Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is precisely why we have created the levelling-up fund. There is £3.6 billion within that in the towns fund to be invested in high streets up and down the country. We will be outlining the third round of submissions to that fund, and I am quite sure that my hon. Friend will make a very vigorous case for funding for his constituency during that round.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Yesterday, I met Karen. Karen is a carer for her husband Alan, who has Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia. She told me how hard it is to get people with power just to listen to her. Like so many carers, Karen feels her caring work just is not valued; at times, she has wanted to give up, but knows she must carry on because of her husband. Remarkable carers such as Karen save the Government more than the entire NHS budget, so will the Government finally recognise the value of Britain’s family carers and not just pay tribute to them, but give them the financial and practical support they deserve?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course, I would like to join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Karen and to hard-working unpaid carers up and down the country. I know he speaks from personal experience about this issue as well. We have provided £2.3 billion of support for social care, with an additional £25 million committed to putting people at the heart of care in the “People at the Heart of Care” White Paper, and £327 million is also committed to the better care fund.

G7 Summit

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know my right hon. Friend has long championed this, and rightly so, which is why I was pleased, as Chancellor, to increase our defence budget by £24 billion—the largest sustained increase since the end of the cold war. Just recently, the Chancellor added an initial £5 billion of spending over the next two years both to strengthen our nuclear enterprise and to rebuild stockpiles, which is something I know he has been interested in, and we outlined an ambition to increase defence spending to 2.5%. We are on track to get to 2.25% in the next couple of years, at which point we will take stock and see where we are economically and fiscally but, as I have said, the threats our country faces are increasing and it is right that we invest appropriately to protect ourselves.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Can I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing and the family of Fusilier Lee Rigby?

I welcome the Prime Minister’s update. He is right that the UK and our allies must be steadfast in our support for Ukraine. He was also right to announce new sanctions on Friday to further restrict Russian businesses from selling their products into the UK. Now we must take further action to support Ukraine. That includes encouraging individuals in this country who have directly invested in companies still active in Russia to sell their personal shares now. Does the Prime Minister agree that these people should end their investment, so they stop supporting the Russian economy and thereby Putin’s war efforts?

[The Prime Minister]

We were one of the first countries to put in place an incredibly comprehensive sanctions regime against Russia. We have sanctioned, at this point, over 1,500 people—tens of billions of dollars of assets. Indeed, because of our actions, something like over $200 billion-worth of Russian state assets are currently now frozen. All that is contributing to a significant squeezing of the Russian economy, as we are seeing, and its ability to replenish its war machine, and we will keep looking for other opportunities to tighten the vice, as we did this weekend.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend knows this subject well, and he is rightly passionate about it. I thank him for all the valuable work that he and his colleagues have done over the years as we considered and concluded these negotiations.

As I said earlier, Parliament will of course have its say and there will be a vote, but we need to do that at the appropriate time in order to give people the time and space to consider the detail. My hon. Friend makes an important point that the benefit of this framework and agreement is that it can start to provide that certainty and those benefits to the people and communities of Northern Ireland very soon. That is why we have concluded these negotiations and want to start delivering the benefits for people on the ground as quickly as we can.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I join others in paying tribute to our late, great Speaker, Betty Boothroyd. Like me, Mr Speaker, I am sure you remember with fondness when you caught Speaker Boothroyd’s eye and when she brought you to order.

I also send my party’s thoughts and prayers to DCI John Caldwell and his family and thank him for his courage and bravery.

Like others, the Liberal Democrats will now closely study this deal, but I welcome the spirit of partnership and compromise between the UK Government and the European Union in the formation of the Windsor agreement. What consultation will the Prime Minister now undertake with all of Northern Ireland’s political parties, including the Alliance party, on the Stormont brake? Can he reassure us that the operation of the Stormont brake will not undermine the economic stability and certainty or the political stability so desperately needed in Northern Ireland?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that we will continue to engage with all parties and communities in Northern Ireland—that is the right way to proceed—particularly with regard to the operation of the brake. That is set out in the Command Paper, and we look forward to discussing it, and how to codify it, with the Executive, the Assembly and the political parties as we move forward. That is something we are very happy to do.

Just so the right hon. Gentleman is clear, the Stormont brake is based on an existing Good Friday agreement mechanism. The petition of concern mechanism is well established in Northern Ireland as a cross-community safeguard, which is why we have chosen it as the appropriate mechanism for this particular purpose. As I say, we will continue to engage with all parties to make sure we get it absolutely right.

Illegal Immigration

Ed Davey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent question and for his very constructive engagement with me and Ministers on resolving this issue. I know he speaks up very well for his local area on these matters. He is absolutely right, which why it is so crucial that, in the last few weeks, not only have we restarted meetings of the Calais group of European nations, which the Home Secretary deserves enormous credit for, but she has put that group on a permanent basis. We are making sure that we now go further, working with Frontex, the European border agency, towards a European returns agreement for the first time ever. That is the path forward. The best way to solve this problem is upstream, working with our allies in northern Europe, and the plans and progress that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made are going to deliver exactly that.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and community in Solihull who have lost their young sons.

Some 97,000 people have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for six months or more. That is 97,000 people trapped for months in Home Office limbo, banned from working, while the NHS, social care, agriculture and hospitality are all desperately short of staff. Last month it was revealed that even the Home Office’s own analysis shows that the right to work does not act as a pull factor for asylum seekers, so will the Prime Minister end this absurd ban on work, to save taxpayers money and help to grow our economy?

[The Prime Minister]

The simple answer is no. We will not do that, nor will we grant blanket amnesties, as happened in the past, to get the backlog down. We will go through it methodically and properly. The best way to reduce the pressure on the backlog is to stop people coming here in the first place, and if the right hon. Gentleman is interested in doing that, he should support our new legislation.

Prime Minister

Ed Davey Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Prime Minister’s Question Time on 23 November 2022:

[Ed Davey]

My constituent Vanessa has contacted me in floods of tears. Her mortgage payments have risen by £500 a month. She and her husband were already struggling with high energy bills and high food bills; now, like one in four mortgage holders across the country, they fear losing their home. “We are out of options and heartbroken,” says Vanessa. Will the Prime Minister introduce a new mortgage protection fund, paid for by reversing his tax cuts for the banks? Will he help Vanessa to keep her home?

[The Prime Minister]

I am deeply sorry to hear about Vanessa’s circumstances. I want her to know that the plan that the Chancellor announced last week will help families like hers up and down the country, because it is the right plan to tackle inflation, limit the increase in mortgage rates and ensure confidence in our economy. There is specific help that the Chancellor announced, offering low-interest loans to homeowners on benefits to cover interest on mortgages of up to £250,000. The Chancellor is also meeting mortgage lenders in the coming weeks. We will continue to do all we can to support those homeowners who are struggling with their payments.

[Official Report, 23 November 2022, Vol. 723, c. 285.]

Letter of correction from the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak):

An error has been identified in my response to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) during Prime Minister’s Question Time.

The correct response should have been:

COP27

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. I think it may have been his idea to create the Faraday battery challenge, but I was pleased to support that, as Chancellor, with £200 million of funding. He is right about the importance of building a domestic gigafactory capability. I was pleased with the announcement from Envision and Nissan in Sunderland. There is more in the pipeline, and we have the automotive transformation fund available to support those projects to build the vibrant ecosystem that he and I both want to see.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I welcome what the Prime Minister said at COP—that tackling climate change goes hand in hand with lowering energy bills, improving our energy security and hurting Putin in his illegal war in Ukraine. However, I am alarmed that at home the Prime Minister has banned onshore wind, one of the cheapest and most popular forms of renewable energy. Will he confirm whether his priority is cutting people’s energy bills, improving Britain’s energy security and tackling global climate change, or keeping the dinosaurs on his Back Benches happy? Why will he not get rid of the ban on onshore wind?

[The Prime Minister]

It started so well. We are committed to reducing people’s bills and to having more forms of renewable energy. Our track record on this is superb: the amount of renewable energy is four times more than in 2010 and zero carbon energy now accounts for half of our electricity needs. We are poised to do more. Offshore wind is the thing we are focusing on, along with nuclear. We are now a world leader in offshore wind, which is providing cheap forms of electricity and energy for households up and down the country. Alongside nuclear, that is how we will transition to a cleaner grid.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Ed Davey Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and I congratulate her on her lovely, heartwarming speech.

The Liberal Democrats join Members on both sides of the House in expressing our deepest condolences on the passing of Her Majesty the Queen. We are mourning a profound loss. The Queen was a formidable monarch who faithfully served our country all her life, and she was loved the world over. She represented not only duty and courage but warmth and compassion, and she was a living reminder of our collective past, of the greatest generation and their sacrifices for our freedom.

For many people, myself included, Her Majesty was an ever-fixed mark in our lives. As the world changed around us and politicians came and went, she was our nation’s constant. In challenging times, she was always a source of calm and comfort. She tied our nations together, embodying an unwavering pride in our country. She showed us that patriotism is not defined by political allegiance and reminded us of the many things that bind us all together, even when it does not always feel that way.

We saw this so vividly during the platinum jubilee celebrations in June. I am proud to represent the oldest royal borough in England, Kingston upon Thames, and our jubilee street parties certainly lived up to that status. It was truly wonderful to see such an outpouring of affection by people across Kingston from all walks of life. Schoolchildren baked jubilee cakes, neighbours shared bunting and choirs sang hymns of praise. It was incredibly fitting that, after so long kept apart by covid, it was a celebration of Her Majesty’s reign that brought our communities back together so joyfully, just as the whole country is united today, so sadly, in grief.

The deep mourning across the country now, just like the celebration of her jubilee a few months ago, comes not from a sense of duty but from genuine and heartfelt affection, love and admiration for Her Majesty. It is not because we were her subjects but because she was truly our Queen. What she meant to us is perhaps best summed up by a phrase on so many people’s lips over the past 24 hours: “I cannot imagine our country without her.”

For almost everyone in our country, she had been there our whole life, at times of national grief and national jubilation. She had never not been there for us, so it is hard to accept that she is gone and hard to see how we go on without her, but we will. Our great United Kingdom has a great future because the Queen’s spirit of strength, grace and resolve lives on in her people.

One of the greatest privileges of being a Member of this House was having the chance to meet Her Majesty, such as when she visited Kingston on the occasion of her golden jubilee or when I was deeply privileged to sit next to her at lunch at Windsor Castle. I was initially confused by a silver cylinder beside her place setting. I wondered to myself what treasures it might hold. I had my suspicions when, as dessert was served, her beloved corgis were let in and nestled themselves around her feet. The Queen lifted up the lid of the cylinder, plucked out some digestive biscuits, and began sneaking them to her grateful dogs. Whenever I met her, I was struck by her warmth, her wisdom and her humour, and I am looking forward to hearing similar stories from hon. and right hon. Members from across the House as they give glimpses of the wonderful person beneath the crown.

Her Majesty will be remembered with honour as a monarch who guided our country out of the shadow of a terrible war, who helmed us calmly through troubled waters and brought us safely into a new millennium. She will be remembered so fondly as the monarch who leapt from a helicopter with James Bond and who showed Paddington where she kept her marmalade sandwiches. For the royal family, she will be remembered simply as a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Our thoughts, prayers and condolences are with them all as they bear this terrible loss.

After a lifetime of dedicated and tireless service to our country and our Commonwealth, Her Majesty has gone to her eternal rest. May God rest her soul and may God save the King.

UK Energy Costs

Ed Davey Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am completely committed to net zero by 2050 and I will be saying more about how we will be achieving that later in this speech.

As well as dealing with the immediate situation we face, we are also dealing with the root causes.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I welcome the Prime Minister to her place and hope she will work with Opposition parties in the national interest. Will she confirm that her announcement today will still see the energy bills of struggling families rising by another £500 next month and that this winter they will be paying energy bills that are twice those they paid last winter?

[The Prime Minister]

At the same time as introducing the energy price guarantee, we are also providing families with £400 and providing extra support to the vulnerable. Vulnerable families will be receiving that extra support.

I want to move on to why we are in the situation we are in now. The fact is that energy policy over the past decades has not focused enough on securing supply. [Interruption.] I do not know why the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) is laughing, as he is partly responsible for this. There is no better example than nuclear, where the UK has not built a single new nuclear reactor in 25 years. This is not just about supply; the regulatory structures have failed, exposing the problems of a price cap applied to the retail but not the wholesale market. All of that has left us vulnerable to volatile global markets and malign actors in an increasingly geopolitical world. That is why Putin is exploiting this situation by weaponising energy supplies as part of his illegal war on Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Following the earlier statement from Mr Speaker, I think our hearts, thoughts and prayers will be elsewhere, but I wanted to contribute to the debate and to agree with the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and his questions on heating oil. That is a critical issue for people in rural communities, and we need answers immediately.

What the Prime Minister has announced is not a freeze on people’s energy bills. In the middle of a cost of living emergency, the Conservatives are choosing to put energy bills up by another £500 for struggling families. That hike in people’s energy bills comes on top of the £700 rise we saw last April. Struggling families will be paying twice as much for energy as they were last year, and people will still be desperately worried about how they will keep warm this winter. Last May’s £400 discount will simply not make up for the enormous rise in energy bills. So where is the new support for families and pensioners who are struggling? Under the Prime Minister’s plan, fuel poverty will get worse, not better.

I turn to how we think the Prime Minister is proposing to pay for the package. Why does it seem that the Government will be handing an eye-watering bill to taxpayers in the form of higher borrowing? We all know that that ultimately means higher taxes for taxpayers, and particularly for our children. That does not seem conservative, and it does not seem right. Why has she rejected the alternative of a windfall tax on today’s oil and gas giants, who are raking in enormous, unexpectedly high profits thanks to President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? How is it fair to take money from future taxpayers—from our children—and hand it to today’s oil and gas barons? How is it responsible to borrow so much to pay for consumption when our economy is already in such a mess, with the pound falling so dangerously?

The fair and responsible energy policy would be to increase investment massively in the cheapest and most popular forms of energy available to us: wind and solar. I was absolutely shocked that the Prime Minister did not announce a massive, fast expansion of renewables to bring people’s energy bills down.

The Prime Minister has made some alarming choices today by rejecting cheap wind and solar power, raising energy bills even higher than they are now, refusing to give extra support to struggling families and pensioners, and paying for a policy with higher taxes on our children instead of a windfall tax on fossil fuels. Those are the wrong choices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

As the Prime Minister leaves office, I am sure that the whole House is looking forward to him completing his book on Shakespeare. We wait to read what he really thinks about tragic figures brought down by their vaulting ambition, or scheming politicians who conspire to bring down a tyrannical leader. The candidates now plotting to take his place all profess that they will bring a fresh start—a clean break from his Government—but does the Prime Minister not agree that a fresh start and a clean break would require a new mandate from the British people, and that before they strut and fret their hour upon the stage, there should be a general election?

[The Prime Minister]

Polonius—that’s who the right hon. Gentleman is; he needs more matter with less art. The only thing we need to know is that if there were to be a general election, the Liberal Democrats would rightly get thrashed, because that would be the moment when the public looked with horror at what the Liberal Democrats’ policies really are and all those rural voters would discover the massive green taxes that they would like to apply. The only risk is that there could be some kind of crackpot coalition between those guys on the Labour Benches, the Lib Dems and the Scottish nationalists to put that into effect. That is what we must prevent.

Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am thrilled to be debating again with the right hon. Gentleman. Since our last encounters, I am proud to tell him that we have got unemployment down to record lows. I know that he would rather have people on benefits, but I do not think that is the way forward. He talks about 14 million people, but let me tell him that 14 million voted for this Conservative Government, and this Conservative Government are undefeated at the polls—never let that be forgotten. At the same time—

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

Just a moment. At the same time, we have been investing massively in schools, making our streets and our communities safer, making our population healthier and ensuring that our kids are literate and numerate at the age of 11—our goal is to get up to 90% by 11, rather than the current 65%.

We have been driven throughout these last three years by a very simple vision: we Conservatives believe that there is genius and talent everywhere and energy and imagination distributed in every corner of this country, but we do not think that is the same for opportunity. Our immense programme of levelling up is driven by the simple mathematical observation that if per capita GDP and productivity were as evenly distributed in the UK as they are in our major competitors, this would be by some way the most prosperous economy in Europe. Of course, it would also be the morally right thing to do. That is why we have kept going with the most colossal infrastructure programme ever seen, with three new high-speed rail lines—and, by the way, how many miles of electrified line did Labour build in its 13 years of office. Does anybody know? Virtually none. We are putting in hundreds of miles of road improvements and massive investments in buses and cycling.

Of course, we gave and are giving people skills, skills, skills. The lifetime skills guarantee means that the Government will support them to get an A-level equivalent skill when they are an adult. We are also giving them the technology to use those skills throughout the country. I am proud to say that gigabit broadband now sprouts through virtually every wainscot. We have gone from 7% to 69% coverage in this brief three years.

It is only by putting in the infrastructure—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) says that they do not have wi-fi in the north. This Government are putting in wi-fi across the whole—[Interruption.] How little she knows of the very area she purports to represent. It is only by putting in the infrastructure that we enable people to live where they want. I am proud that not only have we seen record numbers of homes being built, but last year, there were 400,000 first-time buyers. Unlike the Labour party, we believe in home ownership. We believe in getting people on the property ladder—[Interruption.] You can tell they do not like it, Mr Speaker. The better the infrastructure, the skills and the technology—there were 400,000 first-time buyers—the less intrusive the regulation in our country and the more the investment flows in.

We are seeing huge sums coming in now from the private sector. Every other week, there is another £1 billion unicorn, not just in London, Oxford or Cambridge, but across the whole country. We have more tech investment than France, Germany and Israel combined, and now, in the first quarter of this year, in attracting tech venture capital, we have actually overtaken the Chinese with £12.5 billion coming in.

This Government will continue to make the UK the place to come for the industries and businesses of the future. This year, Newquay will join Cape Kennedy and Baikonur as a functioning spaceport, I am proud to say. For the first time ever, under this Government, a British satellite will be launched into space from Britain. Next year, the spaceport in Shetland will roar into life, thanks to investments from Lockheed Martin and others, as local crofters—I mean humble crofters, almost as humble and local as the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford)—have withdrawn their opposition because they can see that it means jobs and growth for their area.

People in this House may not know it, but this Government have made an investment in low earth orbit satellites—hundreds of them. It was a risk, but it has paid off for the taxpayer. Hundreds and hundreds of them are now circling the earth, offering all sorts of opportunities, including the potential for internet connections for the people of sub-Saharan Africa.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Like so many of the British people, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have absolutely no confidence in this whole Conservative Government. This Government have plunged our great country into three serious crises: the cost of living crisis, the healthcare crisis and a political crisis. Before the Prime Minister was forced to resign, there was absolutely no plan to tackle any of these crises, and now the candidates to succeed the Prime Minister are proving comprehensively that they have no idea of the scale of these crises, let alone how to tackle them.

I mention the scale of these crises because it is shockingly evident that the Conservative party is totally out of touch with the financial and healthcare catastrophes facing millions of British families and pensioners later this year. Let us start with the cost of living. Already families and pensioners are struggling to pay their soaring energy, petrol and food bills, and inflation is accelerating away. Energy bills alone were up £700 in April, with an even bigger rise coming in October. So many of our constituents are already asking how they are supposed to pay next month’s bills, and their fear about winter’s heating bills is understandably growing every day. Millions of people are facing a financial catastrophe over the next few months, yet the Conservative party seems blissfully ignorant.

In the so-called debates between the leadership candidates, there is this massive elephant in the room, the energy bill catastrophe, yet they have no serious answer to that. The Liberal Democrats have showed what could be done. For months, we have been calling for an emergency cut in VAT, which would save families £600 a year. Instead, this Government have chosen to raise taxes, to raise national insurance, to freeze income tax thresholds and to hit hard-working families, making the crisis worse, not better.

Then there is the healthcare crisis. Health crises used to occur for a few weeks every winter, but not with this Conservative Government. This Prime Minister has brought healthcare crises for winter, autumn, summer and spring. Just look at the stats: a record 6.5 million people on hospital waiting lists, cancer treatment targets missed by miles, and record long delays in ambulance response times. This Government have ignored the ambulance crisis, hoping it goes away: they have failed to employ the GPs, the NHS dentists and the care staff that the British people need and deserve. Now, leadership candidates argue about how much to slash the NHS budget, which brings me to the political crisis.

It would be easy to blame all the political crisis on the Prime Minister, and he must certainly take a large part of blame—he has debased the high office of the British Prime Minister and he has shattered the public’s trust in our politics—but he did not act alone. For three years, Conservative Members have backed him to the hilt. When he was at the Dispatch Box telling us that there were no parties at No. 10, or claiming that crime had gone down when it had gone up, they were all there behind him, nodding along with every word of it. Conservative MPs defended the indefensible and excused the inexcusable. It is not just the Prime Minister we have no confidence in; it is all of them.

The people of Chesham and Amersham showed that they have no confidence in the Government when they elected my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) last year. The people of North Shropshire showed that they have no confidence in this Government in December, when they voted for another of my hon. Friends, the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). The people of Devon showed they have no confidence in these Conservatives just last month, when they so wisely elected my hon. Friend the new Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord).

We think it is time we gave everyone across the country the chance to have their say and to end this shameful, shambolic Conservative Government through a general election. When Conservative Members decide how to vote today, I urge them to ask themselves these questions. Do they really have confidence in a Government who have raised taxes by more than £1,000 per family in the middle of a cost of living crisis? Do they really have confidence in a Prime Minister who was fined by the police for breaking his own law, who forgot about serious allegations against his Deputy Chief Whip, and who is now under investigation for contempt by a Committee of this House? Do they really have confidence in a Government who are running our NHS into the ground and taking local communities for granted? I believe that the British people have lost confidence in all of them, and if the Conservatives have any decency left, they will back this motion tonight.

[Several hon. Members rose—]