Risk-based Exclusion

Debate between Philip Davies and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Philip Davies]

I will not, because others want to speak and I do not want to take their time.

I will raise two other points. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) is absolutely right about the fact that when this motion was originally tabled, it was about arrest, and the Government have just changed the wording to “charged” but kept the rest of it in place, which is completely unsatisfactory. Personally, for the reason that I have given, I would get rid of the panel altogether, because I suspect that the outcome would be the same on every single thing, whether arrest or charge, to be perfectly honest. I am not entirely sure what the point of the panel is. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that when the matter relates to a charge, the panel is completely unnecessary, and we should get rid of it.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way very briefly?

[Sir Philip Davies]

Go on then—as it is my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) is more constitutional—although still far from perfect—because whether to exclude under certain circumstances is a decision for the House, rather than a decision for the House to delegate. His amendment to this rather bad motion is at least an improvement.

[Sir Philip Davies]

There is no better endorsement than that, as far as I am concerned, so that will do for me and, I am sure, for my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley.

The Order Paper indicates that amendment (c) is expected to be pressed to a Division, and I hope that it is. It was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who cannot be here because of all the parliamentary business that he is engaged in today, but I have signed it, Madam Deputy Speaker, and would be prepared to move it. It comes back to the point—one that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands made—about this motion being sort of cobbled together with a different original purpose.

Amendment (c) is about removing proxy voting from somebody who is subject to a charge. I do not think that there is any justification at all for somebody who has been charged with a serious sexual or violent offence to be given a proxy vote, when people with far better reasons for being absent from the House are not given that privilege. It would be an outrage, in my opinion, if they were treated more favourably than other Members who had just as good a reason for not being here. I very much hope that the Leader of the House will accept the amendment, which I think reflects the mood of the House. Proxy voting is a step too far, and it is a consequence of not amending the motion when the decision was made to change the wording from arrest to charge.

I would like to say a lot more—I said last week that this debate was not long enough, given the seriousness of the issue, and I maintain that view—but I want to allow others to speak. I completely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset when he says that this is an unsatisfactory process, and if he were to vote against the whole motion, I would have a lot of sympathy with him, but I hope that colleagues accept that “charged” strikes the right balance by being fair to everybody—including our constituents, who are the most important people for this House to think about—and in terms of safeguarding the people who work here. I also hope that Members will accept amendment (c), tabled by hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and me, to scrap proxy voting in that situation. That would at least make the motion better than it would otherwise be.

Business of the House

Debate between Philip Davies and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the UK Internal Market Bill involves a great deal of powers—I think 70—that were with Europe now coming back to the United Kingdom and going to the devolved authorities. If we were to have a debate on standards in Scottish education, it would be about why the SNP has been running them into the ground in its period of running the Scottish Government, because the record of the SNP is absolutely appalling, as the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends know only too well. Scotland, as he rightly says, used to have one of the best records, and it is the SNP that has undermined that while it has been in government.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Back on Boxing day 2015, my constituency was terribly affected by flooding. Since that time, the same homes and streets have repeatedly suffered from flooding, which once again reared its ugly head earlier this week. It is bad enough that the same people are repeatedly flooded, but the trauma for those people is worse. Every time it rains heavily, fearing the worst is a torture that is hard to imagine. Will my right hon. Friend therefore ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to come to the House to make a statement to let my constituents know when he will implement the flood prevention measures for my constituency proposed by the Environment Agency?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The difficulties families face when they are flooded and the worry that they must have when the rain beats down again is something with which every Member of this House would have sympathy. A great deal of taxpayers’ money is being spent, and Yorkshire is receiving more than any other region—£496 million has been spent since 2015, protecting 66,000 properties. Across England as a whole, £2.6 billion is being spent on flood and coastal defences between 2015 and 2021. In March, there was a commitment of £5.2 billion to build 2,000 new flood and coastal defence schemes across England by 2027. I appreciate that that does not necessarily give my hon. Friend’s constituents the comfort that they desire, but he will have the opportunity to raise the matter with the Secretary of State on 26 November. I will also take it up on his behalf and try to get him a detailed answer on when the programme will actually start.

Business of the House

Debate between Philip Davies and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very valid point: anything that we send out on paper is heavily regulated, and things that are done online are almost unregulated—not entirely, but broadly. There is a discrepancy between those two, and I know that the Government are considering this matter. A debate via the Backbench Business Committee would be a good starting place to get the ball rolling on this discussion.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

One of the many awful aspects of the coronavirus crisis has been the doubling of assaults on shop workers. These people are heroes who went into work every day while we were all locked down at home, and ensured that we had food and provisions; yet, the thanks that many get is to be abused and assaulted by customers. As somebody who worked for Asda for 12 years before entering the House, I feel very strongly that the despicable people who assault shop workers should face much tougher sentences from the courts. Can we have a debate to see whether the majority of the House agrees with that sentiment and so that we can show our deep gratitude for all shop workers?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend, as he so often does, puts his finger on the right issue. Shop workers have been fantastic, phenomenal and brave, because they all stayed at work at a point when we knew much less about the disease than we do now and thought that it might have been much more risky even than it has turned out to be; they were a real frontline emergency service. Without them, the crisis would have been infinitely worse, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the tribute he has paid to them. I can reassure him that there are already offences that cover assaults against any worker, including those in the retail sector, such as common assault, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm. In July, the Government published the findings of a call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop workers, and we will continue to work with the British Retail Consortium and other partners to stop these crimes. I pay tribute to the British Retail Consortium for the work that it has been doing to highlight this important issue, and encourage my hon. Friend and the BRC to continue raising it.

Business of the House

Debate between Philip Davies and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There are Home Office questions on Monday. I think that would be the right time to raise that important question.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Can the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State to come to the House to make a statement about flood defences? There has been a lot of focus, rightly, on places such as Fishlake, which suffered terribly from floods just before the general election, but my constituents are still waiting for improved flood defences from the Boxing Day floods in 2015. Perhaps the Secretary of State could come to the House to tell us when my constituents will get the flood defences they both deserve and need.