Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations 2023

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Steve Baker

Wednesday 15th November 2023 General Committees

[Mr Baker]

I join the hon. Member for Putney in congratulating Jon Boutcher. Of course, the need to make his appointment was one reason why we laid this instrument as early as we did, and I am grateful to her for understanding that. That very much speaks to the point that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury made about progress. In relation to the Chief Constable, we have now made that appointment.

I have a complete list of appointments here, but I suspect it would take me about 10 to 15 minutes to go through each of them. There is a range: on the one hand, we have already made an appointment, with Jon Boutcher; with other appointments, the process is in progress. Of course, this is all subject to the normal process for appointments: we have taken the power of Northern Ireland Ministers to make these appointments; we have not diverted at all from the normal process otherwise. For some of these appointments, the process will be taking place; for others, it is still to take place. With the Committee’s assent, I will write to my hon. and learned Friend, rather than taking 10 to 15 minutes now, as there seems to be general assent. I will gladly set everything out for him.

To finish, having only been here for five minutes, it is probably not going too far to say that, before I was appointed to the Government, I gave a keynote speech for the Hansard Society, launching its review of delegated legislation. It is a common problem that legislation comes forward to such Committees and is dealt with swiftly, precisely because it is uncontroversial and enjoys broad assent, as this instrument does. My hon. and learned Friend is right to observe that, in a sense, this is not the way to handle a straightforward matter. I would commend to everybody—including the hon. Member for Putney, if she is interested—that Hansard Society review of delegated legislation. It is important that all Governments are able to deal with delegated legislation effectively and efficiently and without too much scrutiny when it is not necessary or, on the other hand, too little when more might be of benefit.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

On the contrary, as the Minister will recall, the late and sainted Eric Forth would always point out to us that it is the uncontroversial legislation that goes through uncontested that leads to the greatest lapses in our legislative duty.

[Mr Baker]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. He and I have a long history together on such matters, perhaps in more controversial circumstances. The Committee will hopefully agree with me that the business before us—adding to the list of appointments we can make in the absence of Northern Ireland Executive Ministers—is uncontroversial and is necessary for the continued functioning of government in Northern Ireland. I hope the Committee will join me in approving these regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Public Health

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Steve Baker

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Why will you be able to buy a pint in a sports venue without getting anything to eat, but if you order a pint in a pub, you will have to have a substantial meal? I will leave that hanging as the great existential question of the day.

Suppression in anticipation of vaccination is the reason for the measures before us today, but people have been writing to me for months terrified that a vaccine will be compulsory. I have responded by saying, “Don’t be so absolutely ridiculous—that could never possibly happen. We are a Conservative Government, after all.” Yet now we discover that vaccination may be a passport to the acquisition of your civil liberties, without which you will have all sorts of things that you would otherwise be able to do denied to you. That would be absolutely disproportionate to a virus with a mortality rate verging on 1%. It would equally be a terrible precedent to set for other vaccines and medicines. I therefore hope that we can get away from that.

The way to persuade people to have a vaccine is, of course, to line up the entire Government and their Ministers, and their loved ones, let them take it first, and then get all the luvvies—the icons of popular culture—out on the airwaves singing its praises. To have any kind of suggestion of coercion absolutely feeds the conspiracy theory that we are being cowed and our liberty is being taken away.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not enough for the Government merely to refrain from coercing people—they also have to pay attention to implicit coercion whereby they turn a blind eye to allowing businesses like airlines and restaurants to refuse to let people in unless they have had the vaccination? The Government have to decide whether they are willing to allow people to discriminate on that basis.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

That would be discrimination. It would be vaccinationism, which we must of course resist.

The other thing that any kind of coercion would do is to set the seal on this Government’s reputation as the most authoritarian since the Commonwealth of the 1650s; but it is as nothing to the enthusiasm that we have seen from the Opposition Front Bench for even more coercive and restrictive measures.