Covid 19 Inquiry: Judicial Review

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman is showing off his Latin! But let me respond to the hon. Lady’s important question about who is keeping an eye on this and who is running it. I want to give her an absolute assurance—she asked for one, and it was reasonable for her to do so—that there is no political involvement in the process of establishing what is and is not relevant information, and what is unambiguously irrelevant. That is a process undertaken by lawyers, by the counsel team, with a KC involved. It starts with witnesses being required to say, “These are the materials that may be in scope”. They must then go through the process, initially with the counsel team and with an overview from the KC; but no politicians are involved. The hon. Lady described this process as “wild”, but I do not think it is. I think it is quite narrow and technical, but I also think it is important for the future conduct of such inquiries, and for this inquiry, that we know exactly where the law stands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

I hear what my right hon. Friend says. I would not want there to be any perception that we are not ensuring that the inquiry has all the information that it requires. We believe that that does not need to include information that is clearly and unambiguously irrelevant, although I know what he is saying.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

To be honest, this just feels like a terrible fool’s errand. As the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), said earlier, section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 is absolutely unambiguous. Let me introduce that word into the conversation: unambiguous. It states that the chairman may require a person

“to produce any other thing in his custody or under his control”.

It also states:

“A claim by a person that…it is not reasonable in all the circumstances to require him to comply…is to be determined by the chairman”.

It is absolutely unambiguous. The chairman is only required to

“consider the public interest in the information”

being provided. So I cannot see where this is going to lead, unambiguously, other than to a dead end. Can the Minister confirm that the chairman has been very specific in asking only for covid-related WhatsApp groups, not all the WhatsApp messages on anyone’s phone? Has the chairman asked for the present Prime Minister’s, as well as the previous Prime Minister’s, WhatsApp messages in those groups? And has the former Prime Minister’s former telephone, with its former WhatsApp messages, also been provided to the Government? If not, when will it be provided?

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate why I will not go into parsing the 2005 Act, which is a matter for the courts. There are two views, and the courts need to determine their interpretation of the Act and what it means. I can tell him that the request from the chair goes beyond the covid WhatsApp groups, so it is a broader swathe of information that will inevitably touch on information shared between individuals that may be personal in nature and may certainly relate to non-covid issues. Anything covid related goes to the inquiry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned long and hard on this issue, and I congratulate him and his area on achieving that huge goal. It is part of a process: since September last year 8,000 jobs have been relocated away from London, with all the associated benefits of people being close to the communities that they serve.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There is, literally, one rule for all normal MPs and another for Ministers in relation to transparency. All ordinary MPs must declare all their financial interests within 28 days, whereas, as has already been revealed, Ministers do it considerably later, if at all. Why do we have to wait until May to know what Ministers’ financial interests are? Only a few weeks ago, when we had a vote on this matter, the Leader of the House promised that she would ensure that all Ministers were held to the same timetable as other MPs. When is that going to happen?

Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

As I have made clear, I cannot imagine circumstances under which my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon would not wish to be fully transparent with the independent adviser. That will be necessary for the independent adviser to do his job and it will enable him to establish the facts.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I will not get into the specifics of the individuals concerned but, following on from the question from the hon. Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson), I want to know why we do not yet have in the public domain the financial interests of all Ministers. The list on the website is 243 days old. It is not even an accurate list of Ministers. It is not even an accurate list of the last set of Ministers or the one before that.

This Government have been in place for 90 days. There are now Ministers who were not even a Member of either House back then and who do not appear anywhere. Surely, the public ought to know within a week or so of a Minister being appointed what all their financial interests are. Why can we not have that? Why must we wait another three months—that is what the Minister said earlier—before we find out all the financial interests of Ministers? We should know that now.

[Jeremy Quin]

It may be three months, but it may be three hours. My understanding is that it will be by May. I cannot commit to a date because I am not the independent adviser. He has work to do to publish it, but my understanding is that an updated list of financial interests will be published before his report is out in May.

Loss of Secret Documents

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The thing is that the Minister is far too nice and is being far too reasonable. Should we not all be a bit more angry about this? Carelessness is a form of treachery when dealing with documents of the significance to which he has referred in the House. Frankly, I do not understand why the Secretary of State is not here. This is a very, very serious point, and the Government need to make sure that if somebody has acted recklessly and put British service personnel in danger, that person will be expected to resign.

[Jeremy Quin]

Mr Speaker, you will be very relieved that the Secretary of State is not here, given that he was in contact with someone who has tested positive for covid-19.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

Yes, I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend on that point. I admire his maths, as well his attention to detail in respect of the hon. Gentleman’s sapper tie.

I assure my hon. Friend that we are absolutely on it. We need to maintain the availability of our fleet. We are not about saying, “We’ve got X number of ships. Isn’t that great?” when they are all tied up in Portsmouth. There is no point in that. We need our fleet to be present, to be persistent and to be forward looking, and that is exactly what we are going to be focusing on. This might be stretching his question too far, but let me say that the same also applies to our land industrial strategy, which I am proud to have announced today as part of this process.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]]

The MOD has a mixed record on procurement investment in south Wales. On the one hand, there is a long-standing commitment to General Dynamics, but the MOD cancelled the defence academy in St Athan and, only a couple of years ago, preposterously sold the Maindy barracks in the Rhondda, thereby denying the Sea Cadets the possibility of having a new home locally. There are small investments in companies such as MFC International in Tonypandy, but may I ask the Minister to do two things? First, will he make sure that small companies have a real chance of big contracts with the MOD? Secondly, will he please buy the Sea Cadets in the Rhondda a new home?

[Jeremy Quin]

I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman a new home for the Sea Cadets, but I take what he says very seriously. As a result of his question, I will look into the matter and find out where we are. The cadets have an important role to play around the country and they should be properly housed, but I cannot answer with any more precision than that.

More broadly, the hon. Gentleman recognises the value to south Wales of the Ajax contract. It is an incredibly impressive, fully digitalised vehicle. He is right, though, that often in defence, the real value is found with SMEs. As I said, over 19% of our equipment and support spending goes to SMEs now. We will have a refreshed SME action plan published later this year, and it will include issues already raised as part of this thesis—for example, the defence technology exploitation plan, which has worked well in Northern Ireland, will be put out right across the Union. There are measures in the strategy to support smaller companies, and I want smaller companies, which are often the most innovative and inspiring in our country, to have the opportunity to win larger contracts. I thank him for his question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend for what I believe is his first question in this place, and for his kind words. This is not just a concern of his Broadland constituents; by the sound of it, it is a concern shared by his constituency neighbour and my neighbour here on the Treasury Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). I understand that a business case for the link has been submitted and that officials from the Department for Transport are engaging with the local authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) is absolutely right that the IPA, through direct support, and independent assurance reviews and leading a network of project delivery professionals, helps drive cost-effectiveness across Government.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One of the biggest projects that the Government have to deliver is the restoration and renewal of this Palace, which is one of the most loved buildings in the world. If we are to do that, we need skills that currently are not available in the workforce. Does the Minister agree that this presents a major opportunity to ensure that in every constituency in the land young people are being trained in those skills so that everybody has an investment in this building?

[Jeremy Quin]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. This is a great opportunity to ensure that we upskill our workforce. We are very proud of the fabric of this building, and very proud of what it symbolises for our country, and it will be great if we can make certain that we are engaging people across the United Kingdom in the work that needs to be done.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, clearly there is an issue. It is entirely appropriate that different police forces should have autonomous powers to be able to take these issues in the direction that they want. Different police forces face different challenges at particular times, then there is the issue of resources as well.

It is absolutely true that this is a growing issue. One problem is that, because police officers may sort of have got used to this behaviour, other emergency workers are now being treated in exactly the same way. Let me read one case from the east midlands last November:

“A man spat at a newly recruited police woman 24 times while under arrest in the back of an ambulance. The handcuffed man laughs as he spits at the officer who warned him he was being recorded on her body camera. He repeatedly targets her face as he sat on the bed next to a paramedic. The police woman was in her first year on the job when she became a victim of the vile attack.”

I think that every single one of us wants to send out an absolutely clear, unambiguous message from this House—I know that the hon. Member for Shipley does not like sending out messages, but sometimes declaratory legislation has an effect as well—that spitting at emergency workers is not on and that the full force of the law should be used against those who do it.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: that is exactly what we do want to send from this House today. If he will forgive me, there has to be a slight torsion if I am to get in the point that I want to make, but it does follow the point that he has just made. I had an officer in my constituency who was giving first aid to someone whom he had to arrest, and he was spat at repeatedly while doing so—similar to the circumstances faced by the person to which the hon. Gentleman referred. When the case finally got to court, it was deemed that the officer had not been acting in his capacity as a police officer when he was applying first aid—that was beyond his remit—which seems to be an extraordinary situation to be in. As courts can look at our proceedings, may I invite the hon. Gentleman, as the proposer of this Bill, to confirm for the record that, in clause 2(b), we are seeking a wide interpretation of an emergency worker acting in the exercise of their functions as such a worker, as it is ridiculous that a court could rule on such a basis.

[Chris Bryant]

To be honest, when the law behaves in such a pernickety way as to be able to provide a ludicrous—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has some legal expertise, is laughing at the idea of lawyers being pernickety. I know that that is sort of their job, but when we end up with loopholes being abused in such a way, the law ends up looking like an ass. It is therefore incumbent on us sometimes to draw legislation as widely as possible to ensure that all such offences are caught. That has been the deliberate intention of the Bill.

Incidentally, I hope that in drafting the Bill, with the assistance of Government draftspeople and ministerial help, we have managed to land on a piece of legislation that is more effective than the parallel legislation that exists in Scotland. Scotland may, in fact, want to look at our legislation and reshape its own law to reflect this.

Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), although I must put it to him, given his comment about our constituents needing to know where we stand, that when my constituents contact me they always know where I stand. He also put it that the public are unclear about the view of the House. In respect of the two resolutions we are discussing, the House approved the motions, so it is very clear where the House stood. It expressed its view.

It is a pleasure also to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I respect his—I see he is busy.

[Chris Bryant]

I can do two things at the same time.

[Jeremy Quin]

He has the better of me. I was genuinely being respectful to the hon. Gentleman, whom I know thinks and speaks passionately about the conventions of this place. I am a relatively new Member, but I regard its role in our national life as very important.

I would not have sought to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, had I not looked carefully into the underlying principles of the application made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). First and critically, as he made clear in his application and as was reiterated by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), Opposition day motions, if carried, are not and never have been binding de jure on the Government. The precedents are clear. Between 1918 and 2015, there were 120 defeats of Governments, most of them on substantive legislative matters on which the Chamber was exercising its core constitutional role of creating and amending the law of the land.

On those occasions, however, when the Government lost a vote on a Supply day, the constitutional position was equally clear. I greatly enjoyed reading one such occasion—the debate on the devaluation of the green pound held on 23 January 1978. I was especially delighted to hear the two contributions, made from a sedentary position, by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), who I am sorry is not in his place. One was:

“Leave the Common Market. That is the answer.”

The other one was:

“Get out of the Common Market. That is the answer.”—[Official Report, 23 January 1978; Vol. 942, c. 1071-73.]

He is nothing if not a beacon of consistency. The Labour Government having lost the vote, there was no suggestion in the closing remarks of either the Opposition spokesman or the Minister that the decision would be binding on the Government.

This to me is core to the issue. Clearly, the House can amend primary legislation, including, critically, money Bills, and pray against secondary legislation, debating such matters either in Government time or on Opposition days. What we are discussing here, however, is not an attempt by the Opposition to amend legislation, but the manner outside legislation whereby the Opposition examine and challenge Government policy. This, too, appears well established. The 1981 Select Committee on Procedure quoted, approvingly, an earlier Select Committee of 1966:

“The real nature of Supply Days was the opportunity provided to the Opposition to examine Government activities of their own choice”.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. I will be brief so that we can get to that very important debate, which I know matters to many of our constituents. She is absolutely right that examining and challenging Government policy can lead, rightly, to a change in that policy. That is mirrored by the people who turn up to these debates. On the two Opposition days that particularly irked the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, two Secretaries of State, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and a Minister of State came to the Dispatch Box, and the speakers were matched one for one on either side. I attended part of both debates and can confirm that the Opposition were certainly doing their best to challenge and examine Government policy, as is their right.

There are good reasons why those debates ended as they did, as was illustrated by my two right hon. Friends for forests, my right hon. Friends the Members for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), in their interventions. To imply that the whole process was fruitless because there was no physical Division at the end—a vote that we know would have been non-binding—belittles not only that debate but potentially the Backbench Business Committee debates, those in Westminster Hall and, to a lesser extent, the work done in Select Committees, where good contributions are made to the workings of the House and policy examined without Divisions being required.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Jeremy Quin]

I am glad that I now have the hon. Gentleman’s attention.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has always had my attention. It has been not far off the unanimous view of the House for some time now that we would like legislation on circus animals. Several hon. Members have tried to advance it, including the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and, in the last Parliament, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), but on every occasion the Government systematically let the Backbench Business debate proceed and then had a vote on it, as if to suggest that something would then happen. When the House expresses a view, even if that is because the Government have refused to vote, I think that the Government should listen. Surely the hon. Gentleman must too.