Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I inform the House that I have not selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey).

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

I beg to move,

That this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

I have no idea why the Leader of the Opposition has insisted that we must have a confidence motion today, when we could be sparing people from online harms—[Interruption.] That’s what he wanted. We could be fixing the defects in the Northern Ireland protocol, ending pointless barriers to trade in our country—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It might be helpful to say that it is the Government who put down the motion.

[The Prime Minister]

The Leader of the Opposition wants one, Mr Speaker, and since Labour Members want one and it is the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s constitutional prerogative, we will comply and we will win.

Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition why I believe that this is one of the most dynamic Governments of modern times, not just overcoming adversity on a scale we have not seen for centuries, but delivering throughout adversity. If he wants evidence of the temper and mettle of this Government, I remind him of how we began, when Parliament was deadlocked and he was shadow Brexit Secretary. Labour were the first Opposition in history to be absolutely petrified of calling a general election, and when they finally capitulated and agreed to submit to the verdict of the people, we sent the great blue Tory ferret so far up their left trouser leg that they could not move. We won the biggest Conservative victory since 1987 and the biggest share of the vote since 1979. We won seats they never dreamed of losing, from Wrexham to Workington, and from Bishop Auckland to Barrow. We turned Redcar bluecar, we saw 54 seats go straight from Labour to Tory, and we won by 80 seats. Then we worked flat out to repay that trust. With iron determination we saw off Brenda Hale and we got Brexit done. And although the rejoiners and the revengers were left plotting and planning and biding their time—I will have more to say about the events of the last few weeks and months in due course—we delivered on every single one of our promises.

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[The Prime Minister]

Look, if the hon. Gentleman is saying that he is going to vote for confidence in this Government, I will certainly welcome his support. What I can tell him is that I believe that the achievements of this Government over the past three years have been very remarkable. As for his personal criticism of me, I am proud of what we have done and I am proud of the way I have been able to offer leadership in difficult times—let me put it that way.

The investment in the low earth orbit satellites has paid off. As I said, people in sub-Saharan Africa now have the chance to get an internet connection. It is a massive, massive success for global Britain. People around the world can now see the renewed ambition of this country, with the record £22 billion that we are investing to become a science superpower again and the new Advanced Research and Invention Agency. At the same time, the scientific solutions that we are providing are helping to solve the fundamental problems facing humanity.

On this sweltering day, let me remind the House that there are very few Governments in the world who could have organised a COP26 summit so far-reaching in its impacts. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) for what he did: committing 90% of the world to net zero by 2050, moving the world beyond the use of coal, moving from fossil-fuelled cars to electric vehicles, planting billions of trees around the world and launching the clean green initiative as we did at Carbis Bay, by which G7 Governments will now leverage the trillions of the private sector to help the developing world to use the clean, green technologies that offer economic as well as environmental salvation.

I think that people around the world can see more clearly than ever before that we have in this country—and, I think, in this House—a renewed willingness as global Britain to stand up for freedom and democracy. There could be no better proof of that than our campaign to help the Ukrainians. If it is true that I am more popular on the streets of Kyiv right now than I am in Kensington, that is because of the foresight and boldness of this Government in becoming the first European country to send the Ukrainians weapons—a decision that was made possible by the biggest investment in defence since the cold war. Although I think that that conflict will continue to be very hard, and our thoughts and prayers must continue to be with the people of Ukraine, I do believe that they must win and that they will win. Although that may, of course, be of massive strategic importance in the face of Putin’s adventurism and aggression, when the people of Ukraine have won it will also be a victory of right over wrong and of good over evil. I think that this Government saw that clearly, saw it whole and saw it faster than many other parts of the world. That is why I have confidence in this Government.

By the way, I have absolutely zero confidence in the Opposition. Eight of them—I never tire of saying this, and everyone must be saying it right up until the general election—eight of them, including the shadow Foreign Secretary, voted to discard this country’s independent nuclear weapon. I do not believe they would have done the same thing in standing up to Putin in a month of Sundays.

Last week I went up in one of our 148 Typhoon fighters, and I flew out over the North sea, over Doggerland. The drowned prairies are now being harvested again with tens of gigawatts of clean green energy. We will have 50 GW of offshore wind by 2050, and thanks to this Government’s activism I am proud to say that offshore wind is now cheaper than onshore wind. I looked down at that ghostly white forest of windmills in the sea, financed with ever growing sums from international investors, and I thought, “This is how we will fix our energy problems; this is how Europe should be ending its dependence on Putin’s gas.” I am proud of the way we have responded to the challenge, with a nuclear reactor every year rather than one every 10 years—or none at all, as was the ridiculous and catastrophic policy of the last Labour Government.

And then the wing commander interrupted me, and for a glorious period I was at the controls of the Typhoon. I did a loop the loop and an aileron roll and a barrel roll, and then—I am coming to the point, Mr Speaker—I handed back the controls. In a few weeks’ time, that is exactly what I will do with this great party of ours. After three dynamic and exhilarating years in the cockpit, we will find a new leader, and we will coalesce in loyalty around him or her, and the vast twin Rolls-Royce engines of our Tory message, our Conservative values, will roar on: strong public services on the left and a dynamic free-market enterprise economy on the right, each boosting the other and developing trillions of pounds of thrust. The reason we will keep winning is that we are the only party that understands the need for both.

Whatever happens in this contest, we will continue to fight for the lowest possible taxes and the lightest possible regulation. The Opposition’s problem is that they would try to fly on one engine, kowtowing to the union barons, endlessly inflicting more tax and more spending, endlessly giving in to the temptation to regulate us back into the orbit of the European Union, and flying round in circles.

Some people will say, as I leave office, that this is the end of Brexit. Listen to the deathly hush on the Opposition Benches! The Leader of the Opposition and the deep state will prevail in their plot to haul us back into alignment with the EU as a prelude to our eventual return. We on this side of the House will prove them wrong, won’t we? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Some people will say that this is the end of our support for Ukraine. [Interruption.] That is exactly the analysis. The champanskoye corks have allegedly been popping in the Kremlin, just as the Islington lefties are toasting each other with their favourite “Keir Royale”. But I have no doubt that whoever takes over in a few weeks’ time will make sure that we keep together the global coalition in support of our Ukrainian friends.

Some people will say—and I think it was the Leader of the Opposition himself who said it—that my departure means the eventual victory of the Labour party. I believe that those on this side of the House will prove the Leader of the Opposition totally wrong, and that in due course we will walk the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras into the capsule at Newquay that I mentioned earlier, and send him into orbit, where he belongs. And I tell the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who speaks for the Scottish nationalists, that it is time for him to take his protein pill and put his helmet on, because I hear it will not be long before his own party is taking him to Shetland and propelling him to the heavens.

This Government have fought some of the hardest yards in modern political history. We have had to take some of the bleakest decisions since the war, and I believe that we got the big calls right. At the end of three years, this country is visibly using its newfound independence to turbocharge our natural advantage as the best place in the world not just to live and to invest but to bring up a family. With a new and incontrovertible spirit of global leadership, I believe that we can look to the future with rock-solid confidence not just in what this Government have done but in what they will do and will continue to do. I commend this motion to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I now call the Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, to respond.

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[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Chair has been very clear at times about being conscious of language. From my understanding, the Chancellor has denied that accusation. Perhaps you could guide the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) on how to temper his language.

[Mr Speaker]

What I will say is that I want everybody to think carefully about what they say in this Chamber and the effect it has on people, which does concern me. Neither the Clerks nor myself can hear a lot of what is being said. Could the House just turn it down so we can hear?

[Keir Starmer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

They all know it cannot go on. Just read their resignation letters. The right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) went after saying this is

“The last straw in the rolling chaos”.

The hon. and learned Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) had enough of “defending the indefensible.” And the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) simply said the Prime Minister is an

“apologist for someone who has committed sexual assault”.

When the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) resigned, he accused the Prime Minister of not conducting Government “properly, competently and seriously.” I presume he was talking about their appalling joint economic legacy of the highest inflation and the lowest growth in the G7, leaving us with the highest tax burden since rationing and with diminished public services. That is the record, but the rhetoric does not match it. He suggested the Prime Minister is not prepared to “work hard” or “take difficult decisions,” and he implied that the Prime Minister cannot tell the public the truth. They all read the letter, and they know what he said.

But this week, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) is trying to convince us to ignore all that—apparently, he has changed his mind; asked a straight question, he will not tell his party that the Prime Minister is dishonest. Now he is saying that the Prime Minister is actually a “remarkable” man with “a good heart”. It is pathetic; there can be no one worse placed to rebuild the economy than the man who broke it. There can be no one worse placed to restore trust than the man who propped up this totally untrustworthy Prime Minister.

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[Keir Starmer]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman realises why we are having this debate. It is because so many—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Holden, you, quite rightly, asked a question and, like yourself, I would like to hear the answers. Let’s move on.

[Keir Starmer]

We are having this debate because dozens of Front Benchers resigned their posts because they would not serve this Prime Minister. They are sacking him because he is untrustworthy. That is why we are having this debate. Normally in a debate such as this the Prime Minister asks for a vote of confidence so that he can carry on, but this one—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am very bothered about where this is going. The use of language needs to be brought into a more temperate manner and we need to calm it down. Let’s see how we can try to progress in a more orderly way, while being more temperate in what we are saying.

[Keir Starmer]

So, Mr Speaker, why are they leaving him with his hands on the levers of power for eight weeks? This is eight weeks where the British public must trust the word of a Prime Minister who has been sacked because he can’t be trusted; eight weeks where Britain will be represented abroad by someone who has lost all respect at home; and eight weeks of a caretaker Government led be an utterly careless Prime Minister. Anyone who thinks that doesn’t matter, and that these are just the quiet summer months when everyone goes to the beach, is in denial about the severity of the challenges our country faces.

The war in eastern Ukraine drags on; the Nord Stream pipeline has been shut down; flights are being cancelled left, right and centre; and Britain is facing an unprecedent heat wave, as our climate changes in front of our very eyes. These are serious challenges—[Interruption.] Conservative Members do not think that these are challenges. These are serious issues that will require serious leadership. Hard decisions will have to be made. This is not the summer for Downing Street to be occupied by a vengeful squatter mired in scandal. Every day they leave him there, every hustings they refuse to distance themselves from his appalling behaviour and every vote they cast today to prop him up is a dereliction of duty. It is a reminder that the Prime Minister has only been able to do what he has done because he is enabled by a corrupted Conservative party every step, every scandal and every party along the way.

I know that there has been fearmongering that this motion might lead straight to a general election. Sadly, that is complete nonsense, but you can see why they fear the electorate. After 12 years of failed Tory Government, Britain is stuck—stuck with a low-growth economy; stuck at home, unable to get a passport or a flight; stuck on the phone, trying to get a GP appointment. Our taxes are going up, food and energy bills are out of control, and the public services we rely on have simply stopped working. And every Tory standing to lead their party has given up on trying to defend—[Interruption.] Prime Minister, they have no confidence in you—that is why you are going. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We really are struggling to hear. I want to be able to hear, and then we can make better judgment calls. Both the Clerks and I are struggling. Please, can we calm it down and think about what we are saying?

[Keir Starmer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Britain deserves a fresh start with Labour, free from those who got us stuck in the first place, free from the chaotic Tory party and free from those who propped up this Prime Minister for months and months. And here is the difference: under my leadership, the Labour party has changed, and we are ready to do the same for the country—to get our economy growing, to revitalise our public services, and, after this Prime Minister has damaged everything around him, to clean up politics. This House should make a start by voting no confidence in this Prime Minister this evening.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

In June 2016, there was a vote of no confidence in the then leader of the Labour party. I do not know whether the present leader of the Labour party voted yes or no. If he can remember, did he vote confidence or no confidence in his predecessor?

In 2019, his predecessor moved a motion of no confidence in the Government, saying that the issue should be put to the people. It was put to the people in the 2019 general election, and the present Government came in with a majority of 80.

I have it on reasonable authority that the deputy leader of the Labour party has said today that Boris was, in effect, the magic that helped. [Interruption.] I am glad that the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) has confirmed that.

The issue before the House now is whether people would have any more confidence in the Labour party becoming a Government, and the answer is no.

In June 2016, when the then leader of the Labour party lost the no confidence vote by 172 votes to 40—the 40 may have included the current Leader of the Opposition—20 of the shadow Cabinet had walked out, but the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) walked in. The interesting question is whether the way in which he has spoken today is part of a leadership bid to take over the Labour party properly rather than just in name.

He describes himself as red and green, but mixing red and green together produces an unpleasant kind of brown. Does he accept that the Labour party is not yet trusted by the British people?

By voting confidence in the Government, this House will be saying, as the British people did in 2019, that we prefer us in government, not them.

That is not to say that the Government have got everything right. If I were taking part in the Thursday Sir David Amess debate, I could list the things on which the Government could make changes.

I want them to drop the privatisation of Channel 4, as there is no point in it, and I want them to reconsider the question of whether the Holocaust Memorial should be in Victoria Tower Gardens. There are a number of other issues that I could take up.

The issue today is: do we want to change the party of Government, and the answer is no. I rest my case there.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the SNP.

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[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am relieved that we can hear the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, and that we no longer have the Prime Minister bawling at those who are speaking as he leaves the Chamber. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what we want over this period of change is dignity? We want dignity in the House and dignity in the country, and we did not see that from the Prime Minister in his behaviour on the Front Bench today.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think I make that decision, and I do not need any recommendations. The behaviour on both sides has not been exceptional today. Come on, Ian.

[Ian Blackford]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, although I have to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. This is important. These are matters that are of interest to the public, and we need to treat each other with a degree of respect and dignity.

Let us come back to the Prime Minister. He broke his own laws in office and he broke international law, but the thing that ultimately brought him down was the fact that he could never, ever be trusted with the truth. That is the record, and that is now the Prime Minister’s legacy. He should not be allowed any room to rewrite that record and that legacy—even for seven weeks. It has not escaped anyone’s notice that this Prime Minister has lived his life thinking that the world owes him a living. He has not had the grace to stay today to hear the opening speeches in this debate. That tells us everything that we need to know.

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[Ian Blackford]

My goodness! The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have respect for him, but there for all to see is the lack of compassion, decency, humanity or recognition that people in highland constituencies are not getting the benefits that other people are getting. That is what happens with this Conservative Government.

Let us come back to the Prime Minister and his sense of entitlement—that he deserved to be Prime Minister, that he deserved to be above the rules and that he deserves the dignity of staying in office over the summer. But this place and the public owe him nothing. Only this weekend, he again showed why he is unfit for office by skipping Cobra meetings to do his favourite thing: attend yet another party. Another party! That is one thing that we might have thought he would learn. After being caught breaking his own laws and being fined by the Metropolitan police—the only Prime Minister in history to be fined in office—he turns his back on his obligations at a time of emergency over the effect of global warming, and he attends parties. That tells us everything that we need to know about the priorities of this Prime Minister. People have suffered enough under this most careless, casual and reckless inhabitant ever to have been entrusted with the office of Prime Minister. He does not deserve another day, never mind another seven weeks.

As well as casting verdict on the Prime Minister, today is also the chance to hold to account those who propped up his Government for so long. With every new candidate and every new campaign video for the Tory leadership, we are bombarded with talk of fresh starts and of hitting the reset button. I hate to break it to those candidates, but it is not lost on any of us that most of that talk is coming from the same people who backed this Prime Minister from day one and sat around his Cabinet table until the very end. Try as they might, they cannot hide the uncomfortable truth that they want us all to magically forget—that their party has been in power for 12 deeply damaging years. Fresh starts, new starts or clean starts simply do not exist after 12 years of the chaos that now defines their time in charge, and definitely not when they have already failed to get rid of the Prime Minister they put in power.

The herd might have moved last week, but it has very quickly fallen back in line and reverted to Tory type, as we have seen this afternoon. The Tories have stayed with this Prime Minister until the bitterest of ends, and today proves that they are staying with him still. Their failure to get rid of him means that we now finally need get rid of the lot of them, because today proves another thing: the only fresh start that will work is a general election—an election that will offer the Scottish people the chance and the choice of an independent future. On these Benches, we relish that campaign and the choice that is coming.

The need to put an end to this Tory Government is underlined by the terrifying spectacle of the leadership race under way throughout this building. No sooner had the race begun than it became clear that it was not just a race to get into Downing Street; it was a race to the toxic right. The policy proposals so far have amounted to tax cuts for the rich at the same time as millions of families are struggling to put food on the table, to watering down our climate targets when we can literally feel temperatures soaring, particularly in this place, and to doubling down on the hostile environment when the Rwanda policy has already gone beyond the point of morality.

The new Tory vision of these candidates is every bit as disturbing as the old one. While they are tearing lumps out of each other in this contest, they are ignoring the very thing that they are all responsible for: the Tory cost of living crisis ripping through every household on these islands. The contest has also exposed that they are completely out of credibility. Never again can those on the Conservative Benches claim economic literacy. During this leadership campaign, the Tory candidates have not just discovered a magic money tree; they have apparently found a magic money forest. The billions in tax breaks for the rich that they are bidding over always come at a price for the poor.

One of the most telling insights of the contest came from the current Chancellor, whose policy is to cut 20% from all public spending. That means 20% cuts to the NHS, to welfare and to our Scottish Parliament. The Tories imposed one decade of devastating austerity, and now it seems the new Tory vision is gearing up to inflict another. If ever there was a reason to vote no confidence today, surely that is it.

Of course, we on the SNP Benches are now well used to our country’s constitutional future being discussed and dictated by Tory politicians and Governments, who Scotland has not voted for or had any confidence in since 1955. The last number of weeks have been no different. It turns out that democracy denial was not just an attitude of the Prime Minister; it is now official Tory policy. The idea of a voluntary union of nations was clearly dead and buried long ago according to the Tory party, because every single candidate for the Tory leadership has fallen over themselves to tell us just how they are going to deny Scottish democracy—and we know why. They have long since run out of ideas and run of road in defending the Union, so now they are running scared of democracy.

I am genuinely sorry to say that the Labour party has now joined in that too. In the space of the last week, the leader of Labour party told us he was ruling out two things. The first was an independence referendum that—let us not forget—the Scottish people have voted for. The second was a return to the European single market and freedom of movement. He did not rule that out for now; he ruled it out forever. So not only will this place and these parties try to deny our right to a democratic vote on our future, but they will forever deny our return to the European Union.

If ever there were two motivating arguments to secure our independence, surely there they are. If that is really the Better Together strategy, it is in worse trouble than I even thought. The crucial point that those reunited Better Together parties need to understand fully is this: not only does Scotland have no confidence in this Tory Government, we have no confidence in Westminster control over our country. The parties here might not like it, they might try to deny it, but that is democracy—and them’s the breaks.

We want a different future—a future where we get Governments we vote for, where our democratically elected Parliament cannot be overridden and undermined, and where we have a secure foundation on which to build the economic and social future that we want. We want a new Scotland at the heart of the European Union. That is the future we can have confidence in. We have lost control in this place; we have lost confidence in Westminster.

[Mr Speaker]

Lots of Members want to speak in this debate. To try to accommodate them, can we start off by aiming for four minutes per speech?