Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Simon Clarke and Nigel Evans

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I remind Members that when intervening they should please look forward, so that their voice, mellifluous as it may be, can be picked up and the Hansard reporters can get the words down accurately.

[Sir Simon Clarke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is possible to bring back a Bill on this issue, providing there is a substantial difference in what is brought forward from what we are debating. I would argue that a Bill that was not focused, as this one is, on the general safety of Rwanda, but on the wider enforceability of our immigration law could be brought forward in this Session.

It was a regrettable farce—I use the word advisedly—in the previous Parliament of which I was a Member that the overt bias of the then Speaker, Mr Bercow, meant that we were frustrated when we attempted to deal with this issue in the context of Brexit. If the Government do not support amendments to the Bill—I hope they will—I do not anticipate that situation arising in what would be the happy event of their coming forward with a new Bill that goes further on these points so that they can command the support of the whole of the Conservative party.

Teesworks: Accountability and Scrutiny

Debate between Simon Clarke and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you confirm the rules regarding declarations of interest? If a Member has a declaration of interest on the register, should they not refer to it when they stand up and take part in debates in this House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

It is up to each individual Member to determine whether their declaration of interest should be made during a debate. Clearly, processes are available should a Member not do so and other Members believe that they should have.

[Mr Clarke]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I can confirm that no such interest exists, despite desperate attempts to insinuate to the contrary.

Who speaks for the Labour party in this debate? We have the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), clear that she is making no allegations, but we had the hon. Member for Middlesbrough making very pointed, very serious allegations of criminal wrongdoing. There is a yawning gulf between the two.

The next key point I wish to raise is about the process that the Government have adopted to set up the independent investigation that has been announced this afternoon. As the Minister set out very clearly at the Dispatch Box, that is the legal structure for investigating when a best-value investigation is triggered. The irony here, of course, is that the civil service does not believe that that threshold has been met and has advised Ministers to that effect. [Interruption.] I have spoken to Ministers about this point and, as Ministers have made clear, that is the case. It is not Ministers asserting that this threshold has not been met: the civil service does not believe that that standard has been met.

As both the former Secretary of State and the former Minister of State for Local Government, I can say with total assurance that this process is normal and straightforward. In his letter to Ben Houchen a fortnight ago, the Secretary of State set out why one would not want to seek to extend the remit of the NAO in the way that is being proposed. We have the long-standing, Labour-instigated system of commissioning these independent inquiries under the Local Government Act 1999. The key point here, of course, is that it is not just public confidence but investor confidence that is being undermined by the Labour party. It is doubly ironic, therefore, that we have never seen Labour calling for a similar process anywhere else— as we heard from the Minister, not even in Labour-run Liverpool when actual criminal wrongdoing had taken place. To add insult to injury, was the Labour party’s own investigation into its people’s conduct in Liverpool independently led? No: it was investigated by one of Labour’s own former MPs and a former council leader.

So we return to the purpose of this campaign—this vendetta. It is an attempt to systematically smear Ben Houchen, destroy Teesworks and make Teesside poorer. We have seen this movie before: earlier this year, not one but two independent reviews led by some of the most eminent scientists in the country thoroughly rebutted the idea that marine deaths were anything to do with the dredging at Teesworks, but just moments ago, we heard the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) again dredging up those allegations—you will pardon the pun, Mr Deputy Speaker—knowing full well that they are baseless. Labour will seize on any excuse and take any chance to try to talk down my region. I am sick to death of it, and so are the people of Teesside, because it is not in the public interest: it is in the Labour party’s interest. That is why Labour pursues these wrecking campaigns.

Teesside has been rescued from a cycle of secular decline with some bold leadership and private sector investment, and the public back it. That is why, in 2021, Ben Houchen received 73% of the vote to carry on with his mission. I ask shadow Front Benchers to confirm whether they will respect the impartiality of the senior officials from the local government family who have now been tasked with conducting this investigation, and I ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough to confirm that in his speech, too. If they do not respect the integrity and impartiality of those officials, why do they not do so? What is wrong with the investigation that has been instigated this afternoon?

I directly challenge the hon. Member for Middlesbrough on this point, too—if it is established by that inquiry that his allegations of “industrial-scale corruption” are baseless, as I firmly believe them to be, will he come to this House and withdraw the allegations that he has made here? If he does not, it will amount to one of the most flagrant abuses of parliamentary privilege that I can conceive of, and I believe that he should be ordered to this House by Mr Speaker in the event that he declines to do so.

This is a cynical, shameless, seedy attempt to talk down Teesside, to imply wrongdoing and to damage the interests of the very deprived communities that I am proud to represent. I look forward to the report of the independent inquiry. I will be voting against Labour’s motion today. It is time to draw a line in the sand against this game playing by the Labour party. Labour Members have done it before—they have done it on the crabs, they have done it with the Teesside police and crime commissioner, and they have done it to the former Mayor of Middlesbrough. They know full well what they are doing. They abuse this place to make allegations, rely on others to amplify them outside and then feed off the clouds of suspicion and miasma of doubt that they create. All they have to offer is slander, negativity and decline—all the hallmarks of their toxic legacy on Teesside. Enough.

Protection of monuments of Captain James Cook

Debate between Simon Clarke and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

We should celebrate and protect our country’s amazing heritage. People across the Tees Valley are incredibly proud of Captain James Cook, and 2,500 people have signed this decision.

The petition states:

The petition of residents of the constituency of Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland,

Declares that the achievements of Captain James Cook in the fields of science, exploration and cartography are of immense historic significance and are rightly commemorated by a number of much-loved statues and monuments across Middlesbrough, the Tees Valley and North Yorkshire.

The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ensure that those monuments and sites which commemorate Captain James Cook are protected against harm or removal.

And the petitioners remain, etc.

[P002651]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before the Adjournment debate, can I ask the Serjeant at Arms—we will not suspend—to sanitise the Government Dispatch Box to ensure that it is covid-friendly? [Interruption.] I know, if we had a potter’s wheel at this moment in time, we would be doing that, but we just want to make certain. Colonel Bob, if you could take your seat—[Interruption.] There you are, entertainment as well. Fantastic—I thank the Serjeant at Arms for doing that.

Petition

Debate between Simon Clarke and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Government's Management of the Economy

Debate between Simon Clarke and Nigel Evans

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con) [V]]

The motion before the House today is not one to trouble serious observers. Over the 10 years that followed the crash of 2007 to 2009, this Conservative Government rebuilt our broken economy. Before the appalling shock of covid, we enjoyed effectively full employment. Public spending was back within our means and the UK ranked eighth in the World Economic Forum’s ease of doing business ranking for 2020. The widespread understanding that the Conservatives are the party who will look after people’s family, home and job is among the most important reasons why we have won four successive general elections, and it will underpin, I am sure, our success in a fifth.

This Government have a clear, bold plan to build back better. Our £280 billion to the crisis was deliverable only because of the tough choices that Conservative Chancellors made in the last decade to fix the roof while the sun was shining. We have made decisive interventions that have preserved much of the muscle power of the British economy during this period of suspended animation, and as my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in his opening remarks, we have been praised by the IMF for the nature of the interventions that we have made.

Even before next week’s Budget, we have the Chancellor’s £30 billion plan for jobs, the £12 billion green industrial revolution and £8.6 billion of accelerated infrastructure spending. This stimulus is hugely exciting areas such as the Tees valley, which had the chance to leverage great amounts of private sector investment off the back of Government commitments of this nature.

Not all the decisions that lie ahead will be easy; there is no point in sugaring the pill. Our public finances are gravely damaged. Some of the damage will of course be repaired when the free market is allowed to operate normally again. However, we need to be realistic. Nothing we said during the course of the 2010s about the danger of running unsustainable levels of public debt has changed. The fact that borrowing costs are historically low is to be welcomed, but we should regard it as a stroke of great good fortune that it coincides with our hour of need, rather than an ongoing inevitability. I challenge anyone in the Chamber to tell me with certainty what the world will look like in the 2030s or 2040s, or what borrowing costs will be.

I believe it would be nothing short of immoral to mortgage our children’s and grandchildren’s futures to chance. For debt to exceed 100% of GDP for the first time since 1963 is simply not sustainable, so I would support and indeed urge some measures of fiscal consolidation in next week’s Budget. These should be targeted at hard-pressed families, and key drivers of employer behaviour such as national insurance should be protected, but I can well see the sense of looking at other options to raise revenue in the medium term, including increasing corporation tax.

Companies are realistic about the economic landscape. They care more about policy certainty and the general prosperity of the economy than about a moderate rise in corporation tax. So I hope the Chancellor will be prudent as well as bold and emphasise the need for discipline and sound money next week as part of our recovery.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We hope to get back to Nadia Whittome before the end of the debate, and sooner rather than later. So we now go by video-link to Paula Barker.