Early Parliamentary General Election

Roger Godsiff Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

I, too, will be voting against the motion today, because it is totally unnecessary. I say that as somebody who voted leave on 23 June last year and who has had a grudging respect for how the Prime Minister has conducted herself since she took over. However, her justification for holding a general election is quite frankly disingenuous. To suggest that she needs a mandate to negotiate Brexit is ridiculous. She was given that mandate on 24 June by a majority of the British people, and it is now up to her to carry it out. If she wants to have another election or referendum at the end of the process, so be it, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) said, to justify it now is purely opportunistic.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister says that she needs a larger majority because the business of the House is likely to be disrupted by Opposition parties or by the House of Lords. She ought to look back to what happened when the Wilson Government were in power between 1964 and 1966. He had a majority of four. The Callaghan Government governed for five years in the 1970s without any majority. If she fears what could happen in the House of Lords, she should do exactly what Tories have done in the past and flood the place with her own people to ensure that she gets her way. There is no justification for her argument that she needs a larger majority in order to get business through the House.

To take the arrogant view that the electorate should concentrate purely and simply on one narrow issue is to treat the electorate with contempt. I can speak only for my constituents, but when they consider the issues, they will be asking questions. Why is every school in my constituency losing out under the new funding formula? Why is the city council having to make horrendous cuts? The Government have cut the support grant. Why are waiting times at local hospitals increasing? There are just not enough staff.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

In my hon. Friend’s questions about why things are happening in his constituency, will he ask Ministers why my children’s school, which is in his constituency, now has classes of 32 children? I do not remember that happening under a Labour Government. Does he agree?

[Mr Godsiff]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under the Labour Government, we had the Building Schools for the Future programme and Sure Start centres. Under this Government, that programme was stopped and Sure Start centres are being closed left, right and centre.

My constituents will ask other questions. Why is it that more and more hard-working families are being forced into the humiliation of having to use food banks? They just do not have enough money at the end of the week to feed and clothe their families. Why are energy consumers paying ever-increasing prices? Utility firms are ripping them off in the sacred name of competition. Why are young people, married and unmarried, unable to acquire proper housing, often having to stay with in-laws and parents? Those views will be echoed throughout the country. There is no justification for this election, and I will certainly oppose it.

UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Roger Godsiff Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

May I say at the outset that I was a multilateralist during the cold war? I supported the balance of terror in Europe, I have never been a member of CND and, indeed, once the atom was split we could not unmake it. But the world has changed, and that is why I have changed my view.

May I also acknowledge the genuine and understandable concerns of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies that are intimately involved in the renewal of the Trident project? I would feel exactly the same way if I was representing their constituents, with 30,000 jobs at risk. I understand that, but the cost of this programme is admitted to be between £31 billion and who knows what, because the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have not answered the question put by the leader of the SNP about the final costs of the programme. I do not believe that can be justified as value for money when I think a number of the arguments are flawed.

What are those arguments? Usually three are put forward. The first is that the system is independent. It is not; the UK has four nuclear submarines, each of which can carry up to eight missiles. The UK does not own the missiles; it leases them from America.

[Alberto Costa]

Can the hon. Gentleman please explain to the House what precise technical expertise he has to suggest these are not genuinely independent missile systems?

[Mr Godsiff]

The UK leases the missiles from America, where they are made, maintained and tested. Our four submarines have to go to the American naval base in Georgia to have the missiles fitted. That is a fact. It is of course said by those who support renewal that we have “operational independence”. Bearing in mind that we do not own the missiles but lease them from America, I just do not believe that there is any scenario in which a British Prime Minister would authorise a submarine commander to use the nuclear weapons anywhere in the world without first notifying the Americans.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and he is being very reasonable in his approach. The point about the second centre of decision making, which both Republican and Democrat American Governments have supported since 1958, is about the danger that another country might think it could pick off the UK without the Americans responding on our behalf. They probably would respond but it would be too late by the time the aggressor found that out. That is why knowing that the UK can defend itself is welcomed by the Americans, so that no fatal miscalculation of that sort can be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Godsiff]

I have debated these issues with the right hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions and I respect what he says, but I just do not agree with him.

The second argument put forward is that if the UK did not have nuclear weapons, it would, somehow, lose its place on the UN Security Council. That is nonsense, because when the Security Council was formed only one of the five permanent members had nuclear weapons—America. If it is now argued that to be a member of the UN Security Council, one has to have nuclear weapons, countries such as Japan, Germany and Brazil, which have legitimate claims to become part of an enlarged Security Council, would not be allowed to join, but three countries would be able to join—North Korea, Israel, and Pakistan, because they all have nuclear weapons.

The third argument is that nuclear weapons give us protection in an ever-changing world. This country, like all other developed countries, faces threats to its security from rogue states, international terrorist groups and groups within our own society who want to destroy it. As I have said many times, these threats are best met by our membership of NATO, the most successful mutual defence pact in history. It never attacked anybody between the time it was set up in 1948 and the end of the cold war. The tragedy of NATO has been that after the cold war—after the Berlin wall came down—it changed from being a mutual defence pact and became the world’s policeman, and that has caused enormous problems in its member countries. I believe that our security is best guaranteed by NATO, but I also believe that all the countries of NATO should contribute towards the cost of the nuclear umbrella; they should not get a free ride from America.

The way to deal with threats from terrorism, domestic or international, is by having a fully staffed and fully financed Security Service, by ensuring that the police have the money to do the job they need to do and by ensuring that our own conventional forces are given the tools for the job when they are sent into military conflicts on our behalf. The Chilcot report, which came out a week or so ago, graphically identified the deficiencies in materials and protections that our troops in Iraq faced. British soldiers should not go into any conflict on our behalf without the best equipment and protection we can give them.

Let me make this final point. We have witnessed terrible terrorist atrocities in the past year or so, and we witnessed the London bombings, but did our ownership of nuclear weapons prevent these things? We saw what happened in Paris and at the weekend in Nice, but did France’s nuclear deterrent prevent those things from happening? I am not convinced that spending a huge sum on renewing our nuclear deterrent, which I do not believe is independent, is justified; we should support NATO, back it and contribute to it, but I am not convinced that this is value for money. That is why I will vote against the motion this evening.

ISIL in Syria

Roger Godsiff Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

As has been said on many occasions during the debate, everybody agrees Daesh is a threat to us all, to our way of life and to our liberties, and that it has to be destroyed. However, I am not convinced that dropping more bombs on Syria will add anything to the defeat of this organisation. There are already a lot of bombs being dropped by Russia, America and France. Apart from not destroying Daesh, they are creating terror among the population, resulting in the mass displacement of the Syrian population. This, in turn, is causing huge problems for European Governments who are trying to cope with the flood of refugees.

We in this country should of course support France. We should provide that support and solidarity in various other ways. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) outlined some of them. Other Members have outlined other ways in which we can assist. We should provide logistical, intelligence and special forces support to the Kurds and the elements of the Free Syrian Army who are actually doing the fighting on the ground. It is only ground forces—Arab ground forces—who will eventually bring about the displacement and defeat of Daesh in Syria.

The Prime Minister has said that there are 70,000 Syrians ready to fight. I take him at his word and we shall have to see. I suspect, however, that this assertion will come back to haunt him in the same way that the assertion made at the very same Dispatch Box, that the UK was only 45 minutes away from a nuclear or chemical attack by Saddam Hussein, has continued to shred the legacy of a former Prime Minister.

We can also share with the French and our allies our expertise in monitoring and breaking up terrorist cells, because we have long experience of doing that in the UK. Furthermore, we should go to the UN and seek support for safe havens to be created within Syria. This would be in our interests and in the interests of other European countries. It would also be humanitarian in helping not to force the population out of Syria.

There has been one voice, among the many that have been raised today, that has not been heard: a voice from somebody who has experienced Daesh and been a hostage of that organisation. I refer to the French journalist, Nicolas Henin. In a recent article he wrote:

“I know for sure that our pain, our grief, our hopes, our lives do not touch them. Theirs is a world apart…Central to their world view is the belief that communities cannot live together with Muslims”.

But he went on to say:

“They came to Paris with Kalashnikovs, claiming that they wanted to stop the bombing, but knowing all too well that the attack would force us to keep bombing or even to intensify these counterproductive attacks.”

He ended by saying:

“I know them: bombing they expect. What they fear is unity.”

We must have unity of purpose in speaking out and destroying Daesh. The Prime Minister will have his majority tonight and he will win the vote, but I do not believe he has won the argument.