruption capabilities. As part of this, we have specifically asked it to look at how forces are ensuring that misogyny and sexism are identified are dealt with in the workplace. We are also working closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council to ensure professional standards on social media use for all police officers.
Being a police officer is an honour, conferring special status on those who serve. The findings of the IOPC’s report are shaming for those who have abused that honour and for the Metropolitan police. Standards must be raised. The precious bond of trust between the public and the police depends upon it.
Dr Offord
As a London MP, there are few opportunities to seek answers on the performance of the Metropolitan police, so I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
The publication of the report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct joins the list of misdemeanours that have occurred in the Met in recent years. The IOPC opened its investigation in March 2018 following claims that an officer had sex with a drunk person at a police station. This is, in itself, a criminal offence, and it is even more shocking following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer less than a year ago. The report says that officers searched social media with the intention of having sex with people they have made contact with through being a victim of crime. This is an egregious breach of trust with the public and must be addressed immediately. Officers were found to have sent messages to a female on a shared group chat saying:
“I would happily rape you…if I was single I would happily chloroform you.”
Other officers gleefully boasted about their behaviour by sending messages including:
“You ever slapped your missus? It makes them love you more. Seriously since I did that she won’t leave me alone…Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature.”
It surely is not.
The investigation uncovered evidence in relation to bullying, violence towards women, perverting the course of justice, discriminatory language and other inappropriate behaviours. The range and severity of these messages demonstrates that they are not humorous comments but evidence of a sinister and obnoxious culture that has pervaded the very organisation and individuals who are supposed to uphold the law. Worst of all, it tarnishes the reputations of all the decent, hard-working employees of the MPS.
Where is the Mayor of London in all this? Recently we heard his comments on the cost of living, accusations about the Prime Minister, Brexit, levelling up and drug decriminalisation—on everything except what he is responsible for, the policing of London. While more young people are murdered on the streets of London and police officers commit crimes, we need leadership on keeping Londoners safe, and that is not happening.
Will the Minister, first, look at the Sexual Offences Act 2003 with a view to changing the law so that any person, of any age, who is in a position of trust with any other persons, regardless of their age, commits a criminal offence if they seek to involve the other person in sexual activity? Secondly, will he expand and speed up Baroness Casey’s review of the Metropolitan police’s culture and standards to take into account behaviours outside the realm of the workplace so that proper background checks are made on the appointment of MPS staff in all departments, including the MO7 taskforce? Finally, will he seek the establishment of a confidential complaints system in the MPS so that whistleblowers, particularly women, can raise their concerns without being subjected to campaigns of threats, intimidation, coercion and abuse by others?
Confidence in the MPS is incredibly low following a number of abuses. If the public decide they no longer have confidence in those who police them, then that really would be a crime.
Kit Malthouse
I share my hon. Friend’s horror at some of the messages that have been published, which really are abhorrent. As I understand it, the unit that is being investigated has since been disbanded, and quite rightly so, with disciplinary action following.
With regard to my hon. Friend’s specific requests, on the offence, I am certainly happy to look at that suggestion and explore it further as a possibility. On the Casey review, he is quite right that Dame Louise Casey has been appointed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to examine cultural issues within the force.
Obviously, that started with the appalling killing of Sarah Everard and the consequences thereof, but I am sure, knowing Dame Louise as I do, that she will be looking closely at all these issues as they unfold, sadly, on an almost weekly basis in the newspapers. I have asked today for a meeting with her so that I can understand exactly where her inquiry is going and establish for myself that it will fit neatly with the work we are doing, through the inspectorate and through the Angiolini inquiry, into wider issues of culture in the Met and elsewhere in policing. On the establishment of whistle-blowing systems, one of our specific requests of the inspectorate as it looks at all the police forces across the UK is that it make sures that adequate whistleblowing facilities are in place—or that the process is there—that will allow officers who want to call out bad behaviour to do so with confidence. Again, it is worth saying that although it is possible to put in place processes, practices, manuals and training, and we can do our best to train police officers and to instil in them the right values—that has never been more important than now, as we are having such a huge influx of new, young police officers waiting to be filled with the right kind of values—this still does point to a culture of leadership making it clear that such behaviour is not to be tolerated, and projecting confidence on officers to step forward and call out bad behaviour and this kind of communication. Whatever the processes we put in place, unless the wider leadership of UK policing is able to project that confidence, I think we will fail in our mission.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
May I associate myself with the comments from the Minister, particularly his thanks to the IOPC for the report? The behaviour outlined in the report is truly appalling. As a woman and a mother, I found it chilling. Such shameful behaviour undermines policing and threatens public trust. The Metropolitan police must accept and urgently implement the IOPC’s 15 recommendations.
Sadly, this is not just an issue in London; there have been disgraceful cases involving misogyny or racism among officers in Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Scotland. Ministers will know about these—we have been aware of them for some years. It is not good enough to leave police forces to solve these problems, or to wait until all the different reviews are completed. We need action now from the Government to tackle discrimination and prejudice within policing, and to help rebuild confidence.
Police training needs overhauling now, so that police officers get ongoing training throughout their careers, including on anti-racism and on tackling violence against women and girls. Action is needed now on the wholly inappropriate use of social media to perpetuate prejudice or bullying. What are the Government doing now to make sure that that happens? Action is needed now to tackle racism within the police force, but the National Police Chiefs’ Council action plan on race is 18 months overdue. Why is the Home Office not making sure that this happens sooner?
The Home Office inquiry after the murder of Sarah Everard is still non-statutory, meaning that it still does not have the full range of powers. Will the Minister listen to Labour’s calls and place it on a statutory footing? If the Government want to show that they believe in tackling misogyny, at a time when the rape charge rate has fallen to a record low of 1.3%, will the Minister finally commit now to making tackling violence against women a strategic policing requirement?
Confidence in the police is absolutely fundamental—to protecting victims, catching criminals and keeping our communities safe. We all want the police to be the best that they can be—victims deserve it, the public deserve it and all good police officers deserve it. We need a plan from the Government to make sure that that happens. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner must now spend every minute of her remaining time working to make the Met the best that it can be. That means tackling serious violence, and violence against women and girls, and getting prosecution rates up, but it also means a relentless focus on raising standards. Nothing less will do.
Kit Malthouse
I recognise that the hon. Lady’s job is to challenge the Government to do ever better, and I welcome her doing so, but I hope she will bring the same forensic challenge to the Mayor of London. Having done the job of deputy Mayor for policing and crime, I would certainly have taken responsibility for driving such changes forward from City Hall. Indeed, we faced similar problems between 2008 and 2012, established our own race and faith inquiry and drove through some of the very difficult reforms that were required a decade ago. I hope she will speak to her party colleague in City Hall and press him also to bring action.
While the hon. Lady is right to urge us into ever-greater action on these matters, I know she recognises that there is plenty of work already ongoing. We are, for example, working closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council as part of the new national working group on inappropriate social media use by police officers, working out what more we can do to drive that down. I recently met the chair of the scrutiny panel for the NPCC race and equality plan, and I am confident she will be able to bring impetus, momentum and scrutiny to the work it is doing.
We have not made the Angiolini inquiry statutory, because we want to get on with it. We need speed if we are to solve some of these problems fast and maintain confidence in UK policing. If we find, in discussion with Dame Elish, that the statutory basis is required, we will consider that. For the moment, we want to get on with it fast and, as I say, the work has already started. We do not believe, given the way the police regulations are drawn, that Dame Elish will face any obstacle in obtaining the evidence she needs from those forces involved in stage 1 of the inquiry, but if obstacles are put in her way, we are committed to trying to remove them for her. We are examining the strategic policing requirement at the moment and will make announcements about what is or is not included in it in the months to come.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Words cannot really cover how I felt when I read the IOPC report; that anybody could think that using such language is acceptable, let alone police officers—and police officers based in my constituency, in a police station just up the road. I will be meeting the borough commander for Westminster tomorrow to discuss the report and how he and his colleagues plan to bring its recommendations to pass. I also welcome the review by Dame Louise Casey; I have worked with her for many years and I know she will leave no stone unturned when it comes to looking at the culture of the Metropolitan Police.
Does my right hon. Friend agree, however, that although it is clear there are rogue police officers in the Metropolitan Police and other police services, there are thousands and thousands of dedicated and hardworking police officers up and down the country who are equally disgusted? Will he join me in thanking them for their service?
Kit Malthouse
I share my hon. Friend’s disgust at these events. As a former Westminster councillor and the London Assembly member for the area that includes Charing Cross police station, and having visited the police station to see its work in policing one of the most diverse, sensitive and difficult parts of the country and the capital, I find it shocking to see such evidence. I agree that that disgust and fury will be shared by the thousands of police officers across the United Kingdom who do extraordinary things every day to keep us safe. It will be shared not least, given the nature of the messages, by the ever increasing numbers of female and black and minority ethnic officers—the numbers in UK policing are now at an all-time high in both categories—who are doing their best to help us all in changing the face of British policing.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
This report is truly shocking. One key issue is the screening out of unsuitable applicants right at the start. I want to ask about current recruitment and vetting, as so many officers are now being employed. Does the Minister believe that the use of solely online recruitment, assessment, checks and offers is appropriate? That is happening in several forces, where there are no face-to-face interviews. One recruit said that the first time he had a face-to-face interview was when he was being measured for his uniform. I will just quote what Karen Ingala-Smith of the anti-violence charity Nia said, referring to Sarah Everard’s killer:
“Couzens was at least the 15th serving or former officer to have killed a woman. Now is the time for more rigorous checks, not fast-track online selection processes”.
Kit Malthouse
As I am sure the Chair of the Select Committee will recognise, the advent of the pandemic meant that we had to find innovative ways to continue with our recruitment process. We are obviously reviewing them as we emerge from the pandemic, to ensure that we get them exactly right. As I explained earlier and as I am sure the right hon. Lady knows, we have commissioned a general inquiry across UK policing to look at vetting procedures to make sure that the police across the UK have consistency—because each force is responsible for its own vetting—and that that net is drawn as sharply as we possibly can to ensure that we get the right people into policing.
Critically, however, it is important that we monitor carefully how those new young police officers coming through feel and what they are being exposed to, and give them the confidence to know that where there is bad behaviour, they are able to call it out without detriment to themselves. There is not just one piece of the jigsaw; an entire machine needs to be built to ensure integrity in all police officers—to build confidence among the British people that the right people are getting into policing, that they are being maintained in policing and that, where things go wrong, corrective action can be taken quickly.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The racism, misogyny and bullying uncovered by the report are damning, but I do not believe that it is reflective of the vast majority of our police forces, as my right hon. Friend just said. We owe it to those officers to root out this behaviour. The IOPC started its investigations four years ago, and similar investigations in Hampshire—as the Minister will know, as my near neighbour—took three years. What is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that investigations are completed in a more reasonable timeframe, and that anonymity is not used to hide those who are involved in such heinous behaviours?
Kit Malthouse
My right hon. Friend is quite right that we need to ensure that inquiries are speeded up as much as possible. I hope that she will remember that, a year or so ago, we introduced reforms to the way in which the IOPC operates to push it to ever greater alacrity in its inquiries. Now, in the case of an inquiry going over 12 months, it is required to write a letter to the appropriate authority—whether that is the police and crime commissioner or me—to explain why. Often, the delay is the fault not necessarily of the IOPC, but of inquests, criminal inquiries or correspondence providing information that extends the timeframe. However, we need to know why.
As far as transparency and anonymity are concerned, I have written recently to all legally qualified chairs of disciplinary panels to say that there should be a stringent examination of whether those hearings need to be held in private or in public. It is absolutely vital for trust in policing that the British people not only know that justice is being done in a disciplinary process, but can see it too.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I want to try to get everyone in but, as colleagues are aware, we have another statement and then further business, so I request that questions are short and to the point, which will enable the Minister to be short and to the point as well.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In the last year alone, Cressida Dick was forced to make two public apologies for corruption and cover-up, in the Daniel Morgan murder case and—although she never apologised—for the atrocious mishandling of the vigil for Sarah Everard. We have seen the Met accused of institutional corruption, misogyny, racism and, following the Stephen Port killings, homophobia, not to mention the handling of the partygate fiasco. Now we have this damning report on the Charing Cross police station by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. This lack of leadership and the culture of cover-up are letting down honourable rank-and-file police officers, so why did the Home Secretary think that it was remotely acceptable recently to extend Cressida Dick’s term, as opposed to demanding her resignation?
Kit Malthouse
Two of the matters that the hon. Lady refers to are still under investigation by Her Majesty’s inspectorate and I hope that that will conclude shortly. It is worth pointing out that this incident was discovered shortly after the commissioner became commissioner and the unit was disbanded shortly thereafter on her watch. The reason that her contract was extended is that we thought she was the best person for the job.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
As someone who represents a central London constituency, I am shocked and horrified by these revelations and the toxic culture that it represents in some parts of the Metropolitan police. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will bring up these concerns with the Mayor of London, because the Mayor needs to take responsibility for sorting out the culture of the Metropolitan police?
Kit Malthouse
As somebody who, as I said, served in City Hall as deputy mayor for policing, I can tell the House that the intention of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, which created the mayoralty and put the police authority and then the Metropolitan police under the control of the Mayor of London, was to ensure that the forensic examination of Met performance and internal processes could be done as close to the frontline as possible and that the Mayor should be in the driving seat.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
As one of the two Members of Parliament for Westminster, I have always greatly valued and supported the work of our local police, and I think that our good and decent police officers will also be appalled by what they have seen in the past few days. They know what we know—that policing a young, modern, diverse city such as Westminster and London is founded on trust. That trust will also be reflected by having a police service that reflects London, so will the Minister tell us what immediate steps he is taking to review the progress, which has faltered over recent years, in ensuring that London’s police service is as diverse in all its forms as the city that it polices?
Kit Malthouse
Hon. Members will have seen that, as part of our uplift programme not just in London, but elsewhere, we are specifically pushing to increase diversity both in terms of gender and race within policing. That is important nowhere more than in London and we have been working closely with the Metropolitan police to maximise the possibility of not only people from a BME background, but women joining the police force.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will be aware that I have spoken about the issue of the Met police on a number of occasions. I am very proud to represent Vauxhall in south London. It is a diverse constituency where, if I am honest, sometimes the relationship between the community and the police can be fractious. We have a number of great community leaders who are willing to work and build the trust between the police and the community. However, reports such as this just blow that confidence out. How can I reassure my diverse community—my diverse community of young black children, of LGBT people, of women who feel let down by the police—that they can have confidence and trust in the police? How will the Minister address the issues relating to the fact that, when we come to summer, we will see our police out on the streets and the young who are fearful of the police will not trust them, women who want to go out across Vauxhall at night will be scared to approach the police, and our LGBT people who want to go out and enjoy themselves will not want to come forward to the police? How is he going to address that culture now?
Kit Malthouse
Having wrestled with these issues in the past, I completely agree with the hon. Lady that it is totally critical that there is a strong bond of trust with communities who have perhaps had a fractious relationship with the police. I think that the best thing that they can do is decide to be the change themselves, and I urge all communities in London and elsewhere to put forward their brightest and best to be police officers.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Cutting 21,000 police officers since 2010 has led to the rush to recruit officers to backfill those gaps, and the vetting of those officers is crucial. Does the Minister think that recruiting people purely through interviews online and doing that vetting purely online is suitable, given that the police are such a customer-facing, hands-on—sometimes literally— service with the public?
Kit Malthouse
It is worth pointing out that, while the assessment process was online, once those police officers enter training, it is not accepted that they will necessarily be attested at the end. They are constantly assessed throughout their training on whether or not they are suitable. We continue to monitor their performance not just through training and in the immediate months after their acquisition, but thereafter. Having said that, we have to be slightly careful to bear in mind that, of the 11,000-odd who have stepped forward to be police officers, the vast majority of them are bright, smart, well-meaning and well-motivated people with the right kind of values to be police officers, and we have high hopes for them in the future.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The report was chilling. What worried me most was that the horrific cases were referred to the IOPC in 2018, yet the concerns about sexist discrimination and sexual harassment in the London Metropolitan police were not addressed by the time of the horrific murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, and Sarah Everard, who has been mentioned a few times. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), I have had young women in my constituency writing to me and saying that they do not feel safe walking around at night in my constituency. As someone who had a bad experience with the police before I became an MP, I ask the Minister to set out some tangible steps the Government are taking to ensure that the misogyny in the force is tackled and that they are actually doing a proper job, so I can reassure my young constituents that they are safe to walk around in Hampstead and Kilburn.
Kit Malthouse
As I explained earlier, we are engaging at all levels with the various actions plans that are in place to try to bring change in policing. And, of course, we are injecting a much more diverse shot of energy and personnel into policing through the uplift programme. However, it is—I am not making a political point—primarily the job of the Mayor of London to hold the commissioner to account on these issues. We are sending in the inspectors not just to London but to every force to look at their vetting and anti-corruption processes to make sure they are functioning well, but with a particular emphasis on the ability internally to call out exactly this kind of behaviour. It appears that this incident came to light after phones were brought in to be checked after a previous incident—this was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord)—and they were discovered almost accidentally. We have to ask why. Why were there not police officers calling out that behaviour? That is what we are sending in the inspectors to have a look at.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will understand that this case, among other things, will reinforce the profound concern about the level of violence towards women and the lack of accountability for men who are responsible for that violence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) alluded to in her remarks, the Government have so far refused to make violence against women and girls a strategic policing priority. Given the seriousness of this latest report, the fact that it is not an isolated case and the clear need for cultural change across the Metropolitan police, will the Minister stop procrastinating and bring that in?
Kit Malthouse
We have not refused at all. We have said we will consider it, along with all the other horrendous crimes that, sadly, teem around this country and which we have to deal with. As I say, we will publish our findings on the strategic policing requirement shortly.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I am the only female former police officer currently serving in this place. Although I served with dedicated officers, I would be lying if I said that I did not recognise an element of the culture from my own service over 28 years ago. Training is absolutely vital. Post the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, all police officers and staff across the UK attended three days of diversity training. It was a big undertaking, but it visibly demonstrated to the public that we were taking this seriously. What steps is the Minister taking and what conversations is he having with the College of Policing for something similar?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady speaks with knowledge and she is exactly right. We are in intensive conversation with the College of Policing, which, as I hope she knows, is under new leadership, to ensure that we get the package of training exactly right, and, specifically, that the training catches up with modern phenomena, which perhaps it has been a little slow to do, such as social media.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The findings of this report were deeply shocking, but if we look just at this last year, we have seen that the Metropolitan police have deep-rooted structural problems, from racism to bullying to misogyny. Currently, we have a commissioner in the job that I do not believe is fit for purpose. Does the Minister agree that, to really tackle the broken culture in the Metropolitan police, we also need to change the commissioner?
Kit Malthouse
I recognise that media coverage has the tendency to compress time. It is worth pointing out that the issue came to light in 2017 and the unit was disbanded in 2018. Charing Cross police station was merged into a wider borough operational command under new leadership, which is committed to driving out this kind of appalling behaviour. Whether that culture persists, and the vigour with which the Met is pursuing it, will be revealed, we hope, by both the Angiolini inquiry and the work of Dame Louise Casey. I urge the hon. Lady to wait for those conclusions.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
This cultural problem does not just apply to Charing Cross, or even, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) said, to the Met. It also does not just apply to middle-ranking and junior officers. As a councillor and now a Member of this House, I worked with Chief Superintendent Paul Martin and Chief Inspector Ricky Kandohla, who were both found guilty last week of gross misconduct and dismissed without notice for a series of offences. The chief superintendent led the three-borough basic command unit and was found to have committed bullying and discriminatory conduct towards a female police officer, misuse of a bank card, and impropriety over a promotion. Will the Minister assure the House that any reviews will address the cultures within our police forces right to the top of senior levels?
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
The report not only makes for incredibly uncomfortable and difficult reading, but destroys public confidence. This is not just about the Met. Alongside the Government’s failure in the criminal justice system, where victims are let down and rape prosecutions have fallen to just 1.3%, how can the Minister expect victims of serious sexual assault and rape across the country to come forward? What will he do about that?
Kit Malthouse
I have previously expressed sincere regret for the results in the criminal justice system on rape. I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that some of our actions—not least Operation Soteria, which is showing good signs of making progress in this area—will give people more confidence in getting a result. However, the incidence of reported rape in this country continues to rise as more and more people come forward to report that appalling crime, and we must ensure that they are confident of getting justice through the criminal justice system. That is what the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and I are dedicated to.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
The IOPC’s report was truly damning, but it is not the only example of misogyny in the Met police that has come to light in the past couple of weeks. The Met has also been made to pay compensation to a woman in Nottingham who was deceived into a relationship with an undercover officer, and it has been made to apologise to my constituent Dr Koshka Duff for misogynistic and derogatory comments made before and after a strip search. Does the Minister agree with the report’s conclusion that the incidents the IOPC investigated are
“not isolated or simply the behaviour of a few ‘bad apples’”?
Will he commit to an independent, public, statutory inquiry into institutional misogyny in the Metropolitan police?
Kit Malthouse
Given the incidents we have seen—I too was appalled by the incident to which the hon. Lady refers—it is hard not to agree with the IOPC conclusions. As I have explained in the past few minutes, several inquiries in this area are ongoing within the Met, and I think it best to wait for them to conclude before deciding on what the next steps may be.
Levelling Up
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s plans to level up and unite our country.
The White Paper we are publishing today sets out our detailed strategy to make opportunity more equal and to shift wealth and power decisively towards working people and their families. After two long years of covid, we need to get this country moving at top speed again. We need faster growth, quicker public services and higher wages, and we need to allow overlooked and undervalued communities to take back control of their destiny.
While talent is spread equally across the United Kingdom, opportunity is not. Our country is an unparalleled success story, but not everyone shares in it. The further a person is from one of our great capitals—whether it is London, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast—the tougher life can be. For every local success, there is a story of scarring and stagnation elsewhere, and that must change. We need to tackle and reverse the inequality that is limiting so many horizons and that also harms our economy. The gap between much of the south-east and the rest of the country in productivity, in health outcomes, in wages, in school results and in job opportunities must be closed. This is not about slowing down London or the south-east, or damping down animal spirts, but rather about turbocharging the potential of every part of the UK. This country will not achieve its full potential until every individual and community achieves everything of which they are capable. Our economy has been like a jet propelled by only one engine, now we need to fire up every resource that we have.
The economic prize from levelling up is potentially enormous. If underperforming places were levelled up towards the UK average, unlocking their full potential, this could boost aggregate UK GDP by tens of billions of pounds each year. So, how do we achieve success? First, we do so by backing business. The economic growth that we want to see across the UK will be generated by the private sector, by businesses and entrepreneurs investing, innovating, taking risks and opening new markets. We will support them every step of the way, by cutting through the red tape, by making it easier to secure investment and, as our White Paper today outlines, by creating the right environment on the ground for business.
As the Chancellor laid out in our Plan for Growth, we need to invest in science and innovation, improve infrastructure and connectivity, and extend educational opportunity to underpin economic success. This White Paper makes clear our commitment to improve education, investment and connectivity fastest in those parts of the country that have not had the support that they needed in the past. We have set out clear, ambitious missions, underpinned by metrics by which we can be held to account to drive the change that we need.
On productivity, science and innovation, our mission one is that, by 2030, we pledge that pay, employment and productivity will have risen in every area of the UK, with each containing a globally competitive city; closing the gap between top performing areas and the rest. Mission two will see a massive increase in domestic public investment in research and development outside the greater south-east, increasing by at least a third in the next three years, and we will use the shift in resources to leverage private sector investment in the areas that need it most.
On infrastructure and connectivity, we will have better local transport, bringing the rest of the country closer to the standards of London’s transport system. We will also improve digital connectivity, with billions of pounds of investment, bringing nationwide gigabit-capable broadband and 4G coverage to the whole UK, and we will expand 5G coverage to the overwhelming majority of the population.
On education and skills, we will effectively eradicate illiteracy and innumeracy, with investment in the most-underperforming areas of the country. There will be 55 new education investment areas in England alone, driving school improvement in the local authorities where attainment is weakest. Our sixth mission is to have new high quality skills training, targeted at the lowest skilled areas, with 200,000 more people completing high quality skills training annually.
We know that, to achieve these missions, we will need smart, targeted, Government investment. That is why we are investing more than £20 billion in research and development to create a science and technology superpower. Today, we are allocating £100 million specifically to three new innovation accelerators in the west midlands, Glasgow and Greater Manchester. It is also why we are investing £5 billion in bus services and active travel, with new bus investment today in all our mayoral combined authorities and the green light for bus projects in Stoke-on-Trent, Derbyshire, Warrington and across the country. It is also why we are investing in new academies, new free schools and new institutes of technology. Today, we are establishing a new digital UK national academy—just as the UK established the Open University to bring higher education to everyone, we are making available to every school student in the country high quality online teaching, so geography is no barrier to opportunity.
We will also use the freedoms that we now have outside the EU to reform Government procurement rules to ensure that the money that we spend on goods and services is spent on British firms and British jobs. We will unashamedly put British workers first in the global race for investment. Economic opportunity, spread more equally across the country, is at the heart of levelling up, but levelling up is also about community as well. It is about repairing the social fabric of our broken heartlands, so that they can reflect the pride we feel in the places we love. That is why we are investing in 20 new urban regeneration projects, starting in Wolverhampton and Sheffield and spreading across the midlands and the north, with £1.8 billion invested in new housing infrastructure to turn brownfield land into projects across the country like Stratford and King’s Cross in London.
By regenerating the great cities and towns of the north, we can relieve the pressure on green fields and public services in the south. A more productive, even prouder and faster-growing north helps improve quality of life and wellbeing in the south, which is why we are refocusing housing investment towards the north and midlands.
Our housing mission is clear: we will give renters a secure path to greater home ownership, we will drive an increase in first-time buyers and we will deliver a tough focus on decent standards in rented homes. A new £1.5 billion levelling-up home building fund will give loans to small and medium-sized builders to deliver new homes, the vast majority of which will be outside London and the south-east. Our housing plans will set a decent minimum standard that all rented properties must meet.
Our White Paper this spring will include plans to cut the number of poor-quality rented homes by half, address the injustice of “no fault” evictions and bear down on rogue landlords, thereby improving the life chances of children and families up and down the country.
We will also take action in law to tackle the problem of empty properties and vacant shops on our high streets. Building on the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), we will ensure that properties cannot remain unloved and unused for months, dragging down the whole high street. Instead, we will put every property to work for the benefit of the whole community.
Also central to improving quality of life for all will be further investment in sport, culture, nature and young people. That is why we are investing £230 million extra in grassroots football and using the community ownership fund to help fans take back control of clubs such as Bury FC. It is also why every extra penny of Arts Council spending will now be allocated outside London, from celebrating ceramics in Stoke to supporting pride in British history in Bishop Auckland. There will also be another £30 million allocated to improving parks and urban green spaces, as well as plans to re-green all of our green belt.
We will also invest an additional £560 million in activities for young people, and we will invest in reversing health disparities, tackling obesity and improving life expectancy. We will also ensure that the communities in which we are investing are safer and more orderly. Fighting crime and antisocial behaviour is essential to giving communities new heart, so we will invest an additional £150 million in our safer streets fund and ensure that those who drag down our communities through vandalism, graffiti and joyriding pay back their debt to those communities. They will be set to work on improving the environment, cleaning up public spaces, clearing away the drug debris in our parks and streets and contributing to civic renewal.
Critical to the success of our missions will be giving communities not just the resources but the powers necessary to take back control. That is why our White Paper sets out how we will shift more power away from Whitehall to working people. We will give new powers to outstanding local leaders such as Andy Street and Ben Houchen—[Interruption]—and, indeed, Dan Jarvis. We will create new Mayors where people want them, we will give nine counties including Derbyshire and Durham new powers as trailblazers in a programme of county deals and we will strengthen the hand of local leaders across the country.
We will also take back control of the money that the EU used to spend on our behalf, ensuring that local areas can invest in their priorities through the new UK shared prosperity fund. With power comes responsibility, so we will also ensure that data on local government performance is published so that we can hold local leaders to account.
Central Government will report back to this House on our progress against our missions and on the impact all our policies have on closing geographical inequalities. Because building long-term structures matters, we will also create the institutions, generate the incentives and supply the information necessary to drive levelling up for years ahead.
This White Paper lays out a long-term economic and social plan to make opportunity more equal. It shifts power and opportunity towards the north and midlands, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It guarantees increased investment in overlooked and undervalued communities, in research and development, in education and skills, in transport and broadband, in urban parks and decent homes, in grassroots sport and local culture and in fighting crime and tackling antisocial behaviour. It gives local communities the tools to tackle rogue landlords, dilapidated high streets and neglected green spaces, and it demonstrates that this people’s Government are keeping faith with the working people of this country by allowing them to take back control of their lives, their communities and their futures.
I commend this statement to the House.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
After all the delays, all the slogans and all the big promises, is this it? Is this really it? The sum total of ambition for our proud coastal and industrial—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The Secretary of State was heard with respect. I do not expect the shadow Secretary of State to be shouted out.
Lisa Nandy
Conservative Members do not disrespect us when they chunter and jeer; they disrespect the people of this country.
Seriously, is this it? The sum total of ambition for our coastal and industrial towns, our villages and our great cities is a history lesson on the rise of the Roman empire, and Ministers scurrying around Whitehall, shuffling the deckchairs and cobbling together a shopping list of recycled policies and fiddling the figures. Is this really it?
For some of us, this is personal. We have lived these failures every single day. We have watched good jobs go, our high streets boarded up and young people who have had to get out to get on. The Secretary of State talks about Bury FC. My step-dad was a lifelong supporter of Bury FC, a regular at Gigg Lane and his last words to my step-brother before he died were, “What’s the score?” If he were alive today, he would never forgive the Government for standing aside while this asset at the centre of Bury’s community was allowed to collapse.
This system is completely broken, and the Secretary of State has given us more of the same. This was meant to be the Prime Minister’s defining mission of Government. I am not surprised he was too embarrassed to come here today and defend it himself. It is so bad that even the Secretary of State has privately been saying that it is rubbish. They tell us to wait till 2030, but where have they been for the last 12 years? I will tell them where—in Whitehall, turbocharging the decline of our communities, and cutting off choices and chances for a generation of young people.
The Secretary of State talks about 12 missions, but this is 12 admissions of failure. Let us take one of them. Only two thirds of children leave primary school with the basic skills to get on. Forgive me if I have missed something, but was he not the Education Secretary for four years? What about this? The Government want to tackle crime, but on their watch fewer than one in 10 crimes are solved and nearly all rapes go unprosecuted. No one listening to this would think that he had been in charge of the Ministry of Justice.
This is a Government in free fall—out of ideas, out of energy—with recycled, watered-down ambitions. None of this is new. In fact, some of it is so old that one of the better announcements that caught my eye was actually made in 2008 by Gordon Brown and has been running ever since. Across our home towns, we have seen good jobs disappear and far too many young people who have had to get out to get on. This does nothing to address that.
The Secretary of State talks about a Medici-style renaissance, but can he not see what is happening in front of his eyes? Our high streets are struggling because the local economy is struggling. People do not have money to spend in our shops, our businesses and our high streets, and the Government are about to hike up their taxes. This does nothing to address that. What we needed was a plan to connect our towns and villages to jobs, to opportunities and to our family and friends, but they have halved the funding for buses and scrapped the rail promises to the north, and where is the digital Britain we were promised?
We do not need to look to Rome, Jericho or renaissance Florence for inspiration, because in Preston, Wigan and Grimsby, people are delivering real change for themselves, not because of their Government, but despite them. Imagine what we could do if they would get out of the way and give us back the power that we demand to make decisions for ourselves. [Laughter.] Well, Conservative Members laugh. They do laugh—they have been laughing at us for years—and here it goes again.
It is absurd that we have to go cap in hand to Westminster to do things that we know will work for us. Do not believe me; believe the former Mayor of London, who in 2013 demanded powers that are nowhere to be seen in this report. We asked for powers, and we got a process. Where are the powers we were promised? Seriously, we have the arrogance of a Chancellor sitting in Whitehall, drawing lines on a map, choosing which of us have earned the right to have some say on the decisions that affect not their lives, but our lives, our families and our communities.
The Secretary of State talks about London-style regeneration. My colleagues in London will talk proudly about the London they call home, but not every part of this country wants to be the same. We have our own identities. We are proud of our own places. We believe in our communities and we believe in our people, and we deserve a Government who back us, not the smoke and mirrors that we have been handed today.
The Government have given more to fraudsters than they have given to the north of England. For every £13 they have taken from us, they have given us £1 back. We get a partial refund and they expect us to be grateful. [Interruption.] I will give the House an example. The Mayor of Greater Manchester today raised broken promises on rail, and he was told by one of the Government’s MPs, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
It is not their money; it is ours. Imagine what we could achieve if we had a Government with an ambition for Britain that matched the ambition of the people in it. We could build good jobs in every community. There is a global race to create these jobs, and we will bring them here so that young people in our coastal and industrial towns can power us through the next generation, like their parents and grandparents powered us through the last. In every community in this country, people know that we can do so much better than this, with well-paid jobs and money back in people’s pockets to genuinely transform our high streets. We can reform business rates to back our bricks and mortar businesses. We can be buying, making and selling more in Britain and have an educational recovery plan that stands as a testament to our commitment to the young people who make this country what it is. That is our mission, and today we have learned one crucial thing: for all the spin and all the gloss, the Government will not do it, because they do not believe in this country—we will. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I think you are preventing the Secretary of State from speaking. I suggest that a modicum of silence from those on the Back Benches would be welcome.
Michael Gove
I have enormous respect and affection for the hon. Lady, but at the end of her response, I do not think I heard a single question, nor did I hear her disagree with a single policy that we have put forward. She is in distinguished company; she joins other Labour colleagues who have welcomed the White Paper, such as Tracy Brabin, the Mayor of West Yorkshire, who said there is
“lots to be pleased about”
in it, and the Mayor of South Yorkshire, who said on Sunday that he warmly welcomed the support that we were giving to Sheffield and that it was
“much needed recognition of the potential”
of that great city. I am glad that the hon. Lady is in good Labour company in welcoming the White Paper.
The hon. Lady mentioned Bury FC, and she suggested that this Government had stood aside. I am sorry, but this Government provided £1 million to the fans of Bury FC so that they could take back control of the club. It was not Labour Bury Council but Tory Ministers who saved that football club for its fans.
She asks where we have been over the past 12 years and about my time as Education Secretary. My mother said self-praise is no honour, but since the hon. Lady asks, there were more good and outstanding schools as a result. We closed the gap between rich and poor, we extended opportunity and we ensured that illiteracy and innumeracy were tackled.
The hon. Lady also says that we need more good jobs. I completely agree. That is why we have a plan for growth and she has no plan. She says that we need to revive our high streets. I completely agree. That is why we have a plan for investment, and the Opposition have no plan. She says that she wants improved connectivity. That is why we have ensured that gigabit connectivity has gone from 10% to 60% in the past two years, and they have no plan. She says that she believes in devolution. We have nine county deals and powers for Mayors. The only devolution in England that Labour ever offered was to London. It did nothing for the north and midlands when it came to devolution. She said she wants safer town centres. Why is it, then, that every time we have brought forward policies for tougher sentences in this House, Labour has voted against? It has no plans, no idea and no answers.
The Opposition also ask about new money. Do they not remember that Liam Byrne wrote in 2010 when the Labour Government left office that there was no money left? Now, they are so fiscally inconstant that they say they want simultaneously not to have a national insurance increase and to cut other taxes, and at the same time to increase public spending. Our commitment to abolish innumeracy cannot come quickly enough, starting with the Labour Front Benchers. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has committed £500 million to tackling adult innumeracy; we know where that funding should go first. If they had their way, borrowing would go up, interest rates would go up, and the poorest in the north and midlands would lose out; instead of levelling up, they would bring the economy crashing down. That is why we never need to have those Front Benchers in power in this country ever.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. A little reminder that the Secretary of State should not refer to hon. Members by name.
It is going to require a lot of self-discipline if we are to have any chance of getting everybody in, so I ask for very short questions. The Father of the House will provide a marvellous example of that, I am sure: Sir Peter Bottomley.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that those in the south-east hope this will be successful, giving individuals opportunity and changing the economic geography of the parts of this country that need to be connected to the thriving country we hope to create together. Will he heed council leaders such as Councillor Kevin Jenkins in Worthing, who wants Ministers to pay attention to things that they could do that would help and to stop doing things that do not help, because all over the country we need Ministers to pay more attention to local leaders?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and in the levelling-up White Paper there is a commitment to ensure greater devolution all round. I signalled the county deals we are green-lighting for Derbyshire and Durham, but we are also devolving more power to local authorities across the country, including through the new UK shared prosperity fund. He is also right to remind us that, while deprivation is concentrated disproportionately in the north and midlands, there are pockets of genuine poverty in communities such as Worthing and Hastings that we need to pay close attention to.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
This is somewhat underwhelming, is it not? Not so much a dead cat as a damp squib. This might have been an opportunity to bring forward proposals for the modernisation of government in these islands, to devolve further powers and competence to the national Administrations, and to do something about the asymmetric and centralised mess that is the government of England, but, no, what we are promised is that in eight years’ time we will get a better bus service. It is, frankly, insulting given the amount of political capital that the Government have invested in this. This is a Government who have broken trust with the British people, and getting it back will require people and policies of substance, rather than glib soundbites and photo opportunities for Ministers in hard hats and hi-viz vests. The statement literally has nothing in it for the people I represent in this House, but we will watch with interest as this con is perpetrated on the people of the north of England.
Meanwhile, in Scotland we have another Brexit betrayal: the replacement funds for the EU structural funds are falling £900 million short, and control is being centralised to Whitehall. That is what we are receiving from this Government, and that is why more and more people are turning to the option of political independence for their country.
My central question is this: how does this square with the rest of the Government’s policies? We have a chronic and increasing problem with inequality in Britain, yet everything this Government do seems to make it worse: the decision to cut universal credit and the below-inflation increases in other benefits are driving the gap between rich and poor even higher; so, too, is the decision to increase basic rate taxes and not to increase taxes for those who can most afford them; and so, too, is the Government’s inaction and unwillingness to do anything about the cost of living and spiralling energy bills. So my question, Secretary of State, is this: given all of that—given the Government’s policy in the round—is this not just a piece of meaningless window dressing?
Michael Gove
The short answer is no. The longer answer is this: we work in partnership with the Scottish Government, and we recognise their devolved responsibilities, but people in Scotland pay their taxes to have two Governments working together for them, and that is what we have done. The levelling-up fund has ensured that there has been investment in North Ayrshire, in Edinburgh and in Aberdeen, to help communities and councils led by Scottish nationalist councillors, and that has been backed by SNP MPs. The UK shared prosperity fund has also guaranteed funds going to Scotland, ensuring that Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Cornwall receive every bit as much outside the EU as they ever did within it, but with our control of that funding, not the European Union’s.
Today, we have announced additional funding for an innovation accelerator in Glasgow. In Glasgow University and the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow has two of the United Kingdom’s leading research universities. We are supporting and backing them. I explained to the First Minister last night how important it was that we worked together, and we will seek to work together.
When it comes to inequality, the Scottish Government have presided over growing inequality in education outcomes in schools in Scotland. We want to work with them to reverse that. When it comes to devolution, rather than devolving more powers to local government in Scotland, as we are doing in England, the Scottish Government have centralised powers. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has been eloquent in complaining about that. Again, that is a devolved matter, but if the critique from the hon. Gentleman is to carry force, it is vital that he recognises the beam in his own eye before pointing out the mote in others.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
What the towns and cities of our country need is ambition, investment and encouragement, not the negativity and neglect that I am afraid they have experienced under the Labour party over the years. As a Teessider born and bred, and as someone who negotiated and signed the devolution deal with Teesside six years ago, I am proud to see it leading this White Paper thanks to the great progress it has made under Ben Houchen.
Does the Secretary of State recognise that building on such successful policy innovations is the best way to go, rather than needing to start from scratch in every case? In that context, does he recognise that the role of universities and scientific institutions, which are strong in the regions, is a good place to invest and to drive further prosperity across the UK?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend was a brilliant Secretary of State both for Communities and Local Government and for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He was, more than anyone else—apart from the former Chancellor, the former right hon. Member for Tatton—responsible for extending devolution across England. He is absolutely right: this is a model that works and on which we can build. He is also absolutely right to say that higher education is critical to the economic future of the north and the midlands, where we have outstanding universities. The increased research and development spending that we are announcing today will be directed towards those excellent institutions. Whether for life sciences in Newcastle, renewables in Teesside or materials in Manchester, we will be working with those universities to revive the north and the midlands.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of the White Paper, although I have to admit that I have not quite read it all yet.
When the Select Committee has looked at this issue in the past, we have agreed that local councils have to be key to delivering a levelling-up agenda, and that means a devolution framework, with all councils getting real new powers and real new resources to deliver. When I looked at page 140, I saw the words “devolution framework”, and I was encouraged. Will the Secretary of State confirm, however, that in that list of powers, there is not a single new power? All the powers in there are already available to at least some local authorities, and all this framework does is enable more local authorities to have those powers. What is certainly not set out is a list of new resources that will be available to enable the spread of existing powers to more local authorities to be delivered in practice. Will he confirm those two things?
Michael Gove
It is a typically fair and informed question from the hon. Gentleman. What the framework does lay out is how local authorities that have fewer powers can acquire more, and how we can have a convergence towards a model, which not every part of the country will necessary want to adopt, that is closer to the level of power and autonomy that the Mayor of London exercises. We are completely open, and we have said so, to negotiating with local areas on the acquisition of further powers.
I should also say that the UK shared prosperity fund prospectus that we are publishing today makes it clear that lower-tier local authorities especially will have additional resources, through the UKSPF, to enhance their ability to serve their citizens.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Ind)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his “Levelling Up” paper, but particularly mission 7 to level up health outcomes and wellbeing. Will he meet me to discuss levelling up health and care provision in rural areas as part of that mission, a blueprint for which was published yesterday in a report co-authored by the all-party parliamentary group on rural health and social care, which I chair, and the National Centre for Rural Health and Social Care?
Michael Gove
Yes, I absolutely will. The hon. Lady makes an important point. Of course improving economic productivity is at the heart of levelling up, but we also need to tackle unfair health outcomes. Within the White Paper, we have details of how we are proposing to do so, not least taking forward some of the recommendations of Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy, which outlines how we can effectively tackle obesity—one of the greatest drivers of diabetes, which is one of the greatest drains on NHS resources.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
I wrote to the Secretary of State on 19 January and I have not had a response to that letter, but in it I cited research from Utopia, which, after analysing 34 cities and towns, found that Bradford needed the most development and infrastructure support. We have lost out on Northern Powerhouse Rail, stifling £30 billion-worth of investment over the next 10 years. We have been given crumbs. What is he doing for my constituents in Bradford West—he has mentioned nothing in his statement today—after failing them time and again with the NPR?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is right. Bradford is a fantastic city—it has seen significant investment, not least in cultural renewal, and it has a wonderful university—but it also has areas of real deprivation, not least in the constituency that she represents. I look forward to working with her, and with Tracy Brabin and municipal leaders in Bradford, to ensure that the policies in the White Paper can deliver for her constituents.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I very much welcome this White Paper—a genuinely one-nation Conservative document. I particularly commend my right hon. Friend and his colleagues on the health commitment it makes. Five years’ extra healthy lifespan will be absolutely critical in spreading opportunity not just to disadvantaged people but to disadvantaged communities, because health inequalities hold people back almost more than anything else. Frankly, we can have all the transport infrastructure we like, but if people in middle age are too unhealthy to lead full lives and to stay in work, they cannot benefit from it. Will he go into a bit more detail about how he will achieve that ambition?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. My right hon. Friend is right: this is a one-nation document that is in that Conservative tradition. He is also absolutely right that addressing health inequalities is vital, not just to relieving pressure on the NHS for taxpayers but to giving people the full lives that they deserve. We outline in the White Paper some of the steps that we are taking, not least to deal with obesity, but, in addition, my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will be bringing forward a health inequalities White Paper a little later this year, and I will be working with him to take forward some of the insights of Professor Michael Marmot and others about what the drivers of health inequalities are and how we can tackle them.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), for the briefing that they gave to the Mayors and myself yesterday. However, it is a shameful indictment of our country that, for too long, where you grow up has determined where you end up. We all know that to address these challenges requires transformational resources. What more can the Secretary of State do and how can we help him to get the Chancellor to provide additional resources to deliver on the plan that he has brought forward?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I hope to have the chance to visit him in Sheffield before too long to discuss how we can use some of the funding that was allocated in the spending review more effectively on his behalf, and how we can ensure that future spending commitments from the Chancellor and from others serve the people whom he serves.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I welcome the emphasis on personal journeys and improvement of free enterprise. Freeports can make a great contribution to that, so will the Government bring forward a freeport for Northern Ireland to show that it is properly part of the United Kingdom and, with it, to see off the EU threat to our Union?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government are committed to ensuring that we have two additional freeports in Scotland, at least one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland, and announcements on those should be forthcoming shortly.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I welcome the White Paper and the Government’s paying attention to levelling up across the United Kingdom—as a Unionist, I see that as important to assure citizens they are considered part of the United Kingdom. However, many people in Northern Ireland will say that new red tape as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol is strangling our economy. How do the proposals in the White Paper benefit people in Northern Ireland in terms of education, jobs, research, housing, crime and so on? How does the Secretary of State seek to level up Northern Ireland through that?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Member makes a series of good points. First, I absolutely understand the problems with the protocol, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is working incredibly hard to tackle them. Secondly, we recognise that the Northern Ireland Executive exercise devolved responsibilities in a number of areas, but we can help: additional funding for research and development means that Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster can get additional funding to create the jobs that Northern Ireland requires. The broader economic strategy that we outline in the White Paper is designed to help every part of the United Kingdom, and, through the UK shared prosperity fund, there will be additional funding. UK community renewal funding and levelling-up funding has been distributed to communities in Northern Ireland, but we need to do better in ensuring that it reaches those who deserve it most, not least those in areas such as Larne and Glenarm in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Leicestershire and Rutland councils were some of the worst funded in the entire country—until today. Thanks to the Secretary of State, Leicestershire is one of the nine counties that will be negotiating a county deal. Will he please reassure me that when he negotiates a deal for Leicestershire, he will include Rutland, which cannot go for its own county deal? It needs a sidecar deal. Will he also help us level up pride by coming to visit our wonderful area?
Michael Gove
That is an offer too good to resist. I will say two things. First, Leicester and Leicestershire have much to offer, but there are also significant pockets of deprivation not just in the city but in rural Leicestershire that we must tackle. My hon. Friend is right that the county deal that we are proposing will—I hope—help. Secondly, I know that Rutland’s independence is cherished by its people and its Member of Parliament, but on this occasion there can be—how can I put it—a fruitful union between Leicestershire and Rutland, and I would like to see that advance.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will know the impact of growing up poor on health, education and life chances, because it is well documented. But, even before the pandemic, two in five children and young people in the north-east were growing up in poverty, so it is hard to understand why the White Paper does not address the lack of cross-Government strategy to tackle child poverty. If levelling up is to mean anything, surely it must address that issue in the north-east.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes a good point. Indeed, there is a commitment in the White Paper to additional funding for the supporting families programme —previously the troubled families programme—which helps to address many of the drivers of child poverty. Of course, I would be the first to acknowledge that there is more to do, and in communities in Newcastle—in Longbenton and elsewhere—there are real challenges that we need to work with Newcastle City Council to overcome. The council’s Labour leader is someone with whom I think we can do business.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper. I am sure that the Secretary of State would acknowledge that delivering foreign direct investment is key to levelling up the north and beyond. Would he consider a 13th mission: to double FDI in the north of England by 2030?
Michael Gove
May I thank my right hon. Friend? Many of the best ideas in the White Paper are the fruit of work that he and the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs have conducted. The paper that he co-wrote for the Centre for Policy Studies, “A Northern Big Bang”, has influenced our thinking in a number of areas, not least unlocking additional private sector investment. My noble Friend Lord Grimstone, the Department for International Trade Minister, now leads the Office for Investment, and one of his missions is to increase FDI, particularly in the north and midlands. I look forward to working with Lord Grimstone and my right hon. Friend to ensure that east Lancashire is at the front of the queue for that investment.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for the White Paper, which is very thoughtfully put together—not least because the foreword by the Prime Minister is on a detachable page. That is great.
One page that appears to have already been detached, however, is the bit that refers to rural Britain. I am really concerned that there is very little concern in the document for levelling up the rural parts of our country. In Cumbria, we have three-hour round trips for cancer treatment and a threat to our local A&E department, and our villages and communities are being cleared by second homes and Airbnb. I would be delighted to work constructively with the Secretary of State, and I would love if it he agreed to meet me so that we can talk about some answers to the housing catastrophe affecting not just Cumbria, but the rest of rural Britain.
Michael Gove
I have to say, I agree with almost everything the hon. Gentleman said. First, it is important that we focus on rural poverty; secondly, there are unique issues in Cumbria. Local government reorganisation, with the creation of one new authority in Cumberland and one in Westmorland and Furniss, will contribute to ensuring that we have a proper focus on those, but we need to go further. He is also right that the issue of second homes and their impact on local economies is a complex one. We are not in the right place yet, and I want to work with him and other colleagues to address it.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
It was wonderful to be able to welcome my right hon. Friend to my constituency this week to see the amount of levelling up that is needed and the work we are doing with our local council to achieve it. Does he agree, however, that it is about not just school education, but technical education for our young and older people—something new Labour was able to decimate very effectively when it was in power, but which is vital to matching up jobs and opportunities to level up areas such as Great Grimsby?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we think about the technical institute in Grimsby, which was a source of pride and high-quality further education, some of the changes that the new Labour Government made undermined that centre of excellence. One thing we are clear about in the White Paper is the importance of ensuring that further education is aligned with the needs of local employers. In Grimsby and north-east Lincolnshire, as part of the renewables revolution led by the Business Secretary, there is now a chance to ensure new jobs, investment in FE and a recognition of the link between the two, so that in Grimsby people can stay local, but go far.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I always enjoy listening to the Secretary of State, who is always very articulate and performs well at the Dispatch Box. I wish him well in the forthcoming Tory leadership election. There is an obsession, which he has illustrated today, with elected Mayors; I understand he has briefed them, but not the leaders of local authorities. In Cheshire West and Chester, the Government have taken £466 million since 2010 from our local authority, and the only way we can win funding back is by bidding to this pot or that pot, which is decided by Ministers. If he is going to increase funding for local authorities, will he please remember those areas that are not covered by directly elected Mayors, but nevertheless have outstanding leaders such as Louise Gittins?
Michael Gove
I thank the hon. Gentleman. Been there, done that, got knocked back twice, so I am afraid I am not going round that course again. I will agree that it is important that we talk to all local leaders. I personally think the devolution of power to mayoral combined authorities has been a good thing, but it is not right for everywhere in this country. There are ways we can strengthen the hands of local leaders, and I look forward to doing so in Cheshire.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Gainsborough South West ward is the 24th most deprived ward in the country. I thank the Secretary of State for awarding us £10 million in levelling up, but does he agree, looking at the overall picture, that the prosperity of northern industrial towns was built not with Government money, but by entrepreneurs in the 19th and early 20th century, when regulation and taxation were a fraction of what they are now? What plans does he have, with his colleagues, to try to reduce the burden of regulation and taxation on towns in the north of England?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is correct; that is why I sought in my statement to emphasise that levelling up can only succeed if British business and private enterprise succeed. That means the right regulatory framework, outside the European Union, as we spelled out on Monday. There are steps we have taken and can take to ensure that we have smarter and leaner regulation.
More broadly, I think that if we look at the success of great industrial towns in the past, we see that figures such as Joe Chamberlain were driven by the spirit of private enterprise, but by civic pride as well. Chamberlain provided an example of great local leadership, and also of ambition to improve education. The mission that he led in Birmingham to ensure that universal education was extended even to the poorest was the perfect complement to the drive that he showed in generating wealth through the market.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
One of the great inequalities in my constituency is the gap between those who are able to feed their families and those who are not. In every year since the Government took office the use of food banks has increased, and last year 2.5 million food parcels were given out to people who had gone up to a complete stranger and said, “Can you help me to feed my family?” What are the Government going to do to bring an end to this scandal?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. We have taken, and continue to take, a series of steps through the supporting families programme. We are also outlining in the White Paper some of the proposals that we are taking forward as part of Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy, which explicitly addressed some of the particular challenges to which the right hon. Gentleman has rightly drawn attention, to ensure that people have the resources and the capacity to put healthy food on the table for their children. I look forward to perhaps visiting Leeds with Henry Dimbleby to talk to the right hon. Gentleman about exactly how we can achieve the change that we need.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I am saddened by the characteristic doom and gloom on the Labour Benches. We should be welcoming confirmation that we will be turbo-charging every single part of the UK, including the south-west, and recognising the importance of the private sector to achieving those goals will be key. In Stroud we have a fantastic town centre regeneration plan, which is backed up by recent private investment in previously long-standing empty buildings such as the Imperial Hotel and Five Valleys, and buildings in King Street. Will my right hon. Friend dispatch his levelling-up Minister to Stroud so that he can see how far the marriage between private and public money that we are hoping to achieve could go for local people?
Michael Gove
The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), is hereby dispatched to Stroud—first class.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
How can we take seriously the Secretary of State’s promise to turbo-charge places such as my city when his Government have spent 12 years draining the fuel tank and slashing the tyres? If his offer of a county deal is to deliver meaningful change, does it not need to start with restoring the £100 million that Nottingham has lost through cuts in council funding?
Michael Gove
Nottingham has a bright future, and Nottinghamshire has an even brighter one, with my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) as leader of that council, leading a programme of urban development and regeneration. I look forward to working with the hon. Lady, and with my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, to ensure that we make Nottinghamshire great again.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know that Herefordshire has one of the smallest and sparsest populations and some of the lowest gross value added in this country. He will also know of my passion for the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, which promises to offer entirely new forms of learning and teaching, lower drop-out rates, lower levels of mental ill health, and much greater inclusiveness for young people in skills-based higher education—it is the small modular nuclear reactor of higher education. Will the Secretary of State encourage this model, and will he consider, call for and initiate a review of higher education in order to regenerate cities and towns across the UK?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is important for Members to be very brief, because otherwise we will not get everyone in.
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend’s new model institute is a perfect model of what was envisaged by the former Member of Parliament for Orpington when he was the higher education Minister and introduced reform to ensure that we improved access to higher education, but with a particular focus on skills and jobs. I look forward to working with him and the Education Secretary to spread this model through across the UK.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. He announced a county devolution deal for County Durham, which has lost £224 million in Government grants since 2010. At the same time, his own county council’s spending powers have gone up. Will the devolution deal replace anywhere near the £22.4 million a year that County Durham has lost?
Michael Gove
I am looking forward to working with the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat Administration in Durham county—the first non-Labour Administration for many years, following on from the success of my hon. Friends the Members for North West Durham (Mr Holden), for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) in winning their seats at the last general election. Sadly, the Labour Administration of Durham County Council were responsible for significant maladministration and the waste of resources. I am convinced that the new Administration will spend taxpayers’ money better.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for his statement. Since 2015, Plymouth has been on an amazing journey, with more inward investment than it has seen for decades. I echo the plea of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) that the levelling up of opportunities—an extension of the life chances agenda that we started back in 2015—becomes a defining issue for this Government. Will he remember the seats in the south-west? We talk about the red wall, which is all brilliant, new and exciting, but we have a real job of work to do to improve life chances in the south-west.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are real pockets of poverty that we need to address in the south-west, particularly around Plymouth. The same is true in parts of the south, particularly in Portsmouth and Southampton. Although there is understandably a focus on the north and midlands, our broader focus is on moving prosperity and investment outside of London and the south-east, precisely to communities such as the one he serves so well.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust, based in Wombwell, is the only organisation dedicated to supporting former mining towns in the UK. Its vital work includes improving health outcomes, providing employment support and boosting skills for communities where levelling up is needed most. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet the trust to learn more about its work?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I welcome the designation of North Northamptonshire as an education investment area. Would the Secretary of State be kind enough to explain to my constituents what that will mean for educational outcomes in Kettering?
Michael Gove
Children in Kettering deserve the very best start in life. First of all, that means a relentless focus on standards and discipline. It means ensuring that we have systematic synthetic phonics in primary school, and that children are fully literate, numerate and capable of going to secondary school by the time they reach the end of key stage 2. It means multi-academy trusts, which are delivering higher standards where existing schools have failed. It can also mean—I would be happy to discuss this with my hon. Friend—a new 16 to 19 sixth form like Brampton Manor or Harris Westminster, providing children from working-class backgrounds with the chance to go to the very best universities.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I welcome the creation of the “Islands Forum” referred to on page 132 of the White Paper, and the news that the Secretary of State is to chair its first meeting—it is in his hands to ensure that it is not a talking shop. Item No. 1 on the agenda for that meeting has to be “Island future transport infrastructure needs”. The communities in Shetland are desperate to see the construction of tunnels and fixed links, and he could be the person to get the Scottish Government and the Treasury together to deliver that. Is he up for the challenge?
Michael Gove
I am completely up for it. There are issues of connectivity and access to good quality services and investment in Orkney and Shetland, the Western Isles, Anglesey and the Isle of Wight. Although they are very different communities, they have shared interests. I will absolutely do what the right hon. Gentleman says.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and—I say this as a former maths teacher—for his enthusiasm for numeracy. Will he clarify how his plans will deal with large and mostly rural counties such as Devon? On average, we can look as if we do not need much levelling up, but that hides a large variance, with huge disparities in opportunity within the county.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; parts of Devon are relatively economically successful, but there are also areas, not least in South Molton and Barnstaple, in her constituency, where there is real poverty. One thing we are doing with the roll-out of gigabit broadband and better digital connectivity is making sure that businesses in those areas can provide better jobs and greater investment, but we will explore with the local authority in Devon what more we can do to give local leaders the powers they need to make a difference.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Tories have been in power for 12 years, so does the Secretary of State agree that these vague plans to raise school standards in a third of local authority areas, including Bedford borough, is an admission of unforgivable failure and that any promised investment will never make up for the cuts started when he was Education Secretary, which blighted a generation of our children?
Michael Gove
As the hon. Gentleman mentions my time at Education, let me say that we protected, in real-terms, funding for schools from five to 16; we introduced a pupil premium, which meant that £250 million of additional funding was targeted on the poorest; and in Bedford we opened Bedford Free School, an outstanding school that brought opportunity to disadvantaged children in his constituency. What did the Labour party in Bedford do? It fought it every step of the way. So if he wants opportunity for people in Bedford, he should come to this side of the House, because we are the real crusaders.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
May I urge my right hon. Friend not to be downcast by the negativity of those on the Opposition Benches, but to be uplifted by the support he is receiving for his statement today from those on the Government Benches? In the west midlands, we are particularly pleased about the innovation accelerators and the smart city region programme, which can both be really effective through the galvanisation of the private sector. I am also pleased about the brownfield remediation money, which will stop the iniquitous building of houses on the green belt. May I say that we are awaiting transport money desperately needed for the royal town’s centre plans, which are being driven forward by the determination and vision of the Conservative-led Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. I know that he was instrumental in the success of Andy Street’s election as Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, and Andy has shown what a pro-business, pro-free market Conservative Mayor can do. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the innovation accelerator in the west midlands will be a way of harnessing all of the talent in his constituency and beyond. I listened carefully to his plea for better transport to the royal borough of Sutton Coldfield. In my view, the quicker people can get to Sutton Coldfield, the better it is for everyone. It is a beautiful royal borough with a fantastic Member of Parliament.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I note the intention to pilot an innovation accelerator in Glasgow. It is to be led by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Scotland Office and other UK Government Departments, from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to the Department for International Trade, but no mention is made of the Scottish Government. Can he tell me what consultation there has been with the Scottish Government on the proposal?
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that, despite the regeneration programmes in London over the past 30 years, the deprived wards in London are the same ones as they were 30 years ago. Will he assure the House that this will not be used as a reason to deprive London of money, despite the inaction of the do-nothing Mayor at the moment, but that it will be new investment in the north, midlands and across the UK?
Michael Gove
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right; levelling up is not about dampening down the success of London or overlooking the needs of disadvantaged communities in London. It is striking that when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was Mayor of London the gaps in life expectancy and health outcomes between the wealthiest and the poorest parts of London narrowed. He was a one nation Mayor and he is a one nation Prime Minister.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for meeting me recently to discuss this subject. Sadly, it was a virtual meeting so we were unable to share a packet of Fox’s biscuits together—they come from my constituency. After 12 long years, I welcome any announcement that could result in much-needed, long overdue investment in the towns and villages in Batley and Spen. Does he agree that when it comes to levelling up, it is the reality on the ground that matters and the real-world, tangible differences it makes to communities? With that in mind, will he confirm that he will accept my invitation to come to Batley and Spen, so that I can show him at first hand not only the challenges we face, but the unique opportunities that levelling-up funding could provide?
Michael Gove
First, we have set out clear missions, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that we need to deliver on them. We want to be held to account for that delivery and it needs to be concrete. Secondly, she has been a great champion for community organisations and their capacity to bring people together. A new approach is outlined in the levelling-up White Paper on just that, which is inspired by her work and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), so of course I will accept.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
Eden Project North gained planning permission on Monday. Five long years, but we got there in the end. I will put it bluntly: how can my right hon. Friend help Eden Project North? The sooner he helps me, the sooner I will shut up about it and the sooner I can get on to the next project in my constituency.
Michael Gove
Eden Project North has two brilliant advocates: my hon. Friend and the Prime Minister. I know I will not be long in this job if I do not deliver for both of them.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
The levelling-up programme should not just be about shiny infrastructure projects. It should be about real people and life opportunities. Life expectancy is not addressed in this hefty document. Life expectancy in Windlesham in the Secretary of State’s constituency is 86.7 years; in parts of my constituency it is 72.5 years. That is staggering and grotesque. What will he do about that?
Michael Gove
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is staggering and grotesque. One of the things we need to do is learn from Professor Michael Marmot and others about the drivers of health inequalities. I know that, in many cases, people such as the hon. Gentleman who worked in mining or heavy industry, even though it is a proud and amazing manufacturing sector, sometimes bear long-term health scars. We need to do more, and I look forward to working with him and others to address it.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
It is brilliant news that small and medium-sized builders will get support to build 42,000 homes. Will the Secretary of State meet me and my Cornish colleagues to make sure those homes are retained by people who live in Cornwall?
Michael Gove