Planning Reform
Order. I have a little aspiration that we will finish this statement by half-past 3, so short questions and short answers would be very helpful.
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Points of Order
I thank the hon. Gentleman for advance notice of his point of order. As he acknowledges, external AI services are not a matter for the Chair. However, he has certainly put his accurate position—and his presence in this Chamber, and not in Westminster Hall—on the record.
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Points of Order
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order and for informing the Secretary the State that he intended to raise this matter. There is no specific rule or convention of the House that I am aware of relating to notification of planning consents, but as a general principle, if a Minister is informing hon. Members of a development of any kind, as a courtesy they should include the hon. Member in whose constituency the development is to take place.
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Finance (No. 2) Bill
The reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition has been selected.
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Finance (No. 2) Bill
Order. I encourage the remaining speakers to focus on the fact this is a Finance Bill, and therefore the debate is about taxation measures, not spending.
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Planning Reform
The Minister has said that the Government want to double down on the brownfield-first approach, that they have a presumption in favour of development in urban areas and that they are committed to protecting the green belt. Neither I nor my constituents can square that with the reality of what is happening across Bromsgrove and the villages. My constituency is 89% green belt, but the housing target has increased by a staggering 85%, yet in adjacent Birmingham the housing target has decreased by over 30%. Local people are concerned not just about the erosion of the green belt, but about the lack of infrastructure. Over 5,000 local people have signed my petition expressing their concern about this approach. I want to work constructively with the Minister, so will he agree to meet me, together with the leader of Bromsgrove district council, to discuss the impact of this approach and forge a new path forwards?
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Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement
I accept the fact that the treaty and the UN report will be discussed further in the other place, but the Minister is here to answer our questions, and we are the only ones who are able to question the issue. What is the Government’s reaction to the United Nations reports, and will they honour the recommendations?
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Africa: New Approach
One of the issues is what the effect of the new policy will be. To take one example, what will be the position of the new policy on Nigeria, where so many girls are not in education? The UK has invested in education to encourage them, but many of them come under threat from Islamists who try to convert them.
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Points of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This morning I received a notification via the Facebook page of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) that the planning for the Universal UK theme park, which is located wholly within my constituency of Mid Bedfordshire, has been approved. The hon. Member for Bedford shared a letter that he had received from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Subsequent to notifying the Secretary of State about this point of order, I received a letter. Madam Deputy Speaker, could you advise whether it is appropriate for Ministers to provide notification of a planning approval in a Member’s constituency to the neighbouring Labour MP but not to the Member themselves?
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Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement
Last month, after a three-month wait for an answer, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry informed me in a written answer that the Government Actuary’s Department’s figure for the cost of the Chagos deal of £34.7 billion is inaccurate. I struggle to believe that the Government Actuary’s Department would have published the figure in error in August. It was widely reported at the time, and the Department has never publicly corrected the figure. Will the Minister confirm that the Government Actuary’s Department figure of £34.7 billion over the length of the deal is correct and that the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry is misinformed?
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Prison Security
7. What steps he has taken to improve the security of prisons.
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Prison Security
I thank the Minister for his helpful reply, but as he knows full well violence, illegal drug dealing and escapes are on the rise in prisons, with a shocking 12% increase in breakouts across England and Wales since 2024. That is risking the safety of all our communities. Dangerous criminals are also being released in error. When will the Justice Secretary take responsibility for this utter shambles, get a grip on the situation to ensure that dangerous criminals remain locked up behind bars and do the job he is supposed to be doing to keep the British people safe?
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Draft Oil and Gas Authority (Carbon Storage and Offshore Petroleum) (Specified Periods for Disclosure of Protected Material) Regulations 2026
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Ms Barker. The draft Oil and Gas Authority (Carbon Storage and Offshore Petroleum) Regulations will make some key amendments to the regulations pertaining to the CCUS and oil and gas sectors with regard to the publication of data connected to the wells in which they are operating, as the Minister has set out. That information, which includes geological assessments, rock and liquid samples and drilling data, is collected by the NSTA—or the OGA, as it remains in law for now—for publication to support research activities, wider industry and future licence applications. The changes made in the draft regulations set out, for CCUS, how long such data must remain confidential after being collected, and specifically when different data is published, in order to protect the commercial interests of sector operators. This brings CCUS in line with existing regulations in the oil and gas industry. There are changes for the oil and gas sector, too, in particular in respect of how petroleum well information is disclosed. At present, the two-year confidentiality period takes effect once the NSTA receives the information; under the draft regulations, the clock will start from the reporting deadline. All of that was ably set out by the Minister. Although the changes will bring consistency across the sector, questions remain. Will the Minister provide further details on enforcement when reporting deadlines are missed? Are we to expect a form of sanctions to be imposed? If so, when will details of those sanctions be released? There is also the question of how any operators will be affected whose reporting deadline for wells has already passed. Will they be given a new one and expected to comply by the new deadline? We recognise that the face of the North sea oil and gas industry is changing, with a significant amount of decommissioning work taking place now and over the coming years. Does the Minister think that the introduction of hard deadlines will add further administrative burden to operations? Have the Government made any assessment of the impact on decommissioning? The North sea energy industry is already facing a multitude of challenges emanating from Government policy, which is having a knock-on effect on wider investment in the sector. I would be grateful if the Minister could elaborate on whether any assessment has been made of how these changes might affect investor confidence in the sector, and what discussions about them have been had with industry representatives. I echo the Minister’s comments about the NSTA, and particularly its chief executive officer Stuart Payne. They are doing an incredibly important job in managing the North sea basin. Notwithstanding the differences in how we think the North sea should be managed, the work of people in the NSTA should be recognised more than it is. They are undertaking vital work, and as a result of these changes the burden on them will be greater still. Notwithstanding my questions, to which of course we would like answers, the Opposition think that the draft regulations are a very sensible move, coming as they do from that almighty and indeed seminal piece of work, the Energy Act 2023. I therefore see no reason why we should object to them or stand in their way. I do not intend to detain the Committee any longer.
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Quarries: Planning Policy
I beg to move, That this House has considered planning policy for quarries. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I am grateful for the opportunity to bring the issue of planning policy for quarries to Westminster Hall today. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate. I would like to declare at the very outset that, like many hundreds of my constituents, I will be impacted by the development that I am going to refer to. My South Leicestershire constituency has been home not just to me and many hundreds of my constituents, but to many quarries throughout the years. In 2022, a new proposal from Tarmac was floated for a mega-quarry in the hamlet of Misterton, which will have a huge impact on residents in Lutterworth, as well as the villages of Walcote, Cotesbach, Kimcote and Kilworth—to name just a few. In engaging with that proposal, I have come to understand just how outdated, inconsistent and, in some places, inadequate the planning guidance for quarry operations has become. Nowhere is that clearer than the guidance on air quality. The documents that local authorities are expected to follow do not reflect comparable environmental standards in developed countries, the latest science or the reasonable expectations that residents like mine hold about their air that they and their children breathe. I have had regular meetings with residents and the Misterton and Walcote residents group to examine the proposals for the mega sand and gravel quarry. I am pleased to say that some of those residents are here today. Three main concerns have emerged: the first is the scale of the proposed development, which covers 74 hectares—the equivalent of 104 full-sized football pitches—and will extract 400,000 tonnes of sand and gravel a year for at least 20 years. It has caused understandable concern over dust, noise and the movement of heavy goods vehicles, especially given that the site is directly opposite a proposed flagship housing development. There is an interesting potential conflict here, because Leicestershire county council is, rather unusually, the promoter of that housing development, as well as being the minerals authority tasked with approving the proposed quarry on the doorstep of its own proposed development.
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Quarries: Planning Policy
As the hon. Lady will hear in the remaining parts of my speech, I entirely concur with her comments. Given that the proposed quarry site is not allocated in Leicestershire county council’s minerals plan, which runs until 2031, we can understand why a group such as the concerned residents present today would try to seek the advice of a professional minerals planner to review the proposals, consider the data and write a report that the residents group could use as the basis for their representations to Leicestershire county council, as the appropriate local planning authority, on Tarmac’s proposal. What surprised me, as their Member of Parliament, was that it was nearly impossible to help them find someone in the industry willing to produce a report that the residents association could use. Why? Because virtually every qualified planner we approached—and there were a great deal—cited potential conflicts of interest with Tarmac. In fact, Tarmac is such a big beast of industry that it took nearly a year to find a planner willing to produce and put their name to an impartial report reviewing Tarmac’s Misterton quarry application. I am concerned that ordinary groups of residents who want to hire a specialist barely stand a chance because of Tarmac’s influence on the industry. Does the Minister share my concern that local communities often struggle to access independent, impartial technical advice, particularly where the applicant is a large and influential company in the industry? If the Minister is unable to answer any of the questions I put to her today, I would be grateful if she would answer in writing, not least because the residents association would be most grateful. On air quality, I have a specific concern about the regulation 25 notice issued by Leicestershire county council to Tarmac. Forgive me, Dr Murrison, for the highly technical nature of some of my speech. That relies on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 2021 background model, which produces artificially low PM2.5 figures that no longer reflect the current conditions on the ground. We now have local post-pandemic monitoring data from Harborough district council, showing that background PM2.5 levels in rural areas close to Misterton are already at or above the Government’s future legal target. Even Tarmac’s own consultants—Vibrock—reported significantly higher background levels than those quoted by the county council. Does the Minister agree that, to ensure evidence-led decision making, it is imperative that baseline data should be up to date and, if more recent local data exists, it should be used? Does she consider that, where a proposed major industrial development has the potential to increase community exposure to PM2.5, a mandatory period of local monitoring should be undertaken to establish a reliable baseline before permission is considered? The main guidance that developers and local authorities rely on comes from the Institute of Air Quality Management. Although the IAQM is a respected professional body that works closely with regulators, it is important to recognise that it is a membership organisation and, therefore, potentially vulnerable. For example, its members may also have commercial interests in consultancy firms that deliver air quality services to clients seeking planning consent, such as Tarmac. The most relevant document used as guidance for developers and local authorities is the IAQM’s 2016 “Guidance on the assessment of mineral dust impacts for planning”. It is fundamentally used as the de facto industry standard by all who work in the industry, including developers, consultants and local authorities, but that guidance is now nearly a decade old. The document sets the industry standard for how dust, particulates and emissions must be modelled or evaluated when a quarry is proposed. Last year, I wrote to the IAQM, raising concerns shared by my constituents, such as whether the IAQM guidance adequately distinguishes between nuisance dust and finer, more harmful PM10 and PM2.5 particles; whether the 250-metre screening criterion remains appropriate for fine particulates, given the emerging evidence showing that those dangerous particles can travel considerably further; and how well it aligns with forthcoming legal PM2.5 targets, with which the Minister will no doubt be familiar. The IAQM has since contacted me and put a note on its website to say that the guidance on assessment of mineral dust for planning is now under review. That note says: “The 2016 IAQM Guidance on the Assessment of Mineral Dust Impacts for Planning is now nine years old and as such there are some elements of the document that are dated”. I repeat: “there are some elements of the document that are dated”— this is the document being used— “and the focus of assessment is changing. A full review is being carried out by an IAQM Working Group established specifically with regards to this guidance.” Is the Minister’s Department liaising with the IAQM to ascertain when the review will be completed and a report published? With the guidance now formally under review, developers and planning authorities need clarity on the interim approach, such as the one faced by the residents in my constituency. The Government’s own interim planning guidance on PM2.5, published by DEFRA in October 2024, already encourages local authorities to take the 2028 interim and 2040 targets—10 micrograms per cubic metre annual mean—into account in planning decisions. Dr Murrison, I promised you that this speech would be full of technical details, and I hope that I am not letting you down. Given the legally binding obligations under the Environment Act 2021 and Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations (2023), can the Minister confirm, either today or by follow-up letter, how planning authorities should apply the most up-to-date scientific evidence and statutory air quality objectives when assessing quarry applications, especially given that the relevant IAQM guidance is under review, as I have just outlined? The IAQM guidance to which I am referring is used by developers and planning authorities to assess air quality impacts, particularly in relation to fine particulate matter such as PM10 and PM2.5. I welcome the fact that it is under review, but I wonder: had the residents group not informed my team, and had my team and I not written to the IAQM to raise the concerns of South Leicestershire residents, would the review be under way now? The 2016 primary guidance documents from the IAQM, which are now under review, are used by the industry, and I understand that overall it is very good guidance, but in key areas it is behind current scientific understanding of the risks of respirable dust particle behaviour and the Government’s own commitments under the 2021 Act and the clean air strategy 2019. The guidance is also far too subjective, offering scope for varied interpretations and approaches. We now know that PM2.5 particles—those fine particulates that penetrate deep into the lungs—can travel much farther than previously assumed. The use of a 250-metre screening threshold, still applied in the current guidance, significantly underestimates risks, because it treats those dangerous particles as behaving in the same way as nuisance dust. Evidence from recent legal cases, including the Corby litigation, which was depicted in the Netflix hit series “Toxic Town”—I encourage listeners and viewers to watch that—has shown that those particulates can travel well beyond 250 metres, exposing far more people to harm than our assessments currently acknowledge.
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Quarries: Planning Policy
I absolutely agree, and I sympathise entirely with the hon. Lady. I would go further. I made the point earlier about finding suitable experts who are able to apply their technical expertise to help campaign groups or MPs to rebut planning applications on a technical basis. They are simply not there, for fear of a conflict of interest given their commercial interests with large-scale developers. The hon. Lady makes an important point and has put it on the record. The UK has committed, through regulation 4 of the Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations 2023, to achieving an annual mean concentration of 10 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic metre by 2040, with an interim target for 2028. That is a legally binding obligation, and rightly so, but we will not meet it if the standards we use to assess air quality for quarries are not up to date with the latest scientific evidence. If we keep relying on outdated guidance, we will keep underestimating the risks to public health, particularly for children, older people and those with respiratory conditions who live near quarry sites. Furthermore, when key guidance is issued by professional bodies rather than statutory authorities, it is far harder for us as lawmakers, and for the public, to scrutinise and challenge their work. That can lead to accountability issues. At the same time, the reliance on organisations such as the IAQM places a significant burden on them, and they may lack the resources or mandate to keep up with changing scientific and legal requirements. Accordingly, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm, either today or by follow-up letter, whether she believes it is right for professional bodies like the IAQM to set air-quality guidance for quarries, as opposed to the relevant statutory public bodies, given the possibility of a conflict of interest between public health goals and financial gain. Does the Minister agree that we need to ensure that the guidance that underpins air-quality assessments is independently reviewed, regularly updated and aligned with statutory obligations on air quality and public health? In addition, the regulatory framework for quarry safety could be strengthened. The Quarries Regulations 1999 focused primarily on workplace safety, but do not require the same structured pre-emptive risk management that is now standard in other high-risk sectors. Would it not make sense for quarry operations to be brought under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, for which the Minister has ministerial responsibility? She knows that the CDM regulations are not just best practice but required under the 2015 statutory instrument, which requires comprehensive risk assessments, formal hazard identification and clearly defined duties of care for all parties involved. Those measures are now standard practice across the construction industry. Quarries present many of the same hazards as large construction sites, including airborne dust, heavy plant machinery, vehicle movements and complex site operations, but under the current framework there is no consistent requirement for structured design or risk assessments, no formalised application of the “as low as reasonably practicable” principle, and no robust mechanism for protecting the public from involuntary risk. Incorporating operations into the CDM framework could deliver more rigorous and consistent risk assessments, clearly documented mitigation strategies, legal accountability for duty holders and, crucially, better protection both for workers and for the surrounding public. Does the Minister agree that environmental protection, worker safety and public health will benefit if we treat quarrying operations as the major industrial undertakings that they are? Finally, I hope the Minister will agree that targeted reforms, the clarifying of interim assessment standards and the modernising of safety regulations will deliver better outcomes for the industry, for workers and, most importantly, for all our constituents, wherever they may be.
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Quarries: Planning Policy
To conclude, there is no doubt that quarrying plays an extremely important role in delivering the homes, roads and infrastructure that our country needs, as the Minister has said and I acknowledge. That cannot and must not, however, come at the expense of the health of the people of our country. The residents of Misterton, Walcote, Lutterworth and the surrounding villages, as well as all our constituents, are asking us to pay attention to the latest science and heed the lessons of the past, particularly on air quality. I am grateful to the residents who travelled here today: Liz and Nick Marsh, Paul Mann, and to those who have taken part in the Misterton with Walcote residents group, including Adrian Lott, Graham Jordan, Paulette Murrell, Mark Denton and Richard Nunn, among others unable to be here. I also thank Lord Bach of Lutterworth for his strong support. I am grateful that the Minister said she will respond to the technical issues I raised; I will send her a letter shortly. We all want to ensure that vital mineral extraction proceeds responsibly. I am grateful to all MPs who have spoken on behalf of their constituents. Local communities must have confidence in the process and confidence that public health is firmly at the heart of planning decisions, while allowing for the building of infrastructure, with the necessary mineral extractions that entails. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered planning policy for quarries.
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Jimmy Lai Conviction
Let me start by saying that I greatly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s words about the horrific antisemitic murders in Australia. To those who died, let us all just say, “May their memories be a blessing.” When we talk about Hong Kong and when we talk about Jimmy Lai, we should remember that the attack on Jimmy Lai—the arrest of Jimmy Lai—is not just a punishment against his family or against him, but part of the repression from the Chinese state. It is being used deliberately to threaten and intimidate Hongkongers here in the United Kingdom. When we talk about standing up for Jimmy Lai, we are actually talking about standing up for ourselves. We are talking about defending our own freedoms and defending the liberties that British people have the right to expect, both at home and abroad. Will the Foreign Secretary forgive me—I recognise that she been in the role for only a matter of months—when I say that what we are hearing, again, is the bureaucratisation of process and not the leadership that politics is supposed to offer? When we do not hear that decisions about, for instance, the embassy or the visit are potentially on the line, Beijing hears that it can just continue as normal. Let us not pretend that a fundamentally strategic decision such as the siting of an embassy is the mere duty of a bureaucrat. It is not. It is the role of a Government to offer leadership and direction, and I am afraid that at the moment this Government are offering none.
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Employment Rights Bill
I am not at all surprised that the Minister is having a little bit of a problem with the other place—after all, she is not the first Minister to have been confused as to what was in a manifesto and what was not; the Prime Minister seems to have been confused about the assisted suicide Bill. May I raise a question about the cap? The problem that many businesses will have is with insurance. Most businesses take some form of insurance for unfair dismissal. Insurance companies work on the basis that they have an understandable level of risk that they are underwriting. If they do not know what that risk is, they will not underwrite it. The challenge here is that by removing the cap, the Minister is changing the level of maximum risk and therefore making it much harder for insurance companies to underwrite it. Has she spoken to insurance companies about the challenges that this poses?
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NHS: Winter Preparedness
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on winter preparedness in the NHS.
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NHS: Winter Preparedness
This winter, a serious flu wave and rising respiratory syncytial virus infections are pushing the NHS to its limits. Flu admissions, as we have heard, are up 55% in a week, and RSV cases are rising, especially in older people. However, the Government have failed to prepare, as we pointed out earlier in the year. In July, the Health Secretary accepted Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advice to expand the RSV vaccine to over-80s, but that expansion seems to have been quietly dropped. Flu vaccine uptake remains dangerously low, with fewer than 30% of some key groups vaccinated. Most worryingly, that includes NHS staff, who are going off sick because of flu, adding to staffing pressures. Delayed discharges are worsening: 19,000 more bed days have been lost this year. Still there is no winter discharge plan, no new funding and no clarity—and today, yes, resident doctors confirmed further strike action this week, which will add pressure to a system already under significant strain. That is why we would ban strike action, but at the same time this Government are literally making it easier for unions through their Employment Rights Bill. When the NHS is under this level of pressure, families deserve the reassurance that care will be there when they need it, so I ask the Secretary of State: will he now publish the Government’s plan for managing winter pressures, including on delayed discharges and emergency care? Given that he is worried about a double whammy of rising flu cases and a strike, what extra resources is he providing, and if he is not, where is the money coming from? What action will he take to ensure RSV vaccine access for older people, and what will he do to raise flu vaccine uptake in vulnerable groups, particularly in NHS staff? Families are frightened, and some are already grieving. This crisis was not inevitable, but the Government’s failure to prepare has made it much worse.
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Defence Spending: Economic Growth
The world is rearming and rebuilding the defence industrial base at a rapid pace, and it is fair to say that the UK is starting to fall behind some of our NATO allies. Does the Secretary of State believe that the spending planned for 2027 to 2030 and onwards meets our needs and prepares us for war, should it arise?
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NHS: Winter Preparedness
Everybody knows that South Shropshire is the most beautiful rural constituency, but that rurality brings remoteness, which brings challenges with an ageing population, and with additional strikes there is concern about whether adequate healthcare will be provided this winter. Will the Secretary of State set out how that will be done, so that residents of South Shropshire will not go without?
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Violence against Women and Girls Strategy
I have unfortunately met constituents—women and girls—who have suffered extreme violence and sexual assault, and I have seen at first hand the devastating impact that it has on them. They have said to me that they want tougher sentences and that they want this issue dealt with, because it is destroying lives. Can the Minister confirm to women and girls across South Shropshire that the strategy will deliver for them?
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NHS: Winter Preparedness
Given the pressures from flu and strikes, can the Secretary of State confirm that the evidence he gave to the pay review body remains correct—that any pay rises must be funded from within his Department? If so, given that the Office for Budget Responsibility says that inflation next year will be 3.5% and he has offered 2.5% across the NHS, and said that a 1% increase would cost £1.5 billion, does he intend to give NHS staff a real-terms pay cut, or to take £1.5 billion from headline Government commitments?
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Topical Questions
I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks about our armed forces having a fantastic Christmas, wherever they are. The strategic defence review talked about the need for a “national conversation” on defence. What steps are the Government taking to support that national conversation, particularly so that our constituents and the population are faced with the trade-offs needed to increase spending on our armed forces?
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NATO: European Security
Having sat through the debate on Ukraine on 4 December, has the Minister taken on board the important message for our NATO colleagues that if there is a forced division of Ukraine, just as there was of occupied Germany at the end of the war, it will be essential that unoccupied western Ukraine is fully manned with deterrent allied troops? Nothing could be more destabilising than a vacuum in western Ukraine, with a heavily militarised occupied eastern Ukraine under the control of the killer in the Kremlin.
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Topical Questions
I welcome the Government’s commitment ultimately to spend 5% of GDP on defence—as we used to do in the cold war years of the 1980s—but not the target date of 2035. Do the Government really believe that there is no threat of attack from Russia on a NATO country for the next 10 years?
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NHS: Winter Preparedness
I hope that the Secretary of State will give a little more consideration to the rather important point raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) about 16 and 17-year-olds not being able to be vaccinated. If any junior doctor—whether or not a member of the BMA, but particularly if a member of the BMA—decides on ethical grounds to go into work during the period of the strike, and then faces sanctions from the BMA, will the Government protect them?
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Violence against Women and Girls Strategy
Is the strategy going to emphasise in any way the role of parents in trying to protect their sons from a torrent of online violent abuse of women, which inevitably is going to distort their attitude to relationships? Schools can do some things, but some things, surely, have to be done within the family?
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Jimmy Lai Conviction
Like every other communist regime that has ever existed, the Chinese Government behave with ruthlessness, impunity and unmitigated mendacity. I therefore welcome the strong words in the statement from the Foreign Secretary, but what Members on both sides of the House wish to see is stronger actions. It is not so much a case of one country, two systems, as of one Government and two faces. If our Government cannot even say that a country that poses so many strategic threats is itself a threat, we have an awfully long way to go.
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Jimmy Lai Conviction
Jimmy Lai’s so-called crime was simply being a journalist expressing his views. As the Foreign Secretary has said, he is 78, and we heard this afternoon from Sebastien and his legal team that his health is deteriorating rapidly and he is likely to die in prison unless he is released soon. Will the Foreign Secretary meet Sebastien, with his legal advisers from Doughty Street Chambers, to discuss what additional pressure can be put on the Chinese Government to obtain Jimmy Lai’s release?
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Sudan: Humanitarian Situation
I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing this urgent question. Although there have been two recent sanctions—[Interruption.] All right, four, if we add in the other two. In reality there are 21 other Sudanese, many of them RSF, operating here in the United Kingdom. They are well known to the authorities, they are involved in the financing of this, but they have not been sanctioned. Is it not the reality that this fighting is still going on, with the brutality of the RSF, because the UAE finances and supports what they are doing? Without UAE involvement, there would be no further war. When will the Government turn around, notwithstanding ideas of wanting to get business contacts in the UAE, and start placing Magnitsky sanctions on individuals in the UAE until it stops financing this brutal war?
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Jimmy Lai Conviction
I agree with the right hon. Lady in her comments about the terrible attacks in Bondi, and I congratulate her on raising that now, but I rise to express the view again that this case is not only about Hong Kong, but about this Chamber. I have been named nine times in the prosecution case against Jimmy Lai. Others have been named more than that. It is appalling. I would have loved to have met him and spoken to him, but I never have done. It is trumped-up nonsense from the CCP. The second thing I say to the Foreign Secretary is that I agree with the strength of her statement about the appalling nature of the Government in China over this issue, but it is no good just meeting people to say they are wrong or calling in the ambassadors. Surely what we have to do is show them a ratcheting up in the things that we will do. First, we need to tell them that there will be no visit in January by our Prime Minister to an organisation that is so corrupt and indecent. Secondly, we should surely start imposing sanctions on those members in Hong Kong who run the place. We have done none of that. Every other country has sanctioned them, but we have not. Finally, there is the idea of allowing this regime to have a huge embassy with 200 extra spies brought in. At this point, they surely need to be told that it will not happen until they release Jimmy Lai.
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Defence Spending: Economic Growth
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his efforts so far, but our efforts are still puny compared with those made when there was last a major threat, in the 1930s. In 1933, we spent just 2.2% of GDP on defence. Remember George Lansbury, the leader of the Labour party, who wanted to abolish the RAF altogether? By 1938, we were spending a massive 7%. Will the right hon. Gentleman commit himself to a whole new gearing-up of our efforts? He could start by recommissioning the RAF bases that were open in the 1930s, but have now been closed, such as RAF Scampton.
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Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill
Believe it or not, more than 30 years ago I was a Minister for fashion and regional policy. These things go round in a circle, and I warn the Minister —with some experience of this—that many companies were caught in a sort of Catch-22: if they were too successful, the Department of Trade and Industry would not let them be helped, and if they were not successful enough, there was always a risk that they might go bust. How is the Minister going to hit the sweet spot and make sure that we direct the money to where it is most needed?
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Topical Questions
As we have come away empty-handed from the Security Action for Europe instrument, can we have the fish back?
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Jimmy Lai Conviction
The Government’s dealings with China are proving to be almost as lamentable as those of their predecessor. We have summoned the ambassador to tell him just how cross we are, but I bet we will give him his embassy, won’t we?
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Employment Rights Bill
Which British company offers unlimited compensation for unfair dismissal? What message does this measure send to companies that can locate well-paid staff anywhere in the world?
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Employment Rights Bill
Does the shadow Minister recall that in 1999 when the Blair Government increased the cap, they held a consultation beforehand, and that in 2015 when the coalition Government introduced a cap, they held a consultation beforehand? Why are this Government behaving differently?