Oral Answers to Questions

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Q3. Double child rapist and murderer Colin Pitchfork had yet another parole review hearing only a few weeks ago. I thank the Justice Secretary for having listened to me and engaging the reconsideration mechanism rule. I know that the Prime Minister does not have any decision-making role on the independent Parole Board. It is independent of Government, but it is a wing of the Executive; it is not the judiciary. Does the Prime Minister agree that, generally, as a point of principle, men—sexual offenders—who rape and brutally murder young women, as Mr Pitchfork did to Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann in my constituency, should remain in prison for most of their natural lives?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the public should be confident that murderers and rapists will be kept behind bars for as long as is necessary to keep the public safe. That is why we are reforming the parole system. Our Victims and Prisoners Bill will mean that minimising risk and protecting the public are the sole considerations in Parole Board decisions. It will also give the Justice Secretary the power to step in on behalf of the public and take a second look at decisions to release the most serious offenders, including murderers and rapists. Last week, we announced that we will be introducing longer sentences for dangerous criminals. For the most heinous crimes, life will mean life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course, I would like to join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Karen and to hard-working unpaid carers up and down the country. I know he speaks from personal experience about this issue as well. We have provided £2.3 billion of support for social care, with an additional £25 million committed to putting people at the heart of care in the “People at the Heart of Care” White Paper, and £327 million is also committed to the better care fund.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Q6. Many of my constituents are deeply concerned about the proposals for the 440-acre Hinckley national rail freight interchange, and the impact that this proposed site will have on the environment and, for example, on infrastructure such as Narborough railway station. I know the Deputy Prime Minister cannot talk about an individual planning application—that decision is for central Government to make—but can he give an assurance to my South Leicestershire constituents and Blaby district councillors such as Ben Taylor, Maggie Wright, Terry Richardson, Mike Shirley and others that the voice of my constituents will be heard in that planning application?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know from the vigorous campaigning of my hon. Friend that his constituents’ voice has been, and will be, heard. As he knows, I cannot comment on individual cases. What I can say is that I have experience of this in my own constituency, and I know what a blight can be created by those rail freight projects, so I do have every sympathy for the case that my hon. Friend is making.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, research co-operation is one of the many areas where we continue to co-operate with the EU. Our focus today is on the Windsor framework to ensure that we can resolve the issues of the protocol and move forward for Northern Ireland. That will be our continued focus in the coming days to make sure that we can talk, explain and clarify this particular agreement, but of course, over time, there will be a range of other areas on which we can work with the EU, including energy security and research, but also illegal migration, and I look forward to all those conversations.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

South Leicestershire is home to one of the largest logistics parks in the whole of Europe. Will the Prime Minister reassure those businesses in South Leicestershire that trade across the UK, and specifically Northern Ireland, that his Windsor framework will allow for smoother trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[The Prime Minister]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The smooth flow of trade around our UK internal market is central to what this framework delivers. It builds on the proposals that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) put forward some years ago. I am pleased that we have been able to put those into practice in the delivery of our green lane, and I know that the cause of the Union is one that my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) cares passionately and rightly about, and I am pleased that this framework strengthens our Union.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

In April 2017, as MP for South Leicestershire, I had the honour of meeting Her late Majesty the Queen and His late Royal Highness Prince Philip when the Queen hosted lunch for a small gathering at St Martins House in Leicester following the royal maundy service in Leicester cathedral. Along with the Prince, she was extremely gracious, listening with interest to the issues affecting Leicester and Leicestershire, and thanking those within our local community who do so much in the many charities in our area. It was a moment of great joy to have personally witnessed the late Queen at work. By placing duty at the forefront of everything she did, she was a role model of how public service should be conducted.

On behalf of the chairmen and councillors of the town and parish councils of South Leicestershire; the chairman of Harborough District Council, Councillor Neil Bannister, and his fellow Harborough councillors; the chairman of Blaby District Council, Councillor Iain Hewson; the Leicestershire county councillors of my constituency; all my constituents; and my family—my wife Maria, daughter Sophie and son Alexander—as the Member of Parliament for South Leicestershire, I want to give thanks for the seven decades of public service given by our late Queen, and I express my sincere condolences to His Majesty the King and the royal family. God save the King.

UK Energy Costs

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do agree with the right hon. Gentleman and I am coming to the point about shale gas in a minute. I can assure him that this policy will apply in Northern Ireland and those benefits will be open to the people of Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom.

As well as the action that I am announcing today, we will use these two years ahead of us to make sure that the United Kingdom is never in this situation again. I will be launching two reviews. The first is a review of energy regulation to fix the underlying problems. We want a new approach that will address supply and affordability for the long term. Secondly, we will conduct a review to ensure we deliver net zero by 2050 in a way that is pro-business and pro-growth. That review will be led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore).

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

First, on behalf of the people of South Leicestershire, may I welcome my right hon. Friend to her role? She mentions Putin. The measures she is announcing today are incredibly welcome for my constituents and all our constituents, in order to protect in particular the poorest and most vulnerable in society, but will she give an assurance today that her Government will continue to stand firm against the appalling and brutal actions of Putin and his thuggish regime? Will she tell the British people honestly that we are in for a difficult winter, notwithstanding the challenges that face us?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right: the reason we are in this difficult situation is Putin’s appalling war in Ukraine. But we do need to make sure that our energy supplies are more resilient and secure, so that we are never in this situation again and so that we cannot be subject to global energy prices and the actions of dictators.

We are delivering a stable environment that gives investors the confidence to back gas as part of our transition to net zero. It is vital that we take steps to increase our domestic energy supply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I think the public sector will be very pleased to hear that the Government have taken their concerns on board and are providing support for them.

There is another step that the Government need to take: they should look at building regulations. We are still building homes with gas boilers. Does it not make sense to change the regulations? Those gas homes will have to be retrofitted in just a few years’ time, so surely it is more cost-effective to take action now.

[Alberto Costa]

I am very—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had one intervention. What I am bothered about is that there are a lot of people who want to get in. I do not want to stifle the debate, but I do want to make sure that everybody gets a voice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I was saying, there is a reason for that: over three years, in spite of every opportunity, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has never really come up with an idea, a plan or a vision for this country. At the end of three years, we got Brexit done, which he voted against 48 times; we delivered the first vaccine in the world and rolled it out faster than any other European country, which would never have been possible if we had listened to him; and we played a decisive role in helping to protect the people of Ukraine from the brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin—it helped to save Ukraine.

I am proud to say that we are continuing, and every one of the eight candidates will continue, with the biggest ever programme of infrastructure, skills and technology across this country, to level up in a way that will benefit the constituents of every Member of this House. It is perfectly true that I leave not at a time of my choosing—[Interruption.] That is absolutely true. But I am proud of the fantastic teamwork that has been involved in all of those projects, both nationally and internationally. I am also proud of the leadership that I have given. [Interruption.] I will be leaving, soon, with my head held high.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Q2. The convicted double child rapist and murderer Colin Pitchfork was granted parole last year by the independent Parole Board in the face of enormous opposition from whistleblowers and my South Leicestershire constituents. Only two months after he was released, he was recalled to prison for having breached his licence conditions. He has another Parole Board hearing scheduled for September.The Prime Minister and I have communicated about this matter on numerous occasions, and he has assured me that he would do everything in his power to deal with this situation. Will he confirm before he leaves office that his Government will make all the necessary submissions that they can lawfully make to the independent Parole Board to make sure that this dangerous man is kept behind bars?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his campaign. Our thoughts are of course with the friends and family of Pitchfork’s victims, Lynda and Dawn. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), will be submitting his views on the Pitchfork case to the Parole Board before Pitchfork’s hearing. As the House will know, a root-and-branch review of the parole system is currently under way, and that includes plans for greater ministerial oversight for the most serious offenders. We will bring that forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

At the outset, I should like to remind the House that I am a member of the Committee on Standards and of the Committee of Privileges. Accordingly, I will keep my comments short and away from any specific incident or series of incidents, or any particular personalities involved or alleged to have been involved, in any particular case or cases. My comments this afternoon relate to our constitutional arrangements and why I am unable to support the Opposition’s motion.

I have long championed enhanced standards in this place. I have been instrumental in putting forward proposals to develop our standards processes, and ensure that both complainants and those complained of are given a fair, transparent hearing, with a good appellate system. But I think the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General should be carefully listened to by all Members of the House. He rightly referred to the separation of powers, an issue that I regularly raise on the Committees on which I serve. It is useful for the House to remind ourselves of what we mean by “separation of powers”. It may be trite of me to do this, but some Members have come to me stating that they do not believe that the UK has any separation of powers, so it is important to remind the House of what we mean by separation of powers.

There are, of course, three arms to the British state—three organs of the state: this place, with the House of Lords and the sovereign in Parliament, which is the legislature, whose principal role is to make law; the judiciary, which comprises the courts and tribunals across the whole of the UK, whose principal function is to enforce the law that we make; and the Executive, who are of course a creature of this legislature, but are separate from it. They are separate from it and have their own staff, whom we call civil servants. Civil servants are loyal to the Government of the day and act impartially, but they are not neutral; they are there to further the democratic and legitimate aims of the elected Government of the day.

Part of our democratic and constitutional arrangements is that the Prime Minister of this country, the Head of Government of this country, has very limited defined powers, but one of them is patronage: choosing his or her Cabinet, choosing those who serve the Government. That includes choosing those who are operationally independent of government but part of the Government. That includes a very large number of people. This place also appoints individuals who are called “operationally independent” of the House, but who are officers of the House. Given that we are having a discussion on standards, let me say that the most obvious office holder who is a creature of the House of Commons—the office is created by this body—is of course the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Notably, the other House of the British legislature has its own Commissioners for Standards, separate from the officer of this House.

So it is imperative that in order to consider how Members might vote on this motion, we clearly understand the delineations of the separations of power. That is why the comments made by the able Minister at the Dispatch Box were absolutely correct; it would be utterly irresponsible to pass a motion that would create confusion and create the very opposite of what we want to see, which is transparency. What would happen is that the legislature would, in effect, be given authority over another arm of the state. We would not dream of appointing a House of Commons adviser on standards to the judiciary, would we? Would we impose our standards on day-to-day operations of the judiciary? That would be absurd. In fact, it would be dangerous.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I share in some of what my hon. Friend is saying, but we are talking about Ministers who are both simultaneously Members of this House and members of the Government. The fact remains that Back-Bench Members of Parliament are subject to more scrutiny through the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards than we have in the current situation with Ministers responsible to the Prime Minister through the ministerial code, unless there is some transparency through a process through an ethics adviser. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

[Alberto Costa]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention because it allows me to clarify what I consider to be an error. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said that we must have a system of conduct that affects each and every one of us, but we do: all members of the Government are Members of this House or of the other place, and they must abide by a code of conduct. That code of conduct is adjudicated on by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in this place and the commissioners for standards in the other place, as well as the respective Committees on standards.

Most importantly, I should add that, under our system, the de facto sovereign body—the supreme governing body—of our country is this place, ultimately, Ministers are accountable to all hon. Members when they are at the Dispatch Box, and so is the head of Government. Under our constitution, if the head of Government loses the confidence of this House, they lose the role. That is the ultimate conduct check that our system allows for. Any moves to change that system, whatever the intentions might be—they might be noble—ought to be properly debated and consulted on, and must be cross-party in approach. It would be highly irresponsible to force through such a motion, which seeks to fundamentally alter our British constitutional arrangements vis-à-vis the Executive.

[David Linden]

I would contend that the motion is more an issue of House business than necessarily of the constitution, but we may disagree on that. I want to go back to what the hon. Gentleman said about this place not interfering with the judicial system. Is it not the case that many Conservative Back Benchers, although perhaps not him, would be quite happy to see, for example, the Supreme Court taken out of the equation because it has become unnecessary, unyielding and not helpful to the Government? Are the Government not guilty of trying to interfere with the judicial system?

[Alberto Costa]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman makes that point, but the counter-argument to that is that this is the locus and the forum for having thorough debates. When the Government of the day make proposals in respect of our legal system—of course the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are wholly in control of the Scottish legal system, which is another great legal system of the United Kingdom—our respective Parliaments are the arenas to discuss, debate, vote on, challenge and scrutinise them. This motion and this short debate do not begin to scratch the surface of the scrutiny required in those sorts of debates, so hon. Members who are thinking about voting for this motion ought to ask themselves whether this short debate is justifiable in terms of length and scrutiny before making such a change.

I re-emphasise the Minister’s point about the accountability of the individual appointed. At present, as I said, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of this House and is not accountable to the other place or to the Government; she is accountable to us—this House of Commons. It is wholly unclear in the motion whether, in appointing an adviser, that adviser would hold the same authority as an officer of this House. Would that individual also acquire the right to conduct investigations under parliamentary privilege? Would they have the power to command any witness to appear before them and demand the disclosure of evidence? Exactly what is meant by an “adviser to the Committee”?

PACAC is a distinguished Committee, and it has a distinguished Chair in my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), but exactly what sort of powers does the motion suggest should be given to that putative standards commissioner? That is what I think the motion entails: it creates another standards commissioner.

[John Penrose]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one worrying thing about the motion is that there is no end date to the adviser’s position, once established? Were the adviser to be in place and then the Prime Minister were to appoint his or her own adviser, we would have two different advisers, one advising the Committee and one advising the Prime Minister, potentially arriving at different conclusions from the same facts.

[Alberto Costa]

Indeed, and of course that emphasises the political motivation behind the motion, which is to create mischief and the very opposite of transparency. It would just create the opportunity to castigate the Executive of the day. I say gently to the Opposition that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We have a mature democracy in our country, and whoever wins at election time—whichever party holds a majority in this House—becomes the Government immediately. There is no transition period. With this motion we would be seeking to fetter that Executive, and particularly the Head of Government, preventing them from undertaking their important constitutional duties.

For those reasons, and many more that would come out if we had a proper debate on the motion and proper scrutiny of it, I believe that it is deeply misguided. I encourage all Members to put aside party politics and vote it down.

Living with Covid-19

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The answer to those questions is yes and yes. The 1.3 million clinically extremely vulnerable will of course be given access to free testing. They will also have access to the largest quantity of anti-virals and therapeutics per head of any European population.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

With a world-leading successful vaccination programme, the fastest growth rate in the G7, and in my constituency some of the highest employment we have seen in generations, does that not demonstrate that when it comes to the big decisions during the covid pandemic this Prime Minister and the Government he leads have got them right?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I have to say. I am casting modesty, if not caution, to the winds. Yes, we have got it right, although there have been some very difficult decisions. It would have been nice today, finally, to have had the support of the Opposition.

Covid-19 Update

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. The data I have is that we are up to 94.7% of NHS staff who have been vaccinated. That is a great improvement, but we have to make sure that we cull all the data as fast as possible and work with all the NHS trusts to do that. One of the big things that we have learned in this pandemic is that data needs to be much more accessible—faster—to the Department of Health and Social Care.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Had we listened to the Opposition prior to Christmas, the restrictions that they were asking for would have had a catastrophic effect. Thank goodness we have this Prime Minister, who has done the right thing. May I ask him about the Feilding Palmer Hospital in Lutterworth? Will he help me to arrange an urgent meeting with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to discuss the important future of that hospital, which is being used as a covid vaccination centre?

[The Prime Minister]

You bet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is doing an enormous amount to tackle the issues in respect of net zero. On the COP itself and the joint work we are doing around the world, we have put in place a number of mechanisms that we will continue this year, particularly when it comes to sustainable development.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Given that the Centre for International Environmental Law states that plastic pollution and global warming are linked, does the Minister agree that we need to do far more to tackle the scourge of microplastic and microfibre pollution in our marine environment?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. He knows that in some of these policy areas we are leading the world, and he will also know that we have been leading the effort to get countries to make the 30by30 commitment to protect our oceans and, of course, our lands.