Business of the House

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

May I join in the congratulations to your chaplain on the recent award, Mr Speaker? I also I wish the shadow Leader of the House many happy returns for yesterday.

We will try to give the summer recess dates as soon as we can, but it is not usual for them to be announced at this stage in the parliamentary year. I looked into the situation regarding the lights in Norman Shaw South after the hon. Lady’s question last week, and my understanding from the House authorities is that there was a serious fault in what is frankly an obsolete electrical circuit system. They had hoped to get the repairs done this week, but I will ask the relevant executive in the House service to write to the hon. Lady with the latest details. As for the other matter the hon. Lady raised, when she said “carry on regardless”, she rather provided the description herself. I am sorely tempted to indicate the cast list that I have mind, but I will eschew that particular temptation.

Turning to the hon. Lady’s policy questions, what was striking about last night’s vote was that for the first time the Opposition Front-Bench team and most, but not all, Labour Members accepted the Prime Minister’s timetable to trigger article 50 by the end of March 2017. Given that the shadow Foreign Secretary had said as recently as September that we ought to go back to the people before taking a final decision to leave the EU, that possibly suggests a welcome change of heart on the part of the Opposition, and I hope that it is genuine and sustained.

The hon. Lady made points about the impact of leaving the EU on the food and farming sector, which is an important aspect of the forthcoming negotiation. That sector is a major employer and makes a major contribution to the UK’s GDP. Many of its chief export markets are in other EU countries, so the Government are closely consulting the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association and other representative organisations—the Food and Drink Federation and so on—about the approach that will ensure that their interests are strongly represented in those negotiations. Clearly, the issue of labour will be a part of that, as will access to markets, but the Opposition have to acknowledge, as one or two in their ranks who have served in ministerial office have said publicly, that it is hard to see the vote on 23 June as one that would allow the continuation of free movement of labour as it currently exists. From my experience, of looking at opinion polls and of talking to people during the campaign, it seemed that that issue of migration was very much at the forefront of people’s minds when they came to vote.

The hon. Lady alluded to the Casey report on integration, produced earlier this week. Louise Casey highlighted, in her direct style, some really important and deep-seated social challenges. I can trade statistics about money spent on teaching English as a second language, and I do not want to decry the importance of ensuring that people who arrive in this country learn English as a matter of priority, because without that someone cannot really play a full part in the mainstream of society. However, what I hope to see coming out of that report will be a conversation and a growing shared understanding, across party political lines and around the country, of the fact that these problems are not capable of solution by an Act of Parliament, a ministerial speech or a tweak to a spending programme here and there. We are talking about problems of the self-segregation of communities that have deep cultural roots, and we have to work out locally and nationally how those should best be addressed.

The hon. Lady made a few points about other items of spending. I have to say to the Opposition that they cannot both attack the Government for not moving quickly enough to reduce the deficit and also criticise every action that is designed to obtain savings and pay that deficit down. We are having to take tough decisions now because of the failure of the housekeeping of Labour Ministers when they were in charge for 13 years.

Finally, we have a proud tradition of human rights in this country, but that existed and was strong long before the Human Rights Act. There was no magic to that piece of legislation, and this Government are committed to keeping human rights at the forefront of all our policies. I agree on the importance of the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and I hope that the Government in Iran will show mercy towards her and bear in mind the fact that her little daughter has been separated from her parents for so long. British Ministers and officials are doing everything they can on behalf of the family to try to bring this case to the outcome that we all wish to see.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced its latest round of NatWest bank branch closures, which will have a significant impact on my constituency, as well as on the constituencies of many colleagues across the country. Rochester, which is a key commercial town, will be left with only one bank in the centre. This has been a running theme across the country as we have seen the number of bank branches reduced by half in the past 25 years. Will the Government make time for a debate on the wider impact of these closures on the elderly, the disabled, and small businesses and retailers, which rely on these very important services?

[Mr Lidington]

I completely understand why my hon. Friend is speaking up so strongly on behalf of both domestic bank customers and businesses in her constituency. Of course what the banks will say is that more and more of us, both as individuals and businesses, are moving to online banking services, and that that therefore reduces the viability of the branch network. Ultimately, these are commercial decisions for the banks, but I hope that when bank directors and managers think about the impact of a proposed closure on a particular town, they will take carefully into account the impact on communities, particularly on people and those businesses that cannot simply go on online for the banking services that are so essential to their needs.