Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Geraint Davies

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I think the hon. Gentleman does the Government a disservice. Obviously Japan was focused on security of supply, given its immediate exposure to China. Where we have come in is in bringing together, for instance, the United States and Canada: officials in Canada whom I speak to are looking at our critical minerals strategy with great interest, and we are very much leading the way in the Five Eyes.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. What recent steps his Department has taken to help support the growth of community-owned energy projects.

Russian Oil Import Ban

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Geraint Davies

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The taskforce will do exactly what my hon. Friend has asked for. It will look at where we can source supply at the cheapest rate and how we can increase our independence. It will look at taking away our reliance on Russia and at sourcing oil at the cheapest rate. There is an issue about further interventions for heating oil, and we are in discussions with the Treasury and others across Government all the time about how we can lessen the burden on our people.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State will know that his Department refused support for the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, but the new Blue Eden lagoon project is nevertheless going ahead. Instead of looking again at fracking, which generates 5% of fugitive emissions—that makes it worse than coal for climate change—will he look at supporting the Welsh Government and Wales overall in marine technologies and renewable technologies, alongside looking at organic batteries at scale, which can store such renewables without causing pollution?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point. We have done a huge amount as a Government in driving renewables. I was very pleased to see that the tidal stream auction has been ringfenced. On the specific Swansea lagoon project, I, as the Energy Minister at the time, and the Secretary of State felt that it was not economic, but generally I do not think any Government have done more for marine renewables and marine energy.

UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Geraint Davies

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I would like to reassure my hon. Friend. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was absolutely right to say that we need a huge amount of steel—about 5 million tonnes—over the next decade and that this Government are committed to an ongoing steel industry. As she knows, I have spoken to local management and workforce representatives, and we are doing all we can to look at all options to make sure that this vital piece of infrastructure continues and remains a going concern.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

We know that David Cameron was an adviser to Greensill Capital, with shareholdings of potentially tens of millions of pounds, and that he made private texts and calls on a number of occasions to the Chancellor to help secure funds for Liberty before Greensill, a high-risk company, went bust, putting thousands of jobs at Liberty Steel at risk. What investigation will BEIS carry out? Will the Secretary of State ensure that in future taxpayers’ money is no longer interfered with by David Cameron and former Conservative Ministers, but is instead invested directly to protect our jobs in British steel and other vital industries?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman will know that officials often meet with a range of businesses affected by policy changes—that is part of policy development—but it is always done with proper and due consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Geraint Davies

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Obviously, the hon. Gentleman and I will have slightly different views of what the Government are doing. I was surprised to hear him dismiss the £3 billion commitment. I remind him that green homes grants will deliver improvements to more than 650,000 homes, supporting 140,000 jobs in 2020-21. These are significant strides and a huge amount of money has been committed to that programme.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

What steps he has taken to ensure that the indoor air quality of offices, shops, restaurants and bars is adequate to help prevent the spread of covid-19 among workers and customers.

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

The Government have provided clear advice on ventilation in our safer workplaces guide. We are led by the science in that work and, as the scientific and medical advice changes, the guidance will be updated to reflect that.

[Geraint Davies [V]]

The Minister should know that the science now shows that indoor air pollution dramatically increases coronavirus infection and death rates, and that masks inhibit the transmission of the virus. Will he today press to follow France’s lead to make compulsory mask-wearing the law in all indoor environments accessible by the public, and include indoor air pollution in the terms of the Environment Bill in September, in order to save lives and protect our NHS?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As I said in my earlier answer, we are guided all the time by science and evidence and, as the science and evidence changes, we will calibrate our policy responses to that effect.

Leaving the EU

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Geraint Davies

Monday 14th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

I said to myself, I think about halfway through the debate, that I would keep my remarks brief, because we have had an extensive debate, we have had excellent speeches, and frankly we have rehearsed many of these points—

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

May I say that you have only 45 minutes?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am fully aware of the timescale. You are lucky, Mr Davies, that my hour-long speech will have to be curtailed. I wanted to make brief remarks because many of these points have been rehearsed at length in debates gone by, and I am sure that they will be in the future.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) introduced the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. He read out the petitions and the views of hundreds of thousands of people. It was striking, as he pointed out, that all those viewpoints were, essentially, contradictory. There is a full and wide range of opinion in the country—as evidenced by the petitions—as there are divergent views in the House of Commons. In the Chamber today, with only about nine MPs, we have a wide range of views. We have people who support Brexit but do not like the deal, people who support Brexit but do like the deal, and people who do not like the deal and do not like Brexit. The permutations seem endless, and that is with only nine MPs.

I want to make it clear that that degree of divergence in view—the very different opinions expressed right across the country—shows the level of confusion that there might well be if this exercise of Brexit is not concluded in an orderly fashion. As one would expect, my view, and that of the Government, is that the best way of delivering Brexit in a timely, orderly manner is through the deal in the withdrawal agreement. It is not true to say that it does not deliver Brexit. That is a grotesque exaggeration and caricature of the deal.

I fought very hard alongside many MPs, some of whom are in the Chamber, for Brexit in 2016. I was very clear about the three things that I wanted from Brexit. I wanted to see a drastic curtailment, if not an end, to the club membership—the £10 billion net a year that we were paying indefinitely, and that would have increased as we entered a new budget period. The deal completely prevents that. There is no £39 billion figure in the agreement. That is a snapshot, or a shorthand expression.

It is a lot of money, but it actually equates to only four years of net payments. We were in the EU, or the European Economic Community, for 46 years. Everyone understands that to leave such a commitment—to leave that union after such a long period of membership—will take time. The deal recognises that. It curtails the length of the implementation period. It curtails the money. The £39 billion figure is often quoted, but that is against £10 billion every year from today until kingdom come.

Importantly, one of the big issues in the Brexit referendum was freedom of movement from the EU. Many people, particularly among ethnic minority communities, were saying, “How is it that someone from the EU who speaks no English at all can come to Britain without a job, while my relatives from Commonwealth countries outside the EU do not have that opportunity?” Many others in my constituency, including builders and people working in construction, also mentioned freedom of movement. I remember coming out of Staines station and meeting someone who said that he would vote for Brexit because he had not had a wage increase for 15 years. A clever economist might say that that was simplistic, but that was the view—that was how people felt that their professional experience was developing. Freedom of movement was a big issue.

The withdrawal agreement—the deal that we need to vote on—is not perfect; like any deal in history, it includes some give and take. However, it substantially delivers on putting an end to freedom of movement, and that is why we are introducing an immigration Bill. As I recall, the third big issue in the campaign was about the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice: would it continue to be sovereign over this Parliament? On that issue, too, the withdrawal agreement delivers. It is a good deal, and it largely delivers on what we campaigned for as Brexiteers.

I say to my Brexit colleagues, as the Prime Minister said in her speech today in Stoke, that there is a marked and strong current of opinion in the House of Commons that wants to subvert or reverse Brexit. I know that those are strong words, and people will say, “Oh, we just want to scrutinise legislation.” Forget all that—it is clear to a child that there are MPs in this House who want to reverse the referendum. They have openly said that the referendum result was a disaster and have pledged to overturn it, but they know that the only way that they can do that is by means of a second referendum. It is not that they like the idea of a second referendum because they want to test the robustness of the decision or celebrate the exercise of democracy, but that the way to reverse Brexit is very clear: it has to be done through a second referendum, to give it the authority that the first had. I do not know about our Scottish National party friends, but it would take a very bold remainer to say that the House of Commons could simply unilaterally disregard the referendum.

If one wants to stay in the EU, one has to accept that the only way of doing so is with a second referendum. Hon. Members who sit on the Conservative Benches or who represent leave constituencies have detected a hardening of public opinion, however. As a Member who represents a leave constituency, I concur: even if a second referendum took place, I do not believe that the remainers would get their wish. Nevertheless, I fully understand that that is their only shot—their only conduit to reversing something that they think is a disaster—so it is the route they want to pursue. The Government’s view is that that would be wholly disruptive, divisive and simply a cheat, because it would be an attempt to circumvent the decision.

The vast majority of Members of this House voted to have the referendum, voted to trigger article 50 and voted to pass the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Let us be under no illusions: the debate on a second referendum is simply about trying to reverse the result of the first. The Government simply cannot accept that. We want to move forward and conclude Brexit in an orderly and managed fashion—I was almost going to say an elegant fashion, but I think that that would be pushing things too far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Jenkyns]

It takes a lot for somebody who has always been loyal to the party over the past decade or so—and since I have been a Member—to vote against the Government. I have never done so, like many of my colleagues who have resigned as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Let us not forget that it is the remain colleagues in our party who have been thwarting Brexit and who have voted against the Government so far. To return to my previous point, you have not provided the House with a deal that actually represents Brexit. So many constituents have written to me to say, “Please vote that deal down.” It is you, the Government and the Prime Minister who have done the job of uniting Conservative Members against your deal.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Just to clarify, obviously it is not me.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I urge the hon. Lady and her Brexiteer colleagues to vote for the deal. I am not speaking as a Government Minister but as a Brexiteer, and my real worry is that Brexit will be abandoned because the Brexiteers are divided.

I am a historian and someone who loves reading about history. There are countless examples of situations where people have won what they were fighting for and then simply fallen out—there have been divisions. That is a very grave danger for Brexit: having won the argument and the referendum in 2016, we see the Brexit side quite fractured. As a Brexiteer, I support the deal. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, as a Brexiteer, supports the deal. Yet there are other Brexiteers here in Westminster Hall, not to mention in the wider House of Commons, who support Brexit but feel that they cannot support the deal. I urge all Brexiteers, and remainers who want to see their manifesto commitments fulfilled—the entire Labour party, according to its manifesto—to vote for the deal in order to move forward. Any other outcome, as a result of voting down the deal, would add to the chaos and confusion, and it would imperil Brexit.

Thank you very much for your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank all hon. Members for their excellent contributions to this very high-quality debate.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Geraint Davies

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill).

I respect the vote in principle of the people to leave the EU, but they made that vote on three grounds: more money, market access and lower migration. What we are seeing, however, is that instead of getting £350 million to the NHS, it is going to cost us £300 million a week; instead of higher living standards, we have 5% inflation because of depreciation eating away at people’s incomes; and borrowing is going up, so everyone will be in debt with another £1,000 to pay back.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Is the hon. Gentleman essentially saying the people got it wrong on 23 June?

[Geraint Davies]

I am saying that people were misled, so basically now we are going to have another year of austerity.

On market access, everyone is talking about a hard Brexit. It is all very well Nissan, Tata and others being paid billions of pounds under the table to bribe them, to compensate for the tariffs they will inevitably face, but we will have to pay for that in the end, and we do not have proper market access.