Easter Recess: Government Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

All I can say is that I apologise for what I got wrong. I have explained to the House why I spoke in the House as I did, and what I want to do is get on with the job of the Government in taking this country forward. That is what we are going to do.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I dare say that every Member of this House can bring to mind their own John Robinson, perhaps several. Though you would not know it, I also think that most Members of this House know that justice and mercy and humility also go hand in hand—a fact known by many who watch these proceedings too. In asking us to forgive him on behalf of all those John Robinsons we represent, my right hon. Friend could not have made a more humble apology. But justice leading into mercy relies on a very old-fashioned concept, and that is repentance. What assurance can he give us that nothing of this kind will ever happen again?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. I am heartily sorry, as I have said. I wish it had not happened and I wish that things had been totally different. What I have already done, as the House will know, is take steps to change the way we do things in No. 10. But that, in itself, is not enough. I accept full responsibility myself for my actions.

Ukraine

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

All political donations are properly registered and monitored. I can tell the hon. Lady that we are putting forward progressively over the last few days and weeks and today the biggest ever package to crack down on dirty Russian money, not just from Russia but from anywhere.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I welcome the sanctions today. My right hon. Friend has been crystal clear that all of Europe needs to end its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Can he tell us a little bit more about how he intends to see that that comes to pass?

[The Prime Minister]

The key thing is first to get people to recognise the scale of their dependency, as in any addiction, and that is what we are doing. The UK Government have been making that point to our friends the whole time, because it has got worse since 2014. What we are also doing is helping countries such as the Baltic states to go further and faster with renewable technology.

Sue Gray Report

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman really has to read the report. He has to look at the report, and he must wait—[Interruption.] Everything he has said is, I am afraid, not substantiated by the report. He should look at it, and wait for the police inquiry.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Millions of people took seriously a communications campaign apparently designed by behavioural psychologists to bully, to shame and to terrify them into compliance with minute restrictions on their freedom. What is my right hon. Friend’s central message to those people who complied meticulously with all the rules and suffered terribly for it, including, I might say, those whose mental health will have suffered appallingly as a result of the messages that his Government were sending out?

[The Prime Minister]

I want to thank all those people for everything that they did, because together they helped us to control coronavirus. Thanks to their amazing actions in coming forward to be vaccinated, we are now in a far better position than many other countries around the world, so I have a massive debt of gratitude to all the people whom my hon. Friend has described.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, because it is thanks to the efforts of the NHS testing operation and of testing manufacturers not just around the world, but in this country—there was stupefying ignorance displayed by those on the Labour Front Bench—that we have been able to triple our testing capacity. We are testing more per head than any other European country. Usually, they love these European statistics, but they seem a bit shy about this one. That is the reality though. Testing is a good thing. It is very important that people do it, and people should certainly get a test.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I have certainly disagreed occasionally with my right hon. Friend in the course of this crisis, but I also credit him with doing his very level best to preserve freedom, lives and prosperity in this country. None the less, he will know, as I do, that the public are now yearning to know when we will get back to the old normal. Investors need to know, the wider public needs to know, and every business person in the country needs to know when the sword of Damocles of further restrictions will not be hanging over them. Will he please bring forward a plan to get back to the old normal?

[The Prime Minister]

The plan is the one that we have in place. It is to get on with plan B. As my hon. Friend knows, there will be a review of it—indeed, the plan B measures expire on 26 January. By then, we hope to have greatly increased the already extraordinarily high number of people in this country who have been not only vaccinated, but boosted.

The number of people who have been boosted in the UK is currently 34 million. There are a further 9 million that we still need to reach. As I said to the House before Christmas, our plan was to double the speed of the booster roll-out, which we did. Every eligible adult got a slot before new year. We need to increase the number of boosted members of the population, and, as omicron blows through—it is very much my hope and belief that it will blow through—I do believe that we will be able to get back to something much closer to normality. That does not mean that there will not be further challenges, but I think that life will return to something much, much closer to normality. It will not be necessary to keep the current restrictions in place, and business investors will have all the confidence that they need. To be frank, Mr Speaker, we are already seeing huge investments in this country because of the approach that we have taken.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The answer is that we have a different package of support for different measures, and that is entirely what you would expect. There is now uniformity, and it is our view that furlough remains available throughout the UK.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know the basis on which the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 is subject to judicial review. Would he look at the advice given to MPs by Lord Sumption this morning that now that Parliament is sitting throughout this lockdown, we could increase parliamentary scrutiny and the legitimacy of the lockdown by moving to using the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 instead of the Public Health Act 1984?

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Don’t forget that this Government have increased universal credit by about £7 billion, perhaps £9 billion—£1,000 a year—and the uplift will remain in place for this financial year, as I told the House earlier.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

By when does my right hon. Friend expect to have vaccinated the vulnerable population? What is his confidence in that date, and why does he have that confidence?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Alas, I cannot give him a date by which I can promise confidently that we will have a vaccine. There are some very hopeful signs, not least from the Oxford-AstraZeneca trials that are being conducted, but, as he knows, SARS took place 18 years ago and we still do not have a vaccine for SARS. I do not wish to depress him, but we must be realistic about this. There is a good chance of a vaccine, but it cannot be taken for granted.

Covid-19

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will do whatever we can to support the coach sector and all other sectors across the country. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have put in place a massive programme of loans, grants and support of all kinds. It is clear that the best thing for businesses in his constituency and across the country is not to paralyse the economy now and not to go back into lockdown, but to defeat the virus in so far as we possibly can and allow the economy to move forward—but we will continue to give whatever help we can.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am thankful for my right hon. Friend’s commitments on parliamentary scrutiny. He will know that many Members of the House and members of the public are concerned about the use of delegated powers, and I am sure that he remembers the sifting Committee from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Will he please consider whether some innovative thinking can be applied to ensure that the authority of this House is brought to bear on these measures in advance, so that the public can have confidence that their representatives are authorising the use of law to constrain their freedom?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) behind me says from a sedentary position, “What has the right hon. Gentleman got against Poland?” We will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country. We will actively buy British. We will ensure that contracts go to great British companies, but what we will not do is turn our faces against the notion of international free trade and the market, which has brought colossal wealth to the people of this country. Those are the politics and the economics of the madhouse.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

To avoid drama later, we need to complete the process of getting Brexit done in the next few months. Will my right hon. Friend therefore please confirm for the benefit of everyone listening that nothing in the Northern Ireland protocol will be allowed to stop the United Kingdom charging our own tariffs for the whole United Kingdom from 1 January 2021?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. Not a sausage, not a jot and not a tittle of the Northern Irish protocol will provide any such impediment to the unfettered access of goods and services between all parts of the UK.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady, and she is absolutely right to raise the point that she does. She will have heard that we want enhanced, greater, more immediate and more efficient testing for those high-contact groups. Over the past few months, we have seen black and minority ethnic people very, very substantially represented in trades and professions that have been very much exposed to coronavirus, and we want to make sure that we help immediately, by targeting those groups with extra testing. But I think there are more lessons to be learned for the future, and that is why we have set up the commission that we have and will be drawing further conclusions in due course.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Wycombe will rejoice. I want to thank the experts who have guided us through this crisis, but I observe that when information is incomplete, when information and knowledge is uncertain, experts disagree with one another. For the sake of the public, the Government and, indeed, the experts themselves, will my right hon. Friend have a meeting with me and with Professor Roger Koppl, a scholar in the field of expert failure, to discuss how things can be done better in the future?

[The Prime Minister]

I think I know Roger Koppl and I would be very interested to hear what he has to say, but I must say I think that the guidance from our scientists has been incredibly valuable. It has helped us throughout the period. But be in no doubt—I am sure my hon. Friend will understand—that the decisions that we have taken are decisions that we as Government have taken, and for which we take full responsibility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important to strike a balance, and people should be allowed to celebrate Guy Fawkes night and other occasions with fireworks, but the hon. Gentleman is plainly right that they are very disturbing for animals. My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is looking at this very matter. I would just point out that, on animal welfare, it may interest him to know that there are measures we will be able to implement as a result of Brexit—such as banning sow farrowing crates, for instance, which I think is of great concern to our constituents, and banning the live export of animals—that we would not otherwise be able to do. That is one of the reasons why we need to get Brexit done and take this country forward.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Q10.   Thousands of British people in Wycombe have family and friends on one or both sides of the line of control in Kashmir. With so many serious allegations of human rights abuses being made, do the Government accept that this is not merely some foreign policy issue to be dealt with by others, but that it is an issue of the most immediate and profound concern in Wycombe and in towns across the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right not just that this matters very much to him and to his constituents, but that the welfare of communities in Kashmir is of profound concern to the UK Government. He also knows, of course, that it is the long-standing position of the UK Government that the crisis in Kashmir is fundamentally a matter for India and Pakistan to resolve and, alas, since we were there at the very beginning of this crisis, he will understand that, for long-standing reasons, it is not for us as the UK to prescribe a solution in that dispute.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The House will know full well that these are transitory arrangements. If the people of Northern Ireland choose to dissent from them, they melt away, unless by a majority they choose to retain them. I repeat: there will be no checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Nothing in the revised political declaration obliges Northern Ireland to be treated any differently in the future relationship, and I would expect Northern Ireland Members to be involved intimately in devising a whole-UK whole-world trade policy—and, indeed, the whole House.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Is not the fundamental point that, to deliver the UK whole, secure and prosperous out of the EU, Members of this House need to vote for Second Reading and, yes, vote for the programme motion so that it can all be done on time, and then stand firm behind the Prime Minister and his negotiating team, so that he has the power to deliver just the relationship that is being urged upon him to put before the House in due course?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has given excellent advice to the House, and I thank him very much for his support. I wish to stress that the whole House will be involved in devising that future partnership.

Brexit Negotiations

Debate between Boris Johnson and Steve Baker

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I warmly welcome the first half of the hon. Lady’s question.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

We now glimpse the possibility of a tolerable deal, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he has done to make that possible. But will he just reassure me that he is going to be able to make progress towards that advanced free trade agreement which we have both so long wanted to achieve, despite the surrender Act which Opposition Members have voted for?

[The Prime Minister]

It is with no little sense of relief that I listened to my hon. Friend, though he and I have talked a lot in the past few days and I knew that that was broadly his view. This is an opportunity to get this done and do it in a way that not only, I believe, satisfies all the requirements we have set out, above all the peace process in Northern Ireland, but allows the whole of the UK to take back control of our tariffs and our customs, and to do free trade deals around the world, in exactly the way that he has described and campaigned for for so many years.