Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have repeatedly answered that question before. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, a report is being delivered to me by the Cabinet Secretary into exactly what went on. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might explain why there are pictures of him quaffing beer—we have not heard him do so.

I think that what the British public want us all to do, frankly, is focus on the matter in hand and continue to deliver the vaccine roll-out in the way that we are doing. I think that it is an absolutely fantastic thing that people are now coming forward in the way that they are: 45% of people over 18 have now had a vaccine. I thank our amazing staff, I thank the NHS, I thank all the GPs—

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Give them a pay rise, then.

[The Prime Minister]

Well, you blocked the investment in them. Labour Members wouldn’t vote for investment in our NHS—they wouldn’t do it.

I thank NHS staff for what they are doing. I can tell the House that we are now speeding things up by allowing people to avoid the 15-minute delay after they have been vaccinated, which I hope will encourage even more people to come forward.

Afghanistan

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will make some progress and then give way.

The Prime Minister is right to say that we cannot allow Afghanistan to become a training ground for violent hate and terrorism, but that will be more difficult now that Afghanistan has descended into chaos. If preventing al-Qaeda camps is now the limit of our ambition, we are betraying 20 years of sacrifice by our armed forces and we are betraying the Afghan people, who cannot be left to the cruelty of the Taliban.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. and learned Friend speaks about the lack of ambition and urgency, and that summarises everything about the Government’s approach to this crisis and many others. Is it not telling that when we had an Afghan Government whom we wanted to support, the UK Government cut the amount of overseas aid that we sent, but now that the Taliban are in charge, the Government are talking about increasing the amount of overseas aid?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. I will come to the question of aid in just a minute, because it is a very important point in the context of what has happened in recent weeks and months.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Today is a tragic and shameful day for western Governments. But I also think that it is a day on which we have seen Parliament at its best. We have heard some wonderful speeches and the debate has been illuminated in particular by those who have served. I will long remember the speeches by the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). Their evidence is particularly powerful because of the lives they have led and the experiences they have had.

As others have said, we must learn the lessons from the last 20 years, but that does not mean that we should never intervene or seek to make things better. The truth is that our intervention did make us safer and it also improved the lives and prospects of many in Afghanistan. I fear that we may learn the wrong lessons. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) spoke powerfully about the many benefits that the people of Afghanistan gained as a result of our intervention, but she then said that she voted against it 20 years ago because she thought that this is where we would end up. Even with my fury at the actions of President Biden, of President Trump before him and of the British Government, I do not believe that we should say that the previous 20 years were wasted as a result of where we are today.

Others have said that the Taliban will be judged not on what they say but on what they do, but given our current circumstances, in what way will we judge them? They see that we have walked away, so for us to stand here in this place and say that we will judge them on the basis of their actions seems like weasel words, I am afraid. It is disgraceful that the Foreign Secretary chose to go on holiday as the Taliban marched into Afghanistan and towards the gates of Kabul. I fear that the west’s withdrawal will not save us money in the end and will not make us safer. I fear that we will look back on this day in a few months and say that we were in a position to continue to support Afghanistan, with a very small presence, on its road to a better future.

Almost 70 years on, there are still 28,000 American soldiers in Korea. People say that 20 years on we should not still need to be in Afghanistan, but sometimes a small presence can make a huge difference. Although we absolutely should thank every single person who has served in Afghanistan, we should also recognise that their contribution and the people they fought alongside played a huge part in making us safer and Afghanistan better.

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[Dave Doogan]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Perkins]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You have put in place a three-minute time limit. Every time Members from certain parties get to the end of their speeches, they add on another minute by taking an intervention. Is it not a huge discourtesy to everyone on your list who is going to miss out for them to add on a minute every time they do not think the time limit is long enough?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There are a lot of people who are not going to get in—we know that—but under current procedures people can take up to two interventions. Yes, people should take on board the fact that they are possibly doing some of their colleagues out of a turn if that happens, so I hope that the position will not be abused.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I am happy to write to the hon. Lady through the Department when she gives me a more detailed version. I can just answer that we have 500 kickstart jobs per day, and from 20 locations—from Bradford to Barnet, Glasgow to Leicester, and Manchester to her own Ealing community—jobcentres are specifically helping BAME people.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the comparative performance of BAME students in (a) further and higher education and (b) statutory education.

[The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)]

Equality of opportunity for talented young people across the country is one of the Government’s highest priorities. We are focused on giving people, whatever their background, ethnicity or circumstances, the high-quality education and skills that they deserve to succeed.

[Mr Perkins]

I am very pleased to hear that, but the reality in terms of the results is that those policies are not working. Most black and ethnic minority groups improve educational attainment relative to white students up to the age of 16, but from the age of 16 there is a drop off in every single group. Whether it be Chinese, who are the highest-performing, or the lowest-performing groups, all of them do less well relative to white students after the age of 16. While I recognise and welcome the Government’s rhetoric, what actual policies are there to do something about that alarming decline?

[Michelle Donelan]

We recognise that raising educational standards is absolutely key to levelling up opportunity, providing £14 billion in over three years, the biggest uplift to school funding in a decade, investing it in early years education and targeting more than £3 billion in recovery funding. That is why, compared with 2009-10, the proportion achieving A-levels and equivalent improved across all ethnic groups, with the largest improvement in the black and black British ethnic group.

Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

There is a range of different ways in which security is maintained across the Government estate. Some of those are dealt with by the police, some by Government security, and some by the Departments themselves. The mix of those in this particular instance will be looked into.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

As parliament- arians, we all have sympathy for the Minister being sent here to respond to these questions without many of the answers to them. We had all expected that her boss would be here for these questions, as indeed he would have been had he thought he had the answers to give to them. May I ask her, the next time she meets the Cabinet Secretary, to stress how unsatisfactory this situation is, how dangerous it is to the security of this nation, and that the House demands not only that this situation is never repeated, but that we get the answers that she has been unable to furnish us with today?

[Julia Lopez]

Those are answers that we will hopefully get once the investigation is complete. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is in Scotland today so he could not be in the House. I share the hon. Gentleman’s anxiety about getting answers, because these are extremely important questions about the security of Ministers’ Offices, which, as a Minister myself, I want some reassurances on.

Ministerial Code

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point—two actually— about the importance of culture complementing rules, and also about the review being undertaken by Nigel Boardman, who will be given all the details he needs about any contact between individuals within Government and those acting on behalf of Greensill.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office says that he welcomes this urgent question today, and for once I believe him, because there is nothing he likes more than seeing the remaining shreds of the Prime Minister’s credibility for probity being blown into the wind. We know that he will look forward to an opportunity to finally get his own head down in that lavishly furnished apartment above No. 10 Downing Street, and that when we come to the next Conservative party leadership contest he will once again be persuaded to put his hat in the ring, but is he really saying that the way this Government have operated is acceptable and that this is really the way we should expect a Government to operate?

[Michael Gove]

Yes.

Elections: May 2021

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this point, because he reminds us of the consequence of the first postponement. It is therefore important to think this issue through carefully again, rather than to reach easily for the argument for yet more delay. He will have heard me say clearly that I am not in favour of delay and I think that there are very strong arguments for the elections to be able to go ahead safely, so it is not my intention to have to do as he asks. None the less, I will take his point away and discuss it with colleagues in the Department responsible—the Home Office—so that his concerns can be properly understood.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to see the Minister on the road to recovery; I wish her well. Does she agree that, for these elections to have validity, we need people not only to be able to vote in them safely, but to be able to campaign in them safely? Will she do a lot more than what she has laid out so far and work with the other political parties that will be competing in these elections in England to ensure that there is agreement about a way in which the elections can be held safely and which can allow political parties to campaign in them as fully as possible?

[Chloe Smith]

I am very grateful for the tone that the hon. Gentleman strikes. It is important that there should always be a level playing field in our elections; that is a critical principle of our democracy. I am therefore keen to secure the kind of cross-party consensus of which he speaks. If he and his Labour colleagues would like to begin by creating that today, that is excellent. In addition to what I have said today, I point him to the written ministerial statement that I provided to the House late last year, in which I referred to the technical area of spending limits. Given the circumstances, it would be quite understandable if parties and candidates wished to be able to use more digital methods this year to campaign and properly communicate with voters. I hope that that piece of information will be helpful to the hon. Gentleman in thinking through how voters can be assisted to get the widest range of information ahead of these polls.

Public Health

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I normally find myself in agreement with my right hon. Friend, but I must say that I do not think she is right in this instance. If we look at what the British people have achieved in the past few weeks by following the guidance, and by deciding to work together to get the R down, they have done just that. Collectively, the people of this country have got the R back down below 1. That was not by non-compliance—it was by the people of this country deciding to follow the rules, do it together, and get the virus down.

I find it extraordinary that the official Opposition, represented by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), currently have no view on the way ahead and are not proposing to vote tonight.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to tell us.

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[Mr Perkins]

I am very pleased to hear it. Many Labour Members believe that there should be restrictions but believe that the Prime Minister’s tiers are wrong. He is explaining very well why he is going to come back on 16 December and come up with a system that we might be able to vote for, but the system he is coming up with today is totally inadequate. How is it possible that in Chesterfield, with 118 cases per 100,000, we are in tier 3, but London constituencies like the one he represents, with a much higher level, are in tier 2? It is because our pub owners and our restaurateurs are worthless to him.

[The Prime Minister]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will really think carefully about what he just said. We are trying to look after pubs, restaurants and businesses across this entire country, and no one feels the anguish of those businesses more than this Government.

I do think it is extraordinary that in spite of the barrage of criticism that we have, we have no credible plan from the Labour party. Indeed, we have no view on the way ahead. It is a quite extraordinary thing that, to the best of my knowledge, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras, who said that he would always act in the national interest, has told his party to sit on its hands and to abstain in the vote tonight. The Government have made their decision, we have taken some tough decisions, and the Labour Opposition have decided tonight, heroically, to abstain. I think that when the history of this pandemic comes to be written, the people of this country will observe that instead of having politicians of all parties coming together in the national interest, they had one party taking the decisions and another party heroically deciding to abstain.

In the story of 2020, there are two great feats from which we can take a great deal of comfort. First, our country has come together in an extraordinary effort that has so far succeeded in protecting our NHS and in saving many lives, while our scientists have been zeroing in on the weaknesses of covid, telescoping 10 years of work into 10 months, and now their endeavours are about to deliver the means, as I say, to rout the virus. That is clear.

The Government are backing not one potential vaccine but seven. We have ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, which is now seeking regulatory approval; we have ordered 7 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, which has almost 95% effectiveness in trials; and we have ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which, if approved by the regulator, could start being administered before Christmas.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The weight of opinion that has been heard today should make the Government think twice about the direction they are taking. The fact that the Prime Minister had to come here today armed with an assurance that the thing we are voting on will be changed in a couple of weeks should tell him that he has got it wrong.

Asking Members of Parliament to choose between following exactly the approach that the Government are taking and having no restrictions at all is the height of irresponsibility. A number of Government Members have said that they cannot support the Government’s approach but are not advocating no restrictions at all. As I said to the Prime Minister earlier, in Chesterfield our rate is now down to 118 per 100,000. The rate in London is considerably higher than that in many areas. We are told that the Prime Minister intervened to prevent London from going into tier 3 because he did not want the economic cost, but he was happy for that economic cost to be paid by restauranteurs, pub owners, café owners elsewhere and all those workers whose jobs are jeopardised by this approach.

I do not believe that the Government’s approach on tiers is joined up or that it enjoys public confidence. I do not believe that the public think it is fair or believe that the tier system is being done on the basis of the medical evidence; they think it is being done on the basis of the Government wanting to keep London in a different tier.

Tier 2 is focused on the hospitality sector, but there is little evidence that it is the cause of the major outbreaks. There has been too little strategy on testing and tracing in schools. We have seen care homes, hospitals and workplaces without a strategic joined-up approach. When the leader of the Liberal Democrats asked whether people who were told that they would be able to stay with elderly relatives over Christmas could get a test if they want one, we were told that they should get one only if they have symptoms.

We have a testing regime that is not fit for purpose and a tier system that does not enjoy public confidence. The support package for the hospitality sector is edging up day by day—there is another thousand quid here—but it is inadequate in the context of the losses that the sector faces over the Christmas period. The package is changing the whole time, which is a sign that Government realise that they have not got it right. What about all those other businesses that are not closed but support the hospitality sector, such as those food service companies that supply to hotels and restaurants, and the drinks providers that supply pubs? A whole array of businesses are jeopardised by the Government’s approach, which is why I will not be supporting it tonight.

Covid-19 Update

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the people of Winchester for what they are doing. I know how frustrating it is, and believe me—I hope it is obvious from everything I have said this afternoon—I entirely share people’s frustrations, but NHS Test and Trace has achieved many things with, as I said, the 500,000 capacity now per day. Where I think we should have pushed harder was on actually insisting that, when people were contacted, they isolated. It does not look to me as though the numbers or the proportions have been good enough. We need to get those up in the next phase—but we can and we will, and we will get it done.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We all recognise that the Prime Minister has got a difficult job, but by God he is doing it badly. He said a few moments ago that he is having to balance lives and livelihoods, but does he not realise that his delay is costing lives and livelihoods? Businesses will fold, people will lose their jobs and the strain on our NHS will be greater because he failed to take the advice of SAGE and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). Will the Prime Minister at least now acknowledge the failure of his policy and start getting in front of this business, rather than always playing catch-up and costing lives and livelihoods?

[The Prime Minister]

I make no apology for continuing to resist going back into a national lockdown, with all the consequences for mental health and for people’s lives and livelihoods, in the way that I did. If we look at what has happened, we see that, alas, in this country, as across much of Europe—I pay tribute to people in areas where the incidence is low, who have kept it low—there has been an upsurge of the virus overall. Plenty of scientists and medical advisers were absolutely categorical that a local and regional approach was commonsensical and rational and right. Indeed, the Labour party supported it, if I remember correctly. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman even supported it. What they then decided to do is a matter for them. What I think the people of this country want to see at this very, very difficult moment is politicians coming together to take the country forward, to agree on the measures—[Interruption.] The Labour party supported what we were doing. The people want us to agree on the measures, and to get the country through these latest measures to tackle the autumn surge and out the other side on 2 December, because that is the best way forward for our country.

Covid-19 Update

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, indeed. I can assure the people of Harrogate and elsewhere that we are stepping up preparations across the country, but the Nightingales, as I think Stephen Powis of the NHS has confirmed, are being stood up in the north of the country as well.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister will be as aware as anyone that people do not generally go to the pub to meet their own wife; they go to the pub to be with other people. In the current programme that the Prime Minister has put together, there is no support for those pubs, so he is saying that he will cover and support pubs that are forced to close, but many of those pubs will find their business model and their businesses untenable. Will the Prime Minister do more to support those pubs that might be open but, frankly, are not able to make a living?

British Overseas Troops: Civil Liability Claims

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I hope you will forgive me, Mr Speaker. I have an enormous amount of respect for many of my colleagues, but I have never heard such a load of rubbish in all my life. This Government have done more than any before them to improve the lot of veterans in this country, bar none.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

What about the questions?

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[Johnny Mercer]

Look, there is no doubt that the prominent protagonists in this have been human rights lawyers, who have abused that system in order to make money, abusing some of the poorest people in the world in the process. But what I would say is that, yes, there are elements that the MOD could and should have done better and for some of our people, those experiences have been unacceptable—and for those, yes, I do apologise.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister now says that he is willing to relook at all aspects of the Bill, which is precisely what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) asked him to do half an hour ago. Across the House, there is an understanding about the desire to get away from these vexatious claims, but what Members on both sides are telling him is that there are unintended consequences from the way that the Bill is currently structured. He should listen to prevent veterans being penalised while he is trying to do something that we all support.

[Johnny Mercer]

Veterans are not being penalised. If they were, I would not bring this legislation in. I have not said that I am going to look at all aspects of the Bill; I have made it very clear that I am happy to discuss amendments and changes that people want to make to get the Bill through, but I will also not do it on the back of things that are patently untrue.