Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

Of course, one of the contributing factors in getting people to court is a decent transport system. If the transport system is not running, how can people get to court? We recognise that, post covid, there is a challenge in our health service and in our courts system. That is why we have introduced a quarter of a billion pounds to support the court recovery. The spending review provided an extra £477 million to the criminal justice system. We will also increase funding for the victim and witness support service to over £192 million by 2024-25. That, of course, is on top of the billions of pounds that the health and social care levy is pouring into our NHS to deal with post-covid challenges.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Last month, I attended the Eastgate sheep show, which, due to covid, happened for the first time since I was elected. Later in the year, I will attend the Weardale show at St John’s Chapel, the Stanhope show and the Walsingham show. Will the Leader of the House join me in welcoming the fantastic news that these shows are starting up again? Will he consider joining me at one of them—given his farming background, he would be a great addition—and provide time for a debate on these shows, which are a vital part of life in our rural communities across Britain?

[Mark Spencer]

Actually, that is worthy of a Backbench Business debate or an Adjournment debate. This year, I have had the privilege of going to the Newark and Nottinghamshire show, and I hope to attend the Royal Welsh show this year. Hon. Members not in their places may be at the Lincolnshire show, which is taking place today.

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Of course I agree with the hon. Lady. She is right to raise a matter of this importance in the House.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I would like to associate myself with the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). When it comes to restoration and renewal, we should prioritise taxpayer value for money. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the works could be done more cost-effectively and to a perfectly decent specification, without the bells and whistles currently planned? Does he agree with me and my constituents that we should pursue this path?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes. The Commission was told that we could define how to meet lesser requirements at a fraction of the cost of the essential scheme. It has got far too expensive, it is taking far too long and we need to get on with doing what really needs to be done and to prioritise taxpayer value.

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Wait and see.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will no doubt be aware of the campaigners Natasha Rattu and the team at Karma Nirvana, Sara Browne and the team at IKWRO Women’s Rights Organisation, and Natasha Feroze and the team at MEWSO, the Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation, who have been working with me and my team on a private Member’s Bill last year and amendments to the Health and Care Bill in this Session to end so-called virginity testing and hymenoplasty. I pay particular tribute to Naomi Wiseman and Dr Charlotte Proudman, who have been helping me on that. However, along with many other Members, I did not get the chance to speak in yesterday’s Second Reading debate on the Health and Care Bill, so will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on so-called virginity testing and hymenoplasty, along with other issues of violence against women and girls, at the earliest opportunity?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I would point my hon. Friend to the end-of-session Adjournment debate next Thursday, which will be an opportunity to raise any issues that he wishes to. May I commend him for the work that he is doing to bring forward a private Member’s Bill? I am sorry that he did not have the opportunity to speak in the debate yesterday. I am aware of the pressures on time, so I am quite pleased that there will be two days for the Second Reading debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill next week, because supply and demand do not always match in this House.

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this, because it is an important and troubling point. It is difficult in terms of administration because of the lack of certainty about somebody’s lifespan, but it is important that somebody nearing the end of his or her life should be treated more generously by the benefit system and not have that as an additional worry as their life draws to a close. I will of course take this up with both my right hon. Friends, as the hon. Lady requests.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is today meeting his opposite number in the European Commission regarding the Northern Ireland protocol. This is a major constitutional issue that affects all Members of this House. Could I press the Leader of the House to ensure that a statement is made at the earliest possible opportunity by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster so that Members of this House can question the decisions and the agreements that are being made?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was in the House immediately before me and open to questions at that point, but of course that was before the meeting that is taking place. It is of fundamental importance that we ensure the unity of the United Kingdom and that any arrangements that we have with the European Union respect that. No agreement that we could ever possibly make could undermine the unity of the United Kingdom, and that must be clear to our friends in the European Union.

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady does not need my advice on how best to raise this subject publicly, because she has done so, very effectively. Immediately after this session, I will take up with the Department of Health and Social Care the question she has put down and try to get her an answer punctually. On her specific question about foster carers, it is absolutely right that the highest-risk categories are vaccinated first—that is to say the people who are most at risk of death if they catch covid. That is the right priority and is widely accepted. There is inevitably more discussion about who should be vaccinated once those highest-risk categories have been reached.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will be aware that I have been working with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) on a private Member’s Bill to look at drugs testing in prisons, and also on my own private Member’s Bill to end the barbaric and medieval practice of virginity testing. I understand the situation at the moment with the pandemic, but will the Leader of the House make every effort to ensure that Back-Bench Members will be able to start their private Members’ Bills days again at the earliest opportunity?

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There will be opportunity to debate the Turing scheme when we come back and discuss global Britain, and to think about how much better it is for the whole country to look globally rather than at the narrow European sphere. It has to be said that the Scots have led the world in this; over centuries, Scottish explorers and adventurers—great figures from Scotland—have done so much in their travels abroad, and I hope that that will continue under the Turing scheme.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con) [V]]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you, the staff of the House and all Members a happy new year. Despite tier 4, I know that my constituents are excited about and welcome today’s vaccine announcement, which shows that we are hopefully in the final furlong—final furlough, I should say—of the pandemic. I am glad to see the debate on global Britain happening in the new year, and I hope that the Leader of the House will ensure that we shall have plenty of these debates, now that we are free from the shackles of the EU. I hope they will be regular debates, particularly on both our new trade agreements and on our new year’s resolution, which is doubling down on levelling up for constituencies such as mine.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I hope we are in the last furlong of the furlough scheme, which was perhaps what my hon. Friend was getting at, with “furlong” and “furlough” all coming together. Yes, we must have lots of debates on the opportunities that face us, and I am sure that we will and that when we are back that will set us off to a good start. We will get the Trade Bill back from the House of Lords, and there will no doubt be Lords amendments to consider, and we will have an exciting legislative programme as well. He is absolutely right: double down and level up. That is a wonderful mixed metaphor and it is mathematically extremely complex, but, none the less, it is what we should be doing.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Richard Holden Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

This amendment requires the Government to lay proposals to improve the completeness of the register—one of their stated aims. That is something to which the Government are committed and they have a chance to prove that today. As a Member of Parliament, I represent and support everyone who lives in North East Fife, not simply those registered to vote there.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Like many hon. Members I send my best wishes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). She has been a friend for many years and I know that the thoughts of the whole House are with her and wishing for her swift recovery.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon Friends the Members for Gedling (Tom Randall), Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), and West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) have all made excellent points, echoing many of the points that I wish to make. On Lords amendment 1, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton. I cannot understand, when we are seeing huge population growth and massive development in some constituencies, why one would want to have 10 years rather than eight. When I stood for the council in Tower Hamlets in 2008, I remember looking at the huge differences in population growth in east London that had occurred as a result of massive regeneration. That threw out not only council wards but some parliamentary constituencies by tens of thousands.

Most of my comments today relate to Lords amendment 7—or, for reasons that will become self-evident, what I call the Borat amendment. As the Venice Commission outlines in its core principle, the equality of voting power is a crucial standard of the concept of electoral integrity. That is important. There has been much talk about tolerance today, but it is a tolerance around a mean. Seven and a half per cent on either side makes a difference of 15% and that is a significant change from 10%. Page 21 of the Venice Commission’s 2017 report highlights two nations. One is Malta, whose constitution allows no more than 5% departure on either side of the average in order to take account of geographical vicinity. However, Kazakhstan allows 15% tolerance. Britain is in exactly the right place when it is more aligned to Maltese rules on different constituency sizes than it is to Kazakhstan’s rules.

What we all want is simple: equal representation as far as possible, but taking into account reasonable geographical changes.

[David Linden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Holden]

I am speaking only briefly, so I am afraid not. Finally, I am glad that the Government have accepted Lords amendment 3, because we all know what happened in the late 1960s when Harold Wilson delayed and delayed in an attempt to deny democracy and hold Britain back in the 1950s—it did not serve him well. I am glad the Government are moving forwards and I urge all hon. Members to support the Government tonight.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s decision to agree to Labour’s call to scrap plans to reduce the number of MPs to 600. The pandemic has shown us that strong and constructive scrutiny of the Government has never been more important, and the plans to remove 50 seats would have weakened our democracy to the advantage of the Executive. I stood in this place four or five months ago to stress my concerns about how the original proposals would have impacted heavily on the Jarrow constituency, which would have gained more wards from neighbouring Gateshead and lost the Cleadon and East Boldon ward to the neighbouring constituency of South Shields.

I fully support Lords amendment 7, with my reasoning very different from that of the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), who I see is no longer in his place. It would widen the deviation from the quota for constituency electorates from 5% to 7.5%—not 10%. During the Bill’s evidence session, the secretariat of the Boundary Commission for England stated that it makes it

“much harder to have regard to the other factors…such as the importance of not breaking local ties, and having regard to local authority boundaries and features of natural geography. Basically, the smaller you make the tolerance, the fewer options we have…The larger you make it, the more options we have and the more flexibility we have to have regard to the other factors”.––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 7, Q3.]

I am a firm believer that constituency boundaries should mirror the communities they represent. We know that boundaries that cut across several councils and geographical borders, including valleys, mountains and rivers, do not fit local people’s community ties and make it difficult for us to represent our areas effectively.

An increase in the tolerance size is supported by international best practice, which recommends that flexibility should be worked into the system to allow for consideration of geography and community ties. Based on an algorithm prediction by Electoral Calculus—I know it is a prediction—my seat would be redrawn to have a ridiculous divide between parts of Jarrow south of the River Tyne and parts of North Tyneside north of the River Tyne. That would affect not just my constituency but neighbouring constituencies as well. Those predictions aim to satisfy the main legislative constraints of 250 parliamentary seats, with each of those seats having an electorate within 5% of the national average. That is a prime example of what the secretariat of the Boundary Commission for England meant when it stated

“the smaller…the tolerance, the fewer options we have”.

I will also support Lords amendment 8, which, while not giving 16 and 17-year-olds a vote, would take a big step towards improving registration rates among young people, increasing electoral engagement and hopefully ensuring that more young voices are heard. It would also increase the likelihood that young people participate in political life from an early age because they would be registered to vote, regardless of whether they choose to exercise their right to vote, as many Opposition Members have said.

I will also support Lords amendments 1 and 2, which require a boundary commission report every 10 years rather than the eight envisaged in the unamended Bill. Boundary reviews cause uncertainty for councils, councillors, local organisations, MPs and—of course—their constituents and could mean that most MPs would face a review in every second Parliament. Finally, I will also support Lords amendment 6 as it would put measures in place to mitigate the dangerous consequences of ending parliamentary scrutiny and oversight.

Committee on Standards

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Had my hon. Friend been a little more patient, he would have heard more details and may have come to an understanding as to why the motion has been introduced. I disagree with him: this House, when a motion comes before it, has a right to make the decision. Motions of this House are important and our Standing Orders provide for an hour’s debate; they do that not for entertainment value but to ensure that the House is satisfied with the appointments process. It is important that if the House is not satisfied with the process, it has the right to debate it. Let me continue, because if I do, I think my hon. Friend will see why the opposition to this particular individual has arisen and why the question over impartiality is quite fundamental.

I became immediately concerned on learning from House of Commons Commission papers that this candidate was a member of an unspecified political party. It was not material to me—I said this both in the Commission and to my private office—which political party she belonged to—[Interruption.] I said that in the Commission. The point of principle that mattered was that the politicians on the Standards Committee should be the Members of Parliament, not the lay members.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House confirm that both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) first raised objections before knowing which political party the person was a member of?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct—that is absolutely true. The initial Commission papers did not say which party, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) and I raised exactly the same concern before we knew that it was a member of the Labour party under question.

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Prime Minister himself came and made a statement, and the Prime Minister himself opened yesterday’s debate on the new regulations. He is senior to the Home Secretary, so it was done at the highest level. A large number of restrictions are being imposed which nobody wishes to impose. Nobody wishes to restrict the freedoms of the British people. It is being done, with the support of Opposition Members, in response to the coronavirus crisis. The person to whom the Home Secretary reports came to make the statement. As the Queen is not allowed to come into this House, there is no more senior authority who could have come.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Despite the various national restrictions, can the Leader of the House confirm that this House, and indeed the other place, will continue operating whatever the situation, so that Parliament can continue to hold the Government to account for decisions being made in this global coronavirus pandemic?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes. I actually think this follows on from the question by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), because the House is ensuring that the Government are held to account when other means of doing it have been curtailed. People cannot protest, but we can be here—and we must be here, because if we are not, how are we going to check that the rules that are being introduced are debated, are considered; that anomalies within them are sought out; that people make representations about people in care homes or complain about the limitation of protest? We must be here; it is our duty to be here. We have a legislative programme to get through; we have to ensure that that happens. We have to hold the Government to account and seek redress of grievance; it is our historic duty. We do it in this Chamber, we do it in Westminster Hall and we do it in Committees, and that must carry on.

Business of the House

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady raises a matter that is of great importance to the Government and to the country, which is that, if we are to earn our living over the coming decades, we need high-skilled jobs. That is why it has been right for the Government to give huge support to businesses through the coronavirus crisis, essentially to maintain the structures of the economy, so that when demand returns the businesses are still there and the demand can be met. Although, as the Chancellor has said, not every job can be protected, £190 billion of taxpayers’ money has been very significant.

I think the hon. Lady is right to ask for further discussion on this. In this instance, referring to her specific constituency issue, an Adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate will be suitable now that Westminster Hall is back up and running, and will provide direct answers from Ministers in this crucial area.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I would like to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) earlier. Yesterday, a review and audit of art across Parliament by the Works of Art Committee was announced. At the height of the global coronavirus pandemic, Durham County Council launched a similar review, spending days of officers’ time on a pointless exercise looking at works of art across County Durham. We all want to see the very best of Britain showcased in this Parliament and see the context of historical pieces. However, does the Leader of the House agree that, at this time of the global coronavirus pandemic, Parliament can do better than following a panicked Labour-led Durham County Council in bending the knee to woke political agenda?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We should take, as I have said before, pride in:

“This royal throne of Kings, this sceptred island,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

Had William Shakespeare lived in a later day, he would have said, “this United Kingdom”, because that is what we should take pride in, and, no, we should most certainly not be overwhelmed by wokeism. Members may wonder why I read that quotation today. Well, it is National Poetry Day, so I thought it only appropriate that we have a proper quotation and that we stand up for our great nation.