International Aid: Treasury Update

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

They more than doubled it; they set the goal, and then successive Prime Ministers implemented that goal. That is such a weak argument—11 years into this Government that is such a weak argument. When I was Director of Public Prosecutions, which has a five-year term, the very idea that I could turn around four or five years into the role and say it was somebody else’s fault five, 10, 15, 20 years ago—I have always found such an argument particularly weak. This is such a bad argument but it is used all the time. They have been in power for 11 years; either take responsibility for what you are doing or give up.

Our overseas aid budget goes beyond that moral obligation: it also helps build a more stable world and keeps us safer in the UK. In Afghanistan aid has supported improvements in security, in governance, in economic development and in rights for women and girls, yet, despite all the challenges that that country now faces and the security and terrorist threats that that poses to the UK—we know about those, and the previous Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Maidenhead knows about them—UK aid to Afghanistan is being cut from £192.3 million to £38.2 million. That is Afghanistan. [Interruption.] The Prime Minister chunters, but they are actually the Government figures. In Yemen, where there is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, UK aid has been cut by nearly 60%; in Syria, the Government are slashing aid by around 50%; and for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh there is a cut of 42%. All of those decisions will create more refugees, more instability and more people having to flee their homes.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the words of General James Mattis, the former United States Defence Secretary? When President Trump proposed cutting overseas aid, General Mattis said, “Fine, cut it, but you will have to give me, the Defence Secretary, more money to buy more bullets.”

[Keir Starmer]

I am aware of that, and it exposes the false economy argument in the Prime Minister’s case.

This cut will also reduce UK influence just when it is needed most, and of course it risks leaving a vacuum that other countries—China and Russia, for example—will fill. At a time when Britain will host COP26 and has hosted the G7 we should be using every means at our disposal to create a fairer and safer world, but we are the only G7 country that is cutting our aid budget—the only G7 country. That is not the vision of global Britain that those of us on the Labour Benches want to see, and I do not think it is the vision of global Britain that many on the Benches opposite want to see either.

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[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister told the House earlier that there was common ground in the House. I think he is right, but I suspect, having listened to contributions from the Conservative Benches, that he is not standing on that common ground. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for the courage that he and other Conservative Members have shown in standing up for this issue consistently, and also standing up for their manifesto, along with the rest of us. The Government have a good story to tell on this issue if they wanted to—on Gavi, for example, and on their support for education for women and girls. I wonder why they do not want to tell this story to the country. I think it is because too many of them are ashamed of it and because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, they are playing to a gallery but playing to the wrong gallery. It is a dangerous game that they are playing.

The proposals before the House today are myopic and mean-minded. They are mean-minded because we can see that this is a trick—a fiscal trap. We were promised a straight up-and-down vote but we were not given one; instead we were given this little twisting mechanism. It is mean-minded, too, because, as we have heard, it will cost lives to make these cuts, and because they are already a cut to what would have been a smaller cake anyway. The money had already gone down and to cut it further is simply mean. With any of these programmes we cannot simply turn the taps on, then off and then back on again. The damage that will be done to British overseas aid programmes will carry on long after we restore the 0.7%, if, under this proposed mechanism, we ever do restore it.

This cut will set programmes back. It will set research and development back, including for my constituents. I have a constituent who works in water purification and another who works in localised energy matters. These cuts will have an effect overseas, but let us be clear: they will have effects in this country as well, in terms of innovation and our ability to take technologies across the world. They will have effects in areas such as the polio eradication programme. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) has said, cuts of 95% will set that programme back. The cut is myopic, for the reasons already set out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat): it will damage British soft power, with the British Council telling me that it will lose 15% to 20% of staff and will be unable to carry out programmes in the countries where we need to be influencing; and it will affect our strategic position, as the Leader of the Opposition has said.

Overseas aid is a moral issue, but if we cannot look at it like that, let us be clear: our adversaries, Russia and China, and our enemies, al-Qaeda and Islamic State, will fill the gap if we do not, and this will simply make matters worse in the long run. This is a short-sighted, short-termist cut. It is mean-minded. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield for his leadership, and I will not be accepting this motion tonight.

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[Rishi Sunak]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I will come on to that in a minute.

I am proud, too, of our response to last year’s economic crisis—the deepest recession this country has ever seen. In total, we have provided hundreds of billions of pounds to protect jobs, keep businesses afloat and help families to get by. That was the right approach, but we should be clear-eyed: covid has severely damaged our public finances. We have the highest level of borrowing since world war two, national debt of £2 trillion and rising, and debt expected to peak at 100% of GDP. If we want to continue to meet our commitments in the future, both at home and overseas, we must act now to rebuild our fiscal resilience.

[Christian Matheson]

This is all well and good, but the Government had already taken the decision to scrap the Department for International Development before covid came along. That is how committed they were to international aid.

[Rishi Sunak]

On the contrary; this Government have brought a coherence and a strategic symmetry to our approach to international development and foreign policy, which is improving how we project our influence and effectiveness around the world.

I have heard that this is the only difficult thing that we are doing, but that is simply not true. We have had to build fiscal resilience and have asked businesses to pay more tax. We have frozen the personal income tax allowance, taken a targeted approach to public sector pay and, yes, we also had to take the difficult decision to temporarily reduce our aid budget. This decision follows a path that Parliament explicitly envisaged when it enshrined the 0.7% target in law. Section 2(3) of the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 clearly foresaw the fiscal circumstances that might mean the target could not be met. And let us be honest: if that test is not being met in the aftermath of the worst economic shock in 300 years, surely it never will.

This decision is categorically not a rejection of our global responsibilities. The UK will spend over £10 billion this year on overseas development. According to the latest figures, that is more as a proportion of national income than all but two of the G7 countries—more than Japan, Canada, Italy and the United States, and much more than the average of the 29 countries in the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.

Our spending on humanitarian causes goes far beyond just our ODA budget. We have the fourth biggest defence and security budget in the world and the third largest diplomatic network. On average, we contribute nearly £500 million a year to the United Nations peacekeeping budget. We use our trade policy to reduce poverty, with developing countries benefiting from tariff savings of up to £1 billion a year. It is why we are working with the G7 to deliver the clean and green infrastructure financing initiative. With UK Government support, this year 1.5 billion people around the world will be vaccinated with the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, provided at no profit whatsoever.

There is no question about our commitment to overseas aid. The only question is when we return to the 0.7% target. The motion puts beyond all doubt that we will do so once two clear objective tests have been met: our national debt is falling and we are no longer borrowing for day-to-day spending. Those tests are in line with the approach set out in our manifesto and at the Budget. They are practical and realistic.

If the House votes against the motion today, it is an effective vote. We will return, irrespective of the circumstances, to 0.7% next year. Instead of voting for responsibility, the House would in effect be voting to say that no circumstances could ever justify a move.

I know that a deep sense of conscience underpins the view that the amount we spend on overseas aid is a moral issue. Many hon. Members will know the words:

“Charity is patient, is kind.”

I think of those words and I share that sense of conscience. That is why we are maintaining the target, not abolishing it; why we are setting out the conditions, not obscuring them, and why we are basing the conditions independently—

Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

The ultimate responsibility is with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, but it is for the accounting officers to be answerable on these matters for their Departments.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The Minister said that this was not a covert device and that it was known about, but then she said that they only found out about it on Friday in a fast-moving situation, so she needs to get her story straight, not least because we have two respected former Ministers in the Department—the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne)—in the Chamber who knew nothing about these cameras. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) rightly talked about the Wilson doctrine and the importance of monitoring the surveillance of Members of Parliament, so would it not be a good idea if the Prime Minister now made a statement to the House to tell us exactly when he first knew about this device and about the content that was on it?

[Julia Lopez]

I wish to assure the hon. Member that we maintain the Wilson doctrine and that we wish to ensure that there is no covert surveillance within a Minister’s office. That is extremely important. Some of the questions that people have rightly raised with me this afternoon will want to be answered through the investigation that is under way in the Department of Health, and I am sorry that I cannot provide greater detail on that at the moment.

G7 and NATO Summits

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has been a fantastic campaigner for the Cornish spaceport. I was amazed to see what they have already done and the way it is inspiring young people in Cornwall, and I look forward to working with him on getting a launch before too long.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

When we left the EU, we were told that the economic hit would be made up by free trade agreements with the EU and the United States. As the sausage dispute and the rebuke from President Biden show, however, we are miles away from those agreements at the moment. Will the Prime Minister understand that whichever way he goes on the dispute in Northern Ireland, it will inflame the tensions with those two parties again? Is this not quite some dispute, to alienate our two closest trading partners?

[The Prime Minister]

We have a free trade deal with the EU. It is a fantastic deal, and our trade with the US is growing the whole time.

Covid-19 Update

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this point; I understand exactly why he says it. The best thing I can tell him is that we want to proceed with the caution and certainty with which we have done so far. All the evidence I have seen at the moment suggests that we will be able to continue with our reopenings, and that the businesses that have done so much to get ready should be able to plan on that basis.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I welcome much of the Prime Minister’s statement, although I concur with my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition; the sooner we can get the terms of reference and invite evidence from those who are able to give it, the better. The Prime Minister said that the end of the lockdown is not the end of the pandemic, and he is absolutely right. Some sectors of the economy will suffer from a longer time lag: travel and tourism; aviation; and, therefore, aerospace manufacturing. May I urge the Government to give support to these sectors in the longer term, because they will be affected long after the rest of us are trying to get back to normal?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member is making an important point, but my strong view is that the best thing possible for all those sectors, including aviation, is to try, cautiously, to make sure that we get through the road map and allow their businesses to grow again. That is the single best long-term and medium-term solution.

Debate on the Address

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

In a matter of five months this country has inoculated more than 35 million people—two thirds of the adult population—with the biggest and fastest programme of mass vaccination in British history, which has helped us to take step after decisive step on our road map to freedom. As life comes back to our great towns and cities, like some speeded-up Walt Disney film about the return of spring to the tundra, we can feel the pent-up energy of the UK economy —the suppressed fizz, like a pressurised keg of beer about to be cautiously broached in an indoor setting on Monday.

I know how hard pubs, restaurants and other businesses have worked to get ready and about everything they have been through, and I thank them, as I thank the whole British people. I can tell them that the Government have been using this time to work flat out to ensure that we can not just bounce back but bounce forward, because this Government will not settle for going back to the way things were. The people of this country have shown, by their amazing response to covid, that we can do better than that, and the people of this country deserve better than that.

The purpose of the Queen’s Speech is to take this country forward with superb infrastructure—worth £640 billion, I can tell the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—and with a new focus on skills, technology and gigabit broadband. By fighting crime and being tough on crime, by investing in our great public services, above all our NHS, and by helping millions of people to realise the dream of home ownership, we intend to unite and level up across the whole of our United Kingdom, because we one nation Conservatives understand—

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

rose—

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

rose—

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[The Prime Minister]

Yes, indeed. One man who I know believes passionately in opportunity and skills is my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara), who proposed so well the Loyal Address.

[Christian Matheson]

rose—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

rose—

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[The Prime Minister]

We will not only stick up for victims for the first time, which Labour failed to do in all its years in office, just as it failed to do anything at all about social care—Labour Members berate the Government about social care, but they did nothing at all during 13 years in office. We will take the interests of victims to heart, and we will address that matter. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also support our proposals to increase sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders, which he voted against. I hope that Labour will also support our proposal to double the maximum sentence for assaults on emergency workers.

We will work to improve our neighbourhoods by making them safer, and we will help people to achieve the dream of home ownership—not just with 95% mortgages, but by modernising the planning system, most of which remains unchanged since the 1940s. We will introduce a lifetime skills guarantee, as several of my colleagues have already pointed out, allowing anyone to train and retrain and acquire new expertise whenever they wish.

[Christian Matheson]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to dispute the merits of that proposal, let him do so now.

[Christian Matheson]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. He is lauding the merits of home ownership, but what is the point in it when some homeowners and leaseholders are trapped because the Government refuse to help them with any kind of fire safety measures for things were not their fault in the first place?

[The Prime Minister]

We have put £5 billion into supporting homeowners who face the problems of cladding in buildings over 18 metres, and we are supporting leaseholders at every level. This is a massive problem, which the Government are undertaking to deal with using all our resources. However, if the hon. Gentleman is now saying that the Labour party is in favour of home ownership, that it is the first time I have heard of it. Labour is resolutely opposed to measures that allow people to own their own homes, and they have been ever since I have been in politics. That is one of the crucial differences between them and us. I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman was going to support our measures to allow people to train and retrain and acquire new skills.

Everything we do will be done as one United Kingdom, combining the genius of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—joined together by blood and family tradition and history in the most successful political, economic and social union the world has ever known. In all its centuries, the Union has seldom proved its worth more emphatically than during this pandemic, when the United Kingdom—the fifth-biggest economy in the world—had the power to invest over £407 billion to protect jobs and livelihoods and businesses everywhere in these islands, including one in three jobs in Scotland, safeguarded by the combined resources of Her Majesty’s Treasury under my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

Now, as we build back better, greener and fairer, we shall benefit as one United Kingdom from the free trade agreements that we have regained the power to sign, opening up new markets across the world. Only last week, I agreed an enhanced trade partnership with the Prime Minister of India, covering a billion pounds of trade and investment and creating more than 6,500 jobs across the UK.

As one United Kingdom, we will be a force for good in the world, leading the campaigns at next month’s G7 summit in Cornwall for global vaccination, education for girls and action on climate change. As one United Kingdom, we will host the UN climate change conference in Glasgow and help to rally ever more countries to follow our example and pledge to achieve net zero by 2050. As one United Kingdom, we will continue with ever-greater intensity to connect talent with opportunity, mobilising the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the British people to achieve their full potential at last. It is an enormous task, made more difficult by the pandemic and yet more urgent, but it is the right task for this country now. I know the country can achieve it, and this Queen’s Speech provides us with the essential tools to do it. I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is appropriate that I follow my friend the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), because I wish to start my tribute by paying tribute to His Royal Highness’s military service, as my friend the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has just done.

Like so many of his generation, His Royal Highness signed up to defend the cause of civilisation against fascism during what was this nation’s darkest hour, without knowing what the outcome would be. I will never pass over the chance to offer my thanks for that service to His Royal Highness and to the whole wartime generation, to which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has just referred and of which he was such a wonderful personification. As that generation dwindle in number during their twilight years, they shall never dwindle in our memories or in our thanks.

We have heard today about the Duke’s humour—the non-beard on the chin of my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) was one example—and we have heard about his directness from the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). Similar examples have been described from time to time as so-called “gaffes”. I would like to recount a story that my predecessor as MP for Chester, Gyles Brandreth, told the BBC on Friday in remembering the Duke, who was his friend. Gyles explained that the Duke often felt frustration, or indeed upset, at being described as making these supposed gaffes; as we have heard, he would enter a room solely with the intention of putting everyone at their ease with a joke and showing an interest in everyone, and sometimes he got it wrong. Well, sometimes I have got it wrong—I have said things and asked myself afterwards, “Why on earth did I say that?” Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. His intentions were good; that is what we need to remember.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme remains a triumph and gives young people the opportunity to experience aspects of life that they would never otherwise see. It teaches teamwork, discipline, perseverance and the importance of community service. It gives confidence, self-belief and a sense of achievement—all values that we should cherish and all values that make a difference. Long may that scheme flourish in his memory.

We have been discussing among ourselves over the weekend and in the Tea Room the contribution that His Royal Highness has made individually and collectively. My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), who cannot be in the Chamber today, asked me to mention the impact that the Duke of Edinburgh’s scheme has had on the confidence of young people from poorer backgrounds in her constituency and the sense of grief that is shared across the community for an exceptional man who gave so much and never sought credit for all the lives that he positively changed.

That is reflected in my constituency. The people of Chester have been remembering the Duke over the weekend. On Facebook, we saw fantastic photos from 1953 of when he came to open Coronation playing fields, not far from where I live. I know how grateful Chester zoo has been over the years for the duke’s support and his promotion of conservation and the work of the zoo on the global stage. The high-profile support that the duke gave to the zoo’s work added credibility and got it noticed. As we have heard, he was years ahead of his time and, frankly, years ahead of the rest of us in his dedication to preserving the natural world.

Finally, I wish to focus on the constancy that he has given to the Queen, the nation, the Commonwealth and the world. Seventy-three years of marriage is a lifetime, but it is hard to visualise what 73 years means, so consider this, Madam Deputy Speaker. Her Majesty married Prince Philip in 1947 and ascended the throne in 1952. In other words, they had already been married for 16 years by the time the Beatles released “Please Please Me” and for over 20 years when Armstrong and Aldrin first walked on the moon. Think of all the history that has flowed down the river of life in those 73 years, the massive cultural change and the political change across the globe and here in this Chamber—not only the representation of the people within it but its physical form—since the time of Attlee and Churchill. During all that change and during the entire lives of most of the population of the UK, there have been but two constants: our Queen on the throne, providing an anchor of certainty and a rock of dependability for the nation to rally around, and His Royal Highness Prince Philip by her side, offering the same foundation of certainty and reliability to her and to us all as everything around us changed, often at breakneck pace.

There is a phrase in English derived from cricket, which we know the Duke loved: “He had a good innings.” At 99 years old, he did have a good innings in the sense of a long life, but his innings was much more than that. We can be clear—and with each tribute made in this House and across the country, we learn more—that his was a life of quality, service, loyalty, dignity, humour and innovation. On behalf of my constituents in Chester, I send my condolences to Her Majesty and all the royal family for their personal loss, but I also send my thanks for Prince Philip and for a life of service well lived. It is an example we can all aspire to.

Covid-19: Road Map

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Last month was the worst on record for new aircraft orders, and the aerospace sector, which is so important to my constituency, will suffer a long time after these restrictions are lifted, along with tourism, travel and aviation, as we have heard. Will the Prime Minister therefore commit to continuing support for those areas of the economy, which drive so much of the value of the economy, but which will suffer from a much longer lag before they are able to pick up again?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. That is why we have done everything we can through Time to Pay and other means to try to look after the aviation sector, although it has been incredibly hard for that sector, which matters a great deal to our country. The best way forward for it is to get people flying again. As I said, it is a bit of a time to wait, but the travel taskforce will be reporting on 12 April, and I am hopeful that we will be able to make progress this summer, but we will have to wait and see.

Armed Forces Bill

Christian Matheson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab) [V]]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who is always worth listening to on these matters.

In referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, may I start by thanking the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) and the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust for the experience that they have given me on the armed forces parliamentary scheme, where I have seen the resilience, adaptability, dedication and expertise of our servicemen and women? I am really grateful for what has been a fantastic opportunity.

Our armed forces’ primary role is the protection of the realm and of our allies. The threats we face are constantly evolving, and now is not the time to be putting distance between ourselves and countries that share our democratic values. I also pay tribute to the services for their military assistance to civilian authorities. This week in the north-west, we saw military crews supporting the North West Ambulance Service when it was overstretched. I am grateful for that.

In Chester, we have a long history of association with the services, as a military headquarters, as home to the nearby RAF Sealand, as a garrison city and as a sponsor city for HMS Albion. Now we are also home to the University of Chester’s Westminster centre for veteran affairs, led by Professor Alan Finnegan, himself a former colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Professor Finnegan reminds me of the demands that we place on our servicemen and women and how this specifically affects their pensions and the pensions of their families. During a military career, a veteran and his or her family face regular moves, including having to live overseas. In addition, service personnel spend long periods away from their home due to operational tours and training exercises. The longer the soldier serves, the greater the number of moves and the greater the level of separation. As a result, the spouse’s education and employment profile is negatively impacted on and their ability to build a career and a pension is reduced. For the service person, the longer they serve, the better their pension, but when the veteran dies, the spouse is entitled to only 50% of that figure. Service personnel are approximately 90% men, and males tend to die in the UK around four years younger than women, so women generally outlive their partner and have to try to survive on half of the pension. For a veteran on end-of-life care, the knowledge and distress that his death may lead to financial hardship for his wife or partner is clear.

The Prime Minister has said that he wants this to be the best place in the world in which to be a veteran, it should also be, as Professor Finnegan reminds me, the best place in the world in which to be a veteran’s spouse. Providing these elderly women with their husband’s full pension would go a long way to achieving that.

Finally, I would like to talk about the Army in Chester. We are a proud garrison city, but the Government’s plans to close our last remaining barracks—the Dale barracks—are still in place, even if they have been delayed. I am clear that this is based solely on the mistaken view of the land value of the barracks. In other words, it is seen as somewhere easy to sell and make money quickly. The quality of the accommodation is good at the Dale. It is popular with the servicemen and their families. When we are discussing the importance of retaining our experienced soldiers and the importance of providing them and their families with decent quarters, it seems absurd to sell off one of the best sites. The plan is to move every military site in the north-west to a new super barracks north of Preston. The plan is flawed. As I say, Chester is popular with servicemen and with their families, which is important when considering attrition rates. It also reduces the social and operational footprint of the Army in the region. Chester can serve operationally across the southern part of the north-west, the north Midlands and north-east Wales. I simply float the example that the bomb disposal team based at Chester is required for emergency call-outs. If the explosive ordinance disposal team based at Weeton in Preston had to get down the M6 on a Friday afternoon, I would have to wish them all the luck in trying to do that.

I am calling on the Government to abandon plans to close the Dale barracks, which make no sense other than perhaps the short-term financial gain. I am proud to represent a garrison city with a large ex-services contingent. May that long continue.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Christian Matheson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab) [V]]

I shall be voting in favour of the deal today, but not with any enthusiasm. This is an awful deal—the first trade deal in history to make trade even harder. It removes freedoms and piles red tape and administrative burden on businesses. It is not no deal, however, and my real fear is that the Conservative party has been captured to such an extent by fanatics and maniacs of hard Brexit that no deal remains a possibility. Since the only choice on the table today is between this deal and no deal, I will vote to stop no deal, especially since trade unions and business groups are urging a vote in support to get past this hurdle.

I am clear that this is an extremist Brexit that breaks all the promises about having the exact same benefits of membership of the EU. It must be judged not only in juxtaposition to no deal, but in comparison to what we left as members of the EU. There is £200 billion in lost wealth, for starters, which rather puts the lies about £350 million a week for the NHS into perspective. Of course, the deal says nothing, as other hon. Members have said, about trade in services—a rather huge omission, especially for somewhere such as Chester with a large financial services sector.

I have read that the leaders of the fishing industry are unhappy with the deal. What did they expect? Surely they know that the current Prime Minister will say anything that is necessary to get him out of whatever situation he is in, with no sense of responsibility for promises made and no sense of commitment to anything except himself. It was the same with Gibraltar—I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—whose Government were promised that any deal would include that territory, but this deal does not. It was the same with Airbus, which is so important to my constituency. A commitment was given on the US tariff dispute in late November but broken by mid-December. This will not stand us in good stead when we are negotiating future international agreements.

The Government are desperate to agree a deal—any deal—with the USA, however detrimental to long-term UK interests, in order to validate their Brexit policy. They have already alienated the Biden Administration, and that Administration are not even in office yet. Now they are alienating the EU. In global terms, there are only three shows in town: the USA, China and the EU. We have walked away from the EU, and now the Prime Minister announces that we will be in direct competition with it. The road he is leading us down will not end well for the UK, because we are now easy pickings for the much larger blocs, and soundbites such as “Global Britain” will not alter that.

The deal will make us poorer, it will make us weaker and less secure, and it will make us less road relevant globally. It is not no deal, but barely so. I give notice that I consider it to be the barest of foundations on which to build back a better, more progressive relationship with our European neighbours and friends in the long-term interests of the whole United Kingdom and all who live here, and that is what I intend to do.

Covid-19: Winter Plan

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It is much more difficult for the Prime Minister as he cannot feel the atmosphere here in the Chamber, so it is better that I explain to him that both his Secretary of State and the Leader of the Opposition look as if they agree with the point that I have just made.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The hope that we have been given by our brilliant scientists will be dashed for millions if the Prime Minister pushes ahead with the public sector pay freeze, which, of course, is not levelling up, but levelling down. He does not want to be stand accused of saying one thing and doing another, so will he give a very short answer now and rule out the possibility of a public sector pay freeze?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman should wait until the Chancellor’s statement on Wednesday.