Prime Minister's Update

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has mentioned that, with his characteristic acuity and his support of property and the rights of people across this country. Those would be despoiled if the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) ever got anywhere near power. He has a Maduro-esque plan to take away private property from great, great schools across the country of the kind he attended himself once, in an ecstasy of hypocrisy, and thereby to incur the taxpayer with £7 billion of pointless extra cost to pay for the education of the children concerned.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Since we will definitely be sitting for at least a few more days, would it not make more sense for the Government to bring forward something that the whole House can agree on? Two women are killed, on average, by their domestic partners every week of the year in this country. The Government have a Domestic Abuse Bill that is ready to go. Why do we not do Second Reading on Monday or Tuesday? The whole House would agree, we would be able to send it off to Committee and if we were eventually to have another Queen’s Speech, we would be able to have carry-over for it. It is time we defended the women of this country.

[The Prime Minister]

I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman; he is absolutely right. One of the reasons I wanted to have a Queen’s Speech was so that we could bring back the domestic violence Bill.

G7 Summit

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I could not have put it better myself. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

If a police officer in Tonypandy or Maerdy arrests a suspect, he or she can immediately, and in real time, consult all the EU databases of criminality, which is essential to being able to send criminals to prison. Border officers can also consult those databases when a person hands over their passport. If we leave without a deal, as the former Prime Minister rightly said, there will be no deal on security. How will we make sure that the people are safe if we leave without a deal on 31 October?

[The Prime Minister]

I have no doubt that we will continue bilateral arrangements with our EU friends to ensure that both of our populations are protected, but I am glad that the hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to remind the House that we are recruiting another 20,000 police officers to make this country safer and one of the safest in the world.

Priorities for Government

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

My constituents are not looking for handouts; they want to be able to stand on their own two feet. They are ambitious and want to get on in life and provide for their children, but just sometimes they have to rely on universal credit. As it is structured now, people do not get a penny for the first five weeks, unless they take out a loan from the Government. That loan puts them into debt from the moment they start on universal credit. Will the Prime Minister please, please look at taking away that five-week problem?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman, I am sure, knows that people can get a 100% advance on universal credit on day one, and as he knows—[Interruption.] Labour Members want to scrap universal credit, and I hear what they say, but the old welfare system kept people trapped in benefits. Two hundred thousand people are going to be lifted out of benefits and into work thanks to universal credit, and it has added massively to the incomes of 700,000 families across this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have responded to the challenges that the world presents us with today by increasing our diplomatic staff by another 250 diplomats, in addition to the 100 that we added to our European strength, and we are opening 10 new sovereign posts in the Caribbean and the Pacific, with more to come in Africa.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I hope that global Britain is also about being extremely robust where there are strategic issues in Europe that we have to address, such as Nord Stream 2. Will the Foreign Secretary make it absolutely clear that Russia has systematically been bullying smaller countries in Europe for years through its energy policy and that we will assist the Danes and the Germans if they want to make sure this does not go ahead?

[Boris Johnson]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Germans import a great deal of their gas from Russia and they are conflicted in that matter, but we continue to raise the concerns that he mentions with our German friends and of course with all the other states on the periphery of the EU that are threatened, as he says, by Russian gas politics.

National Security and Russia

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

At this stage of the debate, all of us on both sides of the House will welcome as much unanimity and accord on this matter as we can find. We do not seek to make windows into men’s souls and to try to establish exactly how or why the Opposition decided to change their mind, but we welcome it. I listened very carefully not only to what the Leader of the Opposition had to say, but also to the explanation from the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). I welcome what the Leader of the Opposition said.

[Chris Bryant]

The most important thing in all this process is for us to be able to establish a unity of purpose not only in this country, but across all our alliances in NATO and in the European Union—and in the Commonwealth. I noticed that only one Commonwealth country, I think, was mentioned in the Foreign Secretary’s list, and I wonder whether he hopes that more will be signing up at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

Government Policy on Russia

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I do not think the Government have been robust or consistent enough over these past few years, and I have said that for a long time. Putin’s violent record is a matter for all to see—Beslan, the Moscow theatre, Crimea and Ukraine, Anna Politkovskaya and many other journalists, Sergei Magnitsky, Boris Nemtsov and so on. The truth is that this Government have repeatedly just shrugged their shoulders. After the Litvinenko inquiry found that Putin was personally responsible, the Government did absolutely nothing in response. What happens when a murdering dictator is told that nothing is going to happen? They just do it all over again. I urge the Foreign Secretary to think long and hard about a proper Magnitsky Act, which many other countries have adopted already. Let us make it absolutely clear to Russia: you cannot kill people on our soil with impunity.

[Boris Johnson]

I agree with the last sentiment the hon. Gentleman expressed, but I do not agree that the UK stood by and did nothing after the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. On the contrary, we have led the world in tough action against Russia: both at the United Nations and in the European Union we have been in the forefront of those calling for tough measures against Putin’s Russia. I made exactly those points in Moscow when I saw Sergei Lavrov, as some hon. Members may recall. As for the hon. Gentleman’s substantive point about a Magnitsky Act or a Magnitsky amendment, as I said in an earlier answer to an Opposition Member we are certainly willing to look at sensible proposals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

8. What the cost to the public purse was of the launch of the Institute for Free Trade held on his Department’s premises.

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

There was no cost to the public purse.

[Chris Bryant]

Oh, come off it! Come off it! The right hon. Gentleman must think that we were all born yesterday. The truth is that this was a private party, which was going on on Government premises, sanctioned by the Foreign Secretary. He has been trying to dress up a tinpot bunch of ideological crackpots as an institute, quite against the law, and he has broken the ministerial code. He has been caught in flagrante delicto, hasn’t he?

[Boris Johnson]

I am under the unhappy duty of contradicting the hon. Gentleman. He is talking the most perfect tripe. The event that took place was completely non-partisan. Members of all parties were present. [Interruption.] Including the Labour party. EU and non-EU ambassadors were represented. It was fully in line with Foreign and Commonwealth Office rules on hosting such events, and I have here a letter from the Cabinet Secretary to confirm that, which I am happy to pass to the hon. Gentleman. I am afraid to say that the Cabinet Secretary has been pestered with complaints from the Labour party about this absolutely blameless event, which was there to support and encourage free trade, which is a major objective of Government policy and should be an objective of the hon. Gentleman—or is it not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

I am so glad that my hon. Friend asked that question because we are not only upgrading seven ambassadorial posts in the 27 other EU countries, but increasing our staffing across the network in the EU by 50.

[Chris Bryant]

No you’re not.

[Boris Johnson]

Yes we are. Again, I am getting some negativity from a sedentary position on the Opposition Benches. In addition to beefing up our relations with our EU friends and partners, we will open 15 embassies in Africa.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend speaks with great insight about the situation in Iran, and I assure him that no stone will be left unturned in our efforts.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

From my experience of trying to get two British nationals out of jail in Laos in 2009, what is needed when dealing with a very difficult country is absolute commitment and persistence —to go to bed every night worrying about what is happening to that British national in another country; to be very disciplined; and to make sure that every single member of the Government is speaking with the same voice. The Foreign Secretary could not possibly argue that that has happened in this case. What I really do not understand, though, is that when he made a complete mess of appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee, his office rang to correct other, completely incidental parts of the record, but still refuses to correct this part. Will he do so now? Otherwise, frankly, he will have learnt nothing from this.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Foreign Office says that it has three strategic objectives, the first of which is protecting our people. I fear, from the bluster that the Foreign Secretary has shown today, that he has learned absolutely nothing about what has happened in the past week. He said in his statement: “My point was that I disagreed with the Iranian view that training journalists is a crime, not that I wanted to lend any credence to Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been engaged in such activity.” But what he said to us as a Committee last week was this:

“When we look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism”.

There is not a single eight-year-old in the country who could not say to the Foreign Secretary, “This does not match what you said last week.” Not a single eight-year-old would not be able to tell the Foreign Secretary how to do his job better. I fear that, if he cannot show some contrition today, then the honest truth is that he should not be in his job, because our people are not safe.

[Boris Johnson]

With great respect, I think that I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s point. I was giving the Foreign Affairs Committee an account of the allegations made that I had personally heard, in the course of my intercessions, from the Iranians. I do not for one minute believe that they are true, but that is what they say. Our job now as diplomats—and I hope that we have the support of the entire House of Commons—is to get Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe released. The best way to do that is not to score party political points but to concentrate our energies and our criticism on those who are actually responsible for her incarceration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

May I get the ball back over the net by congratulating my right hon. Friend on becoming chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine? All of us in this House have a clear interest in a strong and successful Ukraine, which is why we have invested another £33 million in helping the Ukrainians to tackle their governance problems. The House should be in no doubt about what is going on in Ukraine. It is, if you like, an arm wrestle between two value systems: our way of looking at the world and the Russian way of looking at the world. It is vital for our continent and for this country that our way prevails. With British help, I believe that it is prevailing and will prevail.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

23. Is not one of the real problems that the Russians are actively meddling in Ukraine? So far, there has been no sign of all the efforts that Britain has rightly made paying dividends in Russia stopping its corrupt meddling in that country.

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the fault lies squarely with Russia. Russia annexed Crimea and continues to drive the problems in the Donbass. The UK is contributing to the efforts to stave off Russian military meddling with the non-lethal equipment that we have agreed to send to Ukraine. More importantly, however, we are engaged in helping the Ukrainians to sort out their domestic political scene and to crack down on corruption. To be fair to them, not only are they seeing growth of 1.5% or 4%, depending on whose figures are to be believed, but they have made more progress in cracking down on corruption in the past three years than in the past 25 years. A very different country is being born.