Official Secrets Act
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me notice of her point of order. I believe that this is a matter for the Attorney General—who is responsible for the CPS—and as he sits in the other place, maybe we will have to use the Solicitor General as a way forward. In this case, I hope that a clear message has gone back to everybody that when we still have Members of Parliament who have sanctions, we cannot let this go in the way that seems to have been done.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker, I am one of the MPs who is currently sanctioned by China, and as one of the founders of the China Research Group I am one of the MPs who was spied upon here. I find it astonishing not just that this case, which was a slam dunk last year, has now been dropped, but that we are not even being told why it has been dropped. The one bright spot in this whole process has been your leadership on the issue, Mr Speaker, and in particular your decision to ban the Chinese ambassador from this building for as long as Members of this House are sanctioned. I worry that certain people will now come to you with honeyed words. How can I put on the record our thanks to you for your leadership, and also our hope that you will continue to stand strong on behalf of Members of this House?
Mr Speaker
I think you have certainly put it on the record.
I take seriously the sanctions that have been laid. My worry is that we have foreign state actors who do not believe in democracy, and democracy within this House. We must defend our democracy; we must defend Members of Parliament. I have to say a big thank you to our head of security, who has worked very hard on this. I am sure—not that they would make this judgment—that we are all disappointed with the outcome, including the Minister.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Actually, this Government and previous Governments have a proud record in championing LGBT rights. It was this Government who introduced same-sex marriage. We will continue to ensure that everyone in our society can live with tolerance and compassion, and have every opportunity available to them. That is what we have delivered, and that is what we will continue to deliver.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Last year, through the Homes for Ukraine scheme, my family and I welcomed a refugee family to our home. I am proud that this country has always offered refuge to those who need it. However, it is essential that we in this country decide who comes here. The Prime Minister has rightly said that he will do whatever it takes to stop the small boats and the evil trade around them, but is it not apparent after this morning’s ruling that what it will take is a new law to override the Human Rights Act and cut through the thicket of case law built up by judicial activism, so that we can bring back control of our borders and stop the small boats?
The Prime Minister
It is right that we go through the judgment carefully and properly. As I have said, the Government have already been working in advance on a new treaty with Rwanda to address the concerns that were raised previously and were raised by the Supreme Court, which also acknowledged that changes can be delivered to address those issues. Let me repeat, however, that if it becomes clear that our domestic legal frameworks, or indeed international conventions, are still frustrating plans after that point, I am prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships, because we are absolutely committed to stopping the boats.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Scotland Office are delighted that the UK Government’s freeport programme is being extended to Scotland. UK Government funding of up to £52 million for two new green freeports will boost Scotland’s economy by regenerating communities, creating high-quality jobs and supporting the transition to a net zero economy.
Alexander Stafford
The UK Government expect the existing confirmed freeports to add £24 billion to the UK economy. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that all political parties get behind the green freeports initiative to maximise the benefits they will bring to Scotland and the whole UK, rather than a divisive, costly and unwanted referendum on Scottish separatism?
Neil O'Brien
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have received five competitive bids for Scottish green freeports and the two Governments are working closely together to assess the proposals. I am confident that we will announce two outstanding winners that will create highly paid jobs, help to regenerate the areas around the ports and become global and national hubs of trade, innovation and investment.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
There are five excellent bids from across Scotland for the two proposed green freeports. Each of the bids is of such high quality that it would be a great shame not to support the local economies in Inverness and Cromarty, Orkney, the Forth, the Clyde, and Aberdeen City and Peterhead. Will the Minister’s Department consider what support can be given to unsuccessful areas, and whether that support can be widened?
Neil O'Brien
We will certainly look at that. Of course there is intense competition for the freeports, which will create huge benefits not only for the local area, but for all of Scotland.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Health and Social Care
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(4 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think what the Labour party needs to do is come up with any type of plan at all. Every day in this country, plan beats no plan. We are putting record investment into the NHS. We have a plan to clear the backlogs—to reduce the backlogs as fast as we possibly can with this levy. What would Labour Members do? Answer comes there none: they have no plan.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
For years, people have come to my surgery with horror stories about the difficulties of accessing care and the frankly squalid conditions that their loved ones have to be in in residential care. Can the Prime Minister reassure me that, as well as protecting the things people have worked hard for all their lives, we will also protect people from having to put their loved ones into conditions that not one person in this House would ever want for their loved ones?
The Prime Minister
Yes, because in addition to the caps and the floors that we are introducing to protect people from catastrophic costs, we are also introducing a fair cost of care.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady may know from what I said to the Liaison Committee several times, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Actually, there is more transit now taking place between Larne and Stranraer—Cairnryan, than there is between Holyhead and Dublin, because it is going so smoothly.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]
The Prime Minister
Yes indeed. My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point, and we have been talking intensively about that with the scientists over the past days and weeks and also in the past few hours. We are confident that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will be in a position to turn around new applications for new variants of vaccines, as may be required to deal with new variants of the virus.
Public Health
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
We all want to see only the minimum level of restrictions necessary to keep this virus under control and to support those suffering real hardship because of the virus. I welcome the extra support for the hospitality sector that the Prime Minister set out today. There is no question but that we have to keep this virus under control. So far this year, there have been nearly 80,000 excess deaths. It would take more than four months to read out the names of all those people one after another, because this is a killer virus and it can escalate very quickly.
During the second wave in Leicestershire, the numbers of people hospitalised by coronavirus escalated very quickly and remain above the level we saw even in the spring peak. However, after the national restrictions came in, we saw the infection rate turning around, and we are starting to see the hospitalisation rate turning around, too. The measures we took came just in time to allow life-and-death services such as cancer treatment to keep operating throughout the time we had gone through the peak. If we had waited or done nothing, doctors at our local hospitals are clear with me that those life or death services would have shut, so we took action just in time.
All developed countries have taken unprecedented measures to try to control the virus, and I am glad we are taking action earlier in our second wave than our neighbours in France. I am also glad that we have secured more access to vaccine shots than many of our neighbours, which will help us get back to normal faster next year. Things will get better next year, but with the vaccine so close now, people dying unnecessarily in the last days of the pandemic would be truly tragic. It seems to me that a tiered approach is the right one when we have the virus under control, making restrictions proportionate to the problem locally. Again, there is a contrast with France, where the Government have simply shut all restaurants until next year, and all bars are shut with no date to reopen.
Some people in this debate have supported making the areas more granular as we go through the reviews. I support that, and I want to see more rapid testing in my area to drive down the virus faster, but now that we are making progress, both nationally and locally, it would be tragic to throw that away. What is happening in Wales, where infections are now rising again, is a warning about loosening up too quickly.
There are many myths circulating at the moment. Covid is not just flu, and it is not just displacing flu. It is not the case, as some Members have claimed, that 90% of tests are false positives. In fact, the number is microscopic. Nor is it the case that those who have died would have done so anyway. In fact, a study by academics at Glasgow University suggested that on average, victims had 10 years left to live, and that is a lot. The relationship between protecting lives and helping the economy is not a simple trade-off. We can see that countries such as Sweden, which had a more liberal approach, had both a worse hit to their economy and a worse public health outcome, with more than 10 times the death rate of their near neighbours, yet we still see people online advocating that as a good way to go.
Arguably the best policy to control the virus is also the best policy to protect the economy. This has been a very tough year, but things will get better next year. Until then, we have to protect people’s health and protect lives, so I am supporting the measures we are taking tonight.
Neil O’Brien
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making light of some of these issues, which is amusing. However, there is a dangerous agenda behind some conspiracy theories. A lady was quoted in the Daily Mail yesterday, who, when one looks at her Facebook feed, is celebrating the burning down of Jewish-owned banks. She is presented as someone we should be listening to on public health. Does he think that is right?
Mr Wragg
Absolutely not. This has brought out the number of lunatics in the country, quite frankly.
Non-essential retail is to reopen. Why on earth was it closed in the first place? A Secretary of State beamed at us from the pages of The Daily Telegraph yesterday to say, “Rejoice! You can go out and shop around the clock.” We express surprise that so many of our high street retailers are going into administration. I was not particularly aware that the clothes rail at Dorothy Perkins was ever a particular vector of disease. This all links into the proportionality of the proposed measures.
Leaving aside my levity in opening, I have always believed the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 would have been a far better vehicle for implementing measures. We have talked about this huge statutory instrument before us and some of us have said that we are going to withhold our votes or vote against on the basis that we wish we could amend it. Well, we could amend it if it was done under the Civil Contingencies Act. Perhaps that is the reason why it was not used. That Act, of course, contains a 30-day review period, as opposed to a six-month period under the Coronavirus Act 2020. The Government have nothing to fear from greater scrutiny. Greater scrutiny leads to better government, and it should be accepted as it is proposed.
To come on to parochial matters relating to my own constituency and tiering decisions—to sound like a broken record, from what we have heard this afternoon so far—I strongly contend that Stockport should not be re-entering tier 3. It was in tier 3 before the lockdown, but it should more charitably be placed in tier 2, because its levels of covid per 100,000 population are now below that of Cheshire to its south, which was put into tier 2 last week.
Briefly, I am concerned about decision making and the so-called gold command. If one believes what one reads in The Sunday Times—sometimes a leap of faith in itself, but on this occasion I am minded to believe it—the decision on tiering for London was taken on the basis of 50,000 jobs being under threat if it was placed into tier 2, as opposed to 500,000 jobs if it was placed into tier 3. My constituents deserve exactly that consideration as well. I do not believe entirely in the north-south divide—a conspiracy theory that abounds in this House—but when we have such decisions, one cannot but help wonder if it might be true.
The Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, which I have the pleasure of chairing, wrote to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster last week to ask for further evidence on the five tests. My concern is that the fifth of those tests—that is to say pressure on the NHS, including current and projected occupancy—will trump all other considerations. The data and information on that are not freely available, however, and no answer has yet been received to that letter.
If the measures are arbitrary and there is no exact science behind them, I would sooner that the Government admitted that, because at least it would be an honest approach. As they have not done so, I cannot support these measures this evening.
Public Health
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. He is expressing a point of view that is shared by many people, but, alas, I believe that he is wrong. The facts do not support his view. I looked at the data and, unfortunately, this is what we have: hospitalisations mounting very, very steadily, which, as he knows, are leading indicators of fatalities. We have 2,000 more people on covid wards than this time last week and 25% more people today than there were last week and, alas, 397 deaths tragically announced yesterday —more than we have had for many months. The curve is already unmistakable and, alas, incontestable.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
In the past two weeks, we have gone from seeing cases mainly among young people to them being mainly among older people. We have seen it going from a problem in a few cities to a problem across the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we do not need a fancy model to see the numbers piling up in hospitals and to see what has happened in France—because it has not taken action as quickly as we have—to know that the thing to do is to take action now, not just to save lives, but to save the economy as well?
The Prime Minister
The economic dimension of what we are doing is absolutely right and the argument, as my hon. Friend rightly says, works both ways. I know how difficult it is, particularly for businesses that have just got back on their feet, that have done their level best to make themselves covid-secure, installing hand- washing stations, plexiglass screens and one-way systems, and, as the Chancellor has set out, we will do whatever it takes to support them. We have protected almost 10 million jobs with furlough and we are now extending the scheme throughout November. We have already paid out £13 billion to help support the self-employed, and we are now doubling our support from 40% to 80% of trading profits for the self-employed for this month. We are providing cash grants of up to £3,000 per month for businesses that are closed, which is worth more than £1 billion a month and benefits more than 600,000 business premises. We are giving funding of £1.1 billion to local authorities in England further to support businesses in their local economy in the winter months.
Keir Starmer
I do agree that it should be reviewed as soon as possible. I think that is probably a shared sentiment across the House, as nobody wants these measures to be put in place. It is a bit like the care homes issue that I raised earlier. We all know the risks to care homes from the first phase of the pandemic, and we all know the toll that the next few weeks are going take—not only on those in care homes, but on the families who are desperate to visit those in care homes. That is why I think it may be possible, on a cross-party basis, to find a way to have safe visits during the next few weeks. There are very difficult questions.
Let me turn to the question of homelessness, which is already a moral emergency in this country. The lockdown now comes as the weather has turned, the winter is setting in and sleeping rough is more dangerous than ever. It is therefore vital that the Government restart the “Everybody In” programme and reintroduce the evictions ban so that we do not see a further spike in homelessness. That needs to be done urgently.
More broadly, the Prime Minister needs to show that he has a plan B on 2 December to control the virus and rebuild the economy and a clear strategy to ensure that we never, ever get into this situation again. The explanatory notes in the regulations show just how vague the plans for 2 December are, as they say: “It is expected that at the end of the 28-day period, the previous alert levels introduced in October will once again be brought into force. This policy is subject to review”. There are millions of people who have been in restrictions for many months who will be very worried about that paragraph.
Let us take Leicester as an example. Leicester has been in restrictions for over 120 days. It is very hard to make the argument to the people of Leicester that the restrictions are working. It is very hard to make the argument to the people of Greater Manchester, who were in the equivalent of tier 2 restrictions for six weeks, that the tiered system is working. That is because the public’s experience of the tiered system is that areas that are in tier 1 or the equivalent end up in tier 2, and that areas that have been in tier 2, sometimes for weeks on end, drift towards tier 3. If the tier system worked, tier 2 areas would go back to tier 1; that would be success. But, actually, the vast majority—if not all of them—have gone up to tier 3.
The Prime Minister sometimes says that this is a party political issue, but it is not. If the idea at the end of the exercise on 2 December is to go back to the system that we are leaving tonight, when that system—certainly in tiers 1 and 2—simply is not working, that is very hard for the public, because they know that that is not going to keep them safe, they know that it puts further health and economic matters at issue and they know that it means that Christmas is not going to be what it could be.
Neil O’Brien
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about my constituency. I gently point out to him that during the period of the most restrictions in Leicester, the number of cases did come down from 160 to 25 per 100,000. That shows that tough controls of the kind that we are about to vote to bring in today do work.
Mr Speaker
Let me help people. A few Members have now intervened a couple of times. We want to get everybody in. If they go down the list, I am sure that they will appreciate that.
EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Michael Gove
On the first point, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, but I think that the EU has a very good understanding of exactly the points we make. On the second point, we want to have a pragmatic approach whereby the UK is responsible for the administration of these controls, but we want to provide the EU with reassurance wherever possible.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
I voted to leave in the referendum, and I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend that we have to have the right deal, but does he agree, given the economic challenges and the common security threats that we are facing from Russia, China and the middle east, that a deal is still the best outcome for both the UK and EU?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. The broader point that my hon. Friend makes about the need for solidarity among democracies at a time of increasing insecurity across the globe is an important one. We cannot agree to a deal at any price—we have been very clear about that—but the broader context that he provides is very helpful.
Debate on the Address
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and the thoughtful contributions we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the wonderful, passionate one nation speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk). It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). I am incredibly sorry to hear about her loss. As somebody who met many heavy heroin users in the six years that I worked with street homeless people, I agreed with much of what she said about the need to fight this terrible addiction. It was a powerful speech.
Apart from the commitment to get Brexit done, the great highlight of this Queen’s Speech is the commitment to enshrine in law a multi-year budget for the NHS and the extra nearly £34 billion a year that we will be spending on it—a huge increase in funding for our national health service. Having a multi-year budget and the certainty that comes with it is something that I have long argued for. Being able to plan not year to year or hand to mouth but for the long term is what will enable us to take forward huge projects such as the £450 million investment that is being made in Leicester’s hospitals, which will benefit my constituents. It means in practice that we will have a new maternity hospital, a new children’s hospital and upgrades to all the operating theatres and wards. It means additional car parking, because at the moment someone can spend as much time driving around the royal infirmary as they spend actually in there. These are the things that this Queen’s Speech actually means on the ground for my constituents.
On health, there is much else to welcome. There is the new NHS visa, so that those who want to serve the NHS can get into this country without hassle. There is the Bill to accelerate access to new medicines. All of those in the House who were involved in the campaign to get rare drugs such as Spinraza approved quickly and who saw the torment of the families who were waiting for them will really welcome that piece of legislation. The return of nurses’ bursaries is hugely important, as is the extra £700 million for more GPs and more GP appointments, which is probably one of the things I heard about most during the campaign.
Equally, with the new money for the NHS, the other hugely important commitment that we see in the Gracious Speech is the commitment both to increase funding and to reform the basic structure of social care. I believe that, since about 1997, there have been about 13 different commissions, consultations, Green Papers, and so on and so forth, and we have talked about this for too long. Although there has been progress through things such as the better care fund, there are still a large number of my constituents who I know, even today, are not getting the care they need because of our broken social care system. Let me welcome that commitment in the Queen’s Speech and quote the Prime Minister: “Let’s get this done!”
Closely tied up with the whole question of fixing social care is the whole question of fair funding for our local government, which of course funds it. In the last Parliament, I spent a lot of time banging the drum for fair funding—for the Leicestershire model of fair funding, because Leicestershire has been the lowest funded county council anywhere in the country for many years. If we were funded at the same level as Camden Council, we would have an extra £350 million a year to spend, and such imbalances in funding simply cannot be fair. I have banged the drum for it, the Government have listened and we have the commitment to introduce a fair funding formula. Now we must land that, and the detail of it.
On schools, again we have seen a move towards more fairness. Again, we have the welcome certainty of a multi-year financial settlement. Leicestershire schools have been among the lowest funded in the country for many years, and I think we are the seventh lowest funded authority. It is not fair that, while the average pupil in Islington or Kensington and Chelsea is getting £6,000 a year, pupils in Leicestershire have been getting just under £4,300. That imbalance is just too big. But, through this Queen’s Speech and through the fair funding formula, we are now going to make progress. In fact, the average increase in per pupil funding for schools in my constituency next year will be in the top fifth of the country. We have a 4.6% increase per pupil and, because there are 21 primary schools below the new funding floor, they will see an even bigger increase of over 6% a year. That is really welcome change for my local schools.
I will continue to campaign on a personal passion of mine, which is for small and village schools. In the last couple of decades, there has been a huge decline in the number of village schools and small schools. In 1980, there were 11,464 small primary schools with fewer than 200 pupils, but by 2018 there were just half that—5,406—and a disproportionate number of those losses have been in villages. Of course, small schools are at the heart of village life, and we cannot afford to lose them. Now that we have the multi-year funding settlement, I hope we can use some of the money to help smaller schools by doing things such as upgrading the lump sum, which is so important for schools in my constituency, including little primary schools such as Foxton at the top of the hill above the village. I remember hearing the children playing above the village during the campaign. It is a wonderful sound and we have to keep it.
I welcome the additional 20,000 police. We are getting 107 extra police this year in Leicestershire, and I want to make sure that we get our fair share of those new police. Although I am limited on what I can say about it, I hugely welcome the commitment to end automatic early release, to have the fundamental review of sentencing—I called for that before it happened—and to have a wider review of the functioning of the criminal justice system. These are hugely important.
The last thing I will talk about is something that has been a passion of mine for many years, which is the whole issue of levelling up poorer places and poorer regions. I welcome the Prime Minister’s strong personal commitment to this. In the Queen’s Speech, we see a lot of good things. We see the White Paper on levelling up capital investment across the regions across. We see the commitment, finally, to roll forward devolution beyond where it has got to in England, which is hugely welcome. There are measures to cut and to reform business rates, which is so important to help high streets that are competing with the internet. There are things such as the commitment to roll out and to fund the roll-out of faster broadband, and the shared Rural Services Network for mobile phones, which will improve coverage in blackspots, in constituencies like mine, in places such as Husbands Bosworth.
A lot of positive things are being done, but there is an awful lot to do. It cannot be right that so much of the Government’s most growth-enhancing spending is concentrated in already wealthy areas. It cannot be right that half of the fundamental science budget is going to just three cities—Oxford, Cambridge and London. It cannot be right that transport spending per head in London is twice the national average, but half the national average in the east midlands. It cannot be right that so many funding formulas have a circular logic, so that housing spending is directed towards areas with high house prices, and transport spending towards areas with high congestion. There is a circularity to that, which is like trying to put out a fire by pouring petrol on it, or saying that I will not water my plants until they start growing.
As well as changing the Government’s growth and spending we should also consider what the tax system can do to help drive private sector inward investment into poorer places—that is the fundamental thing that will help to change the pattern of decline that we have seen in too many places over the years. Manufacturing needs twice as much capital investment per head as other types of economic activity, yet our tax system is probably less friendly to capital investment than anywhere else in the G20. If we can change that, outside the EU we will have much more freedom to enhance those capital allowances that will help manufacturing. That in turn will help the regions where manufacturing is more dominant, which tend to be poorer areas. Finally, we must learn from countries such as Ireland, which has been aggressive in the way it has competed for inward investment around the world, and also ensured that a lot of high-wage, high-skilled employment has gone to poorer areas. People have been very clever in doing that in Ireland, and we should learn from them.
This Queen’s Speech is about better healthcare, a stronger NHS, better schools, more police and stronger law and order, and about having more chances to get on in places that have been left behind for a long time. This is about a levelled-up country, performing strongly across the board, firing on all cylinders, and I commend it to the House.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Michael Tomlinson
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, not least because it means we can hear from other colleagues on this point. It shows that these whispers on the wind are not always accurate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t—we will find out in due course.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, quite apart from the consequences for constituency activities, a crucial consequence of an early Dissolution would be for the business of the House and the threat of losing crucial legislation, such as the Northern Ireland Budget Bill, which is essential if Northern Ireland civil servants are to be paid and a Government shutdown avoided?
Michael Tomlinson
That is one of the key points. Thursday is the traditional day, but it is indeed important to ensure that the civil service is up and running in Northern Ireland, and that is the main reason why I will support this measure if it comes to a vote.