Rugby Football: 200th Anniversary

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 3rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The game has grown massively and is played at all levels in all parts of the world and all corners of the UK.

I was talking about rugby being a game with discipline and with physical endeavour. It is controlled physical endeavour, but players have to be honest and fair and sportsmanship is the foundation on which rugby is built. There is a great sense of camaraderie between rugby players and their teammates. All those values are seen in charity work that is done up and down the country, with the game of rugby being used as a tool to change lives. These organisations are often characterised by their bright and distinctive blazers—I am thinking of organisations such as Wooden Spoon and the Atlas Foundation, where the power of rugby to make a difference and to give young people a purpose, helping them to create a support network and to get on with their lives, is completely inspiring.

I have been proud to host the Premiership Rugby community awards here in Parliament over a number of years. Premiership Rugby’s award-winning education and employability programme HITZ uses the core values of the game to inspire and motivate young people into education, employment or apprenticeships and has engaged more than 20,000 people since it was created in 2008.

Another programme is Project Rugby, which is run by Premiership Rugby in collaboration with Gallagher and England Rugby. It is designed to increase participation by people from traditionally under-represented groups, perhaps in the basic way my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) mentioned. Project Rugby was extended in April 2022 to bring young women and girls from diverse backgrounds into rugby in partnership with the Asian Sports Foundation.

The growth and spread of the game over 200 years is worth celebrating and that is exactly what is happening in rugby this year. It all starts this coming Sunday on the close at Rugby School, where 140 people—including our very own Sports Minister, who is at the Dispatch Box today, world cup winner Mike Tindall, England Women’s 100 cap international Emily Scarratt and almost all the former captains of rugby at the school dating back to 1957—will make a global pass to send 200 balls around the UK. They will be going, among other places, to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, which has a connection to Rugby’s famous headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold, to Wales, to Llanelli, and over the sea to Belfast.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will these 200 balls be the ghastly new synthetic ones, or will they be the original leather ones?

[Mark Pawsey]

That is something the Minister and I will discover on Sunday, but there is every possibility that it will be the modern material, which is much easier to catch and therefore makes for a more exciting game because of better handling. Those balls will not just be going around the UK; they will be heading out to Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, the USA, Kenya and Singapore. Each one of the 200 balls will be passed to represent each year that has passed since the game started.

That is this coming Sunday, but across the year we have other events. England are going to play on the close at Rugby School against Wales in an under-18 women’s game. We are going to hold an international under-18 sevens tournament. There will be an under-nine and under-11 club festival, which will enable the youngest players to take part, and there will be a veterans rugby club sevens for the oldest. In the same vein, the Commons and Lords rugby club, which is Members from both Houses, will play a veterans team on the close made up from the six local clubs in the town of Rugby.

On St George’s day, we will attempt to create the world’s largest rugby scrum. The current record is 2,586 people. We are aiming for 3,000 pupils from local schools and others to beat that record. There will also be, as has happened a couple of times previously, a re-enactment of the first ever game, in the clothing that the players would have worn back in 1823. Some lucky person will take on the role of William Webb Ellis.

Dolphin and Whale Hunting: Faroe Islands

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher.

It is also a pleasure to welcome the Minister to his seat. I think he is three days in—well, one parliamentary day in. Wikipedia says that he was appointed on Friday, but this is his first full day as a Trade Minister and I welcome him. Doing so makes me feel like an old-timer.

I am pleased to speak for the Opposition in this important and timely debate on the cruel and abhorrent treatment of whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands, and to follow the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson), my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson). There have been useful interventions as well.

As has been pointed out, over 100,000 people have signed the petition, which shows that people across our country are rightfully concerned about these awful practices. Equally, they want the Government to do much more. Over 150 of my constituents have signed the petition; they are concerned about the UK’s ongoing failure to do more on animal rights, whether that is on whaling, the imports from trophy hunting, or the sale of fur or foie gras. I note that 92 people in Uxbridge and South Ruislip have signed the petition as well, so I am sure they are looking forward to the Prime Minister leaving No.10 and becoming a doughty and dogged constituency MP on this issue.

We have heard from hon. Members about the horrific ongoing hunting of whales and dolphins around the Faroe Islands. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire described what has happened very graphically and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said, the pictures we have seen of the sea turning red are truly horrific. The events of last September, when over 1,400 white-sided dolphins were killed and butchered, as well as a number of whales, represented the single largest slaughter of dolphins recorded in modern history. As the charity the Born Free Foundation said, the “ferocity and scale” rightly caused outrage around the world, including in the Faroe Islands.

The conservation charity Sea Shepherd reported that the dolphins were driven into shallow waters by speed boats and jet skis, and every single one of the 1,428 dolphins was killed. As we have heard, they died slowly because of the time it took to kill such a large number of dolphins. New technology, such as jet skis, can do things that more old-fashioned boats cannot. I have seen the pictures, and anyone who, like me, has had the honour to be on a boat with dolphins swimming alongside will be particularly moved by what they have seen and heard.

Turning to the role of this Parliament and this Government, we cannot merely be bystanders to this slaughter and throw up our arms in horror. We can do something; this Government can do something. We have the UK free trade agreement with the Faroe Islands. Faroese exports to the UK are valued at £864 million, while UK exports to the Faroe Islands are a mere £17 million. That sets the context for the influence that Ministers at the Department for International Trade have—the power of the pen and of diplomacy.

What have UK Government Ministers done to tackle this shocking practice? I fear that Ministers at the Department for International Trade have tended to follow the same old playbook—the same one we see when trade unionists are killed in Colombia and when women’s rights are trampled on in the Gulf states. The Government say, “By nature of our trading arrangement, we are able to have influence over the actions of other countries and to raise these issues directly with so-and-so Government.” Indeed, the Government will boast that the animal welfare Minister, Lord Goldsmith, wrote to the Faroe Islands Minister for Fishing and that the Faroe Islands Government have launched a review, but we are still waiting for the results and changes from the review, so what has happened since then?

In February this year, the Government signed the annual agreement on fish quotas with the Government of the Faroe Islands. The Labour party supports the UK’s fishing industry, yet we also believe that the Government must not sign these agreements in a vacuum—certainly not a vacuum of values. I looked at the Government press release of 8 February announcing the fish quota update; the Government did not mention animal or whale hunting, whether the UK had raised this issue before signing the new agreement, or what further steps the UK Government would be taking. Once again, it seems the Government are using the same old playbook of sweeping important issues under the carpet and pretending that they do not exist.

One issue that is raised is the cultural history of whale and dolphin hunting in the Faroe Islands and how, historically, people needed dolphin meat and, in particular, whale meat to stay alive. However, I have just looked it up, and the Faroe Islanders are not poor. In fact, they are better off than we are. The GDP per capita in 2017 was $54,800, whereas the figure for the UK was $40,200, so the Faroe Islanders are better off per capita than UK residents. As we have heard, there is strong evidence that Faroe Islanders themselves, especially young people, increasingly oppose this slaughter, particularly since the September 2021 slaughter.

This brings me to the wider problem and the failure of our approach to trade. The only significant discernible trade policy the UK Government have is to secure free trade agreements with countries covering 80% of UK trade by the end of this year. That policy leads the Government to rush to sign any deal they can, without thinking about the influence the UK could have in the trade negotiations. We are—when I last looked—the sixth largest economy in the world. Whether it is on animal welfare, climate change, women’s rights, workers’ rights or environmental considerations, the UK can and should be using trade as a way of ensuring that our basic and fundamental values are protected around the world and as a lever to improve them. Trade cannot and does not happen in a vacuum.

I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. Since the letter that Lord Goldsmith sent, what further steps have the UK Government taken to raise this issue directly with the Faroe Islands Government? What assessment did the UK Government make of the protections in place for dolphins and whales when they signed the recent fishing quota agreement? What plans do the UK Government have if the Faroe Islands Government do not implement any of the required changes?

I thank the tireless campaigners who have worked so hard to raise awareness of dolphin and whale slaughter, particularly Dominic Dyer of Sea Shepherd, and the need for the UK Government to act. Whether it is the charities that have lobbied, the individual campaigners or even those who took the step of signing the petition, they have made a difference, so I thank them. Now we will see whether the UK Government are prepared to play their part to make that difference.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I, too, congratulate the Minister on his appointment and invite him to respond to the debate.

Steel Safeguards

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The Department for International Trade has had no contact with Lord Geidt, although I understand that, obviously, the Prime Minister and his former adviser spoke regularly on a number of matters. The Government have a duty to use their democratic mandate to the greatest possible effect to protect the interests of the British people and provide leadership, and the balanced decision I have reached is that today’s course of action is the right one.

To my hon. Friend’s point, these measures are only temporary and can last only a further two years, so the challenges of solving some of the big structural questions are closer to us than ever before—they are not getting further away. We will continue to work closely with the industry, so that, as these safeguards fall away in due course, we support it to move towards becoming the modern steel industry we all need.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend on behalf of all those who work for REIDsteel, which is the largest private sector employer in Christchurch, manufacturing and supplying steel structures across the world? However, what will happen in two years’ time? Can she guarantee that REIDsteel will be able to get supplies of clean British steel in two years’ time? If not, will she not need to abandon this net zero doctrine? What is more important than actually being able to supply homegrown steel so that people in Christchurch can manufacture and export their products?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is a champion for his constituents, and it is great to hear more about REIDsteel. As all downstream users look to meet their net zero commitments and demand cleaner steel, we will see industry changing. A healthy industry, as we see now, has both imports and exports. We export some of our British steel to the US for its defence industry—they do not make that particular specialist steel themselves. As in any good business, we are sharing our expertise with industries abroad. Equally, there are some steels that we do not make in the UK that we therefore import. As regards the category 12 steel safeguard, I have decided to extend the TRQ because downstream users have been clear to me that they need more of that steel. We do not produce it domestically in the quantities that would meet that need, so it is right to ensure that the balance of the market is right for our downstream users. I look forward to seeing REIDsteel continuing to thrive in the years ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is a ridiculous mischaracterisation of this country’s stance. We are one of the largest donors to the covid advance market commitment, which is ensuring that the vaccine is being rolled out in 92 developing countries. We are at the forefront of that effort. What the Secretary of State is trying to do is ensure that investment in the science base that created these vaccines remains strong. We need to do both of those things if we are going to vaccinate the world.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

12. What steps she is taking to promote trade between the UK and California.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Penny Mordaunt)]

Across the US, we are unlocking barriers for business at state level, while also engaging at the federal level. There is huge potential for growing trade in California, and I have visited California three times as part of the Department for International Trade stateside tour.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, but as California is the fifth largest economy in the world, will she redouble her efforts and, in particular, give us a timescale for securing a memorandum of understanding with the state of California similar to that which she successfully negotiated with Indiana?

[Penny Mordaunt]

We are currently talking to about 25 states with regard to memorandums of understanding, including California. Larger economy states will take longer than smaller economies to arrive at the final MOU. We think that within the first eight we will have some super-economy states, including Texas. California will be a little way off, but I hope to conclude a large number of these MOUs by the end of this year, and we expect to sign further in the coming weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important question. She will know that both import and export figures with regard to Commonwealth nations are increasing quite substantially. There are many schemes that both our Department and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have in place. Obviously the local enterprise partnership networks are also assisting with this.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

When a group of us from the British-American Parliamentary Group visited California last month, we were much impressed by the work of our trade teams in Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, those teams would be able to be even more effective if they had more flexibility to employ local staff, in line with prevailing labour market rates, as filling vacancies is a problem. What will the Government do to enable them to do that?

[Penny Mordaunt]

We are doing several pieces of work on that, but one thing we are looking at in respect of our memorandums of understanding and our economic dialogues with individual states is the mutual recognition of qualifications. We are focusing on technical trades in particular, with legal, accountancy and audit, engineering and architecture being the trailblazers. This will not only help UK firms to win more business but help with the labour-market issues that are affecting businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.

Gender Recognition Act

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Thank you, Sir Christopher—I thank Sir George, too—for chairing this debate. I also thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn). He commented that he needed to be brave to bring forward the debate, or words to that effect, and I appreciate that he chose to do so—it was indeed a brave thing to do.

This is a really important issue. We must make change, especially for the around 500,000 trans people in the UK and their friends and family. What is proposed is a small administrative reform that will have a huge and lasting impact on the lives of trans people in the UK. Clearly, there are differences in the system to obtain a GRC in Scotland—not least that we do not have the spousal veto—but the problems with the two current systems are largely the same, and the changes that need to happen are therefore broadly similar. In Scotland we are undertaking reform, and legislation will be brought forward very soon.

As I stand here making this speech, I am acutely aware of my privilege. I will do my best to amplify the voices and concerns of those I have had the privilege to listen to over the last few years, but that is not a substitute for hearing trans voices directly. We do not have trans people in Parliament. As was mentioned, some of our MPs are unaware of ever having met a trans person. They most certainly have; they are just unaware of it. People who have never met, spoken to or heard from a trans person are not the right people to be making decisions about how gender reform should work. Trans voices are significantly outnumbered in the media on any issue relating to trans rights. That must change, but until it does, it is incumbent on those of us with platforms to make the case for reform on behalf of our constituents and other trans people across the UK.

The current system for obtaining a gender recognition certificate is a failure. The UK Government estimate that there are 200,000 to 500,000 trans people living in the UK, but fewer than 6,000 of them have obtained a gender recognition certificate. Those who have managed to have had to jump through unreasonable hoops in order to get a GRC, and they are in the tiniest minority. The process is bureaucratic, takes too long and includes many outdated and unreasonable requirements. People have to put in reams and reams of paper to do it.

It was said that the reason for those statistics might be that people do not want a gender recognition certificate. That is not the case. I have a passport because I recognise the rights that the passport gives me. I applied for that passport because I did not have to give a detailed description of my genitals in order to get the rights that come along with it. The intrusiveness of the procedure for getting a gender recognition certificate puts off a significant number of people, as do the bureaucracy and the fact there is no appeal process and no ability to find out what has gone wrong if an application is rejected.

Changing the system has no impact on the ability of trans people to correct their gender on their passport or their driving licence; it simply and exclusively applies to birth certificates and issues with pensions. Although it is a small change, it is important for the human rights and the dignity of a significant minority of our population. Birth certificates have an impact on death certificates and marriage certificates. Imagine approaching the end of your life knowing that your death certificate would have the wrong gender on it and that your friends and family would have to live with that, and spending the last moments of your life worrying about that death certificate being incorrect. We need change for that reason alone, let alone the other compelling reasons we have heard.

We have heard about the number of systems with self-ID. I want to talk about the growing number of individuals identifying as non-binary, because it is specifically mentioned in the petition. Like most feminists, I have always been bothered by gender stereotypes and gendered expectations. I can entirely understand how and why people come to the conclusion that they do not comfortably fit in either a male or a female box. None of the Government proposals I have seen go far enough, or sometimes even acknowledge the existence of non-binary people. That has to change. If we want the legislation to be fit for the future, we need to consider the needs of future generations. Many more young people are uncomfortable with established gender stereotypes and moulds. We must therefore allow non-binary people to identify as non-binary.

The extreme level of misinformation and lies pedalled about GRA reform has created an incredibly fertile ground for hate and abuse. The increase in the number of hate crimes with a trans aggravator neatly illustrates that. We must be more honest. We must not allow those in positions of power to mislead the public about the impact of the proposed reforms. The reforms will only affect birth certificates and pensions—not access to spaces, not passports, not names, not driving licences, not access to surgical interventions, not swimming pool changing rooms, not prisons, not hospital wards and not sports. All those are dealt with under the Equality Act or other Acts. I do not understand why people keep going on about swimming pools. I have been in so many swimming pools with my kids, and almost all of them have mixed changing rooms. That is already a thing. They all have cubicles as well.

In the past week I have been approached by three 50-plus women who wished to speak to me about trans rights. They approached me about the issue; it was not an issue that I had raised with them. All three of them had read about the proposed changes, and all three were baffled by the extreme reaction to a simple administrative change. One of them, who has daughters, said to me, “People should be allowed to live their lives. It makes no difference to me what it says on someone’s birth certificate.” That is the reality.

I want to end on a quote that makes it clear why we need change. This was Mr Elliot’s submission to the Women and Equalities Committee when it called for evidence:

“I had to send several private documents to a group of strangers, at the cost of £140, to let them decide whether I am man enough to marry as a husband, be declared a father to my future children or simply die with the respect of being remembered as a man. I was a boy, and I am now a man, and for six years I have been living that truth outwardly and proud with no rejection of this fact from my loved ones, yet I could still be denied my truth by strangers.”

We need change. The Gender Recognition Act needs to be reformed.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

If we have 15 minutes for the SNP spokesman and 15 minutes for the official Opposition spokesman, that will give us a little more than 15 minutes for the Minister and the short response to the debate. I call Kirsten Oswald.

Royal Yacht Britannia: International Trade

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[David Tredinnick]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. I do not think that in my midlands constituency there is support for a new royal yacht that is not paid for by some form of subscription. I do not think that people want it to be a charge on the taxpayer. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), who made a flamboyant and exciting speech, would certainly be in that camp.

We would not be having this debate in the first place if the matter had been dealt with properly in 1997. The case for a new royal yacht is overwhelming, provided that the money to fund it comes from the private and not the public sector.

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I invite Ian Paisley to follow the example of his colleague from the other part of Antrim, so that we have the opportunity also to hear the hon. Members from Plymouth and Portsmouth who wish to participate, before the winding-up speeches start at half-past 3.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

Because of the time, I will not.

Certain things are literally incalculable, but that does not make them less certain. Such investment decisions are being made, and they will have a long-tail liability—a liability that might only crystallise over years to come.

The idea that we could relaunch an ancient yacht as a beacon of British innovation and enterprise is entirely symptomatic of the nostalgic nonsense that has infected the Government’s approach to the new trading relationship that we must develop in a post-referendum world once the UK leaves the EU. We face the biggest constitutional and commercial challenge of our lifetimes, and we are here today to discuss relaunching a long-retired yacht. The Germans and the French must be quaking—not in their boots, but with laughter. The Chinese and the Americans, who are looking on in astonishment, must be wondering why we are incapable of seeing the gravity of our own situation.

It greatly concerns me that this debate sends a signal to the rest of the world that we still see the best of Britain as being behind us. We are a world leader in financial and legal services, the automotive and engineering sectors, pharmaceuticals, biosciences, business, energy, construction, fashion, art and music. But at this precise moment—when the fashion and textiles industry is asking where it will get linkers from in a post-Brexit world, when Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover are suspending future investment decisions until they have clarity on market access, and when the pharmaceutical sector is at its wits’ end over losing the European Medicines Agency from the UK—the best that this Government can come up with, as they studiously avoid giving us a running commentary, is to bring us here today to debate the recommissioning of Her Majesty’s yacht Britannia.

Government is not about playing with toy boats as virility symbols. The Government should be engaging with British business and setting out strategic proposals on an industry-by-industry basis, to promote Britain and our exports overseas. They need to tell the financial services industry—our biggest export sector—how they propose to protect the passporting regime that has allowed British financial institutions to transact business across the EU. That facility has been material to our capacity to attract foreign banks to establish their European operations throughout the UK. Those banks are now openly discussing and actively investigating relocations to Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt or Luxembourg.

Given how many trade missions the royal yacht Britannia undertook on behalf of the British Invisible Exports Council, perhaps the Back Benchers who signed the letter supporting the motion might better spend their time exploring the threats to the financial services industry in the UK. How much would it cost to refit a yacht of that size and bring it up to modern technological standards? How much would it cost to crew and maintain the vessel? How many Royal Navy staff would be taken away from active service elsewhere to crew the yacht? What security and counter-terrorism measures would need to be undertaken to ensure that the yacht would not be a sitting duck terrorist target?

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. The convention is that Front Benchers have 10 minutes to wind up. The hon. Gentleman has already been speaking for 11 minutes. It would be helpful if the Minister had time to respond and the proposer of the motion was able to have the last word.

[Barry Gardiner]

Captain Chope, I apologise. I had not realised that the time had gone so fast. I will conclude my remarks there.