Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Monday 20th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I begin by saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris, and by thanking you for understanding that I will not be able to stay till the end? I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on her fine introduction to this important discussion and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on her speech, which I agreed with almost in its entirety.

It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). My seat is a doughnut seat: the hon. Lady is the jam in the centre of the doughnut, and I am the heavy, leavened dough that surrounds the hon. Lady’s jam.

I wish to speak in the debate because of the effect that LTNs are having on my constituents. The anti-car policies that are being introduced have a big effect on people living in rural areas. They affect them as they try to go about their business without the concomitant benefits. An LTN being introduced in a city does not help someone living in a rural area who needs to go through, or do business in, that city. The fact that it also has effects on the businesses in the city is perhaps more a matter for the hon. Lady than for me, although many of my constituents own and have interests in businesses in Bath.

We have touched on consultation. As I understand it, opposition to the Sydney Place scheme has been 100:1 and more than 4,000 people have signed a petition against it—it is about not just the 57 who may have written to the hon. Lady, but the thousands of people living nearby who will be affected. We have to remember that, in 2022, 78% of journeys were taken by car and that, however much we wish to pretend otherwise, we are a society, a nation and an economy based on the internal combustion engine. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet said, that is where our economic activity comes from. It is how people get to their jobs and take their children to school. We have to make a choice, as a Government and as local councils, about what approach we take to politics. Do we really think that we should be telling people how to lead their lives? Should we tell them what is good for them and make them do it?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. I do not know his seat well, but he has described it as a doughnut of the countryside around Bath. Would he not agree that, if everybody who can drive who lives in the centre of Bath or London drove everywhere, the whole road system would be gridlocked, and that providing safe alternatives—decent public transport, and safe routes to walk and cycle—takes up a lot less space than everybody driving their own vehicle?

Shale Gas Extraction

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

What is the hon. Gentleman going to say to his constituents when there is no gas going into their boilers to heat their hot water and their homes? This ridiculous hostility to gas as a transition fuel is absurd.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Onshore wind power was, in effect, stopped by the Secretary of State’s Government, yet it is proven in the UK, cheap and ready to go now, and it provides zero-carbon power—it does everything that fracking does not. So will the threshold for community support for fracking be as tough as that for onshore wind development, where one objector can stop it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Regardless of the benefits of renewables, we still need gas, which is what today’s statement is about.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not think the result in Bristol does do that, because the decision does not set a precedent. It was a case decided by a jury on the facts before them. I shall therefore not be going out of here immediately afterwards and drawing a moustache on the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside, much though I am opposed to regicides in principle and think that they deserve to be removed from pedestals broadly speaking. I think we should recognise our history even when the figures in that history are not ones that we individually admire. Our island story is a complex one, and there are varieties in all people of good intentions and less pure intentions. My hon. Friend is right that we should protect monuments and that they should be removed only by a due process, but one of our greatest monuments is the jury system, which is the great, sublime protector of our liberties.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Thanks to funding from the Mayor of London, Hounslow council will be buying over 500 homes and bringing them into council ownership, including a number of former council homes sold under right to buy. These will provide secure, affordable homes to over 500 families in housing need, with 25 going to young care leavers and 20 going to Afghan refugees to whom this country owes a debt. Will the Leader of the House congratulate the Mayor of London and the London Borough of Hounslow, and find time for a debate on the importance of public investment in truly affordable and secure housing?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

First, I would say that the Mayor of London has no money; it is taxpayers’ money. The hon. Lady needs the conversion that has worked on the shadow Leader of the House. It is of course important to have affordable housing. The Government are increasing the supply of housing, with £10 billion being spent on housing supply since the start of this Parliament, which will unlock over 1 million homes, including £300 million of locally led grant funding to unlock small brownfield sites and improve communities, and with £12 billion of expenditure on affordable housing from 2021. These things are happening and they are led by central Government, but it is taxpayers’ money.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If the hon. Lady passes the details to my office, I will make sure they are taken up with the Home Office. There is a hotline, or there certainly used to be a hotline, for MPs to contact the Passport Office. If she and her staff have not used it already, I encourage her to do so.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Last week, Premier League club Brentford FC announced that it is going to retain its home strip for a second season to save the fans money and to reduce the environmental impact of clothing—polyester, in particular, in this case—so will the Leader of the House congratulate Brentford FC? My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) asked him to congratulate clubs such as Sheffield Wednesday and Brentford on their community impact. Will he also congratulate them on their environmental impact?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady because I know what a burden it is for parents to have to buy the new strip every year. The club keeping its strip will be welcomed by fans and particularly young fans’ parents, who will have a significant saving in the run-up to Christmas. I congratulate Brentford FC and encourage it to continue its community activities. It is very impressive that it is doing good environmental work as well, possibly with a small hit to its bottom line, which makes it even more impressive.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May I congratulate the next Member, who ran a virtual marathon and raised over £1,000 for charity?

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This House will be more covid-safe now that Mr Speaker has required us to wear face masks in shared spaces on the parliamentary estate, but on days when there are votes, the 500-plus of us who are not self-isolating for health or public health reasons are required to be here to vote, crowding into corridors and halls of this building and putting ourselves and staff at additional risk, particularly as so many Members do not seem to respect the Government’s rule on spacing. The Leader of the House keeps saying that we should continue with business as normal, but covid means that all workplaces have had to compromise and adapt. What level of infection here or in the country will it take for the Government to let us return to online voting in this place?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The House has adapted. If you seek a monument, look around—look at this half-empty or quarter-empty Chamber. There is none of the excitement and pizzazz that the Chamber normally has, and I know that it grieves many Members that we have to be like this. We also have to get on and do our duty, rather than democracy being suspended when doctors are at work, nurses are at work and supermarket workers are at work. We are not some priestly caste above the rest of the nation. We are part of the rest of the nation. It is our duty to be here, representing our constituents and voting. Of course Members should be responsible and socially distance in the queues to vote—that is absolutely right—but we have a duty to be here, and I am surprised that Members do not wish to do their duty.

Proceedings during the Pandemic

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Sometimes the hon. Member for Rhondda makes the point for me more eloquently than I could have made it myself: there is an absolute right of Members to attend Parliament. It is a most antique right. It predates the Stuarts and, as I keep on saying, it goes back to 1340. Members may attend if they wish to.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Has the Lord President done an estimation of the number of additional Members who will be kept away from this place if, after today, one of the people in this Palace tests positive? Therefore, any one of us—maybe all of us—may have to stay away for up to two weeks. Has he done that calculation and does he have a plan for what happens in that instance?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Well, the answer to that is: look around—if you seek a monument, look around. We are sitting six feet away from each other so that we are socially distanced, and therefore, if one right hon. or hon. Member has the coronavirus, in the track-and-tracing process we would not be notifying them about the people that we are sitting six feet away from. That is the whole point of social distancing. If we look on the floor, we see it says, “Please wait here until the person in front has moved forward”, and that goes back and back at six feet intervals all the way through, so that this can be done on a socially distanced basis, in line with Public Health England guidelines. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for pointing out how well the House service has done in setting this out in a way that can continue to ensure that Members may turn up.

Let me continue my conclusion. There are many things that make the lives of MPs difficult, and I am not trying to pretend that this is not the case, but we none the less have a duty to the country and voters to fulfil both our collective constitutional function and our individual roles. The collective of Parliament requires that we return physically so we can allow proper redress of grievance, hold the Government to account, deliver on the mandate provided at the election and pass the important Bills that I have listed. I have no doubt that there will be some teething problems with the voting system today. It may be some time until—

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Cadbury

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman has raised this point in the House. It is a fundamental principle of banking that the owners of the money should be able to move their money; that is the basis on which people make deposits, and banks that try to frustrate that are not operating properly. He has made his point about the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and it is now on the record.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

One series of debates that I am not that keen on hearing is the one asked for by Conservative Members, which seems to be about playing the election campaigns of their candidate in the London elections. May I respectfully suggest that this is not the place for running those election campaign debates, given that the candidates are not in this place?

I want to raise the issue of Secretaries of State coming to this House to discuss coronavirus. We are grateful for the work that the Health Secretary has done in coming to this House to answer extensive questions, but many of the issues we are raising cover issues under the purview of other ministries. I did get an answer to a question I raised about the Home Office and immigration, but I have had an email from an under-fives nursery provider in my constituency who has told me that there is no insurance cover for her business in the event of any coronavirus-related closure. That applies to all under-fives nursery businesses and probably to many other businesses in this country, so may we ask that the Business Secretary comes to this place to answer questions for businesses?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am not surprised that Opposition Members want to avoid debating Sadiq Khan—it should not surprise anyone that they want to brush his record under the carpet. However, to suggest that this House should not raise party political matters is the triumph of hope over experience.

In regard to matters that are not specifically the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in relation to the coronavirus, I would advise that those are dealt with by correspondence with the relevant Ministry in the first instance. That may get faster answers than trying to raise everything on the Floor of the House.