Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government
Angela Eagle Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
We do not currently have a functioning Government; it imploded two weeks ago, when there were over 50 ministerial resignations in 36 hours. The decision of those Ministers to render their Government incapable of governing forced the Prime Minister to concede that the end was nigh, but he did not resign. Shamefully, he was allowed to make over 60 new ministerial appointments to a caretaker Government. Many of those appointees will be Ministers for only three months, in this drift through a national crisis.
The Prime Minister has been told that he must be gone by 5 September. That is 50 days from now—50 days in which the Government will be led by a disgraced Prime Minister, and in which Parliament will be in recess. It is not in the interests of our country or our democracy to allow this discredited Prime Minister to squat in Downing Street one day longer. He is a security risk, having admitted to attending KGB agent Alexander Lebedev’s Italian villa alone, en route home from a NATO summit. He is trying to install more of his cronies in strategic jobs before he goes. He is ending his tenure in Downing Street much as it began—by going AWOL from emergency Cobra meetings; he prefers to party at Chequers instead. Also, there are rumours that he is planning a bumper resignation honours list of 40 Tory peers. Such powers of patronage should not be available to a man driven from office in disgrace by Members on his own side of the House.
If the motion is not carried, it will bring about a general election. It is voters, not Tory Members, who should be given the chance to pass a verdict on this catastrophic Government and their failures of probity and competence. Of course, the Tories do not want to face the voters yet. They are hoping that they can ditch their third leader in a row and crown a new Prime Minister without bothering to ask the country. They prefer to have the next Prime Minister chosen by their tiny and completely unrepresentative party membership—the very same people who chose the disgraced incumbent barely three years ago.
The Tories hope that they can evade any blame for giving a man they knew to be wholly unfit for his great office the keys to No. 10, but they cannot. Tory MPs are as culpable as the Prime Minister for the chaos and catastrophe that he has caused. They gambled with our democracy, and with respect for the law, truth and morality in public life. They lost, and now the voters must judge them. If we are to believe the dangerous pitches of the wannabe Prime Ministers still in the leadership race, the minuscule Tory membership appears to be obsessed with fantasy promises of billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts, and haunted by the fear of so-called wokeness.
It is crystal clear that the Tories are not addressing any of the real problems and challenges facing this country after 12 years of Tory misrule. They have not addressed the cost of living crisis facing millions of our fellow citizens. They have said nothing about soaring levels of child poverty as they vie with each other for who can concoct the biggest fantasy tax cut. They have left the country weaker and more ill prepared for the future. Their neglect has caused chaos in the NHS, the Passport Office and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, at the border, and in our schools and courts.
As the leadership race lumbers on and more of the 2019 manifesto is ditched, the Tories are shredding our constitution, their manifesto and their mandate for government—and now they will not even debate in public. That is why we urgently need a general election. In evidence last week, John Major said of the Cabinet:
“They were silent when they should have spoken out and then spoke out only when their silence became self-damaging.”
The only democratic way to respond to what has happened is to have a general election now.
Functioning of Government
Angela Eagle Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend makes a perfectly interesting point, but it is somewhat outside the range of my responsibilities.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I have a list here of all the resignations from Government. I will not read them out, but there are plenty of tasty quotes in there that will be of use later on. The Minister cannot sensibly argue that we have a functioning Government when this number of people are missing. There are no Ministers to do statutory instrument Committees and legislation even as we speak. What is the way forward? He cannot just blather at the Dispatch Box when the Government are disintegrating around him.
Michael Ellis
The business of the House of Commons will continue. There are Ministers to continue in place. I cannot pre-empt the Prime Minister’s statement, but I have spoken to the Cabinet Secretary today and the Government and civil service will continue to function in their public duty.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Eagle Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
This week is Carer’s Week, and I am sure the whole House will want to join me in thanking the millions of carers across the UK for all they do to support their loved ones. We have seen the vital role that carers have played in our communities during the pandemic, and we all owe them a debt of gratitude. Through our reforms on adult social care, this Government are committed to continuing to support carers.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Dame Angela Eagle
I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks about the importance of carers in our country.
This week’s events have demonstrated just how loathed this Prime Minister is—and that is only in his own party. As his Administration is too distracted by their internal divisions to deal with the challenges that we face, can he explain, if 148 of his own Back Benchers do not trust him, why on earth the country should?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady very much for her question, and I can assure her that in a long political career so far—but barely begun—I have of course picked up political opponents all over the place. That is because—[Interruption.] That is because this Government have done some very big and very remarkable things that they did not necessarily approve of. What I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no one, least of all her, is going to stop us from getting on with delivering for the British people.
Foreign Lobbying
Angela Eagle Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Bob Seely
The hon. Gentleman raises a valuable point. I am not sure I can argue the details of that because I do not know enough about the individual case. Simply put, if that individual is deemed to be an informal agent of influence, he should be on a registration process. But that is a big if—if he is deemed to be. The question is, who would deem it?
There is a wider question. Would any Government willingly put China as one of those states that are using covert influence? They absolutely should do, but perhaps several years ago they would not have done so, because any Government, including new Labour, would wish to curry favour with China.
On the wider point about questionable behaviour, there are a number of Members of the House of Lords whose behaviour has frankly been questionable, and that is, I am afraid, on both sides of the House. There is a very well known and senior former new Labour Minister who set himself up as a strategist in order to avoid, frankly, giving up almost any information at all on who his clients are. Considering that that person was also a senior EU Commissioner, he was one of the most powerful people in the land, and he was conducting, probably—I do not know, because we know so little about his business—very powerful, high-level and discreet lobbying, including for Russian clients. There is also a former Labour Attorney General who has taken time out of the House of Lords primarily to give legal advice, seemingly to Russian state or proxy interests.
Is that healthy? Should those people be in Parliament? No. There are, unfortunately, Conservative Ministers who have also behaved, frankly, shamefully, including people who have advised Deripaska. What on earth these individuals are doing and why on earth we allow any of them in Parliament I do not know. I do not say, “Everything we do is fine and everything you do is rubbish,” because that is pitiful and embarrassing. This is a political class problem, not an issue with one particular party. That is the only thing I would say on that. I should probably crack on and make some progress, Dame Angela.
In the UK, no FARA-like legislation exists. The closest thing we have to it is the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014. Which was brought in by the coalition Government. It made some progress, but not enough. It brought in a mandatory register for written and oral questions to Ministers and permanent secretaries by so-called consultant lobbyists. That said, the definition of consultant lobbyists is very narrow. In addition, the Act does not differentiate between clients and those represented, or between foreign and domestic clients.
Thus, a UK entity—be it a peer, a PR company, a finance house or a law firm offering a one-stop shop to oligarchs and other companies—can act on behalf of a foreign entity without that foreign entity being registered. To my mind, that is highly questionable. We know that hostile states are engaged in covert and overt lobbying activities. Most recently, and slightly embarrassingly for the Member concerned, we found out that our secret agencies were discussing one particular case of a Chinese lady working for a Member of Parliament—we all know which one that is.
Cultivating legal and overt, but also questionable and illicit, relationships with serving and retired politicians, civil servants—we often overlook them, but they, not MPs, are the policy experts and policy wonks—academic institutions, think-tanks and regulatory bodies, and using power and influence through an enabling class of finance and legal firms, buys power. Most repugnantly and obviously, this has been practised through the use of lawfare: intimidating legal actions designed to silence those who have attempted to look into, for example, Putin’s oligarchs. There are people here who have spoken out very eloquently on that issue.
The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report highlighted the role of lobbying in the Kremlin’s subversive activities. We know from The Guardian’s leak of secret Russian documents that there was an attempt to influence the UK and US. We have had testimony from Bill Browder, talking about Russia indirectly employing public relations firms and helping Russian individuals to avoid EU sanctions. We have had the excellent book and work from Edward Lucas, who has argued much the same. We have also had this from the former Secret Intelligence Service agent Christopher Steele, who said that lobbyists are used to penetrate “British political and business life”.
None of this is ethical. We know about some of it not because we have good laws in this country to protect us, but because of the work of FARA—the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the United States. The only reason that we found out about the extensive lobbying done by one Member of the House of Lords, Lord Barker, on behalf of Deripaska—
Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
Order. I remind everyone who will be contributing to the debate that the rules say that if you are going to identify a Member of the House of Commons or indeed the Lords—not necessarily by name—you have to have informed them in advance. Has the hon. Member done so?
Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
I know this is a very difficult area. May I ask those who are speaking in the debate—not only the hon. Gentleman—to bear those rules in mind when they make their speeches?
Sue Gray Report
Angela Eagle Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I agree with my right hon. Friend absolutely and passionately. We can study the report and we can draw the conclusions that we want, but the best thing now for our country is to move forwards together, and that is what we are going to do.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
We all understand, and the Prime Minister understands, that not being truthful on the Floor of this House requires a resignation. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) asked the Prime Minister a point-blank question on the Floor of this House when he was at the Dispatch Box. She asked him if he had been to a party on 13 November in 10 Downing Street. He said he had not and that no party had happened. There are four pictures of it featured in the Sue Gray report. Will the Prime Minister account now, on the Floor of the House, for his answer to that very specific question?
The Prime Minister
Yes of course, and I tried to do it in what I said earlier. The answer is that it is part of my job to say thank you to people who work in Government, and that is what I was doing. I believed it was a work event and, indeed, there has been no fine issued to me as a result of my attendance at that event, because that is what I was doing.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Angela Eagle Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
May I start by saying that today is, of course, Her Majesty the Queen’s 96th birthday? I know that the whole House will wish to join me in wishing Her Majesty many happy returns.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important issue on the Floor of the House, and it is a pleasure to appear opposite the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). The Government recognise the seriousness of the issues under consideration. Let me say at the outset that the Prime Minister has always been clear that he is happy to face whatever inquiries Parliament sees fit to hold. He is happy for the House to decide how it wishes to proceed today, and therefore will not be whipping Conservative Members of Parliament. They are free to vote according to how they believe we should move forward on this issue.
Last night, we tabled an amendment to the motion because we wanted to be explicit that Sue Gray should be able to complete and publish her report without any further delay, and because we wanted to allow the Metropolitan police to conclude their investigations. We now recognise that in practice those things are almost certainly likely to happen, so we are happy for the Labour motion to go through, if that is the will of the House.
The Prime Minister has apologised repeatedly for what has happened. He is mortified by it. He wishes he could have done things differently, and that the clock could be turned back. He has apologised—as this House has heard him do this week—repeatedly for what has happened. He has asked for the House’s forgiveness, and to be able to get on and serve the people of this country by delivering the opportunities brought about by his getting Brexit done, by our leading the world on covid vaccines and the vaccine roll-out, and by his clear leadership on Ukraine.
I wish to make it clear to the House that while the Metropolitan police investigation is ongoing, it is right that neither I nor this House speculates on the detail of matters that are still under investigation. It is of the utmost importance that police processes can continue without the risk of prejudice from this place or elsewhere. I acknowledge the points made by many Members, but it is important that the House understands that we cannot pre-empt the outcome of an investigation that must be allowed to finish.
As the motion before the House acknowledges, the proper time for the Privileges Committee to consider this matter is after the police have completed their work, when all the facts have been made clear. That is in accordance with the principles of natural justice, an ancient principle that the Leader of the Opposition understands full well. Natural justice includes the principles that allegations have to be known to the person accused, that there must be an unbiased tribunal, and that no one should be a judge in their own cause.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said that he did not believe the Prime Minister. He has made a judgment and that is fine, but let us be clear that this is not a neutral, objective viewpoint. It is in the interests of natural justice that its principles be followed by all. That is in the interests of the House, too. The Leader of the Opposition spoke of principles, and of how consideration of them should affect the tempo of this debate, but his party spoke of drafting personalised attack ads against Conservative Members of Parliament in their constituencies. Moreover, before he opened the debate, he apologised for unwittingly misleading the House during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, and in his next breath moved a motion against the Prime Minister for misleading the House. The truth is that there is a political tempo to this matter.
As the House knows, the Prime Minister is on his pre-planned visit to India, in order to deepen our long-term partnership for peace and prosperity with a fellow leading democracy in the face of global economic challenges and threats from autocratic states. Tomorrow, he will meet Prime Minister Modi for in-depth talks on the United Kingdom and India’s strategic defence, diplomatic and economic partnership, because the visit is aimed at bolstering our close partnership and stepping up security co-operation in the Indo-Pacific. Many Members in this House will understand that given events in Ukraine, it was of the utmost importance that this important visit went ahead. At no time, though, has the Prime Minister said that the issue that we are debating is not important; it is important. Other things are also important.
At all times, the Prime Minister has set out his understanding of events, just as he did again in the House on Tuesday. He has no concerns with this issue being considered by the Privileges Committee, if that is what the House decides should happen. Nevertheless, Members of this House will be aware that, as I have said, the Government tabled an amendment last night, setting out specifically that consideration of this matter should take place after both the conclusion of the police investigation and the publication of Sue Gray’s report, because Members should have all the facts before taking a decision. We are, however, now content that, in practice, any parliamentary process would take place after both the Met’s investigation has concluded and the report from Sue Gray has been published. As a result, Members of Parliament will be able to vote as they see fit on the motion, as the Government remain committed to publishing Sue Gray’s report as soon as possible after the Met police investigation has concluded.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Yet again, I have sympathy with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, given the Back-Bench duties he finds himself having to fulfil. He talks about us having all the facts before us. Will he reassure the House that all the photographs taken by the official photographers will be available to us to peruse as these judgments are made, so that we can make sure that we have all the facts before us?
Michael Ellis
I cannot comment on the particulars that the hon. Lady mentions because, of course, the matter is under police investigation, so she presupposes a state of affairs that I cannot speak to.
Easter Recess: Government Update
Angela Eagle Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
Of course I agree with that, but let us be frank: the issue here today is what I did and what I got wrong, and I renew my apologies.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Prime Minister accepted the Health Secretary’s resignation for breaking covid guidance, not covid laws. The Prime Minister then accepted Allegra Stratton’s resignation for joking that the parties that were so frequent in Downing Street were a business event. He is now using her joke as his defence. Why is he holding himself to lower standards than the people whose resignations he accepted?
The Prime Minister
All I can say is that I apologise for what I got wrong. I have explained to the House why I spoke in the House as I did, and what I want to do is get on with the job of the Government in taking this country forward. That is what we are going to do.
Sanctions
Angela Eagle Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Ellis
Let me make a little progress and then I will give way. The solidarity of NATO is resolute, which is why the UK and our NATO allies have been moving troops to our NATO allied states. We will continue to support the legitimate Government of Ukraine and the people of Ukraine in their self-defence against this attack by Vladimir Putin. Let me reinforce this point: we are going to use every lever under our control to that end.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I suppose the frustration is that we have been told for a long time that economic crime and kleptocracy and the proceeds of economic crime are going to be clamped down on, yet very little that is effective has happened. Now we are hearing something similar from the Minister. What is he doing to beef up enforcement to ensure that these sanctions are actually going to bite? We can have the best sanctions in the universe if we are not enforcing them; they need to be enforced, and fast.
Michael Ellis
These powers will have a maximum penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment, so that is a “bite” if they are breached.
Stephen Doughty
I am sure that the Minister will say that we are not naming individuals to give them advance warning, but the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) is absolutely right to bring up the fear of asset flight, as several hon. Members have done. We have already heard rumours today that a number of people are trying to dispose of assets and move money. I hope that the Government will name and shame the law firms and accountants who are facilitating that; they are the same enablers who have facilitated the illicit finance network and propped up the Putin regime for far too long in this country. Quite frankly, those law and accountancy firms and others involved should be ashamed of themselves.
Dame Angela Eagle
Does my hon. Friend share my worry and frustration that there has been such a big gap between the Government’s rhetoric about economic crime, sanctions and kleptocracy, and what they actually do? Before we can fully support the sanctions suggested, we need reassurance that there is now no gap and that enforcement will be effective. The sanctions have to be effective, or they might as well not exist.
Stephen Doughty
I completely agree about the need for effectiveness. A point has been made today about the slow pace of the designation of some individuals and entities. The Government have rightly talked about moving in lockstep with our allies, particularly in the EU, yet we still seem to be off pace in naming individuals—we seem to be moving more slowly. Some of the individuals that we have mentioned have already been sanctioned by the US and others for years or do not have significant assets in the UK. We need to ensure that our measures are meaningful, immediate, effective, deep and robust, and that individuals are not now sweeping their money and assets out of the UK.
Ukraine
Angela Eagle Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend very much. He is absolutely right to say that we have to look at those who abet the Putin regime. There are many, many of them, and that is why we are looking at all sorts of ways in which we can address threats to this state. We are, of course, ensuring that the messages from this House, which are so impressive in their unity, should be registered by the people of Russia, because we mean no ill towards them. They are, in many ways, as much the victims of this appalling regime as the people of Ukraine, and they need to know what is really going on.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Prime Minister tell the House, if he can, what is going on with the Russian troops going through Chernobyl? That sent a chill through a lot of people’s thoughts when we heard about it.
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady. I hesitate to give the House a running commentary on what seems a very fluid and dangerous situation, but to the best of my knowledge she is right in what she says.
Ukraine
Angela Eagle Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right. The threat is not just to Europe. The threat from an aggressive and expansionist Russian agenda is everywhere, including in Africa from the Wagner group. It is up to the UK now to push back and that is what we are going to do.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Prime Minister tell the House now whether the sanctions he has announced will actually put into effect the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report, and whether he has full confidence that they will close down the so-called London laundromat, which is laundering dirty Russian money straight through the City?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady will have understood from what I said earlier that what we are proposing to do will go further than that report. We are cracking down today on Russian banks and individuals. We are proposing to stop Russian companies even raising money in London and to stop them trading in sterling. That was not recommended by the report she mentions, but that will do real economic damage where it is necessary to do it.