Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are the Government who committed to relocating 22,000 civil servants from London to the regions by 2030, and we are making excellent progress on that. We have already achieved half that number, and the other day I was pleased to be in Sheffield opening our new policy unit, which brings people together, and not just entry-level civil servants, but the senior managers and decision makers who are going to inform the decisions that drive government in the future.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Minister been looking at the evidence given by George Osborne and Oliver Letwin? I think they were here briefly on an old Etonian work experience scheme, but the evidence they have been giving is a great revelation about what went on in Cabinet and at the highest levels of Government Departments. Will he look and learn?

[Alex Burghart]

I certainly will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

We were delighted to announce last week, during Report stage of the Procurement Bill, the creation of a new security unit within the Cabinet Office. It will identify high-risk vendors, who will be prevented from supplying things like surveillance equipment to certain parts of the public estate. I am very proud of our record in this space.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have now passed midsummer’s day, the longest day of the year, and still the children are at school. What is the impact on our civil service and our services of an outdated system where children in this country go on holiday when half the summer—very often the best part of it—is over? Can we have a change and look at how we time our summer holidays for children?

[Mr Speaker]

Who wants the question?

Civil Service Impartiality

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I do. My right hon. Friend is right to draw on the fact that many senior civil servants are troubled by this. They know the vital importance of the bond of trust between Ministers and civil servants, and anything that might serve to undermine that is not healthy and is not good for the way we do business.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, we are experienced Members of this House, and I understand that very early on in your remarks, you rumbled what was going on in terms of the number of requests for this to be debated this afternoon. Is it not a fact that this is a shabby little manoeuvre from the shabbiest Government that I have seen in 40 years—[Interruption.] Rather than this being spontaneous, let me just say that I was walking over here with a respected Back Bencher from the Government side who said, “I’m not going over. They’ve been trying to get everyone here this morning. The Whips have set a five-line Whip.” [Interruption.] They don’t like it, Mr Speaker. The suggestion that the civil service is up in arms is nonsense. This comes from the Prime Minister and this shabby Government—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not sure there was a question, in which case we will move on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for her local community, and the results showed when the Chancellor and I were lucky enough to visit her last week. As she and many of the people we spoke to pointed out, this was an area that had been forgotten and neglected for decades, but it is this Government who are putting in the investment, spreading opportunity, making jobs and making sure that people can feel enormously proud of the place they call home.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q10. Does the Prime Minister realise that most people in my constituency think it is his role to keep our country safe? Is he aware that in all the years I have been in Parliament, I have never heard of a situation where our Army and armed forces are so run down that the Chairman of the Defence Committee and the Secretary of State for Defence both say that our armed forces have been hollowed out and are unfit to put a division into active service? What is he going to do about that?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman seems to forget the fact that we have invested an extra £24 billion in our armed services. That is a record uplift in defence spending and ensures that we are one of the leading spenders on defence in NATO. We will continue to ensure we have one of the best-equipped fighting forces anywhere in the world. As we can see from the recent announcement on tanks, we continue to lead the world when it comes to standing up for not just our safety, but the safety of our allies around the world.

Prime Minister

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Prime Minister questions on 9 November 2022.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q5. Does the Prime Minister remember back in February, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, that I informed him that, due to his incompetence in that job, the children in my constituency were going to bed that night with no food in their tummies and no heat in their homes? What will he now do as Prime Minister to make sure that, in every community in our country, children are not in that situation in this hard winter ahead?

[The Prime Minister]

The absolute best way to ensure that children do not grow up in poverty, which is something that none of us wants to see, is to ensure that they do not grow up in a workless household. The record under these Governments is that 700,000 fewer children are growing up in workless households. That is because Conservative Governments create jobs for people, and that is the best anti-poverty strategy that we have.

[Official Report, 9 November 2022, Vol. 722, c. 254.]

Letter of correction from the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak):

An error has been identified in my answer to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend that British farmers are, indeed, the lifeblood of our nation. I join him in celebrating their contribution, and I agree that we need to prioritise food security. He is right to champion free trade deals, which open up new markets and new opportunities for great British produce. We will continue to open up more markets for our farmers everywhere.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q10. I welcome our first Prime Minister from Yorkshire in a very long time—I am trying to be kind to him. Since he resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer on 5 July, we have had the most turbulent economic and political disaster in our country that any of us can remember. When he reflects on that, will he think about why, when he was Chancellor, he did not help ordinary working people as well as he could? Will he take the opportunity to tax the 70,000 non-doms who are getting away with avoiding tax? And will he bring in a tax on the windfall profits of the gas and oil industries?

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I know my hon. Friend has raised this issue previously. Tackling carbon leakage is a vital matter. As he is aware, Her Majesty’s Treasury will be launching a consultation later this year and setting out a range of carbon leakage mitigation options, which includes looking at a carbon border adjustment mechanism.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Am I allowed to say to the COP26 President that many of us on the Labour Benches think that he has done a darned good job? If he survives the present wrangling in the Conservative party, will he make every effort to come back and “grassroot” what we are trying to do about climate change in every town, city and community? Let us have 500 sustainable towns and cities in this country. Does he agree with that?

[Alok Sharma]

In the words of Gloria Gaynor, “I will survive”. The point that the hon. Gentleman raises is that tackling the climate emergency is an issue for all of us—for Governments, civil society and individuals—and we all need to play our part.

Heatwave Response

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would agree that we should do both. We should adapt, and we have a national adaptation strategy, but I urge him to be more optimistic about the impact that human ingenuity can have on solving the world’s problems. We have seen throughout our history that the invention of technology in this country, once established and proven to work, often accelerates progress in other parts of the world, whether it was with the invention of the spinning jenny and the loom or the silicon chip and the smartphone. The iPhone was invented less than 15 years ago, and just over a decade later pretty much the whole world has one. These things often start slowly, but once they accelerate they make a huge impact.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Bobby Seale wrote a campaigning book called “Seize the Time”. Can I ask the Minister to seize this time and this opportunity? Many of us have been campaigning on climate change and global warming for a long time. A really pivotal moment was when I read and reviewed Professor Steve Jones’s book “Here Comes the Sun” about four years ago. We are all campaigners in this place, and the truth is that we know when a particular incident is suddenly going to change the public mood and the public mind in terms of urgency, priority and the dramatic need for action. Will the right hon. Gentleman please say to his Ministers, to future Ministers and to the future Prime Minister that this is the time to capture the imagination and really get the public behind this?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is correct that incidents such as these often serve to underline the importance of our collective mission on climate change. As somebody who has campaigned and been an enthusiast for the hydrogen economy for over 20 years now, I am always keen to welcome more people to the cause, but as we have seen in the debate elsewhere over the last couple of weeks, we have to take care that as we seek to progress and fight climate change, we bring the population with us. We need to illustrate to them that the work we are doing will not only make their lives better but, critically, make their children’s lives better, rather than characterising it as purely a cost today.

Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

I see that the Prime Minister is leaving the Chamber. In this particular case, Prime Minister, leave means leave.

We all know that the Government have spent the past week trying to delay, reword, and, ultimately, avoid this debate, but, as is the way these days, the herd has moved. Today, we finally have a chance to cast our verdict on a failed Prime Minister and a Conservative party that is collapsing before our very eyes. I know the Government want to use this debate as some kind of dignified—although I have not seen any dignity from the Prime Minister this afternoon—obituary for the political legacy of the leader that they buried last week. If the Government are determined to debate the legacy of the Prime Minister, let us allow ourselves the opportunity to be that one thing that he singularly failed to be: let us be very, very honest.

Let us reflect on a man who should never have been put in office in the first place—a man who simply should not be here for a minute longer, because he has demonstrated no dignity in office in the highest office in the land, and he has shown no dignity today in departing. Every single Member of this House needs to ask themselves a very simple question: why on earth does the Prime Minister deserve the dignity of a long goodbye and a seven-week chance to rewrite his own legacy? Apparently, the one and only reason being offered up by Tory MPs to justify keeping him in place is that that is the precedent—that is the way that it works down here. It is the Westminster way. But those citing any kind of precedent have clearly forgotten the exact reason we have been brought to this point, which is that the behaviour of this Prime Minister has no precedent.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am relieved that we can hear the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, and that we no longer have the Prime Minister bawling at those who are speaking as he leaves the Chamber. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what we want over this period of change is dignity? We want dignity in the House and dignity in the country, and we did not see that from the Prime Minister in his behaviour on the Front Bench today.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think I make that decision, and I do not need any recommendations. The behaviour on both sides has not been exceptional today. Come on, Ian.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

First, I pay tribute to the staff of Veterans UK, who work incredibly hard in a very under- invested system that is still working off paper records. The Government have committed to a £44 million spend to turn it into a digital service, which will undoubtedly increase and improve its output. I share my hon. Friend’s concern, certainly about the data on how many appeals have been overturned. I understand the processes for it, but my very clear view is that the service is not good enough for our veterans at the moment. I will bring forward plans for how we can improve it in due course.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just how long have this Government been in power, and how many more suicides of veterans will take place before we see firm action to follow through on mental health and get these men the real support that they want? I am the son of a veteran. I know what it is like for someone to finish service, having had traumatic experiences fighting for their country.

[Johnny Mercer]

The topic of veteran suicides is incredibly serious. The data shows that someone is statistically less likely to take their life if they have served, but every suicide is a tragedy for the individual, the family and the nation that they serve. There is more help available now than there ever has been. Yes, we did start from a pretty low base, but the system is working, with 19,000 referrals through Op Courage last year. The help is available, and I urge all those who suffer in silence to understand that the situation has changed. We will continue to make progress until we have the world-class veteran care that veterans deserve.

Functioning of Government

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The people who put the Prime Minister in place are the 14 million people who voted for the Conservative party at the general election.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is one of the greatest crises that any of us can remember. In the national interest, surely we should work across the Benches to sort it out, even for the short period until recess. I do not want any laughter, but I have a great deal of experience in education. There is no Education Minister, so on a short-term basis, I would be happy to help. [Laughter.] Unpaid! Our constituents would want us to work together across the Benches, to forget these petty politics and to get the Government working again.

[Michael Ellis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but his services are not required, because there are a plethora of talented and dedicated individuals on the Government Benches who will serve in the Government.