Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the Prime Minister, may I express, on behalf of the House, our best wishes to President Biden and Vice-President Harris on this, their inauguration day?

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 20 January.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

We have instituted one of the toughest border regimes in the world, and it was only last March that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, along with many others in his party, was continuing to support an open border approach. I must say that the whole experience of listening to him over the past few months has been like watching a weather vane spin round and round, depending on where the breezes are blowing. We are getting on with tackling this pandemic through the most practical means available to us, rolling out a vaccine programme that has now inoculated 4.2 million people in our country, whereas he would have joined the EU scheme, I seem to remember. He attacked the vaccine taskforce, which secured the supplies on which we are now relying. And he stood on a manifesto at the last election to unbundle the very pharmaceutical companies on whose breakthroughs this country is now relying. The Opposition continue to look backwards, play politics and snipe from the sidelines. We look forwards and get on with the job.

[Mr Speaker]

Let the weather vane take me up to Aylesbury and Rob Butler.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con) [V]]

The national roll-out of covid-19 vaccinations is a tremendous success story, but it is only in the past few days that over-80-year-olds in Aylesbury have been able to get their first jabs. Many of my constituents have contacted me to say that they are frustrated and worried that they have been either forgotten or pushed to the back of the queue. Can my right hon. Friend assure them that everybody in the Aylesbury area in the most vulnerable groups will be vaccinated by the middle of February?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is very important that the Prime Minister of the UK has the best possible relationship with the President of the United States—that is part of the job description, as I think all sensible Opposition Members would acknowledge. When it comes to global leadership on the world stage, this country is embarking on a quite phenomenal year. We have the G7 and COP 26, and we have already led the world with the Gavi summit for global vaccination, raising $8.8 billion. The UK is the first major country in the world to set a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050—all other countries are following, and we hope that President Biden will join us. We are working to promote global free trade, and of course we will work with President Biden to secure the transatlantic alliance and NATO, which of course the Scottish nationalist party would unbundle—I think they would; I do not know what their policy is on our armed services, but I think they would break them up. Perhaps they would like to explain.

[Mr Speaker]

It is the Scottish National party, Prime Minister. I know you keep having a memory lapse on it.

I call Ian Blackford. [Interruption.] I think we have somehow lost Ian Blackford; we will come back to him.

I call Nicola Richards.

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Mr Speaker]

Nicola, you are muted. Press the mic.

[Nicola Richards]

I am not muted. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

[Mr Speaker]

Yes. Get the question in—the Prime Minister is desperate to hear it.

[Nicola Richards]

Can you hear me? It’s not working.

[Mr Speaker]

We will come back to Nicola. Let us move on to Ed Davey.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) [V]]

Good afternoon Mr Speaker. May I add my warmest of welcomes to President Biden and Vice-President Harris on their inauguration in Washington today?

In answer to my question in July, the Prime Minister promised an independent inquiry into the UK’s response to covid. In the six months since, covid cases have soared, our NHS is on its knees, and 50,000 more people have died. The UK now has one of the highest death rates in the world—higher, even, than Trump’s America. To learn the lessons from what has gone so devastatingly wrong under his leadership, will the Prime Minister commit to launching this year the inquiry that he promised last year?

[Mr Speaker]

Let us reconnect with Ian Blackford for his second question.

[Ian Blackford [V]]

I think people would find the Prime Minister’s claims about the UK’s global leadership a bit more believable if last night he had not ordered his MPs to vote down an amendment to the Trade Bill that would have prevented trade deals with countries that commit genocide. Genocide is not a matter of history; it is happening in our world right now. The international community has stood idly by as Uyghur Muslim men, women and children are forced into concentration camps in China’s Xinjiang province. Yesterday, the outgoing US Secretary of State officially said that genocide was taking place, and the incoming Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, agrees with his view. Is the Prime Minister prepared to follow that lead? Is he prepared to stand up today and clearly state that genocide is being committed against the Uyghur population in China? If he is, will he work urgently with the new Biden Administration to bring the matter to the UN Security Council—

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Prime Minister.

[Ian Blackford]

So that international pressure can be brought to bear on China?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that the attribution of genocide is a judicial matter, but I can say for myself that I regard what is happening in Xinjiang to the Uyghurs as utterly abhorrent, and I know that Members from all parties in the House share that view. I commend to the right hon. Gentleman the excellent statement made recently by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on what is happening there, the steps we are taking to prevent British commercial engagement with goods that are made by forced labour in Xinjiang and the steps we are taking against what is happening.

I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in all sincerity, what he would propose by way of a Scottish national—not nationalist but national—foreign policy: would he break up the FCDO, which, after all, has a big branch in East Kilbride?

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head to West Bromwich again with Nicola Richards.

[Nicola Richards [V]]

    Next week, we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis, and pay tribute to the extraordinary survivors. Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking the Holocaust Educational Trust for organising a live webcast so that students throughout the country can tune in on 26 January to hear the testimony of survivor Eve Kugler? Will he join me in asking all Members to encourage their local schools to join Q3 Academy Great Barr, from West Bromwich East, in taking part?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab) [V]]

  Lorries containing food produce sitting idle for days is a stark reminder that, if post-Brexit Britain is to be self-sufficient, protecting our food production through infrastructure investment is crucial. Will the Prime Minister provide the infrastructure investment essential to tackling flooding in West Lancashire by giving the Environment Agency enough funding both to keep the Alt Crossens pumps operational and to maintain the watercourses? That will be vital to ensure that the rich food-producing lands of West Lancashire, which are essential to the security of food supplies and our local and national economy, are better defended—

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Prime Minister; we have to get through the questions.

[The Prime Minister]

I could have heard almost any amount about the rich food-producing parts of West Lancashire: the hon. Lady is entirely right, and we will protect those areas. She is entirely right to call for flood defences. That is why we put £5.2 billion over six years into flood defences, including the Crossens pumping station refurbishment scheme that she mentions, in which we have invested £5.7 million to protect nearly 4,000 homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I do indeed. I believe that the G7 summit in Carbis Bay will be an opportunity to not only bring the world together to tackle covid, to build back better, to champion global free trade and to combat climate change but also to showcase that wonderful part of the United Kingdom and all the incredible technological developments happening there, such as Newquay space port, Goonhilly earth station and lithium mining. Cornwall led the way—I think the Romans mined tin in Cornwall, did they not? I have a feeling they did, and, indeed, the copper mines there were at the heart of the UK industrial revolution. What is going on in Cornwall today shows that Cornwall is once again at the heart of the 21st-century UK green industrial revolution.

[Mr Speaker]

I am suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business to be made.