Injunction to Protect the M25

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I could not have put it better myself; my hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. I know from his own history that one of the key things we have to do is engender in the British people the same enthusiasm for science and technology as he has shown in his parliamentary career, because that is the key way in which we will solve this challenge of climate change. This kind of blunt instrument—selfish behaviour—sets that cause back by years.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the Government on finally taking action against these hypocritical highway hoodlums, who have caused misery to many people across London and the greater area. Does the Minister share my concern that the police seemed in some cases to collaborate with them? I am the last person to talk about protest, because I come from a party of protest and many a time have been engaged in protest. I have never had a police officer come to ask me whether I am comfortable or what he could do to help me to stay in the place where I am. Usually, it is a case of, “You are breaking the law, get out of the road.” As it is likely that these protesters will move to somewhere else where there is not an injunction, what discussions is the Minister having with the police to make sure that the boys in blue do not act on the side of the protesters in green?

[Kit Malthouse]

Happily, it is boys and, increasingly, girls in blue that we are seeing on the frontline. The alliteration is flying, is it not, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support in what we are doing. I would caution him in drawing any lessons from specific instances that have been filmed of police officers trying to do their best to handle these protests. The role of the police in this situation, as in all protest situations, is fundamentally to enable protest within the law. Although in any one day the police will do thousands of things that go well and something that then appears on social media may indicate otherwise, we need to be careful about drawing wider lessons of police treatment of people from that. We are in constant contact with the chief constables concerned and not least with the Metropolitan police, who are co-ordinating this action. If we need to expand our ability to deal with it, we will do so.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman, whom I deeply respect, has made a number of points and I will address particularly the point about conflict in a moment. However, may I first respond to the point about where a marriage may have—so-called—irretrievably broken down?

Despite what the Secretary of State said, I think these proposals will do even less than current procedures to help to promote dialogue and potentially therefore reconciliation. Currently, each year, approximately 10,000 divorces are started and then dropped. Many couples do give their marriage another chance. However, these proposals—in effect, promoting unilateral divorce on demand simply by serving a notice on the other person that the marriage has broken down, without having to give any reason at all and without the spouse being able to contest this should they want to—will, I believe, inhibit the dialogue that could promote reconciliation in some cases.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

I note what the hon. Lady says, but I am saying that we should give more support to the opportunity for dialogue and potential reconciliation—for example, through better mediation services than we currently have.

[Sammy Wilson]

Whether we view marriage through the prism of faith or simply as an arrangement in which people come together because they wish to be together, does the hon. Lady agree that, with no-fault divorce, the process by which a couple come to the conclusion that the marriage has irrevocably broken down, has been made so much easier that the full extent of the considerations that ought to be taken before the marriage is broken up will not have been taken? That is why the Bill is flawed.

[Fiona Bruce]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is that thoughtfulness that I am seeking to preserve. There is something also about the thoughtfulness that goes into preparing for the marriage ceremony, including—to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) about not all marriages being religious—secular ones. There is a thoughtfulness about that ceremony and the public commitment it entails, with the support of friends and relatives who witness it, all of which helps to strengthen the relationship and often enables people to weather the inevitable storms. I am concerned that the thoughtfulness the Bill will extract through the ending of a marriage will denude the necessity, importance or encouragement of the thoughtfulness at the start of and during the relationship.



It is deeply worrying, because at the end of the day, one of the most precious things in life that many if not most of us want is the fulfilment of a loving, enduring relationship. Is the fact that people construct a reason for applying for divorce, as the Minister mentioned, a good enough argument for abandoning altogether the requirement and the thought that has to be put into it?

I am deeply concerned that marriage rates are likely to decline further. Interestingly, that is the conclusion of research drawn on by the authors of “Finding Fault”—the paper the Government rely on heavily in promoting the Bill. The authors of “Finding Fault” choose to ignore that conclusion and instead rely on Professor Justin Wolfers’s study, which cites a 2004 piece of research on other jurisdictions where no-fault divorce has been introduced. They do not quote it, but I shall. The research showed that

“the marriage rate declined by about 3 to 4 percent following the adoption of unilateral divorce laws.”

The likelihood of remarriage is also affected by such laws; according to the research,

“unilateral divorce led remarriage rates of divorcees to decline by around one-third to one-half.”

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

Hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), have referred to the question of no deal. Without doubt, there is no majority in the House of Commons for no deal. Of course we hope that there will be a deal, because we want the best outcome for our country, but in the event that it all went wrong and Ministers came back to say, “I’m sorry, but no deal is on the horizon,” and all Parliament could do was to say, “We are going to reject this,” and be left with no other recourse, that would not constitute a meaningful vote, would it, not least because the clock would be running down?

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is getting to the nub of the issue. If a meaningful vote, by his definition, means that Parliament should be able to say to the Government, “We don’t like the deal that you have got, and we’re not accepting no deal, so go back to the EU and negotiate another deal,” what chance does he think there is that those who do not want us to leave in the first place will ever offer a deal that this House could buy into?

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates precisely the point that I was going to make—[Interruption.] I was. As we have already heard, all the Ministers and Prime Ministers who negotiate in this process will say at some point, either in the main forum or in other discussions, “I’ll never get this through my Parliament.” That is the accountability we are talking about. It is called democracy, and it is really important that Ministers, Prime Ministers and negotiators have that thought in their minds when they are negotiating on behalf of the country and the House. In such circumstances, I think the House would first want to ask why we were facing no deal, and it might well wish to give the Government fresh negotiating instructions. The House might want to tell the Government to go back in and say, “On reflection, we would like to suggest that we do the following.” There must be sufficient time for that to take place if we are going to get a reasonable deal.

Another point I want to make—I am conscious, Sir David, of what you said about the time—is that Ministers need to understand why they are having such difficulty with this fundamental debate on the Bill. It has to do with the history of the Government’s handling of the whole process. At every single stage, this House has had to demand our role and our voice. I remember the answer when people first asked what the Government’s negotiating objectives were: “Brexit means Brexit.” When a follow-up question was asked, we were told—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

I rise to address amendment 7, in particular, which I hope the Committee will reject if it is put to a vote. However, may I first quickly put on record an exchange I had with the Father of the House—I am sorry he is not in the Chamber. In his usual courteous manner, he suggested that I had misquoted him when I said he had once said:

“I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe.”

He suggested I had got the quote from social media, but, in reality, it is given in volume 23 of the International Currency Review from 1996. I thought it wise to put that right, if only for the record.

I note the amendment in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and I see that he is also not in the Chamber. He once suggested that, having been the only Conservative to vote against going into Libya, I was leading the charmed life of a rebel. I think he now knows that when we vote against our Government, we are not leading a charmed life—it is a pretty awkward situation sometimes, and I think he is now finding that out for himself.

Amendment 7 has several flaws. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) set out a number of them. He also spoke about the importance of having clarity of intention when addressing this issue, but I want to raise an additional point that has not been covered. Amendment 7 is fundamentally flawed because it leaves open at least the possibility—given that the EU does not, in reality, want any member to leave—that as there would be no incentive for the EU to negotiate a good deal that this Parliament could accept, we could find ourselves in a permanent state of limbo, deadlocked in unproductive negotiations for months and months with no incentive for the other side to pursue a constructive deal. Members should reflect hard on that practical flaw as they go through the Lobby, assuming that the amendment is put to the vote.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the incentive would be to make sure that the deal was as bad as possible so that we would be left in a limbo whereby we cannot leave, yet cannot move on?

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are trying to negotiate a good deal, but it takes two to tango. The amendment leaves open the door for the other side not to try to negotiate a good deal, knowing that it could drag out the negotiations and therefore prevent, at least until this Parliament were to accept the deal, our leaving the EU. If that was the case—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

DUP Members’ starting point on the Bill is, “Does it help us deliver the will of the people of the United Kingdom to leave the EU?” We believe that it does. We believe that it is, in fact, an essential building block.

I have listened to the arguments that have been made today. Some Opposition Members—the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy)—have made it quite clear that their reason for opposing the Bill is that they do not want to leave the EU. If they had stopped there, I could have understood their argument, but it is rather ironic that they go on to say how undemocratic the Bill is when they are quite happy to stay in the EU with directives and other laws going through without any reference to this House. In fact, 20,000 have gone through, yet those Members want to continue that.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to interrupt his rhetoric. There is one critical point that I would like him to address, and that is that the Bill is not going anywhere without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We have no Assembly in Northern Ireland, so how will the Government get legislative consent?

[Sammy Wilson]

The fact that we do not have an Assembly in Northern Ireland might make it easier for the Government, but we will leave that aside.

The other argument that has been made is that the Bill is flawed and people want changes, yet the only way of getting them is to allow it to go to the next stage where the Minister has already made it clear he will consider amendments, provided that they are not designed as wrecking amendments.

May I make something clear from our point of view? We do not want to give the Government carte blanche to do whatever they wish. First, that is why we wanted to leave the EU. Secondly, we have had some experience of that in Northern Ireland. During the period of direct rule, decisions about the laws in Northern Ireland were made by Orders in Council in this place, which could not be amended. Of course, that sometimes led to bad law.

Arguments have been made against the Bill, claiming that it is a power grab. It is quite clear from what Ministers have said, from what the legislation says and from the restrictions placed on Ministers that that is not the case. First, it enables EU law to be brought into the sphere of this Parliament where eventually, if it is not appropriate, it can be amended through due process. Secondly, Ministers have made it quite clear that the powers in this legislation will be limited. Thirdly, they have made it clear that they will be only for technical amendments and that there cannot be changes, for example, that create criminal offences, change human rights, introduce new tax powers and so on. There are limits on what Ministers can do.

[Ruth George]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the House of Commons Library that in spite of what he has said it is difficult to ascertain how the content of the Bill can be regarded as any limit on the scope of the powers given to the Government under clause 17?

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course there are limits, and the ultimate limit is that we have heard speeches from Government Members today, and a considerable number of people, not just on the Opposition Benches, have made it quite clear that they perceive dangers in this Bill and would not give the Government a free hand. If Ministers tried to overstep the promises made on the Floor of the House and the limits on the face of the Bill, we can be sure of one thing: it will probably not be Opposition Members who stop Ministers doing that but Government Members. That is the ultimate brake on Ministers who try to abuse the powers that are being given to them.

[Mr Francois]

Reference was made earlier to the Lisbon treaty and, like me, as he was in the House at the time, the hon. Gentleman will remember debating it night after night. There is a fundamental difference between that and the Bill, in that the Bill can be amended in Committee or on Report, whereas we could not change a single dot or comma of the Lisbon treaty.

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course. That is the flaw in the argument of Opposition Members who have said that this Bill is flawed and therefore ought to be rejected tonight. If the Bill is flawed, the place to change it is here when it comes back for debate and amendment in Committee. That is the real test of whether people want an effective Bill, or no Bill because they do not want us to leave the EU in the first place.

Let us consider the impact of not having the powers in this Bill. First, we would now be gummed up for the next number of years in trying to get the legislation through. Secondly, there would be no certainty for businesses. I have heard people say here so many times, “We need certainty.” Well, the one way of having certainty is to transfer EU law into UK law so that there is a framework. Lastly, the Bill will enable Ministers, when they go out to negotiate our free trade deal with the rest of the EU, to ensure that we start from a basis of compliance and equivalence.

Draft Pensions Act 2014 (Consequential and Supplementary Amendments) Order 2016 Draft State Pension and Occupational Pension Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 General Committees

[Mr Vara]

I take on board what the shadow Minister says. Following the Pensions Act 2011—I know we are not dealing specifically with that issue—millions of people did get a letter, and the letters were sent out according to the details that were held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

First, will the Minister accept that using social media for the target group that we are talking about is probably one of the most inappropriate ways, since the people coming up to retirement age who require this information are the least likely to use it?

Secondly, rather than put the onus on the people who might need information about their pension, would he accept that perhaps the information should be given to them? Surely DWP knows where there are gaps and where people are likely to be disadvantaged by the changes. Should they not be notified by the Department, rather than the Department requesting them to make contact?

[Mr Vara]

There is no one specific form of communication that my Department will be looking at. We recognise the various forms of communication that exist in the modern world and we will seek to use some of those as we feel they will best target the relevant people. I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is important to recognise that there is no single form of communication that we use. We recognise that in the modern world there are various forms and communicate accordingly.