Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The deeply moving testimonies we have already heard and will continue to hear this week from survivors and the bereaved leave absolutely no room for doubt. We must learn everything we can about what happened, and we must take the strongest possible action to stop such an unimaginable tragedy from ever happening again.

As my hon. Friend says, Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendations do not include banning inflammable cladding. We are minded to go further by banning combustible materials in cladding on high-rise buildings. We are meeting our legal duty to consult on these proposals, and we will not delay any necessary action.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Indeed it is almost a year since the Grenfell tragedy, and sadly justice has not yet been done. Many of those families have still not been rehoused and many are still living in tower blocks. People across the country are worried about the safety of cladding. More needs to be done more quickly.

I agree with what the Prime Minister says about the anniversary of the Manchester bomb. We were there at the service yesterday, and I pay tribute to the people of Manchester for the fantastic event they held last night in Albert Square, which brought all communities across Manchester together. That is the answer to terrorism, that is the answer to threats: bring people together.

In 2010, £4 billion of NHS services were outsourced to private companies. How much is it today?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. Terrorists attacked in Manchester, and we sadly saw a number of other terrorist attacks in this country last year. They were trying to divide us, and I think the response of all communities, whether here in London or in Manchester, has shown that we will not be divided by the terrorists. We will not let the terrorists win. We will defeat them.

The right hon. Gentleman asks about the outsourcing of services within the NHS. Of course, what we do know is that spend on the independent sector nearly doubled in the last four years of a Labour Government.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My question was about the amount spent now. NHS budgets have increased by just 1% per year under this Government, but it is jackpot time for the privateers, whose share is up by 100% to over £9 billion per year. We have also learned that Surrey NHS has just paid Virgin Care £1.5 million, not for any service that it has delivered, but because its bid was not chosen—£1.5 million wasted on Virgin Care that should have been spent on healthcare. Is the Prime Minister concerned that the National Audit Office said this week that NHS England’s handling of private contractors had put

“patients at risk of serious harm”?

[The Prime Minister]

The NAO report said that

“no actual harm has been identified.”

It is also the case that, in relation to the contracts that the NAO was talking about, the savings that have been made have all been reinvested into frontline NHS patient care and have helped to fund the equivalent of an extra 30,000 operations. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the percentage of money that has been spent on the private sector, and I must say that the proportion of spend in the NHS in England that was outsourced to the private sector last year did not go up at all. There was somewhere where it went up by 0.8%. Ah yes—Wales.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The NAO criticised NHS England’s Capita contract, saying that it had put

“patients at risk of serious harm”.

Thousands of women were dropped from the national cervical cancer screening programmes. Another element of the contract handed over to Capita was for GP services, which resulted in two thirds of GP practices receiving incorrect medical records, and 500,000 new patient letters were left unsent. Is that not the inevitable consequence of this Government tearing up the founding principles of the NHS and putting private profit before public service?

[The Prime Minister]

At every general election since the NHS was formed, the Labour party has scaremongered about the Conservative approach to the NHS. At every general election, Labour has made claims about privatisation and about funding cuts. What has every elected Conservative Government done? We have protected the NHS; we have improved NHS services; we have put more funding into the NHS; and we have ensured that we remain true to the founding principle of the NHS: that it is free at the point of delivery.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

From the party that opposed the NHS in the first place, that is a bit rich. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is far too much noise on both sides of the House. I have plenty of time, and I am sure that the principals have as well. We will get through the questions, but preferably in an atmosphere of calm.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Royal College of General Practitioners says:

“The long list of failures made by Capita have been incredibly frustrating for GPs and our teams, and we are still dealing with the fallout”.

Public servants are bearing the brunt of private failure. GPs are leaving the profession in despair—4,000 have retired early in the past five years, which is one in 10. In 2015, the Health Secretary said that he would hire another 5,000 GPs. How many more GPs are there than there were in 2015?

[The Prime Minister]

We now have more than 14,900 more doctors in our NHS than we had in 2010. We are indeed committed to delivering 5,000 more GPs. We have increased the number training to be GPs. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the private sector being used in the national health service, but he might ask the shadow Health Secretary for his view. The shadow Health Secretary has said, “We are still going to buy from the private sector where we haven’t got capacity in the NHS.” The right hon. Gentleman’s shadow Health Secretary is committed to it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The shadow Health Secretary has a very good understanding of the needs of patients and will always put them first. He will not be the one putting the private sector first.

The reality is that there are 1,000 fewer GPs and the number is falling. It is no wonder that more and more people are writing to me every week saying how difficult it is to get a GP appointment. GPs are the bedrock of the NHS. We need more of them.

I had a letter this week from Anne, who is retired. Until recently, she cared for her mother at home. She wrote:

“The NHS pay a private nursing home for mum’s care…day after day we experience a catalogue of disasters. I can’t leave my mum knowing that her needs aren’t catered for, so I spend hours at the nursing home”.

What action are the Government taking to deal with the substandard care that providers give in the private care sector, which is so upsetting for so many people?

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman and to Anne that I fully understand that people want to have the confidence and reassurance of knowing that the care their loved ones receive is of a good quality. That is why this Government have put in place the various steps to ensure that we are looking into the quality of care provided in those sectors.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the shadow Health Secretary recognising the needs of patients. I think he was saying that he recognises the needs of patients, which is why the private sector will be used in some cases. The former Health Secretary, now the Mayor of Manchester, said that

“the private sector puts its capacity into the NHS for the benefit of NHS patients, which I think most people in this country would celebrate”.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The shadow Health Secretary is dedicated to the NHS, not to handing it over to private contractors. That is the difference.

The Care Quality Commission said last year that

“there is too much poor care”.

A fifth of care providers require improvement. Year after year, private sector care providers are letting down our elderly.

This year is the 70th birthday of the national health service—I pay tribute to all its staff over all of those 70 years—but the NHS reaches that milestone with the worst A&E waits on record, the worst delays for cancer referrals on record, falling numbers of GPs, falling numbers of nurses and the longest funding squeeze in its history, while this Government open the door to even more profiteering. Why does the Prime Minister not act now to end the siphoning off of billions of pounds from patient care and give the NHS the funding it needs?

[The Prime Minister]

We do indeed pay tribute to all those who have worked in the NHS over its 70 years and those who work there today. We want to see a bright future for the NHS, which is why we will be coming forward with a long-term plan for it. What we see today is a national health service not only with more funding going into it, but, crucially, with more people being treated and more operations being undertaken. There are people alive today who have suffered from cancer and would not have been alive just eight years ago, because our cancer outcomes have improved. That is the reality of our national health service. What we also see is that this Government can put money into the NHS only because we have a balanced approach to our economy. What did we learn this week that the Labour party and the shadow Chancellor want to do? They want to “overthrow capitalism”. What would that mean? It would mean families paying higher taxes—[Interruption.] It is supported by parts of the Labour party; now we know where the Labour party really stands on this issue. I say to the shadow Chancellor and others: what would this mean? It would mean families paying higher taxes; more debt for our children in future; fewer people in jobs; and less money for our schools and hospitals. A Labour party that would bankrupt our economy would do lasting damage to our national health service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point—he is absolutely right to do so. As we leave the European Union, as he will know, we will have the opportunity to deliver a farming policy that works for the whole industry. That is why we are asking for the views of everyone involved or with an interest about the development of a policy that reflects the reality of life for food producers and farmers, the opportunity to improve our farmed environment and the issues that my hon. Friend raises. Our food has a great reputation—a very high reputation—for quality that is built on high animal welfare standards, strong environmental protections, and the dedication of farmers and growers right across this country.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you for welcoming PC Wright and PC Nicholls to the Chamber today, Mr Speaker. They did great work, as indeed do police officers all over the country. It was right that you should recognise them on behalf of all of us.

It is Mental Health Awareness Week. I join the Prime Minister in wishing Harry and Meghan all the best, and I thank Harry for his work to highlight the need to challenge the stigma surrounding mental health, and the ability for us all to talk about mental health to ensure that people do not suffer in silence on their own—particularly young people, who are often so grievously affected by this.

When the Prime Minister wrote at the weekend that she wanted

“as little friction as possible”,

was she talking about EU trade or the next Cabinet meeting? [Laughter.]

[The Prime Minister]

I think the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that this Government have a policy of leaving the customs union and of ensuring that, as we do so, we have as frictionless trade as possible with the EU, we have a solution that ensures we have no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and we have an independent trade policy. But if he is talking about friction, perhaps he could reflect on the fact that this month, the shadow Health Minister in the Lords voted for a second referendum; that at the weekend, the shadow Brexit Secretary refused to rule out a second referendum; and that on Monday, the shadow International Development Minister tweeted in favour of a second referendum. Perhaps when he stands up he could put the minds of the British people and this House at rest and rule out a second referendum.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The divisions in the Cabinet mean that there has been no progress in negotiations for five months. The reality is that members of the Cabinet are more interested in negotiating with each other than with the European Union. The Prime Minister’s promise of

“as little friction as possible”

is in stark contrast with the earlier commitment that this would be “friction-free”, so will she explain how much friction she is willing to accept? Businesses and workers in those companies need to know.

[The Prime Minister]

We want to ensure that we can continue to trade in as frictionless a way as possible. The suggestion that trade is entirely frictionless at the moment is not actually correct. We have set three very simple objectives for a future customs union. I will say to the House that achieving those objectives, which I have just set out, will not be easy—it will be difficult. Some will say, “Forget about an independent trade policy”—that is not the position of this Government. Some might say, “Don’t worry about the Northern Irish border”—that is not the position of this Government. It is absolutely right that we aim to achieve those three objectives. The right hon. Gentleman talks about progress. We will be publishing a White Paper in a few weeks showing how much progress we are making.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Ministers are no nearer to agreeing a White Paper than they are a strategy for going forward. I remind the Prime Minister that UK has the slowest economic growth of all major economies, and its growth overall is slower than that of the eurozone. The Government’s uncertainty and recklessness are putting jobs and investment at risk. Last week, Airbus confirmed that its space contract would move abroad post Brexit and that it was considering its overall position in the UK because of the Government’s complete lack of clarity. How many other businesses have warned her that they too are considering their future in this country?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about preparations for the negotiations and the White Paper. Let us remember what his position was—[Interruption.] His position was that we should have triggered article 50 immediately after the referendum, with no work having been done in preparation for the negotiations. He would not even have had a white page, let alone a White Paper, to base his negotiations on. What would that have led to? It would have led to what Labour does every time it is in government—it would have sold Britain out.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The problem is that the Prime Minister’s own position is not even supported by her Cabinet. Rolls-Royce has said:

“We’re worried about border checks…we need to be thoughtful and careful about”

future investments. Ford has said:

“any sort of border restrictions or customs friction is going to be an inhibitor to us continuing”.

Vauxhall says:

“We cannot invest in a world of uncertainty”.

Businesses are understandably frustrated by the Government. This week, the Environment Secretary gave his view on the Prime Minister’s preferred customs partnership model. He said that

“there have to be significant question marks over the deliverability of it on time”

as it “has flaws”. Well, at least he didn’t call it “crazy”, as the Foreign Secretary did. If the Prime Minister cannot convince even her own Cabinet of her strategy, what chance does she have with 27 other European countries?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman has taken this view of our position in the negotiations before. Before December, he said we would not get a joint report, and we did. Before March, he said we would not get an implementation period, and we did, and we continue to negotiate. He asks what British businesses are doing. I will tell him what they are doing. They are creating more jobs in this country, meaning that we now have record levels of employment. What did we see under Labour? Half a million more people unemployed—because Labour Governments always leave office with more people out of work than when they went in.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

May I congratulate the Prime Minister on record numbers of zero-hours contracts, record numbers of people in in-work poverty, and a record of wages lower today than 10 years ago? May I also congratulate her on formally dividing her Cabinet into rival camps—as if it needed doing—to consider two different models? As a process of parliamentary scrutiny, I hope that both Sub-Committees will report directly to the House so that we can all make up our minds on the rival factions in her Cabinet.



While the Prime Minister’s Government dither, the Dutch Government have now begun training the first batch of extra customs officials to deal with the reintroduction of customs checks for British goods at Dutch borders. In October, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said, “HMRC”—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman will complete his question more quickly if Members do not shout—[Interruption.] Order. Mr Colin Clark, I do not require your assistance. You are an amiable enough fellow, but no assistance for the Chair from you is required.

I want to accommodate Back Benchers, and I will do so today, as I always do. I am concerned about people who want to ask questions. If people do not want to ask questions, they must shush and listen, and if they do want to ask questions, they had certainly better keep schtum.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a very straightforward question. How many additional HMRC staff have been recruited to deal with Brexit?

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are indeed making preparations for all contingencies, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced money which has been allocated to Departments to make those necessary preparations.

May I correct what the right hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his question? He referred to zero-hours contracts. In fact, if we look at the figures, we see that almost two thirds of the increase in employment in the past year has been in full-time work, more than three quarters of the growth in employment since 2010 has been in full-time work, and about 70% of the rise in employment since 2010 has been in highly skilled work. Perhaps, when he stands up, the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the jobs that have been created under this Government.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The question that I asked the Prime Minister was, “How many more HMRC officials have been recruited?” She has not answered it. Let me help her, and say that if more are being recruited, as is being claimed, they will not even make up for the cuts made in the last eight years. It seems that the Dutch Government are more prepared for dealing with Brexit than the British Government.

We have had 23 months since the referendum. We have just 10 months in which to complete negotiations, and the Government are in complete disarray. On both sides of the negotiations, the reality is dawning that deadlines are at risk of not being met. More and more jobs are at risk as more and more businesses openly consider the options for relocating their jobs. The Government are so busy negotiating with themselves that they cannot negotiate with anyone else. If the Prime Minister cannot negotiate a good deal for Britain, why does she not step aside and let Labour negotiate a comprehensive new customs union and living standards backed by trade unions and business in this country? Step aside, and make way for those who will negotiate it.

[The Prime Minister]

What we have seen under this Government are more jobs being created, and more high-paid jobs being created. We have delivered on our December joint report on Brexit, and in March on the implementation period. Let us look at what we would see from the Labour party. With Labour Members, you simply cannot trust a word that they say. They said that they would strike new trade deals, but what do they want? They want to be in a customs union that would ensure that they could not strike new trade deals. Promise broken. They said that they would scrap student debt, but after the election they went back on that. Promise broken. They said that they would tackle anti-Semitism. Promise broken. Only the Conservative party can be trusted by the British people to deliver a Brexit that is in the interests of British people, and to deliver opportunity for all in a Britain that is fit for the future.

Tributes: Baroness Jowell

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and thank you for arranging this half hour of tributes to Tessa Jowell. We are grateful to you for that, and we are grateful to the Prime Minister for what she has just said about Tessa. Right across the House, people were devastated when they heard the news of Tessa’s death. Like the Prime Minister, I send my condolences to her family and friends and to everyone who knew her well. The media coverage yesterday and this morning goes way beyond the coverage of the death of a normal politician. It goes way beyond that because it brings in the way in which she lived her life and the way in which she died.

I knew Tessa for a very long time. She was a warm and compassionate person. Prior to coming to this House in 1992 as the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, she was a councillor in Camden in the 1970s, which is where I first met her—I in my role as a union organiser and she in her role as a councillor. There is always a basic synergy between the two. She was Labour’s candidate in a by-election in Ilford North in 1978, and many of us trudged along many streets in support of her at that time. Unfortunately, she was not elected then, but she came into the House sometime after that. In Camden, Tessa was instrumental in trying to bring an end to the pay dispute in 1979 by offering us lots of money. When we wanted a national settlement, she offered us a local one. It was very kind of her. It was an attempt to try to support low-paid workers in her constituency in Camden.

In Government, Tessa was absolutely determined to bring about Sure Start, which was one of the great achievements of that Government. The idea was that all children and all families should have a place and be supported in the difficult times that they were going through. Sure Start helped to lift 1 million children out of poverty, and I thank her for that. I also thank her for being an active NHS campaigner in London from the moment she entered this House in 1992. I worked with her on that, and I was very happy to do so.

Tessa’s pivotal moment was helping to win the 2012 Olympics for London, when she persuaded a probably reluctant Prime Minister, an undoubtedly reluctant civil service and a probably reluctant just-about-everybody-else with her amazingly penetrating stare, saying, “Well, you’ve got to do it!” And of course, everyone had to do it and they did. She then showed her skills in diplomacy by putting together a team consisting of Lord Coe, Ken Livingstone and herself to deliver the Olympics for London. I have never forgotten her describing the chances of a British gold medal in taekwondo to a meeting of Labour MPs. I do not think that any of us knew what taekwondo was, but we did not want to admit that to her, so we all said, “Well done, yes, it’s bound to go well.” She actually tried taekwondo, and she was just as formidable at that as she was later in putting her case to the House of Lords. So, well done Tessa on that.

Tessa’s recent speech in the House of Lords was just amazing. We live our lives and enjoy our lives and none of us wants it to end, but she was able to convey to the House and to the world that living your life is also about how you end your life and about the legacy that you leave behind. It was such a brave and selfless speech, and it took so much out of her, but she was determined to do it. Using her platform as a Member of Parliament in the House of Lords to raise awareness of brain cancer was truly amazing: well done her. She will be remembered for her passion, for her sense of social justice, for her sense of inclusion and for her sense of fun in dealing with people. Above all, she will be remembered for the manner of her leaving us. Her children and family are obviously totally devastated, but I think they can also be very proud of the legacy she has left behind. It is wonderful that we now have the Tessa Jowell brain cancer research fund, and I hope that we will all support that so that others do not have to suffer in the awful way that she suffered. She taught us how to live, and I think she also taught us how to die.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can say to my hon. Friend that she is right about votes that took place in this House where the Opposition did vote against the abolition of stamp duty for those young first-time buyers, which is proving so helpful. Last Thursday, when millions of people across England went to the polls to vote for their local councils, we saw that the real winners were ordinary people. More people are now able to get the benefit of Conservative councillors who keep their council tax lower and provide good local services.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

First, may I put on record my thanks to Mr Speaker for attending the funeral of the late Michael Martin this morning in Glasgow on behalf of this House?

Does the Prime Minister agree with her Foreign Secretary that the plan for a customs partnership set out in her Lancaster House speech is, in fact, “crazy”?

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we are leaving the European Union and we are leaving the customs union, but, of course, for our future trade relationship with the European Union, we will need to agree customs arrangements, which will ensure that we leave the customs union, that we can have an independent free trade policy, that we can maintain no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and that we can have as frictionless trade with the European Union as possible. I will tell him what is crazy. What is crazy is the fact that the Leader of the Opposition, who for years opposed the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, now has a policy that would mean Labour signing up to TTIP with no say in it whatsoever.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Could the Prime Minister explain why she and her Cabinet wasted weeks working up proposals that the EU said were unworkable and that the Foreign Secretary described as “crazy”? Does she agree with her Business Secretary who apparently backs the “crazy” customs partnership proposal, but who made it clear that he did not back a technological alternative when he told the BBC that jobs would be at risk if we do not sort out a comprehensive customs deal?

[The Prime Minister]

What the Business Secretary said on Sunday was that it was absolutely right that we should be leaving the customs union. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about jobs, I am happy to do so: half a million jobs lost under the last Labour Government; record employment rate under this Conservative Government.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Government say that they have two options. The Foreign Secretary says that one is “crazy”, and Sir Ivan Rogers, our former EU ambassador, said that the technological alternative is a “fantasy island unicorn model”. They have two options, neither of which is workable. The case for a new customs union with the European Union is clear, to support jobs and living standards. Why is the Prime Minister ignoring all the major business organisations and all the major trade unions backing a customs union? Is it not time that she stood up to those described last night by the Father of the House as “wild, right-wing people”?

[The Prime Minister]

We are leaving the customs union. What we are doing is ensuring that we deliver customs arrangements but leave the customs union, ensure no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, as frictionless trade with the EU as possible, and an independent trade policy. What would Labour give us? It wants to go into a customs union with the European Union, with no say over trade policy and with Brussels negotiating trade deals in its interests, not our own. The Labour manifesto said that it wanted to strike trade deals, but now it has gone back on that policy. Typical Labour—letting Britain down once again.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister presides over a divided Cabinet. She has had 23 months to negotiate an agreement and has not made any progress on it. The CBI says that

“a comprehensive customs union, after transition, is a practical, real-world answer”.

The TUC, on behalf of 6 million workers in this country, puts it simply:

“Ruling out a customs union risks jobs”.

The Government continue to reject a new customs union, but at the weekend the Business Secretary made it clear that neither of their options would be ready to be implemented by December 2020. Can the Prime Minister tell us her preferred option and the date on which it will be ready to be implemented?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the length of time in the negotiations. Of course, it was not until March and the agreement to move on to the next stage of negotiations that it was possible to have discussions with the European Commission on the customs arrangements. There were two options in my Mansion House speech. Questions have been raised about both of them and further work continues.

The right hon. Gentleman has spent an entire career opposing a customs union. Now that the British people want to come out, he wants to stay in. I know that he is Leader of the Opposition, but that is going a bit far.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Due to divisions within the Government, these negotiations are a shambles, and this House is being denied the opportunity to debate crucial legislation affecting the future of our economy and communities all over Britain. Can the Prime Minister now tell the House when we will debate the Trade Bill and when we will debate the customs Bill? She has had 23 months to get ready for it.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the state of the negotiations. Before December, he was saying that the negotiations were not going to get anywhere, but what did we get? A joint report agreed by the European Council. He said before March that we would not get what we wanted in the negotiations, but what did we get? An implementation and an agreement with the European Union Council. We are now in negotiation for the best deal for the UK when we leave the EU, and we will get the best deal for the UK when we leave the European Union.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I would have thought that after 23 months, we would have a better answer than that from the Prime Minister.

How can the Government negotiate in the future interests of people’s jobs and living standards when Cabinet members are more interested in putting their own futures first? Fundamentally, how can this Government negotiate a good deal for Britain to defend people’s jobs and living standards when they are unable to reach an agreement between themselves?

[The Prime Minister]

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what this Government have been doing to defend jobs. We have had a balanced approach to the economy, opposed by the Labour party. We have introduced changes in legislation for more workers’ rights, often opposed by the Labour party. We have been ensuring that we see jobs being created in this country—employment is at its highest rate since records began, and unemployment is at its lowest rate for 40 years or more. This is a Government that are putting jobs first at every stage of what we are doing. Last week, what we saw up and down this country, whether in Barnet, Dudley or Peterborough, was the British people voting to reject the back-to-the-future economic policy of the Labour party and the broken promises of Labour. They do not trust Labour, and they do not trust its leader.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We absolutely share my hon. Friend’s concern about ensuring that we are supporting local communities, and that we are delivering better infrastructure in those communities and maximising the potential of our country. The housing infrastructure fund is an important part of that. We need to build more homes across this country, but we also need to ensure that the infrastructure is there to support those homes and help those local communities. That is exactly what we are doing.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Michael Martin, the former Labour MP for Glasgow, Springburn and later Speaker of the House. He worked in the engineering industry in Glasgow and was active in the then Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. He and I first met when we were fellow organisers in the National Union of Public Employees in the 1970s, campaigning for decent public sector pay and a national minimum wage. Michael loved the community he represented and loved his family, and our deepest thoughts and sympathies go to his family at this time.

Did the Prime Minister feel the slightest pang of guilt when the Home Secretary was forced to resign due to the failures of her predecessor?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it might be helpful if I first update the House on the actions the Government have taken and are continuing to take in relation to the Windrush generation. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be addressing the House on this later today. We all share the ambition to make sure we do right by members of the Windrush generation, which is why he will be announcing a package of measures to bring transparency on the issue, to make sure that the House is informed, and to reassure Members of this House but, more importantly, to reassure those people who have been directly affected. Speed is of the essence and my right hon. Friend will be commissioning a full review of lessons learned, independent oversight and external challenge, with the intention of reporting back to this House before we rise for the summer. The review will have full access to all relevant information in the Home Office, including policy papers and casework decisions.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

This was a crisis made in the Home Office by successive Home Secretaries. Only a week ago today, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), then Home Secretary, was denying there were any targets, in front of the Home Affairs Committee. On Monday, the Prime Minister told the media:

“When I was Home Secretary, yes, there were targets”.

One wonders why the Prime Minister didn’t tell her Home Secretary about that. The pain that has been caused to the Windrush generation needs to be resolved very rapidly, with full compensation paid as quickly as it can possibly be done and an understanding of the hurt that they feel. But this is not the only failure of this Government or of their policies. The Government used to talk about a “long-term economic plan”, but now we have the slowest growing economy in the G7. The Chancellor, sitting two places along from the Prime Minister, told the House that he had a “positively Tiggerish” view of the British economy, yet it has the worst economic growth figures for five years. What plans do the Government have to change course to ensure we do get economic growth?

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I say to the right hon. Gentleman, on the Windrush generation, I was Home Secretary when some of these decisions were taken and mistakes were made about individual cases, and I have apologised for that. The former Home Secretary also apologised for that. The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that these are decisions that have been taken under successive Home Secretaries, including under the last Labour Government, and if he wants to talk about the economy, let’s just look at what we have seen in our economy in recent weeks: day-to-day spending in surplus for the first time in 16 years; the lowest net borrowing in over a decade; exports of goods and services at a record high; employment at a record high; and real wages up. That is a Conservative Government delivering an economy fit for the future.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Four facts about the economy: more people in debt, more people using food banks, more people sleeping on our streets, and more children in poverty. The consequences of decisions made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer are that the NHS is suffering the longest funding squeeze in history. It has sent our health service into an all-year-round crisis. Will the Prime Minister apologise to NHS patients waiting longer than ever for the worst A&E waiting times on record?

[The Prime Minister]

I gave the right hon. Gentleman some facts about the economy; I can give him some others: more people in work, and actually fewer children in absolute poverty under this Government. When it comes to the national health service, since November my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced £10 billion extra for the national health service. I have also said that we want to ensure that the national health service is able to operate on a long-term plan. That is why we are conducting a review to produce that long-term plan, with sustainable multi-year funding. That is the sensible approach to take—not just to say that this is all about money, but to say, “How can we ensure that the NHS is the NHS that will deliver for people in the future?” That is about funding. It is also about reforming the NHS to make sure that patients get the right treatment.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Not only was March the worst month on record in A&E departments; it was also the worst month for cancelled operations. There are 100,000 vacancies for NHS staff—and the Prime Minister personally intervened to overrule the Health Secretary and the previous Home Secretary when they asked for a relaxation of visa rules in order to recruit staff to work in our NHS.

But it is not just the NHS where the Government are damaging our public services. In January, the Education Secretary promised that no school would see a cut in its funding. Last week, he was invited to repeat that pledge, and refused. I wonder why. Will the Prime Minister now tell parents, teachers and students the truth—that the schools budget is in fact being cut in real terms all over the country?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. What we are doing is ensuring that there is more money available to schools. We are ensuring that we are protecting that core budget, because we want to ensure that every child, regardless of their background, gets the education that they need and the education that fulfils their potential. That is why, once again, it is not just a question of the money you put in; it is about how you spend the money you are spending. That is why I am pleased to say that 1.9 million more children are in good or outstanding schools under this Government and education standards are going up under this Government. That means more opportunities for our young people.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is quite astonishing that the Education Secretary has been corrected by the UK Statistics Authority. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that schools budgets are being cut, and the Prime Minister still appears to be in denial. It is not just in the NHS and education that this Government are damaging our public services; it is also about police budgets. The previous Home Secretary claimed there was no link between police numbers and serious violent crime; yet Home Office civil servants said there is a link. Who does the Prime Minister think is right?

[The Prime Minister]

First, on crime and police budgets, we are of course this year making available £450 million more for police forces across the country. We have been protecting police budgets, which is in direct contrast to what it was suggested to me I should do by the former shadow Home Secretary and Labour Member who is now Mayor of Manchester. He suggested 5% to 10% cuts could be made in police budgets.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the relationship between police numbers and crime. His own shadow Police Minister has said in terms that there is not that relationship between police funding and the number of crimes that take place. Once again, it is about how we ensure we are dealing with these issues. It is about ensuring about that the police are able to deal with the challenges and crimes of today, and that is what we are doing with our serious violence strategy and our National Crime Agency—taking action across the board to ensure that our police are able to keep people safe.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Our shadow Police Minister was pointing out that there has been a £2.3 billion cut in police budgets in the last Parliament, and it is the Prime Minister’s Government who are underfunding our police force: 21,000 police officers have lost their jobs since 2010, and 6,700 police community support officers lost their jobs. Meantime, violent crime is rising and, sadly, there are deaths from knife crime on the streets of most cities, particularly in London.

The economy is slowing, homelessness is rising, more children are living in poverty, the Home Office is in chaos and the Government are making a complete shambles of the Brexit negotiations. They are damaging our NHS, damaging our children’s schools and cutting police as crime soars, and they claim to be “strong and stable”! With council tax rising by more than 5% all over the country, is not the truth facing voters tomorrow that with the Tories you pay more and you get less?

[The Prime Minister]

More funding going into the NHS, more funding going into our schools, more funding going into social care, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about council tax and its impact on local residents, I suggest he go to Hazelbourne Road in Clapham. On one side of the road in a typical home someone will pay nearly £1,400 in council tax. Now that, of course, is in Labour-run Lambeth. On the other side of the road, someone in a typical home will pay just over £700 in council tax. That is in Conservative-run Wandsworth. No clearer example can there be that Conservative councils cost you less.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased that we are making progress on the withdrawal Bill. I think that has been acknowledged by all sides, and after many months of negotiation—I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends, particularly the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for the work he has done in those negotiations—we have reached agreement with the Welsh Government. That is a significant achievement and will provide legal certainty, increase the powers of the devolved Governments and respect the devolution settlements. We have made considerable changes to the Bill to reflect issues raised by Members and the devolved Administrations. It is indeed disappointing that the Scottish Government have not yet felt able to add their agreement to the new amendments, and we sincerely hope that they will reconsider their position.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in congratulating the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the birth of their baby and I wish them well.

We should also reflect on the fact that Doreen and Neville Lawrence fought for years to get justice for the death of their son. The Macpherson inquiry showed that institutional racism was a major factor in the inquiry. We need to drive out institutional racism in all its forms, wherever it raises its head within our society. We recognise that the Home Secretary has rightly apologised to the Windrush generation and made a commitment to compensate people for the hardship they have endured. The Government are committed to compensation in theory, but as yet nothing in practice. There is an understandable lack of trust on the part of the Windrush generation, so can the Prime Minister today be clear and confirm that those British citizens, who have worked, paid taxes here for decades and been wrongly denied pensions and benefits, will be fully compensated?

[The Prime Minister]

It is absolutely right that across this House we should all be absolutely clear in our determination to ensure that we stamp out racism in every form. Let me set out to the House the action that has been taken. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made very clear the offering in her statement to the House that those who came here before 1 January 1973 from Commonwealth countries—this is from Commonwealth countries as a whole—will be offered citizenship status without paying the fee and without taking the knowledge of language and “Life in the UK” test. The children of the Windrush generation who are in the UK will in most cases be British citizens already, but where that is not the case, they will be able to apply to naturalise at no further cost.

We are also taking action in relation to those who made their life here but retired to their country of origin and have found it difficult or impossible to return to the UK. We will work with high commissions to make sure that they can easily access the offer of formal British citizenship, because the Windrush generation are British; they are part of us. There will be a compensation scheme, the details of which my right hon. Friend will set out in due course, but I think everybody will see that the action the Government have taken is because we know the Windrush generation—[Interruption.] The Labour Front Benchers shake their heads and go, “Oh no!” The Windrush generation are British, they are part of us, and we will ensure that.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is not an act of generosity to waive citizenship fees when they are British citizens already. They should be granted full status immediately. Four years ago, an internal Home Office memo stated that the right hon. Lady’s “hostile environment” policy could make it harder for people like the Windrush generation to find homes and that it could “provoke discrimination”. Why did the Home Secretary ignore that memo?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about a “hostile environment”:

“What we are proposing here will, I think, flush illegal migrants out. We are trying to create a much more hostile environment in this country if you are here illegally.”

Those are not my words; they are the words of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) when he was Labour’s Immigration Minister. The Labour leader ought to know about this because the right hon. Gentleman sits on his Front Bench.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

What I am talking about is the Windrush generation of people who came here completely legally. The Prime Minister herself was warned directly about these policies in 2014 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who is now the shadow Home Secretary. And when the Immigration Act 2014 was going through Parliament, the then Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, wrote to the right hon. Lady warning:

“The costs and risks considerably outweigh the benefits”.

Why did the Prime Minister ignore his advice as well as the request from my right hon. Friend?

[The Prime Minister]

In relation to the Windrush generation, we have made it absolutely clear that those people who came here from the Commonwealth before 1 January 1973 have a right to be here: they are British, they are part of us. The problem at the time was that they were not documented with that right, and that is what we are now putting right. He talks about action that the Government have taken in relation to those who are here illegally. The Windrush generation are here legally. Action against those who are here illegally has been taken by successive Governments. Checks on someone’s right to work here came in in 1997, measures on access to benefits in 1999 and civil penalties for employing illegal migrants in 2008—both under a Labour Government. Why have these actions been taken? Because people up and down this country want to ensure that the Government are taking action on those people who are here illegally. It is not fair to those people who work hard, who have a right to be here and who have contributed to this country if they see people who are here illegally being given the same access to rights and services.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister seems to want to get away from the injustice done to the Windrush generation. The Equalities and Human and Rights Commission warned her about the Immigration Act 2016, saying that the Bill

“is likely to lead to destitution and may cause inhuman and degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights”.

The Government have quite rightly apologised for the scandalous way in which British citizens have been treated, but it was due to the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts, so will the Prime Minister now commit to reviewing that legislation to make sure this never happens again?

[The Prime Minister]

As I set out for the House last week, this is a generation who came here prior to 1973—[Interruption.] Labour Front Benchers say “We know this,” but the questions that the right hon. Gentleman is asking suggest that they are ignoring some of the facts in relation to this. This is a generation who came here prior to 1973. We are not ignoring the problems that some members of this generation are facing. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set up a special team in the Home Office, not just to deal with their inquiries but to actively help them find the documentation to clarify their status. That is why we have made the offer that my right hon. Friend made of ensuring that we can give them formal British citizenship which recognises that they are British but does so in a formal, documented way. The problem was that, prior to 1973 when the Windrush generation came here, they were not given documents that set out their status. We are now putting that right, and we will leave no stone unturned to put that right.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

In 2013, the then Home Secretary said that introducing the legislation was about creating “a really hostile environment”. Had the Windrush generation not mounted a campaign and had Opposition Members not raised the matter persistently, there would have been no compensation, no review and no apology. Any review of legislation needs to go wider than just immigration law. The dismantling of legal aid provision in 2012 made the impact of the Immigration Act 2014 harder to challenge. The policies swept up British citizens and legal migrants, causing them immense suffering, as the Prime Minister was warned. Will the Prime Minister send a clear message today and tell us that the hostile environment is over and that her bogus immigration targets, which have driven the hostile culture, will be scrapped? The Windrush generation have served this country and deserve better than this.

[The Prime Minister]

The Windrush generation are British. They have contributed to this country. They have made their life here. This is about dealing with those people who are in this country illegally—not the Windrush generation, who are here legally. I say to the right hon. Gentleman again that I have quoted the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill from when he was Labour’s Immigration Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition referred to 2013. In 2013, the then shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), said that

“we need much stronger action from Government to bring illegal immigration down.”

That is—[Interruption.] Labour Front Benchers are saying that the Windrush generation are not illegal. They are not illegal; they are here legally. That is why we are providing support to enable them to get the documents for their status. What the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is talking about is whether we should deal with illegal immigration, and up and down the country the British public will tell him that we should deal with illegal immigration.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

We are talking about the environment created by the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary for six years, when she knew full well of the problems that the Windrush generation were facing, and at last she has been forced to act upon that.

Last week, the current Home Secretary admitted that the Home Office

“sometimes loses sight of the individual.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 28.]

Yet we now know that when she took over from her predecessor, her intent was to harden this cruel and misdirected policy, pledging to do so “ruthlessly”. A report last month by immigration officials stated that “hostile environment” measures were not even having the desired effect. The current Home Secretary inherited a failing policy and made it worse. Is it not time she took responsibility and resigned? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The House must calm itself. We have a long way to go and a lot of Back Benchers’ questions to reach. Let us hear the Prime Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Thank you. Let me update the House on how this has arisen. Those Commonwealth citizens who arrived before 1973 and were settled here have a right conferred by the Immigration Act 1971 to live in the UK. They were not required to take any action with the Home Office to document their status. The overwhelming majority already have the immigration documents they need, but there are some who, through no fault of their own, do not, and those are the people we are working hard to help now. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made clear that a new dedicated team is being set up to help these people evidence their right to be here and access services, and it will aim to resolve cases within two weeks, once the evidence has been put together.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Last month, I raised the case of Albert Thompson, a man who has lived and worked here for decades, paid his taxes, and yet been denied national health service treatment. The Prime Minister brushed it off. Will she say what she will now do to ensure that Mr Thompson gets the cancer treatment he urgently needs and is entitled to?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman did indeed raise the case of Albert Thompson. It was not brushed off—[Hon. Members: “It was!”] No, the Home Office has been in contact with Mr Thompson’s representatives. First of all, I want to make one point very clear: no urgent treatment should be withheld by the NHS, regardless of ability or willingness to pay——[Hon. Members: “It was!”] No, I also want to make clear that as it happens, Mr Thompson is not part of the Windrush generation that I have just spoken about in answer to the first question. And finally, clinicians have been looking at Mr Thompson’s case and he will be receiving the treatment he needs.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On 20 March, the Prime Minister wrote to me stating,

“while I sympathise with Mr Thompson...we encourage him to make the appropriate application”

and provide evidence of “his settled status here.” Yesterday, we learnt that in 2010, the Home Office destroyed landing cards for a generation of Commonwealth citizens and so have told people, “We can’t find you in our system.” Did the Prime Minister, the then Home Secretary, sign off that decision?

[The Prime Minister]

No, the decision to destroy the landing cards was taken in 2009 under a Labour Government.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

All the evidence—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I said the Prime Minister must be heard. The Leader of the Opposition must be heard, and he will be.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

All the evidence suggests—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There was a lot of this yesterday—very noisy and extremely stupid barracking. It must stop now. That is the end of the matter. The public absolutely despise that type of behaviour, from wherever in the House it takes place. Cut it out and grow up!

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I remind the Prime Minister that it was her Government who created “a really hostile environment” for immigrants and her Government who introduced the Immigration Act 2014.

We need absolute clarity on the question of the destruction of the landing cards. If she is trying to blame officials, I remind her that in 2004 she said she was

“sick and tired of Government Ministers…who simply blame other people when things go wrong.”

Does she stand by that advice?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman asked me if the decision to destroy the landing cards—the decision—had been taken in my time as Home Secretary. The decision to destroy the landing cards was taken in 2009 when, as I seem to recall, a Labour Home Secretary was in position.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It was under a Tory Government, and she was Home Secretary at that time, and that is what is causing such pain and such stress to a whole generation. On Monday, the Home Secretary told the House:

“I am concerned that the Home Office has become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes loses sight of the individual.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 28.]

Who does the Prime Minister think is to blame for that—the current Home Secretary or her predecessor?

[The Prime Minister]

The Home Office is a great Department of State that touches people’s lives every day in a whole variety of ways. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been swift in responding to the unfortunate confusion and anxiety, for which we have apologised, that has arisen from the Windrush generation. The right hon. Gentleman referred earlier to action that we had taken as a Conservative Government to deal with illegal immigration. It is absolutely right that we ensure that people who access services that are paid for by taxpayers and relied on by people living in this country have the right to do so and that we take action against people here illegally. The Windrush generation are here legally—they have a right to be here; they are British. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to question the idea of taking action against illegal immigration, I suggest he has a conversation with the former shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who in 2013 said:

“we need much stronger action from Government to bring illegal immigration down”.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

This is not about illegal immigration; this is about Commonwealth citizens who had every right to be here. Cases such as Mr Thompson’s have occurred because it was Home Office policy in 2012 to create “a really hostile environment” for migrants, and the right hon. Lady was the Home Secretary who sent Home Office vans around Brent telling migrants to go home. On Monday, the Immigration Minister said that some British citizens had been “deported in error”. The Home Secretary did not know, and then asked Commonwealth high commissioners if they knew of any cases. Does the Prime Minister know how many British citizens have been wrongly deported and where to, and what provision has she made to bring them back home to Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

As the Immigration Minister has made clear, we apologise unreservedly for the distress caused to anyone who has been told incorrectly that they do not have the right to be in the UK. We are not aware of any specific cases of a person being removed from the UK in these circumstances and we have absolutely no intention of asking anyone to leave who has the right to remain here, but the Home Office will work to reach out to those from the Windrush generation who do not have the necessary documentation to ensure that that is provided. There will be no cost to them; nobody will be out of pocket as a result. There is a difference between the Windrush generation, who are British, are part of us and have a right to here—we want to give them the reassurance of that right—and those other people who are here illegally. It is absolutely right that the Government make every effort to ensure that people who access our services have a right to do so and that we take action against people who are here illegally.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am informed that Mr Albert Thompson has still not been informed when he will be getting the treatment he obviously needs as a matter of urgency. Does the Home Office not keep records? It has been months since these occasions were first brought to the Government’s attention. We know of at least two British citizens languishing in detention centres in error, and this morning the Jamaican Prime Minister has said that he knows of people who are unable to return to Britain.

This is a shameful episode, and the responsibility for it lies firmly at the Prime Minister’s door. Her pandering to bogus immigration targets led to a hostile environment for people contributing to our country, and it led to British citizens being denied NHS treatment, losing their jobs, homes and pensions, and being thrown into detention centres like criminals and even deported, with vital historical records shredded and Ministers blaming officials. The Windrush generation came to our country after the war to rebuild our nation, which had been so devastated by war. Is not the truth that, under her, the Home Office became heartless and hopeless, and does not she now run a Government who are both callous and incompetent?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, the Windrush generation did come here after the war, they did help to build this country, many of them worked in our public services and they contributed. They have a right to be here: they are British. That is why we are working with those who have no documentation to ensure that they have that provided for them. The decision was taken in 1971 not to require them to have documentation. That is what has led to the problem that we now see in relation to the anxiety of these people.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about being callous and having a disregard for people. I have to say to him that I am the Prime Minister who initiated the race disparity audit, which said: what are we doing in this country to ensure that people have equal opportunities in this country? The right hon. Gentleman talks about being callous. I say to him that I will not take that, following a debate last night where powerful contributions were made, particularly by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). I will not take an accusation of being callous from a man who allows anti-Semitism to run rife in his party.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Parliament’s rights in relation to the approval of military action by British Forces overseas.

It is great to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. All I have to say is that the nation stands in admiration of your constitution and as you were in the Chair yesterday from bell to bell for eight and a half hours we are all now in admiration of your personal constitution as well. I also thank you for granting this debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) was right in yesterday’s debate when she said, in quoting the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), that this is a hung Parliament and therefore political power must pass from the Cabinet to the Floor of the House. But I do not totally agree with that analysis; the lack of a majority makes it more urgent, but the principle of accountability to Parliament when it comes to war making was established in 2003, when the Labour party had a large majority, and that principle must now be enshrined in law. Indeed, the tombstone of the former Foreign Secretary, our friend the late Robin Cook, who warned so eloquently in this House against the decision to invade Iraq, records his words:

“I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of Parliament to decide on war.”

I am sorry to say that the Government are now attempting to overturn that democratic advance.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that protecting the lives of UK servicemen and women will sometimes require the use of surprise and that therefore prior parliamentary approval could on occasion be life-threatening?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will be dealing with that point during my speech. I do understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making and the need for urgent action at times, and there are provisions for that in the proposals we are putting forward.

During yesterday’s statement, the Father of the House—the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)— the leader of the Scottish National party and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, as well as of the official Opposition, agreed that Parliament should have been recalled. That is a common position on all sides of the House, absolutely irrespective of our views on the action undertaken in Syria last Saturday morning.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should listen not just to voices inside the Chamber, but to voices outside—the great British public? A woman on the doorstep in Ealing said to me this weekend, “Did we just regain the sovereignty of Parliament to hand it over to a Prime Minister with no majority or, worse still, to Trump?” Did she not have a point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend’s constituent is right that parliamentary sovereignty requires that Parliament holds Government to account.

The Father of the House said that

“once President Trump had announced to the world what he was proposing, a widespread debate was taking place everywhere—including among many Members of Parliament in the media. However, there was no debate in Parliament.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 47.]

It was happening everywhere, except here. The SNP leader put it more succinctly:

“When the Prime Minister called a Cabinet meeting last week, she should have recalled Parliament.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 48.]

The UK Prime Minister and the Executive must be accountable to Parliament, not to any other Government, let alone to the whims of any President or other head of state. The need for an independent British foreign policy, based on human rights and international law, has never been more urgent.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that we have a Prime Minister who inherited a parliamentary majority that she managed to lose rather clumsily, and rather than responding to her situation by trying to build consensus throughout the House on a whole raft of issues—this is the most important, but I include all Opposition days and so on—she has decided to respond by ignoring Parliament?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend is right that all kinds of debates could have taken place and a consensus reached, or not. Either way, there could have been that opportunity. That is what Parliament exists for. Parliamentary approval can be crucial to ensure the democratic legitimacy of any planned military operation or warlike act, just as it can establish public consent for a Government’s wider strategy.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions a vote; had there been a vote in this place last week to protect innocent civilians in Syria, how would he have voted?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

This is a debate about process. [Interruption.] Could the hon. Gentleman contain his aggression for a moment? I made very clear my concerns about the strike, its legitimacy and the legality behind it, so I should have thought it was pretty obvious what my view on it was. That is not to say, as I pointed out last night—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made a very fine speech yesterday. He spoke on his feet with considerable passion and integrity, but he should not now rant from a sedentary position. He used to misbehave 30 years ago, when he stood against me in Conservative student politics. We have both grown up since then.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Are we going to get a video of that debate, Mr Speaker?

Currently, the Government of the day, of whichever hue, can, under the powers of the royal prerogative, deploy our armed forces without obtaining parliamentary consent for that action. It is important that our armed forces know that they have the democratic backing of Parliament and the support of the public for any action that they undertake.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Is not the essential point that the action that the Government have taken goes against the statement they made in 2016, when they prayed in aid action taken in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the nature of which was essentially similar to the action that was taken last week on the Prime Minister’s prerogative? Unless it is clarified and codified in law, the uncertainty will remain as to whether the Government really respect the convention to which they say they still adhere.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed, my hon. Friend is right. There is an established convention, and I fear that the Government were trying to breach that convention with their actions yesterday. I welcome the parliamentary convention that has developed since the Iraq war, whereby the Government are expected to seek the approval of the House before they commit forces to action.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

It is an extremely interesting debating point but, if I put it very politely, as a point of order I am afraid it would be, in old-fashioned O-level terms, an unclassified.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The previous Prime Minister came to the House to seek authority for military action in Libya in 2011 and in Syria in 2015. In 2013, he sought authorisation for military action in Syria that the House denied. I am sorry to say that the Prime Minister’s decision not to recall Parliament and to engage in further military action in Syria last week showed a flagrant disregard for this convention. That was underscored by the Secretary of State for International Development, who said yesterday that

“outsourcing that decision to people who do not have the full picture is, I think, quite wrong. And, the convention that was established, I think is very wrong.”

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, not at the moment.

It seems that the convention that was established in 2003 and that is in the Cabinet manual is being tossed aside as simply inconvenient. It is necessary and urgent that the House has the opportunity to discuss its rights and responsibilities in respect of decisions on UK military intervention.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not giving way for the moment.

Those rights and responsibilities are not currently codified by law and, as we have discovered in recent days, cannot be guaranteed by convention alone. The Prime Minister’s actions are a clear demonstration of why Parliament must assert its authority on this subject.

But this is not solely about the actions taken last weekend, although they illustrate the case, or what action the Government might seek to take in the coming weeks and months; this is a principle that I know has long-standing support across the House. No matter on which side of the House Members sit, we all recognise that we are here to represent the interests of the people who elected us and sent us here. This is a parliamentary democracy: the people put us here to take decisions on their behalf.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not giving way for the moment.

Enshrining the right of elected MPs to decide on matters of peace and war is an essential, vital development of hundreds of years of democratic development and parliamentary accountability. In effect, 17 countries have the rights of their Parliament to approve military action enshrined in their own laws. It should escape no one that the general public want to see an increased role for Parliament in the decision-making process around planned military action.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is the role of the Government to put our citizens’ safety first, and that the Government therefore have to have the power to act in the national interest for security, and to act swiftly and confidentially, taking into account the safety of our servicemen and our allies’ servicemen?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is perfectly clear from what I am proposing that Parliament should have the right to hold Government to account, and that Government should seek prior parliamentary approval before they undertake major military actions. The hon. Lady might not agree with me, but that is the joy of a parliamentary democracy. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not know what has happened to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). Decades ago he was a student at the University of Oxford, and my wife always said to me subsequently, “He was a very well-behaved young man.” He seems to have regressed since then. It is very unsatisfactory and he must try to improve his condition. We cannot have people constantly ranting from a sedentary position. Let us be clear that the Leader of the Opposition will be heard, and so will every other speaker.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It should not have escaped anyone that the general public want to see an increased role for Parliament in decision-making processes around military action. Talking to people on the streets of this country last weekend, I found that many said, “Why wasn’t Parliament recalled? Why is Parliament not being consulted? We elected people to Parliament to do just that.” We obviously have a diversity of opinion around this Chamber; that is what a democracy throws up, but I believe both that we have a responsibility to hold the Government to account and that the Government have a responsibility to come to this Chamber before they make those major decisions.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I wish to make progress, so I shall not be giving way again.

Indeed, a recent Survation poll found that 54% of people thought that it was wrong of the Prime Minister to have ordered airstrikes without parliamentary approval. I urge Members of this House not to forget the duty placed on us by the Chilcot inquiry. The Chilcot inquiry was the result of the war in Iraq. It was the last of many inquiries held into that process. It was the most thorough and painstaking inquiry that there had ever been. I would have thought that it provided a salutary lesson to all of us on the importance of there being total scrutiny of what goes on, and of the Government being required to come to the House in advance of major decisions. Many of us opposed that decision, but that is not the point; the point is whether or not Parliament has the right to have a say in it. I urge those Members who are trying to intervene on me at the moment to take a break and read a bit of the Chilcot report while I am finishing my speech.

It is important that the House holds the Government of the day to account on matters of national and of global security. In 2011, William Hague, the then Foreign Secretary, outlined a commitment to enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action. The Cabinet manual, published in 2011, also confirms the acceptance of that convention, so what we are doing is actually going back on an established position. It guarantees that the Government will observe the convention except where there is an emergency and such action would not be appropriate, thereby reserving the right for the Government to act in a matter of emergency. A war powers Act could specify at what point in decision-making processes MPs should be involved as well as retain the right of Ministers to act in an emergency, or in the country’s self-defence. Yet Government policy now seems to have shifted against this process.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He turned in his speech to the question of when such approvals would be required by Parliament; he talked about emergency situations and so forth. If embedded operatives—our armed forces—were to be deployed in other countries, would parliamentary authority be required? Can he just point to where his proposal is, because the motion obviously does not contain that level of detail?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The motion does not contain that level of detail because the draft Bill has not yet been prepared. Obviously, that level of detail is a matter for debate. What I am proposing is that Parliament has a fundamental power over Government to decide on issues of war and peace and the conflict that goes with them. I have made it quite clear that the caveat is in there of an overriding emergency or of a threat to people’s lives.

The Government have failed to accept the case, which was put forward by the Chilcot inquiry,

“for stronger safeguards to ensure proper collective consideration by the Cabinet on decisions of vital national importance”—

most notably the decision to take military action. Those are not my words; they are the conclusions made by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s 2017 publication on the Government response to its report on Chilcot. The Committee’s assessment should alarm us all. This Government have failed to introduce the proper safeguards into their Cabinet decision-making process. Why should we leave it in their hands to make these crucial decisions when they have clearly failed to learn many of the lessons of the past? This report also draws attention to concerns about the ability to ensure that Ministers take proper advice on the provision of evidence and on how decisions based on this evidence are made.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at the very minimum, the lessons learned from the Chilcot inquiry and Iraq should be the basis of the war powers Act?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Shelbrooke, be quiet. I know that you feel strongly, and I respect that, but I am not having you shouting out. You either undertake now to be quiet, or I strongly advise you to leave the Chamber for the rest of the debate. Stop it. You are well-intentioned and principled, but you are over-excitable and you need to contain yourself. If it requires you to take some medicament, then so be it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) for his intervention. He is quite right: we have to learn the lessons of the past. The Iraq war is seared on the memory of every Member who was in this House at the time, and on the memories of all those millions of people outside this House who expressed the deepest concern about what was going on.

It is for this House to take matters into its own hands and to take back control—as some might put it. I am clear that, as an absolute minimum, Parliament should have enshrined in law the opportunity to ask the following questions before the Government can order planned military action: is it necessary; is it legal; what will it achieve; and what is the long-term strategy? It is difficult to argue that requiring Governments to answer those questions over matters of life and death would be anything other than a positive step. There is no more serious issue than sending our armed forces to war. It is right that Parliament has the power to support, or to stop, the Government taking planned military action.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has laid out a test, which he thinks could be met in emergency circumstances. Does that not mean that we may have a situation in which British forces need to be urgently committed, yet court action would end up determining whether or not that could happen? Would it not be wrong that judges, rather than the Cabinet, made those kinds of decisions?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not quite sure where the hon. Gentleman gets that logic from, because it certainly does not come from anything that I have said. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry to have to keep interrupting. This debate must be conducted in a seemly manner, as a number of Members on both sides of the House suggested yesterday. Members must calm down. It is as simple and incontestable as that.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

As I was pointing out, there is no more serious issue than sending armed forces into war and what actions we, as Members of Parliament, could or should take. That is why we are elected to this House. That is what our democratic duty requires us to do.

I therefore hope that this motion will command support—

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

No, that is not a point of order. If the hon. Gentleman does not trust his own exegesis of the law that is his problem not mine, but it is not a matter for the Chair. He has made his own point in his own way, but he has done it in a disorderly fashion and he should not repeat the offence.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am trying to get past the point where I am saying that there are no more serious issues and decisions made by Parliament than on matters of war and peace, and the Government taking planned military action. That convention was established in 2003 and was enshrined in the Cabinet manual in 2011. The then Foreign Secretary gave every indication that he supported the principle of parliamentary scrutiny and approval of such a major step.

I have outlined the caveats in a case of overriding emergency, but it is very important that the House of Commons—one of the oldest Parliaments in the world—holds the Government to account not just on the immediate decision, but on the longer-term strategy and the implications of the actions that are taken. Going to Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing Libya and many others have long-term consequences. We all need to know what thought process has gone into those long-term consequences by the Government and the officials advising them.

Today I have tried to set out a simple democratic demand. It is not taking an opinion, one way or the other, about what the Government did last week. It is asserting the right of Parliament to assert its view over the Government. The Executive must be the servant of Parliament, not the other way around. I therefore hope that this motion will command support from both sides of the House, as we work to bind this Government and any future Government to this basic democratic principle on one of the most serious and crucial issues of foreign policy that we face. I hope that today’s debate will help us in that process of bringing about a change.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not going to give way anymore because I am about to conclude my speech. [Interruption.] I do not know why hon. Members are cheering the end of my speech, if they want to intervene; there is no logic there, but that is their problem, not mine. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to Members—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Resume your seat, Mr Harper. You do not stand when I am standing and that is the end of it. You have sought to intervene and your attempt has not been accepted. You will now remain seated. The Leader of the Opposition has made it clear that he is bringing his speech to a conclusion. That is his prerogative and he will do so without being subjected to a concerted effort to stop that conclusion. You are a former Government Chief Whip. You know better than that, you can do better than that and you had better try. And I would not argue the toss with the Chair, if I were you.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is about democracy, it is about accountability and it is about making very serious decisions. That is what MPs are elected to do. It would bind this Government and future Governments to this basic democratic principle on the most serious and crucial issues of public policy that we are ever asked to take a decision on. As I said earlier, all those who were here during the debates on Iraq in 2003 remember them very well, just as they remember very well the questioning from the public about what they did and how they voted. That is why we are elected to Parliament.

I hope that the House will approve this motion on the principle that it is an assertion of the great tradition of the advancement of democratic accountability of this House on behalf of the people of this country.

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the two minutes I have available to me, I just want to say that this is a debate about the rights of Parliament and the role of Parliament.

Many Members have made very good contributions to the debate. I was very impressed by the speech by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who took us back to 1688. He is right about the Bill of Rights, but I just gently say to him that I think democracy can go forward even from 1688 to a slightly more modern time. He is right that we have an unwritten constitution, which is why I believe that we do indeed need an Act that would require Governments to seek the approval of Parliament before undertaking major military actions or campaigns.

I was fascinated by the speech by the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). I am not quite sure why he brought my mother into the debate, but I am sure she would be very proud to have been mentioned in it. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for his support for two principles: first, that Parliament could and should have been recalled last week and was not, and secondly, that Parliament should have the right to decide on major policy issues and be able to hold the Government to account.

The 2011 doctrine laid down what the process should be, and the Government are trying to row back from that doctrine. This is a time for Parliament and democracy to assert itself on the most serious issues we ever face as Members of Parliament: whether to send people into war or not, and what the Government’s strategy is. I invite my colleagues to vote against the substantive motion, to express our dissatisfaction with the Government’s response and assert the rights of Parliament.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question put accordingly.

Syria

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I want to start by thanking the Prime Minister for our phone conversation in advance of the bombing raids on Friday night and for the advance copy of her statement today. I also join her in paying tribute to Sergeant Matt Tonroe, the SAS sniper from Manchester who was killed on 28 March with US forces in northern Syria, and Master Sergeant Jonathan Dunbar from Texas, who was killed in the same attack.

I welcome the fact that all British military personnel involved have returned home safely from this mission. The attack in Douma was an horrific attack on civilians using chemical weapons—part of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

This statement serves as a reminder that the Prime Minister is accountable to this Parliament, not to the whims of the US President. We clearly need a war powers Act in this country to transform a now broken convention into a legal obligation. Her predecessor came to this House to seek authority for military action in Libya, and in Syria in 2015, and the House had a vote on Iraq in 2003. There is no more serious issue than the life-and-death matters of military action. It is right that Parliament has the power to support or stop the Government taking planned military action. The BBC reports that the Prime Minister argued for the bombing to be brought forward to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. Will she today confirm or deny those reports?

I believe the action was legally questionable. On Saturday—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I urge Members to calm down. In my experience, some Members who shout from a sedentary position also entertain the fanciful idea that they might be called to ask a question. I wish to disabuse them of that idea. The Prime Minister was heard in an atmosphere of respectful quiet. That will happen for the Leader of the Opposition as well: no ifs, no buts, no sneers, no exceptions. That is the position.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I believe that the action was legally questionable, and on Saturday, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said as much, reiterating that all countries must act in line with the United Nations charter, which states that action must be in self-defence or be authorised by the United Nations Security Council. The Prime Minister has assured us that the Attorney General had given clear legal advice approving the action. I hope the Prime Minister will now publish this advice in full today.

The summary note references the disputed humanitarian intervention doctrine, but even against this, the Government fail their own tests. The overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe due to the civil war in Syria is absolutely indisputable, but the Foreign Secretary said yesterday that these strikes would have no bearing on the civil war. The Prime Minister has reiterated that today by saying that this is not what these military strikes were about.

Does, for example, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen entitle other countries to arrogate to themselves the right to bomb Saudi airfields or its positions in Yemen, especially given its use of banned cluster bombs and white phosphorus? Three United Nations agencies said in January that Yemen was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, so will the Prime Minister today commit to ending support to the Saudi bombing campaign and arms sales to Saudi Arabia?

On the mission itself, what assessment have the Government made of the impact of bombing related military facilities, where the regime is assessed as storing chemical weapons? What about the impact on local people of chemicals being released into the local environment? News footage shows both journalists and local people in the rubble without any protective clothing. Why does the Prime Minister believe that these missile strikes will deter future chemical attacks?

As the Prime Minister will be aware, there were US strikes in 2017 in the wake of the use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun, for which the UN OPCW team held the Assad regime to be responsible. In relation to the air strikes against the Barzeh and Him Shinsar facilities, the Prime Minister will be aware that the OPCW carried out inspections on both those facilities in 2017 and concluded that

“the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations”

under the chemical weapons convention. Can the Prime Minister advise the House whether she believes that the OPCW was wrong in that assessment, or does she have separate intelligence that the nature of those activities has changed within the last five months? In the light of the Chilcot inquiry, does she agree with a key recommendation about the importance of strengthening the checks and assessments on intelligence information when it is used to make the case for Government policies? Given that neither the UN nor the OPCW has yet investigated the Douma attack, it is clear that diplomatic and non-military means have not been fully exhausted.

While much suspicion rightly points to the Assad Government, chemical weapons have been used by other groups in the conflict—for example, Jaish al-Islam, which was reported to have used gas in Aleppo in 2016, among other groups. It is now vital that the OPCW inspectors, who arrived in Damascus on Saturday, are allowed to do their work and publish their report on their findings, and report to the United Nations Security Council. They must be allowed to complete their inspections without hindrance, and I hope the UK will put all diplomatic pressure on Russia and Syria, and other influential states, to ensure that they are able to access the site in Douma.

There is a bigger question. More than 400,000 Syrians are estimated to have died in the Syrian conflict—the vast majority as a result of conventional weapons, as the Prime Minister indicated—and the UN estimates that 13.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance and that there are more than 5 million refugees. It is more important than ever that we take concrete steps to halt and finally end the suffering. Acting through the UN, she should now take a diplomatic lead to negotiate a pause in this abhorrent conflict. This means engaging with all parties involved, including Iran, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US, to ensure an immediate ceasefire.

We have the grotesque spectacle of a wider geopolitical battle being waged by proxy, with the Syrian people being used as pawns by all sides. Our first priority must be the safety and security of the Syrian people, which is best served by de-escalating this conflict so that aid can get in. Will the Prime Minister now embark, therefore, as I hope she will, on a renewed diplomatic effort to try to bring an end to this conflict, as she indicated she would in the latter part of her statement? She stated that diplomatic processes did not work. This is not exactly true. The initiative negotiated by John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov led to the destruction of 600 tonnes of chemical weapons, overseen by the OPCW. No one disputes that such diplomatic processes are difficult and imperfect, but that should not stop us continuing diplomatic efforts.

The refugee crisis places a responsibility on all countries. Hundreds of unaccompanied children remain in Europe, but the UK has yet to take in even the small numbers it was committed to through the Dubs amendment. I hope that today the Government will increase their commitment to take additional Syrian refugees. Will the Prime Minister make that commitment today?

[The Prime Minister]

I will start by responding to the Leader of the Opposition’s comments on the Syrian conflict more generally. I think that everybody in the House recognises the nature of the conflict and the impact it has had on the Syrian people, including on the millions of people displaced either within Syria or to countries in the surrounding region. As I said in my statement, the UK, having given almost £2.5 billion, is now the second biggest bilateral donor for Syrian refugees in the region. We have been clear that we believe we can help more people by giving aid in the region, and we have been able to support hundreds of thousands of children in the region through the aid we have given to them. We will continue to provide that support, and we continue to be grateful for all that is being done, particularly by Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, to support refugees in the region. It is a significant task for those countries, and we are supporting them in their effort.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me to launch a new diplomatic effort. As I said in my statement, we will indeed be continuing the work in relation to the wider issue of the conflict in Syria. As I said, that means continuing and concluding the fight against Daesh; it means our humanitarian work, as I have said, and continuing to press for humanitarian access; and it means supporting the international efforts to reinvigorate the process to deliver a long-term political solution in Syria. It is necessary for all parties, however, to be willing to come together to discuss and develop that long-term solution.

I come now to the strikes at the weekend and the issue of chemical weapons. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the legal basis. We have published the legal basis for our action, and I have been very clear—I went through the arguments in my statement—that this is about the alleviation of humanitarian suffering. That is a legal basis that has been used by Governments of all colours. As I said, it was used in 1991 and 1992. It was also used by the Labour Government to justify intervention in Kosovo as part of the NATO intervention.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to other areas of conflict in the world. Let me say to him that what sets this apart particularly is the use of chemical weapons. This is about alleviating the suffering that would come from the use of such weapons, but I believe it is also important, and in this country’s interest and the interests of other countries around the world, for us to re-establish the international norm that the use of chemical weapons is prohibited. We cannot allow a situation to develop in which countries and people think that their use has been allowed to become normalised. That is important for us all.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and about its investigation in Douma. As I said in my statement, the problem is that the investigation is being stopped. The regime and the Russians are preventing the OPCW from investigating. Moreover, again, the regime has reportedly been attempting to conceal the evidence by searching evacuees from Douma to ensure that they are not taking out of the region samples that could be tested elsewhere, and a wider operation to conceal the facts of the attack is under way, supported by the Russians.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the possibility of chemical weapons being used by other groups. As I pointed out in my statement, it is understood that these chemical weapons were delivered by barrel bombs, which are normally dropped from helicopters. There is the evidence that I cited in relation to regime helicopter activity in Douma on the date in question, and it is not the case that the groups to which the right hon. Gentleman referred have access to the helicopters and barrel bombs that would be able to deliver such a chemical weapons attack.

I think that that is clear, and it was on that basis that the Government decided to act, together with the United States and France. I think it important that this was a joint international effort. The strikes were carefully targeted, and proper analysis was carried out to ensure that they were targeted at sites that were relevant to the chemical weapons capability of the regime. We did this to alleviate further human suffering. We targeted the strikes at the chemical weapons capability of the regime to degrade and deter its willingness to use chemical weapons in future, and I continue to believe that it was the right thing to do.

Syria

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

This is a Back-Bench-led debate, so I will be brief to give time for the Prime Minister and, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) to respond.

This debate should have taken place before action was taken—we made that clear during proceedings on the statement. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South not just on securing the debate, but on the way in which she opened it. She is absolutely right to call on the Government to redouble their efforts to put the interests of civilians in Syria first. I hope that the whole House shares my respect for her demand and for her commitment to that cause, particularly to the cause of refugees from Syria whose lives have been torn asunder and who see ahead of them a future of waste in refugee camps all around the region, or of trying to get to Europe to try to survive. We need to have them at the forefront of our minds and just think what their memory is going to be, decades down the line, of this era in the early part of this century in which they lived in refugee camps while everybody else in the world was getting on with their lives.

The House has been asked to vote on military action in Syria twice; both times it has been heavily divided. Syria does not suffer from a lack of military action. Multiple actors have committed atrocities—chiefly the Assad Government, but also ISIS and a whole host of different warring groups. In a brief speech that drew on the history of the interventions in Iraq and Syria, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) described the situation in Syria as a choice between “monsters and maniacs”. I would not choose those words myself, but the primary forces in that country are indeed totally unpalatable to all of us in the House. Multiple powers are funding and arming groups on the ground, and they have been there ever since the outset of the terrible Syrian civil war seven years ago. Let us not forget, however, that human rights abuses in Syria did not begin seven years ago; it has been a place with an appalling human rights record for a very long time.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) was correct in his analysis that Russia wants to retain a regional ally that allows it to maintain a naval base in the Mediterranean. There is some equally brutal realpolitik on the part of the US in its wanting to diminish an opponent in the region. That agenda is shared by Saudi Arabia, which has also been funding various jihadi groups. Iran fears the outcome and is intervening. Israel fears a greater Iranian influence in the region, so it is intervening, too. Unfortunately, Turkey has grasped the opportunity to attack Kurdish communities across the border in Syria. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for the visit he made and his support for the Kurdish people’s right to their own identity. Whatever the final outcome in Syria, I hope that the Kurdish people are respected and get the right to their own self-identity, as they deserve.

We have a grotesque spectacle of what Lord Curzon once described as the “great game” being played out, with the Syrian people treated as expendable by too many sides. I agree with Members who have expressed their will that the Syrian people must be put first. No one pretends that diplomatic efforts are not incredibly difficult, and they are often imperfect, but they have to be an alternative to yet more military action. It is too easy to advocate bombing raids and too easy to be cynical about the potential of diplomatic efforts. We all know that the UN-led Geneva process has stalled and that the talks have collapsed, but we can also remember the limited success that was achieved by John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, which did indeed lead to the destruction of 600 tonnes of chemical weapons, overseen by the OPCW.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not giving way as there is not much time.

Everyone knows that the United Nations has to be the central part of bringing about long-term peace in the region. It is the only body capable of securing that peace. Let me be clear: we all deplore the vetoes by Russia that have prevented the process from going ahead. But let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Preserving a rules-based international system through the United Nations is in all our best interests. As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said:

“There’s an obligation, particularly when dealing with matters of peace and security, to act consistently with the Charter of the United Nations and with international law in general. The UN Charter is very clear on these issues…I urge the Security Council to assume its responsibilities and fill this gap. I will continue to engage with Member States to help achieve this objective.”

Indeed, the Government’s own “National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015” identifies

“the erosion of the rules-based international order”

as a particular challenge that is likely to

“drive UK security priorities for the coming decade”,

and one that would make it

“harder to build consensus and tackle global threats.”

There are dangers in arrogating to ourselves the right to take action selectively under the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. For example, there is a crisis in Yemen, and there have been vetoes at the UN Security Council by other parties, and indeed by the UK, to prevent even moderate criticism of the pernicious role played by Saudi Arabia in that conflict. When three agencies call Yemen the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, does that give a green light to other countries to intervene on humanitarian grounds and under a right to protect? I argue that it does not.

In October 2016, the Government floated a draft resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in that country to allow for immediate humanitarian relief and talks on a political solution, yet, seven months on, that draft resolution has still not been formally presented to the Security Council. Ironically, there is a danger that selective interventions can undermine an international legal process.

I pay tribute to many who have spoken in this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who talked about the refugees and demanded that the British Government make a greater contribution. One should consider the impact on Lebanon and Turkey. Those countries are far poorer than our own, but both are hosting more than a million refugees. The impact on Greece is enormous. Germany, to its credit, has taken a very large number of refugees. We should consider the future of those children growing up in refugee camps. We have a humanitarian obligation to support refugees and children, and to offer a place of refuge to them. I ask this question: have the Government done enough? Have they done enough to support refugees and have they taken enough into this country? I argue that they have not.

The chemical weapons attacks were unbelievably disgusting, illegal and wrong. We all know that, at the end of the day, the only solution in Syria has to be condemnation and the resumption of a political process. The appalling use of chemical weapons has at least drawn the attention of the House to a crisis in which 400,000 have died, 500,000 have been made refugees, and 13 million people are in need of support. I urge the Government to do all that they can to reconvene the Geneva process and to encourage a political process that will eventually bring peace to the people of Syria.

This debate has, for the most part, been conducted with calm and dignity. We have listened with interest to what everyone has said. Let us make the call from this House that we want to see peace in Syria, and that is best brought about by a political process. Let us make our energies available to bring about that process.