Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

We are at that stage in the legislative process where Government obstinacy sometimes overcomes rationality. There is no way that these can be described as wrecking amendments—I wish they were, but they are not. Lords amendment 3E simply uses the Government’s own mechanism to ensure, as Conservative Members have said, that Parliament has the opportunity to change its judgment when the facts change. Anyone who has any experience of the history of this region of Africa realises that there is built-in instability, and therefore we may well need to come back to this matter, although I hope we do not.

My Northern Ireland colleague the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) asked about Lords amendment 10D, and the ministerial response was that we should not worry because the fact that a number of veterans sit in Cabinet means that the system will work for those who served in Afghanistan. I am sorry, but so far, the veterans sitting around the Cabinet table have not ensured that. Many of us have dealt with individual cases, and all Lords amendment 10D would do is ensure that we live up to our commitment that those who served alongside us, putting their lives and those of their families at risk, will be secure. The existing scheme has not worked in that way, but Lords amendment 10D would ensure that it did in the future.

My final point is that I came to this place on the basis that Parliament was all about protecting its citizens and ensuring that they have safety but also access to law. Baroness Chakrabarti’s amendment 6D simply ensures that Parliament fulfils that role—it certainly is not a wrecking amendment.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Minister.

International Trade and Geopolitics

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not going to engage in the debate, but I was passing and heard a reference to me—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I would normally chastise the right hon. Gentleman for attempting to speak in a debate when he has not been present, but I happened to notice that he was in the Chamber although not in his normal place. Given that we are not under enormous time constraints this afternoon, I will be much more lax than I normally am.

[John McDonnell]

As generous and wise as ever, Madam Deputy Speaker.

To reinforce what the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) said, we did that piece of work because we wanted to review every tax relief. In opposition, that is impossible to do, but we would have done it in government. The reason was that we were discovering tax reliefs that had been introduced decades earlier that the Treasury had never reviewed to see whether the original purpose had been achieved or whether they should be amended. Example after example was found, and it was clear that the tax relief system was not working effectively or as it was originally planned.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

It will be obvious to everyone present that a great many Members wish to speak. Although we have a lot of time for this Bill, it is not infinite, and some speeches, so far, have been extremely long. I am trying to manage this without a formal time limit, because the debate flows better without one, but I hope that Members will now limit themselves to around eight minutes. If they do not do so, there will be a formal time limit of less than eight minutes.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The debate so far has been serious, and it has respected the views that have been expressed not only by Members from across the House, on a whole range of issues, but by the families joining us today who have suffered such a sad loss.

I wish to address one detailed element of the Bill, and I do so in my role as secretary of the National Union of Journalists’ cross-party parliamentary group. It is an issue to which we have returned time and again when we have been debating legislation of this sort. I just want to bring it to the attention of the House; I do not intend to divide the House on this matter. I hope that the Government will take up the issue, and then, perhaps, when it goes to the other place, it will be resolved more effectively than it has been in this place. I am happy to offer the NUJ’s services in seeking to provide a way forward on this matter.

Many investigative journalists base their stories on confidential information, disclosed often by whistleblowers. There has always been an historic commitment—in this House as well—to protect journalists’ right to protect their sources. It has been at the core of the journalists’ code of practice, promoted by the NUJ. As Members know, in some instances, journalists have even gone to prison to protect their sources, because they believe that it is a fundamental principle of journalism, and also a fundamental principle of the role of journalism in protecting our democracy.

The growth in the use of digital technology in journalism has raised real challenges in protecting sources. In the case of traditional material, a journalist has possession of it, whereas with digital technology a journalist does not own or control the data in the same way. Whenever legislation of this nature is discussed, there has been a long-standing, cross-party campaign in the House to seek to protect this code of practice of the NUJ and to provide protection for journalists to protect their sources and their information. It goes back as far as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. If Members can remember the operation of that Act, they will know that it requires the police or the investigatory bodies to produce a production order, and requires notice to be given to journalists of any attempt to access information. We then looked at it again in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. Again, what we secured there were arrangements by which there should be prior approval by a judicial commissioner before an investigatory power can seek communications data likely to compromise a journalists’ sources. There has been a consistent pattern.

To comply with Madam Deputy Speaker’s attempt to constrain the length of our speeches, let me briefly explain to Members what amendment 204 would do. It is a moderate probing amendment, which seeks to ask the Government to look again at this matter. When Ofcom is determining whether to issue a notice to intervene or when it is issuing a notice to that tech platform to monitor user-to-user content, the amendment asks it to consider the level of risk of the specified technology accessing, retaining or disclosing the identity of any confidential journalistic source or confidential journalistic material. The amendment stands in the tradition of the other amendments that have been tabled in this House and that successive Government have agreed to. It puts the onus on Ofcom to consider how to ensure that technologies can be limited to the purpose that was intended. It should not result in massive data harvesting operations, which was referred to earlier, or become a back door way for investigating authorities to obtain journalistic data, or material, without official judicial approval.

Industrial Action on the Railway

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

It is not true and you know that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I cannot have a dialogue. I recognise that there is a difference of opinion. It might have to be settled at another point. We will stick to this point and if the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) wants to raise the matter later, I will listen to him.

COP26

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]]

I echo the words of the last speaker, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), about how monumental the decisions will be that need to be taken this November, because November’s COP26 in Glasgow is a historic opportunity for Britain to provide leadership to the world on climate change.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and his colleagues on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, who have produced detailed reports that should be influencing the Cabinet Office and shaping the agenda in the run-up to COP26. Scientists and climate experts are urging the Government to lead the way in adopting ambitious deadlines for achieving net zero along with shorter-term interim targets, and it is those targets that are vital. The former Prime Minister committed the UK Government to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The BEIS Committee said last week that

“no details have yet been provided on how success will be measured”

for COP 26. We cannot achieve significant carbon reductions by empty words, good PR or grandiose declarations. It takes action.

I have to say, last week’s Budget does not give us much hope of demonstrating world leadership. In fact, for some of us, it is a cause of despair and shame. The decisions by the Government to freeze fuel duty and to dig a new coalmine, and the pathetic scale of the Government’s environmental policies are a dereliction of duty to the planet and to future generations. It is a failure of Government, who could have acted to create hundreds of thousands of climate jobs in areas from wind turbines to tidal lagoons, from electric car charge points to tree planting, but there was no evidence of the scale of investment and scale of ambition that the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West called for. Instead of tying corporate tax breaks and investment write-offs to clear climate criteria, the giveaways announced in the Budget could hinder, rather than help our carbon reduction strategy.

The verdict of Richard Black from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit was that this was

“a Budget that didn’t even try to get the Conservatives on track to their net zero target”.

Today, there are reports that the Government will cut air passenger duty on domestic flights. Frankly, I would struggle to find a more regressive policy, and I speak as somebody who represents a constituency with Heathrow in it. I would struggle to find something that is more regressive than encouraging domestic aviation before we have had that debate and discussion and the development of the environmental aviation strategy.

It is crystal clear to me that this Government have no co-ordinated plan and no cross-departmental agenda to drive the decarbonisation that we seek. This is not just my view, but that of the Public Accounts Committee, which has been quoted. The PAC published a report on achieving net zero with the brutal conclusion, “Government lacks a plan”. Never have four words better summed up an Administration than that.

In terms of the modest 2050 target, the Committee said, damningly:

“there is little sign that it”—

the Government—

“understands how to get there”.

I will raise just one other point from the report, which said:

“Local authorities will also play a major role in the move to net zero, and Government will need to engage more with local authorities about how they can contribute”.

The irony is that today we learned that across the country more than two dozen councils are on the brink of bankruptcy, stripped of the funding to provide the statutory services their communities need, let alone the funding they need to take on the challenge of climate change.

The autumn statement is expected to be delivered on the eve of COP26. I just say to the Government that we hope for something better then. Otherwise, unless a serious plan is brought forward and unless there are significant resources attached to that plan, what leadership can the UK Government hope to offer the rest of the world? What authority can it possibly have in those vital discussions, when we are trying to bring together others, some more recalcitrant than others, who will be brought to the table to have a serious discussion only when they see others leading by example?

I believe that without drastic action COP26 risks exposing the UK Government as a laughing stock on climate change if we are not careful. I urge Ministers to change course and show some leadership. I urge them now to look at the reports our Select Committees have produced. They provide not just an agenda of issues to be addressed, but a direction that the Government could take. Otherwise, it is a betrayal of future generations. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West claimed the future for himself. Well, some of us older ones have an interest in the future as well, with our children and grandchildren. This November will ensure, hopefully, that they will have a planet that they can survive on and flourish on.

From the evidence I have seen so far—it is not just me; I think it is independent experts as well—the leadership the Government are showing is nowhere near the scale or commitment we need to demonstrate to the rest of the world what can be done, what needs to be done and what our country can contribute.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The time limit is now reduced, but it is only reduced to seven minutes.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before we go any further in this debate, which has only just started, I should explain to the House that a great many people have indicated that they wish to speak this afternoon. Speeches will have to be time-limited and short. It is simply not fair for people to make very long interventions and possibly not stay for the whole debate. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I am not suggesting that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) will not. He is an honourable gentleman and knows how to behave in the Chamber. It is perfectly in order and good debating practice for the shadow Chancellor and anyone else to take lots of interventions so that we can have a debate, but interventions must be short and Members must recognise that every minute taken up by an intervention takes a minute off the speech of someone who waits all day to speak. It is a matter of being fair and decent to each other.

[John McDonnell]

I will take some interventions, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am cognizant of what you have said about the need to ensure that everyone can speak.

On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), we all knew that the election of a Tory Government would set us back; what we did not appreciate was that it would set us back a century.

Average annual pay is now projected to be £1,030 lower in 2022 than was forecast in the March 2017 Budget. It is those delivering our key services—the nurses, midwives, firefighters and teachers—who are worse off than they were a decade ago. There is nothing here that could remotely be considered strong. This is a weak economy. In terms of growth, it is now the weakest in the G7.

Let us remember that we are in this mess because for the past seven years the Government have implemented policies that have undermined and weakened our economy. The Chancellor was a key figure in all those policies. He and his colleagues were warned that austerity spending cuts would fail to bring the debt or the deficit under control, and that instead they would undermine the real economy. We were promised in 2010 by the Chancellor’s predecessor that the deficit would be cleared by 2015, yet today the debt burden is still rising. The Chancellor borrowed more in his first year in the job than any Chancellor in history.

Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I cannot give way, because I am concluding my speech.

Sixthly, we clearly need independent scrutiny of HMRC and the implementation of taxation policy overall. Let us now explore the establishment of a cross-party committee, along the lines of our Intelligence and Security Committee, to perform that role. Finally, we need an end to the counterproductive staffing cuts and office closures at HMRC.

For most of my time in Parliament, I have been campaigning for a fair tax system that secures tax justice. Of course companies such as Google make a significant contribution to research and development and through the employment they provide, and I welcome that, but we expect all companies to play fair when it comes to their tax responsibilities. I am unable to accept the Government’s amendment because it fails to support our key demand for openness and transparency. The amendment would remove Labour’s central demands for publication of the Google deal and the adoption of full public country-by-country reporting. If anything good is to come out of the sordid deal that the Government cut with Google, I urge Members of this House to use this opportunity to secure a just, fair, open and transparent system of taxation for our country and to start that process by backing our motion today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I have to inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Before I call the Minister to move the amendment, I should tell the House that a great many people have indicated that they wish to catch my eye this afternoon. More than 20 hon. Members wish to speak, and this debate will last for considerably less than two hours. There will be a time limit of three minutes initially on Back-Bench speeches. [Interruption.] There is no point in people complaining about it—that is the amount of time there is. There will be three minutes and, even then, not everyone who wishes to be called to speak will be called to speak.

I say, very importantly, to the House that people who have intervened and taken part in the debate must remain in this Chamber for the whole of the debate—leaving for the odd five minutes is fine—because they are taking up time that other people, who have sat through the whole of the debate, will then not have. This is nothing to do with old-fashioned rules or conventions—it is simple courtesy by one Member of Parliament to another. I call Mr David Gauke to move the Government amendment.

Point of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I call Mr John McDonnell to respond to that point of order.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

This has been raised before, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it was accepted by the House that I would in no way ever encourage violence or support violence against an hon. Member— [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order.

[John McDonnell]

I therefore have nothing to apologise for. If a constituent shouts something out to an MP, that is a matter for the constituent. This is about the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) trying to make herself into a victim over this issue. The real victims are people such as David Clapson who starved to death as a result of—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. If the hon. Gentleman is responding to a point of order, I must insist that he sticks only to that point of order. Has he finished his response to this point of order? He may do so.

[John McDonnell]

I was simply putting it in the context of the suffering that has been caused by the right hon. Member for Wirral West—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have said to the hon. Gentleman that he must limit his remarks to the substance of the point of order. I am allowing him to do so and giving him plenty of opportunity to respond. We do not need the background information—just his response.

[John McDonnell]

The substance of the matter is that there is nothing to apologise for, and I hope that on 7 May the electorate will remove the stain of inhumanity—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. It is not a matter for me to discuss the electorate on 7 May. It is disappointing that a matter such as this should have to come before the House. I thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for giving notice of their intention to be here today to raise this point. Let me repeat what the Deputy Speaker said when the matter was raised in November—that what hon. Members say outside this place is not a matter for the Chair.

I would, however, strongly clarify—the hon. Lady asked for clarification—that it is incumbent on all Members of this House, either within the Chamber or elsewhere, to act with courtesy to one another and, indeed, to everyone else whom they might encounter. I understand the hon. Lady’s particular concerns about reported comments suggesting violence—whether they were seriously intentioned or not. I am quite certain, and I am sure the whole House will agree, that no hon. Member would wish to be associated with such comments. I urge hon. Members concerned in this matter to consider that apology is not backing down; it is a courteous way of settling a matter. One would hope that hon. Members of this House would wish always to act with such courtesy.

Transport for London Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and John McDonnell

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you are looking quite—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is correct. I am sure he will not be going down the line of considering the constitutional position in very, very great detail, although I am sure that he can make a brief reply to the intervention. But he was doing very well in keeping in order.

[John McDonnell]

Thank you for the compliment, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is not often that Deputy Speakers say that to me.

Let me respond briefly to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North by referring him to page 930 of “Erskine May”, which cites the assessment of the Speaker in 1895 of the London Valuation and Assessment Bill. The Speaker then ruled that

“since the Bill raised questions of public policy of great importance and affected interests of vast magnitude, it ought to have been introduced as a public bill, and could not proceed as a private bill”.

I do not know what greater magnitude of risk there is to London, London taxpayers, the Greater London assembly and others than the risk that we are contemplating in this Bill. I do not want to go over the facts and figures we set out before, but I must say to the sponsor of the Bill, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), that the Mayor could potentially enter into an enormous escapade if this legislation is passed. For that reason, I do not believe that it warrants support as part of a private Bill.

Let me return to the link between amendment 1 and amendment 15. Amendment 15 simply seeks to delete clause 4, as I believe that it is dangerous. I was trying to get clarification about the objectives of the clause from the statements—