Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Q4. We can see the Rwanda deterrent is working, and we have now deported our first illegal migrant, but, unsurprisingly, Labour just does not care. The shadow Home Secretary is busy posing for pics encouraging more boats to come over. The leader of the Labour party has said he would cancel the Rwanda flights. He took the knee when signing letters stopping us deporting foreign national offenders who have committed crimes such as murder and rape, and he would do a deal with the EU, surrendering our borders to 100,000 legal migrants. Is it not right that only the Conservatives will stop the boats and cut legal migration?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our plan is working. Legal migration, the latest figures show, is down by 24% and student dependants down by 80%. We all know Labour’s big idea: it is to scrap the Rwanda plan even when it is operational. However, as one senior Labour adviser said to Andrew Marr just yesterday:

“'We can’t just come in, tear it up, and have nothing to put in its place”.

I am sorry to break it to Labour Members, but that is exactly their policy. While we are getting on and stopping the boats, all Labour would do is stop the planes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The UK Government are investing in Wales, with record investment in electrification of the north Wales line and record investment in communities up and down the country. It is important to recognise that just recently, the UK Government invested hundreds of millions of pounds to safeguard thousands of jobs at Tata Steel. The Welsh Government have had access to the largest set of Barnett consequentials on record over the past couple of years, and have the resources they need.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Thanks to this Conservative Government, the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke will see over £200 million to fix our broken roads, the reopening of the Stoke to Leek line, and over £30 million to bus back better by introducing fairer fares and smarter routes to better connect our communities. However, residents who have a free bus pass are being denied the use of it before 9.30 am by Labour-run Stoke-on-Trent City Council, meaning that people cannot get to their GP appointments or to work. Will the Prime Minister back my campaign to end that unfair policy, which is being imposed on my residents?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of high-quality bus services. That is why we have capped the cost of travelling on buses at £2 until the end of 2024 as a result of our decision on HS2, and why we have supported councils with £1 billion of funding. I urge all councils to ensure that people see the benefit of that investment, and I wholeheartedly back my hon. Friend’s campaign.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I really think this House needs a correction on the facts, given what we have heard from the Labour party. Because of our national living wage, which is defined as being at least two thirds of the median income, poverty is at its lowest point for years. We have lifted 1.7 million people out of absolute poverty altogether. That is the track record of this Government.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

The people of Longport and Burslem, as well as the people of Porthill in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), are suffering because of cowboy waste disposal companies such as Staffordshire Waste, which has again been done for having waste on site after being given a notice by the Environment Agency. What support can I get to hold these people to account and to make sure their retrospective planning application for a site they are already using is rejected by Stoke-on-Trent City Council?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. Such people are often associated with fly-tipping, which is a blight on our landscape. I will ensure that I raise all the issues he has raised with me with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who has ministerial responsibility.

Scotland Act 1998: Section 35 Power

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack]

The point of the Scottish Parliament is to serve the people of Scotland in the areas that are devolved to it, but, to be clear, within the terms of the Scotland Act. It is not an attack on devolution to use a section 35 order, where that is deemed appropriate by legal counsel, when SNP Members themselves voted for that very Act with that order in it.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the statement made by the Secretary of State. I also wish to place on the record my support for the heroines, such as J. K. Rowling and others, who stand up despite the continued aggression and violent abuse they receive from certain people in this place and across the Scottish Parliament. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is simply about protecting the right of young girls and women to have safety in single-sex spaces, and that the politicisation of that is an absolute abomination?

[Mr Jack]

Well, it is. It is also about protecting the devolution settlement and two UK-wide Acts.

Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard]

That is not the subject of today’s debate, but it only takes a cursory reading of statements from European premiers to see that their mood has completely changed and they would welcome, many of them with open arms, a self-governing Scotland into the European Union. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, because we have not yet had the ability to take that decision.

As the Brexit process unfolded, two things became clear. One was that Scotland’s views were to be completely disregarded, but even more worryingly, we saw the British Government begin to put in place mechanisms to replace the jurisdiction of the European Union that would centralise political power in this country and reduce the capacity and competence of the devolved Administrations in Holyrood and, indeed, Cardiff.

By the end of 2019 it became clear that those two things were creating a fundamentally different terrain on which the future of the United Kingdom and the future of Scotland should be judged. It was the determination of the Scottish Parliament by resolution at that time that the conditions set in the mandate of 2016 had been met and that that mandate should now be discharged. Therefore, the Scottish Parliament voted and applied to the British Government for a section 30 order to begin the process of having a further referendum. The response by the Prime Minister was fast and furious, and he dismissed it out of hand.

We were about to get into an argument about that when the world literally turned upside down and a small microbe brought humanity almost to its knees. As covid-19 raced across the globe, and as our economy and society ground to a halt, the Scottish Government—rightly, in my view—decided to shelve any preparations or plans for a further referendum until that matter was dealt with. Had the pandemic not happened, we might well be having a very different discussion today. But we are where we are, and we are 51 days away from the Scottish general election, at which the existing mandate will expire. At that election, my party and others will be seeking a new, fresh mandate from the Scottish people to assert their right to choose whether they wish to remain in a post-Brexit Britain, or whether Scotland’s fortunes are better served by having a choice and becoming a self-governing independent European country. That is what will be at stake in the 2021 election.

Unlike 2016, the mandate we seek will not be conditional, have qualifications or be reliant on things that may or may not happen. It will be unconditional and without qualification, and it will be front and centre on page 1 of our manifesto. I think it is a racing certainty—Government Members can tell me if I am wrong—that the inverse proposition will be front and centre of the Conservative manifesto as well. We can be sure of one thing, which is that there will be a full and frank debate about this question, and a vote will be taken on 6 May 2021.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman said that page 1 will obviously refer to independence. I wonder whether page 2 will go back to what Nicola Sturgeon referred to as the focal point of her premiership: education. Perhaps we could have the OECD’s review of the curriculum for excellence before the May elections, rather than after, so that the people of Scotland can see the Scottish National party’s record on education since it took over in 2007.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am more than happy for the record of the Scottish Government to be judged by the people on 6 May as well; independence and the referendum is not the only thing we shall be voting on. This SNP Government have been in power for 14 years, and what they do seems to go down rather well with the people of Scotland; I very much look forward to their judgment on that question on 6 May.