Throwline Stations

Mark Tami Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee for bringing forward this important debate.

This petition was signed by 606 of my constituents in Southport. I am all too aware of the tragic case of Mark Allen; I send my condolences to his family and friends and join my colleagues in calling for throwlines to be installed to prevent such needless loss of life in the future.

Landowners have a duty of care to those on their land. By speaking in this debate, I want to suggest that that duty should be strengthened, with further legal requirements for landowners to assess and act on the risks posed by open bodies of water. I welcome the fact that, since the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Government have enforced legal requirements to prevent employees and other people from coming to harm during work activities. However, the 1974 Act has well-known limitations; under the legislation it is not possible to enforce simple solutions such as a duty to provide throwlines near all bodies of water, for example.

In a modern, 21st-century country such as the United Kingdom, it is unacceptable that drowning continues to be one of the leading causes of accidental death. It is estimated that a shocking 44% of drowning fatalities happen to people who had no intention of even entering the water. Drowning in the United Kingdom is reported to account for more accidental fatalities annually than fire deaths in the home or cycling deaths on the road. Men are the most at-risk group in every age group, accounting for eight in 10 of all deaths.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I apologise for coming in late—there was traffic, I am afraid.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people, particularly very small children, can drown in very shallow water? There are areas—in caravan parks or places like that—that people think are safe, but which are not safe for very small children. There have been terrible occurrences and deaths of children drowning in only a foot or so of water.

[Damien Moore]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is why it is incredibly important for landowners to carry out risk assessments around open bodies of water, particularly where children are concerned, so that protections such as throwlines can be put in place.

In Southport, the sea rarely comes in, but when it does it is rapid and all too often deadly. Our local rescue services go above and beyond in their duty to warn and protect; I welcome the opening, last week, of Southport’s new £1.4 million lifeboat station. The Southport Offshore Rescue Trust, which is independent from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, was founded by Kath Wilson after her son passed away in 1987 while fishing off the Southport coast. Southport Lifeboat is crewed entirely by volunteers and has helped to safely return more than 5,000 people since it was founded. I am sure that we all want to congratulate Kath and her excellent team of volunteers on their amazing work.

I also want to highlight that the RNLI has some excellent videos and explainers about what someone can do if they are in trouble in the water, including dealing with cold water shock, and I encourage all hon. Members to share them with their constituents. If those watching take anything away from this debate, it should be the three extremely important words provided by the RNLI: “Float to Live”.

I am sure that many of my colleagues are aware of the tragic incident involving Ben Smith-Crallan, who fell into a lake in Southport’s Botanic Gardens and sadly died following complications from an infection. Following the “Make a change for Ben” campaign, led by my constituent David Rawsthorne, tens of thousands of pounds have been raised for improvement works to the gardens, including the installation of an aeration fountain at the end of the lake to ensure that water is oxygenised, and potential measures to stop people falling in. I would add throwlines to the list of safety measures that need to be included.

The UK drowning prevention strategy acknowledges the difficulty caused by the fact that responsibility for managing water risks is dispersed among a number of organisations. While many, such as the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust and the RNLI, do excellent work, further efforts should be made to unite their various responsibilities to ensure that resources are effectively used, responsibility is clearly defined and individuals are best protected.

Let us start with the simple solutions. We should heed the calls of this petition to implement throw bags and throwlines around open bodies of water and go further by expanding opportunities to learn how to swim and spreading awareness around water safety. When the UK drowning prevention strategy was published in 2015, it called for accidental drowning fatalities in the United Kingdom to be halved by 2026. The latest data shows that we are halfway there, with a 25% decrease since the strategy was published. We should maintain that progress—even speed it up if we can—and ensure that we all do everything we can to prevent senseless tragedies, such as that of Mark Allen, from ever happening again. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to do everything she can to help prevent those tragedies from occurring in the future.

Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the publication of the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allotting this debate today. Let me begin by expressing my gratitude for what the armed forces do for our country. They do not just watch our backs and keep us safe at night; they are our back-up and who we call upon to step forward in times of need, which is no better exemplified than during the pandemic.

The origins of this integrated review date back to the Queen’s Speech in December 2019, billed as

“the most radical reassessment of our place in the world since the end of the Cold War”.

Simply put, the function of any review of this kind is, first, to assess the current and emerging threats and opportunities that we face; secondly, to define the UK’s ambitions on the international stage; and, finally, to upgrade our soft and hard power credentials so we can continue to defend our interests and support those ambitions.

The world is a more dangerous place since the last comprehensive review in 2015. The Chief of the Defence Staff recently described

“the strategic context as uncertain, complex and dynamic; with the defining condition being one of chronic instability.”

The causes of this era of instability are, first, the West, including us, having become risk-averse, increasingly unclear what we collectively stand for, believe in or, indeed, are willing to defend.

Secondly, authoritarianism is on the rise across the world. Ever more states and non-state actors are abusing our dated international rules-based order to pursue their own agendas. Finally, advances in technologies and our growing reliance on data have altered the very character of conflict, allowing attacks on our way of life to be exacted below the threshold of traditional military response.

So how should Britain respond? We should have an integrated review so that we can clarify our long-term strategy relating to China, to Russia, to extremism that is once again on the rise. What are our intentions to help to resolve hotspots such as Yemen? What is our post-Brexit security relationship with the EU? Currently there is none. What are the latest assumptions about the security consequences of climate change and of future pandemics? Most fundamentally, what are our ambitions to repair our frail, rules-based order? Our history, connectivity, international reach, and soft and hard power strengths have traditionally allowed us to step forward when other nations hesitate. Today we hold the G7 presidency, and with the United States just last week reaffirming its resolve to lead the west in confronting global instability, we are overdue in clarifying what “global Britain” means.

The absence of a review is having consequences. Without confirming our international role, our interests and our ambitions, how can the Ministry of Defence craft a requisite defence posture? How can our defence industry plan for the future? In updating our military architecture, we must also be frank about our current capabilities. We should be honest. We perpetuate the myth that our incredible professional armed forces can meet all their taskings and that they have all the kit they need. In reality, that is not the case: our forces are overstretched; sadly, they are now underpaid; and they are often lacking the equipment or the number of platforms to do the taskings that we ask of them.

Yes, the Royal Navy has two incredible aircraft carriers, but our surface fleet is now too small to protect our post-Brexit maritime trade interests. In the Army, our main battle tank and our Warrior armoured personnel carriers are now more than 20 years old, waiting for the green light of the integrated review to know whether they will get upgraded or not. The Royal Air Force has just introduced a formidable F-35 stealth fighter. Unfortunately, we are now only purchasing 48 of 138, because the money is no longer available.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. If we reduce the order, not only does that reduce the actual number of aircraft; it also affects workshare and the work going forward. I represent an area that includes Sealand, which has a direct interest in the F-35, which is obviously a vital aircraft for this country’s defences.

[Mr Ellwood]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman; there are knock-on consequences to delaying decisions, and to changing the promises and commitments that were made in previous reviews.

Yes, the MOD received an additional £16.5 billion in December for the rest of this Parliament, but the Office for Budget Responsibility confirms that there is a £7 billion shortfall in the 10-year equipment plan. Of course we want to seek to retain full-spectrum capability, but investment in the new cyber and space programmes has been paid for by cuts to our conventional capabilities. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is the need for resilience and flexibility. I therefore stress that it would be a grave error to reduce the size of the Army by the speculated 10,000 troops. I suspect that the Whips might have a problem if that were put to a vote in this House.

Let me step back; what Britain has traditionally brought to the table is our leadership. Our diplomatic reach, agency work and overseas aid programmes have allowed us to offer workable solutions to problems and to lead the alliances to fix them. I am genuinely concerned that Whitehall has lost the bandwidth—or, indeed, the appetite—to do this. I hope that the publication of the integrated review will prove me wrong.

Finally, I want to turn to China, our biggest geopolitical long-term threat, which warrants its own chapter in the review. For decades, the west has turned a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses and democratic deficit, hoping that it will mature into a global responsible citizen. Well, we now realise that that will not happen. China’s conduct in the pandemic, in Hong Kong, in the South China sea, along with its continued abuse of World Trade Organisation rules and the way it has saddled dozens of countries with debt confirms that it is pursuing a competing long-term geopolitical agenda, which, left unchecked, will progressively see our world splinter into two spheres of influence.

Economically, technologically and militarily, China will challenge and possibly overtake US dominance in our lifetime. Militarily, China’s navy grows by the size of our Navy every single year. It is now introducing its own fifth generation air force, and its army is now the largest in the world. It is sending more rockets into space than all the other nations combined and perfecting space-based weapons.

In my view, cold war two has already begun, but we are still in denial and too timid to call it out, because of China’s mighty economic clout. This time, it will not be a build-up of military hardware, troops and nuclear weapons either side of an iron curtain. It will be fought on two very different fronts. First, nations will be forced to take sides, and China is winning here. It is neutralising countries by ensnaring them in long-term debt, controlling states by owning their data and paralysing the international apparatus, such as the United Nations, so removing global scrutiny. Secondly, it involves so-called short of war operations, bypassing direct military engagement through the use of cyber weapons to hit societies directly, as every aspect of our lives goes online. This is the modern battlefield: interference in our critical national infrastructure, including eventually satellites; misinformation via social media; and data theft, including personal data. This is the new reality that the integrated review must address.

I hope that I have articulated to the Minister why this review of all reviews in our generation is arguably the most important for us to publish. It was a brave Churchill in 1946 who warned the west in his iron curtain speech of the advancing Soviet threat. This review offers our Prime Minister today an opportunity to do something similar, starting by expanding the G7 permanently to include Australia, India and Korea, which would represent more than half the world’s GDP, the basis on which we could reform our international trade and security standards. For China’s Achilles heel is its economy. Global trade is critical for China’s advancement. During the last war, the UK and the US got together to write the Atlantic Charter, which formed the basis for so many of the Bretton Woods organisations that built up our world order and which has served us so well for the past few decades. They now need attention. Perhaps it is time for us to look at an Atlantic Charter 2.0. Again, this is something on which the integrated view could focus.

In conclusion, it is time to up our game. The integrated review is a critical statement of intent, re-establishing our post-Brexit credentials and setting out a coherent vision of the UK’s place in the world. It is vital that the Government produce this roadmap, because it is currently missing. I hope that the Minister and the Government are listening carefully to the impressive list of parliamentary colleagues who will be speaking today, no doubt supporting this publication. I hope that there will be no further delay in the integrated review. It must be not another exercise to salami-slice capabilities, manpower, or indeed defence spending but a genuine appraisal of our defence posture and the formal confirmation of our nation elevating its global ambitions and its desire to play a more proactive role on the international stage.

UK Relations with Qatar

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) on securing the debate, which is timely for a number of reasons, and on the way he set out his case. He did so in a fair degree of detail, which I will not bother Members by repeating. He highlighted the importance of Qatar as both a trading partner and a security partner for the United Kingdom at this time. That relationship is important, but it will never be simple or straightforward.

Before I go any further, I too should remind Members of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last year and the year before, I was part of a delegation to Qatar funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I serve as chair of the all-party parliamentary British-Qatar group.

Let me pick up the point the hon. Gentleman made about the conduct of such delegations. As chair of the all-party group, I led the delegation in February last year. There has never been any restriction on the movement of any member of the delegations of which I have been part. I can say with some feeling, having led the second delegation, that MPs and peers have a tendency to wander off, talk to people and do their own thing. That was certainly the case—I might even have been guilty of it once or twice—when we visited the workers’ villages that were built by Qatar to accommodate migrant workers engaged in construction contracts, particularly for Qatar 2022. Those were illuminating moments. Those people did not always give us exactly the same message as the one we were given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or anyone else with the group, but there was certainly no restriction. It was also clear to those of us who were part of the delegation that the migrant workers we engaged with felt uninhibited and free to tell us about their experiences.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem with the blockade is that those very workers were probably the first to suffer from it?

[Mr Carmichael]

There might be other contestants for the claim of being the first, but those workers are certainly a significant interest group that will be affected. Qatar has been measured in its response to the blockade—I will come on to that—but at an economic, political and strategic price.

Notwithstanding the fact that I regularly raise a number of issues with the Qatari Government, my engagements with them, both as a member of delegations and as chair of the all-party group, have always been positive, open and frank. As the hon. Member for Southend West indicated, we have seen significant progress in areas that are important to Members across the party divide. I think in particular of the progress on labour rights. The eventual abolition of the kafala system, which did not come easily, was a significant piece of progress in that regard. We should pay tribute to the people—particularly those in the trade union movement in this country—who have worked hard and sometimes had to deliver very difficult messages, but have stuck with it and never compromised in their dealings with the Qatari Government.

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Let me just make this point, then I will give way again.

By contrast, if we remain inside the EU, we can look forward to a huge dividend from an opening of the market in services over the coming years. The truth is that we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the EU single market. The single market in goods is well developed, but in the sectors in which the UK is truly market-leading—financial, business, technical and professional services, the digital economy, the creative industries and energy—the potential remains huge, and the EU’s high-value market is the place to realise it.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the warnings from Airbus about the threats to future investment in this country? I am talking about more than 6,000 jobs in Alyn and Deeside and 5,000 jobs in Bristol. Does he agree that the Brexit camp think that those are jobs that we can afford to lose?

[Mr Hammond]

That question has never been effectively answered—how many jobs are those advocating Britain’s exit from the European Union prepared to sacrifice on the altar of their notion of sovereignty? We have never had a straight answer to that question. What we do have is a range of independent estimates of what that number would be if we voted to leave next Thursday. I shall come to that in a moment.

It is because of the potential for the UK to open up the services market in the European Union that the deal the Prime Minister negotiated in February is so important. We now have a clear political commitment from all 27 other EU member states, plus the Commission, to accelerate the development of that market. These are the sectors in which the UK leads in Europe, and in which an expansion of the single market will disproportionately benefit the United Kingdom over the years ahead.

EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Friday 26th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. I have already covered economic and trade matters and regulations, and I know that other people want to speak so I shall not go on for too long. National security and immigration are crucial issues that are mentioned in clause 5 of the Bill. National security is a key area, and the remain campaign seems to think that it is one of its trump cards, and that we are more secure and safer from terrorist attacks within the European Union. I would love them to go and tell the people of Paris how much safer they were from terrorist attacks as a result of being in the European Union, but I suspect they would not get particularly far.

Last night in a debate at York University we hit a new low in the tactics of the remain campaign. I was making the point that we cannot stop people coming into the UK from the EU if they have a valid EU passport, and that that applied to everybody, whether law-abiding people or criminals. But would you believe what the remain campaign announced last night? Perhaps the Minister can confirm it. I am on the Justice Committee, but I was not aware of it. It emerged last night during the debate that, apparently, when an EU national comes to the UK, our robust border controls mean that we check who people are. Apparently, when passports are scanned—this was a new one on me—it flags up whether or not a person has criminal convictions in their home nation, which enables us to stop them entering the United Kingdom. If only that were the case. The most generous thing I can say about that claim is that it is an absolutely blatant lie, because no system exists across the European Union to scan passports, trigger a huge list of criminal convictions and enable us to stop people coming into the country. That claim is simply untrue—I cannot be any clearer than that. The Minister may want to confirm or deny that when he comments, but let us please have an honest debate about these things. That system does not exist.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will repeat that claim.

[Mark Tami]

I am not going to repeat it. However, the hon. Gentleman should make it clear that a lot of terrorism is actually home-grown. We should not suggest that this is just about people coming from outside—the UK faces a much bigger problem than that.

[Philip Davies]

I invite people to look at the transcript of what I said—I am not sure I did say that terrorism came only from other parts of the European Union and that it could not be home-grown. Of course it can be—it is both. We cannot stop British people from living in Britain, and I do not think that anybody has ever proposed that we should, but the fact that we have home-grown terrorists is surely no reason to let in people from other countries who may want to cause us harm.

If people think that this robust system is in place, perhaps they would like to explain why so many crimes in the UK each year are committed by EU nationals and why the UK prison population of EU nationals has gone through the roof since we had free movement of people. The reason why it has gone through the roof since we had free movement of people is that a lot of those people have taken advantage of that arrangement to come here to commit their crimes. That is the fact of the matter; it may be an inconvenient fact, but nobody can deny that that is what has happened.

Every quarter, the Ministry of Justice publishes the prison population figures broken down by nationality. I invite anybody to look back over a few years at the figures for each nationality, because they will see a huge increase in the number of EU nationals in our prisons. That is because these people are coming to the UK under the free movement of people to commit crimes. As a result, we are creating lots of unnecessary victims of crime in the UK. People who want to remain in the EU should be honest about the fact that that is one of the downsides. They should not pretend that there is some miracle passport control system that stops these people coming into the UK, which, as I say, is a blatant lie.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It beggars belief that whole towns can be suffering a possible wipeout and yet we are apparently putty in the hands in the Chinese. We should have stopped this on day one, as it is so serious—this is steel we are talking about.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that in truth this is about the failure of this Government, who are more interested in cosying up to the Chinese than protecting the steel industry in this country?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We are impotent; it is not a question of cosying up to the Chinese, as we have no control over this. Whether we like it or not, China will be the greatest, biggest and most important economy in the world within the next 10 or 20 years. Whatever the Minister’s views, the fact that we are part of the EU means that he could do nothing to defend Scunthorpe. I accept that the Government may argue that we get other advantages, perhaps in steel, but let us have an analysis of what it all means.

Open Europe is not some sort of purely ideological campaigning group; it produces fine studies, some of the most voluminous available, and it attempts in a reasonably intellectual way to work out what staying in and leaving the EU involves. Open Europe says that according to the UK Government impact assessments,

“these regulations also provide a total benefit of £58.6bn a year.”

Open Europe is trying to be fair. It goes on to say:

“However, £46bn of this benefit stems from just three items, which are vastly over-stated. For example, the stated benefit of the EU’s climate targets (£20.8bn) was dependent on a global deal to reduce carbon emissions that was never struck…Open Europe estimates that up to 95% of the benefits envisaged in the impact assessment have failed to materialise.”

Where is the Government’s response to that?

Open Europe continued by saying:

“Taking the regulations individually, the impact assessments show that Ministers signed off at least 26 of the top 100 EU-derived regulations, despite the IAs explicitly stating that the costs outweigh the estimated benefits. These regulations include the UK Temporary Agency Workers Directive and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

A further 31 of the costliest EU-derived regulations have not been quantified. Between the over-stated benefits, the regulations that come with a net cost and the ones with unquantified benefits, it remains unclear how many of these EU-derived rules actually come with a net benefit in reality, showing that there is plenty of scope to cut regulatory cost to business and the public sector.”

I would echo that. I may be wrong and if the Government want to argue these points in detail, I, for one, would be delighted.

Open Europe went on to say:

“Although the cost of EU regulation too high in proportion to the benefits it generates, it is important to note that these rules can bring benefits including by facilitating trade across the single market, for example in the case of financial services”.

That is an argument in favour. I fully accept that and Open Europe accepts it, but we need a genuine impact assessment of the costs and benefits of all these regulations. Where does this leave us in the total picture? My view is—[Interruption.] I would be grateful if the Whip would not speak too loudly while I am speaking. She is not supposed to be heard, unlike me. She has the real power; I can just speak.

My contention is that people are worrying too much about this decision in terms of the impact on the economy. Again, there have been many studies on this, but I do not believe that the impact on the economy of whether we stay or leave will be as dramatic as has been made out. That is “Project Fear”—that we are all going to lose our jobs and so on. According to Open Europe,

“In a worst case scenario, where the UK fails to strike a trade deal with the rest of the EU”—

thereby having to fall back on the World Trade Organisation rules—

“and does not pursue a free trade agenda”—

fairly unlikely, I would have thought, but this is the worst case scenario—

“Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be 2.2% lower than if the UK had remained inside the EU.”

So 2.2% lower, which is quite significant, but I am not sure that we would all suddenly lose our jobs.

European Affairs

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard]

First, the reference to the Belgian EU nationals was to make the point that it was not Syrian refugees who undertook that Paris attack. Secondly, my hon. Friend may not want to make this point, but I will make it for him. The majority of terrorist threats in this country, as proven by the 7/7 attacks, are actually by British nationals, not EU nationals. Of the four involved in the 7/7 attacks, three were British nationals and one was a German national. It is not necessarily the case that coming out of the European Union will make us safer from attacks. I think there is a danger from some—not Members and certainly not my hon. Friend—of a Trumpification of the out campaign. There is a danger of the shadow of Donald Trump coming into this referendum campaign, which I think would be very unhelpful and dangerous.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman that we would be deluding ourselves if we believed that by stopping people at the border, terrorism would somehow not be a threat to this country.

European Union Referendum Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

The right hon. Gentleman needs to address that question to his own Prime Minister and get some clarity from the Government about what they will seek to negotiate. Clearly, we are in favour of reforms within the EU; we have pressed for some simple reforms such as ensuring that the Parliament meets in one place rather than two. There are many other EU reforms that we support.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman not worried as I am that, no matter the result, some Conservative Members will want to have another crack in a year’s time and a year after that, and that that will cause great harm to this country?

[Tom Brake]

Absolutely. I hope that the outcome of the referendum, whatever it is, will give a certainty about the future of the EU which, unfortunately, the outcome of the Scottish referendum did not give for Scotland.

Europe

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Turner]

It is only my guess—that is all it is—but it is a guess that I will explain to hon. Members. Since that vote, the European experiment has taken on a life of its own, consistently demanding more and more from the UK. We must reverse that trend or leave. I fully support the measures already taken by this Government in cutting an ever-expanding European budget. Previous Governments have given more and more money that belongs to British taxpayers—and for what in return? Was it to be told that we do not have the right to protect our natural fishing stocks against Spanish trawlers that ignore the rules, or that we must be left vulnerable to unrestricted migration from across Europe, including the expected influx from Bulgaria and Romania at the end of this year? The EU says we can do nothing to stop it. To quote Lord Denning, Europe is

“like a tidal wave bringing down our sea walls and flowing inland over our fields and houses”.

It directly affects the sovereignty of our nation and it is time to turn back the tide.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that even in the unlikely event that his party wins the next election, we will still have a period of four years or so of uncertainty when investors will not know whether they should invest in this country?

[Mr Turner]

Of course it would be better if these things were done more quickly, but we must persuade Europe to change. If it does, okay; we must offer it that chance.

I am never very biddable when it comes to voting for further controls or regulations from Europe; neither are some of my esteemed colleagues on the Government Benches—nor, indeed, are some on the Opposition Benches. We do not vote against the Prime Minister to be awkward, but because we sincerely believe that our relationship with Europe must change and because we know that many of those whom we represent agree with us. If that change does not happen, the people must be asked whether we should be in or out.

Foreign Affairs and International Development

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow so many powerful speeches tonight, particular several in a row from my hon. Friends. I would like to address two main issues this evening: the Government’s failure to give the ultimate commitment to help the poorest in our world and the total absence of anything in the Queen’s Speech on policy affecting Israel and the Palestinians. I declare my membership of Friends of Palestine. However, I welcome the mention of Congo in the speech by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and ask the Minister whether there are plans for a flight early next month to force Congolese nationals to return to that dangerous country. I hope that that is not the case.

To return to the aid budget, it says a lot about what the Government stand for when they are happy to give a tax break to millionaires yet cannot bring themselves to commit, through a statement enshrined in the law of the land, to helping some of the poorest people in the world in the longer term––people who live in the kind of abject poverty that we cannot even begin to understand. Indeed, the Prime Minister previously said that spending money on foreign aid in a time of austerity was a sign of “moral strength” and that Britain should be proud that

“we never turn our backs on the world’s poorest”.

But in the light of the Queen’s Speech last week, when the Government failed to enshrine in law the commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on development assistance, the Prime Minister’s words were just further proof that they are a Government of broken promises, following such gems as

“there will be no top-down reorganization of the NHS”,

“we are all in this together”,

and

“my promise to pensioners is that we are on your side.”

I am proud that Labour made a commitment to meet the UN’s target of spending 0.7% of GNI on aid and to legislate on it by 2013, and I was pleased when that was taken on by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and included in the coalition agreement. I thought that surely the Government would not revoke that policy, which would prove to the country that the Tories were no longer the nasty party and that they genuinely believed in the moral duty of rich countries to help the poorest parts of the world. As the International Development Secretary said this year,

“On the whole, politicians should do what they say they are going to do”.

However, the Government now claim that a Bill to enshrine such a commitment in law cannot be introduced due to lack of parliamentary time, given their focus on the economy and, of course, the all important matter affecting the other place. That is a ridiculous notion. The Queen’s Speech did nothing to stimulate growth in the economy, nothing for young people looking for work, nothing for families whose living standards are being squeezed and nothing for small businesses that cannot get money from the bank.

Rather than telling developing nations, “Sorry, but we are simply too busy tackling the pressure issue of House of Lords reform and the accession of Croatia to the EU to provide you with proper assistance to help your citizens climb out of poverty,” a Bill committing to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid would not and should not detract from other parliamentary business. It is supported by all three parties, would do much to show the international community that there is a genuine commitment to standing up for global social justice, and would undoubtedly increase the pressure on other countries to do more.

Legislation would also ensure that aid is maintained at an affordable level. Just as the absolute aid level may fall when Britain’s income goes down, so too should it rise when the national income goes up. As the charity ActionAid stated, legislation matters because aid needs to be around long enough to do the job. Many countries such as Ghana are now moving towards an end to dependency on aid, but that can happen only if we support them until that point. Legislation would provide the certainty that is needed for aid to be most effective.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend surprised that there is not enough time, bearing it in mind that we have spent weeks—no, months—without many votes at all? Surely there is time for such important legislation.