Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

It is quite bad to have points of order that disrupt debates. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) has had a chance to speak. I am not sure whether he tried to intervene on the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but he may go ahead with his point of order.

[Chris Clarkson]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) just pointed at me and said, “and that’s why he should be ashamed.” Is that in order, Madam Deputy Speaker?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Well, yes, if that is the opinion of the hon. Member for Rhondda. Did you try to intervene?

[Chris Clarkson]

No.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, you did not. That would be the appropriate thing to do.

[Shaun Bailey]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The occupants of the Chair have consistently talked about temperance of language. I do not think it fits within the ruling given from the Chair to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), as an LGBT man, should be ashamed to defend this Government. Could you just clarify to the House whether that is temperate language?

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

First of all, that is not a point of order. Secondly, Mr Speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means and I have all said that we should try to conduct this debate in reasonable terms. I think we all need to calm down and discuss the important matters before the House. I call Chris Bryant.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

No, I don’t have confidence in this Government, because they play fast and loose with numbers. They boast that they are recruiting 20,000 more police, but they cut police numbers by 20,000. They boast of a single tax cut now but forget that they have increased taxes 15 times in two and a half years, giving us the highest tax burden for 70 years. They boast of the covid vaccination as if they personally developed it in the Downing Street kitchen, but France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Singapore have higher vaccination rates than us, and Wales managed it faster than England.

No, I don’t have confidence in this Government, because not even Conservative MPs really have confidence in this Government. They know that this Government are a massive conceit, an organised hypocrisy, a house built on sand—and the fissures run deep. They are not even very good at being Conservatives these days, tearing up conventions and the constitution like student revolutionaries. Of course, that is not how Conservative MPs will vote today. Oh no—they would not dare risk a general election. But even as they troop through the Lobby to indicate that, yes, they do still have confidence in the Government, they will be privately plotting that Government’s demise. They will be making themselves look foolish today. I do not mind that, but they cannot take the British public for fools as well.

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[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Well, I certainly do not have confidence in this cobbled-together, bottom-of-the-barrel Government. If we are supposed to be voting tonight on whether or not we have confidence in them, people out there will surely be asking if that is some sort of rhetorical question. When we add all the Opposition MPs, all the Ministers who resigned and all the Tory MPs who voted against the Prime Minister in their vote of confidence, I think we know where Parliament sits on this Prime Minister. It is not a positive report card in any way, shape or form.

Scotland never took this Prime Minister seriously for a minute. I am a testament to that: when it went to the country in 2019, Angus said, “No, we’re not going to have a Tory MP. We’re going to have an SNP MP in Westminster, speaking up for the values of fairness and opportunity and underscoring our mandate for an independence referendum”—and it will happen, I can assure you of that.

I will not miss this Prime Minister talking up the UK economy and gaslighting the people of these islands about it. He makes it sound like a land of milk and honey, but there is £2.2 trillion of sovereign debt in the UK’s name. Let us be really clear: when this Government came to power, there was £0.8 trillion of sovereign debt. We are getting on for three times that figure, which took nearly 100 years to build up; this Government have nearly tripled it in 12 years. The Government have lost complete control of the economy. The term “working poor”, let us not forget, should be a contradiction in terms, but it is not—not in the UK, where two people in one house can go out to work for 40 hours a week and still not have enough money to put food on the table.

The Prime Minister cloaks himself in the NHS in the most shameless, unedifying way possible—it is absolutely abhorrent. Then there are these phantom numbers about building new hospitals, and all the while people cannot get access to an ambulance or make their way up a waiting list for an operation.

The Prime Minister shamelessly exploits the UK armed forces, who should be above politics but have been dragged mercilessly into it by this Prime Minister and his cronies in the Cabinet. Thousands have been cut from the Army on his watch. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are getting on for consuming a sixth of the armed forces budget. The Government have cut the E-7 Wedgetail programme to three. The Ajax £5.5 billion debacle has been rumbling on for the entire duration of this Government’s term. Yet they are supposed to be the Government who stand up for the defence of these islands. It is a disgrace.

Worst of all, how dare they deny democracy in Scotland? The people of these islands in Scotland are not confused. They do not vote SNP out of some sort of habit or tradition; they vote SNP because they recognise our values in their values, and they do not recognise the values of the Conservative party, one iota.

Conservative Members are smirking and laughing, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, laugh up your sleeve, I’ll tell you that, because the people of Scotland are watching you. They are watching the disdain that you have for the decisions—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Too many times now, you have used the word “you”. It is one thing to use it in a general sense, but you are implying things about me when you use it with the word “disdain”.

[Dave Doogan]

I would not dream of doing so, Madam Deputy Speaker.

They are laughing up their sleeve. The people of Scotland are recognising that, and they do not like it one iota. We will have our say, and we will divest from this broken United Kingdom once and for all.

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[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for underlining that point—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. A lot of Members have put in to speak, and it is important that we get to them. If colleagues wish to take interventions, that is absolutely no problem, but I strongly encourage them to stay within four minutes.

[Chi Onwurah]

Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have no confidence in a Government who do not support working families in Newcastle. When people have no confidence in the Government, it drains their confidence in politics and democracy generally. After all that has tested our country—the financial crisis, austerity, Brexit, covid, inflation—it is more important than ever that we have confidence in our leadership. But I have no confidence in this Government, because the Prime Minister repeatedly told Parliament that there had been no parties, and he was then fined for partying.

I have no confidence in this Government, because as our Queen contemplated the loss of her life partner of 73 years, alone, Downing Street partied. I have no confidence in this Government because each and every Minister, whether they resigned or not, is tainted by the support that they gave to the disgraced but still presiding Prime Minister. I have no confidence in this Government, because the Prime Minister does not find formal sexual misconduct complaints against a serving Government Minister to be memorable.

I have no confidence in this Government, because when the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency was asked to justify slashing 91,000 civil servants, he said that technology would enable them to do more with less. The right hon. Member for the middle ages agreed only reluctantly to a digital Parliament and is happy to give the impression that the printing press is a recent and debatable innovation. I have no confidence in the Government, because when giving a valedictory assessment of his meteoric rise and fall, the expensively Eton and Oxford-educated Prime Minister said “them’s the breaks”.

I have no confidence in this Government because they have decided to do without a science Minister, even as they say that science is essential to our economic recovery. I have no confidence in this Government because, as our nation faces a lethal heatwave—one so severe that the rail links between Westminster and my constituency have been severed, and the NHS is braced for a wave of heatstroke victims—the Prime Minister prefers to play “Top Gun” rather than turning up for Cobra meetings. I have no confidence in this Government because the candidates to replace the disgraced Prime Minister are so mired in mud-slinging that they barely mention health, education, jobs or the environment, and have now cancelled further debates because they are so embarrassing. I have no confidence in this Government because they appear to be in an arms race to slash taxes, cut the state, and “postpone”, or abandon, our commitment to net zero carbon emissions.

As we swelter in this country, we should remember that the whole of Europe is less than two thirds the size of the Sahara desert. If we do not meet the climate challenge, the Sahara is coming for us. If the Government think that net zero commitments are “expensive”, they should try costing the retrofitting of air conditioning in every home and school and every other building in the country. That will be but a small part of what it will cost us.

I have no confidence in this Government because they have no ideas and no convictions. They are a zombie Government; worse, they are a vampire Government, effectively dead but still continuing to suck the lifeblood from my constituents. Only a Labour Government can provide the fresh start that we deserve.

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

May I begin by saying that my colleagues on the Government Benches look very much alive to me?

Looking back over the last two and a half years, I think we can say with confidence that the Government have done a lot of things well. We left the EU when so many said that that was not possible. Our covid response has been one of the best in the world. The furlough scheme, delivered at extraordinary speed, prevented the horror of mass unemployment. Early decisions taken on vaccine procurement saved countless lives, and enabled the UK to leave lockdown sooner than almost any comparable nation. On Ukraine, this Government and our Prime Minister have led from the front, not only in terms of sanctions but in providing military and moral support.

In my constituency, the Government are delivering on our manifesto promises to level up. The towns fund will see £24 million invested in Stocksbridge and Deepcar. Government grants have rescued cultural assets such as the Paramount cinema. A new “fibre in the water” project in Penistone offers the possibility of rolling out high-speed broadband to rural homes. The Prime Minister’s personal intervention on behalf of the steel industry, in particular to keep the steel safeguards, has been a boost for local industry and an important demonstration of this Government’s commitment to areas that were once the powerhouse of this country, and can be again.

No Administration is perfect, and ours has made its fair share of mistakes, but this Government have done many things, nationally and locally, to inspire confidence. Of course, I speak in the context of huge uncertainty at the heart of Government. The Prime Minister has resigned—I have lost track of who has not resigned—and we are in the middle of the process of choosing a new leader. The events of the last six months will be chewed over relentlessly in the coming years, but let us not forget that, despite the Prime Minister’s mistakes and misjudgments, 14 million people voted for our party under his leadership, securing the biggest Conservative majority for three decades. Unlike so many other politicians, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has the ability to inspire, to uplift, and to connect with those who feel that the British establishment does not represent them, their communities or their values.

After 2016, the reputation of Parliament suffered, as ordinary people looked on while “the establishment”—as they saw it—sought to overturn the biggest popular mandate of all time. My concern is that when a coalition of the media, the Opposition and, sadly, some within our party work relentlessly—and, now, ultimately successfully—to destabilise a Prime Minister with such an extraordinary democratic mandate, we may once more be accused of trying to thwart the democratic will of the people.

As we on these Benches are engaged in the process of choosing our next leader, let us consider this. No one is without fault. No one is without a past. No one who has the skills, experience and charisma to lead our great nation will never make a mistake. No one has never lied. We have been told that the Prime Minister had to go because of his lack of integrity and a tendency to change his mind. The previous Prime Minister had to go because she had too much integrity and refused to change her mind. Perhaps, like Goldilocks, we will now find our “just right”. But our party is a broad church, and we have a broad range of candidates vying to lead it. Whoever wins, we must unite behind his or her leadership, and stand firm against attempts to throw us off course. Perhaps the question is not “Who is ready to lead?”, but “Are we ready to be led?”

So yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do have confidence in this Government. I have confidence in the British people who put this Government in place, and I wish the new Prime Minister—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Lady’s time is up. I call Hannah Bardell.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Okay, but remember what I said earlier about Members who were trying to catch my eye and chose to intervene—down the list.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Lady is casting aspersions against people who attended private school. I find it quite disrespectful that my mother and father, who chose to send me to that school and to use their hard-earned money to give me the best start in life—which they unfortunately did not receive themselves—should be insulted in this way.

[Hannah Bardell]

I think that there is a basic reality here. In a tweet, the academic Taj Ali pointed out that

“Just 7% of Brits are privately educated…43% of the…most influential news editors, 44% of newspaper columnists…are privately educated. A two-tier education system creates a two-tier society.”

That is the point I am making. We have a Prime Minister who is completely divorced from reality. The current leadership race and its navel-gazing narcissism have given us a window into that elitism and privilege. Among the contenders is one of the richest men in the UK, who by his own admission knows literally no one who is working class. Those people left the Government only when they realised that their own reputations would be tainted. Whether it is the Windrush scandal or the Post Office Horizon crisis, there is a litany of chaos behind this Government.

I have no confidence in this Government because they have failed to build proper social housing, failed to fund a health service that was already on its knees before the pandemic, and failed to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Instead, they have cut the financial lifelines of the poorest and most vulnerable, and have sought to balance the books on their backs while vilifying them.

The SNP Government in Scotland are sick to the back teeth of cleaning up the mess of this Conservative Government, and using our precious resources, with one financial hand tied behind our back, to clean up that mess. Mitigating the bedroom tax and lifting the poorest and most marginalised out of poverty without the full basket of financial powers is hugely challenging, but we do it because we understand what it means to govern in everyone’s interest.

This Tory Government have failed because they have failed to quell the river of dirty Russian money flowing through their financial system. I was on the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill Committee with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and I saw this Government turn their back on the opportunity to stem the corruption and flow of dirty money. While we are grateful for what they have done in Ukraine, it is an absolute disgrace that this Prime Minister, this Government and previous Prime Ministers did so little.

I have no faith in this Government because they have presided over a right-wing Brexit that has torn our social and economic fabric apart. We understand the notion of credibility. The sooner Scotland can get independence, the sooner Scotland can flourish and the rest of the UK can, I hope, have its own democratic enlightenment and be free from the chaos and corruption that this Westminster system of Government holds.

I have no confidence in this Government because I am sick and tired of hearing Conservative Members talking on television about how, because they had personal experience of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic, we somehow do not have the right to challenge the fact that their Prime Minister partied his way through it. The reality is—[Interruption.] Hon. Members might shake their heads, but I had to stand at the deathbed of one of my team, a dear friend, through a window in her hospice because I was not allowed to cuddle her, while their Prime Minister partied his way through it. And there he is, still sitting in power—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I call James Daly.

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[James Daly]

They have bankrupted it, and they have one of the worst drug problems in the west. They are the absolute definition of incompetence—[Interruption.] Absolutely not! No more nonsense about the rubbish we have just heard. This is a motion of confidence, and to hear from a party with a record of utter, dismal failure that they intend to criticise this Government is truly laughable.

Can I turn to Greater Manchester—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I cannot hear.

[James Daly]

Let us turn to the record. We have covered the SNP’s record, so let us see the record of the Labour party in Greater Manchester that my constituents are faced with. With that great political titan, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, what have we had? We have the Greater Manchester police, for which he is the police and crime commissioner, in special measures. We have had the iOPS computer system, which has cost about £800 million—completely wasted. We have mental health services, all under the control of Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, in special measures. What a complete and utter disaster. The cherry on the cake was when he attempted to impose upon people in greater Manchester the world’s biggest green air charging zone. Andy Burnham’s big idea was to charge my constituents anywhere between £10 and £60 for having the temerity to go to work. That is what they are faced with.

The great record of the Labour-controlled council in Bury comes down to this. I can only go through the litany of failure. In the Bury Times today, we see that children’s mental health services in Bury are on their knees because of our Labour-controlled council. The headline in the paper says that it will take 10 years for Labour-controlled Bury Council to get children’s services back to even a “good” rating. This is under a Labour council. The record of the Opposition parties on how they have interacted with our constituents as governing bodies throughout this country is absolutely abysmal.

I wish the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) was still here, because she missed something out when we were talking about rape and serious sexual offending, which has an incredibly serious record. What she never touches on is the abysmal record of the Leader of the Opposition as Director of Public Prosecutions. That is something Labour Members quite rightly never talk about—[Interruption.] Absolutely, and they throw allegations out regarding this Government’s record.

So, what do we have? My Government have spent £10 million on building a new science, technology, engineering and maths high-skill centre in Bury. They have saved Gigg Lane and given my constituents back their 130-year-old football club. They have invested £80 million in transport infrastructure and provided £20 million for a levelling up bid for Bury town centre. Mysteriously, the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) is not here. I know he would want to—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Has the hon. Gentleman notified the hon. Member for Bury South that he is going to mention him?

[James Daly]

I will withdraw that, Madam Deputy Speaker. All I will say is that within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury we have another levelling-up fund bid in for the people of Radcliffe, a new school coming for the people of Radcliffe and the SEND school providing support services for some of the most vulnerable people in my communities. This is a Government to be proud of and a record to be proud of.