NATO Summit

Ed Davey Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend that this House and the entire country can and should be proud of the leadership we have shown on Ukraine. He is right that we need to rebuild the stockpiles we have provided. That is why, in the Budget, £5 billion extra funding was provided for the armed forces, with a large chunk of that going particularly to rebuild those organs and those stockpiles, coming on top of the half a billion that was provided in the autumn statement. Just this week, for example, we announced a new contract with BAE to provide critical 155 mm rounds, which, as he will be familiar with, are absolutely mission-critical. Because we now have the funding to provide long-term contracts, we can increase defence production. That is good for our security, it is good for the security of our allies and, crucially, it also creates jobs, particularly in the north of England.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s update and our support for Ukraine, and I strongly agree that we need to encourage our NATO allies to meet their commitments in full. How is he encouraging that goal when he is overseeing a cut to the British Army of 10,000 troops? Is not one of the key lessons from Russia’s attack on Ukraine that a sizeable standing army remains crucial to the defence and security of our country and NATO allies, and will he listen to voices across this House calling for a reversal to cuts in Army numbers?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about defence spending, and it is clear that not only have we met the 2% target, but we were one of the first to do so, and we have done so for over a decade. It is good that others are now catching up, and our leadership on this issue is unquestionable. How that money is spent is ultimately a question for our military chiefs, to ensure that we have the optimal mix of capabilities to protect ourselves against the threats we face. I will not pre-empt the defence Command Paper, other than to say that, when it comes to our armed forces, what is important is not just the quantum in terms of the Army, but how lethal they are, how deployable and how agile. That has been a particular focus of attention from the Chief of the General Staff, and it is a plan that we are putting in place. I would maybe draw slightly different lessons from the right hon. Gentleman’s on the conflict that Ukraine is currently experiencing. The capabilities that we have brought to bear have been in a range of areas, all of which have received extra investment. Again, those will be questions for the defence Command Paper, which he will not have to wait very long to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am of course very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. I note that we have provided £7.5 billion of additional funding for social care and discharge. On energy specifically, we have an energy advice service to support smaller businesses and we have been piloting new audit and grant schemes that may also help.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

In January, Emily booked an appointment with her local dentist in Chard, Somerset, for 14 June, only to be told by a neighbour at the end of May that the surgery had closed in April. Emily no longer has a dentist, all the remaining surgeries are not taking on any new patients, and Emily does not know what to do, so will the Deputy Prime Minister tell Emily and millions of people like her when they can get an appointment with a local NHS dentist?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman may have missed it, but our NHS workforce plan is investing an extra £2.4 billion into training and retaining crucial NHS staff, including dentists and GPs. The number of dentists will rise by 40%. I say to people across that constituency that the best way they can ensure better services for their NHS is to vote for Faye Purbrick, the Conservative candidate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is precisely why we have created the levelling-up fund. There is £3.6 billion within that in the towns fund to be invested in high streets up and down the country. We will be outlining the third round of submissions to that fund, and I am quite sure that my hon. Friend will make a very vigorous case for funding for his constituency during that round.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Yesterday, I met Karen. Karen is a carer for her husband Alan, who has Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia. She told me how hard it is to get people with power just to listen to her. Like so many carers, Karen feels her caring work just is not valued; at times, she has wanted to give up, but knows she must carry on because of her husband. Remarkable carers such as Karen save the Government more than the entire NHS budget, so will the Government finally recognise the value of Britain’s family carers and not just pay tribute to them, but give them the financial and practical support they deserve?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course, I would like to join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Karen and to hard-working unpaid carers up and down the country. I know he speaks from personal experience about this issue as well. We have provided £2.3 billion of support for social care, with an additional £25 million committed to putting people at the heart of care in the “People at the Heart of Care” White Paper, and £327 million is also committed to the better care fund.

G7 Summit

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know my right hon. Friend has long championed this, and rightly so, which is why I was pleased, as Chancellor, to increase our defence budget by £24 billion—the largest sustained increase since the end of the cold war. Just recently, the Chancellor added an initial £5 billion of spending over the next two years both to strengthen our nuclear enterprise and to rebuild stockpiles, which is something I know he has been interested in, and we outlined an ambition to increase defence spending to 2.5%. We are on track to get to 2.25% in the next couple of years, at which point we will take stock and see where we are economically and fiscally but, as I have said, the threats our country faces are increasing and it is right that we invest appropriately to protect ourselves.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Can I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing and the family of Fusilier Lee Rigby?

I welcome the Prime Minister’s update. He is right that the UK and our allies must be steadfast in our support for Ukraine. He was also right to announce new sanctions on Friday to further restrict Russian businesses from selling their products into the UK. Now we must take further action to support Ukraine. That includes encouraging individuals in this country who have directly invested in companies still active in Russia to sell their personal shares now. Does the Prime Minister agree that these people should end their investment, so they stop supporting the Russian economy and thereby Putin’s war efforts?

[The Prime Minister]

We were one of the first countries to put in place an incredibly comprehensive sanctions regime against Russia. We have sanctioned, at this point, over 1,500 people—tens of billions of dollars of assets. Indeed, because of our actions, something like over $200 billion-worth of Russian state assets are currently now frozen. All that is contributing to a significant squeezing of the Russian economy, as we are seeing, and its ability to replenish its war machine, and we will keep looking for other opportunities to tighten the vice, as we did this weekend.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend knows this subject well, and he is rightly passionate about it. I thank him for all the valuable work that he and his colleagues have done over the years as we considered and concluded these negotiations.

As I said earlier, Parliament will of course have its say and there will be a vote, but we need to do that at the appropriate time in order to give people the time and space to consider the detail. My hon. Friend makes an important point that the benefit of this framework and agreement is that it can start to provide that certainty and those benefits to the people and communities of Northern Ireland very soon. That is why we have concluded these negotiations and want to start delivering the benefits for people on the ground as quickly as we can.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I join others in paying tribute to our late, great Speaker, Betty Boothroyd. Like me, Mr Speaker, I am sure you remember with fondness when you caught Speaker Boothroyd’s eye and when she brought you to order.

I also send my party’s thoughts and prayers to DCI John Caldwell and his family and thank him for his courage and bravery.

Like others, the Liberal Democrats will now closely study this deal, but I welcome the spirit of partnership and compromise between the UK Government and the European Union in the formation of the Windsor agreement. What consultation will the Prime Minister now undertake with all of Northern Ireland’s political parties, including the Alliance party, on the Stormont brake? Can he reassure us that the operation of the Stormont brake will not undermine the economic stability and certainty or the political stability so desperately needed in Northern Ireland?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that we will continue to engage with all parties and communities in Northern Ireland—that is the right way to proceed—particularly with regard to the operation of the brake. That is set out in the Command Paper, and we look forward to discussing it, and how to codify it, with the Executive, the Assembly and the political parties as we move forward. That is something we are very happy to do.

Just so the right hon. Gentleman is clear, the Stormont brake is based on an existing Good Friday agreement mechanism. The petition of concern mechanism is well established in Northern Ireland as a cross-community safeguard, which is why we have chosen it as the appropriate mechanism for this particular purpose. As I say, we will continue to engage with all parties to make sure we get it absolutely right.

Illegal Immigration

Ed Davey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent question and for his very constructive engagement with me and Ministers on resolving this issue. I know he speaks up very well for his local area on these matters. He is absolutely right, which why it is so crucial that, in the last few weeks, not only have we restarted meetings of the Calais group of European nations, which the Home Secretary deserves enormous credit for, but she has put that group on a permanent basis. We are making sure that we now go further, working with Frontex, the European border agency, towards a European returns agreement for the first time ever. That is the path forward. The best way to solve this problem is upstream, working with our allies in northern Europe, and the plans and progress that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made are going to deliver exactly that.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and community in Solihull who have lost their young sons.

Some 97,000 people have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for six months or more. That is 97,000 people trapped for months in Home Office limbo, banned from working, while the NHS, social care, agriculture and hospitality are all desperately short of staff. Last month it was revealed that even the Home Office’s own analysis shows that the right to work does not act as a pull factor for asylum seekers, so will the Prime Minister end this absurd ban on work, to save taxpayers money and help to grow our economy?

[The Prime Minister]

The simple answer is no. We will not do that, nor will we grant blanket amnesties, as happened in the past, to get the backlog down. We will go through it methodically and properly. The best way to reduce the pressure on the backlog is to stop people coming here in the first place, and if the right hon. Gentleman is interested in doing that, he should support our new legislation.

Prime Minister

Ed Davey Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Prime Minister’s Question Time on 23 November 2022:

[Ed Davey]

My constituent Vanessa has contacted me in floods of tears. Her mortgage payments have risen by £500 a month. She and her husband were already struggling with high energy bills and high food bills; now, like one in four mortgage holders across the country, they fear losing their home. “We are out of options and heartbroken,” says Vanessa. Will the Prime Minister introduce a new mortgage protection fund, paid for by reversing his tax cuts for the banks? Will he help Vanessa to keep her home?

[The Prime Minister]

I am deeply sorry to hear about Vanessa’s circumstances. I want her to know that the plan that the Chancellor announced last week will help families like hers up and down the country, because it is the right plan to tackle inflation, limit the increase in mortgage rates and ensure confidence in our economy. There is specific help that the Chancellor announced, offering low-interest loans to homeowners on benefits to cover interest on mortgages of up to £250,000. The Chancellor is also meeting mortgage lenders in the coming weeks. We will continue to do all we can to support those homeowners who are struggling with their payments.

[Official Report, 23 November 2022, Vol. 723, c. 285.]

Letter of correction from the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak):

An error has been identified in my response to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) during Prime Minister’s Question Time.

The correct response should have been:

COP27

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. I think it may have been his idea to create the Faraday battery challenge, but I was pleased to support that, as Chancellor, with £200 million of funding. He is right about the importance of building a domestic gigafactory capability. I was pleased with the announcement from Envision and Nissan in Sunderland. There is more in the pipeline, and we have the automotive transformation fund available to support those projects to build the vibrant ecosystem that he and I both want to see.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I welcome what the Prime Minister said at COP—that tackling climate change goes hand in hand with lowering energy bills, improving our energy security and hurting Putin in his illegal war in Ukraine. However, I am alarmed that at home the Prime Minister has banned onshore wind, one of the cheapest and most popular forms of renewable energy. Will he confirm whether his priority is cutting people’s energy bills, improving Britain’s energy security and tackling global climate change, or keeping the dinosaurs on his Back Benches happy? Why will he not get rid of the ban on onshore wind?

[The Prime Minister]

It started so well. We are committed to reducing people’s bills and to having more forms of renewable energy. Our track record on this is superb: the amount of renewable energy is four times more than in 2010 and zero carbon energy now accounts for half of our electricity needs. We are poised to do more. Offshore wind is the thing we are focusing on, along with nuclear. We are now a world leader in offshore wind, which is providing cheap forms of electricity and energy for households up and down the country. Alongside nuclear, that is how we will transition to a cleaner grid.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Ed Davey Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and I congratulate her on her lovely, heartwarming speech.

The Liberal Democrats join Members on both sides of the House in expressing our deepest condolences on the passing of Her Majesty the Queen. We are mourning a profound loss. The Queen was a formidable monarch who faithfully served our country all her life, and she was loved the world over. She represented not only duty and courage but warmth and compassion, and she was a living reminder of our collective past, of the greatest generation and their sacrifices for our freedom.

For many people, myself included, Her Majesty was an ever-fixed mark in our lives. As the world changed around us and politicians came and went, she was our nation’s constant. In challenging times, she was always a source of calm and comfort. She tied our nations together, embodying an unwavering pride in our country. She showed us that patriotism is not defined by political allegiance and reminded us of the many things that bind us all together, even when it does not always feel that way.

We saw this so vividly during the platinum jubilee celebrations in June. I am proud to represent the oldest royal borough in England, Kingston upon Thames, and our jubilee street parties certainly lived up to that status. It was truly wonderful to see such an outpouring of affection by people across Kingston from all walks of life. Schoolchildren baked jubilee cakes, neighbours shared bunting and choirs sang hymns of praise. It was incredibly fitting that, after so long kept apart by covid, it was a celebration of Her Majesty’s reign that brought our communities back together so joyfully, just as the whole country is united today, so sadly, in grief.

The deep mourning across the country now, just like the celebration of her jubilee a few months ago, comes not from a sense of duty but from genuine and heartfelt affection, love and admiration for Her Majesty. It is not because we were her subjects but because she was truly our Queen. What she meant to us is perhaps best summed up by a phrase on so many people’s lips over the past 24 hours: “I cannot imagine our country without her.”

For almost everyone in our country, she had been there our whole life, at times of national grief and national jubilation. She had never not been there for us, so it is hard to accept that she is gone and hard to see how we go on without her, but we will. Our great United Kingdom has a great future because the Queen’s spirit of strength, grace and resolve lives on in her people.

One of the greatest privileges of being a Member of this House was having the chance to meet Her Majesty, such as when she visited Kingston on the occasion of her golden jubilee or when I was deeply privileged to sit next to her at lunch at Windsor Castle. I was initially confused by a silver cylinder beside her place setting. I wondered to myself what treasures it might hold. I had my suspicions when, as dessert was served, her beloved corgis were let in and nestled themselves around her feet. The Queen lifted up the lid of the cylinder, plucked out some digestive biscuits, and began sneaking them to her grateful dogs. Whenever I met her, I was struck by her warmth, her wisdom and her humour, and I am looking forward to hearing similar stories from hon. and right hon. Members from across the House as they give glimpses of the wonderful person beneath the crown.

Her Majesty will be remembered with honour as a monarch who guided our country out of the shadow of a terrible war, who helmed us calmly through troubled waters and brought us safely into a new millennium. She will be remembered so fondly as the monarch who leapt from a helicopter with James Bond and who showed Paddington where she kept her marmalade sandwiches. For the royal family, she will be remembered simply as a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Our thoughts, prayers and condolences are with them all as they bear this terrible loss.

After a lifetime of dedicated and tireless service to our country and our Commonwealth, Her Majesty has gone to her eternal rest. May God rest her soul and may God save the King.

UK Energy Costs

Ed Davey Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am completely committed to net zero by 2050 and I will be saying more about how we will be achieving that later in this speech.

As well as dealing with the immediate situation we face, we are also dealing with the root causes.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I welcome the Prime Minister to her place and hope she will work with Opposition parties in the national interest. Will she confirm that her announcement today will still see the energy bills of struggling families rising by another £500 next month and that this winter they will be paying energy bills that are twice those they paid last winter?

[The Prime Minister]

At the same time as introducing the energy price guarantee, we are also providing families with £400 and providing extra support to the vulnerable. Vulnerable families will be receiving that extra support.

I want to move on to why we are in the situation we are in now. The fact is that energy policy over the past decades has not focused enough on securing supply. [Interruption.] I do not know why the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) is laughing, as he is partly responsible for this. There is no better example than nuclear, where the UK has not built a single new nuclear reactor in 25 years. This is not just about supply; the regulatory structures have failed, exposing the problems of a price cap applied to the retail but not the wholesale market. All of that has left us vulnerable to volatile global markets and malign actors in an increasingly geopolitical world. That is why Putin is exploiting this situation by weaponising energy supplies as part of his illegal war on Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Following the earlier statement from Mr Speaker, I think our hearts, thoughts and prayers will be elsewhere, but I wanted to contribute to the debate and to agree with the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and his questions on heating oil. That is a critical issue for people in rural communities, and we need answers immediately.

What the Prime Minister has announced is not a freeze on people’s energy bills. In the middle of a cost of living emergency, the Conservatives are choosing to put energy bills up by another £500 for struggling families. That hike in people’s energy bills comes on top of the £700 rise we saw last April. Struggling families will be paying twice as much for energy as they were last year, and people will still be desperately worried about how they will keep warm this winter. Last May’s £400 discount will simply not make up for the enormous rise in energy bills. So where is the new support for families and pensioners who are struggling? Under the Prime Minister’s plan, fuel poverty will get worse, not better.

I turn to how we think the Prime Minister is proposing to pay for the package. Why does it seem that the Government will be handing an eye-watering bill to taxpayers in the form of higher borrowing? We all know that that ultimately means higher taxes for taxpayers, and particularly for our children. That does not seem conservative, and it does not seem right. Why has she rejected the alternative of a windfall tax on today’s oil and gas giants, who are raking in enormous, unexpectedly high profits thanks to President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? How is it fair to take money from future taxpayers—from our children—and hand it to today’s oil and gas barons? How is it responsible to borrow so much to pay for consumption when our economy is already in such a mess, with the pound falling so dangerously?

The fair and responsible energy policy would be to increase investment massively in the cheapest and most popular forms of energy available to us: wind and solar. I was absolutely shocked that the Prime Minister did not announce a massive, fast expansion of renewables to bring people’s energy bills down.

The Prime Minister has made some alarming choices today by rejecting cheap wind and solar power, raising energy bills even higher than they are now, refusing to give extra support to struggling families and pensioners, and paying for a policy with higher taxes on our children instead of a windfall tax on fossil fuels. Those are the wrong choices.