Lindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)Department Debates - View all Lindsay Hoyle's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberJust days after the Glasgow COP ended, Tory Ministers were wining and dining with senior fossil fuel executives, including from Shell and BP, apparently to urge them to keep on drilling for oil and gas in the North sea. As COP President, does he not agree that, instead of being in the pockets of fossil fuel giants, Ministers should be following the United Nations’ call for an end to all new fossil fuel projects—[Interruption.]
Order. Topicals are meant to be short and quick. You cannot have a full statement—other people have got to get in.
The hon. Gentleman is definitely making my job harder by the amount of hot air he is emitting—I wonder whether he will offset those emissions. Let me be clear that we have a commitment to have a managed transition in our energy mix, and that is what we are doing.
I am not going to take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman. He knows very well that the Government are working very closely with the sector. He knows that we have put in place a price cap, and he knows that, when it comes to jobs, this Government are investing, and we want to see 2 million green jobs created over the coming decades.
Order. [Interruption.] I certainly do not expect any more. For the moment, we have one more question before Prime Minister’s questions.
If the Government had not scrapped the green homes grant last year, they would have saved thousands of households money. When will the Government reform and bring back the green homes grant?
The British Sign Language interpretation of proceedings is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.
Can I start by warmly welcoming—[Interruption.] Can I start—[Interruption.]
Order. I expect people to listen to the Prime Minister. I certainly do not want the Leader of the Opposition to be shouted down. You might not like the day, but this is the day that we have got.
I am not bothered, Mr Speaker. I assumed it was directed at the Prime Minister. [Laughter.]
Can I start by warmly welcoming my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) to his new place in the House and to the parliamentary Labour party? Like so many people up and down the country, he has concluded that the Prime Minister and the Conservative party have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and Government this country deserves, whereas the Labour party stands ready to provide an alternative Government that the country can be proud of. The Labour party has changed and so has the Conservative party. He, and anyone else who wants to build a new Britain built on decency, security, prosperity and respect, is welcome in my Labour party.
Every week, the Prime Minister offers absurd and frankly unbelievable defences to the Downing Street parties, and each week it unravels. [Interruption.]
I have been elected to the Chair. I do not need to be told how to conduct the business. If somebody wants to do some direction, I will start directing them out of the Chamber.
The Conservative Members are very noisy. I am sure the Chief Whip has told them to bring their own boos! [Laughter.]
Order. Let us try to get on with questions. It is going to be a long day otherwise.
First, the Prime Minister said there were no parties. Then the video landed, blowing that defence out of the water. Next, he said he was sickened and furious when he found out about the parties, until it turned out that he himself was at the Downing Street garden party. Then, last week, he said he did not realise he was at a party and—surprise, surprise—no one believed him. So this week he has a new defence: “Nobody warned me that it was against the rules.” That is it—nobody told him! Since the Prime Minister wrote the rules, why on earth does he think his new defence is going to work for him?
The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about the rules. Let me repeat what I said to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) across the aisle earlier on. Of course, we must wait for the outcome of the inquiry, but I renew what I have said. When it comes to his view—[Interruption.]
Order. Can we have a little less? I want to hear the Prime Minister like I wanted to hear the Leader of the Opposition. I want the same courtesy from both sides.
If we had listened to the right hon. and learned Gentleman about covid restrictions, which is the substance of his question, then we would have been in lockdown after July. This is the truth. If we had listened to the Labour Front Bench in the run-up to Christmas and new year, we would have stayed in restrictions, with huge damage to the economy. It is because of the judgments I have taken and we have taken in Downing Street that we now have the fastest-growing economy in the G7 and GDP is now back up above pre-pandemic levels.
As for Bury South—[Interruption.] As for Bury South, let me say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Conservative party won Bury South for the first time in generations under this Prime Minister, with an agenda of uniting, levelling up and delivering for the people of Bury South, and we will win again in Bury South at the next election under this Prime Minister.
Order. Look, it is important that I hear, and I want to hear both sides. I do not want this continuous chant. If it continues, there will be fewer people on the Conservative Benches, and the same on the Labour side. I expect both sides to be heard with courtesy. [Interruption.]
Bury South is now a Labour seat, Prime Minister. [Interruption.]
Order. Did somebody want me to apologise? Somebody shouted, “Apologise”. I hope it was not aimed at me. We will also have less from that corner.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Not only did the Prime Minister write the rules, but some of his staff say they did warn him about attending the party on 20 May 2020. I have heard the Prime Minister’s very carefully crafted response to that accusation; it almost sounds like a lawyer wrote it, so I will be equally careful with my question. When did the Prime Minister first become aware that any of his staff had concerns about the 20 May party?
I understand why the right hon. and learned Gentleman continues to politicise—
We normally would not, and quite rightly, mention the royal family. We do not get into discussions on the royal family.
In that case, I must ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to withdraw his question.
I have dealt with it. [Interruption.] Order. Prime Minister, we do not want to go through that again. I will make the decisions. The answer is that we are going back to Keir Starmer so that he can ask his final question.
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
While the Prime Minister wastes energy defending the indefensible, people’s energy bills are rocketing. Labour has a plan to deal with it: axe VAT for everyone, provide extra support for the hardest hit, and pay for it with a one-off tax on oil and gas companies—a serious plan for a serious problem. What are the Government offering? Nothing. They are too distracted by their own chaos to do their job. While Labour was setting out plans to heat homes, the Prime Minister was buying a fridge to keep the party wine chilled. While we were setting out plans to keep bills down, he was planning parties. While we were setting out plans to save jobs in the steel industry, he was trying to save just one job: his own. Does not the country deserve so much better than this out-of-touch, out-of-control, out-of-ideas and soon to be out-of-office Prime Minister?
I will tell you what this Government have been doing to look after the people of this country throughout this pandemic and beyond. We have been cutting the cost of living and helping them with the living wage. We have been cutting taxes for people on low pay. We have been increasing payments for people suffering the costs of fuel—
Order. Can I just say to everyone here that our constituents want to hear the questions and the answers? The great British public—the members of this United Kingdom whom you are representing—need to hear. Please, let us hear the questions and answers.
We will continue to look after people throughout this pandemic and beyond, but we have also been cutting crime by 10% and putting 11,000 more police officers out on the streets. There was record home building last year—more homes that at any time in the last 30 years. We are building 40 new hospitals. Gigabit broadband has gone up from 9% coverage in our country to 65% already. As I said already—I think three or four times today—we have more employees on the payroll now than before the pandemic began, and youth unemployment is at a record low.
When the history of this pandemic comes to be written and the history of the Labour party comes to be written—believe me, it is history and will remain history—it will show that we delivered while they dithered, and that we vaccinated while they vacillated. The reason we have been able to lift restrictions faster than any other country in Europe, and we have the most open economy and the most open society in Europe, is thanks to the booster roll-out and thanks to the work of staff up and down Whitehall, across Government and throughout the NHS, and I am intensely proud of what this Government have done.
Order. You’ll get more if you let the questions come. I call Mark Pawsey.
Order. I know that you are repeating what your constituents said, but I want more moderate and temperate language. Prime Minister, you might want to deal just with the general question, and certainly not the end of it.
Mr Speaker, I think that was a question for you rather than me. Look, I have made my point. I think that the British public have responded to what the Government have had to say in the most eloquent way possible. They have beaten covid so far. They have helped to defeat covid so far with the steps that they have taken by getting vaccinated and implementing plan B, and I thank them.
Just for the Prime Minister and for the record, it is not Speaker’s questions.
Like many on the Government Benches, I have spent weeks and months defending the Prime Minister against often angry constituents. I have reminded them of his success in delivering Brexit and the vaccines, and many other things. But I expect my leaders to shoulder the responsibility for the actions they take. Yesterday the Prime Minister did the opposite of that, so I will remind him of a quotation that will be altogether too familiar to him. Leo Amery said to Neville Chamberlain:
“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing… In the name of God, go.”—[Official Report, 7 May 1940; Vol. 360, c. 1150.]—[Interruption.]
I must say to my right hon. Friend that I do not know what he is talking about. I do not know what quotation he is alluding to. What I can tell him, as I have told the House repeatedly throughout the pandemic, is that I take full responsibility for everything done in this Government, and throughout the pandemic.