United Kingdom Internal Market

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Yes, that is the position.

In closing, there are sensitivities on all sides, as we have heard over the course of the debate, but real life in the age of intervention is complex, and we will press on as best we can. With that, I believe this Government have kept to the timetable as we agreed. I very much hope we will be able to look forward now to a restored Executive—one we will be very pleased to support in serving the best interests of all the people of Northern Ireland.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Windsor Framework (UK Internal Market and Unfettered Access) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.

Business of the House

Ordered,

At this day’s sitting, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraphs (1) and (2) of Standing Order No. 22D relating to the scheduling of select committee statements, a select committee statement on the Third Report of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee may be made after the conclusion of proceedings on this motion.—(Robert Largan.)

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As Members may know, the Backbench Business debate on miners and mining communities has been postponed to a later date. We will now move on to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.

Public Health

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I do agree. I call on Ministers to publish robust data about the balance of costs and benefits. I understand that there is no impact assessment to go with this statutory instrument—I was certainly told that when I picked it up. We really should now be looking extremely carefully at the balance of cost and benefit to overall human flourishing. I am certainly not currently persuaded that the benefit is net positive.

I pay tribute to 66 GPs, led by Dr Ellie Cannon, who have written to the Secretary of State to say that it is now time for him

“to consider non-covid harms and deaths with equal standing as the reported deaths from covid”.

They have suggested that there be a GP on SAGE; I suggest that we also have some economists on SAGE and have made some other proposals about competitive scientific advice, devil’s advocates and other measures that could improve things. The letter from GPs is extremely important. It is time to listen to GPs.

As I reflect on this statutory instrument, I have to say that it is also time to start to think about another way. The Government’s strategy is clearly to suppress the virus, through instruments such as the one we are discussing, pending a vaccine. But what if a vaccine does not come? What if a vaccine, when it comes, does not achieve the ends aimed at? What if we still need some kind of measures alongside a vaccine? I have talked to specialists in this area, and it seems to me—with great sadness—to be pretty clear that we might be in those circumstances, in which case the Government will need a plan B.

For that reason, I was very glad to sign the Great Barrington declaration and to encourage parliamentarians of all parties and both Houses to sign it to show that there is political consensus in both Houses and across all parties for another way. This is plan B, authored by Dr Martin Kulldorff, Dr Sunetra Gupta and Dr Jay Bhattacharya and signed by 1,120 medical and public health scientists, 1,241 medical practitioners and more than 19,000 members of the public, including me. I commend it to the Government.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before I call Mark Harper, I would like to say that if business does end early, I hope that David Linden and Richard Drax, who are presenting petitions, will not be far from the Chamber, and that Richard Holden, who has the Adjournment debate, and Ed Argar, the Minister who will respond to it, are not far away either. I should hate for them to miss their opportunities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

China is a massive market. Does the Secretary of State agree that the open skies policy that was recently agreed with China, increasing the number of flights by 50% to 150 a week, will be a great boost to business throughout this country when it comes to doing trade deals with China?

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he reminds me that according to the European Commission, 90% of world growth will come from outside the EU by 2020. I think he points to the importance of the UK turning outwards to be a global trading nation and enjoying productive, prosperous relationships with the whole world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), has met them, and I am sure that were he to be asked a question, he would give a fuller answer.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

It was very wise of the Government to prepare dossiers on the impact of Brexit on sectors in the United Kingdom. I assume that the European Union has done something similar regarding what it is going to do when it loses £10 billion to £12 billion a year. Indeed, the German Government might have prepared a dossier about the impact on their car industry, and the French might have prepared one on their wine industry. Has the Minister received any representations from Opposition Members about pressing those Governments to publish their dossiers?

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I feel sure that all sides in this negotiation are conducting their analyses of everyone’s negotiating capital. The electorate of all Members of this House will note who is asking for which negotiating position to be revealed, and what that says about their acceptance of the referendum result.

European Affairs

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Evans]

I looked at both documents, and the funny thing is that about 98% of it was the same; they cut and pasted it and it was virtually the same document. I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at the time, and I remember European Commission officials telling us, “Don’t worry; it’s virtually the same document.” They had one message for the people of the United Kingdom and a completely different one for the European Union.

[Mr Baker]

It was a think-tank—possibly Open Europe—that made available a consolidated version so that one could see, by putting the documents side by side, that there were no substantive differences. The only purpose of that treaty was to get it through without asking the people whether they wanted it, and that, I am unashamed to say, was the trigger that brought me here.

[Mr Evans]

If Tony Blair thought that he was doing this project any favours by denying the British people a referendum, he was greatly mistaken. I think that the reason he withdrew the promise of a referendum was that he thought the British people would vote no. Ireland regularly has referendums on treaties, and it sometimes has a second one, but normally after another discussion with the European Union in which parts of the treaty are changed to make it more favourable to Ireland. Had we voted no to the Lisbon treaty, I suspect that there might have been a different project for the United Kingdom—a third way, to use Tony Blair’s favourite phrase—in a more associative relationship with the European Union, based more on trade than on the political entity that we know a number of European Union leaders want. I think that Tony Blair did this project no favours whatsoever.

I will vote to leave the European Union because I love my country, but I respect those who will vote to remain, because they love their country too; both sides believe that they are acting for the betterment of their country. My grandfather fought in the first world war and my father fought in the second world war, and they did so to give democratic rights to countries within Europe, and indeed across the rest of the world. Devolution is a keystone of British policy, bringing power closer to the people, but I believe that the leading elites of Europe might as well be from another planet. Most normal people in this country, and indeed across the rest of Europe, cannot name a single member of the Commission. We have scores of these faceless governing elites, many of them on salaries way above the Prime Minister’s.

That reminds me of this great red card that we have been told will allow us to stop legislation we do not like, so long as we join together with another 14 countries to block it. The idea was ridiculed by William Hague in this Chamber when it was first suggested. Even if the legislation we were trying to block proposed the murder of the first born, he argued, we would be unlikely to get 14 other countries to come together in the timescale that we would be given. Remember what happened—this is a measure of how influential we are in the rest of Europe—when we tried to stop Juncker becoming President. We went on a great salesmanship deal throughout the rest of the European Union, and how many countries did we get to support us? The answer is one—Hungary—out of 27.

Planning Reform

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Evans]

I totally agree. It means frustration on the part of not only the people, but the councillors. They shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, what is the worth of being a local authority councillor if we are making these decisions on behalf of the public and then they are overturned?” Or, even worse, the local authority is told, “Listen, you’d better accept this planning application. Otherwise, it’s going to cost you a lot of money and you will lose.”

[Steve Baker]

My hon. Friend has made the point with great clarity and passion, but I cannot forbear from saying that those of us who stood for election on the Conservative manifesto stood on a platform of a radical decentralisation of power—an invitation to the people to join the Government of Britain. I think that he will agree with me that those of us who stood on that platform with enthusiasm are rather disappointed that it has come to this.

[Mr Evans]

More than disappointed. I used to use a counter-argument against those in my constituency who said, “This is a disaster. This is what is going to happen if the Localism Bill goes through.” I said, “No, localism will give power back to the local authorities.” Now, when we look at what has happened, it seems as if there has been some Orwellian double-speak. Localism sounds as if it is giving power back to the local people when in essence it has not done that at all—quite the contrary. If people want to build houses, localism is fine. If people want to go against the building of the houses, localism does not help them one jot.

I was elected as a Conservative. I am a Conservative; just as the name on the tin suggests, I want to conserve—I want to conserve what is best in our area. The position is as my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) said. If people in the Ribble Valley want to live in Manchester, that is fine—they can go and live there. What we do not want is Manchester coming to us. We do not want to see these towns growing at such a rate that we do not even recognise them.

The Ribble Valley is one of the nicest places to live in the whole country; it is one of the jewels. I say that it is like the Lake district without the lakes—even with the rain we have been having, we still do not have the lakes, thank goodness. People want to live there for a certain reason. I know what the Minister is talking about when he says that people deserve the right to have a roof over their heads. Everyone deserves a home; I agree with him on that, but we need to look at areas that neighbour places such as the Ribble Valley—such as Burnley, Preston, Pendle and Hyndburn—and see what we can do to regenerate some of the run-down areas there. We need to ensure that homes that are run-down are made available to people in those areas and that they do not have to flee those areas and live somewhere else.

I will finish shortly because I know that many other hon. Members want to speak, but I just want to say this. I believe that we ought to have a planning system that is based on consent—the consent of the local people. I finish by referring not just to housing but to wind turbines. When fairly well everybody in a local area is saying no to three wind turbines in a suburban area and the council turns the application down because it has listened to what the local people say, but it then goes to the inspectorate and the inspectorate passes it, there must be something wrong in the system because we are not listening to the people. Minister, listen to the people.

Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, Mr MacShane. Perhaps you have just introduced a new practice in which people stand up and say, “Nearly point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.” You are quite right: it was nearly a point of order but it certainly was not one for the Chair. However, it has been put on the record.

[Steve Baker]

I am most grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution.

As I was saying, we must not deceive ourselves. Moving on to issues of freedom of movement, of association, of speech and so on, I want to mention a report by Amnesty International entitled, “India: A ‘lawless law’: Detentions under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act,” which contains a number of allegations regarding the use of preventive, administrative detentions. The contents include:

“Violations of the principle of legality…Delayed and secret reasons for detention…No access to judicial authority…Restrictions on access to legal counsel…Indefinite detention of foreign nationals…Immunity of officials…Incommunicado detention …Torture…Detention without any legal basis”.

That Amnesty International report deserves an answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Baker]

I am most grateful—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention, I remind him of the guidelines about the length of his contribution.

[Steve Baker]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have taken my last intervention. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) makes a good point, although I have not read that report. I am seeking to be even-handed, but even so, I have to enter this into the record for the sake of discussion. The “lawless law” report states that by using the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act

“to incarcerate suspects without adequate evidence, India has not only gravely violated their human rights but also failed in its duty to charge and try such individuals and to punish them if found guilty in a fair trial.”

I wish to express considerable humility on this point, because the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act is very much in line with the principle at least of our own control orders and terrorism prevention and investigation measures. The House should therefore not be too quick to condemn the principle of what India is doing. It is very much in line with what we have done. In my Second Reading speech on TPIMs, I condemned administrative detention outright and then withheld my vote from it, so I hope that I will escape the accusation of hypocrisy.

We need to consider how these measures arise. Why do democracies turn to such measures? I suggest that when democracy is denied, people turn away from it and end up seeking violence. I am proposing, for the people of Kashmir, a comprehensive policy of non-aggression, peace and democratic self-determination under the terms of the UN resolutions. I accept that the situation in Kashmir can only, and must, be resolved by Kashmiris, India and Pakistan, but we must acknowledge in this place the absolute moral, legal and political equality of the Kashmiri people and take whatever steps are appropriate to secure demilitarisation, democratic self-determination and a prosperous and secure future for Kashmir. I hope that the Government are listening and will take whatever steps they can.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind Members that there is a five-minute limit on speeches.

Education Bill

Debate between Nigel Evans and Steve Baker

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that the English baccalaureate is too prescriptive, but moments earlier he said several times that there is a free-for-all. Which is it?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The debate may be straying into rather more general matters than the new clauses and amendments before us.