Budget Resolutions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) on his role as shadow Secretary of State. I know what a distinguished career he has had in business and how eminently qualified he is for this role. I also enjoyed listening to the Secretary of State; I know he is a very intelligent man and I know by reputation what a decent man he is, but while I was sitting in the Chamber I looked up on Wikipedia what his business experience is and what qualifies him for his role. I am sorry to report that he has about as much business experience as I do, which is precisely none.

I spent my career before my election working in Parliament and in the charity sector—you could mistake me for a Labour MP, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am almost indistinguishable from them and easily mistaken for one. However, I will do my best to disabuse them of that false impression by saying what a very shameful thing it is that the Labour party allowed the public to be so misled in the run-up to the last election. Labour promised not to raise taxes, not to increase borrowing or to change the borrowing rules and certainly not to impose inheritance tax on family farms. All those things they have done in this Budget, and it is a shameful thing.

Leaving aside whether these measures are good or bad for the country, leaving aside the erroneous idea that suddenly Labour understood the public finances after they got into government, when they did not understand them before—even though before the party got into government it said it knew exactly what was in the public finances, and of course it did, because that is what the OBR enables—the fact is that Labour understandably stressed in the run-up to the election that they were standing on a platform of probity, integrity and trust. Those were the words used repeatedly in their election campaigns, and the public responded to that.

In so far as it is possible to say that Labour won public support at the election—of course it did not really; we just lost it—it was on the grounds that—[Interruption.] Labour Members ask why we lost it. We lost it because the public could not trust us and they did not think we had integrity. I know that. I am not stupid. We understand what the public thought and I am not going to disabuse them, but Labour promised to be different, and in this Budget they have absolutely broken their promises on integrity and trust. This is a day of shame for the party after what they have done with this Budget.

In a less partisan spirit, there is much to critique about the economy that the Labour party inherited when it came into government. I recognise that there were things wrong with our economy and deep structural problems. They go back decades—a lot longer than 14 years. In so far as it is possible to critique the Conservative party for failures, those happened for very understandable reasons—not least because of the deficit and the broken economy that we had inherited 14 years previously, as well as other events that took place during our time in power. Our failure was that we did not fix those fundamental structural problems with the economy that we inherited. Those problems were to do with a high-tax, high-borrowing economy that had high levels of public debt caused by high welfare, high and preventable health spending, high rates of private debt, low productivity and low wages. Those are the underlying structural realities of the British economy going back decades; they are the reality of this century so far. It is therefore right that the Chancellor talks often about fixing the foundations. I welcome that because it is absolutely the right framework within which to approach the challenge that the new Government faces on the economy.

The problem is that the Government are leaning into the broken model that we have. They are further damaging the foundations of our economy, which need to be fixed, by pursuing more borrowing, more tax and spend and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs said from the Front Bench a little while ago, a plan that will not lead to greater growth in the economy over this Parliament, with only minuscule improvements if the forecasts are correct.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of cross-party consensus, let me hope that we can fix the foundations of the economy, because we do need to fix them. What are those foundations? Classically understood, the foundations of prosperity—the foundations of any economy—are land, labour and capital. Let me look at each briefly in turn.

The fundamental reality of our land economy is the planning system. Work done in the think-tank world by Southwood, Hughes and Bowman called “Foundations” —that is absolutely the right framing—shows that it is impossible to build things in this country, to build them quickly and to build them in the right places. Yes, we need new housing urgently, and I recognise and applaud the Government’s commitment on that, but their approach is entirely wrong. They propose to build houses where they are not needed and not wanted—on our green fields—instead of where they are urgently needed and very much wanted, which is in our cities.

What we need all across the country, including in rural areas such as the one I represent in east Wiltshire, is more business space. We need space for industrial use, and we need office space. We urgently need to enable our entrepreneurs to create businesses and to grow them in the places where they want to do that. I am very conscious of the challenge we have in Wiltshire with the lack of affordable and available land for business.

Like others, I should also quickly mention the absolute crime of proposing to tax family farms and to insist that farmers sell up when farms are passing from one generation to the next. That is another flagrant abuse of trust by this Government.

The second foundation is the labour market. I have not heard the Government address this so far in the Budget or in this Budget debate, but the crucial challenge for our economy is that it is so dependent on high rates of low-skilled migration, which depresses wages, increases welfare and inhibits productivity—crucially, because it disincentivises employers from investing in people, in machinery or in technology that boosts growth and productivity. We have to cap migration and shift spending into the skills economy and into our own people to support them to gain the skills they need in order to do the jobs that need doing.

The third foundation is capital itself. We have heard a lot from Ministers about the need for investment, but what they mean is public investment and public spending. What is fundamentally needed is private investment, but we hear nothing about that and do not see much sign of it. We have a broken capital market. Again, I recognise that a lot of this goes back many years—to well before this Government—but it is difficult for businesses to find the capital they need to start and, crucially, to scale. All the incentives are towards rushing to private equity or to an initial public offering and cashing out as soon as possible. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) during Prime Minister’s questions earlier about the failure of the London capital market to direct capital into UK businesses. That is a perennial challenge with our finance sector, and it needs addressing.

I echo the point made by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), who was absolutely right about the importance of investing in UK resilience. We need money—crucially, private money—to go into small and medium-sized enterprises and the key growth sectors that will be needed in the turbulent times to come. We need to use the incentives in the tax and regulation systems to direct finance towards British businesses. Crucially, we also need to make British businesses more competitive.

That brings me to the national insurance increase. This huge jobs tax has been imposed on the country with no warning and, in fact, in direct breach of promises made by the Labour party.

[Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)]

As a business owner who is pleased to see more money in the pockets of not just my team but my customers, can I ask the hon. Member whether he agrees that the Conservatives are very good with their own money, but absolutely appalling with the country’s finances?

[Danny Kruger]

I am delighted to hear that there is, in fact, a businessman on the Labour Benches; that is tremendous, and I hope that he and his business prosper under the Government that he is supporting. The fact is that the OBR itself said in its commentary on the Budget that payroll tax rises are “passed through” into lower wages. The direct effect is that the Government are taxing workers to fund their spending commitments. Those spending commitments go partly towards what they call investment capital projects, but also towards public services’ running costs. As we have heard today, the bulk of that money will be front-loaded at the start of this Parliament, in what one would have thought was direct contravention of good fiscal management. However, more importantly and more worryingly, as we heard, the effect will be largely circular, because the additional spending will simply be taken in tax through the NIC increases.

On behalf of my constituents, I would quickly add that the one spending area where I have particular regrets is the cutting of the transport budget. The Government talk about increasing investment in the public sector, but they have cut the transport budget overall and, particularly to the regret of constituents in Wiltshire, scrapped the plan to upgrade the A303 and divert all that horrendous traffic around Stonehenge. I deeply regret that, and I am sorry that we have yet to hear any plans from the Department for Transport or the Treasury to alleviate our chronic traffic problems.

Let me finish by saying how much I regret the missed opportunities that this Budget represents. We need growth and productivity, which, fundamentally, will come only from the private sector. We need to see more savings in the public sector, so that we can fund proper deficit reduction, but we are not going to see that. We also need meaningful tax cuts, so that we can get the economy going. One area where we urgently need more spending is defence, which is the one area we really have not heard about. When will we hear about the timetable to get to 2.5%?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Covid-19: Response and Excess Deaths

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The key question is: do the people who are being prescribed the antibiotics know that there is a risk that they will die as a result of them being prescribed? If so, they are told that, but nobody who was affected by the covid-19 vaccines was told that they were anything other than absolutely safe and effective. That is the basis upon which a lot of the litigation will be founded.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Hon. Members are suggesting that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks. They suggest in these debates that there is always a balance to be made, and I agree. But do they acknowledge that there is a risk attached to the vaccine, and that the excess deaths that we are describing can be attributed to the vaccine? They might suggest that the risk is outweighed by the enormous benefit of the vaccine by saving lives, but if they are suggesting that there is a risk that could help explain the excess deaths, that is not the Government’s position. Their position is that there is no link between the vaccines and the excess deaths. If they are suggesting that there is a link but it is outweighed by the benefits, that is a different argument.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

May I start by paying tribute to all the Members who have spoken in the debate? I have great respect for them all. It is a particular privilege to follow the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). He was a hero during the covid period. While so many of us were blindly following what the Government told us to do, he stood almost alone in making up his own mind.

I also acknowledge the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), and the work that he is doing to support the many, many families and people who have suffered adverse reactions, and I am proud to support him in that work. I have great affection and respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who is doing a valiant job sticking up for his perspective in this debate. He is sitting directly behind the Minister, so I am not sure whether he is able to speak. None the less, I respect the position that he has taken.

I also wish to acknowledge the work done and the speech made by the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen)—please do not start cheering, because Mr Deputy Speaker will close down the debate. He is not popular with Members on the Conservative Benches, but I think that we have an obligation to take what he says seriously, and to examine the evidence that he has brought to the House. He has an absolute right to make the case that he does in this place.

Finally, before I get on to the points in my speech, let me mention my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe). He made the essential point that we need more evidence. Fundamentally, we need the Government to be more open, and to instruct the agencies of the Government—the regulator and the health service—to provide the data that we need to get to the bottom of this issue. I implore the Minister to respond to that point in her wind-up.

I disagree with the suggestion from the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire that some fishy business was going on in how the ONS has been calculating excess deaths in recent years. Who knows? Perhaps there is some fishy business going on, but the ONS took the right decision to change the methodology. As Carl Heneghan and others have pointed out, the previous method of accounting for excess deaths—of taking an average over five years—actually led to an exaggeration of excess death numbers during the pandemic and, in a sense, contributed to the great anxiety that many people felt, which encouraged the lockdown, so it is right to rethink how excess deaths are calculated.

We know, by all the different measures, that many more people are dying now than were before the pandemic. That might be accounted for simply by an ageing population, by long covid, or by the effects of an NHS under pressure, but as we have heard today, there is significant evidence that other factors are at play. In particular, the impact on people’s hearts, and increasingly younger people’s hearts, deserves attention. The British Heart Foundation reported last June that since the start of the pandemic, 100,000 more people have died than would have been expected. That is surely significant cause for us to take this question seriously.

The question raised by the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire is whether the vaccines have contributed to this increase in excess deaths. I hesitate to wade into this debate because I am not a scientist. I recognise the point made by others, particularly the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton, that science and politics are uncomfortable bedfellows. We know that there are adverse effects from the vaccination. Everybody acknowledges that; it is a question of the extent to which those effects have been manifested.

My particular concern—this goes back to my point about a request for evidence—is whether the system that oversees the licensing, regulation, monitoring and analysis of medical treatments in general, and vaccines in particular, is up to scratch. There is so much speculation in the debate about what is going on, and what is true and what is not, but we seem to have some facts that we can all agree on. The first, I am afraid, is that the MHRA is significantly deficient in the way it operates. The Cumberlege report—this was referenced in the earlier debate—raised concerns about the way treatments are regulated and licensed that have not yet been addressed. I am afraid that through the covid episode many of the same concerns were manifested in relation to the vaccines.

We now know that the MHRA knew about the effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine on blood clotting as early as February 2021, but issued a warning about that only some months later—in April, a month after other countries had suspended the AZ vaccine. The MHRA also knew about the prevalence of heart problems and myocarditis in February 2021 but did nothing about it until June that year. In the intervening time, millions of people were vaccinated without the knowledge that the MHRA had. As has been said, we found out recently that Pfizer misrepresented the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. There has been very little comeback against it for that, and no meaningful fine. As we heard, just a few thousands pounds were charged in expenses.

The regulatory system that oversees the pharmaceutical companies is surely deeply conflicted, not least due to being partly funded by the pharmaceutical companies that it was set up to represent. It is significant and of concern that they have made so much money out of the vaccines, and so far do not appear to be making due recompense for some of the acknowledged harms— I am not talking about the wilder claims—that their vaccines have been responsible for. Will the Minister enlighten us on whether the indemnities against civil and Government action that the Government awarded to the vaccine manufacturers at the beginning of the production process still apply if it transpires that the companies misled the Government and the public about the safety and efficacy of their product?

The inquiry has been mentioned. There are so many unanswered questions and apparent red flags that it surprises me that the media and Parliament are not more up in arms about excess deaths. I am surprised that more attention is not being paid to this question. The fact is that this scandal—if it is a scandal—suits no one in high places in our country. It is true that we have an inquiry, but as the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton said, surely it is asking the wrong questions. It is very concerning that the module looking at the vaccination programme has been postponed. It strikes me that the inquiry is essentially asking the wrong questions; it is really just asking why we did not do more lockdowns quicker. That seems to be its prevailing question for the experts—not whether the whole response was the right one, and crucially, in the light of what we now know, whether the final response of a mass vaccination programme was as safe and effective as was claimed.

We are rightly proud in this country of the effectiveness, speed and operation of the vaccine production and roll-out. It was a triumph of effective collaboration between Government and the private sector. The operation of the roll-out was a victory that all people can acknowledge, but it is not enough to say that the roll-out was done well. Was it done safely? Did it need to be done on the scale on which it was done? Particularly, did young people need to be vaccinated at all? We all remember Kate Bingham and others saying early on that the vaccine was only for the older population. These questions are increasingly being asked by the public and raised in the media.

Let me conclude quickly with what I have been doing. I hope that we will get more answers from the Minister than I have had so far from the Government. On 17 April 2023—a year ago yesterday—I wrote privately to the Secretary of State, asking him for evidence that justified the Government’s assertion that there was no link between the vaccines and the excess deaths. I did that because I had so much correspondence from people raising that concern. I said:

“I am writing privately in this way rather than raising the question in Parliament because I am determined not to give credence to unscientific, conspiratorial accusations, nor to undermine the vaccination programme in public if it is, indeed, entirely safe and effective.”

I did not want to do this in public; I wanted to give the Government the opportunity to give me the evidence, so that I could pass it back to constituents, but I am afraid that the reply I received from a Minister was the one that we have already heard: the bland assertion that a combination of factors—flu, old age and so on—probably accounts for the excess deaths. The rest of the letter was all about what the Government were doing to combat excess deaths, and the answer was mostly “more vaccines.” I did not think that was good enough.

A year rolled by, the evidence seemed to mount, and more and more people were raising this concern, so I joined the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire, the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Sir Philip Davies), who could not be here today—he wanted me to explain that he is on important constituency business but is very much here in spirit—and others in writing this time a public letter to the Government asking the same question in more detail. We asked specifically, “What is the evidence for the definitive statement about safety and efficacy?” The Government said:

“There is no evidence linking excess deaths to the vaccine.”

If so, that is great news, but may we have the evidence on which that assertion is based?

Secondly, we asked: “Will the Department for Health, the MHRA, and the UKSHA release the data that is needed to understand what is going on?” The data that we are asking for is already made available privately to pharmaceutical companies for them to use in their safety studies of the vaccine. Why do they get it, but not the public? Why cannot independent scientists look at that data? I am sorry to say that we had replies neither to that letter, which was written in February—here we are in April—nor, after months, to the freedom of information requests that went to the agencies.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I do not know why the Government would not want to release the data. It may be that the data could be misused and misrepresented. One way around that might be to invite research applications from our very sophisticated research ecosystem. Researchers could be given access to the data if they came forward with particular research projects. They would then be able to report on it, with external verification that they had actually used the data supplied, and not drifted too far from it.

[Danny Kruger]

That sort of practical suggestion should be considered. I would be interested in hearing the Government’s response to that. We are asking for anonymised data that poses no risk to any individuals. If the data is open and public, and the whole purpose is scientific interrogation and analysis, it should not be possible to misuse it. We need as much sunlight on that data as possible.

Let me end by repeating the commitment that I hope we will get from the Minister. I have been asking for anonymised, record-level, official mortality data, including vaccination status. That information, which is already being shared with drug companies, should be shared with Parliament and the public. If that is not possible, could the Minister explain why? Secondly, what are the sources for the definitive statement that the Government have made, most recently in October 2023—and that, I dare say, they might make again today—about there being no evidence of a link between the excess death figures and the covid-19 vaccines? I hope that there is no link. I took the vaccine—at least the first two jabs—as did most of my family and my constituents. I am sure that most people in the Public Gallery took it. We all did. I hope that the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire is wrong to assert that there is a dangerous connection.

I am reluctant to be branded a conspiracy theorist, and I still do not want to give credence to unscientific assertions, but we in this place are here to take risks—the risks of ridicule and contempt—in exchange for the privilege of being here, and I think it is right that we raise these concerns on behalf of the public, even when there is some political cost. Too many people are dying, and we must understand why.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

That is actually what antibodies do.

I will answer some of the many questions that have been asked in this debate. I reiterate that no medicine or vaccine is completely risk free. Even simple paracetamol has the potential to kill people if it is not taken properly, and people with certain conditions might not be able to take it at all. We have monitoring systems in place. The MHRA, which I know has come under criticism, took a stand when in April 2021, following concerns raised through the yellow card system, it reduced access for the under-30s and then for the under-40s. When concerns are raised, it absolutely takes action. There are now recommendations about the type of vaccine, and about whom we vaccinate, bearing in mind the current evidence.

I have said that no vaccine is 100% safe, which is why we have the vaccine damage payment scheme. I hear concerns about that, and I have met my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) to discuss it. We took the scheme off the Department for Work and Pensions and moved it into the Department of Health and Social Care to speed it up and get claims turned around more quickly. We have had more than 4,000 claims, 170 of which have been awarded. Roughly speaking, the majority of claims are decided on within six months, and the vast majority are decided on within 12 months. Of course, we want to speed up on those. We recognise the time limit of three years, which is why we are working as hard as we can to get through as many claims as possible, so that if people have been affected by the covid vaccine, they get some help and support through that funding.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) raised the issue of research. We are absolutely researching the issue of covid-19 vaccines—not just future types of vaccines, but their safety. There is £110 million from the National Institute for Health and Care Research going specifically into covid-19 vaccine safety, and I encourage all Members to keep an eye on that as the evidence comes forward.

I have to give the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire a few minutes to reply, so I will just say that we take this issue extremely seriously. I know that as a Minister, I will be responsible—

[Danny Kruger]

Will the Minister give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

I will not, as I have to let the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire respond. We take this issue very seriously. I have been as open and transparent as I can be. If there are concerns, we will always look into them, but there is no doubt that covid vaccines save lives. There is no doubt that some people have experienced harm from them—we acknowledge that, and we want to help and support people who have been affected—but the vaccines did get us out of the pandemic and we need to be mindful of that as well.

Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

That is exactly why I have used words that already exist in legislation. We can have that debate on the Sentencing Act 2020 and on the Equality Act 2010—I wish you good luck in that—but rather than trying to debate things that this House has already settled, let us move forward with how we try to stop these practices.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) in her remarks about the engagement we have had, and I am sure that we will have a civil debate today. The hon. Gentleman refers to the definition of transgender identity as already existing in legislation. It does, in the Sentencing Act to which he refers, but can he give us further information on that definition? As I read it, it is simply a reference to whether transgender is an aggravating factor in a criminal offence; it does not provide the definition we need. So his Bill will entrench in law that totally undefined concept.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Exactly. I very much welcome that statement. In fact, the Bill produces a framework that Dr Cass’s review can inform as things change and move forward.

People who are not health practitioners but assist a person undergoing a regulated course of treatment, such as a receptionists or drivers, are protected under the Bill. If someone is questioning, exploring or developing coping skills—a role often taken by teachers or youth workers, which is my previous profession—they will receive clarity on the range of support they can offer.

One of the most controversial areas in the Government’s Bill was how it dealt with parents. It is my view that parents have a darn hard life already raising their children and we should not create new burdens for them. The Bill says that if someone is exercising parental responsibility and considers the welfare of their child as paramount, nothing they do will be an offence under the Bill. We refer to the Children Act 1989 and use the language in well-established bodies of law. We should not be messing with how children are treated in this way.

[Danny Kruger]

I appreciate how much the hon. Gentleman is giving way; it allows us to have a proper debate. I recognise how he is trying to protect parents. The definition he just read out states that as long as the parent is acting in the best interests of the child, they are not guilty of conversion practices. Nevertheless, can he not see that if the police or a prosecutor were to determine that the conversations that the parent was having in essence amounted to conversion practice in the form of trying to change their child’s gender identity or sexuality, it would be very possible to suggest that they are not acting in the best interests of the child and therefore to accuse them of conversion practices? I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is trying to do the right thing here and that he has no intention of intervening in family life. Nevertheless, the law that he is proposing would very easily lead to exactly the prosecutions that he is trying to avoid.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the wording does not give parents a blank cheque for abuse, because the law already does not allow that. The law already sets the bar for courts’ determination on the welfare of a child. The courts already have a system to determine if there is a dispute between parents. The courts, or local authorities, already have a requirement to intervene where there is serious risk to a child. That is why I have used that body of law. Again, I do not think that it is our place to meddle with that body of well-established practice law. If he feels that there are words that would make that clearer, that is a case for sending the Bill to Committee and tabling amendments, and I will genuinely ensure that they get a hearing.

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[Alicia Kearns]

No, I will not give way on this point, because I will not hear more erasure of a transgender community. We can discuss the intricacies, but that I will not stand for.

I am not going to go into the arguments about the Bill, because the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) did an exceptional. job. He went out and met every single person, organisation and lobby group and listened to all their views, even if he disagreed with them—and that includes the LGB Alliance, who have also removed the T—and I have supported him. He has done a phenomenal job.

The hon. Gentleman has set out what the Bill does. It protects religious leaders, who can still guide their flocks. Health practitioners can still support and challenge people, and parents are protected. That is why all major faith groups back the Bill, why the royal colleges back it, and why exploratory therapy is protected. This is a compromise Bill, and I say to Members who wish to oppose it, “Search within yourself, because you have a duty to protect children and a duty to allow professionals to do their job, and you need to recognise that some people’s objections are not to the nuances in the Bill.” The only people who fear a ban on conversion therapy are quacks and charlatans who profit from bigotry and misery. Conversion therapy causes lifelong harm. This is a moderate Bill and a compromise Bill, and it does not go as far as the Government’s proposals. [Interruption.] The hon. Member may chunter and laugh, but I am appalled—[Interruption.] I will happily give way to him if he asks, rather than chuntering.

[Danny Kruger]

I apologise for chuntering. I was simply amused by the suggestion that this is a moderate Bill. This is not a moderate speech that the hon. Lady is making. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) made a very good speech, recognising that there are legitimate views on the other side of the debate. The hon. Lady talks about erasure, but she dismissed the comments of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), suggesting that his view was completely invalid. I respect her arguments and her wish to pursue this Bill, or this kind of legislation, but can we please have a debate with more civility?

[Alicia Kearns]

I would suggest that the ultimate failure of civility is to erase a member of the LGBT community —to erase an entire group. I am happy to discuss the nuanced points, but I will not do so if Members want to suggest that transgender people do not exist, or that we do not really have a definition in law of what transgender people are. They exist in law and they exist in this place, and they exist in the hon. Member’s constituency as well.

The Government should back this compromise Bill, because love is not a pathology, and transgender people are not a pathology: they do not need treatment. I say, very simply, to those people, “You are seen in this place and you are heard in this place, and very many of us back you and will protect you.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Green]

One concern is the requirement almost for affirmation. In the context of the structures in society and the expectations on people if the legislation passes, and the framing in which parents, families and others are allowed to discuss the matter with their own children, the route that people go down starts a long time before they get to the stage that my hon. Friend mentions. We need to understand this and have an open discussion right at the beginning, rather than years down the line.

[Danny Kruger]

My hon. Friend raised the good point about the explosion in demand for support in this area over recent years, which is overwhelming the services available through the NHS. That itself should cause us great concern about what is going on in our society. There is a long waiting list for publicly available help but not for private support, so am I not right that somebody could seek private therapy quickly?

[Chris Green]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Just because the state services are often slower than private services, we should not be satisfied that the 10-year delay is sufficient time for people to reconsider.

There is a question of equality on this matter and, again, we have to understand society as it has changed. A key thing in society, which was certainly not a concern when I was growing up, is the internet, emails and social media. Social media is powerful, and children and young people spend a great deal of time on social media. In other debates in this Chamber, people would be raising concerns about bulimia, suicide and other things that children are influenced by on social media. Those are the challenging issues raised on social media. Parents have to understand that the influences on their children can often be supportive and encouraging, but not all the influences on social media are. The Bill almost introduces an inequality: certain people can encourage and support children, young adults and others to go down a certain track, whether they meet in person or online, but the people with whom they have personal contact and will spend the rest of their lives—the family unit, their friends and the wider community—almost have their ability to communicate with their loved one curtailed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elliot Colburn]

We have to get the Bill to Committee so that we can thrash that out. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but that is the point of passing legislation: we make definitions and we make laws. The whole point of giving the Bill its Second Reading today is to create a definition and pass it into law.

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; I hope he agrees that this is a very helpful conversation. We have been debating this issue for years, as everybody keeps saying. The reason there is no definition is because it is impossible to arrive at one. The Scottish Parliament cannot arrive at one and we have failed to do so. It is not possible to find a definition that is between what is illegal already and what we all think should not be illegal. It does not exist. The idea that the Bill should go to Committee for us to continue this conversation is absurd. It cannot be done.

[Elliot Colburn]

I am sorry, but my hon. Friend seems to have forgotten the point: this is the first time we are debating a Bill. We have failed because we have taken five years to arrive at a position where we can actually debate legislation. That is the failure. We passed Brexit faster than we have discussed this!

--- Later in debate ---

[Neale Hanvey]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I will address some of those complex issues.

If we look at the Bill through a utilitarian lens, there is a desire to protect the few, which is a laudable and noble aim, but it would limit the freedoms of so many and would potentially inflict serious criminal harm upon them because of a lack of foresight of the consequences of some of the proposals.

As a counterpoint, and this speaks to events that have happened today, can Members imagine a circumstance in which it would be remotely acceptable for me to lecture my partner about how he should feel when somebody expresses a racist view towards him, how he should manage it and how he should respond to it? I would never presume to do that as that is absolutely not my place. By the same token, it is not anyone’s place to lecture women or LGB people, or force-team them with others and say, “You must campaign with them. You must accept their demands.” That is what queer theory is doing to our society

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Gentleman is making a really important speech. Is it not extraordinary how that demand that was made of him, and that is made all the time, is done under the guise of freedom? It is said that it is an assertion of liberty, and a protection of individual rights and free speech. Is it not a bizarre inversion of truth when those sorts of arguments are made?

[Neale Hanvey]

That is a really important point. That campaign is supposed to be about equality and inclusivity, but one of its main activities is to find people to exclude, dox, deplatform, cast aside and force out of their jobs. How is that inclusion? How does that win anyone over to the noble aim of preventing harm? Harm can be prevented through legislation that is already in place, whether that is the Equality Act 2010 or statutes that deal with torture and abuse. The legislation is already there, so what exactly are we trying to fix? I cannot understand what that is. There is a shiny Bill here that says that conversion therapy is bad—of course it is bad; nobody disagrees with that. The Bill will not solve that. In fact, it will probably make it a whole lot worse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neale Hanvey]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the opinion of the King’s counsel is that enacting the legislation would have the effect of infringing those European convention on human rights freedoms that we all have every right to expect within extant legislation.

[Danny Kruger]

For me, the answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown is that there is something about the culture of the British courts that means they use the ECHR to pursue their particular political purposes, as we see constantly. There is something about the culture of the European courts that means they do not. We are familiar with this phenomenon whereby European countries have arrangements that do not entangle the European convention on human rights or the European Court. Here in the UK, our lawyers delight in using the European Court to pursue their politics, and that is exactly what would happen in this circumstance.

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, which is helpful. The point I will make next is that in Scotland there was similar legislation. In a 46-page legal opinion, Aidan O’Neill KC, who is a double silk, talked about these types of proposals, which would see faith leaders and others imprisoned for up to seven years and hit by unlimited fines if convicted of involvement in so-called conversion practices. He states:

“This is perhaps best described as ‘jellyfish legislation’. The concepts it uses are impossible to grasp; its limits are wholly undefined; it contains a sting in the tail in the form of criminal sanction of up to 7 years and unlimited fines; and thus it will have an undoubted and intended effect of dissuading persons from ever even entering the now murky waters of what may or may not constitute unlawful ‘conversion practices’.”

Some have argued that there is a nervousness among some gay Members on the Government Benches that failing to support a ban would hold some equivalence to the impact of the controversial section 28 amendment introduced by the Thatcher Government in 1988, which prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It is well understood by those of us who lived through that and opposed the legislation that it reinforced the then ubiquitous homophobia that stifled education and support for gender non-conforming young people. Thankfully, that policy was repealed in 2003 under a Labour Government, and that is a good thing. However, this proposal would undo all the value of that repeal. The effect of this Bill is much more likely to be directly comparable to the chilling effect of section 28 than in any way enhancing its repeal.



Let us consider, for example, a young gender non-conforming person who has a positive relationship with a member of the teaching staff. In the current situation, they are free to discuss and explore their emerging sexuality, and to be challenged on some of the views they hold. That is no easy conversation even in today’s context, but given that social media is full of misinformation and enticements that there is some magical, simple fix to complex problems, these are matters that a young person could choose to explore with a trusted adult or a parent. The introduction of this legislation would make that nigh-on impossible. Teachers, youth workers, nurses, doctors, social workers, church leaders and parents would be forced to think twice or refuse to entertain such a conversation, for fear of accusation and criminal prosecution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates]

I absolutely agree. Although Members have spoken about abuse and persistent patterns of behaviour—all of which are certainly serious—the reality is that in the drafting of the Bill, a single act could be brought as a criminal offence. There are not sufficient safeguards in the Bill to prevent that from happening.

For example, let us say that I was a primary school teacher and a girl came to me and said that she felt she was actually a boy and that she had been born in the wrong body. If I said to her on one occasion, “No, actually you are a girl. It is great being a girl”—perhaps she is gender non-conforming in some way, and she thinks that means she is not really female—I probably would not be caught by this Bill. But if I said that to her repeatedly—in other words, if I told her the truth and guided her, as adults should guide children—I very much would be caught by this Bill, especially if I were a gender-critical feminist who had put things on social media that prove that I did not believe in gender identity ideology, for example. Those are exactly the kinds of behaviours that we absolutely cannot criminalise in a democratic and free society.

Parents and children are my principal concern here. In the past two years, my inbox has been full of tragic stories of children, often girls, often same-sex attracted, often autistic, who have been groomed online and often by activist groups, sometimes in schools, into believing that they are actually boys. Sadly, some of these children have gone on to be prescribed puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones. Some are actively pursuing radical surgery that will leave them infertile, unable to breastfeed, and with medical problems for the rest of their life. It is already difficult enough for parents, teachers and employees to speak out against this ideology. The hon. Member for somewhere in Scotland—

[Danny Kruger]

Kirkcaldy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Suella Braverman]

I will not, because of time. There is very little evidence that conversion therapy is a current problem in this country. The various surveys that have been quoted, such as the national LGBT survey of 2017 or the Ozanne Foundation’s faith and sexuality survey, have severe shortcomings in their evidence base and the ways in which they were compiled. A police freedom of information request demonstrated that police forces throughout the UK, when asked whether they had received any reports of electroshock treatment or corrective rape between 2010 and 2020, responded with relevant data and confirmed that no police force had ever recorded any such complaint.

[Danny Kruger]

The other thing that has been cited by the other side is instances of unregulated therapy, which would fall foul of this new law. Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the Children’s Act 1989 already specifies that therapy, or any practice that is likely to cause psychological harm, is already a criminal offence? Again, even the non-coercive, non-threatening and non-violent abuse, which the other side are trying to criminalise, is already illegal.

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend brings me to my next point, which he has just made very powerfully. The existing law already protects gay and trans people from verbal and physical abuse, much as he set out. The offensive and abhorrent practices that we are talking about but cannot yet evidence include corrective rape, electroshock therapy, forced marriage, screaming in the face, holding down while praying, threats of physical violence, harassment, coercive or controlling behaviour, and other physical and verbal abuse. However, all such activity is already criminal under myriad laws, ranging from the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. There is a long list, which I do not have time to go through.

Financial Risk Checks for Gambling

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the need for balance in this policy. Having spoken to a lot of the breeders and trainers in my constituency in Wiltshire, I think there is a very strong argument against these proposals. We have also heard the case for them.

The fact that this debate is so well attended and that there is so much controversy about these proposals suggests to me there is a problem with the policy-making process. When I was a civil servant at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—in fact when my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) was Secretary of State—I saw how policy making is done, and I think there is a problem with it.

The people who are the experts or are most likely to be affected by the policies that we make here are not properly involved in the deliberations that go into policy making. I wonder whether my right hon. Friend agrees. Could he make the point to the Minister that, given the degree of controversy over these proposals, we need to delay the implementation and involve a wider group of stakeholders and experts in the consultation, which should have happened before now?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend has made his point through me to the Minister, who I am sure will deal with it. I will say that the consultation did not happen overnight—it has been going on for some time—but I accept that others may think that they have not had enough time. In fact, the gambling industry could have made a bigger impact by taking full part, rather than not always wanting to be intruded on by questions. As has happened with the group on many occasions, many chose to stay away.

I also make the point that few people will be impacted by the checks. Many of the concerns set out by punters involve the checks that the industry is already carrying out. It intrudes like mad on behaviour—that is the biggest area. It wants to deal with the behaviour of punters because, as we have heard, the gambling industry makes the vast majority of its money from those who are losing money at a rate of knots.

In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley made an interesting point, which I agreed with: often, those gamblers who have been successful end up being blocked. That information travels across the gambling companies, so a gambler who happens to be moderately or very successful finds themselves taken off the list of all those companies. They are not about openness, freedom and choice; they are the last people to be interested in that. We may be debating this, but they are not, because they do not want to lose money themselves.

The important point is that the gambling industry itself has not shown a huge amount of respect for the horseracing industry. Many betting shops are encouraged to cross over to FOBTs, or fixed-odds betting terminals, which are now B3s, and to SSBTs, or self-service betting terminals, which allow cash remote betting inside shops. The remote sector has long looked to cross-sell away from horserace betting to betting on other sports.

One thing that I want to make absolutely clear is that the gambling companies are not that interested in the success or the future of horseracing per se, but just in how much money they can take out of it. I am desperately keen that the horseracing industry should thrive. I absolutely believe it offers huge prospects for those in rural areas. It is a hugely successful and now global industry, and no one supports it more than I do.

I will end this by saying simply that the debate should not be about the absolute purity of no checks. We are here to look at, first, what the levels are and, secondly, how intrusive they will be. If we could achieve that and the right decision is made finally by the Minister, that will mean that the situation will be much better and, at the end of the day, that fewer people will lose their lives or become so addicted because of the desperate nature of what they have been doing in darkened rooms and behind closed doors. We want to stop that and to save lives.

Future of Horseracing

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is quite right. It is not just about the betting offices in towns, but the restaurants and hotels that are supported by Fakenham race days. I declare an interest: I have enjoyed a day’s racing at Fakenham courtesy of the racecourse’s trustees. I think they threw in a sandwich as well. That should be included on the record. It was delicious. I hope to go again later this year—[Laughter]—depending on the outcome of this debate.

Many Members have spoken about the benefits to the national economy of racing. I will not repeat them; they have been well rehearsed. I want to focus on the local benefits of racing to rural communities like mine. The Gambling Act review is causing Fakenham huge concern. The proposed enhanced checks for problem gamblers will be incredibly important for two communities: problem gamblers—they must be assisted, not hurt, by this decision—and the racing industry. It is a truism that, like any important decision, it should be based on best evidence, not ideology.

Judging by this debate, which I have listened to, there appears to be a massive conflict of evidence. It depends on who one listens to. According to the racing industry, the existing checks to reduce problem gamblers have not had a minimal impact and have not been taken in the industry’s stride. In fact, they have cost it about £1 billion. It is argued that as a result of this withdrawal of cash from the industry, about 1,000 racehorses have been taken out of training, bringing the number in training comfortably below 15,000 for the first time in a long time. That is a very heavy impact on the industry.

Perhaps it is worth it. Perhaps the benefits of the current checks on problem gamblers are so positive that it is worth imposing a cost of £1 billion on the racing industry. But they have been in place for two years now. What does the evidence show us? There were nine characteristics of harm from gambling that were associated with the assessment of the efficacy of these new rules. Have they changed? I am sorry to say that despite costing the industry £1 billion, of those nine measures of gambling-related harm, not a single one has improved during that period.

At the very least, this should cause the Government to pause for consideration, rather than doubling down on yet more of the same seemingly failed approach. Losing £1 billion for no measurable impact on the nine metrics that the Gambling Commission considered were the right ones to measure is not a result that would lead one to think, “Oh yes, we need to go further in the same direction.” The Gambling Commission tells us that the current proposals will also have very little, or minimal, impact on the industry. As one of the other contributors has mentioned, it says that about 3% of the accounts will be affected. But the evidence from the industry is that this is already incorrect. Somebody only has to read the front page of the Racing Post, of which I hope many Members here are subscribers, to see the multiple accounts of people changing their betting habits even before the new restrictions come in.

Just this month, there was a survey in which 15,000 racing gamblers took part—so a very substantial survey. More than 50% said they would stop betting or significantly reduce their betting because of these personally intrusive checks, which include one’s job title and postcode, while 40% of them said that they would consider moving towards black market betting, which 10% have already done. What outcome are the Government seeking to achieve for those with problems in gambling? Is it to drive and increase the size and scope of the black market industry, where there is no regulation at all, and where problem gambling is actively encouraged because it maximises profitability? If that is what they want to do, just the threat of this consultation review is already causing that to happen.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech and I agree with everything that he is saying. Does he also recognise the danger of driving people towards international gambling organisations online, which, although perfectly legal, have none of the checks that we would have, and where, as he is describing about the black market, they have all the incentives in the system to drive people into addiction?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution. Of course, he is absolutely right. There are many seemingly unintended consequences of the current proposals. I have yet to see any worked examples backed by genuine evidence, as opposed to the expressions of hope from the Gambling Commission, that support an alternative interpretation.

If we are worried about unintended consequences, I encourage the Minister during this welcome consultation to follow the evidence and not ideology; to support rural employers like Fakenham; to support the fantastic day out that racing provides to 5 million people a year and the pleasure that it gives them; to support the economies that rely on racing in places like Fakenham and around the country; to support fun betting, which in itself provides revenue to help the 0.3% of the gambling public that has a serious problem; and to support the long-term future of this fantastic racing industry in our country.

Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

I am content that as of today we have reached a consensus on a pragmatic way forward. It is vital that we send a clear signal that sexual harassment in the workplace is not acceptable and steps should be taken to prevent it. I am grateful for the cross-party support and particularly the support of the Government. I ask the House to accept the Lords amendments so that this Bill can pass into law. No one should have to wait any longer for this vital step towards safer and more respectful workplaces.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I do not propose to divide the House today and I am happy that we have got to a place where the Bill has been effectively gutted by their lordships. I am happy with the cross-party consensus on where we have got to. It is right that we have removed the third-party liability, but there is something regrettable about the way this Bill has developed. There was a good moment when, in response to pressure from their lordships, the Government proposed to introduce a new defence against Equality Act harassment, whereby it should be possible to defend a suit on the grounds that there was no intention to injure the injured party, and merely overheard conversations and civil discussions, be they among colleagues or customers, should not be liable to legal action. That was a good step; it developed and improved our equalities law. In response to pressure from the other place, the Government have now withdrawn the third-party liability measure, which is a good thing. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) that we are now in a position to abstain from opposing this Bill.

However, we need to debate our equalities framework in this country. Fundamentally, we need to stop bringing forward what I call performative legislation intended simply to outlaw behaviour we disapprove of, immoral conversations, bad manners, and action likely to cause hurt and distress. We cannot legislate against all of those actions and if we try—

[Christine Jardine]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Danny Kruger]

I will be happy to give way to the hon. Lady in a moment. I recognise that we all intend to do the right thing by bringing forward this legislation. I recognise that the Government are trying to do the right thing, as is the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). However, we get into all sorts of trouble when Opposition Members get hold of this sort of law in Committee and when the courts are required to judge on what will necessarily be obscure language about the management of human relations and free speech. The precedent being set by this law is dangerous.

[Christine Jardine]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a lot of the damage that is done in a workplace, which leaves an individual, perhaps a young one in their first employment, feeling undermined, damaged, bullied and harassed, often comes from exactly the sort of casual conversation they overhear in a canteen or in the office? The intent of the Bill was not to be restrictive of people, but to protect young people in the workplace, on whom these things can have a huge impact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger]

The hon. Lady defines exactly the issue. She talks about the intent of the Bill being to protect people from feeling distressed, which I think is absolutely right—we should all intend that—but it is difficult for law to manage and protect people’s feelings. The consequence of writing that into black and white means that we then require courts to adjudicate on all sorts of very difficult emotional issues.

The hon. Lady talks about the intent behind the Bill. We all intend the right thing here. We are all in unity that we disapprove of harassment and incivility, but we disapprove of all sorts of things that we cannot and should not try to criminalise. The consequence of criminalising bad manners—even very bad manners—is fundamentally to curtail free speech and the freedom upon which all of our civility as a society depends.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I am glad that we are having this discussion in a very respectful way, because that is how it should work. I recognise that that discussion may not have been had enough and we need a little more time having it. Does the hon. Gentleman think that legislation guides better behaviour and that, for that reason, it is important that we pass certain laws? That is the intention of the Bill. As I say, I have accepted the Lords amendment, but does he agree that legislation guides better behaviour and that is what we should aim for?

[Danny Kruger]

This is an important discussion. The hon. Lady is saying that the law is a teacher—indeed, it is—and influences the culture. It is also true that the law needs to reflect the culture, so we modernise our legislative framework in response to public opinion and how things are. We now legalise things that were illegal in the past in response to the way culture evolves.

However, the law is a teacher in a bad way too. It can introduce negative effects into our culture and chill free speech. It can inhibit the sorts of conversation that are necessary for the development and progress of our society, which is a topic that will come up later in other legislation. There were significant attempts during the pandemic to effectively criminalise or inhibit free speech around the pandemic response, on exactly the same grounds that we might use in this debate, namely that it is important for public protection and the protection of the vulnerable that misinformation, disinformation and, in this context, harassment should be criminalised. That was wrong, and I really worry about the possible chilling effect of this legislation.

A narrow gap is left in this law to criminalise free speech. Many Members will raise the outrageous and unacceptable behaviour that many employees have to put up with in the workplace—I recognise that too. We absolutely need to insist that that does not happen, but that is a job for the culture and for employers. In a sense, it is a job for all of us to instil the right sort of moral conduct in our communities, but frankly it is impossible to write legislation in black and white that achieves the outcomes the hon. Lady wishes without also inhibiting free speech.

I will end with an observation about another piece of legislation that I understand is being contemplated for the King’s Speech: a conversion therapy ban. I am afraid that that is another instance where, under the noble and honourable impulse to stop outrageous and unacceptable practices going on, we are proposing a piece of performative legislation in response to a vocal and activist lobby group that will put into law an imprecise and fuzzy set of moral aspirations. Once Opposition Members get hold of it in Committee, on Third Reading and in the House of Lords, the scope will be expanded and then courts will be required to criminalise conversations between adults and their therapists, parents and children, which is exactly what happens in other countries where this well-intentioned legislation has been passed into law. The law is a teacher, but it is not an opportunity for moral grandstanding and virtue signalling. We have an obligation to put into black and white words that the courts clearly understand and that do not end up curtailing free speech.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a relief that we have this Bill back here today, given that it was reported earlier in the year that it was likely to be shelved, possibly because of the backlash we have just heard. The Bill has come back from the other place, albeit heavily amended, and it still represents a step in the right direction, albeit a very small one. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) has done a sterling job in getting this Bill through the Parliamentary maze. She has been extremely gracious and generous in her comments today, given what is left in the Bill. I think it is a fine description to say that it has been narrowed in scope. Alternatively, it could be described, as the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) has just done, as having had the guts ripped out of it. I know which description suits what has happened better.

Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Payments Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is a very serious issue, which I first raised in the House back in the summer of 2021, on 21 June, when I presented what was then called the Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Bill. That Bill was given a short Second Reading debate on Friday 10 September 2021, and at the time I described it as being

“about all those who have suffered injury or even death as a result of enlisting in the war against covid by being vaccinated.”

I went on to say:

“There is a lot more damage being done to our citizens as a result of covid-19 vaccinations than in any other vaccination programme in history. That does not mean…that it is not worth while, and I am…not an anti-vaxxer…but what is important is that, if people do the right thing, they should not be denied access to”

—reasonable—

“compensation”. —[Official Report, 10 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 630-631.]

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his campaign on behalf of so many of all our constituents who write to us expressing concern about the vaccine programme and, in particular, about the injuries scheme. Does he agree that it is very wrong for the media, and indeed colleagues here, to castigate campaigners for the vaccine-injured for being conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and troublemakers? As my hon. Friend says, these are people who took the vaccine in response to a call from Government, and they deserve the support of not only the health service but the Government themselves if they turn out to have been injured by it.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous comments. He himself has been a valuable member of the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage, and he is right to say that many people—not just our constituents in this country, but people elsewhere—feel that they have been ignored by the powers that be. There is a glimmer of hope, in that during the public inquiry into covid-19, Lady Hallett, when discussing the terms of reference for what is called the fourth module of the inquiry—which will take place next July—seemed very much minded to deal with the issues that my hon. Friend has mentioned and about which I continue to be concerned.

In order to emphasise that this is not just a subject for the United Kingdom, let me mention a book that was published recently. I declare an interest, as one of the contributors. “Canary In a Covid World: How Propaganda and Censorship Changed Our (My) World” is described as

“A collection of essays from 34 contemporary thought leaders.”

In my own essay, I said a great deal about these issues, including about the failure of our own vaccine damage payment scheme to recognise that people had suffered harm and, in some cases, bereavement as a result of the vaccines. We could not, I said, continue to ignore these pressures. It was encouraging to learn about all that is happening in other parts of the world from contributors in Canada, the United States, the rest of Europe, Australia and New Zealand. I have here a House of Commons Library edition of the book, and I am going to return it to the Library, so if any other Members want to have a look at it, they can.

Trends in Excess Deaths

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right: the media have let the British public down badly. There will be a full press pack going out to all media outlets following my speech, with all the evidence to back up all the claims I will make, but I do not doubt that there will be no mention of it in the mainstream media.

One might think that a debate about excess deaths would be full of numbers, but this speech does not contain many numbers, because most of the important numbers are being kept hidden. Other data has been oddly presented in a distorted way, and concerned people seeking to highlight important findings and ask questions have found themselves inexplicably under attack.

Before debating excess deaths, it is important to understand how excess deaths are determined. To understand whether there is an excess, by definition, we need to estimate how many deaths would have been expected. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development uses 2015 to 2019 as a baseline, and the Government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities uses a 2015 to 2019 baseline, modelled to allow for ageing. I have used that data here. Unforgivably, the Office for National Statistics has included deaths in 2021 as part of its baseline calculation for expected deaths, as if there was anything normal about the deaths in 2021. By exaggerating the number of deaths expected, the number of excess deaths can be minimised. Why would the ONS want to do that?

There is just too much that we do not know, and it is not good enough. The ONS publishes promptly each week the number of deaths registered. While that is commendable, it is not the data point that really matters. There is a total failure to collect, never mind publish, data on deaths that are referred for investigation to the coroner. Why does that matter? A referral means that it can be many months—or, given the backlog, many years—before a death is formally registered. Needing to investigate the cause of a death is fair enough, but failing to record when the death happened is not.

Because of that problem, we have no idea how many people died in 2021, even now. The problem is greatest for the younger age groups, where a higher proportion of deaths are investigated. This data failure is unacceptable and must change. There is nothing in a coroner’s report that can bring anyone back from the dead, and those deaths should be reported. The youngest age groups are important not only because they should have their whole lives ahead of them. If there is a new cause of excess mortality across the board, it would not be noticed so much in the older cohorts, because the extra deaths would be drowned out among the expected deaths. However, in the youngest cohorts, that is not the case.

There were nearly two extra deaths a day in the second half of 2021 among 15 to 19-year-old males, but potentially even more if those referred to the coroner were fully included. In a judicial review of the decision to vaccinate yet younger children, the ONS refused in court to give anonymised details about those deaths. It admitted that the data it was withholding was statistically significant. It said:

“the ONS recognises that more work could be undertaken to examine the mortality rates of young people in 2021, and intends to do so once more reliable data are available.”

How many more extra deaths in 15 to 19-year-olds will it take to trigger such work? Surely the ONS should be desperately keen to investigate deaths in young men. Why else do we have an independent body charged with examining mortality data? Surely the ONS has a responsibility to collect data from coroners to produce timely information.

Let us move on to old people. Most deaths in the old are registered promptly, and we have a better feel for how many older people are dying. Deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s show what we ought to expect: there was a period of high mortality coinciding with covid and lockdowns, but ever since, there have been fewer deaths than expected. After a period of high mortality, we expect and historically have seen a period of low mortality, because those who have sadly died cannot die again.

Those whose deaths were slightly premature because of covid and lockdowns died earlier than they otherwise would have. That principle should hold true for every cause of death and every age group, but that is not what we are seeing. Even for the over-85-year-olds, according to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, there were 8,000 excess deaths—4% above the expected levels—for the 12 months starting in July 2020. That includes all of the autumn 2020 wave of covid when we had tiering and the second lockdown and all of the first covid winter. However, for the year starting July 2022, there were more than 18,000 excess deaths in this age group—9% above expected levels. That is more than twice as many in a period when there should have been a deficit and when deaths from diseases previously associated with old age were fewer than expected. I have raised my concerns about NG163 and the use of midazolam and morphine, which may have caused—and may still be causing—premature deaths in the vulnerable, but that is, sadly, a debate for another day.

There were just over 14,000 excess deaths in the under 65-year-olds before vaccination from April 2020 to the end of March 2021. However, since that time, there have been more than 21,000 excess deaths, ignoring the registration delay problem, and the majority of those deaths—58% of them—were not attributed to covid. We turned society upside down before vaccination for fear of excess deaths from covid, but today we have substantially more excess deaths, and in younger people, and there is a complete eerie silence. The evidence is unequivocal. There was a clear stepwise increase in mortality following the vaccine roll-out. There was a reprieve in the winter of 2021-22 because there were fewer than expected respiratory deaths, but otherwise the excess has been incessantly at this high level.

Ambulance data for England provides another clue. Ambulance calls for life- threatening emergencies were running at a steady 2,000 calls a day until the vaccine roll-out. From then, they rose to 2,500 daily, and calls have stayed at that level since. The surveillance systems designed to spot a safety problem have all flashed red, but no one is looking. Claims for personal independence payments from people who have developed a disability and cannot work rocketed with the vaccine roll-out and have continued to rise ever since. The same was seen in the US, which also started with the vaccine roll-out, not with covid. A study to determine the vaccination status of a sample of such claimants would be relatively quick and inexpensive to perform, yet nobody seems interested in ascertaining this vital information. Officials have chosen to turn a blind eye to this disturbing, irrefutable and frightening data, much like Nelson did—and for far less honourable reasons. He would be ashamed of us.

Furthermore, data that has been used to sing the praises of the vaccine is deeply flawed. Only one covid-related death was prevented in each of the initial major trials that led to authorisation of the vaccines, and that is taking the data entirely at face value, whereas a growing number of inconsistencies and anomalies suggest that we ought not to do this. Extrapolating from that means that between 15,000 and 20,000 people had to be injected to prevent a single death from covid. To prevent a single covid hospitalisation, more than 1,500 people needed to be injected. The trial data showed that one in 800 injected people had a serious, adverse event, meaning that they were hospitalised or had a life-threatening or life-changing condition. The risk of this was twice as high as the chance of preventing a covid hospitalisation. We are harming one in 800 people to supposedly save one in 20,000. That is madness.

The strongest claims have too often been based on modelling carried out on the basis of flawed assumptions. Where observational studies have been carried out, researchers will correct for age and comorbidities to make the vaccines look better. However, they never correct for socioeconomic or ethnic differences as that would make vaccines look worse. That matters. For example, claims of higher mortality in less vaccinated regions of the United States took no account of the fact that this was the case before the vaccines were rolled out. That is why studies that claim to show that the vaccines prevented covid deaths also showed a marked effect of them preventing non-covid deaths. The prevention of non-covid deaths was always a statistical illusion and claims of preventing covid deaths should not be assumed when that illusion has not been corrected for. When it is corrected for, the claims of efficacy for the vaccines vanish with it.

Covid disproportionately killed people from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic groups during the pandemic. In 2020, deaths among the most deprived were up by 23% compared with 17% for the least deprived. However, since 2022 the pattern has reversed, with 5% excess mortality among the most deprived compared with 7% among the least deprived. These deaths are being caused by something different.

In 2020, the excess was highest in the oldest cohorts, and there were fewer than expected deaths among younger age groups. However, since 2022, the 50 to 64-year-old cohort has had the highest excess mortality. Even the youngest age groups are now seeing a substantial excess, with a 9% excess in the under-50s since 2022 compared with 5% in the over-75 group.

Despite London being a younger region, the excess in London is only 3%, whereas it is higher in every more heavily vaccinated region of the UK. It should be noted that London is famously the least vaccinated region in the UK by some margin. Studies comparing regions on a larger scale show the same thing. Studies from the Netherlands, Germany and the whole world each show that the highest mortality after vaccination was seen in the most heavily vaccinated regions.

So we need to ask: what are people dying of? Since 2022, there has been an 11% excess in ischemic heart disease deaths and a 16% excess in heart failure deaths. In the meantime, cancer deaths are only 1% above expected levels, which is further evidence that this is not simply some other factor that affects deaths across the board, such as failing to account for an ageing population or a failing NHS. In fact, the excess itself has a seasonality, with a peak in the winter months. The fact that it returns to baseline levels in summer is a further indication that this is not due to some statistical error or an ageing population alone.

Dr Clare Craig from HART—the Health Advisory & Recovery Team—first highlighted a stepwise increase in cardiac arrest calls after the vaccine roll-out in May 2021. HART has repeatedly raised concerns about the increase in cardiac deaths, and it has every reason to be concerned. Four participants in the vaccine group of the Pfizer trial died from cardiac arrest compared with only one in the placebo group. Overall, there were 21 deaths in the vaccine group up to March 2021, compared with 17 in the placebo group. There are serious anomalies about the reporting of deaths in this trial, with the deaths in the vaccine group taking much longer to report than those in the placebo group. That is highly suggestive of a significant bias in what was supposed to be a blinded trial.

An Israeli study clearly showed that an increase in cardiac hospital attendances among 18 to 39-year-olds correlated with vaccination, not with covid. There have now been several post-mortem studies demonstrating a causal link between vaccination and coronary artery disease leading to death up to four months after the last dose. We need to remember that the safety trial was cut short to only two months, so there is no evidence of any vaccine safety beyond that point. The decision to unblind the trials after two months and vaccinate the placebo group is nothing less than a public health scandal. Everyone involved failed in their duty to the truth, but no one cares.

The one place that can help us understand exactly what has caused this is Australia, which had almost no covid when vaccines were first introduced, making it the perfect control group. The state of South Australia had only 1,000 cases of covid across its whole population by December 2021, before omicron arrived. What was the impact of vaccination there? For 15 to 44-year-olds, there were historically 1,300 emergency cardiac presentations a month. With the vaccine roll-out to the under-50s, this rocketed to over 2,172 cases in November 2021 in this age group alone, which was 67% more than usual. Overall, 17,900 South Australians had a cardiac emergency in 2021 compared with only 13,250 in 2018, which is a 35% increase. The vaccine must clearly be the No. 1 suspect for this, and it cannot be dismissed as a coincidence. Australian mortality overall has increased from early 2021, and that increase is due to cardiac deaths.

These excess deaths are not due to an ageing population, because there are fewer deaths from the diseases of old age. These deaths are not an effect of covid, because they have happened in places that covid had not reached. They are not due to low statin prescriptions or undertreated hypertension, as Chris Whitty would suggest, because prescriptions did not change, and any effect would have taken many years and been very small. The prime suspect must be something that was introduced to the population as a whole, something novel. The prime hypothesis must be the experimental covid-19 vaccines.

The ONS published a dataset of deaths by vaccinated and unvaccinated. At first glance, it appears to show that the vaccines are safe and effective. However, there were several huge problems with how it presented that data. One was that for the first three-week period after injection, the ONS claimed that there were only a tiny number of deaths—the number the ONS would normally predict to occur in a single week. Where were the deaths from the usual causes? When that was raised, the ONS claimed that the sickest people did not get vaccinated and therefore the people who were vaccinated were self-selecting for those least likely to die. Not only was that not the case in the real world, with even hospices heavily vaccinating their residents, but the ONS’s own data show that the proportion of sickest people was equal in the vaccinated and the unvaccinated groups. That inevitably raises serious questions about the ONS’s data presentation. There were so many problems with the methodology used by the ONS that the statistics regulator agreed that the ONS data could not be used to assess vaccine efficacy or safety. That tells us something about the ONS.

Consequently, HART asked the UK Health Security Agency to provide the data it had on people who had died and therefore needed to be removed from its vaccination dataset. That request has been repeatedly refused, with excuses given including the false claim that anonymising the data would be the equivalent of creating it even though there is case law that anonymisation is not considered the creation of new data. I believe that if this data was released, it would be damning.

Some claim that so many lives have been saved by mass vaccination that any amount of harm, suffering and death caused by the vaccines is a price worth paying. They are delusional. The claim of 20 million lives saved is based on now discredited models which assume that covid waves do not peak without intervention. There have been numerous waves globally now that demonstrate that is not the case. It was also based on there having been more than half a million lives saved in the UK. That is more than the worst-case scenario predicted at the beginning of the pandemic. For the claim to have been true, the rate at which covid killed people would have had to take off dramatically at the beginning of 2021 in the absence of vaccination. That is ludicrous and it bears no relation to the truth.

In the real world, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea had a mortality rate of 400 deaths per million up to summer 2022 after they were first hit with omicron. How does that compare? With the Wuhan strain, France and Europe as a whole had a mortality rate of under 400 deaths per million up to summer 2020. Australia, New Zealand and South Korea were all heavily vaccinated before infection, so tell me: where was the benefit? The UK had just over 800 deaths per million up to summer 2020, so twice as much, but we know omicron is half as deadly as the Wuhan variant. The death rates per million are the same before and after vaccination, so where were the benefits of vaccination?

The regulators have failed in their duty to protect the public. They allowed these novel products to skip crucial safety testing by letting them be described as vaccines. They failed to insist on safety testing being done in the years since the first temporary emergency authorisation. Even now, no one can tell us how much spike protein is produced on vaccination and for how long—yet another example of where there is no data for me to share with the House.

When it comes to properly recording deaths due to vaccination, the system is broken. Not a single doctor registered a death from a rare brain clot before doctors in Scandinavia forced the issue and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency acknowledged the problem. Only then did these deaths start to be certified by doctors in the UK. It turns out the doctors were waiting for permission from the regulator and the regulator was waiting to be alerted by the doctors. This is a lethal circularity. Furthermore, coroners have written regulation 28 reports highlighting deaths from vaccination to prevent further deaths, yet the MHRA said in response to a freedom of information request that it had not received any of them. The systems we have in place are clearly not functioning to protect the public.

The regulators also missed the fact that in the Pfizer trial, the vaccine was made for the trial participants in a highly controlled environment, in stark contrast to the manufacturing process used for the public roll-out, which was based on a completely different technology. Just over 200 participants were given the same product that was given to the public, but not only was the data from these people never compared to those in the trial for efficacy and safety but the MHRA has admitted that it dropped the requirement to provide the data. That means that there was never a trial on the Pfizer product that was actually rolled out to the public, and that product has never been compared with the product that was actually trialled.

The vaccine mass production processes use vats of Escherichia coli and present a risk of contamination with DNA from the bacteria, as well as bacterial cell walls, which can cause dangerous reactions. This is not theoretical; this is now sound evidence that has been replicated by several labs across the world. The mRNA vaccines were contaminated by DNA, which far exceeded the usual permissible levels. Given that this DNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle delivery system, it is arguable that even the permissible levels would have been far too high. These lipid nanoparticles are known to enter every organ of the body. As well as this potentially causing some of the acute adverse reactions that have been seen, there is a serious risk of this foreign bacterial DNA inserting itself into human DNA. Will anybody investigate? No, they won’t.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I am conscious that time is tight. I recognise that he is making a very powerful case. Does he agree that the Government should be looking at this properly and should commission a review into the excess deaths, partly so that we can reassure our constituents that the case he is making is not in fact valid and that the vaccines are not the cause behind these excess deaths?

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support on this topic. Of course that is exactly what any responsible Government should do. I wrote to the Prime Minister on 7 August 2023 with all the evidence of this, but sadly I am still awaiting a response.

What will it take to stop these products? Their complete failure to stop infections was not enough; we all know plenty of vaccinated people who have caught and spread covid. The mutation of the virus to a weaker variant—omicron—was not enough, the increasing evidence of the serious harms to those of us who were vaccinated was not enough, and now the cardiac deaths and the deaths of young people are apparently not enough either.

It is high time that these experimental vaccines were suspended and a full investigation into the harms that they have caused was initiated. History will be a harsh judge if we do not start using evidence-based medicine. We need to return to basic science and basic ethics immediately, which means listening to all voices and investigating all concerns.

In conclusion, the experimental covid-19 vaccines are not safe and are not effective. Despite there being only limited interest in the Chamber from colleagues—I am very grateful to those who have attended—we can see from the Public Gallery that there is considerable public interest. I implore all Members of the House, those who are present and those who are not, to support calls for a three-hour debate on this important issue. Mr Deputy Speaker, this might be the first debate on excess deaths in our Parliament—indeed, it might be the first debate on excess deaths in the world—but, very sadly, I promise you it will not be the last.

Eating Disorders Awareness Week

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing the debate and other Members who have spoken. I also pay tribute to Members who are not with us today: the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), with whom I have worked on this topic, and my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), who has valiantly led a campaign to recognise the need for a men’s mental health strategy. We have very much a cross-party agenda on the issue. I am pleased to work with those colleagues from the red wall, from the deep red flag of the hard left and from the deep orange of the hon. Member for Bath.

This is a totally cross-party issue, as we have heard, because this condition affects all our constituents and all our constituencies. It affects people of all ages and, of course, of both sexes. I recognise and agree with the points that have been made about unhelpful stereotypes. Some stereotypes are, of course, helpful in the sense that they point to a general truth, from which there will be many exceptions.

I spent most of my career before Parliament working in prisons, where there is a clear difference between how the two sexes express the distress that is caused by incarceration. Men tend to externalise their distress through fighting and violence against others; women internalise their distress through self-harm. Those are generalisations—there are many women who fight and men who self-harm—but they have some validity and are relevant to how we approach this particular mental condition.

There are different ways in which men and women and girls and boys express distress and mental health conditions. The fact is that the outworking of eating disorders is in many ways the same: extreme ill health and enormous distress to the sufferer or patient. I recognise the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about the distress experienced by the staff who work in eating disorder clinics. It is a very distressing condition.

As we have heard, a quarter of eating disorder sufferers are men and boys. The sources are complex—not being an expert, I do not want to stray too far into this—but it is worth acknowledging that it seems to be generally agreed that the source of eating disorders, and anorexia nervosa in particular, is a need for control. There is, of course, a perfectly healthy desire to be fit and healthy. It is appropriate that people want to control their appetites—we, not our appetites, need to be in charge—but we see that healthy desire to manage one’s health, fitness, food intake and exercise regime spilling over into a different sort of control, which itself becomes controlling. We become slave to a different sort of appetite.

I want to speak up for the men who come forward and identify themselves as suffering from eating disorders. That is a very brave thing to do. The other stereotype that we have discussed, which is entirely true, is that not enough men talk about mental health and their own mental health conditions. As we have heard, a fifth of male eating disorder sufferers have never spoken about their condition to anybody. We therefore need to raise awareness. I pay tribute to Beat, Hope Virgo and other campaigners for their commitment during this Eating Disorders Awareness Week to the cause of men’s mental health and eating disorders in men.

We know that the result of not coming forward early is that diagnosis comes later, and therefore treatment is so much harder. It is also disappointing to read in the research that the majority of men who receive treatment for eating disorders or ask for help are disappointed with the service they receive. I dare say that that is the same for women. There is obviously a fault in the provision of services.

What to do? I endorse the points that have been made about the need to raise general public awareness, which is the purpose of this debate as much as anything. People need to be able to recognise the signs and symptoms in their loved ones and friends, school friends, students and colleagues. We need more training for doctors, particularly GPs, to recognise the symptoms and signpost to good treatment. We need more services before hospital, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North said, and we need more acute services. I pay tribute to the Cotswold House unit at the Savernake Hospital in my constituency, which is a tremendous in-patient unit. In practice, it is under-resourced, because there are not enough beds, as my right hon. Friend said.

I will end with this point: crucially, we need more support for step-down services. It is not enough just to get somebody back to the appropriate weight. It can take months and months for people to be healthy again and to be free of treatment, so we cannot just say, “You get the acute treatment, then you’re back to health, and you’re free.” We need to support people for many months more, and we need more provision in the community for that step-down service.