Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I find it extraordinary that the SNP and the Labour party are supporting our continued membership of the common fisheries policy. This party, the Conservative party, is the party that will take the United Kingdom out of the common fisheries policy and ensure that we can become the independent fishing state to which my hon. Friend refers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Despite the Prime Minister’s claims that she has put more money into education—she claims she has put £1.5 billion into education—over the past two years she has cut about £4 billion from education. With classroom sizes rising, teachers’ pay capped and school budgets cut, what is the Prime Minister going to do about it?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not recognise the description the hon. Gentleman sets out. We have indeed put more money into education in our schools. Through our national funding formula we are ensuring its fairer distribution across schools and we are making more money available for schools over the next two years.

Public Sector Pay Policy

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered public sector pay policy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my position as chair of the Public and Commercial Services union parliamentary group.

I shall focus entirely on the pay of civil servants. A few months ago the Government declared—to great fanfare—that the public sector pay cap had been lifted, but is that really the case? On 2 May I asked the Prime Minister:

“Can the Prime Minister confirm that every UK Government Department has budgeted for a derisory 1% pay rise for all its civil servants? Is it fair that workers who collect tax, and who try to make a broken social security system and a broken immigration system work, are getting a real-terms pay cut and are still subjected to a public sector pay cap?”

The Prime Minster responded:

“As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been very clear that the blanket 1% cap that has taken place over recent years on public sector pay is not an approach that we are taking in the future. Obviously, Departments are funded at a certain level, and it is for Departments then to come forward with their proposals in relation to pay within their Department.”—[Official Report, 2 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 312.]

In other words, yes. UK Departments have budgeted for only 1%, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that the 1% public sector pay cap still exists and applies to our civil servants. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the public sector pay cap is in reality still in force.

As the Minister knows, on 19 January 2018 the PCS pay claim was submitted to his colleague the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office. However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s spring statement gave no indication that the Government’s position had changed significantly. To date, all further indications have been that the Treasury’s remit guidance, imminent this month, will in effect retain the 1% pay cap for civil servants.

Following the submission of the PCS claim, meetings have taken place with the Minister and Cabinet Office officials, who stated that, in their view, where no pay cap is in place, there is no additional funding for pay, so any increases would need to come from existing departmental budgets.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for keeping the 1% pay cap issue alive. Not only have public sector workers had to put up with the cap for several years, which in fact has meant a pay cut, but there have been job losses, including in the probation services. The Government are using the oldest argument under the sun: Departments must find the money. But it is the Treasury that should find the money, rather than cutting departmental funding further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

When I speak to my opposite numbers in other nations, they tell me that one barrier to their making further progress is that they are starting from a low base. It is important that the summit is not just about the UK showcasing what it does; we can learn from other organisations, which is why we are co-hosting it with Kenya. My new role as Minister for Women and Equalities affords me the chance to make a difference in both the UK and the developing world.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

6. What funding her Department has allocated to humanitarian assistance programmes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Harriett Baldwin)]

The UK is one of the leading humanitarian donors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have acted quickly to support the country and the World Health Organisation in tackling the Ebola outbreak; the Secretary of State today announced an extra £5 million to support the WHO response plan.

[Mr Cunningham]

What are the Government doing to prevent the outbreak from spreading to places such as Kinshasa?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The plan announced by the World Health Organisation involves making sure that we use a new, experimental vaccine that the UK has helped to develop. It is being applied to anyone who has come into contact with Ebola. Yesterday, vaccinations began to be offered to health workers and to anyone who has had contact with a contact.

Syria

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. As someone who fought the battle to get a Bill through Parliament to guarantee the aid of this country, I would happily talk to parliamentarians in other countries about what they ought to do, but this debate is not about what others should do. Our Prime Minister is here, and my focus is on what she can do and what our country can do to try to assist vulnerable Syrians.

Fourthly, we need to defund Assad. Unfortunately, Syria has still managed to function as an economic actor in the world, but that cannot be right. It cannot be okay that business goes on as normal in the face of such brutality and inhumane actions by that country’s Government. I ask the Prime Minister to investigate what actions we can take to remove Syria from the SWIFT system, which provides for international financial transactions. That would send a strong signal that we are no longer prepared to tolerate Syria just going on as normal. It has involvement in a number of forums around the world, and we must go through each one and remove Syria. We need to send a message that the Syrian Government are beyond the pale and that their actions prove that they can no longer be treated as a normal member of the international community in any sphere of life, especially economically.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

One thing that has been absent from these debates—whether we are talking about Iraq, Libya or Syria—is that what would offer the people of Syria a lot of hope is a reconstruction plan for after we achieve peace in Syria. That has always been absent from the Government’s thinking.

[Alison McGovern]

At some point, Syria must be rebuilt, but right now the bombs are falling. We ought not to have an idea that we can somehow put money into Syria and that will make it better, because my argument is actually the opposite: that would make it worse. My hon. Friend is right, however, in the sense that we have to work with Syrians—especially those in this country, and all those who are our constituents—and talk to them about the kind of vision they have for Syria post conflict. I will come on to the precise point he mentioned in a moment.

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I was not entirely anticipating a friendly intervention, but indeed it was a very friendly intervention.

The Prime Minister does not appear willing to entertain any prospect that the allegations are true and that therefore the will of the people might have been usurped and the people cheated. It was my concern that the law might have been broken that led me to refer the matter to the Electoral Commission and the police.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree—I do not think he is suggesting this for one minute—that this will have had no effect on the outcome of the referendum?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman encourages me to speculate on a matter to which it is difficult to respond. If these allegations, which are unproven, are true and £625,000 was spent illegally in a very focused campaign and, by definition, was targeted on a very small number of people, it is very hard to say what the effect might have been. That is partly what I hope any inquiries might clarify.

Carillion and Public Sector Outsourcing

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It is not possible to give an estimate because that will be a net figure that has to take into account both the willingness of joint venture partners to step forward and take over the projects in which they were involved—that seems to have been the case—and the speed at which the official receiver is able to find alternative contractors, or in-house contractors in certain cases, to take on the provision of particular public services. Our overall estimate can be only quite an uncertain estimate at this stage, but we are confident that it will in any case be very significantly less than if we had had to cope with the costs of an unplanned, unmanaged liquidation, had the Government not stepped forward and agreed to pay for the official receiver’s administrative and legal costs. Because of the funding we have provided, we have kept those public services running, and that has also provided a breathing space for private sector customers such as the Nationwide building society to continue receiving services while they decide how to react to the crisis.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The partners are going to take over the work, but who will fund it—the partners or the official receiver?

[Mr Lidington]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to the partners involved in the special managers at PwC or to Carillion board members.

[Mr Cunningham]

I am referring to Carillion’s partners who were involved. They have an undertaking to take over the work, but who will pay the costs?

[Mr Lidington]

Administrative costs fell to the official receiver in the short term. With the HS2 contracts, for example, there was an obligation on the partners to step forward and meet the Carillion’s obligations at the cost that they, collectively as a consortium, had negotiated and agreed with the Government. That contract was with the consortium as an entity. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

Nationwide building society has since offered jobs to 250 Carillion employees and contracts to the subcontractors that employ a further 1,500 people. In total, more than 90% of Carillion’s private sector facilities management service customers have indicated that they will provide funding through the official receiver to maintain interim services while new suppliers can be identified to deliver them, ensuring the retention and employment of staff on those contracts.

Debate on the Address

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

Let me make absolutely clear the role that the Scottish National party will play in this Parliament. We will be a force for progressive politics. I commend my very dear friend the previous hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, who was responsible for pushing through the private Member’s Bill on the Istanbul convention. I will certainly commend to the Scottish National party the idea of supporting the Government on any reasonable moves in that regard. I want to work for us so that we can get the best deal for the people of Scotland, particularly when it comes to Brexit.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being elected the leader of his party. Has he noticed, as I have, that in the Queen’s Speech there are no measures to deal with austerity? That suggests that the Government have learned nothing, particularly when it comes to the plight of WASPI women.

[Ian Blackford]

I thank my friend for that intervention, and I agree with him. There is unfinished business, certainly for me, having been the pensions spokesman for the SNP in the last Parliament. We will not leave the WASPI women without a voice. It is utterly disgraceful that some of the worst-affected women were given 14 months’ written notice of an increase in their pensionable age. I have said before that, in this ridiculous situation, a woman born in February 1953 would have retired in January 2016 just shy of her 63rd birthday, but a woman born in February 1964 will not retire until July 2019, when she will be 65 and a half.

Quite simply, a two-and-a-half-year increase in a woman’s pensionable age over a one-year period is unacceptable. Cridland identified in his review of the state pension age that we should not be looking at an increase in pensionable age of more than one year in every 10 years. As I have often pointed out to the Government, there is a very easy solution, which is to reverse the Pensions Act 2011. The cost of doing so would be £8 billion, which is easily affordable given that there is a surplus of £30 billion in the national insurance fund.

Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

The important thing to recognise is that the Chilcot report—in paragraph 537 of the executive summary—explicitly does not question Mr Blair’s belief at the time that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Paragraph 533 states:

“There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the”

September 2002

“dossier or that No.10 improperly influenced the text.”

In paragraph 491, the report is explicit that

“Cabinet was not misled on 17 March”

2003.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

One of the lessons we can learn is that there was no plan for reconstruction. If we are to learn that lesson, we should bear that in mind when considering reconstruction in Syria or Iraq.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are lessons for modern-day conflicts. I hope that this debate will give Members the opportunity to put their views across on which lessons should be learned. We had three days of debate on the Chilcot report itself, and I hope that we can move forward by coming up with proactive, positive recommendations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but no, I do not recognise those results, because I do not know the context in which those words were said. All too often speeches and phrases are taken out of context. I do not believe for one minute that Sir John Chilcot and his whole report and all the years and the time that he spent were there simply to mislead the public.

Let me try to make some progress. As I have said, I never for one second believed that the then Prime Minister was acting in bad faith, and I do not do so now. For those reasons, I will be urging my Labour colleagues to vote against today’s motion. I will urge them to do so to enable the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to focus properly on the real job of its inquiry, which is to analyse the conclusions that Sir John has actually reached, based on the evidence that he gathered, and to look at the lessons that he says should be learned from his report.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

One factor that has not been fully explored in this debate is the Attorney General’s role. Many of us who had doubts about this war were told that it was legal. Has my hon. Friend had a look at that, and is he satisfied that the Attorney General’s decision was right?

[Fabian Hamilton]

At the time, the Foreign Affairs Committee did look into that matter. I have not examined it since then—in the past 13 years—but I believe that Sir John Chilcot does make reference to it in his report.

If there is one serious risk that we now face, it is to assume that all the lessons from Iraq have been learned and that the mistakes made there could never happen again. That is particularly important now, while we have in place a relatively new Prime Minister, who may in due course face her own decisions over peace and war, and who may herself need to come and make a case before this House.

Listening to the former Prime Minister’s response to Chilcot back in July, I understood that, although he acknowledged that lessons needed to be learned, his clear implication was that that had already been done. He said that by establishing the National Security Council there could be more questions from Ministers about intelligence assessments and more questions from the military about shortcomings in planning, yet, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chair of the Defence Committee, has pointed out, there is insufficient input from military sources to make that credible.

The former Prime Minister said that creating the conflict and stability fund meant that we were better placed to prepare for the aftermath of conflicts and to prevent the kind of power vacuum that sectarian and terrorist groups exploited after the Iraq war. Although we welcome the theory behind innovations such as the National Security Council and the conflict and stability fund, the reality of what has happened in Libya and elsewhere over the past five years—this is what my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) pointed out—does not give confidence that they are working in practice. It suggests even more clearly that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has an important job to do over the coming months in ensuring that the real lessons of Chilcot—for Whitehall, for Ministers and for Parliament—are truly being learned.

Let us consider for a moment what Chilcot discovered in relation to civilian casualties as a result of coalition action. The Chief of the Defence Staff predicted that casualties would be in the “low hundreds”. When the reality became clear, the then Foreign Secretary said:

“We need to find ways of countering the damaging perception that civilians are being killed needlessly, and in large numbers, by coalition forces.”

When the truth became overwhelming, a private secretary to Tony Blair told him that casualty data must be suppressed because

“any overall assessment of civilian casualties will show that”

the coalition is

“responsible for significantly more than insurgents.”

Chilcot concludes:

“The Government’s consideration of the issue of Iraqi civilian casualties was driven by its concern to rebut accusations that coalition forces were responsible for the deaths of large numbers of civilians, and to sustain domestic support for operations”.

When we hear Ministers say exactly the same from that Dispatch Box in relation to civilian casualties in Yemen, is it possible to argue that anything has changed or that any lessons have been learned? I do not believe that that is the case. The mistakes of Iraq are being made all over again. We need to ensure that the National Security Council and all the other measures adopted are working, because I do not believe that they are at the moment.

In conclusion, I believe that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee needs to examine the Chilcot report, not for what it tells us about the past but for what we can learn from it for the present and the future. Whether in relation to Yemen, Libya, Syria or the ongoing battle to restore stability and end sectarian conflict in Iraq, we must look forward and learn the lessons that have practical consequences for us all today. With instability growing throughout the middle east, eastern Europe and beyond, we may face even bigger challenges tomorrow, and that is why I cannot support the motion. I understand why its proposers have tabled it, but they are fighting an old war and raising once again contentions that have already been dismissed by five—five—separate inquiries. How many more do we need? In doing so, they risk distracting the attention of this House and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee from what should be their true objective, which is to learn the real lessons from Chilcot and ensure that we never need such an inquiry again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of young people registered to vote.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

The Government are building a democracy that works for everyone, including young people. Online registration has made it easier and faster to register to vote, and since its introduction a record 4.2 million applications to register have been made by people aged 16 to 24.

[Mr Cunningham]

That was a very interesting answer. How can the Government be building a democracy when they have excluded nearly 2 million people who were allowed to vote in the referendum, and are going ahead with boundary reviews that will particularly affect young people in universities?

[Chris Skidmore]

We are absolutely committed to taking account of the issues that matter to young people. As for the boundary changes, it is right for us to ensure that every seat is of equal value. It cannot be right for some constituencies to contain 95,000 people and others 38,000. We will ensure that every vote is equal, and that includes those of young people.

ISIL in Syria

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lewis]

It is certainly true that there have been well documented cases of such weapons ending up in the hands of Daesh, although I would not wish to tar the entire Free Syrian Army with what some of its factions might have done, or in fact have done, as the hon. Lady rightly suggests.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Lewis]

In a moment.

In an attempt to try to establish the facts about the 70,000, I made inquiries of two people whose expert opinion I much admire. One is the writer and journalist Patrick Cockburn, who is one of Britain’s leading commentators on Syria and Iraq and who was one of the first to write about the threat from what was then called ISIS, long before it captured Mosul. This is what he tells me:

“Unfortunately, the belief that there are 70,000 moderate opposition fighters on the ground in Syria is wishful thinking. The armed opposition is dominated by Isis or al-Qaeda type organisations. There are many small and highly fragmented groups of opposition fighters who do not like Assad or Isis and could be described as non-extremist, but they are generally men from a single clan, tribe or village. They are often guns for hire and operate under licence from the al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, or its near equivalent, Ahrar al-Sham. Many of these groups seek to present a moderate face abroad but remain violently sectarian and intolerant inside Syria.”

[Dr Lewis]

No, I am sorry—I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

[Mr Cunningham]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a ridiculous situation where on the one hand the Government praise the Kurds, but on the other hand the Government’s ally, Turkey, is attacking the Kurds? How much more ridiculous can you get?

[Dr Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. It is not only ridiculous but highly dangerous. I will insert at this point something I was going to leave out, and say in passing that to have separate conflicts going on within the same battlespace, without reaching a proper agreement, can lead us into all sorts of nasty confrontations—the worst of which would be if we ended up eyeball to eyeball with the Russians when they and we share the same common enemy in ISIL/Daesh.

The second expert I consulted was our former ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, who describes the Free Syrian Army as

“a ragbag of 58 factions (at the last count) united mainly by a desire to use the FSA appellation in order to secure Gulf, Turkish and Western funding…most of the factions, which are extremely locally based, have no interest whatsoever in being drawn into battles against groups which basically share their sectarian agenda hundreds of miles away in areas with which they are unfamiliar.”

So instead of having dodgy dossiers we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters.

Once Daesh has been driven out, as it must be driven out—if, eventually, we get an overall military strategy together, which adding a few bombing raids does not comprise—there arises the question of the occupying power, because an occupying power will have to remain in control for many years to come if other Islamists are not going to take over from Daesh. That occupying force must be a Muslim one, and only the Syrian Government army is likely to provide it. Indeed, as the Prime Minister himself acknowledged in the Commons,

“in time the best ground troops should be the Syrian army”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1501.]

Airstrikes alone are a dangerous diversion and distraction. What is needed is a grand military alliance involving not only the west but Russia and, yes, its Syrian Government clients too. We need—