Croydon City Status Bid

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make the case for Croydon to be granted city status. Before I begin, let me apologise to the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), for detaining him here in Westminster when he would obviously prefer to be on his way to the constituency that he serves with such distinction. I know that, in replying to my speech, he will not be able to comment on the merits or otherwise of my case. The decision is ultimately one for Her Majesty. I know too that he has already replied to other debates attended by hon. Members representing what I would argue are less well qualified towns, so I hope that it is some consolation that he did not have to prepare a fresh speech for today’s debate.

Croydon is not just the town that I represent in the House; it is my home. My parents moved there when I was a few months old and I have lived there ever since. Perverse as it may sound to those who know Croydon by reputation only, I cannot think of a better place to live. It is part of the greatest city in the world, but it is also a city, in all but name at the moment, in its own right. It is 15 minutes from central London and on the doorstep of the beautiful north downs. It has great schools, libraries, shops, theatres, restaurants and bars, a rich history and above all a wonderful mix of people who have come from all over the world to make the place their home.

I have had the privilege of representing Croydon in this House only for just over a year. I am, therefore, as they would say in America, very much the junior MP for Croydon. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and the right hon. Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) have both represented the town for nearly 20 years. Neither is able to be here today, but they have both asked me to put on the record their support for the case that I am making.

Over the summer, Croydon has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. One month ago yesterday, a few hundred people, many of them, it is now clear, not from Croydon, looted businesses and set fire to historic buildings along London road and the Purley way, and in Old Town, south Croydon and New Addington. Of course, we were not the only part of the United Kingdom to witness such behaviour, but many will long remember the images of that night: the House of Reeves furniture story burning, and Monika Konczyk jumping from a first-floor window were images of my town.

The damage—the historic buildings that were destroyed, the blow to the town's reputation or the simple knowledge that living among us are a tiny minority who chose to do such things to their own town—cannot be undone, but set against that damage are the positives that have emerged from the ashes at Reeves Corner and on the London road: the thousands of people who helped with the clean-up or gave money to help businesses to rebuild; the dedication of the public servants who have housed the homeless, put out the fires, identified the guilty and brought them to justice; the way in which our courts have reflected public sentiment that a clear message has to be sent to those responsible; and above all, the renewed sense of pride in our town, that this is our home, that it has a lot going for it and that we will not less the wreckers win.

That is why I am here today. If the granting of city status were just an ego boost for the local council, it would not be worth fighting for, but that is not what this is about. It is about getting long overdue recognition of Croydon's true status and, even more important, about raising its profile and giving the town a much needed boost as we rebuild.

So what is our case? The Department for Culture, Media and Sport website is wonderfully vague about the grounds on which Her Majesty will make the decision. It points out that city status has never

“been a right to be claimed by places fulfilling a list of criteria”,

but it does refer to age, history and associations with royalty, so I will start there.

Croydon sits in a valley between the Crystal Palace escarpment and the northern slopes of the north downs. There is evidence that the valley was inhabited during the bronze age, with a barrow on the top of Croham Hurst, and that it was occupied in Roman times, but the name Croydon is almost certainly of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning “valley of the crocus”. It is due south of London and just north of a natural gap in the north downs, and hence it became a natural stopping off point on the route from London to the south coast.

In 871, the King granted Aethelred, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a charter for land in what is now Old Town and that began a long association between Croydon and the See of Canterbury. The Domesday Book records Archbishop Lanfranc as the lord of the manor in 1086, which then consisted of a church, a mill and 365 people. In 1276, King Edward I granted a charter for a weekly market and that spurred the development of the town. By the 16th century, the manor house had become a large palace that was the summer residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury. A number of monarchs, including Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary and Elizabeth I, are known to have visited the palace.

In 1781, the palace was sold—parts of it survive today as Old Palace of John Whitgift school—and a new palace was built at Addington, whose grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown. That continued as the summer home of Archbishops until 1898. In total, 11 Archbishops are buried in Croydon, either in Greater London's only minster, next to the old palace, or at St Mary's church in Addington village.

Archbishop John Whitgift left a particular mark on the town. He petitioned Elizabeth I for permission to set up a hospital and school for the “poor, needy and impotent”. In 1599, the hospital of the Holy Trinity was completed and it survives today at the centre of the town as the almhouses, run by a charitable foundation named after John Whitgift which also runs three schools, a residential home and a nursing home. I should declare an interest: I am a governor of that charity. Her Majesty visited the almshouses on 21 June 1983.

The spur for the transformation of Croydon from small Surrey market town to the heart of south London, which is what it is today, was the development of the railways. In 1803, the Surrey Iron railway from Wandsworth to Croydon opened; it was the world’s first public railway. It was followed by the London and Croydon railway linking London Bridge and West Croydon in 1831, and the London, Brighton and South Coast railway in 1860. That led to a population explosion with a 23-fold increase in population between 1801 and 1901 and Croydon’s incorporation as a borough in 1883.

Croydon also played a key role in the development of air travel. It was home to London’s main airport from 1920 until 1952 and was the first place in the world to use air traffic control. Amy Johnson embarked on her historic solo flight to Australia from Croydon. The town also played a key role in world war two. Croydon airport was the target of the first German raid on the capital, and it was from Croydon—Kenley airfield in the south of the borough and Biggin Hill just over the border in what is now Bromley—that “the few” took to the skies to defend our country during its “darkest hour.” The town suffered substantial damage in the war and afterwards twinned with Arnhem in Holland, which had suffered similarly during Operation Market Garden. The 1950s and 1960s was a time of great rebuilding, with skyscrapers, a flyover and an underpass leading to the “mini-Manhattan” nickname and giving the town its current form and character.

There is much more to Croydon than many people know, therefore: Anglo-Saxon origins and a strong association with the See of Canterbury and royalty, as well as being a key location in the development of the railways and aviation, and playing an important role in the second world war. Being a city, however, is about more than just having a rich history. The “Oxford English Dictionary” tells us that a city is:

“A title ranking above that of ‘town’.”

Although a few places that have been granted city status in the past are fairly small today, most cities have large populations. On that test, Croydon is clearly best qualified of all the applicants. It is home to more than 340,000 people—more than in Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry, Newcastle, Nottingham or Southampton. Indeed, of the 66 existing UK cities, only nine have a larger population than Croydon. It is as big as Bilbao or Nice; indeed, we believe it to be the largest town in the whole of western Europe.

People also think of cities as commercial hubs, and Croydon has more than 8 million square feet of office space and more than 10,000 employers. It is home to dozens of blue-chip companies, including Nestlé, Mott MacDonald, BT, Barclays and AIG, and the local authority has the fifth highest business rate yield in the country. That gives some feel of the scope of the business centre.

Croydon is also a huge transport hub. There are 17 main line stations in the borough. The key station is East Croydon, from which there are 27 million journeys annually, making it the fourth busiest station in the country outside central London. Croydon is within a 15-minute journey of the west end and the City of London, and has excellent connections to Gatwick airport and the south coast by rail. Under our Mayor of London, the East London line extension was recently completed, adding Croydon to the tube map and giving excellent connections to the docklands. Croydon is also set apart from some of the other applicants, in that it is a transport hub in a number of ways. The tram system that was opened in 2000 connects large areas of south London, with Croydon at the hub, and there are more than 28 million journeys a year on that network. In short, it is one of the best connected places in the country, with a similar number of people coming into Croydon each day to work as the number commuting out to London.

Another characteristic that one expects of a city is that it is a public services hub. There are more than 155 schools in the borough, including some outstanding state schools such as Coloma and the Harris Academy in Crystal Palace, which was one of the first city technology colleges. There are also some outstanding independent schools. I referred earlier to the Whitgift Foundation and its three schools, Whitgift, Trinity and Old Palace. There is also the Al-Khair school, a high-performing Islamic school. There is the BRIT school of performing arts, too, whose graduates include Adele, Amy Winehouse, Jessie J, Katie Melua and Leona Lewis. Croydon College is one of largest further education colleges in the south-east, and is shortly hoping to open a university centre so that young people in south London can get a degree from the University of Sussex while studying at home and paying tuition fees well below the level that many universities are now charging. We have an excellent hospital in Croydon university hospital and the third busiest public library in the UK.

Another feature that marks out cities is outstanding leisure facilities. Indeed, the Government guidelines say:

“Ministers take the view that the places to be honoured with city status…should have supplied convincing evidence of their ability to welcome people into their areas and to provide, promote or facilitate access to a wide variety of places, activities and events.”

Croydon is home to Fairfield halls, one of the best concert halls in the country. Fairfield halls is the home of the London Mozart players, an outstanding chamber orchestra whose patron is His Royal Highness Prince Edward. A mark of the repute of the concert hall is the fact that over the past five years, people have purchased tickets from Fairfield halls from all but two of the main postcodes across the United Kingdom. This is not just a local venue for people in south London but one that people from across the country frequent. We also have the Warehouse theatre, which puts on its own shows and has an annual playwright festival. Croydon is the home of dubstep music, a new genre of music that was created there.

We also have outstanding green spaces, parks and open spaces. Ten parks in Croydon have been awarded the prestigious green flag award and the Royal Horticultural Society recently voted us the UK’s greenest “large city”. In sports, Croydon is home to Crystal Palace football club—south London’s greatest team—although at the moment, sad to say, that is not necessarily the greatest accolade. Surrey county cricket club play some of their games at Whitgift school and just on our border we have Crystal Palace national sports centre.

There is more than 2.5 million square feet of prime retail space in the town, £1 billion of annual retail turnover and more than 800 restaurants, bars and clubs. On all the tests of the town’s being a hub for retail, employment, transport and public services, Croydon clearly passes.

Another test for a city is a thriving voluntary sector. There are several thousand voluntary groups in Croydon and some 50,000 people give time as volunteers each year. I want to take a moment to name a few of the groups that are active in my part of the town and that do a wonderful job. We have a huge range of local residents’ associations but I want to single out in particular the work done by “People for Portland Road” for the community in south London and the new pathfinders group that has been set up to take forward the regeneration of New Addington.

There are also all sorts of service-based local voluntary groups. Like many towns, we have a thriving Crossroads group and a week on Sunday I will be doing a walk around my constituency boundaries to try to raise some money for that excellent charity, which provided outstanding help to my family when my father was sick with Alzheimer’s disease. There are also many voluntary groups that support the diverse communities we have in our town. I recently had the pleasure of going to the annual celebrations of the Kerala cultural and welfare association, which provides support to the strong Keralese community in our borough.

One clue that the Government’s guidelines give is that the successful applicant should have a “vibrant, welcoming community”. Croydon clearly passes that test. People from all over the world have chosen to make it their home, nearly 40% of the population is from a black or minority ethnic community and more than 100 languages are spoken in the borough. All of the world’s major faiths are practised in the town. What was until recently Croydon parish church, which was rebuilt in 1870 by the great Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, was recently dedicated as Greater London’s only minster in recognition of the wider role the church plays not just in Croydon parish but across south London. There is also Croydon masjid and Islamic centre and several other mosques, several Hindu temples, a synagogue and Croydon gurdwara.

Croydon has more young people than any other London borough and it is home to people of all backgrounds, with some of London’s most deprived neighbourhoods and also, in the Webb estate and Shirley Hills, some of its most expensive housing. There is a sharp contrast among the northern districts of Norbury, South Norwood and Thornton Heath, with their densely packed Victorian and Edwardian residential streets, the southern areas of Shirley, Selsdon, Sanderstead, Purley, Kenley and Coulsdon with their commuter-belt semi-detached and detached homes, and the town of New Addington, which I am hugely proud to represent, built on top of the north downs after the second world war as homes for returning heroes.

Taken together, these four factors make Croydon a diverse, vibrant place to live which is, or has been, home to people such as business man Sir Philip Green, model Kate Moss, artist Tracey Emin, film director Sir David Lean, composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor, footballer Ian Wright, Wilfred Wood, Britain’s first black bishop, and a former Speaker of this House, Lord Weatherill, who represented Croydon for 28 years with great distinction. People often talk about the country, or parts of it, being tolerant, but toleration is not the right word in this context. I do not tolerate the fact that people have come from all over the world to make it their home—I celebrate it and think it is one of the great strengths of our town.

As well as having a lot going for them, cities often also have problems—urban living is not perfect. Most cities around the world have issues that need to be addressed and the same is true of our town. We suffer from congestion, and recent events a month ago demonstrated the problems of gang culture that we need to tackle as a community. Also, much of our 1950s and 1960s architecture and urban planning is now in need of renewal. The council has great plans in place to address all those problems, but it is important to put them on the record.

I hope it is clear from what I have said thus far that Croydon is a city in all but name and that if it were not a part of London it would formally have been made one years ago. It is on this rock that past bids for city status have failed. We are part of London so how can we apply to be a city ourselves? Let me make it clear to my hon. Friend that this bid is not a declaration of independence from London. We are proud to be part of our great capital city, but we also believe that we are more than just a suburb of London: we are a city in our right within the world’s greatest city. London already has two cities—the City of London and the City of Westminster—and it seems to me that there is no reason why it cannot have a third. The Mayor of London agrees. He says:

“My ambition for London to continue to dominate world enterprise would certainly be furthered by the addition of a third city, and having this at the heart of south London would bring much needed investment south of the river Thames”.

We believe that we meet the key test in the Government guidelines of having a “distinct identity”. Look out on south London from the top of the Crystal Palace escarpment and Croydon literally stands out. It is a hub for south London and the near south-east—a city in its own right on the edge of a larger city, similar to Jersey city’s relationship with New York.

That then is our case. Croydon is rich in history, is larger than most existing cities and is a centre for employment, shopping, public services and leisure facilities. It is one of the best connected places in the country and is a vibrant place that is home to people from all over the world with a strong sense of community. It is not without problems but is brimming with potential; it is part of the world’s greatest city but is clearly a city in its own right. On 17 August, His Royal Highness Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall visited the town to see the damage done by rioters, and their visit was deeply appreciated. Early next year, Her Majesty will have the chance to help us in our recovery by recognising my home town for what it is—London’s third city.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. These are services that rely on public subsidy, and that information is incredibly valuable and capable of providing enormous benefit to the users of public transport. It can drive more passengers on to public transport, which we all want, so it is in not only the public interest but the operators’ interest to make such data available.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

T5. Further to our meeting in May, may I ask my right hon. Friend what progress has been made with the relocation of part of the central Government estate from central London?

[Mr Maude]

At this stage we are concentrating on simply reducing the footprint of the Government’s property estate, which was allowed to grow massively out of control under the last Government because there were no controls whatever. Rather than looking to relocate, at this stage we are simply looking to reduce what the Government occupy. I know that Croydon, which my hon. Friend represents vigorously, is a very good location out of central London for Government services to operate from.

Public Disorder

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady speaks very powerfully for Lewisham and her constituency, and also on this issue, on which frankly everyone has responsibilities —not just Members of Parliament, the police and parents, but media companies and social media companies that are displaying those images. All of them should think about their responsibilities and about taking down those images. That is why the Home Secretary is going to have meetings with those organisations to see what more can be done.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Two of the shocking images that the Prime Minister referred to in his statement took place in my constituency. May I thank him for coming to Croydon on Tuesday? Yesterday and the day before, my constituents finally got to see the kind of policing—in terms of visibility and robustness—that they want to see every day. Can he reassure me and my constituents that we will see not just a temporary change in police tactics and visibility, but a permanent one?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he did to introduce me to some of the affected shopkeepers and home owners in his constituency, some of whom have been made homeless. I can give him that assurance, because—as I have said—one of the things that has been demonstrated in the last few days is the importance of surging police numbers quickly. There are 32,000 officers in the Met, and having just 3,000 on the streets on Sunday and 6,000 on Monday was not enough. That is why action was taken to increase the numbers and I am sure that lessons will be learned in that regard.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Chancellor has many bright ideas and he and I discuss many things, but in the end I never seek to shuffle off my responsibilities. This was my decision and I am accountable for it.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

One of the Leader of the Opposition’s main charges in his statement was that the commissioner did not tell the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister about the appointment of Neil Wallis because of the position of Andy Coulson. Ten minutes later, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) said that when he was Home Secretary, he was not informed about the appointment either. Does that not blow the Leader of the Opposition’s argument out of the water?

[The Prime Minister]

Even from Nigeria I could follow the Home Secretary’s excellent statement in which she made precisely that point, referring to the point made by the former Home Secretary. I think that that blows away part of the Leader of the Opposition’s flimsy case.

Phone Hacking

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That needs to be part of the police inquiry, never mind the inquiry that is about to start under Judge Leveson. There is a police inquiry now into what went wrong at the News of the World, how much hacking took place, who was hacked and who knew. All those questions need to be answered by the police, and it is a full-on police inquiry, not the rather thin inquiry that happened before.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

On the issue of transparency about meetings between politicians and media proprietors and executives, will my right hon. Friend go further than the Leader of the Opposition suggested and go back not just to the last election, but to the previous Government, so that my constituents can see what people on both sides of the House have been up to in the past?

[The Prime Minister]

We will look at the issue of transparency and how best to put it into the ministerial code, and consider what is right and fair. The inquiry will be able to look at contacts over a period to try to see what went wrong in the relationship.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

The draft Bill before us is not the solution to a 100-year-old problem, but it might be the precursor to many new problems being introduced into British politics. From it could spill unintended consequences: first, that the upper Chamber will become a less good scrutinising body; and, secondly, that the primacy of this Chamber will be fatally undermined.

The Bill assumes that the upper House’s composition should be decided predominantly by universal suffrage. I was struck by what the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) said. The reductio ad absurdum is that if this concept of closing a democratic deficit by having a universal suffrage franchise is adopted, it could result in the election of a head of state. I do not think that any Conservative Members are interested in that, but that is what we are dealing with.

The Bill’s proponents seem to be saying that because universal suffrage is good enough for this Chamber it must be good enough for the upper Chamber, but the upper Chamber does something radically different. It revises, it amends, it delays Bills to make us think again in extreme cases, and it has no control over money Bills. Because of its very nature, however, that revising Chamber requires a different set of talents.

We heard eloquent speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and others about the unique contribution that men and women with skill, experience and expertise bring to the process of revising and amending measures that we send them in order to make them better. I know many individuals with such talent and experience who speak and revise well in the upper Chamber, and they would not stand for election. Distinguished medics, Nobel prize winners and members of the arts community would simply not put themselves through the process.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Ruffley]

I will, very briefly.

[Gavin Barwell]

I have a great deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend is saying. I have had a chance to review all the appointments to the House of Lords since the general election. What proportion does my hon. Friend believe to fall into that category of independent-minded people who have never stood for election and have no party-political involvement?

[Mr Ruffley]

So many people are being appointed nowadays that I would not hazard a percentage, but I will deal with the point about nominations later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I start by warmly endorsing that suggestion, although I am afraid that a referendum would result in the triumph of hope over experience? I fear that the knowledge that this proposed reform of the House of Lords to a primarily elected or all-elected Chamber would not get past a referendum ensures that no referendum will be offered to the British people.

I have been trying to think of what I might contribute to this debate that has not been said before and that might not be repeated subsequently, and in the end I have come up with a little personal experience, which I hope the House will indulge me in discussing. It has often been my silent boast to myself that I did far more in affecting legislation before I became a Member of Parliament than I have managed subsequently. In fact, I have only once managed to affect legislation going on to the statute book since I was elected to this House in 1997, and that was over the issue of MPs’ home addresses not being made public in response to freedom of information requests. I was able to win that change only because the then Labour Government had the decency to give the House a free vote.

I influenced legislation on three occasions prior to becoming a Member of this House, however, thanks to the House of Lords and the way in which it functions. The first of the three occasions was to do with the Trade Union Bill of 1984. The then Thatcher Government did not propose to make postal ballots for trade union elections compulsory. The issue was passionately raised in the House by Conservative Back Benchers, and most prominently by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh)—who was in the Chamber until very recently but has sadly slipped out just at the wrong moment—but their arguments were brushed aside. In the House of Lords, however, an amendment that trade unions should conduct their elections by postal ballot rather than the raising of hands in unrepresentative branch ballots was discussed in great depth and at great length, and that amendment was carried on the strength of the argument. Of course, there was no question of that surviving into legislation without the agreement of the democratically elected lower House. Precisely because Members in the upper House had recognised the strength of the argument and had taken the trouble to amend the Bill, when it came back to the lower House, although the Government did not accept the amendment in full, they at least made a determination that trade union postal ballots should become the norm. In subsequent years they did not become the norm, however, so in 1988 that measure was brought in against that test, which would not have been in place but for the intervention of the upper House. Subsequently, trade union postal ballots were made compulsory in the 1988 Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough has now returned to the Chamber, having just missed my recent reference to him.

The second campaign was to do with the fact that in the 1980s many ideological disputes and divides were finding their way into the school classroom. Once again, we could not get an amendment considered seriously in the lower House, but it was taken very seriously in the upper House. The Bill that became the Education Act 1986 was amended in the upper House to ensure that political issues were raised in the classroom in a balanced and responsible way. When the Bill returned to this Chamber, the amendment’s merit was recognised and it was kept.

Finally, the same thing happened with the Bill that became the Broadcasting Act 1990. Questions of due impartiality for politically controversial subjects were enshrined in law as a result of changes made in the upper House.

The whole point is that in the upper House there are not only experts but people who can make changes to Bills that would be whipped out of existence if they were introduced in the lower House. If we go down the road of having a fully elected upper House, we will simply increase the number of Members of Parliament by a total of 300. They will be whipped in that place in the same way as they are in this place and the prospects of their being able to make changes that will survive the process in the democratic lower House will be lost.

[Gavin Barwell]

I am partly giving my hon. Friend an opportunity to finish his argument in the time allowed to answer my intervention, but I also ask him to consider the model in the draft Bill, which is 80% elected and 20% appointed. That does not seem, at least from the study I have done of the appointments since 2010, to be that different from the ratio in the upper House at the moment between political appointees and those who might be classified as independent experts. Why does he think there is a danger with the 80:20 model?

[Dr Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, which was made by Lord Ashdown in his article in The Times. He said:

“As for wisdom versus democracy, well I concede that there is a reservoir of expertise in the Lords.”

He went on to say that

“maybe we should preserve this 20% if they are independently appointed”,

much though he would prefer to follow the 100% model.

On the question of experts, nobody is denigrating the potential expertise of people who become party political professionals when they enter this House. I am not saying that the average level of intelligence or articulateness in this House, whatever people might think, is lower than the average level of the same qualities in the other House, but the fact remains that those of us who chose in our 30s or 40s to become professional politicians gave up the chance of reaching the pinnacles of expertise that we might have reached if we followed other careers. If we make the proposed change, we will find that people who reach the pinnacles of their profession will no longer be part of the legislative process and that will be our loss.

European Council

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We did not discuss that specific issue at the European Council, but I speak regularly to the leaders of both those countries. I praise them for the huge commitment they have made—not just in men and matériel, as it were, but in the political commitment to garnering support in the Arab world for keeping up pressure on Gaddafi. I think that what the Qataris and Emiratis have done has been absolutely superb.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

My constituents will warmly welcome what the Prime Minister said about asylum, given that anyone who wants to claim asylum in the UK has to do so in person in my constituency. Is it not true that under this Government the trend of applications to the UK is going down while in other countries it is going up, and that if we allowed people to choose where in the EU to apply, that trend would reverse overnight?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why the Dublin regulation is so important, because it enables us to return people who claim asylum in the UK to another safe country. As the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said, many of the people breaking into Europe’s borders do not want to stay in the first country they get to—they are trying to come to the UK. We need to be wise about this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

T3. Just 30,000 of the 5.5 million British citizens living overseas are registered to vote. What plans do the Government have to make it easier for them to register and to lengthen the election timetable so that those who do register can vote by post?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think there is a strong case for lengthening the election timetable to address that issue. We are looking at the matter in detail and will come forward with proposals as soon as we can.

Counter-terrorism

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The whole point of the Cobra meeting last night was to review the evidence and concerns about potential retaliatory attacks. Clearly, we have to be on our guard across the world against attacks, whether they be here in the UK or on British assets or embassies in any other part of the world. We keep the threat picture permanently updated and keep permanently under review the advice we give to our embassies and the stance we take here. Certainty is never possible in these matters, but we try to be as vigilant as we can be.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said that our objectives in Afghanistan remain unchanged. Does he believe that the death of bin Laden might allow us to achieve those objectives more quickly and hasten the day when our servicemen and women can come home?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think it should automatically change our timetable; I think we should stick to that timetable. As I said, however, as well as the military track we are pursuing, there is also the political track of encouraging the Taliban into a political process. I would think that that will be helped by the fact that bin Laden is no more, as the futility of maintaining the link with al-Qaeda is seen. If the Taliban sever that link, there is every prospect of a political settlement, which prospect can clearly lead to British forces coming home. I do not think we should imagine that the timetable will be different, but we should work hard to take every opportunity brought about by the end of bin Laden.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 March.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to Private Dean Hutchinson from 9 Regiment the Royal Logistic Corps and Private Robert Wood from 17 Port and Maritime Regiment the Royal Logistic Corps. They were killed in a fire at Camp Bastion on Monday 14 February. Their service for the safety of the British people will not be forgotten and we send our deepest condolences to their families, friends and colleagues.

I am sure that the whole House will also wish to join me in sending our deepest sympathies to the people of New Zealand and to all those who lost loved ones, including, sadly, at least four British citizens, in the earthquake last week. We have sent two teams of experts to provide whatever assistance they can.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in the House I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Gavin Barwell]

I am sure that the whole House will, indeed, wish to associate itself with the Prime Minister’s remarks in relation both to our brave servicemen and to the people of New Zealand.

Despite the urgent need to reduce the deficit, the Government took the right decision not just to protect but to increase the overseas aid budget. What capacity does that give us to respond to the urgent humanitarian situation on the Libyan border?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that in spite of the difficult decisions we have to take, it is right to keep increasing the aid budget. Sadly, what is happening on the Egyptian and Tunisian borders with Libya shows how important that decision is. As the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said last night, there are serious implications of a growing humanitarian crisis. The information is that some 162,000 people have crossed the land border so far. We have sent technical Department for International Development teams to both the borders and yesterday we flew in tents for 1,500 people and blankets for 36,000 people. I can tell the House that today we are launching a UK operation to airlift several thousand people back to Egypt from the Libyan-Tunisian border, with the first flight scheduled to leave the UK later today. It is vital to do this; those people should not be kept in transit camps if it is possible to take them back to their home. I am glad that Britain can play such an important part in doing that.