Priorities for Government

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Bacon

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Lady knows very well, it is common ground between the UK and indeed Dublin and the EU Commission that there are abundant facilitations already available, trusted trader schemes, electronic pre-registering, and all manner of ways of checking whether goods are contraband and checking for rules of origin, and they can take place away from the border. I want to make one point on which I think we are all agreed: under no circumstances will there be physical infrastructure or checks at the Northern Irish border. That is absolutely unthinkable.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

It is great to have an optimist as Prime Minister. Once we have left the EU, can we please have more service plots of land, so that people can bring forward their own housing schemes? Will he encourage the housing sector and the new Housing Minister to meet, as soon as possible, the Right to Build Task Force, which has already, for the mere expenditure of £300,000 from the Nationwide Foundation, added 6,000 to 11,000 extra dwellings to the pipeline?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the campaign that he has waged for so long. He and I have discussed this. I tried to steal his idea years ago. I support it unreservedly and I will make sure that the relevant meeting takes place as soon as possible.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Bacon

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

If the right hon. Gentleman is correct, that is all the more reason for the UK to work to preserve the essentials of the deal. I just remind the House, which may be getting into a mood of undue pessimism, that President Trump said last night that he is committed to finding a new solution, and we should hold him to his word.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

One of the deal’s essential elements for Iran is the restoration of commercial banking relationships in return for adherence to the JCPOA—indeed, it is mentioned in the JCPOA—and Iran has adhered to the JCPOA, but we have still seen no sight of any restoration. Will the Foreign Secretary meet me and other members of the all-party parliamentary group on Iran, which has already met the deputy governor of the Bank of England to discuss the matter, to find a way to produce a non-dollar financial arrangement that works, so that Iran can retain some credence in the other partners to the JCPOA?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Richard Bacon

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I believe the hon. Gentleman is referring to the JICTU—Joint International Counter Terrorism Unit—arrangement we have across government. I think he would accept that in view of what I have said about the mutually contaminating ecosystems of terror that we face, where people are being radicalised online here at home and people are in the ungoverned spaces, be it in Iraq, Syria or wherever, a one-Government approach has to be taken to all this by Her Majesty’s Government. It is right therefore that we co-ordinate with the Home Office to tackle this, but we are also tackling it overseas. One aspect of international diplomacy which the Prime Minister has been leading is countering online radicalisation and taking more than 270,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material off the internet.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

May I remind the Foreign Secretary that 20 million Russians died in the second world war, without which we might have lost the war? Does he agree with Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, that despite Russia’s being a leading nuclear power, a member of the UN Security Council, a fundamental source of hydrocarbons and other vital raw materials, and a leading player in the middle east, we are, through “pointless sanctions” and “demonisation”, doing everything we can

“to push Russia into China’s arms”?

Does the Foreign Secretary agree with Sir Tony Brenton that this may prove to be

“the geopolitical blunder of a generation”?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out Russian sacrifice in the war. He is quite right to allude to it, although I might also point out that probably 30 million people died in Stalin’s purges and famines and various other things associated with communism which, as I say, were indulged by the Labour party. [Interruption.] It is true. My hon. Friend’s point about engagement is valid, and that is what we are doing.