Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Davies

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have said before, we need to have a balance. People enjoy fireworks and we do not want to be po-faced enders of fun for one and all. We want to allow our constituents to do things that they enjoy, so I am not in favour of extending regulations at every opportunity.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Alopecia UK is based in my constituency. May we have a debate on wig provision in the NHS, which I have to say is completely and utterly inadequate and causes a great deal of distress to victims of hair loss?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Mr Speaker, I understand that some candidates to take over your role are concerned about wig provision, albeit I believe of a different kind.

My hon. Friend makes a serious point. Having raised it in the Chamber, I would encourage him to press for further debates, and particularly to ask a question of the Health Secretary when he is next at the Dispatch Box.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Davies

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, we are wallowing in the realms of metaphysical abstraction, as Burke would have said, and almost certainly did, albeit not in relation to this Bill.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May I urge my right hon. Friend to reconsider the point made by our right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)? I think we all know that the people who voted against the programme motion tonight did not really want more time to consider the Bill; they wanted to frustrate Brexit. They wanted to block it. Nobody is fooled. Why do the Government not play them at their own game? The Father of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), said that another three days would do it, so why do we not start the Committee stage tomorrow? The extra three days that seem to be required could be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We could sit till any hour on all three days, and we could then see how much appetite there really is for extra scrutiny of the Bill. I suspect that if the Leader of the House were to do that, he would find that, actually, not much scrutiny would be required from Opposition Members.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for a characteristically good idea on how we might be able to proceed. The only difficulty is that the programme motion has been voted down, and to sit in the way my hon. Friend suggests would require another programme motion, and there is no indication that that would meet with greater satisfaction from the Opposition. The House of Lords also has to consider this Bill in due time, so I fear that his great solution is not going to be a way forward.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Davies

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Indeed, yes—I welcome the fact that we have a Children’s Commissioner, and share the hon. Gentleman’s concern that 20% of children leave school with no qualification. That is the reason for so many of the education reforms that have been going through, and the extra expenditure that will be going to the Department of Health and Social Care should bring about an improvement. That is, of course, a subject that will be easy to raise during the Queen’s speech debates; one of the advantages of having a Queen’s speech is that many issues of importance like that can be raised, and Members can expect a ministerial response in the debate.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The Government led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) were very supportive of a Shipley eastern bypass, and paid for a feasibility study with a specific intention to complete the bypass when the study had ended. So will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Transport to come and make a statement to the House on that subject, so that he can, hopefully, restate this Government’s commitment to building a Shipley eastern bypass?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

What a great place Shipley is. I had the huge joy of visiting Shipley earlier this year to campaign for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to become leader of the Conservative party, and it is brilliantly represented by my hon. Friend. I will pass on his message to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, because I am sure we want to follow in the excellent footsteps of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who I notice is sitting behind me, watching proceedings closely.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Davies

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The official figures and the recorded figures are likely to be the tip of an iceberg. Many instances will go unreported and unrecorded. Even though the figures are extremely high, they almost certainly understate the issue.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Are the five assaults a day generally carried out by five separate people or by the same people? If the Bill comes into law and the people committing the offences are imprisoned, will that be a relatively small number of frequent offenders or a large number of people who have done it once?

[Philip Davies]

As always, my hon. Friend raises a very good point. I hope later to deal with part of that issue, because there are persistent offenders who assault police officers time and time again. Even when they are found to have done it time and time again, the sentences that are imposed can be derisory. If there is more robust sentencing, it is blindingly obvious that the more criminals there are behind bars, the fewer criminals there are out on the streets committing crimes. That would certainly apply here. The more of these characters we can send to prison, the less chance there will be of police officers being assaulted. My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point.

New clause 1 mirrors the Bill with 12-month sentencing powers in magistrates courts and Crown courts. Of course, magistrates do not yet have 12-month sentencing powers for one offence. In reality, they would be left with just the six months they have now. I hope that one day that will change so that magistrates can sentence people to up to 12 months for all the offences we are talking about today.

I say to the Minister that we have promised magistrates for many years that we will increase their sentencing powers to 12 months. The law has been passed; it just has not been brought into effect. The Government have promised magistrates those extra powers for many years, and the Select Committee on Justice has reported on that and said that it should be done straight away. It would certainly help in relation to this Bill. I hope the Minister will reflect on the fact that we need to give magistrates those additional sentencing powers, not least because it is much cheaper to prosecute offences in the magistrates court than to take them to the Crown court.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Philip Davies

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

But not for the United Kingdom as a whole—no, not yet. I will wait for the SNP to put up a candidate in North East Somerset, and we will see how well that goes down.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Would my hon. Friend concede that some of us are always in opposition whichever party is in government?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend puts the point beautifully. That is actually the historical and traditional job of Back-Bench Members of Parliament. We should be here to protect the interests of our constituents and the interests of the constitution, and to hold the Government—of whichever party—to account.

That is why I am in such agreement with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield about the undesirability of Henry VIII powers. However, I said I would diverge from him at some point. The point on which I diverge from him is the perhaps slightly academic one about where we have started from. I think it is inconsistent to say that Henry VIII powers exercised by the British Government, subject to the normal parliamentary procedures of this House and another place, are worrying, but that the Henry VIII powers used under the European Communities Act 1972 were not.