Easter Recess: Government Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, my hon. Friend is completely right. That is why our energy security strategy is vital not just for consumers, but for British industry.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

A new poll shows that three quarters of the public think the Prime Minister deliberately lied about breaking lockdown rules, yet on Thursday the Prime Minister will order his MPs to stop his lawbreaking ever coming before the Privileges Committee. If the Prime Minister has nothing to hide, why not do the straightforward thing and refer himself to the Privileges Committee? What is he scared of?

[The Prime Minister]

The House will decide.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What a joy it is to welcome my hon. Friend to his place; the joy seems a bit confined on the Opposition Benches. I thank him for his work and support for everybody at Queen Mary’s Hospital, which he and I campaigned for, for many years. Last year Queen Mary’s received £800,000 of funding and I hope that it will benefit further from the £1 million funding awarded to Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust to improve technology services across its estate.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

15. A nurse who organised a small socially distanced demonstration against this Government’s pay cuts was fined £10,000. People out there are sick to the back teeth of it being one rule for the Tories and another for everyone else. The Prime Minister, for once, needs to do the decent thing—for God’s sake, resign!

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think there was a question there. There was an invitation for me to do what of course the Labour party wants me to do, but I am not going to do it. We are going to carry on with our agenda of uniting and levelling up across the country, and they fundamentally know that they have no answer to that. We have a plan and a vision for this country; they have absolutely nothing to say, and that is the difference between our side and their side.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much, but I think the evidence is clear that healthcare professionals should get vaccinated.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The rush to remove the requirement for masks, including on public transport, will cause people to fall ill and die unnecessarily. Is this not all about saving the Prime Minister’s political skin, not protecting public health? What a moral failure and what a bad way to go.

[The Prime Minister]

I notice that the hon. Gentleman is at variance with his Front Bench on that point, and not for the first time. I do not think he is right. I think that we should trust in the judgment of the British people, and that is what we are going to do.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, Mr Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for what she says about Rutland and Melton, and we will certainly make sure the councils get the funding they need. She has hit on the fundamental point: borrowing more is no answer. We are borrowing a lot, and in the end borrowing is just future tax rises for younger people or even people unborn. That is not what this Government are going to do.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Health and social care do need massive investment, especially after Tory austerity has so undermined our national health service over the past 11 years. A 10% tax on the wealth of those with over £100 million would raise £69 billion. Surely a wealth tax is how we should be funding these vital services. Is the truth not that despite the rhetoric and the promises, the Tories do not have the guts to take on the super-rich who fund their party, and that is why they will not back a wealth tax?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. At least he has the guts, unlike the leader of his party, to say that he would tax people in this country to the tune of £12 billion or £13 billion a year to pay for this. This is a wealth tax on that scale. We believe that this is the right way. What we have not heard from those on the Labour Front Bench is any credible alternative.

Afghanistan

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend. Of course I congratulate Wiltshire Council on what it is doing, as I congratulate all councils that are stepping up to the plate and helping Afghans to settle and to integrate at this time. I can tell him that Wiltshire Council and all other councils involved will get the support and funding they need.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Like other Members, my constituency office and I have been doing everything we can to help constituents trapped in Afghanistan and to help their relatives who need to get out urgently, but it is clear that the Government are failing to do all they can to help these vulnerable people and are disgracefully putting even more people’s lives at risk. More widely, President Biden has called for an end to

“an era of major military operations to remake other countries”.

Given the huge loss of life in the disastrous and tragic wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, is it not time that we do the same?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a massively effective advocate for the people of North Devon. She has made these points to me before, and I know that she is right. As she knows, we have put higher rates of stamp duty on the buying of additional property, such as second homes, but we also have to make sure that young people growing up around our country—contrary to the instincts of the previous Labour speaker, the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith)—have the chance of home ownership in the place where they live. That is what our first home scheme will help to do, with a new discount of at least 30% prioritised for first-time buyers.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is having to self-isolate, as are hundreds of thousands of people across the country because of his reckless covid strategy. Unlike the Prime Minister, not everybody has been able to run off to a luxury country mansion with a heated swimming pool. Also, unlike the Prime Minister, so many people across our country are having to survive on just £96 sick pay per week. Could the Prime Minister survive on £96 sick pay per week? If he could not, why does he think that it is good enough for everyone else?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong, because everybody who is self-isolating is entitled, in addition to the equivalent of the living wage at statutory sick pay, to help, in extreme circumstances, from their local councils and to a £500 payment to help them with self-isolation. It remains absolutely vital that everybody does it.

G7 and NATO Summits

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Brilliantly brief.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

With coronavirus, none of us are safe until everyone is safe. The world needs over 11 billion vaccine doses to end the pandemic, but the G7 vaccine offer falls well short and leaves billions of people without protection. To ramp up vaccine production needs a temporary waiver on intellectual property, so that all countries can access the technology. President Biden supports that, more than 100 other countries support that, but this Prime Minister is one of the people blocking it. So is not the Prime Minister putting the interests of profit-hungry pharmaceutical companies ahead of the lives of millions of people?

[The Prime Minister]

For the hon. Gentleman to talk about profit-hungry pharmaceutical companies, in view of the efforts made by AstraZeneca to distribute 500 million vaccines around the world at cost, is utterly disgraceful, and he should withdraw his remarks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know how much my hon. Friend cares about this issue and how deeply her constituents have been affected by the Grenfell fire. I will study her proposal for a new tax on building materials, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will want to think about that kind of idea. We are looking at new rules to exclude contractors from Government business where gross professional negligence has been shown.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

Exactly one year ago today we were told that 20,000 coronavirus deaths would be a “good outcome”. Yet our death toll is now six times higher: over 100,000 more people have lost their lives than that initial estimate. In March last year, the Prime Minister pontificated about taking it “on the chin”. Others acted decisively with lockdowns, but the Prime Minister dithered and delayed, with deadly consequences. With the worst hopefully now behind us, is it not time for the Prime Minister to hold up his hands and come clean with the British public and say, “Those deaths are on me, and for that I apologise”?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly take full responsibility for everything the Government did, and of course we mourn the loss of every single coronavirus victim, and we sympathise deeply with their families and their loved ones. Am I sorry for what has happened to our country? Yes of course I am deeply, deeply sorry, and of course there will be a time for a full inquiry to enable us all to understand what we need to do better when we face these problems in the future, and that is something I think the whole House shares.

Covid-19: Road Map

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend mentions Llandudno, where I recall spending an absolutely hysterical new year’s eve in the St Tudno Hotel. I seem to remember it was 1997—a wonderful year. I wish that hotel and all others in Llandudno all the very best. We will get them open just as soon as we possibly can. I thank my hon. Friend for his representations.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

What the Prime Minister said earlier about a zero-covid solution is simply not true. Since he lifted lockdown prematurely in December, which I voted against, we have had 60,000 deaths, whereas there have been fewer than 1,400 deaths across all the countries with a zero-covid plan, despite their populations being 20 times bigger than ours. Those unnecessary deaths are on him, and he is still refusing to learn the lessons. Last month, the Prime Minister called schools “vectors of transmission”, yet he is recklessly forcing 10 million school pupils and staff to return on just one day. Does not that run the very real risk of the virus running out of control yet again?

[The Prime Minister]

This is one of those moments when I sympathise very much with the Leader of the Opposition, because there speaks the authentic voice of the union-dominated Labour left. I do not think the hon. Gentleman is right in what he says. I think most people in this country understand that schools need to go back. I just heard from the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) that he does support schools returning on 8 March, which is good news.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and just this morning I was discussing Derbyshire’s bid for a big community testing programme. We will obviously do everything we can to support them, and I thank my hon. Friend and local leaders for what they are doing to promote community testing.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

Real-terms pay cuts for millions of public sector workers, an insulting 37p increase in benefit levels and broken promises on minimum wage increases show that the Prime Minister wants to pay for this crisis on the backs of the working class. Would it not be fairer to impose a windfall tax on the wealth of the super-rich and on those who have made super-profits out of the covid crisis, including those who won contracts because of their links to top Tories?

[The Prime Minister]

I must, again, strongly disagree with what the hon. Gentleman says. Everybody on this side of the House is proud not just of the living wage but of record increases in the living wage, of above inflation pay rises across the board and, of course, of what we have done to support nurses and the NHS with record investment. I do not think anybody who looks at the investment this Government have made in the public sector could doubt our commitment. We will continue to do that, but what we want to see is our economy recovering and our strong and dynamic private sector, which the hon. Gentleman disparages, enabling the country to forge forward as it should.

Covid-19

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is spot on, which is why we are increasing the fines from £100 to £200. You are protecting yourself and protecting other people, so you wear a face covering where you should.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab [V])]

Shamefully, the UK has had the one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the world. If we had had Germany’s deaths per million rate, we would have had more than 30,000 fewer coronavirus deaths. If we had had the much lower death rates of South Korea and New Zealand, we would have had more than 40,000 fewer deaths. So will the Prime Minister take responsibility for our unacceptably high death rate? To avoid a repeat this winter, will he now pursue the zero covid strategy that the Independent SAGE is calling for, and that countries such as South Korea and New Zealand are successfully implementing?

[The Prime Minister]

What we are pursuing, with the support of the Opposition, is a policy of driving this virus down, while allowing education and our economy to continue. I hope the hon. Gentleman will lend his support to that effort as well.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Burgon

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am delighted to see him looking so well, having made such a great recovery. At the moment, one of the difficulties the country faces is that it looks like only 6% or 7% of the population have had the virus, which raises questions about the risk of a second spike and the disease coming back. The answer is: testing, testing, testing. He will be pleased to know that this country is now testing roughly twice as many people per head of population as any other European country.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

The former chief scientific adviser has said that tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the Government had acted differently. If we had had the same death rate as South Korea, a country whose population and income are not very different from ours, we would have had a few hundred deaths, not the many tens of thousands we have had. Is not today’s announcement, which is really just about appeasing right wingers on the Tory Back Benches, once again this Government gambling with people’s lives?

[The Prime Minister]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman makes that point, but he is wrong. By contrast, I welcome the more constructive approach from the Labour Front Bench.