Iran-Israel Update

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right to point out Iran’s support for the Houthi militia, who have carried out a series of dangerous and destabilising attacks against shipping in the Red sea. That is why the UK, together with our allies, stood up to take action against that and are currently engaged in the multinational Operation Prosperity Guardian to further deter Houthi and Iranian aggression.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I welcome the support of the Prime Minister and the Government for the resolution on Gaza adopted recently by the United Nations Security Council. Israel is currently in breach of that resolution. How does that affect the Prime Minister’s view of the current actions of Israel in the middle east?

[The Prime Minister]

That resolution also calls for the release of the hostages, which Hamas rejected just this weekend.

Action Against Houthi Maritime Attacks

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, and we disagree with what South Africa has brought to the ICJ and do not believe that it is helpful. I also disagree with him that those two things are linked. The Houthis have carried out attacks on multiple ships from different countries, many of which have nothing to do with the situation in Israel and Gaza. As the Government of Yemen themselves have pointed out, the attacks have nothing to do with that situation, which the Houthis are using as propaganda for their own selfish ends.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has referred to the international support for the actions in the Red sea, but why have only US and UK forces actually taken part in them?

[The Prime Minister]

We also received support from Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Bahrain in these strikes, as we did last time. I point the right hon. Gentleman to the statements that have been put out previously by over a dozen countries, including New Zealand, Korea, Singapore and others, and also to the UN Security Council resolution from 10 January, which was unequivocal in condemning the Houthi attacks and acknowledging the right of member states, in accordance with international law, to defend their vessels from attacks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This Government will always back our farmers, and I welcome the work of my hon. Friend and the National Farmers Union on this issue. We absolutely support calls for industry-led action on this topic, and I welcome the news of the “Buy British” button at Morrisons. We will continue to encourage all retailers to do all they can to showcase the incredible food produced right here in the United Kingdom.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Q3. The marriage plans of thousands of couples were dashed last week by the sudden announcement of a big increase in the salary requirement for a spouse visa. Can the Prime Minister give any reassurance to those with well-advanced marriage plans that now appear to have been scuppered, and to families already in the UK who need to extend their stay but who will not comply with the new rules? Can he at least offer some transitional help for families, or does his party’s support for the family now apply only to the highly paid?

[The Prime Minister]

We have a long-standing principle that anyone bringing dependants to the UK must be able to support them financially. We should not expect this to be done at the taxpayer’s expense. The threshold has not been raised in over a decade and it is right that we have now brought it in line with the median salary. The family immigration route does contain provision for exceptional circumstances, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, but more generally it is also right to look at transitional arrangements to ensure that they are fair, and I can tell him that the Home Office is actively looking at this and will set out further information shortly.

Israel and Gaza

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Hateful extremism has no place in our society. Calls for jihad and Muslim armies to rise up are a threat not only to the Jewish community but to our democratic values. Of course, the police are operationally independent, but the Home Secretary has raised this with them. Anyone who commits a crime—whether it be inciting racial hatred, glorifying terrorism or violating public order—should expect to face the full force of the law.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment in his statement to challenging actions that undermine the prospects for Palestinian statehood. What is his assessment of the impact of continued illegal settlement building in the Palestinian territories on the prospects for Palestinian statehood?

Israel and Gaza

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good question from my right hon. Friend, and it is something we review and monitor very carefully. We channel the vast majority of our aid for the Palestinian territories through the UN, and it is almost overwhelmingly on humanitarian purposes—health, education and the protection services for Palestinians. We do not provide any bilateral financing aid into the region, which should give him some reassurance. With the new investments announced today, we will of course ensure that it goes on the things we care about and to the people we care about.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I agree with the Prime Minister that Israel’s response needs to be constrained by international humanitarian law. What steps will the Government be taking to monitor compliance with those constraints in the coming days, and how many days does he think it will now be before urgently needed humanitarian relief can be taken into Gaza?

[The Prime Minister]

We are doing everything we can to support humanitarian efforts, moving aid into the region as quickly as we can. We will continue to have conversations with all our counterparts in the region to make sure that that aid gets there as quickly as humanly possible.

Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman will have to excuse me: I do not know what was disclosed, and nor does the hon. Gentleman. That is why we have an independent adviser making certain that we have the facts addressed.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The current chairman of the Conservative party went on television before he settled his tax debt and said that his tax affairs were “fully paid and up to date”. We now know that that statement was untrue, do we not?

[Jeremy Quin]

I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but he knows that I do not know the answer to that question—I genuinely do not. But I have no doubt that the work of the independent adviser will establish the facts and that that will be reported to the Prime Minister.

Health and Social Care Update

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend. The Prime Minister has said at the Dispatch Box that we will proceed with the cancer plan. I will, of course, be looking carefully at the other plans with my colleagues. Indeed, the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), has agreed to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) to talk this through further.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State and will miss her visits to the Work and Pensions Committee. I welcome her recommitment to the four-hour A&E waiting time target—I think she is right about the importance of that. She mentioned in her statement the forthcoming NHS workforce plan. When does she expect to be able to publish it?

[Dr Coffey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome and I will, of course, miss our interaction on DWP issues. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), my predecessors committed to publishing the conclusions of the plan. I am still looking into this particular matter, and we still need to finalise and develop it.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Like other Members, my main memories of Her late Majesty the Queen are of visits to my constituency. In 1987, I was chair of Newham Council’s planning committee, and I negotiated with Mowlem the terms of its planning permission for London City airport. I attended the opening by Her Majesty in November 1987. It was pointed out that the terminal at the airport was on the site where her grandfather opened the King George V dock in 1921, 66 years before.

The airport was controversial locally. It turned out that most local residents, still smarting from the economic damage of the docks’ closure 10 years earlier, welcomed the jobs it was bringing, but some were very unhappy, understandably, about living with the noise of the planes. On the day of the airport opening, there was a small demonstration. The airport management, rightly wanting to avoid unnecessary ill feeling, invited half a dozen demonstrators inside and gave them a chance to meet the Queen and set out their case. When it came to their turn, the residents explained their fears about aircraft noise. The Queen listened carefully to what they had to say and replied, “I know exactly what you mean. You should hear the noise at Windsor castle of the jets coming in to land at Heathrow.”

The Prime Minister said yesterday that Her late Majesty had a unique ability to transcend difference and heal division. That is what she did on that occasion. Her off-the-cuff response transformed the situation. Arriving as disgruntled outsiders, the residents had been transformed into insiders who had shared a moment of recognition and warmth with their head of state. The rancour between the objectors and the airport was, I think, permanently eased.

The day after the opening ceremony for London 2012, which was a Saturday, when we might have thought that after the night before the then 86-year-old monarch would have been entitled to a day off, the Queen returned to London City airport to mark its 25th anniversary. Other memorable visits included, in her Golden Jubilee tour, a visit to Green Street, the most successful Asian shopping street in the country—we claim—where she was greeted by enthusiastic women in colourful saris waving Union Jacks, creating wonderful photographs in the Daily Mail the next day.

We always remember the Queen opening what we now call Newham University Hospital in December 1983. Her reign was seven decades: those treasured memories will last for many decades more.

Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I want to focus on one example of a specific problem with this Government that I think makes it impossible to have confidence in them. Between November last year and the end of March this year, the Prime Minister claimed 10 times at Prime Minister’s questions that more people were in work than before the pandemic. That was untrue. The figures show that total employment is still 366,000 lower than just before the pandemic.

The Prime Minister made that untrue claim twice on 24 November 2021, three times on 5 January 2022, again the following week and then again the following week. He claimed it again on 2 February and on 23 February. On 24 February, the exasperated chair of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to the Prime Minister to point out that the claim was not true. The Prime Minister claimed it again on 27 March.

On 30 March, I asked the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee whether he accepted that his tenfold statements had been wrong. He replied:

“I think I have repeatedly—and I think I took steps to correct the record earlier.”

Well, he had not corrected the record, and he still has not. In his answer at the Liaison Committee it was clear that he understood what has actually happened since the pandemic, and that about half a million people—mainly older people—have given up on work, substantially reducing the number in work overall. However, four weeks after that discussion on 27 April, the Prime Minister said:

“Let me give them the figures: 500,000 more people in paid employment now than there were before the pandemic began”.—[Official Report, 27 April 2022; Vol. 712, c. 754.]

That was even though he had made clear to me on 30 March that he knew that to be untrue.

At the Liaison Committee two weeks ago, the Chair of the Justice Committee

asked:

“How important is the truth to you, Prime Minister?”

The Prime Minister replied, “Very important, Bob.” But it clearly isn’t important, and the record still has not been corrected for any of the 11 instances of the false claim that the Prime Minister knows he has made.

Other examples of a lack of truthfulness have been much more consequential. After negotiating customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister went to the Democratic Unionist party conference and announced that there would be no such checks. That was obviously untrue, and the DUP has paid a very heavy political price for taking him at his word. Democracy does not work if Ministers routinely say things that they know to be untrue. Why did they not see through him before?

Functioning of Government

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I am sure that my hon. Friend’s comment has been noted.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

It is a great relief that we will no longer have a Prime Minister who keeps on saying things that subsequently turn out to be untrue. Will the Minister reassure us that the change will take place in hours, not months, and does he recognise that effective democracy depends on Ministers telling the truth?

[Michael Ellis]

I can only say that the Prime Minister will make a statement shortly.