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Order. We do not talk about cases where people have just been charged or have not been sentenced, because it is sub judice. I ask the shadow Home Secretary to be incredibly careful with the words he uses in his closing speech.
Order. If somebody is fighting a case, it is still a live case. Can I ask the shadow Home Secretary to revisit his words before he speaks them out loud in the Chamber?
I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Prime Minister for the words about Sir David Amess. We on this side of the House miss him dearly, as do his family. He was a fellow Essex MP and a very good friend to me and to so many across this House, and I know that he is still very much loved by his constituents in Southend.<span id="359" class="column-number" data-column-number="359"></span> The Prime Minister has had a busy few weeks: tying himself in knots explaining why national security should not come at the expense of social security, and bumbling into a row—still ongoing—about Manchester City. I do not think that his carefully worded answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) will suffice—it does not sound like that one is going away. He also spent the last 48 hours trying to unsay that Russia influenced the 2016 referendum when we all heard him say it. Does he ever get tired of putting his foot in his mouth?
It sounds like the Prime Minister is digging in, but you cannot fight misinformation with misinformation. This is the first time I have ever heard the head of MI5 slap down a Prime Minister for doing Russia’s dirty work for them. Either the Prime Minister knew what he was doing on that podcast—trying to undermine the 2016 referendum—or he opened his mouth on a matter of national security and said the first thing that came into his head. Does the Prime Minister agree with the director general of MI5 that talking up Russian interference was a mistake?
Still digging in—it was not me that MI5 was talking about. The fact is, this Prime Minister will say anything instead of dealing with the tough decisions that only he can take—like on Britain’s energy security. In July, he said that he would approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North sea. What is he waiting for? If he had approved them back then, we would have British gas warming British homes this winter. Will he now—<em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> It is true: all the gas from Jackdaw goes on to the British grid. Will he now stop faffing about and approve Rosebank and Jackdaw?
So much time wasting. This is a Government who approve importing oil from Russia and approve new drilling off the Falkland Islands but will not approve new drilling in the North sea. The truth is that the Prime Minister is delaying a decision on energy to avoid a row with his Back Benchers, just as he is avoiding another row on cutting welfare. <em>The Times</em> reports that 2 million people are being paid sickness benefits, and they may not even be sick. Billions of pounds are being paid to people who should not be getting that. The last time a Prime Minister tried to cut welfare, Labour MPs stopped him. They are still chuntering now—look at them. Is the Prime Minister afraid to cut benefits because he does not want a fight with his Back Benchers?
I did not ask the Prime Minister about the Milburn review, but, if he wants to talk about it, I spoke to Alan Milburn and he said that the review was due before the Budget. The Prime Minister has kicked it into the long grass. The Budget is in two weeks. Let me tell the Prime Minister what should be in it: cutting welfare to fund defence. In a BBC interview on Sunday, the Defence Secretary refused to commit to spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. People used to resign over this. I see that he is not here today—he is still not doing his job. That is the money that Britain needs to keep us safe. Now, the Prime Minister will not even tell us what his plan is for another year. Why will he not announce a date for 3% in this month’s Budget?
A month ago, the Prime Minister was boasting that it was time to engage in problem solving rather than point scoring. It seems that is another thing that he said without thinking. The Prime Minister wants to talk about defence, so let us talk about defence. The Conservatives are the only party that actually has a plan to get to 3% by 2030. I asked him about the Budget, and he said he is meeting President Zelensky. President Zelensky is not writing the Budget; he is. The last two Labour Budgets have been a total disaster. Yesterday I met a beauty salon owner who is struggling with the impact of Labour’s tax rises. She told me that she is dipping into her pension to pay the young people she employs. That is the brutal reality for tens of thousands of small business owners after just two years of Labour. The Prime Minister entered Downing Street promising the biggest change in 40 years. Now Labour MPs are briefing journalists that they hope this Budget “does as little harm as possible”. Is he not too busy appeasing his MPs, excusing his own mistakes and avoiding difficult decisions to give the country the leadership it needs?
The hon. Lady makes some important points. We share a hospital trust. Many of my constituents in Basildon and Billericay go to Broomfield hospital. Some of them go down to Basildon hospital in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock), as well as the Southend hospital in another neighbouring constituency. I want to pick up on that point around contingency planning, because Basildon hospital, which is part of the trust, is particularly bad for corridor care. It is very clear to me that it is a major issue that is really hammering people. I want to make a very brief point about that care.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr Stuart. A constituent came to me who was handed a second-hand book on grief, with somebody else’s notes in it, after he had just lost his wife. It really struck me that, whether it is corridor care or that almost thoughtlessness, care is actually missing in parts of the Mid and South Essex NHS foundation trust.
The merger of Basildon, Broomfield and Southend hospitals six years ago has turned out to be an abject failure. That is not the fault of the patients, and it is certainly not the fault of the very hard-pressed staff; it is the fault of the management. We have seen endless revolving-door changes of management. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is now time for Clare Panniker, the east of England regional director of the NHS who was the first chief executive of the trust and, indeed, the cheerleader for the merger, to intervene and finally put this problem right once and for all?
Every day, millions of hard-working people work, earn and contribute to our economy with the principal goal of providing for their children, both in the present and in the future. For many, these jobs are much more than a payslip. They are the pillars that allow a family to function, grow and thrive. As a former family business owner, I know just how valuable such opportunities can be. Today’s debate is important not simply because it is about business, but because it is about protecting opportunity. It is about ensuring that the next generation has the chance to develop the skills, confidence and experience that will shape the rest of their lives and careers. I spent my summer on my annual work experience tour in South West Hertfordshire, visiting local businesses to volunteer my time and understand how they operate, and to learn about the challenges they face. In Kings Langley, I went to Wayside farm to shadow Charlie, who has been running the farm for over 30 years. It is one of only two dairy farms remaining in Hertfordshire. I pulled pints behind the bar of the Unicorn in Abbots Langley, run by Debbie and Ady. Debbie started as an employee, learning all about the pub before taking over. This is exactly the sort of entrepreneurship we should be encouraging. I visited Unit VII in Rickmansworth, an artisan coffee shop owned by married couple Raman and Zarina, who also host community-focused events for my residents. Finally, I visited a car parts store in Kings Langley, a family-owned business that has grown so successfully that it has opened more stores and employed people across the country, helping the local economy in my constituency and, I am sure, in those of many other MPs in this Chamber. All those businesses repeated the same message: Labour’s harmful policies of increasing national insurance contributions, strict rules and regulations, and soaring energy costs mean that these small, independent businesses are now having to make difficult decisions about hiring and opening hours, when they should be supported and encouraged to grow their businesses. Labour has also reduced opportunities for young people to get their foot on the career ladder. Hospitality businesses in particular, which have historically relied on seasonal work and training young people up, can no longer afford to do so, meaning that our young people are going without the opportunities that should shape the rest of their lives. Growth happens when family businesses have the confidence to invest, expand and create jobs. That is why this Government must work with businesses, not <span id="457" class="column-number" data-column-number="457"></span>against them, and it is why the Conservatives would abolish the high rates of inheritance tax on the farms, homes and businesses that support economic growth and local communities. We would abolish business rates for thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, cut the red tape that prevents employers from recruiting young people, and introduce our cheap power plan, which would cut electricity bills by 20% for businesses. In conclusion, this debate is ultimately about opportunity. My residents should not work hard to provide for their children’s future, only to have that investment taken away to pay for an ever-increasing welfare bill. Every family business is a testament to community, to innovation and to shared prosperity, and these opportunities are worth protecting. I am incredibly proud of all the family-run businesses I have in South West Hertfordshire. I urge the Government to recognise the damage that they are doing to these family businesses, and to work tirelessly to ensure that my residents are not punished for a life of hard work.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I want to make it clear from the outset that while His Majesty’s Opposition do not object to every provision within these draft regulations, we cannot support them today. We have no quarrel with the purely technical updates to statutory terminology, nor do we oppose implementing the practical recommendations of Lord Murphy’s review to strengthen the hand of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Democratic Scrutiny Committee. Giving the committee 10 working days rather than five to decide whether to hold an inquiry and clarifying that Northern Ireland Departments must comply with reasonable requests for information are sensible steps. However, statutory instruments are unamendable and the Government have chosen to package these modest Stormont reforms alongside regulation 2(6), a measure that points in the exact opposite constitutional direction by deleting section 15C of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. We oppose that approach for three fundamental reasons. First, we resist the use of Henry VIII powers to weaken governance and strip away primary legislation safeguards in this area. Section 15C was not a drafting oversight. When Parliament inserted it via section 35 of the European <span id="8" class="column-number" data-column-number="8"></span>Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act, paragraph 325 of the explanatory notes stated explicitly that its purpose was to preclude a Minister of the Crown from using the written procedure to adopt Joint Committee decisions or recommendations. That lock was enacted by primary legislation to ensure that decisions are taken by a Minister in person, and that there is full ministerial accountability, including to Parliament, for all decisions made in the Joint Committee. Using delegated powers in secondary legislation to reach back into an Act of Parliament and delete a deliberate accountability safeguard placed upon the Executive is a misuse of Henry VIII powers, and it is a particularly concerning precedent ahead of the Government’s EU reset Bill. Secondly, we strongly oppose removing the prohibition on the Joint Committee making decisions between meetings. We have great sympathy for the submission made by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. As he rightly exposed, paragraph 5.7 of the Government’s explanatory memorandum merely states the mechanical effect of deleting section 15C, without offering a single word of explanation as to why a safeguard that was once deemed essential is no longer required. Worse still, there has been no meaningful consultation on removing that safeguard. Section 7 of the explanatory memorandum relies on the Murphy review as its consultation basis, yet Lord Murphy never recommended repealing section 15C. In fact, Lord Murphy noted that the Joint Committee meets at ministerial level alongside the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and he specifically recommended broadening the inclusion of stakeholders into these meetings to bring greater transparency and openness, not less. Under section 15C, formal Joint Committee meeting dates are announced well in advance, giving Parliament and the public a clear focal point to track decisions. By repealing section 15C, decisions and recommendations can be signed off on paper between meetings and slipped through at any time without notice. Only when pressed by the Scrutiny Committee in July did the Cabinet Office finally admit that the real driver behind this change is facilitating decision making between meetings for the point when future UK-EU agreements are in force.
My hon. Friend obviously has a long and strong record of promoting accountability in Government. That was not always to the pleasure of the Whips Office when we were in government, but it is particularly important that he continues that function when measures like this are being implemented through secondary legislation. If the Government want new governance mechanisms for future EU reset deals, they should make that case openly in primary legislation rather than stripping away statutory locks by stealth today. Thirdly, we need better oversight of the Windsor framework regulation-making process, not weaker scrutiny. As the House of Lords Northern Ireland Scrutiny <span id="9" class="column-number" data-column-number="9"></span>Committee highlighted, we are currently in the extraordinary position of not even having a complete public list of all the EU laws to which Northern Ireland is subject under dynamic alignment. That Committee rightly called on the Cabinet Office to establish a dedicated regulatory divergence unit to maintain an up-to-date public database on the National Archives website, alongside more detailed statements after joint meetings. Yet in its July responses to the Scrutiny Committee, the Cabinet Office admitted that section 15C provides no statutory notification mechanism and that Westminster scrutiny relies on explanatory memorandums triggered by EU Council decisions establishing the EU’s position, not the UK’s position, which are then followed by publication on the gov.uk website after the fact. Relying on Brussels paperwork to alert the UK Parliament to decisions our own Ministers are taking by written correspondence, and publishing those decisions on gov.uk only after they have been signed, is no substitute for proper parliamentary oversight. Until the Government bring forward proper transparency and scrutiny over the Windsor framework regulation-making process and stop using inappropriate Henry VIII powers to dismantle primary legislation safeguards on Joint Committee decision making between meetings, His Majesty’s Opposition cannot support these regulations.
Will the Minister give way?
My hon. Friend has listed some of the countries involved. Pakistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan are the top five. Of course it is right to talk about national security, and we have heard a lot about that over the last few days, but today we are talking about personal security: the personal security of women, young girls and indeed young boys. Not everyone who comes here illegally would seek to attack, but too many do, and even when they go to prison we are not able to deport them because of the European convention on human rights. We need to leave the ECHR, we need to secure our borders, and we need to have a deterrent. We are a fair-minded country, but enough is enough.
Diesel is obviously very much in the public mind at the moment. Has my hon. Friend seen any sort of impact statement as to what the daily cost of the Bicester site would be, given the increase in diesel prices?
That is exactly why we would abolish stamp duty when people buy their home as well.
I want to support the family home, family farms and small businesses right across the United Kingdom, and I back this motion. It is a fundamental Conservative principle that, as Margaret Thatcher once said, “freedom flourishes” when people can rely on the security of owning their own home. In the same speech, she made a very important point relevant to this debate when she said that a home is more than a financial asset, as it is a “stake in the future” and something to be passed on to the next generation. That is why inheritance tax matters. As we have heard, when someone dies, 40% of their money and property is taken by the taxman, if the total value exceeds £325,000. By raising the threshold, hon. Members on all sides of this House accused us of cutting taxes for the wealthiest in our society. I can tell them that the constituents I represent in Broxbourne are certainly not some of the wealthiest in our society. In fact, there are parts of my constituency that rank among the most deprived in the UK. Despite that, average house prices across Broxbourne are £433,000. Houses in my constituency that are just over the threshold include a two-bedroom maisonette in Cheshunt and a two-bedroom bungalow in Hoddesdon. Those properties are not mansions. Homeowners in Broxbourne have worked hard to live in those places, and it is not their fault that property values have risen by more than 10% in the last five years. On that trend, more and more ordinary families are being pulled into paying inheritance tax. Labour is making this worse by freezing the threshold until 2031. By then, one in six families will face paying an inheritance tax bill. I believe this is wrong. As my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor set out, we would completely abolish inheritance tax on the family home and raise the threshold to £1 million for a couple. We have a clear plan.
If the hon. Member had been listening to my speech, he would know that this is not people’s fault. If someone works hard and buys a family home, they have no idea what the value of that family home is going to be when they die. That is why we are exempting the family home from inheritance tax.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a tax on aspiration.
No, I will not give way. I have taken two interventions, and a number of Members want to speak. If we want to unlock the next generation of entrepreneurs and back the people who give their blood, sweat and tears when they go out to work every day to make our country great and what it is today, this is what we need to do, and we have a clear plan to pay for it. We will cut Government spending by £71 billion, including by cutting overseas aid to £1 billion a year. We would reduce welfare spending by £36 billion and support young people into work, rather than a life on benefits. Alongside our pledges to scrap the family farm tax and scrap the family business tax, these are bold changes that will get our economy growing. Enabling people to keep and pass on more of their own money is how we encourage people to invest, take risks and create new opportunities. Inheritance tax is not the only example. I regularly speak to constituents who feel that they are better off financially to refuse a promotion or more hours at work, because it does not make sense for them to work harder and get less. I have spoken to self-employed tradespeople who turn down work because they are too close to the VAT threshold. That just cannot be right. I speak to businesses and to people who work. It is absolutely crazy that they turn down employment and business because they will be worse off, paying more taxes under this Labour Government. Until we shift the incentives in our economy—incentives that make a life on benefits more attractive than getting a job and that will put off businesses from creating new jobs—we will never improve the situation our country faces. Labour has a choice at the Budget on 28 October: they can copy the clear plan we have set out to make savings and cut welfare, or they can continue down the same road. Sadly, I just think they are not listening.
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. He will presumably recognise that the clue is often in the name where our businesses are concerned, as many of those largest businesses that we regard as national champions—Pilkington, John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and banks such as Lloyds—owe their origin to family businesses. The fact that they carry a surname indicates the many generations it took to build them to that power, but by taxing those businesses, we hold the entire economy back from such growth.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I need to offer you an apology. When I asked my question, I should have declared, or drawn attention to, my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am the proud founder of two businesses, which I hope in time to pass on to my children, if the Labour party does not get in the way.
There seems to be a disconnect in the Labour party’s understanding of the situation. Does the Minister not appreciate that the capital value of an enterprise, whether it be a farm or a business, does not necessarily equate to the revenue that it generates? Many family farms and businesses are what they would call lifestyle businesses, where people are happy to sit on what may appear to be a large capital value that yields only a very small revenue amount that will not support the taxes he is trying to levy, and at the same time only just supports a lifestyle that people are willing to tolerate. It is this imbalance that is causing so much anguish.
Let us say that a farm is worth £3 million, ostensibly on land value. That farm might be yielding a net income to a farmer of only £30,000 to £50,000 a year, on which they are surviving. They are willing to live that way because they love living on the farm, it has been in their family for many generations and they feel a sense of stewardship and custodianship, but that revenue is not enough for them to live on and then sustain the tax that the Minister wants to levy.
I beg to move, That this House condemns the Government’s plan to place illegal migrants in MoD Bicester; and calls on the Government to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights in order to deport illegal migrants. Those on the Government Benches would not go and meet the women of Piddington and hear their concerns, so today the Opposition have brought the women of Piddington to them. They are in the Gallery today. The Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), and her colleagues on the Government Benches have nowhere to hide. The women of Piddington have written to all female Labour MPs and are still awaiting a response. How those Members vote today will be seen by the women of Piddington and by the women in towns, cities and villages across the country, so let me start with a simple question to Labour MPs: today, will they put the interests of women before those of the Labour party? I have been to Piddington twice. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and our shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), have also been there to speak to the women at first hand. We all could see clearly that the safety of women and girls in that small village is at risk. That village of 350 people is shortly to have 1,300 migrants imposed on it—men who have already broken the law by coming here illegally.
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This issue is not just in that area, either, but across the country. It is affecting women and girls in constituencies everywhere across the UK.
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and when we are back in government, we Conservatives will vote to leave the ECHR. We believe that we should deport illegal immigrants the moment that they arrive. The village of Piddington has a population of only 350, and the 1,300 migrant men will be a blight on their small village—men from cultures where women are treated worse than animals; men who the Government have decided need a leaflet asking them not to rape women and girls.
Actually, I went as the Prime Minister’s parliamentary private secretary. We held a Cabinet meeting in Stoke-on-Trent. I was therefore able to see at first hand the developments that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. It is good to remember that, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it. I raised the issue of the safety of women and girls a few weeks ago, during my first oral questions to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). I asked two questions, very directly: did the Government agree that men entering this country illegally from countries such as Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan pose a direct threat to the safety of women and girls, and did the Government agree that men who enter Britain illegally and need a leaflet telling them not to rape women and girls should instead be deported immediately?
I agree with everything that my right hon. Friend has said, and I will echo his comments later in my speech. When we asked legitimate questions about women and girls being under threat, the Minister at the time could not find the answer. Perhaps this Minister can do so today.<span id="375" class="column-number" data-column-number="375"></span> The women of Piddington deserve our thanks in this House because they have made their voices heard, but they are far from alone. The women of Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire are worried about the 1,200 men who are about to descend on their community. The women of Barnham in Suffolk are facing 1,250 illegal migrant men in their midst. The women of Crowborough in Sussex have been working closely with their excellent local Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), to deal with illegal migrant men who are already in their community. I pay tribute to their very hard-working local MP, who has been battling a coalition of Greens, Liberal Democrats and Labour. The Home Office, interestingly, made an application for housing for 540 asylum seekers, who moved in last January, and has now extended that application to 2030. My hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald has been single-handedly battling against the council and the Home Office. She is on the frontline of this issue, and I thank her for raising the voices of women and girls.
My right hon. Friend has made an excellent point, but it is not just a case of their values being different from ours; it is a case of their taking advantage of our nature, our culture and our values.
Luckily we are under a new leadership. I am waiting to hear—and I would love to hear from the hon. Gentleman—why not one member of the Labour party has responded to the women of Piddington who have written to them about this issue. <em>[Interruption.]</em>
The Government have said that middle-class areas need to bear their share, using class as a new weapon to silence concerns. It is a dangerous, lazy approach from a Government who are supposed to <span id="376" class="column-number" data-column-number="376"></span>unite our country. This is not about class, or race, or anything else that the Labour party wants to use to silence those who are speaking up. That technique was used to silence rape gang victims in our cities and towns, and it is appalling that Labour has not learnt from that scandal. This is about women speaking up about fears for their safety and that of their children. The Prime Minister should listen, and Labour Members should listen. They know that these women and their communities will suffer: they know that because we already have the proof. Communities across this land have seen the lives of their women and girls ruined—ruined by the fundamental failure of this Government to protect them from the threat posed by men who come here illegally.
I would ask the hon. Gentleman why the use of houses in multiple occupation for asylum accommodation has increased by 12% since this Government took over, why there has been this movement from hotels to HMOs, and what the long-term solution is.
I do agree. You have made an excellent point, which I will bring up later in my speech.
In respect of this issue of asylum accommodation, let me give a few examples of men who have raped and assaulted women and girls. Muhammad Sheikhi, a Syrian asylum seeker, came here illegally by boat. He was placed in asylum accommodation, and then sexually assaulted two women in Falkirk. He told police that he was just roaming around. The judge sentenced him to four years, saying that he had “treated these women as though their autonomy, dignity, and bodily integrity counted for nothing.” Three asylum seekers from Iran and Egypt were convicted in April of raping a woman in Brighton. They travelled from their asylum accommodation in Horsham. They kicked her, grabbed her throat, raped her and filmed it. Mohammed Abbas, an illegal migrant claiming to be Palestinian, was put up in a taxpayer-funded house in Cardiff. He broke into a nearby property and exposed himself to two girls, aged 16 and 13, in their bedroom.<span id="377" class="column-number" data-column-number="377"></span> An Afghan illegal migrant raped a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton just four months after he arrived here by boat. He abducted her, raped her and filmed her. These are just a few examples.
Indeed, and my hon. Friend makes that point very eloquently. It is very important that we stand up for our local communities to protect them from illegal migrant men. I have mentioned just a few of the horrific crimes committed by illegal migrant men—men who should have been deported before they could roam our streets and forever change the lives of young women and girls, and who will pay no notice to a gently worded leaflet that encourages them to understand our cultural values. These men do not care about our values. They are here to take advantage of our welcoming culture.
I encourage the hon. Gentleman to come to Piddington to see that there is a very small village right up against what is going to be a very large asylum camp, which has no additional police protection and no additional provision. The men will be allowed to roam free through the village. It will create a safeguarding issue for young children, for girls, and there is no reason why this community should have to suffer just like communities in York and across the country. They are suffering because we are not deporting illegal migrants, and that is why we need to leave the ECHR.
My right hon. friend makes an excellent point: we did suggest Rwanda. We Conservatives are committed to leaving the ECHR, so that we can deport foreign nationals who come here illegally within a week. That is why we want to leave the ECHR.