Pairing

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) does not exactly look heart-warmed by the prospect that redemption awaits him.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It would be frightfully good for him.

[Mr Speaker]

Good for him? Well, that’s a divisible proposition.

Leaving the EU

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, I do not believe it will.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is just over 16 months since the Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously—leavers and remainers together—concluded that

“the previous Government’s decision not to instruct key Departments to plan for a ‘leave’ vote in the EU referendum amounted to gross negligence. Making an equivalent mistake would constitute a serious dereliction of duty by the present Administration.”

Does my right hon. Friend understand the relief that the no-deal preparations will be overt, and will she ensure that the resources and commitment that may have been absent from the preparations are given to this important task to show the steel in our position?

[The Prime Minister]

As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, we have allocated a significant amount—£3 billion over two years, £1.5 billion of which has already been allocated to Departments—for Departments to do their work on preparing for leaving the European Union. Some of that work will relate to what might be necessary in getting a deal, and other work will relate to what would be necessary if there were no deal. Work has already been undertaken by Departments, but we are now stepping up the pace and intensity of that work.

G7

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The United Kingdom Government are taking a number of actions. We are providing real support for the refugees in the camps. We are providing real support to Bangladesh to be able to provide for those people. We continue to work and will continue to press the Myanmar Government to create a situation in which the refugees are able to return to their former homes in safety and security—that is the key issue. It is not just about people being able to return home; it is about being able to ensure that, when they do so, they have the confidence of knowing they will be safe and secure.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Trudeau or Trump?

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We look to you to protect the conventions of this House. It is a long-standing convention that when the Government propose to make a statement to the House, the Opposition Front-Bench team, through the usual channels, is afforded sight of the statement an hour or so before it is due to be made. It is understood that commercially confidential matters can be redacted, but the convention has been scrupulously adhered to by previous Conservative Governments and, up until now, by the current Conservative Government and by previous Labour Governments as well. It is also a convention of this House that the Government do not bring statements on those days that are specified in our Standing Orders as being for the parliamentary Opposition to choose the topics.

Both of those conventions have been breached today. This is the third time that the Government have tabled statements on Opposition days. The reason is obvious: it is to erode the principal debates. Mr Speaker, you know today’s debates are heavily subscribed. What can you do to protect us from what I regard as a constitutional outrage?

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

No, no. No further point is required. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me say to the House this: I have been advised by the Secretary of State for Transport, who beetled up to the Chair to catch a word with me during Prime Minister’s questions, that the statement is commercially sensitive. I have no reason to seek to gainsay the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether it is, but no doubt it has such an element. It is regrettable if there is not very substantial notice for the Opposition. [Interruption.] Order. I am dealing with the matter. I do not need any help from the Secretary of State. I am advised that the Opposition did in the end have approximately half an hour’s notice of this statement, and I am happy to hear from the Secretary of State if he wants to respond to the point of order.

On the point about the making of Government statements on Opposition days, this is by no means unprecedented, including under previous Governments. However, if I may say so—and I will—it is highly undesirable for there to be statements on very substantial public policy matters, in which the House will doubtless be interested, on an Opposition day. One looks to people traditionally with responsibility for safeguarding the rights of the House, of whom the Chair is one, but not the only one, to take these matters very seriously. This is an undesirable state of affairs, and if it were to happen on further occasions, a great many hon. and right hon. Members, not to mention interested parties in the Opposition day debates outside the Chamber, would view it, frankly, as an abuse. I hope that that message is heard loudly and clearly on the Government Front Bench, at the highest level, by the people in particular by whom it needs to be heard. If I have to make the point again on future occasions, and to use the powers of the Chair to facilitate the rights of this House in other ways, no matter what flak emanates from the Executive, I will do so in the future, as I have always done over the past nine years, and no one and nothing will stop me doing my duty by the House of Commons.

If the Secretary of State wants to respond to the point of order, he is very welcome to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

Very well. I will indulge the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).

[Crispin Blunt]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Seven minutes ago, The Guardian’s “Politics live” with Andrew Sparrow said:

“East coast rail franchise to be brought back under public control.”

It appears that someone has broken an embargo, or something has gone wrong, because I guess that that is what the Secretary of State’s statement is to be about. Will you put investigations in place to find out why that statement has been made before we have had the opportunity to listen to it from the Secretary of State?

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I respect his sincerity, but it is not for me to initiate inquiries on this matter. I say two things to the hon. Gentleman whose point I otherwise take very seriously. First, let us see what is in the statement, and whether in fact there has been a leak. Secondly, were it to transpire that there had been, that would be a matter to be laid squarely at the door of the Department whose statement it is, and it would be incumbent on the Secretary of State in those circumstances to initiate any such inquiry. At this point, we should hear the statement. I thank the Secretary of State for approaching the Dispatch Box to deliver it.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In making my contribution towards the end of this debate, I want to reflect particularly on the speeches that were made from the Government Benches at the beginning. My hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) brought us back to the fundamentals of parliamentary accountability. Parliament controls the laws, supply and confidence over the Executive. Through those mechanisms, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset made clear, we have the ability to hold the Government firmly to account.

The history of the Armed Forces Act 2006 and, underneath that, the evolution of convention regarding Governments coming to Parliament and our flexible constitution have brought us to the place where we now have the expected accountability of Governments coming to Parliament in order to seek authorisation for specific military actions. But this is merely convention. If we examine the occasions on which the Government have come to this House to seek parliamentary authority in order to reinforce their prerogative powers, we find that they have happened because of the political situation and the Government’s assessment of what they need to reinforce their authority. In 2003, the then Labour Government and Tony Blair had a minority of support from their Back Benchers for the proposed action in Iraq. That made it necessary for the then Government to seek parliamentary authority to reinforce their political position.

Regarding the authorisation that Parliament gave to the Government of the day, I sat on the Opposition Benches during that debate, listening to the then Prime Minister make his argument, thinking that it was a bizarre state of affairs. My former colleagues in the armed forces were on the start line, in the final stages of their battle procedure before they conducted the invasion of Iraq, in which the British armed forces were responsible for about a third of the frontline with our American allies. It struck me as extraordinary that we were having a two-day debate in Parliament that was ending at about 10 o’clock or midnight, about six hours before that operation was due to commence, and that Parliament was going to say yes or no to that operation. On those grounds alone, I thought that it would be irresponsible to my former colleagues for us to suddenly say, “No, you’ve got to stop guys. We have decided that it’s the wrong thing to do.”

As we now know from history, it probably would have been better had we said no. But we should have been saying no infinitely earlier than the immediate military commencement of a major strategic operation like that. We know that Tony Blair gave his commitment to President Bush in April 2002. We know that our military were being instructed to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and to be part of that operation from the summer of 2002. This is where Parliament and the conventions that we have appeared to have established collide with military and operational reality.

I am in total agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) about the circumstances under which one seeks parliamentary approval for operations of the kind that we saw last week. He and I jointly authored a pamphlet, which every colleague in the House received in July last year, on how Britain should respond to chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Our answer to the parliamentary problem that the Government faced was some kind of pre-authorisation motion, so we would have had a debate about the circumstances that the Government faced last week and they would have then been able to act within authority that had been given by Parliament for the kind of action involved. Indeed, that parliamentary approval itself might have acted as a form of deterrent, with the Syrian Government then knowing that they would face action involving the British armed forces in response to the kind of situation that the Americans had already reacted to before.

All this involves the development of a convention about the Government coming to this House. I do not think that a war powers Act is the appropriate answer. As my hon. Friends have made clear, this House does have the essential elements of control over the Executive—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are immensely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will call the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on condition that he sits down at 3.53 pm—the start thereof, no later. Is that agreed? It is agreed.

Syria

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

May I first wish the hon. Lady a very happy birthday?

We will be continuing to work with our international partners to see what more we can do regarding our humanitarian support and to press for humanitarian access. As the hon. Lady and others will know, this has been one of the problems. Time and again, groups of people in Syria have been suffering as a result of the conflict and it has not been possible to get humanitarian access to them. We will continue to press for that access at the international level.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

On Sunday’s “The Andrew Marr Show”, the Leader of the Opposition said that

“our exports that go to Saudi Arabia…end up somewhere in very bad hands, in Syria and other places.”

The Leader of the Opposition has rightly called for evidence to support this intervention and for the Government to be satisfied about it. People who demand evidence and then repeat malicious gossip for which there is not only no evidence, but which is contradicted by the non-governmental organisations that are specialists in the area, are guilty of very poor double standards.

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree.

Salisbury Incident

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. Obviously, this is an issue that we do look at and we have a strategy in place, but we will ensure, given what has happened, that we review that. We will look again to make sure that we have the best possible opportunity to ensure that this cannot happen again.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

While welcoming the Prime Minister’s statement, as almost everyone else has, I join my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) in mentioning the importance of the international rule of law and say that this is a very important moment of decision for China—to decide which side she is going to sit on in this arrangement. I urge my right hon. Friend to make sure that we take the most energetic steps to ensure that China stands with the rest of the civilised world on the side of law and responsibility

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue in this way. We want to see the maximum possible adherence to the international rules-based order across the whole world. In different contexts, this is a matter that I raised when I was in China recently.

Salisbury Incident

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Given the grisly fate of so many of President Putin’s opponents, both at home and abroad, including even those with a high profile such as Boris Nemtsov, no one in this House, least of all the Leader of the Opposition, should have any doubt of the nature of the Government with whom we are dealing. Having said that, and while I support all the measures the Prime Minister will take against the Government of Russia if the situation turns out to be as we all anticipate, will she try, as far as is possible, to ensure that British society, in its widest sense, can continue to be open with the people of Russia so that the virus of truth and openness can do its work on that regime?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. We are talking about the dealings the UK Government and this country have with the Russian state. It is important that people in Russia understand the exact nature of the regime in government there at the moment.

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: Border Arrangements

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

This is exactly the point that I made in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson): the right way forward is to resolve these matters in the context of the broader negotiation about the future economic partnership.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is rightly the determination of the Government to deliver the current effectively open border, with the qualifications that were given by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds). Surely all the people of the island of Ireland have the right for that same practical determination to be shared by the EU27, without it being taken hostage by conditions that would, in effect, override the sovereign decision of the British people to leave the European Union—an agenda that is rather transparently on display today.

[Mr Lidington]

As I said, we are at the start of a process of negotiation, not the end of it. I do not think the Prime Minister could have been clearer. No Prime Minister of any party who has served up until now, including my right hon. Friend, would countenance an agreement that led to a customs border between one part of the United Kingdom and another.

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As he may know, there are two ways in which those rehabilitation services will be commissioned. NHS England commissions specialised neurological rehabilitation centres for complex brain injury, and it does so at a national level. More routine rehabilitation is commissioned locally, although NHS England sets guidelines for commissioners to support delivery, including for brain injury. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I will ask the Health Secretary to respond to him and the specific question that he asks.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

May I tell the Prime Minister how welcome the Policing Minister’s response to yesterday’s urgent question was, as he said that he would help Alfie Dingley to find a way through regulations to access the medicinal cannabis that he needs? Will the Prime Minister ensure not only that the Minister’s words go beyond the popular view of, “I’m from the Government; I’m here to help,” but that we join the majority of states of the European Union and the United States, as well as British public opinion and all colleagues who raised questions yesterday, so that we give British citizens the earliest possible access to the potential benefits of medicines derived from cannabis through a proper evidence-based process? Will she ensure that the United Kingdom is on the front foot in licensing all medical investigations that need to be done to get us these benefits?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that the sympathies of Members across the House are with Alfie and his family as he undergoes treatment. We recognise that people with chronic pain and debilitating illnesses will always look to alleviate their symptoms, but if we are going to permit medicines to be used, we first need to ensure that they have been through the most rigorous testing and that we apply the most rigorous standards. We believe that cannabis should be subjected to the same regulations that apply to all medicines in the United Kingdom.