G7 Summit
Debate between David Lammy and Ed Davey(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I start by recognising the courage it took for the Prime Minister to make his statement today. Politics can be brutal, but although we rightly debate issues robustly in this Chamber, we can recognise that we are all human beings here, and can take account of that. However, after years of this chaos—we had multiple psychodramas and short-lived Prime Ministers under the Conservatives, and then under Labour—the country is impatient for real change. This moment shows once again how broken our political system is. It is only by fixing that that we can finally end this chaos and instability. There will be another moment to reflect properly, but for now, I simply thank the Prime Minister for his service.
Turning to the statement, progress on providing more support for our brave Ukrainian allies is indeed welcome, and the Deputy Prime Minister knows that he has cross-party support on that. At the G7, did the Government raise the proposal of using frozen Russian assets around the world to support Ukraine, and if not, why not?
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is boasting about his ceasefire with Iran, but “The Art of the Deal” it is not. His and Netanyahu’s idiotic war, backed by the Conservatives and Reform, has achieved absolutely nothing; instead, it is wreaking havoc on the global economy and on our economy, as the Deputy Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister was right to keep us out of it. Given how determined Netanyahu seems to undermine any ceasefire, what discussions did the Prime Minister have with allies at the G7 to put real pressure on both Netanyahu and Hezbollah to end the fighting?
All this shows how important it is for Britain to strengthen our defences and deepen our partnership with dependable allies, especially our neighbours in Europe. Will the Prime Minister therefore confirm whether the defence investment plan will be published before the NATO summit? The Liberal Democrats think that is vital if we are to start to repair the damage done by Conservative defence cuts, and are to have real leverage and influence at the NATO summit. Will the defence investment plan go to the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) for his urgent sign-off?
Finally, the Prime Minister promised a crucial summit with the EU next month to start repairing the damage done by the Conservatives, but reports say that this summit has been postponed because of his resignation. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that this is a disaster? Fixing our relationship with Europe is far too urgent for these discussions to be postponed yet again. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to urge the right hon. Member for Makerfield to reject the Government’s current timid reset, and instead push for our growth and defence partnership, which would include single market membership, free from the out-of-date red lines that the Prime Minister imposed five years ago.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the manner in which he put his remarks and for his tribute to the Prime Minister for his public service. I will relay that to the Prime Minister when I see him later.
On Ukraine, I am pleased to confirm that I hope to go to the Ukraine recovery conference later this week to continue to discuss these issues. The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of frozen Russian assets, which remain a long-standing item of discussion across G7 nations. He recognises that some European countries are more exposed than others, and I hope that we can break the deadlock soon.
The right hon. Gentleman also raises the deal in the strait of Hormuz. It is a fragile deal, and the continued bombardment of Lebanon, which is affecting the fragile ceasefire in relation to Lebanon that is holding as of this morning, particularly pertains to that. We call for restraint from Israel particularly. It is important that we maintain peace across the region at this time.
I can confirm that the defence investment plan will be published before the NATO summit. I think it is important that the Prime Minister is in post for that NATO summit. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that I was the first Foreign Secretary to return to the top table of Foreign Secretaries in Europe, and I hope that the EU summit takes place as soon as possible.
Building a High-Skilled Economy
Debate between David Lammy and Ed Davey(16 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
It is a great pleasure to welcome you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the Chair. You and I debated with each other over many years while you were a Minister, and I particularly remember when you were Paymaster General. I know that, given your knowledge of the tax system, you will be looking forward to chairing a debate on the Finance Bill to take you down memory lane.
This has been a high-quality debate which has been conducted in a cross-party way, as different right hon. and hon. Members have made positive contributions. As my hon. Friend the Minister said in his opening remarks, he is listening to the contributions of all Members. We have also heard about football and have almost had an exercise in VisitBritain as we have gone around the country.
I will not be able to talk about every maiden speech, but their overall quality was superb. When I made my maiden speech, I was rather more nervous than those delivering the self-confident and assured maiden speeches that we have heard today. If I may, I shall take a tour d’horizon of those speeches. We had cock and bull from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart); we had a Conservative club haunted by Roundheads from the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes); and we had a Yorkshire vineyard from the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), as he talked about the “Last of the Summer Wine”.
Two hon. Members showed great perception in how to represent their constituencies. I am thinking of the hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), as they listed their local newspapers in their speeches. I have always found that when I talk about the Kingston Informer, the Kingston Guardian, the Surrey Comet and Radio Jackie, it is always a very good way of representing one’s constituents.
As I mentioned earlier, we also heard about football, as Members talked about the various football clubs in their constituencies. I have to make a confession—I am a Kingstonian fan because they play in Kingston, and I am also an AFC Wimbledon fan, as the club shares the Kingsmeadow ground. I have to say to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South that although he has the MK Dons, we have the real Wimbledon playing in my constituency. I also have to confess that, although I was born in Nottingham and my first team is Notts County, I am also a Liverpool fan. Let me explain why. I was the only member of the class who was a Notts County fan during the Clough years, so I had to support one team that was giving Nottingham Forest a hard time.
I therefore particularly enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), as I know her constituency fairly well. I have never lived there, but I used to go to Nottingham university boating lake. I will not go any further into that, but we had some nice times there. As a student, I worked in Boots, which has a factory in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and during my student vacation I helped to make pork pies for Northern Foods. I am not sure whether politicians should confess to making pork pies, but when students were making them, complaints from consumers went up—I hope that it was nothing to do with my skills.
As Members from both sides of the House addressed the substance of today’s debate, we heard about how they, and organisations in their constituencies, are playing a critical role in improving our country’s skills. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South was quite right to talk about the Open university. As we debate higher education, the model of the Open university is one that people will want to replicate. I speak as a former student, now a fellow, of Birkbeck college, where part-time education is also key. We really need to engage in a more flexible approach to higher education, and the Open university has a lot to contribute in that respect.
We heard about the university of Southampton from the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North, and we also heard how a number of Members had been apprentices. We heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) about his time as an apprentice bricklayer. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) about his apprenticeship as a textile machine manufacturer.
That is why this Government are so proud, in their very earliest days, to have put extra money into the apprenticeship scheme, and to have set a target of 50,000 new apprenticeships. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) seemed to jest—how could we be so bold as to want to create 50,000 new apprenticeships?—but we are very proud to have set that target. The right hon. Gentleman appears to consider it unachievable, but I can tell him that I have discussed it with my hon. Friend the Minister and with officials, and we are certain that we will meet it and do better as time goes on. I hope that in due course, when we have achieved our aim, he will pay this coalition Government the credit that they deserve.
Mr Davey
That is interesting. We have to compare that with what the previous Government were planning. When we looked at the funding issues facing us, and the very difficult choices, we saw that the previous Government were planning £340 million of cuts in adult further education and skills this year. That is actually happening this year, and I hope the colleges and students—and the employers—who are having to deal with the financial situation imposed by the cuts realise that the people who are to blame for that are sitting on the Opposition Benches.
Mr Davey
Before I let the right hon. Gentleman in, let me say that I hope that when he gets to his feet he admits to the House that it is under the previous Government’s plans that we are seeing a 3% reduction in funding rates for college-based provision, a 10% reduction for apprenticeships for those aged 25-year-old and over and a 6% reduction in other work-based learning. This is what we are having to deal with, and it is creating huge problems, as he ought to know.
Mr Lammy
It is the hon. Gentleman who is in government so I think he ought to answer the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden): will there be more or fewer learners as a result of the announcements made today? The House has a right to know.
Mr Davey
Well, one of the things the House needs to understand is that we have a different approach to FE and HE. We do not believe we can sit here in Whitehall and have a centralised system that we micromanage, and that we can then suddenly guarantee that there will be x new trainers, x new learners and x new places, as the right hon. Member for Tottenham and his friends used to do. That is why they failed so often: they took a centralised, top-down approach.
We will ensure that our approach is employer-led and learner-led. That is why we are working with businesses to make sure our schemes and proposals get the support that they will need from those areas. That is a very different approach. We know that, as we meet the challenges ahead of us, the private sector will have to be involved and be working with the Government. Far too often, the private sector was too much of an afterthought in how the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues planned their skills agenda.
Change is inevitable and, as Dr Johnson said:
“Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.”
So there will be difficult choices. We will not shy away from them, but when we have to make those difficult decisions, it will be the employers and learners who are uppermost in our mind, not the bureaucrats and the quangos and the consultants, where all the money was wasted under the last Government.
We have had a constructive debate. I say on behalf of my hon. Friends and fellow Ministers in the Department that we are keen to listen, even to ideas from former Ministers who may at last realise that many mistakes were made and want to begin to confess. I hope that through working across parties and with the Select Committee and new Members, we can revitalise and invest in the skills our economy so desperately needs—