Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will not comment on the individual case. I know that the hon. Lady sent me the details of this specific case in writing. I will make sure that she gets a full reply from the Immigration Minister. On the broader issue she raises about the income threshold for those wishing to join a partner here in the United Kingdom, the Government asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to advise on the level of the income threshold. The committee suggested a range of figures and we actually took the lowest figure, £18,600, in that range. It recommended that figure because it is the level at which a British family generally ceases to be able to access income-related benefits, and is able to support themselves and integrate into society. We believe it is important that people coming here are able to support themselves.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Q12. My constituents were delighted to learn this week that Gainsborough’s House, a unique museum and art gallery based in the very building where Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, is to receive almost £5 million of National Lottery funding to become a national cultural attraction. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the director Mark Bills and his team on their success, and does she agree that if in Suffolk we are bold and positive and go for devolution, we can look forward to much more of this sort of transformative investment in the years to come?

[The Prime Minister]

I join my hon. Friend in commending all those who have been involved in the bid at Gainsborough’s House. Many people will enjoy visiting Gainsborough’s House in the future as a result of the work that will be able to be done. I know the importance of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It supported the excellent Stanley Spencer gallery in my own constituency, so I have seen the impact it can have. He is absolutely right. The point about devolution deals is people coming together with that ambition for their local area to generate the transformative investment he talks about. Suffolk is looking at the sort of deal it might wish to have locally.

UK's Nuclear Deterrent

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

May I start by welcoming the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and congratulating her on her appointment as Prime Minister? I wish her well in that position, and I am glad that her election was quick and short.

I commend the remarks the Prime Minister made about the horrific events in Nice. What happened was absolutely horrific: the innocent people who lost their lives. One hopes it will not be repeated elsewhere. I was pleased she mentioned the situation in Turkey, and I support her call for calm and restraint on all sides in Turkey. After the attempted coup, I called friends in Istanbul and Ankara and asked what was going on. The older ones felt it was like a repeat of the 1980 coup and were horrified that bombs were falling close to the Turkish Parliament. Can we please not return to a Europe of military coups and dictatorships? I endorse the Prime Minister’s comments in that respect, and I pay tribute to the Foreign Office staff who helped British citizens caught up in the recent events in France and Turkey.

The motion today is one of enormous importance to this country and indeed the wider world. There is nothing particularly new in it—the principle of nuclear weapons was debated in 2007—but this is an opportunity to scrutinise the Government. The funds involved in Trident renewal are massive. We must also consider the complex moral and strategic issues of our country possessing weapons of mass destruction. There is also the question of its utility. Do these weapons of mass destruction—for that is what they are—act as a deterrent to the threats we face, and is that deterrent credible?

The motion says nothing about the ever-ballooning costs. In 2006, the MOD estimated that construction costs would be £20 billion, but by last year that had risen by 50% to £31 billion, with another £10 billion added as a contingency fund. The very respected hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) has estimated the cost at £167 billion, though it is understood that delays might have since added to those credible figures—I have seen estimates as high as over £200 billion for the replacement and the running costs.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Is not the true cost the one we remember every Remembrance Sunday—the millions of lives we lost in two world wars? Would the right hon. Gentleman care to estimate the millions of lives that would have been lost in the third conventional war that was avoided before 1989 because of the nuclear deterrent?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

We all remember, on Remembrance Sunday and at other times, those who lost their lives. That is the price of war. My question is: does our possession of nuclear weapons make us and the world more secure? [Hon. Members: “Yes!”] Of course, there is a debate about that, and that is what a democratic Parliament does—it debates the issues. I am putting forward a point of view. The hon. Gentleman might not agree with it, but I am sure he will listen with great respect, as he always does.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said earlier, there exists in Scotland a broad consensus against Trident. Tonight, I expect 58 of Scotland’s 59 Members of Parliament—98% of Scottish MPs—to vote against the motion. In doing so, we will be reflecting a consensus that exists in Scotland, where the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the SNP, the Labour party in Scotland, the Scottish Green party, the Scottish TUC, great swathes of Scottish civil society and Scotland’s faith communities are all opposed to having nuclear weapons foisted upon us. Indeed, just last week the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic bishops of Scotland publicly reaffirmed their opposition to the UK possessing these weapons.

[James Cartlidge]

The SNP’s policy is for Scotland to be independent. If Scotland no longer had a nuclear deterrent, what would be the SNP’s strategy to defend Scotland in the event on an existential threat to the United Kingdom as a whole?

[Brendan O’Hara]

As an independent sovereign nation, we would act as every other independent sovereign nation in the world acts. The idea that Scotland is somehow incapable of defending itself as a part of the NATO alliance is absolutely bewildering and, if I may say so, unbelievably patronising. Despite what those on the Tory Benches like to think, Scotland has spoken and Scotland does not want these weapons of mass destruction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alberto Costa]

rose—

[James Cartlidge]

rose—

[Owen Thompson]

I will not take interventions. I am keen to make my speech as quickly as possible, because a number of other Members wish to speak.

Do we genuinely want to renew this weapon of vengeance? That is what the debate boils down to. We are talking about rogue states. We are talking about situations that we cannot yet begin to comprehend. The threats that the country currently faces are not posed by states with nuclear weapons; they are posed by terrorist attacks and cyber-attacks. Nuclear weapons are not the answer to those problems.

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the many members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Scottish CND who have come from all over the country to lobby us. They came to Parliament last week, there were events throughout the country over the weekend, and more came here today. Some Members will know that last year I presented a ten-minute rule Bill on the nuclear convoys that regularly travel through my constituency. Sadly, the Bill ran out of parliamentary time and could not be given a Second Reading, but to me the answer seems simple. If we do not have the nuclear weapons, we do not need the nuclear convoys, and we can reduce the risk to those in our communities.

Let me end with a thought for Members to ponder. At the weekend, a friend said to me that if 50 nuclear warheads were set off—which is not impossible; we certainly have that capability—the result would be worldwide famine. That is the reality of the weapons that we are dealing with. There can be no place for them in the world in which we live today. It is time for the country to take a lead, to make a stand, and to say, “We are taking the first step.” By doing that, it could genuinely make the other countries follow its lead, and we could get rid of nuclear weapons throughout the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is an honour to be called in a debate of such national importance. For me, there is one compelling image that encapsulates why I will be voting with the Government, and I am sure many other Members have witnessed it. It is those unforgettable, harrowing glass cabinets on display in the Auschwitz museum—the piles of human hair, the mountains of shoes from the victims of the Nazis, which are a permanent, timeless reminder to all of us what happens when peoples and nations are tyrannised and brutalised in existential war.

For me, regardless of all the other arguments, that is overwhelmingly and singularly the key argument. I never, ever want to see my country again in the position that it was in in the 1940s, when we were faced with an existential threat. We were on the verge of being invaded and if that had been successful, we too would have had concentration camps in this country, and all the brutality that would have followed from that.

There may be those who say that such a war is incredibly unlikely. I say to them that there is only one guarantee against it, and that is the nuclear deterrent, however unpalatable that may be. In 1918, people would not have believed that there would be another world war, and surely not another world war even more brutal than the one that they had just experienced, but none of us can predict the future.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that we would have nuked Germany?

[James Cartlidge]

If we had the ability. The nuclear weapon is there for one thing only: to defend this country in the case of existential invasion. It is nothing to do with the terrorist threat or wars such as we had in Iraq. It is that one overriding thing. It is a guarantee of our absolute freedom and existence.

People talk about cost. We cannot have limitless cost. We must have discipline. There can be no blank cheque, but let us talk about some figures that we know definitively. In the first world war 10 million lives were lost. In the second world war 73 million lives were lost, mainly civilians. How many since then? Not a single one in a world war. That has not been a coincidence. Nuclear weapons are horrific, but they have kept the peace.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

To take my hon. Friend back to the earlier intervention, it is a fact that both Germany and the allies were racing to invent the atomic bomb. There is no doubt that if the Germans had got the atomic bomb first, they would have used it against us, and if we had got the atomic bomb, we would have used it against them, just as the allies did against Japan to bring the war to an end.

[James Cartlidge]

My right hon. Friend is right. I do not want to go back over the historic debate but there are those who argue that if the Americans had not used those atomic bombs, the death count of US troops having to invade the Japanese mainland would have been astronomical. No one wants ever to have to use that weapon. It is an horrific thing.

I conclude with what, to me, is the fundamental point. Nuclear weapons are the single most horrible thing ever invented by man, but they have given us the most beautiful thing and we should never take it for granted. They have given peace in our time to every generation represented in this House, and we should not take that for granted. Instead of voting for complacency and relying on others to defend us, we must vote to stand firm and to deliver and guarantee that peace for many more generations to come.

Outcome of the EU Referendum

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I think I have said, there are financial consequences that we need to manage in the days and weeks ahead.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Further to the question asked by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), does the Prime Minister accept that a very clear prospectus was sold to the electorate who voted to leave, which included an explicit promise to end unskilled migration from the European Union? That promise was explicit, and it is what those people voted for. Does the Prime Minister believe that it can be delivered?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, I think that one of the greatest challenges will be negotiating the best possible access to the single market, and balancing the issue of the best management and control of migration. That will be a decision for the future Prime Minister, and it will be one of the most important that he or she, and a Cabinet, will have to make.

European Council

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I warn colleagues: as they know, I normally call everyone and the Prime Minister most patiently replies, but I fear that that almost certainly will not be possible today. Brevity will help, however.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that at the end of the Prime Minister’s statement he reminded the House of his commitment to estate regeneration. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a classic example of one nation Conservatism, given that it is proven to deliver not only better homes and communities for those who live in our inner cities, but the supply of new homes for first-time buyers?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. The aim should be to remove all the barriers in the way of people progressing and making the most of their lives. That is why regenerating estates can play a huge part, as can addressing the shortage of childcare places, improving our schools and dealing with mental health issues. All these things are about unblocking barriers to success for people.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly have a look at the case, because what we have found so far with PIP payments is that we are actually spending more money on disability, rather than less money on disability. I will look very carefully at the case. The whole point about PIP, as compared to disability living allowance, is that there is more of a proper medical assessment process to find out what is required. Through the hon. Lady, may I say to her constituent that I am sure he, like others, will welcome that we are so close to eradicating polio entirely from our world? The Government are committed to going the extra mile and making that happen.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Q15. Schools in South Suffolk were delighted this week to see the publication of the Government’s consultation on fairer funding. Given that the first part of the consultation will focus on the core principles, does my right hon. Friend agree that one of those principles must be that rural schools face unique and unavoidable costs that are not well funded under the current formula?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. It is right that we are examining the formula and trying to achieve better fairness. I think everyone can now see that the gap between the best-funded schools and the worst-funded schools has become too great. I also agree that it is vital that the specific needs of schools in rural areas are properly considered. That is why our consultation proposes that we should direct additional funding to small schools in sparsely populated areas.

European Council

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My father, whom I miss every day, was an inveterate gambler. I remember nothing so much as sitting with him on a Saturday and watching him bet on race after race. While I enjoyed all that, I have tried to stick away from it myself, so I am not running a book. All I know is that I will do the right thing for this country, and the right thing for this country is to remain in a reformed EU.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Moody’s has today warned that it could cut Britain’s credit rating in the event of Brexit. It justifies that thus:

“Unless the UK managed to negotiate a new trade arrangement with the EU that preserves at least some of the trade benefits of EU membership, the UK’s exports would suffer. It would likely lead to a prolonged period of uncertainty, which would negatively affect investment.”

Is that project fear or a warning from the real world?

[The Prime Minister]

There are important economic consequences that we need to lay out so that people can see the potential downsides of what I think is a leap in the dark. We have set out a lot this afternoon about how long it would take to put trade deals in place and about how damaging that could be. It would be irresponsible not to be put in front of the British people the consequences of the outcomes.

UK-EU Renegotiation

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important that business raises its voice, particularly as regards jobs and investment. We need to demonstrate that this negotiation and this outcome can actually lead to a strong and more secure economy, for the sake not just of business, but of people who want security.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Is he aware that 90% of FTSE 100 chairmen would vote to remain in the European Union? Does he think that that is because they are part of some so-called “project fear”? Alternatively, is it because they run our very largest companies in the real world and know that a vote to leave is a vote for huge economic uncertainty and that a vote to remain, with the protections we will have on the single market and our currency, is a vote for our economy to go from strength to strength?

[The Prime Minister]

It is important that we hear the voice of business, both large and small, and I encourage all businesses to speak out because they have an important contribution to make to the debate. The more that people can give concrete examples of how access to this market and to the rules of this market matter, the better.

EU Council

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right thing to do is to wait for the renegotiation and see whether we want to remain in the EU as amended, or leave the EU. The whole point is to give people a better choice. Many people said to me before the last election, “I don’t want the false choice of staying in an organisation that needs reform or leaving it altogether. Give me a better choice.” That was the most popular policy not just in England, but in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and that is why we are putting it in place.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Given the critical economic impact on this country of whether we leave or remain in the EU, will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will do all he can to push for a fair settlement regarding discrimination and access to the single market for those countries that choose to have the best of both worlds by remaining in the EU, but outside the straitjacket of the European single currency?

[The Prime Minister]

That is absolutely key to our negotiating aims, and a country that is a member of the single market but not of the single currency should not suffer disadvantage. As I said, a number of occasions—whether calls to bail-out eurozone countries, or the location policy that euro-clearing houses can be put only in eurozone countries—have shown just how important this issue is, and that is why it is so vital to the renegotiation.

ISIL in Syria

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

Intervention will succeed only if it is part of a coherent military strategy and a coherent political strategy. Both are needed. I have yet to hear them in the statements from Ministers, although I very much want to hear them.

First, on the military strategy, degrading ISIL’s capacity from the air will achieve little unless it is followed by effective use of ground forces. But President Obama has ruled out committing ground troops, as has the Prime Minister, so the question of where those troops are going to come from is paramount. The Prime Minister appears to be insisting that Assad, who still has significant forces in theatre, has no part in the future of Syria. In that case, the ground war rests largely with the Kurds, who are less well organised than they are in Iraq, and on the reported 70,000 non-extremist fighters, but the reality of those seems to have faded somewhat in recent days.

Secondly, and even more important, there is the political strategy. Before military action can be justified, we need to have arrived at the point where the main intervening powers are agreed at least about the broad outlines of a settlement. But that is not evident either. In fact, the military action that has recently been taking place in Syria vividly illustrates the absence of a strategy. A handful of outside powers are attacking or assisting a patchwork of different opponents, some of whom are fighting each other. The political objectives of the western powers and current military action to further them and the political objectives of the Russians are contradictory. The Russians have attacked the groups that the west sees as the potential salvation of Syria. The US and France want to remove the regime that the Russians have been seeking to entrench.

For military action to have a reasonable prospect of succeeding, we will need agreement among the major powers about the use and objectives of air power, about whom we are and are not targeting, about how the boots on the ground will get there, and about whose boots they will be.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend refers to the objectives of air power. For those of us who have been listening to the debate, there is a feeling that those arguing against the motion have failed to answer the question of whether they support the action in Iraq, where since last September air power has been deployed very effectively in restricting ISIL’s progress and defending Baghdad against terrorists.

[Mr Tyrie]

I agree with that. There is a fundamental difference between Iraq and Syria. Iraq is a democracy, at least of sorts, and it has invited us in and is sharing with us the enduring responsibility for what goes on there. If we engage in Syria, we will be picking up the enduring responsibility for a failed state.

A political plan is absolutely essential. That will require at least a measure of agreement on a policy for regional stability. That can be achieved only in collaboration with the Russians, and probably the Iranians. There are some grounds for cautious optimism in that regard. I have very little time to talk about it but, in a nutshell, I do not think that there is enough.

In the absence of both a military and a political strategy, the west might only succeed in supressing ISIL temporarily. In time, an equally virulent Islamist-inspired, anti-western militancy may well return.

The ruling out of western ground forces is very significant. It tells us that, after Iraq and Afghanistan, the west appears to lack the will, and perhaps the military strength, to commit the resources that might be needed to construct a new order from the shaken kaleidoscope of Syria. As in Libya, it would be relatively easy to remove a brutal dictator from the air, and perhaps also to suppress ISIL, but it would be extremely difficult to construct a regime more favourable to our long-term interests.

We do not need to look into a crystal ball to see that; we can read the book. The result of over a decade of intervention in the middle east has been not the creation of a regional order more attuned to western values and interests, but the destruction of an existing order of dictatorships that, however odious, was at least effective in supressing the sectarian conflicts and resulting terrorism that have taken root in the middle east. Regime change in Iraq brought anarchy and terrible suffering. It has also made us less safe.

Above all, it has created the conditions for the growth of militant extremism. We should be under no illusions: today’s vote is not a small step. Once we have deployed military forces in Syria, we will be militarily, politically and morally deeply engaged in that country, and probably for many years to come. That is why the Government’s description of the extension of bombing to Syria as merely an extension of what we were already doing in Iraq is misplaced. We simply have not heard enough from the Government about exactly what the reconstruction will mean.

The timing of this vote has everything to do with the opportunity to secure a majority provided by the shocking attacks in Paris. Everybody feels a bond with the French, but an emotional reflex is not enough. Military action might be effective at some point, but military action without a political strategy is folly. We have yet to hear that strategy, so I cannot support the Government’s motion tonight.

Syria

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, I am very happy to be guided by what the House would find most helpful. I think that regular updates from the Dispatch Box would be useful, and I would also be happy to have discussions with Select Committees as appropriate. Perhaps we could look at putting something into the motion, should a motion come forward, to guarantee regular updates so that colleagues could be kept informed.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

We have heard shocking reports from the United Nations of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by ISIL against the civilian population in Syria, including the beheading of a female dentist for the crime of treating patients of both sexes. Does the Prime Minister agree that the only practicable way for us to hold the leadership of ISIL to account for these crimes against humanity is to engage in the type of military action that he is proposing?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He speaks clearly about this issue. Frankly, we should document the many crimes against Muslims in Syria and Iraq that are being carried out by this brutal organisation.