European Union (Withdrawal) Act

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, thank you for calling me. I have sat through nearly 12 hours of debate in the past two days, and I have to say that I think yesterday there was a decisive shift in the mood of the Chamber overall.

I was a marginal remainer, but when I told my constituents that—this is perhaps illustrative of the influence I have had in the past 30 years—they voted 60:40 out. Having done that, I said, “I am absolutely with you. It is my duty to get you out.” I feel very strongly that we must respect what our constituents have told us; we cannot have it any other way. Some colleagues who do not do so will find themselves in some difficulty when their finance and general purposes committees or associations look at them as we approach the next general election. I see myself as a delegate, not a representative, on this.

Mr Speaker, you and the Prime Minister have at least one thing in common—stamina. You have been in the Chair for the whole time this debate has gone so, which is 16 hours this week up to today, and the Prime Minister has been at the Dispatch Box for a very long time on Brexit issues, too.

I should declare an interest that I most definitely do not have: I do not want a job. However, I have to tell the House that I am a long-standing supporter of the Prime Minister. I respect her for her integrity and determination. She was a very good Home Secretary—that Department is a bed of nails—as well as a good Minister before that and a good councillor in Morden before that. She got a better deal than I expected. I am not sure I expected her to come back with an end of free movement, our money and laws back, and zero tariffs. I think that she has satisfied the requirements of my constituency, and I also think it is perfectly reasonable to have some red lines.

Yesterday, I listened to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs demolish the Opposition’s case, with their 16 different positions, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) explained that the European Union institutions will stop functioning in March because of the electoral cycle. We are therefore really faced with two options: we either take the deal on offer or we fall out of the EU. The pun is intended, because we will drop right out. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said, a lot of people are saying, “Get on with it”; they want us to do it.

In his speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), who has 9,000 car workers, explained the problems of the supply chain, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). I have to tell the House that in my Hinckley and Bosworth constituency we make things. It has the largest supplier of tractors worldwide, Caterpillar, with sales of $45 billion—the first UK factory was set up in Hinckley in 1952, and it now has over 1,500 employees—and 72% of its inbound components come from the EU, while 31% of outbound sales go to the EU. JJ Churchill, a supplier of Rolls-Royce, is in my constituency: fans are assembled into engine parts. I am told that there are dire problems if we do not have proper arrangements for leaving. MIRA, with its autonomous vehicles technology, is also in my constituency, as is DPD, the biggest parcel sorting operation in Europe, which has a depot the size of 14 football pitches and ships 80,000 items per hour, 20% of which go to the EU.

We have heard a lot about WTO terms from my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). They should have been here to listen to the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) demolish the argument for leaving on WTO terms, pointing out that he worked as part of the WTO during the Doha round and has therefore seen for himself the weakness of its dispute resolution process and the way in which the Americans ignore it.

We have three critical problems: the World Trade Organisation option does not work; just-in-time is critical because we do not have warehousing capacity; and agriculture would be ruined with 73% tariffs. Many colleagues support this argument, including the hon. Members for Redcar (Anna Turley) and for Leigh (Jo Platt) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who have said that they are worried about the situation.

On the backstop, colleagues should listen to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), who is supporting the Government on Brexit. She has warned of the dangers facing Northern Ireland’s businesses and agriculture, and we know that that is also true for agriculture in England. The Democratic Unionists should be careful what they wish for because there is the possibility of a border poll. The biggest problem for Northern Ireland will not so much be a hard border, which is impossible to construct and enforce but the catastrophic effect on its businesses.

I am supporting this deal, and I believe that there will be conciliation if we do not get it through on Tuesday. The hon. Members for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) all spoke about conciliation. There will be some form of conciliation and we will get it through in the end.

Medicinal Cannabis

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The right hon. Gentleman and I go back a long way and I have a great deal of respect for his position and experience. I simply make two points. First, the rules are as they are and, as a former Minister, the right hon. Gentleman knows that Ministers are bound by the rules. We can debate and challenge in this place—as we are beginning to do—whether the rules are fit for purpose, and that is the right thing to do in a representative Parliament. Secondly, in respect of my role, I have today signalled clearly that we are looking again at our processes and how these cases are handled. I have signalled clearly that we believe strongly that the handling of such cases needs to be more clinically led, hence the appointment of a panel. As to which Ministers decide and where the decision sits inside the system, that will be part of our consideration of how we handle these cases more effectively than we have done in the past.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that, with the Government having taken this important initiative, other similar cases will now be treated with similar leniency and that we will not have to wait for the wheels of Government to grind along slowly?

[Mr Hurd]

I do not think that the wheels of Government moved slowly this week at all—far from it. In response to an emergency request, we issued an emergency and limited licence very quickly, in recognition of the very difficult situation that we were in. I assure my hon. Friend that we will always seek to treat cases as consistently as possible, and that goes for Alfie Dingley and Sophia Gibson and the others. It is important that we are consistent, but in this case we were dealing with an emergency request for an emergency licence.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered an e-petition relating to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and I am grateful to you for that 72-second silence, which I know will be treasured by all involved. The prayer of e-petition 206722 says:

“Bereaved families & survivors call on PM to exercise her powers under the Inquiries Act 2005 to appoint additional panel members with decision making power to sit alongside Chair in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry: to ensure those affected have confidence in & are willing to fully participate in the Inquiry”.

The petition goes on to say:

“To secure trust in an establishment we feel has been distant & unresponsive, & to avoid a collapse of confidence in the Inquiry’s ability to discover the truth, it is fundamental that…The Inquiry is not led by a judge alone. Panel members must be appointed with relevant background, expertise, experience, & a real understanding of the issues facing those affected”

and

“Legal representatives of bereaved families see all evidence from the start & are allowed to question witnesses at the hearings”.

As we start this process, it is important to realise that it needs to be a people-led process at every stage, the reason being that real people’s lives are being affected now and real people’s lives have been lost. If you will indulge me for one second, Mr Rosindell, I will read out the names of those whom we are here to commemorate as much as we are here to fight for justice for them: Victoria King and her daughter, Alexandra Atala; Amna Mahmud Idris; Gary Maunders; Deborah Lamprell; Rania Ibrahim and her children, Hania and Fethia; Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi; Fathia Ahmed and her children, Abufars Ibrahim and Isra Ibrahim; Raymond “Moses” Bernard; Mohamed Neda; Hesham Rahman; Nadia Choucair, her husband Bassem Choucair and their three children, Mierna, Fatima and Zeinab, and the children’s grandmother, Sirria Choucair; Hashim Kedir, his wife Nura Jema, and their daughter Firdows Hashim, and sons, Yahya and Yaqub Hashim; Logan Gomes; Abdulaziz El-Wahabi, his wife Faouzia, and their children, Yasin, Nur Huda and Mehdi; Ligaya Moore; Khadija Saye and Mary Mendy; Jessica Urbano Ramirez; Farah Hamdan, her husband Omar Belkadi, and their children, Malak and Leena; Mariem Elgwahry and her mother, Eslah Elgwahry; Mohamednur Tuccu, his wife Amalahmedin and their daughter Amaya; Berkti Haftom and her son Biruk; sisters Sakina and Fatima Afrasahabi; Isaac Paulos; Khadija Khalloufi; Vincent Chiejina; Kamru Miah, Rabeya Begum, Mohammed Hamid, Mohammed Hanif and Husna Begum; Joseph Daniels; Majorie Vital and her son, Ernie; Sheila Smith; Hamid Kani; Steve Power; Mohammed al-Haj Ali; Denis Murphy; Zainab Deen and her son, Jeremiah; Abdeslam Sebbar; Ali Yawar Jafari; Anthony Disson; and the 72nd person, who died a while afterwards, was Maria Del Pilar Burton.

We must absolutely express our sympathy to the families of victims and the survivors, and pay tribute to the emergency services, volunteers and all those involved in supporting those in desperate need.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I would like to make an early suggestion to my hon. Friend, based on the experience I had with a charity set up after the World Trade Centre disaster. We will need to consider a memorial for the victims. Is he aware that when 67 Britons were killed in the World Trade Centre disaster a charity was set up in New York, called the British Memorial Garden, with a small London end, which one or two of us were involved in, and that a memorial garden was built in New York, called the Queen Elizabeth Garden? I strongly commend to him that something similar is done in London now for Grenfell.

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that the community have expressed an interest in doing something along those lines. There is a process in train and it very much needs to be community-based. I know the Minister will take that on board and he may say more about it.

I also thank the petitioners—Adel Chaoui, Karim Mussilhy and Sandra Ruiz—and all those who have signed the petition. As of now, the number of signatories is 156,659. I know that Stormzy and the like had a lot to do with that, but it is more than that—it is a community coming out and expressing solidarity, and a country expressing solidarity. I was going through the names of victims and their stories just yesterday. Nobody can fail to be moved by the stories and pen-sketches that have appeared in the lead-up to this debate, particularly in The Guardian this morning.

I thank Grenfell United, for the dignified and resolute way that it has represented its community, and Inquest, the independent charity that has supported the community with expertise in the investigation of contentious deaths involving both state and corporate bodies, for its work.

Some things have changed since the petition began. I know that Grenfell United is happy with the appointment of Sir Martin Moore-Bick because of his experience and expertise in regulation and law. It appreciates that that expertise will be valuable in determining what happened, but they believe that the question as to why might not be tested sufficiently without further panel members, in addition to those originally determined by the Prime Minister on 21 December 2017.

However, the written statement by the Prime Minister last Friday was a very welcome move. Appointing two new panel members will add much to the inquiry, but Grenfell United feels that more may be required to ensure that the panel has a diversity of experience beyond that of the two extra members.

Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to keep pubs open so that people can drink under some supervision? If we are to do that, the price of drink in pubs must be considered. Will he discuss the beer duty escalator with the Chancellor?

[Mr Browne]

That is a consideration but there have been changes in how people consume alcohol. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the consumption of different types of alcohol, he will see that beer sales have gone down and wine sales have risen sharply. In many cases people are choosing to drink wine at home to a greater extent than would have been the case a generation ago. All those factors need to be borne in mind and that is precisely why we are ensuring that we get the details of the consultation right.

Olympics (Security)

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am sure it is the unanimous wish of this House that British participants in the games are going to do extremely well, that we will have a good medal haul and that Members like myself will have constituents who are medal hopefuls—and I wish them every good luck in their competitive events.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has outlined the checks and inspections that she rightly had in place, but does she not suspect that G4S is, perhaps at the very least, hiding the scale of the problem and has been doing so for some time?

[Mrs May]

No, I would say that G4S came forward and made a statement to the Government that it would not be able to provide the numbers required. It would have been easy for G4S to carry on saying, “We will provide the required numbers”—but it did not; it recognised that it could not and at that point it came to the Government and we took the necessary action.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am happy to reassure—and, hopefully, calm down—the hon. Gentleman. The figures I was citing were not border force or Home Office figures; they were BAA figures. BAA publishes the monthly figures every month on its website. Those June figures were figures from BAA, not the Government. I hope the hon. Gentleman trusts BAA to produce reliable figures.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Olympic games opening ceremony is now just over two weeks away. The Olympic torch relay continues to inspire the nation, and I pay tribute to all involved, including the police officers who are providing such effective, yet discreet, security. Sadly, I will not be able to see the torch when it passes through my constituency tomorrow morning. The eyes of the world will be on us during what promises to be a real celebration of sport. I am confident that our police and security services will deliver a safe and secure games that the whole country—indeed, the whole world—can enjoy.

[David Tredinnick]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Has she had a chance to look at Leicestershire constabulary’s proposals to change its force shift patterns? How will that improve the policing in Hinckley in my constituency and the surrounding area, and will other forces also be looking at changing their shift patterns?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the shift patterns issue, and I welcome the work that a number of police forces across the country, including Leicestershire, have taken forward, so that they can use their resources rather better to ensure they can prioritise front-line services to the public while making the necessary savings. I would expect my hon. Friend’s force to be prioritising front-line services in exactly that way in his constituency.

Public Disorder

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that I will come to in my remarks.

The police are concerned to ensure that when we talk about robust policing, we definitely give them backing for what they want to do. Policing by consent is the British way, but the police retain the confidence of the wider community only if they are seen to take clear and robust action in the face of open criminality. On Monday night it was clear that there simply were not enough officers on duty. The largest policing event in London is the Notting Hill carnival. There were about 6,000 officers on duty on Monday night, which is the number that the police usually deploy for the Notting Hill carnival. It was clear that in the circumstances that developed that was not enough officers on duty.

It is clear to me that the original police tactics were insufficient—exactly the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) raised. After the criticism of previous public order operations for excessive force, some officers appeared reluctant to be sufficiently robust in breaking up groups. Many arrests were made, but in some situations officers contained suspects in a specified area where they were free to commit criminal damage and steal, instead of intervening and making arrests. I want to make it clear to the House that in making these points, I am not criticising the police. Too often, the police are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Nowhere is that truer than in public order policing. I want to be clear that as long as officers act within reason and the law, this Home Secretary will never damn the police if they do.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Earlier, I raised with the Prime Minister the nervousness of the police in acting since the G20 disturbances and the sad death. Will the Home Secretary reassure the House that officers who take robust action will not find themselves on the wrong end of the law?

[Mrs May]

As I have just said and as I have made clear to the police from when I first took on this role, I will always back officers who do the right thing and operate within the law. Appropriate action must be taken against officers who do the wrong thing, but we will back officers who do the right thing and I will back them as Home Secretary.

Public Order Policing

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Many right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. There are two further statements to follow, before we even reach the main business of the day, so if I am to accommodate the maximum number of colleagues on this statement, brevity in question and answer alike is essential.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Having faced rioters in Northern Ireland, I think that the fundamental problem was the route, which put thousands of potentially infiltrated marchers down Whitehall, with symbols of authority on both sides. It would have been much better to route the march to a public park—Southwark park or Hyde park—which I understand the National Union of Students wanted for the first march. Why are we not using snatch squads to take out the ringleaders before they can incite violence?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. Difficult judgments are made about the routes of these marches. He refers to the decisions, or the desires, of the NUS. One of the disappointments of what has happened so far is that, although the police have engaged with the NUS and discussed possible routes, a significant number of people have, sadly, come along purely to cause trouble, and the police have been dealing with them as best they can.

Policing in the 21st Century

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have absolutely no embarrassment in coming to the House and making it clear that what we will do is restore democratic accountability to the police through the direct election of commissioners. The hon. Gentleman speaks of local government. As a former councillor, I believe that local government is an important part of the strength of government in this country, but I also believe that most people do not know what their police authority is, or that they can consult it with a problem relating to their policing. Now they will have an opportunity to vote directly for the individual who will be their police commissioner.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on going for it and introducing directly elected commissioners. They have been very successful in other parts of the world, particularly the United States. However, has she thought about the situation that might arise if a directly elected commissioner had one policy and she had another, based on the national interest? How would that situation be resolved?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that prospect. One of the purposes of directly elected commissioners is to be responsive to local needs. Of course it will be necessary to ensure that the collaboration between police forces that I referred to earlier can be undertaken when necessary, and that will also involve ensuring that national policing issues are addressed properly. However, it is not the Home Secretary who should determine what happens in regard to local policing—which is what happened under the Labour Government—but the directly elected commissioners.