UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Debate between Tom Brake and Edward Leigh

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I came into the Chamber earlier today during business questions and the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) was referring to robot day. I thought that was a reference to the Prime Minister and her Ministers on the subject of Brexit repeating the same mantra again and again. In fact, it is an event in Coventry on 9 March, which I of course welcome.

There are two things we need to do today. One is to rule out no deal. Many Members have given a large number of examples of why we should rule out no deal. I will add just one example. All of us, I suspect, have an EHIC card—the European health insurance card. People need to be aware that, if we crash out of the European Union on 29 March, the UK has to negotiate 27 bilateral agreements with each and every single EU country to ensure that our European healthcare continues. Members will probably not be surprised to know that the UK has so far not managed to negotiate a single one of those bilateral deals. If you have booked your holiday in the European Union after 29 March and we are in a no-deal scenario, you need to think very carefully about taking out travel insurance. The bad news is that, when we contacted seven of the largest travel insurance companies, only two were able to guarantee that their policies were valid in a no-deal scenario.

That is just one example of why we should not be pursuing no deal, but there are many, many others. Many Government Ministers have described, in the most colourful means possible, the impact of no deal, reinforcing the point. If any other evidence is needed, yesterday I met the CEO of one of the largest UK construction companies, who said that it has lifts and specialist cladding coming into the UK but that it has absolutely no idea what will happen to the tariff that applies to those goods at the point they get to the UK.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

I will not give way.

The second thing we need to do today is come out very strongly in favour of a people’s vote. I am going to throw down the gauntlet to all parties and individual MPs to finally demonstrate their courage and commitment to a people’s vote, and back the amendment we will table on 27 February so we can finally press this matter to a vote. I am very pleased that today, although our amendment was not selected, we secured support from both the SNP and Plaid. I welcome that but, if we are going to be doing this again on 27 February, I hope there will be a much, much greater level of support.

I am very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition arrived in his place in time for me to make that point, because on 27 February the overwhelming majority of his party members, the overwhelming majority of young people, the overwhelming majority of his supporters and I will want him to support that amendment, too. I very much look forward to that.

Easter Adjournment

Debate between Tom Brake and Edward Leigh

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the pre-recess Adjournment debate. As is customary, I will do so at some length to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), who opened the debate. Hon. Members who can see the Dispatch Box will notice that I have a significant number of notes relating to the points he raised—I will take them in no particular order—but I hope to leave time to respond to the points made by other hon. Members as well.

My hon. Friend mentioned the Maldives and the double taxation and bilateral investment treaties. I will ensure that his comments are passed on to the Treasury, which is the lead Department on this issue. It is clearly important that action is taken to strengthen the Maldives economy. We hope that President Yameen will now work towards economic reform in the Maldives, in addition to considering the treaties.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the Assisted Dying Bill. The Government believe that any change in the law in this emotive area is an issue of individual conscience and a matter for Parliament to decide, rather than one for Government policy. The Government will take a collective view on the Bill in order to respond to the debate on Second Reading, a date for which has yet to be confirmed.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of dog breeding—puppy farming—about which there is a significant petition. Legislation is already in place to control the breeding and selling of dogs. Local authorities have powers to grant licences for dog-breeding establishments, and have powers of refusal based on the grounds of welfare. Powers are also available to local authorities to investigate and enter premises in relation to allegations of poor welfare or cruelty.

My hon. Friend referred to the all-party group on hepatology. The Department of Health is concerned by the increasing burden of liver disease—he said it was the fifth biggest killer—and the resulting premature mortality, much of which is preventable. Together with NHS England and Public Health England, the Department of Health will support local authorities and clinical commissioning groups in their responsibility to deliver improved outcomes in relation to liver disease.

My hon. Friend mentioned the controversial issue of gender selection abortion. As I am sure he and other hon. Members are aware, abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal. The Abortion Act 1967 states that two practitioners must be of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the woman has grounds for an abortion according to the criteria set out in the Act. The chief medical officer has written twice to all doctors involved with abortion provision to remind them of the need to ensure that they work within the law at all times.

My hon. Friend also referred to melanoma. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has recommended Yervoy as an option for treating advanced melanoma in people who have previously received therapy. NHS commissioners are required to fund Yervoy if there is an indication that clinicians want to use it. NICE is currently developing guidance on the drug’s use in previously untreated, unresectable stage 3 or 4 malignant melanoma.

I hope I have addressed all the medical issues to which my hon. Friend referred, and I will now talk about Quilliam. In a previous guise, when I was my party’s home affairs spokesman, I had knowledge of that organisation. He talked about the need to ensure that we address the promotion of extremism on the internet. Members will be aware that terrorist groups make extensive use of the internet to spread their propaganda, and we have seen how that can contribute to individuals becoming radicalised. A number of those convicted under the terrorism Acts were exposed to radicalising content that they found online, including Inspire magazine, sermons and bomb-making instructions. A number of people who have been involved in terrorist activity have admitted to accessing radicalising content online. Keeping up with the scale and pace of terrorist and extremist content online remains a challenge, so it is important that we have a balanced approach, including working with industry, law enforcement and the public. The police counter-terrorism internet referral unit is removing more illegal terrorist content than previously. Since 2010 we have taken down more than 29,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material.

My hon. Friend referred to the work of Seetec recruitment in Southend, and he talked about South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. He previously talked about the trust’s services in the pre-recess Adjournment debate in December 2013. He had an opportunity to discuss his concerns in Westminster Hall on 5 March this year, and I hope he secured suitable responses. It is crucial that all NHS care providers deliver care to the highest standard possible. As a local MP, he is well placed to help ensure that the trust is held to that high standard. I hope he will continue to engage with the trust, local GP commissioners and national regulators to that end, and I am sure he will.

My hon. Friend raised the further health issue of thalidomide victims. He will know that on 20 December 2012 the Department of Health announced a new 10-year grant for the Thalidomide Trust. The grant will be paid on an annual basis, uprated in line with inflation, which means that over the 10-year period it will be worth some £80 million. The Department of Health currently has no plans to make representations to the German Government on compensation from Grünenthal to the UK victims of thalidomide, but the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who is responsible for care services, hopes to meet representatives from the Thalidomide Trust to discuss the matter further.

My hon. Friend praised Westcliff high school for girls in his constituency, which has the second-best GCSE results in the country. I congratulate the school. In 2013, 100% of pupils achieved five or more A to C grades. The school cannot do any better, but it now has the challenge of maintaining that performance hereafter.

My hon. Friend mentioned tongue-tied breastfeeding—it is very difficult to say “tongue-tied.” I was not aware of the issue, and I do not know how many other Members were aware of it, but he is right to raise its profile, particularly as he has found that even medical practitioners are not necessarily aware of the condition. I hope there will now be greater recognition. He will be pleased to know that NICE has issued full guidance to the NHS on division of tongue-tie for breastfeeding. He asked for a meeting with Health Ministers, and although I cannot commit the diaries of other Ministers, I am sure he will pursue the matter vigorously. I am sure that the Department of Health will look carefully at the different health-related points that he has raised during this debate in case there are things that it wants to respond to him on directly.

That might include the issue of FH. I will leave it at that, rather than spelling out precisely what it stands for. My hon. Friend may know that the NICE clinical guidelines recommend that health care professionals should use cascade testing to identify people with FH. Those guidelines represent best practice as they are based on the available evidence and developed through wide consultation. In view of their complexity and the different states of readiness for implementation in the NHS, clinical guidelines are not subject to the same statutory funding requirement as NICE’s technology appraisals.

My hon. Friend clearly has some strong views about the effectiveness of the Essex probation trust. I understand that he has corresponded with Ministers at the Ministry of Justice about rehabilitation services in Essex. I am sure he welcomes the changes that the Government are making to ensure that people who were not receiving support and assistance will do so. He has put his concerns on the record. I am sure that in any process of assessing individual bids, the competence of the organisations that submit the bids will be taken into account.

My hon. Friend spoke about Bahrain. The Government remain supportive of the reforms that are under way in Bahrain. We commend the steps that have been taken by the Bahraini Government to implement the recommendations of the Bahrain independent commission of inquiry. Progress has been made in a number of areas, but there is more to be done. We encourage the Bahraini Government to ensure that the remaining recommendations are implemented soon.

My hon. Friend talked about the importance of ensuring that drug treatment is tailored to the individual. I certainly support that. It must be the most effective way to help someone overcome their addiction and to reduce the health harms that are associated with their illicit opiate use. It is for NICE to decide when there is sufficient evidence to update its guidance and appraisals. It might be considering that issue at the moment.

My hon. Friend spoke about the wine and spirits industry and wine duty. I am sure that he supports the steps taken in the Budget, such as the reduction in beer duty and, in relation to the spirits industry, the freezing of the duty on Scotch whisky. We all know that pubs are an important community asset where people socialise and consume alcohol responsibly. Supporting pubs through the reduction in beer duty was therefore a welcome measure. Ending the wine duty escalator will support pubs that have diversified away from beer. It also ensures that beer and wine duties remain broadly similar, as is required under EU law.

The last thing that my hon. Friend raised was the issue of CCTV spy cars, which councils use in some circumstances to raise money by issuing parking fines. The feeling among drivers is that they suddenly receive a fine some weeks later, when they are not aware that they have committed an offence. Clearly, we do not propose to do anything to prevent a parking warden or police officer from issuing a penalty in cases of genuinely dangerous parking. We want to ensure that, particularly around schools, parking restrictions are enforced. Parents often request the presence of a CCTV car to monitor other parents who do not observe the rules and, as a result, might endanger the safety of children. I hope that I have dealt with all my hon. Friend’s points.

I now move on to my neighbour, the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

[Sir Edward Leigh]

May I congratulate the Deputy Leader of the House? In all my time here, that is the fullest reply I have ever heard to any Member’s speech. It was fantastic, and we now want him to give as full a reply to all the other speeches.

[Tom Brake]

I rather worried that the final sentence of my hon. Friend’s intervention would be a requirement to respond in suitable detail to all the other speeches. I do not want to give away any secrets, but there are advantages to Members letting me know in advance what will be in their speech, because it perhaps ensures a slightly greater degree of detail in the response. Fortunately for me, however, my neighbour the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden raised an issue with which I am extremely familiar—the future of St Helier hospital, which is in my constituency—so I required no briefing notes from officials on it. I have been living, eating and breathing it for the past 25 years or so, and my wife had my children there.

As the hon. Lady will be aware, £219 million was allocated to St Helier under the previous Government, which I welcomed, and that was confirmed under the current Government, which I also fully supported. As she said, a review called Better Services Better Value was put forward. Had the Surrey GPs not said that they did not support it, it would potentially have led to the closure of the A and E and maternity services at St Helier and Epsom, which I opposed. She referred to the 13,000 signatures on her petition, and I think mine currently has 19,000, so we are both raising awareness of the issue. She commended the supporters of the campaign in Merton, as I do, and a wide range of organisations in Sutton, such as the league of friends, that are campaigning on the issue.

I must say, however, that I do not think it is entirely helpful to the campaign to try to make it partisan in the way that I am afraid some of the hon. Lady’s fellow party members have. They have claimed that clause 119 of the Care Bill will allow the Secretary of State for Health to close any hospital anywhere in the country at any time if he decides on a whim to do so. That is clearly not what the clause is about. It is about scenarios such as Mid Staffordshire, where the way in which the hospital was run meant that more patients were dying than should have been the case. In a very limited number of circumstances—it has been used only twice—there is a need to take urgent action, and that is what the clause is about. It is not about a well run hospital such as St Helier, which is in category 6, the category for the safest hospitals in the country. I wish that that argument were not being deployed, because it does not add to the campaign, which is strong enough as it is. The hon. Lady and I, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), who is also campaigning hard on the issue, will continue to run the campaign.

The hon. Lady also referred to surgery schemes that have stalled. I am sure that her local clinical commissioning group will have noted her concerns, and I hope that it will respond promptly, and preferably positively. I will also draw the matter to the attention of the relevant Health Minister, to ensure that the Department of Health takes whatever action it can.

The hon. Lady referred to GPs charging for letters. I am not aware of any other organisations that I contact that charge for providing a letter to assist a Member of Parliament in pursuing casework—I do not know whether any other Members know of any. It is regrettable that some GPs choose to do that. I should point out, however, that although GPs have a statutory duty to provide certain things for free, they may charge fees in some circumstances. I will ensure that her concerns are raised with the Department of Health and that it responds to her directly.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) said that the pre-recess Adjournment debates are one of the highlights of the year, and I agree with him. He referred to the butterfly supping on the nectar of a flower alongside the A40. I hate to spoil the picture that he built up for us, but I suspect that by now the butterfly has been demolished by a juggernaut driving along the A40. I heard on Radio 4 that this has been a slightly better year so far for butterflies, and I also felt rather guilty about removing a substantial amount of ivy from a tree when I learnt from the same programme that ivy is exactly what butterflies need in the winter and to provide nectar in the autumn when few flowers are available.

My hon. Friend also talked about vultures and I think we all wondered for a moment what he was about to say. He then mentioned the European Union and I thought it would be one of those stories in which the EU is to blame for everything. In this case, it would seem that the EU is to be blamed for the deaths of European vultures. I will ensure that, if appropriate, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs responds on the issue of bearded vultures as I know that my right hon. Friend identifies with those birds and wants to see their numbers grow—

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Edward Leigh

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. The Minister is not giving way at this point. Hon. Members must let him continue.

[Tom Brake]

I will give way shortly.

It might help the Committee if I set out in a little detail why the amendments in this group would not work effectively, along with some of the points we will need to address before Report. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross for his amendments, which in substance try to achieve what the Government want to do. However, in practice, there are some deficiencies in their wording, which means that we cannot simply adopt them now.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Edward Leigh

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leigh]

That is enough about our friend, I think.

Section 5 of the 1986 Act outlaws

“threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”

if they are likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress”. The proposal that I wish to make, which I and the Liberals supported before, is the deletion of the lowest threshold of that offence, which is the word “insulting”. That would still leave the two higher thresholds of “threatening” and “abusive”.

The 1986 Act was brought in to replace the Public Order Act 1936, which had worked very well in dealing with the blackshirts and all that. The 1986 Act does not define the terms “threats” and “abuse”, but we all know them when we see them. The courts have often said that. Threat is obvious, is it not? It is when someone is in your face and there is a fear of violence, and abuse is when someone uses obscene language. Insult, however, is clearly something less serious and more subjective, and that is the problem. I believe that removing the word “insulting” would be enough to stop section 5 being misused and generating a chilling effect on free speech.

[Tom Brake]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will take any reassurance from the fact that as recently as Monday, Evan Harris was in the House campaigning to get rid of the word “insulting”.

[Mr Leigh]

Good, I am very glad. That just shows that there is support for that from all over the House, and indeed from outside.

Section 5 of the 1986 Act is a classic example of a law that was brought in for a fair reason, to deal with a particular state of affairs long ago, but has been used in practice for something quite different. It was brought in to tackle hooliganism, but it is increasingly used by police to silence peaceful protestors and street preachers.

I shall give a couple of examples of how section 5 has been used, to show what has been going on. It has been used to prosecute a couple of hotel owners, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, who had a breakfast-table dispute with a Muslim guest. I do not comment one way or the other on their views, but they said that Mohammed was a warlord and that Islamic dress oppressed women. For that breakfast-table dispute, they were prosecuted. True, the judge threw the case out and apparently hinted that the police should have handled it differently, but the point is that for some reason, Merseyside police thought that section 5 applied to theological debates over breakfast. Even though the couple were acquitted, their business went to the wall. It is not enough to say, “Well, we don’t need to worry, because they were not convicted.” We should worry, because people are increasingly worried about expressing strong opinions.

There are other examples. In 2008, a 16-year-old protestor was issued a summons by police under section 5 of the 1986 Act for holding a placard outside a scientology centre that read, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult”, which is something that many people agree with. City of London police referred the allegation that the sign was abusive or insulting to the Crown Prosecution Service. I am glad to say that Liberty, which is supporting the campaign for the change, intervened and the case was finally dropped. However, it shows the problem that exists.

Then there were the animal rights protestors in Worcester, who were threatened with arrest and seizure of property under section 5 for protesting against seal culling using toy seals coloured with red dye. Police told them that the toys were deemed distressing by two members of the public and ordered them to move on.

The last and most ridiculous case is that of Kyle Little. After being warned by the police for using bad language, he was arrested and prosecuted under section 5 for a daft little growl and woof aimed towards two Labrador dogs. I have a dog, my own dearly beloved William, and I am sure he has never felt insulted by anything that I have ever said to him. But this poor Kyle Little, for growling at a dog, was detained for five hours, despite the dog owners not wanting any prosecution, at a cost of £8,000 to the taxpayer. Unbelievably, Newcastle Crown court finally had to acquit Little of the charge. We can see what is going on. [Hon. Members: “It’s barking!”] The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and others are right. We need to bring it to an end.

We should all worry about this. There is something wrong with a law when the police think that it requires them to regulate debate. As I have said, the 1986 Act was introduced to replace the 1936 Act during a period of football hooliganism, as people might remember. At the time, a White Paper identified the mischief at which the Act was aimed—hooligans on housing estates throwing things down stairs and banging on doors, and groups of youths persistently shouting abuse and obscenities. Section 5 was a fairly reasonable response to that. The then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, told the House that it would not undermine civil liberties, but 25 years later, we see a major difference between what was intended and what has happened since. We therefore need to examine the wording. I cannot act very easily, as a Back Bencher, but Ministers can do so very easily.

Liberty has argued that we should use the Bill to repeal section 5 of the 1986 Act in its entirety. That may be going too far for Ministers, and I do not follow Liberty as far as that, but in a classic triangulation exercise, why cannot we just remove the word “insulting” and leave the higher grades? I have support from our own Joint Committee on Human Rights, which heard evidence that section 5 was being used to suppress free speech and made representations to the previous Government, which were resisted. That Government rejected the advice of our own Committee on human rights.

I say to the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire)—please will he listen for a moment, as the responsible Minister?—that it appears that civil servants at the Home Office are still using, almost verbatim in correspondence signed by him, the arguments used by the last Government against amending section 5. I wonder whether he knows that the letters that he is sending out use exactly the same language as was used by the Labour Government to resist what our own JCHR suggested.

In response to the JCHR recommendations, the previous Government said that they believed that problems with section 5 could be addressed by “guidance”, which is a classic cop-out for civil servants. It is true that the Association of Chief Police Officers recently produced new guidance on breach of the peace, which covers section 5. However, that still encourages police to pursue insulting words or behaviour, because of course, that is what the law tells them to do. If we tell the police that it is wrong for people to use insulting language, they will pursue them. It is up to us to make the law clear so that the police can operate in an entirely sensible fashion. Frankly, it is not good enough for Ministers to say, “We can solve this with guidance,” especially when there is a Protection of Freedoms Bill on the stocks. In any case, an issue as serious and significant as civil liberties should not be left to mere guidance. It is for MPs to make such decisions.

The previous Government used another argument that is still used by Ministers in correspondence. They say that if the word “insulting” is removed from section 5, the police will not have sufficient power to protect the public, but that is not the case. Neil Addison, a barrister who spent 10 years prosecuting cases in Newcastle, has suggested that the “threatening” and “abusive” limbs of section 5 will cover all genuine public order cases. He says:

“Looking back on the large number of s5 cases I have either prosecuted or defended over the years I cannot think of any ‘normal’ public order situation which could not be covered by the words ‘threatening and abusive’. Most cases under s5 involve people (often drunk) yelling aggressively and making frequent use of the ‘F’ word and that is the sort of situation that s5 and indeed the entire Public Order Act was supposed to deal with, it was never supposed to deal with the situation where individuals, whether street preachers or otherwise”,

including demonstrators or people we do not like,

“were expressing their personal opinions.”

We use other laws if we get complaints from distressed individuals. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 criminalises any repeated harassment of an individual, which I support. Therefore, deleting the word “insulting” from the Public Order Act 1986 would not leave police and prosecutors without powers to deal with low-level public disorder.

One of the silliest arguments used to defend that part of section 5 is that removing the word “insulting” would mean that the courts would have to adjudicate on the difference between abuse, which is criminal, and insult, which is not—we see that argument in letters from Ministers both of the previous Government and of the current one. However, courts make such adjudications all the time. We could equally say that under section 5, the courts must adjudicate between insult, which is criminal, and incivility, which is not. Criminal courts decide whether an activity is criminal—it is their raison d’être. All the arguments put up by this and the previous Government on why “insulting” cannot be removed from section 5 fall to pieces.

I am sure we all agree that free speech is a bedrock of true democracy. It encompasses the freedom to disagree and to challenge received opinion. We might not like what someone says and we might take offence, but lively debate and a robust exchange of ideas are integral parts of a true democracy. Lord Justice Sedley, in his landmark ruling in the case of Richmond-Bate in 1999, put it better than anybody. He said:

“Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”

In my view, the criminal law does not exist to protect people from feeling insulted. I urge Ministers to think about addressing section 5 of the 1986 Act in the Bill. They and no one else have the power to do so.

The JCHR, Liberty, Justice, the Christian Institute and Dr Evan Harris are calling on us to do something about section 5. I note the Liberal Democrats specifically referred to reforming the 1986 Act on page 93 of their manifesto last year. It is a Lib Dem idea that we would be wise to adopt. I urge such a measure on the House in the name of that most precious commodity—freedom of speech.