Building Safety

Debate between Alex Chalk and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am happy to review that once again, but as I said in response to previous questions, we have provided £600 million of funding to ensure that properties in the private and social sectors are remediated as swiftly as possible.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the urgency with which he has approached this issue. Employers who employ people in unsafe conditions could be liable to prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and there is a parallel with this issue. Does the Secretary of State agree that if this final opportunity to make safe these dwellings is not taken, enforcement action should not be ruled out?

[Robert Jenrick]

Absolutely, and we have not ruled it out. Local authorities have the power to take enforcement action, and we are working closely with them to ensure that they do so if progress is too slow. When we have legislated for our new building safety regime and put the regulator on a statutory footing, there will be new criminal offences in this area. Every building will have a named individual who is responsible for its safety, not just at the point that it is built, but for the whole of its life, and that individual will be criminally liable for the safety of that building.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Chalk and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Motorists want to see the earliest possible end to the traffic misery on the A417 caused by the air balloon pinch point. Does my hon. Friend recognise that the Budget, through its extra firepower for roads, provides the best possible platform for such a vital scheme?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have met my hon. Friend and his Gloucestershire colleagues to discuss this matter. It was with strategic roads and roundabouts, such as the air balloon roundabout, in mind that we made the largest ever investment in our strategic road network. Decisions on specific roads will be made next year.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Alex Chalk and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate. [Laughter.] My predecessor as MP for Newark, William Gladstone, was called by the Speaker to give his maiden speech so late that nobody could remember it. The next time he gave a speech, the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, wrote him a congratulatory note on his maiden speech. I hope that despite the hour, I will be listened to and remembered this evening.

After the storms of the referendum and its immediate aftermath, the country was understandably divided into leave and remain. It seems to me, having listened to 10 hours of this debate, that two new groups have emerged and become the real divide in Parliament. The first, and by far the larger, group consists of those who accept the mandate of the referendum and who want to implement it in full. As many have said tonight, that includes leaving the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. However they voted in the referendum, they are primarily focused on how we can make a success of the life to come.

The second group consists of those who are not yet able to accept the mandate of the referendum, or who do so in word only and seek to diminish it in reality. They look back in anger, remorse and regret, and they are unable psychologically or intellectually to reorientate themselves to the new world and to ask the real question that is before us today: what comes next? In a free society, there is no obligation on anyone to change their views to conform with the majority but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) said so eloquently, there is an obligation on all of us to act in the national interest. The path of the second group is not in the national interest.

I do not believe that the people of Newark sent me to Westminster at a time of such historic importance to point fingers—to say, “What about the £350 million for the NHS?” or, “What about the recession that you threatened, which never happened?” They want us to come together. They want us to recognise our moral obligation to make our exit from the European Union succeed. The task of every Member of this House must be to build up the positives of leaving the European Union and to mitigate the negatives. That is the test we must all apply in our lives. Voting against the Bill, or amending it to bind the hands of the Prime Minister in our negotiations, fails that test.

Change can be hard, and even more so if it is a course that we did not want to embark on. But we in this place have a special responsibility to give people the confidence and the courage to live with that change and make a success of it. We do that by accepting the mandate and setting out to find a vision of the future that works for everyone. We have to see this as what an economist—I know that some hon. Members do not like economists—would call a non-zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is one in which one side wins at the expense of the other: leave won, and remain lost. A non-zero-sum game is one in which we try to find a way for everyone to win.

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically powerful speech. Does he agree that if we are to make this a non-zero-sum game, we have to send the message out as early as possible that EU nationals in our country have got to be part of our shared future in the United Kingdom?

UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Debate between Alex Chalk and Robert Jenrick

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The point that I am making is that we cannot predict the future. We only have to look at the events of recent days and weeks to see the incredible unpredictability of this world. Most Members, myself included, could not have predicted the events of the last three weeks and we certainly cannot predict the events of the next three or four decades.

[Alex Chalk]

On the subject of Russia’s actions, would not the annexation of territory on our continent have been unimaginable two years ago? This just goes to show that we need to be prepared for things that are completely beyond our expectations.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The past is a poor predictor of the future. Looking back at our own history, we can say that we are not good at predicting the future.

Thirdly, as the Prime Minister has said, we cannot outsource our security—or rather, we can, but we take a grave risk if we do so. In the early post-cold war period, the willingness of the United States to stand with its allies—

UK Citizens Returning From Fighting Daesh

Debate between Alex Chalk and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

That is absolutely true. This is an unenviable task for anyone who is involved in such investigations.

I do not pretend to have the answers, but let me draw the attention of the House and the Minister to an issue that I think needs careful thought. Given the existence of social media and cheap international flights, it has never been easier for individuals to make contact, to be recruited, and to travel to conflict zones. It might be thought that in this modern age when we are all mollycoddled, people would not dream of doing something of this kind, but people are doing it, and it is becoming easier and easier to do.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential for the Government and law enforcement agencies to send the clear, consistent and credible message that those who decide to go abroad and risk their lives run a very real risk of prosecution when they return? Would that not constitute a powerful disincentive?

[Robert Jenrick]

I could not agree more.

Most of these individuals—certainly most of those whom I have met—are doing this for what they believe to be good reasons. Most are braver men and women than you or I. However, doing this carries great risks, beyond the risk of being killed, captured or ransomed: the risks involved in being caught fighting with a group that is viewed by some as a terrorist organisation. Even if it is not, people will still be arrested, and that will remain on their records for the rest of their lives.

The Government need a considered and consistent policy, which they do not appear to have today. They need a policy that discourages British citizens from taking such risks, which ensures that, whenever possible, they are advised of their likely legal status on their return, and which, above all, treats these brave men fairly and appropriately when they do come home.