Conservative and Unionist Party: a sourced timeline of public activity, with filters by source type and a sidebar of tracked totals

Conservative and Unionist Party

Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,581 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

  1. ParliamentDr Kieran Mullan

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    I thank the right hon. Lady for raising that point. It was on that basis that I sought sincerely to engage properly with the Bill, and the Ministers and officials who met me repeatedly would be able to attest to that. That cannot be sustained when a Government bring forward legislation with 24 hours’ notice of important matters of national security. The Government say that they have now resolved the central tension that led to the Bill being pulled. After months of negotiations, the central claim made by their Ministers that it needed particular safeguards for the agencies working in national security has now disappeared—apparently no longer needed. A Government who have wilfully misled us repeatedly on this Bill now want us to set aside—<em>[Interruption.]</em>

    Hansard source

  2. ParliamentDr Kieran Mullan

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    A Government who have, inadvertently, repeatedly misled us on this Bill now want us to take them on trust. I heard personally and directly from Ministers and officials repeatedly that independent safeguards were needed, and now, apparently, they are not. Supposedly, over the weekend, those concerns have evaporated, and that is totally unacceptable. We are suddenly setting aside in a matter of days what the security services have told us for 18 months, in consistent, sober, professional warnings, which coincides perfectly with the Prime Minister coming here to give his final speech on this matter. Are we really going to suggest that that genuine professional opinion has changed overnight? I do not think that it has.

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  3. ParliamentDr Kieran Mullan

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    If the Government were so concerned about this Bill passing, they should have organised it. <span id="891" class="column-number" data-column-number="891"></span>We have just listened to a raft of amendments to the Bill being nodded through in this House, with absolutely no scrutiny. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em>

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  4. ParliamentDr Kieran Mullan

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    As I have said, this could have been a Bill that we supported without reservation, but I am afraid that we maintain reservations about it, entirely as a result of its mismanagement by the Prime Minister. I want to conclude by saying that none of this takes anything at all away from the families. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> Labour Members do not want to hear this. It does not take anything away from the Members who have done so much to bring this legislation forward, but what is clear is that the Bill is the legacy of the campaigners and MPs—nobody else is responsible for our being here. I welcome their campaigning over many years and thank them for it.

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  5. ParliamentDr Caroline Johnson

    Health Inequalities: Staffordshire

    One measure that can be helpful in tackling inequalities across the country is independent feedback. Currently, Healthwatch collects independent feedback right across the country. Does the Minister agree with this Government’s plans to abolish Healthwatch, or does she share the concerns of the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) that it will reduce the independent voice?

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  6. ParliamentDr Caroline Johnson

    Health Inequalities: Staffordshire

    I am not sure that it is just Opposition Members who are saying this. In Staffordshire and right across the country, more doctors can help to reduce inequalities, and many Labour Members, from the Cabinet to Back Benchers, promised that this Government would double the number of medical school places. The former Secretary of State and the current Minister for Care repeated that promise at the Dispatch Box. We were then told in a ministerial correction that the Government had never committed to doubling the number of medical school places. How can this be accurate? Is it Government policy to double the number of medical school places, or is this a promise that they intend to break?

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  7. ParliamentDr Andrew Murrison

    Business of the House

    The middle east has been in a state of rolling crisis for months and months, yet the Leader of the House comes to this place and says that things have got so bad that we need to do this extraordinary thing—which is unprecedented in my 25 years in the House—in order to discuss it. This is from a Government who have a marginal impact on the conduct of affairs in the middle east. Will the Leader of the House commit to a very low bar for a recall of this House over the summer recess to discuss the middle east? What he is saying is that there is such a low bar, and that if anything happens in the middle east beyond background, we need to come back to this place to debate the matter.

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  8. ParliamentDr Andrew Murrison

    UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement

    Obviously I welcome this deal, but the Minister recently told CNBC’s Ritika Gupta that he believed that this country’s “historic destiny” was to rejoin the European Union. Last December, the Deputy Prime Minister said that we should rejoin the customs union. Do either of those things represent Government policy?

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  9. ParliamentDavid Reed

    Topical Questions

    Air ambulance charities like Devon Air Ambulance are vital to easing pressure on ambulance trusts and A&amp;E, yet they receive no direct Government funding and rely almost entirely on public donations. Their operational costs are rising—fuel duty alone adds over £200,000 a year to what they will now need to find. Does the Minister agree that services delivering NHS-level care should not depend on public generosity to survive, and will he commit to assessing how to support their continued sustainability?

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  10. ParliamentDame Karen Bradley

    Business of the House

    The Leader of the House knows that I have enormous respect for him, and I am sure that this is quite a difficult statement for him to make, particularly as the right hon. Member for Makerfield will face unfavourable comparisons with Boris Johnson, who did come to this House and make a statement before the summer recess. However, can I change the subject? We are expecting a statement on local government reorganisation on Thursday. Now that tomorrow is not an Opposition day, could the Leader of the House find a way for that statement to be made tomorrow, rather than on Thursday?

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  11. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    Order. The shadow Minister must be heard.

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  12. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    Order. I think that the shadow Minister needs to be very careful in his use of language.

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  13. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Public Office (Accountability) Bill

    Order. I will hear the shadow Minister. I appreciate that temperatures are running very high, but it is important that voices are heard in this House.

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  14. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

    I can inform the House that nothing in the Lords amendments engages Commons financial privilege.

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  15. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

    With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 2 to 18.

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  16. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

    I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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  17. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Future of Thames Water

    Order. The hon. Gentleman should be aware that interventions should be short, spontaneous and perhaps not pre-typed and three pages long.

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  18. ParliamentCaroline Nokes

    Future of Thames Water

    Order. The hon. Gentleman means to say, “the former Secretary of State for DEFRA, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed).”

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  19. ParliamentAphra Brandreth

    Support for Pig Farmers

    The hon. Member is making a really important point about the need for consumers to be clear about where their food is produced and reared. I draw his attention to my private Member’s Bill on that very topic. I hope that he and others across the House will support it.

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  20. ParliamentAphra Brandreth

    Support for Pig Farmers

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) on securing this debate. The financial pressures facing pig farmers—indeed, farmers in every sector of our rural economy—are serious. Independent producers have seen prices collapse and contracts withdrawn, and it is important that we take time to recognise those challenges. I will focus on something that is fundamental to the future of the pig industry and indeed to the health of our nation: biosecurity. Last month I asked DEFRA whether it had met the National Pig Association since the last recorded meeting, more than nine months ago, the response confirmed that Ministers have not met the NPA directly for a bilateral meeting. Perhaps if they had, they would be more aware of the NPA’s stark warning that the UK remains poorly protected when it comes to biosecurity. An outbreak of disease here would devastate British agriculture and our supply chains, impacting the taxpayer to the tune of billions of pounds. We must learn from the past. The 2001 foot and mouth outbreak cost the public and private sectors the equivalent of almost £15 billion in today’s money. An outbreak of African swine fever would immediately close export markets worth around £500 million each year. Yet despite those risks, the NPA warns that large volumes of illegally imported meat continue to enter the UK from countries where those diseases are present. I hope that the Minister recognises the severity and urgency of this matter. I urge him to set out what steps the Department is taking to ensure that staff at borders and checkpoints are appropriately resourced and trained to manage the risk of imports, and how DEFRA Ministers are working with colleagues from across Government, including the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, to ensure a cohesive and joined-up approach.<span id="348WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="348WH"></span> As the Government negotiate a new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the European Union, we need reassurances from the Minister that the Government will not cave in any way on our world-leading biosecurity standards in an attempt to placate and pacify the EU. Reduced border checks under any future SPS agreement could undermine our market and increase the risk of animal diseases entering the UK. Does the Minister recognise that risk? Would he consider providing multi-year funding for the Dover Port Health Authority and other agencies that protect our borders, to strengthen enforcement and deter criminal activity? British pig farmers have shown real leadership: they have reduced antibiotic use by almost 70%, invested in higher welfare standards and continually improved animal health. They are doing their part. DEFRA must now step up, match their commitment to our food security and wellbeing, and act accordingly.

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  21. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement

    I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. We Conservatives warmly welcome this excellent agreement and congratulate the Ministers and officials who delivered it. I was pleased, when I was the City Minister, to have been part of the team behind the forerunner, the Berne—<em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> Would the Minister listen for a moment? The Berne financial services agreement with Switzerland was signed by the then Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt). That was one of our first ever post-Brexit agreements based on mutual recognition of each country’s regimes, and Conservative Ministers, including my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) and my hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich and Evesham (Nigel Huddleston), were involved in the commencement of the planning for the negotiation that we are discussing today. The benefits of this deal are what taking back control looks like in practice: British lawyers advising in Zurich without requalifying, British firms winning contracts that an EU customs union would have blocked, and British travellers enjoying e-gate access and lower roaming tariffs.<span id="784" class="column-number" data-column-number="784"></span> As the Minister said, this joins a growing number of such deals, including our accession to the CPTPP and agreements with Australia, New Zealand, the Gulf, India and the United States. This is Britain once again charting its way in the world, engaging directly with the leading or fastest-growing economies on the planet. Britain could strike this deal only because of our independent trade policy. Without that, the Government could never have launched the consultation this morning on deepening our trade relationships with Indonesia, the Philippines, the UAE and Uruguay—all countries with whom the UK should seek closer ties. The next Conservative Government will go further and faster on trade. We support deeper trade agreements with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, following the recent agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council, and we will seek a trade agreement with Mercosur. We will boost rather than cut the number of Department for Business and Trade boots on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America. We will reintroduce a revised investment visa for those seeking to create wealth and jobs here in the UK. As part of a “trade first” culture change in the Foreign Office, the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and I have agreed to make ambassador appointments among leaders in business, the City and former Lord Mayors of London. I gently point out one glaring omission in the Minister’s otherwise very positive statement about this excellent enhanced Swiss free trade agreement. In nearly 1,400 words, he did not mention the words “Brexit benefit” once. That is a curious insight, since this deal exists only since and because we left the European Union. A nation inside the customs union cannot cut its tariffs on sparkling wine, win tariff-free access for British lamb, gain mutual recognition of professional qualifications, or secure better access to Swiss public procurement. Finally, I look forward to hearing an unabashed welcome for the benefits that will flow to his Maidenhead constituents from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds). Had his party’s policy been in force, this agreement could not have been struck at all. The Liberal Democrats’ settled ambition is to march Britain straight back into a customs union, turning it back into a rule-taking vassal state, with none of the freedoms that, for example, the Canadian Parliament enjoys. The hon. Gentleman’s cheerleaders on the Liberal Democrat Benches would have legislated away every benefit that the Minister has described to this House. We warmly welcome this deal—no ifs, no buts. It is a win for Britain, a win for growth and a win for friendship between our two great nations. I have been very generous in praising the Government today, and on what I hope is not, but may be, the Minister’s final outing, I hope he will reciprocate by being honest with the country about why the deal was possible. I have just one question, and the interests of time a yes or no answer will suffice: does the Minister agree that, as a point of fact, it was only Brexit that made this agreement achievable?

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  22. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement

    Your legacy!

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  23. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

  24. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

    I am grateful to their lordships for their work on the Bill. We support the amendments before the House. Let me be plain from the outset: our objection has never been to steelmaking, or to the men and women who make steel; it is to a Government who have crashed around and used blunt instruments without ever having a detailed plan. Hope is not a strategy, and a blank cheque is not a plan. Nationalisation is a bad idea, and nothing that has yet been said at that Dispatch Box has told the House where the spending stops. The Government are taking us down a fast and expensive road with no idea where the exit lies. Even members of the Government concede in private that they rushed into something that they now repent at leisure. Let us look at what we have learnt over the passage of the Bill. The Government and their Lib Dem little helpers in the Lords voted against a Conservative amendment in the name of the noble Lord Hunt to limit support to £2.5 billion over three years. That is almost £2.3 million every single day. The cap was not plucked from thin air—that £2.5 billion was the Government’s own figure. In their refusal to accept a cap, the Government concede that the figure is likely to be more. That could have been 35,000 new police officers, eight brand-new hospitals or more than double what the Chancellor raised over the course of this Parliament by destroying the livelihoods of British farmers.

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  25. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

    Business of the House

    The Leader of the House will know that I hold him in great respect, but over the two years for which I have been in this place, I have seen a pattern of behaviour in the final week before the recess—business is announced at the very last second, particularly when it concerns local government reorganisation—and we are seeing an increase in that behaviour in relation to this important issue. The Leader of the House is being disingenuous. He is suggesting that this is a binary issue: that either we ask the new Prime Minister, as of Monday, to come to the House one extra day late, or we discuss Iran. I think that that is an insult to my constituents, and I ask once again that the Leader of the House reconsider his position.

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  26. ParliamentWendy Morton

    Immigration and Asylum Bill

    On trust, one of the issues that my constituents have is with the sudden rise in planning applications for houses in multiple occupation. Does the Minister think that putting asylum seekers into HMOs in our local communities is really the answer to the immigration problem?

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  27. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Asylum Hotels

    I thank the Home Secretary for what she said about Ann, whom I first met more than 50 years ago. She was as formidable as an undergraduate as she became in later life as a mature politician. I believe that nobody on the Labour Benches other than the present Home Secretary could do more to tackle the asylum problem than she is doing. Having said that, this strategy of moving people out of hotels and into camps, or dispersing them, can only ever work if other people are not coming in constantly to replace them, so what plans does she have for truly deterring people, so that they know that if they embark on a small boat, they will physically not be allowed to melt into British society in the future?

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  28. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Local Government Reorganisation

    I would like to think that if this Minister were Secretary of State, we would not be in a situation where 23,000 people were signing an online petition protesting against the carve-up of the New Forest in this local government reorganisation. Can she tell me: is there any truth in the report in <em>The Times</em> on 18 June that the Secretary of State had overruled professional advice from civil servants in three separate Departments to impose a gerrymandered solution on Essex county council?

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  29. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Death of Ann Widdecombe

    May I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House that the fact that I have to chair a meeting in a few minutes’ time prevents me from staying, as I would wish to do, to the end of the statement? When I went up as an undergraduate to Oxford in late 1970 and joined the university Conservative association, there were two outstanding figures a year ahead of me in that august body: one was Ann Widdecombe and the other was Nicolas Turner. A few years later, in February 1980, Ann Widdecombe and I shared a taxi to the funeral of Nicolas Turner, who had heroically sacrificed his life in an attempt to rescue his young daughter Alice—it was a double funeral—who had been swept into the sea by a freak wave. Ann was always there when her friends needed support and, on a lighter note, she was always there ready to bring her friends back down to earth. When Ann was elected in 1987 for the first time, and I happened to be moving flats, I gifted her a relatively new washing machine that was now surplus to my requirements. For several years after she became an MP, she used to invite me once a year, almost like clockwork, to have lunch with her in this place. I naturally assumed that it was that she wished to imbibe the wisdom of my political advice. It was only by accident when I suggested that to her and how flattered I was that she revealed the truth, saying, “Oh no, Julian—this is rent for the washing machine!” Mr Speaker will certainly remember that in 2008 to 2009, this House spent a lot of time taking steps to ensure that MPs’ home addresses did not, in future, have to be revealed either in answer to freedom of information requests or on ballot papers and notices of nomination. It therefore comes as a bit of a shock to me to read in one of the reports today that Ann had—it may turn out to be complete coincidence—featured in her home on a programme on television extensively only six days before she died. The report said that the name of the home had been obscured, but software is available so that if someone puts up a picture of a place, particularly if they know the general area, it will identify the address. Let me please appeal to Members and ex-Members from whatever political party: do not throw away the gains we made, and whatever else you do, keep your home addresses as private as you possibly can.

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  30. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Immigration and Asylum Bill

    I congratulate the Home Secretary on not resiling at all from the tough stance that she is trying to take. Has she received any indication that after 20 July, a Labour Home Secretary—hopefully she herself—will be able to continue to develop this important work?

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  31. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Immigration and Asylum Bill

    Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is that practitioners of the legal system seem to believe that there are such things as absolute human rights, whereas most human rights are relative, and can be trumped by other people’s human rights, and in fact, can be abrogated? When you infringe other people’s human rights, you surely cannot expect your own to have priority over theirs, in a sensible system.

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  32. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Immigration and Asylum Bill

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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  33. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    Immigration and Asylum Bill

    To put the hon. Gentleman right, it is customary when a Member names another Member, particularly in a critical way, to give way to them freely, not to have to be forced into it. The fact of the matter is that I would love the hon. Gentleman to list all these absolute human rights. Even in a democracy, there is not an absolute right for people not to put themselves in danger when they get conscripted in a wartime situation. Does he or does he not accept the basic moral fact that, if someone infringes the human rights of other people, they cannot expect their own rights to be fully respected, because they abrogate those rights? If there has to be a clash between an innocent person’s rights being infringed and the perpetrator’s rights being infringed, I—and, I would like to think, most sensible people—would say it is the perpetrator who should lose out.

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  34. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

  35. ParliamentSir John Whittingdale

    Police Officer Numbers

    <Question HRSContentId="{9DE00E58-4580-47CC-B88B-8458649DAA2F}">13. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{E32257AC-FF41-4DEA-8ECD-D9DBF6514269}">What estimate her Department has made of the number of police officers in September (a) 2024 and (b) 2025.</QuestionText> </Question>

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  36. ParliamentSir John Whittingdale

    Police Officer Numbers

    The Minister has confirmed that under this Government the number of police officers has fallen. It is now proposed that in Essex they will become part of a regional force that will be more remote and less accountable to the people that they serve. How does that increase public confidence in policing?

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  37. ParliamentSir James Cleverly

    Local Government Reorganisation

    <em>(Urgent Question):</em> To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on local government reorganisation.

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  38. ParliamentSir James Cleverly

    Local Government Reorganisation

    We have all watched this film before. The Secretary of State, who once again scurries away to avoid scrutiny, tried to cancel local elections. He was caught putting his thumb on the scales and forced into an embarrassing climbdown that cost time and money, and undermined confidence in politics and local government. He is setting about the biggest reorganisation of local government in more than half a century, and doing so with no mandate for a change of this scale. Ministers now appear to be desperate to avoid scrutiny, by announcing these decisions on the final sitting day before the House rises for the summer recess—a pattern we have seen before. The Minister insists that elections for the new shadow authorities will take place next year. We also heard that elections for county mayors would take place in May this year, but—spoiler alert—they did not happen. In many areas there are still no agreed authority boundaries, no ward boundaries and no legislative timetable. How are councils, candidates and electors supposed to prepare for elections without those key details? Why are Labour councillors allowed to redraw the boundaries of the very authorities that they hope to represent, before any independent review by the Local Government Boundary Commission? If the process is not about narrow party political advantage, why were Labour MPs and councillors briefed before this House? If the elections are to happen next year, the Government must bring forward the <span id="612" class="column-number" data-column-number="612"></span>necessary legislation before the House rises. I ask the Government to break with tradition, to be open and transparent, and to avoid diktat from the centre—or is it really the legacy of the Secretary of State to leave things in such a shambles?

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  39. ParliamentSir James Cleverly

    Local Government Reorganisation

    I said “the Secretary of State”.

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  40. ParliamentSir Iain Duncan Smith

    Death of Ann Widdecombe

    Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio. Sadly, later that day, just after lunch, I discovered that it was not just sad but a tragedy—a tragedy that a phenomenal woman, and a former Member of this House, should have been murdered in her own home for reasons we know not what. The news allowed me to think back to this woman who was a force of nature. She was impossible to argue with, because she never accepted that she was losing the argument, until finally she was able to turn it 180 degrees and make you feel guilty that you had even dared to argue with her. A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one <span id="636" class="column-number" data-column-number="636"></span>or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me. It is rather ironic that she went over to Reform. I thought to myself, “Now there’s somebody who takes collective responsibility more seriously than she even had to.” It was rather remarkable. Ann was a remarkable woman in many, many ways. I got to know her during shadow Cabinet, when we would debate and argue. She argued as robustly in shadow Cabinet as she did across the Dispatch Box. Whether you were Labour or Conservative, if you disagreed with her, you were the enemy—you got used to it. It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us. Another thing she embodied, and completely demonstrated, was our unique responsibility to our constituents and the nature of the personal contact we make with them, which I do not think is replicated almost anywhere else. We go into their homes. I do not ask for security when I go into someone’s home. We go to see them if they are too ill to come and see us. We all do that, and we do not want to lose it. We do not want the epitaph of her terrible murder to be that we withdrew from the nature of who we are and what makes this place so great. We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me. We must get on top of that, because it is the root of violence and death. It is not only Ann who was murdered. It is not only Jo Cox and my good friend David Amess who were murdered. As the rack of shields in the Chamber shows, terrorists have murdered many in our party. If we want to stop that, we have to be bold and we have to be clear. We will not accept being shut down, stopped from performing our duties or silenced in any way, because that is what Ann would have approved of.

    Hansard source