Civil Service Impartiality

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my right hon. Friend. Work is being undertaken at the moment to look at the conclusions we will draw from the work by Sir Nigel Boardman, PACAC and the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and I would not wish to pre-empt any of those discussions. I do not know—I say this in all candour to my right hon. Friend—whether that has been considered, but there will be a further opportunity in this House, when we come forward with our proposed reforms in due course, for such matters to be raised.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Is it not ironic that Sue Gray was the head of the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team, and it is she who has put the civil service under a dark shadow—a shadow that need not have existed? Is it not also the case that this was therefore bad judgment by her, but also bad judgment by the Leader of the Opposition, who, when asked 10 times this morning to give more information about when the discussions began, evaded it 10 times?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend. I think it may well have been a miscalculation by the Leader of the Opposition. He can do his best to rescue that by being fully open about the facts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

9. What discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on investment from England into Wales; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

I have regular discussions with the Welsh Government on increasing investment in Wales and supporting the Welsh economy. Our plans for at least one Welsh freeport alongside our investment in infrastructure will act as a catalyst for further investment from the UK and beyond.

[Michael Fabricant]

A number of Welsh nationalists—not all but some—used the opportunity of covid and the closure of the Welsh border to incite anti-English feeling. Now we hear that Plaid Cymru, working with Labour, will introduce a hotel tax and other taxes. What does my right hon. Friend think that will do for English investment in Wales?

[David T. C. Davies]

I want to see people from England, and from all over the world, visiting Wales, and I am sure that all who do will appreciate the natural beauty and all that Wales has to offer to the tourism industry. I was disappointed that some people appeared to be indulging in anti-English rhetoric during the covid crisis. I hope all Members of this House would condemn such behaviour. I want to do more to encourage tourism, which is why I regret the fact that the Welsh Labour Government are bringing in a tourism tax. A tax on tourism is an attack on the tourist industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about the subject. “All in, all together” harnessed the power of local media and was particularly effective in reaching specific audiences to spread vital information. As he will appreciate, sometimes we want a more targeted approach to get better cost-effectiveness. I should also say that we use OmniGOV, and any local outlet—online or otherwise—that wishes to be on the list can apply by contacting OmniGOV directly.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

6. Whether he is taking steps to increase the number of senior civil servants recruited from the private sector.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

We have strengthened the policy of advertising senior civil service jobs externally by default. To increase private sector recruitment and attract a broader range of applicants, new guidance will support Departments working with external search providers to identify new and experienced talent to join our excellent colleagues delivering for the country.

[Michael Fabricant]

But it is not just about senior civil servants. I think middle-ranking and junior civil servants could also benefit from a fresh influx of the dynamism and different attitudes that people from the private sector may enjoy, so why is my right hon. Friend not chasing those people for middle-ranking civil service positions too?

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend is always the very embodiment of dynamism. I absolutely agree: there is a huge amount of talent that we seek, and I am delighted to say that our focus is not just on the senior civil service. We wish to go and get the very best all the way through. Our apprenticeship schemes have been launched for the next three years, and we want to have 5% of the entire civil service formed of apprentices. That is yet another example of how we are reaching out to all starters to make certain that we get the very best talent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

That is a decision for the Department of Health and Social Care. I gently remind the hon. Lady that that PPE was required for any reason. To have had access to PPE is helpful. There is a lot of hindsight being applied to the circumstances we found ourselves in at the start of covid. It is obviously right that we maintain sufficient levels of PPE, and it is up to the Department of Health and Social Care to determine where and how it is stored and at what cost.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

The city of Lichfield is currently experiencing a huge amount of house building, which happens in other parts of the country too, so I welcome the Government’s decision that the number of houses to be built should be advisory not mandatory. Along with those houses, there is a need for hospitals, schools and leisure centres. What does the Cabinet Office do to co-ordinate all those different Government Departments to ensure that those facilities are available for the extra people who will move into the area?

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the need to ensure that infrastructure goes with development. Clearly, that is led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but the Cabinet Office continues to monitor progress against the agreed goals of that Department and to work closely with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

I would be absolutely delighted to meet Guide Dogs to talk about the campaign. It is an important stakeholder in the disability sector, and we will make sure that that meeting happens.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities will have seen in the news today that between 400 and 500 migrant workers were killed building the stadia in Qatar. Does that not make FIFA’s decision to choose Qatar as a location even more ridiculous? Will she join me in condemning FIFA for the way it has kowtowed to the Government of Qatar in relation to their anti-LGBT bullying?

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. Ministers and senior officials have raised the concerns of LGBT visitors with Qatari authorities at all levels and will continue to engage on the issue during the World cup. In fact, the Minister for Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), is out there supporting LGBT people and continuing the engagement to ensure that they are protected.

G20

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am disappointed with the hon. Gentleman’s comments, because I know he does not believe that. He can take comfort from the announcement, which is good for both Indian students and British students who want to go back and forth—that is a good thing.

The Home Secretary is rightly focused—there is nothing “dog whistle” about it—on clamping down on illegal migration, which the British people rightly expect and demand, and it is something that she and this Government will deliver.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition correctly said that Russia is losing this war. Like a wounded animal, it is now lashing out with weapons from, we believe, Iran and North Korea. Was any consideration given to additional sanctions on those two countries and possibly excluding Russia from membership of the G20?

[The Prime Minister]

The G20 is not like the G7. It is a broader grouping of countries that works by consensus, so it is not possible to expel Russia in the same way, but my hon. Friend will take comfort from our using the opportunity to unequivocally condemn Russia’s actions. With regard to sanctions on Iran and others, he will be aware that we have recently imposed new sanctions on Iran that relate specifically to the treatment of protesters in the recent demonstrations. That is the right thing to do as the behaviour of the Iranian regime is not acceptable and we should hold it to account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

T2. Back in the 1990s, a colonel in the Royal Marines said to me that he would rather have a gay Marine alongside him who could shoot straight than a straight Marine who could not. My right hon. Friend will know there was much persecution of gay people in the armed forces. Can she update us on how the LGBT veterans independent review is getting on?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I can tell him that under Lord Etherton as chair, this important independent review has launched a call for evidence on the experiences of LGBT veterans who served between 1967 and 2000, when LGBT people were barred from openly serving in the armed forces.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, and I addressed these matters earlier this year.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you will know that I fought hard to bring back Boris. In ’97, I campaigned for Kenneth Clarke and then for Michael Portillo, so I cannot always get it right—but I do know about the west midlands. I know that the West Midlands Mayor very much welcomes the reappointment of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and looks forward to working with our new Prime Minister. May I ask the Prime Minister what his vision is for levelling up?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can say is that our desire is to ensure that wherever people live in our fantastic country, they have enormous pride in the place they call home and have every opportunity to succeed—and you know what? It is the fantastic Mayor Andy Street who is delivering that for his constituents in the west midlands.

Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will not give way; I am going to make some progress.

We took back control of our money, we took back control of our borders and we installed a points-based system for immigration. We took back control of our laws. We on this side of the House took back the sovereign right of the British people to determine their own laws and their own future in Parliament, and for that I say to colleagues on the Government Benches: your place in history is secure. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: it will never be forgotten that 48 times he tried to overturn the will of the people—48 times he tried to strike down the biggest expression of popular will. It will be remembered in the history of this country. Be in no doubt that if he were ever to come to power with his hopeless coalition of Liberal Democrats and Scottish nationalists, he would try to do so again, at the drop of a hat.

It was only a month or so later that the Government were forced to show their resolve again, when we began to lose thousands of lives in the worst pandemic for a century; a global pandemic whose origins we did not fully understand and were nothing to do with the British people—if anything, they were the result of distant misbehaviour involving bats or pangolins—and whose spread was appallingly difficult to manage. Through wave after wave, this Government never gave up, and thanks to the courage and indomitable resilience of the British people, we protected our NHS and saved thousands of lives.

We were finally rescued by the genius of British scientists, by a vaccine that was licensed faster than any vaccine in the world and by a roll-out that was faster than that of any comparable country—faster, of course, than we would have achieved if we had listened to the Leader of the Opposition. It was so fast that the EU Commission actually tried to expropriate 5 million doses of Astra to try to slow us down, it can be told —[Interruption.] Yes, “shame” is right. And still they failed. In so far as the Opposition came up with any ideas at all, they quaveringly called for more lockdowns. We trusted to British science and the vaccine roll-out. They vacillated, we vaccinated, and we vaccinated so fast that we came out of lockdown quicker than any other European country. When I look at that achievement, Mr Speaker, I tell you I have confidence in this Government and in what they can do.

As a direct result of the actions of the Government, we had the fastest growth in the G7 last year, which is why we are able now to help people across the country with the latest challenge: the global inflation in energy prices triggered partly by post-covid blockages but made far worse by Putin’s vile war in Ukraine. It is because we have sensibly managed the economy that we have the fiscal firepower to give £1,200 to the 8 million most vulnerable households and £400 to help every household with the cost of energy. We can do that because our economic fundamentals are strong, with British companies hiring talent up and down the country, with unemployment at or near a 50-year low, with 620,000 more people in payroll employment than there were before the pandemic began and youth unemployment at or near a 45-year low, and with people coming off benefits and getting into work, including 500,000 just in the six months to June.

That is the fundamental difference between this Government and the Opposition: we believe that the best answer to poverty is not benefits—that is what they think—but the security, happiness and dignity that goes with a job. I am proud of what we have done throughout the last three years to champion working people: lifting the living wage, cutting tax for those on universal credit, and just in the last couple of weeks, the biggest tax cut in 10 years for the vast majority of people on lower incomes who pay national insurance contributions.

I will give you a fact, Mr Speaker. That is why today, under this Government, the poorer households in this country get more of their income from their earnings, and under Labour they got more of their income from benefits. That is the reality of the difference between them and us. There has never been a Labour Government that left office with unemployment lower than when it came in. That is why I have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I personally think that our party is making the same mistake the Labour party made when it knifed Tony Blair. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the excess death rates in Europe show that, thanks to his early intervention with the vaccine, fewer people died in the United Kingdom than in the majority of other European countries? And thanks to his intervention, Kyiv is still a part of Ukraine and not a part of Russia.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much. He is absolutely right in what he says about the record of the NHS and the record of this country in beating back covid. What a pity it was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, came so many times to this place and said that we had the worst record in Europe. He has never taken it back, Mr Speaker. Perhaps he will do so in the course of the debate to come.

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[The Deputy Prime Minister (Dominic Raab)]

I rise to proudly defend the record of this Government under this Prime Minister, and to speak in favour of the motion before the House. The Government under this Prime Minister have steered the country through some of the most difficult challenges in living memory.

This Government under this Prime Minister got the big calls right on the vaccine roll-out—the fastest and most effective in Europe. We would not have been able to do that if we had listened to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the Leader of the Opposition, because we would have been tied to the EU’s approach, with all of its limitations. [Interruption.] Labour Members chunter from a sedentary position, but it is worth reflecting on how many lives and livelihoods it would have cost us if we had listened to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Labour Members really ought to have a bit more contrition.

Next, the Prime Minister and this Government took the tough call to come out of lockdown. It was around this time last year and in the teeth of opposition from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, backed up by his colleagues. As a result, we emerged with the fastest growing economy in the G7 last year, with 12 million jobs saved by furlough and in a strong position to face down the economic headwinds that have followed. Again, Labour Members might show at least a bit of remorse for their spineless, vacuous fence-sitting. The right hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head, but I thought that the leader of the Labour party would appreciate the opportunity to look back with the benefit of hindsight at some of the mistakes that he has made. That is what he does; that is what they do.

I listened very carefully to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the list of criticisms that he levelled at the Government. At the end—he bored on for quite some time—he said:

“I know that there has been fearmongering that this motion might lead straight to a general election…that is complete nonsense”.

It must be the first time in history that the Leader of an Opposition has pushed for a vote of no confidence but has not come out and called for a general election. That is the Labour party under the right hon. and learned Gentleman: all critique, no cojones.

Now, as we face a global fight against inflation, caused by the aftershocks of covid and the war in Ukraine, we again face a series of tough calls. We have put in place, under this Government and under this Prime Minister, an unprecedented package of targeted support to help those struggling the most to make ends meet. But we have to control inflation, we have to rein it, and that includes the way we address public sector wage demands. The consequence of failing to curb inflation—the direct result of giving in to excessive public sector wage demands—would be to keep inflation higher for longer and to have a further increase in interest rates. That reckless abdication would hit the poorest the hardest, and it would strike not just the lowest incomes in our society but the mortgages of working and middle-class families across the country. Conservative Members are committed to that wage restraint, coupled with an extensive package of support for the poorest and most vulnerable to get inflation down as soon as possible, which is the only credible approach.

What has Labour been doing about it? Members on the Labour Front Bench ignored the leader of their party and defied the memorandum that he sent in June ordering them not to back the RMT union. They actively backed the most militant demands led by that union, whose irresponsible strike action caused widespread disruption to people’s lives and livelihoods. It was not just the usual virtue-signalling tweets; many of those Members joined the RMT picket lines, backing the unions over the public. The right hon. and learned Gentleman showed that he cannot control or lead his party, and he cannot stand up to the public in the face of strikes coming down the line.

[Michael Fabricant]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He may not agree with me, but I think that he is being a little unfair to the Leader of the Opposition. The pointless motion today, which he knows—[Interruption.] Oh, yes! The Leader of the Opposition demanded it, and the Leader of the Opposition is now getting it. The motion that he asked for and is getting today will unite the Conservative party more than anything else that he could possibly have done.

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What is more, the behaviour of those on the Labour Benches will unite the country. We know why they have not stood up to the unions, including the RMT, since 2015. The Labour party HQ and the local Labour party branches have guzzled up some £68 million in donations from the unions. It is the same old story. The Labour party cannot stand up for the people of this country because it is so deeply buried in the pockets of the unions.

While Labour Members play their games and stand on the side of the unions rather than the public, we will get on with delivering for the British people: unemployment close to a 50-year low, a rise in the national insurance threshold—

Extreme Heat Preparedness

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said, the law, as it stands, says that employers have an obligation to maintain a reasonable temperature at work—[Interruption.] It is not defined because circumstances may change. If someone is working in front of a blast furnace, that is different from working in an office. We may find that for many people during this period, being at work is cooler than being at home. Although I understand the hon. Lady’s point, there is already an obligation on employers to make sure that the temperature is reasonable for the circumstances.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity to praise the Meteorological Office, which was able to predict the heatwave with its Cray computers and declare a red alert days in advance? Is he aware that the Governments of France and Germany have been criticised for not giving advance warning of heatwaves in the northern parts of those countries, where heatwaves are not so known?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am more than happy to join my hon. Friend in praising the accuracy and professionalism of the Met Office. Its ability to predict the heatwave with some accuracy, both in respect of timing and geographically, has been remarkable. We rely on it for much of our resilience planning. There is no doubt about it: it has some of the best weather forecasters in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart]

As I have just said to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, the removal of the Golborne link was because Sir Peter Hendy’s connectivity review had found that it was not the best way to address the capacity constraints between Crewe and Preston. However, we are looking at better options for it; we are committed to HS2, and I believe the line will help connectivity between Scotland and England and encourage a modal shift to more environmentally friendly forms of transport.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

With millions of tonnes of soil being moved across Lichfield, roads closed and the canal obstructed because of HS2, perhaps we can help Scotland by giving them our bit of HS2?

[Iain Stewart]

I know my hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner against HS2, but we have had that debate, I am afraid. I am always happy to discuss with him how we can optimise the building work. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary, who is sitting next to me, has heard his representations. I am an enormous believer in the potential of high-speed rail links to transform the economic potential of this country.

Sue Gray Report

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That would greatly surprise me. I think the hon. and learned Lady should look more closely at Sue Gray’s report, where she will find the answer she seeks.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I understand the outrage of people in Lichfield and Burntwood, and indeed the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who have lost loved ones, but I also understand, having been an employer, that attending a leaving event is considered to be a work event. My right hon. Friend clearly had guidance that turned out to be wrong, so can he now explain how the appointment of a new permanent secretary at No. 10 will make a difference?

[The Prime Minister]

The structure of No. 10 has changed. There is more direct command and control of the whole building, which was a little unclear, and there is a new permanent secretary with direct responsibility for the whole office—hundreds and hundreds of people—as opposed to that function nominally being addressed by the principal private secretary. As Sue Gray says, the lines of command were not clear.