Post Office Governance and Horizon Compensation Schemes

Debate between Conor Burns and Kemi Badenoch

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely reject the right hon. Gentleman’s assertions. This is the political point scoring that I talked about earlier, which we just need to stop. Rather than focusing on the issue, he is talking about my tweeting. Maybe he should get off Twitter and actually listen to what I am saying at the Dispatch Box. He is talking about a letter that UKGI says it did not ask Nick Read to write. The only possible answer is that Nick Read himself decided to write that letter. I did not ask him to write it, the Post Office says that it did not, and UKGI did not. These are the sorts of things I am talking about—continuing to make aspersions about Ministers. We have made the Post Office an independent body, we have an independent inquiry, and the information will come out in due course.

[Sir Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

There is no doubt that there was a bad culture in the Post Office for a very long time. It misled a significant number of Ministers, who, to put it gently, could have been more inquiring over the years. Has my right hon. Friend had time to reflect on the words of the non-executive members of the board representing the postmasters, who say that only days before she sacked the chairman, there was still a culture in which they were viewed as guilty and on the take? If that sacking has brought compensation to those people, who were traumatised and misled by the Post Office, and who had their lives destroyed, her decision will go down as a very welcome one.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. The comments by the members of the board who are former postmasters are very interesting. They are saying exactly what I am saying: that Henry Staunton was not doing a good job as Post Office chair. That leads me back to the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who is more interested in attacking the Government than in looking at what even the members of the board are saying. It is important that we continue to give confidence to people that those organisations are run properly. That was the reason for the dismissal.

Gender Recognition

Debate between Conor Burns and Kemi Badenoch

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

We do need to make sure that there is clarity across the board that it is Ministers in this country who are making those decisions clearly and being held to account in Parliament. A lot of loopholes have become apparent that allow people to change things through different means other than via Parliament. Some of that is about changing the colloquial meaning of quite a lot of expressions. Bringing as much as possible into law to provide clarity will be really important.

[Sir Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

May I invite my right hon. Friend to agree that, despite some of the rhetoric we have heard in the House today, the United Kingdom is an immeasurably better place to grow up as a gay person than it was in decades gone by and that this House is at its best when it can find moderate consensus on what is right for our citizens? In that light, I ask her whether it is still the Government’s intention to bring forward conversion therapy ban legislation to this House. If the Government do intend to do that, will she give me and, through me, the House and the country an assurance that we will put often confused, vulnerable and frightened young people at the very heart of that, and that evidence-based decisions will inform the legislation the Government bring forward?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am very happy to confirm that, and I thank my right hon. Friend for the measured tone in which he asked his question—it is a model for Opposition Members. We have done so much work under this specific Government and even under my watch, including on our HIV action plan and on trans healthcare. We have established five new community-based clinics for adults in this country. There is a lot that we are doing, so it is wrong to characterise us as not caring about LGBT people, and it also sends the wrong signal to our international partners. If they feel that we are not doing well, it is not because of what we are doing, but because of what Members are saying.

On conversion practices, let me give a little more clarity about what we are doing with a longer answer than normal. This is a matter of deep interest across this House, so I would like to set out my thinking fully. A commitment was given to publish a draft conversion practices Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. I am determined to meet that promise, as is the Minister for Equalities. Attempts at so-called conversion therapy are abhorrent and are largely already illegal, so a Bill would identify those practices as a particular threat to gay people and confirm the illegality of harmful processes intended to change someone’s sexuality.

In the time since that Bill was first promised, the issue has developed. Now, the threat to many young gay people is not conversion relating to their sexuality, but conversion relating to gender identity. Girls such Keira Bell, who was rushed on to puberty blockers by the NHS and had a double mastectomy, now regret the irreversible damage done to them. I believe that this is a new form of conversion therapy. Respected clinicians, such as those who left Tavistock, have made clear that they are fearful of giving honest clinical advice to a child because if they do not automatically affirm and medicalise a child’s new gender, they will be labelled transphobic. Any Bill needs to address many of those issues, and that is why we are going to publish a draft Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Conor Burns and Kemi Badenoch

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am afraid that is not the case at all. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the detail of the Atlantic declaration, he will see that we are co-operating very closely with the US. On his point about our 2019 manifesto, we did say that that was what we were going to do, because the Administration at the time were willing. This Administration are not. It has nothing to do with the UK. They are not negotiating any FTAs with any countries. That is what the US trade representative has said to me in many meetings, and they have said that to EU counterparts.

If what the hon. Gentleman suggests is true, he is basically saying that every Government should be bound by their predecessor, in which case, should anything happen, he is saying that he agrees with everything this Government are doing and nothing should change. What we have negotiated with the Atlantic declaration is a success, and he should be praising this Government for achieving something so monumental.

[Sir Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my interest as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to the United States for regional trade and investment. Our programme of MOUs with states in the United States is a major driver of improving market access and trade between the UK and the US. As I embark on a visit to Florida to advance our objectives there, will my right hon. Friend use this opportunity to reaffirm not just that we want to enter into multiple MOUs with states in the United States, but that we want British businesses to step up to the opportunities they create and we want to create the mechanisms to allow business-to-business delivery?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Absolutely, I can affirm that. My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about the MOUs. The Opposition would like to present a false story about us not getting along with our US counterparts. The fact that so many states, knowing that their Federal Government are not negotiating an FTA, have decided to step up and negotiate MOUs with us shows that this country is still attracting a large amount of investment and co-operation from our international partners. We want British businesses to be able to take part in that, and we are doing everything we can to help them use the MOUs.

CPTPP: Conclusion of Negotiations

Debate between Conor Burns and Kemi Badenoch

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I know it must be difficult to sit on the Opposition Front Bench and find a way to celebrate while we agree this fantastic trade deal. The Labour Front Bench look like they have been sucking lemons. I am thrilled to be able to answer pretty much all his questions.

First, the right hon. Gentleman claims that this deal has happened at the expense of the India free trade agreement, but I stood at this Dispatch Box and told him that it is about the deal not the day. I know the Labour Front Bench would like us to rush into a deal that does not get the best for this country so that they have something to criticise, but we are not going to do that. We are going to negotiate a free trade agreement that is of mutual benefit and meets the needs of both UK and Indian citizens.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have not got a US FTA, but that is because the US is not doing FTAs with any countries; this has nothing to do specifically with the UK. When Administrations change, we cannot control what the partner country wants to do. So instead of just moaning, we have got on and signed memorandums of understanding with US states. Indeed, the Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) is not here today because he is on a plane to Oklahoma to sign such a deal. I am pleased to let the House know that.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about a quid pro quo, and this is absolutely right. One trade lesson 101 that I would like to give him is: you cannot agree a trade deal where you get everything you want and tell the people on the other side that they can have nothing. If he has a formula for negotiating a deal where we can sell everything to other countries and they cannot sell anything to us, he should come to the Floor of the House and explain how that can be done. A quid pro quo means having a deal that is of mutual benefit: we open our markets and they open theirs. When the legal text is done and we sign the agreement, there will be plenty of time to scrutinise—[Interruption.] He is chuntering from a sedentary position, “What is it? What is it?”. I would like him to read the statement or listen to it. We have said that 99% of goods will be tariff-free. That is something that we have negotiated across all parties. We have also talked about what we get from rules of origin.

The right hon. Gentleman was clearly listening to me on the radio when he heard me dispute the 0.08% figure. That is not because the figure is wrong; it is because it is doing something different from what he thinks it is doing. It is a model, not a forecast. What we do with models is quite different from what we do with forecasts. The model he is touting at the moment is not tailored for the specific behaviour and dynamics of the UK economy, it uses data from 2014 and it excludes growth in the membership of the bloc to those who have applied. So what we should not look at is the 0.08% figure, as it is purely a measure of what would happen if we did not have this trade deal—that is how the model works, and models are not forecasts. Instead, I ask him to focus on the facts, which I have repeated time and time again: the global middle class is going to be coming from the Indo-Pacific; we are talking about 500 million consumers; and by 2050, it is going to outstrip the European Union. We are getting in from the ground up and we are going to be shaping the future of the UK for future generations. This is not about trying to grow trade in the next five minutes. I have used the example previously, but this is like investing in a start-up and complaining that it is not brought any money in as soon as you have signed the agreement. We are thinking about the future, not the past.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned what we are doing for the agricultural sector, and I point to what the National Farmers Union said. We know that British farming is not going to succeed unless we can export. We have created an exporting deal; this is not just about the exports, but the services. All of that is going to benefit farmers and the agricultural sector, to the point that the NFU has come out to support this deal. I hope that Opposition Members can do that, even though it was us who negotiated it. I would like it if they would think about the country and not just about party politics.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on her unshowy focus on delivery. Will she place on record, from the Dispatch Box, her and the Government’s gratitude to our chief trade adviser, Crawford Falconer, and to the brilliant guy who has led the negotiations in the Department, Graham Zebedee, who has been tenacious in getting this deal over the line? She is right to say that we need to look again at the modelling that the Department uses for these deals. In doing that, does she agree that the best way to prove the doomsayers wrong is to herald the opportunities that accession to the CPTPP opens up to British businesses in every part of our United Kingdom and encourage them to exploit those opportunities for the benefit of the UK economy?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Absolutely. I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments and also for the work he did when he was a Trade Minister in the former Department for International Trade. He is absolutely right to praise Crawford Falconer, the lead negotiator in the Department —or a “legend” as most other people would describe him—and also Graham Zebedee, who, at great personal cost to himself and his new baby, was out there negotiating a very difficult multilateral, not bilateral, deal.

My right hon. Friend is right to make the point about the figures and the modelling. This is a challenge that we face: there are many people who are, by and large, functionally innumerate and do not necessarily know when to use figures. The figures that we released from the Department were an impact assessment on the absence or presence of a trade deal. They are being misused by all sorts of detractors. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister says that civil servants do not tell lies. No, they do not. I have not said that the figures are incorrect; I have said that they are doing something quite different from what Labour Front Benchers think they are doing. I will explain it as much as is possible, but I cannot understand it for them. If they would like a lecture on what these forecasts and impact assessments do, I am very happy to give them one at a future date.