Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I will make a tiny bit more progress.

Taken together, over the last year and this, our plan for jobs is providing over £407 billion of support for British people and businesses—a historic package of economic support unmatched in peacetime—and the evidence shows our plan is working. GDP statistics published only this morning show that the economic impact of the lockdown at the start of the year was less severe than had been expected and that there are clear signs that we are now on our way to recovery. The Bank of England said last week that it now expects the economy to return to its pre-crisis level by the end of this year—earlier than it previously thought.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has just given us the excellent news that the economy should have rebounded by the end of this year. He and I have discussed on a number of occasions the importance of international development. In view of that, can he confirm to the House today that he will restore the 0.7% target at the end of the year when the economy has so recovered?

[Rishi Sunak]

I appreciate all the constructive conversations my right hon. Friend has had with me on this topic, which I know he feels passionately about. As he will know, while our economy will have recovered its pre-crisis levels, the damage to our public finances is much longer-lasting. That is what led the Government to make the difficult but I hope understandable decision to temporarily divert from the 0.7% commitment, with a full intention to return to it when the fiscal situation allows, but in the meantime to remain one of the leading donors to the causes that both he and I are passionate about.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

When I saw that I was number 7a on the call list, I thought perhaps I was the first reserve for my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown); I did not realise that I had promotion rights too, so thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker.

One of the effects of the shock of the pandemic, along with other geopolitical changes, is that after 50 years of global trade liberalisation, the world is facing a long period of aggressive mercantilism, and we have to deal with that. The Government are to be congratulated on their ambitious agenda, including record increases in research spending, which has not been mentioned today, the employment drive, the freeport programme, the campaign for ambitious free trade agreements and the bold infrastructure plans. On the non-economic front, I also welcome the excellent proposals to guarantee free speech on campuses. However, I have serious concerns about several aspects of the Queen’s Speech.

[Mr Mitchell]

Do those concerns include the issue of the 0.7%, on which my right hon. Friend and I have not always agreed in the past?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is quite right: I opposed the increase to 0.7% because I thought that it was too fast and that it would encourage inefficiency, but, once you are at 0.7%, reducing it will lead to the loss of lives, so I absolutely agree with him on that.

The most important of the domestic issues that concerns me is the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The Bill reverses the reforms that we put in place in 2017 after the scandal of the treatment of Paul Gambaccini, who was on police bail for well over a year before not being charged. Even now, after that reform, far too many suspects are still bailed for years on end. I currently have a case in front of me where an individual has spent five and a half years on bail without an end in sight. This is crippling to an individual’s life—it is like a loose house arrest—and the National Crime Agency shows zero understanding of the cruel damage that is being done to a person’s life by its ridiculously slow investigation. The Bill, as it stands, will make those problems worse by relaxing the current restrictions on police bail. I give notice to the Government that I will aim to amend the Bill.

The Bill also contains a proposal for the mass collection of data under the auspices of preventing and reducing serious violence. Here we have the Government countenancing pre-crime, and to deal with pre-crime, they have to have someone’s medical data, health data and education data—there is no restriction on it. It imposes a duty on an array of authorities, including health providers, to share data with the police. We know from history, including from when people have their phone confiscated, that once the police have this data, getting them to delete it and give it back is the devil’s own job. Indeed, it is near impossible; anybody who has tried it knows that. We are talking here about massively enhancing the powers of the state or an agent of the state to collect as much data on as many individuals as they see fit. I want to see that restricted.

I am concerned about the threat to the right of protest, which this country has enshrined in our national fabric for over 800 years—the right to peaceful demonstration. The Home Secretary promised me from the Dispatch Box that we will be incredibly careful to protect that fundamental right. However, I am afraid that the wording of the Bill, as it stands, simply does not do that. It needs reform and I will endeavour to ensure that it is put right.

Finally, my name, along with that of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), is on the amendment to the Queen’s Speech that calls on the Government to obey the law in areas where the courts have ruled that they are acting illegally. There are a number of cases where the Government have not done what they have been told to by the courts three or four years ago. Many of these cases affect the rights of children. Rule of law is not a theoretical constitutional concept. It affects lives and living standards of bereaved adults and deprived children.

We should, as a Conservative party and a Conservative Government, stand up for the rule of law, even when it is inconvenient and when the Treasury finds it unpleasant because it has to pay out a few hundred million pounds. This Conservative Government should limit the power of the state rather than enlarge it, celebrate freedom rather than curtail it, and operate under the law rather than under ministerial fiat. I hope that this Parliament and all the parties will hold the Government to that. Otherwise, we will risk betraying the ideals of the country that we live in.

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[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). We do not agree on everything and I have spent the past two years working hard for his opponent, Andy Street, who was elected last Thursday, but I thank him for what he said and for what was a decent and fair campaign in the West Midlands that dignified democracy and did all the main candidates considerable credit.

First, I am a fan of the mayoral system and think that Andy Street will be best placed to secure the right economic judgments and the jobs, training and levelling up. As has been said already in this debate, levelling up is not just geographical but generational. This is first young generation since the world war one that does not believe it will be better off than its parents’ generation. That is an important issue. The devolution of power—which is, of course, part of the answer to the constitutional questions about Scotland, Ireland and the United Kingdom—is very important and it works well in the West Midlands. I strongly encourage the Chancellor to give Andy Street every possible support in the work that he is doing.

In particular, in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield we would like levelling-up funds. I hope very much that we will be in the second tranche, because public spending is critical to securing successful development, sometimes in places that are ostensibly quite well off but need that spending if they are to succeed. Areas such as mine have to go through Birmingham City Council and there are inevitably political difficulties and differences of emphasis. I urge the Treasury to consider that.

Secondly, on the 0.7% aid target, I very much hope that the Chancellor will have heard yesterday the words of the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May); the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley); and others in the House. The Gracious Speech quite rightly calls for girls’ education, which is probably the most effective way of changing the world, but on girls’ education—the Prime Minister’s particular priority—we have seen a 25% cut, with funding set to fall from £789 million in 2019 to a projected £400 million this year. That is a very substantial cut. Funding for UNICEF, which looks after children and was assessed in the British Government’s multilateral aid review to be the best UN agency, has been cut back by 60%. These are very serious issues.

[Liam Byrne]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. Does he agree that at the G7 and later this year at COP26, Her Majesty’s Government would stand a far better chance of encouraging sign-up to the new International Development Association programme if, ahead of those important events, they were prepared to commit to the 0.7% target?

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well my strong support for the 0.7%. The point that I am making is that the damage being done to Britain’s reputation, quite apart from the damage to the poorest people in the world, is very severe indeed. I worry that the Treasury does not fully appreciate these factors.

The Chancellor generously gave way to me earlier and I asked him whether he would consider reinstating the 0.7% once the economy reaches pre-covid levels. He said that the damage that was done might be too great for that. I hope very much that he will think about those words. He also mentioned that we have given £400 billion of taxpayers’ support—quite rightly and highly effectively, thanks to his successful stewardship—to our efforts to combat covid. On the cut that he has made to 0.5%, we are talking of 1% of that £400 billion, but the damage that this is doing to Britain’s reputation, quite apart from the damage it is doing to the poorest people in the world, is very savage indeed.

I therefore urge the Chancellor to announce as soon as he can that we will stand by our promise that we made just a year ago in the general election and by the promise that the British Government made on the floor of the General Assembly at the UN, and that we will no longer seek to balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world.

The third point that I wanted to make was mentioned in the Gracious Speech, and it is about social care. I am obviously disappointed that the Government have not yet set out quite how they wish to proceed on this matter, but it seems to me that this is a major and important reform that needs to be agreed by all parties. Like pensions legislation, it has a long tail. However, much of the work has already been done by Sir Andrew Dilnot. I hope that the Government will look carefully at those plans and decide whether they are able perhaps to tweak them, but to implement them.

In my constituency, we have big plans for the Royal Sutton Coldfield Cottage Hospital, but those plans require us to understand what the national social care priorities will be. I hope that this legislation will come forward, possibly with the assistance of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) and his experienced Select Committee, who might have a role in assisting the Government in refining those plans and aspirations.

The final point that I want to make is about assisted dying. I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on choice at the end of life, and I know that there are very strong feelings in the House on this issue. I greatly respect those who completely disagree with me on the matter, not least since I have completely changed my own mind since I first entered the House many years ago.

Those of us who are supporting Dignity in Dying want a very tight and narrow change made to the law. We believe that this could be the great liberal reform of this Parliament; 84% of our constituents want to see this sort of reform introduced. Significant advances are being made in southern Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany and Australia, so I ask that we as parliamentarians consider allowing our constituents who are terminally sick and within six months of dying to be able to exercise their own choices, and not be forced to endure a level of pain and indignity that they do not wish to suffer.