COP26
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I cannot believe that the hon. Member has been at that many COPs because no previous COP has agreed on anything about coal, or about cars, or about trees. It has not agreed anything like the solid granular commitments that the countries of the world made, including no new support for overseas coal-fired power stations. They did it because this Government are leading the way in cutting support for hydrocarbons overseas and they could see it plain as a pikestaff.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Glasgow is a proud host of COP. I thank my constituents, Glasgow businesses and COP volunteers who made the world so welcome. To all our new friends, Scotland says, “Haste ye back”. Will the Prime Minister act to support and incentivise the investment in innovative start-ups such as Katrick Technologies in my constituency, which is growing in developing world-leading green energy technology in Glasgow?
The Prime Minister
I have seen some wonderful new technologies being developed by people and businesses in Glasgow. Where it is useful and appropriate for us to give support, we will.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Alok Sharma
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and, of course, Harrogate High School and Zero Carbon Harrogate for promoting sustainable travel initiatives. He will know that the COP unit is working very closely with other Government Departments to try to support business on sustainable transport initiatives. I want to give him one example: the Zero Emission Vehicles Transition Council is working with Ministers representing leading car markets across the world to accelerate the move to electric vehicles.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
As MP of the constituency where COP is taking place, I look forward to welcoming you all to Glasgow in the coming weeks. However, many businesses will be affected by COP and forced to close. They are finding it very difficult to get answers from the Cabinet Office on how much compensation they will be entitled to for the closure of their businesses. I would be grateful if the President could meet me to try to resolve some of these matters because businesses are very worried that they will lose out significantly as a result of COP coming to Glasgow.
Alok Sharma
As the hon. Lady will know, I have written to local Members of Parliament to tell them that businesses within the secure perimeter will be compensated for any loss of revenues. Of course, the number of people coming means that this is also going to be an opportunity for businesses across Glasgow to benefit, but I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the matter.
Health and Social Care
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right and speaks for colleagues across the House: we need to reform the system so that GPs see the right people at the right time and in the right numbers.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Mike Cherry of the Federation of Small Businesses has said that these plans unquestionably mean fewer jobs and economic damage and that they are “devastating” for businesses trying to
“get back on their feet”.
Why is the Prime Minister intent on damaging the very fragile recovery we have had for the past year?
The Prime Minister
I disagree vehemently with what the hon. Lady says because the economy is coming back much more strongly than many predicted, including the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is a good thing. If we had followed the advice from the Labour party we would still be in lockdown, but we are seeing growth returning and jobs being created, and I do not believe anything in this plan will do anything to dent that confidence. On the contrary, businesses want to know that their workforce have the security of a good health and social care plan to back them up, and that is what this Government are providing.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
The Government recognise the importance of tackling pregnancy and maternity discrimination, which is why we will extend the redundancy protection period for six months once a new mother has returned to work and provide similar protections for those parents taking adoption leave and shared parental leave. We will bring these measures forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Paul Scully
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but legislation can only ever be part of the answer, which is why we have committed to bring together key business and family representative groups to tackle the questions on organisational culture and to ensure that women and employers know their rights. We will introduce legislative measures when parliamentary time allows.
Alison Thewliss [V]
EHRC research in 2016 found disturbingly high levels of pregnancy and maternity discrimination in UK workplaces, and the Select Committee on Women and Equalities report highlighted that discriminatory practices towards pregnant women and those on maternity leave during the pandemic should have been
“better anticipated by the government”
and that “preventative actions” should have been taken. So will Ministers tell me what representations they have made to Cabinet colleagues to urgently legislate to extend redundancy protection and finally put an end to this unacceptable discrimination?
Paul Scully
As I said, when parliamentary time allows we will bring legislation forward. I value the hon. Lady’s work and the conversation we had with Pregnant Then Screwed and Maternity Action. We continue to have plans for roundtables to understand the issues better, bringing those two groups together again, along with businesses.
Ministerial Code
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office to update the House on the ministerial code.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The ministerial code is the responsibility of the Prime Minister of the day. It is customarily updated and issued upon their assuming or returning to office. The code sets out the behaviour expected of all those who serve in government. It provides guidance to Ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs to uphold those standards. The code exists and should be read alongside the overarching duty on Ministers to comply with the law and to protect the integrity of public life.
The current version of the code was issued by the Prime Minister in August 2019 shortly after he assumed office. While the code sets out standards and offers guidance, it is Ministers who are personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct themselves in light of the code, and, of course, for justifying their actions and conduct to Parliament and to the public. That is as it should be in a robust democracy such as ours. Ministers are not employees of the Government, but rather office holders who hold their office for as long as they have the confidence of the Prime Minister as the Head of Government. It is always, therefore, the Prime Minister who is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of an individual Minister and of the appropriate consequences were a breach of those standards to occur.
The code also sets out a role for an independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. It is an important role, the principal duty of which is to provide independent advice to Ministers on the arrangement of their private interests. The independent adviser also has a role in investigating alleged breaches of the ministerial code. As the House will be aware, Sir Alex Allan stepped down from his role towards the end of last year. Following the practice of successive Administrations, the Prime Minister will appoint a successor to Sir Alex. The House will understand that the process of identifying the right candidate for such a role can take time. However, an appointment is expected to be announced shortly. The House will be informed in the usual way as soon as that appointment is confirmed. It will clearly be an early priority for the new independent adviser to oversee the publication of an updated list of Ministers’ interests. I expect that will be published shortly after a new independent adviser is appointed.
I can, of course, reassure the House that the process of managing Ministers’ interests has continued in the absence of an independent adviser, in line with the ministerial code, which sets out that the permanent secretary in each Department and the Cabinet Office overall have a role. Ministers remain able to seek advice on their interests from their permanent secretary and from the Cabinet Office. The ministerial code has served successive Administrations well and has been an important tool in upholding standards in public life. It will continue to do so.
Mr Speaker
Let us go to the SNP spokesperson for the urgent question. I call Alison Thewliss. [Interruption.] Order. Can I just say to Members that they should be wearing a mask in the Chamber? For the two Members sat there: please, it is not my decision, but the decision of Public Health England that we should be wearing masks. If you do not wish to, please leave the Chamber.
Mr Speaker
Order. We will have to suspend the sitting if Members do not wear their masks. That is not on my order, but Public Health England’s.
Alison Thewliss
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
In his foreword to the “Ministerial Code”, the Prime Minister says:
“To…win back the trust of the British people, we must uphold the very highest standards of propriety…No misuse of taxpayer money and no actual or perceived conflicts of interest. The precious principles of public life enshrined in this document—integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest—must be honoured at all times”.
Well, this UK Tory Government is failing on all counts. They are riddled with conflicts of interest and allegations of corruption. Indeed, 37% of the public think the Prime Minister is corrupt—53% think that in Scotland—and that is before getting into the latest on what the Prime Minister is alleged to have said, which is that he would rather see bodies pile up in their thousands than order a third lockdown. Despicable, cruel and callous. Comments not befitting the office of Prime Minister.
Transparency International’s “Track and Trace” report raised serious questions on 73 Government contracts worth £3.7 billion. Of those, 24 personal protective equipment contracts, worth £1.6 billion, were handed to those with known political connections, with a further £536 million on testing services. We need to know who has benefited and what their links are to Ministers, especially in the light of the VIP lane that the National Audit Office identified as a risk. People on that list were 10 times more likely to win a contract. Transparency International identified the VIP lane as potentially a
“systemic and partisan bias in the award of PPE contracts.”
Will the Minister stop hiding behind commercial confidentiality and publish in full the details of those VIP contracts, along with who recommended them? It is our money and we have a right to know. Will he also finally publish the updated register of Ministers’ interests?
From the contracts for the Health Secretary’s pub landlord to the cosy chumocracy of the Greensill Capital affair, the casual text messages between the Prime Minister and Sir James Dyson promising to “fix” tax issues, apparently in exchange for ventilators that we never even got, and now questions over the Prime Minister’s funding for feathering his Downing Street nest, does the Minister agree that there is a clear pattern of behaviour and it absolutely stinks? The UK Tory Government are about to prorogue the House to duck further scrutiny. In the absence of an independent adviser to investigate Ministers, we can no longer trust them to investigate themselves; that much is clear. Will the Minister for the Cabinet Office instead instruct a full independent public inquiry to get to the bottom of the sleekit, grubby cabal in charge of the UK?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising a number of issues. She raised the whole question of procurement of PPE. It is a well attested fact that less than 0.5% of the PPE procured did not meet the standards that we had set out. It is a fact that every single recommendation for the procurement of PPE went through an independent eight-stage process verified by independent civil servants. It is the case that the Government, operating at a time when the pandemic was raging, did everything possible—we make no apology for it—to ensure that those at the frontline got the equipment that they deserved. The techniques that we used and the processes that we followed not only stand up to scrutiny; the same techniques and the same processes were used by the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
The hon. Lady raises the Greensill question. Of course, the truth is that all the efforts on behalf of that company in order to push the Treasury and others were rejected. She raises the issue of Sir James Dyson. She does not acknowledge the fact that Sir James spent millions of pounds of his own money to try to ensure that we had ventilators to save those on the frontline. She does not mention that the ventilator challenge was investigated by the Public Accounts Committee, which said it was a model of public procurement. She does not mention the fact that the changes to the Prime Minister’s flat were paid for by the Prime Minister himself, and she repeats a line from a newspaper but ignores the fact that the Prime Minister instituted not only a second but a third lockdown to keep us safe.
What the hon. Lady does not mention is that she and other Opposition Members criticised the appointment of a vaccine tsar as cronyism when Kate Bingham has been responsible for saving millions of lives. What she does not say is that Opposition MPs criticised Kate Bingham for spending money on public relations when that money was there to ensure that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds were able to get the vaccines they required. What she does not acknowledge is the determined effort by public servants in this Government and others to deal with a pandemic and to save lives. Instead, she tries to score political points in a way that, sadly, causes regret.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Alok Sharma
I respectfully suggest to the hon. Lady that she look at the record of this Government in cutting emissions. We were the first major economy in the world to legislate for net zero and, of course, I hope she is pleased not just with the 10-point plan but with the very ambitious, nationally determined contribution that the Prime Minister set out last year.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The UK is leading from the front and has made significant commitments under all three pillars of the Paris agreement, which, as the President set out, are: mitigation, finance and adaptation and resilience. We are continuing to press for ambition internationally, and we are discussing climate action with world leaders. Our nationally determined contribution, of course, sets the highest level of emission reductions by 2030 of any major economy.
Alison Thewliss [V]
Angel Gurría, the outgoing secretary- general of the OECD, has urged countries to attach environmental conditions to bail-outs, to prioritise a green recovery with environmental jobs and to
“put a big fat price on carbon.”
So will the UK Government take his advice?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We are leading the way in making sure that we do that as part of our building back better and greener. I am co-chairing, with the Department for Education, a green jobs taskforce, to make sure we are able both to upskill and to train all the new skills that are going to be needed for those new industries.
Covid-19: Road Map
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Yes, I do. I thank everyone involved in the vaccination programme in North West Norfolk, and I thank my hon. Friend for championing the vaccinators.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
Last week, the gaps in support all-party parliamentary group heard evidence on how tens of thousands of women have been forgotten about during the pandemic. Will the Prime Minister meet with Maternity Action, Pregnant Then Screwed, Bethany Power and Sonali Joshi to hear how he can redress the unfairness faced by those who were pregnant and on maternity leave during the pandemic?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Member makes an important point. I will certainly ensure that the relevant Minister receives such a delegation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman is right; I do have a formidable singing repertoire. I can also sing “The Fields of Athenry” and “Flower of Scotland”, not to mention “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, although the last of those songs was perhaps sung with a little less fervour last Saturday than is normally the case. I am a convinced Unionist. I do believe in the strength of the United Kingdom—all of us working together. I look forward to working with him and all representatives from Northern Ireland to ensure that our United Kingdom can flourish in the future.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
The Government proposed to the EU that musicians and their technical staff be added to the list of permitted activities for short-term business visitors in the “entry and temporary stay” chapter of the trade and co-operation agreement. That would have allowed musicians and their staff to travel and perform in the EU more easily without needing work permits. The proposals were developed following consultation with the EU’s creative industries, but were rejected by the EU.
Alison Thewliss [V]
The UK’s music industry is worth £5.8 billion annually and supports 200,000 jobs, so for a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister to suggest recently that a touring visa was not compatible with Brexit goals has caused huge anger and frustration to many of my constituents who work in the sector and are seeing no benefits of Brexit, only additional costs and red tape. What is the Minister doing to secure reciprocal visa-free travel for those in our creative industries whose careers and jobs depend on it?
Penny Mordaunt
We continue to work with the EU Commission and member states to ensure that we can have the kind of opportunities that the hon. Lady describes. In the meantime, we do want to support the sector, which is why the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has set up the £1.57 billion cultural recovery fund, which is currently supporting 75,000 jobs.
Covid-19 Update
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right, and I know that she speaks for millions of mothers and millions of parents across the country who want our kids to be back in school and who are anxious about the gaps in their learning that may be arising as a result of this pandemic. We are going to do everything we can to plug those gaps. She has heard what I have said about catch-up funds and the investments we are making in one-to-one tutorials, and that will go on not just this year but next year and throughout this Parliament, until we have made up the ground for those kids, because they deserve it. We will, of course, work as fast as possible to get schools open, but we must do it in a way that is cautious and proportionate.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]
Many people on low incomes and in precarious work still cannot afford to self-isolate on the UK’s meagre level of statutory sick pay, and some are not even entitled to it. What impact does the Prime Minister feel that the UK’s having one of the lowest rates of statutory sick pay has had on the death rate? Will he increase it as a matter of urgency, to help people do the right thing and stay safe?
The Prime Minister
In addition to statutory sick pay and universal credit, there is the £500 that we make available to those in need of it, and that is the right way forward. I am afraid that the hon. Lady is not right in what she says about the level of statutory sick pay in this country; it compares favourably with countries around the world.
EU Withdrawal Agreement
Alison Thewliss Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend, who was an outstanding Northern Ireland Minister, is absolutely right. Once the Joint Committee concludes, we will go into more detail on exactly how we can safeguard the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises as well. We will notify the Commission of those businesses that need to take advantage of the grace period that we have got.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
RTÉ reports on the derogation for sausages, chilled meats and unfrozen prepared meals and notes that
“once a derogation period has elapsed, Northern supermarkets will have to source such products locally or from the South.”
Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why it is acceptable to him to disadvantage Scotland and our food exporters in such a way? Is it not just another example of why Scotland would be better off as an independent nation state within the EU?
Michael Gove
If Scotland were an independent nation state, it would face trade barriers at Berwick and Cairnryan. By leaving the European Union, Scotland would be—[Interruption.] I am just pointing out the inevitable consequences of the course on which the hon. Lady has set her heart, which would make sure that if Scotland became independent, it would face tariff and regulatory barriers to access its biggest market, which is the rest of the UK. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady asks why; that is the inevitable consequence of independence, alongside the abandonment of the pound sterling and re-entry into the common fisheries policy. It is a terrible course to go on. Because I admire the hon. Lady so much, I hope she will recognise that the future of her Glasgow constituents is better secured by staying in the United Kingdom than by going down the perilous path to separation that the SNP have argued for, like a pied piper, for many decades.