Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I speak for all my constituents in Nuneaton when I speak of our deep sadness at Queen Elizabeth’s passing and our gratitude for her long and distinguished reign. On behalf of my constituents, I convey our deepest condolences to King Charles III and our late Queen’s family.

Like a number of Members who have spoken today, I have had the absolute honour and privilege of being the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and the Comptroller of the Household. When I was made Vice-Chamberlain, I was dispatched to the palace with my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who spoke earlier. We did the exchange of wands of office with Her Majesty. I was as nervous as a kitten, but it went extremely well and I was very pleased with myself.

Moments later, I was handed a Humble Address that I was to ask Her Majesty to sign, which I would then bring back and deliver in the House, as per the norm. I went back into the room and handed Her Majesty the Humble Address. She looked at me and said, “I don’t have a pen.” I searched around frantically inside my jacket—it seemed like an age, but it was only a few seconds—and I said, “Ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t have a pen either.” Quick as a flash, she said, “Don’t worry. Follow me.” All of a sudden I was on this surreal journey, trailing in the wake of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II along this long corridor—stopping on the way to give a bit of a fuss to one of the corgis.

We came to the Queen’s study, and I could see the volume of papers and the number of red boxes. This was two weeks before the first lockdown, and I could see the number of things that the Queen was doing at that time on our behalf. She signed the Humble Address with her own pen and then asked me about my wife and family. It was fantastic, and I came out of that room feeling on top of the world. It would not matter whether the Queen was talking to a President, a Prime Minister, a schoolchild on a school visit, or a patient in a hospital or a hospice, all of them would have gone away with exactly the same feeling. That was one of Her Majesty’s abiding qualities among many others. Thank you, Ma’am, for your dedication and service to our nation. God save the King.

Priorities for Government

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are appointing a fantastic team that will take this country forward. It is absolutely astonishing: the hon. Gentleman talks of the campaign to leave the European Union; Opposition Members voted to trigger article 50. It is an utter disgrace that they are now trying to reverse that result.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s programme for government. As he employs an additional 20,000 police officers, can he ensure that county areas such as Warwickshire get their fair share?

[The Prime Minister]

Not only that, we must do much more to ensure that police in rural areas get out to victims of crime in a timely and efficient way. I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be insisting on that as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Q1. If she will list her official engagements for Wednesday 19 June.

[The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)]

Today marks two years since the terror attack on the Finsbury Park mosque. It was a truly cowardly and depraved attack that was intended to divide us. Instead, London remains united, and it is London’s diverse communities that make London the world’s greatest capital city.

In recent days and weeks we have seen flooding across the country, which has been particularly severe in Lincolnshire. I know that the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to the work of the emergency services, our military, the Environment Agency and all those who have been working on the ground to support the communities affected. The Government stand ready to respond and offer all assistance where required.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Mr Jones]

I associate myself and the whole House with the comments that the Prime Minister has made about the Finsbury Park mosque attack and the flooding in Lincolnshire.

If our town centres are to survive and thrive, we need more people living in them, more people working in them and more people spending their leisure time in them. I welcome the future high streets fund and commend to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the important bid that has been made by Nuneaton. Will she speak to her Ministers and ask them to look on that bid very favourably?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to say that high streets are changing, and we are committed to helping communities to adapt. He set out some of the things he wants to see if those high streets are to continue to thrive. As he said, we have provided £675 million through the future high streets fund. I am pleased to hear about the Transforming Nuneaton programme, which I understand aims to increase footfall and drive economic growth. Nuneaton’s bid for the future high streets fund is currently under consideration, and we hope to announce the bids that have been successful in going forward to the business case development phase in the summer.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, I observe that many of them held the most senior positions in government but, when the going got tough, found life was much easier by leaving those positions, failing to deliver and failing to live up to the responsibility placed on them by their leadership of the leave campaign.

My constituents who are watching at home, reading the reports or, in any event, aware of the current situation are aghast, and I know I am not alone. Other right hon. and hon. Members have received emails and letters from constituents who are worried, and we have already heard about the availability, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, of medicines or, in one instance, of special food for a child with a particular allergy. Yet there are Conservative Members who actually look forward to and welcome a no-deal Brexit. It has to be said yet again that, in the words of the Business Secretary, that would be the most “ruinous” of outcomes for our country.

On that lack of certainty for businesses, let us consider a pharmaceutical company in Broxtowe. It is just in my constituency, although the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) might want to claim it as well—it is all about a line that goes through a car park. However, I know that she shares my concern for this real-life business that employs real people. At the moment, such is the crisis that it does not know what to print on its boxes, because it does not know what the outcome is going to be. That may sound minor, but it shows the problem, because too many Conservative Members do not understand the real crisis facing businesses. [Interruption.] One Conservative Member seems to find this amusing. I think this is the problem: some hon. Members actually think that a company of that scale, with 850 workers—one can imagine the huge amount of pharmaceutical products that they produce every day—can go down to Prontaprint on a Friday and order all these boxes with all the right markings on, and they will be ready on a Monday. I gently say to Conservative Members—

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[Anna Soubry]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I can tell him for a fact that British business will never forgive the Conservative party for what it has done to business throughout the whole of this Brexit process. Many of us have said this all before, but it is absolutely the case that people like me voted to trigger article 50—the majority of us did. The majority of us voted for the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and the majority of us accepted that we were leaving the European Union. As the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) has explained, we then reached out to find a way of reuniting our country and a way in which we could deliver on the result but do the right thing by British business, by minimising the effect on it, and of course avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland.

In our efforts, we made direct pleas to the Prime Minister in meetings with her and offered her a solution, knowing, for example, that the Scottish National party would have voted for the single market and the customs union, as would Plaid Cymru and many Labour Back Benchers. We would have won a consensus, but she point-blank refused to engage in that. Instead, this Prime Minister has led us—it is the only thing on which she has led—to this terrible situation. She was dogmatic in laying down her red lines, and at every twist and turn when she had the opportunity to change those red lines or just rub them out a little she refused.

I say to Conservative Members that what almost all of them have also spectacularly forgotten is that when we had the general election in June 2017, more than 30 Conservative Members of Parliament in England and Wales lost their seats. The Conservative party lost its majority; there is no mandate for hard Brexit. That was the perfect opportunity for the Prime Minister to abandon the red lines and seek to form the consensus that the country was crying out for, but, yet again, she absolutely refused to do it. It ended up with people, not just those like me, leaving the Conservative party. I represent many sensible, moderate, pragmatic, one nation Tories who are leaving the Conservative party as they see it moving to the right, no longer the party of business and enterprise, and no longer having the one nation Conservatism that so many of us held so near to us. Having failed to persuade the Prime Minister to reach out and build a consensus, we ended up in a position where the only way out that we could see for our great nation was to have a people’s vote.

Others have spoken about what happened on Saturday. It was a real honour and privilege to be here in London and go on that march with people from all over the UK. These were not, as one Conservative Member described them, just fans of the Glyndebourne opera; they were real people from not only my constituency—and of all backgrounds and all ages—but from, for example, the constituency of the hon. Member for Redcar. I know she was heartbroken that she had another engagement and so she could not be here. We know that workers came down from the north-east. The really striking thing was not only people’s background, but to see children with their parents and grandparents, all of them marching in a spirit of hope and happiness, even though they were upset about the referendum result.

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I rise to support the Government and to speak against this motion. In doing that, I will talk about the record of this Government and the issue that has triggered today’s vote: yesterday’s Brexit vote.

To put our record in context, everything the Conservatives have done in government since 2010 has had to be framed in the context of the recession, the massive deficit and mess left behind by the Labour party. Despite the mess left behind—the 6% drop in GDP, the 800,000 more people unemployed—under this Conservative party, 3.4 million jobs have been created, we have record employment and record unemployment, we have provided 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds and 30 hours of free childcare for working parents, and the national living wage. We have cut income tax so that people can now earn double nearly what they could under the Labour party before paying income tax. We have not increased fuel duty for eight years and many more of our children are coming out of primary school with a far higher standard of reading and writing than previously. We have more doctors and nurses in our hospitals. We have fewer infections and people dying because of those in our hospitals, and we are putting £20 billion into the NHS and have a 10-year plan for the NHS, under which we are putting significantly more money into mental health provision. In my constituency, the Labour party tried to close A&E and maternity, so Labour does not have the record it states or thinks it has.

Have we got everything right? No, we have not got everything right in government. There is still a lot more to do. We need to make sure we build on the money and extra resources that we are now putting into the police force. We need to make sure we honour the commitment to halve and end rough sleeping. We need to make sure we keep refining universal credit to get it right, because having a system that gets people into work is the right thing to do. The alternative is more debt, more borrowing and a leadership team that does not believe in this country and thinks more about other countries than its own.

We are here because of the Brexit debate, and Opposition Members have talked about nothing but red lines today. Whether we like what the Prime Minister put on the table yesterday or not, the red lines that she put down were based solely on the referendum in which the British public voted and on manifestos that about 85% of the public voted for. Despite problems across the House and people driving their own agendas, she has tried her best to get a deal that the House can agree with. Clearly, it does not do so, but I say to Opposition Members that this House voted to have a referendum and the public voted for Brexit. We must deliver on that.

People do not want a general election. They want us to get on with the job and come out of the European Union, and they want us to come together as a House to do that in a sensible way. They do not want a general election, as they do not believe that the Leader of the Opposition is a Prime Minister in waiting. They do not believe that he could be a Prime Minister. I am against this motion and I will be proud to go through the Lobby and vote to back this Government tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to follow what I will say was a textbook speech from the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp). I agreed with a great deal of what the Leader of the Opposition said in his opening speech and certainly with many of the passionate contributions from my hon. Friends. The past eight years of Conservative or Conservative-led Government have put great strain on our communities. The very fabric that holds our public services and the voluntary sector together has been stretched, because of wrong decisions made by Governments over recent years, which have had an intolerable impact on many people’s lives. We have to get justice for the WASPI women; we must put schools and hospitals on a better footing; and, my goodness, we have to sort out our train system, because what is happening in my constituency has been at the worst end of what Northern rail has been inflicting on passengers.

We are now in a dire situation following yesterday’s monumental defeat, and this country is facing a national emergency. However, what makes this an almost uniquely serious situation is that this motion of no confidence cannot be taken in a vacuum, because it would lead to a general election that would give the public a choice between a Government that are struggling to govern and a Leader of the Opposition and shadow Chancellor who—I have not changed my view—are simply not fit to hold high office. The public deserve so much better than this choice in this broken political system. They deserve leadership that will right the terrible injustices that have been inflicted on our communities and take them out of this Brexit mess, and they deserve a Government that they can trust to keep them secure.

Aside from the Leader of the Opposition’s past positions, of which there has been much discussion today, let me focus on the nuclear deterrent, which is central to my constituency. I have spent many years as an Opposition MP working with my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), to keep the Labour party’s policy sensible on the face of it. However, do my colleagues really think that, with the spending crisis that any future Labour Government will inherit, we would spend many billions of pounds to maintain a submarine system that the Leader of the Opposition will have rendered useless on day one by saying that he would never use it? That is not a serious proposition.

With a heavy heart, I must tell the House that I cannot support the no-confidence motion tonight—[Interruption.] Some of my hon. Friends mutter, “Disgrace,” and I hear others tutting, but many of them are probably privately saying, “Thank God that you have the freedom not to support the motion,” because they are wrestling with their consciences. They desperately want a Labour Government, but they know that their party’s leader is as unfit to lead the country as he was when they voted against him in the no-confidence motion three years ago.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

I can understand the hon. Gentleman’s dilemma. What would be the effect on his area if we were to abandon the nuclear programme that this country has pursued for decades?

[John Woodcock]

Barrow-in-Furness is a shipyard town, and the programme is woven into our history. More than 9,000 people in my constituency are directly employed by it, and many more depend upon it. The Leader of the Opposition represents a chance that they cannot afford to take. The Prime Minister must reach out more than she has done in the Chamber today. She must unshackle herself from the hard-line Brexiteers who have led her down the wrong path.

I will commit to trying every day to give my constituents the chance of better leadership for this country. While we are in this impasse, I will do my best to deliver for them. I have been pleased to work with the Government to unlock the marina project, which is vital to the future of the local economy, and on the submarine programme, which is bringing great prosperity to the area. Much more is needed, but I will carry on with that work.

Leaving the EU

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The spending promises on the NHS were clearly dealt with at the Budget in November.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

When we consider this important issue, there will always be risks and there will always be trade-offs. When I assess the options in front of me, I consider that the Prime Minister’s deal—the one she has gone and fought hard for with the European Union—does honour the referendum: it makes sure that we get control of our borders, our money and our laws. It may not be an easy way to get there, but there was never going to be an easy way. I have been listening since the start of her statement, and I have heard many Opposition Members, and one or two Conservative Members, say that we should rerun the people’s vote of 2016. Can she reassure me that we will not countenance that because, in all this, it is a real risk to democracy?

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I apologise to the House because I think I just made a reference, as I did earlier, to the Budget being in November, and in fact it was in October? My hon. Friend is absolutely right; everybody needs to look at what is going to deliver on the vote of the British people. Saying to the British people, as some people who talk about a second referendum are, in a sense, doing, “You got the answer wrong. You’ve got to think again,” is not what we should be doing. Some 80% of the votes cast at the last general election were for parties that stood on manifesto commitments to deliver on the vote of the British people and deliver Brexit, and we should do just that.

Progress on EU Negotiations

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right in this sense: the alternative arrangements or indeed the extension of the implementation period could be chosen as a means of ensuring that the backstop was not put into place. I talked about the period of time for which the backstop would be in place, were it ever used, and it is absolutely clear in a number of ways throughout this document that it is only intended to be temporary, because it is intended to cover an interim period before the future relationship comes into place. The best way for us to be able to guarantee our commitment to the people of Northern Ireland on having no hard border is through our future relationship, which will be the permanent relationship and which will ensure that we deliver on that commitment.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

The majority of my constituents voted to leave the EU. Many of those people are among the thousands of workers in my constituency who work in manufacturing or in the logistics industry, which completely depend on being able to move goods across borders. My constituents voted to get control of our money, laws and borders, but I am sure that in doing that they were also expecting that manufacturing industry and logistics would be able to continue to operate properly, so that we maintain their jobs and can create more jobs in the future to go with them. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that is exactly what she is trying to achieve in the work she is doing on behalf of the British people?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many people, his constituents and others, voted leave in order to bring back control of our money, laws and borders, but of course they also have wanted to ensure that those jobs were there for them and their children in the future. Our support for manufacturing industry is an important part of that and that is exactly what this deal delivers.

Pairing

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

An error took place. Full apologies have been given.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

This looks to have been a genuine error, for which a sincere apology has been given. My right hon. Friend has made it clear that this type of error has happened not just on the Government side but on both sides of the House, so I find the level of faux outrage in some quarters very strange. The system generally works well, and I would encourage him not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to work with his counterparts, particularly in the Whips Offices of other parties, to make sure that the system can be looked at and improved on to avoid these types of errors, which are clearly happening on the Government side and in other parties.

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend gives good advice that I am sure my colleagues in the Whips Office will wish to follow.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady complains to me that we want decisions to be taken at local level by the NHS, but I believe it is absolutely right that decisions are taken at local level. When the NHS takes those decisions, the important thing is that it puts the interests of patients, the safety of patients and the treatment of patients first. She has raised this particular issue, and I continue to believe that it is right not for politicians here to make a decision like that but for actual clinicians and others working in the national health service to do so.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Q14. I celebrated the 70th birthday of our NHS with patients and the fabulous staff at the Oakwood day mental health hospital in Nuneaton. Mental health has always been the Cinderella of the NHS. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking our doctors and nurses who work in mental health, and will she say what more we can do to improve mental health and what resources the Government will put into that?

[The Prime Minister]

I join my hon. Friend in commending the work that is done by all our dedicated staff in the national health service. They continue to do that wonderful work with considerable commitment and dedication. He is right to say that mental health is important. It has been overlooked for too long, and that is why this Government have been putting a focus on mental health. We have been doing more, but there is more to be done. We are putting more money in, and we have announced a new package of measures backed by £6 million in funding, which includes rapid access to mental health services and support for children and their whole families where there is a dependent drinker. Spending overall on mental health issues is at record levels and growing, with a planned record £11.86 billion for 2017-18, increasing by a further £1 billion by 2020-21. It is right that we put this important focus on mental health, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising this.

Leaving the EU: Negotiations

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I will tell you what I think the British people have the right to, Mr Deputy Speaker: trust in their politicians. As the Prime Minister said herself, this is about more than the decision to leave the EU; it is about whether the public can trust their politicians to put in place the decision that they took.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

The Minister mentioned trust, and that is very important. The simple fact is that all we have heard from the Liberal Democrats and the Green in the Chamber today is that they do not trust the people. Regardless of what they say, if we had a second referendum and they got the wrong result again, they would want a third, fourth or a fifth referendum—they would keep going until they got the result they wanted because they do not believe in democracy.

[Chloe Smith]

I respect my hon. Friend’s intervention. I fear that such an approach would not be one of principle, and he is right to highlight it. Rather than undermine the British people’s democratic decision to leave the EU, let us get on and make a success of it.