Tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I was a bit worried today because I thought I was going to be overwhelmed with emotion and also because I thought I might find out that I was not Tony’s favourite MP. It was the mark of a good leader and a good man that he made people feel like they were his favourite and that he was telling them something special. I cannot tell you how long I have known Tony because I have been in the trade union movement for so many years and our paths crossed all the time; we were campaigning all the time on so many different issues. But I remember in 2005 when I came into Parliament, I was quite obviously distressed about something—I do not know what—and I remember Tony putting his hand on my shoulder quite gently and saying, “Dawn, you’re often going to feel lost in this place, but don’t worry.” He said that if I ever had any questions I could always ask him, no matter how silly those questions were, and I have passed that on to new MPs that come in. I always say, “If you have a silly question, ask me. It’s okay”, because I remember how Tony made me feel when he said that.

Tony also told me not to believe people who said they knew how this place worked, because inevitably they do not. That I carry with me too. The last conversation I had with Tony was at the bottom of the stairs by the Opposition office and I remember he asked me how I was and how my health was. And I thought, “Oh my goodness, he is going through what he is going through.” I remember sending him a message that me and the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees)—who cannot be here today but would really want to be—were feeling quite lost and we did not know what to do—[Interruption.] I do not know how to portray to the family—sorry; how to portray to the family how much he meant to us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is right that we go through the judgment carefully and properly. As I have said, the Government have already been working in advance on a new treaty with Rwanda to address the concerns that were raised previously and were raised by the Supreme Court, which also acknowledged that changes can be delivered to address those issues. Let me repeat, however, that if it becomes clear that our domestic legal frameworks, or indeed international conventions, are still frustrating plans after that point, I am prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships, because we are absolutely committed to stopping the boats.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Q10. I thank the Prime Minister for meeting my constituent Noam. It has been 40 days since his mum, Ada Sagi, was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October. We all condemn Hamas’s actions and fight for the return of all hostages. Noam wants the language of love to be louder than the language of hate. Some 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 4,000 of them children. International law is important. Does the Prime Minister agree that we can support Israel but also call out breaches of international law?

[The Prime Minister]

I have been consistent from the start that while Israel has a right to defend itself, it is important that it complies with international law. It is a point I have made in every meeting or phone conversation I have had with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It was a privilege to meet the hon. Lady’s constituents and to hear of the pain they are going through, which I have enormous sympathy for. That is why we are doing everything we can to bring hostages home. We are engaged intensively in diplomatic activity in the region and working to get foreign nationals and British nationals home, and I am pleased to say that well over 200 have now left Gaza. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure that everyone can safely leave who needs to.

Israel and Gaza

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend, and he is right to point to the broader situation and welcome the progress that had been made on normalisation between Israel and other countries in the region, which speaks to the brighter future that we all hope we will see one day. Let me reassure him on our support for Ukraine: we remain committed to that, and just this Friday I was at the Joint Expeditionary Force summit in Sweden talking with our northern European, Scandinavian and Baltic partners and hearing directly from President Zelensky about how we in the JEF will continue to support Ukraine in the coming year. My right hon. Friend can rest assured that we are able to do both.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Noam Sagi, his wife Michal and their son are here today to watch you give your statement, Prime Minister.

Ada Sagi, Noam’s mum, was taken hostage from her home by Hamas on Saturday 7 October, and is currently being held hostage in Gaza. Ada booked a ticket to the UK to celebrate her 75th birthday. Noam has written to the Prime Minister to ask for his immediate intervention and assistance. Joe Biden has made personal calls to his citizens. I ask the Prime Minister if he will please—remember, the family are watching—spare just five minutes to have a quick conversation with them.

[The Prime Minister]

Of course I am happy to have a quick conversation, but I am also engaged actively with our partners in the region to try to ensure the safe release of our hostages, which I am sure the House will support me in doing any which way we can. We will use all the tools at our disposal to ensure their safe return, not just for the hon. Lady’s constituents but all those British nationals and others who were taken by Hamas in that appalling act. They should know that we are doing absolutely everything we can to try to bring them back home as quickly and safely as possible.

Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman is making a statement about helping to arrange a loan. I do not know the basis on which he makes that assertion, but I know that all matters to do with any conflicts of interest or perception of conflicts of interest will be looked at by the BBC under the process established by the chairman.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

On Wednesday the Prime Minister stated that there were no outstanding issues. By the weekend, he had ordered an independent internal investigation. Can the Minister ensure that all the information that escalated this from “nothing to see” to an investigation of this kind is placed in the Library of the House?

Oral Answers to Questions

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is an excellent champion for her constituents, particularly her advanced manufacturing businesses, which I have had the pleasure of visiting with her in the past. It is important that we support those businesses on energy prices, which we are doing through the announcement that the Chancellor recently made, particularly in regard to generous support for energy-intensive industries. Indeed, they can also apply for up to £315 million-worth of capital grant funding to help them make the transition to net zero.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Q7. When I had breast cancer, I had phenomenal nurses. When I had to be rushed to A&E, the ambulance crew looked after me. Unison and GMB are on strike because nobody is negotiating with them. For the first time in the history of the Royal College of Nursing, its members are on strike today after being balloted. I have spoken to the general secretary of the RCN, and she is adamant that she wants to end the disputes; she just needs a meeting with the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister show leadership and meet the RCN? It is a simple yes or no.

[The Prime Minister]

At the turn of the year, the Government wrote to all unions, including the RCN, to invite them for frank, open, honest, two-way dialogue with the relevant Secretaries of State. I am pleased that those meetings are happening in a range of sectors, and I hope we can find a constructive way through this.

Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

As I have said, there is a process ongoing to appoint an independent adviser as fast as possible. The Prime Minister has been in post for 31 days, and there is standing advice on the use of WhatsApp and private messaging.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm whether the fee paid to Adam Tolley KC to investigate the claims he mentioned earlier is greater than the projected annual cost of an ethics adviser?

[Alex Burghart]

I do not know the answer to that question. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady to answer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is the second time I have been asked about this; I thank my right hon. Friend very much, and he is right to raise it. We will make sure that we have a proper meeting with the Department of Health so that we can resolve the issue of how to make sure that the supply of the Bedrocan or the cannabis-based products that are coming from Holland can be made secure, and can continue.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I personally thank you, Mr Speaker, for your support for Parliament’s covid memorial quilt. Prime Minister, after PMQs, I will be presenting my cross-party private Member’s Bill, the Coronavirus (No. 2) Bill, to Parliament. It is based on scientific advice, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies guidance, and lessons learned. Will the Prime Minister please commit to reading this Bill and providing me with a written response, maybe by tomorrow—I know that is a bit of an ask—but, if not, within the next two weeks?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to make that commitment.

Covid-19 Update

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Alas, I cannot give him a date by which I can promise confidently that we will have a vaccine. There are some very hopeful signs, not least from the Oxford-AstraZeneca trials that are being conducted, but, as he knows, SARS took place 18 years ago and we still do not have a vaccine for SARS. I do not wish to depress him, but we must be realistic about this. There is a good chance of a vaccine, but it cannot be taken for granted.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Instead of supporting the established system in public health, the Prime Minister has invested £10 billion in privatised companies. It has not controlled the virus, it has not saved lives and it has not rebuilt the economy. In Brent, the wonderful CEO, Carolyn Downs, with the leader of the council, Mo Butt, had control of local testing. We were able to test people very quickly, and in surrounding areas. The Government have taken the majority of the testing away. People are told they have to travel miles to get tested and, in addition, care workers have waited seven days to get their test results. When will the Prime Minister stop his obsession with this centralised approach and go for a decentralised approach that works?

[The Prime Minister]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes, and obviously, again, I am sorry for the bad experiences that some people have had with the excessive turnaround times for NHS Test and Trace and so on, but I do think that the mixed approach that we are taking is the right one. We need a joined-up, national Test and Trace system combined with the work of local authorities, and that is what we are delivering.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We want to encourage more people with disabilities to come forward. They often face extra challenges and costs. That is why we have extended the EnAble fund, to support disabled candidates in local elections and police and crime commissioner elections.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm that the disproportionate impact on women was specifically considered at the recent Cobra meeting dealing with the effects of coronavirus? Our country’s social infrastructure has been weakened by this Government’s cuts—86% of the cuts have fallen on women. The gig economy and zero-hours contracts have affected women more than any other group, hence the rise of in-work poverty. Caring responsibilities and volunteer work in our country are built on an army of women and grand- parents—the system is dependent on unpaid work by older women. What provisions have the Government made to address the adverse impact on women?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have shown that we have delivered for women. We have a record number of women in work. We have more girls than ever studying science, technology, engineering and maths, with a 30% increase at A-level and an increase in the number of women studying STEM degrees. I suggest to the hon. Lady that her party should show a bit of leadership by enacting a female Labour leader.

Points of Order

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That is extraordinarily eloquent and generous. I do not want to comment on anything the right hon. Gentleman has said about me but I want instead to endorse in triplicate what he has just said about the Right Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, a great servant to Parliament, in her place in the Under Gallery now, a source of comfort and inspiration to me for the last nine years. There has not been a single day when I have not felt delighted and reinforced in my insistence, and it was my insistence, that Rose should be appointed to that role. There is always scope for legitimate difference of opinion, but there were people—part of what I have to say outside of this place I will call the bigot faction—who volunteered their views as to what an inapposite appointment I had made with all the force and insistence at their disposal, which sadly from their point of view were in inverse proportion to their knowledge of the subject matter under discussion. They had not met Rose, they did not know her, they could not form a view; they had a stupid, dim-witted, atavistic, racist and rancid opposition to the Rev. Rose. I was right, they were wrong: the House loves her. [Applause.]

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to say a huge thank you for all that you have done for Back Benchers and for democracy, especially throughout this time as we discuss Brexit. I also want to thank you for all the firsts you have done in the House. In the Stonewall list of LGBT+ employers, Parliament has moved up now to 23rd; I think we were down in the 70s and 80s before. Parliament has been ranked as one of the best 100 employers at the race equality awards; that is because of your guidance and leadership, Mr Speaker. And thank you for appointing Rev. Rose; I think she is in the corner crying, with the rest of us. Thank you so much, Mr Speaker; she has been amazing, as have you.

We have also had the first Muslim Serjeant at Arms and the first female Clerk Assistant of the House, and young people being allowed to debate in this Chamber has come under you, Mr Speaker. There are also all the charity events that you have held in Speaker’s House—such as for British sign language and the Windrush—and being able to raise the flag for International Women’s Day outside Parliament for the first time, and Black History Month. I could go on about all that you have done to modernise this place, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Mr Speaker.

I hope you can just bear with me, Mr Speaker, because equality is a theme that you have championed. Following last week’s resignation, I am deeply concerned that the position that I shadow, Minister for Women and Equalities, remains vacant, and that, with more than half of the current Cabinet opposed to equal marriage, this brief has been undermined deliberately to roll back the hard fought-for rights and protections. Mr Speaker, being a bit of a “girly swot”, I have calculated that when the next person is appointed they will be the 10th to be appointed to the brief since 2010. The post has moved Departments four times, and a new Minister would be the fifth I will have shadowed in just two years. [Interruption.] Government Members may groan, but they do not feel even half the pain that we feel on this side of the House.

Trump recently described Boris Johnson as Britain’s Trump and he was grinning like a Cheshire cat. In the United States we have seen what can happen when a racist and sexist is placed in charge of a country: implementing a Muslim ban on people arriving and leaving the country, banning trans people from serving in the military, pushing to allow businesses to turn LGBT customers away and making it easier for LGBT people to be sacked, or telling “the squad”, a group of four elected Congresswomen of colour, to go back to their countries. Our Prime Minister is modelling his campaign on his mate Trump. This is proven by the fact that No. 10 recently carried out a so-called culture war on polling on trans people. It is a disgrace to equalities, and it is so obvious that the Tories do not care about this brief. Women have suffered 87% of the cuts, and we have seen a 375% rise in hate crime. We cannot allow this kind of hateful and divisive politics to continue to infect the UK. If any Government is in need of a Minister to fight against racism, sexism and homophobia, it is this one.

Mr Speaker, with your commitment to equality, I wonder if you can shed some light on this. Do you know when the Prime Minister will stop passing this vitally important brief around like an inconvenience, and when he will start treating the Women and Equalities brief with the respect that it deserves and appoint a full-time Secretary of State to the brief, and a Department, just as Labour has pledged to do?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has said what she thought; it is on the record and people can make their own assessment of it. Let me just say that I do regard the portfolio as a matter of the utmost importance, and one of the encouraging phenomena of recent years has been the emergence of an apparent consensus across the House as to the importance of this set of issues. That is precious, and it should be cherished. It would be perilous if it were lost or put at risk. I very much hope that in the very difficult circumstances that we now face, there will be a replacement Minister soon. This is not a matter for me, but I feel very confident that an appointment will be made before very long.

These issues have to be focused on with a relentless tenacity. You cannot just take them for granted or think, “Job done.” Sadly, all too often, we observe people in very, very, very senior positions around the world who do not appear to be adequately conscious—if conscious at all—of the scale of their responsibilities. With power comes responsibility. For example, we do not want to hear and we utterly deprecate the use of language such as “Go back” as a political tool. The Government rightly criticised this; it is unacceptable and it should not be ignored. It has to be called out. We need a focus for these issues, and the existence of a Minister is a part of that focus, mirrored by the Select Committee that scrutinises the Minister’s work. We have an excellent Women and Equalities Committee—it is to the great credit of the Government that they established it—and it is important that it should have a Minister to scrutinise.