Oral Answers to Questions
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We of course will continue to invest in renewables, but I say to the Scottish National party that we should also invest in our energy independence, and that means investing in the North sea. If we fail to invest in the North sea, we will be more reliant on foreign producers and we will have higher carbon emissions as we import from elsewhere.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is in Vilnius, attending the NATO summit. It is an opportunity to build on the work we have done over the past year, strengthening NATO and supporting Ukraine. In addition to my meetings in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Craig Mackinlay
New Labour’s old mantra was “Education, education, education.” Its new one seems to be “Tax education, tax education, tax education.” Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my disgust at Labour’s plans to tax education of choice, which could lead to 40,000 pupils being sent into the state sector, with a cost to the taxpayer? A number of English language schools in my constituency are concerned that this will also apply to them, as well as to out-of-hours tuition and sports training. Does the Deputy Prime Minister object to those measures as strongly as I do?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Once again, we have seen the Labour party putting the politics of envy above the interests of children in this country. As my hon. Friend rightly highlights, recent analysis shows that it could lead to over 40,000 pupils leaving the schools they are in, placing further burdens on existing schools and costing £300 million.
Civil Service Impartiality
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jeremy Quin
My hon. Friend refers to conversations he had with Sue Gray, and says that he does not know whether Sue Gray was having conversations with others at the same time. I am not aware of anybody in Government being informed of those discussions before last Thursday, but that could easily be cleared up if the Labour party were just to publish the timeline this afternoon.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I believe in the integrity, diligence and value of our most unique civil service. All civil servants, as with everybody else, have a right to a political view, and they can exercise that privately at the ballot box. I want to put on record that I rigorously defended Sue Gray as she did her work on partygate last year. But in this case what is important is the job that has been left, the time in between, and the job that has subsequently been taken up. I do not need to make the House aware that the events of last year are not just dust that has settled; they are still hanging thick in the air. I am asking, on behalf—
Mr Speaker
No, you don’t finish; you’re finished now. When I stand up, that means you sit down. I hate to say it, but we have both been here a long time, and we should know the rules of the House. Now can we just have the question without going into the areas that I asked people not to venture into?
Craig Mackinlay
Yes. Thank you, Mr Speaker—my apologies. I am asking a question of the Minister, from the men and women on the normal Clapham omnibus: does this smell right?
Jeremy Quin
I thank my hon. Friend, who is very succinct. We do need to get the facts out and to know exactly what took place. We are doing that work, and it would help if the Labour party were to assist us in that process.
Oral Answers to Questions
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
It was the Labour party that showed its cards this week when it came to backing working people. [Interruption.] What I would say—[Interruption.] What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that if he really cares about supporting patients, if he really cares about children getting the education they receive, if he really cares about working people being able to go about their lives free from disruption, he should join in supporting legislation which is prevalent in many other countries to ensure minimum safety levels in critical public services, and get off the picket lines himself.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent and powerful point, and he is right to highlight that the Labour Mayor is imposing that tax on a public who do not want it. Expanding that zone is not something that communities want. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to urge the Mayor to consider and respond properly to all views and stop that unfair tax.
Illegal Immigration
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Member will remember, I am sure, that after the Windrush situation data sharing was stopped in a range of different places and has not restarted. We will be restarting data sharing with the banks, so that when someone tries to open a new bank account, and on a quarterly basis for existing bank accounts, the banks will have to check against the database of illegal migrants that we hold to ensure people cannot disappear into the black economy having arrived here illegally and then participate in a normal way. That is not right and not fair, and I am glad he will be supporting the proposals.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I am very pleased to hear about the new approach to Albanians, which is both obvious and very sensible. My question to the Prime Minister is on how we bridge the gap. We approve 76% of all asylum applications, but the EU average is just 14%. We are all ECHR signatories. They are not held out as international pariahs or as breaking any abstract of international law. The Prime Minister may be surprised to hear that I have no issue with the ambit of the ECHR as long as we have an outcome of about 14%, too. What has been going wrong with our approvals and refusals process?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. A big part of that difference is how we are treating Albania. That will be changed as a result of our new guidance and deal. More broadly, one of the changes that we have made today is to increase the threshold that someone has to meet to be considered a modern slave. It was based on simply a suspicion that someone may be; we are changing that to make sure that there is objective evidence that they are. That change will help us to close down some of those grant rates, but there is more work to do and that is what our legislation will deliver.
Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
It is a true honour to be here at this time in our nation’s history and to be able to speak about my sorrow and the great grief of my constituents in South Thanet. Yesterday was a day that we all knew would come, but we all hoped that it never would. We were all trusting that the huge longevity of the Queen Mother, who died at 101, would give us more years of the Queen in her place, giving us certainty and calm through her powerful and steady service to our country, her realms overseas and the Commonwealth.
As yesterday developed—it was a day that I will never forget—from mid-afternoon I felt a deep sadness, and as the official announcement came out at about half-past 6, my emotion was overflowing. I asked myself why. Why did I have this emotion, this love, for a 96-year-old whom I had never met and who died peacefully after a life well lived in a home that she loved, surrounded by family? Few in this House would have met her properly, apart from Prime Ministers. Most interactions would have been brief and fleeting—they are moments that everybody cherishes—with that most remarkable lady. I was saddened because she had been ingrained in my life, and in all of our lives. She was that true and reliable person that the country had grown to rely on for all of our lives. We grew up looking every day at banknotes, coins and stamps with that image, which was replicated literally hundreds of billions of times in this country, in her overseas realms and across the Commonwealth. We knew her on a daily basis.
Across those 70 years, this remarkable woman saw new nations form. She saw empires collapse. She saw Governments here and abroad come and go, and she met most of the characters involved. We looked to her at this nation’s times of great crisis and great joy. Consider this: the first Prime Minister whom the Queen called on to form a Government was Winston Churchill, who was born in 1874, and her last Prime Minister—our current Prime Minister—was born in 1975. That spans a period of more than 100 years, which is quite staggering. She was on the throne for close to 30% of the entire time for which the United States has been in existence. The changes that she lived through were staggering, and yet she adapted seamlessly to each and every one.
The Queen was the rock that we thought would stand forever—she was our Head of State, Queen in many other realms and dominions, and Head of the Commonwealth—but she was more than that. I feel she was the true matriarch of the world, and I think we are seeing that in the grief and the tributes from across virtually every country in the world today. There is no part of this United Kingdom and no constituency that she did not touch with either a visit or a patronage, and in my patch of South Thanet people still talk about that visit to Ramsgate in 1993 and Margate in 2011.
It is at times like this that we see our constitution in play. All roads of that continuity—the community, Government, our armed services, our police and justice—led to her, and now we see a smooth transfer of the Crown to her dear son. She managed to keep the magic and mystery of monarchy, while we in this country and everybody around the world took her into our hearts. In our dear Majesty’s words after 9/11:
“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
We grieve now, and we look to a new era under Charles III. Rest in peace, Your Majesty. Thank you for your service, and God save the King.
Sue Gray Report
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
No, but I want to assure the hon. Gentleman that I understand the reasons why he feels as he does. I also want to say that everybody in No. 10 took the pandemic with the utmost seriousness. I grieve for his loss. We were doing our best to contain a very, very difficult situation.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that I voted against much of the covid legislation over the past couple of years, because I felt that a lot of it was pettifogging, ridiculous and unnecessary. I think this entire House should apologise to the British people for allowing a lot of this nonsense legislation to be in place. Whereas I take great comfort in and have respect for the fact that the courts tend to come to the same conclusion for the same offences, it would seem that the legislation we passed allowed an individual police force to come to different conclusions and certainly allowed different police forces to do so. From the photos I have seen, I would much rather have been at the curry and beer than the birthday party the Prime Minister had in the Cabinet room.
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend very much. All I can say is that those matters are for the relevant forces.
Committee on Standards: Decision of the House
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
I think we gave Owen Paterson a fair hearing; in all honesty, it is very difficult to argue that we did not. I have wracked my brain as to measures that we might evince, but I am only the Chair of the Committee and want to allow the Committee to come to a view on reforms that we might suggest, although I have suggested in the newspapers over the past few days a few things that I personally would like to see.
The important point is that we are reviewing the code of conduct, as we are required to do in every Parliament. We did not manage to do it in the 2015 or 2017 Parliaments because we kept on having general elections, so it would be great if we did not have a general election for a while so that we could finish our work on the code. It is worth saying that we published the terms of reference for our code of conduct review on 22 September 2020 and have been engaged in the review since then. We took evidence from the Leader of the House earlier this year.
There is an argument for improvements to some of the process. As the hon. Member for South Leicestershire knows, I personally favour clarifying what we do about appeals. There is currently an appeal, and a Member can appeal to the Committee on any basis whatsoever, whereas if we were to have a de jure appeal instead of a de facto appeal process, we would need a set of criteria against which a Member could appeal, which might actually restrict Members’ rights of appeal rather than enhance them. That is a difficulty that we have to deal with.
There is an issue in respect of whether a Member should be able to appeal against the sanction rather than the findings, and I am quite happy to listen to what the Committee eventually decides on that, as I am sure the House will want to do as well.
Chris Bryant
I think the hon. Member came into the Chamber only recently, but if he has been present, I am happy to listen to him.
Craig Mackinlay
I have just been outside the Bar of the House.
The hon. Member is making a point about sanctions; I wonder whether this might be helpful. I am interested to hear that there is progress on a new code of conduct. If we put the specific case aside, does he appreciate that there is a world of difference between a sanction of nine days and a sanction of 11 days, for obvious reasons? Therein might be the reason for an appeal, because of the changes and outcomes that could flow from it that my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) so ably put forward.
Chris Bryant
I am not inimical to that view—there is a perfectly decent argument that perhaps there should be an appeal against sanctions—but in the Committee we try to stand by precedence, because otherwise we would be unfair. We list all the mitigating and aggravating factors in each of our reports and, at the end, come to a conclusion based on the precedents we have met. My suspicion is that any appeal body would do exactly the same, so I am not sure that it would necessarily change things, but there is an argument for bringing in such a thing. I note that the hon. Member referred to leaving this case aside, which is the most important thing for me: in the words of the Leader of the House, we cannot conflate one case with change of the system. In the end, that is the precise, polar opposite of justice: that is injustice and has brought the House into disrepute.
I have only a couple more points to make—
Oral Answers to Questions
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Of course I am very grateful to everybody who helps with food banks, and they do a fantastic job. What this Government have done throughout the pandemic is to put the most protection for those who need it most across society, and I am proud of what we have done by uplifting the living wage, and proud of the arm that we put around the whole of the British people.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
The Prime Minister
Not only has the price of batteries fallen vertiginously, as has the cost of solar power, but I can tell my hon. Friend and the people of Thanet South that they have huge opportunities. The cost of wind power in this country has fallen by 70% just in the last 10 years. What I think the people of Thanet want to see, and I am sure my hon. Friend exemplifies it, is a spirit of Promethean technological optimism.
Elections Bill
Craig Mackinlay ExcerptsTuesday 7th September 2021
(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Let me start with a comment relating to the question the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) raised about the duty on Governments to be more than fair when they are dealing with electoral legislation. Governments should not, even by accident, put in place electoral legislation that advantages themselves over their opponents. However, I do have to say to her that the most egregious example of that was under Gordon Brown, and the more sanctimonious the Minister, the worse the outcome sometimes. It is incumbent on us to make sure that we do not even accidentally disadvantage the other side in elections.
I want to focus on just one thing today, which is the issue of voter ID. The very fact that the phrase has “ID” in it will tell everybody I am against it—they understand that—but it is not for the conventional reasons. This is not an ID system with a database behind it; it is just an ID card that people have to present. Our country has over the centuries been different from other countries: we do not allow our policemen to come up to people and say, “Can I see your papers, please?” It is important to maintain that distinction between the citizen and the state, particularly when we are talking about the fundamental rights of the individual, such as the right to vote.
The Government quite rightly claim that voter fraud undermines our democracy—the battle on that has already occurred to some extent—but the primary voter fraud has been in postal votes, not in personation. We all know how it has occurred in communities up and down the country, and we should deal with it ruthlessly and prosecute. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who used to serve with me as a Minister in the Brexit Department, that the answer to his question is that the prosecution should happen in his constituency. That is what should happen, but let us be clear: since 2014 only three prosecutions have occurred. There have been 30-odd allegations but only three prosecutions, and that is out of many tens of millions of votes cast. So there have been 30-odd allegations, three prosecutions and zero election outcomes influenced; that is what we must bear in mind.
On the back of that, Ministers will want to introduce mandatory voter identification. It is an illiberal solution—unsurprisingly coming from the Cabinet Office, as that is what it always thinks up—in search of a non-existent problem. [Interruption.] I have at least some support on my side of the House.
The Government’s own research found that those with disabilities, the unemployed, people without qualifications, people who had never voted before and ethnic minorities were all less likely to hold any form of ID; those are the sorts of groups we are talking about. In two groups—the over-85s and the disabled—between 5% and 10% had no photo ID. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has warned that the introduction of voter ID may have a discriminatory effect on those groups and other protected groups, and the trial referred to by the Liberal spokesman, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), when 700 people did not vote as a result of photo ID being required, took place in a set of areas where the numbers of people in these groups were very low; it was basically the southern English test area, not central Bradford or wherever.
This is very serious. We are talking about quite a significant fraction of our population. There are 2 million people in the groups I have described who will have to be met by some ID system, and that must be balanced against three voter convictions. That is the problem we are facing.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend looked at schedule 1, which contains a very broad list of valid means of identification? I would be very surprised if anybody in the country today did not have one of them, and my right hon. Friend also knows that there is the provision of free ID from the local council.
Mr Davis
The point I would make is that I am quoting from Government research. I did not do this research; it is Government research. By the way, since my hon. Friend draws me to Government research, Lord Pickles, a real old pal of mine, did a study on this. I have read it and, to summarise, the conclusion was, “I can find no evidence of personation but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, and of course even if it isn’t happening now it might well happen in the future.” It is the precautionary principle gone mad in the centre of our constitution.
The Government answer, as we have heard several times, is free photographic ID. Nevertheless, the Government’s own research again found that about 42% of people without the ID would not take it up. That is really very serious. These groups are going to be disenfranchised because they do not take it up, and they will turn up at the polling station and find that they are unable to vote. This is in pursuit of three convictions.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is good to be higher up the batting order. I want to highlight to the House that I serve on the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission and that I was acquitted at Southwark Crown court of an electoral law offence under the Representation of the People Act 1983 on 9 January 2019, as Members will be aware. There are three minor issues that I would like to talk about this afternoon, as well as one major one and one potential omission from the Bill. I hope that some of these points can be addressed as the Bill makes further progress.
There has been much huffing and puffing on voter identification this afternoon, as there always is on this topic. It is perceived by some as a means to restrict voting, but I do not believe a word of that. We have ID with us at most times of the day, when we want to collect a parcel or indulge in age-related activities such as going to the pub. I do not think there are many in this House who campaign as actively as I do for civil liberties, and I see absolutely no conflict in this legislation.
Mr Goodwill
Has my hon. Friend encountered a situation in which a voter has lost their polling card and, when they are told that they can still go to the polling station, they are astounded that they do not need any form of ID? In fact, many people who lose their polling cards are nervous about going to vote at all, so having ID might encourage people in that situation to go and vote.
Craig Mackinlay
I thank my right hon. Friend for that interesting observation. We have all heard this on the doorstep. When people say, “Oh, I’ve lost my card”, we say to them, “Don’t worry, just go!” So yes, perversely the ID card could actually increase turnout, which is the converse of what some people say.
The mischief that clause 1 is intended to address is that of personation. People claim that it is non-existent, and I know that very few cases go to court, but I disagree with those who say it is not taking place. I will not highlight to the House how easy it is and how it has undoubtedly happened in many constituencies. Clause 2, on postal voting, amends paragraph 3 of schedule 4 to the Representation of the People Act 2000, on absent voting in Great Britain. This will restrict the right to a perpetual postal vote to three years, which is good common sense.
Clause 3 brings in a new offence of handling postal votes. Again, a great idea, but in practical terms it is difficult to know how it could really be effective. Let us hope that the threat of prosecution will be enough to bring people away from the appalling activity that, in parts of the country, we would have to call postal vote farming. There have been some convictions for this, which is all to the good. However, I think there is a wider debate to be had on whether postal votes serve the good of the democratic process.
In some local authorities, postal votes arrive two weeks before voting day. I have often wondered how many of those who vote early, who might be floating voters, find themselves thinking in the last few days when the election is getting exciting, “D’you know what? I’ve changed my mind! I wish I’d waited till the end.” That is a problem as we get an increasing number of postal voters. It is almost like that old saying, “For you the war is over”, because they are no longer in the election process.
The increase in postal votes was implemented by the Labour party amid fears that the number of people engaging in elections was going down. I remember, because I am of a certain age, when people had to have a good reason to get a postal vote, such as being on holiday or working away, or being infirm or ill. A debate needs to be had as to whether that was a better process. I value elections and the process of going to a booth, and I am not convinced that the widening of the postal vote mandate that we have seen over the years has not just widened the risk of fraud, harvesting and coercion, away from the reasonable security of the polling station—I have good, robust feelings about the security of the polling station.
On overseas electors, as long as a person is within the net of UK tax they should have the right to vote. Obviously, a person who goes abroad to work for a few years will lose the annual tax charge, but to get rid of their domicile takes a lot longer. A person can be within the net of inheritance tax for a very long time, and it is sometimes difficult to get rid of it completely. I am very comfortable with where this is going.
The change in the Bill that is relevant to me, of course, follows the result of my 11-week trial at Southwark Crown court behind glass, which concluded in acquittal on 9 January 2019. I did not enter the House as the MP for South Thanet to have a lengthy trial based on very abstract and ambiguous legislation. The issue at stake was the construction of section 90ZA of the Representation of the People Act 1983, relating to the meaning of “election expenses,” and section 90C of the same Act, relating to accounting for discounted or free goods and services and the requirement, or not, for a candidate or agent to give assent and proper authorisation for expenditure in order for it to be a valid election expense.
Mr Steve Baker
That sounds like a very complex matter, and I am sure my hon. Friend deserves an extra minute to explain it to us properly. I am grateful that he is here to do so.
Craig Mackinlay
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that assistance.
The matter was tested at the Court of Appeal in front of no less than the Lord Chief Justice, who ruled in summary that authorisation by the candidate or agent is a key feature of an election expense. The Electoral Commission—I make no comment as to its motivation—was dissatisfied with the outcome at the Court of Appeal and took the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in an entirely contrary way, that spending could be construed as an election expense without receiving formal authorisation or proper deemed authorisation if it is of assistance to that candidate.
Two of the highest courts in the land—one said this and one said that. How on earth is a candidate or agent meant to make any sense of such legislation? I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for listening to my contributions in the House on this matter and for listening to the private Member’s Bill that I introduced some years ago to amend the 1983 Act appropriately so that proper authorisation has to be given. I now see those words in the Bill almost in their entirety. In clause 16, proposed new section 90C(1A) of the 1983 Act requires clear direction, authorisation or encouragement by the candidate or their agent for an election expense to be so. Thank God we have some clarity.
I would not want to see anybody in this House, friend or foe, go through what I went through. It was not fair, because we had ambiguous legislation. Finally we have a power in this Bill that means we will protect each other for the right reasons. Whether or not we like someone’s politics, it will apply to everybody.
Geraint Davies
Is the hon. Gentleman saying it is reasonable for a political party to bus in hundreds of workers and put them in hotels, so long as the agent does not know or authorise it? Is he saying that is a legitimate—
Craig Mackinlay
I thank the House for its forbearance during those troubled years, and I hope Members will support at least that part of the Bill.
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Craig Mackinlay Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
We always remember where we were when significant events occur, and last Friday at midday I was at my constituency home in Ramsgate. I was on the telephone with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), and I heard a gasp and an expletive down the line—he had just heard—and he then related to me the sad news. That was a moment in time that I will not forget. I knew at once that a page in our nation’s history had turned.
We give thanks for a long life very well lived, and for Prince Philip’s steadfast support for our gracious Queen. We give our thanks to a devoted servant to our country and thus to all of us, a stalwart of our Commonwealth and a stable rock in a very troubled and changing world. He was a towering character who has always been there throughout the lives of every one of us in this Chamber. Indeed, he married the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, before all but a handful of Members of this place were even born.
It was surprising how little we knew of the man during his life. I had the privilege of meeting him twice, and both events had their classic moments that only Prince Philip could bring to an occasion, but those must be stories for another day. I feel that I have learned so much more about him over these past 80 hours, thanks to the extensive coverage in the media since Friday—coverage that I believe has been exemplary, well researched and properly respectful. I did not previously know that he was present in Tokyo bay when the Japanese signed the instrument of surrender, or the extent to which he was virtually stateless as a young child. I knew little of his exemplary wartime naval service being mentioned in dispatches, or about the true depth of his involvement with the charities he was associated with or the varied interests he had. I do now.
The nation must turn now to considering a fitting memorial to that great life. Obviously, statues are being proposed, but my suggestion, as a permanent working symbol of his life and interests, is for a new multiple-use ship bearing his name, for use as a training ship, a humanitarian vessel, a mobile embassy and a UK trade platform, proudly designed and built in the UK as an overdue replacement for the royal yacht Britannia, which he loved so deeply. It would be a true complementary vessel to the carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales. This should not be fanciful. It would reflect this country’s historical attachment to the sea, Prince Philip’s love of the naval service and his commitment to youth training. It would be a continuing glue for the Commonwealth, a proper platform to promote global Britain and a secure location for the royal family. I hope that that can have wider national debate and proper consideration. Rest in peace, sir, and may the thoughts and blessings from all across my South Thanet constituency be upon Her Majesty.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We have 87 minutes left and 43 more speakers, so if Members could speak for under three minutes that will help others get in.