Oral Answers to Questions
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am pleased to say that, in the local authority that covers the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, we have seen an increase of over 17,000 children at good or outstanding schools since 2010. That is down to Government changes and the hard work of teachers and other staff in the schools. For a very long time, it has been the general view—I have campaigned on this for a long time—that we need to see a fairer funding formula for schools. What the Government have brought forward is a consultation on a fairer funding formula. We will look at the results of that fairer funding formula and will bring forward our firm proposals in due course.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I am sure the whole House will want to join me in praising the bravery and commitment of all those who serve in our armed forces. I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he is doing on the Defence Committee, because, of course, he brings personal expertise to that work. Those who serve on the frontline deserve our support when they get home, and I can assure him of the Government’s commitment to that. All troops facing allegations receive legal aid from the Government, with the guarantee that it will not be claimed back. In relation to IHAT, which he specifically referred to, we are committed to reducing its case load to a small number of credible cases as quickly as possible. On the action that has been taken in relation to the individual he has referred to, I think it is absolutely appalling when people try to make a business out of chasing after our brave troops.
UK's Nuclear Deterrent
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to the debate.
I represent the great city of Plymouth, where we have a long and proud naval history. Plymouth is where the Vanguard-class submarines are repaired and refitted. I will not make an overly lengthy contribution today, but I would like to give my experience of the representations made in my constituency, where the Trident programme plays such a significant role in our local economy. Representatives of Plymouth, sent here to represent our famous naval city, have always taken very seriously our twin responsibilities—to the nation’s security and to the employment prospects of those who have loyally maintained, and continue to maintain, the submarines that carry Trident missiles.
The Vanguard submarines are repaired and refitted at the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth. For me and my colleagues who represent Plymouth, they are a vital source of employment for thousands, as they are for other Members with naval bases in their constituencies. That source is not as easily replaced as some might think, and my colleagues’ view and mine is that it would be simply a gamble too far. We live in a desperately unstable world. Last weekend was perhaps the most unstable for years. That should not in itself be an argument for maintaining our Trident programme, but it illustrates how we simply cannot predict events beyond next week, let alone far in the future.
National security is fundamental to delivering all that we come into politics to deliver—a fairer society, social justice and opportunities for all. Without it, none of the causes that I know I share with many Opposition Members would be achievable. The Government have a responsibility to put the security of the nation and its people first and foremost. We need to maintain our ultimate deterrent, because we simply do not know what the future holds.
I am not deaf to those concerned about the costs and risks of maintaining the fleet in Plymouth. There is an active community of people who write to me often about that issue. As with any other contentious issue, I have sought to understand the arguments. I speak to those who agree with me and, more importantly, to those who disagree with me. On this issue, however, I am single-mindedly sure: we must maintain our commitment to this programme and replace the Vanguard-class submarines with the new Successor class. Strategically, we cannot and should not wear the risk that comes with abandoning our continuous at-sea deterrence, and the message that that would send to our NATO allies.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman represents Plymouth. There has been a lot of debate about relocating Trident to Plymouth. Would he support that move?
Johnny Mercer
Absolutely, I would support that move. I would love to have all the jobs that would come with that. We would be more than happy to have it and to build on our naval heritage in that way.
Dr Murrison
I assure my hon. Friend that all of us who represent constituencies in the south-west would be more than delighted if the work was transferred from Scotland to the south-west, in the event that our deterrent was to move.
Johnny Mercer
Absolutely. We are proud of our naval heritage in the south-west—we are very proud of the people we support, our servicemen and servicewomen, and we would be delighted to make their lives easier by providing the facilities the south-west affords. Locally, the deterrent means thousands of jobs in Plymouth and a continuance of the Plymouth naval tradition that makes so many of us so proud. It is part of the fabric of our city. To lose that would be disastrous for the communities I am here to represent.
Let us not abstain tonight. Let us not play to our home crowd. Let us stand up for Britain’s place in the world and renew our nuclear deterrent. I say to Opposition Members—not to Scottish National party Members, because I have been struck by their rather childlike interventions about Libya and Iraq, which are totally separate issues—that I know many of my friends on the Labour Benches are of a similar mind to me on this issue. To those who are not, I say that I do not believe they love the country less in any way than those who support the motion. However, all the things we come into politics for are nothing without national security, and that must come first. To deliver the causes that I know are so dear to them and to me, we must renew our nuclear deterrent.
All steps must be taken to ensure the safety of this country’s people. The highly skilled engineering jobs I have talked about cannot be risked. Now, with everything that is going on—not just last weekend, but in the past year—is not the time to lower our guard. The Prime Minister mentioned North Korea. Can we really lose our nuclear weapons at this time? In an ideal world, I agree that it would be great not to have nuclear weapons, but how do we disinvent something that has been invented? The Government must base their decisions on the reality they face; others have the luxury to do otherwise. Trident remains the ultimate deterrent against an attack by those who would harm this country and our people, as it has been for 60 years. The point was made earlier that the Trident system is never used. It is used, every single day. A nuclear deterrent does what it says. The Government’s first priority is to ensure the safety and security of the nation and its people, and that is why I will support the Government’s motion tonight. I will be proud to walk through the Lobby with colleagues from across the House.
Report of the Iraq Inquiry
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do not always agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I think he has put it very well. Saddam Hussein had an appalling record. He had gassed the Kurds, he had murdered his own people, and he had invaded his neighbour. He had used weapons of mass destruction in the past, we were being told that he was developing them again for the future, and we were being asked, on the basis of that, whether we could really risk leaving him in place and leaving those programmes in place, given the heightened risk post 9/11. Those were all very strong arguments, and I think it is worth recalling that.
It is also worth taking account of the hon. Gentleman’s other point. Who knows what would have happened if Saddam had still been in place at the time of the Arab spring, but it is quite possible to believe that his reactions to his own people would have been rather like the reactions of President Assad to his own people, which, I would argue, have perhaps done more to foment terrorism and cause extremism than anything else in the last decade.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
Today is a dark day for the United Kingdom Government, a tragic day for Iraq, and a desperate day for the families of our servicemen and women, who I know are watching today. War is not a sport. This should be a time for deep reflection and humility, throughout the Government and throughout the upper echelons of the military who advise the Government.
I pay tribute to those who fought, and to their families. They are the best of us, they are the true patriots, and they made the greatest possible sacrifice for the liberties that we enjoy in the House. Does the Prime Minister agree that we must ensure that how we say we want to look after these people and how we actually look after them are the same thing?
The Prime Minister
As ever on these matters, my hon. Friend speaks with great clarity. He is right to say that this is a moment for deep reflection. He is also right to say that as we think of our armed service personnel and those who serve, we should be proud of what they did. We should be proud of their bravery and their courage. They were obeying the command of this House, and serving in the way in which we would expect them to. My hon. Friend is right to think of it like that. He is also right to say that we must ensure that the promises of the armed services covenant are kept in reality as well as on paper.
ISIL in Syria
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I speak as someone who was a member of the military but has left. It seems to us that the Leader of the Opposition is making a fundamental point, namely that this is about national security. It is extremely difficult to deal with all the conflicting arguments and complex situations, but this comes down to national security, and the need to inhibit what these people are trying to do on the streets of this country.
Jeremy Corbyn
Yes, of course security on the streets of this country, in all our communities, is very important. That is why we have supported the Government’s action in no longer pursuing the strategy of cutting the police, and also increasing security in this country. Clearly, none of us wants an atrocity on the streets of this country. My borough was deeply affected by 7/7 in 2005—
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
We have heard a lot about the complexities around this very difficult question, so I stand with humility not to add any particularly clever intellectual insight into the debate, but to lay out very briefly my view—and I hope, by extension, the views of most of those whom we ask to conduct these operations—of what this means for our country and the choice we face tonight.
I feel very strongly about national security. I have seen the threats that we face with my own eyes and I have felt them with my own hands. We have a privileged way of life in this country, with a free democracy, a free-speech society, and a healthy economy. We are privileged for reasons too numerous to enter into now, but chiefly blessed because throughout our generations we have had men and women who believe so much in this nation that they have taken difficult political decisions, and some have even taken up arms and sacrificed everything, to protect this way of life. I have become worried of late that we have lost some of that spirit—something that makes us recognise the dangerous threat to this precious way of life and resolve to deal with it appropriately. We must always remember how privileged we are in the sea of humanity of which we are a part. We earned this privilege through the years, from generation to generation. We protected this gift, and it is time to protect it again.
We are under threat from a group of individuals who seek to destroy our very way of life in this country. They hate everything about us and work night and day to disrupt and kill us whenever the opportunity presents itself. This is not the Iraq problem of 2003.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that at the heart of this matter is that only last month one of our closest allies suffered the most horrific terrorist attack, that that same ally is asking us for military help, and that therefore quite the wrong message for us to send out would be simply to turn our back on one of our closest allies at this time?
Johnny Mercer
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I completely agree. This is a hugely complex issue and there are no easy answers, but I do think we are in danger of almost over-complicating what it is—a threat to our national security, the capability of individuals to project force into this country, and the duty we have to defend it. These individuals have demonstrated that they have strategic reach. They can reach into our homelands, into our communities and into our families, and destroy all that we hold dear.
I understand the avalanche of questions from colleagues, and I think that in the history of this House it would be impossible to find a Prime Minister who has done more to answer them. We will add to the mission in that part of the world militarily. We will operate in a way that will—not might, but will—accelerate—
Johnny Mercer
In a moment.
We will add to that mission because we operate in a way that will—not might, but will—accelerate the process of destroying the networks and individuals who operate against us. We have been doing that in Iraq; we must also do it in Syria, where they regenerate themselves. We will use weapons—I have used them myself—that are specifically designed to limit collateral damage while retaining pinpoint accuracy and lethality. They are better at this than anything else currently being used. We have been asked by our international partners to step up, and we must deliver on that.
Overlaying these technical arguments must surely be a greater calling that, in the relative comfort of the United Kingdom in 2015, we cannot neglect. We have a duty in this House to keep our nation safe. That involves a multi-faceted approach. We must do all we can to stabilise the instability through aid. We must ensure that our security and intelligence services have the resources and powers to act here at home to retain an effective goal line defence. We must train and mentor indigenous forces. We must do everything possible to stop the source of funds for terrorist organisations, however uncomfortable the conversations with those in the region may be. I have personally interrogated the Government’s response to the threat, and I am satisfied that we are doing all those things.
In our comfortable existence in this country of ours, we must also accept some uncomfortable truths. There are some—thankfully few, but a significant few—in this world who trade on man’s inhumanity to man. They use fear, religion and violence to promote nothing more and nothing less than their own self-interest and power. The so-called religion they proclaim is as far removed from Islam, a religion of peace, and from any Muslims I have ever known and lived among as it is possible to get.
In 2008, I wrote a reconciliation strategy towards tier 1 al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The truth then is as valid as it is today: this group of people will never be reconciled to the peaceful, democratic, equal society that they hate so much. They want to die. They want to kill all those who do not conform. Until they are killed they will not deviate from their path. Military action is therefore part of national security. As a society, we must get used to that in the barbaric world in which we now live. We cannot honestly say that we are doing all we can to our constituents at home if our full-spectrum response does not include military action.
Finally, I respect and to an extent understand those who disagree with me. We have made catastrophic mistakes of late, which have damaged our standing on the world stage, but they are done. They are history, and they cannot be changed. We must wear them and carry them as our burden. That is the least we owe to the families of the men and women we have lost in pursuit of such actions. Similarly, I understand those who think that some of us are too quick to call for action and seem to take every opportunity to engage militarily abroad. All I would say to them is that conducting such operations makes you less, not more, likely to want to do so again or to ask anybody else to do it for you unless it was absolutely necessary.
Today, I say to the House that this action is absolutely necessary: we must do all we can to keep our people safe. A part of that involves surgical foreign military engagement, and if we neglect that part, we cannot honestly say we are doing everything we can to keep our families safe. I am not prepared to go back to Plymouth tomorrow night and say to my constituents that I was fully aware of the threat that we face from this particular angle, but was not prepared to do everything possible to protect them from this threat.
National Security and Defence
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. With the threat to our hard-won freedoms as clear today as it has ever been, I welcome the Government’s efforts in the SDSR. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the ever-changing security and defence environment, our most critical asset remains our men and women who serve, and that within the framework of this SDSR looking after our men and women both during and after their service will be a priority not only for him personally, although I know it is now, but for his Government?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend, with his considerable experience, is absolutely right to say this. We can talk about all the equipment in the world, but at the heart of it are men and women who are prepared to serve and put their lives on the line for us, and they should be looked after. I think when he looks through this SDSR, he will see we are committed to doing that. Indeed, what we have done with the military covenant—putting it on a legal footing, passing it into law, improving its terms every year—means there will be help for people for the rest of their lives.
Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We are engaging. Our decision to take 20,000 people and our immense funding of the refugee camps will take the pressure off other European countries. I am not conflating those two things. Those who are part of Schengen have taken away all their internal border controls across Europe and they maintain their external border, so obviously the Schengen countries have to come together to work out what they are going to do about this migration crisis. We can be part of that—we help to fund Frontex and to secure the external border, and we are helping to break up the criminal gangs —but we have not decided to take our borders down, as they have, so we are not in the same position. I am not conflating the two; this is a really important point.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s statement, and may I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the operators and those who endure what we ask them to in order to execute these strikes? Does the Prime Minister agree that we now have to win the argument about dealing with ISIS? We have seen the tragic events over the past few months, and we must now use that momentum to push ahead, win this debate and deal with the core cause of this: ISIS and President Assad.
The Prime Minister
I commend my hon. Friend for what he has written and said about this, and I thank him for what he says now.
I believe that we will benefit if ISIL is degraded in Iraq and Syria. We are taking an active part in Iraq and helping in Syria; the question is, should we go further? I feel that one of the problems of the last debate was that many colleagues on both sides of the House said to me, “I simply felt I couldn’t vote for this action against Assad and chemical weapons because of what happened over Iraq.” I totally understand that, but we have now got to get over that and recognise that it is in our interests as a country for ISIL to be degraded and ultimately destroyed. We are playing a proud part, but I would like us to do more. Let us separate this from the issue of the Iraq war and act in our national interest now, with partners, to get rid of this dreadful terrorist organisation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Johnny Mercer Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
May I say how grateful I am to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue? Two of my constituents, Craig and Alison Richards, came to my surgery and raised it with me, and that is what caused me to become interested in it in the first place.
We have made some big breakthroughs. The national health service is doing much more screening and taking much more action to help those who potentially have the infection, although there are difficulties with national programmes because of the whole issue of anti-microbial resistance and the use of antibiotics. However, I am happy to take this opportunity to look into what has been achieved so far and what more can be done, and then write to the hon. Gentleman.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
In my constituency, where the average wage is far lower than the national average, cutting the taxes of the lowest paid and helping them to stand on their own two feet is the most effective poverty-tackling measure there is. Will the Prime Minister explain how the Conservatives will reward hard work and benefit those who earn the minimum wage, not only in Plymouth but throughout the country?
The Prime Minister
First, may I welcome my hon. Friend to this place and praise him for his maiden speech which moved all those who heard it or have subsequently read it? He is absolutely right that the best way to tackle poverty is to get people into work, then make sure that there is a decent minimum wage that rises over time, and then cut people’s taxes by taking those earning minimum wage out of income tax. Our plan to raise the personal allowance to £12,500 will make a real difference and I want to see progress on the minimum wage going on at the same time as that, but all the while we have to recognise that the absolute foundation is a growing economy that is producing jobs. Getting into work is the greatest way to combat poverty.