Defending the UK and Allies

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his support and his comments. He is right that this is not a decision I took lightly, and right to point out that publicising an action like this in advance could undermine its effectiveness and risk lives. Of course, it is Parliament’s responsibility to hold me to account for such decisions, but it is my responsibility as Prime Minister to make those decisions.

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

The Prime Minister may not be aware—perhaps he is—that I am not the greatest expert on international relations, but I was born on 17 August 1940, when the German bombs were falling all over and I was sheltering in a shelter. I have been a Labour friend of Israel ever since I went to the London School of Economics, but I do not trust Netanyahu’s Government, although I do support the limited action that the Prime Minister has announced. As someone who was born in the blitz, I care very deeply about actions that might lead to an even greater conflagration in the middle east. That is the danger—it seems to me that it is exactly what Putin and Iran want. Please, let us be careful in our steps, although I do support this limited action.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and reassure him that the action we took was—I believe—necessary, but it was limited, proportionate, and in keeping with international law. That is the approach we will always take in such matters.

G20 Summit

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There was a good conversation about AI at the G20 summit. I am optimistic that most countries are approaching this in a similar way, recognising the tremendous opportunities for growth, opportunity and transforming developments in healthcare and education in particular, but cognisant of the challenges and risks that AI poses, and keen to work together to find ways to resolve those. Obviously, it is very early days in terms of countries having this conversation and everyone learning themselves about the potential of the technology. However, as I said, I think that on this topic the UK can play a leadership role, and that is what we will do.

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

Many of us were very impressed by the close relationship that the Prime Minister obviously has with Prime Minister Modi. When he had private time with Prime Minister Modi, did he ask him, first, why he has not condemned Russia for the invasion of Ukraine? Secondly, did he ask what Modi is doing to stop all the persecution of Muslims and Christians, with their mosques and churches being burnt, and with people being killed and persecuted?

[The Prime Minister]

The Prime Minister and I discussed a range of issues. As I have said, we talk about human rights and defending democracy in all our international engagement, because those are values that we believe in very dearly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I agree with her that conversion therapy is an abhorrent practice, and we need to do everything we can to stamp it out wherever we see it. The Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), will continue to keep my hon. Friend and the House updated on her progress.

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

Q7. Does the Prime Minister remember seven years ago, when he was a passionate supporter of leaving the European Union, along with his then best friend, Boris Johnson? Is he aware that Sir John Major now says, in every speech he makes, that that decision was catastrophic for the people of this country and living standards, as well as deeply damaging to our role, status and influence in the world?

[The Prime Minister]

I would say gently to the hon. Gentleman that he made the central point at the beginning of his question: it was seven years ago, and we need to move forward. He talked about what has happened since then. Since we left the single market, this economy has grown faster than Germany, France and Italy. He also talked about our standing on the world stage. He obviously was not here for the statement on the NATO summit last week, but nobody can be in any doubt that the United Kingdom is highly respected on the world stage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

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

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Monday 14th November 2022 Ministerial Corrections

[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

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are committed to making home ownership a reality for a new generation, and we must build homes in the right places, where people want to live and work, but, as my right hon. Friend knows and as I have said, I want those decisions to be taken locally, with greater say for local communities rather than distant bureaucrats. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is happy to meet her to discuss how best to make that a reality.

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

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?

Economic Update

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friends from Stoke, which benefited from not just one, not just two, but three successful levelling-up fund bids, and which I was pleased to visit recently. My hon. Friend is right and he is, rightly, a proper champion for the ceramics sector in this House. I enjoyed meeting representatives from that sector on my recent visit and I would be happy to meet him and them to discuss the situation further.

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

We all know that the Chancellor is a fast-talking, slick operator who knows how to keep his head down when it is useful, but as someone who has been in the House since 1979, he is the most incompetent Chancellor that I have ever seen. When children go to bed—[Interruption.] He does not like it, but when children in my constituency go to bed with no food in their tummies and no heat in their homes, what does he think is the honourable position of a Chancellor who has just allowed £4.3 billion to be taken in fraud from one of his direct policies under his watch? Any other Chancellor that I have known would have come to the House today to resign.

[Rishi Sunak]

I will let this Government’s record on economic policy speak for itself. It is a record of which I am proud. I can provide the hon. Gentleman with the reassurance that I and the Government remain committed to tackling fraud wherever we see it. He mentioned the figure of £4.9 billion. As I said to the House in oral questions on Tuesday, that estimate has already been reduced by a third—by £1.6 billion—because of the actions that we are taking. I will not go into them all now, but he should know that we will go after everyone wherever we can to recover that money for the taxpayer, and I am confident that we will do a very good job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

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

When I was a very young MP, a Conservative Prime Minister introduced a windfall profit tax on the banks. When will this Administration and this Chancellor of the Exchequer have the imagination and leadership to introduce a windfall profit tax on those who have done very well over the last few years, and put it into green apprenticeships, green training and green skills, and do it now?

[Rishi Sunak]

Talking about young people and financial services, I was recently in Glasgow talking about young people starting exactly what the hon. Gentleman described: new apprenticeships in the financial services industry, growing in Glasgow, supported by this Government who have put more money behind apprenticeships than any previous Government.

Spending Review 2020 and OBR Forecast

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is right that it is about making difficult decisions so that we can prioritise the things that our constituents want us to. In his area, he will be pleased that there has been a success in accessing the new stations fund for Haxby station. That is an example of the Government delivering on our promises and trying to find ways to improve local transport infrastructure in his local area to drive growth and opportunity. We will relentlessly focus on those types of priorities.

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

I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether we can have the new infrastructure bank in Yorkshire, in particular in Huddersfield. Is he sure that he has paid enough attention to the tremendous challenge of young people’s unemployment and young people who want to get into a job and be trained? Is the programme that he announced today sufficient to train a whole new generation of young people as green apprentices?

[Rishi Sunak]

I would, of course, be sympathetic to the idea of putting the bank in Yorkshire, as the hon. Gentleman knows, but he was slightly beaten to the punch over the weekend by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who made a pitch for Bradford. In any case, I will happily hear his thoughts.

The hon. Gentleman is right about the focus on young people. The new Restart programme will be able to help a million people who have been unemployed for over a year. Before that happens, we have the kickstart programme that will benefit a quarter of a million young people—or more if it is successful. He talked about apprenticeships. Rightly, we have increased the cash bonus to businesses to £3,000 for them to take on a fresh new young apprentice, because he is right that that is where our focus should be.

Economic Update

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the OECD agrees with her. We should not be peddling false hope to people. We should be providing a better future for them, and that is what our interventions today will do.

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

May I give a cautious welcome to the Chancellor’s emphasis on young people, employment and training? Many of us across the House have a lot of experience of schemes like this, some of which have worked better than others. We would be willing to work with him to make this a success. There is disappointment, however, that he has not accepted my challenge to introduce a windfall profit tax like the one Mrs Thatcher introduced in order to pay for a massive green apprenticeship scheme.

Lastly, on a very serious point, if we are going to train these young people, we have to have the capacity to do so. Further education colleges are in deep trouble, and they need help now. Private trainers, including some in my constituency, are struggling to maintain their existence. Will the Chancellor look at this urgently, because we need the trainers to train these young people?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Rishi Sunak

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am pleased to give my hon. Friend that reassurance. That is why the Chancellor committed in the spending review to specific additional funding of £750 million for the first year, for the first 6,000, and additional funding will follow to ensure that we deliver on the commitment of 20,000 new officers across the country.

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

Does the Minister agree that we not only need more police officers but a new partnership forged locally between youth services, the police and the educational sector? Is it not time for some new cross-party thinking about how we tackle the crime and disorder on our streets at the moment?