Ceasefire in Gaza

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

First I am going to take the other member of the Procedure Committee, then I will come back to the point raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn).

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On such a serious debate and topic and on a personal note from me, having given Mr Speaker a great deal of support in his election to the House on the basis that we were going to have a fresh start and that the conventions that govern our proceedings would not be meddled with to seek one particular political view at any one time, I am hugely disappointed by what has transpired. We as a House are not showing ourselves to the country as anywhere near our best or what we are capable of. I wonder if you can advise me on the nature of the early-day motion tabled in my name and those of a number of my colleagues, which will appear live at the close of proceedings today, and on whether those in receipt of Government payroll are by convention eligible to sign such an early-day motion?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I imagine the SNP Chief Whip wants to add to what has already been said on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Because of Standing Order No. 31, I am bound to take the Labour party amendment first and then move on to the SNP motion. That is all the advice that I have received, and I am sure when the hon. Lady—

[Mr Wragg]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163).

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Will the Serjeant at Arms investigate the delay in the Lobbies?

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) hon. Friend misspoke; it was the Communities Secretary.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry—that is probably my fault. At first we had the Communities Secretary, then we had the Foreign Secretary. Whoever it is, I am sure they will be on this immediately, unless Mr Blunt wants to be more specific.

Point of Order

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As my right hon. Friend prayed me in aid during his point of order, let me simply say that this is news to me, as Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I can certainly inform the House that the Committee has never received the data in any simple form, such as the questions that were asked and the answers that were received.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for giving me notice of his point of order. Although the Chair is not responsible for decisions by the Government about the publication of information, if a Member has been told that information will be made available by a particular date, I would expect that commitment to be met. Knowing him as I do, I am sure that the right hon. Member will be assiduous in pursuing this matter, for example through parliamentary questions, and I hope he will receive helpful responses.

As for the point from the Chair of the Committee, I suspect that he may go back and request further information, but that is entirely up to him and his Committee.

International Aid: Treasury Update

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me advance notice of it. No, I cannot ask the Government to withdraw the motion and the business statement that has been agreed to, but I do share his disappointment that the document has not been made available before the debate after next. I hope that it will be fed back from those on the Treasury Bench that the Minister should address the issue in her opening remarks in the debate.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have recently been on a four-colleague call with the Care Minister where she confirmed to us that the said impact assessment would not be made available until after the debate. That strikes me as a rather back-to-front approach. I just provide that clarity to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that clarity. It is what we rather suspected, and what I was trying to hint at, in that it was not going to be ready but the Minister would address that in her remarks when she opens the debate.

Covid-19: Government Transparency and Accountability

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wragg]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, and the short answer is no. If the Government were to express the view that these are arbitrary decisions made because this is a difficult situation, that would be a more honest approach than vague references to following the science without bringing forward the evidence to underpin decisions. He hits the nail exactly on the head. I try to say this without sarcasm, which is a great effort for me, but we are surely driven by the data, and not dates.

The report also notes that local leaders did not always have access to the data that they needed to respond quickly at the height of the pandemic. As such, we recommend that going forward, the Government must share all available data with local areas in as much detail as possible, and ideally to patient level. Data that will be key to decision making on the road map should be shared immediately, and the road map indicators should be added to the dashboard with clear links to the data at lower local authority level underpinning each one.

Changing the topic slightly before I conclude, the Committee is now inquiring into the vexed proposal of covid vaccine certification or, indeed, wider covid status certification. The evidence we have heard so far reinforces the importance of transparency and accountability of data, as we highlighted in the report. Before the considerable ethical and legal issues about vaccine certification proposals are even taken into account, the purpose and effect of such certificates must be understood and the data and evidence underlying such a proposal set out. That means that the data needs to be made clear on issues such as transmissibility after vaccination, especially when considering implementing what we heard would be a permanent solution for what may well be a temporary problem.

I should say that I am pro-vaccination. I believe it is for the individual to decide whether they wish to take it. I would encourage them to do so and, indeed, when it is my turn—I am younger than I look, although perhaps not younger than I act—I shall indeed take the vaccine.

I will leave the House with one statistic, which I saw on the pages of The Daily Telegraph yesterday. It is that just 32 of some 74,000 hospitalised with covid between September and March had been vaccinated at least three weeks before. If we can get hold of more recent data than that, we will be proving that we can have confidence in the vaccine to deal with the worst aspects of this horrendous pandemic and that we can look forward to unlocking society, regaining our freedoms and allowing this country to move forward. I look forward to hearing the contributions of hon. and right hon. Members this afternoon.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the next speaker, I emphasise that we have two debates this afternoon and a number of Back-Bench colleagues wish to speak. To save me having to put a time limit on, it would be helpful if speeches were confined to around five minutes. That will enable everybody to get in.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My apologies to the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) for not being able to give them prior notice of my point of order because they were on telling duty. I was concerned, at the calling of that Division, that the advent of face masks in the Chamber may have disguised a member or two of the Opposition Whips Office shouting opposition to their own motion, thus rendering redundant the idea that the vote should follow the voice. Could you advise me further on that, Madam Deputy Speaker?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order. Nothing disorderly has happened. There was a shout of “Aye” and a shout of “No”, and Tellers were put in when I put the question again. I am sure that he is not questioning my judgment. Nothing disorderly has happened, and the vote took place in the proper manner.

I will now suspend the House for three minutes in order to enable the arrangements necessary for the next business to be made.

Covid-19 Pandemic: Government Response

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and William Wragg

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.

On behalf of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, I am grateful for the opportunity to present our report on a public inquiry into the response to the covid-19 pandemic. I begin by expressing my gratitude to those who contributed to the report. In particular, I am indebted to our witnesses, who gave their time to the Committee in contributing evidence, including Emma Norris, Dr Alastair Stark, Jason Beer QC, Lord Butler of Brockwell, Sir Robert Francis, QC, Dame Una O’Brien and Baroness Prashar of Runnymede, as well as those who submitted written evidence to the inquiry. I also thank my fellow Committee members and indeed extend my thanks to the excellent Committee staff who worked at pace to help produce the report.

As we are all painfully aware, covid-19 has had and continues to have a profound impact on our lives, from those who work in our health and social care sectors to those who have sadly been bereaved. It is therefore important that a thorough inquiry is conducted.

Public inquiries have been a routine part of the UK’s political landscape, and they are now customary following major public incidents and crises. For that reason, it is welcome that at yesterday’s Liaison Committee meeting, the Prime Minister again committed to establishing a public inquiry into the Government’s response to the pandemic. However, at present there is little guidance about exactly how or when such an inquiry will be established.

From the time of their announcement, inquiries can take several weeks or even months before they begin gathering evidence. Chairs and panels need to be appointed, inquiry staff recruited, budgets established, IT procured and terms of reference decided, all of which is currently done without any official guidance. Even if the inquiry is launched immediately, it is unlikely to begin its evidence gathering much before the end of the year. For that reason, we recommend that the Government take immediate steps towards launching the inquiry. The Committee is confident that combating the spread of covid-19 and launching an inquiry into the Government’s responses thus far are not mutually exclusive ends.

The Committee also believes that there is a need for clarity about the primary purpose of any inquiry. To date, inquiries have served to establish facts, apportion blame, pass judgments, perhaps all under the umbrella of holding decision makers to account. Determining the purpose is important, not only because it dictates much of the substance of the inquiry but because it should also decide the way in which the inquiry is organised. As things stand, there is no fixed configuration and whether there is a quasi-legal construction—often chaired by a judge making extensive use of statutory powers—or chairs with no legal authority but considerable policy expertise remains uncertain.

Although mistakes will inevitably have been made in handling the pandemic response, the report recommends that the inquiry should be forward-looking, with the primary purpose of appreciating where and why mistakes were made and ensuring that similar events can be handled better in future. To do that, an understanding of the decisions taken and the reasons for them will be needed, but we are clear that the inquiry should not solely be a hunt for somebody to blame. While that may mean that some important issues are excluded from the inquiry, Parliament is able to set out its plans to cover which information is omitted. That will allow the public inquiry to focus on the issues with which it has been tasked and those who are impacted by the wider issues to understand how and when they can contribute to the lessons learned.

The report stresses the importance of the inquiry’s chair. At present, the remit and holder of the chair is decided by a Minister on an ad hoc basis without reference to established procedure, yet it is the Committee’s belief that the significance of the chair who conducts the inquiry is such that the usual ad hoc process is not appropriate and that greater transparency is needed. The appointing Minister should be able to demonstrate that proper consultation and deliberation has been conducted before the appointment is made. We also suggest that the appointment should be subject to a pre-commencement hearing with the relevant Select Committee, given the high level of parliamentary interest in the inquiry.

Yet of course the chair cannot succeed alone, and every chair should be supported by an equally capable panel. That is particularly important in an inquiry into the Government’s response to a multifaceted pandemic, for which the panel can supplement the chair’s skills and expertise with their own. However, there is a balance to be struck between increasing the range of expertise represented on the panel and the need to have a panel small enough to function effectively. Again, greater transparency is needed on how the panel is appointed.

Concern has also been raised about the authority to bring an inquiry. Under the Inquiries Act 2005, the Government of the United Kingdom can establish a joint inquiry, but we are concerned that a single inquiry would not see devolved matters receiving sufficient attention. That matter is exacerbated by the fact that we cannot make recommendations to the devolved Administrations, and rightly so. To that end, we encourage the devolved Administrations to establish their own inquiries into how they have handled the covid-19 response.

This report further explores the accountability of the Government in responding to an inquiry’s recommendations. At present, the Government are under no obligation to explain why they do or do not accept suggested courses of action. Although they sometimes accept recommendations, that is by no means always the case. Therefore, the Committee expects the Government, in responding to the inquiry, to adopt a “comply or explain” approach, which should demonstrate beyond doubt why they do or do not accept particular recommendations and what action will be taken instead.

On a final, related note, the lack of structure and official guidance leaves no formal process to follow up and oversee the implementation of an inquiry’s recommendations. Select Committees have been known to follow up inquiries, but often they do not. Of course the very purpose of Select Committees is to scrutinise actions taken by the Government, and the action taken with regard to inquiry recommendations should be no different. An additional level of scrutiny can be achieved via the Liaison Committee, which we suggest should consider adding the scrutiny of the Government’s response to public inquiries to the list of core tasks for departmental Select Committees. On that note of parliamentary scrutiny, I welcome questions from colleagues.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I would like to start the next debate at approximately 1.35 pm, so I stress that these are questions to Mr William Wragg, not mini-speeches, so that he has the chance to respond.