Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Marsha De Cordova

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend has a great deal of expertise in this matter. I thank all frontline staff and others in the NHS for what they have been doing. He is right in what he says about how tired people are; they are exhausted, but they are also working heroically and doing an incredible job. It is because there are 17,000 covid cases that we need to remain cautious, despite what we heard from the Opposition Benches. We do need to remain cautious, and we do need to make sure that we continue to recruit for our amazing NHS. There are now 44,000 more healthcare professionals than there were in 2020, and that is as a result of the recruitment by this Government.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

We know that the vaccine still remains one of the best defences against this virus, but over the past month we have seen a slowing in the booster vaccination rates. Will the Prime Minister update the House as to when he expects a completion date for the booster vaccination, and will he also set out a plan as to how he will encourage take-up of the vaccination among certain groups, particularly young people?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point and I am grateful to her. There is a job of work for all of us to do in reaching out to certain groups. At the moment, it is not actually hesitancy but apathy that is the problem. Omicron is seen wrongly to be a mild disease, so people are not getting the vaccine in the way that they might. We need to break down that apathy in those groups, and we are doing everything that we can to do that. The numbers are rising the whole time, but we want them to rise faster.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Marsha De Cordova

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, following on from the question from the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). We are indeed committed to improving the trans-Pennine route and will be investing very considerable sums to ensure that that is done.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Q11. A damning inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission concluded that Wandsworth Council’s special educational needs and disability provision is weak and requires significant improvement. There is a backlog of 170 outstanding education and healthcare plan assessments, and when an assessment has been carried out, as in the case of my young constituent with autism, he is being forced to wait months before that plan is implemented. It is scandalous that these children are not getting a decent education, so does the Prime Minister agree that every child with a special educational need or disability should have the right to a good education, and will he address the funding shortfall in SEND provision?

[The Prime Minister]

I remind the hon. Lady that this Government are putting another £780 million into SEND provision. We are encouraging the creation of more SEND schools across the country. She mentions Ofsted, which is, of course, a paradox, as Ofsted is the best guarantor and protector of children of all abilities, and the manifesto to which the Labour party is still committed proposes to abolish Ofsted.

Prime Minister's Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Marsha De Cordova

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, because that is exactly the right answer. I genuinely think that the best way forward for our country is to come together and to do a deal, and that is what I hope that colleagues will do.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Prime Minister and his Government tried unlawfully to prorogue this place. The Prime Minister has come here today without a shred of humility. He has been using divisive language and has failed to offer an apology. I will ask him once again, as many Members have tried to do: will he now apologise to the people in my constituency and the wider country for trying to shut down democracy, and will he also commit to ensuring that he will not attempt to try to prorogue this House again?

[The Prime Minister]

The best way to shut down democracy in this country and to erode trust in our political institutions is to fail to deliver on the will of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave, and that is what we are going to do.

Early Parliamentary General Election (No. 2)

Debate between Boris Johnson and Marsha De Cordova

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way; I am really pleased that he has chosen to give me an intervention. He is reeling off the fact that the amount of money that is being spent on Europe could pay for nurses and upgrade our hospitals, but nine years of austerity has led to our NHS being fragmented. Nine years of austerity has led to our education services being failed. Nine years of austerity has led to 4 million children living in poverty, so all you need to do, Prime Minister, is move forward, because we will call an election when it is time.

[The Prime Minister]

If that is what the hon. Lady thinks, why does she not have a word with her right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and tell him to reverse his absurd policy of spending an extra £1 billion a month to keep us in the EU, when we are spending £1 billion on 20,000 more police officers on the streets of this country?

The Liberal Democrats also called for a referendum on our membership of the EU, and once they got it—by the way, they lost that referendum, of course—they did nothing but try to overturn the result, arrogating to themselves the authority to decide which democratic elections they respect and which they reject. Now—where are they, the Liberal Democrats? There they are—they want a second referendum, but they are already planning to campaign against the result. When asked whether she would implement Brexit if the people voted for it a second time, the party’s new leader, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), replied no. Every time the Liberal Democrats lose a referendum, they just call for a new one over and over again. It turns out she is the new leader of the referendum party, the Jimmy Goldsmith of our times.

But the Liberal Democrats are models of coherence by comparison with the Leader of the Opposition. His strategy, mysterious as it is, is that by some process he becomes Prime Minister—but without an election, because he is against elections. He then goes to Brussels and negotiates a new deal, presumably keeping us in the customs union and the single market. He then comes back and passes that deal through the House and takes it to the country in a second referendum, whereupon he campaigns against his own deal. [Interruption.] That’s the plan, isn’t it? Perhaps he can clarify. He would urge the nation to reject his own handiwork.

We know the real reason Labour does not want a general election under his leadership. Most of them do not want one because they fear that their party will lose, but there is a small terrified minority of Labour MPs who do not want an election because they actually think the Leader of the Opposition might win, ladies and gentlemen.

As for the Scottish National party, last week the First Minister for Scotland correctly said:

“It’s starting to feel like Labour doesn’t want an election at all”.

She then issued a clarion call to her assembled armies in Westminster to “force an election”. What are they doing? How do those brave stalwarts of Scottish separatism propose to force that election? By heroically abstaining!

The common thread joining all these parties is their extraordinary belief that the national interest requires them pre-emptively to protect the British people from the consequences of their own democratic decisions. The truth is they believe in democracy only when it delivers the results they want. Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition have a constitutional duty—[Interruption.]