Oral Answers to Questions
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
Matthew Doyle worked for many years in public service for me as Prime Minister and other Ministers. When people leave roles in any organisation, there are often conversations about other roles that they want to apply for, but nothing came of this.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this. Of course, it was 33 years ago today that that awful murder took place. I am proud to have worked alongside Baroness Lawrence for many years. She is an incredibly courageous and inspiring campaigner, notwithstanding all the injustices that have been thrown at her in the last 33 years. We do celebrate St George’s day. We fly our flag, and we celebrate this country’s values of service, generosity and respect. They are English values, which is why I love this country so much. There are those who seek to divide us, who tell us that people are not welcome and try to rip our communities apart. We will never let them. We stand together united and against any challenges that we may face.
Security Vetting
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I was aware of what was in the due diligence—I have dealt with that—but I was not aware of the issues that were dealt with in the security vetting, nor the recommendation of UKSV.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Mandelson’s appointment was a huge failure of the British state, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s candour in accepting his responsibility for his part in it. Does the Prime Minister agree that restoring public trust is a mammoth task that requires leaders on all sides to be careful with their language and to ensure that they understand the processes that they are talking about, rather than throw about baseless accusations of “lying”?
Antisemitic Attacks
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dan Jarvis
I will give the hon. Member that assurance. I am grateful to her for mentioning her recent visit to Auschwitz. I visited Auschwitz with the Holocaust Educational Trust. It was one of the most moving things I have ever done, and I recommend that all Members do it.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I joined East London and Essex liberal synagogue for a seder this month. They, and all our Jewish communities, are loved and respected—something that has been made clear to them in the many written messages from our churches and mosques, and from across the community. I truly regret not speaking out louder and calling out the clear increase in antisemitic bigotry across society, which has created fertile ground for malign actors to target young people and draw them into these appalling crimes. Will the Minister describe the measures that he is taking to educate the public about the tactics used by hostile states to target our Jewish communities, and the solid steps that he is taking to address the apparently escalating frequency of these attacks?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right that we all have an absolute responsibility to call out racism and bigotry, wherever we experience it. He is also right that a range of malign forces is seeking to sow division and disharmony across our country and in our communities. I give him an absolute assurance that there is an extensive programme of activity across Government Departments to ensure that we have the requisite tools and resources to counter the misinformation and disinformation from those who would seek to divide us.
Middle East
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is absolutely right about opening the strait and playing our part—there is the political and diplomatic element, but there is also the issue of military capability. What we are doing with the countries that we have brought together in a loose coalition, and will meet in person later this week, is to look across those capabilities and draw them together. We do have capabilities when it comes to minesweeping; I will not go into operational details, but the hon. Lady knows what they are. Obviously, as we look across the board with President Macron and others, part of that exercise—the military planners have been looking at this—will be how we can pull together the capabilities of all the countries that are prepared to work with us on this. We have been working with at least a couple of dozen for the past two weeks, and we will be doing that further this week.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s leadership in supporting our regional partners and our national interests, particularly that of free navigation. However, that lies outwith our most immediate security problem, which is defending Europe from Russian attack in all its forms. Does the Prime Minister agree that we should recognise Russian-Iranian co-operation, and that we must not let that distract us from our urgent need to rearm collectively and defend our country and the continent of Europe?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the really important issue of the relationship between Russia and Iran, and the assistance that Russia has given to Iran in relation to the intelligence that is being used during the conflict. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are facing a war on two fronts, and Russia is a huge threat to our continent and our country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I stand by my answer. Hundreds of thousands of files are submitted to the prosecution service every year. It is important that the investigation is going on. I cannot tell the right hon. Member when the decision will be made or what the decision will be, as he well knows, but it is important that every allegation is properly investigated and properly dealt with according to the law.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
My hon. and gallant Friend is absolutely right. Our support for Ukraine is unwavering, and yesterday I chaired the call of the coalition of the willing and announced new sanctions to weaken Putin’s war machine. The Greens, by contrast, want to pull out of NATO and negotiate with Putin on our nuclear deterrent, and Reform is still parroting Kremlin talking points after its leader in Wales was jailed for taking Russian bribes. Both of them are weak on NATO and soft on Putin.
China and Japan
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Mark Carney rightly challenged fellow middle powers to stop “living within a lie”, and to recognise the changes in the geopolitical landscape, because comfortable assumptions about the international order are no longer true, and the system that we once benefited from cannot become the source of our subordination. It was therefore important to hear the Prime Minister’s firm commitment to GCAP in Japan. Does he agree that investment in programmes such as GCAP is essential if we are to address this geopolitical challenge?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do, and my hon. Friend is right to emphasise the changes in the geopolitical landscape; we have approached our relationship to the US, Europe, India and China accordingly.
Oral Answers to Questions
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Liz Kendall
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. This is a serious issue, and we need to make swifter and stronger progress on it. I regularly meet Ofcom and its chief executive; indeed, I did so yesterday. I want to make sure that we do not have the delays and that we have stronger action, and this is a point I will be bringing up in future.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Foreign Interference
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) for securing the debate. I have expanded my remarks beyond foreign interference, because the way Russia views what it is doing at the moment is more than that. It is a direct attack on a system and on our way of life. This is more than interference—it is conflict.
Across the world, the contest is under way between liberal democracies that trust their people and autocratic regimes that fear them. Nowhere exemplifies that more than Russia, a state built on the control and takeover of civil society. Russia views its democratic neighbours to the west as weak and vulnerable, to be divided and picked off one by one, but Russia is wrong and we must show it that it is wrong. It cloaks its aggression towards its former colonies in a sense of entitlement and ownership—a warped hangover from its imperial past.
Ukraine is on the frontline of this contest. That is why I am glad that this Government and this Parliament are committed to standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes, and that our Government have increased military support for Ukraine to its highest level ever. This year we are providing £4.5 billion in financial aid and military support to Ukraine. However, while all wars must end in negotiation, we have to be clear that there should be no deal about Ukraine without Ukraine, and we must recognise that we will all have capitulated if Ukraine is forced to agree to unfavourable terms. If that happens, we will have capitulated to the idea that unprovoked aggression should be rewarded and that the victims of an illegal occupation should be collectively punished for standing in the way.
After so many years, it is easy to forget what Russian aggression and occupation mean: children forcibly taken from their families and transported for reeducation in Russia, prisoners of war raped and executed, and civilians publicly hanged in occupied towns simply for speaking out. We cannot live in a world where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. That is Russia’s world, and its success, in Ukraine and across Europe, would represent the death of our values and our way of life.
I was pleased that we in the Defence Committee put out a joint statement reaffirming our commitment to Ukraine, and calling on the UK and our European allies to do more. We must do more, not only in supporting Ukraine but in countering the attempts by Russia and its autocratic bedfellows to destroy our democracy, pull apart our alliances and undermine our society. For that reason, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lewes for securing the debate and for the opportunity to speak in it.
Russia believes that it is already at war with NATO, and so with us. While it competes on the battlefield in Ukraine with drones and missiles, it is also seeking to influence and interfere in our societies and communities. That reality is something that most people in this country do not yet understand. The recently published Defence Committee report on UK contributions to European security highlighted this as an area where further effort and cross-Government co-ordination are needed.
While our public are largely unaware, Russia seeks to slowly slice away at our defences and at the trust we have in one another, slice by slice, until we find that the freedoms, security and unity we have taken for granted have been carved away. Russia does this by subtly building relationships with local actors and influencers. This tactic is not new; it has a long history. In the ’60s, the KGB orchestrated a campaign to alienate West Germany from its allies by portraying it as a hub for Nazi antisemitism. The operation involved antisemitic graffiti and synagogue vandalism, emboldening far-right elements and sparking international outrage.
Today, Russia intervenes selectively and strategically to support far-right and far-left parties across Europe, while its intelligence farms out sabotage plots to criminals and opportunists. From Russian oligarchs socialising with Boris Johnson and the Brexit brigade to Kremlin-backed spending on pro-Brexit disinformation campaigns, Russia has long sought to influence and undermine our democratic system from the top.
Today, in this Parliament, there sits a party whose leaders have taken Russian bribes. Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, took at least £40,000 in cash from a pro-Kremlin operative; David Coburn, the former UKIP leader in Scotland and former Brexit party MEP, discussed a potential $6,500 payment from the same pro-Kremlin network. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) once vouched that his right-hand man was “decent” and “honest”. Now he insists that there are no pro-Kremlin links in Reform UK—so why do his parties keep being led by Putin’s puppets? I suggest that the hon. Member takes a look in the mirror and, for once, puts the country before himself and investigates Reform’s pro-Russia links.
Russia’s reach also extends to our streets, where it seeks, in the words of MI5 director general McCallum, “sustained mayhem”. In my own constituency, we have seen two Russia-linked attacks: an arson attack on a Leyton warehouse storing aid for Ukraine, and an Islamophobic graffiti campaign across east London, which targeted a mosque and religious schools locally. These attacks are Russian attempts to influence our politics, including our support for Ukraine. Most importantly, they are attempts to cause division among and within our communities.
As the Defence Committee’s report on hybrid threats highlights, our democratic openness makes us more vulnerable to Russia’s influence campaigns, but that does not make autocracies such as Russia stronger or more resilient than us. In the spirit of democratic honesty, we must make the case to the public that investing in our security is essential. Our security services must play an active role in countering attacks on democracy and elections. We must all make the case for increased defence spending, which is essential to ensure the safety and security of our democracy.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I will make the same entreaty that I made in the last debate. If hon. Members are going to criticise other hon. Members of this House, they should have informed them in advance; I trust that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) did so in relation to the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). I call John Cooper.
G7 and NATO Summits
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(10 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
If we all agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons, it is about time that we did something about it. What happened on Saturday night was a big step towards alleviating that threat, which is important. We now need to complete on that. The way to do that is through the talks that are now needed to get Iran back to the table, in order to make sure that the position is irreversible and can be verified, and that is what we are focused on.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s leadership in recognising the need for a strategic response. It has been 35 years since the Options for Change defence review began bringing down defence spending from 4.1% of GDP. We have spent that dividend, gambling that we would not need to defend our values, and a generation has benefited from that bet, but now we must take our chips off the table and reinvest in our security. Does the Prime Minister agree that we must level with the public about the threats that we face and the cost of under-investment in our armed forces?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do agree. That is why we have begun the hard work of reversing the damage done under the previous Government. My hon. Friend is right about the dividend that has been enjoyed, but we must now make sure that there is a defence dividend—that higher spending in that area is reflected in good, well-paid jobs in the United Kingdom that boost our economy across all parts of our communities.
EU Trading Relationship
Calvin Bailey Excerpts(1 year ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I thank the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this important debate ahead of the UK-EU summit next month. The summit comes in the throes of alarming uncertainty created by President Trump’s dangerous, chaotic and authoritarian approach to trade and international relations. The Trump turmoil makes building close relationships with our EU neighbours even more urgent. We need to fix those relationships because the UK’s withdrawal from the EU has caused profound damage to our relationship with our nearest and biggest trading partner. I will not repeat the stats that Members have already highlighted, but I want to highlight that smaller firms are seeing the biggest fall in trade. I know that Brexit has caused major problems for independent local businesses in my Bristol Central constituency.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making an extremely powerful speech. On SMEs, does she recognise that the defence industry in Bristol suffers from the inability to receive adequate funding from across Europe, and that a defence, security and industrial bank underwritten by the UK, alongside its European partners, would be able to unlock the investment that Bristolian businesses vitally need?
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Order. Ideally, the hon. Gentleman would not sit there because there is no microphone and we are not picking him up. I am sure the hon. Lady heard him and can respond.