Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary has set out her plans to deliver on dealing with the covid backlog. She will continue to work on that and make sure that we deal with what was a massive pandemic that created a backlog. We will deal with it.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Since the mini-Budget, thousands of my constituents have been in mental anguish and despair. I recognise that the Prime Minister has faced a week of mental anguish and despair herself. People have been angry with her and people have mocked her. Having had that experience, what will she now do to improve the mental healthcare for people in this country, so that the anguish that they face in the coming months is properly responded to and dealt with?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary has set out a clear plan of how we are going to deal with the backlog created by covid, how we are going to make sure that people get timely GP appointments, and how we are going to improve the services in our hospitals, including mental health services.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have been clear that our priority is restoring the balance of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. While our preference is to secure a negotiated outcome with the European Union, we cannot delay in taking the action we need to take to restore that balance in the Good Friday agreement and protect our precious Union.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The emergency safeguarding measures are provided with a legal basis under the protocol, but under the protocol they can only be temporary. The problem the Secretary of State has is that there is no legal basis within the protocol for a permanent change. She says that she wants a negotiated settlement, and of course we would all seek that, but how is the Bill that she proposes to introduce unilaterally in this House going to change the position in international law, which is that she cannot unilaterally abrogate the treaty that she has signed?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have said, the Bill is legal in international law and we will set out the position in due course.

Sanctions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Well, Mr Speaker, they will not be able to travel.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Giorgidze family, the Reckon family and many others in my constituency have family members and loved ones now in Poland or on its border. They want to know what conversations the Foreign Secretary has had with her counterpart in Poland about swift flights to bring those family members to the UK and—perhaps equally importantly—what conversations she has had with the Home Secretary on that matter.

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have been working closely with the Home Office on this issue as well as the Polish Government. In fact, I am due to meet the Polish Minister tomorrow to discuss it further. We have a forward team of Foreign Office officials in Poland precisely to help with such cases.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

You’ve cracked that one before!

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be familiar with the Brexit voucher scheme that has been launched by the Irish Government to support small and medium-sized enterprises trading across borders and affected by Brexit. The Dutch have introduced a similar scheme paying grants of over €2,000 and loans of up to €1.5 million. What assessment has she made of those measures and whether they are compliant with state aid rules, and if they are, why has she not introduced any similar measures to support our own SMEs, which face unknown tariffs, increased checks and inspections, and substantial delays to their trade?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are working very closely with the Cabinet Office to make sure that businesses have all the information they need to prepare for transition at the end of this year. This is also an opportunity, of course, to get more businesses trading with the rest of the world, and we will be saying more about this soon in our new export strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate Croft Architectural Hardware on its brilliant work. I understand that we have helped it to attend two trade fairs in the US through our trade show access programme. I also note that there is currently a 4% tariff on door knockers; I hope that in future trade agreements we shall be able to get that removed.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State point to any examples of intersecting customs unions anywhere else in the world? Will she confirm that under the EU customs code to be implemented in Northern Ireland, goods will have to be declared and products of animal origin will have to pass through a border inspection involving both documentary and physical checks, and does she accept that those will subsist completely irrespective of the tariff regime in any future free trade agreement with the EU?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As we have made very clear, we want to ensure that there is no hard border in Northern Ireland. That is a priority for the Government, and we have reached a new agreement with the EU that delivers on it. Of course, we need to work through the details of precisely how that arrangement will work.

The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that the world is moving on: we are moving into an area in which trade is being digitised, and we are finding new ways of facilitating customs. Rather than being negative and a naysayer, why does he not contribute to the solution?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

One of the groups we are working very closely with is our Commonwealth partners. We are developing a Commonwealth caucus at the WTO that represents a third of the world’s population and has a very strong stake in making sure that the WTO works for small states, in particular. Of course we will work with the EU and of course we will work with the US when it is in our mutual interests, but the fact is that the EU has pursued protectionist policies, and that has not necessarily helped some of the least-developed nations. I believe that the UK will have a unique voice, particularly in favour of free trade.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

We know that the new Secretary of State can do the impossible, because recently she announced that for the past 45 years the UK had been a member of the WTO—which was only founded in 1995. So will she now inform the House of how she has resolved the challenge that 20 or so members of the WTO have lodged against the UK’s proposed new bound tariff and quota schedules, and of what provisional sum she has agreed with the Chancellor to pay any successful claims?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The UK was a founder member of GATT, which then became the WTO. As the hon. Gentleman knows, by his definition we would only have been in the EU since 1993, because previously we were in the European Community, as I am sure he has said.

Of course we will work through the issues on the goods schedules at the WTO, and we are doing precisely that at Geneva. Those schedules are all ready to go in the event of no deal. Of course, what we want is a deal, and the Prime Minister is currently in Brussels working very hard to get that. If that is what the hon. Gentleman wants, I suggest that he votes for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The House recently passed a statutory instrument to extend EU protection against extraterritorial lawsuits under the US Helms-Burton Act. The Secretary of State will know that investors are already speaking with law firms to launch dispute proceedings against the UK under long dormant bilateral treaties. What estimates has she made of the quantum of such suits, and what protections will she introduce to safeguard the public purse and public policy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and I will look into that issue.

Arms Export Licences (Saudi Arabia)

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Indeed, Mr Speaker.

The Government did know; they just did not tell the Department for International Trade. Which Department knew? Which Minister had the responsibility to tell the Secretary of State, and why are they not sitting alongside the right hon. Lady, making an apology to Parliament?

The evidence presented during the court proceedings earlier this year and the recent revelation prove that the Government have failed to abide by their own undertaking. On two occasions since the Court of Appeal’s verdict, licences have been awarded in contravention of the determination precisely because a careful assessment was not carried out. Will the Secretary of State explain why the reports in 2015—the widespread reports that Saudi troops had been deployed on the ground and were leading the co-ordinated efforts of coalition forces in Yemeni territory—were not properly investigated and assessed by her Department? I note her letter to the Committees on Arms Export Controls; the inference is that no such investigation had ever been carried out.

The previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), advised that potential breaches were monitored in a number of ways, one of which was through on-the-ground military and diplomatic staff and our positive close relations with Saudi Arabian officials. The Saudi Arabian officials must have known that their country’s troops were on the ground, so why was that not communicated in the close positive relations that our staff had with them?

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has launched a full inquiry, but it will not have escaped her notice that the arms export fair took place in London just a short while ago. Some £6.3 billion of arms have been exported to the coalition by this Government— £5.3 billion-worth to Saudi Arabia. What further deals were done there? The Secretary of State has said that it is possible that more illegal deals may have taken place, but does she actually think that instead of it being possible, it is highly probable?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Gentleman asked me first about the process that took place within government. The answer is that the joint unit is staffed by officials from the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Trade, and clearly there was a failing when it came to sharing information across government. A director general of the Department for Work and Pensions is conducting an investigation to look precisely at the question of which Department issued, or did not issue, the information and how it was shared. The results of that investigation will be put forward in due course. This is a complex area. The Export Control Joint Unit approves approximately 16,000 licences a year, so it is important that we get this right and do not rush to an answer before we are ready.

Regarding the consolidated criteria on licensing, it is also important that we adhere to the terms of our undertaking to the Court and our statement to Parliament, and I was talking earlier specifically about breaches of our undertaking to the Court and our statement to Parliament.

Flooding

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner).

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who has been generous in giving way. She said that in real terms the Government were spending more. Perhaps she could explain to me and to the House her own Department’s “Funding trends” paper of December last year, which shows the total real-terms spending from 2005 right the way through to 2015-16. In the last year of the Labour Government spending was £724 million in total in real terms—that is, in 2015-16 prices. In no single year since then have this Government matched that funding, except in 2014-15, when an extra boost of £140 million emergency funding was given to repair the defences that had been destroyed in the floods. The figures are £608.5 million—

Flooding

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in ensuring that we had all the right information on the ground in Croston, and we had support from the RAF and the Environment Agency to keep the village protected. We are looking at the issue that she raises specifically in Cumbria, and I am sure that the floods Minister would be happy to meet her to talk about how we could extend those efforts to Lancashire.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Environment Secretary is aware that, of the 1,086 projects in the environment development programme, almost 519 are waiting for approval subject to securing other funding contributions. At the moment, the funding contributions that are lacking amount to £350 million, yet the projects are supposed to start in two months’ time. How will the Government ensure that those works go ahead?

[Elizabeth Truss]

One of the successes of our flood defence programme is that we have been able to secure additional money through partnership funding. From 2005 to 2010, we saw £30 million of funding under the Labour Government, whereas under the previous Conservative Government there was £134 million of funding, and this Government have already secured £250 million. We have plans in place to secure additional funding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We have given £1 billion of aid to the region, and 18 million food parcels.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In the infrastructure debate, the Government promised they would safeguard our groundwater and sites of special scientific interest from the dangers of fracking. These promises have now been abandoned. The Government now permit fracking in SSSIs, and four out of five of the old water protection zones are no longer frack-free under the new water protection areas. Was the Secretary of State consulted by her Cabinet colleagues about this U-turn on fracking in protected areas, and if so, why did she agree to downgrade these important protections?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

This is the first time a Government have ever laid out a six-year forward capital spend proposal. It is an increase in real terms on the figure this Parliament, which in turn was an increase in real terms from the previous Parliament. We are also committing an additional £35 million for maintenance this year and next, which the Environment Agency has said will do the job of maintaining our defences.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that of the 1,400 schemes she has talked about, 1,119 are only partly funded and rely on 80% unsecured partnership funding and a 10% efficiency saving that nobody has yet identified? In fact, only 97 of those 1,400 schemes are both new and fully funded. She says that 300,000 households will have reduced flood risk, but this figure is the result of homes going from the category of “low risk” to that of “very low risk”, while the number of homes at “significant” and “high” risk of flooding will go up by 80,000 in the next six years. Will she also confirm that in order to get these figures to add up for the Treasury, she has had to value human life at zero?

[Mr Speaker]

Listening to the hon. Gentleman, I always feel that I am on the receiving end of a learned academic treatise, but a question would on the whole be preferred.