Police Powers to Suspend Driving Licences

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) for having secured this debate on behalf of over 100,000 petitioners, and for the time she has spent with Tom McConnachie’s family, working with them to get to this point. I also thank the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) for his very logical and clear demand that action be taken, showing how simple it could be to make a huge difference. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who spoke so passionately and raised a number of serious questions that need to be answered, and the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) for making sure we all realise that this debate affects every corner of the British Isles.

Following the touching and heartfelt contributions from Members across the House, no one can doubt how loved and admired Tom McConnachie was by his family and friends. I am glad that they are able to be here today to hear legislators in the House of Commons take this issue seriously, as he and his legacy deserve. The manner of his death is a tragedy beyond words: a young man, happily returning from a night out—a groomsman’s fitting ahead of a friend’s wedding—struck and killed by a drunk driver. I have read what his mother, Charlotte, has so powerfully said about the immense pain caused by his loss, and how she, along with Tom’s partner, Christina, is now living her own life sentence.

Drink, drug and dangerous driving destroys lives—it is as simple as that. Last year, 230 people shockingly lost their lives in drink-driving accidents, destroying the lives of hundreds of families forever. For many, the sentences handed down to offenders seem not to reflect the devastation caused by these crimes. The families’ grief in these cases is immeasurable, and seeing their relatives’ killers escape with limited sentences simply adds to that anger and grief.

We need a justice system that recognises the life sentences given to families who lose loved ones. That is why Labour—in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) and for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who could not be here today—and other Members in the House, such as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), have fought a long campaign to extend the maximum sentence to reflect properly the seriousness of the crime.

The urgent need for this change is illustrated by the fact that, in 2019, more than 150 people were sentenced for causing death by dangerous driving. Some 95% of those offenders received an immediate custodial sentence, of whom more than 15 received a sentence in excess of 10 years—that is only 10% of offenders already being sentenced near the maximum threshold. It would appear that the time is ripe to provide the courts with increased sentencing powers for these offences, so that offenders are dealt with consistently and fairly.

It is right that the courts are given a wider range of penalties to ensure that sentences are proportionate and reflect the seriousness of the offence. It is clearly time for action. No more families should have to come to the House of Commons to hear legislators not taking action when, as we have heard, there are so many logical things that can be done to make people’s lives safer, such as simply removing an offender’s licence, which should be taken away after the crime.

Turning to the suggestion that, in certain circumstances, a driving ban would be imposed pending investigation and trial, I commend the campaign for Tom’s law and all those who signed the petition that we are debating. The excellent House of Commons Library briefing notes that at present

“the police can impose bail conditions for particular purposes, one of which is to ensure there is no further offence committed while on bail. A driving ban as a condition of police bail may be appropriate for some cases.”

However, due to the lack of available statistics, we simply do not know in how many instances that has been used to suspend a licence while someone is awaiting a trial, or whether police forces are making use of these powers, or even regularly considering them. We only know from an answer to a parliamentary question from 2015 that the power is rarely used.

However, there are clear potential benefits to public safety from reducing the risk of further offences. We know that drink-drinking tests have a high degree of accuracy, so there is a compelling case to be made for the precautionary powers made available to the police to be much clearer.

Last year, a former Transport Minister said that the Department was closely exploring options that could be pursued in this area. Can the Minister update us on those conclusions? Will the Department consider a broader power for police to revoke licences, as happens when a driver fails an eyesight test at the side of a road, as has been said by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View? Given that bail conditions are rarely used, is the Department working with the Home Office to ensure that police forces are made better aware of their ability to revoke a licence as part of the bail conditions for someone awaiting trial? If police forces are more aware, perhaps that option could be used more often and more effectively.

It seems sensible that, by working with the National Police Chiefs Council, a new, thorough review could swiftly establish how often these powers are being used and whether guidance for police bail could be updated. Is that also something that the Transport Minister would be willing to consider? The tragic case of Tom McConnachie and the evidence that powers to revoke licences are poorly understood and rarely used demonstrate that the status quo is continually failing to protect the public. I urge the Minister to consider the calls across the House to act swiftly to protect the public from the scourge of drink driving, drug driving and dangerous driving.

Covid-19 Update

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes, and I know that a lot of people will have jumped to the same conclusion as she did about what we could do. We have targeted the 100,000 that we have in mind. Obviously, all the public sector has access to free tests, including teachers and everybody else, but what we wanted to do particularly was to ensure that those vital nodes such as railway signalling hubs, and other crucial services such as HGV drivers, had access to tests.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for heaping praise on the amazing scene at Redbridge town hall in Ilford South led by Dr Seedat, who managed on Christmas day and Boxing day to vaccinate 1,700 people—a phenomenal effort. At the same time, we hear that NHS workers across the country, in their thousands, are not at work because they cannot get the tests that they need. When is the Prime Minister going to sort that out, and when is he going to prioritise tests for NHS and other frontline staff, such as in transport? He needs to get a grip, and he needs to get a grip fast.

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not right, because there are many reasons why NHS staff are sadly absent, but an inability to get testing kits is not one of them. They have access to the NHS supply, and to community supplies as well.

G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was very attracted to the Swansea tidal lagoon model, but it is extremely expensive for the energy it produces. I see Opposition Members shaking their heads. If they can produce plans that show a more economical way of doing it, I shall be only too happy to study them.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

Earlier today at COP26, young people from the group Green New Deal Rising tried to ask the Chancellor directly why he was continuing to subsidise fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry to such an extent. Instead of engaging with those young people, whose generation could be the first to die from climate change rather than old age, the Chancellor promptly banned them from attending his talk. I wonder whether the Prime Minister and the Chancellor could instead engage with that generation of young people, and move on from greenwash towards a green new deal to raise Britain up and meet our climate obligations.

[The Prime Minister]

It is precisely for the sake of that generation—with whom, by the way, every member of this Government and, I am sure, Members throughout the House engage all the time on this issue—that we are doing this.

I am actually starting to think that we can fix this. I was pretty gloomy a while back, but I do now think that we have the technology, and we certainly have the finance. I think we have a growing package of solutions that we can bring to bear, and I think it will be of massive benefit to young children growing up in this country. I hope so, because one of the things I worry about is that young people in this country are mentally very badly affected by the prospect of serious climate change. I think that it preys on their minds. We need to lift that burden from them and show them that there is a more hopeful alternative—and I really think that it is starting to appear.

International Aid: Treasury Update

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

The Government’s decision to renege on their international obligations rides roughshod over those ring-fenced commitments and puts at risk the lives of millions across the globe. That is not in our national interest, and it is certainly not in our national security interest, and that is before taking into consideration our moral duty as a nation to alleviate global poverty.

Damningly, several former Prime Ministers, who proudly upheld our country’s aid commitments, have voiced their concerns about this Government’s handling of their international aid obligations. Indeed, we heard earlier that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has committed to voting against a three-line Conservative Whip for the first time ever, so powerfully does she feel about this issue.

When the right hon. Lady spoke in this debate, she was crystal clear on what the aid cuts would mean, “fewer girls will be educated, more girls and boys will become slaves, more children will go hungry and more of the poorest people in the world will die.” A damning indictment from a former Conservative Prime Minister.

The UK has a long and proud track record of stepping up to support those in need. We cannot abandon our responsibilities to those around the world who are most poverty-stricken, least of all in a global pandemic. The UK is currently the only G7 country to commit in legislation to spending 0.7% of gross national income on international development, a target set by the United Nations, and it is the second largest international development donor behind only the US. That is right and proper, and it is a fact.

The extended families of many of my Ilford South constituents directly benefit from UK aid, lifting millions out of illiteracy and poverty and providing so much support to some of the poorest communities around the globe, including in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

However, instead of leading by example, this Government are now, shamefully, the only G7 Government to cut their aid budget this year. There can be no clearer argument against cutting aid than the devastating impact on the covid response. In April this year, when the delta variant was ravaging India, vital coronavirus research centres—including a project tracking variants in India—had their funding reduced by up to 70%, prompting the project lead to say that the cut would not only make vital projects unviable but would, in effect, kill them dead.

In May, the Tropical Health and Education Trust criticised the UK Government for slashing £48 million in global healthcare funding as part of their wider cuts. Indeed, the NHS’s plans to donate 6 million items of personal protective equipment to healthcare workers fighting new variants across the world were held up, yet again preventing the containment of the virus.

We have a duty to act, and we must do so now before it is too late for millions who rely on direct aid. This is not about giving a man a fish to feed himself but about giving him a net to provide for himself. It is about our historic obligation to lift up the global south using our nation’s far greater resources.

I welcome the actions of Conservative Members who will join us today in voting against this callous and awful manoeuvre by the Government.

Lobbying of Government Committee

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

We have heard many contributions from across this House today and, frankly, I am disappointed that what we have heard makes an absolute mockery of democracy. The general public out there will be seeing not Parliament and government at their best but a revolving door of sleaze. As we have seen time and again, the Government have been rotten in their dealings. Every few weeks, a new shady deal emerges that reeks of cronyism and corruption.

Let us be clear what we are talking about. In the past 12 months alone, we have seen what this Government truly stand for: back-channel conversations, and multibillion- pound contracts awarded, with alarming regularity, to chums in the City with little or no scrutiny.

Let us start with the Health Secretary, who handed out a £30-million contract to his former neighbour and pub landlord, Alex Bourne—a man with no prior experience of producing medical supplies and whose company, Hinpack, was at the time producing plastic cups and takeaway boxes for the catering industry. Despite that, the Health Secretary saw fit to issue a multimillion-pound contract and put our nation’s health in the hands of that company by allowing it to produce millions of vials for the NHS covid test. This did not come about through a formal tender and procurement process. I remind the House that all that was required, by the Health Secretary’s own admission, was a WhatsApp message.

Let us move on to the Housing Secretary, who last summer admitted an apparent bias in reversing a planning decision against Tory donor Richard Desmond’s proposed Westferry Printworks housing development, overruling local officials and saving the property developer an estimated £45 million. Mr Desmond later donated—surprise, surprise—£12,000 to the Conservative party, just weeks after sitting next to the Housing Secretary at a Tory fundraiser.

Then there is the Prime Minister himself, who is also up to his eyeballs in the murky world of lobbying. His former lover Jennifer Arcuri’s firm, Innotech, was awarded £26,000 of taxpayers’ money while he was Mayor of London. Unsurprisingly, that scandal was also whitewashed by this Government.

And now we have former Prime Minister David Cameron, who knew very well what he was doing when he started lobbying for Greensill Capital. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) about David Cameron’s full comments, but we must also remind ourselves that he said that exactly this type of thing was the next big scandal waiting to happen.

Despite that, Mr Cameron saw fit to conveniently forget his own advice when he stood to make £60 million after setting up a cosy drink with the Health Secretary, sending a string of private messages to the Chancellor and, in the process, helping those two Cabinet members commit at least three possible breaches of the ministerial code. It seems absolutely right that the former Member for Bolsover, who is sadly missed in this House, called David Cameron “dodgy Dave” in 2016. He was dodgy then and is dodgy now.

None of this will be taken seriously by our current Prime Minister, who just days ago revealed what he really thinks about the role of big business helping to oil the wheels of this Government, when he said: “The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed”. Government Members really are the Gordon Gekkos of the green Benches, who bleed to their very core that greed is good. As a former Conservative Minister told The Guardian:

“A little bit of money goes a long way.”

It is time for that culture to stop.

There now needs to be a Parliament-led, cross-party inquiry, with a new Select Committee formed to investigate the Greensill lobbying scandal, and it should have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence and restore what we need in this country, which is integrity to our democracy, and an end to the grip of corporate spivs and spinners once and for all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend. He is completely right about the paramount importance of keeping our schools open. Out of this crisis has come at least one potentially innovative idea that can really help exactly the types of pupils he is talking about: one-on-one tutoring of the kind that we have been able to support with our catch-up premiums and our national tutoring programme. As we come out of this pandemic, I want to see us keeping up with one-on-one tutoring because I believe it can make a huge difference to children’s confidence and academic attainment.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I put on the record my congratulations on your first year, Mr Speaker, and the thanks of the many young MPs you have supported in the past year. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommended a circuit breaker more than six weeks ago. The Prime Minister has clearly not listened to scientific or medical advice for more than six weeks. What will he say to the families of the 12,000 people who will die by Christmas, as SAGE forecasts?

[The Prime Minister]

I listen to a huge range of scientific advice, and indeed there are eminent scientists and epidemiologists who say that we should not do any kind of lockdowns or measures like this at all—David Nabarro of the World Health Organisation, whom I esteem greatly, for instance. We have to take a balanced decision and make a judgment about when the right moment is. The hon. Gentleman talks about the long-term effects on people’s lives. We have to make a balanced judgment about the effects on people’s mental health, livelihoods and prospects, the prospects of young people, and the importance of saving lives and protecting our NHS. That is the balance we are trying to strike tonight, and I hope he will support it.

Budget Resolutions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If that is okay, I would just like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for that inspiring and passionate speech.

It is a great honour to have this opportunity to deliver my maiden speech in this place. It was in 1992 that a maiden speech was last given by a Member for Ilford South: the year of the Barcelona Olympics, the year of Norway and Finland applying to join the European Community and the year my dad finally purchased a colour TV, which he lugged through Valentines park in Ilford, to watch England crash out of Euro ’92. It was also of course the year that a young and fresh-faced MP entered Parliament for the very first time—my predecessor, Mike Gapes.

I would like to pay tribute to Mike not just because, like me, he is a West Ham fan, but because he served our community so diligently. He was hard working and strove every day to assist the wonderful people of Ilford South, running his advice surgery and helping tens of thousands of residents during his time in office. I also have to thank my predecessor for getting me into politics in the first place. It was his exuberant support for a certain foreign policy misadventure that led to me being regularly and vocally outside his office with friends from Ilford’s mosques, churches, temples, Quakers and trade unions, campaigning to stop the Iraq war.

It was Ilford where I was first handed a Labour party membership form by a stalwart Labour councillor knocking on my door in Seven Kings, where I grew up. It is the community in which I first joined a trade union, and later where I became active in campaigning for peace and justice across the globe. I went to Highlands Primary School, just off The Drive in central Ilford, a school that recently fought off academisation and is now, thankfully, rated as outstanding. I had my first job as a cleaner in Redbridge College, as a 15-year-old, before securing a regular contract at Ilford Sainsbury’s.

I am proud to come from Ilford because it has defined who I am and my politics. It is a community that is proud of its diversity, and where going to school locally meant that you would visit one friend’s house to celebrate Hanukkah, another for Diwali and another for Eid before having friends to our home to celebrate Christmas. It is a truly global community in which faith is a mainstay in many people’s lives, driving the compassion and unity all of us have for one another and that comes together always in the face of adversity or crisis.

For most of my life, I have taken a train from Seven Kings or Goodmayes stations in Ilford South to Liverpool Street on the way to work—coming “up town”, as we say—as I did this morning. It is a journey that has seen an ever changing view from the windows of the train, soon to be Crossrail—from the springing up of a thicket of skyscrapers clustered around Canary Wharf to, more recently, the Olympic stadium that is now home to West Ham football club and even Pioneer Point in central Ilford, towering above what once housed Pioneer market. However, it is a skyline that tells only half the story, for beneath the majesty and the gleaming pinnacles lie the destitute, the homeless and the drug addicts—and, sadly, in far greater numbers than when I was a young man watching the world out of the 364 bus window. There are so many more people lying there desperate for help.

For many, Ilford has always been considered Essex—the first outpost of Essex in London—although, for fear of the wrath of certain generations of Ilford South residents, it is now perhaps the last outpost of London in Essex. I like to think we have the best of both worlds: the hard work, determination and flair so often associated with Essex, but the diversity of London—imaginative in its solutions to the problems we face and fierce in its rejection of racism.

Some of my friends from Second Seven Kings Scout Troop followed the classic path of heading to work in the Dagenham Ford plant, and to this day they have good and well-paid work. However, with those jobs mostly gone, and manufacturers such as Plessey a long and distant memory, young people in Ilford now have to work even harder to achieve success.

Ilford is, and always has been, a truly aspirational community which, despite some of the worst rates of child poverty in Essex, and even after a decade of austerity, has many brilliant schools, a thriving business community, and residents who are hungry for real change and serious investment. Seven Kings School is a beacon of inclusivity, where pupils with physical disabilities are treated equally with able-bodied pupils in every aspect of the school’s work, supported by a community of teachers and families, who recently defended the school from the threat of cuts. At Frenford—friends of Ilford—youth club, for only £1 per day young people can play sport, study, use music facilities, or get support, coaching and mentoring to push their lives forward. Singh Sabha London East runs kabaddi clubs and boxing training, to give discipline and goals to young people. That is the lived solidarity of communities and volunteers who are prepared to believe that things can always get better.

My predecessor was the first Labour Member of Parliament for Ilford South to have to serve under a Conservative Government, and, sadly, I will be the second. I do not want to be a Labour MP in opposition, because I know, and people in Ilford know, about the opportunities that opened up for our communities under the last Labour Government: Sure Start, the national minimum wage, the Building Schools for the Future programme, and an NHS that was rescued and restored to a world-class health service that is the envy of the world. And after 10 years of Conservative rule, every day when I walk through Ilford, I see the poverty, the ranks of homeless on the streets, and too many young people who, despite studying hard, face precarious work and low wages. Too often in the past few months I have had to answer the phone to our borough commander to learn about yet another death from knife crime—a modern day scourge that devastates lives and families far too often.

As a new MP, my surgery is already full of people facing a housing crisis, and a lack of affordable homes and proper council houses. Sadly, it is always the developers and property speculators who win, pushing up rents and house prices further. Every day over the past 10 years, people’s stake in the economy, and their power to have a say over their own destiny, has diminished under this Government, and I have seen nothing in today’s Budget that changes that. When we have a Government and Conservative Members who talk openly about going after the Human Rights Act and the Supreme Court, and of cracking down on freedom of speech and even the BBC, and measures to suppress voters at the ballot box, I will be here to hold them to account. We need to build a democracy that is fit for the 21st century, not one designed to keep the rich and powerful in perpetual rule.

In Ilford, the climate crisis takes on a new dimension, because the catastrophe of climate change is already impacting on the families and relatives of Ilford’s peoples across the world. I cannot help but think of my son’s future, and whether he will one day ask us all what we have done to halt the devastation of our planet, including those communities that have faced floods in the past few months, and whether any of us have the guts to stand up, put greed and profit aside, to take the bold measures needed to give future generations a chance of survival.

For me politics is and always has been a moral crusade. Perhaps that is because my heroes include Keir Hardie, or because my father served for more than 30 years as a parish priest at St John’s church, Seven Kings church, and St Andrew’s church on The Drive in Ilford, as well as at nearby St Margaret’s in Barking. He always taught me, in the cause of social justice, never to walk by on the other side of the road. I will therefore always strive to hold this Government to account, and to work with my Labour colleagues so that not only do we rebuild the red walls in the north, but we extend the red citadels in the towns and hinterlands of Essex, Kent, and beyond, and restore our party in Scotland. We must return to government and shape our country to become once again a beacon of hope, dignity, and equality across the world.

Serving Ilford South, my community, and the place my friends live, will be the honour of my life.