Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The purpose of the sanctions we have put in place so far is not simply to target the right people, although that of course has been part of the aim, but, quite deliberately, to have the broader effect of demonstrating to the Russians that when it comes to the economy, energy and these things, Russia needs the EU and America more than the EU and America need Russia. Yes, of course there will sometimes be some collateral damage to people who suffer because of sanctions, but in this case the only way to bring home to the Russians that their approach is damaging for them is for them to see that the Russian economy will suffer as a result.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

May I thank the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for so cogently expressing the grief and anger, which I believe is shared across the House—indeed, across the whole country—over the appalling events in Ukraine? They are quite right to stress that the primary concern is the immediate, unimpeded access to the site and the treatment of the bodies with dignity and humanity. Is there any timeline on this desire? If sanctions do not work, will the international community examine the possibility of criminal charges being brought against those who are responsible?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the hon. Lady is right to say that the primary concern relates to the dignity of the victims and securing the site, and ensuring that everything possible is done to handle that properly. Time is running out. Daily temperatures in eastern Ukraine are now exceeding 30 degrees, so things need to be done very quickly. The pressure is already on, and progress is being made—international experts are now on the site—but problems such as the train not being able to move have not yet been solved.

I believe that we should think of sanctions not only in the context of securing a proper international investigation, but much more in the context of the longer-term problem, which is Russian involvement in the destabilisation of Ukraine. That is, if you like, the cause that led to this dreadful chain of events. Criminal sanctions should not be ruled out. If we believe all that we are being told about what has happened, this was a crime.

G20

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Surely it is time to obtain unfettered access in Syria and for the international community to bite the bullet and start speaking positively with Iran? On humanitarian aid, with the honourable exception of Kuwait and Qatar, some of the richest countries in the world—the Gulf states—have markedly failed to step up to the plate. Given that the Government are continually saying that those countries are our friends and allies, will the Prime Minister use his best offices to encourage them to put their hands into their exceptionally deep pockets?

[The Prime Minister]

To be fair to Gulf countries, we can add to Qatar and Kuwait, which have been generous donors, Saudi Arabia, which has given $345 million. We are leading by example and we encourage all countries to step up to the plate and help to fill in the shortage of money. On the Opposition’s seeming obsession with Iran, of course we should strive for good, strong, positive relations with all countries around the world and we do, but I ask the Opposition to remember that Iran has not signed up to the Geneva peace principles. Also, it is currently funding, helping, supporting and arming Assad.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me make a little progress.

In my speech I want to do three things: explain what we know; set out the path we will follow; and try to answer all the difficult questions that have been put to me. Let me try to make some progress and I promise I will take interventions as I go along. Let me set out what we know about what happened.

Médecins Sans Frontières reported that in just three hours, on the morning of 21 August, three hospitals in the Damascus area received approximately 3,600 patients with symptoms consistent with chemical weapons attacks. At least 350 of those innocent people died. The video footage illustrates some of the most sickening human suffering imaginable. Expert video analysis can find no way that this wide array of footage could have been fabricated, particularly the behaviour of small children in those shocking videos.

There are pictures of bodies with symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure, including muscle spasms and foaming at the nose and mouth. I believe that anyone in this Chamber who has not seen these videos should force themselves to watch them. One can never forget the sight of children’s bodies stored in ice, and young men and women gasping for air and suffering the most agonising deaths—all inflicted by weapons that have been outlawed for nearly a century.

The Syrian regime has publicly admitted that it was conducting a major military operation in the area at that time. The regime resisted calls for immediate and unrestricted access for UN inspectors, while artillery and rocket fire in the area reached a level about four times higher than in the preceding 10 days. There is intelligence that Syrian regime forces took precautions normally associated with chemical weapons use.

Examining all this evidence, together with the available intelligence, the Joint Intelligence Committee has made its judgments, and has done so in line with the reforms put in place after the Iraq war by Sir Robin Butler. Today, we are publishing the key judgments in a letter from the Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The letter states that

“there is little serious dispute that chemical attacks causing mass casualties on a larger scale than hitherto…took place on 21 August”.

On the Syrian opposition, the letter states:

“There is no credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate the claims or the possession of CW”—

that is, chemical weapons—

“by the opposition.”

The Joint Intelligence Committee therefore concludes:

“It is not possible for the opposition to have carried out a CW attack on this scale.”

It says this:

“The regime has used CW on a smaller scale on at least 14 occasions in the past. There is some intelligence to suggest regime culpability in this attack. These factors make it highly likely that the Syrian regime was responsible.”

Crucially, the JIC Chairman, in his letter to me, makes this point absolutely clear. He says

“there are no plausible alternative scenarios to regime responsibility.”

I am not standing here and saying that there is some piece or pieces of intelligence that I have seen, or the JIC has seen, that the world will not see, that convince me that I am right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. I am saying that this is a judgment; we all have to reach a judgment about what happened and who was responsible. But I would put it to hon. Members that all the evidence we have—the fact that the opposition do not have chemical weapons and the regime does, the fact that it has used them and was attacking the area at the time, and the intelligence that I have reported—is enough to conclude that the regime is responsible and should be held accountable.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the Prime Minister. What has convinced him—where is the evidence?—that an action by the international community would cease the use of chemical weapons within Syria, a country where the combatants have accepted 100,000 dead, millions of refugees and the continuing action that is totally destroying that country? Where is the evidence that convinces the Prime Minister that the external world can prevent this?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely serious point. As I have just said, in the end there is no 100% certainty about who is responsible; you have to make a judgment. There is also no 100% certainty about what path of action might succeed or fail. But let me say this to the hon. Lady. I think we can be as certain as possible that a regime that has used chemical weapons on 14 occasions and is most likely responsible for this large-scale attack, will conclude, if nothing is done, that it can use these weapons again and again on a larger scale and with impunity.

People talk about escalation; to me, the biggest danger of escalation is if the world community—not just Britain, but America and others—stands back and does nothing. I think Assad will draw very clear conclusions from that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband]

Well, that is the Attorney-General’s view—[Interruption.] That is the view that needs to be tested out over the coming period. Of course that is the case and a judgment will have to be made. Additionally, the responsibility to protect also demands a reasonable prospect of success in improving the plight of the Syrian people, and that responsibility is an essential part of making this case. That takes me to the final point of the road map we propose.

[Glenda Jackson]

I am referring to the fourth paragraph of our road map. My right hon. Friend has already touched on the fact that any action must be legal, proportionate and time-limited, but the amendment goes on to say that it must have “precise and achievable objectives”. Will he detail what those objectives are?

[Edward Miliband]

I am coming exactly to that point, which is that the Government need to set that out in the coming days. That takes me precisely to the final point of the road map. Any military action must be specifically designed to deter the future use of chemical weapons; it must be time-limited with specific purpose and scope so that future action would require further recourse to this House; and it must have regard for the consequences of any action. We must ensure that every effort is made to bring the civil war in Syria to an end, and principal responsibility for that rests, of course, with the parties in that conflict, and in particular President Assad.

Oral Answers to Questions

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the consistent work he has done on this vital issue. It is important that we wipe out modern-day slavery, and I very much enjoyed going to meet him and other Members to see just how bad the situation is. We are looking at legislative options, and I will be chairing a committee across Government to look at what more can be done.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

One of my constituents and her three-year-old child had become homeless fleeing the most heinous domestic violence; and now, despite legally living and working in this country for four years, an immigration technicality has made them destitute. Will the Prime Minister please examine this legislation and its possibly unintended consequences, so that in future no woman and her child may suffer double abuse?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to look at the individual case the hon. Lady raises, which actually links to the last question, about modern-day slavery. Sometimes immigration rules have caused difficulty for those who want to flee the people who are keeping them entrapped in their homes, so I am very happy to take up the individual case.

G8

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his question. Obviously, it is important that the Russians are allowed to speak for themselves about what they did and did not say, and what they agree and do not agree with. I found in the discussions that the reason we were able to go ahead with the seven points I laid out at the press conference yesterday was that the conversations were constructive—we did not dwell on the areas where we have disagreed and continue to disagree; we dwelled on those areas where we can agree. I agree with what he says about engaging with President Putin. That is why, in addition to inviting President Putin here before the G8, I flew to Sochi this year—I was the first Prime Minister to visit Russia for many years.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for highlighting his commitment to ending world hunger as such a central part of the G8, and for highlighting many of the underlying causes, but he will be aware that a third of the most malnourished children in the world live in just four countries—India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh—so will he continue to use his best offices to ensure that those countries give their wholehearted commitment to ensuring that their children do not go to bed hungry every night?

On Syria, two days after America has agreed to sit down with the Taliban, surely it is better to bring everyone around the debating table. We do not want 12 more years of civil war in Syria.

[The Prime Minister]

On the Taliban, I have said many times that I welcome a political process. It is worth noting that the Taliban said in their statement that they wanted an Afghanistan that no longer caused instability, death or trouble in other countries. That is significant.

On hunger, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that it is not enough for us just to pass resolutions, or for this country alone to commit to aid programmes. We must engage other countries, which will do a lot of the heavy lifting in dealing with malnutrition. I am confident that, having held our summit at the Olympics last year, with the sort of top-up this year and the Brazilians co-chairing another summit at the Olympic games there, we have achieved a lot in terms of getting other countries to pledge action on hunger.

EU Council and Woolwich

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The potential of shale gas is an important point, and what was said today about our reserves was welcome news. We had a seminar in Downing street that suggested they could meet 5% to 10% of our gas needs, but these figures are regularly changing as people look at the available reserves. Clearly, regulatory permissions need to be sought in this country, and we also need to ensure that our own regulation and legislation are fit for purpose.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Surely the primary concern of this House should not be with the combatants in Syria, but with those innocent civilians who are being slaughtered every day by either side. If there are additional funds to furnish yet more munitions into an area awash with weapons—in my view the equivalent of pouring oil on to an almost uncontrollable fire—surely that money would be infinitely better spent in affording yet more humanitarian aid to countries bordering Syria, which at the moment seem to be the only countries affording any kind of protection to the innocent.

[The Prime Minister]

Where I agree with the hon. Lady is on the fact that we should be leading the way on humanitarian aid, and I think that Britain can be very proud of the fact that we are doing so. We are sending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to make sure that people in camps—in Jordan and in Turkey—are properly looked after, and I have seen that with my own eyes. I return to the example in Bosnia: we can go on supplying more and more humanitarian aid, but that alone will not help to bring about a political solution. If we want to bring about a political solution, we have to demonstrate that Assad is not going to win this via military means. We have to get the parties to come together around the table, and I think that as we have recognised the Syrian national opposition as legitimate spokespeople for the Syrian people, we should be giving them that support.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is hardly a surprise that Baroness Thatcher was careless over the soup being poured over Lord Howe, given that she was perfectly prepared to send him out to the wicket with a broken bat.

When I made my maiden speech in this Chamber, a little over two decades ago, Margaret Thatcher had been elevated to the other place but Thatcherism was still wreaking, and had wrought for the previous decade, the most heinous social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country, upon my constituency and upon my constituents. Our local hospitals were running on empty. Patients were staying on trolleys in corridors. I tremble to think what the death rate among pensioners would have been this winter if that version of Thatcherism had been fully up and running this year. Our schools, parents, teachers, governors, even pupils, seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising in order to be able to provide basic materials such as paper and pencils. The plaster on our classroom walls was kept in place by pupils’ art work and miles and miles of sellotape. Our school libraries were dominated by empty shelves and very few books; the books that were there were held together by the ubiquitous sellotape, and off-cuts from teachers’ wallpaper were used to bind those volumes so that they could at least hang together.

By far the most dramatic and heinous demonstration of Thatcherism was certainly seen not only in London, but across the whole country in metropolitan areas where every single night, every single shop doorway became the bedroom, the living room and the bathroom for the homeless. They grew in their thousands, and many of those homeless people had been thrown out on to the streets as a result of the closure of the long-term mental hospitals. We were told it was going to be called —it was called—“care in the community”, but what it was in effect was no care in the community at all.

I was interested to hear about Baroness Thatcher’s willingness to invite those who had nowhere to go for Christmas; it is a pity that she did not start building more and more social housing, after she entered into the right to buy, so that there might have been fewer homeless people than there were. As a friend of mine said, during her era, London became a city that Hogarth would have recognised—and, indeed, he would.

In coming to the basis of Thatcherism, I come to the spiritual part of what I regard as the desperately wrong track down which Thatcherism took this country. We were told that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice—and I still regard them as vices—was, in fact, under Thatcherism, a virtue: greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees, all these were the way forward. We have heard much, and will continue to hear over next week, about the barriers that were broken down by Thatcherism, the establishment that was destroyed.

What we have heard, with the words circling around like stars, is that Thatcher created an aspirational society. It aspired for things. One former Prime Minister who had himself been elevated to the House of Lords, spoke about selling off the family silver and people knowing in those years the price of everything and the value of nothing. What concerns me is that I am beginning to see what might be the re-emergence of that total traducing of what I regard as the spiritual basis of this country where we do care about society, where we do believe in communities, where we do not leave people and walk by on the other side. That is not happening now, but if we go back to the heyday of that era, I fear that we will see replicated yet again the extraordinary human damage from which we as a nation have suffered and the talent that has been totally wasted because of the inability genuinely to see the individual value of every single human being.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) referred to the fact that although she had differed from Lady Thatcher in her policies, she felt duty bound to come here to pay tribute to the first woman Prime Minister this country had produced. I am of a generation that was raised by women, as the men had all gone to war to defend our freedoms. They did not just run a Government; they ran a country. The women whom I knew, who raised me and millions of people like me, who ran our factories and our businesses, and who put out the fires when the bombs dropped, would not have recognised their definition of womanliness as incorporating an iconic model of Margaret Thatcher. To pay tribute to the first Prime Minister denoted by female gender, okay; but a woman? Not on my terms.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The conventions of the House in respect of those rare occasions on which the House chooses to make tributes to a person who is deceased are well established. This is not, and has never been, a general debate on the memory of the person who is deceased, but an opportunity for tributes. It is not an opportunity for hon. Members to denigrate the memory of the person .

G20

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, we need to disconnect the issues that my hon. Friend raises. The issue of the single market and the threat to the City of London and Britain’s financial services is a real threat. We have to work extremely hard to build alliances in the single market and in the European Council to stop directives that would damage our interests. I think it is extremely important that we do that work. Financial services matter hugely to this country, and this is one of the areas that I want to ensure we can better safeguard in future.

I do not support fiscal union. I do not think that Britain ought to join a fiscal union, as I do not think that is the right move for us. However, we have a single currency that is quite dysfunctional, and one way in which it could be made more functional is greater fiscal union. That is a statement of fact rather than our saying that we want in any way to join it: we do not. We want to safeguard the interests of Britain by making sure that the single market works for us.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Is it really in the best long-term interests of this country for the Government consistently to present the United Kingdom as the neighbour from hell with regard to the European Union—not least with regard to the Tobin tax? The issues on which the European Union wishes to spend money are the issues on which the Prime Minister’s constituents and mine, and citizens around the world, wish to see money spent—not least on alleviating suffering in the third world and on climate change. Will he change his mind on this issue?

[The Prime Minister]

With great respect to the hon. Lady, this Government—and to an extent the Governments whom she supported—have made and kept promises about things that our constituents care about, such as development and climate change. We are meeting those. As for being a good neighbour, one of the most unneighbourly acts someone could perform when the whole world is looking at growing the resources of the IMF to safeguard the global economy is to walk away from that and vote against it—something that I know that quite a lot of Labour MPs, probably including some on the Front Bench, are rather ashamed of. Such an act would show them to be not only not a good neighbour, but on another planet.

Open Public Services White Paper

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend that glasnost has to precede and accompany perestroika; we cannot have reconstruction, or proper choice, without transparency. That is why we have put in place exactly what he recommends—namely, a transparency regime that will in many cases cause difficulties and embarrassments for the Government. That will be worth bearing, however, to achieve real improvement. I shall give my right hon. Friend an example. In the past, there were many people, not only Labour Members but among the public at large, who said that crime maps would have no real effect and that no one would be interested in them. However, millions of people have now started using crime maps. When we also give those people the right to use beat meetings and make them electors of locally elected police commissioners, we shall be transferring power from the central state out to the people who are being served. That is a very powerful combination.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Is not this White Paper the somewhat unfortunate offspring of the Minister’s previous passionately held ambition to privatise the world and the first Thatcherite attempt to take away power from local authorities, which resulted in all in-house services being taken away from local political power and brought absolute chaos for those who were dependent on the services? As he has clearly not learned from those previous mistakes, how can he possibly guarantee that the same chaos will not ensue once this White Paper goes through?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady has to deal with a question between herself and her own Front Bench. She will have noticed that the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) made it clear that she thought that our proposals lagged behind what the Labour Government had already tried to do. I do not think that the Labour Government would ever have accused themselves of trying to privatise everything in sight. If the Opposition are saying that the White Paper continues measures that the Labour Government were doing, they cannot possibly accuse us of trying to privatise everything in sight. Nor would it be sensible to privatise everything in that way. The White Paper makes it absolutely clear throughout that we are neutral as between public sector providers, voluntary sector providers, community groups, mutuals, co-operatives and the private sector. I hope that we will eventually get over this absurd ideological divide, because we want something very simple—namely, the best service for the person who is using it. We do not care who provides the best service; we just want to ensure that the best service is always available and that people have a choice between providers so that they can get it. I would have thought that that would join the two sides of the House.