Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

This is part of the problem. We all need to have confidence that processes are being followed and that there is accountability. Nobody is above the law in this country, but the Prime Minister seems to think that he can be. It is astonishing that we are in those circumstances.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for introducing this debate. I think the point she was making very well earlier in response to questions from Conservative Members who have been good lawyers in their previous life is that the thrust of what she is trying to do today is to suggest that we all in this place want to do better, and that we are willing to look at ways to do better. If the thrust of this motion does not meet that high standard, it is open to Conservative Members who have experience and expertise in this area to suggest other ways of doing this, perhaps by bringing forward amendments, and to work with the Opposition in that way. I think she is saying that that is something she welcomes.

[Angela Rayner]

The last time the Paymaster General was sent here to defend the indefensible, he claimed that the Prime Minister’s recent changes to the ministerial code represented

“the most substantial strengthening of the role, office and remit of independent adviser since the post was created in 2006.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2022; Vol. 716, c. 429.]

He must think I was born yesterday. Removing any reference to honesty, integrity, accountability and transparency is not strengthening standards; it is cherry-picking parts of the recommendation and watering it down before our very eyes. Within hours of the Paymaster General saying those words at the Dispatch Box, No. 10 was already refusing to repeat his commitment to that system—a system that the Prime Minister himself had put in place just weeks before.

Now the Government do not even deny the plans to abolish the role of the independent adviser entirely. Today, the Minister answered my written question about his plans to fill the post and said that the Government were “taking time” to consider the matter. Just how long does he expect us to give him? Should we expect half a year of sleaze and scandal without accountability? For more than a year, the Prime Minister used Lord Geidt as a human shield, citing his independence and integrity as the Government desperately staggered from one scandal to the next. Now the Culture Secretary takes to the airwaves to mock and belittle him. That is what they do to decent people. Conservative Members who continue to prop up this Prime Minister and keep his self-preservation society afloat would do well to note that. That is where this House must come in.

Labour’s proposal today would put this Prime Minister into special measures, where he needs to be. If he fails to appoint a new independent adviser, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will have the power to appoint one. We will give the Committee the proper powers to launch investigations, to send for papers, persons and records, to report on breaches and to make its judgments public. This Prime Minister has ridden roughshod over the rules. He will not show any regard to ethics, but this House can do that today. The motion before us is a limited, simple measure to address any refusal by the Prime Minister to enforce the ministerial code by allowing Parliament to step in.

Of course, we would like to go much further, which is why we backed the package of recommendations from the CSPL as the first step in our plan to clean up politics. We want to see full independence granted to the adviser to open his or her investigations—without that, it is left to the whim of the Prime Minister. As I said, the Prime Minister cherry-picked the CSPL recommendations and conveniently chose not to introduce this crucial one. While he maintains the power of veto over the independent adviser, there is an inherent risk that he will overrule his own adviser. Today, it is time to show the Prime Minister that he is not above the rules and for this House to draw a line in the sand. If the Prime Minister will not appoint an ethics adviser, we must do so. I commend this motion to the House.

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[Michael Ellis]

My friend intervenes from a sedentary position, but was she or was she not having an Indian meal in Durham? It is something of a korma, korma chameleon, one might say.

[Karin Smyth]

If we could return to the matter in hand, we are trying to establish whether the Government are swiftly moving to instigate a review, or swiftly moving to appoint. When Lord Geidt came before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in May 2021, he told us that his name had been “alighted on” by the Prime Minister. Can the Paymaster General tell us whether the Prime Minister will be alighting on a new name, reviewing the alighting on of a name, or reviewing an open application process? Can he give us a little bit more about that?

[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister intends to appoint a new ethics adviser. We will announce how that is to be done, who it is and how it works in due course, but it has to be done properly to ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence. This motion pre-empts that review process and unnecessarily seeks to hold the Government to an entirely arbitrary timetable. We firmly believe that it is better to undertake this work with proper diligence and attention than to conclude it in haste, without proper consideration of the issues raised by Lord Geidt and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. It is for those reasons that the Government would oppose the motion.

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[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am one of the so-called illustrious members and very pleased to be a part.

Only two weeks ago, I spoke in another debate about the importance of standards in political life and how important they are to my constituents. At that time, the Government were trying to move us on, and that has not worked terribly well, but the issues that we are talking about today are important and do matter to our constituents. I said then, as a member of the Committee, that not many members of the public knew about our work—the long hours of deliberation, reports and inquiries, and how we had a certain Lord Geidt coming before us shortly. I ended up by saying that because of how our constitution now works and how the Government have behaved, all roads lead back to the chap at the top of the structure. The culture emanates from there, including the non-attendance before Select Committees, the late publication of documents, and the many other examples that were outlined in that debate—so here we are again.

As well as reviewing the evidence that Lord Geidt gave to the Committee last week, it is worth reviewing his post-appointment hearing evidence taken on Thursday 13 May 2021, his name at that point having been alighted on by the Prime Minister following the resignation of his predecessor. In that session, we explored the lessons from Sir Alex Allan’s resignation and the issue of independence and advice. In response to questioning led by my colleague and friend, in this regard, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—she is in her place—who asked about recognising that we all have a view on and understand what is good and bad behaviour and what is constitutionally appropriate, Lord Geidt said:

“As I have heard other people say recently, good behaviour is a very difficult thing to legislate for. I join those who suggest that it really needs leaders—of course, the Prime Minister, Parliament and civil servants—to set the necessary example. I hope very much that the work that I do in this role, which is described as “adviser”, will be in the service of advising the office of Prime Minister in the furtherance of that behaviour, taking the Ministerial Code as its point of reference. I agree with you that rules are absolutely not sufficient to stimulate good behaviour.”

We fast-forward to earlier this year and the warnings that Lord Geidt was then moved to give, in the strongest terms he possibly could, in the introduction to his annual report. Before our session last week, on 14 June, I was not sure which Lord Geidt would be before us. Were we to get the one who appeared before us in May 2021, believing, as a chap of the system, I think it would be fair to say, that the system had worked, that his predecessor’s resignation showed that it worked, that updates to his terms of reference gave the independence that was necessary, and that leaders, crucially from the top, set the necessary example; or were we to get the one who was the author of the annual report? Following a fairly intense session of questioning on a number of different issues in the inquiry, we clearly found out just the very next day which Lord Geidt we now had.

Our post-appointment session in May 2021 focused on the issue of wallpaper. Our last session was about a number of things, including the legal advice on the breaking of international agreements. That really is quite a leap, isn’t it, in only a year? I asked particularly about the leaking of legal advice on the breaking of the Northern Ireland protocol. We know that that advice has been leaked. We know that it is a serious breach of the code. We know that this has a profound impact on the UK’s constitution and domestic politics as well as on our international standing. We know that the legal advice is disputed. We know that the doctrine of necessity is extreme. We heard again this morning from experts on international law quite how unusual the new doctrine of necessity that we now have in the protocol is.

In a series of questions, which I am going to refer to, I asked Lord Geidt about where this advice had been leaked from—essentially, whether it was from the Prime Minister or from the Attorney General. I asked him whether he had been asked to investigate that situation. I said that

“we do have a recent leak with regard to the legal advice on the Northern Ireland protocol”,

and asked him whether that constituted “a relevant example” for him to investigate. Lord Geidt said:

“It may well do. You will recall that my new powers are squeaky new and I have not either been asked to or, indeed, pressed my own interest in giving advice in that example.”

I asked Lord Geidt if the Prime Minister

“has not asked you to investigate why that legal advice was leaked”.

Lord Geidt said, “No, he had not.” I asked if the Attorney General was asked how the advice had been leaked? He asked me, “Have I asked?” I said yes, and he said, “No, I have not.” I said:

“But your new powers do allow you to ask”

the Attorney General. Lord Geidt responded:

“I think that my new powers would allow me, unrestricted, to ask questions of the entirety of Government and others.”

I said:

“You raised the issue of the leak”—

he had done that earlier—

“The leak is clearly very serious… I would suggest it breaches the ministerial code, point 2.13. Would you agree?”

Lord Geidt said:

“I have not formed any advice and I have not brought an inquiry to bear on the situation.”

I then asked if he thought it breached the ministerial code. He said:

“Again, I would want to ensure that I could consider that fully before reaching a determination. By the way, as you know, the determination is then only advice to the Prime Minister.”

I asked:

“Have you looked at reaching a determination before?”

and he said, “In this case, no.” We would seem to have been going round in circles.

Part of that emanated from some correspondence from the shadow Attorney General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). She had written to Lord Geidt to ask for advice, and he said he had responded to her, but that had not been received at the time. She has now received an answer, and again we are somewhat going round in circles. Lord Geidt responded to her finally, saying: “In the event of an allegation of unauthorised disclosure of information by persons unknown, it is open to the Government to commission an internal leak investigation where the Government in the circumstances considers it is appropriate, but that would be a matter for the Government to take forward and would not, at least in the first instance, be a matter for the independent adviser.”

We are left on a circuitous route of trying to understand where a very serious leak has occurred. It is a clear breach of the ministerial code that seems to be no one’s job to investigate or move forward. That is simply one example of the very many outstanding breaches of the code now lurking behind the doors of Downing Street. Where do we now go? Ideally, we would like to return to decency in politics. This motion provides an interim solution. As I said when I intervened earlier, it is up to other hon. Members in this place to come forward with other solutions if they do not think this solution is suitable. The Government are being given a window, should they wish to take it, to do something decent.

Our Committee, as the Chair has outlined, has a long list of current inquiries and a future work programme. We are not particularly looking for extra work, and this is clearly a matter for the Government under our constitution. However, I know that Parliament takes this seriously, and Parliament can and will step up. We will find a way through this to bring decency back into our politics. Again, at the end of these very long days, our commitment is essentially to our constituents. This is being taken seriously by a number of Members of the once great Conservative party. Our commitment remains on the Opposition Benches, and we will continue to pursue bringing back good standards of government, despite what the Prime Minister wishes to happen.

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[Michael Ellis]

The answer is a very simple one: the process will be done properly. It will be done in a way that will give confidence to the system; it will be done in a way that the House, Ministers and everyone concerned will be confident in. So it is not possible to give a particular date for it. After all, it is only a matter of days since this situation came about. What is meant is clear: we are still considering this carefully, and we remain fully committed to making sure that all Ministers, including the Prime Minister, whose code it is, are held to account for maintaining high standards of behaviour and behaving in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect.

[Karin Smyth]

I think that what the Minister is trying to say is that what has gone wrong is either the process of appointing the last two advisers, or indeed the last two advisers—both of which seem to me to be dishonourable things to say, if I may say so—rather than the fact that both have resigned because of the behaviour, as they have admitted, of a Minister and the Prime Minister.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I do not think the hon. Lady was implying that something dishonourable had been said. If she was, I would want her to withdraw that.

[Karin Smyth]

I withdraw it.

[Michael Ellis]

I think the hon. Lady misunderstands the position, which I have made perfectly clear and will repeat. This is about getting the process henceforth right—a process that will have the confidence of this House, the Prime Minister, Ministers and everyone else. It is right to consider these things carefully and take time to reflect on them before taking a decision on how best to fulfil the Prime Minister’s commitment. It is the Prime Minister who has made a commitment to ensuring rigorous oversight and close scrutiny of ministerial interests. As I have said, we are looking at the best way to carry out this function, given some of the issues raised recently and set out in our plans. But I could not be clearer when I have given the single-word answer “yes” on the Prime Minister’s intention to appoint a new ethics adviser. We will announce how that will be done and who is to do it in due course. We will make sure it is done properly to ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence.

In the meantime, the Labour party, when its rail strike is in progress, has chosen today of all days to discuss this matter. I suppose half its Members are on the picket lines at the moment, blocking hard-working people from going about their daily business. They debate this matter for the umpteenth time and the umpteenth hour—so much so that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) says that she sees more of me than of her friends. The feeling is mutual, although I think she has far more friends than me, except on the Government Benches, where I have a lot more friends, of course, because the Prime Minister wins elections. He does not talk about personalities; he talks about policies. On policies, this party and this Government win.

Standards in Public Life

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who is absolutely right that rules matter. I agree with him, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) that it is disappointing that there are not more Government Members speaking this afternoon, because this really matters to our constituents. Last night, Ministers were quick to say in the media, “Move on; no one cares,” but that is simply not true. No Government Members are here because they also know that this matters.

I have been contacted by several constituents about standards in public life. They think that the Prime Minister has breached their trust, and many think that his actions have been beyond sickening and disgusting. I share their anger about his wilful disregard of the ministerial code and the standards that we expect from our Prime Minister, and about the erosion of public trust in this institution and politics in general.

I serve as a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I do not think that many among the public know much about that Committee or what it actually does, but as Members know well, Select Committees of the House are important bodies. They work well and have long been charged with the scrutiny of Government. We all sit in Committees rooms, off the Committee corridor, week after week, hearing in detail from expert witnesses and, often, members of the public about what is going on in the corridors of power. It is slow, deliberate work that often does not yield headlines.

PACAC continues to run a series of inquiries on propriety and ethics in the aftermath of the Greensill scandal—remember that one? In this debate, we have all resurrected scandals and issues that some of us might have forgotten. It seems incredible that it is only a few months since we had to go through the Owen Paterson debacle. We are conducting a number of inquiries, as well as having one-off regular sessions with leaders of what we can call the post-Nolan landscape bodies.

This is a useful, timely debate in many ways, but in other ways, our Committee wishes that it had come in another few weeks, because we will hear again from the chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments in the coming weeks. We will have Lord Geidt, the Cabinet Secretary and the head of propriety and ethics coming before us. We also recently heard from the former independent adviser, Sir Alex Allan, who resigned, and his predecessor. All that evidence is on the website, and all the transcripts are available. Without putting too much pressure on our Clerks and advisers, we will be reporting, as a result of those deliberations, on the general issue of propriety and ethics later in the summer.

I hope that the Government will heed our work and perhaps use the opportunity of this shameful episode in our country’s history to start working with the Committee more proactively to ensure that the highest standards are pursued. I also hope that the Government will use the great willingness of the leaders of the organisations that I mentioned, and of many Members here from across the House, to try to rescue public trust and pursue higher standards. It is now obvious that the whole edifice of what we might call the post-Nolan framework—reliance on the “good chaps” theory—collapses when the chap at the top and the chaps supporting him do not do the right thing.

We are at an extraordinary juncture of our parliamentary democracy. Lord Evans’s response to the Government agreed with Lord Geidt’s report that there was a “low level of ambition”. The report has been quoted a couple of times today, but for hon. Members who have not read it, it really is worth reading in full. Lord Geidt writes about the ministerial code and the work he was asked to do; without impugning him too much, I think he would pass the test for a “good chap” in terms of how he came into the post.

Lord Geidt describes what would be acceptable in normal circumstances, but goes on to say:

“The circumstances of the period covered by my report, however, have been far from normal. For much of the year, the conduct of the Prime Minister himself has potentially been subject to consideration against the requirements of the Code. Accordingly, and whether unfairly or not, an impression has developed that the Prime Minister may be unwilling to have his own conduct judged against the Code’s obligations.”

He describes the

“test for the credibility of these new arrangements”.

He writes:

“It may be especially difficult to inspire that trust in the Ministerial Code if any Prime Minister, whose code it is, declines to refer to it.”

He mentions the fixed penalty notice issued to the Prime Minister, requesting that the Prime Minister

“respond accordingly, setting out his case in public”

as to why he does not think that it

“might have constituted a breach of the overarching duty within the Ministerial Code”.

It is quite an extraordinary introduction to the annual report. In the circumstances of Lord Geidt’s appointment, it is really the strongest reference he could make to what he thinks is occurring.

The new introduction to the ministerial code, which hon. Members have referred to, essentially rejects the idea of anyone being held to account except by having a general election. Obviously the Opposition would welcome a general election at any point; I love elections, and we have had quite a lot of them. It is right that we are held to account by our constituents, but it matters to our constituents that the Opposition come here and hold the Government to account day by day, in Select Committees and with questions, including questions in response to ministerial statements. Constituents do not expect to have to hold the Government to account themselves every few months or, as has been the case, every couple of years when they think that the Government are not upholding the highest standards. That is why we need to rely on statements made at the Dispatch Box having the authority that the country expects. The new introduction gives us another insight, should we need one, into the mind and attitude of the Prime Minister, the Conservative party and this Government. That is why it was so disappointing, and why last night was so disappointing.

There was a lot of discussion about whether Sue Gray’s report would be independent. Let us stop a moment, stand back and think again about how some of what she reported, as a serving civil servant, was so shocking. She writes that

“events should not have been allowed to happen”

but that some of the more junior members of staff felt that what happened was okay because the

“senior leadership at the centre, both political and official”

essentially allowed it to happen. As she says, they

“must bear responsibility for this culture.”

Because of how our constitution now works and how the Government have behaved, all roads lead back to the chap at the top. The culture emanates from there, including non-attendance before Select Committees, late publication of documents and the many other examples that have been outlined today. However, my assurance to my constituents and the wider public is that the willingness we have shown in this place, in this debate and elsewhere, shows that we do love our country and our democracy. We think it can be better than it is at the moment. We will continue to work across Parliament, in Select Committees and in all our different ways to assure our constituents that the integrity, accountability and respect that need to exist in this place will exist again—with or without this Prime Minister.

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[Michael Ellis]

I am afraid I do not know the answer to that question, but I will certainly look into the matter for the right hon. Gentleman.

In line with the Prime Minister’s constitutional role as head of the Government, the Prime Minister is responsible for matters relating to the Executive. That point has been raised by several Opposition Members concerning the justiciability of the ministerial code. The ministerial code and its application are a matter for the Executive, and the Government do not consider that it would be appropriate to legislate for the ministerial code or for the office of the independent adviser. As soon as one legislates in that way, one opens the matter up to judicial review and judicial intervention.

Codifying aspects of the constitution in that way would inevitably constrain our ability as a country to flex and evolve our constitution over time. It would also increase the risk, which as a former Attorney General and Solicitor General is one of my principal concerns, of the judiciary’s being drawn into political matters that are not suitable for judicial review. They would be reviewing the fact that a Prime Minister has said, “I have confidence in X”, and a judge would, by necessity, be being asked to say that the Prime Minister should have confidence in X or they should not have confidence in X—the judge would be substituting his or her view for that of the Prime Minister. We want to protect the judiciary from being politicised in that way, which is another key flaw in Labour’s proposals.

[Karin Smyth]

I have listened to the Minister’s arguments. He is essentially saying that all power remains with the Prime Minister—the chap at the top. Given the vote yesterday evening by Members on his own Benches, who are not here to defend him today, what then are we to say to our constituents about the state of play with regard to public trust when the chap at the top has not behaved as honourably as he should?

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Member and several others keep referring to chaps at the top. It is the Conservative party that has had two female Prime Ministers.

On the hon. Lady’s point about the Prime Minister’s power, that is certainly not unchecked. The Prime Minister of this country has very considerable checks and balances, given our extremely free and open press and also a House that has an extremely wide array of powers. His powers are not unchecked, by any stretch of the imagination, as I think is obviously clear.

I want to come back to the motion itself, which, as I say, appears to have been built on a misunderstanding of the intentions of the revision to the ministerial code as opposed to the substance of it. As I have set out, the Government are mindful of the constitutional position of the Prime Minister as head of the Executive and his role as having sole responsibility for the organisation of Her Majesty’s Government. That means that Ministers must have the confidence of the Prime Minister to continue in their role, and the ministerial code duly sets out the Prime Minister’s expectations. The Government are highly mindful of the accountability of Ministers and the Prime Minister within this, both to Parliament and ultimately to the public at the ballot box.

The updates to the ministerial code strengthen it. It is simply wrong to say that they weaken it—that is the opposite of the case. They are intended, in the first place, to enhance the role of the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, for whom we have considerable respect. They are also to provide what could only be described as a reasonable range of sanctions so that the Prime Minister can discharge an appropriate and proportionate sanction for what might be in certain cases a minor breach, and to include a new foreword reflecting the current priorities of the Government.

These changes follow consideration of the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in its “Upholding Standards in Public Life” report. We are following those recommendations, alongside consultation between the Prime Minister and Lord Geidt, the independent adviser, and others. As Members can imagine, the Government have carefully considered these and wider recommendations in coming to these conclusions.

I finish by reiterating that the aim of the changes is to even better enable the Government to uphold the highest standards in public life, reflecting the constitutional role of the Prime Minister. Let me once again place on the record my thanks to all those who have taken part in today’s debate.

Question put.

Sue Gray Report

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think there is a criticism of the Metropolitan police contained in what the hon. Lady just said, which I do not agree with.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

The problem with the report is that the dates that are outlined so clearly reopen many of our wounds. I am going to ask the Prime Minister the question that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) asked earlier but the Prime Minister did not answer: when he met with Sue Gray recently, did he ask her not to publish the report?

[The Prime Minister]

No. What I can tell the hon. Lady is that the report is wholly independent and the judgments contained in it are a matter for Sue Gray. I am grateful to her for what she has done, and her interim report was extremely useful to the Government in making the changes that we have made.

Debate on the Address

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I agree entirely; I have arguments that I will not deploy today on universal credit and so on that relate directly to that point. One of the outcomes of having a technologically augmented teaching and assessment system, however, is that the teacher knows within days if a child has a problem that they did not have before and if their educational performance suddenly falls, perhaps because the parents have separated, there is trouble at home, they are going hungry or whatever. The hon. Lady is right and I agree with her basic premise, but technology would help even with that if we did it. I want to see us do that and deal with the scandal.

The last area that I will speak briefly about is the fundamental one of healthcare. We all support the national health service and no doubt applauded the brilliant staff—doctors and nurses—who did a fantastic job. We tell ourselves over and over again that we have the best healthcare system in the world, but that is simply not true. We have those committed doctors and we now spend more than the OECD average on healthcare, but we are not delivering more than the OECD average. Whether it is on survival rates in all the different categories of cancer care, coronaries, strokes, diabetes or whatever, we are not doing as good a job as we should be for the money, work, skill and commitment that go into it.

My argument is that we should look at the other countries that are doing better than us, such as Germany, France, Estonia, Austria, Sweden, Canada or Australia. They all have different systems that are all free at the point of delivery. I was a beneficiary of the Canadian system, which is an insurance-based system that is free at the point of delivery and supported by the state if people cannot afford it—and it works better than our system. We need to look at those other systems and learn from them. We need to stay with the fundamental principles of the health service but learn and improve what we can.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I am just about to sit down.

We Conservatives need to rebuild our party as a party of low taxes, a party of and for homeowners, and a party of aspiration, opportunity and security. It is time for a new model conservativism that is fit for a new Britain in a new world.

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[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech. There is a lot to welcome in the conversation and in the announcements we have heard today. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) very nearly said something I agreed with about schools at one stage in his speech, and I was about to stand up and say how I agreed with him, but as the sentence went on he ruined it and I did not agree any more. However, I did enjoy and agree with part of it, which I will come back to.

I would like to welcome some elements in the Queen’s Speech. It is worth first identifying what the Queen’s Speech is, because we have talked a lot in the Chamber today about the need for short-term intervention, but the Queen’s Speech lays out the legislative agenda, which by its very nature is not short term. Legislation inevitably takes time: in this place, it takes a year or more to get any serious piece of legislation done. We all recognise and accept the need for short-term support and help for the most vulnerable. We all see it in our own constituencies—my own is one of the poorest and most disadvantaged in the country on many indicators.

We all see the hardship and we all recognise the need for support. The Chancellor has said so overtly, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has been on the media round today making clear that that will happen and that more support will come. The Queen’s Speech, however, is about the long term and the legislative agenda, and as I said there is a lot to welcome, not least on the economy and levelling up, which I will focus on in more detail later in my speech.

Starting with something that is perhaps relatively small in the grand scheme of levelling up and cost of living, I am pleased to see football governance included. Our clubs are not just businesses but the heart of our communities in many places, and I welcome the opportunity to look in more detail at sustainable support for them. I also welcome the opportunity to crack down further on the mass disruption and criminal damage that has often been allowed to masquerade as legitimate protest in recent years. That is not right or acceptable.

I hugely welcome the schools Bill and the opportunity to do more on school standards. This is where I nearly agreed with the right hon. Member for Islington North, who has gone now. He obviously did not want to hear how we agreed, because that would only be damaging to his reputation, I am sure, or to mine—one way or the other. He talked about the need for more autonomy within schools, for a broader curriculum, and for the opportunity to prioritise and promote cultural capital as opposed to just exams in our schools system. On that, I totally agree with him. I would like Nottinghamshire County Council, which I lead, to take forward the schools White Paper as an early adopter. That would be an opportunity to drive the move to give our schools more autonomy, a clearer structure of accountability and more empowerment of teachers, schools and trusts to be able to do their own thing—what they think is best for their children. We would retain more teachers if we empowered them to do that. There is opportunity for that in the schools Bill, and I hope that Nottinghamshire will be an early adopter of some of the new provisions.

I want to urge caution on a couple of things, not least the Online Safety Bill. The Bill is well-intentioned, in that we all understand why we want to seek to protect people online and why things that are illegal in the real world should also be illegal online. However, I am also concerned about the risk of allowing big tech companies to police our language and our speech. We see the debate and controversies that rage about Twitter and Elon Musk. It is a really difficult topic and a really difficult thing to get right. I urge the Government not to go too far in restrictions or in allowing anybody, frankly, to choose to police the language that we are allowed to use, because that can only end badly.

Earlier in the year I welcomed the Chancellor’s commitment to move towards a lower-tax, small-state kind of economy where we can promote growth and allow the private sector to flourish and create jobs to support our constituents. He talked about a small state, and I would like the Government to consider putting that into practice in other legislation too. Not least, there are things like the obesity strategy where we are starting to talk about which adverts can be placed where, in which shops. That is madness and not something that the Government should be involved in. I hope that they might reconsider some of these things.

I want to focus the majority of my comments on the economy and on levelling up. I was pleased to see the phrase “economic growth” repeated over and again. One of the most successful political campaigns of my brief career has been the long-term economic plan that we all remember and all heard about over and again. We used the same kind of language in those days and it proved to be very popular. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) talked about the importance of growth in being able to fund our public services so as to give residents in our communities better life chances. Some of the Bills that will be brought forward in this Session are absolutely vital to that, not least the levelling-up Bill, which will be a key driver of that growth.

Private sector growth, not Government spending, is at the heart of better opportunities for areas like the east midlands, where I come from, which have historically been at the bottom of all the charts for both public and private sector growth but where we have huge opportunities to get more of both. We already have projects in train that will allow us to free up the private sector to invest in our region to create the better-paid, better-quality jobs that are in short supply there. That is not about high spending; it is about promoting and creating an environment for business to flourish in our region. It is about delivery. We have talked for a long time about the funding that is going into the most disadvantaged areas. As I said, the east midlands is lowest on all the charts of what money, private and public, goes into these places. My own constituency of Mansfield is at the bottom end of that regional scale.

However, we have really positive things in the pipeline that will come forward in future. We have seen capital investment such as the towns fund and the levelling-up fund. We have seen huge funding announcements. A few weeks ago, at Prime Minister’s questions, I asked the Prime Minister about delivery and outcomes, because we can only talk for so long about how much money we have secured for an area without residents being able to point to a thing that is new. A lot of what we will achieve, and a lot of what is most important in levelling up, is not visible. It is long-term things like skills, education and schools, where we will not be able to point to a shiny achievement within the life of one Parliament. But some of it is short-term: buildings and regeneration of town centres. Some of it is things that we have announced hundreds of millions of pounds for, getting on for two years ago now, that are bogged down in process, and often bogged down in Whitehall.

If we are going to get to a position where residents believe us when we talk about the big things that we are doing around skills and education, and how that is going to benefit them in future, we need to show them the delivery of those short-term things about high-street regeneration—the towns fund and the money that we have promised. It is all in the pipeline.

[Karin Smyth]

I feel slightly disappointed for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. I can point to things in my Bristol South constituency that were delivered by the last Labour Government—every single school rebuilt, a brand new hospital, and the investment that came there that those people deserved after the years under the previous Tory Government. That is what we delivered for them on the ground. His Government have had 12 years and he still cannot point to anything in his constituency.

[Ben Bradley]

I understand the point the hon. Lady is making, but she is not quite right given that the Labour Government had 13 years and there was a great amount of time for the delivery of a number of those projects. I was eight years old when the ’97 Labour Government came to power. Labour had a fair old while to deliver on some of those things. My constituency has been represented by the Conservatives for only five years in its entire history, and that has always been me. We have been working on a number of projects. This Government, this Prime Minister and this levelling-up agenda have been around for a very brief period of time.

We have already talked about the hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that have been secured for my own constituency. We can talk about the towns fund, additional support and investment in skills, capital investment for our college that we have not seen before, and new capital investment in our hospitals. All that is in train. Some of is visible; some of it is not yet visible. We need to be able to point to those things not just in my constituency but across the country in some of the seats that we won only a matter of two years ago where new, talented Conservative MPs are making the case for that investment. We need to see outcomes across the board. It is no good standing up and saying that we have made promises of money because at some stage residents will say, “Where is that new town centre building, where is that new project, where is my shiny new town centre?”

--- Later in debate ---

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and, in particular, his really well made comments about epilepsy.

We heard in the Queen’s speech that the Government’s priority is to grow and strengthen the economy. For me, that only highlights the question: what on earth have they been doing for the last 12 years? Why are we looking at negative growth? Why are we looking at a projection of 10% inflation? Why are we not—and why were we not before—more resilient and able to cope with the pandemic that hit us? Why are my constituents’ wages stagnating? Why are they not any better off? The paucity of speakers remaining says an awful lot, too. Tonight, there no more Government Members to come to defend the Queen’s speech.

As a new MP seven years ago, my early speeches in this place were all about apprenticeships, devolution and the need for us to work together locally with businesses, educationists, trade unions and politicians to grow our local economy and share in the prosperity of what in Bristol is a good, strong economy. That has always been my politics. In 2015, apprenticeships were a Tory flagship policy. However, we now know that apprenticeship starts have declined since 2010 by nearly 200,000, or 41%. Apprenticeships are so important in Bristol South because of the poor attainment of people in getting to university. Apprenticeships are also crucial for the small businesses that dominate Bristol South, which are desperately short of skills, and for my constituents, who are desperately short of well-paid, secure work. As we have heard, apprenticeships are crucial to building the green jobs of the future to help us tackle the climate crisis head on. Why not insulate our homes? Why not support those jobs? Why not save energy on the demand side as we face this terrible supply-side crisis? It should not be so hard in a prosperous city such as Bristol to match the desire and needs of business with the ambition of local people.

On Thursday, I will welcome more than 50 employers to my sixth jobs and apprenticeships fair in the heart of south Bristol at the Skills Academy. I have led work locally to bring together a partnership of the college, Bristol City Council and the Department for Work and Pensions, who are all dedicated to offering better opportunities for people in south Bristol. That did not previously happen, but bringing them all together has been really successful. Employers such as Windmill Hill City Farm, Agincare and Professional Apprenticeships, who are all based in south Bristol, as well as First Bus, St Monica’s trust and the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust will all be there—as will be One Front Door and the National Careers Service —to work directly with the people of south Bristol to match their ambitions with business needs. I wish that the Government were doing more to support that, because I have supported the Government’s ambition on apprenticeships

As a representative of Bristol South, I have seen the how the apprenticeships route offers a way for our young people to get a chance at those high-skilled jobs and for those who for whatever reason lost out at school to gain entry-level qualifications. That is also particularly helpful to the health and care sectors and to ensuring that we tackle the climate crisis through the skilled green jobs that are out there. The Government’s failure to address apprenticeships in the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 demonstrates not only their lack of ambition but a sad lack of ambition for our children and young people.

The Queen’s Speech is a missed opportunity from a Government who have consistently treated our children and young people as an afterthought, which is even more shocking given what they have experienced in the pandemic. Too few apprenticeships are available because the levy is not working, with too many small businesses not participating and fewer level 2 and 3 apprenticeships available. I and the Labour party believe that we should have a stronger role for colleges, providers and local and regional authorities such as combined authorities to help with the development of local skills improvement. We must have much better face-to-face careers guidance and meaningful work experience, but none of that is in the Queen’s Speech.

On devolution, of which I am a strong supporter, the Government have failed to support our ambition for Bristol and the west country. Once again, it looks like there will not be the real devolution of finance or power that we want in the west country. We continue to have to bid for small pots of money in competition with each other. The recent deferment of the Portishead line extension by the Government—again, I have supported the Tory party locally on that—and the way in which the decision is being taken in Whitehall starkly exposes the fallacy that the Government support Bristol and the west of England.

At the other end of the education spectrum, last week I was talking to people in Bristol South about the crisis in early years. The lack of support for parents and providers is deepening the cost of living crisis, particularly for families with childcare needs. Four out of 10 parents say that they had to change their working hours or leave their jobs due to childcare pressures. Conservatives are underfunding the so-called free childcare hours, which are mostly for three and four-year-olds, by more than £2 an hour, and parents are paying for the shortfall. Again, we have heard nothing from the Government on how they intend to help families with those rising costs and help people back into the crucial jobs that we need them to do.

The Government have hinted at changes to multi-academy trusts—there may be a review. There are real, obvious problems with the MATs: they are hugely powerful and can move resources within themselves with no accountability locally to parents and no responsibility locally for the outcomes for those children. Again, I have been working with Ministers and the regional schools commissioner to try to get a focus on the geographical problems that children in south Bristol face, as has been achieved in Plymouth—I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) is in the Chamber—and to share that knowledge. However, the vertical organisation of MATs precludes that from happening. That really must be addressed.

I would have liked to have seen more about my constituents living in Lakeshore. The Government are hinting at leasehold reform, but I want to know what they will do to improve leaseholders’ rights and make it easier for leaseholders to change the managing agents of properties.

In this Parliament, we have heard a lot about the Government having fixed social care. In the next two years, that fallacy will be exposed. The tax rise has hit with no link to any service improvements and no help for people facing collapsing care packages. The silent misery of millions of women in particular who are giving and receiving care will not be helped.

The test of the Queen’s Speech for my constituents in Bristol South will be: are they better off in the cost of living crisis? Will they have more money in their pockets? After what we have been through, there should have been more hope and more ambition to fix our country after the pandemic so that we never have to go into another such situation as unprepared as we were the last time. Today, we have received no such assurance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Delivery of the Glasgow climate pact is very much the focus for this year. As I said in Glasgow, we managed to keep 1.5° alive, but its pulse is weak and will strengthen only if Governments honour their commitments. Since COP, I have engaged with Ministers from more than 30 countries. I will continue to engage and press them to honour their commitments.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

The credibility of the presidency depends on action at home. Next month, the Advanced Construction Skills Centre in my constituency will host my apprenticeships fair. Does the COP26 President agree that the jobs of the future and apprenticeships offer a credible way to take action at home? Will he support my fair? Will he say how his Government are supporting the jobs of the future?

[Alok Sharma]

Apprenticeships, of course, are a big focus for this Government. We have created many hundreds of thousands over the past years. Ensuring apprenticeships in green technologies is vital, and I wish the hon. Lady well with her fair.

Living with Covid-19

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will ensure that those people get not just the antivirals but the tests that they need.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

That is the point on which I would like clarification from the Prime Minister. We learned today that 7 million carers will not get tests, and that money for tests for NHS and care staff will have to be found from within existing budgets, which makes waiting lists even more precarious. Will he confirm that those eligible for antivirals—for which they will have to pay—are those who are over 12, at high risk, and have symptoms or test positive for covid-19? I see the Health Secretary helping him out. Clarification on that would be really helpful.

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady waits a little longer, she will get a breakdown of how we propose to support the most vulnerable. We will support them, as we have done throughout the pandemic.

Speaker’s Statement

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am very concerned about leaving enough time for the Mother of the House, who is going to sum up at the end. Can we please be brief because there is a lot of business ahead and the family are waiting?

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I rise as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who chairs the group, apologises that he is not here; he is at a funeral today.

Jack was a valued and prominent member of the Ireland and the Irish in Britain group—the community from which he came. Shortly after my arrival here in 2015, he welcomed me not only as a new MP, but as a fellow child of Ireland’s 33rd and, frankly, finest county: county London. “Where are your parents from?”, he asked. “Mine are from Cork and Tipperary”, he proudly did say. His father was a labourer, his mother a nurse—the people who came here to rebuild England. Their work and experience underpinned and drove his politics and dedication to public service. In the trade union movement, he always saw the parallels between his own parents’ struggles and those of newer migrant communities, and he built links with those new migrant communities—most recently with the Polish community at an event at the London Irish Centre.

Jack’s support for the Gaelic Athletic Association in Birmingham and across Britain was a significant part of his involvement with the community. It is no surprise, given that his grandfather, Jack Doherty, was a hurler who played for Tipperary in several All-Ireland finals in the early 20th century. It was a very proud moment for him to take part in the St Patrick’s day parade in Birmingham—which had not taken place for decades because of the pub bombings—alongside the Erin Go Bragh GAA Club, based in his Erdington constituency. Just last year, engaging in the cross-party work of which we have heard so much today, he worked with colleagues on both sides of the House to save Páirc na hÉireann, the home of Gaelic games in Britain ensuring that a generation of children in the west midlands can continue to enjoy Irish culture and sport.

Jack’s son Joe described at Jack’s funeral how he had beamed when visiting the construction centre named after him, imagining his own dad—newly arrived on these shores—knowing what would become of his son. Jack was so proud, as many of us were, when there was an event here in Parliament to honour him and other sons and daughters of that generation of Irish construction workers who had helped to build Britain. He was one of a relatively small band of us MPs who are as proud of the people we came from as we are of the people we represent now, being both British and Irish. Jack also had a strong sense of justice. In the week when we mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, his involvement in the pursuit of democratic, peaceful politics on the island of Ireland and good relations between our two countries was recognised by the Irish Government and by the Irish ambassador to the UK, Adrian O’Neill, who attended Jack’s funeral on Monday.

Being Irish was very important to Jack, and Jack was very important to Ireland and the Irish community in Britain. We will miss him. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

I first met Jack during the Longbridge dispute, when we, as Members of Parliament, were getting together to do our best to save that huge industry in Birmingham. Unfortunately we all know what the result of that was, but Jack always tried his best. I met him next when we had an issue with the HP Sauce company, which was pulling out of Birmingham and going to Denmark. I joined him when he said, “I am going to lead this campaign on behalf of the trade unions.” We had a couple of conversations and meetings and decided to organise a rally. We all walked through Aston for about a mile and a half to the factory, and spoke to the workers there. Eventually, as a result of Jack’s tenacity, we managed to secure better terms and conditions for the people who had been expecting to lose their jobs.

That is what Jack was about. He was a great man, and from that day onwards I realised that he was someone whom I wanted to know better and become closer to. So when my friend and his predecessor as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington, Siôn Simon, decided that he was going to move on, one of the first things I did was speak to Jack. On Friday evenings Jack was usually with his family, but one Friday evening Siôn and I met at a curry house where he and I and a couple of other friends tended to go to transact business, and I said, “Siôn, if you are leaving, perhaps we should speak to Jack Dromey, because he is a great guy, and we want someone like him who understands a community like Erdington which contains industries and a huge number of working people.”

When I called Jack he was in Ireland, listening to a recital being given by his daughter Amy. He texted me saying, “Can we speak tomorrow? I am at this recital, and I can’t talk to you now.” He contacted me the next day. The local Labour party then went through the necessary procedure, and selected him because it believed that he was the right person.

Jack was always at the forefront. Recently when a young lad, Dea-John Reid, was stabbed to death, Jack and I, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), turned up and spoke to representatives of the black churches and the community. I hope that our action has prevented any further uprisings.

Jack was always there. He was always there for the community, and he was always there for me. When I became frustrated by local authority issues, the following day he would either call me or come and see me in Portcullis House and try to explain how I could make progress.

Let me end by sending my condolences to the Mother of the House, to Joe and to Amy, and by changing an adage around: behind every strong woman there is a strong man. May Jack rest in peace.

Sue Gray Report

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much, and I think he is completely right. He might have added that we have the fastest economic growth in the G7, thanks to the steps that this Government have been taking.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

We have established that there were parties, so we are just arguing about who is responsible. As the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said, that is a Minister. If it is not the Prime Minister, is it the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who should be facing the sack?

[The Prime Minister]

I remind the hon. Lady of what Sue Gray says in paragraph 12, that no such conclusion can be drawn so far. The hon. Lady must wait for the conclusion of the inquiry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As my right hon. Friend knows, there are some very interesting and potentially very lucrative sources of minerals such as lithium in this country, whose exploration, discovery and reuse we are encouraging. As for the tax point that he rightly raised, we will ensure that we support freeports as hubs for the processing of those critical minerals here in the UK.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

In 2014, my constituent’s three-year-old son Freddie Hussey was killed by an unsafe trailer. Every year, 30% of people who take the B+E test fail it, and now the Government are abolishing it, thus unleashing thousands of untrained, untested, unsafe drivers on to our roads. Why are the Government breaking their promise to grieving families to make towing and our roads safer?

COP26

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member is talking total rubbish. We have doubled—[Interruption.] No, Opposition Members literally do not know what they are talking about. We have doubled climate finance for developing countries. The reason why the vulnerable countries accepted the deal, finally, was because we have got a commitment to $100 billion. Yes, I would have liked it faster, but it is there in black and white. Maybe she has not read it.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Bristol was the first local authority in the country to declare a climate and ecological emergency. We have set out a city-wide strategy to make Bristol carbon neutral, climate resilient and wildlife rich by 2030—the nuts and bolts, if you like—but Bristol and other cities need investment, and the Government’s funding model currently makes us compete with other cities. The UK Government cannot reach their targets using that funding model, so will they look at it again and help us with the private investment that we need to make a massive contribution to the Government’s own national targets?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank Bristol for what it is doing. We are committed to regional plans for net zero. It should be possible within the funding envelope that Bristol has, but we will certainly look at it.