Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
First, I believe that covid vaccines are safe and effective. No vaccine—covid or otherwise—will be approved unless it meets the UK regulator’s standards of safety, quality and effectiveness. An independent body, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, determines in which age groups the vaccine is recommended for use as part of the vaccination programme. Of course, the ultimate decision lies with parents.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
What everyone was doing at the time was working as hard and as quickly as they could to get the PPE needed for our frontline workers, including our nurses. There was an independent procurement process; Ministers were not involved in the decision making. It was right, however, that people gave their ideas about where to get PPE from. Indeed, the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), suggested that we should get it from a law firm and ventilators from a football agent. Everyone was trying as hard as they could. We should remember the context and stop playing politics.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Matt Warman
As I said a minute ago, I recently had a productive conversation with my Scottish counterpart on how the Scottish and UK Governments can work together to get the broadband into Scotland that it so clearly needs.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
It is a nice view from up here, Mr Speaker.
The Minister’s Duracell Bunny-like enthusiasm is all very well, and I hope it stands him in good stead during the clear-out today, but it is not enough. Does the Government’s ambition not fall pathetically short of what is really required?
Matt Warman
The £5 billion will go an awfully long way and build on the huge progress being made already, but the hon. Gentleman is right: this is not simply about money. That is why we are making legislative changes as well. The Prime Minister has been very clear on his ambition. The recent roundtable at No. 10 with all the broadband providers shows that this is far more than words; it is a real commitment in legislative and financial terms, and it will get Britain the broadband it deserves.
United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), but he will forgive me if I do not follow him completely, as we would never finish this debate.
I wish to apprise the House of my view of this motion. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General said, it is not the motion we have already voted on; it is a different motion. [Interruption.] I will make no excuses about that—it is a different motion. Opposition Members agreed that, so I do not know how they can laugh.
Today, I will support the Government for the very simple reason that I think nothing huge has changed in the nature of the Bill that is likely to be presented, or even in the withdrawal agreement. What I do think has changed, however, is the balance of risks, and as politicians—not lawyers—we must apprise ourselves of what that balance amounts to and to what degree we owe it to ourselves to make those decisions.
Since we had the two-week extension we now face a choice about what is likely to happen. Some of my colleagues genuinely believe that if we vote down this agreement we will go to 12 April, and we will not get an extension from the EU. I find that difficult to believe. If we consider what the EU has already said—Mrs Merkel and various others—we see that they really want to keep the UK inside the EU. One way or the other, they would rather have us in, even if it is troublesome at this stage. I genuinely believe that by 12 April we will be offered—or it could even be demanded of us—an extension of at least two years that will require us to fight the European elections. I do not know how I can go on to doorsteps, having campaigned to leave the European Union and support 17.4 million people, and tell them not to worry because even if we are not leaving right now, we might leave a little bit later. That is simply inexplicable, and I genuinely do not believe that that is what I campaigned on or for.
Some people have said that an extension does not really matter because we will be able to stay in the EU, make those negotiations and get those changes, and we will be in control because we will have votes and an ability to take that control. All I say is that I voted against the Maastricht treaty 26 years ago, and I have always maintained that we have never had real control. If we have had so much control for 40 years, why are we now trying to get out of a European Union that has extended its power and competence year in, year out?
Mr Duncan Smith
I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me but I want to finish my point. I will give way just once because, as Mr Speaker says, we want to try and keep this short.
I believe that the way to stand up for the 17.4 million is to get to the Bill. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), whose knowledge of constitutional law I revere, Bill needs to get to the Bill. We will then look to see which of the issues raised by the Attorney General are in the Bill and how they protect us. What can we ensure is in the Bill? We can then make a judgment about whether it represents the way that we believe we should leave the EU, and my hon. Friends need to consider that issue immediately.
Kevin Brennan
On 3 March the right hon. Gentleman stated on his website:
“British Governments have lied about the EU for decades. This deal is the final deceit”.
Yet he is going to vote for it.
Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Attorney General
As my hon. Friend knows, that is not a legal question. We have reached a deal. The House must make a judgment on this deal. If it had been possible to secure a unilateral right of termination, it would have been secured. It was not secured because the European Union asked for an absolute guarantee at the Northern Irish border, but has said that it is temporary; that is written into the agreement. It may well be that the word “temporary” is not enforceable, in the sense that this will subsist even in the event of negotiations breaking down, but that is a clear indication that the backstop cannot subsist forever; and, in my view, as a matter of European Union law, it cannot.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
This was not just any motion; as the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, it was a motion for a return to release papers under parliamentary privilege. There are two reasons why he is wrong: first, he says of his advice, “There’s nothing to see here,” yet he is trying to argue that by releasing it, he would somehow breach considerations of national and public interest. Secondly, under the ministerial code, he can voluntarily release advice in exceptional circumstances without breaching any considerations of national interests, or any of his deeply held principles. Why does he not follow that logic and do the right thing?
The Attorney General
The existence of very rare examples of the Attorney General’s advice being disclosed does not mean that the power ought to be exercised in this case. In the Goldsmith case, it was disclosed two years after the event. We are in the middle of a negotiation.
The Attorney General
No, we have not. The future declaration is to be negotiated, and many of the same arguments will apply.
Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend is right. We are in a continuing negotiation, and that is why the national interest really is at the heart of this.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Solicitor General has a wonderful Welsh gift for words, but may I remind him of what Disraeli once said?
“A majority is always better than the best repartee.”
There was a majority—in fact, a unanimous vote in the House—in favour of a motion for a return, which is not a request for a statement but a request for information to be published with the protection of parliamentary privilege. It is the duty of the Government to publish that information following the decision of the House, but if they still do not want to do that, the Solicitor General has already said that they could do it voluntarily. The full legal advice will come out eventually, and history will not look kindly on the Government, or on any members of the Government, if they have kept from the House relevant information within that legal advice.
The Solicitor General
The hon. Gentleman is a compatriot of mine and is no stranger to the wizardry of rhetoric. He reminds me of Disraeli’s comment on Gladstone that at times he might be inebriated by the intoxication of his own verbosity— but not today. I take his point, but I will say this to him: I would be failing in my duty if I did not defend robustly the Law Officers convention. That is what I am doing today, and that is what I must continue to do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As much as my hon. Friend points the finger of blame, it is pointed not so much at Departments in Whitehall but at the European Commission, which appears to struggle with the idea that there can be lots of different intermediate bodies within the United Kingdom. As he knows, London already has intermediate status. We have found it very difficult to persuade the European Commission to grant similar or analogous powers to other parts of the UK. We want to ensure that, while we make that case—everyone in the Government is making that case—we do not lose the use of the money. That is the balance we are trying to strike.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
2. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of his policies on the completeness of the electoral register.
The Minister for the Constitution (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I am pleased to report that the implementation of individual electoral registration is proceeding smoothly. [Laughter.] We have safeguarded the register by automatically transferring nine out of 10 existing electors on to the new system, and by ensuring that no one registered to vote at the last canvass will lose their vote in May. More than 5 million people have registered to vote since May; there have been more than 1 million applications since December; 35,000 people per day are registering on the Government’s new online system; and 166,000 people registered to vote on national voter registration day. In addition, the Government have invested £14 million in the completeness and accuracy of the register, working with local authorities and national bodies.
Kevin Brennan
I missed the beginning of the Minister’s answer because of the hilarity it caused in the House. I understand that 1 million people have been lost from the register in the past 12 months. I asked him about the completeness of the register and the impact of his policies on that. Despite his very long previous answer, can he add anything that is pertinent to the question I asked?
Mr Gyimah
Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman revels in his 2011 nomination for the Total Politics Labour point-scorer of the year. In fact, he has plastered the information all over his website. To answer his question specifically, since December, 1.3 million have been added to the register. Each day and each month, more people are being added to the register, so it is about time the Labour party stopped creating fear and uncertainty where there is none.
Phone Hacking
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Attorney-General
May I respectfully say to the hon. Lady that I am not sure that in my capacity as the Queens’s Attorney-General that is a question to which I would necessarily have the immediate answer? What I can say to her is that a series of criminal investigations are taking place, along with wider inquiry, and the Government are committed, as I have just indicated, to there being an inquiry into the matter. I am sorry to disappoint her but, in any event, I do not think that this is a question that I am in a position to answer.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
As a former competition Minister, may I ask the Attorney-General whether, in his view, the Culture Secretary has the power, and always has had the power, to refer the News Corp takeover to the Competition Commission?
The Attorney-General
Well, may I say to the hon. Gentleman that my understanding—I checked this before the start of the debate—is that my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary did refer the takeover to the Competition Commission?