Local Bank Branch Closures

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan]

What is most despicable about this situation is that banks have record profits, but are not investing them in our communities. Our constituents, particularly those who are vulnerable, need banks to maintain their presence on our local high streets. It is incumbent on Government to act and to incentivise banks to have a high street presence.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. The support she is getting from across the House is quite telling.

Rural Scotland has been battered by bank and post office closures in recent years. The Bank of Scotland plans to close its Dunoon branch on 5 December. We have seen how this works: the banks close a branch, they advise us to use the post office and, all too often, the post office closes. I have made my feelings very clear about that particular closure, but will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the people of Dunoon, particularly Dinah McDonald, who from her shop Bookpoint is leading the community fightback by gathering 1,000 local signatures to petition Lloyds to reverse this ill thought out and ill conceived idea and decision?

[Amy Callaghan]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention and throw my full weight behind the campaign of the people of Dunoon. We know good folk come from Argyll and Bute, so I am very happy to support that campaign.

My constituents in East Dunbartonshire have suffered from this trend, watching bank after bank close its doors. Seven local banks have closed since 2020, most recently Barclays in Kirkintilloch and the Bank of Scotland in Bearsden—similar to my hon. Friend’s experience. Fortunately, a Bank of Scotland branch remains in Milngavie, but for how long? I will continue to set out the need for action and Government intervention as I progress my case for the continued need for high street banks, but I will start with a couple of questions for the Minister. I would appreciate some comment from him on them when he gives his response.

What are the Government doing to incentivise banks to maintain a high street presence? Do the Government recognise why that is important and necessary, and if they do, why the hesitance to intervene? That hesitancy is to the detriment of our constituents, particularly those who are vulnerable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith]

In the interest of time I will stick to the topic, but I am delighted that the hon. Member is here in person, as indeed are you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Change is not comfortable, but it does happen. Let us consider payphones. It would not surprise me if Hansard had records of similar debates about the decline of payphones. At one point, at their peak in the 1990s, there were almost 100,000 payphones in this country. Today there is just a fraction of that number. Technology has moved on, and nearly everybody has access to either a landline or a mobile phone.

By the same token, it would make little sense to force a business to keep a physical branch open when developments in the market mean that eyeballs and footfall have moved elsewhere. Nor would our high streets be particularly well served by bank branches gathering dust and lying essentially unused. We need to find new uses for them—perhaps the aspiration of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire for independence will produce new uses for these bank branches—in the same way that so many of our communities and villages today have a Blacksmith’s Arms public house.

[Brendan O’Hara]

What responsibility, if any, does the Minister think the Government have for these closures? This idea that we can all be digital by default might work well in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh or wherever, but digital by default does not work in rural communities. There needs to be a solution for those who cannot access these systems, as he would have us all do.

[Andrew Griffith]

This Government take responsibility, and I was just about to explain how, for the first time, we have taken the statutory right to protect the use of cash. That has been on the statute book for a number of weeks after the House passed the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023. It is also why we support the very rigorous guidance given by the Financial Conduct Authority in cases where bank branches are closing.

Mortgage Charter

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for a thoughtful question. The measures agreed by the banks and principal lenders on Friday will make a big difference, particularly for people who are genuinely in arrears, who now know that their house will not be forcibly repossessed for 12 months. That is an important reassurance, and gives people longer to get their finances in order. It also encourages people who are worried about the impact on their credit score that the simple fact of having a conversation if they are in distress will not have any impact on it. For people in a similar situation to his parents, this is an important set of measures.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

In his statement, the Chancellor said that there will be a minimum 12-month period from the first missed payment before a repossession without consent. Does that come into effect from today, or will it apply retrospectively? What will that mean for hard-pressed families who, because of soaring costs, missed August but managed to pay September, October, November and December, and missed January? At what point does the clock start ticking on their repossession?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The agreement will take effect in the next few weeks, but the context of the agreement with the banks and lenders is one where they are agreeing to do everything they possibly can to give people longer to get their affairs in order so that repossessions are reduced or eliminated altogether. I think it will be a positive step forward.

Autumn Statement

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I have visited the QEH and absolutely understand the concerns that my hon. Friend is talking about. I will write to him about what is happening, but we do commit today that we will protect the new hospital programme. We do want to spend very important money in our capital programme in the NHS.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

My rural, economically fragile constituency has been battered by a Brexit that we did not vote for resulting in the loss of European markets for our abundant seafood and meat products. What we also have in abundance is wind and water, which lash in from the Atlantic; something that we have learned not just to live with but to harness and benefit from. Why on earth has the Chancellor decided to tax electricity generators at a 10% higher rate than oil and gas producers? If there is a 91% investment allowance for the oil and gas sector, what is the figure for the renewables sector?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I have had wonderful holidays in the hon. Member’s constituency and can attest to the high levels of wind and water there. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. The windfall tax rate on electricity generators is calculated to ensure that we tax only genuine windfall profits. It is reasonable to do that. Overall, these taxes will raise about £54 billion, and this year and next year we will spend more than £100 billion to support people with their energy bills. It will only kick in at £75 a unit, which is a generously high level.

Economic Responsibility and a Plan for Growth

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that even on the Government’s own estimates heating oil has gone up by 147% since January, and in constituencies such as ours it is costing more than £1,200 to fill a tank, and sometimes this is with a minimum delivery of 500 litres. Does he share my concern that in these colder, rural and more economically fragile areas of the UK not everyone has £500 to replenish their oil tank? This will not be a choice of turning their heating on or not; they simply will not have the choice, because they will not have the oil or the means to replenish the tank when they need it. This is a crisis.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend is completely right and he represents a constituency with many off gas grid constituents, as I do. He makes a telling point about the cost of that. What support are the UK Government giving to these people who face twice the bills that other people will? They are giving a measly £100.

Draft Social Security (Contributions) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2022

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 General Committees

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I reiterate: there is no need to notify the women, because everyone knows that the social care levy is coming in. It has been widely publicised. The current position is that everyone who is eligible to pay that tax will pay it, so there is no need to tell a group of women who through an oversight were not included in the levy that they will now be included, because at the moment they will not think that they are not.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Lucy Frazer]

I will conclude my remarks, because I have now answered that question twice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O'Hara]

I had not intended to speak; however, I hoped to intervene on the Minister, but she moved on elsewhere, so I have a couple of thoughts. Many of us—in fact, all of us—on the Opposition Benches think that national insurance is rather a blunt tool that affects the lowest paid and the youngest earners far more than anyone else. We can now include this small group of women.

The Minister talked about the health and social care levy, but there has been no great explanation or clear idea of how it will be used or passported through to social care services. She repeated the idea of fairness—it was almost a mantra—and that it is fair across the board, but this measure will hit a minuscule number of working women, whom she has already identified as being in the WASPI age group. To me, it seems grossly unfair to target that group of women again in this way. Does she believe that that group are being treated fairly? Could she say to the cohort of women in that age group that this Government have treated them fairly? Communication throughout the WASPI situation was utterly abysmal.

[Steve McCabe]

Given that this problem resulted from a Government error, which the Minister has said she fully intends to correct next year anyway, would this not be the perfect opportunity to make some restitution for the losses that the WASPI women have already experienced, by giving them a year’s grace on this Government error?

[Brendan O'Hara]

That is an excellent idea. I do not see why the Government would look to penalise this tiny number—a minuscule group, as the Minister said—once again. One might have hoped, having put them through the mill with such dreadful communication about why their pensions were being treated in the way they were, that the Government had learnt from that awful experience, but clearly they have not.

[Liz Twist]

Given the experiences of those who were not notified, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not enough to say that the computer systems have been upgraded and that the website has been updated? People need individual information about how they have been treated.

[Brendan O'Hara]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. At the very least, that group of women are owed by the Government. It is a basic courtesy to notify them of what is about to happen to them. I strongly advise the Minister to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak: for this one year, set aside this tiny amount of money from a minuscule cohort of women, as some sort of apology for the appalling way in which they have been treated by the Government time and time again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank hon. Members for their important contributions. I assure the Committee that my officials and I considered the matter carefully before we laid the draft SI before the House, for many of the reasons raised. The reason for the measure is simply that there was never an intention not to include that category of women. They were only not included because of an oversight. That having happened, it seemed more appropriate to correct the oversight, which was never intended, recognising the fact that only a small number of people are affected and that, if we ask people to pay the levy, it should be fair that we ask across the board. A particular category of people should not benefit just because of an oversight that we made.

[Brendan O'Hara]

rose—

[Lucy Frazer]

I hope to answer the points made, but if I do not, I am happy to come back to the hon. Member.

To answer some factual points, in general the age of the people affected is between 61 and 66. For example, if someone is earning up to the threshold of £12,570 per annum, they will still be paying £13 less a month in NICs once the changes have come in—that is £160 per annum. If they are earning £1,500, they will still be paying £130 less per annum, taking into account the changes that we have made.

On notification, the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals, for example, published the details of the changes in relation to this rate on its website. I understand the point that people are making in relation to the increase, but the 1.25-percentage point increase is the same across the board. I appreciate the points that people are making, but at the end of the day the reason why we are doing this is so that it is fair across the board.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Can I just ask a couple of questions? Has a calculation been done on how much will be raised in the year from these 1,000 women, set against a calculation of how much it will cost to administer?

[Lucy Frazer]

These regulations are not being made on the basis of what revenue we will raise; they are being made on the basis of being fair to everybody. On the hon. Gentleman’s point, as I have already said, the process is already in place, and if we were to stop the process happening, that would be a cost for payroll providers, because they would have to reverse what they are already doing. However, I am not standing here today and saying that we are going to raise millions of pounds through a measure that I have already highlighted will affect only a small number of individuals.

Yazidi Genocide

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members that Mr Speaker encourages everyone to observe social distancing and to wear masks.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Yazidi genocide.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for giving time for this important debate.

On 3 August 2014, Daesh launched a violent attack against the Yazidis in Sinjar, in Iraq. A few days after that attack, it also attacked the Nineveh plains, forcing 120,000 people to flee for their lives in the middle of the night. Daesh fighters killed hundreds if not thousands of men, abducted boys to turn them into child soldiers, and kidnapped for sexual slavery thousands of women and girls, 2,763 of whom are still missing to this day. In a reign of terror lasting more than two years, Daesh murdered, enslaved, deported, and forcibly transferred women and children, and imprisoned, tortured, abducted, exploited, abused, raped, and forced women into marriage, across the region.

It was not until the allied forces finally started to recover regions of Iraq from Daesh that the sickening scale of what was happening to the Yazidis and other religious groups became clear. That is why, in April 2016, the House of Commons voted unanimously to recognise the atrocities committed by Daesh as genocide. That was the first ever such determination by the House of Commons, and it was made while the atrocities were still ongoing. Since then, however, the UK Government have steadfastly refused to follow suit; they have hidden behind the defence that somehow it is not for Governments to determine what is and is not a genocide, and that only a competent court or a tribunal can determine that.

In my time in this place, I have taken part in many debates that have called on the Government to recognise what has happened as a genocide. That happened most recently a couple of weeks ago, when we debated the findings of the Uyghur Tribunal in a debate secured by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani); the Government again used the “competent court” defence to avoid taking a stance.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I thought that it was appropriate to intervene, given that my constituency was mentioned. I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important debate. There are five markers of genocide that that tribunal was able to expand on; and there is no denying that Daesh has the intent to destroy. Let me quote what Daesh itself has said:

“Upon conquering the region of Sinjar…the Islamic State faced a population of Yazidis, a pagan minority existent for ages in regions of Iraq and Shām”,

which is Syria.

“Their continual existence to this day is a matter that Muslims should question as they will be asked about it on Judgment Day”.

It is very clear that Daesh’s perverted view of the Islamic faith meant that it had to destroy the Yazidi. No doubt the hon. Member will agree with that.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I absolutely agree, and I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. The point about intent is crucial when deciding on genocide; I will expand on that later.

What sets this debate apart from all the others that we have had is the conviction in Germany in November 2021 of the Daesh terrorist Taha al-Jumailly for crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity. Not only is al-Jumailly the first Daesh member to be convicted of genocide against Yazidis, but his conviction means that the threshold demanded by successive UK Governments—that only a competent court can decide what is a genocide—has now been met. By the standard that the Government themselves set, they are now in a position to formally recognise the atrocities carried out by Daesh on the Yazidi people as a genocide.

I will first look at how the UN defines genocide. Then, using harrowing eyewitness testimony from survivors, I will set out why what happened to the Yazidi people more than reaches that threshold. Then I will examine the UK Government’s long-held position on declaring a genocide, and show how the ruling of the Frankfurt criminal court must force them to fundamentally alter how they define genocide and what Daesh did to the Yazidis and other minority communities during its reign of terror.

The United Nations genocide convention has been in place for more than 70 years. It clearly mentions killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction, preventing births within a group, and transferring children to another group. When that is done

“with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”,

it constitutes genocide. There is irrefutable proof that what Daesh did meets every single one of those tests without exception.

Since the initial attack on Sinjar, Daesh has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Yazidis; we do not know the exact number—and may never know it, because graves containing the remains of Yazidi men and boys continue to be discovered to this day. In “They came to destroy”, the United Nations report on Daesh crimes against the Yazidis, the UN stated that Daesh

“swiftly separated men and boys who had reached puberty from women and other children…Following this separation,”

Daesh

“fighters summarily executed men and older boys who refused to convert to Islam...Most of those killed were executed by gunshots to the head; others had their throats cut…Other captives, including family members, were often forced to witness the killings.”

Daesh also attempted to destroy the Yazidi people by inflicting conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction, including by cutting off food, water and medical assistance to those who fled to Mount Sinjar to escape the violence. In the summer of 2014, with temperatures rising to above 50°C, American, Iraqi, British, French and Australian forces had to air-drop water and other supplies to the besieged Yazidis on Mount Sinjar. Daesh shot at the planes dropping humanitarian aid and attacked the helicopters attempting to evacuate the most vulnerable in the community.

A favourite Daesh tactic was to separate children from their parents, with girls aged nine years and over being sold as sex slaves, while boys were sent from the age of seven to military training bases in Syria and Iraq. In “They came to destroy”, a 12-year-old boy told of his experiences at the hands of Daesh. He was taken from his family and sent to a camp. He said:

“They told us we had to become good Muslims and fight for Islam. They showed us videos of beheadings, killing and ISIS battles.”

He said that Daesh said:

“You have to kill kuffars even if they are your fathers and brothers, because they belong to the wrong religion and they don’t worship God”.

We know all too well the serious bodily and mental harm suffered by Yazidi women, who were subjected to appalling, barbaric treatment by Daesh, including rape, sexual violence, sexual slavery, forced sterilisation, torture, and all manner of inhumane and degrading treatment. Some may recall that on the day before our debate in 2016, the a 15-year-old Yazidi girl, Ekhlas, spoke to parliamentarians about her experience when Daesh arrived in her village. I will remind Members of what she said:

“There was knock at our door…My father and my two brothers were killed in front of me. They took me away from my mother. He grabbed my arm and my leg and then he raped me. He was 32 years old; I was 15. After they raped me, they took my friend and they raped her. I could hear her shouting, ‘Where is the mercy? Where is the mercy?’…Any girls over the age of nine were raped”.

That was as difficult to read as it was to hear, but the voices of that community have to be heard, regardless of how harrowing or sickening the detail might be.

Just one of those atrocities would be enough to meet the definition of genocide in the UN genocide convention, if it was perpetrated with the intent of destroying a group in whole or in part. In the case of the Yazidis, every single prohibited act set out in the convention was used by Daesh, and it was done, as the hon. Member for Wealden said, with specific intent to destroy the community. That can be seen in multiple publications by Dabiq, the official mouthpiece of ISIS, that have said absolutely that this assault was planned with the intent of destroying that community. Let us have no debate about Daesh’s intention, because that is very clear.

[Ms Ghani]

Does the hon. Member share my anxiety that the Minister may, in his response, refer to the terms of the UN genocide convention? We should alert him to the fact that the 2007 ruling of the International Court of Justice in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro says that when a state—not a court—learns of a serious risk of genocide, then it must act. We cannot keep relying on a defunct UN resolution when we have the ICJ’s 2007 case behind us, supporting the Government’s taking action.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank the hon. Lady for that contribution, which I am sure the Minister heard. I will come on to exactly what the Government have to do, and what they have so far failed to do.

It is beyond question that under international law, the Yazidi people—and other religious minorities in Iraq—were victims of genocide. One would hope that the Government would call these crimes exactly what they are, particularly given that back in 2016, Parliament voted by 278 votes to zero that this was a genocide. By any measure, and on any interpretation of the UN genocide convention, these atrocities clearly meet the legal definition of genocide.

For more than 50 years, successive UK Governments have said that genocide can be declared only by a “competent court”. Many of us have long argued that this was an absurd position for the UK to adopt, because there was absolutely no legal basis for it. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Wealden said, that position is contrary to the UK’s obligation as a signatory to the UN genocide convention, under which the UK has promised to act to prevent genocide the instant it

“learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk”

of genocide.

It is a remarkable feat of political, moral and linguistic gymnastics to reach a position that says that a genocide can be declared only after the event, and only after a court has decreed it a genocide. I have always viewed that as both a legally and morally flawed position that is rooted more in an unwillingness to make hard choices, and a fear of economic consequences or the international strategic implications of upsetting a powerful ally, than in legal principle. It is also a position that our greatest and most powerful ally has diverted from in regard to the Yazidi and other minority communities. In 2016, the United States, under Secretary of State John Kerry, declared:

“Daesh is responsible for genocide”.

That was confirmed in 2017 by his successor, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said that Daesh was “clearly responsible for genocide” by self-proclamation and deed. Having spoken to former State Department advisers, I know that those words were not said lightly, but came after serious, prolonged analysis and consideration.

The UK Government have had every chance to review and revise their flawed long-standing policy on genocide determination, but they have refused to do so, despite the fact that other states with a similar approach to genocide determination, most notably Canada and the Netherlands, have changed their approach in the light of the evidence. As recently as 27 May last year, the UK Government’s position was reiterated by Lord Ahmad. He could not have been clearer:

“The UK policy remains…that the determination of genocide should be made by competent courts, not non-judicial bodies. This includes international courts, such as the ICC, and, indeed, national criminal courts that meet international standards.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 May 2021; Vol. 812, c. 178.]

In November 2021, a competent court that meets international standards recognised that Daesh atrocities against the Yazidi people were genocide. When Iraqi national Taha al-Jumailly went on trial accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, he was not tried as a German national. His victims were not German, and his crimes were not committed on German territory; but under the principle of universal jurisdiction, German courts have the authority to preside over cases of genocide and crimes against humanity. Al-Jumailly was found guilty of purchasing and enslaving a five-year-old Yazidi girl and her mother. They were subjected to forced conversion and suffered great physical abuse, including battery and starvation. One day, to punish the child, al-Jumailly chained that little girl outside in the baking sunshine, and left her to die of thirst while her mother was forced to watch.

Following al-Jumailly’s arrest, the court in Frankfurt put the evidence of the Daesh atrocities under detailed legal scrutiny, and applied all relevant international and domestic law before finding him guilty of genocide. The UK Government therefore now have the competent court ruling that they have long desired. I can see so no reason whatsoever why the Government should delay any longer before recognising what Daesh did to the Yazidi people and other religious minorities as genocide. Will the Minister confirm what we all want to hear, and call this barbarism exactly what it is—a genocide?

Other hon. Members are eager to speak; I am extremely grateful to them for coming along this morning. I am sure that they will make the appeal that justice for victims and survivors should be first and foremost in our mind, and will call for the thousands of missing women and girls to be found and returned. I also hope to hear about plans to stabilise the region; an absence of genocide does not mean that Daesh and its hideous ideology have been banished from the region—far from it. There is a genuine fear that they could return at any time.

Finally, later this year the UK is hosting a ministerial summit on freedom of religion or belief. Today, we have an opportunity to show international leadership on that issue by declaring to the world that what happened to the Yazidi community and others was indeed genocide, and by standing in solidarity with the victims and survivors in saying—and meaning—“Never, ever, again.”

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate will last until 11 o’clock. I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 10.27 am, so we have about 40 minutes of Back-Bench time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O'Hara]

I put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), to the hon. Members for Wealden (Ms Ghani), for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), and to the Minister for what has been an interesting and informative debate. I am glad that the issues of the missing women and girls and of bringing stability to the region have been raised, but the crux of the debate was always that the threshold the Government set themselves has been met. The competent court threshold has been met, and by any standard and any definition, genocide has been established.

I am so disappointed that the Government still will not call this out and call it what it is. I understand that the federal court in Germany is reviewing this case, but across the world, this genocide has been recognised, and we should be taking a lead on this matter, not hiding behind an appeal to a German federal court to block us from doing what we know is the right thing. We wrote to the Prime Minister on this issue, but we have had no response; I would appreciate it if the Minister could raise this with the PM and tell him that we would still appreciate a response. As the hon. Member for Enfield North said, recognition is not an end in itself: it is the start of a process of righting an historical wrong, and we have a moral responsibility to call this what it is. This is a genocide.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Yazidi genocide.

Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Appointment

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as usual. One could hardly have a more qualified person to be chief of staff than my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), a former Secretary of State answerable to this House, and now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, an elected person answerable to this House as well as the electorate.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) is not in his place because I wanted to congratulate and welcome the country’s new senior civil servant to his post. I do not quite know how someone who already has two full-time jobs is going to salvage Downing Street’s reputation when the Prime Minister has often claimed that they all broke lockdown rules and regularly get tanked up in Downing Street because of the immense workload and the pressure of the job. However, there is something far more serious here: paragraph 3.12 of the Erskine May “Public service disqualification” section says:

“All persons employed either whole- or part-time in the Civil Service are disqualified; and it is immaterial whether they are serving in an established capacity”.

It is clear as day that the right hon. Gentleman is the new chief of staff at Downing Street and he is also a serving Member of this House; he cannot be both, and according to Erskine May he has disqualified himself from that role. So, when will the Government be moving the writ for the by-election?

[Michael Ellis]

I had no idea that the hon. Gentleman presented himself as an expert in Erskine May, but I have to say, with respect, that I do not think many others would. The reality is that my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) is not a civil servant; he remains a servant of this House—a servant of the people of this country—democratically elected and highly accountable.

Downing Street Parties: Police Investigation

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I completely agree.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

On Burns Day, it is probably appropriate to start with the line:

“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

Gang aft agley”.

Or perhaps it should be a line from that other great Scottish writer, Sir Walter Scott:

“O what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!”

Now that the police are finally involved, I do wonder how much more personal humiliation and indignity the Prime Minister will be prepared to endure. Perhaps more importantly, how much more of this embarrassing circus are his colleagues prepared to tolerate before they act to remove this man from office? This is not going to go away; the wound is not going to heal miraculously by itself. I am sure we all know that there is an awful lot more still to come out.

I ask the Minister: at any time has anyone from the Sue Gray inquiry contacted the Metropolitan police? When did the Cabinet Office first learn about the police investigation? When does he now expect the Sue Gray report to be delivered? Finally, can he assure this House that when it is, it will be delivered in full, will be open and will be completely transparent for every Member of this House to access?

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Gentleman asks me questions about the police investigation. I have no knowledge about that—nor would I expect to, nor should I have knowledge about it. He asks about the publication. I have already indicated that the findings of the investigation will be published.

Cost of Living Increases

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I hear hon. Members behind me asking from a sedentary position what we would cut—which is surely the same budget dilemma facing the Government that they have just been arguing about. What I would do is this. I would not spend money on an independence referendum; I would feed hungry Scottish children instead. Such a move, Mr Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] SNP Members seem to have woken up. It tells you all you need to know about how Scottish politics works that when this Government are in total disarray, rather than turning their guns on them, they are turning them on the Labour party. Such a move to double the Scottish child payment—[Interruption.] “Where would you get the money from?”, they keep shouting. Such a move would take 80,000 Scottish children out of poverty overnight, so let us find the money indeed, with all these vanity projects and the wastage we have seen in Scotland.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Ian Murray]

I will give way if the hon. Gentleman will tell us how much the SNP has spent on ferries that has been wasted.

[Brendan O’Hara]

The hon. Member talks about the SNP turning our guns on the Opposition; perhaps if he was not so utterly thirled to trident missiles, we could find the money to lift Scottish children out of poverty. While the Labour party remains thirled to Trident, we cannot do it.

[Ian Murray]

It is a strange thing that over the past five minutes we have heard SNP MP after SNP MP justify why they cannot lift 80,000 children out of poverty. If that does not show how this country is stuck between two bad Governments, nothing will.

0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

The decision by this Government to take essential, life-saving money from the world’s poorest people is absolutely shameful and it has confirmed, once and for all, that the idea of “global Britain” has already lost its moral compass. For this idea to have been confirmed at April’s integrated security review simply beggars belief; the idea that by making the world’s poorest people even poorer we somehow make ourselves safer is absolute nonsense and it takes gaslighting to new extremes.

Do the Government really expect us to believe that the best way to make the people of the UK more safe and secure is to slash vital humanitarian aid to parts of the world that are already ravaged by conflict, war and famine, and thereby to force tens of millions of people to uproot their families and go in search of a better, more secure future? It was breathtaking insensitivity, adding insult to injury, that that same Integrated Review announced that money that could and should have gone to help underprivileged and poor people across the world will instead be spent on increasing the UK’s stockpile of nuclear weapons—it is utterly abhorrent. This country has a historical moral obligation to those countries that are now in the developing world. We have to help them because we are responsible for where they are now. For more than a century the UK grew rich and powerful on the backs of the poor. The countries we invaded, conquered, divided and plundered need our help now and we cannot cut it off like this—it is abhorrent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Bob Seely, who has 90 seconds.