Panama Papers

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. As the Clerk has just pointed out to me, however, this is all very well, but it is nothing to do with the responsibility of the Prime Minister. [Interruption.] Order. Do not argue with the Chair—that is not a wise course of action. The Prime Minister is not responsible for what the shadow Chancellor has said. I say that to the hon. Lady kindly but with some authority in these matters, believe me.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

No one in this House should have to feel that family members are being attacked unfairly, and, in that, the Prime Minister is absolutely correct. May I tell him, though, that it is not clear to me what he believes about holding shares in offshore trusts in tax havens? Does he think that that is perfectly okay, in which case, why would his holding them have been a conflict of interest, or does he think that tax havens are a problem that needs fixing, in which case, why did he have such shares in the first place?

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good question. Let me answer it in full, because I think it is very important. Do I think it is okay to own shares in a unit trust that is registered in another country, whether it is in Dublin, Guernsey or elsewhere? Yes, I do. That is why trade unions, companies and pension funds hold such shares. Many people in our country hold unit trusts because—here is the key point—the unit trust does not exist to make money for itself; it makes money for the unit holders, and if the unit holders live in Britain they pay British tax, British income tax, British capital gains tax and all the rest of it. That is why these arrangements have been in place for many years and no Labour Government, Labour policy review or Conservative policy review has ever thought of getting rid of them. It is important that they are administered and run in the proper way. That is my answer to the hon. Lady’s first question.

The hon. Lady’s second question was why, if I thought there was nothing wrong with a holding like that, did I sell my shares because there might be a conflict of interest. I sold shares in every company that I owned, because I thought there were two options: you can either put things into a blind trust, as Ministers in Labour and Conservative Governments have done. There is nothing wrong with that—it is a very good way to go about it—but I thought it may be even simpler and more straightforward to just sell everything, because then I would not own any shares. So, if any of the companies in which I had previously had a shareholding had any dealings with the Government, there was no way that, even if somebody could look inside a blind trust, they could find any conflict of interest. That is why I sold the shares. I happen to think it was quite a sensible thing to do.

ISIL in Syria

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I think that I speak for the whole House, Mr Speaker, in expressing my admiration for you today.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). I agree with what they said. We come to this House to choose. Yes, we come here to criticise and, at times, to express our anger, but we do not come here to commentate. The purpose of our debate is not entertainment, but education: the education that we need in order to choose. The choice that we must make today is not, as some have implied, on a grand new strategy. It is a relatively narrow choice between a motion that extends our involvement in our existing battle and a vote for the status quo.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Does not this choice involve risk? The risk involved in doing something has to be balanced against the risk involved in doing nothing, which equally carries great risk for this country and for the world.

[Alison McGovern]

I could not have put that better myself.

I have to confess that, not for the first time, I am angry with the Government. I am angry because I believe that they have turned their backs on vulnerable refugees from the conflict in Syria, to whom we should have held out our hands. The process that will take in 20,000 refugees by 2020 is too slow. The Government could have demonstrated to the world what it means to be British, but they have not done enough. I know we must put party politics to one side, but that is hard when the Prime Minister tells us we must do our bit and then does his part too late.

What relevance does this have to the choice in front of us today? The answer is trust and commitment. If I vote for airstrikes today, I need to be able to believe that the Prime Minister will stand beside those in the world who will need him tomorrow. Part of the justification for the strikes is to show our commitment to the coalition against Daesh and show that we are truly part of the fight, but if the Prime Minister wants my support, he will have to show his commitment to the bigger fight ahead of us.

The biggest recruiting sergeant for vile extremism is want. It is the dissatisfaction with the chances that the world is offering, whether in the back streets of Britain or the cities of Africa and the middle east, where young people find that the powerful in our world forget them far too quickly. It is this pervasive want that creates fertile ground for the blame and resentment that extremists cultivate.

We are right to be sceptical of our own capacities, but we should not be sceptical about the Syrian people. Rather, we should offer them refuge now, and our backing tomorrow. Whatever choice we make tonight, we will have to live with it. I will have to face my constituents and explain my decision to them, but that is absolutely nothing compared with what the Syrian people have faced. Too often in the past five years, we have we seen people in need and we have turned away. We must not do that now.

I might not trust the Prime Minister that much, but in the end the solution to that mistrust is in my hands. I want him to know that, if I vote for his motion today, I will be here every week holding him to account. We have Back-Bench motions now, and if I do not believe that he has lived up to the trust of the British people, I will waste not a moment before using them. Any support I give to him is conditional, and we will return to this question again and again. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said so well, if our job is to work for peace, we will do it with scrutiny. We will scrutinise the Vienna process to make sure that it happens.

We are voting today on just one tactic in this greater struggle, and I see the limits in the choice in front of us. My party, the Labour party, has a bigger task, and it is one that I will never just leave to the Prime Minister. The end to the extremism that we face today will come with a decent and fair society, and we must not waste a moment in fighting for that.

Syria

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. He asks an important question about the additional resources that would be brought into play if we were to go ahead. That is exactly what we would do. Action would principally be a combination of our Typhoon and Tornado jets, and we will want to continue what we are doing in Iraq while doing more in Syria as well.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I have listened very carefully to what the Prime Minister has said. May I ask him about ensuring whether his strategy is truly comprehensive? I asked on Tuesday about financial flows to Daesh, and I want to ask now what consideration the Prime Minister has given to the economic future for Syria. What plans is he bringing forward, with our international partners, to make sure that the economic future of Syria is sustainable at the point we can make it so?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady asks a very important question. The truth is that ISIL/Daesh has possession of some parts of Syria that have oilfields in them, so it is able to take and sell that oil, sometimes to the Syrian Government, in order to sustain itself and make money. By acting in Syria, we may be able to cut off those flows to an even greater extent that we have done already. As for the future of Syria, the country has natural resources and the great resource of its people; it would, in a transitional form, attract huge support from across the Arab world and the developed world here in the west. We want to see Syria rebuilt, so its people can return there.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The 0.7% commitment is not some sort of badge to take out and wear; it is something that is making a real difference. The reason why we have been able to be the second largest bilateral donor to the Syrian refugee camps is that the resources are available—as I have said, I am talking about giving 10 times more than some other major European countries. This morning I met Stephen O’Brien, formerly a Member of this House and now UN Under-Secretary-General with responsibility for humanitarian affairs. The camps are short of money. They need money for food and for proper resources. There is a crying need for other countries to do what Britain has done and meet the promises that we have made.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

When I asked the Prime Minister a question in June, he told me he was convinced that our country was doing all it should to help vulnerable child refugees. It took tragic events in August and the signatures of half a million British people to get him to change his mind. May I ask him to change his mind again and take refugees out of his migration target?

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the migration target is that the Office for National Statistics has calculated migration figures in the same way for many, many years. It includes refugees as well as other migrants. I think the British public wants to know that the system as a whole—for migration and for those seeking asylum —is under control. I am absolutely clear that we are committed to taking 20,000 Syrian refugees, and we will meet that target.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is far more that we can do to prosecute and chase down organisations that do not pay their staff properly. That is why we are bringing into the Home Office organisations that can help to make that happen. Whether the organisation concerned is the Gangmasters Licensing Authority or, indeed, the National Crime Agency, all the powers are there to enable us to go after those who do not pay the minimum wage when they should.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

On Monday I listened to residents of Mendell Court, an extra care facility in Bromborough in my constituency, as they told me of their serious worries about social care. For the good of all who need care and all NHS patients, will the Prime Minister go further to integrate health and social care?

[The Prime Minister]

Through the better care fund we are producing £5 billion, which is money that health authorities and local authorities can spend together. Up to now, the Labour party has opposed that fund and said that it should not be established; but I am afraid it is worse than that. The shadow Secretary of State for Health has been wandering around the television studios today, telling anyone who is prepared to listen that he would increase funding for social care. There is only one slight problem with that. The shadow Chancellor said on the news as recently as 5 January that

“there will be no additional funding for local government unless we can find money from somewhere else”—[Interruption.]

Ah—we are! If Labour Members had waited until the end of the quotation, they would have heard this:

“but we have not been able to do that in the case of local government.”

So there we are: total and utter chaos. One of them is going around saying that there will be extra money, another is saying that there will not be any extra money, and there are £20 billion of unfunded commitments that would lead to total chaos in our economy and a total breakdown in our health service.

G20

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To be fair, I think that the European Union has been the leader in all this. We should note what Britain and other European countries are doing in terms of the commitment to reduce carbon emissions, and the fact that we have legal frameworks in place. There has just been an EU agreement on that. I think that we need other countries to come forward and put on the table measures such as those that we have already taken.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Immediate action on the Ebola crisis is important. I know that the Prime Minister will join me in thanking the British people for their characteristic generosity, but may I press him on the medium and long-term response to the crisis? People need health services, so will he campaign globally for an international goal of universal health coverage?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As we look for a replacement for the millennium development goals, we should bear it in mind that health provision is key to that. We also need to recognise that the global response to Ebola was too slow. Ebola could have been put on a downward path much earlier if more effective action had been taken more swiftly. While I do not blame the World Health Organisation, I think that we need to look into what immediate resources are available so that we can get stuck into countries where these issues arise, and where there are no health services.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is so easy to despair. In politics, especially, how often do we obsess about small differences rather than about the biggest challenges? Too often, we are interested by the internal workings of Westminster power, and we stop looking outwards. We turn away from the world and in on ourselves, but that is a mistake. Our country is internationalist in outlook and, to us, all people matter, just as our neighbours and our families matter. People in Iraq matter. The conflict has innocent victims who have been scared out of their homes: women, men and children who take no part in violence but who will lose the most.

ISIL has executed a murderous and disastrously effective campaign of violence. This summer, it has taken control of Iraqi cities and exploited the fragile political situation to cause terror and devastate morale. ISIL has demonstrated that it has a serious stock of military equipment that it is prepared to use to attack indiscriminately. It must be stopped.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

During the past 20 years, the position of the United Nations has shifted, and it now places a responsibility on its member states to deal with genocide when it occurs in the world. That does not, in my view, require a Security Council resolution. We need to do something when people are threatened in this world.

[Alison McGovern]

I will say more about internationalism shortly. Some people will say that the conflict is not our fight, and we should leave it to those who are closer by. For those who feel strongly, it is tempting to offer a counsel of despair and walk away. It is much harder to set about dealing with violent threats in a complicated context where the risks are high. In response, I say that we all want peace, and the only question is how to achieve it. The UK should not dictate the answer to the violence or carelessly interfere, but that does not mean that we should turn our back while the violence persists. In answering the question of whether we should do anything or nothing, we have to ask ourselves what good we can do.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does not my hon. Friend accept that no one is talking about walking away? The only argument is over whether bombing is the way to resolve the long-standing political problems in Iraq and the surrounding region.

[Alison McGovern]

As I have said, in answering the question of whether we should do anything or nothing, we have to ask ourselves what good we can do. Conflict in the middle east seems to invite comparisons, but although we should learn from history, the search for patterns and repetition can be misleading. There is no reason why the future should necessarily be like the past. In fact, our job is to make sure that it is not.

ISIL is a serious and growing force that is wreaking havoc on the Iraqi Government and on innocent people. The Iraqi Government have asked us to help, and we have the capacity to do so. Our Government have made their aims clear, and the Leader of the Opposition has set the right tests. We in this House must offer scrutiny as best we are able and make the success of the operation more likely. A vital factor in that success will be to cut off the financial supply to ISIL, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) has said. A United Nations Security Council resolution on that point was adopted on 14 August, and it would be helpful to know what progress has been made.

There are other facts that matter. We are talking not simply about security, vital though that is, but about politics and development. We need more than a military response. Peace requires not only the absence of violence but the meeting of other needs. Basic needs must be met to keep the vulnerable alive, and all who are affected must be shown a way out of the conflict. In the past, the UK, via the Department for International Development, has put reasonably substantial sums into development-focused assistance for Iraq. That ended in 2012 when the bilateral programme ended. This year, DFID’s budget for Iraq has been more than £25 million, but only £4.3 million has been spent so far. Do we need to increase efforts to ensure that money that has been committed can be spent effectively and soon? In addition, we must question whether that is enough support. By way of comparison, we will spend some £75 million this year in Syria, and a similar sum in Yemen.

I want to make two further points about development, the first of which concerns long-term needs. The budget that I have mentioned is for a single 12-month Iraq emergency humanitarian assistance programme to help 65,000 ordinary Iraqis who are in serious need. It will be used to provide emergency medicines, food and basic shelter, and to reunite families. At what point will Iraq receive longer-term development assistance, rather than simply humanitarian assistance? Instead of emergency aid, such longer-term assistance would support the wider development needs of victims of the conflict. Have the Government discussed that possibility internationally?

Do Ministers know how many children are losing out on their education as a result of the conflict? Schools in the Kurdish region are being used for shelter, which is the right thing to do, but it means that many children are losing out on their chances and hope for the future. In addition, what is the risk to wider health care needs? The Iraqi Government must be supported to maintain not simply the hard infrastructure that the country will need—power, transport and water—but the vital infrastructure of public services. Development assistance must work alongside military answers to ISIL. Is DFID working alongside the military in planning? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is quite a persistent chatter in the House, which is, frankly, discourteous. All colleagues should be heard with courtesy. Please let us do so.

[Alison McGovern]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

We were able to help a handful of the most vulnerable people from Syria to take refuge in our country. I would like to ask whether we can do more. The refugee crisis now is colossal. This country must live up to its obligations and our moral duty to help those who have done nothing to cause the conflict and are innocent victims of it.

Victims of violence in Iraq need our help, and our military assistance, but our job is far bigger than that. We must also try, limited though our power is, to win the peace.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I do not apologise for taking into account the devolution settlement and seeking clarity where it is necessary. To repeat, we are considering the ramifications of the judgment and will come back to the House in due course.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

3. If he will estimate the average change in disposable income for families in Wales since May 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

Wales has had the largest increase in disposable household income of any region or nation of the United Kingdom since 2010. Many households continue to face financial pressures. That is why we continue to introduce practical measures to help people with the cost of living at this time.

[Alison McGovern]

I am not sure that the Minister shared many detailed statistics with the House in that answer. Perhaps he will say a little more. The economies of Merseyside and north Wales are inextricably linked, so what is bad for north Wales is bad for Merseyside. That is why I would like to know just how much damage the Government have done to the incomes of people in north Wales.

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and welcome her participation at Wales Office questions. As I said, the truth is that disposable household income is increasing faster in Wales than in any other region or nation in the United Kingdom. Wages and incomes are not where we want them to be—they need to be higher—but that is because this country is still recovering from the economic trauma visited on it by the Labour party. I am sorry that she has used her question to paint Wales in such a negative light.

European Council

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s remarks. Ultimately, this is going to be a choice for the British people. I know where he stands on the issue and I suspect that in a referendum he will make his views very clear. It is right that it should be the British people’s choice. My job is to make sure we secure the very best renegotiation so that people who want to stay in a reformed European Union, and believe that it is in our national interests to do so, get the best possible choice.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Never mind the party political bellowing from the Conservative Benches—business leaders in my constituency and the rest of the north-west want Britain to be at the forefront of Europe, not in isolation. The Prime Minister concluded his response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) by saying that there was much else besides that he would renegotiate. Will he fill in the gaps and tell us precisely what he means?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, on the issue of what business said, the British Chambers of Commerce said:

“The Prime Minister fought to secure the best possible outcome for Britain, and he was right to do so”.

The Institute of Directors said that

“it is admirable—and refreshing—that a British Prime Minister should stand up for principle and the UK’s interests in Europe”.

People have talked about the CBI. The CBI backed my view that we need reform in Europe and to have a referendum based on a reformed position. I have set out, in the Bloomberg speech, in an article in The Sunday Telegraph and elsewhere, the key changes that need to be made. I recommend that the hon. Lady reads them and sees whether there are any other changes she would seek to make, and then we can have a discussion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Attorney-General. I think right hon. and hon. Members will have taken note of the substance of that reply.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thank the Attorney-General for his comments. As the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) pointed out, we will soon mark the 25th anniversary of Hillsborough. It is important to remember that we lost 96 individual people, and that thousands more were terribly affected. Will the Attorney-General join me in remembering the people we lost and offer his support to the memorial events taking place over the next month or so?

[The Attorney-General]

I am very happy to join with the hon. Lady in that respect. Having studied the papers that led me to make the reference to the High Court to seek a fresh inquest, I can understand the scale of the tragedy that took place very well indeed. For those reasons, I hope the commemoration goes well and is of use and help to the families. I join wholeheartedly in the sentiment she has expressed.