(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberI can give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance. We will come out of the common fisheries policy, and we will be an independent coastal state. It will then be for us to negotiate in the normal annual negotiations access to our waters and our fishermen’s access to other waters.
Will the Prime Minister confirm that, under her proposals, including the common rulebook, the United Kingdom will be able to ban live animal exports and introduce other animal welfare standards that our membership of the European Union currently prevents us from implementing?
We would be able to enhance our standards, but we would have committed to that rulebook in a number of areas. In agriculture and agri-foods, different levels of rules currently operate. What we are talking about for the common rulebook includes sanitary and phytosanitary conditions, and there are other aspects, such as the common agricultural framework, to which this does not relate.
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The contracts that each Department agrees with the private sector for the delivery of services are very stringent. Each Department is responsible for ensuring their proper delivery, and if the company is not delivering properly, it will be in breach of the contract and remedies will be available. At the point of re-letting a contract, we look at the overall performance of the company concerned to ensure that it is in a fit state to be able to deliver on its promises. There is a dual responsibility between the individual Departments, which set out the terms, and the Cabinet Office, in which I sit, which has overall responsibility for the supplier market.
Barnet Council has a significant contract with Capita. It also has a business continuity planning framework that monitors liquidity and indebtedness. It reviewed the situation twice last year, and again after the recent profit warning, and the company was shown to be far from reaching the relevant threshold for triggering any action, but in the local elections, the Liberal Democrats are using the issue to scaremonger. I urge the Minister not to take advice or direction from someone who undersold Royal Mail by £1 billion and then called the loss “froth”.
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Tempting though it is, I shall resist the urge to comment on the Royal Mail deal, but I refer him again to the— [Interruption.] When the Department was controlled by the Liberal Democrats, I do not think the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) would have taken kindly to a Conservative special adviser getting too heavily involved.
I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) to statistics that demonstrate that over half of the contracts that were given to Capita were awarded under the coalition Government, in which the Liberal Democrats played a sterling part. If they want to play politics, I refer them to those statistics.
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI assure the hon. Gentleman that that support will be available. Of course, the Metropolitan police already have in place the necessary support arrangements for those who have been injured and the bereaved families. I have also asked the Government to look at what further support can be made available for victims in a wider sense, because there will be people who were not physically injured in the attack yesterday, but witnessed it or were caught up in it, for whom there may be other scars. It is important to provide that support.
Parliament is a different place this morning. On my way in from the tube, I realised that millions of people live with the after-effects of terrorism. At almost this time yesterday, in my summing up of a Westminster Hall debate, I said of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood):
“I understand that his experience of terrorism is something that is not known to the rest of us”.— Official Report, 22 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 360WH.]
I could certainly repeat that assertion this morning about his experience yesterday afternoon. Does the Prime Minister agree that we should use the honours system to recognise those who made a contribution yesterday, including my hon. Friend?
As I indicated earlier, proper consideration will be given to the issue that my hon. Friend raises. I spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) yesterday evening, and we should all recognise not only that he showed huge professionalism in putting his past training to use in the hope of saving PC Keith Palmer’s life, but that he did so in the middle of a terrorist attack, and he is someone who knows the trauma and tragedy of losing somebody in a terrorist attack.
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberWhat I want to do and what I have attempted to do is engage in a constructive discussion and dialogue with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament about how we repatriate powers from Brussels. I do not try to make a serious and wrong political point that this is an attempt to destabilise the Scottish Parliament, because I know that when the process is complete, the Scottish Parliament will have more powers than it does today.
Sales from Scotland to the rest of the UK are worth nearly £50 billion, a figure that has increased by over 70% since 2002 and that is four times greater than the value of exports from Scotland to the EU. There is no doubt that the United Kingdom is the vital Union for Scotland’s economy.
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I find it strange that those who make such a fuss about the EU single market seem to have a complete disregard for a market that is four times as large to Scotland’s economy.
(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberWhere I agree with my hon. Friend is that we have got to do more to control immigration. Net migration to the UK is now made up roughly half and half of those from outside the EU—there is still more we need to do to shut down the bogus colleges and to make sure that people are not coming in unfairly—and those from within the EU, where one of the most important things we can do is to withdraw the artificial draw of additional welfare payments. The fact that people can get £10,000 in the first year they come to this country is surely an important determining factor. I am convinced that, with the correct measures, we can get immigration down while remaining a member of the European Union.
During the general election, it was reported that the Prime Minister had expressed some concern about the BBC’s coverage of the election and its impartiality. What assurances can he give me, so that I can relay them to my constituents, that the BBC will not abuse its position again?
Politicians complaining about the BBC is a pretty common activity. I remember the former First Minister of Scotland getting quite heated about this issue. Every media organisation is under an obligation—sorry, let me restate that, because it is certainly not true of the newspapers. Every regulated television business is under a duty of impartiality, and I am sure the BBC will carry that out.
(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI understand what my hon. Friend says. The studies that have been done on machinery of government changes do not always indicate that they pay for themselves, but there are undoubtedly ways in which we can organise government to yield—in addition to what we have already done—significant improvements.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Many of us recall my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) making his suggestions to the House at the beginning of this Parliament and being vilified by some Opposition Members. May I say how resolutely and quietly the Minister has gone about this work? Not only has he made the savings, but he has taken the civil service with him to improve the public services of this country.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. This has been a long process and it is fair to say that the further we have gone, we have discovered a deep appetite for reform and change within the civil service, particularly among its younger members, who often get frustrated. They are the people who complain most about bureaucracy, and they have welcomed the fact that Ministers have taken a real interest in driving out bureaucracy and speeding things up.
(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am very confident that we will get the changes we need, not least on the operation of our welfare system. Back in European history, there was a time when freedom of movement was about accepting a job that had been offered, rather than simply the freedom to move to look for work. I have been clear, and we will be clear on the doorsteps, including in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency: no unemployment benefit for visiting EU migrants; after six months if someone has no job they have to go home; someone must work for four years before they get in-work benefits; and no sending home of child benefit. Those are things that I suspect each and every one of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents wants put in place.
With regard to the Iranian nuclear deal, may I urge great caution on the part of the Prime Minister and, indeed, other members of Europe? The road between a civil nuclear energy Iran and a military nuclear Iran is a very short one. Contrary to what at least one of my right hon. Friend’s constituents has said, it would be better for the middle east to have no deal than a bad deal.
I absolutely understand and share the concerns that people right across the world, including in Israel, have about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. The deal should keep Iran away from having a nuclear weapon, with proper inspection and verification so that if there were any changes to those circumstances, they could be seen. Obviously, we should not do a deal at any price, but the alternatives to doing a deal are not attractive. Frankly, they are not attractive for Iran. The sanctions we put in place—Britain led the charge in Europe—have done such damage in Iran that it is in its interests to conclude a deal.
(9 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The relationship, including on policing, security and borders, between the British and Irish Governments is probably stronger than it has been for many years, and we should build on that by discussing these measures with them and working together.
On three different occasions and in three separate locations, weapons and rockets belonging to Hamas were found in UNRWA schools in Gaza. Given that siting missiles and rockets amid a civilian population is a war crime in itself and will inevitably lead to the loss of civilian lives, and given that lobbing those same rockets into Israel, killing other civilians, is also a war crime, does the Prime Minister agree that Hamas is now guilty of two war crimes?
There can be little doubt that Hamas uses people to try to protect its rockets, which is absolutely despicable. As I have said, we need an end to the rocket attacks, a continuation of the ceasefire and political talks that could lead to a better solution.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons Chamber1. What steps he is taking to control the amount of trade union facility time in the civil service.
4. What steps he is taking to control the amount of trade unions facility time in the civil service.
At the time of the last general election, there was no proper monitoring of trade union facility time in government. That has now changed, and paid time off for any trade union activities and full-time union officials now requires the specific consent of a senior Minister. We expect the cost to the taxpayer for paid time off for trade union duties to fall by 60% from the level we inherited.
So far, by reducing significantly the number of full-time union officials who are paid by the taxpayer as civil servants, we have saved more than £2.3 million just from that element of the reforms. Overall, we are on course to meet our benchmark of spending no more than 0.1% of the civil service pay bill on facility time.
(10 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have had some interesting interventions from Front Benchers past and present. I hope I can break records by explaining that a tweet has just come in from Tony McNulty—we remember him—the former Labour Security Minister, saying this:
“Public desperate for PM in waiting who speaks for them—not Leader of Opposition indulging in partisan Westminster Village knockabout.”
So I would stay up with the tweets if you want to get on the right side of this one.
Q8. I refer the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because I have recently returned from a delegation to Israel—[Interruption.]
Order. I want to hear the words of Dr Offord, and at the moment I cannot hear them.
I will repeat my declaration, Mr Speaker. I refer the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as I have recently returned from a delegation to Israel and the Palestinian Authority with Conservative Friends of Israel. On the Israeli streets and in the corridors of power, Iran remains the No. 1 issue of concern. Earlier this week, French President Hollande visited Israel to discuss this matter with Israeli counterparts and appears to have clearly understood Israel’s legitimate concerns. When will our Prime Minister be visiting Israel, our close democratic ally in the region, to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue and other regional concerns?
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I know that many people in his constituency care deeply about this issue and about the future of Israel. I will never forget the visit that I made as Leader of the Opposition, and I look forward to visiting, I hope, next year. I completely understand—