No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), because his speech shows the level of so many Members’ detachment from the absolute reality of the complexity of the Brexit negotiations and what the Prime Minister is trying to achieve. They are divorced from the reality of the negotiations, from the consequences for the people we represent and from the conditions in which people are already living in this country. They say, “We will survive. There will still be food on the table. There will still be Mars bars and packets of crisps,” but that was not the promise made to people during the referendum. The people were promised something better. Just as the rats have deserted the sinking ship of the Cabinet, so the promises went with them. My constituents who voted leave are now being offered something far less optimistic than the rosy, pie in the sky promises made during the referendum.

The debate is not about the referendum; it is about whether we have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. It is striking that so few Members are coming along to defend the Government and that so few have bothered to talk about the Government’s record. There was one speech during the debate on the withdrawal agreement that captured perfectly why so many people voted to leave. It was made by the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who said:

“I think Brexit was a great cry from the heart and soul of the British people. Too many people in this country feel that the country and the economy are not working for them, and that the affairs of our nation are organised around a London elite. They look at the bankers being paid bonuses for the banks that their taxes helped to rescue. They look at our embassies in the Gulf that are holding flat parties to sell off-plan exclusive London properties, when they worry about how they will ever get on to the housing ladder. They worry that they may be the first generation who are not better off than their parents, and they want to see a system back that spreads wealth and opportunity.”—[Official Report, 14 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 922-923.]

What the hon. Gentleman neglected to say, and what so many people who sit on the Government Benches will not acknowledge is that every single one of those problems was made in Britain.

It is this place that is responsible for the gross inequality of the country, and it is the party opposite that has prosecuted the policies that have led to half a million more children living in poverty than when we left Government nine years ago. It is the party opposite that has left 4 million working people living in poverty. It is the party opposite that has pursued punitive benefits policies resulting in people sleeping rough not just on the streets of our constituencies, but on the doorsteps and entrances to this Palace, literally dying under our feet. Despite that, it takes not a shred of responsibility and makes not a single offer of hope.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

During the remain campaign, the hon. Gentleman and I were on the same side of the debate. I am sure he remembers the Leader of the Opposition not turning up to events, not willing to contribute to the overall UK remain campaign and not playing his part to keep the UK in the EU. What will he do differently this time to get his leader to participate in this debate?

[Wes Streeting]

This is not the afternoon for the hon. Gentleman to lecture me about holding my leadership to account. This is an afternoon for him and every other Conservative Member to hold their rotten Government to account for the policies that are making his constituents and mine poorer. We have heard a lot about the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon. If they think he is as terrible as they have said, maybe they can explain why, the Prime Minister having confidently called a general election with the promise of a huge sweeping majority, so many Conservative Members lost their seats. I will tell them why. It is because, when it comes to tackling the chronic housing crisis, the crisis in our schools, the crisis in the NHS and the crisis that hits people in their pockets, the Leader of the Opposition is more in touch with people in this country than the Prime Minister and the Tories will ever be. That is the truth.

[Mr Seely]

If that is the case, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why so many on his side—173 MPs, I think—refused to back his leadership?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has just been elevated to the Privy Council. I trust his note of appreciation to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) will be in the internal post today.

[Wes Streeting]

It has been a long time coming, Mr Speaker.

I say with some humility to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) that this really is not the afternoon for Conservative Members to talk about motions of no confidence. Not only did more than half their Back Benchers declare no confidence in the Prime Minister and her leadership, but this afternoon is about confidence in the Government. He should be defending the Government’s record.

This debate is not just about gross inequality and what is happening to the very poorest in our society. Nine years ago, we were told we had to tighten our belts, that things would be hard and that difficult choices would have to be made, and the majority of people believed and accepted that and voted in the way they thought best. Nine years on, it is the experience of people who use and rely on our public services that things are demonstrably worse than they were nine years ago. Our schools are less well funded than they were when Labour left office, with per pupil funding down by 8% and teachers walking out of the profession in droves.

Some 2.5 million more people are waiting longer than four hours in accident and emergency departments and the number of people waiting more than two months for cancer treatments has doubled. Furthermore—and unbelievably, from a Conservative Government—people in my constituency are describing a state of lawlessness because the Government have cut the Metropolitan police to the bone: more than £1 billion of funding cuts; the loss of 21,000 police officers, almost 7,000 police community support officers and 15,000 police staff; officer numbers at their lowest levels for 30 years; and the highest rises in crime in a decade.

It is no wonder that this afternoon Conservative Members do not want to stand up and defend the record of this Government. It is not a record they can defend. It is now right—in fact, it is past time—to acknowledge that the Government have lost control of Parliament and their ability to govern and have lost the confidence of the British people. It is time for Conservative Members to do the right thing and declare, as we will, no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.