Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

My focus is on ensuring that colleagues across Government ensure that we are able to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland in the most effective, efficient, flexible and fluid way. It was good, as I said, that Vice-President Šefčovič met businesses and civic society in Northern Ireland and has committed to continuing to do that so that he can hear directly on the ground the impact that some of this is having, not least the action that the EU took in its movement towards activating article 16 and the impact felt across communities regarding people’s confidence around that. It is right that the EU understands the impact this has on people’s everyday lives in Northern Ireland.

[Matt Western [V]]

Many businesses in Warwick and Leamington and across the country have already opted out of supplying to Northern Ireland due to the complexities. Does the Secretary of State accept that the Government’s denial over the reality of an Irish sea border has actually hampered efforts to prepare British businesses for trade with Northern Ireland and led to the disruption we are seeing today?

[Brandon Lewis]

What I would say to businesses is that I would encourage them to engage with the trader support service that the Government have put in place and which we are funding. It works for businesses, and the businesses that have used it have had great success in continuing to be able to move their products, with advice, smoothly and fluidly. We have worked with businesses continually through the process—as we were in the transition period and since we have left the transition period—to ensure that businesses across the United Kingdom can trade across the United Kingdom, but I recognise there have been issues in how the protocol has been implemented since the end of the transition period, and that is why we will be outlining measures in a written ministerial statement later today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, indeed. That is why we have given another £165 million to extend the troubled families programme this year.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q3. In the past 10 years, violent crime has risen 152% across the towns of Warwickshire. In the past two weeks in my constituency, two people have been killed in two separate events and others remain seriously ill or injured. The Government have promised to reinstate 20,000 police officers, but is not the simple truth that it is now our residents, through hikes in council tax of 12% last year and 6% this year, who are picking up the whole bill for the Old Bill, and that the Conservative party is no longer the party of law and order but the party of fear and disorder?

[The Prime Minister]

To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, he is making an important point about violent crime. I share his anger. That is why we are putting 20,000 more police on the streets. That is, above all, why we are now tackling the county lines drugs gangs that are behind so much of the rise in violent crime. We will get that crime down.

Wrightbus (Ballymena)

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I concur with the many points made about what brilliant products Wrightbus makes and what a tragedy we are faced with. I commend the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for securing this urgent question.

Surely the issue is that Ministers, or BEIS, must have been aware that there was a cash-flow issue within this company a year or so ago. Charitable donations were being made that far exceeded the £1.7 million loss that the company was facing. At what point were Ministers or BEIS aware of that, and what does it mean for the industrial strategy?

[Julian Smith]

The important thing now is to protect jobs and to ensure that we get a successful buyer. There will be time enough to look back on what could have been done differently and what things need to improve.