Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: International Agreement

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Sharma. I am grateful to be called, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for introducing the debate and all the petitioners who have brought this very important matter to the House. I am pleased to see so many colleagues present, which suggests to me that we should be debating this matter on the Floor of the House. I hope we will do so in due course, as I will explain.

I also thank the organisation UsforThem, which I have been working with on this and other matters. It is the campaign group that led the calls on behalf of children and young people during the lockdowns, and it is now very concerned about what the WHO’s proposal might mean for the most vulnerable people in our society.

I acknowledge the impulse behind the treaty and the proposals that are before the World Health Organisation. I acknowledge that global threats that defy borders require global co-operation, and it is certainly true to say that this country was not sufficiently prepared for the pandemic when it broke out, but I do not believe that the lack of readiness was due to a lack of international co-operation. Indeed, the degree of international co-operation was astonishing. The lack of readiness was in the ordinary business of contingency planning by the British state—the security of supply of equipment, capacity in the health service, and our ability to support the vulnerable and the isolating. That is where we were not ready.

In fact, we could say that in a crucial respect the UK was prepared. We thought that we knew what we would do in the event of a pandemic. We would introduce targeted isolation and targeted protection of the most vulnerable—the application of personal responsibility, not mass lockdowns, which were not part of the plan—but we threw that plan aside immediately, and we went for exactly what everybody else around the world was doing. Or almost everyone—never forget plucky Sweden.

During covid-19, we had an excess of global collaboration and not enough independence—and certainly not enough parliamentary scrutiny. That is why I am concerned about the treaty and what lies beneath it. The treaty would create, via amendments to international health regulations, the infrastructure and funding to implement changes that are being planned anyway. Those amendments are of greater concern. The proposed new regulations would hardwire into international law and our domestic policy a top-down approach to pandemics and global public health. Yes, we need co-operation and strategic vision, but no, we do not need ever more centralised solutions.

In this country, the top-down approach to covid-19, from the centralised test and trace system to food parcels for the isolated, did not work. What worked best was people taking responsibility for themselves and their neighbours, local government working with civil society, medical leaders exercising their judgment, and public servants at the local level working flexibly and with initiative. What worked was not central control but subsidiarity: decisions being taken as close as possible to the people that they affected.

[John Spellar]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about tracking and tracing people, for which there was already an established infrastructure, but surely vaccines, for example, can be done only at a national and international level.

[Danny Kruger]

I am all for international collaboration, including in the development of vaccines, but no, what we need is more independent development of medical devices and treatments. In fact, it was a race between different countries that led to the vaccine programme. We have a high degree of international collaboration at the medical level, and I am not sure that we need more.

What we now see is the World Health Organisation setting itself up as responsible not just for identifying pandemics but, crucially, for the worldwide responses to those pandemics. The proposed amendments recognise the WHO as the guiding and co-ordinating authority of international responses to public health emergencies of international concern. Of course, we know the WHO’s unaccountable nature: the director general is appointed through an opaque, non-democratic process, and international pharmaceutical companies have too much power.

The regulations propose the creation of a vast public health surveillance mechanism at public expense; if the WHO itself is anything to go by, that would be substantially funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Crucially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley said, the regulations propose that the WHO’s existing powers to make recommendations about what countries should do be upgraded from non-binding to binding. That amounts to a vast transfer of power to the WHO.

What would the new regulations enable? They would enable legally binding obligations on countries to mandate financial contributions to fund pandemic-response activities. They could require the surrender of intellectual property in technologies. They could mandate the manufacture and international sharing of vaccines. They could override national safety approval processes for vaccines, gene-based therapies, medical devices and diagnostics.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the ability to react to covid in an agile way, which was possible only with our having exited the European Union, enabled us to invest in, procure and then roll out the vaccine that saved millions of lives? As he has stated in his—as usual—eminently sensible speech, that should be a model for moving forward.

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is certainly the case that the best aspects of the British Government’s response were those that we were able to undertake using our own sovereignty.

The WHO’s powers will potentially extend to ordering countries to close borders; to travel restrictions; to the tracing of contacts; to refusal of entry; to forced quarantining; to medical examinations, including requirements for proof of vaccination; and even to the forced medication of individuals. It is not just when a pandemic has already been declared that those powers might be invoked: the WHO claims these powers when there is simply the potential for such an emergency.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I am puzzled by this debate. I cannot understand whether it is actually a debate about constitutional procedure in the House of Commons and whether we want more referenda—I would have thought we had had enough of those. The UK is the second-largest contributor to the WHO. It is a member-led process. It is not an organisation that we are bit-part players in, or one where we are going to be directed and overrun. We cede sovereignty through membership of organisations. We cede the sovereignty to go to war by being a member of NATO. It is a member-led process which, as I understand it, is to ensure that we are at the heart of preventing, better preparing for and designing how we respond to, future disease outbreaks. To me, that seems perfectly logical.

As the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, I say that we want to be at the heart of scrutinising any future treaty that we negotiated as a member state through the WHO. It would then go through the processes of this House before any ratification took place. Is that not the point of the House of Commons?

[Danny Kruger]

My hon. Friend makes an important suggestion with which I absolutely agree. He is not totally right about the way the WHO works, of course. A simple majority of member states can approve the new regulations, and a two-thirds majority can approve the treaty. Even if we objected to it, it could still go ahead. We would then have the opportunity to opt out, which is what I suggest we do.

I will come to why we absolutely should opt out. I am challenging the proposed regulations and treaty, because they are wholly and fundamentally wrong, and they represent an assault on our freedoms. We should object. I think the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is absolutely right: fundamentally, Parliament needs to exercise its own responsibility and duty to oversee what we are going to do.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

To colleagues who like this treaty, is the easy answer not that we will, of course, remain members of the WHO, read its advice and accept that advice where we wish? Why should we have to accept advice when the WHO may get it wrong, and we can do nothing about it because it decides, not us?

[Danny Kruger]

That is absolutely right. We have the opportunity to say no, and it is an opportunity we need to take. Once we have said yes, we are then under the obligation to introduce, potentially, terrible infringements on liberty. I will make some more progress and then let Members intervene.

My final concern about the proposals is that they set the WHO up as the single source of truth on pandemics and responses to pandemics. There is a legitimate and understandable need to challenge misinformation and disinformation—there is a real danger there—but surely Members should recognise that there is an opposite danger as well, whereby a single supranational agency becomes the sole source of information on what is true. These are the people who said that covid-19 definitely did not come from a lab leak at the Wuhan institute, as now seems likely. These are the people who said that lockdowns would only be short and temporary, rather than lasting the best part of two years, and who said that vaccines stopped transmission, rather than having next to no impact on transmission. They said that vaccines would only be for the vulnerable, rather than everyone—including little babies. They said the vaccines would be voluntary, rather than mandated as they were in many countries, including, very nearly, our own. I do not have confidence in the WHO and its satellites to be the single source of truth on either the science or the response.

I will finish with some observations. As I mentioned, the international health regulations are an existing legal instrument, so they need only a majority of member states at the World Health Assembly in order to come into force. We then have six months to opt out of them. A treaty would require the support of two thirds of member states. I am concerned about the Government’s response to this petition, which said that they

“support a new international legally-binding instrument”.

The Government are therefore in favour of something along the lines of the proposed treaty. They went on to say:

“Not every treaty requires implementing legislation and it is too early to say if that would apply here.”

At the moment, we do not have a commitment from the Government that they would bring the proposals to Parliament, which is very concerning.

Margaret Thatcher warned in a speech in Bruges in 1988 that the UK had not helped to defeat the Soviet Union just to subject itself to a new supranational arrangement: the European Union, as it became. We did subject ourselves to the EU until our current time, and I suggest that we did not leave the EU just to subject ourselves to a new supranational arrangement in the form of the WHO. Some may find that comparison ludicrous, as they find any defence of national sovereignty ludicrous—accept in the case of Scotland. They say that in our interconnected world we need less sovereignty and more co-operation, which means more power for people who sit above the nation states. I say that in the modern world we need nation states more than ever, because only nation states can be accountable to the people, as the WHO is not. Only nation states can temper their policy to the particular circumstances of the people, as the WHO cannot. Only nation states have the legitimacy and agility to adapt to the huge threats and opportunities of our times, as the WHO cannot.

I firmly believe that the treaty and the regulations are another, greater threat to parliamentary sovereignty. It is not clear whether the Government will submit the treaty and the regulations to parliamentary approval, but I believe they should, and I hope the Minister will commit to that today.

Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As we have said, it is important that legislation is in place enabling women to have an abortion. Women should have control over their own bodies. That is why we have the legislation we have in this country.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I recognise the degree of distress and concern felt by many Members in the House over the Supreme Court’s decision. The fact is, though, that I probably disagree with most Members who have spoken so far on this matter. They think that women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy in this matter. However, I think that, in the case of abortion, that right is qualified by the fact that another body is involved. [Interruption.] We can disagree on that question. [Interruption.] We can disagree on that question, but I offer to Members who are trying to talk me down that this is a proper topic for political debate. My point to the Minister on the Front Bench is that I do not understand why we are lecturing the United States on a judgment to return the power of decision over this political question to the states—to democratic decision-makers—rather than leaving it in the hands of the courts.

[Amanda Milling]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. As I say, this is a matter for the US. It is not within our jurisdiction, but the point is that we can rightly have a debate in this House and vote according to our own conscience.

Countering Russian Aggression and Tackling Illicit Finance

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

That is a bit of a tenuous link. Let us be clear: an aggressor is going to consider invading a country regardless of what visas have been given in a third country. Having said that, I agree that we need to look at this, and I made that point clear when I first stood up.

We need to be clear that we need strong defence. One reason I opposed those recent interventions over the past 20 years is because I felt that they distracted us from the real business of countering traditional state-on-state threats. War should always be a means of last resort, once all other avenues have been exhausted, but the real danger was state-on-state threats, including Russia and, increasingly, an assertive China. We all know that jaw-jaw is better than war-war, but jaw-jaw is most effective when supported and backed up by strong armed forces, because potential adversaries then listen. After a decade of hollowing out our defence capabilities and cutting the number of soldiers, we need to get serious about defence and reverse those trends. The Prime Minister is right to say that we have had the largest increase in the defence budget since the end of the cold war—we are standing at about 2.4%, if we believe Government figures—but I suggest that we need to do much more. We still have the smallest Army since the Napoleonic times, if not before. We still have too few ships able to guard our aircraft carriers, and our air defences are thin. As a former soldier, I can promise the House that there is no substitute for boots on the ground. I buy the technology argument—everything about drones and how we have to be up to speed with cyber and all the rest—but there is no substitute for boots on the ground if we want to dominate ground. That is a simple fact.

I ask the Government to seriously think about this, but I also ask the Opposition to do so. For 20 years I have been in this place and I have banged on, together with others, on both sides of the House, about the need for increased defence spending. That has largely fallen on deaf ears. Some Opposition Members will remember that in 2013 I led the revolt from those on the Government Benches on the Bill that became the Defence Reform Act 2014, which was cutting regular troops and trying to replace them with reservists. With the help of the Scottish nationalists and Labour, we tried to get the Government to think again. Unfortunately, I was unable to carry a sufficient number of Conservative Members, but we came close. So I am not standing here being a hypocrite and suggesting this in a way to try to make party political points. I am asking the Labour party, the official Opposition, to do something. The establishment in this country still does not get it on defence. We need a substantial and sustained increase in defence spending, to act as a deterrent, not to be used in an offensive manner. Deterrence is the best way.

The Labour party has a very proud history in this area. It was a Labour Government who signed us up to NATO and who were determined that we had a nuclear deterrent. I suggest to the official Opposition that we need to start at 3% for defence spending but not tie this to a particular percentage of GDP, because GDP fluctuates. We need to start at 3% and then build on it, because we are entering an era where there is a battle for democracy yet to be had. I hope I am not being too dramatic when I say that. We need strong armed forces for that, and the Labour party, the official Opposition, has a role in this.

Having these debates is great, but we have had them so many times before about defence spending and other issues and interventions. If the Labour party was to say, “We are going to commit to a substantial and sustainable level of defence spending”, it would move the dial in the debate. The official Opposition would be surprised at just how much support there is on the Conservative Benches for a substantial increase in defence spending—well above the 2.4% figure we heard bandied about by the Prime Minister yesterday. The official Opposition have an opportunity to move the dial on this, and I encourage them to take it. This is an important issue on the doorstep, contrary to what many people suggest; people are proud of their armed forces. There is also an opportunity to be a force of good for the Union, as we are proud of our armed forces across the four nations of the UK.

I am conscious that others wish to speak, but may I briefly return to this point about the new era we have now entered with regard to the battle for democracy? We believed that democracy would sweep the field after the cold war, because it was blatantly obvious that it was the right thing, but democracy is a fragile concept. We fundamentally believe in it in this place, but let us never underestimate the number of oligarchs and totalitarian individuals out there—states, even—who want to overthrow democracy. We have to nurture, encourage and protect it. But what are we doing? We have a weak foreign policy when it comes to potential aggressors, and not just potential ones; when there is an invasion of a sovereign country we are debating quite petty sanctions. We need to step up to the plate.

I also suggest to the House that this is not just about hard power—quite the contrary, as the cold war was won largely because we won the soft power battle. We need to further finance our diplomatic sources and our diplomacy generally. One reason why I voted against the Libyan intervention, when I was the only Tory to do so and was very unpopular with my own party, was because we simply did not know what was happening on the ground. We did not have the diplomats there kicking the tyres and feeling the dust. We used to have great expertise in this area but we have hollowed it out, through cuts, and those cuts can be counterproductive. They can be a false economy. If we do not know what is happening on the ground, these decisions are much riskier. Satellites and technology take us only so far; we need experts on the ground.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I concur with what my hon. Friend was saying a moment ago about the need for the Labour party to commit to greater defence spending. Labour Members often challenge us about the need to increase development spending and I agree with them on that. He mentions diplomacy as well, and I wonder whether there is the opportunity for a cross-party agreement on sustained investment in our defence and our diplomatic service, and restoring development spending to 0.7% as soon as possible—and perhaps even going beyond it? I wonder whether there is an opportunity to increase all of our commitments to the international community and perhaps achieve a cross-party consensus.

[Mr Baron]

I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention, and I certainly think there is greater scope for cross-party consensus on these key issues. We come together in condemnation of Russia and events such as this, but we need also to come together on such things as defence spending and diplomatic spending.

Let me return to soft power. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the British Council, and I know that some Members on the Opposition Benches have served with the British Council. We work together in trying to promote the interests of the British Council, but let me cite a further example of where we are going wrong as a country. Last year, the Government failed to meet the £10 million shortfall between the British Council’s commercial activities—predominantly the teaching of English in the far east, mostly in China—and the money the Government supplied. That £10 million shortfall has resulted in the closure of 20 country operations. That is not global Britain or the furthering of the interests of soft power. The British Council is a key instrument of our soft power capability. We are a soft power superpower, but we should never take that for granted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I thank and congratulate the Opposition on bringing forward this debate. It is a very, very important and timely matter. I am impressed by the unanimity that has been shown across the House in response to what is happening in eastern Europe and by the support that has been given to the Government’s measures so far.

The shadow Foreign Secretary said earlier that the world is watching to see whether the west meets this test, and he is absolutely right. The Foreign Secretary said recently that there has been a decade of drift in regard to Russia, and, sadly, that is true as well, but that is no longer the case. I applaud the measures that have been announced: the clampdown on the activities of the oligarchs in the UK; the suspension of banking; and the restrictions on the Russian state and Russian companies from raising debt in London markets.

What more can and should be done? Yes, we must take resolute action to get illicit Russian money out of the City. I was powerfully struck by what the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) said about Companies House. From my constituency work, I have become very conscious of the deficiencies of the system there and the ability that fraudsters have to establish companies. There is also a danger from a security perspective, so action must be taken, and I am sure that the Government are hearing that.

Many Members and commentators have suggested that Russian trading should be suspended through the SWIFT banking system. I defer to others on that, but I do just observe the potential economic turmoil that that would induce and recognise that it might be necessary for us to experience pain in this country, even at a time when our own economy is fragile and when the cost of living is going up. We recognise that, because of the decade of drift that the west has allowed to take place in Russia, there may be economic pain in consequence.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that SWIFT is a messaging system between banks, so cutting off other Russian banks from the messaging system is not quite the nuclear option that people suggest it is, although it would complicate matters?

[Danny Kruger]

As I said, I defer to others on that, but I thank my hon. Friend for that information.

The same applies to the impact on wholesale gas prices, which will naturally ensue as European countries in particular restrict their imports of Russian gas. That is necessary. Thankfully, we are not dependent on Russian gas to the same extent as our friends in Europe. I commend Germany for its brave decision to suspend Nord Stream 2. I hope that that will become a permanent commitment.

The Opposition accuse us of not doing enough. Of course there can, should and will be more steps taken, but I invite them to consider what they would be saying if we had shot off every measure possible all in one go, without consultation and without collaboration with our partners. They would be accusing us, no doubt, of precipitate, hasty action and of lack of partnership with our allies. We would probably be accused of Brexit Britain little Englandism, impotent sabre rattling, and trying to distract attention from political problems at home. They would be making those accusations if we were shooting off every possible measure in the book. Actually what we are doing is taking deliberate action. We should not mistake a measured approach for a lack of resolution. On the contrary, this is a steady, deliberate ramping up of the sanctions that are necessary, in partnership with our allies. This is the responsible way to proceed. It is the way that this Government proceeded when the Russian state attacked people on the streets of this country in Salisbury in my county of Wiltshire. It was the right action to take. It took a little while to convene an international response to that, but it was the right one.

What can we do beyond finance? I applaud the military commitments that have been made in recent months, and particularly those in recent weeks, including: the increase in the military support that we give to Ukraine; our commitment of further troops to Estonia and Poland; the increase in our RAF presence in Cyprus; and the dispatch of warships to the eastern Mediterranean and the Black sea. Those are all the right measures to take. Putin said rather preposterously that Russia was being encircled by NATO. That now will come true because of what he has done. I commend the Government from before this crisis for their increased funding—£20 billion extra—to our armed forces, which includes investment in cyber and in all the grey zone defences that we need to counter the sort of threats that Russia poses. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said a few moments ago. I cannot believe that we do not also need an increase in the number of men and women in uniform able to act as a deterrent to the sort of aggression that we are seeing. As I said in my intervention on him, as a nation, we need to increase development spending, diplomatic spending and defence spending.

I had the honour of meeting some of the soldiers going out to service part of Operation CABRIT in Estonia last year when they were training on Salisbury plain in my constituency. I want to take this opportunity to press for those soldiers to be awarded a campaign medal in recognition of their activities to defend Europe and the west as part of Operation CABRIT. Under the current circumstances, it is extremely necessary and appropriate to recognise that they are not just undertaking a training exercise; they are actually defending Europe and defending the UK. I hope that we will see a medal for our troops who are serving in eastern Europe and that we will increase our armed forces in the years to come.

Elections Bill (Seventh sitting)

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I was inspired to say a few words, not least by your intervention, Sir Edward. I pay tribute to both Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire, whom I held in the highest regard. I express my condolences to everyone affected by their loss, and may they both rest in peace.

I was also inspired to speak by the contribution from the hon. Member for Devizes about people who, when we are out doing our knock-ups on polling day, say, “I’ve forgotten my poll card.”

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Peterborough.

[Patrick Grady]

I do beg your pardon—it was the hon. Member for Peterborough. They will need to fix the lighting for the next round of parliamentary photographs. I do apologise, but the point stands that it is an experience that we have all had. We knock on the door and people say, “I’ve lost my poll card. How can I vote now?”. Currently, we can reassure them by saying, “You don’t need your poll card. Simply identify who you are and your name will be ticked off the list.” That shows the attachment that people have to their poll card. A lot of people think that their poll card is required as a form of ID to vote. As campaigners standing at polling stations, we see people turning up to vote and bringing their poll card with them because of the attachment that they have to it as a document. It helps to inspire their right to vote, so in that sense it works in both directions.

Now when we are on the doorstep, we will have to say to voters, “You need to bring a form of identification with you to vote.” Under the schedule, that has to be a particular form of voter identification. If we were able to say, “You’ve got your poll card. That’s great. You can take that down. That will verify your identity and you’ll be able to take part in the poll,” that would make it even easier for people to comply with the legislation that is under consideration.

On the notion that people could go around harvesting poll cards from university dockets—not to go back to the original clause, Sir Edward—we have heard that instances of that are extremely few. It is already a crime. If someone turns up with more than one poll card, that is personation. I have every faith that in our current electoral system, individual polling clerks will realise, if a voter turns up with two cards, that they are only one person, and they will not be allowed to cast two votes. They would there and then be done, and were it determined that a candidate had been responsible for encouraging them to do that, the candidate would be disqualified from the election.

The amendment, and those that we will discuss shortly, would help as many people as possible to comply with the new requirement that people have a form of identification in order to cast their vote. Opposition Members are trying to expand people’s opportunities to comply with that requirement, and the Government’s opposing it demonstrates what the real intent is behind the clause and the Bill as a whole, which is to make it more difficult for people to vote, which is a dangerous route to go down.

Covid-19: Freedom of Religion or Belief

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I apologise to you and to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for arriving after the start of her speech. I congratulate her and thank her for securing this important and timely debate.

I will not speak at length about persecuted minorities around the world, not having great experience on the topic, but I do have a powerful memory of visiting the Anglican church in Baghdad in 2003, just after the invasion of that country, with Canon Andrew White, who was the vicar of Baghdad and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the middle east. I tagged along with him on his first visit back to Baghdad after the invasion, and he reopened the church, which had been closed during the war, or during the invasion.

I remember the most joyful service. There were children running around and people from all walks of life, including American and British soldiers. I remember clearly the caretaker, who had looked after the church and kept it going through the invasion and the war. Within a couple of months of that visit, that man and his whole family were dead, and the whole church had been dispersed. That was the beginning of the persecution of Christians in Iraq, which led to pretty much the eradication of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. That terrible scenario has been repeated across the world in all sorts of terrible ways, and not just affecting Christians, as we have been hearing.

The debate is about the pandemic and the role of faith groups, and I want to make two points in the light of that. The first is about how important faith groups are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton has said, in reaching the poorest and working through their networks to ensure that support, whether with healthcare or with economic assistance during the crisis, reaches them. Obviously I entirely endorse everything that my hon. Friend said about standing against discrimination on the basis of faith in the developing world.

I also want to observe how important faith groups will be, in the developing world and at home, in countering misinformation about the vaccination programme that is beginning soon. I suggest that we need some religious literacy in working with faith groups and ensuring that misinformation is properly countered. Too often in our debates—frankly, in those about development as well as those about vaccination and misinformation—mainstream opinion seems to be that religion is part of the problem, and that if only people could be disabused of their fanciful superstitions it would be possible to convince them of what the science tells us. That is not going to help.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton talked about forced conversion. It makes me think about what we are asking people of faith to do. We are asking people who are suspicious of secular Governments, big companies and non-governmental organisations to abandon, effectively, what their faith says about those things and to undergo a vaccination that they do not believe in. We have to be much more respectful of them. I would put this, Mr Rosindell—I hope you will forgive me—in spiritual terms. The devil is in the structures of the world. There is injustice. There are bad people doing bad things, and people are victims of injustice through no fault of their own; but I do not believe that the Government—this is the argument we need to make—and big pharma or the NGOs are more particularly evil than the rest of us.

I will quote from Ephesians: “Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of this dark age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Our battle is not against people or organisations, but against spiritual forces, and that is the reality that people of faith hold, recognise and believe in. We have to help them to understand where the real enemy is. I suggest that the devil gets into the resistance to secular globalised organisations as well as into those organisations themselves, sowing distrust and spreading deceit. That can be seen in some of the malign forces that are operating in the way that disinformation is spread through social media. It is a spiritual battle and we need to respect people who think that way and not just tell them they are stupid.

My second point—raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton—is about religious freedom at home. We closed churches through the lockdown, and I regret that. We effectively abolished the freedom of assembly throughout the country, and in all institutions. Okay, fair enough. We only overturned freedoms that were won 400 years ago, in that instance—but in closing churches we overturned the foundation of our constitution itself, which was laid 800 years ago. The first line of Magna Carta, as you will know, Mr Rosindell, is that the church in England shall be free. I suggest that it was unconstitutional for the Government to pass a law ordering the closure of churches for collective worship.

I note in passing that in answer to a written question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) earlier this month, the Government said that shutting churches was justified under article 2 of the European convention on human rights—that the right to life, interpreted as the right to health, justified the closure of churches. I am sorry that the ECHR has been held to trump Magna Carta.

I interpret what has happened differently. I think that churches shut voluntarily and were under no compulsion to do so. I respect the decision that they made to shut voluntarily, for the sake of closing down the pandemic. I am very pleased that the Prime Minister has said that churches can open for services after 2 December. Sadly, there will be no mixing outside people’s bubbles, which means no sign of the peace—a bit of a relief for some of us who do not like that bit of the service. But it is a shame that we cannot mix in churches. However, the principle that churches can remain open is vital—and I obviously extend that to all faith groups, and all communities of faith in this country.

[David Linden]

I am subject to similar regulations in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman has already quoted scripture from Ephesians, but it should be put on record as well that we are reminded that when two or more are gathered, he shall be present. The four walls of a church are just a building. When we come together in fellowship, whether that is by Zoom or on the telephone, we can still worship God.

[Danny Kruger]

I recognise that. The Holy Scripture was written for the age of Zoom. There is a sense that the church is the body of Christ, which is the people. However, it is established doctrine that the body consists of people gathering together. I appreciate that “two or three” gathered together is sufficient, according to the Bible, but I feel that the principle of collective worship being physical and the body of Christ being allowed to gather, in physical form, is part of our constitutional foundations.

I appreciate the opportunity we have had to discuss this subject and I endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton has said.

Refugee Communities: Covid-19

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing this debate and for her speech, which demonstrated her own commitment to this agenda. As she said, she represents a part of London that demonstrates the proud history of this country in welcoming some of the poorest people from around their world to make their home here and make an enormous contribution to our national life. I pay tribute to her and I agree with much of what she said.

In this crisis, as a country we have turned inward somewhat; we have looked to our own problems and challenges. We have discovered our neighbourhoods and lived more locally. We have discovered, in many ways, that we are citizens of somewhere, each of us in our local lives, yet we are also citizens of the world. As the hon. Lady said, we know that the poorest people are most at risk and most vulnerable to the effects of the global pandemic. I am incredibly proud of the UK’s record this year. The Government have committed significant sums—£750 million—to the global fight against covid-19, much of it for the poorest countries in the world, with £300 million alone to be spent in the region of Syria this year.

Beyond the immediate response to the crisis, we have a very proud recent record of contributions to the imperative of building up the global economy and the economies of the poorest countries in the world. I wish to draw attention to a remark made by the World Bank last month, which observed:

“With the notable exception of the UK, which has been an absolute leader, the contributions by governments have been…flat or declining”.

It is talking about the contributions we made of nearly $4 billion to support the poorest economies in the world, which were more than those of the United States, Japan, France and many other leading countries.

Much more can be done, and I recognise many of the points made by the hon. Lady, but I wish to focus on what we here in the UK are doing for refugees, where we still have major responsibilities to fulfil. She mentioned unaccompanied children, so I wish quickly to make the point that I regret that Opposition Members persist in pretending that this Government are somehow hostile to family reunion for refugee children—that is patently untrue and it would be political madness if it were true. Their making that point is irresponsible, as it causes fear and anxiety where none is needed. The Government are absolutely committed to creating reciprocal arrangements with the EU to ensure that unaccompanied children can continue to be reunited with their families, and I have confidence that that will happen. There will be a review of the routes that unaccompanied children can take, which will be presented to Parliament and be accountable to this House.

Another area where we need more progress is on refugee resettlement more generally. I hope the House will acknowledge that the UK’s record in recent years, simply in terms of the numbers of refugees resettled here, is the best in Europe and one of the best in the world. For understandable reasons, the resettlement programme has been halted this year. I entirely understand why—the host countries have restrictions on access and travel and our local authorities are hard pressed enough as it is—but I urge the Minister to give the House and councils an update on when they expect resettlement to restart and on whether the new UK resettlement scheme, the global programme, will replace the current system for refugees from the middle east. I know that my council in Wiltshire is keen to know the plan and is looking forward to clarity.

Perhaps a more significant question than how many refugees we can receive in this country is the question of how we receive them and what sort of help we can give them. As I have said, I think our Government are generous, but they are only as generous as a Government can be. They can only give out money and give people rights to services. That is what Governments do. Refugees get free accommodation, free healthcare and free education. They also get their council tax and utility bills paid and they get a weekly cash allowance, but that is all the Government can do. We can argue that they could give more cash, but they cannot provide more than money. Human beings need more than money, especially if they are new to a country or an area.

[Hannah Bardell]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman probably means well, but his characterisation of the UK system certainly does not chime with the constituents I see coming to my surgery week in, week out. In particular, he talks about what this Government can do, saying that all they can do is give cash, but I disagree with that in the strongest possible terms. In Scotland, as I will set out in my contribution, we set up a scheme where Syrian doctors, nurses and health professionals have been able to retrain and come to Scotland, and they are now at the forefront of fighting the covid-19 pandemic. I am sorry, but I do not buy what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Surely he and his Government must recognise, as the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) said in her speech, that so much more can and should be done.

[Danny Kruger]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I absolutely agree that there is more that can be done than giving out money, but it is not just the responsibility of Government to do that. That is the point I want to make. We need more than welfare, and more than a roof over our heads. Our needs are higher up the hierarchy of needs than that. We need friends and we need culture. We need agency, responsibility and a sense of purpose and belonging, and we need work to do, as she says. All of this is the responsibility of all of us in society.

I want to end with another tribute to the Government, this time for the community sponsorship scheme, which was first introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) when she was at the Home Office. It was inspired by the way in which refugees in Canada have been resettled over many decades. It is an inspirational model whereby refugees—individuals and families—are received into a community by a local community group working with the local authority and the public services. They provide so much more than a house and welfare. They provide English language support and employment and training support, and they provide friends and opportunities to access local social networks, faith communities and so on.

There are two such groups operating in Wiltshire, and they are doing a tremendous job. They have supported families to integrate properly into our communities in a way that the council on its own would never have been able to do. For example, we have a tailor that we did not have before in Wiltshire, working away; we have a painter and decorator; and we have people working for the council. We also have a whole range of new volunteers making a tremendous contribution to our community. These are the new Huguenots that the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow referenced. They are enriching our county and our country, and they are welcomed by local people. This is the model we need much more. These community-sponsored refugees are in addition to the 5,000 a year commitment, but I think it should be the basic model by which we receive and welcome refugee families into our country. This is the model; this is the way we will build a more integrated community and fulfil our obligations to the world.