Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Oliver Heald Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am going to apologise to the SNP, and we can clear this up straightaway. I apologise about the Gibraltar comments. I have spoken to some of my constituents who would like to see some of the MPs breathalysed next time they get off an aeroplane in Gibraltar. That will clear it up straightaway.

Now, all this nonsense from the SNP is in sharp contrast to our Prime Minister, who has got Brexit done by leaving the EU, delivered a £36 billion package to sort out the national health service and social care, delivered the fastest vaccination—

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not think it was a bit rich for the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) to start talking about public spending in constituencies served by Conservative Members when we have some of the poorest constituencies in the country voting Conservative these days because the working people trust this Prime Minister?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his sensible intervention. I only have to look at my constituency, Ashfield, one of the poorest in the country, and at neighbouring Bolsover, Don Valley and Rother Valley—all those places have had millions of pounds of investment. The Prime Minister has also launched our plan for jobs, helping people get back into work. We are cutting taxes, we are boosting wages—we are helping working families.

I am going to stop picking on the SNP, because I want to talk about the massed ranks of the Labour party. I am struggling to see them at the moment. Despite pretending to be bothered, they could not be bothered to turn up today. They seem to think that there is a war raging in France at the moment and that it is acceptable for thousands of illegal migrants to cross our channel every single day. They really need to get a grip.

Another sign that the Labour party has lost the plot is that it wants to replace our armed forces with “human security services”—a shift from the classic armed forces to a gender balanced, ethnically diverse human security services tasked with dampening down violence. Imagine that, Madam Deputy Speaker: a peace-loving British tank—