Oral Answers to Questions
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
That is something that we have committed to. Obviously, it is important to properly address the cost implications of implementation given everything that is happening, and we will do everything that we can to further this piece of work.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Andrea Jenkyns)
Ensuring that everyone can access world-class education remains a priority. In 2021, we saw record higher education progression rates for disadvantaged white students who had free school meals. The Government are investing £3.8 billion more in high-quality education, skills and training provision, leading to good outcomes for young people and getting them the skills needed for economic growth, whichever good-quality route they choose.
Mr Hollobone
On the Government’s own figures, the percentage of state school pupils getting a higher education place by ethnicity is Chinese 72%, Asian 55%, black 49%, mixed heritage 41% and white 33%. Are the Government concerned about those widening disparities, and if so, what are they going to do to level up university entry?
Andrea Jenkyns
As a meritocrat, I believe not in positive discrimination, but in a society where people are judged on their character and ability. Access to HE should be based on a student’s attainment and their ability to succeed, rather than their background. As I said, 2021 saw a record high number of white students who receive free school meals progressing on to higher education, but since the publication of the report, “The forgotten: how White working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it”, we have tasked the Office for Students with refreshing its entire access and participation work and with looking into that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
If that were true, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would be calling for my resignation. We are going to get on with the job in hand, and that is to deliver for the people of this country. By the way, he has not answered the point I made yesterday, which is that I think it is incredible that at a time when we need to stand up to aggression from Vladimir Putin, it is still the policy of the Scottish nationalist party to get rid of this country’s unilateral defence.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend, who is an excellent champion for Kettering. We are fully committed to the delivery of the new hospital for Kettering. The release of funding will be subject to the usual business case assessment process.
Mr Hollobone
The redevelopment of Kettering General Hospital is the No. 1 local priority for residents in Kettering and across north Northamptonshire. Will my right hon. Friend please be kind enough to facilitate a meeting with the Health Secretary for the three local Members—myself and my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Corby (Tom Pursglove)—together with the hospital chief executive so that we can trigger the start of the drawdown of the initial £46 million of funding?
The Prime Minister
Yes; my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary has told me that he has met those individuals before and he is happy to meet them again.
Ukraine
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
If we look at what is happening, the conversation I had last night was with European partners comprising the vast bulk of defence spending in the west; we work very closely with our European partners, as we do with all our NATO partners. NATO remains the primary vehicle for our defence. NATO is a very valuable interlocutor with Russia. The NATO-Russia Council has proved its worth in the last few months.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Is this the wake-up call that NATO needs so that all its members finally meet their obligations to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right. As so many colleagues have said, this is not just about Ukraine. This is about the ambition of the Kremlin to seize this moment to try to reimpose a new order and a new security architecture in the European continent, one that we absolutely reject. We stand for the rights of free peoples everywhere to determine their own fate. That was the fantastic achievement of the end of the cold war, the fall of the Berlin wall, and that high moment in 1990 when we had a Europe whole and free. That is what we are trying to protect.
Covid-19 Update
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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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.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s lifting of the covid restrictions. At the present time, 70% of those in Kettering General Hospital with covid are unvaccinated and the vast majority of those could have had the vaccine but made the wrong choice in not doing so. May I urge the Prime Minister, when the daily hospitalisation cases are published, to emphasise the fact that the vast majority are unvaccinated, as an incentive to get more boosters done?
The Prime Minister
Yes. I thank my hon. Friend. He is spot on. He is absolutely right in what he says. I have tried to draw repeated attention, in what I have been saying, to the sad fact that 90% of people in ICU have had no booster and 66% of people are unvaccinated. Omicron is not a mild disease for everyone and it can be particularly nasty if you are not vaccinated.
Non-UK Armed Forces Personnel: Immigration Requirements
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Members are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the Chamber.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered immigration requirements for non-UK armed forces personnel.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I know there is a lot going on today, so I am grateful to see Members here and the shadow Minister and Minister in their places. I also thank the Petitions Committee for its help and the many thousands of people who have added their name to petitions in support of this campaign.
Pay up or pack up. That is the message given by the Government to those who make the journey—often from halfway around the world—to protect our national security. The aim of this long-running and, I am pleased to say, hugely popular campaign is simple: to relieve foreign and Commonwealth-born service personnel and their families of the exorbitant costs they face to make a home in the country for which they risked their lives.
This injustice has gained significant attention in recent times, following the unsuccessful efforts of eight Fijian British Army veterans to bring legal action against the Government. All of them were left fearing destitution and deportation despite the huge sacrifices they made on our behalf. One of the claimants, Taitusi Ratucaucau, a veteran of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, was handed a £30,000 bill following emergency brain surgery after he was deemed ineligible for free NHS care—a story I did not believe the first time I read it. The veterans lost the legal argument, but make no mistake: it is the Government who lost the moral one.
This issue is by no means a new phenomenon. In 2013, Filimone Lacanivalu, a veteran of the campaigns in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan was given an 11th hour reprieve after spending weeks in a detention centre awaiting removal. That amnesty was only granted following a personal appeal to the Prime Minister and subsequent media pressure. It should not need to be said that landing veterans with massive debts and threatening them with deportation is not the appropriate way to recognise their service.
I am aware that these are exceptional episodes. The Minister will no doubt say, as is rightly the case, that the vast majority of service personnel comply with Home Office requirements. That is not enough.
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for that intervention. He is exactly right: it is, at best, very stingy. I recall that in the debate before Christmas he said that the 12-year threshold
“was plucked out of the air.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 300.]
Whether it was, or whether it was designed to affect the minimum number of people possible, it cannot be the right way forward. We should also reflect on the fact that in addition to the 12-year proposal there was nothing for families or for the unknown number of veterans currently living in limbo, who have effectively been thrown under a bus. This was the Government’s chance to right a historical wrong; instead they chose to introduce something that is, as he just outlined, virtually pointless. Only meaningful reform will deliver the justice that our veterans and their families deserve.
Whatever metric is used, I think—at least, I hope—that the Minister is fully aware that the bar has been set so high that practically no one will benefit as a consequence. Surely a fairer option would be to look at the benchmarks at which service personnel qualify for settlement and citizenship: four and five years respectively. When Government Whips were convincing their MPs to vote down new clause 52, which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and I tabled to the Nationality and Borders Bill last month, one of the arguments provided was around a lack of fairness.
That brings me neatly to the serious matter of consideration of families, because if we want to debate a lack of fairness, we should look no further than the minimum income requirement that our service personnel must meet before they can bring their loved ones to the UK. That is a cruel policy that has resulted in members of the armed forces either leaving their families thousands of miles away or taking second jobs to reach the affordability criteria. In return for their protecting our national security, the Government rip their families apart. That practice is immoral, indefensible and inexcusable.
The Government have committed to making the UK the best country in the world to be a veteran; that is a noble ambition, on which we can all unite. However, there is no better place to begin than with the treatment of our service people who are foreign or Commonwealth-born. Our campaign has huge support right across the board from the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes, all Opposition MPs, many Conservative MPs, England rugby stars, and many more people and organisations besides. We do not need primary legislation; Ministers can fix this problem with the stroke of a pen by updating regulations. They just have to show some of their stated ambition.
We are not asking for the world; all we are asking for is a fair deal for service personnel, for families to be treated with dignity, and justice for those veterans who are living in limbo. That is because no matter where someone comes from or whatever their background is, once they choose to put on a uniform and protect our country, they have made a life-changing commitment. It should shame all of us that our people are being treated with such little respect.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The debate lasts until 2.30 pm. I am obliged to call the Front Benchers no later than 2.07 pm and the guideline limits will be five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Then Dan Jarvis will have three minutes at the end to wind up the debate.
Until 2.07 pm, there are three very distinguished Back Benchers seeking to contribute to the debate. If they could limit their remarks to no more than eight minutes each, all three of them will get in. We start off with Johnny Mercer.
Oral Answers to Questions
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
We do recognise that attrition among prison officers is an issue, which is why we have put in place retention toolkits in prisons, providing governors with the support and tools that they need for employee retention. As far as pay is concerned, the hon. Lady knows that the economic ravages of the pandemic meant that there did need to be a pause in pay, but now that the Department has received a three-year spending settlement, it means that we can commence more coherent conversations with unions and others about what pay might look like in the years to come.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s plans to recruit 5,000 new prison officers, but recruitment of prison officers and their retention would be made easier if the number of assaults in prison were to come down. In the 12 months to June, there were 7,612 assaults on prison officers, one third of which were categorised as serious. What is being done to prosecute and extend the sentences of each and every convict who assaults a prison officer?
Kit Malthouse
Obviously the issue of assaults against our staff in all its forms is one that we take extremely seriously. My hon. Friend is quite right that we hope and expect that prison governors work closely with their local police forces to ensure that any crimes that are committed against prison staff are appropriately pursued and prosecuted, and that sentences are handed out where appropriate. He will know though that much of the violence in prisons is driven by drugs, and I hope he will recognise and welcome the work that we are doing as part of the prevention approach to reduce drug consumption and therefore abuse within the secure estate.
Human Rights Legislation
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Dominic Raab
I do not accept it, but I know that a number of people, including the shadow Justice Secretary, have commented on the proposals before having read them. Freedom of speech, and trial by jury and the recognition that we can give to it, are just two examples of the way we can strengthen human rights, but also strengthen the credibility of human rights so that they are not dirty words in the minds of many of the public.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Significant planning harm is being caused in the Kettering constituency and across the country by Gypsies and Travellers deliberately building permanent, unauthorised structures in the open countryside, against all the planning regulations. When the local planning authority seeks to enforce against this in the planning courts, more often than not the authority is overruled by the Human Rights Act. Will the reforms that the Secretary of State has proposed today help to rebalance the planning system so that planning laws apply equally to everyone, everywhere?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend raises an issue that I have heard raised quite widely across the House. He will know that the Home Secretary has already announced proposals to strengthen our powers in relation to illegal encampments. The critical thing that our proposal for a Bill of Rights will do is protect legislation enacted in this House by elected Members accountable to our constituents and stop it being whittled away, revised or amended as a result of the Human Rights Act and what it requires the courts to do.
Defence Committee
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Sarah Atherton
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his question, and recognise that he was the previous Justice Minister. He is quite right when it comes to investigations. Many women told me that the investigation process was almost as traumatic as the incident itself, which then affected their future lives. Many of them were discharged on the back of the incident and the investigation, and then a lot of them had mental health issues and problems going back into civilian life. That is where the problem lies. Looking at investigations, I know that, on the back of the evidence that we provided, the MOD is making a few movements in that regard. With only 16% of cases having any forensic evidence taken, how can we expect cases to get to the courts for a conviction? That in itself is a problem, as is the lack of victim support. I know that the MOD has outsourced its investigations unit and that it is putting in place victim support units. I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his question.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I warmly commend my hon. Friend for the work that she has done on her Committee and for her report. Her Committee highlights the fact that juggling service life with family life can be hard for all service personnel, but especially for women, who are more often the main care giver, especially for dual-serving couples, and especially against a background of longer and more frequent deployments. Is she satisfied with the Government’s response to these concerns?
Sarah Atherton
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The MOD has had strategies in place for many years around flexible working. I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) may have been involved with putting those in place, but some of the evidence that we heard was that, while they were available, they were hard to get. Personnel were denied access to these schemes because of operational effectiveness. Their commanding officers were not granting the schemes. One thing we want to look at is the accessibility of these schemes. There is absolutely no point putting policies, strategies and initiatives in place if they do not make a positive impact on the ground. I know that, next week, the Minister will introduce his family strategy, which I will look at with interest. Most women leave the military after returning from maternity leave, which is a problem that needs to be embraced. I am confident that the Minister is trying to do that, particularly around dual-serving couples.
Oral Answers to Questions
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Alok Sharma
I congratulate all the primary schools and the students who took part in this Christmas card competition. It is perhaps an inspiration to all of us for our Christmas cards. Undoubtedly, we need to ensure that climate action continues to be raised as an issue, and we all have a role to play.
Mr Hollobone
I congratulate the President of COP26 on his personal dedication, hard work and commitment at the Glasgow summit. Will he confirm that, as a result of the summit, for the first time ever over 90% of the world’s GDP and about 90% of global emissions are now covered by net emissions targets, and that all 197 countries have pledged to revisit and strengthen these targets by the time of COP27 next year?
Alok Sharma
My thanks to my hon. Friend for his kind words, and he is absolutely right. When we took on the COP presidency, less than 30% of the global economy was covered by a net zero target, but we are now at 90%, and yes, all countries have agreed to look again at their 2030 emission reduction targets and come back on those by the end of 2022 to ensure that they are aligned with the Paris temperature goals.
Oral Answers to Questions
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
Again, successful businesspeople should not be disqualified from sitting in the legislature. The hon. Gentleman made a point about the number of people who have been appointed since 2010. I gently point out that there are just over 800 Members of the House of Lords and 408 of them were appointed by the Opposition when they were in power between 1997 and 2010.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
It is good to have a bicameral Parliament, but is not the fundamental problem with the House of Lords simply that it is too large and not enough of them turn up? There are 800 peers compared with 650 MPs, and in the Divisions this month, the average turnout was 378, which is 47%. Will the Minister consider reducing the size of the House of Lords?
Nigel Adams
My hon. Friend makes a good point, but given retirements and other departures, some new Members are essential to keep the expertise and the outlook of the Lords fresh. We continue to support and encourage the policy of Members of the House of Lords retiring. The Government’s 2019 manifesto, of which he will be aware, committed to looking at the role of the Lords, but any reform needs to be considered carefully and not done on a piecemeal basis.
Michael Ellis
As we have already discussed in this Chamber, the House of Lords provides expert counsel and excellent value for money. If the hon. Lady wishes to compare the cost of the House of Lords to the public expenditure with other second Chambers in bicameral legislatures, she will find that it is extremely inexpensive and extremely expert, and that it provides excellent value for money. She characterises it in one way, but she forgets that it also provides a service to all sections of our society, including those in the medical profession, the legal profession, the military service and across the range of society, and it will continue to do so.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
May I welcome the recent appointment of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to his new role in co-ordinating efforts across the Government to tackle the cross-channel migrant crisis? In that role, will he persuade officials in his own Department, as well as those in the Foreign Office and the Home Department, to come up with constructive solutions that can be effectively deployed, rather than coming up with reasons why something cannot be done?
Steve Barclay
I, and I am sure all hon. Members, join the Prime Minister in saying how deeply saddened we all are by the terrible tragedy we saw yesterday.
The response to the challenge of small boats is a whole-of-Government endeavour, and it is therefore right that we work across the whole of Government to look at all aspects of that journey: upstream, our processing and our legal framework. My hon. Friend will be aware that progress has been made, and 20,000 crossings have been stopped so far this year. We will continue to work in partnership with the French to ensure we can avert tragedies such as we saw yesterday.