Advisory Committee on Business Appointments/Ministerial Code
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Ben Gummer
The ministerial code determines how Ministers should behave—that is, serving Ministers. It does not have a direct impact on ex-Ministers, for reasons that the right hon. Lady will understand. It does, however, advise ex-Ministers about their responsibilities, should they leave their position, and it has been toughened up in that respect in the past few months, before this current discussion happened. It is important that ACOBA should give its recommendations before we move on to consider broader matters of reform, because the questions that are being put at the moment are predicated on an answer that I would not like to predetermine.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In considering such matters, is it not extremely important that the House always seeks to attract the widest possible cross-section of people, including retaining the services of those who have held high office? Is it not also a matter of regret that, for the first time in my 30 years on and off in this House, there is no former Prime Minister in either of the two Houses of Parliament?
Ben Gummer
That is the view that this House has traditionally taken. It is not a matter for the Government; it is for this House to make a decision in the long term about the balance that it wants to have. Traditionally, this House has determined that it is right for Members of Parliament to have the opportunity of a wider hinterland. That may change—it is not for me to say—but it is important that, whatever the particularities at this juncture, the situation is judged within that context.
European Council 2016
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We support the continuing EU-Turkey deal. It has had an impact on the migratory movements across the Aegean, but there are of course elements to the EU-Turkey deal, particularly visa liberalisation, with which the UK is not involved because we are not one of the Schengen member states. That matter of visa liberalisation is still being discussed by members of the Schengen border zone. As I say, the UK is not part of that, but we should recognise that the arrangements in place so far have had an impact on movements into Greece from Turkey. Crucially, we need to ensure that the process of returning people who have no right to be in Greece is operating as smoothly as possible. That is one reason why we are offering extra staff to Greece, so that the process of dealing with those claims can be carried out more smoothly.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The whole House will welcome the focus on Syria and Aleppo that my right hon. Friend has reported from the meeting. Most welcome is the additional British humanitarian support, including for UNICEF, that the Prime Minister has announced, and the part played by British diplomats and the Government over the weekend in securing the successful UN resolution along the lines of the debate here last week. Will she ensure that over the Christmas and new year holiday, the full span of Government attention will continue on securing unfettered access for humanitarian workers, medical supplies and food, bearing in mind that there are still more than 50,000 people out in the open in Aleppo who are very frightened and living in temperatures well below freezing?
The Prime Minister
With his experience, my right hon. Friend recognises that it is about not just agreeing a resolution, but ensuring that it is then implemented, so that making humanitarian aid available to people and enabling them to leave safely can be put into practice. I assure my right hon. Friend that we recognise the importance of getting momentum going on this. It will be important to do that over the coming days and weeks. Our focus on it will continue.
Tributes to Jo Cox
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Today we mourn the terrible loss of our friend and colleague Jo, so tragically murdered as she went about her constituency duties last Thursday. The life has been taken of a truly exceptional woman, whose goodness and passionate dedication to humanitarian values has inspired us all. I knew her as a friend, but how unbearable must it be for those who mourn her as a daughter, sister, husband and, above all, as their beloved mum, whom they used to visit for tea each week in Portcullis House.
I first met Jo 10 years ago in London, when we marched against injustice in Darfur, and on two visits to al-Fashir in Darfur, where she helped develop a central humanitarian role for Oxfam. The Leader of the Opposition, as he then was, and I stayed there with her and other humanitarian workers and witnessed her crucial role for Oxfam in supporting women and children and securing water for thousands of refugees in the El Salam and Abu Shouk camps. She gave me the green wristband— I wear it still—to ensure that we remembered the desperate people caught up in what President Bush rightly described as a genocide. It is among her many friends and colleagues in the international humanitarian and development family all around the world, of which she was such a respected and experienced member, that she will be mourned and remembered as a staunch friend of the most desperate and deprived in our world and as a campaigner against injustice.
When she entered this House just 13 short months ago, she rapidly used her deep knowledge to champion the dispossessed. She was Labour to her fingertips, but restlessly dismissive of party political manoeuvring, which she saw as a barrier to progress. Making common cause with a crusty old Tory, she and I became co-chairs of the all-party Friends of Syria.
And she was brave: her energy and effectiveness were an inspiration. We invited ourselves to tea with the Russian ambassador in his London residence. With clever charm but steely determination, this five-foot bundle of old-fashioned Yorkshire common sense dressed him down for his country’s cruelty and cynicism in Syria. I do not believe the Russian ambassador will easily forget that visit.
I think there are many things Jo would want us to remember this afternoon. May I mention just two? I do not believe she would want this vile and unspeakable act to change the open and accessible relationship we enjoy with our constituents. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] All of us take the advice of our local police in protecting those who work with and support us. Thankfully, the record shows these attacks are as infrequent as they are disgraceful. Secondly, Jo would want us in this House to redouble our efforts to resolve the greatest catastrophe of our age: the crisis in Syria, where the lives of more than 11 million people have been ruined while the international community has shown itself disorganised, ineffective and supine.
I mourn Jo today as a friend and as a colleague, but most of all I mourn for her as a mother, whose two gorgeous children will now have to chart the shoals and eddies of life without the love and support of their wonderful, lovely mum.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Obviously we will look carefully at the report. There are 13,100 more teachers in our schools than when I became Prime Minister, and our teachers are better qualified than ever before—[Interruption.] People are shouting about increased pupil numbers, but they might be interested to know that we have 47,500 fewer pupils in overcrowded schools than in 2010, because we put the investment in where it was needed. Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is that we need schemes such as Teach First and our national leadership programme, which are getting some of the best teachers into the schools where they are most needed.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister deserves great credit for the results of the Syria replenishment conference that was held under his co-sponsorship in London. He will be aware, however, that that can only address the symptoms, and not the causes, of the catastrophe that is Syria today. Will he tell the House what more he thinks the British Government can do to try to promote the political track and ensure that it reaches the most speedy possible success?
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend for what he says about the Syria conference, and that gives me the opportunity to thank my co-hosts, the Norwegians, the Germans, the Kuwaitis, and the United Nations Secretary-General. In one day we raised more money than has ever been raised at one of these conferences—more than $10 billion—and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development who did a lot of the very hard work. That money helps because it will keep people in the region, feed and clothe them, and make sure that they get the medicine they need. But we do need a political solution and we will go on working with all our partners to deliver that. That requires all countries, including Russia, to recognise the need for a moderate Sunni opposition to be at the table to create a transitional authority in Syria. Without that, I fear that we will end up with a situation with Assad in one corner, and Daesh in the other corner—the worst possible outcome in terms of terrorism, and for refugees and the future of Syria.
Syria
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do not particularly want to re-enter all the arguments about chemical weapons use. All I will say is that I of course listen to the hon. Gentleman’s views, but I also think of the thousands of people, including children, who have been killed by Assad’s barrel bombs and chemical weapons since we held that vote. The hon. Gentleman asked the right question, however. Will this make us safer or not? Will it help to degrade ISIL or not? It is the view of our closest allies, our military, our intelligence experts and those responsible for our domestic security: all those people are saying that we should take this action, as part of a coalition, to help make us safer. That is why I am bringing forward this statement and, with the support of the House, I will bring forward a vote.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Following the limited but important progress on the political track in Vienna and the unanimous adoption by the United Nations of resolution 2249 on ISIL, is it not clear that the Prime Minister’s considered response today is absolutely compelling? Is this not the way in which we discharge our responsibility to protect innocent civilians, both here in the United Kingdom and in Syria?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s support. This is about discharging our responsibilities, chiefly to our own citizens. It is my considered view that this action will help, over time, to make us safer. We will never be safe while ISIL exists and while this so-called caliphate exists. We have demonstrated in Iraq that we can take its territory and destroy much of its infrastructure. We can make real progress, but we are hampered by not being able to do the same in Syria. If we agree that the eradication of ISIL is essential for our national security, we should not put off the decision.
G20 and Paris Attacks
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the bombing in Beirut. Some people posit this as a clash of civilisations—the Islamic world against the rest. The Beirut bomb, as with so many other bombs before it, proved that these people—in this case, ISIL—are killing Muslims in their hundreds and thousands. It is very important to demonstrate to Muslim communities in our own countries that we take this violence as seriously as violence committed in Paris or elsewhere.
The hon. Gentleman asks whether what we would do in Syria would be about civilian protection. My argument is, yes, it would be about civilian protection in the obvious way—that if we can take out the murderers of ISIL, we are helping to protect the Syrian people whom they are threatening—but, because Britain has precision munitions such as the Brimstone missile, which are in many ways more effective even than some of the things the Americans have, our intervention and our assistance would mean better targeting of the people who should be targeted and fewer civilian casualties.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
In his very welcome statement today, my right hon. Friend is clearly right to focus on the political track in the Syrian negotiations, building in part on the Kofi Annan proposals from some time ago, and on the significant progress that appears to have been made in Vienna last week. If those negotiations are successful, that will of itself remove a huge barrier to the widespread military coalition that all of us want to see, in which Britain, as my right hon. Friend said today, would have the ability, as well as a number of unique assets, to play a very significant part. If the negotiations in Vienna are successful, I have no doubt that the Prime Minister, coming back to this House, will get a huge majority of Members from both sides supporting Britain’s full participation in it.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend, who follows these things closely, makes some very good points. Of course, as I have said, to defeat ISIL in Syria two things are required. First, we need to make sure that the international community—Arab states and others—are taking the military action to degrade and defeat ISIL. Secondly, we need a political settlement that gives us an effective ally in Syria to defeat ISIL in a way that can unite the country. Those two things go together, but if my right hon. Friend is arguing that military action should follow only after some political agreement has been nailed down, we might wait a very long time for that to happen. I caution against that approach.
I want to be clear about what I am proposing here. I am saying that the Government will bring together all our arguments about how we succeed in Iraq, how we succeed in Syria, what a political process should achieve, how we degrade and defeat ISIL, the role that Britain should play, and my argument that we should be going further in Syria as well as in Iraq. We will put all those arguments together in response to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Then it will be for Members of this House to see whether they want to assent to that idea. If that happens, we shall have the vote and take the action so that we play a part with others in defence of our own national security.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman, who did a lot of work on this in the previous Parliament, that I very much welcome the campaign that has been launched and what it aims to achieve. We set out in the NHS constitution parity between mental and physical health and we have taken steps towards that by, for instance, introducing for the first time waiting times and proper targets for talking therapies. There are now twice as many people undergoing those talking therapies as there were five years ago. But I completely accept that there is more to do in healing the divide between mental and physical health, and this Government are committed to doing that.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Further to the question from the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), I thank the Prime Minister for his support and emphasise that this is indeed an all-party campaign. Does he agree that there is an opportunity now to build on the work of the coalition over the past five years and, with widespread support across all parts of society, end an historical injustice and inequality in the treatment of mental ill-health and physical illness?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is right. Let me tell him what we are doing. We are investing more in mental health than ever before—we will be spending £11.4 billion this financial year. Crucially, we have asked every clinical commissioning group to ensure real-terms increases in its investment in mental health services so that it cannot be treated as the Cinderella service, as has sometimes been the case in the past. If we do that and deal with some of the other issues, such as mental health patients being held in police cells inappropriately, we will have a far better system for dealing with mental health in our country.
Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Taking the last question on the ISC first, I think we will be able to do that in the coming days. I am confident of making progress. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response.
On the issue of how many Syrians Britain has already given asylum to, I think the figure is actually 5,000, and the number under the relocation and resettlement schemes that we already have runs to about 1,000 refugees a year. What we are now doing is adding to that with this new scheme, which will be exclusively for Syrians and will see the resettlement of 20,000 Syrian refugees. As I said, we welcome the fact that the First Minister in Scotland has offered to take 1,000. We think that will now have to be increased with this more generous approach.
The hon. Gentleman talks about working constructively within the EU. That is exactly what we are doing, and that is what lay behind my phone call with Angela Merkel just a few minutes ago. The point I would make is that we do not believe the right answer is for Britain to take people who have already arrived in Europe. We think that it is better to take people out of the refugee camps, so that we do not encourage people to make this perilous crossing. We are not part of the Schengen no-borders agreement, so we do not have to take part in that relocation scheme. We are doing work in the Syrian refugee camps: 10 times more money is given by Britain than by some other major European countries to those refugee camps. I think that entitles us to say that we are taking an approach that is about helping people on the ground, rather than encouraging people to move.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The Government are clearly right to increase yet further Britain’s immense humanitarian support for the Syrian people, and right, too, to use British aid—entirely in accordance with the rules governing its spending—to support refugees in their first year in the United Kingdom, but will the Prime Minister accept that the failures of the international community to protect, and to tackle the causes of the Syrian catastrophe, evoke memories of the failures over the Rwandan genocide, over which the international community was left guilty and shamed?
The Prime Minister
First, may I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks about the use of the aid budget, which he did so much as a Minister to promote and develop? He is right to say that we are dealing with the consequences of failure with respect to Syria. It is an incredibly difficult situation, because not only do we have the terrorisation of people by ISIL, but Assad has been the recruiting sergeant for ISIL because of the butchery of his own people. What we must not do is give up on the idea of a transition for Syria; we need to keep working towards that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend indicated over the weekend that he would like to see greater use made of drones in the fight against terrorism, but is he aware that for every terrorist taken out by a drone between five and 10 innocent civilians, especially women and children, lose their lives? Will he accept that we need to bear that effect in mind as we seek to win hearts and minds in the conflict against the evils of terrorism?
The Prime Minister
Of course we must always think very carefully before we act, but the rules of engagement that both Britain and America follow are there to limit collateral damage to the absolute minimum. But if my right hon. Friend is asking me whether Britain should give up using drones in extremis to take out people who are threatening our country and seeking to bring terrorism to our streets, I would say very firmly no. I will say something that I am sure we both agree with. As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, a missile can kill a terrorist, but it is good governance and strong Governments that can kill terrorism.
Debate on the Address
Andrew Mitchell Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). I much enjoyed serving with him in Cabinet and on the National Security Council. I feel that history is likely to treat his time as our Deputy Prime Minister rather more kindly than the electorate did on what he must regard, but we do not, as a very dark night for his party and for him—but that is the awesome power of democracy.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on brilliantly proposing and seconding the Loyal Address. Some 23 years ago, I had the privilege of seconding the Address, and I know what a terrifying ordeal it is. They both did it with great grace, good sense and humour.
I am obviously delighted to have been returned by the citizens of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield with an increased vote—and, indeed, an increased percentage of the vote. They are, after all, the jury that I trust and respect, and I am delighted with their verdict. Throughout the election on the doorstep—thank goodness the doorstep was right and the polls were wrong—I heard about many important issues, some of which are in the Queen’s Speech and some of which are not, that I intend to champion during the course of this Parliament. I will mention just two. The first is mental health, which was referred to briefly by Her Majesty. The second is individual and collective liberty, which this House has sometimes neglected in the past and to which, during this Parliament, we will undoubtedly return.
Mr Mitchell
Those liberties must be defended—often, I suspect, with a cross-party approach, and I therefore give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
Tom Brake
I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned civil liberties. Does he agree that the snoopers’ charter is a disproportionate response that puts at risk our civil liberties; a cripplingly expensive response, at £1.8 billion; and a rushed response, because David Anderson handed in his review of RIPA—the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000—only on 6 May, and therefore the Prime Minister cannot possibly have taken it into account?
Mr Mitchell
We shall return to these issues during the course of this Parliament.
I want to say at the outset that this is an excellent Queen’s Speech. It is a Queen’s Speech, and as secretary of the One Nation Group, on and off, since 1992, I am obviously delighted to see its content.
Thanks to the referendum pledge that the Prime Minister has championed, the Government are in a very good place on an extremely difficult and contentious issue. I got all this grey hair in whipping the party during the Maastricht debates between 1992 and 1994, much of that time spent with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is not in his place. There is a clear road map: renegotiation followed by a referendum when everyone will be able to decide. It will not be politicians in what used to be called smoke-filled rooms making those decisions; it will be up to everyone to decide. The United Kingdom can clearly survive inside or outside the European Union—not because of the whims of politicians but because we are a great trading nation—but I am absolutely certain that the always edgy relationship that we have had with the EU since we joined in the early 1970s can now be rectified by this renegotiation, and I very much hope that it will be. My advice to those on the Government Front Bench is not to fetter Ministers with regard to the referendum but to let this momentous decision be guided by individual conviction and allow all Ministers, including Cabinet Ministers, to vote as they see fit.
I want to express strong support for the Government’s proposals to tackle the deficit. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said that the deficit and the debt in Britain were unsustainable, and in the long term he is absolutely right. Our generation of politicians has been too willing to throw money at problems and has forgotten that it is not Government money—the Government do not have any money—but the money of our constituents and those hard-working people who pay all their taxes. It is the money of the people, whose servants we are as politicians, that we are spending.
If we do not repay this enormous debt and attack all the deficit very thoroughly now, it will be the next generation—our children and grandchildren—who will have to pay it off. It will be an intergenerational transfer of debt and deficit, and a blight on young people, who face many challenges which my generation certainly did not face. For example, those leaving university now pay fees—correctly in my view, although my generation received a grant. They have no idea when they will be able to retire or whether they will receive a pension, whereas my generation expected to retire at the age of 65, quite often on a pension linked to earnings. There are many difficulties to be faced in tackling the deficit, but the Government are right to do that now and to do so urgently to stop it becoming an endemic intergenerational transfer of debt.
But the hard truth is that it is incredibly difficult, as I learned as a Social Security Minister in 1995, to tackle and to cut welfare spending. People argue that cutting £1 billion off the huge welfare budget—less than 1%—is easy, but it is not: £1 billion is £100 from 10 million people, or more than 15,000 people per constituency. The lesson is: do not remove cash, but cut future increased expenditure. That is the sensible, one nation way to do it, and it will make it much easier for the Government to take these extremely difficult and complex decisions.
I want to say that the Government are absolutely right to proceed with caution on human rights legislation, as outlined today. I must say that I never thought a British Government, let alone a Conservative one, would ever consider withdrawing from the European convention on human rights, for which our party was responsible.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
May I tell my right hon. Friend that I am rather surprised to hear a former Government deputy Chief Whip speaking up for human rights? Is he telling the House that he has suffered a damascene conversion?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend forgets that it was he who was a Government deputy Chief Whip and that I, albeit briefly, was the Government Chief Whip!
Human rights are not British; nor are they just for nice middle-class people. They are universal. In the past, Britain has been a beacon of light on human rights in some very dark places indeed. However, the Government have rightly decided to delay and to think this legislation through. I cannot think of anyone better than my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor to negotiate the Government’s passage on it, and I look forward to his doing so during the coming months.
Mr Graham Allen
I suggest that as well as the good offices of the Lord Chancellor, there should be proper parliamentary scrutiny. Given that we have five years of a Parliament and that reform may well take place, does it not make sense to do this carefully, listening to all parties and all views, rather than to take the advice of the Lord Chancellor solely? We should consult Parliament.
Mr Mitchell
It is not the Lord Chancellor’s advice that I am looking for, but his skills in engaging everyone, including Parliament, in the extremely important debate that we must have before the Government come forward with legislation.
I was talking about tackling dark places. I should say that four newly re-elected Members of this House spent last week in Washington seeking the release of the United Kingdom’s last detainee in Guantanamo. It has to be said that a more unlikely group of political bedfellows would be extremely hard to find—me, the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). Although it was clear from the beginning of the visit that we agreed on nothing else at all, the one thing we absolutely agreed on was that Shaker Aamer should be released for transfer to the United Kingdom. I am confident that we made some progress on our visit, but it is the most extraordinary injustice. On his visit to the United States earlier this year, the Prime Minister asked that Shaker Aamer be released for transfer to the United Kingdom, and the President promised to prioritise the matter, but since then virtually nothing has happened.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments and for his company on that important visit. Will he use this opportunity to put as much pressure as possible on the Government to speak up for what was the decision of the last House of Commons and what I am confident will be the decision of this House of Commons? We want Shaker Aamer released. He has twice been cleared for release and held illegally—in my view—for 13 years. He deserves his freedom and his family deserve to see him back.
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he is right, too, that this is a thorn in the side of the US-UK relationship. There is a huge online petition, and this has all the appearances of a slap in the face for the United States’ closest ally. I cannot think of any time since the second world war when a UK Prime Minister could have been treated so badly in his request to a President and the reaction to it. The House resolved unanimously on 17 March that Shaker Aamer should be transferred back to the United Kingdom. The message from Britain to the United States is to send Shaker Aamer back to Britain now.
Finally, in the five years since the last opening Queen’s Speech of a new Parliament, the world has become a much less safe and more challenged place, with serious difficulties facing us and our neighbours. One thinks of the threats spelt out by the Prime Minister on Ukraine, the Baltic states and the actions of President Putin, ISIL and the enormous humanitarian disaster that has engulfed Syria and Iraq, where a generation of children will be unlikely to get an education and, in many cases, do not even have a roof over their heads. At this time, however, Europe is facing largely inwards, dealing, quite rightly, with the problems of migrants coming across the sea from north Africa—some of the bravest people in the world—Ukraine, Greece and the euro.
There is precious little leadership from America either. We face this appalling catastrophe in the middle east and this grave threat from ISIL, which might soon have a port on the Mediterranean, but what strategy are the United Nations, America and Europe putting together to tackle this serious threat? There seems to be very little international leadership. Anyone who believes that the solution is to drop weapons worth £30,000 on cars worth less than £500 is living in cloud cuckoo land. It will require long-term, smart policies, political leadership and a political solution, but, in my view, we are nowhere near achieving that.
Tackling the alienation and deep poverty in our world—how right the Government are to stand by their commitment on international development and the 0.7% promise to the poorest people in the world—and making sure that better governance takes hold are the long-term policies that will start to make a difference, but for the moment the House must accept that there is precious little international leadership on tackling this grave problem facing all our constituents and many neighbouring countries.