Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, and I know there is agreement on this issue across the Chamber. We made statements last year along those lines, putting particular pressure on the public sector. I am sure there will be continuing pressure on the private sector, too.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to support growth in the financial services sector.

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Member for his always gracious and considered comments. He is right that we are committed to ensuring that all nations and regions of the UK benefit from this deal, including Northern Ireland, which is doing great things with export opportunities. In fact, there is a Northern Ireland investment summit coming up and, therefore, many opportunities. We will work constantly with the Administrations to make sure we take full advantage of this and all deals.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and everyone involved in securing this deal. The impact of exporting services across the world is clearly vital. Will he outline the advantages for the services deals available, particularly to London and the digital economy, which can be reached from anywhere in the world?

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible point that is pivotal to our future trading arrangements. We are the second biggest service exporter in the world. Those services are increasingly being transported, and therefore physical distance does not matter—they can be delivered at the press of a button. We have an excellent reputation on those. He makes the point about London; more than 3,000 businesses are owned by CPTPP members, and over 100,000 jobs are reliant on those businesses. That will only increase over time. It is important to stress that London is benefiting from our relationship with CPTPP members, but more than 75% of the benefits are outside London.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T6. This month we are due to have the seventh round of trade talks with our partners in India, working towards a free trade agreement. My right hon. Friend’s predecessor but one promised a free trade deal by Diwali. What assessment has she made about achieving a free trade deal by Diwali this year?

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Nigel Huddleston)]

The Secretary of State has been very clear: it is about the deal, not the date. We will not tie our hands by setting an arbitrary deadline. I am pleased to confirm, however, that round eight of the discussions is currently under way. Both nations have committed to and are working together for a mutually ambitious deal. We are working through substantive issues such as goods, market access, services and investment. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s continuing commitment. It is vital to expand on the deal with India, with £35 billion in bilateral trade sustaining half a million jobs in the two countries.

Professional and Amateur Sport: Government Support

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, ground control. In March, Wealdstone football club celebrated being promoted to the national league. The team currently play in my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s constituency. As part of their promotion, they were required to improve their ground, and they spent more than £100,000 on providing capacity for up to 4,000 people. They are totally dependent on gate receipts and money taken at the bar and other refreshment facilities. On Saturday, they play their first game and, as a result, that initiates the contracts to pay the players for the entire the season. Given that they have no income and they have spent all that money, will my hon. Friend ensure that any money that is given to the national league recognises the clubs that have paid out for ground improvements and have a surety that they can pay their players during the entire the season?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He makes a detailed but perfectly fair and reasonable point. As I said, because we are currently working on the details, I am unable to give him the assurance that he is looking for, but these were exactly the kinds of factors that we were looking at when we made the request for information to the sports entities.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. When we look at the percentages of properties that are non-decent, it becomes clear that these practices are not limited to the small number of rogue landlords. I will say more about that later.

I note that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) is in his place today. He and I share the challenge of trying to deal with the many individuals who bought a property many years ago and who, when their lifestyle changed, moved out and chose not to sell their property but to rent it out. Unfortunately, some of those individuals are now exploiting vulnerable people, and they need to be called to account.

In north-west London, we also have a huge number of what are termed “beds in sheds”. These are small developments in back gardens and alongside properties where unscrupulous landlords force people to sleep in absolutely unacceptable conditions. The local authorities attempt to enforce the rules but their resources are limited. As a constituency Member, I routinely draw local authorities’ attention to these landlords, but resources are limited. As the hon. Member for Sheffield South East said, local authorities need resources if they are to enforce the existing laws. I am concerned that, without those resources, the good intentions behind the Bill to give tenants rights and to ensure decent homes may not come to fruition.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a really important point about where the onus of responsibility lies. Does he agree that one of the attractive features of the Bill is that it puts a proactive responsibility on landlords to address issues and concerns, as opposed to the historical norm of their reacting with varying degrees of enthusiasm to issues when they are raised by tenants?

Christmas Adjournment

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point that I am sure others were listening to.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I heard the representation from the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown)—she is also an hon. Friend. The Backbench Business Committee allocates the time and there were supposed to be three hours for this debate, but unfortunately because of statements our time was compressed. However, I will take that as a representation from the House, so that when the Committee considers the next recess Adjournment debate we can look for a full day’s debate.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I am happy to have facilitated that discussion.

I wish to thank you, Mr Speaker, and your entire team, and indeed everyone who looks after us—and I do mean looks after us—in this place. From security, the cleaners, and those in hospitality, everybody does a very good job and they do not always receive the praise that they deserve. I also wish to thank my family who go through quite an ordeal living with me, particularly given the lifestyle that we all lead, and I thank my constituents for re-electing me this year, for which I am grateful. I am sure I speak on behalf of all hon. Members when I say that although we are grateful to those who voted for us, we also represent those who did not. All Members across the House take that very seriously, and we do our best to represent the breadth of opinion, although that is sometimes overlooked.

I would like to say a special thank you to three people who have inspired me this year. I am very proud to have got to know them very well. Tracey Hemming runs the Freedom Day Centre and the Freedom Disco in my home village of Badsey. What an inspiration she is. She had an idea about 18 months ago to set up an event for disabled children and those with mental health challenges, and she has done the most fantastic job. I have managed to visit her several times. She is an amazing lady and deserves credit. Diane Bennett runs Caring Hands in the Vale, in Evesham, and runs the local food bank. She is an inspirational lady who I have got to know very well. Up in Droitwich, in the northern part of my constituency, a fantastic gentleman called Patrick Davis is doing a great job of reinvigorating salt production in Droitwich. I am very honoured to live in an area where volunteering and community engagement and involvement is at the heart of people’s day-to-day activities. They are very busy with their jobs and families, but the volunteering is incredible. I have never known anywhere—I have lived and worked abroad for many years—with that degree of dedication. It is an honour to be associated with so many of them.

The issue I would like to raise is something we are not seeing in the Chamber today: intolerance. I am increasingly concerned about the intolerance, abuse and intimidation happening at the extreme ends of both the far right and the far left of British politics. It is not representative or reflective of the day-to-day activity in this place, where we generally get along. We have a lot of banter. We disagree, sometimes vehemently, but I think we all know that having strongly held opinions does not necessarily mean that we are right. We have the self-awareness to realise that we can sometimes be persuaded and that the opposition can be right. We know it is perfectly valid and fair to look at the same data points and have different views and opinions on policies that may come out of them. We have those debates in this place all the time.

Unfortunately, the public do not always see that. At the moment, particularly online, we are seeing an era of really disheartening abuse, vitriol and hatred that does not exist in this place. It is, however, the responsibility of us in this place to say loudly and clearly that that is not acceptable in British politics. If it is associated with any of us in any way shape or form, if somebody uses our name, hashtag or Twitter account to make really vile comments, we must stand up and say, “No, not in my name. I distance myself from those comments. I do not want to be associated with them.” We must be active. Yes the social media companies have a lot to answer for and, yes, we do as Members of Parliament as well, as do those making the vile comments in the first place, but we must stand up and be counted.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Debate between Bob Blackman and Nigel Huddleston

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), who made an eloquent speech.

The motion before us is a curate’s egg—good in parts. At its heart, there is a false assertion. As hon. Members have said, the only way in which this crisis in the middle east will ever be solved is by face-to-face negotiations between the Palestinian leaders and the state of Israel. As we all know, this area of the world has had a long history of being occupied by empires down through the ages. The Ottoman empire ruled the area until the time of the first world war, when the British mandate came in, and the reality is that the west bank was annexed by Jordan in 1950. To call it occupied territory is of course to suggest that a country once existed, but it has never existed. That is the real dilemma in this whole problem.

I absolutely think that United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 should not have been supported by the United Kingdom Government; it was wrong for them to do so. It was passed in the dying days of President Obama’s presidency, and his refusal to support Israel in its hour of need was a deliberate swipe at that country, as history will show. However, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on distancing herself from John Kerry’s one-sided speech. That was a unique point in history, because it was the first time that a British Government had distanced themselves from the serving Secretary of State of our greatest ally in the world. I congratulate the Government on not sending individuals to the Paris conference, which attempted to internationalise the solution to the problem.

I want to ask the Minister about one particular issue. What is his view of the Oslo accords and the agreements that the Palestinians made with the Israeli Government? Under those agreements, it was quite clear that developments could take place in area C of the west bank—that was permitted and agreed to by the Palestinians—so to call this illegal is incorrect.

Equally, we have heard that United Nations resolution 2334 would prevent Jews and Christians from celebrating at the western wall and at the greatest Christian sites. Before 1967, the western wall was out of bounds to Jews, and the same thing would happen again were this implemented. The green line was never, ever an international line, and there has never, ever been an international agreement on the exact borders of any potential state of Palestine.

I want to talk about something that has not been mentioned thus far: the plight of the 2.3 million Jewish refugees who were forced out of Arab countries and had to flee for their lives. Some of them went to Israel, some to the United States and others to parts of Europe. They are never mentioned, but there clearly has to be a home for them. When the Israeli Government put up housing developments for Jewish people who are refugees from Arab states, we should not condemn them but congratulate them on providing those facilities.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making very pertinent points. Does he agree that the whole point of this debate is that concessions need to be made on both sides? It would be unfortunate if people interpreted it as meaning that everything would be solved if only Israel did this or that. Substantial concessions are needed from both sides.

[Bob Blackman]

My concern, and that of many hon. Members, is that the Palestinians are trying to internationalise the issue—taking their case to the United Nations, and seeking help and assistance from outside—but are not getting the real issue, which is the need for face-to-face talks with the state of Israel to resolve the existing problems so that we can reach a conclusion with a secure state of Israel and a secure state of Palestine. We should always remember that the green line represents an area that would be indefensible for the state of Israel in the event of another war.