Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Paul Flynn

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right that we need proper co-ordination. That co-ordination role falls to the Cabinet Office, but clearly there are important areas where the Home Office has direct responsibility for operational matters, and obviously the Ministry of Defence has responsibilities in purely military terms. I am happy to reassure him that the co-ordination comes through the Cabinet Office.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

As we have just come to the conclusion that a cyber-influence was entirely invisible and beyond any mechanisms that the electoral college has to control it, and as the Prime Minister has said that there was cyber-influence in the elections and probably in the referendums, is it not time we decided that we should have no faith in those two results and that we should look for another referendum, because second thoughts are always better than first thoughts?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point. There is no evidence of any successful attempt to interfere with our electoral processes. Indeed, it is particularly difficult to have a cyber-attack against an electoral system that requires voters to put crosses on pieces of paper using small pencils, so that undoubtedly old-fashioned system is very effective against cyber-attack.

Northern Ireland

Debate between Damian Green and Paul Flynn

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend is right. To repeat a hugely important point, the money will go to all parts of Northern Ireland. It will benefit all communities in Northern Ireland, and that should be a significant step towards ensuring that we have a successful conclusion to these vital talks about the re-setting up of a devolved Executive, which I am sure that everyone in this House wants to see.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Is the Minister concerned that his performance today is likely to bring crude hypocrisy into some disrepute? The Government have just lost an election. They made themselves and the country more unstable and weaker than they were before. In order again to correct problems within the Tory party, they are using this crude bribe. Is not the answer today that MPs who represent Wales and Scotland have to put our countries first, and is not the result of this that the Government are making the United Kingdom more divided than ever?

[Damian Green]

The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis is his starting point that our party lost the election. No, we did not; his party lost the election—it lost its third election in a row. We all know that Labour won more seats than most of its own Members thought it would—there are people sitting on the Labour Benches who assumed that they would be out of a job now. In the spirit of non-partisanship, I welcome them back to this House but, nevertheless, the idea that the Labour party won the election is a fantasy that I think is dying out even on the wilder shores of Momentum.