Functioning of Government

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister will be speaking shortly.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

Clearly the idea of the Prime Minister continuing as a caretaker will be worrying many people, but it is interesting to hear from the BBC that MPs are privately briefing that they are worried, perhaps half-jokingly, that the PM might take us to war to avoid leaving office. What will be done to ensure that the Opposition can hold to account a caretaker Prime Minister who has lost the faith of the country and his Government?

[Michael Ellis]

I recommend to the hon. Lady that she does not listen to gossip and rumour. The fact of the matter is that responsible government in this country will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Taxation is obviously an issue for the Chancellor, but the Government are providing £37 billion-worth of support right now to help people with the cost of living, including energy bills. On green levies, I think they represent 8% of a dual fuel bill, a significant amount of which is going to vulnerable households through the warm home discount and other mechanisms. The reason energy prices are high right now and wholesale prices have risen by 300% to 400% is in large part due to what is happening with the illegal war in Ukraine.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

We need a sprint on renewables, yet Ministers are barely breaking into a limp. In the latest round of contracts for difference, the Government implemented a cap of 12 GW on renewables, despite the industry reporting that 17.4 GW had been cleared for planning permission. That is 5.4 GW of shovel-ready, cheap, clean energy blocked. We are in an energy crisis. Why are the Government not firing on all cylinders to address it?

[Alok Sharma]

The Government are firing on all cylinders. If we had not been firing on all cylinders and got the second-biggest offshore wind sector in the world, we would now be reliant on Russian hydrocarbons, which we are not, unlike some other countries. The hon. Lady should welcome the progress that has been made and of course we want to do more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I note the point that the hon. Gentleman has made. He will appreciate that it is not part of my responsibilities, but I am sure that you, Mr Speaker, and other relevant colleagues will have heard his call for action.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

In its report this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put forward its bleakest warning yet, stating that

“progress on adaptation is uneven and there are increasing gaps between action taken and what is needed to deal with the increasing risks”.

It emphasised the urgency of immediate action, concluding:

“Half measures are no longer an option.”

Given that, will the COP President outline what concrete steps have been taken since COP26 to scale up finance for adaptation, whether he will increase ambition in the light of the report, and whether he will commit to bringing a plan to this House on how we will meet the 2025 target?

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point. Of course, the report was a stark warning—yet again; another code red—that we need to take action. I set out in answer to earlier questions what we are doing to push forward, particularly on finance—we are doubling adaptation finance. We will ensure that, by the time we get to COP27, the trajectory has moved forward.

Ukraine

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are taking the most powerful measures against Russia and the Russian economy that have ever been taken—probably the most powerful ever taken by any country—and Russia will no longer be able to raise any sovereign debt on UK markets.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

What support will we be providing to Ukrainian citizens who are settled in the UK and wish to reunite with family members who still reside in Ukraine? Many have watched their cities rapidly get caught up in this conflict and are keen to know what more we can do to support them to reunite with their families.

[The Prime Minister]

We will make sure that we support Ukrainian nationals who need to come to this country to meet their relatives—of course we will do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

My right hon. Friend makes a very strong case. Obviously the answer lies with renewables, but it also makes no sense for us to increase imports of volatile-price fossil fuels, which come to us with higher embedded emissions. That is why we have the North Sea transition deal—not to close down the industry, but to work with the sector to make the transition to the net zero future that we all signed up to.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

In a recent written question, No. 98384, the Government were asked if they would explain how individual policies in the net zero strategy, including on North sea oil and gas, would reduce emissions. In a reply dated 14 January 2022, the Minister said that he would publish the information when

“decisions on the design of the associated individual policy intervention are sufficiently advanced”.

How is it possible that the Government published a net zero strategy without an understanding of what the individual policies will mean, and how can we therefore believe their promise that we are on course to meet crucial targets for 2030 and 2035?

[Greg Hands]

Of course the Government are fully aware of these issues; there is no change in the Government’s position. We published the net zero strategy and we are seeing it come through. We are delivering on all of the aspects. My right hon. Friend the COP President just mentioned the climate change compatibility checkpoint. We are delivering on all of these things with haste.

COP26

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Will everyone who has a long question written or typed out edit it to half what they have? We must have much shorter questions. The problem is that when people read their questions, they are great big, long questions; “Erskine May” makes it clear that questions should never be read.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

At COP26, the Prime Minister said we were at one minute to midnight; I am afraid his clock might be a bit slow. The action that has been set out is not enough. Aristotle asked whether hope is a waking dream; I would really like to hear from the Prime Minister that he is going to stop Cambo and halt the Cumbria coalmine.

[The Prime Minister]

The reason why we have been able to get considerable success at COP is because the whole world can see that we are moving beyond coal and the pace at which we have done it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I was not aware of the fantastic work that is taking place in Hereford, although I suspect that the Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), is. I would particularly love to hear more about this, and I would be very happy for my right hon. Friend to write to me and share more about what is taking place there.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

6. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the Nationality and Borders Bill on (a) equality, (b) personal safety and (c) the process of providing identity evidence in the asylum process for LGBTQ+ people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

The Nationality and Borders Bill, which is part of our new plan for immigration, seeks to build a fair but firm asylum and legal migration system. On 16 September, we published an equality impact assessment for the policies being taken forward through the Bill. This includes an assessment of the potential impacts on people who are LGBTQ+.

[Olivia Blake]

The Nationality and Borders Bill raises the standard of proof for assessing whether someone has grounds to fear persecution to the higher level of balance of probability. If the Minister were an LGBTQ+ asylum seeker, how would they prove, on the balance of probability, that they were, and how would they go about finding proof after a life of trying to hide their identity for fear of persecution?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am mindful of the point that the hon. Lady makes. She will appreciate the fact that I am new in role in the Department and that I am getting up to speed with the Bill. We began taking evidence in the Bill Committee yesterday, and the line-by-line scrutiny will begin after the recess. I take on board the point that she raises, but what is crucial in taking forward the measures in the Bill is how we operationalise those plans, and I would fully expect that we will be sympathetic in taking proper account of the issue that she raises.

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter; I know he has campaigned on that issue. The review is going ahead and we will look at what to do once it has been completed, but in the meantime Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is going to be supported through the national maternity safety support programme.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

Q10. Throughout the country, there are children who have not gone back to school because their schools say that they cannot meet their needs. Do the continued delays to the Government’s review of special educational needs and disability mean that the Government have abandoned those children? Will the Prime Minister listen to the concerns of parents and young people and make sure that their voices are heard in the review?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. When the Government came into office, a key part of the extra £14 billion that we put into education was for investment in special educational needs, to allow local areas to build more SEND schools where they were necessary. We are putting another £780 million into extra SEND education for our kids. If the hon. Lady wishes to raise a particular shortfall in a particular school or area, will she please write to me about it?

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Commons Chamber

One thousand, four hundred and forty-one soldiers lost their lives in Operation Banner. The magnitude of the threat faced by those who served and survived is clear. They need the same protections as those who served elsewhere. This is an opportunity for the Minister to make his mark—to do what is right by those who served, risked life and limb, and stood as a human shield between good and evil in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) [V]]

I start by congratulating the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), on his promotion. I welcome him to his new role.

Article 8.2 of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court defines the term “war crimes” in two ways: as “grave breaches” of the Geneva convention or

“serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict”.

Under those two headings, the article provides 31 different offences. Here are just some examples:

“Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives”;

“Killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion”;

“Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments”;

and

“Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment”.

I list some of those crimes because if we accept only the Government’s proposal, instead of the amendments from the other place, they will remain “relevant” offences under the Bill. I am incredibly sceptical about there being a presumption against prosecution just because a crime was committed abroad, but it is unclear to me why anyone would support a time limit or presumption against prosecution specifically on the charge of attacking defenceless towns or killing people who have surrendered. Why rule out torture but not physical mutilation or scientific experiments on enemy combatants?

The concessions that Ministers and the MOD have made on torture, genocide and crimes against humanity are very welcome, but they do not go far enough to ensure that some of the worst crimes a person can commit are excluded. I agree with the many Members who have signalled that adopting Lord Robertson’s excellent amendment, Lords amendment 1, wholesale would be the best approach to uphold our international reputation.

On the issue that Ministers say the Bill addresses—the wellbeing of veterans—it also falls well short. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) mentioned Lord Boyce’s remarks, and I will reiterate them. A presumption against prosecution helps no one. The issue that needs to be dealt with is the investigation and reinvestigation of cases. The Lords amendments provide a mechanism for dealing with those reinvestigations, yet the Government are opposing them. At the same time, Ministers propose to make it harder for veterans to bring cases against the MOD and oppose any attempt to provide a duty of care to ex-service personnel involved in legal cases.

Without the Lords amendments, the Bill fails across the board and falls well short. Instead of playing politics with human rights, the Government should guarantee access to justice for all victims of war, from the victims and survivors of war crimes to those ex-service personnel failed by the MOD. That is why I will vote for the Lords amendments today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Geraint Davies.

Lobbying of Government Committee

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) [V]]

I am and always have been exceedingly concerned about value for money, conflicts of interest and the correct use of public funds. I sit on the Public Accounts Committee, and over the past year we have seen the workarounds and the flexibility to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. For me, that has exposed the weaknesses in our systems in the first place. It has exposed who the winners and losers are in our system.

When there is no competition, delayed contract publication or a lack of oversight, as we have seen this year, the fragility of the rules that we have in place is clearly exposed. When there are text messages, dark corners in our democracy and what can only be described as sleaze, the need for change is clearly exposed. This saga should shame us all. We should not have a system that allows individuals to interpret their actions as fair and allowed within the rules. We need to fix those rules and change the law.

Transparency International UK estimates that in-house lobbying could be as high as 80% in the UK. Labour’s amendment to the 2014 lobbying Act would have caught out David Cameron’s Greensill lobbying. We should be united cross-party on this motion. Every one of us has a duty to uphold the offices we are elected and appointed to, and we should never be afraid to answer the questions of colleagues in Parliament on these matters. That is why I support the motion today, and that is why many will view the inquiry as sweeping the issue under the carpet and fear a cover-up.

This issue also raises questions about where decisions should be made. If they were made closer to the people that they affect, would those involved have felt they were able to act in this way? Power and money can clearly be influential to some in this place, but we should remember that we are elected to represent the people, not private interests, and that those private interests should never view public finance as an easy-access cash machine.