Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack]

I was going to say I was pleased that for once that the hon. Gentleman had not made it all about independence, but he managed to weave it in. I think the whole House would like to congratulate him on giving up his own independence by getting engaged last weekend.

The answer is that we had a general election and we had a resounding majority across the United Kingdom for a manifesto that said we would honour the result of the referendum. We are going to honour that result: we are going to take back control of our laws, borders and money and we are going to leave the hated common fisheries policy and become—here is the independent bit for the hon. Gentleman—an independent coastal state.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

If he will publish a comparative assessment of the availability of covid-19 testing for (a) care home residents, (b) home care recipients and (c) care home staff in Scotland and England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Duguid)]

The UK Government, assisted by the British Army, have through six fixed testing sites, 13 mobile testing units and the Glasgow Lighthouse mega-lab significantly increased testing capacity in Scotland to respond to covid-19, in addition to NHS Scotland’s own capacity. It is for the Scottish Government to determine policy for the use of that capacity, including in respect of testing for care home residents, recipients and staff.

[Mr Perkins]

Some 1,431 people were discharged from Scottish hospitals into care homes by the Scottish Government. In Scotland, the proportion of care home deaths is much higher than that in England, where it is also too high. Will the Minister assure the House that when the inevitable public inquiry happens, the question of Scottish care home deaths is not lost in the wider questions about the Government’s response but is given very serious attention, because thousands of families will demand that those Scottish care home deaths are investigated?

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Toby Perkins Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). If he had been here in the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, he would have heard many of the arguments that he has made today in the debate then.

We heard from the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett). I presume that back in 2010, in spite of what Labour was telling him, he voted for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which proposed reducing the number of seats down to 600, and he now says that it was actually that reduction which meant that communities got split up. But actually, from looking at each individual region in the Boundary Commission’s proposals, it was very clear where it had started its work and where it had finished. The work at one end of the region was quite neat, but by the time the commission had got to the last few seats there were really odd constituency boundaries, because of the narrowness of that plus and minus 5%.

The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) spoke about the importance of every vote being equal. He ought to be careful; the way he was talking, he sounded like a bit of a proponent of proportional representation, and I am sure that that was not quite what he meant. There is a reason why some of us are against that, and it is that precious constituency link. All of us who have been Members of Parliament and have gone back to ask for votes on second and subsequent occasions—and know how important the work that we have done for our constituents has been in that regard—will recognise the importance of the link between a voter and the place that the Member seeks to represent.

I am very lucky. I am the Member of Parliament for Chesterfield, and what Chesterfield is very clear. The vast majority of people in my constituency are in the Chesterfield borough. Two wards of the Chesterfield borough are in the North East Derbyshire constituency, but most people in my constituency are very clear about where they are from. There are many other constituencies where it is much more opaque, and the more narrowly we draw the plus and minus tolerance level, the more difficult it is for the Boundary Commission to put together proposals that take those things into account.

When we remove the parliamentary scrutiny, many of the people who are speaking up for absolutely the right reasons now may come back and say, “I still think I was right to vote for that Bill, but it is the Boundary Commission that has come up with these proposals. If only they had done it different in my constituency and given me this ward, it would all have been okay.” But it is the domino effect of all the other different constituencies that makes this very difficult to achieve. Members of Parliament are taking their constituencies and communities in their hands when they propose and vote for this narrow tolerance level, alongside the removal of any element of parliamentary scrutiny.

The hon. Member for Dartford said a few moments ago that there should not be any disagreement about the overall principle that we need boundary changes, and of course there absolutely is not. I recognise that boundary changes are an integral part of reflecting the fact that our communities change in size and that there is population shift over any period of time, so I absolutely recognise that the process needs to happen. It is all about how narrow the constituencies are, so that we retain the importance of that constituency link, and how regular the boundary changes are, because if voters move into different constituencies from one election to the next, it takes quite a long time to educate people about who their new Member of Parliament is and for Members to build up a relationship with new communities and to understand the issues in those communities. The principle of whether we have boundary changes is not at stake; what is at stake is how we operate. If many of the things that the Labour party argued for when we discussed parliamentary constituencies in the 2010 Parliament had been supported, the Government would have got the boundary changes they wanted, rather than finding 10 years on that they were never actually introduced. That should disappoint all of us who believe in democracy.

I shall make one final point. The likely outcome of the Bill will be that a city like London, where we have seen huge growth in population size but which has a transient population that is less likely to register than the population in some other areas, is likely to see a reduction in its number of seats. That cannot be right in a democracy if we actually want constituencies to reflect the number of voters. I would really like the Government to consider that issue in Committee.

Debate on the Address

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister was just saying how his Government back the armed services. He will be aware that our Army is almost 40,000 fewer than it was when the Conservatives came to power. He will be aware that people serving in the armed forces have seen their wages cut in real terms for seven years in a row. What would he do for armed forces he was not backing?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman should support —and I hope that he will support us in the Divisions— a Government who are putting another £2.2 billion into our armed services, increasing spending on our armed services by 2.6%, investing massively in shipbuilding and taking our armed services forward. As he may know, measures will come forward as a result of the Queen’s Speech that will do more to protect our armed services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Q4. Brampton Primary School in Chesterfield has an exemplary record in special needs education. Yet, under the Government’s funding formula, the first £6,000 for every special needs child is not actually funded by the Government. When even the Tory lead member for education in Derbyshire describes a school like Brampton as a victim of its own success, is it not time that the Prime Minister, in her final days, changed the funding formula and started looking after those special needs children?

[The Prime Minister]

We have been putting more money into special educational needs. I recognise that for many parents getting the support that is required for their children can be a difficult process with the local authorities. We recognise the importance of special needs and that is precisely why we have been putting extra support in there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

This is a major priority for the Cabinet Office, which is why earlier this month I announced £1.5 million in funding for 10 projects that will use location-based data to improve public services, and why I will shortly publish a strategy outlining how we will harness the power of innovative technology across the whole of Government.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

T2. Millions of people are not registered on the electoral roll, and they are much more likely to be from an ethnic minority, young or from a lower demographic class. Does not it say everything about this Government that at a time when we should be trying to get more people on to the register, they are doing everything they can to keep people off the register?

[Kevin Foster]

This is the Government who introduced online registration, which has made it much easier for people to get on the register and has resulted in among the highest numbers of registrations, so the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question is completely wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Regeneration is of course a devolved matter, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government will be supporting Perth via a £150 million commitment to the Tay cities deal.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

7. What information his Department holds on the amount of elite-level professional tennis that will be played in Scotland in 2019.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

I know that you, Mr Speaker, take a particular interest in this question.

Although my office does not routinely hold information on this matter, I acknowledge the great opportunity to build on the continuing legacy of Andy and Jamie Murray to develop tennis throughout Scotland.

[Toby Perkins]

If Scottish Office Ministers invested in access to the internet, they would discover that there are no elite-level events in Scotland, which is why many people feel that the Lawn Tennis Association is failing to take the opportunity to build on the legacy of Andy Murray’s success. Will the Secretary of State meet representatives of the LTA and the Scottish Government to see what more can be done to ensure that this huge opportunity is not missed once and for all?

[David Mundell]

I should be happy to give that undertaking. Perhaps you will join us, Mr Speaker, given your passion for tennis and your attendance at major events in Scotland.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It is a perfectly serious question, but I appeal again for patience from Members, because I want to set out in detail the reasons for the Government’s choice of motion and the nature of the choice before the House.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

I shall give way one last time to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins); then I shall make progress.

[Toby Perkins]

In terms of what people were expecting during the referendum, the Minister will be aware that the Vote Leave campaign made it clear that leaving the EU would be “a careful change” and that we would not leave until our future relationship was resolved. Even now, the Vote Leave website says:

“There is no need to rush. We must take our time and get it right.”

Did not people who voted leave absolutely understand that we would take our time to get it right before we made any rash decisions?

[Mr Lidington]

With all respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am perhaps responsible for many things as a member of the Government, but I suspect not one of my right hon. and hon. Friends would want me to assert responsibility for what the Vote Leave campaign has said at any stage in the past or the present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I was struck, as I reflected on the huge frustration my constituents feel with the way this process is going, by the speech by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who is not in his place. He described our Government as a “laughing stock”—a laughing stock in Europe and in this country. I think about why that is. I think it is because of the path that he and his colleagues have taken this Government down. They have absolutely held this Government to ransom. Having argued for a long, long time for things that we all knew were not going to be achievable, they won the referendum and are now blaming the Government for failing to achieve them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) said just a few minutes ago, the Prime Minister put in charge of these negotiations the very people who had promised us how easy this was going to be. Of course, they entirely failed to deliver on the referendum result and on what they had promised in the campaign.

I will support this motion to have a delay, but it occurs to me that Vote Leave said throughout the campaign that this would be “a careful change”, that there would be time for it to be made and we would not be leaving the EU until our future relationship was resolved. I am now confused as to why they seem to be in such a rush for us to leave, given that it is so clear that we have not got a deal on which we can agree.

As for what my constituents ask for, it seems that Labour’s deal fulfils the vote that 60% of Chesterfield constituents cast. It would enable us to continue trading with the customs union, but it would also ensure that we were not a part of the single market and we were able to have control on immigration. We all know that that was so powerful; it was the issue of immigration that enabled what had been previously a minority concern—the European Union—to become so powerful; the campaign was run on the issue.

Despite the fact that I hugely regret the fact that we are leaving the European Union, I will vote for Brexit and I will do so by voting for Labour’s deal. When I vote for Labour’s deal, I will be voting for something that would enable us to leave on 29 March. I will be able to go to my constituents and say, “If only the Government would back Labour’s deal, we would be able to leave the European Union on 29 March, as we have said all along.” It is important that that message gets across, because there are people on the Government Benches who suggest that the only way to fulfil the referendum result is to vote for the Government’s deal. We all know that there are other ways we could leave the European Union, if only the Government supported the Labour party deal.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

Yes. I have been to Crossmaglen. My mother went to school in Carrickmacross, and when I was a wee girl, she taught me the poem:

“From Carrickmacross to Crossmaglen,

There are more rogues than honest men.”

I am not suggesting that that is the case any longer, and I am not suggesting that that is because the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip visited. Joking aside, however, as somebody with an Irish mother and a family who still live in the Republic, albeit very close to the border, and who run businesses close to the border, I am acutely aware of the threat that this deal—this Brexit—poses to the peace process and the threat it poses to the economy on the island of Ireland, so I do not say that I do not understand why the backstop is there.

I said earlier today what I feel about the measly assurances the Prime Minister spent two months getting from Brussels. I know there are many people in this Chamber who have very good reason to be concerned that there should be a backstop if the deal goes ahead. However, I still make no apology for voting against this deal, because voting against this deal does not mean no deal; it gives us the opportunity to do what we should have done all along when we realised what a disaster this was, which was to hold a second referendum given that the people across the United Kingdom know the reality of Brexit—not the promises made by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which are unable to be fulfilled, but the reality of Brexit. I believe that if people see the reality of Brexit and the reality of remain, they will choose remain.

I am also voting against this deal because I know that, if this deal goes through, what will happen is that we will simply move into another lengthy period of even more difficult negotiations, with no guarantee whatsoever that any trade deal will be reached at the end of the negotiations. Even if there is, I know from the evidence that any trade deal reached will not be advantageous to my country.

The Prime Minister has said:

“I have been clear throughout the process that my aim is to bring the country back together.”— [Official Report, 26 February 2019; Vol. 655, c. 167.]

I simply do not accept that. This process has not been about the national interest; it has been about keeping the Conservative and Unionist party together and keeping the Prime Minister in power for as long as possible.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

There is much that the hon. and learned Lady is saying about this deal that I agree with, but I think she slightly over-eggs the point when it comes to the issue of Scotland and what Scotland wanted. She said that 62% of Scottish people voted against, but that is not in fact true. The turnout in Scotland was lower than that of any English region, and in actual fact only 41% of people voting in Scotland voted to remain, which was largely because the SNP made so little effort to get people to go and vote.

[Joanna Cherry]

Well, really! You know, Mr Speaker—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Seventy of my staff are embedded in the Department for International Trade, forming a new post-Brexit trade offer, and a great deal of that effort is looking at what we can do to enable developing countries to trade their way out of poverty.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

T2. It has been reported that up to 300,000 Venezuelans could die if aid does not reach them shortly. Given that the Maduro regime will not allow aid from America, what can Britain do politically and practically to help Venezuelans on the ground?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that critical issue. The Foreign Office is doing a tremendous amount and is meeting its counterparts in not only the US and Canada but in the region to see what more we can do. We stand ready to do more, and what we do will be driven by what we find on the ground. He will understand that this is sensitive, because some of our partners with whom we work in the region are very vulnerable if we identify precisely who they are and what they are doing, but I assure him and the House that we will stand by the people of Venezuela.

Leaving the EU

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have set out the procedure that the Government are going to follow in relation to this issue and we continue to work to be able to bring back a deal for a meaningful vote.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Food and Drink Federation has said today that the industry would face its biggest catastrophe since 1939 if we were to leave without a deal. Yet the Government have still not even reached a deal that we can agree on here, much less to take to Europe. Given all that, how do I justify to my constituents why this Parliament shut at 3.27 pm last Wednesday because the Government had literally nothing for MPs to discuss?

[The Prime Minister]

Many things happen in Parliament, and not just in this Chamber. The hon. Gentleman might wish to point out to his constituents that the Government have taken the decision of not enabling him to have a recess next week because there is business for this Parliament to do and we will be doing that business.