Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I have a growing number of constituents who are struggling to go about their lives or even get to work because their driving licences are stuck at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Will the Prime Minister make it clear at the Dispatch Box that the service from the agency falls significantly below what we expect, and will he ask the Transport Secretary to meet me, and any other Members of this House—we may need a big room—to explain how we can help the agency out of the hole in which it has put itself?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. Like everybody in this House, I have read some surprising things about what has been going on at the DVLA. We need to make sure that it is given every possible encouragement and support to expedite the supply of driving licences to the people of this country.

Covid-19 Update

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of vaccinating the world. No one is safe till everybody is safe. That is clear, and we must get more vaccines to Africa in particular. I have talked to colleagues in African Governments and to African leaders about what we can do to have more fill and finish in Africa and to encourage Africa’s own supply of vaccines—that is the best long-term answer. But what we need to do in the meantime is donate our vaccines, which is what we are doing—the UK is donating £100 million by June, as I told the House earlier—and continue the roll-out of the AstraZeneca jab, which, do not forget, is basically underwritten by the British state, in the sense that it is delivered at cost, thanks to the deal that we did. That is in addition to the £548 million that we have given to COVAX and the investment in Gavi as well. So the UK has a proud record on vaccinating the world, but there is clearly much, much more that the world needs to do; I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is a warm welcome for the return to plan A from me; I hope it is irreversible this time. The Prime Minister knows that our young people have missed out on so much, and now they face punishment for doing the right thing when it comes to travel, especially our teenagers. They cannot prove that they have had two jabs on the NHS app if they are under 16, because they cannot access it. Even if they can access the cumbersome process involving a letter from the NHS, those with one jab and a recent infection cannot prove that at all. That effectively grounds them. Prime Minister, half-term is coming. Family memories are now, not at some point in the future. Please can we urgently, with the Health Secretary, who is sitting next to the Prime Minister, find a way that teenagers can be treated with fairness and parity with their parents on these important issues, so that they can get on with their lives with their families?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about young people and vaccinations. I do think that people need to appreciate the value of vaccinations for ease of travel, particularly boosters, but it should be as simple as possible for young people; I totally agree with him about that. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will make a statement in the next few days about what we propose to do.

Covid-19 Update

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I think I speak for everybody here when I say what we want to see is the House getting back to normal business as fast as possible, and to that end I suggest that everybody follows the guidelines and gets boosted.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The Prime Minister deserves real credit for his recent decisions on covid. He has followed the evidence, but he has also taken the wider view of our society and our economy, and that has to be right. In my opinion, England is not out of step with Scotland and Wales—they are out of step with us. May I ask my right hon. Friend to also take the long view? It is increasingly clear that we are a long way from learning to live with covid, but we also have an NHS on a permanent war footing, and that is not sustainable. What is the long-term plan for living with covid in 2022, and could that include any changes to mandatory isolation and test and trace? For instance, we see different isolation dates in the United States and Germany from here in the UK.

[The Prime Minister]

We will continue to keep isolation timings under review. We do not want to release people back in to society or to their workplace so soon that they just infect all their colleagues; that would not be sensible. As I said in my earlier answers, we have a good chance of getting through this difficult wave and getting back to something like normality as fast as possible. It is important that omicron seems to provide some sort of immunity against delta, for instance, and that may be a positive augury for the future.

COP26

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady very much. We are supporting the campaign for jet zero; we want the UK to lead the world in making sure that planes can fly without using tonnes of kerosene, and there are many attractive technologies. It will not be easy, but we want the whole world to come together to fix this. We are setting an ambitious target of getting more sustainable aviation fuel into tanks by 2030, and going for electric planes for short haul.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

May I add my thanks to the Prime Minister and the unflappable, unstoppable COP26 President sitting beside him? It is plain to hear that they have really put themselves out there, and they have done the country and the world a great service. The agreement on coal is welcome. They have both been honest that it could have been better, but does the Prime Minister concur that the direction of travel on coal is now crystal clear, and that the pressure on India, China and the other coal-addicted nations will only increase now? Will he commit his Government to using every resource at our disposal to finish the job on coal?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend, who is totally right. The way to finish the job on coal is to show countries that are having difficulties powering past coal that the technology does exist, and to use our new country platforms to bring in the private sector to help us to fix it. That is what is going to happen.

Health and Social Care

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The simple reason that I gave earlier is that none of those measures raise anything like the funding that we need. I have explained that very clearly, and I think that colleagues understand it and I think the country understands it. People are very suspicious. They know that this country has been through an enormous fiscal impact from the pandemic. They know that the Government have put their arms round people and spent £407 billion. They would be very suspicious of a Government who pretend that they can get the NHS back on its feet without some kind of serious, responsible, fair, fiscal effort and that is what we are doing.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for gripping this issue. We are not in Government to be afraid of doing anything for fear of offending anyone. I will study the plans that the PM has promised to set out and I thank him for them. On behalf of my constituents and their families trapped right now in the spiral of rising care costs and fast disappearing resources, may I urge him and the Health Secretary, as we develop the new system that he has promised, to consider those for whom this is an issue in the present and not just many years into the future.

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend has said. The tragedy of decades of failure to tackle this matter is that people are now facing these costs. What we are doing is investing—as we have done throughout the pandemic—about £6 billion, I think, in dealing with the immediate costs of social care to try to help people through this very difficult time. What this package offers is a way of developing a long-term solution, enabling, we hope, the private sector to come in and give people a long-term plan to fix the costs of their own social care, knowing that the Government will remove the risk of those catastrophic costs. That is the advantage of what we are doing today.

Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman’s mind is blown. I am a Cabinet Office Minister who is responsible for overall adherence to Government security rules. When it comes to the placement of the camera in that office, I am afraid that it is for the Department of Health and Social Care to account for itself when it comes to what happened. It is already conducting an investigation, which we will want to look at.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

As a former Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care with the previous Secretary of State, in candidness, no one ever told me that our meetings were being observed. I never asked, it is true, but I was certainly never told. The issue, to my mind, is of course that they were being recorded, but more, who had access to those images? Does the Minister think that things would be made much easier for everyone as the Department of Health and Social Care begins the investigation if the, let us remember, profit-making media organisation involved simply made it clear how it was able to see inside a senior Minister’s office?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his pointed and important question, and I hope that during the course of the investigation led by the Department that some of these answers will come through so that we can scrutinise them ourselves.

Covid-19: Road Map

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will continue to support all those who are isolating. Indeed, we will do what we can to increase our support for them, but we will also support everybody throughout this pandemic. The hon. Lady should wait for the Chancellor to announce his Budget next week.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I want to welcome and to raise a hallelujah, along with parents and children, for the good sense of schools returning for all pupils from 8 March. It is the right thing to do on so many levels. May I ask the Prime Minister, however, what evidence has driven his decision that outdoor sport—not in-school outdoor sport, but wider outdoor sport—for those same children cannot go ahead for another month? Furthermore, can he say why, after all the good work that they did last year to create covid-secure environments, restaurants and cafés face another three months before they can open in any meaningful way? What is the evidence that he has seen that has convinced him to make that decision today?

Covid-19 Update

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very doubtful that the people of Salford would be deprived in the way that the hon. Lady describes, but I will of course look into it urgently and my hon. Friend the vaccine Minister will be taking it up immediately.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Many parents will have faced home schooling last year with a sense of necessary resignation. My sense is that many of them are now quite desperately worried about their children. So it is fantastic news that the Prime Minister has said today that as the vaccines roll out and the most vulnerable are protected, that will move in lockstep and we will get the country back to school. However, do all schools have to wait for the 8 March date, even primary, given that we all agree, as he has said today at the Dispatch Box, that schools are safe?

[The Prime Minister]

I hear my hon. Friend loud and clear. I know his views will be shared by many in this House. I just want to go back to the key thing that we need to establish: it will not, alas, be until the middle of February that we have real, material evidence that the vaccines are working in terms of driving down the mortality rate among those crucial groups. So if we were to give schools decent notice to come back, we are driven more towards 8 March by that logic rather than coming back earlier. Believe me, we have been round and round this many times, and it is about as fast as we think we can prudently go. I think that is what the country would want; people would want schools open but they would want them open in a cautious and sensible way.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Steve Brine Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is a matter of public record that I have had my points of difference with this Government and this Prime Minister since the Brexit referendum, but unlike many, I never questioned that we had a clear result from a free and fair referendum and I always hated the rather unkind view that people who voted leave were somehow hoodwinked or too daft to know what they were doing.

There were just two red lines on which I and my constituents insisted. One was the transition period—a key ask of business, if we remember—and the other was that we leave with a deal in place between the UK and its closest neighbours, our largest trading partner, which does not seem like a radical thought to me. As I said to the Prime Minister on Christmas Eve, I pay huge tribute to him for his statecraft and for sticking to the word that he gave me both publicly and privately that he wanted a deal with the EU and would do everything in his power to secure one.

I will support the deal today, and not just because it avoids the no deal many feared and that so many of our opponents spent an election campaign just 12 months ago warning would herald some form of national apocalypse. How ironic that they will vote today for the hardest Brexit of all—I listened with interest to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats confirming that. I will support the deal because it is a good deal for Britain. It does what we promised at the election last year. The Prime Minister said that he would get Brexit done, and last year’s European Union withdrawal agreement was passed within days of his securing a majority in this place to allow that. That was the oven-ready deal, and we should not allow others to rewrite history.

The future relationship in the Bill before us today did not go anywhere near the oven until the eleventh hour, but it has come out very nicely and I welcome it. Ultimately, however, it is just the framework—wide enough to do all the things the Prime Minister set out this morning, giving businesses, citizens and law enforcement what they need, notwithstanding the SIS II concerns, which I share, but nimble enough to let this country forge its own way in the world. For me, the success or otherwise of this new chapter, as many have said, is not in the 1,200 pages and various appendices before us today. That is all still to be written.

Given the time, let me touch on just one area, that of services—financial services in particular. I understand that there is a lot of noise about what is not included, but that rather misses the point. To summarise, the title, under services and investment, seems to have extracted an agreement not to put unreasonable or unnecessary impediments in the way of UK financial service businesses seeking to operate in the EU. That is welcome. May I ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, through the Ministers who are now on the Front Bench, what this means in practice given that the agreement does not protect UK passporting rights, as many have said today? What work needs to take place now so that financial service firms can be clear?

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

On passporting, I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that the ball is in the EU’s court to get this done, not least because if the deals we are working on with our friends in the US, Australia and New Zealand work out as we intend them to, we will be in a much stronger position than we are now.

[Steve Brine]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has experience of working in the sector. The deal is in many ways a basis on which we can build. There is always a way to structure services, as he well knows, and of course many businesses put measures in place long ago, through EU brokers, for instance. I want those on the Front Bench to answer that point when they respond to the debate today.

Although we have left the political structures of the EU, this country will remain culturally, emotionally, historically and strategically attached to Europe, not least through the 4 million EU nationals who are our friends and neighbours and who include many of my constituents. We have a new future to look forward to. It will not be the same, and we should not pretend that it will—we should never have pretended that it would—and that is okay. It is time to come together and to move on.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. The citizens of the beautiful Ards peninsula will continue to enjoy the rights that we uphold as shared UK citizens.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

My constituents will be joyed by the changes to the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, as my right hon. Friend knows. The Joint Committee has clearly done its job and shown that rumours of compromise’s demise are greatly over- stated. The British Government have moved and shown much seasonal goodwill, but does he agrees that this announcement truly works for us all only if it is followed imminently by good news on the wider EU-UK trade deal?