CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The answer is that the UK is making massive investments in Commonwealth countries. In the G7, the partnership for global infrastructure and investment helps developing countries around the world to move forward and to make the leap ahead to green technology, and to take investment from the UK—and not perhaps from others who are busier in getting them to pay their debts.

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

I have listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s warm words about the Commonwealth and its relationship with independent countries. In 1941, it was the then Prime Minister Churchill who signed the Atlantic charter with the United States, committing Britain and the United States to delivering people’s right to choose their own form of government and self-government. This respect for the principle of equal rights and the self-determination of peoples was incorporated into the United Nations charter in paragraph 2 of articles 1, 73 and 76. In light of that, can the Prime Minister set out what mandate he has won that allows him to breach this UN principle, deny Scotland’s claim of right and hold Scotland’s democracy hostage?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that the First Minister has asked for another referendum, and I just point out that we had one in 2014. Right now the priorities of the country should be rebuilding after covid and taking us forward together as a united country, and that is what we want to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right. We encourage the use of suitable brownfield land, and our policy is brownfield first, everywhere and always.

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

Q2. The Prime Minister will know from my recent correspondence that a Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituent, Ruth Zuccarello, is the sister of Jim Fitton, who is currently imprisoned in Iraq. He has been sentenced to 15 years for collecting some shards of pottery. The judge passing the sentence did not believe that Mr Fitton had any criminal intent. This has obvious and significant implications for Jim and his loved ones. Is the Prime Minister willing to meet me and other MPs who have constituents in Jim’s family to discuss the case, so that we can work in concert to resolve some of the issues?

[The Prime Minister]

I am really grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising Mr Fitton’s case. I have a great deal of sympathy with him. I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets a meeting with the relevant Minister as soon as possible.

Ukraine

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend and that is exactly what we can now do thanks to the measures this House has passed.

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

This morning we woke to the worst possible news. I make no apology in hoping for a diplomatic solution. However, my party and I condemn the escalating Russian aggression. This is a fluid and developing situation, but we are now in uncharted territory.

I can update the House. While there have been calls in this place for Alex Salmond to cease broadcasting on Russia Today, negotiations have obviously been happening in the background, and I can confirm that he has suspended broadcasting on Russia Today.

We must prepare for the worst. What strategy is the Prime Minister bringing forward to increase North sea oil and gas capacity, so that we can support ourselves and EU member states, and protect our people from a further increase in the cost of living?

[The Prime Minister]

I must say I disagree profoundly with what the hon. Gentleman has to say about negotiating now. I do not think that that option is open to us. We must do our best to support and protect the people of Ukraine, working with our international friends and allies to constrict what Vladimir Putin can do.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about Russia Today, I simply observe that the former leader of the Scottish National party—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman’s leader; I am so sorry. I understand the pleas he entered in defence and mitigation. They do not seem to cut much ice with me.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Early in the pandemic, the Government banged their fist on the table and demanded that the UK diagnostic sector respond to the challenge ahead. The industry responded, and its reward was to be ignored and side-lined—because contracts there came none. Two weeks ago, the UK diagnostics industry looked on in disbelief as the Prime Minister bragged about Government support for the manufacturing of lateral flow devices. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care bragged about buying UK-manufactured lateral flow devices. I could ask the Prime Minister how many UK-manufactured lateral flow devices his Government have purchased, but I do not need to because the answer is, none. Why is the Prime Minister trying to hide his Government’s undermining of the UK domestic diagnostic sector?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. He should go to Nottingham, where he will find a SureScreen Diagnostics factory, which makes lateral flow kits, and we have bought millions and millions of them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for all he is doing to champion trade with Latin America. I have no doubt that small businesses such as Squire Hair are eager to get into those new markets, and we will do everything we can to help and support him in his efforts.

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

As the cost of living crisis deepens, this Government’s priorities get ever more remote from my constituents. Only this week, I learned that a veteran in my constituency, James Scott, took his own life as a result of his struggle with mounting financial pressures. This is a Government who have been found to have acted unlawfully by the High Court over covid contracts and who are now preparing to write off £4.3 billion that had been allocated to those covid schemes. Why can the UK Government find billions of pounds for profiteers and fraudsters but not find the compassion to treat the people with dignity by lifting the benefits cap and reinstating the cut to universal credit?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I want to say how sorry I am for what the hon. Gentleman has had to say about James Scott. This Government do as much as we can to support veterans, and that is why we published the veterans action plan only the other day. We are also ensuring that we support people throughout this crisis. In my answer to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), I mentioned many of the steps we are taking to protect people on low incomes, and we will continue to do more. The hon. Gentleman attacks the contracts for PPE, but actually I think it was an astonishing thing to be able, at great speed, to give this country 17 billion items of PPE. Thanks to the efforts of people across Whitehall, this country is now capable of producing 80% of our own PPE.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know how strongly my hon. Friend and other colleagues across the south-west feel about this issue. That is why we have legislated to introduce higher rates of stamp duty on second homes. We will ensure that only genuine holiday businesses can access small business rates relief, but I am certainly happy to meet colleagues to discuss what further we may do to ensure that local people get the homes that they need.

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

In the words of the Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth:

“Scotland is vital for the UK’s energy needs, both currently and in the future…It is also vital for our future offshore wind capabilities, and other low-carbon and renewable energies.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2021; Vol. 701, c. 615.]

As he confirms, it is the rest of the UK that is dependent on Scotland, not the other way round. Does the Prime Minister not realise that his failure to invest in carbon capture and storage at St Fergus in Grangemouth and to feed the potential at Mossmorran in my constituency, is regarded as an act of deliberate economic vandalism, casting himself less as Bond and more as Blofeld the villain, for all the COP26 world to see?

[The Prime Minister]

What the COP26 world can see is the astonishing achievements of Scotland and the rest of the UK in developing clean energy sources. I have said to the right hon. Gentleman, the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party in Westminster, that we will come back to the Aberdeen—[Interruption.] Sorry, forgive me, the hon. Gentleman is a member of a different party, but it has substantially the same agenda. We will come back to this. What I have found encouraging about the past few days is the spirit of co-operation and joint enterprise that I now detect that will enable us to deliver massive carbon cuts across this whole country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I share the indignation and the frustration of my hon. Friend at the cruel behaviour of the gangsters, the criminal masterminds, who are taking money from desperate, frightened people to help them undertake a very, very dangerous journey across the channel. This is a perennial problem, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is dealing with it in the best possible way, which is to make sure that they do not leave those French shores. We depend to a large extent on what the French are doing, but clearly, as time goes on and this problem continues, we are going to have to make sure that we use every possible tactic at our disposal to stop what I think is a vile trade and a manipulation of people’s hopes.

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

Q4. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, my constituency is the fourth most affected by the cut in working tax credit and universal credit. It is impacting on families who are working in multiple jobs. A thousand pounds may only just cover the cost of a single roll of wallpaper in the Prime Minister’s flat, so will he please set out his understanding of the plight of the working poor, and explain what he meant when he said that they should “see their wages rise by their own efforts”?

[The Prime Minister]

I think everybody sympathises with people who are on low incomes, whom we have tried to protect throughout the pandemic. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor brought forward a package that was recognised around the world as being almost uniquely progressive in the way it directed funding and support to the lowest paid and the neediest. That was quite right, but we are also now trying to ensure that we have a high-wage and high-skilled jobs-led recovery, and that is what is happening. I am proud to be a Conservative Prime Minister who is seeing wages for the lowest paid rising at their fastest rate for many years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

On behalf of the Alba party, I add my voice to the comments about 7/7. On the morning of 7/7, I was in a meeting at University College London Hospital A&E as the information started coming through, and I pay tribute to every single one of the frontline staff I worked alongside on that day. It was a long shift and it was a long walk home that evening.

The Prime Minister talks about vaccines. Accurate surveillance is also really important—it is equally important. On 15 March, the Department of Health of Social Care Minister Lord Bethell said on Twitter that Omega Diagnostics and Mologic were in line for an order of 2 million lateral flow devices per week by the end of May, and promised jobs and security. Will the Prime Minister explain why his Government are undermining superior domestic diagnostics tests while propping up discredited Chinese imports to the tune of £3 billion?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think that is an entirely fair characterisation of what the Government are doing. On the contrary, we have worked night and day to build up our domestic lateral flow capacity and continue to do so.

G7 and NATO Summits

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. The Carbis Bay declaration is the foundation of the treaty that this country has been helping to prepare, and which we have been pioneering, against any future pandemic. The crucial elements are zoonotic research hubs, the pathogen surveillance network, and the undertaking to share data to prevent barriers between our countries in the export of personal protective equipment, medicines, vaccines and other things. It is the foundation to ensure that the time between a new variant arriving and a new vaccine should be kept down to 100 days, and to ensure that we spread know-how and manufacturing capacity around the world. This is the foundation of a new global approach to tackling pandemics. The UK has been absolutely instrumental in setting this up, to say nothing of the funding that we have put in, and I believe that the Carbis Bay declaration will be seen as a very important step towards the treaty later this year.

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

I thank the Prime Minister for his update on the G7 summit. However, I find myself in the curious position of agreeing with one of my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath predecessors, who commented on the commitments secured, with the Prime Minister in the chair, as an “unforgivable moral failure”.

The agreement is simply not good enough: 11 billion vaccines are needed and 1 billion have been promised; $50 billion of funding is needed, but only $5 billion has been promised. The World Health Organisation has said that covid-19 is moving faster than the vaccines, and the G7 commitment is simply not enough. For the aspiration of global Britain is fast becoming a global embarrassment, more indicative of a Del Boy Britain. Will the Prime Minister now show real leadership, and redouble efforts to secure the suspension of intellectual property protections, and further international efforts to prevent new variants from developing? I appeal to his self-interest that none of us are safe until everyone is safe.

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is running down the UK’s efforts, as well as what the summit achieved, which is 1 billion more vaccines, on top of the 1 billion that G7 countries have already committed to distributing around the world. This is only six months after these vaccines were invented—it is an astonishing thing! He attacks the performance of Britain and the people of the UK, but let me remind him that we in this country are responsible for one-third of the 1.5 billion vaccines that have been distributed around the world. When will he get that into his head? That is a fantastic record, on top of the 1.6 billion that we have been contributing to that COVAX roll-out. I think the people of this country should be immensely proud of the Carbis Bay declaration and the vaccines contribution that we are making. We are working as fast and as hard as we can, while still getting vaccines into the arms of our own people in this country, and that is absolutely right.

Covid-19: Road Map

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right, and, as she will have heard just now, the option to book a staycation is, all being well, now there for 12 April, and I cannot imagine there are many lovelier destinations around then than the Derbyshire dales.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP) [V]]

Following the High Court ruling that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care acted unlawfully by failing to comply with the transparency rules, will the Prime Minister now publish the names of the companies awarded contracts that were introduced to high-priority lanes by Ministers, hon. Members, peers and officials, and set out any material, financial or fiduciary responsibility or relationship between each company and the persons responsible for that introduction to the priority lane?

[The Prime Minister]

I repeat the answer I have given several times: all these contracts are published in the normal way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neale Hanvey and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

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

Q13. In response to covid-19, there are reports from across the globe of antiretroviral drugs being tested alone and in combination with varying degrees of reported success. In light of that, can the Prime Minister advise the House what resources are being made available for drug security and development and clinical trials in the UK? What efforts are being made by him for the UK to work in concert internationally? Does he agree that the prize on this occasion must be the victory and not patents and profits?

[The Prime Minister]

I endorse completely the sentiment that the hon. Gentleman has just expressed about the need to do this collectively. The Government have announced a £46 million package of investment for finding a vaccine. As I have just said, a huge amount of work is going into investing in test kits, and those are changing and improving the whole time. The House will be reassured to know that this work is being done at an international level. We are working with our EU partners, the G7, the G20, the World Health Organisation and the International Monetary Fund—everybody is working together on the very issues that the hon. Gentleman raised.