Sue Gray Report

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look back, many years hence, on, from this period, the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe, which was not half bad; being the first country anywhere in the world to put an approved vaccine in anybody’s arm; and coming out of covid faster than any other European country. Those are already very considerable achievements, to say nothing of delivering Brexit, which the hon. Lady would not have done and neither would the Labour party.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister was asked whether he thought any other Prime Minister would have allowed such rule breaking on their watch. I was a senior civil servant for two Prime Ministers—Gordon Brown and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—and I can tell the Prime Minister that when I was a senior civil servant no such behaviour would have occurred. What is clear to me in the Sue Gray report is the number of comments by civil servants who knew that they were doing something wrong. They said:

“we seem to have got away with”

it; this is

“somewhat of a comms risk”;

people should not be

“walking around waving bottles of wine”

in front of cameras—and it goes on. They knew they were doing something wrong; did the Prime Minister, at any stage and at any of the events he attended, think he was doing something wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

No, and I have tried to be clear with the House about that. By the way, the hon. Lady talks about serving previous Prime Ministers; I thank her for her service, but I want to assure her that I have never thrown a stapler at anybody, or an ashtray.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The most important thing is that we focus on the priorities of the people of this country—in Scotland and around the country—and tackle the aftershocks of covid, the effects of the war in Ukraine and the impact on inflation, and that is what we are doing.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister think that he broke the law?

[The Prime Minister]

I completely accept that the police are right, and that is why I have paid the fine.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend, who is the living embodiment of the robustness of British agriculture, and indeed of the benefits of English food—of British food, particularly the beef of Devon, or Somerset. He is right in what he says about food envoys. We have taken that up. Every single embassy across the world has a food envoy.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

My constituents in Bridge House, Croydon live in flats covered in dangerous cladding that will cost millions to remove. They are not eligible for the Government’s building safety fund because it is the wrong type of cladding. Can the Prime Minister confirm: do my constituents have to pay the £23,000 each that they are being charged to remove this cladding, or does he have a better plan?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady’s constituents are being told that they do not have to remove that cladding, then the answer is no. It is very, very important that this House should recognise that too many buildings have been unnecessarily—unfairly, I believe—categorised as dangerous and unsafe. Of course we must remove dangerous cladding, and we are doing that, but I want householders and leaseholders—people living in flats across this country—to have the confidence that they can do so in safety, and that is what this Government are doing.

Armed Forces Bill

Sarah Jones Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) [V]]

It is an honour to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and to hear his story of Milos Stankovic. It is also an honour to speak in this debate on a Bill that we welcome, but that we believe has limitations and could do more.

In Croydon, our armed forces play a huge part across the community, and I want to begin by thanking them. I pay tribute particularly to the role of reservists, who we all want to see play an even greater role in future. There are five reserve units in Croydon, embedded in our community and playing vital roles to keep us safe, including during these covid times.

The Royal Yeomanry are currently deployed to Operation Cabrit in Estonia and Poland, and we send them our best wishes and our thanks. We have the Corps of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and the Parachute Regiment, with its strong links between Arnhem and Croydon. The Royal Logistics Corps in my constituency has been very active during covid, moving personal protective equipment and ensuring people are safe. The Royal Corps of Signals unit in Croydon actually set up its own manufacturing to produce NHS-grade visors, which it donated to local care homes and the St John Ambulance.

Crucially, every one of our reserve locations has a cadet unit—young people who will thrive on the benefits of being part of the cadets. We only have to look at the evidence from the University of Northampton, which quantified the social value of cadets services: reducing truancy, improving health and qualifications, embedded in our community, vital for our safety and training our young people.

I will touch on the importance of supporting our veterans, who we still so often let down, through the covenant. I know the success of the covenant is a bit of a lottery and the reality does not always match the rhetoric. It is clear that, although everyone has signed up to the covenant, because there are no sanctions, the implementation of it varies. Where local authorities have strong armed forces champions, the covenant has worked best.

Croydon is lucky to have a fantastic armed forces champion in Councillor Toni Letts, an active role model. In Croydon, where the council signed the covenant in 2011, a number of our community groups also ensure that they play their part. We have a variety of local charity partners, such as the Royal British Legion, the Croydon BME forum and Croydon Commitment, which support our serving personnel veterans and their families.

Croydon Council has been recognised for its excellent work, particularly its housing allocation policy, in the Royal British Legion’s “Best Practice Guide to Community Covenants”. It has gone beyond the central Government guidance on the covenant in a number of ways, including giving serving or former members of the reserve forces the same rights as serving or former members of the armed forces, having nominated housing officers to handle inquiries from the armed forces community and allowing some discretion in ensuring eligibility on the housing register.

I am sure the Government want every part of the country to be as committed to the covenant as Croydon is. That is why we suggest that the Bill should set measurable national standards that would end the postcode lottery, why we want to see the statutory guidance now and why we agree with the service charities that are rightly concerned that the scope of the Bill is too narrow, containing nothing specific on issues such as employment. The scope of the legislation must be wide enough to ensure that all areas of potential disadvantage are addressed, and we know that the wider welfare and healthcare systems let our veterans down too often. All MPs in the House will have spoken to food banks that have provided food for veterans. Wider reform is necessary. The nation’s safety, and the safety and wellbeing of those we ask to risk harm on our behalf, should always be the Government’s first concern.

Future Relationship with the EU: Negotiations

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are one customs territory—the protocol makes that clear—and we will shortly be publishing further details about how we intend to ensure that Northern Ireland benefits from that.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) [V]]

We know that county lines—and the exploitation and grooming of our young people and the knife crime that goes with it—is driven by serious organised crime across our national borders. When I spoke to the National Crime Agency, it was clear that the tools available to it—the European arrest warrant, Europol and other things— are crucial in its fight against crime. Will the Secretary of State clarify what he meant when he told the Lords European Union Committee that we may not necessarily have concluded everything on internal security by 31 December? Will he reassure the House that we will be able to continue to fight crime by co-operating with our colleagues in the EU without interruption after 31 December?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, it is the case that we want to have access to all the crime fighting, law enforcement and criminal justice tools that the EU has in order to be able to deal with crime. It is also the case that we cannot accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice as a precondition for so doing.

Ministerial Code

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is vital for Ministers to be energetic and determined in pursuit of the manifesto commitments on which the Government were elected.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

As a former senior civil servant who served under various Ministers in both Labour and Conservative regimes, I find it hard to express how unprecedented the actions of Sir Philip Rutnam are. This is completely unheard of. Although the Minister will not comment on the specifics, will he at least accept that this is completely unprecedented? Does he also agree that there is a pattern of behaviour here, and that whether we are talking about the civil service, the BBC or the judiciary, this Government are more interested in picking fights than in doing the right thing for the country?

[Michael Gove]

With respect to the hon. Lady, who was a very distinguished civil servant, I disagree. The first thing to say is that because Sir Philip Rutnam has made it clear that he wishes to pursue a particular legal route, it would be wholly inappropriate for me to provide a commentary on his remarks. As for the hon. Lady’s broader point, absolutely not: far from being pugilistic, the Government are concentrating on delivering on their manifesto commitments.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can tell my right hon. Friend that our independent courts and legal system are admired around the world. We will continue to ensure that judicial review is available to protect the rights of individuals against an overbearing state while ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Q9. I congratulate the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and all the parties in Northern Ireland on the re-establishment of the Assembly. The press were briefed last year that the Prime Minister was going to bring an end to all ongoing investigations from the conflict, and he said on Monday that he would not support vexatious claims when there was no new evidence. However, the Stormont agreement includes the Historical Investigations Unit, and the point of all the ongoing investigations is that the original evidence has never been properly investigated, so will the Prime Minister tell us today, yes or no, whether he now supports the investigation of every single outstanding claim?

Prime Minister's Update

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend because he is perfectly right. I have seen at first hand what a fantastic campaigner he is for his own constituents. There is a sharp distinction between him and the Scottish National party because he has a plan, once we take back control of Scotland’s extraordinary fisheries, to boost that industry whereas the SNP, of course, would hand it back to Brussels. I congratulate him on what he is doing.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The Times said today:

“The whole point of Conservative government is to provide an executive aware of its limitations and sensitive to the dangers of over-reaching them…A Tory believes that…the rule of law is always to be preferred to arbitrary power. Without these things, what is the point of Conservatives?”

The Prime Minister has just told my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) that the best way to honour the memory of Jo Cox is to get Brexit done. He has broken the law and he has not apologised for it. Constituents of mine—good Conservative voters—are asking themselves what on earth the Prime Minister has done to his party, let alone our country. Will he now resign?

[The Prime Minister]

I have the utmost respect for the law and, indeed, for the judgment of the Supreme Court, but I think what the people of this country want us to do in this Parliament, as I have said several times already this evening, is to deliver on the mandate of the people, and that is what we are going to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we want to ensure that all health trusts and health services are operating properly within their budgets and are able to balance their books. What I would say to my hon. Friend’s constituents is that I am pleased that this Government have been able to increase the funding available to the national health service, and that will go towards increasing and improving the services his constituents are able to receive.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Q13. The Prime Minister is a busy woman, so she might not have seen the latest report from Inside Housing, which has revealed that three successive Ministers were written to a total of 21 times over four years by the all-party group on fire safety and rescue urging them to act to make sure we avoided another fire following the Lakanal House fire. The last of those 21 letters was written a month before the Grenfell Tower fire; no action was taken. What does the Prime Minister believe those Ministers should have done when they received that expert advice?

[The Prime Minister]

Ministers obviously always look very carefully at the expert advice they receive, but the whole question of what has happened and the advice that was available will be looked at in the second phase of the public inquiry.

EU Exit Negotiations

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do believe that that is the case. In developing this future relationship with the European Union, one of the key issues we have been considering is the need to ensure that trade across borders and those just-in-time supply chains can continue, because many jobs in constituencies around the country depend on that. I can give my right hon. and learned Friend that assurance.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I recently visited a business in Croydon that is looking at moving to warehouses just outside Amsterdam because it thinks that this Government’s direction of travel on Brexit will not work for it. It is clear that the Prime Minister will not get a vote for this deal through the House. She has ruled out extending article 50, she has ruled out a general election, she has ruled out a people’s vote and she has ruled out no deal as well. For the sake of businesses in Croydon that are waiting right now to know what will happen, can she categorically state what she will do if she loses the vote in Parliament?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady is concerned about businesses in Croydon, she should look carefully at the future relationship that we are developing with the European Union. We will fill out further details in relation to it, but that future relationship will deliver for businesses in Croydon, will deliver on the issues that they have expressed concerns about and will deliver in a way that ensures jobs can be kept in her constituency.