Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the excellent work that the Holocaust Educational Trust does, and the youth ambassadors. I have met some of these youth ambassadors, who have understood the importance of learning the lesson from the holocaust, and understood the importance of acting against antisemitism wherever it occurs—and, indeed, wider racial hatred. As my hon. Friend says, the survivors from the holocaust have given their time to ensuring that nobody is in any doubt about where man’s inhumanity to man can lead. They have done a really important job. I pay tribute to them and to their continuing work. It is important that we all recognise the terrible things that can happen when we let antisemitism occur. We should all be fighting against antisemitism wherever it occurs.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

In the cold of Sunday, Kane Walker was found dead on the pavements of Birmingham. He was 31, and he became one of over 2,600 homeless people to have lost their lives in the last five years. When will the Prime Minister recognise that the scale of homelessness today is a moral emergency, and that we cannot wait until 2027 for this Government to end homelessness for good when we need action now?

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What my right hon. Friend experienced last week was appalling. I understand that she has experienced other incidents more recently. I absolutely agree; everybody in this House holds their opinions and views with passion and commitment, and everybody in this House should be able to express those views with passion and commitment and not feel that they will be subject to intimidation, harassment or bullying. That is very important, and I am sure that that sentiment commands approval across the whole House. Once again, I am sorry for the experiences my right hon. Friend has gone through.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, and then I will conclude.

[Liam Byrne]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. She must recognise that she has built a cage of red lines, which produced a deal that was overwhelmingly rejected by this House. We rejected the deal because we rejected the cage. This afternoon, she has yielded nothing about how any one of those red lines will change. If she is not prepared to change, how on earth can we in this House continue to place a shred of confidence in her?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I made last night and have repeatedly made today is that I will be talking to people across this House—to my own colleagues, to the DUP and to other parties, as there are different groups of people in this House who have different views on this issue—to find what will secure the confidence and support of this House for the way in which we deliver Brexit.

It was serendipitous that I allowed the right hon. Gentleman to intervene just at the point at which I was going to say that if the Leader of the Opposition wins his vote tonight, what he would attempt to do is damage our country and wreck our economy. Of course, it was the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) who left that note saying, “There’s no money left” after the last Labour Government.

[Liam Byrne]

I was naive to honour a Treasury tradition that went back to Churchill with a text that is pretty much the same, but I was proud to be part of a team that stopped a recession becoming a depression. This is the Government who—[Interruption.]

[Liam Byrne]

The Prime Minister was a member of the party that backed Labour’s spending plans up to late 2009, and she has presided over a Government who have doubled the size of the national debt.

[The Prime Minister]

We did see what was happening in terms of the financial crisis and its impact, but the Labour party in government had failed to take the steps to ensure that the country was in a position to deal with those issues.

What would we see if Labour won the vote tonight? It would wreck our economy, spread division and undermine our national security. As I said earlier, on the biggest question of our times, the Leader of the Opposition provides no answers, no way forward and nothing but evasion, contradiction and political games. This House cannot and must not allow it.

European Council

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has said today that she is determined to frustrate another vote of the people, and she has done her level best to frustrate a vote in this Parliament. Does she understand why so many people here think that she is trying to confront and bully this House with a last-minute choice between her deal and no deal, even when she knows the catastrophic cost of no deal for swathes of our industry?

May I ask the Prime Minister to clarify for the House this afternoon the simple fact that, when it comes to a meaningful vote in January, this House will indeed be able to rule out no deal and, if necessary, extend article 50?

[The Prime Minister]

The motion will, of course, be amendable when it comes before the House in January. However, I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that this is about ensuring that we can get the assurances from the European Union—that is what we are working on—and bring them back to this House, having listened to the concerns that have been raised by Members of this House.

Leaving the EU

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Although I recognise the good intentions with which my hon. Friend asked that question, I suspect that it did not quite receive the full approval of the entire House.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister should have sacked her Foreign Secretary some time ago, given that he is someone who put himself before his party. She now risks putting her party before her country. How can she possibly persuade us that she can negotiate with strength with Brussels when it is clear that she leads a divided House and is struggling to take back control of her Cabinet, never mind anything else?

G7

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, we in the UK look at those issues and take our own actions, but the impact is likely to be much greater when we are able to work jointly and co-operatively with others to ensure that, around the world, we are addressing these issues. That is exactly what the G7 communiqué committed us to do.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The overwhelming majority of people in this House will welcome the overwhelming majority in the G7 agreeing not to let Russia back to the top table, but Russia is now seeking to exert its influence through the back door, and we learnt about the scale of that over the weekend. The Prime Minister says that it is an Electoral Commission inquiry, but the Electoral Commission does not have the legal power to summon the information that it needs. If she can set up a rapid action taskforce abroad, why can we not have a rapid action taskforce here at home? Why can we not put the Electoral Commission on it along with the Metropolitan police, because that is the only way we will find out whether Arron Banks’ millions were in fact Moscow gold?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier in response to a question, of course if there is a suggestion of criminal activity, it will be a matter for the police as to any investigation that would be undertaken. The question whether or not electoral laws have been met is of course a matter for the Electoral Commission, but as the right hon. Gentleman might recall, from the police’s point of view, they have operational independence, and it is not for politicians to tell the police what to investigate.

National Security and Russia

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have been looking at the overall question of the threats to national security; we do that within the national security capability review. Of course, the modernising defence programme has come out of that, and it will look at the threats that we face and at the capabilities that we need in relation to that, but that will be set in that wider context of the overall national security capabilities that we need to defend ourselves in the future.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister will know that, since General Gerasimov updated the playbook of Russian active measures, intervention in democracy abroad has been one of the mainstays of Russian activity around the world. Our national security strategy does not include an explicit objective to defend the integrity of our democracy, and our election law defences are hopelessly out of date. Will she now update that national security strategy and, crucially, update the election law, so that our regulators have the power to keep our democracy safe?

[The Prime Minister]

We take very seriously the need to ensure that we keep our democracy safe and that we have free and fair elections at all times in this country. The right hon. Gentleman is right—as I was about to go on to say—that Russia has meddled in elections elsewhere. We do look at, and are updating, the arrangements in our electoral law in a number of ways.

It is absolutely right, as I have said, that we have updated the national security issues. We responded to the terrorist attacks that we saw here in the United Kingdom last year by setting up the national security capability review, but that review and, of course, the modernising defence programme will look at the overall threats that we face.

Salisbury Incident

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I reiterate my hon. Friend’s comments about the armed forces. In fact, I did mention them in my statement, but let me again praise the work that they did, alongside our emergency services, in relation to this incident, as well as what they do for us day in, day out. I assure my hon. Friend that we will look very carefully at any further measures that we should be taking in response to the incident.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister should know that if by Wednesday she concludes that we are indeed embattled, she will find both unity and resolve across the House as we face down a common threat.

Twelve years ago, in the aftermath of a wave of al-Qaeda-inspired attacks, we transformed the capacity of Governments to co-ordinate and fight back against extremism. May I urge the Prime Minister, in respect of the measures that she will introduce on Wednesday, to think radically about how she will create Government capacity to co-ordinate our response to this new level of threat, including new safeguards against the abuse of social media, which we know is part of the Russians’ active measures playbook?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks, and for the tone in which he made them. He is right: after the attacks by al-Qaeda, it was very clear that the then Government were putting in place a whole new structure of response in terms of counter-terrorism. UK Governments have been consistently looking at hostile state activity for many years, but in our national security capability review, as we look at our ability to react to the threats that we now face, we will of course ensure that the structures within Government are such that it is possible to co-ordinate properly the actions that we need to take.

European Council

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Liam Byrne

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to say that we have already had a number of productive engagements on the issue of future trade with countries across the world, notably with India and America, but with other countries, too. We have had discussions with Australia, New Zealand, China and other countries across the world. There are real opportunities for the UK once we leave the European Union, and we will be making every effort to ensure that we take those opportunities.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister’s offer is a step in the right direction, but it is long overdue. As a former Home Secretary, she will know that it is impossible both to grant the rights she proposes to 3.2 million EU citizens and to fulfil her target of reducing net migration to tens of thousands. Can she confirm today that she has set aside this fanciful target and is going to propose instead to follow the Chancellor’s advice about a Brexit that is rich in jobs?

[The Prime Minister]

We all want to ensure that the deal we come to with the European Union will ensure that we have the comprehensive free trade agreement that sees growth, prosperity and jobs here in the UK. That is the aim, but also we will be able to see jobs being brought here as a result of the trade arrangements we will be making around the rest of the world.