Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

I know that the thoughts of Members across the House are with the people of India. We are supporting India with vital medical equipment and we will continue to work closely with the Indian authorities to determine what further help they may need.

I also welcome last week’s Court of Appeal decision to overturn the convictions of 39 former sub-postmasters in the Horizon dispute—an appalling injustice. Sir Wyn Williams is leading an ongoing independent inquiry that will report this summer.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I will have further such meetings later today.

[Andrea Jenkyns [V]]

[Inaudible.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We are going back to Andrea Jenkyns.

[Andrea Jenkyns [V]]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Next week, we will elect our first Mayor of West Yorkshire.

Does the Prime Minister agree that for far too long Labour has taken our northern heartlands for granted? On Thursday 6 May, we have the opportunity to elect patriotic, hard-working northerners such as Matt Robinson, Ben Houchen, and Jill Mortimer in Hartlepool. They will be strong voices and champions for infrastructure, housing and jobs. We must seize the chance to build back better after the pandemic, and only the Conservatives will deliver on that. [Interruption.]

[The Prime Minister]

Well, Mr Speaker, they don’t like that sort of thing, do they? They don’t like focusing on the issues that actually matter to the British people and the people of West Yorkshire.

I thank my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. I hope that on 6 May the people will get out and vote for a party that believes in supporting our NHS; that believes in fighting crime, not being soft on crime; and that will bring jobs and regeneration across the country. I hope that they will vote Conservative on 6 May.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will only wait until next week, I think he will find that we will do far more than that paltry agenda he has set out. It is quite mystifying to see the way that he weaves hither and yon like some sort of druidical rocking stone. One week he claims that he supports the vaccination roll-out. The next week, he attacks the vaccine taskforce, when it is spending money to try to reach hard-to-reach, vaccine-resistant groups, and says that that kind of spending cannot be justified. He calls for us to go faster with rolling out vaccines, when he would have stayed in the European Medicines Agency, which would have made that roll-out impossible. He vacillates. We vaccinate. We are going to get on with our agenda, cautiously but irreversibly taking this country forward on a one-way road to freedom, and I very much hope that his support, which has been so evanescent in the past, will genuinely prove irreversible this time.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con) [V]]

The Prime Minister’s road map will provide many of my constituents in Morley and Outwood with a vision of hope that life is set to return to a new normal before the end of June, allowing us to celebrate the great British summer. Can he inform the House of the pre-emptive actions that the Government are taking to spot, prevent and limit the damage of any future health emergencies, so that local economies in constituencies such as mine have certainty that this will be their last lockdown?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of local outbreaks and how to tackle them, particularly with the threat of new variants, which she rightly raises. That is why we have a very tough border regime but also a programme as we go forward for surge testing—door-to-door testing—to ensure that, when there is a local outbreak, we keep it local and keep it under control, as we are trying to do at the moment with the South African variant.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I really must reject what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, because it bears no relation to the facts or the reality of what the Government are doing to support people throughout the country. It is not just the £200 billion investment in jobs and livelihoods; we are also engaged in and will continue to deliver a colossal investment in education, health, housing and infrastructure that will deliver jobs and growth throughout this United Kingdom for a generation.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister and his negotiating team on their strong stance in the negotiations with the EU. Does he agree that the EU’s position on fishing and the European Court of Justice demonstrates that it is not treating us as an independent state, that it is not acting in good faith to deliver a free trade agreement and that, in international law, the UK is therefore entitled to leave the withdrawal agreement and make its own arrangements regarding the UK’s internal market?

[The Prime Minister]

Whatever the effect of the withdrawal agreement, I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that the UK’s internal market, which I think everybody on both sides of the House values, is protected and upheld and by the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, which is currently going through the other place. It also, of course, protects the Good Friday agreement.

Covid-19

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he says on behalf of the tourism and hospitality industry in his area, which is a fantastic place to visit. I certainly undertake to ensure that his delegation is able to meet the relevant Minister to find a way forward. We will continue to support tourism and hospitality, as we have throughout this crisis.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement during these difficult times and congratulate him on rising to the challenge. It is such a shame that the Leader of the Opposition and Opposition Members have not always had a positive and constructive approach, given the severity of the situation. In my constituency, I have been campaigning hard for our high streets, which are facing challenge after challenge. What support can my right hon. Friend give retailers in these difficult circumstances?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what she says. The best thing we can do for retail, which we opened up again in June, is to ensure that we keep it open and that people can keep going to the shops in a covid-secure way, including on the high streets in Morley and Outwood. That is the way to take our country forward. But the way to do it is to follow this package of measures to the letter. I am delighted that it has Opposition support, which, as she rightly says, is not uniform or everyday, but we have got it today. Let us work with it and get that message across to the country.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The intention of the Bill is clearly to stop any such use of the stick against this country, and that is what it does. It is a protection, it is a safety net, it is an insurance policy, and it is a very sensible measure.

In a spirit of reasonableness, we are conducting these checks in accordance with our obligations. We are creating the sanitary and phytosanitary processes required under the protocol and spending hundreds of millions of pounds on helping traders. Under this finely balanced arrangement, our EU friends agreed that Northern Ireland—this is a crucial point—would remain part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, able to benefit from free trade deals with other countries, which we are now beginning to strike. It ensures that the majority of goods not at risk of travelling to the EU—and that is the majority of goods going from GB to Northern Ireland—do not have to pay tariffs.

But the details of this intricate deal and the obvious tensions between some of its provisions can only be resolved with a basic minimum of common sense and good will from all sides. I regret to have to tell the House that in recent months the EU has suggested that it is willing to go to extreme and unreasonable lengths, using the Northern Ireland protocol in a way that goes well beyond common sense simply to exert leverage against the UK in our negotiations for a free trade agreement. To take the most glaring example, the EU has said that if we fail to reach an agreement to its satisfaction, it might very well refuse to list the UK’s food and agricultural products for sale anywhere in the EU. It gets even worse, because under this protocol, that decision would create an instant and automatic prohibition on the transfer of our animal products from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Our interlocutors on the other side are holding out the possibility of blockading food and agricultural transports within our own country.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that there is no greater obligation for MPs than to our voters, that the British people were told that no deal is better than a bad deal and we would prosper without a deal, and that given that the EU refuses to negotiate in good faith, we have no alternative but to legislate to protect our internal market?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Absurd and self-defeating as that action would be, even as we debate this matter, the EU has not taken that particular revolver off the table. I hope that it will do so and that we can reach a Canada-style free trade agreement as well.

It is such an extraordinary threat, and it seems so incredible that the EU could do this, that we are not taking powers in this Bill to neutralise that threat, but we obviously reserve the right to do so if these threats persist, because I am afraid that they reveal the spirit in which some of our friends are currently minded to conduct these negotiations. It goes to what m’learned friends would call the intention of some of those involved in the talks. I think the mens rea—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am a huge admirer of Dr Munira Mirza, who is a brilliant thinker about these issues. We are certainly going to proceed with a new cross-governmental commission to look at racism and discrimination. It will be a very thorough piece of work, looking at discrimination in health, in education and in the criminal justice system. I know that the House will say we have already had plenty of commissions and plenty of work, but it is clear from the Black Lives Matter march and all the representations we have had that more work needs to be done, and this Government are going to do it.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con) [V]]

Following the disgraceful events of the last week, with folks defacing national monuments, including Churchill and Queen Victoria, and offending the memory of hero PC Keith Palmer, what will the Prime Minister do to uphold British values and carry out the rule of law?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will have exactly such a thing. We will have a points-based system that will deliver the immigration that this whole country needs. The way to boost the population of Scotland is not to have a Scottish Government who tax the population to oblivion and who fail to deliver results in their schools. It may interest you to know, Mr Speaker, that the SNP has not had a debate in its Parliament on education for two years—and what is it debating today? Whether or not to fly the EU flag. It should get on with the day job.

[Mrs Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Q13. Prime Minister, up in Yorkshire, in your Conservative Brexit heartlands, we are celebrating us leaving the EU on Friday with a big Brexit bash. I wish to congratulate the Prime Minister on achieving us leaving the EU when so many deemed it impossible. Does he agree that this is an opportunity for a new chapter in our great country when we will finally control our laws, our borders and our money, and become a truly global trading nation?

[The Prime Minister]

I do join my hon. Friend in her celebrations. I am sorry I cannot be there personally but I wish everybody in Morley and Outwood a very enjoyable big Brexit bash.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Andrea Jenkyns

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to strengthen UK diplomatic relations with Commonwealth countries.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

22. What steps his Department is taking to strengthen bilateral relations with Commonwealth countries.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

During the recent Heads of Government meeting at the Commonwealth summit, we announced the opening of nine new missions, to great acclaim throughout the Commonwealth. They include six high commissions in Lesotho, Swaziland, the Bahamas, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu. As I have told the House before, we are expanding the UK diplomatic network to become the biggest in Europe.

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend asks an extremely good question, though he sets a very high bar in asking me in any way to disagree with Her Majesty the Queen, which I will not do because I think that the Prince of Wales will serve admirably as the next head of the Commonwealth.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Intra-Commonwealth trade is expected to increase to £1 trillion by 2020, which is up from £560 billion recorded in 2016. However, Commonwealth nations take just 9% of UK exports of goods and services. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, post Brexit, bilateral trade relations with the Commonwealth will be more important than ever and will provide us with an exciting opportunity to sell our goods and services and set up new trade deals with a third of the world’s population?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is, of course, entirely right: we have a huge opportunity to build new associations and new trade deals with some of the fastest growing economies in the world comprising, as she knows, 2.4 billion people, but without in any way prejudicing our ability to do unimpeded free trade deals with other countries and to maintain the advantages of free trade with our European friends and partners.