Ceasefire in Gaza
Debate between Alexander Stafford and Brendan O'Hara(10 months ago)
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Brendan O’Hara
I agree with my right hon. Friend. We all have a part to play in bringing peace and saving innocent lives, so I was somewhat surprised to hear the shadow Foreign Secretary on the radio on Sunday seemingly dismiss and downplay the importance of this debate, saying:
“It’s not this vote that will bring about a ceasefire.”
Of course, he is right. Voting for an immediate ceasefire today will not by itself bring about an end to the slaughter, but the impact, and the impact on the optics, of this Parliament, hitherto one of Israel’s staunchest allies, saying that enough is enough, and calling for an immediate ceasefire, would be enormous. While not in and of itself bringing about a ceasefire, support for this motion would further remove that ever-thinning veil of legitimacy that the UK’s continued support gives to Israel’s merciless war in Gaza. It would also show the beleaguered and battered people of Palestine that we care and we have not forgotten them. Calling for an immediate ceasefire would be a pivotal moment in the campaign to stop UK arms sales to Israel. As a South African Foreign Minister said last week, the decision to stop the fighting in Gaza is in the hands of the countries that supply Israel with its weapons. Who knows, it might also help some of the UK’s political establishment and those seeking to aspire to their position to locate their moral compass.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The hon. Member refers to the way of stopping the conflict. Does he not agree with me that the only way—the most certain way—of ending this conflict is for Hamas to release the hostages, including a nine-month-old baby who was kidnapped by Hamas? If Hamas were to release the hostages straight away, that would be a sure-fire way of achieving a ceasefire, and that is what we should be talking about.
Randox Covid Contracts
Debate between Alexander Stafford and Brendan O'Hara(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Brendan O’Hara
I absolutely take on board what the hon. Gentleman says, and I am sure the Government have heard it as well. There are many, many questions to be answered, including by Lord Bethell himself.
It is essential that this is done, because a stench of corruption is engulfing this Government, who now stand accused of making certain well-placed individuals fabulously wealthy during this pandemic, not because of their particular skill or acumen in business but primarily because of their political connections to the Conservative party. We should give thanks to Owen Paterson, because it was his behaviour and the bizarre attempt by the Prime Minister, the Tory Chief Whip and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—albeit at the expense of the reputation of this House and all of us who sit in it—that has finally blown the lid off this scandal once and for all.
It was almost exactly a year ago that the National Audit Office revealed that companies with the right political connections who wanted to supply the UK with personal protective equipment had been directed to a “high priority” channel, purely on the recommendation of a Government Minister, an MP, a Member of the House of Lords or a senior Government official.
Alexander Stafford
Out of 78 contracts awarded to Scottish firms for PPE, 29 were new contracts for £100 million-worth of PPE going to companies that did not have any experience before. Those 29 companies in Scotland with no background in PPE got contracts worth £100 million in Scotland, so what is the difference between that and what happened in the UK? At least Randox had the experience in these things. I am a bit confused—sorry.
Brendan O’Hara
The difference, quite simply, is that we never fast-tracked our pals, we never operated a get- rich-quick scheme for our pals, and we did not stuff unelected second Chambers full of people who bankrolled our party.
Brendan O’Hara
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but what has to be remembered is that nobody is above scrutiny, and if there is nothing to hide they should have nothing to fear. This is all about scrutiny and shining a light where I fear a lot of Conservative Members do not want a light to be shone.
Brendan O’Hara
No, I will move on.
Once in that “high priority” channel, these companies were 10 times more likely to be successful than companies that did not have links to politicians and senior Government officials, and who were therefore, by definition, “low priority”. In and of itself, the existence of this “high priority” channel is quite remarkable, but the fact that, according to the National Audit Office, the companies referred through this route were considered by the cross-Government PPE team to be somehow more credible and therefore to be treated with more urgency makes this particularly sinister. It turns out that there were no written rules as to how the “high priority” channel should operate, meaning that those companies who had given political support and had access to hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds were not subject to the usual rules of procurement. They could bypass the essential paperwork that would usually be a prerequisite for safeguarding against misuse of public funds and did not even have to go through the anti-corruption checks. It seems, as I said, that it was little more than a get-rich-quick scheme for the Conservatives and their pals.
Brendan O’Hara
Unfortunately not; I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting it. I think it is something in the air in which we live, and it is a very important point.
What we are seeing now is crony capitalism at its worst. It stinks, and the closer we get to it, the more it reeks.
I have in the past called for a full and independent investigation into this scandal, and I repeat that call again this afternoon. I believe that the actions of the disgraced former Member for North Shropshire strengthen that case further. As the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, very serious questions need to be answered. If they are not answered, the reputation of this Government, who seem to be stumbling from one crisis and scandal to another, will be further damaged, but so too will the reputation of this place, the people in it and politics generally. I understand that the Government are desperate for this to go away, but it will not go away until these incredibly serious issues are addressed. I suspect that the Government know that, and they understand that despite this place being full of large carpets, there probably is not one large enough for them to sweep this under. It will not go away and it must be addressed.
We know that between November 2016 and July 2018, Owen Paterson lobbied officials on behalf of Randox, which paid him £100,000 a year to act as its adviser. We also know that in March 2020, Randox Laboratories was awarded a no-bid Government contract worth £133 million. Despite being fast-tracked and essentially handed this multi-million-pound contract, it appears that Randox was not equipped to perform the task it had been given a shedload of public money to do. As The Times reported last week, just days after being given the contract, the company informed officials that they would struggle to carry out enough covid-19 tests without Government help, resulting in the Government sending the Army in to help. In an internal memo seen by The Times, a Government official wrote that the company was
“nervous about having sufficient systems”,
and that the Army was
“on way to Glasgow to pick up”
two machines urgently needed for testing.