Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Kit Malthouse

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s stentorian support. He is quite right that people want to see a sense of order in this country, and that is exactly what we will put in place and what we are beavering away to make happen across the country—in his constituency and elsewhere.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

In my constituency, I often meet climate activists—people from the Green party. Two of them have stood against me in previous elections and I can honestly say that they are thoroughly decent, engaging and polite, lobbying me for things to be done. That is in stark contrast to what we are seeing at the moment. The idea that we can say that “Well, they were only attacking five billionaire press barons” is simply wrong. Small community shops have been at the heart of our communities during the covid crisis and they took a real hit this weekend. Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way to engage on this subject is to do what the people I am honoured to call my constituents do to try to tackle climate issues, rather than putting hard-working businesspeople out of work?

[Kit Malthouse]

As usual, my right hon. Friend is exactly right. There is a way of engaging and influencing us as Members of Parliament that works—the one that he rightly points out—and like him, I have never refused to meet a green group in my constituency. If anything, I meet them with pleasure because our views often coincide, but fundamentally, as he knows, because he has been politically active for a long time, the way to effect change is through hard work. It means people leafletting, standing in an election, fighting their corner, getting elected to this place by winning an election and then putting their agenda in place. That is what he and I have done for the last two or three decades and that is the right and proper way in a democracy.