Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising an important issue, and I will of course ask the Health Secretary to look into it. As she will understand, NICE operates independently of Government, but if there is a conversation that can be had, I will ensure that it takes place.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

In view of the events of the last six weeks, can the Prime Minister tell the House why the Government have not proscribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government continue to take strong action against Iran while people in the UK and around the world are under threat from the regime. We have sanctioned more than 350 Iranian individuals and entities, including the IRGC in its entirety. The National Security Act 2023 implements new measures to protect the British public, including new offences for espionage and foreign interference. While the Government keep the list of proscribed organisations under review, it is, as Members will be aware, a long-standing convention that we do not comment on whether a specific organisation is being considered for proscription.

British Steel

David Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I congratulate the new Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, of which I was previously a member. As I have made clear, these are commercial negotiations and they are ongoing. When the decision was taken on Port Talbot, discussions had taken place for several years—even decades. This will not take that long, but my point is that many Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box talking about steel and doing what can be done to protect and promote the steel sector in the UK. The negotiations are ongoing.

British Steel’s statement on Monday contained proposals and a plan—nothing is concluded yet. My focus, as our focus has always been, is on protecting the steel sector in the UK, protecting steel jobs in the UK and doing everything we can to procure more British steel in UK manufacturing. Of course, that continues. These are commercial decisions about how companies wish to continue their business going forward. I have made it clear that fundamentally there needs to be a mix of steel produced in the UK in the steel market, but the reality is this. First, steel produced in electric arc furnaces is far more nimble because of the technology, and it can be used for many more materials in advanced manufacturing than previously—that is a fact. Secondly, manufacturers, customers and consumers fundamentally want a cleaner, greener steel package. It is not just me saying that at the Dispatch Box; it is also the UK steel industry representatives who have put together a net zero strategy and are talking about having cleaner, greener steel going forward. We have a lot of scrap steel in the UK that can be recycled, and we have far more capacity to recycle that than we have for that steel to be used in UK manufacturing, but, fundamentally, we need to have a mix. I believe that that mix will continue as long as it can and should, but these are commercial decisions. We continue to negotiate with British Steel.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I have a simple question to put to the Minister; I hope that I will get a yes or no answer. Much of the arc furnace capacity is being moved away from Scunthorpe or not put in Scunthorpe because of a lack of grid capacity. That electrical grid capacity is due to be increased. If she were to accelerate the increase to 2025, we may save many more jobs in Scunthorpe. Will she seek to do that?

[Ms Ghani]

Unfortunately, there is never a simple answer to these questions. Access to the grid is a challenge for many industries, let alone for the steel sector. We have been doing everything we can to increase access to the grid. British Steel’s proposal—negotiations will continue—says that it has chosen two sites over one, with its key site at Scunthorpe and a second site at Teesside to be closer to its manufacturing work. That decision has been made for many other commercial reasons beyond access to the grid.

Debate on the Address

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the Public Accounts Committee Chairman. She will understand that I have a certain affection for her in these debates because of her position.

The hon. Lady made a comment about looking forward 30 years. The whole western world faces a paradox that goes back 30 years. In the 1990s, three massive things happened in the world: first, there was a dramatic reduction in tariffs, which led to a huge increase in global trade; secondly, there was the collapse of the Soviet empire; and finally, there was a dramatic acceleration in the creation and adoption of new technology. All those things raised well over 2 billion people out of oppression by starvation and out of political oppression. They changed the world dramatically for the better, but those dramatic changes have had a number of effects.

Today, we face a series of challenges in the western world, not just in Britain, that are more complex and more difficult to deal with than any I can remember since 1979, whether it is Ukraine and the series of wars that are breaking out, whether it is the migration that results from that, whether it is domestic challenges such as the impact on the wages of the western working class—much of the impetus for Brexit was the result of working-class wages across the west being depressed by competition with the rest of the world—whether it is the impact on public finances, which derives partly from that, or whether it is the impact on public services, which are failing not just in Britain but in many countries, to some extent for the same reasons.

That is why, unlike the hon. Lady, I welcome what I think of as the common sense in the King’s Speech. There are a number of sensible measures, including on crime and justice to promote safety, justice and closure for victims, which is important, and on net zero, where the approach is intelligent and measured, rather than headline driven. That is important—the old net zero strategy would not have survived the public reaction. Like the hon. Lady, I vehemently welcome the policy on smoking. We have done far too little for many decades to focus on public health, rather than patching people up in the last three years of their life, which is what our national health service has been reduced to doing. In education, we are building on some of our successes, including in PISA—the programme for international student assessment—and our international competitiveness. There is much to recommend in the proposals in the King’s Speech, particularly with respect to apprenticeships and vocational education. The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education is brilliant and is making a great difference.

Broadly, the proposals are sensible, but the House would be surprised and disappointed if I did not find something to criticise in the Home Office proposals. I will not surprise the House—I am going to pick up on something that I think is a fundamental mistake. I hope that Ministers will think hard before they introduce the proposal, which has been aired in briefings in the last day or two, to allow the police to search homes without a warrant. This is one of the fundamental foundation stones of a free British society, along with jury trials and the presumption of innocence. The right not to have the state kick your door down and search your house without judicial approval is a massively important British value. If anybody has any doubt about that, I have two words to say to them: “Damian Green”. They should go back and look at what happened with the Metropolitan police’s handling of the case, as it were, of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green). The Leader of the Opposition was then the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he in effect struck down the Metropolitan police’s behaviour. We have to think about that very hard indeed, because the judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.

Beyond that, the education measures are good as far as they go—as I have said, particularly on skills—but I would go further, as I will explain in a moment. Indeed, all King’s Speeches are basically just frameworks, not the whole agenda for the coming year, and this one is the same. As a result, the last line of every King’s Speech is always the same:

“other measures will be laid before you.”

I want to talk about what I think those other measures ought to be.

What should those measures be? I think most of them should be in areas where the state is struggling to cope with the worldwide problem I have talked about arising over the last 30 years. By the way, it is not an accident that I say “30 years”; that covers Governments of both persuasions, and neither have managed—in some cases, I might say they have failed—to solve the things I am going to talk about. The one advantage we have when it comes to the problems I am about to lay out in education, health and housing—the three critical areas on which we need to go further—is that for the first two, technology may come to our aid to some extent. I, like the Public Accounts Committee Chairman, welcome the move on AI. I thought it was quite risky to have that conference, but it worked diplomatically. It has not got a solution yet, but that has got us on the first step.

Let me talk about health for a second. All parties have taken the approach for my entire lifetime, which is much the same as the lifetime of the health service, of putting more and more money into the health service. We are now talking about a huge amount of money; it swallows the entire amount of national insurance contributions, and what was supposed to cover health and pensions now simply covers health. We spend more money than the OECD average on health—that in itself is quite extraordinary—but it does not deliver. We can put all sorts of excuses in the way, but this is more about management than it is about money. Before we got to covid, from 2017-18 to 2018-19 we put about £3 billion extra into health in real terms—and what happened? Productivity went down by 0.75%. The next year, we put in £7 billion, and productivity went down by over 2%. That was before covid started.

Those dry numbers sound bad, but they do not quite carry the terror of the actual effect, and I am going to give an example from my own constituency to explain what I mean. I had a constituent whose name was Richard. He had had cancer, and had been operated on and cured, and as a result he had regular six-monthly check-ups thereafter to watch for any outbreak. But through administrative failure, he did not get the check-ups, so was at least six months behind the timetable. We all know that the later we diagnose a cancer, the more difficult it is to solve. The operation he was supposed to have was then delayed as well, and it got to the point where basically there was no chance of recovery for Richard. He came into my life, as it were, as I was his constituency MP and his family wanted him out of hospital for Christmas so that he could die among his friends and family rather than surrounded by strangers. That is what we are talking about thousands and thousands of times over. That is the impact of this failure. I think there are a lot of things we can with respect to the re-management of the health service, but I will talk about one.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Office for National Statistics published figures for the three years from 2020 to 2022, which state that public service productivity in general fell by an unprecedented 7.5%? That means that we needed to put roughly £30 billion extra into public services to achieve the same thing.

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is right: it is a systemic problem. It does not just affect Britain or the health service. Indeed, I think that numbers for those years for the health service were about 25%—so huge, huge numbers. I bring this back to the reality of the individual. If we delay diagnosis and treatment, we sentence people to death. It is as harsh as that.

I would like us dramatically to increase the amount of diagnostic capacity we have. If we look at OECD numbers on CT scans, I think we are third from worst. This is why I say it is not a single Government problem—we do not get to be third from worst in one term; it happened over the course of the whole 30 years. On MRI scans, we are the worst in the OECD. How on earth a country such as ours gets to that position is astonishing.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

I give way to the PAC Chairman.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some interesting points, and the total amount of Whitehall day-to-day spending on health is phenomenal. On the point about scanners, I am afraid that lies directly at the door of his Government—well, I am not afraid; it does. The lack of capital investment in the big bits of kit has led to deterioration and lack of availability. Such investment would have saved money, and been better for the patient and better generally for the health of the nation.

[Mr Davis]

I agree with the hon. Lady on the saving money element, and I will come back to that in a second. The truth is that this Government have poured more money into the health service than anybody ever predicted, and more money than they intended over time, but decisions within the health service—I come back to management rather than money—led to some of those decisions. The hon. Lady is dead right that it is a waste of money not to do the diagnosis. I am talking about MRI and CT scans, blood tests, and all the other things that help us get ahead of the disease.

I talked to Randox, one of the diagnostic companies, which is based in Northern Ireland, and asked about this issue. It has technology that it says will reduce a seven-day analysis of blood samples, for example, to 30 minutes. My view is that we should break clear of the ideology and look dramatically to increase the amount of scans and diagnostic procedures—when I say “dramatically”, I mean a multiple of what we currently do—and we should use the private sector to do it. I know that causes a bridling and a backing off, but the only way we can do this fast enough is to do that. That would save about £3 billion and reduce waiting lists for millions of people. Most importantly of all, it would save thousands of lives. If there were one thing I would do within healthcare, that would be it; there would be other things, but that would be that.

[Jim Shannon]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking a lot of sense in relation to cancer diagnosis and better treatment. One way of doing that is through research and development. For example, there have been advances in prostate cancer at Queen’s University, with that centre of excellence in Belfast, and news today of pills that can reduce the risk of breast cancer. Those are just two examples. Does the right hon. Gentleman feel that research and development is key to advancing and saving lives, and getting better results for cancer patients?

[Mr Davis]

That is exactly right, which brings me to my other health topic, and the whole question of national health service data and the use of data. It is widely accepted that we have one of the greatest information treasure troves in the world in the form of national health service data—data about all our citizens. There have been two or three attempts—certainly two in my memory—to bring that data together and manage it in one block, so that it is available for managing the treatment of patients and for research. A third attempt is happening right now, with contracts out to introduce a new data management system for the whole health service. The two previous attempts failed because the national health service executive and management do not understand the importance of privacy. Each time they tried to do it, the reaction from GPs and patients was, “We are not going to co-operate with this.” There was a vast waste of money, and the projects crashed and were over. More importantly than the money, we missed the opportunity to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman says: use that data for research to advance this country to the front of the world.

The Government are doing the same again this time, because the contract has gone out, and it looks likely that the company that will win it is Palantir. For those who do not know Palantir, it started, I think, with an investment from the CIA. Its history is largely in supporting the National Security Agency in America. Bluntly, it is the wrong company to put in charge of our precious data resource; even if it behaved perfectly, nobody would trust it. The thing that destroyed the last two attempts will destroy this one: people will not sign up and join up. The health service has got to get its act together on this. If it does, and privacy is protected, we can do things like having a complete nationwide DNA database. If privacy is not protected, that will not happen. There is an opportunity there, and the Government should grasp it, not drop it.

Technology also has a large possible application to education. I was lucky that when I was a teenager, social mobility in Britain was probably as great as it ever has been, for a variety of reasons, ranging from grammar schools, which I know are controversial, through to the fact that post war, there was huge growth in the middle classes, which expanded opportunities. Those combinations together created a massive social mobility advantage for people like me. I was very lucky in that respect. Today, while I think we are about No. 10 or 11 in the PISA—the programme for international student assessment—tables, we are No. 21 in the social mobility tables, and we should not be that far down.

We need to do something about that issue. One reason it happens is that 35% of children by the age of 11—children going through their primary education—are unable to cope with their maths and English sufficiently to make progress in other subjects. In essence, they are failed by the age of 11. For free school meal kids—I am looking at my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) —it is 50%. Half of children on free school meals have been failed by the state by the time they are 11, and there are all sorts of reasons why. Even with vast amounts of effort, with committed teachers, headteachers and so on putting all their effort in, it still comes apart.

One thing we can do about it—and the Department has begun to talk about it—is to start to use AI in the classroom, so that children can have tailored teaching. A kid who is falling behind gets diagnostic responses from AI, which then generates appropriate teaching patterns to pull them back up. We already have such technology. In fact, a British firm called Century Tech does exactly that. I saw it in action in Springhead Primary School in my constituency, where there was an intervention class for children who were falling behind, and they were pulled back up using this technology. If we applied such technology right across the board, it would raise the average performance in our schools by one grade per subject. That is an enormous change. That is my judgment, not anybody else’s. If we did that, our competitive advantage and our social mobility advantage would be enormous.

We have to think very hard. The Department for Education has to be a lot more imaginative than it has been so far in this area, and it has to look hard at improving the options for all those children we currently let down. That is not because the Government intend it, or because this Government or previous ones have fallen down on it; this statistic has been going on for a long time.

The last thing I want to talk about is not technology, but bricks and mortar. I have some sympathy with the comments of the PAC Chairman, in that it is as plain as a pikestaff that we have a supply problem, however we analyse it and whoever we blame for it. Our population has grown by about 10%— 6 million or 7 million—over a couple of decades, for all sorts of reasons; we can get into controversy on that, but the truth is that housing has not grown to match. One of the problems—I guess the primary problem—is the planning system. This is not the first time the country has faced this problem. We faced it after both the world wars, when “Homes fit for heroes” and so on were the slogans of the day. How did we deal with it? We had a movement to create well-designed and well-created garden towns and cities in the right places, not by trying to tack on 100 houses to this village, 100 houses to that village and 100 houses over there, in each case overwhelming the schooling, transport arrangements or whatever. We need to look hard at cutting this Gordian knot, and it seems to me that the only way we will do that is by creating well-designed, well-financed garden towns and villages, not by going through the mechanism we have been pursuing so far.

Health, education and housing: if we add those to what we have now, we have a winning King’s Speech.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

All donations are declared in the normal way. As the hon. Gentleman knows, if there are administrative changes to that they are quickly corrected.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

To bring the Prime Minister back to the question asked, rightly, by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), the opposition politician referred to is Nigel Farage, whose bank account was closed not because he was a PEP—a politically exposed person—or for commercial reasons, but because his views did not align with the values of Coutts bank: thinly veiled political discrimination and a vindictive, irresponsible and undemocratic action. In addition, Nat West also disclosed confidential details about Farage’s account to the BBC and lied about the commercial viability of his account, actions that should jeopardise its banking licence and should certainly worry Nat West’s 19 million other customers. The Prime Minister has told us what he will do in the future, but there are many other people in this circumstance. Will he require every bank with a British banking licence to inform the Treasury of all the accounts that they have shut down for non-commercial reasons in the last decade?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that my right hon. Friend has spoken to the Chancellor about this issue, and that he will continue to have those conversations. In the short term, having consulted on the payment service regulations, we intend to crack down on that practice by toughening the rules around account closures. In the meantime, the Financial Ombudsman Service is available for people to make complaints to, but I look forward to continuing the dialogue with my right hon. Friend, as does the Chancellor.

Large Solar Farms

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on.

As I said, as these solar farms increase in size, so will the amount of productive farmland being taken up by them. The description “best and most versatile” farmland is often included in these proposals. I understand that the National Farmers Union says that solar farms should avoid agricultural land of classification 1, 2 and 3A, which is the “best and most versatile” land. The NFU advises that that land should be avoided where practical. It is also my understanding that the new national planning policy framework guidelines may explicitly state that land used for food production gains additional protection in the planning system. I think that is something that many Members here today would like to see, and so would our constituents. That would also offer absolute clarity for local planning authorities. This is a key question that my constituents and landowners want answers to. So my question to the Minister—there will be one or two more—is, when can we have clear guidance? I appreciate that this might not be a matter for her Department, but it would be most welcome if she could tell us when we are going to get that guidance and the changes to the NPPF.

Developers often state that land under and around solar panels can be used to graze animals. The last time I looked, grass for grazing required sunlight to grow, but the objective of a solar farm is obviously to capture as much sunlight as possible, so I would argue that the grass under solar panels is therefore of very low quality and that the proposition lacks credibility. Also, the requirement for security fencing and CCTV surveillance has increased, because solar farms have suffered thefts of panels and ancillary agreement. In 2021, 220 solar panels were stolen from a farm in Lincolnshire.

The need to locate solar farms as close as possible to a grid connection is leading to clusters of solar farm proposals. In July 2022, a 50 MW solar farm was approved close to Camblesforth, which happens to be the village I grew up and went to school in. It is very close to the Drax power station. The application received only two objections and was supported by the parish council. The same developer has since applied for another 50 MW solar farm to the south of the village, and another developer, Helios, is preparing an application for a 250 MW, 1,850 acre solar farm to the west of the village. Then, just to the east, Boom Power is consulting on a fourth solar farm of 400 MW, which would cover nearly 3,000 acres in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis).

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I agree with everything that has been said so far, but it is not just about preserving productive land; it is also about preserving amenity. This 3,000-acre proposal will surround a number of villages in what is currently a beautiful piece of rural English countryside, and the proposal is essentially anti-democratic because it will not be decided by the local council—it will eventually go to the chief inspector. I have asked for the views of all the residents of those villages, and so far 50% have come back, with 78% of them wanting the proposal stopped. However, as it stands, there is no mechanism to do so.

[Nigel Adams]

I agree with my right hon. Friend and neighbour. We need Ministers from, I suspect, several Departments to provide absolute clarity to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, and to local planning authorities, given the cumulative impact of these large-scale solar farms. My right hon. Friend has a village that, if all these planning applications go ahead, is likely to be surrounded by solar farms, as could the village of Camblesforth. By the way, Camblesforth has approved a solar farm close by, but the cumulative impact of huge solar farms causes understandable concern for residents.

All four solar farms include containers full of batteries on farmland. The land to be used for the proposed Helios farm is almost all “best and most versatile”—category 2 and 3a—land that currently grows cereals and root crops. About 60% of the land in the Boom Power proposal is best and most versatile, as is 58% of the land in the Wade House Lane proposal. In contrast, the three applications submitted in 2015 were all on category 3b land, and therefore not within this classification, hence they did not receive the number of objections that these large-scale proposals have received. With these four solar farms, we are talking about a total of 5,500 acres, or nearly 9 square miles, with a large percentage of it being best and most versatile agricultural land.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) for securing this important debate on large solar farms. Let me say in advance that if I am unable to answer any of his questions, I will get back to him at a later stage. I also wish to acknowledge all the other contributions from right hon. and hon. Members on this important subject.

Decarbonising and securing the UK’s energy supply is one of the biggest challenges facing us today. Two years ago, the Government adopted their sixth carbon budget: the world’s most ambitious climate change goal of reducing emissions by 77% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. Of course, 2035 is not that far away—the clock is ticking—which is why in our net zero strategy the Government committed to securing and fully decarbonising the UK’s electricity supply. That will require a sustained increase in deploying low-carbon technologies such as solar, alongside wind, new nuclear, battery storage, and carbon capture utilisation and storage.

The dramatic rise in global energy prices following the covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only served to emphasise the urgency here and demonstrate how crucial it is that we build a strong, home-grown renewable energy sector to further reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and limit consumer bills. In the British energy security strategy, the Government committed to enabling a fivefold increase in solar deployment of up to 70 GW in capacity by 2035, which will require a step change in deployment. Large-scale solar farms and smaller-scale commercial and domestic rooftop installations are all essential to meeting that commitment.

Solar is a safe, mature, resilient and versatile technology that can be quickly deployed in a range of locations. Its carbon footprint is much lower than that of coal or gas. Solar is key to the Government’s strategy to decarbonise the UK’s energy supply at low cost. Large-scale solar is one of the UK’s cheapest electricity generating technologies. The Government recognise that deploying large solar projects, as with any new infrastructure, will have local impacts. Although Government surveys indicate that solar is one of the most popular renewable energy sources, we fully appreciate that people living in the vicinity of proposed developments may be concerned about the effects on their local amenity. That point was eloquently explained by my right hon. Friend and it is why solar developments of all sizes are subject to robust planning controls to protect local communities and the environment.

My right hon. Friend will understand that given the Department’s statutory responsibility for determining individual planning applications for energy projects, Ministers are unable to comment on the specifics of individual applications. I can set out, however, how the planning controls work for solar in general terms.

Planning applications for projects up to 50 MW capacity in England are determined by local planning authorities. Most solar projects in England fall into that category. Local authorities will consider a range of factors when assessing applications, including environmental impacts. Projects up to 350 MW in Wales are devolved and decisions are made either by local authorities or the Welsh Government. Planning in Scotland and Northern Ireland is fully devolved.

For projects over 50 MW in England and over 350 MW in Wales, planning decisions are made by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero through the NSIP—nationally significant infrastructure project—regime, which allows for rigorous scrutiny of such projects.

The planning system sets out how decision makers should consider the impacts on local communities and amenities, particularly where a number of solar projects are deployed in close proximity. If designed carefully, the visual impact of a well-planned and well-screened solar project can be properly addressed within the landscape. Under local and NSIP planning systems, developers must complete considerable community engagement as part of the application process. Members of the public can submit their views to the planning authorities and significant concerns will be taken into account as part of the local decision-making process.

[Mr David Davis]

My hon. Friend used the phrase “if designed carefully”. It is not possible to design carefully a 3,000-acre site that surrounds four or five villages. By definition, that will cause a massive assault on the amenity of individuals living in that area.

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I have taken note of it and will report it back to the relevant Minister.

For NSIP projects, communities can participate in the formal examination process run by the Planning Inspectorate. That gives communities the opportunity to make their views known on and influence projects before decisions are taken.

All large solar developers must complete an environmental statement for any application—

Northern Ireland Protocol

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that we have had constructive and good negotiations with the European Union, and I pay tribute to President Ursula von der Leyen for the leadership and vision she has demonstrated in trying to find a way through to help us resolve these issues. She and her team deserve enormous credit for displaying that vision, leadership and creativity. I wholeheartedly agree that the people of Northern Ireland need and deserve their institutions to be up and running. I think that is something on which all of us in this House agree, and we all want to see it happen as soon as practically possible.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I start by unreservedly congratulating my right hon. Friend on what seems to be a spectacular negotiating success. With the Windsor framework, he has succeeded in delivering a deal that eliminates the issues of the Irish sea border and addresses the practical issues in Northern Ireland on food, pets, plants, parcels, medicine regulations and tax rules. Above all, it introduces the extraordinary mechanism of the Stormont brake. I am unaware of any such mechanism in any international agreement, and it seems to me to be a brilliant piece of negotiating insight and imagination. As we do not all know the detail, can he explain to the House exactly how this mechanism will work and what its limitations will be?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his warm words, which mean a lot coming from a Brexiteer with such long-standing credentials. As someone who has done the job, he knows how difficult these things are, so it means a lot to me and the Government to have his support, for which I thank him.

The brake will work on the basis of the petition of concern mechanism. That mechanism is part of the Good Friday agreement institutional framework, which is why we believe it is the right cross-community safeguard to use. It will be applied to the goods rules in annex 2 of the protocol that were the main cause of concern. It is there for those rules that cause significant and lasting damage and change to the everyday lives of ordinary people in Northern Ireland. Once the emergency brake is pulled, it will give the UK Government a veto. It is a very powerful cross-community safeguard that ensures sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland, and it is part of why this agreement is the right one for the people of Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

This year we established Op Courage and Op Fortitude, and we are looking at designing a clear, physical healthcare pathway for veterans. We are building pillars of support across the United Kingdom. We have put £5 million into a health innovation fund. A lot of individuals came back from Afghanistan and Iraq with injuries that would have been unsurvivable 10 or 15 years ago, with a level of complexity that we had not dealt with before. We are putting money into understanding the science behind that to ensure they have prosthetics for the rest of their lives, not just the next two or three years. There is a commitment from the nation under the armed forces covenant to special care for those who are seriously injured. I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member and talk her through some of the other work we are doing.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

16. What steps his Department is taking to tackle fraud in public sector contracts.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

Last year we established the Public Sector Fraud Authority as a centre of excellence to work with Departments and public bodies to understand and reduce the impact of fraud. It does so by providing expertise and best-in-class tools to prevent and detect fraud, including in contracts. The Procurement Bill will also fight fraud through extending the grounds for exclusion and by establishing a Department list.

[Mr Davis]

The covid pandemic exposed several conflict of interest problems in public sector procurement. The Government’s Procurement Bill is an excellent opportunity to address those, but it does not pick up all the issues raised by the Government’s own independent inquiries. What will the Minister do to improve on that?

[Jeremy Quin]

I beg to differ slightly with my right hon. Friend because, as the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office said, we are absolutely determined to ensure that the Procurement Bill is a step forward in transparency and how we handle conflicts of interest. I believe that it will help to give more reassurance on exactly that topic, but I am more than happy to meet my right hon. Friend if he has further ideas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Lady will know that this was dealt with by the permanent secretary at the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and the contract was published on Contracts Finder. It has always been the case that Ministers receive support in respect of their conduct in office after they have left office. That was extended to Ministers in the Conservative party and the Labour party. I will add that it is a good job that we did not extend it to former Leaders of the Opposition given the millions of pounds being spent by the Labour party defending itself against allegations of antisemitism.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

T5. In 2020 we have evidence that the Cabinet Office monitored the journalist Peter Hitchens’ social media posts in relation to the pandemic. In an internal email the Cabinet Office accused him of pursuing an anti- lockdown agenda. He then appears to have been shadow- banned on social media. Will the Minister confirm that his Department did nothing to interfere with Hitchens’ communications, either through discussion with social media platforms or by any other mechanism? If he cannot confirm that today, will he write to me immediately in the future to do so?

[Mr Speaker]

Who wants that one?

Illegal Immigration

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is part of the doubling, and that unit will be specifically trained to process the Albanian migrants in line with our new system and our new policy guidance, which will shortly be issued by the Home Office. In doing that, we are confident that we can start processing Albanian claims in a matter of weeks rather than months, and, with our new agreement, we can swiftly send them back to Albania. That is what the Albanian Prime Minister thinks should happen. That is what European countries do, and that is what we will do in our country, too.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the seriousness with which the Prime Minister addresses this issue, particularly his focus on stopping the Albanian gangs.

With respect to the dispersal centres, when the Home Office attempted to introduce a dispersal centre in my constituency, it ignored the local authority’s concerns about healthcare, public services and children’s services. It then also ignored the existing level of Albanian organised crime in Hull and did not even consult the local police chief before it moved on the matter. Needless to say, it did not consult any of the local MPs either. If we continue in this mode, the Home Office will face judicial review after judicial review and the policy will not work. Can we please see a radical improvement in decision making in the Home Office in this process?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I thank my right hon. Friend for his engagement with us and his specific suggestions on tackling the issue of Albanian migrants—I hope he is pleased by what he has heard today, which reflected much of what he suggested. On the issue of accommodation, I agree with him. As all Members know, this is a tricky issue for us to manage, but we will manage it with sensitivity and care, and with strong engagement with colleagues and local authorities. I make that commitment to him, and I will make sure that that is followed up.

Bill of Rights

David Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right about the first point, but wrong about the second. That is clear from the Bill of Rights.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend started by talking about the 2012 declaration on subsidiarity. He will remember that that flowed directly from action in this Chamber to push back against prisoner votes, of which I think he was a major part. We have not seen the detail of this Bill of Rights, but there are two Conservative tests for it. First, the Conservatives do not believe in an overmighty state, therefore the state has to be curbed by an independent body. Secondly, our fundamental freedoms, such as free speech, jury trial or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) mentioned, freedom from torture, are not the gift of the state but the birth right of our citizens. As such, they all have to be protected by powers vested in an independent judiciary. At the end of the day, the test will be whether the Bill of Rights delivers better protection for those things than the European process.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is too generous: he was really the architect of the campaign to defend this House’s prerogative to decide on prisoner voting. Interestingly, he did that with Jack Straw, the architect of the Human Rights Act, but my right hon. Friend is right to say that it was this House that pushed back in 2012 and sought the Government to ensure that the Strasbourg Court was reflecting and following its mandate, which was at the heart of the Brighton declaration process.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in his tests, and I hope I can reassure him on this. When he gets a chance, as I know he will, to study carefully the Bill of Rights, which is now available, he will see that our fundamental freedoms are not being trashed, but that they are being preserved and safeguarded. He will see that judicial independence is being strengthened, because the Supreme Court in this country ought to have the last word, to cherish and nurture this country’s common law tradition, which is ancient.

Finally, my right hon. Friend missed one point, but I hope he agrees with me on this. In broader terms, beyond individual rights, there is a whole realm of public policy—whether it reflects collective interest, social policy, the public purse or public protection—on which it must be this House and its elected Members, who are responsible to our constituents, who have the final word.

Debate on the Address

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason that this shower of corrupt, criminal Conservatives are blocking Scotland’s democratic and legal right to have a mandate over its own future is that they know—

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is in breach of the House’s regulations for somebody to call someone else a criminal in this Chamber.

[Mr Speaker]

A particular Member was not referred to, as you know—[Interruption.] Just a minute—I do not think I need any help. What I would say is that we want moderate and tolerant language that does not bring the House into disrepute or expect those outside to copy the behaviour. I want good behaviour and moderate language. I want people to think before they speak. I call Ian Blackford.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct. The public should be very afraid of what this Government are doing, and the consequences for our hard-fought and hard-won human rights, which have been built up over many decades.

[Mr David Davis]

I think the right hon. Gentleman would probably accept that I have a lot of credence in the importance of the human rights of British citizens, but the primary argument that I have heard about the modification of the Human Rights Act is that it will give the Government the ability to deport foreign criminals who have been released from prison. That is an important right of the Government, and surely it is worth having, if nothing else.

[Ian Blackford]

I am afraid that is a fig leaf for what is going on, which is an attack on the rights that have been fought for so hard, and so hard-won, over the past few decades. All this is the cost of living with Westminster, and it is exactly why Scotland wants out.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), as I have done many times over the years. While I may not always agree with him, he always speaks with level-headed common sense, and that is a privilege for the House.

The proverb tells us that the good die young, and in this House that could not be more true than it has been this year; three of our most valued Members—David Amess, James Brokenshire and Jack Dromey—left us before their time. David Amess was a particularly close friend of mine, so it is a privilege to speak after his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), who gave a storming maiden speech. When she was telling her Mackintosh joke, I was reminded of a maiden speech made about 30 years ago by an Opposition Member. A rather striking redheaded Scot Nat made an absolutely stonking maiden speech, and John Smith, I think it was, jumped up and said, “That was no maiden speech; that was a brazen hussy of a speech.” The speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend gave was too elegant for that to be said about it, but I will say this, and it is perhaps the greatest compliment I can give her: David would have been proud of her.

There is a great deal to welcome in the 38 Bills in this Queen’s Speech. Those who have been pooh-poohing them perhaps ought to wait until they see the details. There is mention of tackling economic crime; embracing the freedoms that Brexit offers, though that is too late; reforming and securing our energy supply; and resolving the Northern Ireland legacy issues. These are all massively important issues, and there are many others like them that the Government are addressing, and on which they should have our undying support.

There are some issues—those on the Front Bench would be disappointed if I did not say this—that perhaps require more careful handling. For example, the Online Safety Bill is very necessary and well-intentioned, but it is so complex that it will have dozens of unintended consequences, including, possibly, that of curbing free speech. We have to make sure that we give that enough time to be looked at carefully. Similarly, the national security Bill is undoubtedly necessary, but we will have to handle it carefully because it replaces the Official Secrets Act, and while it protects the state from its enemies, we must make sure that it does not curb the rights of honourable whistleblowers.

A Queen’s Speech is built on sand if it is not underpinned by strong economic foundations. Indeed, this Queen’s Speech says that the Government

“will drive economic growth to improve living standards and fund sustainable investment in public services”,

but taxes today are too high, so we need to get some fundamentals right. High taxes do not deliver growth; they stifle it. Low taxes deliver investment and higher productivity, and therefore growth, and they are the pre-emptive answer to stagflation, which is the biggest threat on our horizon in the coming year.

I rather agree with the points from some on the Opposition Benches about the need for an emergency Budget, but I do not agree with the argument for windfall taxes, which would be self-defeating. There is certainly a need to act quickly. The Prime Minister talked about deploying our “fiscal firepower”, but we need to do that now, when our constituents need it, not after they have suffered the increases in prices that they face, and the further increases that they will face in the latter part of the year. This is a good Queen’s Speech.

[Sammy Wilson]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that having lower taxes puts money into people’s pockets—money that they can spend on things that they find it difficult to afford at present. Is he worried that the decision to use this firepower in a couple of years’ time, when we are coming up to an election, rather than using it to deal with the issues that are hurting people badly now, will be seen as cynical?

[Mr Davis]

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. If we increase national insurance for a large part of the population, and so increase their suffering and their inability to eat and to heat their house at the same time, but drop income tax one year before an election, I am afraid that would be seen in the working men’s clubs of Yorkshire as a cynical deployment of state power. I suspect it would be the same in Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland, where, as we have heard already, the problem is even bigger than in the rest of the United Kingdom. He is right, and that is why we should give the people their money back now. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood)—

[John Redwood]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

I was about to quote my right hon. Friend; I give way to him.

[John Redwood]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that as there will be a big windfall element from extra North sea oil and gas taxation—there is already a double corporation tax windfall element, and there will be a big increase in VAT on domestic heating and a big increase in tax on pump diesel and pump petrol—that money, at least, should be given back through other tax bills?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is right. He has been the icebreaker in this argument, which I refer to as the Redwood argument. We have record tax collections this year because of fiscal drag and for a variety of other reasons, including underestimates by the Treasury. That is money that we should give back to the people. We do not need to balance the budgets twice over. We need to get that right.

There are respects in which we need to reinforce or increase what is in the Queen’s Speech. My favourite line in the Queen’s Speech is the same every year:

“Other measures will be laid before you.”

We are Conservatives. We believe in a property-owning democracy. Governments of all powers and all persuasions for 30 or more years—since Margaret Thatcher, in truth —have failed on that issue. Two thirds of my generation bought their own home; today it is a quarter. That is a scandal. I approve of the Prime Minister talking about the right to buy for housing associations—I should do; I first came up with the policy in 2002 when it was my responsibility, and we still have not implemented that policy. However, it will not solve the problem. We are at least a million houses short, in a period in which the population has increased by 7 million. We are about 100,000 houses a year short in what we are constructing, in addition to that million.

We need to find a way of addressing the issue that does not hit what people call the nimby problem, in which people, when objecting to things, talk about protecting their environment. We need to find a way around that, and we need to look very hard at what was done in the 1920s with garden villages and garden towns. We need to use the increased wealth that they create to pay for the community centres, surgeries, schools, roads and wi-fi that are necessary. There would be plenty of added value to make the farmers rich at the same time. Politically, it would not be straightforward, but it would be an easier policy than we might think.

We Conservatives are also believers in social mobility. I think all Members are believers in social mobility. We used to be the best on that in the developed world; now we are among the worst. When inequality is greater, social mobility is more important. Indeed, the only real moral argument for an unequal society is that everybody has an opportunity and a chance to take part. In the last 20 years or so, the top 1% of the population have roughly trebled their income whereas the median has roughly flatlined, so there is a stronger argument for social mobility today than there was before.

The best mechanism for social mobility is the education system, and there are some good proposals in the education Bill in the Queen’s Speech. Adding to the academy system will help at the margins, however, and will not solve the problem; it has not solved it for the last 20 years and it will not solve it now.

The great scandal is that half of children from free school meals families are failed by the education system by the time that they are 11. They cannot meet the requirements in English or mathematics to make progress in education, so their lives are effectively over in terms of social mobility at that point. We need to get a grip of that, which means re-engineering our classrooms and helping our brilliant teachers with more artificial intelligence, more software support and more augmentation. The technology is there now—it exists, it is proven and it is available. I hope that the House will not laugh too much when I say that I went to see it demonstrated at Eton of all places, where it was brilliant at bringing on the weakest children.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that if a child is hungry, as many of our children are because they are living in poverty, that will not help their educational attainment?

[Mr Davis]

I agree entirely; I have arguments that I will not deploy today on universal credit and so on that relate directly to that point. One of the outcomes of having a technologically augmented teaching and assessment system, however, is that the teacher knows within days if a child has a problem that they did not have before and if their educational performance suddenly falls, perhaps because the parents have separated, there is trouble at home, they are going hungry or whatever. The hon. Lady is right and I agree with her basic premise, but technology would help even with that if we did it. I want to see us do that and deal with the scandal.

The last area that I will speak briefly about is the fundamental one of healthcare. We all support the national health service and no doubt applauded the brilliant staff—doctors and nurses—who did a fantastic job. We tell ourselves over and over again that we have the best healthcare system in the world, but that is simply not true. We have those committed doctors and we now spend more than the OECD average on healthcare, but we are not delivering more than the OECD average. Whether it is on survival rates in all the different categories of cancer care, coronaries, strokes, diabetes or whatever, we are not doing as good a job as we should be for the money, work, skill and commitment that go into it.

My argument is that we should look at the other countries that are doing better than us, such as Germany, France, Estonia, Austria, Sweden, Canada or Australia. They all have different systems that are all free at the point of delivery. I was a beneficiary of the Canadian system, which is an insurance-based system that is free at the point of delivery and supported by the state if people cannot afford it—and it works better than our system. We need to look at those other systems and learn from them. We need to stay with the fundamental principles of the health service but learn and improve what we can.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I am just about to sit down.

We Conservatives need to rebuild our party as a party of low taxes, a party of and for homeowners, and a party of aspiration, opportunity and security. It is time for a new model conservativism that is fit for a new Britain in a new world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I can answer the hon. Gentleman clearly: the Prime Minister came to our party conference and told us that there would be an Irish sea border “over his dead body”. That is what he told us, and unfortunately the protocol created an Irish sea border and it is harming our economy. I am only asking the Prime Minister to honour the commitments that he made to us. I am not asking him to do anything more than that.

The hon. Gentleman referred to supermarkets. Let me point out the absurdity of what the protocol means. Sainsbury’s is one of the biggest supermarket chains in Northern Ireland. It has no supermarkets in the Republic of Ireland. Yet when Sainsbury’s moves goods—even its own-brand products—from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, for sale in Sainsbury’s supermarkets in my part of the United Kingdom, it has to complete customs declarations and pay fees. There is a delay in moving those goods which, as Members will know, can be vital for food products, and it costs the supermarket more. That is driving up the cost of food in Northern Ireland. For example, it is estimated that the additional cost of chilled food products is 18% as a result of the protocol, compared with the same products in Great Britain.

As we heard earlier, the Road Haulage Association has said that the cost of bringing goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland went up by 27% as a direct result of the protocol in the first year of its operation. There can be no other impact of that additional cost than driving up the cost for the consumer when purchasing products in our supermarkets and shops. That is the reality, and when people say it is nonsense to link the cost of living to the protocol, the evidence is stark and clear. Yes, there is a cost of living crisis in Great Britain, but it is exacerbated in Northern Ireland and enhanced by the presence of the protocol and the Irish sea border.

That is why I have had to take the reluctant decision, as leader of the Democratic Unionist party, not to nominate Ministers to the Executive until this issue has been addressed. We are being asked to implement a protocol. Do not forget that Ministers in Northern Ireland oversee the ports. We are the people who are required to implement and oversee that, and it is simply not fair that as Unionists we are asked to engage in an act of self-harm against our own people in Northern Ireland, with the implementation—the imposition—of a protocol that we do not accept, do not support, and do not believe is necessary to protect the integrity of the UK internal market, or that of the EU single market.

[Mr David Davis]

The right hon. Gentleman may remember that the reason why I resigned as Brexit Secretary goes back to a previous Prime Minister promising “full alignment”—that was the phrase—between the north and the south. It seemed to me that, as an outcome, Northern Ireland would have no more legislative power than a colony, because it would have no ability to correct the sorts of problems that he is now talking about. Is his argument that, for as long as that stands, that will make Northern Ireland not more but less stable?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

That is absolutely the case. We were told by the European Union, including the Irish Government—a co-guarantor of the Belfast agreement—that the protocol was necessary to protect the Good Friday agreement and the political institutions created under it. It has had the opposite effect. There is no North South Ministerial Council operating at this time; the Executive are not fully functioning; the Assembly is unable to carry out its full functions; and east-west relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are at an all-time low since as far back as I can remember. Can we not see the harm that the protocol is doing to the relationships at the heart of the agreement?

It goes further. The Court of Appeal in Belfast has ruled that the protocol changes Northern Ireland’s constitutional status and overrides article 6 of the Acts of Union, which is a fundamental building block of our relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Union is not just a political union but an economic union, and article 6 confers on the people of Northern Ireland—as it previously did on the people of the whole of the island when it was all part of the United Kingdom—the right to trade freely with the rest of our own nation. It says that there shall be no barriers to trade within the United Kingdom, and yet we now have an Irish sea border and barriers to trade. Article 6 has been breached and overridden by the protocol without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland to such constitutional change. That is contrary to the commitment in article 1 of the Belfast agreement, which says that there shall be no change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister is therefore right to have highlighted in the Queen’s Speech the need to prioritise support for the agreement and its institutions, including support through legislation, but the legislation referred to is only to do with the legacy of the past. As the House will be aware, the Democratic Unionist party has grave concerns about the Government’s initial proposals, because they deny innocent victims the right to justice, and we think that is wrong. I do not believe that peace is built on the basis of injustice. We await with interest the Government’s revised proposals.

Sadly, there is no reference in the Queen’s Speech to legislation on the need to address the very real difficulties created by the protocol. We are looking for that commitment from the Government. The Prime Minister’s first duty as Minister for the Union is to protect the integrity of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the Queen’s Speech states:

“The continued success and integrity of the whole of the United Kingdom is of paramount importance to Her Majesty’s Government, including the internal economic bonds between all of its parts.”

The Prime Minister is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and those last three words—“and Northern Ireland”—are the most important for me in my constitutional status. We are an integral part of the United Kingdom, and when the Government say that it is of paramount importance to protect the internal economic bonds between all of its parts, that must include Northern Ireland. That means addressing the protocol, because it is incompatible with the two commitments of upholding and protecting the internal economic bonds between all parts of the United Kingdom and prioritising support for the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the political institutions being undermined by it.

Not a single Unionist elected to the Assembly supports the protocol, and yet the Good Friday agreement is premised on the basis that the institutions will operate through consensus. There is no consensus for the protocol. The Unionist community does not consent to the protocol. I will not allow my Ministers to be put in a position where they have to impose on their own people checks and regulations over which they have no control and no say, and which have been created by a foreign entity, the European Union.

In conclusion—and in response to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd)—I want to be clear that my party is absolutely committed to the future of the political institutions. We want them to work and to deliver for everyone in Northern Ireland. My party is committed to the operation of those institutions. We are committed to our participation in those institutions, but it has to be on the basis of fairness, it has to be on the basis of a consensus, and it has to be on the basis that we address the problems in front of us that have flowed from the imposition of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Last Thursday, I stood for election in my constituency of Lagan Valley. I have had the honour of representing this beautiful constituency in the House for the past 25 years. I believe in Northern Ireland, I believe in the future and I believe I can play a role in strengthening the political institutions. That is why, in response to the points that have been made, I am prepared to commit the remainder of my political career to going back to those institutions and working with my colleagues to make them work. I am prepared to leave this House, which I have been a Member of for 25 years and I would dearly love to continue being a part of, because I want to invest in the future of our people. I want to work for our people. I want to deliver good government. But I have to say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will not leave this House until the protocol issue is resolved. I will not leave this House until I can be sure that our political institutions in Northern Ireland have a stable foundation. In conclusion, I say to the Government that the words in the Queen’s Speech are there, but they have to be matched by actions.