Northern Ireland

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I remind colleagues that a single-sentence question is imperative.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Given the unique challenges that Prorogation or Dissolution present to the Northern Ireland Office, why was the Secretary of State not consulted by the Prime Minister or Dominic Cummings before the Prorogation plan was agreed?

Business of the House

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for giving way. The Leader of the House claimed at the Dispatch Box that she spoke for this House in Government. How can we possibly take that at face value when she would not take a single intervention, even though the House has made it clear that the business today was to be decided by the House? And this is where it becomes jaw-droppingly hypocritical, when she says—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not make a personal charge that impugned the integrity of the Leader of the House. Members can make a wider political charge, but not a personal charge.

[Wes Streeting]

Out of respect for you, Mr Speaker, and for the rules of the House, I will certainly withdraw the word “hypocritical”. However, it was pretty jaw-dropping to hear the Leader of the House claiming that it was the Speaker’s responsibility to select every amendment when she herself believes that we should not vote on a single amendment today and when she will not be casting a vote one way or another on any of them. Is this not just a complete farce?

Speaker’s Statement: New Zealand Terror Attacks

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Minister for the clarity and passion with which he has addressed the House. Colleagues will not be surprised to know that I intend to write to my opposite number in New Zealand, and I know that I will be able to do so conveying the sympathies of the House and the collective outrage of the House at this bestial slaughter.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

As the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, I thank you, Mr Speaker, for what you have just said. I also thank, most deeply and sincerely, the Security Minister for what he said about reassuring our own Muslim community in this country. Any of us who understand the Muslim community will understand why what has happened in Christchurch will be felt deeply by Muslims in this country and right across the world, but we do not have to be Muslim to understand their loss, and their sense of grief and fear; we just have to be fully paid-up members of the human race.

Mr Speaker, I warmly endorse what you and the Security Minister have said. Through you, may I express our solidarity with the Prime Minister of New Zealand, all the people of New Zealand and Muslims right across the world? In the wake of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim prejudice not just in this country but right across the world, let us say plainly and simply that we are not blind to what is going on; we have been here before on many different fronts and in the face of many different types of prejudice.

Let me also say, I think on behalf of the whole House, to the people of New Zealand: you are not alone in confronting hatred and prejudice. We understand what happens when people are bystanders to hatred and prejudice, so we walk alongside you and with you. Being a good ally is not just knowing when to stand with or beside you; sometimes it is knowing when to stand in front of you, when there is a battle to be fought.

It is time for all of us in this House, across the country and around the world to think about the hatred and prejudice facing not only Muslims but lots of minorities, and to understand what it genuinely means to be an ally and never to be a bystander. As we have seen painfully in Christchurch, this is where hatred and prejudice lead, but this is not necessarily how it needs to end.

[Mr Speaker]

This poisonous barbarity will not prevail; I think we are all clear about that. I deeply appreciate the words of the Minister and the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). In saying what they have said, and doing so in the way in which they have, they have spoken for millions—if not hundreds of millions—of people around the world. I think colleagues will understand that there is a particular piquancy about me calling the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope).

Business of the House

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, repetition is not an unknown phenomenon in the House of Commons. I understand what the Leader of the House is saying, but I think everyone is perfectly well aware that an extension request is just that: a request.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

In claiming that the Government are listening, the Leader of the House really is stretching the boundaries of credibility. The Prime Minister was told after Chequers that the Chequers proposals did not command a majority of the House. She ignored that, and went off to Brussels. She then came back with something worse, and feigned surprise when, funnily enough, the House did not vote for it.

The Prime Minister and the Government have now been told twice—not by small numbers, but by unprecedented, historic numbers—that this deal does not command the support of the House of Commons. What the Leader of the House is trying to stand up this evening is, as has already been said, meaningful vote No. 3, and that will not succeed either. All that she is doing—or facilitating, as Leader of the House—is running down the clock, limiting our options and harming our country. I think that that is reckless and irresponsible, and it is not how she should be behaving as Leader of the House. Can she tell us when she plans to bring us meaningful vote No. 3? Why not do it tomorrow, so that we can inflict the defeat sooner rather than later?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

This one-sentence model could catch on; that would be splendid. I call Stephen Kinnock.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

No chance.

Leaving the European Union

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is now clear that the Prime Minister is counting on the House of Commons to rule out her red lines because she lacks the political authority to do so. Whether it is her dead deal, no deal, Norway or no Brexit, all the options that lie ahead are substantially different from what people were promised before the referendum. Given that, does she accept that there is not only a practical desire for a new referendum, to break the parliamentary deadlock, but a moral imperative, to ensure that it is the people who agree this country’s future for generations to come?

[Mr Speaker]

I apologise that I did not have an immediate recall of the fact, but I wish the hon. Gentleman a happy birthday, and I observe—probably not for the first time or the last—that he seems to be a very youthful fellow.

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Seely]

If that is the case, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why so many on his side—173 MPs, I think—refused to back his leadership?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has just been elevated to the Privy Council. I trust his note of appreciation to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) will be in the internal post today.

[Wes Streeting]

It has been a long time coming, Mr Speaker.

I say with some humility to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) that this really is not the afternoon for Conservative Members to talk about motions of no confidence. Not only did more than half their Back Benchers declare no confidence in the Prime Minister and her leadership, but this afternoon is about confidence in the Government. He should be defending the Government’s record.

This debate is not just about gross inequality and what is happening to the very poorest in our society. Nine years ago, we were told we had to tighten our belts, that things would be hard and that difficult choices would have to be made, and the majority of people believed and accepted that and voted in the way they thought best. Nine years on, it is the experience of people who use and rely on our public services that things are demonstrably worse than they were nine years ago. Our schools are less well funded than they were when Labour left office, with per pupil funding down by 8% and teachers walking out of the profession in droves.

Some 2.5 million more people are waiting longer than four hours in accident and emergency departments and the number of people waiting more than two months for cancer treatments has doubled. Furthermore—and unbelievably, from a Conservative Government—people in my constituency are describing a state of lawlessness because the Government have cut the Metropolitan police to the bone: more than £1 billion of funding cuts; the loss of 21,000 police officers, almost 7,000 police community support officers and 15,000 police staff; officer numbers at their lowest levels for 30 years; and the highest rises in crime in a decade.

It is no wonder that this afternoon Conservative Members do not want to stand up and defend the record of this Government. It is not a record they can defend. It is now right—in fact, it is past time—to acknowledge that the Government have lost control of Parliament and their ability to govern and have lost the confidence of the British people. It is time for Conservative Members to do the right thing and declare, as we will, no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

Business of the House

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I am not sure whether we are asking questions on the business statement or making points of order.

Given the scale of defeat, the Government must surely have seen the inevitable coming. The issues for debate on Thursday are important, but every day wasted is another day closer to exit, particularly without a deal. Are we really to debate two motions with no consequence on Thursday rather than deciding how we will move forward on a crucial issue facing our country?

[Mr Speaker]

The Leader of the House can add to what she has said in the supplementary business statement if she likes. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying so, that seemed to me a curious hybrid between an attempted point of order and a question on the supplementary business motion. If he had to plump for one or the other, I am not sure which it would be.

These matters can be aired in debate tomorrow, in the business question on Thursday and on subsequent days. I completely understand that the hon. Gentleman is seized of the importance of early progress, but that opportunity will unfold in days to come, and I can predict with confidence that he will be in his place, ready to leap to his feet to share his point of view with the House.

European Council

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have not made any offer.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Yours would be better.

Schools That Work For Everyone

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen to accommodate all colleagues, but there are a lot of you, so brevity is of the essence.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The absolute tragedy is that there is more evidence available to Ministers now than there has ever been about what will improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged, so why on earth do the Government persist with targeting funding on selective education? That may theoretically benefit the pupils who attend Ilford County High School or Woodford County High School for Girls, which serve my constituency, but what will it do for every other school in my constituency, not least the schools that serve some of the most disadvantaged communities but whose buildings are in dire need of refurbishment? This statement does absolutely nothing for them, and that is the absolute tragedy of the Government’s education policy: it is elitist in the wrong sense of the word.

UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is nevertheless of great interest to learn about the gardening habits of the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). I feel duly uplifted by that discovery. I simply say to the hon. Lady: never, never give up.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

At the time of the referendum, both Tony Blair and Sir John Major warned of exactly the scenario faced by the Prime Minister now in relation to the Northern Ireland-Republic border, which is presumably why a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union. If everything is as plain sailing as the Prime Minister suggests, why has the Foreign Secretary written her a memo entertaining the prospect of a hard border? Given that he has undertaken to publish that memo but has not found time to do so, perhaps the Prime Minister could prod him—or even jab him as hard as necessary—to get that memo out of him as soon as possible.

[Wes Streeting]

Clip him round the earhole. Get the memo out of him.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is very discourteous behaviour. Let us hear from another well-behaved individual. Ah, yes: Jeremy Lefroy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not very interested in hearing that, which has nothing to do with Government policy, but I am interested in hearing Wes Streeting. I hope the Chancellor will take note: put very briefly, Chancellor, “Stick to your last—your business, not theirs.”

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; that is the nicest thing anyone is likely to say to me today.

The Chancellor rightly extols the benefits of the UK single market, but is not the rank hypocrisy of the Government exposed by listening to the comments of the chief executive of Airbus last night that leaving the European single market would be hugely damaging to the UK economy? We do not have to pick and choose: why will the Chancellor not put a jobs first Brexit at the heart of the Government Brexit strategy and commit to keeping us in the European single market?

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think the right hon. Lady means staff of Members of Parliament, which is a matter that can be further considered, but it is important to put it on the record, not least for the benefit of those who are attending to our proceedings who are not Members of, or employed by, the House, that the House itself most certainly recognises trade unions and negotiates with the staff of the House. I recognise, however, the other issue at which she was hinting, and that can certainly be further discussed. I am in no way an obstacle to a development on that front, if that is the settled or general will of Members.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

If there is an HR service, surely it could recognise trade unions for Members’ staff in the way described. I thank the Leader of the House for her work on this, but it cannot be right that it is easier to sanction a Member for disorderly conduct in the Chamber than to sanction them for disorderly, disreputable and disgraceful conduct outside of it, so can she press ahead on that? I also gently remind her that this issue belongs to the House, and if she cannot find unanimity on the working group, perhaps she should publish a draft report that we can all comment on, because we would welcome more progress and momentum behind what she is doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I gently point out to the House that although very engaging, the exchanges have been rather protracted, so progress is slow. There are lots of very important questions on the Order Paper that I am keen to reach, so let us try to speed up.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

5. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for International Trade on promoting Hawk aircraft overseas.

Point of Order

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Bercow

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I was anticipating a point of order from the hon. Gentleman, but I had not spotted him, so I feared he had beetled out of the Chamber. I am delighted to see that he has not done so.

[Wes Streeting]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Yesterday in Education questions, I asked Ministers if they were comfortable about handing over £45 million of public money to a training provider, learndirect, which has been deemed “inadequate” by Ofsted regarding outcomes for learners. In reply, the Minister of State, Department for Education, the right hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), told the House:

“In this case, the provision judged to be inadequate by Ofsted—apprenticeships—is no longer offered by learndirect.”—[Official Report, 11 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 434.]

This is not the case. Not only is Learndirect Ltd continuing to receive public money to complete existing apprenticeships until July 2018, but Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd, a company with the same directors and the same website, will still be funded to provide new apprenticeships on an ongoing basis. I am sure that the Minister did not intend to mislead the House, so I hope she might come to the Dispatch Box to correct the record, to explain why public money continues to be given to a provider that is delivering inadequate outcomes for learners, and perhaps to understand why the perception exists that Ministers do not have a grip on the learndirect scandal.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman both for his point of order and for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of its thrust. I have to say to him that it is not unusual for an hon. Member to find a Minister’s answer at the Dispatch Box less than totally satisfying. Moreover, the content of Ministers’ answers to questions, as colleagues will know, is the responsibility of the Minister concerned. The hon. Gentleman has been operating as a kind of self-employed sleuth in analysing the evidence and concluding, at least to his own satisfaction, that there is a disconnect between what the Minister said and the factual position. He has clearly been keeping his beady eye on websites and attending to his duties in an extremely assiduous manner.

I have to take care not to act as referee or umpire on the matter of whether a Minister has misled the House, but if a Minister were to accept that she had unintentionally misled the House—because she thought what she said was true—I am sure that she would take swift steps to put the matter right. If she takes a different view and does not accept the hon. Gentleman’s interpretation and conclusion, however, I doubt that she will be volunteering to come to the Chamber.

The thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s comments will have been communicated to the Secretary of State by now —if it has not been, it will be within a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, he has succeeded in putting his dissatisfaction and clear view of the facts on the record. The safest thing I can say in conclusion is that we await events.

We come now to a notable parliamentary delight. I call Mr Peter Bone to move his ten-minute rule motion.