Business of the House

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am, as always, very grateful to the hon. Lady for her list of questions, which she was kind enough to give to the House twice—once in her long list and then in a shorter list of much the same questions.

The hon. Lady mentioned the football. I am very sorry that Scotland is no longer in. As I said last week, I had a vested interest in that, but I wish England and Wales well. Let us hope that we have a final, if this is possible—I do not know how the draw will work—between England and Wales. Then we will all be on the edge of our seat, some of us not knowing which part of our heritage to back. There was a very interesting cricket match between New Zealand and India and I congratulate New Zealand on winning the first multinational Test series to make them world Test champions.

I agree with the hon. Lady about the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts), who is currently suspended. As I have said before, I think that a Member in such a situation should resign. I would not criticise his constituents for feeling that someone who had been found guilty of something so serious was not an ideal representative.

The hon. Lady accused the Government of pulling a fast one with the vaccine. I agree—it was remarkably fast: an incredibly fast delivery and service of a vaccine that means that millions of people have now received both doses. I think that that applies to over 60% of the country and all the highest risk categories have had the opportunity to get both jabs. That is a success of the NHS—indeed, the NHS that has been properly funded by the Conservatives since we have been in office, effectively since 2010. It is a great achievement, for which the British people, in their wisdom—as the hon. Lady rightly said—will thank Her Majesty’s Government, under the inspired leadership of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

We come to the variety of issues that the hon. Lady raised. I think she is trying to show up the Leader of the Opposition for not asking such a range of questions and sticking rigorously to one subject on Wednesdays. On building safety and cladding, £5.1 billion of taxpayers’ money has been provided to fund the cost of remediating unsafe cladding for leaseholders. The remediation works are either completed or under way on 96% of the high-risk residential buildings that were identified at the start of last year. That is important and continues to be rolled out. It is right that that is being done, and the Building Safety Bill will provide further details on how we deal with the remaining problem. A great deal of work has already been done, and not all forms of cladding and not all high-rise buildings are dangerous.

The hon. Lady referred to climate change. The Government have a most remarkable and successful record on climate change. From 1990 to 2020, there has been a 43% cut in emissions with 75% economic growth. This is the key. We are not going to be Adullamites; we are not going to be cave dwellers. We are not going to make constituents have miserable lives. We are going to improve the standard of living of the people of this country, and make the country greener, too. That is why Her Majesty’s Government is the first major economy to commit in law to net zero by 2050, with the target of cutting emissions by 2035 by 78% on their 1990 levels.

The Committee on Climate Change does not want us to eat meat. I disagree with them. I like eating meat and my constituents like eating meat, and I will not be told by fanatics not to eat meat. Let us be meat eaters. Let us support our agriculture. The Opposition always go on about the need to protect our farmers, then they join forces with the anti-meat brigade. There is a discontinuity in that approach.

As regards Windrush, 13,000 documents have been provided so far and £20 million out of £30 million of compensation has been paid. The Prime Minister apologised yesterday for the terrible situation that was created, but I thought what he said was inspiring: that we should think of Windrush as the Mayflower; as an occasion when something great happened to our nation—something really important when people came—that we should celebrate and rejoice, rather than its being something that is thought about in terms of failure.

On aid, the hon. Lady asks and I give. I do my best as Leader of the House, and on the second allotted estimates day:

“There will be a debate on an estimate relating to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.”

A vote will take place if people shout, “No.” There are votes on estimates if people want them. It is a matter for the hon. Lady and the Opposition Whips to decide whether they wish to divide the House.

The Government introduced the end-to-end rape review because of the failures that had become apparent and the need to make things better. It is worth pointing out that the Leader of the Opposition was Director of Public Prosecutions for quite a time, so one would hope that the fact that there are problems in the Crown Prosecution Service does not come as news to him. It is clear that too many victims of rape and sexual violence have been denied the justice they deserve as a result of systemic failings. That is why an action plan has been set out with clear measures for police, prosecutors and courts in order to return the volume of rape cases going through the courts to at least 2016 levels by the end of this Parliament, with steps to improve the quality of investigations, improve the culture of joint working and, for the first time, make sure that each part of the criminal justice system will be held to account through performance scorecards.

This is what the Government are doing—it is real and genuine action—and then we get the cheap point about gibbering and jabbering and drooling Opposition. That is what the Opposition do: they gibber and jabber and drool, and they do this the whole time on all sorts of subjects. The Prime Minister gave full and comprehensive answers on rape yesterday—I heard him; I was listening to him—but then he made the general point about the vacuity of Opposition. The hon. Lady sometimes manages to prove my right hon. Friend’s points.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware that the town of Marlborough in my constituency has the widest high street of any town in England. This proved very helpful on Monday, when I boarded a coach at one end of the high street, which drove me down to the other end and then performed a, frankly hardly necessary, three-point turn before coming back and depositing me outside the iconic Polly Tea Rooms, where I presented the mayor with a certificate confirming Marlborough’s status as a coach-friendly town. Will he join me in congratulating the town on this and particularly Belinda Richardson, the brilliant tourism officer for the area, and join me in urging the Government to support not just international tourism, which badly needs more help and sector-specific support, but our domestic tourism industry?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Very much so. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Belinda Richardson on the work she does for tourism in Wiltshire. Dare I say it, but my general view of Wiltshire is that it is a very nice place to pass through before one gets to Somerset, but I would recommend that people take the opportunity to ask their charabancs to stop, and get out and use the tea rooms in Marlborough. It is of course on the old A4—the old coaching route through to Bath—and they can then go on to Bath, passing through my constituency into the constituency of the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who I can see is in her usual place. The city she represents is one of the most beautiful in the world.

Business of the House

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

One of the things the right hon. Gentleman asks for is not possible, because statutory instruments are introduced on the basis of take it or leave it. The law has to be clear, and it has never been possible to amend statutory instruments. On his broader point, I am glad to say we have the most freedom-loving Prime Minister that we could have. In at least 100 years, there has been no other Prime Minister who is more freedom loving, and therefore the desire to get back to ordinary ways of living is very strong, assuming that it can be done in a way that is safe for the nation at large. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government have made a commitment that any matters of national significance will be brought before this House before they are introduced. I cannot give the timings on that, because the decisions have not been made, but the basic choice of the House is that any new statutory instruments will come before this House for a vote if they are of national significance.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is justly and naturally proud of the county of Somerset—it is, after all, the cheese capital of the south-west—but he will know that while his half-naked ancestors were sitting about watching what happens when you leave milk out for a very long time, the men and women of Wiltshire were building some of the wonders of the ancient world, such as Avebury, Stonehenge and Silbury Hill. Does he agree that, for the sake of both our counties, the Great West Way, which is the tourist trail between London and Bristol following ancient routes—including the Kennet and Avon canal, where the speed limit is only 4 mph—deserves all our support? Does he share my hope that next week’s spending review will include a commitment to fund new tourism zones, of which the Great West Way should be the first and the greatest?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is right to say that Wiltshire is a great county, because in 878 it was on the right side of the battle of Edington, where Alfred defeated the Danes and where the good people of Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire came together for that historic victory on which this country is essentially founded. He is wrong, however, to highlight the ancient monuments of Wiltshire, because there is a much better one in Stanton Drew. It is of greater antiquity, greater beauty and greater interest, and I would suggest that people go to Stanton Drew rather than to Stonehenge so that they do not have to worry about the A303. However, the Great West Way is a fantastic route—you can make a detour off it to go and visit Edington, where the battle may have taken place. The Government are supporting it via the £45 million Discover England fund, so let Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire rejoice in our shared and distinguished history.

Restoration and Renewal

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we must ensure value for money. I was going to refer to the example of the refurbishment of the Elizabeth Tower, because we have to know what we are going into. The refurbishment of the Elizabeth Tower offers a cautionary tale in this respect. Such is the nation’s affection for Big Ben that I have no doubt we would not have objected to spending £80 million on its refurbishment, if that had been the initial price tag placed on it. The mistake that was made was in initially releasing the figure of £29 million, which was little more than a guess. That is why it is right to spend the time and money on developing a business plan so that we know what we are going into.

It is with this in mind that I advise the House in the strongest possible terms to disregard the endlessly quoted estimates drawn from the Deloitte report of June 2015. These numbers were merely comparisons with other options at that time and before any detailed scoping could take place. We cannot know how much the programme will cost in reality until the outline business case is published, but we can be assured that we now have the programme and infrastructural professionals, drawn from industry, who will be able to produce the comprehensive plans we need.

The Delivery Authority is making good progress, but it needs further clarity on what is expected of it, and this stands to reason. As both the National Audit Office and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority have highlighted, the cost estimates or ranges cannot be set out before the scope and requirements of what is needed are fully understood. Doing that means ensuring that the proposals are fully up to date, which is our third and final requirement.

So much has changed since the Deloitte report of 2015, not least the pandemic, which is having an enormous effect on our way of life, our way of working and economic activity more generally. That is why it is quite proper for the Sponsor Body to conduct a strategic review to consider whether the basis for options developed over previous years has changed significantly enough to warrant a change in strategy. The review should determine how the various options should be assessed. Timelines for delivery, heritage benefits, fire safety and cost must all be considered in the round, and the views of parliamentarians on all this matter greatly. It comes down to a simple question: how much inconvenience are we prepared to accept?

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I completely agree with that last point. To take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), we should not be spending enormous amounts on ourselves, but this proposal does not necessarily mean that. We are spending money for future generations, and actually honouring the past, which I think is our duty as well. However, that does not mean that, with the crisis we are in at the moment, we should not be as flexible as possible. We are asking our constituents and our businesses to adapt enormously to very trying circumstances. Surely, given the times we are in, we should do everything we can to adapt, and there are many alternative proposals to the Richmond House move. Even if it means some inconvenience to us, we should do what we can to adapt. Even if it takes longer and even if we have to put up with some noise, surely we should be adaptable in these times.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my hon. Friend in both regards. This Palace, these Houses of Parliament are the most wonderful testament to our belief in democracy. It is so magnificent to walk along the passageway from here to the House of Lords and see on either side the representation of our history and the pride in our nation’s story that our forebears took because they believed that the democracy and the constitution we have are precious, worth preserving and worth symbolising in stone. To do that, it is worth spending the money to ensure this Palace is secure. However, yes, we must play our part and accept that there is a degree of inconvenience that we can tolerate, because currently we accept remarkably little. Under current rules, work in the Palace of Westminster can be halted on the say-so of a single MP. I am not sure that all MPs realise that each of their gentle and politely worded requests to keep noise down triggers an automatic downing of tools.

Business of the House

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government have spent £3.2 billion of taxpayers’ money to help councils. We made a grant payment in May of £1.6 billion as an unring-fenced amount to councils and we have provided a further £600 million to fund infection control in care homes via councils, so the Government have provided a lot of taxpayer-funded support for councils across the country and therefore have lived up to their commitment.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I welcome the work the Government are doing at a national level on the track and trace strategy, but there is only so much that phone apps and national call centres run by Deloitte and Serco can do. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the role of local councils, local public health professionals and community groups is equally important, and that, in military terms, we need human intelligence as well as signals intelligence to defeat this enemy, and that means boots on the ground? Will he find time for a debate about the relationship between Public Health England and local authorities?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend for his characteristically wise question. I agree with him about the important role of the local community in tackling the coronavirus. I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that a huge local and national effort is under way to ensure our track and trace system is as effective as possible. Our 25,000 contact tracers will be in touch with anyone who tests positive for coronavirus and they will need to share information about their recent interaction. I am encouraged that councils have been producing local outbreak plans to contain outbreaks in their area. All upper tier local authorities are producing their plans this month. So I think local and national are working together, but his question is certainly a wise one.