Hacker House

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

I struggle to see how that question is directly relevant to the one that I am here to answer, but I would say, as I have said before—[Interruption.] I am not here to answer for anyone’s mother. As I have said before, the Prime Minister had no role whatsoever in the application, but none the less we are reviewing the process.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. I also welcome the support he is providing to small and medium-sized enterprises in this area. Can he confirm that clear criteria are applied in the awarding of these grants and that grants are made on the basis of a business case and adherence to those criteria? Does he agree that Opposition Members should probably learn from the past and suspend making wild allegations until a proper review has taken place?

[Matt Warman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. He is absolutely right that supporting SMEs in such a sector is particularly important. It is something we will continue to do. On the process, I referred to the bid earlier. I have the form here—several dozen pages—that must be provided to access Government funding. That is right and proper. He is right also that we should all shy away from making unsubstantiated allegations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The actions of those who tried to find a way around the procedures banning the things that we across this House have decided should be banned were disgraceful. What happened thereafter, as she knows, is that the regulator took immediate action and those particular products were withdrawn. I hope that that lesson will be learned by all those across the industry who are tempted to try it again.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I was one of 80 parliamentarians who wrote to the Secretary of State recently to press the case for requiring mobile phone operators to allow roaming across their networks in rural areas. Will he support those calls?

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend and, indeed, to other colleagues who wrote to me. As he knows, my view is very simple: we must get to a place where rural coverage is better than it is. All of us and the mobile network operators have an obligation to achieve that. If it cannot be done any other way, I am perfectly prepared to entertain rural roaming as a way in which it might be done.

Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on this important Bill, and I express my strong support to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and congratulate her on her work. This Bill is refreshingly brief but hugely symbolic, and it is right that works of art and other cultural items be returned to their rightful owners. These were unthinkably horrific crimes. It is sad that today we witness other religious crimes in Christchurch, and our thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of the victims there.

We recently commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport when 10,000 children were brought to the UK from Germany. I took my children to see the statue by Frank Meisler that was installed in 2006 at Liverpool Street station, and I recommend that everybody go to see that statue, and take their children if they have them. It is an important, if traumatic, thing to explain to children. I tried to explain to my 11-year-old child what happened, and some of the children depicted in that statue were probably around her age. We also went to the Imperial War Museum, and its fifth floor contains important evidence and tributes to the 6 million people who died in the holocaust. Although those reminders of the atrocities are shocking, it is important to continue to remember and acknowledge those terrible acts.

As my right hon. Friend said, this is not just about the property itself but about the lives erased and the symbolic nature of those artworks taken from Jewish people at that terrible time. It is important continually to remind ourselves of those acts, but also to remind racists, peddlers of hate and antisemites that we will never tolerate their positions, and their actions will never win out.

When we read about what happened and what my right hon. Friend is trying to put right, we see that the scale of it is quite frightening. I think there are still 100,000 items that have not been returned and are still lost—some 20% of Europe’s treasures. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, who is no longer in his place, made the point that it is not just about returning the treasures but holding to account the people who took them. Regardless of the time that has passed, it is hugely important that we take these great strides and return works of art and cultural items to their rightful owners. Clearly, there is much more to do, and my right hon. Friend’s Bill aims to ensure that we continue to return works of art to their rightful owners.

In the debates on the original legislation, which started in 2006 and was brought into effect in 2009, it was anticipated that a 10-year sunset clause would be long enough. It expires on 11 November 2019, which is of course Remembrance Day. At that point, institutions would no longer be able to return works of art to their rightful owners. It is therefore absolutely right that my hon. Friend is taking the Bill forward. It is symbolically very important. The UK is a world leader in these matters. I am very grateful to her and to the Government for their support. She can be assured of my support as the Bill passes through the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

Yes.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

If we find ourselves in the backstop, the withdrawal agreement allows the EU to make the decision whether our trade arrangements avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland. Would a simple, workable solution for both sides be to allow an independent body to make that decision?

[The Attorney General]

Article 20 of the proposed Northern Ireland protocol allows already for either party to discuss and agree with the other that the backstop is no longer necessary, and that is arbitrable under the dispute resolution mechanism of the withdrawal agreement. I do not necessarily accept the characterisation that there is a veto. The European Union under the proposals would be bound by the duty of good faith and best endeavours, and it could not just decline to consider a reasonable measure put forward by the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I am aware of the issues raised by my hon. Friend. Indeed, I will meet her and the companies she is concerned about in the new year to discuss the issues she has raised.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

We call it t’internet in Yorkshire. Broadband suppliers are responsible for the universal service obligation. Will they be required to use wireless technologies where those are the most cost-effective solutions?

[Margot James]

We are aware that, no matter how successful our full fibre programme—and we have our target, as my hon. Friend will know, of full fibre coverage across the UK by 2033—there will be premises for which fibre will never be the optimum route of connection. We will of course consider and urge others to consider wireless technologies where full fibre is not effective.

Centenary of the Armistice

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak and to listen to so many moving speeches today, including the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), and to be able to pay tribute to so many Thirsk and Malton constituents of yesteryear, including in my home town of Easingwold, where it is my great privilege to lay a wreath on Sunday and pay tribute to all those who gave so much in the great war and to the sacrifices of their loved ones, their friends, their families.

Even 100 years later, every family is touched in some way by world war one. For the story I am about to tell, I should like to thank my relatives, Richard and Penny Booth, born Hollinrake, of Wells, Somerset. Some time ago, they wrote to me to tell of the incredible feats of Penny’s father, my grandfather’s brother, Ernest Hollinrake. It is a striking example of the millions of individual contributions on both sides of the conflict.

Ernest enlisted on 7 September 1914 alongside his pals in the Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire), an infantry regiment. Defence of the realm against a foreign aggressor, of course, was every person’s duty. His Pals battalion was known as the Lydgaters. Lydgate is a small village just outside Todmorden, West Yorkshire, where my family originate. Ernest was only 18 years old. His occupation: cotton operator in the local spinning mill.

There are few accounts of Ernest’s infantry service other than the official records, the first of which is three years into his service. During the third battle of Ypres, where 77,479 men were lost in the month of September alone, for his action on 20 September 1917, Second Lieutenant Ernest Hollinrake was awarded the Military Cross. The citation reads:

“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He…led (his platoon) forward under covering fire from Lewis guns and rifle grenades, and assaulted a strong point which he captured with thirty prisoners. His courage and determination were a splendid example to his platoon.”

Then, on 27 May 1918, near Rossignol Wood, in the northern part of the Somme, Ernest Hollinrake was awarded a bar to the Military Cross. The citation reads:

“When two of his front line posts were attacked by a strong hostile raiding party, and one section, greatly outnumbered, was overrun, he dashed up, leapt on the parapet, shot the enemy leader with his revolver, and led his men in a charge on the remainder, putting them to flight. By his great courage and promptness he undoubtedly saved his section, and prevented the enemy securing a much needed identity, and gained what proved a valuable one himself.”

In 1919, in an undated newspaper cutting with the heading, “Todmorden Military Honour”, the following was published:

“It is officially announced that the president of the French Republic has been pleased to confer the Croix de Guerre, with Palm on Lieut. Hollinrake of Todmorden… He received his British decoration personally from the hand of His Majesty at Buckingham Palace a short time ago.”

He survived. Most of his pals did not. Ernest stayed in the Army until 1922 and later went into business in Leeds. He was lucky by comparison to many.

I am not sure what advice Ernest or any of my fallen constituents would give us today if they were here to listen to this debate or to speak in it. Whatever the unforgivable mistakes and unthinkable atrocities of war, I am sure, at the end of the day, they would be able propose no other alternative than the last resort of being prepared to send our troops into the tragedies of war. Today, all we can do is salute them and all those who made so many sacrifices. Today and every day, we say, “Lest we forget.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On the subject of the north of England, let us hear from north Yorkshire. Mr Kevin Hollinrake.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

My report “Solutions for the fifteen per cent”, which I have sent to the Secretary of State, makes a compelling case for the use of fixed wireless to deliver broadband to the hardest-to-reach areas. Will the Secretary of State meet me and colleagues to discuss how those initiatives might be implemented?

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am a great fan of minority languages. I grew up just on the Welsh border; I love the Welsh language, and I have strengthened the support for S4C through the S4C review. I am in discussions with the hon. Lady’s colleagues about BBC Alba as well.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Fixed wireless could provide an immediate solution to superfast broadband in rural areas. Openreach knows this, but constantly refuses to deploy it. Will my right hon. Friend do all he can to persuade it to change its mind?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I will. In terms of using technologies to get broadband rolled out, we should use whatever technologies are best in the location and the geography that there is. Of course, North Yorkshire has very big spaces, and fixed wireless is often the best approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that we are developing the pilot into a national scheme, and the local full fibre networks programme will have another wave of offers later in the summer. I congratulate the area of Scotland that managed to win in the first round.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that those in receipt of public funds to roll out broadband to our hardest-to-reach areas, such as Openreach, should use a combination of the best available technologies, including fixed wireless, to provide those solutions?

[Margot James]

I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, the USO that we will introduce by 2020 will enable faster speeds to be delivered by both fixed line and wireless technologies.