Public Services

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is right: when it comes to crime and criminality, we owe it to the British public to be on their side and to ensure that their communities are protected and that they are safe.

With crime changing, it is right that we listen to the police on how to tackle the most urgent crimes. That is why I have made rolling up county lines drugs gangs a priority, with a £20 million package to stop those gangs exploiting children and young people, in addition to the £25 million safer streets fund to bring in new security measures for the worst crime hotspots in England and Wales. That is what I mean by backing our police and tackling the most appalling criminality that we see today.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the additional 20,000 police who are going to be recruited, particularly in the Thames Valley police area of my own constituency. Could my right hon. Friend give us any news about the timing of that and how it is all going, because we are very keen to get on with it?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, because we are now getting on with the recruitment of police officers. Only last week, my hon. Friend the Policing Minister announced a new allocation of police recruitment—the number of police officers who are being recruited right now and will be in place by March next year.

Never before have the demands on police officers been so complex and challenging. No Member who was here on 22 March 2017 will ever forget the events of that day or the sacrifice made by PC Keith Palmer, whose memorial stands outside Carriage Gates. Tragically, on Monday I joined thousands of officers and mourners to pay my respects to PC Andrew Harper, a newlywed officer senselessly and brutally killed in the line of duty. I know that the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to PC Harper and to all our brave officers.

Findings from our review of frontline officers suggest that the police at all levels feel that they need more support to carry out their duties effectively. Their protection and wellbeing is a priority for this Government. That is why the police protection Bill will support the introduction of the police covenant—a covenant that recognises that policing is no ordinary job and pledges to recognise the bravery, commitment and sacrifices of serving and former officers. The Bill will also increase legal protection for police drivers, giving them confidence to use their greater skill and training when dealing with moped robberies and similar crimes.

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[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

There is also great unfairness with spousal and family visas, due to the minimum income threshold. I am aware of constituents who have had to take on several jobs to meet the threshold—they are absolutely exhausted. The daft thing is that, if their spouse was able to come over, they would more than meet the threshold. The threshold is stopping that person coming over and contributing to our country.

[John Redwood]

Which Bills, if any, in the Queen’s Speech will the SNP support?

[Alison Thewliss]

We doubt whether many of the Bills in the Queen’s Speech will make it. There was an article in The Times yesterday—I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman saw it—that did not give any of the Bills a five out of five for their chances of passing. We will wait and see if any of them make it, never mind whether they have our support.

The spousal visa system leaves many people unable to see their children or their family. It is heartbreaking having to deal with that week in, week out and having children coming in saying, “When can I get to see my daddy?” If Home Office Ministers want to come to my surgery and sit in on those meetings, I would absolutely welcome it, because they should see what is happening at first hand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) will talk more about post-study work visas. We would welcome their return, because we believe that it is important to say to people who want to come and study in Scotland, “You are welcome. You will get to come here, to contribute to our society and to carry on your lives in Scotland after you have concluded your studies.” The UK Government seem to say, “Come, we will take your money for your international student visa and then you can go—we’re done with you.” That is just unacceptable; it is not welcoming in the slightest.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

This week, we meet to debate a Queen’s Speech put forward by a Government who do not have a majority. Many of the Bills in this Queen’s Speech are addressing real public problems of great interest to our constituents of all persuasions, and many of them will attract support from voters who are not planning to vote Conservative. It is therefore particularly disappointing that when I asked SNP Members to say which of the Bills in this Queen’s Speech they would support, the answer came that they would not support any of them. They could not think of any Bill—presumably, including the Domestic Abuse Bill—that they will support.

[David Linden]

The right hon. Gentleman will of course be aware that vast areas of the Domestic Abuse Bill are actually devolved. One of the problems that we in the SNP have in criticising this Queen’s Speech is that the vast majority of the Bills in it do not apply to Scotland. In fact, there was no mention of Scotland in this Queen’s Speech, so there is very little that is relevant to Scotland.

[John Redwood]

What I am about to say is still very relevant, which is that I think the public of the United Kingdom, given the circumstances in which we find ourselves, expect the Opposition to be a bit more positive and co-operative in tackling their priorities. It is not the Government’s fault that we cannot resolve this problem, because the Government have put forward a very simple solution to it, which is to allow the public to choose a new Parliament, and I trust that they would then choose a majority Government. If we are not allowed to do that because the Opposition parties can agree on blocking a general election, surely it is incumbent on them to help us to use the time we have intelligently and productively, in the wider interests of the electorate of the nation.

I want our Parliament to be well thought of by as many voters as possible of all persuasions. This Parliament is doing itself grave further damage if it does not co-operate and use this time during which the Opposition wish us to be here to find things on which we agree, to make improvements for those we represent. Those who represent a part of the United Kingdom with devolved government will, of course, be mainly interested in what their devolved Government do in those chosen areas, but there are still Union elements in this programme, and that is no reason to get in the way of us in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, where appropriate, doing what we need to do here. It would be good if SNP Members said that they were happy for us to do the things we want to do in our part of the United Kingdom, where we do not have the advantage of devolved responsibilities in a separate English or Welsh Parliament.

That is my message—Parliament should think about this. Why should Opposition parties co-operate? Well, for the simple reason that when we get to the general election, the public will take a particularly dim view of any party or group of MPs who have deliberately been negative about everything and unwilling to use the time, money and powers that this place and Government can bring to try to solve some of the problems before us.

On public services, I very much welcome the loosening of the purse strings. In 2010, my party and I thought that the deficit was massively too high and that emergency action was needed—as did, incidentally, the outgoing Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was planning pretty draconian measures to correct the deficit that his Government had created by bad management—but in the past two or three years, I have felt strongly that some parts of the public service are not getting enough money, and I have also felt that we had enough flexibility economically to do something about it. I also have my own favourite way to pay some of the bills, which is to stop paying any money to the European Union. I look forward to the day when that comes to pass, but many Members of Parliament here are desperate to spend as much money in Europe as possible, which has made that more difficult.

Let us leave out that contentious issue and concentrate on the extra money we can afford. I welcome that money for two reasons: first, because my local schools, health facilities and police force need that extra money; and, secondly, because our economy needs that money. The fiscal and monetary squeeze of the past three years has been too tight. I predicted that it would slow the economy, and that is exactly what it is doing. Superimposed on those domestic stresses, we now have a nasty world manufacturing recession and a general world economic slowdown. Policies in several of the great economies around the world have led to that slowdown and are taking time to correct. The United Kingdom needs to be part of the process of correcting that. We need looser fiscal and monetary policy to project a bit more growth and create a bit more prosperity.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Education is here, because along with other colleagues whose constituencies have seen schools and education services deprived of adequate funding for some time, I strongly welcome the new minimum figures that will be given to my schools that have been below the minimum figures. But I do not think that my schools at or near the minimum figures are getting enough, and I look forward to future settlements dealing with that problem. It costs money to employ enough good teachers. In a part of the world such as mine, facilities and buildings are expensive, and that has to be reflected in the amount of money allocated.

I look forward to the 20,000 new police officers in the Thames valley, and I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary say that progress will be made on that soon, because we have a series of problems with drugs and violence that we need to tackle.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my good friend for giving way. In the past 15 years or so, those in the armed forces have had a problem getting into things such as the police service, the fire service and the Prison Service. Does he agree that it would be good to have a recruitment drive for those junior non-commissioned officers, senior NCOs and young officers leaving the armed forces to go into that kind of profession?

[Mr Speaker]

Judging by the hon. Gentleman’s appearance, I do not know whether he is anticipating an early dinner, a long dinner or, conceivably, both.

[John Redwood]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has lots of expertise from his distinguished military career. There is a lot of talent in the armed forces. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said that such measures were taken to try to get personnel into teaching from that important resource, and we could spread that more widely.

I look forward to progress in particular with the county lines issue, with illegal settlements and with casual violence on the streets, which even comes sometimes to my constituency and is not welcome. More and better-resourced policing would be extremely good.

I also want to see progress in the health service. I am pleased that substantial sums of money have been allocated, under both the immediately retiring Government and the new Government. That is doubly welcome. I urge Ministers to do serious work with organisations such as those in my area on what the priorities for that money should be, because it is important that these large sums are spent intelligently. The priorities for patients are clear: we need more GPs, to provide better coverage of services; and we need better access to GP services, with better systems, so that people can make timely appointments, and enough GPs to offer advice and consultations. We certainly need more money for the large hospital in Reading, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead and I share with the Reading MPs, where various works need to be done, and recruitment is needed where there are shortages of trained staff.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend was saying earlier how important the additional resources going into education funding are. Does he agree that one of this Government’s great achievements is the fair funding settlement, which provides for counties to be properly funded?

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[John Redwood]

I agree, and we need to build on that, because we do not yet have all the answers.

In conclusion, I welcome the extra money, but let us put in the homework to ensure that it is spent intelligently and deals with the people’s priorities, which I briefly sketched; I can go into greater detail with Ministers, if they would like subsequent meetings. Let us also think about the economic implications, because the UK economy has slowed too much, although is not in recession in the way that I fear the German economy is. There is a general trend of manufacturing collapse and big slowdowns or even recessions worldwide. We need both to increase public spending, as the Government are doing, and to cut taxes to stimulate the enterprise economy, because there is one simple thing that all Conservatives know: we cannot properly finance public services if we do not have a healthy and viable private enterprise economy.

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[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by saying how pleased I am to speak from the shadow Front Bench in this important debate on our public services. Outside of time of war, there is no more important subject for our constituents. In fact, there is not much difference between the constituents of Members of all parties in what they want from their public services and the desired outcomes. The difference is in the how.

We should always remember, when discussing public services, that it will not be enough to try to score party political points. For our constituents, families and friends, it is at the most vulnerable time of their lives that they look to public services—illness, death, pregnancy, fire and flooding. However they vote, people look to the public services, so this is an important debate and I am glad to take part in it.

I would like to thank all the Members who have spoken in this excellent debate, and a few in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) drew on her distinguished service in local government and reminded us that Liverpool has had a 63% cut in its funding since 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) reminded the House that the Queen’s Speech is phoney and a fraud; I will return to that.

I would also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds); my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi); my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch); my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who spoke from her personal experience in the NHS; my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams); my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who had very important things to say about support for victims; my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders); my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin); my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), with whom I entirely agree about trophy hunting; my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous); and my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), who talked about cuts to the fire and rescue service.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) talked about issues to do with the Welsh people. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Lisa Forbes) spoke about school uniforms—[Interruption.] Members on the Treasury Bench are talking among themselves, but if people live on benefits, or do not have a big income and are unable to pay for proper school uniforms for their children, that is quite humiliating for the children, so my hon. Friend raised a serious matter.

My hon. Friends the Members for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for High Peak (Ruth George), for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) made valuable contributions. My hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) talked about crime. Last but not least, my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) talked about education and her baleful gaze swept the Chamber, showing the headmistress she once was.

At the heart of the debate is what a Government are for. The Opposition believe that the answer is not playing tricks on the public or embarrassing the monarch by getting her to deliver a party political broadcast on behalf of the Tory party. The programme of governance should not be a Santa’s wish list of soundbites to please some of our less thoughtful tabloids. The purpose of a Government should be to offer a vision and a detailed set of proposals, but this Government have done none of that. They have presented a Queen’s Speech that is all about electioneering. They want power without responsibility.

Almost none of the announcements in the Queen’s Speech will be delivered. Its authors do not even intend them to be delivered. It is not even clear that the Queen’s Speech will win the support of the House. Furthermore, Conservative Members refuse to take responsibility for the actions of a Government that most of them have been members of since 2010. Conservative Members wringing their hands about the need for more police officers when they have been part of a Government who cut the numbers of police officers, and voted for that policy, is the grossest hypocrisy.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady tell the House which of the many good Bills in the Queen’s Speech Labour Members do like in principle?

[Hon. Members]

Trophy hunting!

Knife Crime

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I welcome the right hon. Lady’s comments. I do believe that the action that we are taking is the right action, but I am also very open-minded about considering what further action can be taken. I think it important to listen to police chiefs, police and crime commissioners and others, and to consider whether other measures can be introduced. The idea of knife crime prevention orders came directly from the police, the Mayor of London and others, and we acted very quickly to pursue that.

As for the public health approach that the right hon. Lady and others have mentioned, it is important for all public Departments to buy into it. I want it to be statutory because I want Departments including the Department for Health and Social Care, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education to make it a priority: I think that they all have an important role to play.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What action are the Government taking to ensure that enough resources are available and preferably targeted on this priority, and what further action can they take to spread best practice from places that have had more success?

UK Nationals returning from Syria

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is time we heard from a Berkshire knight—I call Sir John Redwood.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

How will the UK authorities go about finding the evidence concerning those UK citizens who went abroad to join a terrorist organisation and to fight or intervene in acts of brutality or support those who did?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend highlights an important issue. Members will understand why it is very difficult to gather evidence when someone has gone to a completely ungoverned space where we have no consular presence and no diplomatic relations of any type, and nor do our allies.

That said, we put a huge amount of effort—I take this opportunity to commend our security services, the police and some of our international partners—into gathering battlefield evidence and having that ready to use whenever appropriate. If we can supply that evidence in some cases to our partners for cases that they wish to bring in front of their courts, we will try to work constructively with them. The UN has also been looking at this. New measures are being considered on battlefield evidence conventions, and Britain, through the Ministry of Defence, is making an incredibly important contribution to that.

Police Grant Report

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman highlights that there are sometimes special situations, and special grants are needed to deal with exactly what he has mentioned. I am happy to make sure that Home Office Ministers meet him to discuss that further, as it is a very important point.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for understanding the need and coming up with a much better settlement for us. Does he agree that Thames Valley, which contains fast-growing areas of the country such as mine, where a lot of extra housing is going in, needs some extra money just to keep pace with the extra number of people who require a police service?

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend on that, and I thank him for his support. He highlights the need for this extra funding, and I know that he will welcome the support that will be provided—I believe it is almost £34 million—to his force.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. No doubt he has had some time to digest the legal opinion, but he might also note that it is perfectly consistent with what the Attorney General said at this Dispatch Box earlier this week. He made it clear then that, naturally, what he is providing is legal analysis, but this should also been seen in the context of the politics of such a situation, and he set that out quite clearly as well on the day. I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the remarks that the Attorney General made on that point earlier this week.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that if we approve the withdrawal agreement, the UK will have to pay a lot of money for many years after we have left the European Union, although there are no cash limits or numbers in the documents, and very general heads? Will he also confirm that the EU will have preponderant power in deciding just how vast this open-ended commitment will be, and that it will be massively more than £39 billion?

[Sajid Javid]

In the withdrawal agreement, there is an estimated amount that the UK will pay. It will not be instant; it is over a number of years. The general figure that has been talked of by Government Ministers and others is a total of £39 billion.

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[Ms Abbott]

I will come to that point, but I will say now that the Prime Minister’s red lines, one of which was the ECJ, may well prove to have been reckless. The EU insists on treaty arrangements governing key aspects of international security, justice and policing, as do we. Without a treaty, courts have no legal basis to implement arrest or extradition warrants and cannot allow third countries access to criminal and other databases. We are on course to become a third country in our relationship with the EU. Because there is no security treaty planned or even aimed for in the exit documents, the level of co-operation between the UK and the EU post Brexit could be severely and unavoidably downgraded.

Ministers will be aware that neither France nor Germany will automatically extradite to non-EU countries—their constitutions say that. There will be a mutual loss of the use of the European arrest warrant, and the UK will no longer be able to access the Europol database in real time. In addition, as a third country, the UK’s access to databases of criminal records, fingerprints, DNA and missing and wanted persons will be compromised. Ministers promise a future security partnership between this country and the EU. However, the assurance on access to SIS II and the European criminal records information system is only that

“the UK and the EU have agreed to consider further how to deliver capabilities that, as far as technically and legally possible, approximate those enabled by EU mechanisms”.

That is not the same as assuring us of the same level of co-operation that we have today. In relation to the European arrest warrant, there is not even that promise. On passenger name records and the exchange of DNA, fingerprints, and vehicle registration, the agreement says:

“The UK and the EU have agreed to establish reciprocal arrangements”.

It does not say that they have established reciprocal arrangements; it is a wish for the future. However, without appeal and oversight by a court—that role is currently played by the ECJ—all these things could be subject to legal challenge in practice.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

No, I need to make progress.

In addition, on the EU agencies Europol and Eurojust, about which Members have made interventions, the deal says:

“The UK and the EU have agreed, as part of the FSP, to work together to identify the terms for the UK’s cooperation via Europol and Eurojust.”

Working together to identify the terms is not the same as a guarantee of the same access and co-operation that we have today. As these are EU agencies, they are not in principle open to non-member states. Again, if that were to change, the legal basis for that would require a treaty.

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[Ms Abbott]

As I said earlier, one problem in these negotiations, and one reason why they have not gone further, is the Prime Minister’s reckless red lines, particularly on the ECJ. However, let me return to the issue of immigration.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress.

Let me first deal with the status of EU nationals. I begin by saying how distasteful it was to many of us that the Prime Minister referred to “queue jumpers”. She seemed to be implying that there was some unfairness or illegitimacy in their role in British society, whereas EU nationals play a vital role in business, academia, agriculture and public services such as health and social care. EU citizens and their dependants living here cannot be reassured by the terms of the deal. The Home Secretary has given general assurances, but the deal says almost nothing in detail about their rights, including work, residency and access to services. No one on either side of the House who has ever had anything to do with the immigration and nationality directorate can have confidence in the Home Office’s ability to process the approximately 5 million applications that are required to process settled status applications. I am aware that the Home Secretary sets great store by his app, but he knows perfectly well that it cannot be used on iPhones, and although it has been trialled, the trials involved volunteers and only the simpler cases.

We have all seen the shameful chaos around the Windrush scandal. Today’s National Audit Office report on Windrush is comprehensively negative. It criticises the Home Office for its poor-quality data; the risky use of deportation targets; poor value for money; and a failure to respond to numerous warnings that its policies would hurt people living in the UK legally. It is a damning report, and Ministers should be ashamed. EU citizens can only await with trepidation their further and deeper engagement with the Home Office.

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[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

We would not be having this debate today if Parliament had not asserted, earlier this year, its right to express its views clearly on the deal that has been brought back to us. It does not, however, follow from that that Parliament should have to take on the responsibility of designing or redesigning the deal. I do not believe Parliament should overreach itself in that respect. What Parliament can do is set the boundaries for a deal and express its view on the deal, and I hope we will be able to do that on Tuesday.

Equally, because of the amendment that I supported yesterday, tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), it should be very clear what is not acceptable. In my view, no deal is not acceptable. It is my judgment that no deal would be highly irresponsible. Having no agreement on trade and security would be damaging to our business interests, and we must have a deal properly in place before we leave. So I do not support no deal. I also have to say to some of my hon. Friends that I am not convinced by the arguments for having another referendum. Of course referendums are divisive, but that is not the problem. The problem is that I do not see how a referendum could be decisive and could secure a sufficient consensus to put this issue to bed for a decent period of time.

If we are to respect the referendum that we did have, and if, as my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), said in an excellent and powerful speech, we are to surrender our vote, our voice and our veto straightaway and immediately pay over this huge sum of £39 billion, we need a deal that is worth all the risks of not knowing how it is going to work out. We do not have that at the moment. Instead, we are confronted with a completely vacuous political declaration. In my view, we need something much better and much firmer if we are to take that decisive step at the end of March.

[John Redwood]

rose—

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I hope my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I continue.

I would like to see the deal improved in four crucial and already well-known respects. First, on the backstop, a sovereign country cannot be placed in a position in which we are denied, in the end, a unilateral right of exit. That is all the more important because the protocol acknowledges that the backstop might remain under “alternative arrangements”, even in part. Others have already made the case as to why a backstop should remain, and I find that argument rather odd. We have been told this week that the European Union does not like the backstop any more than we do and that Ministers in other countries do not actually want the backstop to remain. If that is the case, why should they not agree that it is in everybody’s interests—theirs and ours—to set a date by which the backstop at least falls away? I am not encouraged by all this lawyerly talk of “good faith”, “best endeavours” and endless arbitration. If we are going to have a backstop, which I do not like, let us have a date and set the clock ticking.

Secondly, the absence in the political declaration of any commitment whatsoever to the frictionless trade that the Prime Minister promised us is not acceptable, unless we have some clearer idea of the extent to which some freedom of movement will be required and of the extent to which there will be areas beyond state aid and procurement where we will have to respect European Union competition policy. The Attorney General told us on Monday that this is one of the “outer boundaries” that will have to be considered, but he did not attempt to set those boundaries. We need to be much clearer about exactly what the European Union is likely to accept, in respect of both the skills cap that we are contemplating and the competition policy that we will have to accept.

Thirdly, on the extent to which we will be allowed an independent trade policy, the political declaration is at least clear on this point: our future economic relationship must

“be consistent with the Union’s principles, in particular with respect to the integrity of the Single Market and the Customs Union”.

That does not leave us any clarity on whether we will be allowed to reduce much or even part of our common external tariff. Indeed, the Attorney General told us that we cannot have an independent trade policy and belong to a conventional customs union. Again, that commits us to complying with one boundary set by the European Union without any clear understanding of where the other might be set.

Finally, there is Northern Ireland. If a different regulatory framework is to continue—there are currently some elements of difference—it is clear to me that, inside our own single market, that can be done only with the continuing consent of the Province itself, or in other words of the Executive and the Assembly. The agreement should have been explicit in that regard. There may well be further checks that would enhance the protection of the whole island, but they can be put in place only with the agreement of all communities in Northern Ireland.

Without those improvements, this so-called deal is a gamble: we put all our cards on the table and all our money, and we wait for another two years for the European Union to set the rules of the game. That is a risk too far.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Almost two and a half years have now passed since the people spoke in that big democratic referendum. The people voted in very large numbers to take back control of our laws, our money and our borders, and to reclaim the lost sovereignty of the United Kingdom electorate, and they did so in the teeth of enormous hostility and propaganda from many elements of the political and big business establishment.

The people were told they were too stupid to understand the arguments and that there were huge dangers if they dared to vote to leave the EU. They were told by both campaigns, and by the Government in a formal leaflet, that we would be leaving the single market and the customs union, because rightly we were told that the EU would not allow us to cherry-pick bits of the single market and customs union and that those were an integral part of the whole. They were given a set of entirely bogus and dishonest forecasts about what would happen in the short term after the vote, and practically every one of those forecasts was wildly too pessimistic, which has led to the distrust between the vote leave majority and the establishment that pushed out those forecasts.

I urge the House to move on from “Project Fear”, to move on from gloom and doom, and to understand that many millions of decent, honest voters made a careful and considered decision, and they do not believe those who tell them it will all go wrong, that it must be reversed or that they must be told to think again and vote again because they did not do their homework. It is deeply insulting to the electors, and I am sure that this Parliament is worthy of a much better performance than that.

The people were saying something wonderful for this Parliament. They were saying, “We believe in you, Parliament. We believe you can make wise laws. We believe you can make even wiser laws than the EU. We believe you can make better judgments about how to spend the taxes we send you than the EU, which spends so much of the money on our behalf in ways of which we do not approve. We believe, O Parliament, that if you help us to take back control of our laws and democracy, we will get better answers. Or, of course, Parliament, if you do not give us a better answer, we the people will have our sovereignty back, and we will dismiss you.”

One of the things that most annoys people about the EU among the leave-voting majority is that we cannot sack them. Whatever they do, however bad they are, however much money they waste, however irritating their laws, we have to put up with them. We cannot sack them; we cannot have a general election. [Interruption.] Scottish National party Members say that they feel the same about the Union of the United Kingdom, but we gave them the democratic opportunity, and their people say that they like our system of government, because this is their democracy too. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) should understand that her colleagues in Scotland, and her voters in Scotland, believe in UK democracy, and they have exactly the same rights of voice and vote and redress as all the rest of us.

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

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. Ever since the referendum, the narrative has been to find explanations for why the people voted as they did—any explanation other than the fact that they wanted to leave the European Union. Does he consider that the majority in favour of the amendment in the name of our right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) shows that the game is up, and that there is now a majority in the House against leaving the European Union? The game for us must be to find some orderly way around that, irrespective of the majority who are now against us.

[John Redwood]

I do not prejudge the evil intents of other Members. I hope that all Members will agree that we must implement the referendum result. We had a general election in the summer of last year, and I remember that in that general election Labour and the Conservatives got rather more than 80% of the vote in Great Britain, the Democratic Unionist party did extremely well in Northern Ireland, and all three parties said that they would faithfully implement the referendum decision of United Kingdom voters on leaving the European Union. I trust that they will want to operate in good faith in the votes that may be to come.

My advice to Ministers, as well as to the rest of the House, is that what we should now be doing is celebrating the opportunities and the advantages that we will gain after March, when we have left the European Union. We should be having debates about how we will spend all the extra money on improving our public services instead of giving it to the EU. We should be having a debate about all the tax cuts that we need to boost our economy, so that instead of growth slowing after we leave, we speed it up by deliberate acts of policy which we would be empowered in this place to take if only Members would lift their gloom and their obstinate denial of opportunity, and see that if we spent some more money and had some tax cuts, it would provide a very welcome boost to our economy in its current situation.

I want to see us publish a schedule of tariffs for trading with the whole world that are lower than the tariffs that the EU currently makes us impose on perfectly good exporters, particularly of food products, from elsewhere in the world. Why do we have to impose high tariffs on food that we cannot grow for ourselves? I want us to have a debate on urgently taking back control of our fishing industry so that we can land perhaps twice as many fish in the UK and not let them all be landed somewhere else, and build a much bigger fish processing industry on the back of domestic landings from our very rich fishing grounds.

I wish to see us get rid of VAT on, for instance, green products and domestic fuel, which we are not allowed to do because we are an impotent puppet Parliament that does not even control its own tax system for as long as we remain in the European Union. I wish to see us take back control of our borders, so that we can have a migration policy that is right for our economic needs and fair to people from wherever they may come all around the world, rather than having an inbuilt European Union preference. I wish us to be a global leader for world trade. Now that the United States of America has a President who says that he rather likes tariffs, there is a role for a leading great power and economic force in the world like the United Kingdom to provide global leadership for free trade.

We will do none of that if we sign this miserable agreement with which the Government have presented us, because we will be locked into their customs arrangements for many months or years. We will not be free to negotiate those free trade deals, let alone provide the international leadership which I yearn for us to provide. I want us to have our seat back at the high tables of the world in the big institutions like the World Trade Organisation, so that with vote and voice and purpose, we can offer something positive, and have a more liberal free-trading democratic world than the one that we currently have. That is something that we are not allowed to do for as long as we remain members of the European Union.

I say this to Members. Lift the gloom. Stop “Project Fear”. Stop selling the electors short. Stop treating the electors as if they were unable to make an adult decision. Understand that they made a great decision—a decision I am mightily proud of—to take back sovereign control to the people, to take back the delegated sovereign control to this Parliament. It is high time that this Parliament rose to the challenge, instead of falling at every opportunity, and high time we did something positive for our constituents, instead of moaning and grumbling and spending every day—groundhog day—complaining about the vote of the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

This has been an excellent debate covering a range of vital and urgent issues. I am not going to repeat the many compelling points made by the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) in her speech. I cannot do adequate justice to all the other 48 contributions that have been made, some of which I missed. I am told, however, that there was a typically brilliant speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David).

In the time I have available, let me highlight those contributions which I believe best sum up why the Prime Minister’s proposed Brexit deal would leave us less secure as a country and would not deliver the fair rules for migration that we need—two out of Labour’s six tests failed in one debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said, we are being asked to make this decision without even seeing the immigration White Paper we were promised. We therefore have no detailed idea of what the new migration rules will say or how they will work in practice. She also said that we are being asked to support a political agreement that is entirely silent on our future access to the SIS II database and will leave our police and security services less well able to protect the public than they are at present. As the former universities Minister, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), pointed out, if we are being cut out of the Galileo database even while the agreement is being discussed, what hope do we have of negotiating access to other vital databases once the agreement has been signed?

We also heard an important contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who talked about his German lessons at school and the lessons from history that show that our place in the world is not strengthened but diminished when we cut ourselves off from Europe—a point also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). From the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), we heard about the grave consequences of the dangers of this deal, and even worse of no deal, for the national health service, both for medical supplies and for medical staff. That is something that the Foreign Secretary should understand better than anyone, because that is what he used to say when campaigning for remain.

We were reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) not just that EU co-operation and networks help to keep our country safe from crime and terrorism, but that the Prime Minister personally fought to keep our part in them when she was Home Secretary. Now, however, she cannot guarantee that they will continue. My hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff North and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) both rightly said—I agree with them—that far from helping to maintain Europe’s leadership on climate change, which is the single biggest threat to the world’s long-term security, this political agreement cannot even guarantee that we will continue to agree a common position in future international negotiations. Indeed, let us note that it used to be one of the warnings against a no-deal Brexit that Britain could lose access to the EU emissions trading scheme. However, even this supposed deal does not guarantee that continued access, and says only that the parties should “consider” co-operation—just one of many foreign policy sections of the document where clear, existing agreements on co-operation have been replaced by vague, loose aspirations.



What this debate and all the many contributions have laid bare is that on the first duty of every Government—the duty to protect the safety and security of their citizens—the Prime Minister’s deal fails. I hope that when the Foreign Secretary speaks in a moment, he will address the points that I have mentioned: access to vital security databases—

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

No, I have been asked not to take interventions at this stage of the evening.

Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary indicated, we are seeking a sensible transition period that will enable the Home Office to ensure that these cases can be caseworked. The Prime Minister has been very clear that free movement will end—[Interruption.] We will in due course set out the future immigration system, which will enable there to be further clarity.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Government legislate, before our departure from the EU on 30 March, for a comprehensive system for immigration, migration and citizenship that is fair to all concerned? That is what we voted for. Does the Minister also understand that a lot of us will not be voting for a withdrawal agreement to pay £39 billion that we do not owe when we need to spend that money here at home?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. As I have said, free movement will end, and over the next few weeks we will set out the parliamentary timetable for the immigration Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am sure that the hon. and learned Lady agrees that we want an immigration system that serves the national interest—that brings immigration down to sustainable levels but also gives the skills that we need for the entire UK, of course including Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister is planning to visit Scotland this summer to meet Ministers.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend is working on a new UK-based migration policy to hit the Government’s targets. Does he accept that we might need this as early as 30 March next year if we leave without an agreement?

[Sajid Javid]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes a very important point. While we are working on the basis that we will not need it as early as 30 March, he is absolutely right to point out that we should be prepared for all eventualities, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Calais

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady has raised some important points. I draw her attention to some of the comments that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made about the important work that the European Union is doing, some of which we are leading on, on upstream funding to ensure that the terrible tragedy of refugees moving, quite often from east and west African countries, is stopped. We do that by being one of the largest donors and by working in partnership arrangements, and I share her view that if we can stop the scale of movement, that deals with the most important element of why people come over to Europe and then make their way across France.

I do not need reminding by the hon. Lady about the scale of misery in the camp in Calais. That is why I have made it such a priority to work with my French counterpart to see the end of that camp and, I believe, the end of the misery that has taken place there. Protecting children has always been at the forefront of what we are doing.

The hon. Lady referred to the Dubs amendment and what else we are doing to take children according to Dubs, and I can tell her that we are continuing to interview to ensure that over the next three weeks—she asked particularly about the time frame—we continue to take several hundred more children in addition to the 200 we have already taken. Yes, we are continuing to work on the Dubs children who will be eligible in Greece and Italy, and we will bring some of them over soon. There is a funding arrangement with local authorities for each child who is given a place as they arrive.

The hon. Lady specifically mentioned Sangatte in 2002. She is right that the camp was closed. There were approximately 2,000 people there. At that time, the UK agreed to take half of the adults. We have not put in place such an agreement this time. Instead, we are taking some of the most vulnerable people, who will mainly be children. However, lessons have been learned from the closure of the Sangatte camp, because camps grew up swiftly afterwards, particularly the Calais camp. As she points out, this camp is several—four and possibly even five—times larger than Sangatte ever was. I refer her to my earlier comment that part of our funding commitment to the French is based on securing the camp as it is—in other words, once it has been closed. We want to make sure that we work closely with them so that no future camp is erected there.

I believe that if there is no camp for people to come to, that will stop the dreadful passage of people across France and the dreadful endeavours that people put themselves through, such as throwing themselves on to lorries and trucks, in trying to get to the UK. I believe that that will go some way to stopping them being easy prey to the traffickers, whom the hon. Lady and I both abhor.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What success have the various authorities had in arresting or stopping the people traffickers? What more can be done to do that, and how can we dissuade any adult from committing money and a child to these dreadful people?

[Amber Rudd]

The National Crime Agency works closely with the French border force and the UK Border Force, and we have had success in arresting traffickers. However, there is so much more that we can do, which is one of the reasons why we want to protect the Le Touquet agreement, which allows us to work together to intervene to stop the traffickers plying their trade.

Rights of EU Nationals

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the contribution that nationals from other countries in the EU have made to the UK; and calls on the Government to ensure that all nationals from other countries in the EU who have made the UK their home retain their current rights, including the rights to live and work in the UK, should the UK exit the EU.

It is nearly four months since the EU referendum, and the long-term status of non-UK EU nationals living in the United Kingdom is still unclear, just as the Government are still without a plan or a negotiating strategy for the Brexit that they accidentally delivered. The status of millions of our fellow workers, friends and neighbours is uncertain. That is simply not good enough. Despite repeated requests, the Government have refused to guarantee, in the long term, the rights of EU nationals who have made their home in the United Kingdom. In the meantime, in England and Wales hate crime has soared and xenophobic rhetoric is common in the mainstream media and, sadly, sometimes in the mouths of Ministers.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I thought that the Government had clearly said that they had no wish to make anybody leave unless there were evictions from the continent. Is the hon. and learned Lady saying that continental countries are going to evict British citizens?

[Joanna Cherry]

The whole point of this motion is that human beings should not be used as bargaining chips in negotiation. If the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues think that the United Kingdom has so much to offer the European Union in its negotiations, why do they insist on using human beings as bargaining chips?

EU Nationals in the UK

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I have read in The Guardian the views of some health professionals talking about how they feel. An Allied Healthcare professional—not a DJ—who is Dutch said this:

“Since the referendum, I wish I had not come to the UK. Half the population does not want me here. I am tearful at times. If I had the chance I would leave now.”

It is not true: half the population does not want these people to leave, but that is obviously how they have been left to feel.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this motion, and I agree that we need to offer reassurance. Does he agree that, assuming the motion passes today—because I get the distinct impression that it will not be opposed—that is a great offer of reassurance from this whole Parliament?

[Andy Burnham]

I hope the right hon. Gentleman is correct. I do not know what the Government’s intention is, but if we were to follow the logic of what we heard from the Immigration Minister at the Dispatch Box on Monday, they will oppose the motion. We will see. Tonight this House can remove the uncertainty from the people my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) described, sending them a message that they are welcome here in our country, and that is precisely what we should do.