Pairing

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I feel that I must fess up. I am a pair breaker. I have done it once—by accident. I was told off by the Whips very quickly. The event that I was due to attend had been cancelled and I simply forgot, so honest mistakes do happen. But this whole incident proves two things: first, that this is a process issue that interests the Westminster bubble, but certainly does not interest my constituents; and secondly, that this system, which has existed for a very long time, generally works. I urge my right hon. Friend to be very careful in changing a system that, despite the odd breakdown here and there—most of which have been committed by the Opposition in recent times—generally works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The very fact that we are talking about 66 pairs having been broken for one reason or another since the general election, out of a total of around 2,000 agreed pairs, tells its own story.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support. She is right that there have been many allegations that there was not just an appalling degree of misjudgment and mistreatment of people, but then a subsequent cover-up. One of the specific terms of reference involves asking the inquiry to consider whether such concealment took place, who would have been responsible for it, and its extent, so that is very much something that Sir Brian and his team will look into. One problem with appointing co-determining assessors would be that that would almost inevitably slow down the speed at which the inquiry could progress, because we would need to find experts—there would be a question as to how many were required to cover the field—who were prepared to take off a year or two years, full time, to serve alongside the chair. That was one of the reasons that weighed heavily in Sir Brian’s mind when he made his proposals on the terms of reference.

On powers to summon people, yes, the 2005 Act gives an inquiry of this kind the power to compel the attendance of individuals.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

In accepting Sir Brian’s view about the work of expert groups, can we be assured that those expert groups and panels will be fully transparent and that everything will be publicly available to those with an interest?

[Mr Lidington]

Yes. In his letter to me, Sir Brian proposed that there should be expert groups covering a number of areas and expertise, and that those would range from clinical expertise, with that group itself needing to involve experts in haematology, hepatology and virology, and separate expert groups dealing with medical ethics, statistics, and the psycho-social impact of the infected blood scandal, to experts on public administration. It is certainly Sir Brian’s intention that the deliberative sessions of those expert groups should be undertaken in public, and that the core participants in the inquiry should be able both to propose to the chair names for appointment to those expert groups and to ask questions of the experts during their deliberative sessions as well as during formal evidence given by the expert groups to the inquiry in plenary session. Clearly, given the way that these inquiries normally operate, our expectation is that that intervention on behalf of survivors and other core participants would be via their legal representatives, and that again reinforces the reasons why the Government have agreed, exceptionally, to offer legal aid.

Syria

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are responsible for the actions that we take. As the hon. Lady has said, and as I said in my statement, we have used this legal basis on a number of occasions, and I think it was absolutely right to use it on this occasion.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

In 2013, I voted against action in Syria. I did so on the basis of no more information than I had seen on the six o’clock news. That is why we have an Executive, drawn from and accountable to Parliament, and that is why the Prime Minister’s action was 100% correct in this case. The vote that we took in 2013, and the question of whether we were responsible for some of these attacks, will weigh on my conscience ever more.

This afternoon, Members have stood up and accused the Prime Minister of operating on the basis of instructions from Washington. Will she go further and say that not only are their suggestions wrong, but they are a smear, they are disgusting, and they are insulting to our troops?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I think that that accusation is indeed insulting. It is certainly not true. It is insulting to the Government, and, as my hon. Friend has said, it is insulting to our troops who so professionally and bravely carry out the action that we need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Never mind the hereditaries, the House of Lords is stuffed full of people who are too London-centric. When are we going to have more Yorkshire folk and more of the good men and women of Lincolnshire in the House of Lords?

[Chloe Smith]

Very soon, I hope.

UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

A number of Opposition Members suggest that we can adopt something only if somebody else is already doing it. Actually, what we have put forward is a number of proposals to deal with this issue of a customs arrangement, together with the commitments on regulatory standards that ensure we get that frictionless border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and we stand ready to sit down and discuss them with the Commission and the Irish Government.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Last week, Siemens announced a £200-million investment that will create 700 jobs in Goole. That proves the value of the economy of the north, so as the Prime Minister negotiates for Brexit, as well as obviously looking out for the interests of Northern Ireland, the City and Scotland, will she look out for the interests of the north? That requires approaching this process with flexibility, but it also means standing up for the voters of the north, who voted in huge numbers to leave, and who, since the referendum, have been patronised and insulted as being too thick, too northern or too racist.

[The Prime Minister]

The aim is to ensure that when we leave the European Union, we have a result that is good for the whole United Kingdom—not just Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the whole of England, including the north. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that voters in the north of England voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. This Parliament gave them that vote; it gave the people of the United Kingdom that vote, and it is right that we as politicians deliver on that, rather than talking, as the Liberal Democrats do, about a second referendum. The Labour party, too, will not rule out a second referendum. It should be listening to the people and giving them what they voted for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I have been in close contact with both the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and the Secretary-General himself. We are all working together to impress upon the coalition the importance of getting in not just aid but, critically, commercial supplies. That has been the main thrust of our argument. Clearly, a political settlement is needed in the long term, and we are pushing for all partners to engage.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The situation for Yemen’s remaining Jews is harrowing, particularly for those outside the capital. What work is her Department doing to support the work of other Government Departments in helping to provide safe passage to other countries for these individuals?

[Penny Mordaunt]

We are extremely conscious of this matter. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East has been doing an enormous amount of work, looking at particular communities. There are enormous numbers of people—21 million—who are in an absolutely dire situation. As well as trying to get the immediate issues resolved, we must keep pressing for a political process and for all parties to engage with efforts of the UN’s Special Envoy.

UK Elections: Abuse and Intimidation

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I am sure that a number of colleagues would agree with that contribution; I certainly do. I will be coming to some proposals and thoughts on social media in just a moment.

I want to take a moment to describe the example of our former colleague Byron Davies, who until recently was the MP for Gower. During the election campaign he was subjected to a sustained attack on Twitter that contained absolutely unfounded allegations about a criminal investigation for electoral fraud. That was not an embellishment or exaggeration of a story; it was simply made up. Whether Members supported him or not, he was a colleague defending a majority of 27, and he had to do that against a constant drip-feed on social media of people simply making things up as they went along. Could it have contributed to the loss of his seat? I do not know. It was certainly blatant defamation—that much we do know. The Electoral Commission could not help, social media platforms would not help, and the police investigation, like all police investigations, will take time. It is grinding slowly on, but our former colleague Mr Davies is having to do all that himself, and he is bearing the cost. When that inquiry eventually reaches its conclusion, what remedy will he really have?

I could mention my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and the many others who have suffered similar or vaguely intimidatory experiences during the election campaign. Almost more worrying than that is the number of colleagues I have spoken to in the past few days who do not even want to come to this Chamber to make a contribution, lest it compound the intimidation and abuse they have been receiving in recent weeks. I hope that we are all in a sense making our contributions not to ease our bruised egos, but on behalf of colleagues who have put up with a lot of this nonsense over quite a long time, and are looking, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) said, for a lead from the Government.

Having said all that, I want to make the point that this debate is not about thin-skinned politicians having had a bit of a bruising time and feeling rather sorry for ourselves. Nor is it, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) mentioned, about left versus right or right versus left, or whatever it might be—the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) made an interesting contribution on that particular score in her speech to the Fabian Society at the weekend. It is actually about families, staff, helpers and volunteers. For those of us who have teenage children who might follow us on Twitter and Facebook, it is about being able to say to them, “Don’t worry about the death threat; don’t worry about the abuse and the false accusations.” It is also for them that we speak.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I have had death threats for a number of years—I now have panic buttons and a restraining order against somebody. What is different about what happened at this election—in which I was subjected to anti-Semitic abuse, my staff were spat at and my boards and property were attacked—is that the abuse has been politically motivated. The elephant in the room is that it has been motivated by the language of some of our political leaders, when they accuse people of one political side of murder, and when they dehumanise them in the way that is happening at the moment. There is something more sinister to this. Yes, it affects left and right, but we have to deal with the issue of what is happening on our side of politics.

[Simon Hart]

One of my most important recommendations is about the role of political leadership and what political leaders need to do, rather than what they need to say.

I wanted to mention the example of our former colleague Charlotte Leslie in Bristol, whose parents became victims of abuse. Their entire oil heating supply was drained into their garden by somebody who had an objection to Charlotte’s position on fracking—a slightly ironic way of dealing with an environmental consideration, but none the less one that caused enormous distress, as did the scratching of “Tory scum” into her elderly parents’ car. That is not something that anybody in this House should condone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has just pointed out, when it comes to leadership, it is exactly such an example that should trigger a robust response from everybody who has the benefit of a high profile in politics.

It is about religion, sexuality, social background—it is about people who might have been to public school and sound a bit posh. It is about anybody who might have a political leaning one way or the other, and who might be thinking of becoming a local councillor, or of a career at some future stage in some branch of politics, not even necessarily as an MP, an Assembly Member or a Member of the Scottish Parliament—whatever it might be. We have to ask ourselves: why would they want to take that step when they see what Members of this House have to put up with and, worse still, what Members’ families, friends, relations, campaigners and donors also have to subject themselves to?

To the social media platforms, to the left, to the right, and to groups such as Momentum, which has been mentioned, rather than taking the lazy way out and saying that they are responsible for this, I say, “Help us. If you are on the left, help us. If you are on the right, help us. If you are a social media platform, help us. Help us identify what has triggered the increase in abuse, the smear campaigns, the intimidation, the harassment, the thuggish behaviour on and offline, and the general criticism of people simply because of an inability to match or contest their arguments.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

This is a very important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) on securing it. We have to be clear that we are talking not about robust debate, however robust it is, but about mindless abuse. In my case, the mindless abuse has been characteristically racist and sexist. I have had death threats, and people tweeting that I should be hanged

“if they could find a tree big enough to take the fat bitch’s weight”.

There was an English Defence League-affiliated Twitter account—#burnDianeAbbot. I have had rape threats, and been described as a

“Pathetic useless fat black piece of shit”,

an “ugly, fat black bitch”, and a “nigger”—over and over again. One of my members of staff said that the most surprising thing about coming to work for me is how often she has to read the word “nigger”. It comes in through emails, Twitter and Facebook.

Where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman is that he seems to suggest that this is all a relatively recent occurrence in this election. That is not my experience. It is certainly true that the online abuse that I and others experience has got worse in recent years, and that it gets worse at election time, but I do not put it down to a particular election. I think the rise in the use of online media has turbocharged abuse. Thirty years ago, when I first became an MP, if someone wanted to attack an MP, they had to write a letter—usually in green ink—put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and walk to the post box. Now, they press a button and we read vile abuse that, 30 years ago, people would have been frightened even to write down.

I accept that male politicians get abuse, too, but I hope the one thing we can agree on in this Chamber is that it is much worse for women. As well as the rise of online media, it is helped by anonymity. People would not come up to me and attack me for being a nigger in public, but they do it online. It is not once a week or during an election; it is every day. My staff switch on the computer and go on to Facebook and Twitter, and they see this stuff.

[Andrew Percy]

I agree with everything the right hon. Lady is saying, but I do not think my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) was saying that this is a new thing. We have all had it for years on social media, and the right hon. Lady has had it in a particularly terrible way. What is different now is that some of this is being driven by political leaders’ language. When someone addresses a rally where there are posters of the severed head of the Prime Minister and they do not do anything about it, and when leaders say “ditch the bitch” in relation to the Prime Minister, that is the problem we have at the moment: it is the dehumanisation of each other in politics.

[Ms Abbott]

We will have to agree to disagree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I will try to be brief, and I have already made a couple of interventions.

I am a Tory in Humberside, which is not an easy place to be a Tory. I was a councillor for 10 years—one of two Tories on Hull City Council—and have been through four council elections and four general elections. I am not afraid of abuse and insults, something I am pretty used to, but what is happening now is on a different scale.

I have been called “Tory scum” for years and had insults in the streets, and I am pretty used to that. It is part of the process, and although we might say that it should not happen, it does. What happened at this election, however, was different. I never thought that in my own constituency someone would come up to me and shout the name of the Leader of the Opposition, then describe me as, “Israeli and Zionist scum.” I never thought that my posters would be ripped down and posted on social media under the phrase, “Fuck the Tories #CorbynIn”. I never thought that my staff would be spat at in the street by activists, by people naming the Leader of the Opposition as their motivation for calling my staff “Tory fucking scum.” That is what is happening in our democracy.

It is true that there is abuse on all sides, on the left and on the right. I condemn it absolutely. What is different about what is happening now is that there is an assault on our democracy and on one particular political party. This dehumanisation of my side of politics is being motivated and encouraged by the language of some of the leaders of the Labour party. There are very decent Labour members—the vast mass of them—and Members of Parliament, but the abuse has been happening to some of them as well.

To have leaders addressing rallies where there were images of the severed head of the Prime Minister, but that not being called out, and to have leaders accusing people of murder or saying, “Ditch the bitch!”, but that not being called out, is an assault on our democratic values and our processes. It has to stop. It is the worst I have encountered in any election and it is not acceptable. In this particular regard, it is coming from one particular faction. We should be honest about that.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

Luke Pollard and Rehman Chishti have literally three minutes between them. Luke Pollard, you have a minute and a half, maximum.