Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Priti Patel

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks and for the support she and other Members have given to all the people delivering aid in difficult, challenging locations. A political process is obviously under way, on which the Foreign Office is leading. As I mentioned in the statement, the Foreign Secretary has been engaging with Prime Minister al-Abadi and the Iraqi Government on the political side. Linked to that is the wider work on stabilisation, which has to be integrated at every level, including all aspects of state building, nation building and the building of democracy and civil society, as well as some of the most basic things for the functioning of a society, such as infrastructure and the delivery of public goods and services. A great deal of work has taken place across Government, involving the MOD, the FCO and DFID, through the stabilisation team and the combined teams. We are advocating a combined and integrated approach, and we have to work with the Iraqi Government, because ultimately they are responsible for delivery.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is quite right in what she has said, and I welcome her timely statement. I pay tribute not only to the compassion and humanitarian efforts of British citizens, but to the courage of our armed forces. On winning the peace, will my right hon. Friend undertake to work with the Home Office to ensure that British jihadists who return from Syria are properly de-radicalised, using a proper strategy, and that there will be the most draconian efforts to deal with those who are not de-radicalised, so that we can protect our constituents and our country?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. Everyone who returns, having been involved in the conflict, must be subject to the right kind of sanctions and be reviewed by the police to determine whether they have committed offences. He also raises an important point about our collective work across Government. Everything that DFID, the FCO, the MOD and the Home Office do to fight the forces of terrorism is done in our national interest. That is why our focus is on protecting not only those in Iraq and Syria who are subject to Daesh’s atrocities, but our citizens in this country, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Priti Patel

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

T2. My constituents in Peterborough who work at Thomas Cook and many families with young children will have been delighted by the announcement on children’s air passenger duty in last week’s autumn statement. Will the Exchequer Secretary give an undertaking that she will continue to monitor the impact of air passenger duty on tourism and the family budget and not rule out further cuts in the near future?

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Priti Patel)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The reductions in air passenger duty announced last week are to be welcomed not just by his constituents and by Thomas Cook but by hard-working families across the country. As with all other taxes, air passenger duty will be kept under review, taking into account our commitment to creating sustainable public finances alongside helping households and, of course, the tourism industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Priti Patel

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

When it comes to the cost of living, Labour’s great recession is what made the country and the hon. Gentleman’s constituents a whole lot poorer. We now have record levels of employment, including a 9% increase in his constituency. Perhaps he would like to welcome that.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

There are a great many studies and much empirical evidence showing that the surest way to combat poverty is through work. Is it not a badge of pride for this Government that in four years we have reduced the number of people in households where no one works by 671,000?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When it comes to tackling the country’s economic problems, we can improve living standards only by getting more people back into work. This Government have been reducing child poverty and ensuring that work pays.

National Referendum on the European Union

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Priti Patel

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to rise to support the motion tonight. The House will know that I am not a “usual suspect”. Loyalty to the Conservative party runs through my veins, having been a member for 26 years. Those on the Front Bench will know that, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) had his problems with grammar schools in 2007, I supported him. I also stood shoulder to shoulder with my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) in 2001 when he was performing his historic role of saving our currency from the single currency that was being foisted on our country. He was traduced, lied about, ridiculed and attacked, and that was just by people in our own party. He was vindicated, however, and we have yet to hear a substantive apology from many of the people who advocated joining the single currency.

It is more in sorrow than in anger that I vote for the motion tonight, because I support the Government and the fantastic work that they are doing on schools reform, on welfare reform and on getting down the appalling deficit left by the previous Labour Government. So I need no lectures on loyalty from some people. I defer to the Foreign Secretary, but I regret the unfortunate rhetoric that he used this morning about parliamentary graffiti. If I may be cynical, I fear that it has been a long road to Damascus from Richmond, Yorkshire, but I hope that I am wrong about that.

I say to my colleagues that we can have a proper, mature debate on the future. This is not like the theological, semi-religious schisms of the 1990s. There is a settled Eurosceptic consensus in our party, and we now need to think about where we are going and how we are going to get there. The motion is helpful. It would have given the Prime Minister the wind behind his back. It is flexible, and it does not seek to fetter discretion. It is most certainly not a “better off out” motion. We could have had a well-informed, reasonable debate between the respective positions.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful, personal statement to the House on his position on the motion. Does he agree that the public want to see less Europe and more Britain, and that the only way to achieve that is through supporting the motion and giving the British public a democratic vote on our future relationship with the EU?

[Mr Jackson]

I could not have put it better myself.

Hon. Members have made the point that a person has to be over 54 years of age to have had the opportunity to take part in a plebiscite on our future in Europe. If we can have a referendum on fiscal powers for Wales, on the north-east Assembly, on Scotland, Northern Ireland, Greater London government and other issues, why can we not have one on one of the most important philosophical differences about our approach to the European Union in a whole generation? It is not right.