Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is not just Labour’s record in London or in Wales: every Labour Government in history since the second world war has left office with unemployment higher than when they came in. That is because only Conservatives can be trusted to deliver on the economy and on the people’s priorities, which is why, thanks to the policies that we have pursued, this country now has the fastest economic growth in the G7.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

A happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, and to the rest of the House.

Over the Christmas break, the world lost a giant in the fight for equality and human rights: the great Desmond Tutu. I offer my condolences to his family and to the people of South Africa.

I thank all the key workers who have kept our essential services running over the festive period. In particular, I thank all the staff and volunteers working at vaccination sites and our amazing NHS staff, who are working incredibly hard in incredibly stretched circumstances. We will come to that after Prime Minister’s questions, with the Prime Minister’s statement. I also thank the formidable Sue Gray, who has been busier than Santa over the festive period.

In October, the Prime Minister said that fears about inflation were “unfounded”, but working people across the country are starting the new year facing rising bills and ballooning prices, so how did he get it so wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, I said no such thing, because inflation is always something that we have to be careful about. We are making sure that we protect the people of this country throughout what is unquestionably going to be a difficult period, which is why we have lifted the living wage by record sums and why we make sure that people have cold weather payments, the warm home discount and all the other protections, including the £500 million fund we have put in to help local councils look after people through what will be a difficult period. The most important thing we can do to look after people during this very difficult time is to ensure that we take the balanced and proportionate approach that we are taking to ensure that we are able to keep our country and our society going, which is exactly what we are doing. That is why we have doubled down on the booster programme and why we are sticking with plan B. That is the right approach for the country.

[Angela Rayner]

Inflation is about to hit 6%. That is the highest rate since the early ‘90s, when the Conservatives had been in power for more than a decade—when they were mired in sleaze, with a divided party and a Prime Minister losing the support of his Back Benchers and governing shambolically, and a Labour party ready to take over and provide Britain with a better future. Familiar stuff, Mr Speaker? The Prime Minister promised that wage rises would offset inflation. They have not and they will not. Millions of British workers now face a further pay cut and the Chancellor is handing them a tax hike. What will the Prime Minister do to get a grip of this?

[The Prime Minister]

It is great to be here with the right hon. Lady, the shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work—we know the future job that she has in mind. I wish her well. What we are focused on is delivering jobs for the British people. It is a quite extraordinary thing that there are now record numbers of people in work—420,000 more than there were before the pandemic began. We have youth unemployment at a record low. Never let it be forgotten that when omicron hit this country, what was the instinctive response of Labour Members? [Interruption.] That is right, Mr Speaker. They said that we needed a road map to lock down. If we had listened to them, we would not have anybody working at all.

[Angela Rayner]

I have heard on the grapevine that there might be a vacancy for Prime Minister soon, so perhaps I should have aspirations.

The Prime Minister pretends that it is not his fault. He blames the global forces. He blames the markets. We are an aspirational party. Perhaps the Prime Minister needs to be more aspirational for this country. The Prime Minister has made political choices that have led us to this place. His Government have failed to invest in long-term energy security. His Government decided to let gas storages collapse. His Government let the energy market run out of control: 27 energy companies have gone bust in the past year, and now household bills are going through the roof, or, as the Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis put it, there will be a “seismic” hit to energy bills. Cannot the Prime Minister see what is happening? Yet again, working families are picking up the tab for his incompetence.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady talks about energy. I think the House would agree that she has a lot more energy than the current Leader of the Opposition. I welcome her point, because what the Government are doing is supporting people throughout the pandemic: 2.2 million people supported with the warm home discount, worth £140 per week, which we introduced; pensioners supported with the £300 winter fuel payments; and there are cold weather payments worth £25 a week for 4 million people up and down the country. That is what we are doing, and that is on top of everything that we are doing to support people on low incomes. We are cutting taxes for those on universal credit and increasing the living wage—£1,000 more for everybody on the living wage. These are record sums. Let me remind the House of the fundamental difference between that Labour party and this Government. Labour Members would have kept us in lockdown in July. When omicron hit, they were calling for further restrictions. [Interruption.] That is right, Mr Speaker. We have been able to keep this country moving, keep the economy growing, and keep the money going into people’s pockets.

[Angela Rayner]

I will tell you what this Prime Minister is doing, Mr Speaker. He is increasing taxes for the hard-working people of this country. That is what he is doing. That is what he did not promise to do in his manifesto, but that is what he is doing to the people.

“The poorest households spend three times more of their income on household energy bills than the richest households spend”,

and

“VAT on…energy bills…makes gas and electricity…more expensive.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the Prime Minister himself. When energy bills are to be hiked again in April, any decent Government would find a way to help British families. Even Tory Back Benchers have finally accepted Labour’s call for a cut in VAT on energy bills, so will the Prime Minister finally stand up to his Chancellor and do the same?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady obviously did not listen to my previous answer. Let me remind her that the warm home discount already supports 2.2 million people to the tune of £140 a week. Pensioners are supported with £300 through the winter fuel payment, and there are cold weather payments for 4 million people. The Opposition now have the effrontery, having campaigned to remain in the European Union—and she did too, did she not? [Hon. Members: “Yes!”] Oh yes, she campaigned to remain in the EU. [Interruption.] Oh yes she did—and they now have the barefaced cheek to come to this House of Commons and say that they want to cut VAT on fuel—[Interruption]—and so did the shadow Foreign Secretary—when everyone knows full well that that would be absolutely impossible if we were to do what Labour would do, go back into the EU and remain aligned with the EU single market. That is the objective of the Labour party. It cannot be trusted on Brexit, and it cannot be trusted on the economy.

[Angela Rayner]

Prime Minister, how’s it going? Are you okay?

The Prime Minister and his Chancellor have presided over economic mismanagement, low growth, and neglect of our public services, and what is their solution to fix that? Whacking more taxes on to working people. When the tax rises are combined with soaring energy prices, the average family faces a £1,200 hit. This is an iceberg, right ahead of us, so will the Prime Minister finally stop and change course—[Interruption.]

[Angela Rayner]

Given that hit of £1,200, will the Prime Minister finally stop and change course, or will he plough on towards what will be a disaster for thousands of families?

[The Prime Minister]

As a direct result of what we have already done on universal credit, a single mother with two kids is £1,200 better off. As a result of what we have done with the living wage—introduced by this Conservative Government, never let it be forgotten—everyone on that living wage has seen another £1,000 of income every year. But that is not the point. We will continue to look after people throughout the pandemic, but the fundamental point is that because of the steps that the Government have taken—because of the tough decisions we have taken, and because of our balanced and proportionate approach to covid—we have been able to keep this country open and keep our economy moving. We have kept our economy more open than any comparable economy in Europe, and the Opposition know it, although they opposed it on every step of the way. That is why people are seeing increases in employment, and increases in their pay packets as well.

[Angela Rayner]

The Prime Minister always gives with one hand and takes away more with the other. Under this Prime Minister, the country is worse off. Prices of everyday goods are soaring out of control. Hard-earned savings will be hit, and the wages of working people will not go as far. Inflation is not an economic theory; it has serious consequences for people’s lives. We need serious solutions to stop people falling into poverty or debt, but instead we have this Prime Minister and his incompetent leadership.

Every time we are faced with a challenge, he denies that there is a problem. He tries to laugh it off. He looks for someone else to blame. May I suggest to the Prime Minister that this is not about brushing his hair, but about brushing up his act? Does he accept that his incompetence is taking our country backwards and costing our country dear?

[The Prime Minister]

No—what I would tell the House and the country is that Labour incompetence has ruined this country time and time again. There has never been a Labour Government that have left office with unemployment lower than when they came in. And what is the right hon. Lady’s answer to the energy crisis? It is to nationalise our energy.

It was in fact Labour’s failure to invest in supply over a decade or more that reduced our ability to have cheaper, cleaner energy. We are rectifying that. We are taking the tough decisions that this country needs for the long term. It is because we have taken those tough decisions—because we have taken the balanced and proportionate approach we have that they opposed every step of the way—that we have youth unemployment at a record low. We have 420,000 more people in jobs now than there were before the pandemic began, and we have not only the most open society and economy in Europe but the fast economic growth in the G7. That is completely contrary to what the right hon. Lady has just said, and it is because of our stable, balanced and proportionate approach. Never let it be forgotten that when omicron presented itself, what did they vote for? They reached for the lever of more restrictions. They said lockdown; we said boosters. They carp from the sidelines; we get on with the job.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this case again. I remember it, and it is very sad. I know that our staff in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office work hard to try to release people from the positions they find themselves in around the world. Luke Symons is no exception, but I will certainly make sure that the hon. Gentleman has a meeting with the relevant Minister to report on the progress we are making.

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Nobody wants to mislead the House, and I am sure that the Prime Minister would not wish to do so. I quoted the Prime Minister saying that fears about inflation were “unfounded”, and he said that he did not say that. However, the Sky journalist Beth Rigby has now put the clip on social media. I wonder whether the Prime Minister would like to correct the record.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Angela Rayner and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. I wholeheartedly back him in asking people to come forward to get their jabs and booster jabs. It is of course right that plan B measures must stay in place during this wave of the pandemic. It was the Labour party that made sure that the Government had the votes to pass those measures in the House. If not for Labour’s actions, the NHS would be facing even greater pressure, and the likelihood is that we would have needed much harsher restrictions. My message to the Prime Minister is that, despite the people sitting behind him, and those eyeing up his job alongside him, Labour will always act in the national interest and put public health before party politics.

The Prime Minister said that we have to ride out the omicron wave, but the NHS is not surfing; it is struggling to stay afloat. We have seen several hospital trusts declare critical incidents, which means that they cannot provide services for cancer and heart disease patients. In my home of Greater Manchester, non-urgent surgery is being halted. I thank those trusts that have come forward and been up front about the reality that they are facing, and I thank our NHS staff who are going above and beyond, once again, to get us through this period.

Is it not time for the Prime Minister to be straight with people and give a frank assessment of the state of our NHS? He mentioned the use of the Army, but how many trusts have declared a critical incident and what does he plan to do about that? People in the north-east are being told to call a cab or phone a friend if they are suffering a suspected heart attack or stroke. That is shocking.

Even before omicron hit, however, thousands of suspected heart attack or stroke victims in England were forced to wait more than an hour and 40 minutes for their ambulance. Is it not true that our health service went into this wave of infections with the largest waiting lists on record, the longest waiting times on record and major staff shortages? After a decade of Tory mismanagement, the NHS was not prepared for covid and did not have the spare capacity to cope with omicron. It is not just that the Conservatives did not fix the roof when the sun was shining; they dismantled the roof and removed the floorboards.

Getting testing right remains the best way to avoid further restrictions. It is welcome that the Government are requiring daily testing to protect critical national infrastructure, but that will not begin until next week. Our essential services are buckling under the pressure now. Doctors, nurses, carers, teachers and pupils cannot get the tests they need now to do two tests a week. Emergency workers are reportedly stuck in isolation because they cannot get their hands on a test. So why did the Health Secretary claim on 13 December that there is “no shortage” of actual tests? Why was the Government’s delivery service allowed to go on holiday over Christmas with no contingency plan in place? The Government have been asleep at the wheel, and the result is total shambles. I am sure the Prime Minister will join me in thanking the Welsh Labour Government for sharing 4 million tests with England. Thank goodness that they had the foresight to plan ahead and secure enough tests for this period.

In April 2020, the Government published a strategy to scale up the covid-19 testing programme. They promised to work with the UK’s world-leading diagnostics companies to build a British diagnostics industry at scale, yet two years on, this has never materialised. How much taxpayers’ money was spent on this programme and why, Prime Minister, two years into the pandemic, are we still reliant on tests from China, instead of building the capacity to make the tests here in Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

That is rubbish.

[Angela Rayner]

The Prime Minister can chunter away, but he will have his opportunity in a minute.

People will be returning to work this week, but the Government are refusing to guarantee all workers sufficient sick pay, leaving working people with the choice of going to work to feed their families or staying at home to protect public health. Will the Prime Minister finally raise sick pay so that people are no longer faced with an impossible choice of doing the right thing or feeding their family?

In some of the poorest countries in the world, less than 10% of the population is vaccinated. This is shameful. We know we can do more to assist the international vaccine effort, and what are the Government doing about that? If we are going to break this endless cycle of new variants, we have to vaccinate the world. This is not just a question of doing the right thing for others; it is in our national interest, too.

Finally, there are Conservative Members sitting behind the Prime Minister who have spent recent weeks attacking hard-working public servants. Is it not time that the Prime Minister stood by our experts, professionals and officials, who are doing all they can to protect public health? If he was happy to defend Dominic Cummings, the former Health Secretary and Owen Paterson, why will he not defend those public servants who are actually doing the right thing?

[The Prime Minister]

When it comes to attacking hard-working public servants, why does the right hon. Lady continually attack our testing operation, for instance, which has done a fantastic job throughout this pandemic?

There were several things in that intervention that were simply completely the inverse of the truth. We are not cutting cancer services; we have invested more in oncologists. We have 4% more oncologists this year than last year and 5% more radiologists. She asks about ambulances, and yes, of course everybody should get an ambulance who needs one. That is why we have invested £55 million more in the ambulance service. There are 500 more ambulance staff now than there were in 2018, 10,000 more nurses and 5,000 more doctors than there were last year. That is because of the investment that we are making—£36 billion—every penny piece of which the Opposition voted against.

To come to testing, it really is extraordinary that the Opposition run down this country and its achievements time and again. We are doing 520,000 PCR tests every day and 1.25 million tests every day. We have done 400 million tests in the country—more tests per head in this country than in any other European country. The right hon. Lady talks about schools. We delivered 31 million tests to schools in the run-up to Christmas. She made an incredible point: she said that this country did not have its own diagnostics capabilities. She does not know what this country is doing—unbelievable! Let me tell the Opposition Front Bench that in this country we have the largest lateral flow test manufacturing facility—in this country! They should go and visit it. They do not know what they are talking about. It is in Nottingham, and we buy them all. By the way, the right hon. Lady talks about the testing regime, but it is thanks to the efficiency of our testing regime that the Leader of the Opposition, whom we wish well, is not currently in his place. It is thanks to the testing regime that the right hon. Lady is able to speak from the Dispatch Box at all, so she might as well support it. It has done an incredible job.

Two final points. The Opposition voted continually against our funding for the NHS that has made this possible, and let us be in no doubt that they would have kept this country in lockdown from 19 July. They were opposed to our measures. Members on their Front Bench chorused that we needed tougher restrictions as we came into omicron and said that we needed a road map for lockdown. That was their approach, and what would have been the result? Another body blow to the UK economy and to our ability to fund our NHS. That is the fundamental difference between this Government and that Opposition: we have a plan for getting through covid; all they do is carp from the sidelines.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I share the Prime Minister’s opening words regarding our armed forces and the tremendous work that they do? I also send my best wishes to all those recovering in Salisbury and give our sincere thanks to the emergency services that responded on that day. I would also like to wish all those who are celebrating tomorrow a very happy and peaceful Diwali.

Let me start with something on which there should be agreement on both sides of the House. The independent standards process found that a Member broke the rules on paid lobbying. Surely the Prime Minister accepts that this is, and should be, a serious offence, yet we have seen reports that he will respond by scrapping the independent process and overturning its verdict. In no other profession in our country could someone be found guilty by an independent process and just have their mates vote them back into the job. Surely the Prime Minister and this Government are not going to do that today.

[The Prime Minister]

No, of course we are not going to do that, because paid lobbying, paid advocacy, in this House is wrong. I make absolutely no bones about that. Members who are found guilty of it should apologise and pay the necessary penalties, but that is not the issue in this case or in the vote befor us today.

The issue in this case, which involves a serious family tragedy, is whether a Member of this House had a fair opportunity to make representations and whether, as a matter of natural justice, our procedures in this House allow for a proper appeal, which is something that should be of interest to Members across this House and should be approached properly in a spirit of moderation and compassion.

[Angela Rayner]

Let me put it simply. If it was a police officer, a teacher or a doctor, we would expect the independent process to be followed and not changed after the verdict. It is one rule for Conservative Members and another rule for the rest of us.

When a Conservative Member was found guilty of sexual harassment but let off on a loophole, they said the rules could not be changed after the event. So they cannot change the rules to stop sexual harassment, but they can change the rules to allow cash for access. Why is the Prime Minister making it up as he goes along?

[The Prime Minister]

All the professions that she mentions have a right of appeal, which is what the House needs to consider. I respectfully say to her that, instead of playing of politics on this issue, which is what Opposition Members are doing, she needs to consider the procedures of this House in a spirit of fairness. Instead of playing politics, we are getting on with delivering on the people’s priorities: 40 more hospitals, 20,000 more police officers and wages up, growth up and jobs up across this country. Those are our priorities. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Perkins, I do not want to see any more of that.

[Angela Rayner]

It is not about playing politics in this place; it is about playing by the rules. As we can see, it is one rule for everybody else and another rule for the Conservatives. When they break the rules, they just remake the rules. I know Donald Trump is the Prime Minister’s hero, but I say to him in all seriousness that he should learn the lesson that, if he keeps cheating the public, it will catch up with him in the end. While the Conservatives are wallowing in sleaze, the rest of the country faces higher bills, rising costs and damaging tax rises. Can he tell us the projected tax increase per household over the next five years?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can tell her is that the recent Budget took cash from those who can afford to pay the most and made very substantial tax cuts for the hardest working and poorest families in this country. We cut £1,000 with the universal credit taper relief for hard-working families in this country—2 million families had a £1,000 tax cut—and we are lifting the living wage across the whole country. We are also ensuring that this country gets on with a high-wage, high-skill, jobs-led recovery, and never let it be forgotten that had we listened to the Opposition we would have none of those things because we would still be in lockdown.

[Angela Rayner]

I think the Prime Minister missed out the number, so let me help him out. The Resolution Foundation found that by 2026 taxes will be £3,000 more per household since he took office. My constituents and his are feeling the pinch, and they are worried about Christmas as well. Their bills are going up every week and the Budget did nothing to help them. So can the Prime Minister tell them: how much was the tax cut that he gave to the banks instead?

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Lady knows very well, it is the banks and the bankers who are paying far more proportionately as a result of our tax measures to cover the cost of the NHS. It is a very moot point because, of the £36 billion, 50% comes from the 14% who are the richest in this country—overwhelmingly, from the banks and financial services industry—who can pay the most. The astonishing thing is that, when it came to voting for that £36 billion increase—for 48 new hospitals, 50,000 more nurses and looking after our public services—the Opposition voted against it.

[Angela Rayner]

According to the Prime Minister’s own Budget documents, it was £4 billion in tax cuts to the bankers and £3,000 of tax rises per household. That is good news for the donor who gave his party half a million pounds—his bank got a bonus of nearly £8 million—but not so good news for the rest of us.

This month, as the Prime Minister said, we remember and celebrate all those who serve our great country, all those who have lost their lives, leaving behind loved ones, and those who have sustained life-changing injuries and live every day with the consequences of their sacrifice. Yet hidden in the small print of the Budget was a £1 billion cut to day-to-day defence spending. So will our servicemen and women face pay cuts, or will there be fewer of them, with less support?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is quite incredible that we are now hearing this from the Labour party, when they would have pulled us out of NATO. I think the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) actually wanted to abolish the Army. The woman sitting next to the right hon. Lady wanted to abolish the Army. What you have got with this Government is spending on defence that is the highest since the cold war; it is the biggest uplift since the cold war and an increase that has restored confidence in this country around the world, in our ability to defend not just our own shores, but our friends and partners. That is what this Government are doing.

[Angela Rayner]

The Prime Minister knows that I asked him about the annual defence budget, which his own Budget documents show will drop by £1.3 billion. I hear his fine words, and I am from a military family myself, but I will not take party political lectures from him, because too often the Government’s actions do not match their words. I think of my constituent who fought in Afghanistan, yet was threatened with sanctions because he was unable to physically travel miles to the nearest Department for Work and Pensions office. The Prime Minister’s tax cut for short-haul flights last week cost £30 million—that is 50% more than the Government spend on supporting veterans’ mental health each year. The charity Combat Stress has lost £6 million in funding this year, even as calls to its helpline have doubled. So will the Prime Minister match our proposal to reinvest the £35 million saved from cancelled Ministry of Defence contracts to support our veterans, who surely deserve it?

G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

Debate between Angela Rayner and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of this statement, and for updating the House on the G20 summit in Rome. It cannot be overstated how crucial the next week and a half is. I am pleased that there has been some progress as the Prime Minister outlined, but the next 10 days need to move beyond prepacked announcements. This is an opportunity for Britain, alongside our friends and allies around the world, to deliver historic change. By taking action to reduce emissions right now in this decade, we can avoid the worst effects of climate change. That cannot just be a political ambition; it is a necessity for humanity.

As the G20 ends and COP26 continues, I assure the Prime Minister that all Labour Members are desperate for it to be a success. We hope that our negotiations can bring people together and deliver urgent solutions to the biggest challenge our world has ever faced. However, there is some cause for concern. The G20 needed to be a springboard to COP26, and a real opportunity to show Britain’s diplomatic strength in bringing people together and applying pressure where it is needed. We need to convince the big polluters to meet the commitment to 1.5°, to find solutions to phase out fossil fuels, to ensure a just transition for workers, and to create a fairer and greener economy. However, the G20 did not achieve that, and the Prime Minister is failing in his efforts to convince world leaders that more must be done. He has welcomed commitments for the distant future, and I accept that, but he knows all too well that we need to halve carbon emissions now, and at least by the end of this decade, if we are to keep global temperatures down. It is time for urgent climate action now, not more climate delay.

We all know how difficult it is to convince the world to curtail carbon emissions, but it is our responsibility to do so. It is the Prime Minister’s responsibility to influence world leaders and lead by example. As we try to convince other countries to phase out coal, the Government are refusing to make their mind up about coalmines within their borders. They could have followed the lead of the Welsh Labour Government and changed planning policy to ensure that no new coalmines were developed, but they did not. As we try to convince big emitters to do more on reducing emissions, unfortunately this Government are agreeing a trade deal with Australia that removes key climate pledges. They are undermining our messages by giving a free pass to our friends. When Britain must convince the wealthiest nations in the world to pledge more money to help developing countries cut their emissions and adapt to climate change, what have this Government done? They cut development aid that would have funded vital climate projects. How does the Prime Minister expect to convince others to do more, when he is setting such a poor example?

I also want to raise global vaccinations. Last week the G20 agreed a vague promise to explore ways to accelerate global vaccination against covid-19, yet in some of the world’s poorest countries, less than 3% of people have received even one dose of the vaccine. We all know that we live in a globalised world, where the more the virus spreads, the greater the threat of new variants. We are not safe from covid here until people are safe from covid everywhere. There is no more time for rhetoric; it is time for action. The Prime Minister mentioned our efforts on vaccines, but last week it was revealed that the UK is lagging behind all other G7 countries bar one in sharing surplus vaccines with poor countries. That is shameful. Our fantastic scientists who developed the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine are being let down by our Prime Minister’s actions. We need booster jabs in Manchester, and vaccines shared with Madagascar. It is now time for actions, not words. As the world gathers over the next two weeks, we all hope for the breakthrough that we need. Britain has a proud history of building alliances and standing up for what is right, and I have no doubt we will be able to do that again. I wish the Prime Minister well in his efforts, and I ask him to pay attention and go for the detail on this. If he fails to deliver the change we need through this conference, we will all pay the price.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady asks me to go for the detail, but having said some kind things about her approach just now, after listening to that I think I prefer the forensic—or the pseudo-forensic—approach of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). She is completely in ignorance of the basic facts. We have cut our CO₂ emissions by 44% on 1990 levels, largely by moving from 80% dependence on coal 50 years ago to about 1% or 2% today. It is a massive cut.

We have not cut our investment in overseas development aid for climate change funding—[Interruption.] No, we have not. We have kept it at £11.6 billion. I do not know whether the right hon. Lady was paying attention to the news, but only the other day we announced another £1 billion, which we were able to do because of the growth in the economy. She is completely wrong about the facts. As for what she said about vaccines, I am afraid it is an insult to the incredible work done by the UK vaccine roll-out programme across the world. One and a half billion people have had access to cost-price vaccines, thanks to the deal that this Government did with Oxford AstraZeneca—a record no other country in the world has—to say nothing of the £548 million extra that we put into Gavi, or the extra 100 million vaccines that we are donating by June next year. This country has an absolutely outstanding record in supporting vaccination around the world. If the right hon. Lady wants to look at the detail, I urge her to go off and study it.

I welcome the broad thrust of what the right hon. Lady said about COP26. I think she was saying that she sees signs of progress but there is a lot more to do, and frankly, there she is right. Perhaps I can point to the things that have happened since G20, and draw her attention to India’s massive commitment to cut CO₂ by 2030 by cleaning up its power system. I can point to the $10 billion from Japan over the next five years to support developing countries around the world, and I point also not just to Brazil, but to Russia, China and 110 countries around the world that have signed up to the forestry declaration to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. That considerable achievement will make a huge difference, and we will use consumer power, and the power of corporations and the private sector around the world, to effect that change.

For me, the single most important thing that came out of COP was an agreement around the world about the basic intellectual approach now being taken by the UK through the clean green initiative and what Joe Biden calls the build back better world initiative. That is the thing that offers greatest hope for humanity. We are not just putting in Government money to help countries around the world clean up, and putting in development aid money—although we are massively supporting that—but we are now leveraging in tens, perhaps hundreds, of trillions of private sector investment. That is the way to make the difference, and if we can get that right at this COP it will be a truly remarkable thing. As I say, however, there is still a long way to go.

Afghanistan

Debate between Angela Rayner and Boris Johnson

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. First, may I give my apologies on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, who is on a long-planned visit to meet political leaders in Northern Ireland? May I also associate myself with the Prime Minister’s comments regarding British service personnel and the collective efforts of our partners in NATO?

This is a profound moment for the more than 150,000 UK personnel who have served in Afghanistan during the past 20 years, including my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and many more Members across this House. My own brother served in the British armed forces during that period, too, so I know how it feels to say goodbye to a loved one before a tour of duty. Thankfully, I do not know how it feels not to see your loved one come home again, and the pain that those families have gone through is unimaginable. Hundreds of British men and women lost their lives in the service of our country. Many more were wounded or injured and still suffer the physical and emotional scars. They have shown extraordinary bravery, skill and courage so today, to everyone who served in Afghanistan and to all who loved them and supported them, we say a huge thank you.

There have been moments of huge difficulty in the past two decades, and the situation on the ground in Afghanistan today is more concerning than it has been at any point in many years. That must not take away from the many positives our engagement has brought to Afghanistan and the real difference our services and development sector have made in a country that has suffered so much. We have supported improvements in security, governance, economic development and, as the Prime Minister said, advancing the rights of women and education for girls. Yet these gains have not been secured; the Taliban are making gains on the ground, and serious questions remain about the future stability of Afghanistan.

A security threat remains to the wider world, including to the UK. Nobody wants to see British troops permanently stationed in Afghanistan, but we simply cannot wash our hands or walk away. It is hard to see a future without bloodier conflict and wider Taliban control. Already, they are on the brink of gaining control of provincial capitals, and Afghan security forces are at risk of being overwhelmed. This spells jeopardy for the Afghan people, particularly for Afghan women and girls—and for all the things the Prime Minister talked about earlier—who in a just world would have had the same rights as women everywhere deserve.

In the words of the Prime Minister, this is a situation fraught with risk, and I understand that. So can he tell us whether he argued for or against the withdrawal by the US Government and NATO, and what other steps he proposed? Our British troops made enormous sacrifices and we believe, as a nation, that we have a responsibility to our veterans. Can the Prime Minister really tell them that our work as a nation in Afghanistan is done and that their efforts will not be in vain? On their behalf, I ask the Prime Minister: what plans are now in place to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a failed state and a breeding ground for those who wish to oppress their own citizens and threaten ours? What additional threat does our country now face? What diplomatic plans will be in place in the region to support the peace process? Are the UK Government engaging with the Government of Pakistan about their role? Will the UK embassy in Kabul remain? How will we keep our UK staff there safe?

Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world, yet our aid funding to that country is being cut by more than £100 million—the Prime Minister referred to this today. The UK funded a project involving 6,000 women that has already been cancelled. When he visited Kabul as the Foreign Secretary he said that girls’ education was our “crowning achievement”, so can he tell the House what impact his cuts to the aid budget will have on programmes there? Will he not rethink those cuts?

I reiterate that we all want to see an end to UK military operations in Afghanistan, but if we leave without putting a plan in place to ensure that Afghanistan does not go back to the conflict and violence of the past, we will have failed those who have given so much over the past 20 years. Building and maintaining the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan, protecting women and girls, and in turn protecting our own nation, should always be our priority. To honour the legacy of those who have served and the lives that were lost, let us make sure, Prime Minister, that we get this right.

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for what she said and particularly the spirit in which she said it, so let me try to address some of her points. It is clear that what is happening now is a follow-up to what was very largely the withdrawal—the end of military operations—in 2014. The presence since then has been much smaller, but a great deal of good work has continued to be done by British aid workers, the British armed forces and British diplomats.

The right hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the work of educating girls and young women. The whole country can be proud of what has been achieved. I reassure her by saying that this country will not only continue to fund education in Afghanistan and continue to support Afghanistan to the tune of £100 million, but we will also increase our funding for the Global Partnership for Education. We will be making further announcements about that later this month, when the Global Partnership for Education summit takes place here in London.

The right hon. Lady asks the most important question that I think veterans of the Afghan conflict will want to have answered, which is whether we think that the threat from Afghanistan has now been reduced. The answer is yes, we do think the threat from al-Qaeda is very substantially lower than it was in 2001. There remain threats from Islamic State Khorasan and the Haqqani network—of course there remain terrorist threats from Afghanistan—but the answer is to have a peaceful and a negotiated solution and that is what our diplomats will continue to work for.

I would just say to the Taliban that they have made the commitment that I read out to the House, in their negotiations with General Khalilzad. They must abide by that commitment. I am sure they will be aware that there is no military path to victory for the Taliban. There must be a peaceful and a negotiated settlement for the political crisis in Afghanistan, and the UK will continue to work to ensure that that takes place. I believe that can happen—I do not believe that the Taliban are guaranteed the kind of victory that we sometimes read about.

The UK will continue to exert all its diplomatic and political efforts to ensure that there is a better future for the people of Afghanistan, for the women of Afghanistan and for the young people growing up in Afghanistan, and to ensure that the legacy of the 150,000 British serving men and women who went through Afghanistan and, above all, the 457 who laid down their lives, is properly honoured.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Many people in the Chamber will think that the battle of Britain is today, but actually we marked the 80th anniversary of those veterans yesterday, and I want to put on record our thanks to all those who fought for our country in the past.

I want to start by reading to the Prime Minister a message that I have received from a man called Keir. Keir was not able to go to work today and his children could not go to school because his family had to wait for their coronavirus test results, despite the Prime Minister’s promise of results within 24 hours. Keir was able to do the right thing and self-isolate and work from home, but other people are not in this position, and many of them are the very people who were getting us through this crisis, such as the care workers, who I used to work alongside before I was elected to this House. The Prime Minister once earned £2,300 an hour; can he tell us the average hourly rate of a care worker in this country?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her elevation. She speaks of the constituent Keir, and I can tell her that—allegedly, apparently—he has had a negative test, and I do not know quite why he is not here. But 89% of those who have in-person tests get them the next day, and we are working very fast to turn around all the test requests that we get. I think that most people looking at the record of this country in delivering tests across the nation will see that that compares extremely well with any other European country. We have conducted more testing than any other European country, and that is why we are able to deliver tests and results in 80% of cases where we know the contacts.

The hon. Lady asks about care homes, and I can tell the House that today we are launching the winter care home action plan. She is right to raise the issue of care homes, and we are concerned about infection rates in care homes, but we will do everything we can to ensure that care homes and their workers are protected.

On the hon. Lady’s final point, I am proud that it is this Government who have instituted the national living wage to ensure that every worker in this country, including care home workers, is paid substantially more, thanks to the care and the work of the people of this country.

[Angela Rayner]

Ah, he’s finished. The whole country will have seen that the Prime Minister does not know how much a care worker earns—that was my question. The shameful fact is that the average wage in social care is barely more than £8 an hour and half our social care workers earn less than the real living wage. On his first day in office, the Prime Minister said that

“we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared.”

Yet still there is no sign of the plan, and the additional funding to prevent infection will run out at the end of this month. So will the Prime Minister commit today to give our social care sector the funding that it needs now to get through the looming winter crisis?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is asking an important point, and we are concerned about the rates of infection in care homes. Clearly, they have come down massively since we instituted the £600 million care home action plan. Tomorrow, we will be announcing a further winter care home action plan. It will not surprise her to know that we want to see a toughening up of the rules governing the movement of workers from one care home to another. We want to make sure that we protect care homes from further infections, and that is the right thing to do. I pay tribute to all the care home workers in this country for what they have done to help us bring down the disease. We will make sure, as we have done over the past few months, that they get the personal protective equipment that they need, that they get the guidance that they need and that they get the cash that they need, and that is what this Government are committed to doing.

[Angela Rayner]

I do welcome the Prime Minister’s comments, but I must say to him, get some skates on it. Those care workers are still not getting the PPE they need. They are still not getting the testing they need. I urge the Prime Minister to get on top of this problem now before the winter crisis hits.

The Prime Minister has put his faith in Operation Moonshot, but, meanwhile, on planet Earth, there were no NHS tests available for several high-infection areas, including for Tameside and Oldham in my own constituency. In July, the Government promised that there would be weekly tests in care homes, and they promised this for September, so can the Prime Minister confirm—yes or no—do all care homes in this country have weekly tests?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, to the best of my knowledge, care homes in this country should get weekly tests for all staff members and tests every 28 days for the residents in the care homes. Of course the hon. Lady is right to express the frustration of people across this country about the massive demand there is now for tests—it has hugely increased. Everybody can see just in the past few days a colossal spike in the number of people who want tests and who want to ascertain whether they have coronavirus. What we are trying to do now is meet that demand at record speed. Just in the past couple of weeks, we have increased the capacity of our testing systems by 10%. We have four new labs that we are building in Newport, Newcastle, Charnwood and Brants Bridge. Just so she knows the scale of the ambition, we want to get up to 500,000 tests per day by the end of October. As I have said, that is a huge, huge number. I really do pay tribute to all those who are delivering it. I know that Opposition Members like to make these international comparisons, so I will just repeat that we are testing more than any other European country.

[Angela Rayner]

Well, Mr Speaker, I heard what the Prime Minister had to say, but I have to say to him that, yesterday, the chief executive of Care England said,

“We were promised weekly testing for staff. That has not been delivered.” Time and again, the Prime Minister makes promises and then breaks those promises. In June, he told this House that

“I can undertake…now to get all tests turned around in 24 hours by the end of June.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2020; Vol. 676, c. 839.]

The Government have had six months to get this right and yet the Prime Minister still cannot deliver on his promises. The Health Secretary said yesterday that it would take weeks to sort the situation out. Well, we do not have weeks. The Government’s latest figures show that there was an average of 62,000 people tested per day, not 500,000. The Prime Minister has said that testing capacity is at 300,000, but the average is 62,000 a day. How does he explain this?

[The Prime Minister]

We have delivered on, as I say, the most thoroughgoing testing regime anywhere in Europe. We now have capacity; I think capacity has gone up from—sorry the number of tests per day conducted, not capacity, has gone up from 210,000 last week to 240,000 this week. Just to repeat the statistics, per thousand people, this country is testing 2.54, Germany 1.88, Spain 1.91 and France 1.89. In other words, we are delivering exactly what we said we would do. What is happening is that the British people, quite understandably, are responding to that system with a huge, huge surge in demand, so it is very important that everybody follows the guidance about when they should be getting a test—the guidance sent out by Public Health England, which has been sent to schools, and from NHS Test and Trace.

[Angela Rayner]

Once again, I see that the Prime Minister says that it is somebody else’s fault—it is the public who are using up the tests. These were the Government’s own figures and own targets that they failed on. The next time a man with covid symptoms drives from London to Durham, it will probably be for the nearest covid test.

I want to move on to another very serious issue. Alongside the tragic stories we have heard of relatives dying alone in care homes and people not being able to say goodbye to their loved ones, we have heard from mothers who have had to give birth without the support of their partners or their families. The Health Secretary yesterday said that the new guidance had been issued, but even under that new guidance, many birth partners will not be allowed to join until the moment of established labour, leaving women enduring difficult labours or, even worse, traumatic and devastating miscarriages alone without support. Will the Prime Minister agree to meet with me and my hon. Friends and work with us to ensure that no woman is forced to give birth without the support that they need?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue that she does, and I know that Members across the House will share her feelings entirely. I totally agree that birth partners should be able to attend the birth. That is why we changed the guidance in the way that we did. Of course, I am very happy to encourage co-operation between her and my right hon. Friends in the Health Department to take the matter forward. I perfectly understand the point that she makes, and she is entirely right.

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments; I think that was a yes, but I will follow it up. Thank you for those comments.

Infections are rising. The testing system is collapsing. When you are the Prime Minister, you cannot keep trying to blame other people for your own incompetence. We have the highest death toll in Europe, and we are on course for one of the worst recessions in the developed world. This winter, we are staring down the barrel of a second wave, with no plan for the looming crisis. People cannot say goodbye to their loved ones. Grandparents cannot see their grandchildren. Frontline staff cannot get the tests that they need. And what was the top priority for the covid war Cabinet this weekend? Restoring grouse shooting.

I suppose that is good news for people like the Prime Minister’s friend who paid for a luxury Christmas getaway to a Caribbean island and funded his leadership campaign, and just so happens to own two grouse moor estates. So Prime Minister, is this really your top priority?

[The Prime Minister]

While the Labour Opposition have been consistently carping from the sidelines throughout this crisis and raising, frankly, issues that are tangential, if not scare stories about what is going on, we are getting on with delivering for the British public. We are not only massively ramping up. She has not contested any of my statistics today about the extent to which this country is now testing more than any other European country.

She has not disputed the massive acceleration in our programme. [Interruption.] I will answer the substance of her question, thank you very much. We are getting on with delivering on the priorities of the British people: getting us through this covid crisis; delivering on making our country safer, bringing forward measures to stop the early release of dangerous sexual and violent offenders, which I hope she will support; strengthening our Union, which in principle Opposition Front Benchers should support; and building more homes across this country and more affordable homes across this country, which she should support. That is in addition to recruiting more doctors and more nurses, and building more hospitals.

I do not think anybody is in any doubt that this Government are facing some of the most difficult dilemmas that any modern Government have had to face, but every day we are helping to solve them, thanks to the massive common sense of the British people, who are getting on with delivering our programme and our fight against coronavirus. It is with the common sense of the British people that we will succeed, and build back better and stronger than ever before.