May Adjournment

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

For reasons that are not yet clear to me, the Scottish National party Whips Office always asks me to lead on behalf of the SNP for whingefests, as these debates are uncharitably referred to.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Speaking on behalf of the SNP Whips Office, we would never suggest that my hon. Friend is anything but a whinger. Will he join me in paying tribute to the staff in the SNP Whips Office—Anne Harvey, Christopher Mullins-Silverstein and Kieran Reape—for all their hard work?

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. comrade for his cheek. Yes, I do want to place on record the hard work of my hon. Friends and the staff of the SNP Whips Office.

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[Chris Stephens]

The key point is funding, but yes it would be a perfect opportunity for the Government to say that they will fully fund a decent pay rise for public sector workers across the board. Let us not forget that these are the workers who are collecting the tax and trying to put right a broken social security system and a broken immigration system—I will come to that later.

I have always argued for the retention of people’s jobs, not just in the public sector but in the private sector, and I want to raise once again an issue I have raised in several debates: the Ministry of Defence’s nonsensical position in procuring three fleet support ships through international competition. From a written parliamentary answer I received last week, which was covered by the Daily Record, we now know that these three fleet support ships will have armaments, sensors and Phalanx guns, which will be used for defence. If that is the case, my contention is that it is a warship and these three fleet support ships should not be procured through international competition. There are enough shipyards in the UK to build these ships—to block-build them in the same way as the Aircraft Carrier Alliance does—and I hope that hon. Members agree that the ships should not be exposed to international competition. They should be built in the United Kingdom.

[David Linden]

As I am sure my hon. Friend will remember, in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, a leaflet was distributed in his constituency saying that separation would shut shipyards and spell doom. Does he agree that has proven to be absolutely nonsense and that indeed, under the UK Government, we are seeing threats to shipyards?

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for reminding me of my predecessor’s leaflet. He raises an important point. I refer the House to Monday’s Daily Record editorial, which says that the UK Government have bent, cajoled and run away from the commitments that they made on shipbuilding prior to the independence referendum. We are still waiting on the 13 ships that were promised, eight of which we were told would be built on the Clyde and five of which may be, or maybe not—they are, of course, the Type 31e frigates.

In the news in the past few weeks, we have seen how brutal and hostile the immigration system is in the United Kingdom. As someone with a large number of asylum seekers in my constituency—about 40% of my caseload is based on immigration cases—I have very real concerns about how the Home Office handles these cases, but principally, there also seems to be a lack of Home Office staff who are willing when it comes to Members’ inquiries. I hope that the Government and Home Office will address that issue.

Those who seek sanctuary in this country—many of them are women, many of them are fleeing sexual violence, and for many of them, when they see a gentleman in uniform, it means something completely different to them than it does to other people—should not live in fear of trying to become citizens of this country. They want to come here and make a contribution, and it is important that we allow them to do so.

I hope that the Government consider looking at the issues around social enterprises. I have a case in my constituency of a gentleman who wants to join a social enterprise when he gets his status, yet the Home Office is saying that a social enterprise is not enough to help his case. I think that is a complete nonsense. We should be encouraging the creation of social enterprises, and if those who are seeking sanctuary in this country want to help and get involved in that, that is important.

I will end with a key concern raised by the hon. Member for Gateshead: the principal issues of regulation. In our exchange earlier, we talked about the cuts to the Health and Safety Executive, but there have also been job losses in the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is there to regulate human rights and equality. We are now seeing cuts in the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, and we have a ridiculous situation: ACAS staff want to go on strike, but who is going to conciliate the conciliators? That is the position the Government have found themselves in.

For many, tomorrow is happy Star Wars Day, because it is May the fourth—May the fourth be with you, Mr Deputy Speaker—but there are also two important anniversaries tomorrow. When I was at Thales UK on Monday, I was asked, “What happened 25 years ago on 4 May?” I innocently put up my hand and said to the audience, “Well, that will be the 25th anniversary of Partick Thistle football club beating Rangers 3-0 and remaining in the Scottish Premier League at the expense of Falkirk and Airdrieonians”—I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for reminding him. It will also be the 25th anniversary of Thales UK moving into Linthouse. Thales, of course, formerly traded as Barr and Stroud, where my gran and grandfather met—they were happily married for 61 and a half years —but what I did not realise until Monday was that the current Thales site was the former site of Alexander Stephen and Sons shipbuilders, where my father was an apprentice along with the famous comedian, Billy Connolly.

On behalf of the Scottish National party, I hope that all Members enjoy May day, the workers public holiday.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

There is, of course, a serious argument to be made—and I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said—about the value of defence spending in terms of jobs, particularly in areas such as Lancashire.

As I was saying, some senior people in the Government might argue that, while increasing defence spending was probably the right thing to do because defence was underfunded, it might not be politically sustainable. I am reminded, sitting next to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), that in the early 1980s there seemed to be an unstoppable campaign in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament. We worked very closely with Lord Heseltine, who was then Mr Michael Heseltine, in the Coalition for Peace through Security. He is a first-rate politician and made excellent arguments, calling it one-sided disarmament. That 1983 election hinged very substantially on defence, and the Conservative party won it. Political parties have to major on, and argue on, the areas in which they are strongest, and every public opinion poll suggests that the Conservatives are trusted most on defence, so this is one of our strong areas and it is not an area that we should feel that we are continually criticised because we are not doing enough.

I am also reminded by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East that these arguments have raged back and forth for many years. In the early 1930s, the Conservative party lost a by-election in Fulham, and there was a peace candidate—a Labour candidate, I think—standing for the Opposition. George Lansbury was leader of the Labour party; he famously in the 1930s wanted to abolish the RAF entirely. There was an understandable, almost universal, desire for peace in the 1930s—part of the Oxford Union debates and many other factors, with people remembering the carnage of the first world war—and rearmament was not considered to be a popular policy, although clearly after 1933 when the Nazis came to power in Germany it was necessary; and I am thinking now of what is going on in Russia.

So it was necessary to rearm but that was perhaps unpopular, and Baldwin, who was a very successful Conservative Prime Minister, gave the “appalling frankness” speech in the late 1930s when he was criticised for not rearming early enough. We only started rearming in 1936 or thereabouts and almost left it too late; we only won the battle of Britain by a whisker. When Baldwin was criticised, he gave the “appalling frankness” speech. He said, “Look at what happened in that Fulham by-election. What would have happened to the Conservative party if we had advocated increased defence spending when it was so unpopular?”

I am not saying we are in as dangerous a position now as we were in the 1930s, but defence spending is an insurance policy. This is all about the value of deterrence, and we cannot know what the threats of the future will be. What we do know, however, is that Russia is increasingly proactive and is probably run by a criminal mafia regime. We know that there is an existential threat to the Baltic states, too, and one lesson of history from the 1930s, particularly from our pledge to Poland in the late 1930s, is that there is no point in giving pledges to defend a country in eastern Europe unless we have the means and will to carry them out.

I would argue in terms of our commitment to the Baltic states that, while admirable in every respect and while underpinned by the NATO alliance—treaties and article 5 and everything else—unless we are prepared now to commit real hardware to their defence, we could be in an extraordinarily dangerous situation in which Russia would believe she could intervene and undermine those states and could even intervene militarily, because by the time she achieved a successful military intervention it would be too late and our only recourse would be to nuclear weapons.

We clearly cannot rely entirely on nuclear weapons, therefore. There must be a whole range of deterrents at all levels. That is why at the moment the armed forces are struggling: the Royal Navy is struggling, and there are threats to various regiments. I will leave it there, but I earnestly implore the Government to take heed when even the former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), who has just left his post and who was a very careful pair of hands who honestly defended the Government while he was Secretary of State, argues that we need to spend at least 2.5% of our national wealth on defence and we are simply not spending enough.

That is one area where we have to make difficult decisions. We have already talked about legal aid, and we are talking about the difficult decisions we have to make on defence, and now we have to take difficult decisions in our own constituencies. Earlier this week, Lincolnshire Members of Parliament held a meeting with the Policing Minister. Lincolnshire is one of the lowest funded police authorities in the country—it is in the bottom three or four—and for 35 years we have been having meetings with Policing Ministers and begging for more resources. I understand the pressure that the Minister is under. He tells us that, officially, austerity is now finished with regard to policing. All our constituents want more policing, but we have to provide the funds. We have already heard mention of the security threats in London, and it is difficult for a Policing Minister to transfer resources from the capital city to a rural county such as Lincolnshire, even though there is plenty of crime in Lincolnshire that I could talk about. I could even talk about my own personal experience of crime. It is a real issue. We clearly have to increase the resources for police funding.

In traditional Conservative counties, there are other things that people feel are underfunded. When they look at Scotland, at Northern Ireland and even at some of the big urban areas, they see fantastic internet connections, good roads and good police funding in their terms, and they wonder why the rural counties are so underfunded. My plea to those on the Treasury Bench is that they should not forget the rural counties and the real pressures that we face. Yes, there is crime, but also our roads in Lincolnshire are full of potholes. This is an important point, because people are driving at 50 or 60 mph in the middle of the road to avoid potholes, and 500 people are being killed or are injured in some form on our roads locally. These are really important issues, and the Government must address them. They must not forget the pressures that people face in rural counties.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the excellent public services that we have in Scotland. The reality is that if we want good, well-funded public services, we have to take some quite difficult decisions on tax. There is a member of his own party, who cannot be here today for reasons unknown, who regularly rails about the fact that higher earners in Scotland—that includes myself as a Member of Parliament—pay a little more tax, but as a result we get better services. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in saying that it would be sensible for his party to look into increasing tax for those who are much better off?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I will not join the hon. Gentleman in advocating ever-increasing levels of the tartan tax. I remain a strong Conservative, and I believe in the value of deregulation and a low-tax system. Earlier in my speech I made pleas for higher Government spending, both in Lincolnshire and on defence, so—to be fair to Treasury Ministers—how is all that going to be paid for? We cannot increase borrowing, and I would not argue that it is right to increase taxes.

There is another matter that I am really concerned about. I understand that the Government are now looking closely at a significant increase in real-terms spending on the NHS. I am of an age at which the NHS is terribly important to me and my family. I have no private health insurance. Indeed, earlier this week, I had a small procedure on my face under the NHS, which was beautifully carried out. I have no complaints against the staff, but I am very worried about this proposal, which Ministers are apparently considering, to dramatically increase the amount of money spent on the NHS in real terms.

I remember what happened during the period of the Labour Government. Of course such measures are popular in the short term, but the more we increase spending on the NHS in real terms, the lower the productivity becomes. I have spent quite a lot of time talking to consultants and doctors—I am at the age where I do that—and they all, to a man and a woman, bewail the level of bureaucracy and incompetence in the NHS. They are not arguing for more public funding in real terms, although it has to increase by a certain amount in real terms every year because we are an ageing population and we understand all the pressures. They all say that what drives them mad is the level of bureaucracy in the NHS, and it worries me that if we substantially increase NHS spending in real terms, we will simply add to that level of bureaucracy, even though Ministers assure us that that is not their aim.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

I stand corrected, but I think it is a generally accepted fact. We all know from our friends and relations, and from public debate, that the health system in Germany is superb. I am sure there are glitches and areas where we might outperform it, but generally the system there works well.

The Government have to be honest in addressing how we will meet the needs of an ever-ageing population and the desire of that ageing population for ever-new levels of treatment. We have to devise new systems to encourage people to put more of their own resources into healthcare, as I do not believe we can do that out of general taxation.

Before I sit down, I promised to make a point about DFID. Nobody values the work of DFID more than I do. DFID is doing tremendous work throughout the world, but its budget—I say this as a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—is under strain, not from underfunding but from an arbitrary link in legislation to a particular proportion of national wealth. The link simply does not work, and it creates all sorts of stresses and strains.

I am not suggesting to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) that we cut overseas aid spending; what I am suggesting is that we get rid of this arbitrary link in legislation and have the best, the most high quality, the most free from corruption and the best-targeted overseas aid budget in the world, which I am sure is our aim and what we are achieving in large areas. Imposing such an arbitrary device on spending, which must result in a splurge of spending towards the back end of the year, cannot be right.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman, as ever, is being incredibly kind in giving way. I declare an interest, having taken part in a national delegation to Tanzania a couple of months after I was elected.

I disagree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. As a Scottish nationalist, it is not often that I am inspired by seeing the British flag and seeing UK aid, but I remember going to visit a school in a rural part of Tanzania and seeing a child read a book about understanding the dangers of malaria, which was funded by UK aid. What the hon. Gentleman is suggesting would mean fewer books for children like that little boy in Tanzania, so I disagree entirely with him.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We all know about the wonderful work being done on malaria, and we all know about the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is terribly important that we do not have people on one side of this debate arguing that overseas aid is wrong, corrupt and does not work and people on the other side saying, “We believe in it so much, and we are so worried there is some threat to it, that we need an arbitrary device to ensure that the budget increases, sometimes massively, every year.” Equally, if there were a recession, the budget might go down. It simply does not work. Anyway, I have made that point.

My last point is about social security. What worries me about my own Conservative Government is that an ever-increasing share of public spending is taken up by the NHS, social security and overseas aid, which is producing massive distortions and difficulties in other areas of spending that are absolutely vital—we have talked about defence, the police and the criminal justice system, and there are many others. The system is becoming skewed.

As a loyal Conservative and as someone who believes in Conservative values, if the Government are going down this path of giving an ever-larger part of the national cake to those three areas—the NHS, social security and overseas aid—I have to ask how they will pay for it. It is no longer possible to borrow, so they will have to pay for it with higher taxation. If it is indeed true that we will have this massive increase in real-terms NHS spending, we will need an increase in taxation, which would be lethal to the Conservative movement.

People vote Conservative because they want low taxes, and this is why I will be going off in a moment to vote Conservative in Westminster. People are voting for strong defence, strong law and order, low taxes and a pro-business environment. If we continue to increase spending on the NHS, social security and overseas aid, we will simply pave the way for a Corbyn Government. That is what I do not want to do, at all costs. Let us be true to ourselves, let us take the difficult decisions and let us be Conservative.