Ukraine

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I think everyone knows that Ukraine is a major producer of grain. Unfortunately, because of these awful events, there are likely to be consequences for many countries, including our own. Can I ask the Prime Minister to look again at our food security proposals and ensure that we are secure and not reliant on others as much as we have been in the past?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Food security is an important consideration. One of the many things that our fantastic Ukrainian community has done in the last few years is to help us in that very sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am agog. I long to come to see these extraordinary additions to the cultural heritage of Rutland. I thank my hon. Friend for drawing it to my attention, and I look forward to making a visit as soon as I can.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Q12. The Government’s flagship green homes grant scheme collapsed in a £1.5 billion shambles at the end of last year, with just 81 vouchers issued in Cambridge and just 85 issued in the Prime Minister’s constituency. With energy bills about to go through the roof, what is it about this Government that makes them so peculiarly unable to run a basic loft-lagging scheme?

[The Prime Minister]

We are supporting measures to retrofit homes up and down the country to improve insulation. We are also supporting people with the costs of their fuel, and we will continue to do that through the warm homes discount, the winter fuel allowance and all the other payments we make.

COP26

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The reason why we have been able to get considerable success at COP is because the whole world can see that we are moving beyond coal and the pace at which we have done it.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The review commissioned by the Treasury and carried out by Professor Dasgupta of the University of Cambridge highlighted the importance of nature-based solutions to the tackling of environmental challenges. Will the Prime Minister tell us what the UK Government did at COP26 to pursue those conclusions and whether they will be pursued at the COP15 biodiversity talks?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to Professor Dasgupta. At COP26 we had not only an immense agreement on forests, which are vital habitats for untold manner of wildlife, but a negotiation with our Chinese partners that will continue through till their Kunming biodiversity summit. COP26 achieved an integration of high climate science with nature. It is the first time that has happened.

Covid-19

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point about the occasional dissonances between the UK Government and some of the devolved authorities, although actually, if we look beneath the political surface and some of the argy-bargy that goes on, the fundamental message is the same. It was very telling that the three devolved Administrations and the UK Government came together to enact fundamentally the same package of measures at the same time yesterday and today.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab) [V]]

I have listened closely to the Prime Minister, but at no point have I heard him apologise to education leaders, teachers, students and parents for the chaos earlier this week. He rightly asks the public to change our behaviours, which is in all our interests, but there is a reciprocal obligation on him, too. What has he learned from all this, and what will he do differently in future?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly wish to pay tribute to everybody involved in the education sector: teachers, parents, pupils, and everybody who has made a heroic effort to cope with this pandemic. I think the hon. Gentleman and I would agree that it was important to do everything we could as a country and a Government to keep kids in schools if we possibly could; indeed, I believe that was the policy of the Labour Opposition, at least on Monday morning. I understand why the Opposition wanted to keep schools open. We all wanted to keep schools open, but alas, the pandemic has not made that possible, and we have got to take the steps that we have taken. I hope that he will also support them.

Covid-19: Winter Plan

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend completely sums up the strategy that we need now, just as we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now is the moment when it is vital that we concentrate on the road ahead and do not veer off one way or the other, and do not allow ourselves to throw away the gains that we have made. It will be a tough few months, but the vaccines that he talks about have unquestionably changed the logic, and massively, massively improved our position, but it is too early—far, far too early—to be complacent about that. Obviously I thank the company in his constituency profoundly for what it has done.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister failed to answer the question from the Leader of Opposition about the extent to which local areas would be consulted on what tier they would be returned to, and the Secretary of State was fantastically vague about the geography of any such areas. Will the Prime Minister therefore clarify what exactly the criteria are that are going to be used to make these decisions?

[The Prime Minister]

With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, perhaps that was one of the answers I gave that was mysteriously truncated in the course of my giving it. I think I said pretty clearly that the criteria we would use to decide who went into which tier would be case detection rates in all groups, case detection rates in the over-60s, the rate at which cases are rising or falling, positivity rates, and pressure on the NHS. Those are some of the criteria that we will use.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I must repeat what I have said several times already this afternoon: the furlough scheme is a UK-wide scheme. If other parts of the UK decide to go into measures that require the furlough scheme, then of course it is available to them. That has to be right. That applies not just now but of course in the future as well.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Arts organisations have responded with flair to the existential crisis of the loss of their audience, but just as they are about to recover by going for live streamings from closed venues—I am thinking of organisations such as the Cambridge Jazz Festival and the London Jazz Festival—they face a new threat. Will the Prime Minister confirm that those closed venues will be treated as a workplace and allow them to continue?

[The Prime Minister]

I will study the matter that the hon. Gentleman refers to. I cannot see any reason why that should not be the case, but I will get back to him.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I shall repeat my previous answer: we do not want to see anybody penalised for doing the right thing.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

There are approximately 1 million 16 to 18-year-olds in England, and some 700,000 study in colleges. Astonishingly, this week’s education catch-up plan omitted those colleges, including many in my constituency of Cambridge. Can the Prime Minister explain the Government’s thinking behind this, and will he sort it out?

[The Prime Minister]

We will of course do everything we can to ensure that not just our schools but our colleges get the attention that they need. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is massive investment now going into the rebuilding of further education colleges and ensuring that our FE college sector gets the investment it deserves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this. Knife crime is intolerable, and its recent rise must be combated. That is why we brought in knife crime prevention orders, which give police the powers, where they suspect a knife crime is about to be committed, to make the interventions that are needed. That is why we are putting 20,000 more police on our streets, with the encouragement and the political support they need to carry out stop and search.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Oxford-Cambridge so-called expressway is a 20th-century roadbuilding solution to a 21st-century challenge, and at the election Labour rightly pledged to scrap it. I wonder whether the Prime Minister has caught up with us. Will he announce today whether the expressway has finally been put to rest and scrapped?

[The Prime Minister]

I must ask the hon. Gentleman to wait and contain his impatience until the Budget, when he will learn more about the national infrastructure plan.

Brexit Negotiations

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I appreciate that point. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of getting consensus in Northern Ireland, but that is why we place so much emphasis in these proposals on consent, and that will be a key part of the discussions.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Following the discussions this morning, it is now no longer at all clear which parts of the political declaration the Government actually support, so it would be helpful for everyone if they could set out which parts still exist. This is important because, for instance, the other day I was listening to the Universities Minister trying to reassure some of our senior researchers that we will stay as close as possible to the European research frameworks—overseen ultimately, of course, by the European Court of Justice. Is that still the Government’s position?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we will have a very close relationship with all European projects—whether on research, science, education, or whatever it might happen to be. I will be very happy in due course to share with the hon. Gentleman and the whole House where we are on the political declaration. The objective of the changes to the political declaration is really to set out the difference in this Government’s approach to the future relationship on trade and the customs union, and to set out our ambitions to do global free trade deals.

Prime Minister's Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously I would prefer a deal, and I hope I could count on the hon. Gentleman’s support if we were to get one. As for my desperate pleas for an election, actually I am not desperate for an election at all. I rather thought it was the function of the Opposition to be desperate for an election. If he is desperate for an election, perhaps he could communicate with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

In his speech to the United Nations yesterday, the Prime Minister used his in-depth research into the tech sector to talk about artificial intelligence and the possibility of a dystopian future, yet last week it was reported that his chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, had instructed that all Government data held on UK systems should be brought together—an extremely dangerous suggestion. Can he tonight assure the House either that no such instruction was given or that it will be withdrawn?

[The Prime Minister]

All I can say is that what I think every Member of the House would like to see, and what our constituents would certainly like to see, is the maximum efficiency in government. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned something about which I am afraid I was hitherto unaware, and I cannot tell him whether he is accurate in what he says, but I certainly know what we should be doing as a country. As I said in the UN last night—at four o’clock in the morning—this is the country that leads in the tech sector in all sorts of ways, and we intend, as part of our Government programme, to turbocharge that. That was one of the reasons why we needed a Queen’s Speech, and still do.

Priorities for Government

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is a great pity, in my view, that the current Mayor of London—not a patch on the old guy—decided to cancel the contract with Wrightbus of Ballymena, which has been of great value to the people of this country. I give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that we will do everything we can to ensure the future of that great UK company.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Optimism is one thing, but pantomime is quite another. On what is likely to be the hottest day on record for the UK, it is astonishing that the Prime Minister is seeking to outsource tackling climate change to the private sector. Can he tell us one thing that his Government are going to do in the next month to tackle the climate emergency?

[The Prime Minister]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman one thing that we are doing: we have secured for this country the COP 26. We will be hosting the world climate change conference here in the UK, once again showing the world what UK technology and technological optimism can achieve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T2. The Foreign Secretary will be aware that despite last week’s climate change talks, the world is still not on track to limit global warming to less than 3° C. What steps is he taking to ensure that we get back on track?

[Boris Johnson]

As the House will know, the United Kingdom has been in the lead in championing measures to mitigate climate change. We can be very proud of the impact that we have had in cutting our own carbon dioxide emissions and, of course, working with our friends and partners around the world to implement the Paris accord, which is the way forward.

US Immigration Policy

Debate between Boris Johnson and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

At the risk of repeating myself, and as I have said several times already this afternoon, we have expressed our clear views about the policy in respect of both refugees and migration from the seven named countries.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) raised an important point a few moments ago to which the House did not get a full answer. It would appear that the Prime Minister was told in her talks about the refugee ban, so will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether that was the case? If so, what was her advice to the President?

[Boris Johnson]

I think that I gave an answer a moment or two ago. I do not comment on the confidential conversations that take place between the Prime Minister and her opposite number. We have worked with our friends in the White House, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to understand exactly how the measure is to be implemented and to ensure that we secure the protections that this country needs.