Ministerial Code: Investigation of Potential Breach

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Charles Walker

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

There is nothing incorrect with the process, which is being conducted properly and professionally. The Prime Minister will gather the information and then decide the next steps. It is very simple.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I have an admission to make: the Home Secretary is not on my Christmas card list, and I am certainly not on hers. I hope this is a question and not a statement: I find it hard to get my head around the fact that the BBC sent its political editor halfway across the world, to a G7 summit where energy security, Ukraine and defence were being discussed, to ask our Prime Minister a question about a speed awareness course. This is the question: why?

[Jeremy Quin]

As my hon. Friend is well aware, the BBC is editorially completely independent, but I absolutely hear what he says.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Charles Walker

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Over the past few days I have been accused of being tired, emotional, erratic, and, just to put the record straight, I am all of those things and more. I want to be clear: unlike some Members in this Chamber, I have no time for those people who block roads, throw soup, and make a general nuisance of themselves. They are agents against their own interests, as they repel normal ordinary people. Having said that, serious disruption prevention orders are not the answer. They leave me absolutely cold; in fact I would go so far as to say that they are absolutely appalling because there are plenty of existing laws that can be utilised to deal with people who specialise in making other people’s lives miserable.

I know there is a convention here that we do not read lists, but I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will be allowed to read a very short list just to set out the laws that already exist and have been covered by colleagues: obstructing a police officer, Police Act 1996; obstructing a highway, Highways Act 1980; obstruction of an engine, Malicious Damage Act 1861—we all remember that one —endangering road users, Road Traffic Act 1988; aggravated trespass, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; criminal damage, Criminal Damage Act 1971; and public nuisance, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. There are also other laws. There is the Public Order Act 1986 that allows police officers to ban or place conditions on protest.

So the Government’s attraction to SDPOs demonstrates our own impotence as legislators and the impotence of the police as law enforcers to get to grips with the laws already in place and to enforce them. This is what we do now in politics: we have these machismo laws where something must be done, so we go out and do it, and that makes a good headline in The Daily Telegraph and The Times, but we do it and then very little happens, or if it does happen it is way over the top.

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend rightly compliments the police for routinely arresting and charging those who are responsible for wrongdoing. Does he agree that it is not an acceptable circumstance where 460 individuals have been arrested a total of 910 times for Just Stop Oil protests and that there is a difficult point of cumulation that we must accept?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Charles Walker]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jeremy Quin]

I have lots of Members to cover, but I will of course give way.

[Sir Charles Walker]

The Minister is his usual charming self, but what we are talking about is putting ankle tags on people who have not been convicted of any crime. That just does seem way over the top.

[Jeremy Quin]

That would be a decision made by a court in very specific circumstances, and I do trust our courts to take appropriate action. They can only do so on the weight of evidence, and they are very used to taking these decisions. After all, there is a tried and tested process whereby injunctions can be sought and obtained to prevent a future harm. I do not think this is as radical as my hon. Friend is suggesting. However, I congratulate him on the points he made, even though I disagree with him, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) on his contribution to this point of the debate. I would love to prevail on my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne to withdraw his amendment, but I do not think that is going to happen, and I look forward to opposing it.

Turning to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), I spoke earlier in the debate about why we believe that injunctions are useful. We absolutely accept the point being made by the hon. Lady that they are appropriate when used properly, and that is why we have tabled our amendments. I think ours is a more competent and effective way of achieving our shared objectives.

On new clause 5, which seeks to define the meaning of “serious disruption” for the purposes of this Bill, I have to say that no two protests, nor the operational response required, are ever the same. Being too prescriptive risks the ability of the police to respond to fast-evolving protest tactics while also risking the exploitation of loopholes by those intent on causing as much disruption as possible. That is not to say that I dismiss the principle of this amendment. There is a balance to be struck between a definition that is broad and one that is prescriptive, so while I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s amendment, we will reflect further on its intent.

I turn now to perhaps the most vexed issue in today’s debate—namely, new clause 11, proposed by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). New clause 11 seeks to create 150-metre buffer zones outside abortion clinics in which all activity interfering with a person’s right to access abortion services would be prohibited. As the hon. Lady would accept, that is a blunt instrument. It is there to achieve an objective, but within those 150-metre buffer zones there could be houses and churches, and this would be a national decision covering the 150 metres around all clinics.

At the outset of the debate, I made it clear that, from the Government’s perspective, it is a free vote for members of our party. My good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), said that this is a difficult issue to grapple with, and it is indeed difficult. However, I would like to make it clear that it is entirely possible to support totally a woman’s right to an abortion and to view protests outside abortion clinics as abhorrent while still believing that the current legislative framework provides an appropriate response.

Defence Procurement and Supply Chains

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Charles Walker

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Quin]

First of all, we have had a delay in this programme for quite some time—I do not know if it goes quite back as far as the previous Administration, but it might well have done. For a long period, people have been thinking about the FSS and how exactly it should be incorporated. All I can say is that I am delighted that, very soon, the right hon. Gentleman’s pain will be over, with the competition being launched. I am pleased that we have reached that point. It is critical, as the right hon. Gentleman will agree, that the next competition is extremely well founded, well based and successful, and we are putting in place the basis to ensure that that is the case.

I must move on. Another major project of direct importance is the future combat air system, which is a truly strategic endeavour. It will build on the success of Typhoon and F-35 to again promote great jobs in engineering in our high engineering base in the north-west of England and throughout the UK. On land, our exciting £2.8 billion commitments to Boxer at Telford is now feeding through supply chain orders throughout the sector. All these programmes, whether at the cutting edge of maritime combat, air or land capabilities support jobs not only at tier 1, but throughout the supply chain, as has been said, with 119,000 directly employed and a further 80,000 or so employed through the defence supply chain. While decisions on the allocation of funding across the breadth of our capabilities will be made and announced in due course, this settlement will support skills and jobs, and apprenticeships, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), throughout the UK.

In order to ensure a strategic approach, I announced earlier this year that we are leading a cross-Government review of the UK’s defence and security sectors. It will identify how we can ensure that we have competitive, innovative and world-class defence and security industries that drive research and investment. We recently launched the social value in procurement model which, to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South’s point, will provide another tool to ensure our major procurement projects evaluate priority social value themes and outcomes linked to prosperity. As part of the defence prosperity programme, we are working with industry and Government colleagues to develop a joint economic data hub within the UK Defence Solutions Centre to collect and aggregate economic data from across the sector. It will provide a better understanding of the economic contribution of the defence sector at a UK, national and regional level that can inform our decision-making process.

Throughout defence, we are committed to ensuring that we seize the opportunities provided by smaller companies. We are targeting a 25% spend with such companies. We have already hit 19%, up from 13% a couple of years prior to that. We are extremely mindful of the need to maintain a clear vision of our supply chain, and we are working through a Department-wide supply chain resilience and risk programme. Defence has some of the most complex supply chains and challenging procurement programmes across government. However, they contribute to the UK’s proud history of providing the skills, capabilities and equipment that keeps us and our allies safe, and I am convinced that, given the Government’s commitment, the UK will have an equally proud future.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Whitley, can you sum up this excellent debate, please?