Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are running out of time—in a single sentence, Vicky Ford.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

10. Last weekend, the Government announced that they would spend another £25 million on cleaning up plastic from the seas and on new research into that. Developing countries are responsible for half of the plastic in our seas, but less than 1% of our overseas aid budget goes on helping those countries with waste management. Should we increase that percentage?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I know that my hon. Friend tried to give up plastic for Lent and saw what a challenge it is, which is why we were so delighted to announce over the weekend further funding for research that will help tackle the prevalence of plastic not only in developing countries but here at home.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not giving way for the moment.

Enshrining the right of elected MPs to decide on matters of peace and war is an essential, vital development of hundreds of years of democratic development and parliamentary accountability. In effect, 17 countries have the rights of their Parliament to approve military action enshrined in their own laws. It should escape no one that the general public want to see an increased role for Parliament in the decision-making process around planned military action.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is the role of the Government to put our citizens’ safety first, and that the Government therefore have to have the power to act in the national interest for security, and to act swiftly and confidentially, taking into account the safety of our servicemen and our allies’ servicemen?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is perfectly clear from what I am proposing that Parliament should have the right to hold Government to account, and that Government should seek prior parliamentary approval before they undertake major military actions. The hon. Lady might not agree with me, but that is the joy of a parliamentary democracy. [Interruption.]

Syria

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The first step we have taken in the interests of preventing further atrocities is to take action to degrade the chemical weapons capability of the regime. We also want to follow this up with diplomatic and political pressure on the issue of using chemical weapons. We believe that this is not just about degrading the chemical weapons capability of the regime; I hope that it has sent a message to others as well that the international community is resolved in not being willing to see the use of chemical weapons being normalised.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition suggested that Britain acted only because it was instructed to by the US. I find that hugely disrespectful to the British Government, the British armed forces and our allies in France. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is vital that the Government can take action rapidly when it is needed and that it is vital to send a message to Putin and Assad that we are ready to use such powers?

[The Prime Minister]

Let nobody be in any doubt: we did not act under instruction from anybody. We acted in the national interest.

National Security and Russia

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have already made that very clear.

I am asking for a clear commitment from the Government that the Magnitsky powers will be introduced and will be supported by Conservative Members. In that spirit, I also urge the Government to look again at Labour’s proposal to target the laundering of money through secret tax havens and undisclosed assets, as practised by many of the London-based Russian oligarchs, on whom so much of Putin’s power depends.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

For the last time.

[Vicky Ford]

I am trying to listen very hard to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. Can he confirm that he agrees that there is no other plausible explanation than the Russian state being responsible for the chemical attack on British soil?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I made it very clear earlier in my speech what my position was, and I hope it is not the case that the hon. Lady—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

On misinformation, does my hon. Friend agree that money spent on negative messaging is much more damaging than efforts that we can counter with positive messaging? Negative messaging undermines the voter and is much more difficult to counter with the positive.

[Mr Seely]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes a good point. The Russian tactic is not to build up brand A as opposed to brand B; it is just to destroy brand B. That is what the Russians did with Hillary Clinton. They were not really concerned about being nice to Donald Trump. They wanted to destroy any opposition. I suggested in one of the Sunday papers that the Russians might break into the servers of both political parties and ruthlessly leak the information in as damaging a way as possible from one, and they would do that in the weeks and months before an election campaign. That is a bit of a modus vivendi.

We need to work with the US and NATO. It is great having a few hundred troops in the Baltic, but it is entirely negligible in the great scheme of things, frankly, especially when the Russians are building up missile dominance, tactical nuclear weapons dominance, and conventional dominance. We need to think about what sorts of things NATO is doing to counter this. If we counter and block off the Russian threat, we are more likely to get them to talk, and my fear is that they will not do so.

We need to offer a grand bargain to Ukraine. The Prime Minister mentioned some money being sent to Ukraine—£42 million in total. It is about very small amounts of money. The weaker Ukraine is, the more likely that we will have great instability in eastern Europe. We need to block the Russians in the Balkans—and soon, before they export the “managed conflict” model there. We need to properly fund the BBC World Service and boost the BBC Russian Service more than is being done, although there has been good work so far. Finally, we need to look at the visa regime to allow ordinary Russians to come here and prevent dodgy oligarchs from doing so, rather than the other way round.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I spent last weekend with a group of British and German MPs discussing, among other things, Russia and global security. We face from Russia a new and growing threat, teetering on the edge of outright hostility, and it is not in our interests to have unstable or rogue states on the borders of Europe. As well as an angry Russia, we have an unpredictable North Korea and a changing face in China. We cannot address all these threats to our national security by acting alone. Our allies are important, and I congratulate the Prime Minister on her immense leadership in gathering the world together to take collective action and on securing such detailed support from all our EU friends last week.

I want to talk about four issues: hybrid warfare, cyber, energy and space. I shall start with hybrid warfare. Time and again in recent years, friends from many different countries have told me their experiences of how Russian sources have been linked to false news stories, negative propaganda or funding support for extremist political groups. There are many stories, but they all have a common thread. Their action is to sow seeds of disillusion to manipulate the psyche of the voter, leading to distrust of traditional politicians and thus destabilising legitimate democracies. When looked at one by one, the incidents are often dismissed, but when we consider them together, we realise how significant their impact might have been and how deliberate the strategy appears to be. We in the UK should not try to deal with such incidents in isolation. We must counter them with collective actions. I therefore congratulate the Government on ensuring that, in the announcements last Friday, the EU27 states made the decision to bolster their capacity to address hybrid threats.

The EU27 also said that they would look at cyber. After the last general election, I took over the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cyber-security. The Government are to be congratulated on prioritising this issue, on establishing the National Cyber Security Centre and on investing nearly £2 billion in capacity. We are in a digital revolution. The WannaCry cyber-attack, using ransomware with source code from North Korea, stopped our NHS in many places, and it should have been a wake-up call. Again, we need to work internationally, because the digital world is a borderless world and international co-ordination is needed. As members of the EU, we have been part of the ENISA network, which was actually set up by a Brit. It brings together stakeholders to look at risks, to examine resilience, to make strategic plans for key infrastructure and to develop standards. Britain plays a key role in the network, and other countries need us. It is in the interests of the EU and the UK to find a way to co-operate on cyber-security after we leave.

On energy security, many European countries, including Germany, are highly dependent on Russian gas. In the recent cold snap, we in Britain also needed to rely on gas imported from the continent. Recent stress tests have shown that if all countries were to co-operate, consumers would remain connected even in the event of a six-month disruption to Russian gas imports. However, that involves working together. It is important for our own energy security that we stay well connected, both physically and politically. Across Europe, there is a gas connect co-ordination group known as the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas—ENTSOG. It simulates disruptions, identifies risks to supply and agrees preventive measures. My latest discussions with energy suppliers suggest that we risk being cut out of that network, but that is not in Europe’s interests and it should stop threatening us with that.

Finally, on space, this morning’s Financial Times carried a story saying that the EU is considering cutting the UK out of Galileo, which is Europe’s answer to GPS. It is a €10 billion system of satellites that will provide accurate positioning and timing data. That is key for civilian safety and national security. Britain paid for those satellites, and we help to develop them and deliver them. Europe should not threaten us with cutting us out of that programme. If Europe is serious in wanting EU-UK co-operation on foreign policy and on security and defence policy, it should look at the detail and work with us on cyber, energy and space.

Salisbury Incident

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right that in recent years there has been an appropriate and correct focus on counter-terrorism, but that does not mean we have not been looking at hostile state activity and at counter-espionage measures, because we have. We keep these in balance as we go forward and assess the threats we are facing, and we will continue to do so.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Ever since Russian troops first entered Ukraine, friends from many different countries have told me how false news stories emanating from Russian sources have been used aggressively to influence public opinion and undermine legitimate democracies. They use social media platforms and traditional media; hybrid warfare is a key part of this. Will the Prime Minister call for an international strategy to deal with hybrid warfare? Can it be on the EU agenda next week and be discussed at the NATO summit in July?

[The Prime Minister]

I have already raised at previous meetings of the European Union Council the issue of the Russian use of disinformation and propaganda and would expect to raise it again. We recognise the importance of the disinformation campaign work being done by the Kremlin; managing it is a long-term priority for the UK, but in doing that we will of course work with our international allies.

Salisbury Incident

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have already been clear, in relation to the Mueller inquiry, that we will of course respond to appropriate requests. I am told that the other individual to which the right hon. Gentleman referred has actually already met the Security Minister, and has therefore been able to brief him on what he knows.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Friends from especially Scandinavia, the Baltics and across eastern Europe have often told me how much they feel increasingly at risk from the rise in Russian aggression. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on how we will work with our allies in response to this incident?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am very conscious that those who are, particularly geographically, close to Russia on the European continent very much feel the immediacy of many of the activities that Russia gets involved in, particularly, for example, matters of propaganda use. I will certainly be speaking to a number of our allies. It is important that people recognise not only what has taken place here in the United Kingdom, but, if it is a Russian state activity, the implications it has for Russia’s activities elsewhere on the continent of Europe.

UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I have said about the draft withdrawal agreement is that the European Commission chose to put in it—it is a lengthy document—a particular reference to the issue of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. That was the third option in the December joint report. The Taoiseach and I are both very clear that we want to resolve the issue using the first option in the report, notably the UK’s overall relationship with the European Union. There are ways in which all three options can be developed, including that third option, which is different from that produced by the European Commission, and that produced by the European Commission could not be accepted by the UK Government.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Competition policy is the glue that holds together all free trade agreements. Does the Prime Minister agree that the suggestion from the Labour party that it could somehow remain in the single market while running reckless through state aid policy is a fantasy fiction drama worthy of an Oscar?

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the hon. Lady that, yes, we are seeing some jobcentres being closed in Scotland. There is not going to be any decrease in the level of service that is offered to the people of Scotland. We are increasing the number of work coaches across the country. What we are doing is ensuring that we can continue to provide a good service to the people of Scotland.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Intimidation on social media is a growing issue for many people across the country, especially for women standing for election, as yesterday highlighted. Can my right hon. Friend update us on the progress that is being made and does she agree that we should take no lessons from a party whose shadow Chancellor has called for violence against women on this side of the House?

[The Prime Minister]

May I say to my hon. Friend that I think this issue is a particularly important one? I said yesterday, as indeed my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said at the weekend, that we are consulting on a new offence of intimidation of election candidates and campaigners. That follows the report from Lord Bew and his committee about the degree to which there was intimidation at the last general election, particularly intimidation of women, BME candidates and LGBT candidates. This is an absolute disgrace and it has no part in our public life. I would urge the shadow Chancellor, once again—he keeps refusing to do this—to apologise to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for saying that she should be lynched.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

As I understand it, the bid for GKN is being examined by the relevant independent authorities. Clearly this is also something that the appropriate Ministers in the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be monitoring very closely. For now, it would be wrong of me to speculate about this case in more detail.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

My constituency of Chelmsford is a very popular place to live, and this week we have had the very good news that more first-time buyers are getting on the housing ladder than at any time in the past decade. Will my right hon. Friend update us on the Government’s progress on helping people to buy a house?

[Mr Lidington]

I am pleased to be able to say that the number of first-time buyers is now at the highest level for about 10 years, which is a tribute to the various initiatives that both the Communities Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have put in place to encourage first-time buyers—the cut in stamp duty, for example, will benefit about 95% of first-time buyers—but we also need to improve housing supply. Constituencies like hers and mine are showing the way to much of the rest of the country on the need to build houses to meet the legitimate demands and expectations of young people who are working incredibly hard and want to get a foot on the housing ladder.

Carillion

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Companies in non-Government contracts that are not involved in the provision of public services would become creditors of Carillion. The responsibility of the Government and the use of taxpayers’ money should be first and foremost for protecting the delivery of key public services and the employees who deliver those services.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for wanting to minimise the impact on employees, pensioners, apprentices and subcontractors and for protecting vital services. Can he confirm that he will not fall into the Labour trap of dealing with corporate failure, as when the last Labour Government let bank investors pocket the profits for many years, but when the ship hit the rocks, the taxpayer had to pick up the bills while those same bond investors were let off scot-free?

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is right that taxpayers’ money is used to protect public services, not to bail out either creditors or shareholders of a private sector company that has made serious financial mistakes.