(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI congratulate the hon. Lady on her first Prime Minister’s question. What I am determined to do as Prime Minister is to make sure we have an economy with high wages and high-skilled jobs, and the way I will achieve that is through reducing taxes on people across our country and boosting economic growth. That is the way that we will make sure we get the investment and the jobs that people deserve.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The hospitality industry is vital, and I will make sure that our energy plan, which will help support businesses and people with the immediate price crisis, as well as making sure there are long-term supplies available, will help businesses as well as helping individual households.
(1 year, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI have been very clear that we are open to a negotiated solution, but that negotiated solution needs to deliver on the ground in Northern Ireland and address the very real problems with the protocol, which the hon. Gentleman acknowledges—namely the fact that the people of Northern Ireland cannot currently benefit from UK tax and state aid decisions, and the fact that there is still full customs implementation on goods coming into Northern Ireland. In order to address those issues, it is not just the implementation of the protocol that needs to be addressed; the protocol itself needs to change, and we need that change in the mandate from the EU. It is absolutely our preference to have a negotiated solution with the EU, but we have to be clear that those changes need to happen; otherwise the protocol simply will not deliver on the ground in Northern Ireland, or restore the balance as set out in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and we will not see the Executive in Northern Ireland back up and running, which is what we want.
The EU’s approach to the protocol is so unreasonable that it is banning the movement of tree saplings from Great Britain to Northern Ireland for planting for the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Will the Foreign Secretary promise that her new enhanced green channel will disapply not just customs rules, but these unreasonable and excessive sanitary and phytosanitary rules on plants and foods?
My right hon. Friend is right to point out the very real issues the protocol is causing, particularly on SPS rules, and particularly in respect of goods that there is no plan to transport to the Republic of Ireland. She is right that our proposals will ensure those goods are able to travel freely through the green lane into Northern Ireland as part of a trusted trader scheme. For any company violating that scheme and not following the rules, there will be enforcement, so that we make sure we protect the EU single market. This is a pragmatic solution. We are supplying commercial data to the EU in real time, so that it can manage the EU single market while we protect our UK single market.
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss his campaign, and I can assure him that we will be bringing forward our response very shortly.
First, I want to welcome the new hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and commend her for her dignity in standing up to intimidation during the campaign. I do agree with my right hon. Friend about the very divisive nature of the leaflet that she talks about. Politicians should not be stoking division: instead, we should be working together to unite and level up our country.
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI agree. It is vital that we level up across the country and make sure that someone’s postcode does not dictate their life chances. As I saw when visiting Cornwall’s growing lithium mining industry last week, there are real opportunities to level up and help Cornwall to grow economically and benefit all the people of that great county.
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberIs the Secretary of State able to promise that the Government will not remove current restrictions or tariffs on food imports unless those imports are produced to standards of animal welfare as tough as the ones that we expect our own farmers to meet?
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. As we make very clear in the negotiating objectives, we will not lower our standards. We will maintain our food safety and animal welfare standards and will not lower them as part of this free trade agreement. We decide which standards we abide by here in the UK. We have exceptionally high standards of animal welfare, and my right hon. Friend herself is a champion of that. We are not going to be told by the US what our standards should be; for that matter, we are not going to be told what our standards should be by the EU either.