Oral Answers to Questions

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Indeed. I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that clinical modelling work is complete and the site development is now under way as we speak.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

On 16 June, the Prime Minister agreed to provide free school meal vouchers to hungry children over the summer holidays after claiming just 24 hours beforehand that he was completely unaware of the campaign that was calling for it. Last week, the Liberal Democrat Education Minister for Wales, Kirsty Williams, guaranteed that free school meal provision during school holidays would continue until at least Easter 2021, and yesterday the Scottish Government committed to do the same. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he is indeed aware of these announcements, and, if so, when does he plan to do the right thing?

[The Prime Minister]

Governments of all stripes have supplied free school meals since 1906, and I am proud that it was this Conservative Government who extended universal free school meals to five, six and seven-year-olds. The Labour party was in power for 30 of the past 100 years and never did anything like that. We support kids of low incomes in school, and we will continue to do so, but the most important thing is to keep them in school and not to tear off into another national lockdown, taking them out of school. We will continue to use the benefits system and all the systems of income support to support young people and children throughout the holidays as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

As I explained, the UK is playing a leading role in the international response to the pandemic, with pledges of up to £769 million of UK aid to help to address the urgent needs in vulnerable countries through research and development, through money to the International Monetary Fund’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust and in supporting the global health response. We are working with the UN to ensure that our contributions are channelled to NGOs and other recipients as quickly as possible.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

What assessment the Government made of the potential merits of merging her Department with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office prior to the announcement of the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy on 26 February 2020.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

Both the merger and the integrated review are evidence of this Government’s commitment to a unified British foreign and development policy that will maximise our impact around the world, project our values and be a stronger force for good—they go hand in hand.

[Daisy Cooper]

The Bond network says that it has not been consulted on this merger and the integrated review has been restarted behind closed doors. Will the Government commit to meeting Bond and other civil society organisations so that those on the frontline can inform the new Department’s aid priorities?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

Baroness Sugg leads in the Department in meeting the CSOs, and there are regular meetings ongoing. The integrated review is working over the summer to pull together the key issues, and development is an absolutely critical strand within that.

Covid-19: Strategy

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am so sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s father, and I am sure the whole House joins with me in extending him our sincerest condolences. The point that he makes about care homes is also, I am afraid, a very important one. It will be no consolation to those who have lost friends and relatives in care homes during the current epidemic, but the numbers are very substantially coming down now. The numbers of deaths in care homes are very substantially coming down. But where he is totally right is that we cannot make progress as a nation on the steps that we have outlined—the further steps that we have outlined: step 2, step 3—unless we crack these twin epidemics both in care homes and in the NHS. I have been very clear on that both last night and today in the House, and I hope that the House understands that.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]]

The Prime Minister has set out five tests that underpin the alert system, but there is one big problem. While the Government have told us how many pieces of PPE they have procured, how many tests they have undertaken and how many temporary hospital beds they have created, to date they have not once told Members or the public how those numbers compare with what we actually need. Will the Prime Minister report to the House openly and regularly on both sets of data—what we have and what we need—and also set out how those metrics will inform his decision—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call the Prime Minister.

Public Services

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point that I will take into account as we consider how we relax restrictions.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]]

It has been reported that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies—SAGE—includes not one molecular virologist, not one intensive care expert, not one nursing lead or immunologist, and only one member from an ethnic minority. So will the Government publish the criteria and selection process used to identify and appoint members of the SAGE group dealing with covid-19?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning that. I read precisely that statement in The Guardian earlier today, and it is useful for the House to be reminded of it. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies is composed of some of the finest minds in our scientific community, and the criterion for membership is a commitment to doing everything possible to save others’ lives. It seems to me that it does not matter what colour someone’s skin is if they are committed to saving the lives of others.

Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady takes us on to very, very sober ground, and rightly so. She has great experience as a scrutiniser in this House, but the fact is that that is the wrong characterisation of what has happened. I have set out what the facts of the matter are: what we are dealing with is standard lobby procedures supplemented by an additional specialist briefing. There is nothing more sinister than that, and I think that even she, who is also a very reasonable Member of this Chamber, is just going a little too far.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

It is quite extraordinary that the Government say that there is effectively nothing to see here, when the News Media Association and the National Union of Journalists have both said that this potentially represents a threat to the freedom of the press, and both have asked for the Government to consult them on the changes. Once again, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Prime Minister are missing in action in this House, but I wonder whether the Minister could tell us what action she thinks they would have taken, as former journalists, if they had found themselves excluded from a No. 10 lobby briefing.

[Chloe Smith]

I think the hon. Lady knows—or she should know, or she will come to know—that, as a Minister at the Dispatch Box, I speak for myself and I do not need to speak for two more senior colleagues. I speak for myself as part of the Government—as part of collective responsibility. Therefore, all Ministers are part of the same message, and that message is absolutely clear here today. It is that we run routine lobby procedures that are more than adequate for ensuring that, if they wish to, everybody with a press pass can ask any question of the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson. That is how that operates, and we are supplementing that with the additional briefings, which I have now mentioned many times. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, if this is coming across as boring to some opposition Members, but it is the fact.