Afghanistan

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are absolutely determined to look after people coming from Afghanistan, and in particular to look after their mental health and address the trauma they might have suffered, and that is why we are investing massively in the services provided not just by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government but local government across the board.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

What extra funds will be made available for local schools and councils like the Derbyshire Dales District Council, which urgently want to help but want to make sure that additional funds are available?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend and Derbyshire Dales District Council for stepping up. We will of course make sure that the funds are available, and she should make representations to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins).

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and grateful for the way she has set out her question. I will revert to her as soon as I can.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is thanks to the sacrifice of the British people during lockdown and the great success of the vaccination programme that lots of small businesses across the whole country and in my constituency of Derbyshire Dales, such as Brocklehursts, which supplied clothing to Prince Philip, can remain open? Will my right hon. Friend join me in a campaign to shop local as we come out of lockdown?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. Yes, I certainly will encourage her and everybody else to shop local as we come out of lockdown, as I very much hope that we will be able to do. My right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary has announced that £830 million of funding from the future high streets fund has been allocated to areas, including my hon. Friend’s, to encourage that shopping that we all hope and want to see.

Covid-19: Road Map

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to draw attention to endurance and the things we have asked young people to put up with this year and over the past 12 months. There cannot be a generation like it, who have experienced so much disruption to their education. She is right to call attention to the pressures and stress that that has caused. We have invested massively in mental health provision, particularly for young people’s mental health. One of the things we have done is appoint a young people’s mental health ambassador in the form of Alex George, but the top priority for the Government is now not just to get kids back in school on 8 March, but to make sure that we remediate their education with a programme of much more than £1 billion. The Secretary of State for Education will be setting out more about our plans to help those pupils later this week.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con) [V]]

The people of this country are desperate to be set free as soon as possible. As my right hon. Friend knows, many of the tourism and hospitality businesses in Derbyshire Dales have been hit heavily by this pandemic, so please will he encourage the country to book self-catered, self-contained accommodation for staycation holidays in places like Derbyshire Dales this summer, where families are able to minimise mixing with other people but have some fun?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right, and, as she will have heard just now, the option to book a staycation is, all being well, now there for 12 April, and I cannot imagine there are many lovelier destinations around then than the Derbyshire dales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Again, despite the gloom that the right hon. Gentleman seeks to spread about Scotland and the rest of the UK, the UK currently has the highest youth employment in the G7—I could perhaps have made that point to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—and lower unemployment than France, Italy, Spain, the United States and Canada. There is a threat to the Scottish economy, sadly, and that is the high tax regime and mismanagement of the Scottish nationalist party. That is the problem that Scotland faces, and I hope that the people of Scotland can see it.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

  As my right hon. Friend knows, the tourism and hospitality sector in constituencies across the country, but particularly in Derbyshire Dales, has been severely affected by the pandemic and the national restrictions. That includes places such as the Flying Childers Inn in Stanton in the Peak. What support and hope can the Government give that sector in the weeks and months ahead?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for everything she does to campaign for Derbyshire Dales and for hospitality. It has been a terrible time for hospitality. We all share the anguish of those who work in the hospitality sector. That is why we have cut VAT overall, as she knows, from 20% to 5% in those sectors until the end of March, and we are going to develop, with her help, a tourism recovery plan to help people come to see the beauties of the Derbyshire Dales in particular.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his suggestion. I can tell him that we are already working with the Liverpool City Region on improving local test and trace. His suggestion is very apposite and one, I am sure, that will be taken forward in the course of those conversations.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

We are seeing a very unwelcome trend from the Labour party, which backs the Government’s sensible measures one week, only to flip flop and change its mind the next week. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me and several constituents from Derbyshire Dales who say that what they want to see is this House working together on sensible policies rather than political point scoring?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, indeed. What the people of this country want to see is unanimous support for measures that restrict the spread of the virus. We have had that before, and I hope that we will have it again. I also hope that Opposition Members who are calling on me to do more in Greater Manchester will prevail on the authorities there to come into tier 3 and to help us to get there.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

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]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says. He knows a great deal about this matter, and it is of great importance that we go through the legal procedures, as we will. As things stand, however, in addition to the potential blockade on agricultural goods, there are other avenues that the EU could explore if it is determined to interpret the protocol in absurd ways, and if it fails to negotiate in good faith. We must now take a package of protective powers in the Bill, and subsequently.

For example, there is the question of tariffs in the Irish sea. When we signed the protocol, we accepted that goods “at risk” of going from Great Britain into the EU via Northern Ireland should pay the EU tariff as they crossed the Irish sea—we accepted that—but that any goods staying within Northern Ireland would not do so. The protocol created a joint committee to identify, with the EU, which goods were at risk of going into Ireland. That sensible process was one achievement of our agreement, and our view is that that forum remains the best way of solving that question.

I am afraid that some in the EU are now relying on legal defaults to argue that every good is “at risk”, and therefore liable for tariffs. That would mean tariffs that could get as high as 90% by value on Scottish beef going to Northern Ireland, and moving not from Stranraer to Dublin but from Stranraer to Belfast within our United Kingdom. There would be tariffs of potentially more than 61% on Welsh lamb heading from Anglesey to Antrim, and of potentially more than 100% on clotted cream moving from Torridge—to pick a Devonshire town at random—to Larne. That is unreasonable and plainly against the spirit of that protocol.

The EU is threatening to carve tariff borders across our own country, to divide our land, to change the basic facts about the economic geography of the United Kingdom and, egregiously, to ride roughshod over its own commitment under article 4 of the protocol, whereby

“Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom.”

We cannot have a situation where the boundaries of our country could be dictated by a foreign power or international organisation. No British Prime Minister, no Government, and no Parliament could ever accept such an imposition.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

How will my right hon. Friend ensure that Derbyshire Dales lamb, grown in our country, can be enjoyed by our fellow citizens in Northern Ireland, which is part of our country?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much. The best way for us all to be sure that such lamb can be sold throughout the whole United Kingdom is to vote for this Bill, and to protect the economic integrity of the UK. [Interruption.] To answer the questions that are being shouted at me from a sedentary position, last year we signed the withdrawal agreement in the belief, which I still hold, that the EU would be reasonable. After everything that has recently happened, we must consider the alternative. We asked for reasonableness, common sense, and balance, and we still hope to achieve that through the joint committee process, in which we will always persevere, no matter what the provocation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To the best of my knowledge, all the equipment we are sending out is of the correct standard. I would be happy to look at the case that the right hon. Gentleman mentions. As I said earlier, we have stockpiles of PPE, but are making huge efforts to ensure that we have enough for the outbreak ahead.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Q11. The Chancellor yesterday unveiled a wide range of measures to tackle coronavirus. Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that it is vital that we do whatever we can to get through this as a country?

[The Prime Minister]

I wholly endorse what my hon. Friend has said. We will do whatever it takes, and we will beat it together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Sarah Dines

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue with me. Of course it is right that these decisions are independently made by Ofgem, but I appreciate the problem that she raises and we will do whatever we can to ensure that it is sorted out as fast as possible.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Q6. My right hon. Friend will know that the quarries of the Peak district provide a huge proportion of the national building and mineral needs of this great nation. We would be delighted to see him in the Derbyshire Dales, so that he can see at first hand the men and women who work at the quarry face, who will be at the heart of the post-Brexit economy, and look at the need for my local Ashbourne bypass—this is necessary to deliver Brexit to the people. Does not this support for these hard-working people show who the real Conservatives are and that this party is the party of the working man?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say that Prime Minister’s questions is going to run on because of this and that we must have short questions? I will work with Members, but Members have to work with the Chair.