Future Relationship with the EU: Negotiations

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, the distinguished former Cabinet Secretary for Justice in the Scottish Government. We want to co-operate with all our neighbours on law enforcement, but we cannot submit to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is imperative that we leave on 31 December? On 1 January, new financial arrangements are coming into the EU. A massive net contribution would already come from the UK, but with the rejection of corona bonds and bigger EU budgets, our net contribution would be much bigger, and that would hamper our efforts to get our own economy back on track.

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful for the question from my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right, and that is one of the very important reasons why we need to extricate ourselves from any further payments. I also congratulate him on looking so well. I thought for a second that he had become the Member of Parliament for High Barnet.

Transport Infrastructure

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the Prime Minister on grasping the nettle and building this infrastructure in the north, which is really welcome and delivers on our manifesto promises. One reason for the rising costs in Leeds is the incompetence of Leeds City Council—with a Labour leader, who, quite frankly, could not organise an event at one of the local breweries—which is putting the station in a totally inappropriate place. As part of the review, will my right hon. Friend look properly at where the station is located and the ability to use existing rail routes and infrastructure?

[The Prime Minister]

There will be a review—I must be clear with the House. We will be going forward with the whole programme, but we will ensure that we get proper value and proper political leadership and grip of the whole programme.

Debate on the Address

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure and an honour to follow a maiden speech. No, I did not agree with everything said by the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), who is new to this place, but remarkably fluent and adept at using the Chamber. However, I absolutely applaud his desire to speak for all his constituents, whether or not they voted for him. I am sure we will be hearing much more from him in this place.

It is an enormous honour to have been re-elected for the third time in a very short number of years to represent my home area of Banbury, Bicester and 62 villages, and it is a great excitement to be part of what the Prime Minister describes as his “stonking” majority. It is also a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow some very important speeches including that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who spoke—as she has done so powerfully before—about social justice. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) also made a very important speech about how we should come together and celebrate being the party of one nation.

It is fair to say that Banbury had the closest result in the nation in the referendum, as we voted to leave by 500 votes. Three years ago probably about half of my constituents wanted to get Brexit done. That is not how they feel now. I have lost count of the number of times people told me our slogan on the doorstep before I said it. There was a coalescence of views from former liberals and former Labour voters, who reinforced again and again their strong belief in democracy, doing the right thing and respecting how people voted three years ago; they were passionate about it. It is important that this Government—this stonking democracy—delivers for everyone. I am thrilled, having gone on about it rather a lot in the previous Parliament, that if tomorrow goes as the Prime Minister expects it to, we will leave the EU with a deal. I also hope that his negotiations for a trade deal next year go as well as he hopes, and that we are able to protect the motor industry in Banbury and the just-in-time jobs on which we depend locally, in so much of our area.

Far more important to Banbury than the EU, though, is the Horton General Hospital. That is what people really wanted to talk about on the doorstep, day after day. I was able to tell them that, with the new investment from this Government, it is likely that we will be able to build a new modular set of buildings on the Horton site that will make the hospital truly fit for the future. I noticed after a very minor and very silly accident that I had during the campaign that we now have a severe parking problem at Horton General Hospital because so many more procedures are being undertaken there. I want to make sure that the buildings are fit for purpose and that we are able to bring maternity back to Banbury in the very near future so that babies are able to be born there, as I was. People also wanted to talk to me about school funding. We live in a historically underfunded area, and I was glad to hear what we heard over the course of the campaign on this issue.

But right up the agenda, before Brexit and just after the Horton, was the environment. That was the subject that people—women in particular, but people of all ages—wanted to talk about on the doorstep, in hustings or in schools anywhere I went. This was an ambitious Queen’s Speech on that agenda, but real change in this area will require from all of us behavioural change that is going to be difficult. I am pleased that I was able to work in a small way on creating ideas like the Great British Spring Clean and in helping to reduce single-use plastics during the last Parliament. There are real green opportunities and a real chance now for the Government to shape policy both across industry and across people’s lives on this agenda, and I look forward to working on that.

Something I learned particularly at the end of the last Parliament was the importance of cross-party working when I was proud to take part in the group of MPs for a deal, which had some enormous success when 19 very brave Opposition Members voted with Conservative Members for the Second Reading of the Bill that became the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. I pay tribute, in particular, to my friend from Don Valley who lost her seat and who did more, perhaps, than any other to represent leave voters on the Opposition Benches at a very difficult time in our parliamentary democracy. Working cross-party was a leap of faith, but, to my mind, it was worth it, and we gained more than we could quantify, perhaps, from the unpleasant atmosphere that surrounded those very difficult votes.

I hope that in this Parliament, despite our stonking majority, we will work together on the environment and, in particular, on social care and on something I have a very personal interest in—achieving good deaths for our citizens—both of which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). As he said, we know that just as taxes happen to us, death will happen to us all. It is important that we focus and work together on the way that we enable people’s deaths to take place—we hope at home and we hope peacefully.

Another personal priority of mine is justice. During this Parliament I will take a keen interest in the work of the new royal commission on justice that has been announced today. Of course, I welcome that. I welcome any interest in justice; I have been banging on about this area for the past 25 years. Most of my waking thoughts for the past 25 years have been about our justice system. Of course a royal commission is a good thing, but I very much hope that it acts speedily, that the right people are appointed to it, and that it looks very closely at the reports of the Justice Committee, of which I am rather proud, from the last two Parliaments—particularly those on probation and on the prison population, which is quite a large and weighty report, I must confess.

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

Building on the issue of cross-party working, which is very important, the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) mentioned sentencing. May I urge my hon. Friend to take a serious look at this? Two young lads, Harry Whitlam and Callum Wark, were constituents of mine killed by drunk drivers. Callum’s killer, a Bulgarian HGV driver who drank a bottle of vodka, drove straight over his car and killed him on the day before his 20th birthday, was out of prison in three years. Eleven-year-old Harry Whitlam’s killer, who was five times over the drink-drive limit and killed him on a farm, could be prosecuted only under the health and safety Acts and got 18 months. When my hon. Friend looks into sentencing and bringing this cross-party work together, will she ensure, for the families who mourned the loss of their children—Callum was an only child—that people recognise that if they intoxicate themselves, these are not accidents but manslaughter and should carry a similar sentence?

[Victoria Prentis]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He raises a very serious issue that has been discussed a great deal on both sides of the House over the last few years. He will have heard the Prime Minister give an undertaking earlier to incorporate that in the sentencing review, but he touches on an important difficulty that we have when talking about justice.

When we consider sentencing, we think about a punitive element, but I hope we will remember that the aim of us all—even those of us who have spent 25 years often advocating for prisoners’ rights—is to reduce crime and ensure that we protect future victims by stopping crime from ever happening again. It is so important that we concentrate on reforming people while they are in prison and do not lock them up and throw away the key, because nearly everybody who goes into prison is coming out again. It is really important that we have informed debate in this House. We must recognise that we are over the 20% mark of people in prison having committed a sexual offence. A large number of sexual offenders in prison are coming out, and we have to think very carefully about the treatment they are given in prison, the effort we put into reforming them and how we supervise them when they are released. That is my band- wagon, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, having heard me talk about it before. I would like in this Parliament to concentrate once again on the justice sphere, and I hope that I will be able to do so.

It is a great honour to have been re-elected and to be part of an enthusiastic, one nation Government who are going to get things done. I would like to conclude by asking everyone to remember that Christmas is a time of enormous good will, but it also gives us a few days off to reflect and think about what we are going to do better next year. Merry Christmas to all, and I hope we come back refreshed and enthused about getting Brexit done and everything else we want to do.

Brexit Negotiations

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, what we are proposing is to bring powers over UK fish back to the people of Scotland. It is quite astonishing that the SNP continue to shrug off and to refuse the ability of Scotland to run its own fisheries—quite extraordinary.

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

May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s approach since he has become Prime Minister to getting this matter moving forward? Indeed, may I thank him for spending well over 500 minutes, getting close to 600 minutes, at the Dispatch Box, answering questions on this issue, and I believe that he has approached it with statesmanship, workmanship and a scientific approach to get things done. Yesterday, when I backed my Prime Minister’s deal, I got some—let us just call it—fruity questions on Twitter about how I could be supporting the deal, having always wanted a deal. Does he agree that this is the way to get a deal? For those who want to leave with a deal, this is compromise and it is moving us forward. Those who were quick to bounce down to the media before even the political analysts had a chance to look at the deal gave the game away that they are not interested in a deal and they are not interested in honouring democracy.

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think that it is quite likely that I will spend many more minutes at this Dispatch Box elucidating these matters, and I am very happy to do so. None the less, he is making the crucial point, which is that, of course, many Members of this House are opposed to no deal and what they see as the damaging consequences of no deal, even though, as I have tried to reassure the House, we can greatly minimise those impacts. If Members are opposed to no deal, they really logically ought to support this deal as the way forward. It is very creative and very constructive. It takes the country forward and delivers on the mandate of the people.

Priorities for Government

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I was relying on the very clear advice of a very distinguished colleague of mine. I will undertake to write to the hon. Lady with further and better particulars about the dispute that seems to have arisen between us about that point of fact.

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

My right hon. Friend, I know to my core, is a great one nation Conservative. In that spirit, will he find time in his very busy schedule to take a close look at my six-year campaign to ban unpaid internships, which I am sure he agrees would bring great meritocracy to this country?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely endorse my hon. Friend’s campaign. We should be a meritocracy and people should be able to access jobs not according to who they know, but according to their talents. He is entirely right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have answered questions on this matter in the past, including, I think, from the hon. Lady. The Government have changed the law. Specialist doctors on the General Medical Council specialist register can now prescribe cannabis-based products for medicinal use where there is clinical evidence of benefit. NHS England and the chief medical officer have made it clear that cannabis-based products can be prescribed for medicinal use in appropriate cases, but obviously we need to trust doctors to make clinical decisions in the best interests of patients.

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

In Thursday’s Adjournment debate I described the barbaric treatment that my father-in-law received at a clinic in Barbados, which ultimately led to his death. It shows the influence of this Chamber that I have now been contacted by many people from around the country who want to talk to me about similar issues. This morning, I was contacted by a resident of Barbados who told me that the practices that go on in Dr Alfred Sparman’s clinic are far more horrific than we recognised.

Will either my right hon. Friend or the relevant Department meet me so that I may inquire how we can work with the Barbadian authorities to shut this man down and ensure that what happened to my father-in-law cannot happen to any other citizen?

[The Prime Minister]

I remember the conversation with my hon. Friend after this terrible tragedy involving his father-in-law. I will certainly ensure that Ministers from the proper Department sit down with him to explore this issue.

Leaving the EU

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

In a number of elements of the political declaration, it is clear that we will be an independent coastal state. What being an independent coastal state means is that we will be able to determine access to our waters, but of course, our fishermen will want to be looking not just at the access that others have to our waters, but at their access to other waters. So there will be a negotiation with the European Union in relation to access to waters, but the UK will be negotiating on behalf of the UK in that determination. I apologise, because I forget which particular piece of text it is in, but there is a clear commitment that that should be undertaken such that—because this commitment has been made—we will be an independent coastal state in December 2020. Although the implementation period will not have finished, we will be able to negotiate for 2021, because that is when that negotiation will take place as an independent coastal state.

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

Since the summer, I have knocked on the front doors of over 7,000 of my constituents in Elmet and Rothwell, and I have had hundreds of supermarket surgeries and spoken to hundreds of people. I can say, especially in relation to the comments from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), that not only do most of my constituents say, “Get behind the Prime Minister and her deal,” but so too do my executive council and my officers, and so do I. Will my right hon. Friend today put to rest one of the new paranoias doing the rounds and confirm that this deal does not sign us up to permanent structured co-operation, or PESCO—the European army—nor do we have any intention of signing up to PESCO or the European army?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and I can give him that reassurance. The development of PESCO does have the potential to improve Europe’s defence capabilities in a way that should be coherent with NATO, but this does not require us to participate or sign us up to participating in the PESCO framework. What it does say is that we may participate in PESCO projects as a third country, but that, of course, would be a decision for us to take—as to whether we wish to apply to do that—and we would not be part of that PESCO framework. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) in the statement last week, we are certainly not signing up to a European army, and we would not sign up to a European army.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises a terrible and tragic case in his constituency, and, as he says, the thoughts of the whole House will be with the victim’s family and friends. Our deepest condolences go to them following this terrible attack. Crossbows are subject to strict controls, but we keep the legislation under review and will consider the risk that such weapons pose to public safety and whether further measures are needed, and we will of course look at that in the context of the legislation we are bringing before the House.

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

Q13. Does my right hon. Friend agree that while the Government have invested millions in our railways, when my constituents are still suffering from chronic overcrowding on carriages it is incumbent on Network Rail to deliver projects on time, so that new rolling stock can be quickly put in place to alleviate the overcrowding?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend highlights the fact that we are delivering the biggest rail investment programme since the Victorian era. He says we are spending millions on our railways, but actually we will be spending nearly £48 billion on modernising and renewing our railways, which will deliver better journeys and fewer disruptions. He is right, however, that it is absolutely vital that Network Rail delivers its projects on time. I am told that Northern’s new rolling stock is currently planned to serve lines from June and July next year, but I know he has been campaigning excellently on this issue, and I encourage him to continue to do so.

Leaving the EU

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In noticing the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), I note with approval that the bright shirt he is wearing is more reminiscent of Arsenal than of West Ham.

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

Thank you for that endorsement, Mr Speaker.

My constituency contributes roughly half a billion pounds to the GDP of this nation, mainly through small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the most important thing we must achieve is that those small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the lifeblood of this country, are able to supply the big companies, no matter where they are able to trade, and that this deal allows them to expand in all other parts of the world as well?

[The Prime Minister]

That is exactly what this deal does. By ensuring that we have frictionless trade across the border with the European Union and in the facilitated customs arrangement we have put forward, we are ensuring that those businesses that currently only trade with the European Union will have no extra requirements in terms of customs, and therefore that we are not increasing the burdens on those businesses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look into the specific issue the hon. Gentleman has raised and ensure that the appropriate Secretary of State meets him to discuss the issue with him.

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

Russian military naval activity in the north Atlantic is at its highest level since the 1980s. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the funding of the Royal Navy under this Government?