Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Warman Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
What the UK Government are doing in invoking article 50 is putting into practice the democratic vote of the British people on 23 June last year in a referendum. There was a referendum in 2014 in Scotland, when the Scottish people voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. I suggest the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues put that into practice.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Three quarters of my constituents voted to leave the European Union. Does the Prime Minister agree that triggering article 50 marks a watershed moment, not only in this country’s control of immigration and our sovereignty, but in listening to the views of people who were forgotten for far too long?
The Prime Minister
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend; in invoking article 50, we are not just putting into practice the views of the British people as set out in that referendum on 23 June last year. Crucially, that was not just a vote about leaving the EU; it was a vote about changing this country for the future. This Government have a clear plan for Britain that will change this country, and that will see us with a more global outlook, a stronger economy, a fairer society and a more united nation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Warman Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
That was very, very dedicated of the Secretary of State. It was, if I may say so, an elastic—one might almost say a liberal and possibly a democratic—interpretation of the question on the Order Paper.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
9. One of the best ways to reassure our constituents that our money is spent wisely is to release as much data as possible about where it goes. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, so can the Secretary of State reassure me that we will go further and release even more data than we already have to reassure our constituents?
Justine Greening
I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to be a leader in global aid transparency. Taxpayers can already see on the web the Department’s projects in every country. Indeed, last month the Department was again rated as “very good” in Publish What You Fund’s aid transparency index.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Warman Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Brandon Lewis
It is clearly a matter for local authorities to use those powers to crack down on rogue landlords and to ensure that they are providing the right services. It is just a shame that the Opposition did not support those measures in the Housing and Planning Bill.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
In my constituency, some of the worst landlords have been prosecuted by Boston Borough Council, and the Department for Communities and Local Government has recently awarded it a £74,000 grant to keep up that good work. Does the Minister agree that when councils are proactive, there are resources available for them to enable them to be more proactive?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend is right. He has given us an example of a good council looking to do the right thing by its local residents by ensuring that they are well protected and well served, using the extra funding that we have put in. In addition, local authorities will be able to impose the new £30,000 civil fines when the Housing and Planning Bill gets Royal Assent, and it is a shame that the Opposition did not support that measure. It will mean that councils will be able to do more in this regard than ever before.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Warman Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Greg Clark
It is important that local authorities should take their local welfare responsibilities seriously. When we have the local government financial settlement, I am sure that the hon. Lady will be pleased to see that that continues to be recognised.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
T5. The people of Lincolnshire know what is best for the people of Lincolnshire. Will my right hon. Friend outline the benefits on offer in the current devolution deal and tell me how the Lincolnshire bid is going?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (James Wharton)
My hon. Friend is, of course, well placed to represent the views of the people of Lincolnshire and he does it very effectively. The whole approach of the Government towards devolution is bottom up; it is about bespoke deals that recognise that areas are different and that local people know best the tools they need to drive economic improvement and improve lives for the communities that they represent. Discussions in Greater Lincolnshire are going well and include the issues of skills, transport, housing and water management. I hope they will conclude successfully and that a deal will be reached that will last for a very long time.
Sustainable Development Goals
Matt Warman Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
In 2008 or 2009 it was my privilege, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and Baroness Jenkin, to help co-found the Conservative Friends of International Development. One of its key aims was to encourage the Government to enshrine the 0.7% commitment in law and push the MDGs and achieve them as rapidly as possible. I am pleased to note that subsequently not only did my hon. Friends the Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and many others—whose omission is now no doubt, unfortunately, offensive to them—become involved with CFID, but in what is a testament to the universality of those aims of international development we have had the opportunity to work across party and also across a huge number of people, businesses and businessmen, including Bill Gates, who have been very kind in supporting us.
The point of CFID was to emphasise that compassion is truly a cross-party agenda. When I subsequently found myself fighting the seat of Boston and Skegness—and winning it, I am grateful to say—I realised that the main challenge the SDGs have and the MDGs had is public opinion. They will not be sustainable if we are not truly winning the battle in the country. That is not an attack by any means on the compassion we have seen across the nation during the recent Syrian refugee crisis. However, there remains a small but significant minority of people who are not yet convinced that adopting principles such as the 17 we are talking about today are in our national, international and humanitarian interests.
The simple point I would make in this debate, where there has been excellent cross-party consensus, is that until, working with businesses and all other parties internationally, we make the case that it is in all our interests to get development goals such as these moved from platitude to policy, we will not be able to make the kind of changes we are talking about today. I do not pretend for a moment that I have the ability to turn those platitudes into policies, but we should all be striving persistently to make the case, when we are told that Britain cannot afford to take in refugees, that it is in Britain’s interest and in all our interests to take in an appropriate number of well-resourced refugees so that we can make the global improvements we all want to see.
I want to make three further points. First, transparency is the single most important factor that the development goals can achieve, because it will allow us to say, “This is where your money is going” and “We have made a real, practical difference not only to our own lives but to those of many people around the world.” Secondly, addressing the fragile states agenda will mean that we are not increasing the burden on this country. Instead, we will be increasing the opportunity for economic development in countries that will one day graduate to become our trading partners, from which we would all benefit.
Thirdly, I want to refer back to the battle for public opinion. Until we have convinced the wider world that these are truly valuable universal cross-party goals, we will be unable to answer with integrity the constant criticism that has been heard over the past few weeks. We in the Westminster bubble might believe that there is total consensus on helping those less fortunate than ourselves, but too many of our constituents are not yet convinced of the validity of this case. I hope that excellent debates such as this one—convened by my Lincolnshire neighbour, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips)—will play an important part in convincing the wider public of the true value of this agenda.