Business of the House

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that you would be in Doncaster celebrating its city status, for which I know you have been campaigning for a long time.

I join the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) in celebrating the Queen’s 70th jubilee. It will be a huge opportunity for the country to celebrate and get together to recognise a huge achievement in public service by Her Majesty. I also join her in congratulating the Australian Government on their success. We look forward to working with them on trade and international matters as we move forward.

We then got into the usual flurry of accusations and snipes. Of course, the hon. Lady started with the Sue Gray report. I am glad that Sue Gray has finally managed to get her report out there. It identifies the ongoing challenges in No. 10 but, as the Prime Ministers made clear, he has addressed the culture in No. 10 and changed the senior management team. I think he was also shocked, as many colleagues would be, by the treatment of security and cleaning staff. That is why yesterday the Prime Minister went around and apologised in person to those security and cleaning teams on behalf of those people who were rude to them. I think that was the right thing to do. The Prime Minister has made it clear that the culture has now changed within No. 10, and he is now focused on what matters to the British people: the global fight against inflation, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and making sure that our constituents’ priorities are the Government’s priorities, as they always have been.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He will be here at this Dispatch Box very soon, and I will not pre-empt what he is about to say, for no other reason than that I do not know. I look forward to hearing what the Chancellor says. What I do know is that this Chancellor has already announced £22 billion-worth of support. He is a Chancellor who, instead of giving us knee-jerk reactions and political gimmicks, thinks through the economic and fiscal plans that he will bring forward and makes sure that in those plans he gives genuine support to those who need it, while not incentivising people away from making long-term investments to continue to pay the Exchequer the tax from their successful businesses. That is the appropriate thing to do.

The hon. Lady finished by mentioning parliamentary questions. Yesterday, I appeared in front of the Procedure Committee to answer questions. It is a challenge that I recognise; we need to do better. As a constituency MP, I understand that many across the House will certainly be frustrated by the progress or the speed of return of some answers to parliamentary questions. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, the global pandemic affected the speed with which some Departments answered, because they were focused on dealing with the pandemic. That excuse has now passed. We need to see an improvement in the response from different Departments.

However, I gently say to the hon. Lady—I know she is in her happy place when she is sniping from the sidelines—that this week we have seen the Labour party this week vote against the Public Order Bill, putting it on the side of Extinction Rebellion, not on the side of hard-working people. Extinction Rebellion are the people who seized an oil tanker full of cooking oil. We have seen Labour vote against the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, because it has no interest in addressing the challenges that Northern Ireland faces. The shadow spokesman actually said that

“the rights of victims and veterans are equal to the rights of terrorists”.—[Official Report, 24 May 2022; Vol. 715, c. 193.]

The Labour party put itself in completely the wrong place this week. It will do anything it can to avoid taking responsibility and making the difficult decisions that this Government are having to take in the interests of the country.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his kind comments about Doncaster’s city status. We are all absolutely delighted.

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

I was delighted to welcome the Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) to Staffordshire last week to officially open the mountain biking venue for the upcoming Commonwealth games. It has been announced that our county town of Stafford will be part of the Queen’s baton relay. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right not only to have a debate on the UK’s ties across the Commonwealth, but to ensure that we deliver a positive economic legacy for people and businesses in Stafford?

[Mark Spencer]

My hon. Friend is a huge champion for Stafford and Staffordshire. I know that she secured the baton coming to Stafford, which will be an opportunity for her community to celebrate the Commonwealth games. There are huge economic opportunities for the country in our hosting the Commonwealth games in the west midlands in the near future. I know that my hon. Friend will make the most of making sure the legacy of those games will be felt around her constituency, and I congratulate her on the work she is doing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Pete Wishart.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I add to the congratulations on Doncaster being named a city. Dunfermline, my hometown in Scotland, was also added to that list. There is only one issue that our constituents want debated, and that is the fallout from the Sue Gray report, the appalling culture at No. 10 and why this Prime Minister is still in his place. The Prime Minister might think that moving on at lightning speed to do something he could and should have done weeks ago on the cost of living crisis will make this go away, but it will not. It simply will not go away.

Our constituents are utterly furious and they are simply not satisfied with the Prime Minister’s mealy-mouthed apologies and his drivel about being humbled. They want us to debate why it was okay for No. 10 to have parties to say goodbye to employees, but no other workplace in the country was offered that facility. They want us to debate why there is one rule for this Government and another rule for everybody else in the country. They want to know why things got so out of hand at those parties that people ended up being sick, fights broke out and walls were stained with wine. They want to be told why it was okay to demean and belittle the staff whose job it was to clean up that mess, and to humiliate the security staff charged with keeping the circus safe.

Mostly, our constituents want their MPs to make sure that the Prime Minister hears, in pristine detail, the sacrifices that they all made in abiding by those rules while he oversaw and was responsible for an organisation that gratuitously partied. This is not going to go away. The people of the United Kingdom want the Prime Minister gone, and in democratic countries the people usually get their way. It is up to Conservative Back Benchers to either get rid of him or go down with him. Let us have a debate led by the Prime Minister and let us hold this rotten delusional Government to account properly.

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[Mark Spencer]

Well, I cannot speak for Madam Deputy Speaker in failing to call the hon. Gentleman. We are always pleased to hear from him and I am surprised that he did not get called. Of course, I wish Bradford well and the other three cities that are bidding for city of culture. We await with anticipation the announcement of which city it will be. I am sure that whichever is the winner, it will be a great opportunity to visit and see the culture of that city.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Can I, too, add my congratulations to Doncaster? I visit it every week—on the way up and on the way down—albeit briefly.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing two weeks’ business and for the veritable flurry of recess dates. I can give advance notice that the first debate in Backbench time on Thursday 16 June will be a debate to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the dreadful Grenfell Tower fire.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

I am truly sorry to hear about the plight of Mr Walsh. That sounds like a shocking set of circumstances. Health questions are on 14 June and I hope my hon. Friend will be in her place then to ask the Secretary of State what he can do to assist, but I wish her well in her pursuit of the truth of what happened.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I also congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on Doncaster becoming a city? I hope that comes with a lot of investment and innovation, if we really believe in levelling up. I support, too, Bradford’s city of culture bid. We will not mention Huddersfield’s wonderful weekend: we can see Huddersfield twice in brilliant football and rugby league matches.

It is now clear that the Government want to privatise the BBC; it is not just Channel 4. It is very clear from the statement by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that it is the ambition of this Government to abolish the BBC. In the year we are celebrating the Queen’s platinum jubilee, here is the thanks we give her subjects, who value the BBC as one of the other great institutions of our country. Can we have an early debate on that?

[Mark Spencer]

I seem inadvertently to have started a Doncaster celebration. I wish the Huddersfield Giants well in the rugby league final. We will park that one there.

Perhaps I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that there is no agenda to privatise the BBC or to abolish the BBC, as he suggested. The BBC is a great institution, but we need to recognise that TV and media viewing is changing. The modern world is different from the 1950s, when the BBC was created. A modern BBC needs to compete in the modern world, and the Government will assist it in doing so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. There is a big statement after the business question, so I urge colleagues to be very brief in their questions.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

A local vicar in my constituency has applied to take in Ukrainian refugees. The grandparents have been approved to come to my constituency. Unfortunately, their 11-year-old grandson has not been given permission because of red tape, as far as I can see. There is no policy, as yet, for unaccompanied minors to come to this country. He is not unaccompanied, because of his grandparents. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement next week from the Minister who can cut red tape, so that this Ukrainian family can come to my constituency as soon as possible?

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[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

Last Saturday, my constituent Andrew McLeod was trying to board his 7.20 flight to Alicante. He passed through security and passport control, but even though his passport was valid until 22 December, he was refused access to his flight because the airline was using the metric of date of issue plus 10 years minus three months, which meant his passport was invalid. He is not alone. This is an issue that has now been picked up by the media. Given the enormous pressure on HM Passport Office that we are all aware of, this is a significant problem that people are finding out about only as they attempt to board. Mr McLeod is not worried about his own circumstances—his family were upset but they went on holiday—but he is concerned about those travelling with some urgency or for compassionate reasons. Will the Leader of the House ask the Home Office to issue urgent clarification on this rule, so it is well understood not just by Members and the public but, most important, by airlines? Will an urgent statement be brought forward on the matter?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I really do need to emphasise that the questions need to be brief, otherwise we just will not get through everybody.

[Mark Spencer]

I am sorry to hear about the plight of Mr McLeod. I hope his family had a good time while they were away, despite him not being with them. I will, of course, pass on the hon. Member’s comments directly to the Home Secretary. She has been investing in many more staff in the Passport Office to try to get through the backlog. I think we have already seen 700 announced on top of the 500 already recruited, so the Home Office is focused on solving these challenges.