Standards in Public Life

Debate between Michael Ellis and Neale Hanvey

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

That is not a matter for me. [Interruption.] I am not responsible for appointments, but there are mechanisms in place for complaints to be made.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

A few short weeks ago, at Lord Geidt’s resignation, I asked the Minister what fresh scandal was coming down the tracks. He assured me that there was none, yet here we are. The principle at stake here should resonate not just in this place, but in Parliaments across the UK and beyond, because accepting personal responsibility, lawfulness and truth telling are essential conditions of honourable conduct. As President Nixon discovered, it was the cover-up and the decision to lie that delivered his undoing. Misconduct in public office is a serious charge. Following the recent revelations from Lord McDonald, can the Minister tell the House: what did the Prime Minister know and when did he know it?

[Michael Ellis]

I have already dealt with that matter but I will say this. I do not think that any Member of this House from any of the Opposition political parties should take the moral high ground in this matter. I do not choose to reiterate why, but none of us should come to this House expecting all the criticism for any misconduct by any Member to be levelled against any one individual. What happens is that, when wrongdoing has been found to be done, it is properly dealt with in the interests of justice, whatever the political party. But Opposition Members wish to make party political points out of a serious matter.

Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests Resignation

Debate between Michael Ellis and Neale Hanvey

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I think all our independent advisers since 2006 have been independent of politics. They have been people of the highest integrity and probity, as is Lord Geidt. It is a position that is increasingly put under considerable pressure, but we must have regard for that and ensure that the standards are maintained.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

The integrity and ability of Lord Geidt is not in question. The question that we are all asking is, what on earth was it that encouraged him to tender his resignation? What scandal should we expect to come down the tracks?

Sanctions

Debate between Michael Ellis and Neale Hanvey

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I am so pleased that my right hon. Friend says that, because that is exactly what we are doing. The greatest expedition is being applied to this matter.

The legislation follows the made affirmative procedure, as set out in section 55(3) of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. I know the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is familiar with that and supported it strongly in this House both in 2018 and before. The legislation follows the process of that Act, so I have no doubt he will support it. These statutory instruments amend the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced, the powers they contain will prevent Russian banks from accessing sterling.

This is a significant and new measure for the United Kingdom. Russian banks clear no less than £146 billion of sterling payments into and out of the United Kingdom’s financial system every year. Without the ability to make payments in sterling, designated banks will not be able to pay for trade in sterling. They will not be able to invest in the United Kingdom. They will not be able to access the UK’s financial markets. This measure matches the power the United States already has to prohibit access to the US dollar, and shows our joint resolve with our American allies to remove Russia from the global financial and trade system. Around half of Russian trade is denominated in dollars or sterling.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

The objective of sanctions is to limit the escalation of hostilities. I hope we are able to effect that through these measures, but does the Minister not accept that the list exists in some form, as has already been referred to, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has already outlined a remedy? Surely it is not beyond the wit of man for us to come together to make these sanctions work and avert an escalation of hostilities?

[Michael Ellis]

That is what we all want to do. These measures will work; the reality is that they follow the mechanism outlined in the 2018 Act.

Downing Street Garden Event

Debate between Michael Ellis and Neale Hanvey

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I presume that the hon. Lady’s constituent, together with others who have been penalised for breaching the regulations, was either duly convicted or accepted their responsibility. If I may say so, she is prejudging the matter. She should wait for the result of the investigation, just as Malcolm presumably did.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

There is an expression, “the buck stops at the top,” which is usually applied by people in leadership when they take responsibility. In April last year my 58-year-old friend Ray lost his battle with covid and died. We went to his funeral online via video link. In August my father passed away and I was fortunate enough to be in the room to hold his hand as he passed away. In the intervening months, I lost count of the number of conversations I had with families and council officers who were trying to negotiate more than six or eight people at a funeral. Will the Paymaster General please explain why the Downing Street social world is more important than those lives and the law of the land?

[Michael Ellis]

May I start by saying that I am very sorry for the hon. Gentleman’s loss of his friend and of his father? I think it would be only fair to challenge him on his point about what Downing Street staff think. Downing Street staff work very hard for the people of this country—[Interruption.] It would not be fair to characterise all the work they have done over the course of years in the way that he does. We do not want to prejudge what occurred on that occasion. The reality is that we should take the approach that, unless proven to the contrary, most people in public life, no matter what their party political persuasion, work in the public service and do the best they can.

Covid-19: Award of Contracts

Debate between Michael Ellis and Neale Hanvey

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

I am very grateful to be speaking in this Adjournment debate on covid-19 contracts and I congratulate the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) on his success in securing this debate.

As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, covid-19 has presented this country with one of the most unprecedented challenges that we have faced since world war two. It has been imperative for us all to work together and to do so closely throughout the pandemic. This Government recognise the importance both of the key role of the devolved Administrations, and of our working together as one United Kingdom. It is thanks to that close collaboration and co-ordination that we have been able, as a United Kingdom, to achieve enormous success in, for example, our vaccine roll-out programme, where we are leading the world, and I hope that he will recognise that.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned personal protective equipment. The reality of the matter is that, since 25 February 2020, we have secured the production of more than 16.5 billion items of PPE, the majority of which have either been delivered or are on their way and enable us to meet the future needs of health and social care workers. Since 9 April 2020, more than 5.4 billion items of PPE have been ordered through the e-portal. We have also established a safety stockpile of all covid-critical PPE, with a tremendous contribution from UK manufacturers, to ensure that we can continue to provide an uninterrupted supply to the frontline. We have done so despite the fact that pressure from almost every country in the world put enormous strains on supplies of PPE. Therefore, we are working extremely hard to ensure that resilience and sustainability is built into long-term planning for UK manufacturers. The PPE cell, as it is called, has now developed a UK-based supply chain for PPE, and that is a complete turnaround from the situation before covid. We have been building UK manufacturing capacity and we have been doing so by signing contracts with more than 30 British-based companies for the provision of 3.9 billion items of PPE.

[Neale Hanvey]

rose—

[Michael Ellis]

I will just make some progress, if I may.

There has been an enormous effort and an enormous success, despite considerable international pressure, in establishing those routes and chains and developing them to supply the vast quantities that have been required by this country. We have done that with the assistance of more than 30 UK-based companies, which should be thanked for their work and their efforts.

There is a high-priority lane for PPE, and the high-priority mailbox was set up at a time when this country and our citizens were in need of urgent help. Many suppliers and individuals were rightly passing on offers of support direct to local MPs, both Government and Opposition MPs, and passing on their suggestions to healthcare professionals, civil servants and anyone they knew. They were right to do so to both Labour and Conservative MPs across the House, because they were seeking to assist the national interest in what was at the time a national emergency. They were keen that the Government procurement effort should know what was available.

The mailbox at the time allowed MPs, Ministers and senior officials to direct those offers to a dedicated location. The high-priority lane was simply one way of helping us to identify credible opportunities for PPE procurement, so that frontline workers received the protection they needed as fast as possible. It was in the national interest, it was a good thing to do and people should be thanked for their help in that regard.

Ministers were not involved in the decision to establish the high-priority lane; it was an internal process, if hon. Members would like to know, led entirely by officials. In order to demonstrate our commitment to transparency, we said on 17 November that the Government would publish, and we did publish, details of the suppliers identified through the high-priority lane and those who referred them through that route.

[Neale Hanvey]

I reflect on the comments the Prime Minister made to me during Prime Minister’s questions on 18 March 2020, when I asked him whether the priority should be the prize of beating covid rather than patents and profits. Does the Minister not share my concern that there have been significant mark-ups on a range of products, from PPE to lateral flow devices, so that companies that prior to the pandemic were in deficit now enjoy enormous profits—in the multi-millions of pounds—for doing little more than purchasing and passing on products to the UK Government and trousering significant profits? Does that not disturb him?

[Michael Ellis]

I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of business as some sort of enemy of the people, which is what he is effectively saying. Profit is not a dirty word, except possibly to the extremists on the far left. The reality of the matter is that we have sought the support of UK companies and they have come good on that support. They have therefore assisted the British people and our national health service by supplying PPE when it has been needed, despite enormous international pressures and demands around the world for those supplies.

I am not going to get into any individual characterisation of any particular cases, because I do not have the facts that the hon. Gentleman contends available to me personally. As a general principle, however, we have sought assistance and we have received that assistance, and that has been in the national interest.

The hon. Gentleman mentions the National Audit Office report, for example. That report, “Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic”, which was published in November 2020, set out the facts relating to Government procurement during the covid-19 pandemic, covering the period up to 31 July. The report recognised that the Government needed to act with “extreme urgency” to procure large quantities of goods and services quickly, which of course is common sense, and

“frequently from suppliers it had not previously worked with”.

The NAO report that the hon. Gentleman mentions recognised that in a “highly competitive international market” we the UK had to deal with companies we had not previously worked with and we had to do so at speed, under considerable pressure. The NAO found “no evidence” of ministerial

“involvement in procurement decisions or contract management”,

so I hope he will read the report he has quoted.

I am conscious of the time, so I will make further progress. The hon. Gentleman talked about testing equipment. There is currently no shortage of lateral flow tests.

There is enough stock to meet demand across the range of distribution channels, but tests are made available via home delivery channels each day. If they are not available at a specific time, people are encouraged to revisit the site later as more become available. We are issuing millions of rapid tests per day via home delivery, with record numbers distributed in recent days. We must balance the demands on the delivery network carefully, as the hon. Gentleman will recognise, to ensure that PCR and lateral flow tests can be delivered to homes across the country. We have worked with Royal Mail, for example, to increase capacity for home delivery of testing kits to 900,000 a day in response to unprecedented demand, and to ensure that even more people can order PCR and lateral flow tests directly to their home. That is a monumental achievement, and the UK is leading the world in this area.

[Neale Hanvey]

That is not true.

[Michael Ellis]

I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to be critical, because he wants to be critical of the UK, but it is leading the world. One and a half million tests a day—we spent £37 billion on Test and Trace. We have increased deliveries by 100% from 120 million to 300 million in the month of December, and that is more than any other country in the world. We have tripled the supply for January and February from 100 million to 300 million a month, so the UK’s testing programme is the biggest in Europe, with over 400 million tests carried out to date—twice the number in France and more than four times the number in Germany. The split of the tests sent each day—PCR and lateral flow tests—varies according to demand for PCR tests.

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the Minister give way one more time?

[Michael Ellis]

I am conscious of the time. The hon. Gentleman had quite some time for his contribution, but I will give way to him a second time.

[Neale Hanvey]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again—he has been a great sport.

I have one short question about the volume of testing devices. Does he have any indication of what percentage of the test devices that he has touted as the greatest number in the world were manufactured here in the UK by domestic diagnostic companies?

[Michael Ellis]

In times of urgency, we wish to source from the most immediately available sources. I do not have the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, but no doubt it can be provided later in writing. It goes without saying that we would wish to do everything that we can to provide support, but also to deal expeditiously with urgent demand. As well as the rapid expansion in delivery capacity to people’s homes, the UK Health Security Agency has increased test availability at pharmacies and so on. We want to ensure that there is a reliable test supply over the coming weeks. That is the most important thing, and we are working to procure hundreds of millions more.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, what we have learned from covid-19 is how the UK Government can work strategically and at scale to save jobs and support communities across the UK. We are all on that side—that is what we want to do. I want to support people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and I am sure that he would want to support people in constituencies around this country, working alongside the devolved Administrations to keep every citizen safe. That is our priority, and we want to support people no matter where they live in the United Kingdom. No part of the UK could have tackled this crisis alone. The Government have provided £400 billion of direct support for the economy during the pandemic to date. The United Kingdom has delivered, and is continuing to deliver.

I would say in conclusion that I am grateful for the valuable points raised by the hon. Gentleman throughout his remarks, but the Government are taking decisive action to reform the public procurement rules to create a system that is simpler, more open, fairer and more competitive. We are working on that alongside the full inquiry into the covid-19 response, which will take place this year.

Question put and agreed to.

Rule of Law

Debate between Michael Ellis and Neale Hanvey

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Solicitor General]

I will just finish my sentence. There is an understanding that decoupling from the European Union is a unique—indeed, unprecedented—situation with the added complexity of the peace process and Northern Ireland, and the unstable political landscape that prevailed before the last election. In the difficult and highly exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves we must, therefore, consider the fundamental principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

I have not been given an awful lot of time, but I must just say that the principle of parliamentary sovereignty means that it is entirely constitutional for Parliament to enact legislation even if provisions within that legislation, once commenced, would affect the UK’s treaty obligations. I will just make this point: section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 reiterated, in terms, that parliamentary supremacy “subsists” notwithstanding the provisions of the withdrawal agreement with express reference to direct effect, the very thing that may potentially be disapplied here. In other words, Parliament had already prepared for that eventuality. It is there in black and white in section 38.

In the United Kingdom, treaty obligations only become binding in domestic law to the extent that they are enshrined in domestic legislation. Whether to enact or repeal legislation, and the content of that legislation, is for this Parliament and for this Parliament alone. It is a dualist approach. It is not uncommon, and it is not rare. In fact, it is shared by Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Parliamentary scrutiny of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill so far has served to reinforce Parliament’s central role in the UK’s constitution.

In the last minute that I have, I wanted to reiterate this point: other states known for upholding the rule of law have passed domestic legislation that ran contrary to their treaty obligations. For example, in 2018 the Canadian Government introduced domestic legislation to legalise cannabis. That was in breach of specific provisions of the existing treaty obligations under three United Nations narcotics conventions. The Canadian Government acknowledged the breach, but they stated that their approach was still consistent with the overarching goal of those conventions. Debates such as this are an important opportunity to explain how the Government are upholding the rule of law while making provision for the internal market in the UK and retaining the ability to act decisively in the interest of the whole United Kingdom following our departure from the European Union earlier this year, so I thank the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath for raising the issue today.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6))