Afghanistan

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My fear is that there will be an attack on the lines of 9/11 to bookend what happened 20 years ago, to show the futility of 20 years. We should never have left—I will come to that in a second—because after 20 years of effort, this is a humiliating strategic defeat for the west. The Taliban control more territory today than they did before 9/11.

I was born in the United States; I am a proud dual national and passionate about the transatlantic security alliance. Prior to him declaring his candidacy, I worked directly with President Biden on veterans’ mental health issues. He was the keynote speaker at a veterans reception here in the House of Commons, as my guest, so it gives me no joy to criticise the President and say that the decision to withdraw, which he inherited, but then chose to endorse, was absolutely the wrong call. Yes, two decades is a long time. It has been a testing chapter for Afghanistan, so the US election promise to return troops was obviously a popular one, but it was a false narrative.

First, the notion that we gave the Afghans every opportunity over 20 years to progress, and that the country cannot be helped forever so it is time to come home, glosses over the hurdles—the own goals—that we created after the invasion. We denied the Taliban a seat at the table back in 2001. They asked to attend the Bonn talks but Donald Rumsfeld said no, so they crossed the Pakistan border to rearm, regroup and retrain. How different the last few decades would have been had they been included. Secondly, we did not start training the Afghan forces until 2005, by which time the Taliban were already on the advance. Finally, we imposed a western model of governance, which was completely inappropriate for Afghanistan, with all the power in Kabul. That was completely wrong for a country where loyalty is on a tribal and local level. That is not to dismiss the mass corruption, cronyism and elitism that is rife across Afghanistan, but those schoolboy errors in stabilisation hampered progress and made our mission harder.

There is also the notion that we cannot fight a war forever. We have not been fighting for the last three years. The US and the UK have not lost a single soldier, but we had a minimalist force there—enough assistance to give the Afghan forces the ability to contain the Taliban and, by extension, give legitimacy to the Afghan Government. The US has more personnel based in its embassy here than it had troops in Afghanistan before retreating. Both the US and the UK have long-term commitments across the world, which we forget about. Japan, Germany and Korea have been mentioned. There is Djibouti, Niger, Jordan and Iraq, and ourselves in Cyprus and Kenya, for example, and the Falklands, too. It is the endurance that counts. Success is not rated on when we return troops home. Such presence offers assurance, represents commitment, bolsters regional stability, and assists with building and strengthening the armed forces. That is exactly what we were doing in Afghanistan.

Last year, the Taliban were finally at the negotiation table in Doha, but in a rush to get a result, Trump struck a deal with the Taliban—by the way, without the inclusion of the Afghan Government—and committed to a timetable for drawdown. All the Taliban had to do was wait. The final question is about whether the UK can lead or participate in a coalition without the US. Where is our foreign policy determined—here or in Washington? Our Government should have more confidence in themselves.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes perfectly reasonable and justified criticisms of the way the American Government came to a decision to leave in such haste, but like a number of other right hon. and hon. Members, the implication of his speech is that we somehow could have had an independent Afghan policy without the Americans. Can he explain how?

[Mr Ellwood]

First, the Americans are not leaving Afghanistan. This is a complete myth. The CIA will remain there, as will special forces and the drone oversight. Why? Because they will be haunted by another terrorist attack. It is the political inclination and the leadership that is disappearing—because of an American president, or two American presidents—and we could have stepped forward and filled the vacuum, but we did not. We need to have more confidence as a Government in ourselves, as we did in the last century. I thought that this was in our DNA. We have the means, the hard power and the connections to lead. What we require is the backbone, the courage and the leadership to step forward, yet when our moment comes, such as now, we are found wanting. There are serious questions to ask about our place in the world, what global Britain really means and what our foreign policy is all about.

We must raise our game. Why? Step back. We seem to be in denial about where the world is going. As I have said in the House many times, threats are increasing. Democracy across the globe is under threat and authoritarianism is on the rise, yet here we are, complicit in allowing another dictatorship to form as we become more isolationist. What was the G7 summit all about? The western reset to tackle growing instability, not least given China, Russia and Iran. Take a look at a map. Where does Afghanistan sit? Right between all three. Strategically, it is a useful country to stay close to, but now we have abandoned it and the Afghan people as well. Shame on us.

I hope that the Government think long and hard about our place in a fast-changing world. Bigger challenges and threats loom over the horizon. We are woefully unprepared and uncommitted. We—the UK and the west—have so many lessons to learn. I repeat my call for an independent inquiry. We must learn these lessons quickly. The west is today a little weaker in a world that is a little more dangerous because we gave up on Afghanistan.

Public Health

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I agree with him, and I will be voting against these regulations. He has persuaded me to change what I was going to say by the power of his speech. We do not have to look to Germany and Vietnam to see what it is necessary to do. We have to look at 200 years of public health in this country, which has always been done at a local level.

One of the problems with the systems that the Government have followed is that, like all Governments, they want to centralise things—they want to take control. It is not just the fact that people suffer financially and will not isolate. It is that the central system is so slow at getting the information out to people that they need to isolate that, by the time it gets there, the £22 billion or whatever we have spent on it has been wasted, and the information is useless. We have also seen evidence that Public Health England has withheld information from local public health authorities. If we want to get this right when we come back to it in two months’ time, we must decentralise the expenditure and get it into local public health systems.

What I was going to say, before the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden spoke, was that there is not a way forward where people do not die in this situation. That is tragic, and everybody in this House wants to minimise the number of deaths, but we sometimes speak as though if we have the most restrictive measures, which will undoubtedly stop people contracting covid, it will be fine. It is not. The first lockdown led to people dying from cancer as cancer services were withdrawn. People did not go to hospitals, and if they did, they often did not get treatment. The number of people dying at home increased dramatically over that period. The proposals before us will lead to more of that withdrawal of health services from some people. They will be extraordinarily damaging to the economy of Greater Manchester and other parts of the United Kingdom. We must remember that poverty kills. It is not just cancer and covid that kill—poverty kills. People commit suicide. Children have had their education withdrawn, and suicide rates among children are up by 40%. There is huge damage done across the board.

People say that these decisions have been informed by the science. I cannot see that. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care appeared before the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees on 24 November for our joint inquiry. When we asked him what criteria he was going to use to determine which areas went into which tier or whether there had been a cost-benefit analysis, he could not tell us. He could tell us that, because Greater Manchester leaders told him that he had got his figures wrong, in effect—he did not use the word “punish”—Greater Manchester was going to be punished for taking time to put him right on the science and the detail of what was happening there.

[Mr Davis]

The science is not the same as the opinion of a single scientist.

[Graham Stringer]

I could not agree more, and one can go right the way from the Great Barrington group to the people advising the Government. The science to send a rocket to the moon is exact. The science on epidemics is not exact. It is open to different opinions.

The Secretary of State showed his prejudice against Greater Manchester, and his proposals will wreak economic havoc on Greater Manchester. We are told, although we clearly were not present, that when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was making his proposals to lock down London, the Prime Minister, the ex-Mayor of London, said, “No, you can’t do that. It will cost half a million jobs.” That means that the Government value jobs in London over those in Manchester and elsewhere in the country.

Public Health

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I will not be supporting the Government’s regulations in the Lobby later this afternoon.

There are two reasons for a lockdown: to save lives, and to buy time to improve the situation. I do not believe that, when one looks at the details, the Government have provided the information necessary to vote on those issues, or that one can have any faith that they will improve the situation at the present time. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the Leader of the Opposition, made a devastating case for the Government’s incompetence over this period.

If we look at saving lives, the problem is that we have had exaggerated claims, both by the Government and some scientific advisers, about the consequences of not having a lockdown. People are undoubtedly dying of this dreadful disease, but we have not been given the other side of the equation. We have not been told how many people will die of cancer or need various other treatments. We have not been told how many people are likely to commit suicide. For us to take a decision in the round, we need both those figures. We need the figures on the economic catastrophe that is happening in my constituency and in other parts of the country because of the lockdown, and on the long-term consequences for the jobs of the people we all represent. That is one side: we simply do not have the information about that.

In terms of improving the situation, we have a national test and trace system that does not work because the Government do not want it to work and because it is fundamentally flawed. If contracts are given out beforehand to private companies, which need to be nimble on their feet and act quickly in order to respond to a particular outbreak, the contracts often cannot respond to that. In one case in the centre of Manchester, workers from the central test and trace system walked off site because the contract said that they did not have to work after 10 o’clock.

The central system simply will not work. It cannot pass on the information in time and the responses are getting back to the people who can do something about them in more than three days. I talked to the north-west regional health people earlier this week, and they said that their time for returning the information is more than three days. If people are going to infect other people, that time is lost.

The system does not work because it is centralised. The history of public health in this country is of decentralisation. Local people can find out where there is a problem, whether it is in a school, a factory or a street, and do something about it. They can test and get people to isolate. The central system will not work. If I believed that the Government were going to improve it over this period, I might be tempted to vote for these regulations, but they will not. They have failed to give us information not just about the economy and the other side of the equation—the damage to people’s health —but about what is happening in the health service, so I cannot join them in the Lobby.

Leaving the EU

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is delightful to see you in the Chair, Sir David, and to be back in Westminster Hall. I agree with most of the comments made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton). First, I would like to declare three unremunerated interests: I am a board member for the Centre for Brexit Policy; I am on the advisory board for the Foundation for Independence; and I was, until just after the referendum, a board member of Vote Leave.

I ask hon. Members inside and outside this Hall a simple question. We have seen a two-pronged attack on democracy since the decision in 2016, which, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South said, was the single largest vote in our history. Most people in this country would be absolutely horrified if President Trump challenged a victory by the Democrats in the United States and it went to the courts, but that is exactly what has happened in this country. Many of my hon. Friends who care passionately about this and wanted to stay in the EU simply do not see it in those terms. That two-pronged attack on democracy has come from hon. Members, both from my party and from others, who want to overturn the decision, and from the EU itself, which is less surprising, because it is a non-democratic body that has used many tactics to make it painful for this country to leave, as a warning to other countries that might want to leave. So, I will start with that point.

I will also say that we have left the EU, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) has said, but we are still in the transition period and subject to the withdrawal agreement. I hope that we get a Canada-plus style of free trade agreement, which was on offer at the beginning of this process, and it is another element of bad faith from the EU that that has been taken off the table, as has giving this country third-country status, which is real bad faith.

I hope that we can get that type of arrangement, but it is vital that the final leaving agreement is sovereign-compliant. We need control over our fishing and over how we subsidise our industry, if that is what we choose to do. This country subsidises industry, providing so-called “state aid”, at about half the rate of the rest of the EU, so it is not a big problem.

However, it is vital that we have control of our own laws. That is why people voted to leave the EU, so we need the final leaving agreement to be sovereign-compliant. And we must not have overhanging liabilities that are unaccounted for, to be determined by some future decisions that the EU might make to give us more financial commitments. Finally, regarding the conditions for leaving, we must not be subject to the European Court of Justice. Otherwise, we will not be a truly independent country.

I have supported the decision to leave the EU in many votes in the House of Commons. I did not support the final withdrawal agreement, because I never believed that there should be the possibility of Great Britain being separated from Northern Ireland. The EU has exploited that situation and weaponised the historical situation in Ireland to try and keep control over our laws, so I hope the Government can get an agreement that does not lead to the splitting-up of the United Kingdom in those terms.

In introducing the three petitions, my hon. Friend referred to the legal action that is being taken. It is the most curious legal action. I am not a lawyer, but who has ever taken legal action against a Bill passing through this House that is yet to become law? It is extraordinary. Indeed, it is not only extraordinary in that sense; it is extraordinary in that it goes against the EU policy itself. In the Kadi I and Kadi II decisions—a complicated case adjudicated on by the European Court of Justice—the Court came to the conclusion that

“the obligations imposed by an international agreement cannot have the effect of prejudicing the constitutional principles of the EC Treaty”.

So the legal action is not only absurd in its first terms; it also goes against the way that the EU deals with its own policy.

I think it was mentioned that several court cases found that actions taken by parties on both sides have been in breach of the law. That is wrong; it should not happen. There is no general election or local election that I have ever been involved in where there have not been problems; that is just what happens in the heat of the campaign. Regarding Vote Leave, the Electoral Commission gave Vote Leave bad advice, and it ended up in breach of the rules, and it has paid a fine for that. I do not believe any of that affected the outcome. The single biggest factor in cash terms was that the Government paid £9 million effectively to put out a remain leaflet, which dwarfed all the rest of the expenditure.

I will finish by swiftly dealing with the petitions. There is the petition that cites covid as a reason for delaying the implementation. I understand at least one motivation behind that. The fact is that if we can control our own laws and regulations, we are in a better position to respond to any crisis immediately and not to be bound by the European Union’s bureaucracy. I will give an example: it took about 18 years for the EU to change the clinical trials directive, and lot of jobs went out of Europe because it was so slow. In order to build our economy after covid and to deal with it now, we need to be completely in charge of our rules and regulations.

[Jack Brereton]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the challenge of getting an EU covid recovery package together is an example of that?

[Graham Stringer]

I do agree. I will not get into a debate about covid, but we need to be spritelier than we have been in response to this crisis, and being in charge of ourselves is the best way to do it. I have previously said that both sides have been found to have been in breach of the regulations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool mentioned foreign interference. Did the biggest interference in terms of publicity—when President Obama came over and asked people to vote remain—make any difference? I suspect in many cases that boosted the leave side of the debate.

This country has decided to leave the EU, and we have to get the best deal possible. We have to ensure that we get it to be sovereign-compliant, and not let the EU carry on with what are effectively imperialistic policies. It wants to carry on controlling our laws and regulations. It wants to keep us paying, without our having any say whatever in the creation of those laws and regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I have many reasons to be proud of my constituency of Bath. One of the most important to me is its long tradition as an open-minded, welcoming and outward-looking city. Bathonians want this country to reflect those values, which we hold close to our hearts. Bath was one of the constituencies with the most signatories to the petition to halt Brexit for a public inquiry. In 2016, 68% of Bath residents voted to remain, putting us in the top 50 remain-voting constituencies in the UK.

Just days after the referendum, a handful of us residents founded what became one of the most active grassroots campaigning organisations in the country, Bath for Europe. We came together as a non-party political group of volunteers campaigning for the UK to remain at the heart of the European Union. I was a founder member of Bath for Europe before I was elected the MP for Bath. We were ordinary people achieving extraordinary things. We donated our spare time, talent, creativity, knowledge, experience, ideas and resources to keep the cause of Europe front and centre, both locally and nationally.

In addition to organising rallies, marches, speakers, events and regular meetings, perhaps our biggest achievement was our constant engagement with members of our community. Every week, we held street stalls and commuter calls, handing out leaflets and discussing Brexit and what it would mean for our city and our country. We did our research, and we respectfully listened to people, some of whom had opinions very different from our own. We spoke to them in a positive spirit. We became a fixture in Bath, and our constructive dialogue helped to lift the public discourse.

Among the most damaging legacies of Brexit have been the deepening division in our society and an aggressive culture war that seeks to pit people against each other. Bath for Europe stands for equality and fairness. For example, this spring, the group held a virtual EU citizens fair to support those applying for settled status. Bath for Europe remains a force in our city. The people of Bath will continue to uphold the values of openness, inclusion and international co-operation, and I will use my voice to represent their views in Parliament.

It is important to stress that we should not fight lost battles. No EU membership is now a reality. That does not mean that there are not many millions of people in the UK who believe that our place is at the heart of the European Union. Their voices need to be heard too, and I am one of them. Passionate supporters of a football club do not immediately switch sides to the club who won the premier league. They stay loyal to their side through the years, even through relegation, and prepare for better times.

[Graham Stringer]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is a fundamental of democracy that the losing side accepts the overall result and the winners? That is how democracy works. One does not have to change one’s view, but one has to recognise the result.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I absolutely understand that democracy needs to play itself out, and I do not want to reheat the battles that we had for two and a half years in this Parliament.

However, we have argued again and again that the decision made in 2016 was unclear. We need to make it clear and discuss to the end whether what people understood they voted for in 2016 is really what they wanted. The result is now there, I accept that; we had a very clear election result, and we are now no longer members of the European Union. That is why I say that it is no use to now fight lost battles. But we have a passion to be at the heart of the European Union, and almost half of the people of the UK still believed that going into the 2019 election. They have not suddenly gone away. The winning side has to accept that too, therefore the debates that we continue to have here are not undemocratic. They are part of democracy. People have their voices heard.

EU membership at some point in the future continues to be a Liberal Democrat ambition. I firmly believe that our time will come, but in the meantime I will stand up for all EU citizens here in the UK and for UK citizens in Europe, and make sure that they can live with all their rights undiminished. That is what I now fight for: to keep the flame alive that our place as the United Kingdom is at the heart of the European Union. I will not give up on that belief, and I do believe that our time will come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

Thank you, Sir David, for the opportunity to speak in this debate on three very important petitions. Each of them, as you mentioned at the beginning, has been signed by more than 100,000 people, and they show the depth of feeling surrounding these issues. It is also, I believe, a great demonstration of democracy in action that people in the street—the public—can have their views heard in this salubrious building.

With your permission, Sir David, I will briefly address all three petitions. The first is “Halt Brexit For A Public Inquiry”. It states:

“The UK’s departure from the EU looms but questions remain about the legitimacy of the Referendum. The Electoral Commission said illegal overspending occurred during the Referendum. Were the vote/any subsequent political acts affected? Article 50 was triggered. Was the overspend known about then?”

These questions remain unanswered. A significant focus for this petition is questions of overspending, its affects and the timing of the release of information relative to the triggering of article 50. There is little doubt, as the Electoral Commission insisted, that more than one group broke electoral law and spending limits, in some cases by quite substantial amounts. It is less clear what the effects have been. A poll by Opinium in 2017 suggested that 26% of Brexit voters felt that they had been misled by promises during the campaign, and that voters in that sample would by then have voted 47% to 44% to remain.

With regard to subsequent political acts, this seems a most serious concern. Evidence gathered and analysed by the Institute for Government in March 2019, but also supported by many other commentators since, points to dramatic consequences. This is not the place for the detail, but an introductory paragraph from the report, referring to the effects on Ministers, civil servants, public bodies, money, devolution and Parliament, states:

“In each area, we find that the challenge of negotiating, legislating and implementing Brexit has called into question how government works in the UK. The roles of the Prime Minister and her Cabinet, of civil servants and their departments…and of parliamentarians and the devolved administrations”

have all seen their roles considerably affected and changed significantly during this period.

As for the timing of article 50, it was invoked on 29 March 2017. One month earlier, on 24 February, The Daily Telegraph reported that the Electoral Commission was investigating the spending of Vote Leave and Britain Stronger in Europe, so clearly rumours of an overspend were well known to the Cabinet before article 50 was invoked. It is therefore my belief that there is sufficient doubt about the legitimacy of the referendum result surrounding spending limits and the political processes undertaken during that time to warrant a formal investigation and that Brexit be halted. I therefore fully support the petition to halt Brexit for a public inquiry into these matters.

[Graham Stringer]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the points that he is putting on behalf of the petitioners were actually put to the courts in this country on judicial review, and that the courts threw the case out and said it lacked all merit?

[Allan Dorans]

I am aware of that, and I await the outcome with some excitement.

The second petition calls for the establishment of a public inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 EU referendum. It states:

“There is now strong evidence of serious misconduct during the 2016 EU Referendum, including interference by foreign actors and governments. This must be investigated under the Inquiries Act (2005).”

There are certain reports of interference. The Intelligence and Security Committee of this Parliament published a report on the interference and concluded:

“The UK Government have actively avoided looking for evidence that Russia interfered.”

It also concluded that the Government’s response was not fit for purpose. It was unacceptable that the Government delayed the publication of that very important report by a year.

Ciaran Martin, the then head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, confirmed that Russian hackers had attacked British media, telecoms and energy companies over the past year. That the UK Government have regularly avoided looking for evidence is certainly cause for suspicion, but that in itself is not solid evidence of interference. Similarly, their being able only to refer in a press release to suspects as “Russian hackers” does not allow us to form a strong or firm conclusion that foreign actors or Governments were involved.

Where there are strong suspicions in any area of national security in the context of the protection of our democracy, further investigation must take place in the public interest. I believe that that case has been made, based on those strong suspicions; that there is sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation into the circumstances; and that it would be best taken forward by a public inquiry. I therefore add my support to petition 250178, to establish a public inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 referendum.

Finally, the third petition seeks to extend the transition and delay negotiations until after the coronavirus outbreak has been dealt with. The Government must consider delaying negotiations so that they can concentrate on dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, the resultant health, economic and social upheaval and the unprecedented circumstances that we currently face, which can only be dealt with by a Government with a clear, single focus on the problems on a massive scale that have been caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Doing so would necessitate extending the transition period; there can only be a one-off extension, which should be for two years. There is, of course, an obvious case to be made for extending the transition period.

Notwithstanding covid, the UK is clearly not ready for a hard Brexit. Up to 7,000 trucks carrying goods from the UK to the EU might face two-day delays after the Brexit transition, according to a letter from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Lloyds and Barclays were among the first UK banks to give notice to UK citizens living in the EU, warning them that their accounts will be closed on 31 December unless there is agreement. Border control posts at Northern Ireland ports will almost certainly not be ready in time, according to Stormont Minister Edwin Poots. Make UK estimates that UK firms will have to complete 275 million customer forms, up from 55 million, at a cost that HMRC has estimated at £15 billion a year.

I strongly believe that if we asked the public today whether they think we should delay Brexit, even for those reasons alone, a majority would agree. Some Brexiters would not, of course, as we have heard today—getting Brexit done, for some, is more important than dealing exclusively with the current pandemic that engulfs this country and threatens us all with dire and unimaginable consequences.

Public opinion, especially that influenced by our right-wing media, is not necessarily the best basis for policy development. By the Government’s own admission, any deal would be only a bare-bones trade agreement. Their own analysis says that there will be a GDP hit of up to 9% over the next 15 years if we further disadvantage our economy as we seek to recover from covid. All those factors require the undivided attention of Government, without the distraction of contentious negotiations about the arrangements to be put in place at the end of the current transition period. I therefore add my support to petition 300412, to extend the transition and delay negotiations until the coronavirus outbreak is brought properly under control.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) for the way in which he opened up our discussion, and other hon. Members for their contributions to the debate.

The concerns raised in the petitions probably reflect the time at which they were launched, which was several months ago. The priority now is to look at the challenges that we face with just weeks to go before the deal that we need on our future relationship with the European Union has to be concluded.

On the issues raised in petition 300412, Labour pressed the Government, perhaps with some prescience, to give themselves some flexibility, when Parliament debated the withdrawal agreement Bill, and we tabled an amendment to that effect just in case unforeseen events might lead to the Government needing some wriggle room. I have to say that at that time we did not anticipate a global pandemic, but nevertheless we made that case. Our amendment was rejected, and the departure date was locked in law. The Government could have changed it before 1 July, but they did not, and neither did the European Union propose a delay.

We left the EU on 31 January, and we will leave the transition period on 31 December. We accept that completely, so I have to say that I share some of the exasperation of the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell)—if not for the same reason—at some of the contributions from Government Members and the allegations that they are making about the position of the Opposition. They should—we all should—have some humility and some honesty in looking back at the paralysis in Parliament over the last four years, and recognise that many of the delays were caused by the way in which the Conservative party was tearing itself apart on this issue and that some of those who delayed a deal being reached were those described, I think, by a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer as the Brexit extremists within his own party. Indeed, the Prime Minister was utilising the issue as he egged them on in his rise to power. But we are now into the final month of negotiations, and both the UK Government and the EU are clearly seeking a resolution within weeks to secure the deal that we need by 31 December.

The other two petitions raise real concerns, and they were clearly exacerbated by the Government’s handling of the report from Parliament’s Conservative-chaired Intelligence and Security Committee, the publication of which was deliberately and unnecessarily delayed by the Prime Minister until after the general election. It was damning in its conclusion that the Government

“had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes”.

As one of its members said when the report was published in July,

“The report reveals that no one in government knew if Russia interfered in or sought to influence the referendum, because they did not want to know.”

There are real issues that deserve consideration, but they cannot halt Brexit, as the petitioners seek, because we have, as a number of Members have acknowledged, already left the European Union. That is the result of the mandate that the Government received in last December’s election, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) mentioned, but it is only one half of the mandate. The other half is to deliver the deal that the Prime Minister promised the British people. That pledged an

“ambitious, wide-ranging and balanced economic partnership”,

with

“no tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions across all sectors”.

It pledged a deal that would safeguard

“workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection”

and keep people safe with a

“broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership.”

That was not a proposal or a wish list, but an agreement—and one that was ready to sign off. In the Prime Minister’s words,

“We’ve got a deal that’s oven-ready. We’ve just got to put it in at gas mark four, give it 20 minutes and Bob’s your uncle.”

Originally, he said that it would be done by July, despite the pandemic, and then, forgetting his words, that it would be done by September. That came and went too, so he set a new ultimatum of mid-October, which he then dropped over the weekend after his conversation with the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen.

As a number of Members have said, businesses need clarity. The Government are providing confusion. The same incompetence that we have seen in the handling of the pandemic is now threatening jobs and the security of our country through the handling of these negotiations.

[Graham Stringer]

In previous debates during this long discussion, my hon. Friend and I have disagreed. Today, I essentially agree with the approach that he has taken, but is he not being a little asymmetric? It is his job to attack the Government and criticise and analyse what they do, but does he not feel that one reason why there is not an agreement now is that the EU has withdrawn what it offered right at the beginning—a Canada-style agreement—and has also withdrawn the recognition of this country as a third country, which was previously on offer?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. He is right that we have not always agreed on these issues over the last four years, but we are in roughly the same place now, in wanting to secure a deal by December—not just any deal but the deal that the Government have pledged. That deal was not described by the Prime Minister as something that might be achieved; he said it was there, ready to go and we just had to press the button. I will return to the specific question of Canada, because it is important.

Mental Health of Veterans

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his comments and remarks—

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I believe I am right in saying that the hon. Gentleman for Bracknell came in after the Minister started his speech. The Minister has given way, so I will call the hon. Member, but it is very bad practice to intervene, particularly in an Adjournment debate, when the hon. Member has arrived after the Minister started speaking.

[James Sunderland]

Thank you, Mr Stringer, and apologies for that. I was going to apologise for being late and not being here. I was at the Procedure Committee. My humble apologies. I know we are short of time, but I want to clarify with the Minister that there are an estimated 2.3 million veterans in the country at the moment and we have a fantastic framework already across the UK, through the armed forces champions and also through the fantastic civil military partnership boards. The framework is already there, but there is a bit of fine-tuning that we need to get this put into statute and therefore give the veterans the help they need.

Transport Infrastructure

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I salute the work of Andy Street and his vision for transport in the west midlands, which will be supported, encouraged and fomented by HS2.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the announcement as far as HS2 and the integration into HS3 are concerned. Does the Prime Minister agree that his statement could be improved and bring more immediate jobs to the north of England if, as well as building HS2 from London to the north, we also started building HS2 from the north to the south? Finally, for real ambition, would he agree that HS2 should go to Scotland, which would help to unite the two countries?

[The Prime Minister]

We will certainly get on with building phase 2a immediately, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that HS2 already does go to Scotland; that is one of the great advantages of the project.

Principles of Democracy and the Rights of the Electorate

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I will take a couple more interventions, but then I really must make some progress. I will give way to the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer).

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister. He is absolutely right: all the political parties have, at one time or another, made a commitment to a referendum. In their 2010 manifestos, the three major parties gave a commitment to hold a referendum on what became the Lisbon treaty, better known as the European constitution, although unfortunately the majority of MPs did not comply with those manifesto commitments. Does the Minister agree, however, that the parties that support a referendum, either in the House or in their manifestos, should accept the result when they lose?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman has made an excellent point. As I was about to say, I supported remain during the referendum campaign, but from the early hours of the morning, when we received the result, I was completely clear about the fact that my job, as a Member of Parliament, and the job of the Government was to deliver on it, and that is exactly what we should be doing.

Prorogation of Parliament

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I agree with the hon. Lady that this is a political crisis. It is grinding the country to a halt—certainly, to boredom. There is one way to sort it out. We can sit here contemplating our navels, or we can go out and speak to the people. We can have a general election, in which we can discuss Brexit and engage 70 million people, not just 650. To me, that is democracy in action.

Some hon. Members might say, “Let’s have a second referendum.” There are clearly issues with that. It took nine months to get the first one through this place and to hold it, and we would also have to decide on the question, and the electorate. Those issues, which would be hotly debated in this place, would have to be decided before we could even get to the referendum. People may say that the current situation creates uncertainty, but that option would perpetuate uncertainty. To those people who say, “The EU referendum caused division,” I say: why have another one?

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

A new argument has come forward. A number of parties have said that if there is a second referendum, they will honour the result only if people vote in a particular way. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that would completely undermine that referendum, and all future referendums?

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman has argued passionately in this place alongside me against a second referendum. I agree with everything he said, including about the referendum result being undermined.

I mentioned #StopTheCoup, and how bad a coup the Prorogation of Parliament would be. Instead, parliamentary games are being played by those on the other side of the argument. Parliament took control, and took parliamentary time away from the Government to pass the Benn Bill, which passed due to an amendment that was granted by the Speaker, who was frankly making it up as he went along. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) has told me that even he did not expect the amendment to be made that allowed him to lay the path for Parliament to take the business away from the Government.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

In following the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), may I tell him that the people of the United Kingdom will not be kept in the European Union against their will? I hope that he will support and respect that.

In June 2016, the people of the United Kingdom demonstrated our collective common sense and self-confidence by voting to take back control of our national destiny and to reassert our parliamentary sovereignty. The people’s vision expressed in the referendum result was that of a strong United Kingdom, holding its head high, free from the shackles of the European Union, while promoting international free trade as the key to future national prosperity and the best antidote to global poverty.

We should be expecting to leave the EU in 15 days and there should be an air of excitement about all this, but I detect a certain gloom, because today Parliament is being asked to endorse what is no less than an act of national humiliation—to renege on the decision it took two years ago triggering article 50 and to repeal or amend the Act it passed last year to leave the European Union on 29 March. By dishonouring the decision on article 50 and the result of the referendum, the Government motion before us is a gross betrayal.

As a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee, I have witnessed at first hand on our visits to Brussels the extent to which the Government are now a laughing stock. The most serious criticism of the UK is focused on our Prime Minister for signing up to a deal that she has subsequently disowned. They see that in Brussels as an act of bad faith, which is one reason why they have refused to make changes to the withdrawal agreement.

My amendment (g) is on the Order Paper. It has not been selected for debate, but had it been, it would have allowed the Government to seek to agree with the European Union an extension of the period specified in article 50(3) until 22 May, for the specific purpose of replacing the United Kingdom negotiating team. We need to replace our current team because it has gone back on so many of its promises to Parliament and to the people. The only way to regain self-respect is to have a fresh team of negotiators. I include among that team its head—none other than the Prime Minister.

Two years ago the House endorsed the Prime Minister’s negotiating approach as set out in the Lancaster House speech. The Prime Minister contemplated a scenario of the European Union imposing a punishment deal on us. That is why at the time she waxed eloquent about the benefits of no deal over a bad deal, which included delivering our freedom to negotiate trade deals and, ultimately, enabling us to set out our own economic model to deliver prosperity and growth.

The Prime Minister promised that the divorce settlement and the future relationship would be negotiated alongside each other, that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed, and, on the substance, that we would leave the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. None of that is guaranteed in her deal. For all her protestations, the Prime Minister’s deal does not meet her own criteria, and her negotiations have sadly resulted in the punishment deal that she feared. Her insistence that her deal is a good deal is not accepted by the House; indeed, the House has overwhelmingly rejected it on two occasions. But instead of accepting the verdict of the House, she is stubbornly continuing to assert that her deal is a good deal, and now she is holding a pistol to our heads by threatening that we will lose Brexit altogether. It is intolerable that the Prime Minister is asking those of us who oppose her deal to tear up our manifesto commitments, and to break our word to our constituents and electors.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis that the Prime Minister’s negotiating position and skills have been pathetic. If the Opposition table a motion of no confidence, will the hon. Gentleman vote for it, because it is the logic of his position?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Frankly, I would seriously consider that issue. I expressed no confidence in the Prime Minister when we had a vote within our own parliamentary party and my considered opinion now is that, were a similar vote to be held, there would be an overwhelming vote against the Prime Minister and an expression of no confidence in her. One then thinks about the logical extension of that. I am not going to make any promises to the hon. Gentleman now, but obviously it would need the Leader of the Opposition to initiate such a move. I think that Government Members who felt that they were being betrayed would then actually look at the implications flowing from that.

Obtaining a parliamentary majority for the Prime Minister’s deal is now beyond reach. It is pure fantasy to think otherwise. The Prime Minister’s deal does not even satisfy the requirement, for which the Prime Minister herself voted, of replacing the backstop. Nor does it provide a legal answer to the Attorney General’s concern that the Prime Minister’s deal would leave the UK with

“no internationally lawful means of exiting the Protocol’s arrangements, save by agreement.”

Who would want to sign up to that? It means that we would have less ability to leave the agreement than we have at the moment to leave the European Union. How can the Prime Minister think that we are seriously going to support that?

Our current negotiating team no longer enjoys the trust of Parliament, the European Union or even many members of the Government, as was graphically illustrated last night. The feeling on the Conservative Benches now is really strongly against the Prime Minister and her team. She has lost control, and at this most critical moment in our modern peacetime history, we need to change the general. If we were to change Prime Minister now, there would be a case for a short extension to article 50, but in no other circumstances.

Televised Election Debates

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), I originally turned up to listen to the debate and possibly to make an intervention, but I will follow the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I start with two disappointments. One is that there are not more right hon. and hon. Members present. This is an important issue; I can guarantee that every Member of Parliament has a view about how debates on television and in the media should be conducted during a general election. It is a disappointment that more people have not turned up. It is disrespectful to the 130,000 people who petitioned for the debate and it does not do justice to the importance of the issue.

My second disappointment is that the three hon. Members who spoke before me all came to the conclusion that we need a quango to regulate debates. Reluctantly, I agree with them. As we do not have a written constitution, it has the merit of being flexible; when the world changes, the processes within this place and electorally change. If people were acting with democratic spirit and good will, and as television and the media have developed, one would have expected politicians and political parties to have responded to that by enabling people to benefit from having the debate broadcast on television in their front rooms. That has not happened for the reasons stated explicitly by the hon. Member for Wellingborough. When Leaders of the Opposition are massively ahead in the opinion polls, they do not want a debate. Why would they risk hitting a banana skin? When Prime Ministers are in No. 10 and ahead in the opinion polls, they want to avoid exactly the same banana skin. Therefore, I think we need a regulatory body.

My heart sank when the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) went through the list of the great and the good who would have to serve on a quango to regulate television debates—judges and other people. Sadly, we have developed a population of quangocrats who serve on many quangos, scratch each other’s backs and move from one quango to another. That means that sometimes we do not get the breadth and the quality in those organisations that we should. I make a partisan point here, from the position I have taken on the Brexit debate. It is extraordinary that the total membership of the Electoral Commission are remainers. The difficult problem in setting up any quango is not going to the pool of people who have made themselves available to serve—often public spiritedly; I do not want to be too mean—as it is a closed group. Reluctantly, I think we have to have a body that will consider the complicated issues involved, but I hope it is not the list that was given by the able motivator of the motion, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay.

It is important that we have televised debates or discussions set up, in whatever form, because sometimes we do not state the blindingly obvious: that debate is at the core of democracy and our society. We need to have that debate in as many forums as we can. When the BBC was the monopoly broadcaster in the 1950s, it might have been sensible to just have the debate on the BBC, but now we have a range of social media and different television broadcasters, including access to television stations from around the world, as well as traditional print media. We need to ensure that there is regulation on television, which is where most people look for discussion during a general election. The viewing figures for the debates in 2010 were immense. However much Cleggmania we had in that election—and I got worried looking at the figures because it seemed that the Lib Dems were going to get a huge number of votes in my constituency, but I went out every day and I suppose I must have knocked on a Lib Dem door, but nobody admitted to it through the whole campaign—those debates were important, as the people and leaders challenged each other, but I do not think they changed very much.

That has been the case in many elections. I remember the opinion polls ticking over on the bottom of the Sky television screen in the 1997 election, barely shifting half a point during the whole election. We live in a time where the world is changing and politics are more fluid than they have ever been. We need a response to that. It would be the difficult job of a regulatory body to balance up the major parties and who would be invited. It is said, rather glibly, that only the leaders of the parties that are likely to provide the Prime Minister should be there. If we looked at the experience in Canada, the people who were going to be Prime Minister before the election eight or nine years ago were not elected. One of the major parties got 2%. There have been major changes in European Union countries. Parties that were permanently in the ascendency, such as the Social Democrats in Sweden, are now minor parties. Sometimes these changes happen very quickly. There has never been a more intense time for debate.

It is going to be a difficult job for any regulatory body that is set up, but I think it is vital. It is not just that there are a lot of different outlets for information nowadays. We have coined the phrase “fake news” for a lot of the information that has been used in elections and referendums, because of the internet. One of the great things about a debate is the ability to challenge lies. In the old cliché, if you keep on telling lies I will keep on telling the truth. That is the purpose of debate.

People have complained about the referendum—about whether certain facts were facts—but it is the purpose of debate to expose such things. What better place than on television, with a huge audience, to get those issues out? I do not think that the 2010 election was affected by the television debates, but I believe that the 2017 election was massively affected by the debates, quite simply because the Prime Minister did not have the courage to debate. She would not put the case for the Conservative party, which went from having a large lead in the opinion polls to not being able to form a majority Government. If anyone doubts the power of the debate, I think the television companies were right to empty-seat the Prime Minister and go ahead without her. It was a bit strange, and it looked a bit strange, but it exposed the fact that the leader of one of our major parties was unprepared to get up and defend its position.

I have another example of the positive side of television debate and discussion, although not in a formal leaders’ debate. It certainly affected me when I saw how important it was. Hon. Members will remember the rise of the British National party. It did not rise to a significant extent, but it looked as if it was making progress when it was led by the bottom-feeder Nick Griffin. On the evening when he went on “Question Time” I was in someone’s front room talking about pavements and street lighting. At the end of the meeting they said to me, “Are you going to go and buy a bottle of wine?” I thought, “What do these people know about my drinking habits? That’s a bit strange,” but every single one of those people, living in terraced houses in north Manchester, was going back to watch Nick Griffin and Jack Straw, and the other party people on “Question Time”. Griffin was destroyed and the BNP fell apart. That is the power of debate, and however complicated it is to deal with parties that have significant support with no representation, and those such as the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru whose primary objective is to get out of this place, and who do not want their leader to be Prime Minister but who clearly have a significant democratic impact in the whole United Kingdom, we should do what we can to facilitate those positions.

I could go on speaking about this issue, which is an important one, on which we should be giving support. Having heard what the hon. Member for Wellingborough said, I wish him well with his Bill. It may need some tweaks. However, the whole of the House of Commons and House of Lords should get together, because when we are away from elections we all believe in debate. It is only vested interest, when we think we can grab an election without debating, that stops it happening. I did not intend to speak, but the debate is a good one, and it is a shame more people are not here. Sky is to be congratulated, as are the people who signed the petition, on stimulating the discussion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I do not see that that would be enforceable, although I take my hon. Friend’s point that it would probably be outrageous not to take part so far as electoral ambition was concerned. The point was made eloquently earlier that there is some sign that not taking part in a debate probably does not do a leader any good, but I still stick to the point that I am not clear how one would force a party leader to take part in such an event. I am not convinced that the petition is calling for something that could be delivered in reality.

Generally speaking, although I have said clearly that I welcome any moves to make the democratic process more accessible to our constituents, I am not convinced that TV debates are the way to do that. They have not historically been part of our democratic process. Other hon. Members have said this, so I will not develop the point at length unnecessarily, but only in 2010 did the first leaders’ election debates occur.

We spoke earlier about the figures and, using the wonders of new technology, I have the figures for the 2010 debates here. They are substantial viewing figures, it is true. For the first debate, hosted by ITV, 9.9 million viewers watched. The second debate, hosted by Sky News, had 4.2 million viewers and the third, hosted by my former employer the BBC, had 8.6 million. Those numbers are not insubstantial, but nor are they massive. For comparison’s sake, about two weeks ago on Christmas day, “Call the Midwife” was watched by 8.7 million people.

The broadcasters shot themselves in the foot somewhat after 2010 by trying to make the point that if we added up those three figures, a total of 22.7 million people watched the debates. That is a bit like saying that, because I am speaking in this debate in this Chamber and I also hope to speak later in a debate in the main Chamber, somehow, miraculously, there are two of me. That is not what those viewing figures show at all, and the organisation Full Fact, whose website I have just accessed, makes that point as well. It is debatable how popular the debates are and how much they are relied on by members of the public to make their decisions.

We do not have a presidential system, as has been described. People may think we have moved towards one whether we like it or not, but constitutionally the voting public do not vote for a Prime Minister.

[Graham Stringer]

National elections, certainly for the parties that fight seats across the United Kingdom, are fought on the basis of manifestos. Would the hon. Gentleman like to compare the number of people who read our manifestos with the number of people who watched the television debates? He is absolutely right that these are not presidential debates, but the leaders put forward their manifestos.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

It is true that manifestos, in my experience, will never make it to the top of the bestseller lists. However, although the hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point, there are other ways than a televised leaders’ debate in which parties and party leaders can get their messages across and sell their manifestos, which I will come on to.

My main concern about party leaders’ debates is that they have a tendency to suck the oxygen out of the rest of the campaign, as was ably mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. I take a rather old-fashioned view about this, and perhaps I am aiming for some sunlit uplands that have long since dissipated—if they ever existed in the first place—but I would quite like election campaigns to be about ideas and policies and ideologies. I do not want them to be about whether the Prime Minister was wearing kitten heels, whether the Leader of the Opposition was on the right or the left podium, what colour tie the leader of a third party might have been wearing or whether the TV host of that particular event did a good job, but that is what we will get if we have a campaign that is bookended by two election debates, perhaps a fortnight apart. The first week will be looking forward to debate No. 1, the second week will be looking back at debate No. 1, the third week will be looking forward to debate No. 2 and the fourth week will be looking back at debate No. 2. Where is the time within that actually to debate policies and ideas? The difficulty is that that is what we will end up with.

I speak with a little experience, having worked in politics not only in this country but in Australia, where I worked on election campaigns. There is a longer history there of leaders’ debates on television. I have to say that they are not hugely watched, but they happen, and the public expect them to happen. However, the entire election campaign tends to be about the debate and the process of the debate, rather than the ideas that might be discussed during it. My concern is that that is what we will end up with if we rely on debates as the means to get people interested in the democratic process.

I will move on briefly to the substance of the petition—setting up an independent debates commission. I have a great deal of sympathy with this idea. If there are to be leaders’ election debates, we absolutely have to end the current chaotic system of rival broadcasters jockeying for position, putting forward opposing ideas for formats, arguing about how high the podium will be and whether people will enter from stage left or stage right—and that before individual parties start to have their say.

One side will think that a particular format put forward by one broadcaster favours their man or woman, but the other party will says it prefers another format, so we will end up with either no debate or a month of ridiculous discussions about something that only a few nerds in politics and broadcasting are interested in, and once again we will get absolutely no further forward on discussing ideas and policies. I am not convinced that an independent debates commission would change any of that.

I am also not convinced that, even if a commission was set up with a great deal of legislative power behind it, it would be immune from the sort of pressure that is currently brought to bear on the broadcasters by the different party leaders, who each jockey for a different format. I am also not convinced that it would be immune from potential legal action.

The point was well made earlier about how to define a party leader. Someone could suddenly set themselves up as a party leader. Where would that leave us? Should we then say that only potential Prime Ministers may be allowed to take part? This is a very difficult circle to square, and I am not convinced that an independent debates commission would have any success in doing so. However, my overall view is that we are barking up the wrong tree.

I absolutely want more people to be involved in the democratic process—that is vital—and I could understand if we were having this discussion 20 or 30 years ago, but I think the boat has sailed on TV election debates and on expecting people to sit down at 9 o’clock on a random Tuesday evening to watch something on linear television, even though it will be repeated and watched on iPlayer, or the Sky version thereof.

TV debates feel like they are a bit old hat in 2019. There are many more ways through which we can and should encourage people to access the democratic process, as they are already doing. There are any number of social media platforms where, in my experience from the last general election, the real policy debates seem to happen. I am not sure that, in 2019, mandating a TV election debate in prime time is really looking forward at all; it is probably looking backwards.

I was much taken by the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) about the need for our regional broadcasters to get more involved in the democratic process. That is absolutely crucial. I speak as someone who spent most of his career in regional broadcasting. In my area, BBC Spotlight and ITV News West Country do a very good job with their coverage of local politics, but maybe we ought to think about such outlets taking a greater role in ensuring that some of the issues are debated on a level more relevant to people in their constituencies.

I will not detain colleagues any longer. I understand the principle behind the petition, and I applaud Sky News for initiating it. I am not opposed to leaders’ debates per se, but I remain unconvinced that they are the way forward and I am utterly unconvinced that it is possible or desirable to make it mandatory that they happen. If there is an agreement that they should take place in the future, I absolutely see the argument in favour of a debates commission independently—that is the key word—to decide on their format and timing, taking those decisions out of the hands of the broadcasters and party leaders.

Overall, I do not believe that making debates mandatory is the way forward; I remain very uncomfortable with that. I applaud the Government’s response to the petition, which I assume the Minister is about to repeat, which is that they should not change the law in this direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stringer]

Does the Minister not accept that we already discriminate in legislation—possibly in favour, possibly against, depending on one’s point of view—against electronic media? We demand that they provide a platform for party political broadcasts and that they balance the different views during a general election campaign, but we do not apply that to any other form of media. There is already that separation and it would not, therefore, be changing the legislative framework very much to say that a platform for debates should be provided.

[Chloe Smith]

I agree, and I disagree. I respect how the hon. Gentleman has tried to bring the point to bear, but the point of detail he has chosen is about how, when any one medium is used, impartiality within it is ensured. That is admirable, and that is where I agree with him, but where I disagree is regarding further entrenching the choice of any one medium over another.

I will put this in a generational sense for the hon. Gentleman: television broadcasters are quite simply losing favour with the younger generation as their source of news. Why should we legislate at this point for a medium that will not necessarily remain favoured among those who are, and those who will become, the voters in elections to come? I am happy to substantiate that.

On how news consumption is going in the UK, a report by Ofcom stated that in 2018 alone 52% of 16 to 24-year-olds used Facebook as their news source while only 39% used BBC1. The report found that people in that age group were more likely to get their news from social media posts than directly from news organisations. In the face of that technological shift, I remain unconvinced that the case is made for privileging a form that one might almost argue had its heyday with Richard Nixon in the last century. Why should we privilege that form? I say Nixon; as has already been covered, it was thought that Kennedy won the debate, but that is the very point. It is a matter of history, and if we legislate at all we ought to look to the future rather than the past.

I will incorporate at this point the parliamentary example that I think was provided by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay. Here we stand today having a debate in Parliament—in itself a form of political debate, a form of debate on political policy—and we do not expect it to be covered only on the TV, although it will capably be, and I am glad for that.

I certainly support the use of TV in Parliament and the accountability that we can provide by being on camera as we do our work. However, we also expect social media to carry part of that weight, and we also might well expect that some people would prefer to read about our proceedings via the written word. All of those are valid ways for people to get their information, and we should not privilege one over another.

Fourthly, I wanted to bring together some points about implementation and refer to a few that have been made in the debate. First, the proposal would require primary legislation. The point has already been made that if we anticipate a general election as far away as 2022, which of course is the case, we have time to look at the issue and get it right. However, even with that timescale, there are other pressing priorities that the public ask us to address through legislation, and I suspect that they would prioritise them over this issue.