Bill of Rights
Danny Kruger Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I think many people, but I suspect particularly my hon. Friend’s constituents, will think the real threat to human rights is allowing, and not cracking down on, this trade in human misery. She asked about how we will reform the relationship with the Strasbourg Court. First, it will be by freeing the UK courts to diverge from Strasbourg case law, and being clear that they do not need to take it into account. Secondly, it will be by making sure, in the way I have already articulated, that there is the equivalent of a democratic shield, as we relied on in relation to prisoner voting, but reinforced and made clearer, so that when it comes to the shifting goalposts, whether under judicial interpretation at home or abroad, Parliament has the last word. Finally, it will be in relation to rule 39 interim orders, and she will find all those expressly and explicitly addressed in the Bill of Rights.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
There has been much talk of Winston Churchill and the authorship of the original convention by British Conservative judges. The fact is that the text of the original convention is absolutely fine, and it is the application and extension of the convention’s original meaning by Strasbourg judges over the decades since that is the problem. I therefore very much welcome the commitment to raise the bar for article 8 judgments.
I also welcome the commitment to give UK judges the right to diverge from Strasbourg case law. My concern, however, is that some UK judges do not want to diverge from Strasbourg case law. In fact, in some cases they want to go further; I think of Baroness Hale, of blessed memory to Members here. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that we will genuinely be free of Strasbourg case law, and is it worth thinking about strengthening the obligation on judges to disregard Strasbourg cases that do not apply in our context?
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, if my hon. Friend reads clause 3 of the Bill of Rights, I think he will find that all his concerns are addressed squarely and fully; I urge him to have a look and come back to me.
My hon. Friend made another important point about people talking as if the European convention was the exclusive authorship of Churchill and the United Kingdom. That is a perverse and neo-imperial reading of history that is totally at odds with the way in which the European convention was negotiated, which was by a mixture of European countries, including the UK—we were centrally involved—and other countries with a civil law background. The convention reflects a mix of those traditions. As a result, it is unobjectionable, but the challenge has come in relation to interpretation and application. My hon. Friend’s points are valid, but the idea that the convention was a British creation is almost neo-imperial myth making.
Standards in Public Life
Danny Kruger Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
The right hon. Lady has just suggested—and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) made the same point—that the Prime Minister has weakened the ministerial code. Is she aware of last week’s report from the Institute for Government, which said that the code had not been weakened, that “confected” accusations had been made to that effect, and that Opposition Members should therefore correct the record? Will she do that?
Angela Rayner
I am glad that the hon. Member has mentioned this. I shall say more about it later. What the Prime Minister chose to do—as the Institute for Government has recognised—was cherry-pick parts of the recommendations rather than taking them in their entirety. The chair of the committee said that it was important for the recommendations to be taken as a whole and not cherry-picked, so I respectfully disagree with the hon. Member. I do not think that this strengthened the ministerial code, and I think that what the Prime Minister did constitutes a missed opportunity. What he has tried to do is get away with weakening the ministerial code so that he can say, “I have given an apology, and I think that that is the right way to go about it.”
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I am honoured to be called so early in this debate—among my many colleagues keen to get in. [Laughter.] No, it is a great honour.
I want to start by echoing the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on the importance of the motion and of the report by the committee. It is also an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), and I pay tribute to her work, her personal integrity and her commitment to the principles of standards in public life.
Of course, I disagree with the right hon. Lady on her judgment of the changes that the Government are making to the code. They are very important changes, but I do not think they are as exciting as she suggests. Of course, the Government are not going as far as Labour would like, but the fact is, as the Minister made clear, the code is now stronger than it was before—it is stronger than ever—and the Government are following the requests of the committee.
On the crucial point about whether the ministerial adviser is able to initiate investigations, the ministerial adviser is able to initiate investigations independently of the Government in a way that he was not able to do before. It is right and appropriate that the Prime Minister gives the green light for an investigation to proceed—there may be issues, particularly around national security, where the Prime Minister has to step in—but it would be absolutely outrageous, and it would bring down the wrath of this House and of the country, if the Prime Minister abused that power. It is right that he or she has it, and independent scrutiny, which the right hon. Lady mentioned, remains at the core of the code.
I am afraid that the criticisms that are made miss the mark. The fact is that, for all the Prime Minister’s difficulties in recent weeks, the changes that are being proposed in the code would not have helped him in this episode at all. He is just as accountable as he ever was —in fact, more so.
I want to repeat the point I made to the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in my intervention. The Institute for Government has made a very important intervention. It has said that the charges that are being made against these changes to the code by Opposition Members are “confected.” The Institute for Government has called on Opposition Members to correct the record when they say that the ministerial code is being weakened by these changes. I invite them to do so in the interests of honesty and of the standards in public life that they claim to uphold.
The Institute for Government has praised the changes that are being made, particularly the introduction of a range of sanctions. Indeed, the Committee on Standards in Public Life has said that the changes represent a “step forward” and an “improvement in the process”. The right hon. Member for Derby South talked about grandmother’s footsteps, but the committee she sits on has talked about a step forward, and that is perhaps what she meant. We are taking steps towards a better system. It is not a perfect system—we will never have a system so perfect that nobody needs to be good—but this is getting better.
I want to finish by talking about Labour’s suggestion or its idea of a perfect system, which is a call for a single ethics commissioner. I think this is a very dangerous proposal. There is much talk of democracy, including from the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) on the SNP Front Bench, but the proposal here is to set up an unelected individual charged with this god-like power to judge the morals of Ministers. The right hon. Member for Derby South talked about Russia, and this is an echo of the political commissars who sit alongside politicians judging them on their conformity to moral standards or to ideology. This is not the British way.
Ultimately, this House is self-regulating. We are accountable to the law, we are accountable to our consciences and, ultimately, we are accountable to the people. I appreciate that Labour Members do not like the fact that they are in a minority in this House. They do not like not getting their way, particularly on a question of public morals, and I sympathise with them. They do not like the Prime Minister, and I sympathise—[Interruption]—while I disagree. The fact is that the Government this Prime Minister leads retain the support of the majority of Members of this House. [Hon. Members: “No, he doesn’t!”] The Government have the confidence of this House—that is the ultimate accountability that any Minister needs—and I am sorry that Labour Members do not like the democracy they are part of.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Danny Kruger Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I want to open by acknowledging what I thought was the fair, measured spirit in which the Leader of the Opposition opened this debate. I thought he spoke in a fair-minded way, as have many other hon. and right hon. Members on all sides, including those friends of mine who have, sadly, decided that they can no longer support the Prime Minister, but I want to speak in his defence today, because somebody has to.
I acknowledge, in all seriousness, how big a mistake the Prime Minister made. Of course, he should apologise for it, take responsibility and accept the verdict of the police, whether or not he was surprised by that verdict. If he lied to this House, of course he should resign, but he did not—patently he did not. Patently he did not break the law deliberately, so patently he did not deliberately mislead this House, any more than the Leader of the Opposition deliberately misled the House when he said that the PM had slandered the BBC. I welcome the sort of apology that he made earlier. We can now all move on from that mistake and remember that only those who are without sin should be casting stones.
I do not minimise the importance of this scandal. Many people are outraged by what has gone on and have written to me to that effect. Many are just the usual haters who always despised the Prime Minister, but many are the respectable tendency of our country—often Conservative voters—who just want a steady, decent, respectable Government. I think particularly of my councillors in Devizes and party members who have written to me in despair at what the Prime Minister has done. They are right to want a steady, decent, responsible Government; we do not have to have a soap opera in Downing Street. But we do need a Government and a Prime Minister who can see the big picture and make the big calls—one who does not always play for safety, does not always do the conventional thing that officials suggest and does not always think, “What would John Major do?”
Let me finish with a word about the character of the Prime Minister, who I have known a little for many years, and with whom I had the privilege of working closely in Downing Street in those crazy months in the second half of 2019, when he and my other old friend Dominic Cummings drove through the strategy that finally got Brexit done. There was a lot of smoke and noise in those months, but in the midst of it all I saw the Prime Minister in relentless pursuit of the mission, with total flexibility about the methods to be used, including a proportionate response to the tactics taken by the other side in its attempts to subvert the democratic process. The European Union saw how serious he was at that time, and it is because of that that it finally accepted a deal that we could also accept. The country saw it, and it responded with a landslide election victory for our party, and I do not believe that any other leader would have done it.
None of this would justify lying to this House, but I do not believe that the Prime Minister did lie, and those are the reasons I follow him in spite of everything—in spite of his accepting a slice of birthday cake when he should not have, in spite of overseeing a No. 10 operation that let the country down, in spite of some policies that I am unhappy with. I support him because he was anointed by the people in 2019 to deliver a great mission to unite and level up the country, and because he can make the big calls that are needed at this time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Danny Kruger Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Mike Freer
I can give my right hon. Friend the commitment that the Government remain committed to bringing forward the legislation. It is a matter for business managers when the exact parliamentary slot will be, but a Bill team has been stood up and we are progressing at pace.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I very much understand the intentions behind the proposed Bill, but can my hon. Friend tell the House what evidence has come to light of unacceptable conversion therapy practices in the UK, by which I mean practices that are not already illegal, but that the Government think should be banned?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend raises a very fair point. Both the national LGBT survey of over 100,000 LGBT people and the in-depth Coventry report demonstrated that violent and harmful talking conversion practices continue to take place. That is why we need to act.
Covid-19 Update
Danny Kruger Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
That is a fact. Is the hon. Lady going to deny it? It is true.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I make an appeal to the Front Benches on both sides of the House. We voted for the compulsory vaccination of NHS staff on the basis of the argument that it significantly reduces transmission, but it now appears that the evidence is changing. I note the careful words that the Prime Minister used to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) when he said that he would reflect on the policy. I hope that both Front Benches will reflect on it and consider the advice of the Royal College of Nursing that we should at least delay the implementation of the policy until the evidence is clearer.
The Prime Minister
I repeat my careful words to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I also repeat what I think is common ground, that it is the responsibility of every healthcare professional to get vaccinated.
Afghanistan
Danny Kruger Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
No, I cannot accept what the right hon. Lady has said, because this country has been extremely generous—more generous than most countries around the world—not just in bringing people immediately from Afghanistan but in setting out a safe and legal route for 20,000 more to come. That is a big number and the route for those people is clear.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I am very pleased to hear about Operation Warm Welcome. Wiltshire, my county, is home to many thousands of British soldiers who have served with Afghan colleagues over the past 20 years. I hope the Prime Minister will join me in congratulating Wiltshire Council and the communities of Wiltshire, including the military communities, for the welcome that they are offering to the refugees. Will he assure the House that councils across the country will get the resources they need to support those evacuees?
The Prime Minister
Yes. I thank my hon. Friend. Of course I congratulate Wiltshire Council on what it is doing, as I congratulate all councils that are stepping up to the plate and helping Afghans to settle and to integrate at this time. I can tell him that Wiltshire Council and all other councils involved will get the support and funding they need.
Emergency Covid Contracts
Danny Kruger Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Julia Lopez
As I have set out on numerous occasions this afternoon, that was not political campaigning; it was important work that was being undertaken as part of our response to the pandemic.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
The Opposition parties are accusing the Government of corruption—of deliberate and systematic corruption. They are claiming that Ministers used the biggest peacetime challenge that this country has ever faced for the simple purpose of enriching a few distantly connected contacts. As my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General put it in answering the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) a few weeks ago, this is an absurd charge. It is simply unbelievable. Everybody knows it; we know it, they know it and the public know it. It is a conspiracy theory on the level of the anti-vax campaign. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the businesses that stepped up to supply the NHS with what it needed rather than smearing them?
Julia Lopez
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the importance of what business achieved with the Government in relation to the pandemic. Some fantastic commercial expertise has been brought into Government. One thing we want to do is to set up a secondments unit to make sure that we can get that private sector expertise into Government when it is needed. There are also number of other initiatives, such as civilian reserves, that can be used so that we can get that expertise as and when we need it in times of crisis.
Ministerial Code
Danny Kruger Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Michael Gove
The freedom of information clearing house, sadly, is not mine. It was set up under a Labour Government, so it is a Blairite inheritance. What it exists to do is make sure that freedom of information responses are effectively co-ordinated and that we do everything we can in order to make sure that we comply with the terms of that legislation. But of course one point about the freedom of information legislation is that it needs to be a safe space for frank advice to be offered by officials to Ministers, and it is important for the good conduct of government that that safe space remains.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con) [V]
We need to get the system of regulation and accountability right. I echo the point made earlier by the Chair of the Liaison Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), that most of all we need a culture of values in public service to run through what Ministers, ex-Ministers and officials do. We will never write rules so perfect that people do not have to make judgments about who they see and what they do, but to shore that up, we really need a culture of transparency, so will my right hon. Friend confirm that the independent review into the Greensill affair will have full access to all the documents and all the decision makers involved?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point—two actually— about the importance of culture complementing rules, and also about the review being undertaken by Nigel Boardman, who will be given all the details he needs about any contact between individuals within Government and those acting on behalf of Greensill.
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Danny Kruger Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con) [V]
I will not take up the House’s time with my take on His Royal Highness’s life of service, but I share the sentiments so well expressed throughout this debate. I particularly appreciated the moving speeches made earlier by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
I wish to make a suggestion about the future. The Prime Minister suggested that in due course our attention should turn to an appropriate memorial to Prince Philip, and I hope it is not premature to try to influence that debate. Prince Philip’s great predecessor, Prince Albert, has a huge golden statue facing a vast concert hall named after him in South Kensington. I humbly suggest that we might do things differently this time. Surely what the Duke of Edinburgh will be remembered for most is the scheme he founded for young people of all backgrounds, for them to push their boundaries, to strive, to seek, to find themselves, and to serve others. As we emerge from the shadow of covid-19, we owe young people a better future. We need them to make that future, not just to wait for Government or older people to fix things for them. The DofE is the single best model of a national youth programme that we have. I hope the Government will build on the legacy of Prince Philip and extend the DofE, combine it with the brilliant National Citizen Service and make use of the money available under the kickstart scheme and the national apprenticeship programme to help the rising generation to be their best and to do their best for their country. That is the way to honour the memory of Prince Philip and to take his name forward into the new age that is opening.
Oral Answers to Questions
Danny Kruger Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
Julia Lopez
Absolutely. I know that my hon. Friend, as someone who has run a business herself, understands the bureaucratic frustrations that too many of her constituency businesses come up against. We want public buyers to divide contracts into more accessible lots and allow them to reserve contracts under a certain threshold for small, innovative firms. We are also pushing ambitious targets on prompt payment, and we aim to simplify the bidding process so that it does not favour big firms, which inevitably have greater resources to devote to form-filling and box-ticking.
Danny Kruger [V]
I welcome the recent Green Paper setting out the freedoms that the UK now enjoys to create a new framework for public procurement, including a new exceptional power for public bodies to commission for wider public benefit. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to go further and make this exception the norm, ensuring more joined-up services and better overall outcomes for the public? Otherwise, we will be getting only half the Brexit dividend that we could in the field of procurement, with freedoms but not the actual implementation.
Julia Lopez
My hon. Friend is quite right. Our proposed procurement reforms will not in themselves deliver change unless commercial teams across the public sector actually understand how to deploy them to greatest effect. That is why we are introducing a programme of training for contracting authorities. On the matter of wider public benefit, I refer him to our social value model. We do not want to award only to those that make the cheapest bid; we also want to award to firms that offer value for money in a much broader sense, including to the community in which the service is being delivered. I know that is something he cares very passionately about, given his thoughtful review on a new social covenant.