Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted to say that we have a new Secretary of State for post-Brexit freedoms, and he is driving a campaign to reform, repeal and replace outdated legislation and regulation across the board. I do not know about the blob, but I can think of no more fearsome antagonist of the blob than my right hon. Friend.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Satellite images show a 40-mile convoy of military hardware heading to surround the cities of Ukraine. We know from Grozny what Vladimir Putin’s intention is: hundreds of thousands of people will be murdered in those cities. I ask all hon. Members to think of their families, their neighbours and relatives who they may have abroad. They are going to be murdered. The Prime Minister has led the world in the reaction to what is going on and I am proud of what he has done. I ask him—I know he has probably not been to bed for a week—to use every second he has remaining until that tragedy surely unfolds to try to prevent it.

[The Prime Minister]

That was, of course, one of the subjects that I discussed this morning with Volodymyr Zelensky. Many people looking at it will wonder why it is impossible to interrupt the progress of those tanks with airstrikes from a drone, for instance, which we know that the Ukrainians have. Technically and militarily, however, it turns out that, unfortunately, it is not as easy as people might think. The tragic reality is that Vladimir Putin is going to continue to grind his war machine forwards if he possibly can. That is why it is vital that we continue the military support that we are offering and that, together with the United States and all our friends and partners in the west, we intensify and accelerate the programme of economic sanctions that is already hurting.

Elections Bill (First sitting)

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I have a long list of Members who want to come in, so I ask Members to keep their questions short, and witnesses to shorten their answers. I will endeavour to get everyone in.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Q I am seeking a comment on what I am about to read to you. I apologise to the Committee that what I am about to read is exceptionally offensive and, frankly, quite evil. This relates to the Batley and Spen by-election. This is something that happened in June of this year. What I am about to read to you we were not able to trace, no matter how hard we tried, but I seek your comments on it. This relates to your comment on religious pressure:

“Brothers & Sisters of Batley & Heckmondwike I am publicly calling out members of our communities who we have supported in the past: Shabbir Pandor, Ghulam Maniyar, Dr Rajpura and others who have shamelessly brought the Labour Candidate (who is openly Lesbian) to the ‘Masjids’ (the house of Allah) for votes. Would Allah be happy with their actions considering he destroyed the people of Lut A.S which is clearly referenced in the Holy Quran as a lesson for mankind? We are already powerless in schools against forced LGBT education and the effect it is having on our children. Must people from our community promote this agenda too? Mr Maniyar who is part of the Muslim burial committee is trying to land his daughter Fazila the job she previously had under the late Jo Cox. I ask him ‘Would you like to be buried with this on your conscience? You are promoting an MP that could potentially harm the Imaan of our children.’ This is not an endorsement of another party or candidate. I want you all as a community to understand that the blind loyalty to the Labour Party of these people for selfish gains be it ‘peerages’ or ‘better job roles’ is being asked FROM US at a cost of the corruption of our future generations. (PLS SHARE THE TRUTH SO PPL MAY KNOW)”.

I apologise for how offensive that was, but I think it is important to the Committee. That was in June of this year, in the parliamentary by-election. I seek your comments on what I have just read.

Richard Mawrey: I quite agree with you that it is offensive, but there is an obvious line to be drawn regarding individuals expressing strong, perhaps bigoted, perhaps extreme religious or indeed ideological views, for example against LGBT people and so on. The key, I think, with religious influence is that, first of all, it has to be directed. Directed against a candidate is perfectly okay for what was, I think, section 115 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, because it is just as much an offence to try to get somebody unelected as to get a named person elected. Quite often if something false is spread about a candidate’s personal character, so as to engage, I think, section 113, it does not matter that that may not be directed to the election of any other person, but just in order to get a candidate unelected, as it were.

The point about religious influence is that it has to be a way of influencing people. The fact that somebody expresses a view such as that might just fall short. If that person were himself an imam, some other religious teacher, or somebody of standing within the community who is saying, “Don’t vote for this candidate because their views are against our religion,” then you probably might breach the threshold of undue influence, because people would be voting not on general principles but on strictly narrow sectarian principles. That would be true of any religion; it just happened in this case to be Muslim.

Lord Pickles: I have nothing to add to that. I agree with everything that Richard said.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

Absolutely. This is a good opportunity to remind ourselves that we have not necessarily observed a 25 working day timetable. For example, the 2017 election, known to have been rather a long one, was considerably longer than that minimum statutory period. It is important, as my right hon. Friend says, to be as clear as possible on this point.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend feel that the debate on this presents the opportunity for a further piece of work on the period from when a Prime Minister dissolves Parliament to when the 25 days should start? I appreciate that this Bill is not really the appropriate moment for that, but does she agree that there should be further study and work to decide whether the timeframe should be tidied up more before we get to the 25 days?

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Some of what he refers to is not necessarily within a statutory scheme but within, for example, the processes of this House, but he makes a valuable point. We do need to look at the evidence in this area; that will clearly help us. There is already some written work that I would commend to right hon. and hon. Members. They could look at the most recent report of the Association of Electoral Administrators, which said, in July, that less time would be significantly problematic and that there was only so much that could be done at once. It made the point again in written evidence to the Joint Committee, saying that

“it would be catastrophic for everyone involved…if the statutory election period were to be shortened…It would create a significant risk of the election failing and not being delivered and increase the risk of disenfranchising potential electors”.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Just for clarification on those comments, are the electoral services referring to the 25 working days, not a period leading up to that, and saying that they are confident that they can always achieve their work in the short campaign as defined, not relying on any period of time before the short campaign starts?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

Again, some incredibly thoughtful points are being put. My hon. Friend is right to observe that the introduction of online registration has enormously sped up how people can register, and he draws me to talk about two things. The first is to acknowledge what needs to be done to ensure that overseas voters can cast their ballots more easily. There is an entire field of working going on there, which we will discuss more in consideration of the Elections Bill—I look forward to seeing him in the debate—but a general point sits in the discussion of these amendments, which is how we ensure voters are getting what they need out of the election process.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

rose—

[Aaron Bell]

rose—

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[Cat Smith]

I agree. In fact, it is probably like dealing with a toddler: if we tell them not to do something, we know fine well that they will do it.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I will not debate the points of politics with the hon. Lady. On her comments about using Parliament for Dissolution, we have had all of that. There are probably few Members of the public watching us in the Chamber tonight, but they certainly watched what happened in 2019. Surely when we have a Chamber in stalemate, the Government should be able to resign. She will recall how her then leader stood on Parliament Square to say that the Government should resign but then came in here and stopped them from resigning, which was incredible. Surely when Parliament is deadlocked, as it was then, the Government should be able to resign and that should just happen, not be stopped by Parliament.

[Chris Bryant]

They should do it today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

Oh, the hon. Gentleman is getting me into the maths quiz with which he tried to tempt the Minister. I will leave the Government to decide that, because it is more in the Minister’s bailiwick than mine.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Is not the essence of what my right hon. Friend is saying that it is exceptionally difficult to get elected to Parliament—we have all been through it—and it costs a lot of money? We tend to forget that candidates who have not been elected to this place more often than not give up work. Coming back to the point I made to my hon. Friend the Minister earlier, is there not a body of work to be done on the period between our Prime Minister calling an election and the short campaign starting? We must try to make it fair for those standing for Parliament for the first time, which can have an enormous financial cost.

Elections Bill

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

It might not have been the intention of the hon. and learned Lady to assist me in making this case, but she does because she allows me to make the critical point that this scheme is underpinned by a free local voter card. I have already mentioned that 98% of people already hold the identification that will be asked for by the scheme. For those who do not, we are making sure there is the free alternative of a local voter card.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

When we cut through the noise, is it not true that the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said that we cannot have definite security in our elections if we do not have photo ID? Is it also not the case that we are being asked to continue a practice that puts us outside international standards?

[Chloe Smith]

That is exactly the case. Indeed, countries around the world already operate this system with ease, and not only other countries. This policy is already successfully and easily operated inside our own United Kingdom, and we need to learn from the Northern Ireland experience.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) has been trying to get in for some time; I will give way to him.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady; she is always extremely generous. Does she completely disregard the recommendations of the OSCE that identification at ballots is an important part of the security of the ballot? That is an internationally recommended part of the electoral process. Does she completely dismiss that recommendation?

[Cat Smith]

It is a pleasure to see the right hon. Member in his place, and it is always a pleasure to debate these issues with him in very many forums. The OSCE recommendations are designed to give broad brushstrokes around the global issues of democracy. It is true that some countries require ID at polling stations, but they are countries with a national ID card. We do not have a national ID card in this country. It is not part of our culture and I would certainly oppose it, were it proposed. In fact, I believe that the Prime Minister said that if he were ever asked to produce an ID card, he would eat it. I think there is probably consensus that we are not seeking a national ID card, which is why it is so surprising that this piece of legislation requires ID to exercise the basic fundamental human right of voting in a democratic country.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman the same question I asked the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith)? Does he disregard the recommendations of the OSCE?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I do not regard any findings of the OSCE, but what I think is important in this place, looking at UK-wide elections, is that we have a measure that works for United Kingdom general elections, and this is one that absolutely does not. The right hon. Gentleman says we should be reinventing the wheel and starting from scratch. There is a debate to be had, but the imposition of this kind of voter ID now is absolute nonsense and there is no evidence whatever to justify it. This is, therefore, actually a ploy to stop people going to the polling station in the first place. I believe it really is as crude as that. The Government plan appears to have been to conjure up a demon, convince people that that demon is posing a threat to them, and then allow themselves to introduce draconian and totally disproportionate measures to slay the demon they have just invented.

The fatal flaw in that argument is that there never was a demon. No matter how the Government have tried to spin this, people know that there never was a demon and that there is nothing to see. Now, the United Kingdom Government stand accused of a sleazy attempt to gerrymander the register for their own electoral gain.

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[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

There have been moments today, listening to Opposition Members, when I have felt like I have been missing my tin foil hat. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) and I turn up to all these events united in a purpose, because we both lived through an experience in Tower Hamlets that is incredibly difficult to forget. When I am told that there is no problem with our elections, I find it very hard to square that with my experiences.

One of the key things, as I mentioned in a recent Westminster Hall debate, relates to what happened in Tower Hamlets. There was a tremendous injustice and a court case that overturned an election. Some people involved included one of my political mentors, Councillor Peter Golds. However, we were not campaigning for the Conservatives to win an election. This was not about the Conservatives—for some strange reason, the Conservatives are not a great electoral force in Tower Hamlets. It was very much about an independent group that had won the election, and in fact, the Labour party was the runner-up.

During the campaign, we saw postal vote harvesting on an immense scale. We saw a level of personation that was mind-blowing to those of us who care about our democratic system. We saw intimidation and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) mentioned in what I thought was an astoundingly good speech, “undue spiritual influence”. That had been on the statute book for a long time but no one considered it particularly relevant any more. There was a great injustice and those of us who were political campaigners could see it play out, because after a while we knew what we were looking for. No matter who we complained to—the Electoral Commission or the Metropolitan police—no action was taken.

I appreciate all the points that Opposition Members have made that there is not really an issue because there are very few cases, but we had a court case on these issues that was brought not by any of the authorities that oversee elections, but by four members of the public who acted as electoral petitioners. They were the ones forced to undertake that action, because our system was failing. When people say that there is no issue in this country, that personation is not a problem or that we should be looking at every other issue that has been listed today, I say politely that we have ignored this issue for a long time and our authorities would not act.

The judge in the Tower Hamlets case, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) quoted earlier, said:

“The real losers in this case are the citizens of Tower Hamlets and, in particular, the Bangladeshi community…Even in the multicultural society which is 21st century Britain, the law must be applied fairly and equally to everyone. Otherwise we are lost.”

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Can my hon. Friend think of any other example of Members saying in this House that victims should be ignored because there is not much of a problem?

[Mark Fletcher]

No, I cannot easily recall such an issue, and I hope that that is never our approach in this House.

I appreciate that Opposition Members have raised many points that they feel equally strongly about, but I just think that they are in the wrong ballpark. If they were being consistent, they would be campaigning to repeal the voter ID laws in Northern Ireland, which are incredibly successful and were brought in by a Labour Government.

I just think that there is a huge inconsistency in what has been happening today. I am no fan of the Electoral Commission, which I think could be abolished and replaced tomorrow with something considerably more successful, but the commission has called for voter identification. My right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) has repeatedly made the point that international organisations have called for voter ID to be brought in. The vast majority of people in this country have an ID that they use day to day. For those who do not, who are absolutely a fair group of people to talk about, there is a readily available system in the Bill with financial support to ensure that they are not disfranchised. I honestly cannot work out why the Opposition are making such a song and dance about a system that will be strengthened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I can do no better than repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) said about voter ID, which has been explored a lot today. I should add that I have heard many odd conspiracy theories from the Opposition in this debate, not least from the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), who said that Vote Leave was a branch of the Government. I think David Cameron and George Osborne might take issue with that.

In the brief time I have, I want to focus on the parts of the Bill that deal with online campaigning, digital media and digital imprints. Probably one of the most dangerous and pervasive abuses in our political system has come through the growth of social media. I am lucky: I am a man—I do not get the horrific abuse that women get when they stand in politics. Men can have sympathy with that but not empathy, because I have never been told that I am going to be raped and murdered, that my children are going to be killed or anything like that, but women experience that on social media on a daily basis. The provisions in the Bill to crack down on the intimidation of candidates and people who put themselves forward for public services are extremely welcome.

There is an important point to be made about faith in democracy. Lots of people have mentioned the American election, and I also want to do so. What happened on 6 January was an utter disgrace, and everybody who values democracy believes that, but it was mainly amplified to that public by social media and the outputs that stirred it up. We cannot stop that, but when there are other campaigns with conspiracy theories underneath, we can demand that there be an imprint on social media content to say where it has come from.

In general election campaigns, conspiracy theories are pushed that seek directly to undermine the validity of democratic arguments. We in this Chamber may have huge disagreements, but we all know that we cannot have a democracy unless we disagree with each other, and there should be an honest debate about that among us. If stuff is being published and we do not know where it comes from, we have to question its validity. Equally, if we say that it is from the Conservative party, the public will view it as a message from the Conservative party and certain things will be built in in respect of how people interpret and view that.

The steps in the Bill that cover the development of electronic media over the past couple of decades are an important, modern way to address an issue that so far has not been addressed. As an overall package of measures, the Bill has my full support.

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[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) with whom I have campaigned for many days and hours in Tower Hamlets. My first experience of Tower Hamlets elections was the infamous 2014 election, which was later declared void. As a polling agent at Three Mills Primary School in the Isle of Dogs, I watched from afar as voters ran a gauntlet of activists brandishing leaflets. The activists were very aggressive to voters, especially women, as they entered the polling station. When I went in to speak to the police officer about it, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Tower Hamlets, innit.”

What I saw at Three Mills Primary School was not the worst. The Mawrey judgment quotes a Labour polling agent who said that she was with her husband in the car and people were banging on the windows with leaflets. She said:

“The situation was so bad that I thought there was going to be some sort of accident. I could not even open a door and we had to go down another road.”

An election was stolen in Tower Hamlets, but despite all the intimidation, it did not actually cross the threshold of an electoral offence, so I am glad that that aspect is being tightened up. There has been a constant refrain today that fraud is rare, but it is like a curate’s egg; if it is bad in parts it affects the whole, and it has been partially bad in Tower Hamlets, Slough, Birmingham and elsewhere. I welcome both the reform to handling proxy votes and postal votes and the introduction of voter ID. As Mawrey identified in his judgment, there was at that election in Tower Hamlets an appreciable amount of impersonation by false registration.

I would like to focus the limited time that I have on the police, because there has been constant talk about the fact that there is no evidence of electoral fraud. Well, there will be no evidence if the police do not investigate it. Before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee this morning, Peter O’Doherty of Thames Valley police said that the situation was much improved. I did not embarrass him by saying that he was starting from a very low base. Mawrey, in his judgment on conduct at polling stations, said:

“In the light of the two other groups of statements, an unkind person might remark that the policemen and polling staff had appeared to take as their rôle models the legendary Three Wise Monkeys.”

There has been a whole catalogue of allegations, and I do not have time to go through them this afternoon. Many of the allegations that have arisen from the Rahman trial have not been investigated by the Metropolitan police. I think that there is scope—I appreciate that it is outside the scope of this Bill—for complex electoral fraud to be taken out of the hands of the police and possibly placed with a specialist unit.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am listening very carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. Do his comments basically throw out this argument that only three people have ever been prosecuted?

[Tom Randall]

I will give my right hon. Friend one example, of which there are many. In the Mawrey judgment of 2014, Kabir Ahmed was found to have used a false address to register a vote, but no further action was taken. Having had no action taken against him, he was elected as the Aspire candidate in the Weavers ward by-election in Tower Hamlets last month. There are people who are getting away with it, and people will continue to get away with it if no action is taken.

I support the Bill but there needs to be a culture change, with the development of specialist officers, perhaps from a different agency within the police, other than a county force. I welcome these measures, but they are just a start. If we are going to increase the number of convictions for electoral fraud, we need to ensure that we have the systems in place properly to investigate these cases, and then we will have numbers to show how widespread the problem can be.

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[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)]

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed this afternoon. It is a pleasure to once again take part in a full debate in this Chamber. May I take the opportunity to welcome the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green)? I congratulate her on a very gracious maiden speech and the kind tribute that she paid to her predecessor, who was a dear friend of so many on the Government Benches.

I welcome the opportunity to close this debate as the Minister with responsibility for elections in Northern Ireland, a part of our United Kingdom where photographic ID has been used successfully to support the integrity of elections for a number of years and where, thanks to legislation introduced by the last Labour Government with cross-party support in both Westminster and Northern Ireland, there is a higher degree of confidence in the integrity of elections than in any other part of the UK. One of the hon. Members from the SNP, who is no longer in his place, intervened to ask the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution about the evidence from Northern Ireland, and I want to talk a bit about that.

As we have heard, voters in Northern Ireland have first-hand experience of one of the measures at the heart of this Bill: the requirement to show photographic ID at polling stations. That requirement is an accepted and non-controversial part of elections in Northern Ireland that has been in place for decades and enjoys cross-party support. Although turnout in Northern Ireland is, historically, usually lower than in Great Britain, in the first election after the introduction of photographic ID, turnout in Northern Ireland was unusually higher than in England, Scotland or Wales.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

We have heard a lot of spurious arguments today about voter ID. Was that not exemplified just now by the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who said that low turnouts favour the Conservative party? There was a 59% turnout in 2001. I would like to erase the history of Tony Blair, but I believe that he had a 166 majority.

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Certainly, in my experience, the higher the turnout in my constituency, the higher my majority has turned out to be.

This measure in Northern Ireland has helped to prevent electoral fraud, and it has not affected participation. Labour Ministers said at the time of its introduction—I want to quote this in full—that the measures

“will tackle electoral abuse effectively without disadvantaging honest voters,”

ensuring

“that no one is disenfranchised because of them.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 April 2003; Vol. 646, c. 1248.]

They added that

“the Government have no intention of taking away people’s democratic right to vote. If we believed that thousands of voters would not be able to vote because of this measure, we would not be introducing it at this time.”—[Official Report, 10 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 739.]

I do not always agree with pronouncements from the Front Bench in the era of Blair and Brown, but in this case they were 100% right. There is no evidence that ID has negatively impacted turnout. Levels of satisfaction with the electoral process are usually slightly higher in Northern Ireland.

Afghanistan

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In his speech of self-justification after the collapse of Kabul, President Biden reduced a complex military issue to only two stark alternatives. It was a gross over-simplification for him to pose a devil’s dilemma between either a massive troop surge on a never-ending basis or a ruthless, chaotic and dishonourable departure. It is ruthless because people who trusted NATO will pay a terrible price; chaotic because of a lack of foresight to plan an orderly and properly protected departure; and dishonourable because even if our open-ended, nation-building, micromanagement strategy was wrong, as I think it was, in 20 years we created expectations and obligations which those who relied on us had a right to expect us to fulfil, as the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has just said.

It has been pointed out correctly that for 20 years, NATO operations in Afghanistan succeeded in preventing further al-Qaeda attacks on the west from being launched under Taliban protection. That was indeed the key outcome, but unless we choose a better future strategy, the threat of its reversal is all too real. Not only may sanctuary on Afghan soil again be offered to lethal international terrorists, but other Islamist states may also decide to follow suit. How, then, should we have handled a country like Afghanistan when it served as a base and a launchpad for al-Qaeda, and how should we deal with such situations in the future?

These are my personal views on a defence issue unrelated to the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee. For the past 10 years, I have argued both inside and outside this Chamber, very often to the dismay of my parliamentary colleagues, that a form of containment rather than counter-insurgency is the only practical answer to international terrorist movements sheltered and sponsored by rogue regimes like the Taliban. Containment, as older colleagues will remember, was the policy that held the Soviet Union in check throughout the cold war until its empire imploded and its ideology was discredited. Islamist extremism has a subversive reach similar to that of revolutionary communism, and our task is to keep it at bay until it collapses completely or evolves into tolerant, or at least tolerable, alternative doctrines.

In Afghanistan, the task of overthrowing the Taliban and driving al-Qaeda into exile was quickly accomplished in 2001, and at that point NATO arrived at a fork in the road. The option selected was, as we know, an open-ended commitment to impose a western version of democracy and protect it indefinitely in a country that had a strong sense of its own political and social culture and which was known to be politically allergic to foreign intervention.

Yet there was another option available to western strategists in response to the 9/11 attacks. Having achieved our immediate objectives of putting al-Qaeda to flight and punishing the Taliban, we should have announced that we were completely removing our forces but would promptly return by land and air to repeat the process if international terrorist groups were again detected in Afghanistan. When the Taliban regain full territorial control, they will lose their shield of invisibility. If they then choose to pose or facilitate a renewed threat—a terrorist threat—to western security, they should expect both their leadership and their military capability to be hit hard by our mobile land and air forces. That cycle would be repeated until the threat was removed, but we should not and would not allow our forces to be sucked in again.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making some very important points. Has the game not changed slightly, though, with the immediate recognition of the Taliban Government by China and Russia? As they are permanent members of the Security Council, it will be very difficult to get any UN-led action in the way he describes.

[Dr Lewis]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right but, of course, this was a NATO intervention, and it is to NATO that we have to look when there are serious threats to international security, particularly those affecting western interests.

The point is that it has to be flexible, because al-Qaeda itself is very flexible. An active containment policy of this sort can track and match the flexibility of the terrorists. Such a policy depends on the maintenance of integrated and highly mobile land forces, positioned in regional strategic base and bridgehead areas.

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[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

The summary of the NATO 2021 Brussels summit confirmed the end of NATO’s military operations in Afghanistan, while restating the pillars of NATO’s new relationship with and support for Afghanistan: ongoing training and financial support for the Afghan national army, ongoing diplomatic engagement, transitional funding to ensure the continuing functioning of Kabul airport, dialogue on Afghanistan with relevant international and regional partners, and support for the ongoing peace process. Clearly, there is no support to be offered to the Afghan national army any more, and the peace process lies in tatters. What has unfolded in the past month goes down as one of NATO’s great failures. However, within that communiqué lie some important points. An ongoing diplomatic engagement is an important way forward. Kabul airport will probably function through support from the Russians and the Chinese, and we must recognise that the ongoing diplomatic engagement will make for some uncomfortable partners that we will have to deal with.

The reality is that the original NATO operation to remove the al-Qaeda threat from those terrorist camps was successful. The time spent over the past 20 years to stabilise the country and push out the al-Qaeda camps has led to a situation where the Taliban now say they would not allow terrorist organisations to set up camp again in Afghanistan. That must be part of the focus of diplomatic work. It is now a diplomatic mission to hold them to account.

The reality is that not a single serviceman’s life was lost in vain, as so much has been achieved. Although each civilian life lost is a tragedy, everything was done by NATO to prevent civilian casualties. That is why I believe there is not huge support for the Taliban, and it shows there is an important mission to come.

One of the important countries we must deal with is Pakistan. Imran Khan, the Prime Minister, rightly spoke of his frustration that the Americans come to Pakistan only when they want Pakistan to sweep up the mess they have left behind. I understand that frustration, but Pakistan is an important nation that we need to work with to try to hold the Taliban to some of their Qatar commitments. Ultimately, we need to deal with the situation as it sits today. We need to make sure those gains are not lost. Equally, as has been said many times in the House today, we must try to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe for human rights and women’s rights if the clock is turned back. That will all require diplomatic effort and it will require financial input and financial sanctions when the time comes. One of the real tests will be whether we and our NATO allies reopen our embassies, which will be an important step towards the Taliban showing they are willing to stand by their Qatar agreements and whether we can work with them. Whether sanctions have to be put on the state will be part of that.

The Taliban have declared that the war is over, so I leave the House with a thought that many have heard before: at the end of war-war, we have to engage in jaw-jaw.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Philip Dunne has technical problems. Let us go to Alec Shelbrooke.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

What steps he plans to take to help ensure that all COP26 parties uphold the commitments of that conference.

[The COP26 President (Alok Sharma)]

The UK presidency is focused on delivering a successful COP26 with ambitious outcomes across mitigation, adaptation and finance. We will use our presidency year to champion the outcome, maintaining close collaboration with our partners and, indeed, the COP27 presidency to make those commitments a reality.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work he is doing. I urge him to put in place mechanisms that could quickly address issues that may blow the objectives off course, as has happened since Paris.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

I will let other parties answer for their own actions. I certainly do not seek to speak for them. I think it would be a misinterpretation to say that the Act was purely for the purpose of holding the coalition together. I think that was a huge reason for support in certain parts of the then Government, but actually it was an idea that had been batted around in politics long before then. Indeed, I believe it had been a matter for various private Members’ Bills before the coalition Government came into office. It was certainly not an idea that was just thought up to hold the coalition together.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I look forward to sparring with the hon. Lady on another constitutional Bill. Just to come back to the point she made about trying to set the date of the last election, she may recall that, 24 hours before the one-line Bill was passed, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act failed again to cause the election. The one-line Bill was put through and the irony was that it was by a two-thirds vote of the House. That undermines the FTPA because it shows it was just being used to play games.

[Cat Smith]

It is a pleasure to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place and I, too, look forward to sparring with him again on constitutional matters. I do not disagree with that. I am certainly not stood here to mount a defence of the FTPA. I was outlining some ways in which I felt the Act did work, but I am also highlighting huge flaws in the Act. Indeed, there is a reason why, in the Labour manifesto of December 2019, we said we would repeal it. The point he raises about the Prime Minister being able to control the date of the election is a huge reason why the Act is flawed. However, I am arguing that the principle of having fixed terms in itself is not necessarily a bad principle; it is a very pro-democracy principle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

If I may, I will make a little progress. I am conscious of time.

I want to say a few words about comparisons, because it is always important to compare this House and how we do things with other countries and other parts of the United Kingdom. It is about the principle of who has the power to decide when an election takes place, or whether it should be fixed.

The Opposition believe that the democratic position to take, as a starting principle, is that these things should be fixed. Indeed, that is already the case for the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Parliament, as well as for our local councils in England and English elected Mayors. We know, and the voters know, when those institutions and individuals will be up for re-election, when they can re-elect them to do their job or reject them if they disagree.

The only question mark lies over this House and when this House goes to the people and the country. We are out of step even within our United Kingdom. In most parliamentary democracies, Dissolution is controlled by the legislature, with varying degrees of involvement from the Executive. I would argue that is good for democracy and, of course, for planning legislation and passing the Government’s manifesto, which the people would have voted for. It helps civil servants to work and plan with politicians, and it helps our electoral administrators, who have frankly been put under an awful lot of pressure in recent years. It helps us as political campaigners to know when a long campaign spend will start, because if we know when an election is called, we know when the spending limits can start kicking in. It is also good, most importantly, for voters to know when they can either re-elect or reject a politician.

The UK has a strong tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, and I believe that Parliament should be central to any decision to dissolve.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I just want to probe the hon. Lady’s point about when to hold elections. Is she saying that there could be a period of time when the Opposition would not want to fight an election?

[Cat Smith]

Of course, in most circumstances an Opposition will want to have an election. If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the 2019 situation, that was not about not wanting to have an election; it was about not wanting a situation in which the Government could take the country out of the European Union with no deal. That was the sticking point, and that was the issue with the date. In most situations, an Opposition would always want an election. Indeed, I can say quite confidently that I would do a darn sight better job than the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), but he knows that.

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[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

It is a real privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I want to expand on his closing remarks, because I think we need to strip back to why we are doing this, and I will start by talking about faith in democracy.

The reality is that in the last six months of 2019, and certainly in the autumn of 2019, the public did not have faith in this place. That is a simple fact—we had only to look at our inboxes and at the comments being made. We were not doing anything, we were not getting anywhere and we had a Speaker who, quite frankly, acted disgracefully on many an occasion, going way beyond the remit within which he should have operated. All that that did, from the public’s point of view, was make them say, “You are pointless. We have given you an instruction in a referendum and in a general election, but two years after the 2017 general election, you have still achieved nothing.”

The reason we did not achieve anything was that we were gridlocked. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) made a comment today that was used so many times in that period: she said that people were looking for us to come to this place and solve the issues. I heard that phrase used throughout the argument, but what it actually meant was “People are looking for you to agree with me, to do what I say and to ignore what you want to say.” It was a 50-50 Parliament, really: it kept hitting gridlock and we did not get anywhere.

As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), for whom I have a great deal of respect—I am looking forward to debates with her in Committee—the games that were played at the time did no favours to this place. The fact that 24 hours before we finally dissolved the last Parliament we had failed to dissolve it under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but then a one-line Bill got the two-thirds majority and got the Government to choose the date of the election, added to the sense of “What are you all playing at?”

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry to do this, but I just want to push back against the words “game playing”. There were very passionately held views on both sides of the argument on every single constitutional matter that was going on. I do not think that anybody was playing a game. Everybody was in deadly earnest—we just disagreed.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s intervention about the choice of language, and I will change it. His observation is well made and he makes it earnestly.

What I will therefore say is that what happened almost showed that we should have dissolved the last Parliament much earlier. It was going nowhere. We created a situation in which passions were high about the constitutional issues, but we just never made any progress—yet for all the calls from people outside saying “Resign!”, we could not. The ultimate act of resignation is for a Government to call a general election: they do not know whether they will be re-appointed. The Government literally could not resign.

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman touches on points that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) raised at the very end of his speech. I was part of the process of discussion and eventually we did get an election in 2019, because the Government were prepared to talk to other parties and bring them along. That runs to the heart of the whole difficulty throughout the Parliament of 2017 to 2019: the Government decided on their position, whatever it happened to be on that day. It was never the same position all the time, but it was their way or the highway. Surely the point is, as the hon. Member for Rhondda and others have said throughout this debate, that it is for Parliament as a whole, and not just the Government on their own, to make these decisions.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Parliament failed, and it failed day in and day out, week in and week out. It does not matter, to go back over these arguments, whether people should have shifted to my position or gone to another position. The now Leader of the Opposition spent hours and hours in No. 10 Downing Street, and every time we thought a deal had been made, he scuppered it and moved the goalposts.

Parliament did not work. It is all very well to say that we should have taken particular positions, but the history books show that it failed at every attempt. The way out of that situation is to go back to the people and to lay it on the table. That happened far too late, and in this place we undermined several attempts along the way.

I honestly believe that we have to be very careful at the moment. It is getting better now, but we have been through a period in which the value of the democratic processes in many democracies has been questioned. We have just seen a narcissistic, arrogant now ex-President of the United States with, quite frankly, low political intellectual ability, undermine the entire system to the point he literally caused five people to die because he did not accept the result of an election. He used social media and all the other things to stir it up by saying, “I won this election.” He clearly did not, but most polling shows that a whole swathe of voters in America think that he did, which again undermines democracy.

We still have some way to go to make sure we have the ability to dissolve a failing Parliament and go back to the people. It comes back to the point, which I have used in many a speech, of trusting the people. There have been comments today about how a Government could perhaps abuse a Bill, how we might not recall Parliament, how we could choose the date of the election or how we could delay and do all these things. I promise that the public would give us a right kicking if we did that.

One of the reasons the 2017 general election was, frankly, a disaster for my party was that we were looking to cash in. The people thought, “You are just trying to take advantage of the situation. You don’t actually need to have this election,” and we were punished for it. The public are not stupid; they recognise what goes on, and they have their own concerns. Ultimately, they give their verdict on us at the ballot box. Leading up to the December 2019 general election, the public thought that things had to change. It was noticeable that, whether people were remainers or leavers, they just wanted the situation resolved, which is why the result was the way it was.

I do not think what went on over the Prorogation helped the situation in any shape or form. Lord Roskill, in Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service 1985, stated that in his view prerogative powers were not susceptible to judicial review, yet that is pretty much exactly what happened, and it was applied retrospectively. There is precedent for longer Prorogations.

Again, it all added to the view—I do not want to use the word “establishment”, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) might once again advise me on better language—that the establishment was against the view of the people and was trying to thwart clear instructions that had been given. And we remained powerless in this place to do anything about it, which was the fundamental problem.

I have been in this place long enough to know that, going into Committee, it is unwise to take a fixed position on Second Reading. I am over the moon to see my hon. Friend the Minister back in the House today. She looks in fine health and it is a source of great joy to us all to see her back in her place. I know she will be listening to all the contributions being made, including from the hon. Member for Rhondda. I remember being a new MP, and he and I sparring over the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and the issue of four years or five years.

[Chris Bryant]

You voted for it.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right: I did indeed vote for that Bill. I think what has been slightly overlooked in these arguments is that the question of stability at a time when the markets were in disarray over what happened was very important. We had not had to deal with those parliamentary maths, I believe, for nigh on 70 years and something had to take place to calm the markets. So that is why I think it is was worth it at the time. It is worth listening to the hon. Gentleman’s views on years. I still think five years is acceptable and he thinks four years. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) outlined, we really do need to shorten these elections.

Overall, the Bill is an important healing mechanism and stepping stone to starting to restore faith. If a Parliament in future ends up again in the situation we ended up in, where views were deeply entrenched and would not budge on either side of the argument, then surely, we must easily be able to dissolve that Parliament and go back to the people. We must always trust the people.

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[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to make a contribution to the debate. I am sorry that the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), has just left the Chamber. I would just place on record—and I hope she will see it at some point on her return—that for me, as for so many others in this debate, it is a matter of genuine delight and joy to see her back in the House. Contrary to what we might read in some parts of the press, a lot of Members of Parliament are held in respect, but the hon. Lady is someone who is held not just in respect but in affection. The manner in which she has tackled her illness has been an inspiration to many, and we are delighted to see her back.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will indulge me for a minute or two while I pick over some of the history of this matter and of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I am not quite the last man standing from that period, but I am one of the last few. It is often said that history is written by the victors. Well, not even my sense of hyperbole would allow me to describe the Liberal Democrats as the victors in that episode in our political history, but I think it is important that we put a few matters on record.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in opening the debate, said that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was a “child of its time”. I openly accept that, at the start of the quite remarkable political adventure that was the coalition Government, the necessary trust that people might have had in a single-party Government was not there and, yes, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was a necessary safeguard for both parties to ensure that the Government would last the whole term. Remember what it was like at the start of that Government. All the commentators and all the clever people said, “This won’t last a month” and then, “It’ll not last two months”. They said that that Government would not last three months, then six months and then that they would not last a year. And then, eventually, it was accepted that that Government were going to last the whole term, as indeed they did.

The coalition Government did a lot of things that were very necessary in the interests of economic rebuilding after the crash of 2008, and it was necessary that we had five years of stability to be able to take those decisions.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman agree has just made. He will recall that, just before the 2010 general election, the then Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, said that whoever ran the next Government would be out of power for a generation because of the decisions they would have to make. Actually, we were able to bring that stability to the coalition, and one of the reasons that I happily backed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act then was to bring that stability. The public saw that there were two parties from different political spheres willing to do what needed to be done. I know that the right hon. Gentleman and I are on different sides of the coin when it comes to repealing that Act, but it is important to say why we both agreed on the importance of the Act at that time.

[Mr Carmichael]

I often say that the spending decisions that were taken—although, when they were implemented, they were actually the same as the ones that Alistair Darling had put in his last Budget in March 2010—were not taken on a whim; they were taken on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, and when that advice is given, any responsible politician or parliamentarian should listen to it.

I fully acknowledge what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said about that Act being a “child of its time”, but it was more than that. As I think the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the fixing of the parliamentary term was in Labour’s 2010 manifesto, and the regulation of and accountability over the exercise of the royal prerogative was in the Conservatives’ 2010 manifesto. For my party, it had been a long-standing policy. We saw it as a necessary modernisation, and the logical conclusion of getting rid of it in the way in which the Government seek to do through this Bill would mean that we were risking taking significant steps backwards in terms of constitutional integrity and electoral law. I shall return to that point.

Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I wish to assure the hon. Member that we maintain the Wilson doctrine and that we wish to ensure that there is no covert surveillance within a Minister’s office. That is extremely important. Some of the questions that people have rightly raised with me this afternoon will want to be answered through the investigation that is under way in the Department of Health, and I am sorry that I cannot provide greater detail on that at the moment.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be aware, as everyone in this House is, how livid Mr Speaker and many people here were at the leaking of the second lockdown and how Mr Speaker asked for a full investigation into the incident. What has emerged over the weekend has blown all that up. The leaking could have involved a whole number of people who were never even considered as part of that investigation, which, as Mr Speaker has informed us on Privy Council terms, is still ongoing. Will my hon. Friend the Minister liaise with her Department and with the Cabinet Secretary to ensure that any information of who had access to that video footage and covert surveillance of that office is fed into the investigation that Mr Speaker has asked for to find out how things were being leaked to the press before this House knew about them?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those very important questions to which we all want answers. I hope that they will be answered as part of this investigation.

G7 and NATO Summits

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I raise continuously with friends and partners around the world, we remain committed, as do our friends in the EU and in Washington, to a two-state solution for the middle east.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con) [V]]

May I first congratulate my right hon. Friend on successfully hosting the G7 after the trauma the world has just been through? He will recognise that the discussion of NATO 2030 at the NATO summit was one of the most forward thinking and important assessments NATO has undertaken in many a decade: reinforced unity; a broader approach to security; safeguarding the rules-based international order. Does he agree that our position on cyber and space defence not only makes us still one of the biggest contributors to NATO, but one of the integral partners of the alliance?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my right hon. Friend because NATO’s project 2030, set out by Jens Stoltenberg at the summit, is completely in accordance with, and almost an echo of, the integrated review set out by the Government, with its emphasis on cyber and space defences.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I rise to offer my condolences to Her Majesty in this Humble Address on behalf of my constituents as much as of myself. Every single one of my constituents—even those who have not yet been born—will enter a world and live a life that His Royal Highness, The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has shaped. We know that he was reluctant to have the word “legacy” used around him and that he did everything in the service of his country, but he also helped to shape this country in a way that will help it to go forward. The institutions that he supported, which have been described in so many ways today, will have people taking part in them and using them who may not feel that they even have a connection with the royal family. They may be republicans who do not recognise the royal family, but his legacy has allowed them to participate in the areas that are important to them, and he drove those things forward.

As one of the few engineers in this building—as a mechanical engineer with an engineering degree—I can say that the Duke took forward engineering. He helped to form the Royal Academy and made it important. The word “boffins” was used in the past, which may not have helped to achieve the recognition that engineering needed, but he created that important legacy around engineering and put it on the same level as so many other institutions. As we look forward to what the country becomes, we will see the influence of the Duke of Edinburgh in almost every walk of life that people want to go into.

When I arrived in central London today and saw all the flags flying at half mast, it struck me that this is about more than protocol. What it says is that we mourn. We have respect, which is why we are following protocol, but we also mourn. As I entered the city today, that sense of mourning became very evident once again. As the Countess of Wessex commented at the weekend, Her Majesty the Queen has concern for what other people feel. Through this Humble Address, we are saying to Her Majesty that her subjects mourn the loss of her beloved husband. We mourn a man who has shaped this country in ways that few others would have the drive to take forward. I am therefore grateful to have this opportunity to speak not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of my constituents and those who are yet to be born, and to say that this country owes an enormous debt to the Duke of Edinburgh, and in future people will benefit from that but will perhaps not recognise by how much.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We will now return to Ian Paisley.