Oral Answers to Questions

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me offer my best wishes to the hon. Lady on her appointment as chair of the Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. I can assure her and colleagues around the House that fracking will only go ahead in areas where there is local community support.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Two weeks ago, a bomb in Afghanistan killed 35 girls and young women. They were Hazaras, from the country’s second-largest ethnic minority, who are being massacred under the Taliban. Today, outside Parliament, Hazaras from across the UK, including from my constituency, are gathering to call for international support to stop the slaughter, and we are joined by representatives of the Hazara Committee in UK. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister support the Hazaras in trying to stop the killings and arrange for her Ministers to meet their representatives?

[The Prime Minister]

What is taking place in Afghanistan is extremely concerning, I am afraid, with the reversal of women’s rights and women’s opportunities. One of the things we have done is to make sure that we are restoring the aid budget for women and girls, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be very happy to meet the group to discuss further.

Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

You have asked for a more moderate, positive tone, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will endeavour to achieve that.

I have full confidence in this Government, for three reasons. First, no captain is more important than their team, and on the Government side of the House we have a very strong team. Secondly, the Government have delivered for the country as a whole; a lot of my colleagues have rehearsed the arguments about Brexit, covid, Ukraine and, indeed, net zero. Thirdly, this Government have delivered for my constituency of South Cambridgeshire. I was elected to represent the interests of my constituents, and the Government have had a real impact on their lives.

The Government have delivered for healthcare in South Cambridgeshire. We have the new Royal Papworth Hospital—a gleaming, state-of-the-art hospital, the most important heart and lung hospital in the UK. Just a couple of weeks ago, we opened the Heart and Lung Research Institute in South Cambridgeshire, with the biggest concentration of heart and lung researchers in the whole of Europe. More is coming: the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will be opened in 2025, and the Cambridge Children’s Hospital—the first such facility in the east of England—will be opened shortly afterwards. It will be the first hospital of its type to combine the mental and physical wellbeing of children.

The Government have delivered for transport in South Cambridgeshire. Cambridge South station will be opening in 2025; it is going through the processes now. The A428 has started dualling, we have finished dualling the A14, and the Government have started looking at the Girton interchange.

The Government have delivered for the environment in South Cambridgeshire. One of the big issues for us is protecting the chalk streams. The Government have set up a chalk stream taskforce and passed new legislation on sewage discharge, which all the Lib Dem MPs voted against. Shame on them—they voted to dump sewage into chalk streams. We have brought in new laws on hare coursing, which is a really big issue in South Cambridgeshire. I had meetings with the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about it, and we finally brought in laws to stop that terrible crime.

Education spending is a really important issue in South Cambridgeshire. Historically, we had one of the lowest levels in the country, but we have had a 21.3% increase in real-terms education funding in Cambridgeshire since 2014. Just in the past two years, there has been a £453 per-pupil increase in education spending, and schools are starting to feel the difference. We need more, but it has already made a difference.

When we had the covid pandemic, the Government delivered support for businesses and individuals. Some 17,000 people were on furlough, with their jobs saved by the Government. There was more than £50 million in funding for businesses. A lot of my small businesses, especially in hospitality—pubs in particular—were saved by the intervention of this Government and the support they gave.

Research is a very big thing in South Cambridgeshire, where we have literally hundreds of research institutes and companies. The Government have increased funding for research and development to £22 billion a year by 2025, which is making a real difference for South Cambridgeshire.

Finally, we now have record numbers of police officers in Cambridgeshire: 1,671 as of March. We have never had more than we have at the moment.

For all these reasons, the Government are delivering for South Cambridgeshire. I have full confidence in this Government.

Elections Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

It appears to be all happening in Wycombe. I believe that I was there for the hon. Gentleman’s speech, and I know he takes a keen interest in this issue, so he will know well that where there are widespread examples of voter personation, which is a serious crime, it should be tackled. That is why the law is different in Northern Ireland, where there was a culture of organised crime and gangs stealing hundreds of votes through personation at polling stations; that was legislated against. There is no evidence of that in England, Scotland and Wales, so legislation is not needed. Where there are examples of voter personation, it is right and proper that it is tackled, but as there are not such examples, the Bill is just legislation that puts up another barrier to legitimate voters’ ability to vote.

In the voter trial areas, which were in just a handful of local authorities, we know that 700 voters at local elections who were turned away did not return to use their vote. Given the tiny numbers of accusations of voter personation and the huge numbers of people who were turned away because they did not have ID, we know that the Bill will disproportionately disenfranchise legitimate voters.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Thank you for your generosity and time. You said clearly that you think the proposal to introduce voter ID is an attempt to rig elections. Is that why the Labour party requires voter ID to vote in local party gatherings and has a long history of that? Have you attempted to rig your own elections?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Really, the hon. Gentleman is experienced enough to know that he should not use the word “you”, which refers to me.

[Anthony Browne]

I apologise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Lewis]

That is a fair point. Let me retort with an alternative statistic for you. There were 34 allegations of impersonation in the 2019 general election, out of 58 million votes. I took out my calculator and that works out that there was 0.0000058% fraud in the last election.

The Government have produced a piece of legislation straight out of the far-right playbook from the United States to look for a problem that does not exist. This tactic is drawn straight from the authoritarian playbook of racist American legislators. Their voter suppression laws have been and are being used to reinstate Jim Crow-era mass disenfranchisement via the back door. The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which has commented on such legislation, says:

“The real reason these laws are passed is to suppress the vote, and that is in fact what happens.”

We have a crisis of democracy precisely because established institutions have failed to represent the public as a whole—failed to challenge economic self-interest in favour of the common good. The truth, as this Government know, is that their ideology of destructive and unequal growth, fuelled by oil and gas, is not shared by the British public. Even the super-wealthy see the uninhabitable world this system is creating. They choose to flee to private islands or hide out in vast compounds in the depths of New Zealand and elsewhere. This Bill, along with the protest ban and the attacks on the independent judiciary and human rights, is a buttress against the public. Authoritarian control is being shored up because this Government know they cannot win public consent freely and fairly for policies that will continue to impose poverty on an ever-greater number of people so that wealth can be extracted for a few. [Interruption.] You sit there looking incredulous, yet that is what your politics and your policies do, day in day and day out.

[Anthony Browne]

I wonder whether the hon. Member is aware that actually voter ID is very common in other countries. You said that it is a racist policy to bring back Jim Crow laws from the US. Are you aware that the world’s most successful multi-racial democracy, Canada, uses voter ID, as well as highly respected democracies such as Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy and France? They all use voter ID.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) answers that, can I please remind everybody, on all sides, not to refer to “you”, because that is me, and I have no views on this matter, as you know?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Let me directly address the comments just made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) by warmly welcoming the Government’s proposals in the Bill, particularly those aimed at finally enshrining in law the rights of certain EU citizens to vote in local elections in England and Northern Ireland, elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales.

As Members will recall, I, along with some others, have long championed the rights of UK citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living here in the UK. Safeguarding those rights has been an essential promise in our leaving the EU. In the UK, there are millions of EU citizens who have made it their home, contributing to our economy, wellbeing and culture. Likewise, there are over a million British citizens contributing to the economic wellbeing of the EU countries that they now call home.

Following the motion on citizens’ rights that I put before the House in February 2019, the House reaffirmed its determination to protect the rights of citizens affected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. It was the only occasion, as far as I can recall, when the House was absolutely unanimous on a major Brexit issue. I am very proud of having helped to protect the rights of millions of innocent people.

This Bill builds upon those commitments by ensuring that EU citizens with settled status will continue to hold the franchise for local elections in England, elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and elections of police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. The Bill will provide EU citizens with the necessary protections and peace of mind by ensuring that their voices continue to be heard at local and regional levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[Anthony Browne]

I very much praise my hon. Friend for the work he did on protecting the rights of EU citizens. I think the whole House was grateful to him for that. I support the view on reciprocity. Does he think that the UK Government should encourage other EU countries to enable British citizens who live there to vote?

[Alberto Costa]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. That is exactly the ask that I have for Government Ministers this evening.

For EU citizens who may have arrived and settled after the implementation period’s completion—that is, from 1 January this year—I would like to welcome the additional steps this Government have taken in the form of bilateral arrangements with several EU member states, to which my hon. Friend has just alluded. Agreements are already in place with Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg and Poland. They mean that citizens of those nations who may have arrived after the transition period will also be afforded the right to vote in our local elections, and similarly, reciprocal arrangements will apply to British citizens resident in those countries. That goes beyond the obligations envisioned by the EU in the withdrawal agreement, and the Government are to be commended for their choice to enter into bilateral arrangements with those individual EU member state countries, ensuring that wherever possible we enhance the rights of UK citizens living in those countries as well as the citizens of those countries living here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The first time I went to a polling booth, I brought some ID with me. I assumed that surely I would need to prove who I am, so I was stunned when I was told, “Actually, no, you don’t need to show any ID.” I remember little 18-year-old me thinking that democracy is our most valuable asset, yet anyone can vote in someone else’s name without anybody checking.

It is often said that justice not only needs to be done but needs to be seen to be done, and the same could be said of democracy. Democracy not only needs to be fair; it needs to be seen to be fair. We have to accept that we have a problem in this country. At the last election, a constituent came to me after he went to vote but found that somebody had already voted in his name. There was nothing he could do. His vote was stolen. Would Opposition Members say to him, “Well, actually, the Government should not do anything to stop your vote being stolen in future”?

It is often said, and many Opposition Members have been saying it, that the rate of voter fraud in the UK is very low, but how would we know? By definition, it is a hidden crime. Reported cases are low, but we do not know the actual rate. The truth is that, without safeguards, bad practice drives out good practice, or it can do. Like MPs’ expenses or phone hacking by journalists, if people do bad things and others see them get away with it unpunished, those people will think they can also do it.

I worked for the Prime Minister when he was Mayor of London. I was not as directly involved in Tower Hamlets as some of my hon. Friends, but I knew many of the politicians. The electoral fraud happening there was an open secret for years, totally undermining local democracy. I wondered why nothing was done about it, and I was very frustrated.

[Alberto Costa]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Peter Golds, an excellent Tory councillor, has done so much to highlight that very issue?

[Anthony Browne]

Absolutely. Peter Golds is one of the politicians I talked to at the time, and he has done excellent work in trying to restore trust in democracy in Tower Hamlets. Ridiculously, it was not until 2014 that the courts annulled the election; we should never have been able to get into that situation. There are endless stories in the media about voter fraud. Confidence in the integrity of democracy is being eroded, and there is a clear solution. The Electoral Commission said, after its research, that two thirds of voters say they would have more confidence in the security of the voting system if there was a requirement to show voter ID. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) has said, the OSCE, which normally bothers itself about the emerging democracies in eastern Europe, said after the 2010 UK elections that

“serious consideration should be given to introducing a more robust mechanism for identification of voters.”

I agree with that.

I also agree with Opposition Members that this must not lead to the disenfranchisement of voters. However, as we have heard, 99% of voters already have a photo ID of some sort and those who do not can get free photo ID from their local council. Labour introduced voter ID in Northern Ireland in 2003 and there is no evidence of disenfranchisement there. As I mentioned, many of the leading and most respected democracies in the world have already got voter ID—Norway, Sweden, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria have it. We are in many ways an outlier in Europe. Voters are losing confidence in democracy in Britain and we have a duty to ensure that democracy is both fair and seen to be fair. We must introduce voter ID, and I commend this Bill to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is vital that we tackle child poverty, and that is why we are levelling up across the country with the biggest programme of investment for a generation, if not more. We are also seeing fewer households now with children in poverty than 10 years ago, but I perfectly accept that there is more to be done.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I very much welcome the fact that the Government are investing heavily in upgrading rail networks across the country, including opening lines that have previously been closed. As a Conservative Government, we have a particular responsibility to the taxpayer to ensure value for money. The business case for East West Rail in my constituency is largely based on commuting, but the pandemic means we are in the middle of a workplace revolution. If in future people work from home on average two days a week, that will mean a 40% reduction in commuting. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister commit to doing a review of East West Rail’s business case to ensure it remains value for money and to take into account the long-term impact of the pandemic?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a great campaigner for Cambridgeshire and the rights of the people of Cambridgeshire. However, my strong feeling is that it would be a mistake now to go slow on investment in infrastructure purely on the basis that we think people will start working from home. My long experience of this is that people need to travel and they will travel. The commuter bustle will come back, and it needs to come back.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I do not normally start my speeches by citing former Labour Ministers in support, but I have noticed that Frank Field, Lord Field, has issued a tweet saying:

“Best budget in my 42 years in politics.”

I always thought he was very wild that Mr Frank Field.

Actually, the ultimate accolade came from the Leader of the Opposition. I listened to his speech from beginning to end, and he had nothing to say—no line of attack. In fact, it is not really surprising. I have been struck time and again since coming here how little the Labour party has to say about growth. The public sector has helped pull us through this crisis, and we have all thanked it deeply, but it is the private sector—businesses, private enterprise—that will rebuild the economy, taking us out of it. Only the private sector can create the jobs that we need and pay the taxes that we need to pay for public services.

This is a Budget for rescue, a Budget for recovery and a Budget for repair. As a Budget for rescue, it is absolutely right that the Chancellor has continued support for people and businesses until the pandemic is well and truly over. His actions have saved 1.8 million jobs, probably more than any other Chancellor in history. As a Budget for recovery, I called for a Budget for growth and that is exactly what this is. There is a whole package of useful measures, such as the Help to Grow scheme, subsidies for apprenticeships and the three-year carry-back. The super deduction for investment is inspired. It will lead to a tidal wave of investment, creating jobs and growth.

In terms of repair, we have a moral duty to balance the books of this country. It would be a betrayal of future generations not to live within our means. For a low-tax Conservative such as me, seeing tax rises I like is as rare as hen’s teeth, but even fiscal conservatives have to admit that sometimes taxes have to rise, and now is such a time. There is no fairer way to do it than to freeze the threshold on income tax and to raise corporation tax on highly profitable companies. As the Office for Budget Responsibility figures show, these measures will lead to the stabilisation of the national debt in 2023—just two years’ time. That is a remarkable achievement and incredibly reassuring.

The Chancellor did not say much about this in his speech, but it is also very much a green Budget, with the retail green bonds; the infrastructure bank, largely funding green projects; the green mandate for the Bank of England and its Monetary Policy Committee; and a review to get London to be the world leader in carbon offset markets. I fully welcome that. There is a lot to like in this Budget and nothing to dislike in it. I recommend it to the House.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions—and indeed for the work of his Future Relationship with the European Union Committee, which has helped us as we have sought to resolve these issues—and his welcome is very welcome. On the detailed points he makes, we have been talking to traders, supermarkets in particular, to make sure that they are ready for any export health certificate requirements. We know that some supermarkets are already ready. One or two others need time in order to get ready, and they requested a grace period. Originally, those in the Commission argued that that would be impossible or, if it did exist, that it could only be a matter of weeks. We have managed to secure three months, which is sufficient time, we understand, to ensure that supermarkets are ready. On the chilled meat provision, it is the case that we have secured a six-month period during which there will be absolutely no change. Again, it was the case that there were some in the EU who argued that that should be a strictly non-renewable provision. We secured an approach that meant we could keep under review how things were operating in order to ensure that we provided people in Northern Ireland with access to the food they currently enjoy, without any disruption to the integrated supply chains that supermarkets have and which they will adjust.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Many of the life science and other businesses of South Cambridgeshire export to Northern Ireland. Can my right hon. Friend reassure them that they will not face any new bureaucratic obstacles or tariffs as they sell their goods and services there?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for the life science sector, and I know that it provides jobs and investment in Cambridgeshire and beyond. It is also the case that there is a thriving life science and pharmaceuticals sector in Northern Ireland, and it will be the case that there are no impediments to the continued successful integration of that work.

Covid-19 Update

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I wholly share the hon. Lady’s feelings about the vital importance of allowing women to have a birth partner with them during labour. As she rightly says, we have changed the guidelines to make that possible, but if she has particular cases in mind where this is not happening, I would be grateful if she would write to me with the details.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Government have quite rightly focused on protecting the NHS, but we also need to keep the NHS serving patients in South Cambridgeshire, which, like other parts of the country, has relatively low levels of covid, but plenty of people with other medical conditions that need planned and emergency care. As the second wave strikes, can the Prime Minister tell me what steps the Government are taking to ensure that all patients, whatever their condition, can carry on getting the treatment that they need?

Oral Answers to Questions

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I can certainly tell the hon. Gentleman is that I am not an enthusiast for encouraging the spread of gambling in this country.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Like the vast majority of the British public, I support the new restrictions. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said we will get through this, but long term, there are only three routes out of this pandemic: one, eradicate the virus; two, gain herd immunity; or three, suppress the virus and reduce deaths until a vaccine or highly effective treatment arrives, such as the ones that the brilliant researchers of South Cambridgeshire are working on. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister tell me which of these three routes are the Government taking?

[The Prime Minister]

Number three, Mr Speaker.

European Union: Future Relationship

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is ultimately a question for the EU. We are clear that we want a relationship of sovereign equals. If the EU attaches to that relationship a requirement that we follow the jurisdiction of its courts, it is not a relationship of sovereign equals. The security of the EU would be impinged as well, and I am sure that no European politician would want to sacrifice the security of their people by taking anything other than a constructive approach.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Before I came to this place I had a job, in the wake of the Brexit referendum, representing the banking industry in negotiations with the EU, the European Parliament, the Commission and the European Council, and in discussions with the Bank of England and the Treasury on what sort of relationship we want with the EU after Brexit. We came to realise quite quickly, as did the Bank of England—Mark Carney has spoken on this point—that, as a global financial centre, being a rule taker and having no say on our financial regulation would be a threat to the UK’s financial stability. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have to be very careful, as becoming a rule taker would be a real threat to our financial services?

[Michael Gove]

I agree 100%. Spot on. Totally correct.