Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
David Tredinnick ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir William Cash
That is absolutely right.
Over the centuries, Parliaments have acquired their own names. For example, we have had the Barebones Parliament, the Rump Parliament and the Addled Parliament, and there has been the Mad Parliament. This Parliament ought to be called what it has now become—the Purgatory Parliament, with the shenanigans from the Opposition and from those who have been determined to remain in the European Union at any price. I have often had to upbraid them. I remember saying:
“I have heard of rats leaving a sinking ship but never of rats trying to sink a leaving ship.” —[Official Report, 18 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 503.]
That remains on the record from some months ago. I say it again for this reason: I believe very, very strongly that it is unconscionable that we should not have this general election. We need it because, above all else, we had the referendum which was itself put into effect by virtue of this House deciding, by six to one, that it would have it. That was in the parties’ manifestos. Opposition Members voted—some of them did and a few did not—by 499 to 126 for the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. Every single Conservative Member of Parliament, even the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), voted for the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which received Royal Assent on 26 June 2018.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
My hon. Friend talked about rats. The exact quotation, if I recall it correctly, is that there are many examples in history of rats leaving a sinking ship but only one of mice joining one.
Sir William Cash
Ha, ha—well, I must say I find that very amusing, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying it.
The name that this Parliament has now acquired and deserves—the Purgatory Parliament—is, I believe, appropriate and right in the circumstances. I would say this to the Committee, as I did some weeks ago on another occasion: in the name of God, go. I believe that this is the moment for this Parliament to depart, in the words of Oliver Cromwell all those years ago. The Speaker has quite frequently referred to 17th-century precedents, so I say again to this Parliament: in the name of God, go. Let us get on with a general election and let us get Brexit done.
Debate on the Address
David Tredinnick Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I am most grateful to be called to speak on this first day of the Queen’s Speech debate. I echo colleagues’ remarks about the excellence of the speeches that we heard at the beginning from my hon. Friends the Members for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton).
I do not know whether you recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the House of Commons gift shop used to sell a fridge magnet featuring the words of a certain British comedian, Spike Milligan. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) remembers it. Those words were “One day the don’t knows will get in, and then where will we be?” I fear that there is a danger that we shall be known as the “don’t know Parliament”.
This is the second Long Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West referred to the first Long Parliament and he may recall what Oliver Cromwell said on 20 April 1653:
“Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d…In the name of God, go!”
My hon. Friend is nodding.
I pray, in the earnest sense of the word, that on Saturday this House determines this matter of Brexit. I speak as a just-remainer who represents a midlands constituency that voted 60:40 out. I believe I have a moral duty to get my constituents out of Europe, and that the authority of the electorate—we delegated power to the electorate—supersedes anything passed by this House. It may be a legal nicety that the referendum was not legally binding, but woe betide this House if it ignores the will of the people.
We need a bit of luck in politics, and I cannot believe my luck seeing the Minister for Health my hon.—or probably right hon.—Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) sitting on the Front Bench, because I am intending to talk about health. Of course, one of the problems with the Queen’s Speech is that if we try to talk about the subject we wish to talk about someone like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, gets up and says “We have to restrict the debate to four”—or three or two—“minutes,” so we end up with no debate at all. As my perspicacious hon. Friend the Member for Southend West knows and pointed out, one of the joys of being lucky enough to be called on the first day, however, is that we might get a chance to make a longer speech, so I am particularly grateful to be called, and I want to talk about the health measures in the Queen’s Speech and, if I have time, say a word about the environment.
I absolutely welcome the 40 new hospitals that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has committed to, and I am particularly excited because Leicester, with the Royal Infirmary, the General and Glenfield, is going to be part of that massive hospital upgrade programme. I would like to think that when my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary came to Hinckley and saw what we were doing there—he visited an integrated healthcare clinic, where he saw chiropractors and massage therapists working together, apart from the main hospital—that might have influenced his decision.
Madam Deputy Speaker, it will be no secret to you and possibly the Minister of State that I have argued pretty much all my parliamentary career for integrated healthcare. I note that an integrated healthcare Bill was referred to in the Queen’s Speech, but I do not think it is quite the integration that I have been looking for, which is a wider range of treatments available on the NHS. I will go further today, in what might be my last speech—it will certainly be my last contribution to a Queen’s Speech debate—in what has so far been a 32-year career as I am standing down and say that, despite my support for these 40 hospitals, I think we need a new health paradigm. If we look around at what is happening outside—the Attenborough effect, worries about plastics and the Antarctic, not to mention activities recently—we can see that what we really need now is a sustainable healthcare policy. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) is getting a phone message.
David Tredinnick
I am glad, and I wasn’t expecting that; Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will waive the rule that says electronic devices are not allowed to be used in support of a cause.
We really need a new paradigm. We need a new health paradigm and that paradigm must look at the carbon footprint of drugs among other things, and it must look at how we are deploying resources in the health service. I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that there is a reluctance on the part of the medical establishment to share any space or any resources with anything it does not control itself. I cite in evidence the Osteopaths Act 1993 and the Chiropractors Act 1994. I sat on both those Bills; they were private Members’ Bills and they became Acts of Parliament. We were told beforehand, “The osteopaths and chiropractors do not have proper regulations so how can we bring them into the health service?” Well, they have now got proper regulation; they are regulated by Acts of Parliament, but where in the country do we find them working with orthopaedic surgeons? The osteopaths and the chiropractors have a carbon zero footprint—and the western acupuncturists for that matter have a carbon zero footprint—and they can help these practitioners in our hospitals. I would like to see a small percentage of the money going to these new hospitals put towards a broader base of treatment.
The Professional Standards Authority was set up by the Government to regulate, with oversight, a whole range of professions from sports therapists to all sorts of other therapists. I have argued so many times that the Government should respect the PSA’s own request that it be taken seriously and be able to refer cases that it sees to doctors. It is almost as if it does not exist. The Government speak with forked tongue on this, and I am really concerned about it, so I ask my hon. Friend—who perhaps will be winding up the debate—if she will look at that.
One third of the world’s population already has sustainable healthcare so this is hardly a novel approach. China, which has a population of 1.4 billion, has its traditional 4,000-year-old herbal medicine system and acupuncture, and India has a sustainable health ministry and a 4,000-year-old medical system plus the world’s greatest usage of homeopathy.
I have just been to India for a week at the request of its Government; I was invited by the Government to see what was going on. I went because on 17 January I had a chance to ask a question of a man I respect, Sir Andrew Dillon, who is the chairman of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. I said to him, “I can’t understand why you and your committee are dithering over whether acupuncture works for lower back pain—it has been on and off. Have any of your team been to China or India where the critical mass is, to see what is going on?” and he said, “No, we haven’t; we haven’t got the money.” In fairness to NICE, its budget has been cut by 30%.
I do not pretend to be an academic—I am a politician—but I did do research at Oxford under Professor Sammy Finer of All Souls and Gillian Peele at Lady Margaret Hall for a research degree in the ’80s, and they always said to me, “If you’re doing research, go to the biggest base of information you can find.” Yet NICE has been making decisions on tiny numbers of people—a few homeopaths in Liverpool, a couple of different groups of herbalists and acupuncturists. Why on earth are we not looking at the two biggest countries in the world that use these systems?
As I have said, I have been to India for a week as the guest of the Government. The Secretary of State knows all about this as I have talked to him about it; I was their guest and I shall declare it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but I paid for the flights. The AYUSH Ministry—Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy—covers a range of disciplines, but I want to dispose first of one component, and that is homeopathy. I want to dispose of this to give some idea of the scale of the operation. Here in the UK, the tiny group of homoeopaths has been under constant pressure in recent years from so-called sceptics saying that there is no evidence. When I was in Delhi, I met Dr Raj Manchanda who runs the Government services in Delhi. Delhi has 6,000 homeopathic clinics, with 15,000 registered homeopathic practitioners, of whom 80% are doctors who have had five years’ training. They practise in almost every street. I also went to the homeopathic institute and teaching hospital in Calcutta. On a 14-acre site, I found three different lines of patients waiting in areas the size of the New Palace Yard. The hospital was treating some 2,000 patients a day, off season, and 3,400 in the hot season, with 100 doctors and postgrads on duty at any one time.
This is the evidence we could look at. How can we possibly accept that there is no evidence when in the whole of India homeopathy—which was exported from London to India during the British time and caught on—has 300,000 practitioners, 250,000 of whom are doctors, treating an average 20,000 patients a day? I will leave that now. I know that not everybody wants to hear me going on about homeopathy—[Interruption.] Well, doesn’t it make it look ridiculous? There are a quarter of a million homeopathic doctors there, yet somebody here who is not very well qualified is saying that there is no evidence. I really think we should look at this. A lot of Indian homeopaths come back to the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine to do research degrees, and they regard it as the ultimate to come back here and do that work.
I was honoured to have a meeting with Shripad Naik, who is the Minister in charge at AYUSH. He is actually the equivalent of a Secretary of State. Here, the Secretary of State here has responsibility for 66 million people; Shripad has responsibility for 1,300 million, which is 1.3 billion. I think I have got that right; I never was a mathematician. I spoke to our Secretary of State about this, and he would be happy to receive an invitation from Minister Naik to visit India and look at these medical systems—I went round 12 hospitals—and also to establish a working group on traditional medicine such as the one India has with Germany. I would say to the Minister of State, before she gets distracted, that Minister Naik is in the process of opening 5,000 integrated health clinics with allopathic medicine, complementary medicine, the Ayurveda medical system of India and homeopathy. AYUSH, with its medical system including naturopathy, yoga and homeopathy, has 700,000 practitioners, 700 teaching institutions and 200 postgraduate institutions, with an annual intake of 46,000 for its degree courses and 6,000 for its postgrad course. It runs 3,000 Government hospitals that are integrated healthcare hospitals, and it has 28,000 dispensaries. It has 9,000 Government manufacturing units and there are six AYUSH practitioners per 10,000 population.
That is a massive operation, and I suggest that my hon. Friend the Minister really needs to look at this, because it offers us a chance to have a much better regulatory regime in this country. I do not think that our complementary and integrated healthcare regime is thorough enough, in the sense that it is scrappy and fragmented; I know that from working in this field. The AYUSH Ministry was set up by Prime Minister Modi in 2014 as an independent ministry—I remind colleagues that he has just been re-elected for another five-year term—and he has doubled the AYUSH budget twice. It has gone up four times in five years because AYUSH is so effective at treating people. It is extraordinary. It controls research, through central regulatory bodies and research councils. It controls 11 national educational institutes and it controls drug quality care regulation with two central pharmacopeia laboratories and a national medicinal plant board.
Looking around at the landscape outside the House now and at the general attitude that has got very intense—including people’s anger about plastics—I believe that it is only a matter of time before a tsunami of anger comes round the corner because people here are not allowed these services across the health service. I really encourage my hon. Friend to look at this, because they provide solutions where antibiotics are failing, and they provide solutions to opiate addiction. The three main services that AYUSH offers are: Ayurveda; yoga and naturopathy; and homeopathy.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you are smiling at me and I really appreciate that. I do not think you are standing to be the next Speaker—[Interruption.] You might be; perhaps you are, so you could be smiling for two reasons. Certainly, one of your reasons is to try to get me to sit down, so I will finish on this.
In 2013, I was acting Chairman of the Health Committee for a short period of time in the interregnum between our other hon. Friends who were Chairs, and I put out the report—HC401—entitled “Managing the care of people with long–term conditions”. It contains evidence from the late great Peter Fisher, the Queen’s homeopath, and George Lewith, who ran a department at the University of Southampton. What I found, going round 12 institutions and research laboratories in India, was that homeopathy was used frequently for long-term conditions with multiple problems because it can find the root of the problem, and I just ask my hon. Friend to look carefully at that and perhaps visit the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, which is world-famous.
I hope that I may get called to speak again one day, Madam Deputy Speaker, but with that, I will sit down.
Mr Ellwood
My right hon. Friend gives us a teaser of what we can expect her to speak about, which I am very much looking forward to, and I am pleased that she would like to see investment at Boscombe station—[Laughter.] I will now move on from that sensitive but important subject.
On a more serious note, I make no apology for focusing on international security given our ever greater reliance on the economy, access to global markets, trading alliances and, of course, international peace and security, including the links with our own security environment. The first line of the security and defence review talks about the symbiotic relationship between national security and economic security—we cannot have one without the other—so I welcomed the Prime Minister’s illustrating a desire to continue to play a role in global affairs and to champion global free trade. I certainly welcome the renewed commitment to spending 2% of GDP on defence, but I want to make it clear that I do not believe that is enough.
The challenges we face are growing and the threats are accumulating. While we can manage and contain the threats today, we face an increasingly dangerous and complex world. We often speak about the erosion of the rules-based order; just look at what happened last week when we saw Turkey breach international law with its military incursion into northern Syria. Let us be honest: a busy, distracted and disunited world is essentially looking the other way. Given the increasingly volatile and changing times, it is a sad testament to the failing international cohesion that once saw the west stand with resolve to defend international norms and values.
The US is our closest and most critical ally, but we must be strong enough to call it out when errors are made. President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops has triggered a humanitarian crisis and has undone much of the good work to bring stability to the region. The defeat of Daesh has been set back. We have unleashed a chain reaction of events that is seeing instability and humanitarian crisis unfold.
What message does this send to our competitors and adversaries around the world? Again, I cite the example of China. Twenty years ago, China’s military spending was on a par with ours; today, its defence budget is $250 billion. In our lifetimes, China will spend more on military than the United States does, and it will become bigger economically than the United States. China is watching what is happening. We must see what is happening in the South China sea—China is able to dominate in that arena—and stand together to support the international rules-based order.
David Tredinnick
Is my right hon. Friend worried about Chinese intervention in the telephone network—5G and Huawei?
Mr Ellwood
That is for another day and another debate, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. China dominates on a scale that we simply cannot comprehend over here. Its technological capabilities and its investment in quantum computing, and so on, mean it already owns 40% of the world’s data, and it is moving further afield. Once a country moves into the Chinese way of thinking—Huawei, and so on—it is very difficult to get out.
It is only a matter of time before countries that are already financially compelled or obliged to support Chinese methods and systems will have to move over to China’s global positioning system, and so on. Then they will have to move over to the Chinese reserve currency, instead of the dollar. We will potentially see the world split into two huge domains unless we check it, but that is for another debate.
Back to Turkey and Syria, I make it clear that the Syrian Democratic Forces were our allies. They were our boots on the ground, and now we see them pivoting towards the Assad regime—a regime against which we rightly launched weapons strikes because it was using chemical weapons and barrel bombs against its own people.
This has been a disastrous week for international foreign policy. We are losing any leverage in pursuing a peaceful outcome in Syria, so I cannot stress enough the implications of Turkey’s incursion. I simply ask the Government to lead calls for Turkey to withdraw, and I call on them to impose an arms embargo until that happens. Let us lead Europe. Let us stand up and bring America with us, if it will not lead on this front.
We cannot complain about the erosion of the international rules-based order if we are not willing to defend it. Ironically, as the west becomes more risk averse, the world is becoming more unstable, giving space for our competitors to avoid effective scrutiny and to advance their own interests illicitly beneath the threshold of any international response. Simply put, the old Bretton Woods organisations that stood us well after the second world war are now out of date, and they are being rejected by newer nations, too. We need to step up to the plate, recognise what is actually happening and lead on updating the standards and norms by which we expect nations to abide.
I make it clear that the threat picture has also changed, as illustrated by the rise of non-state actors such as Islamic State. Their ability to recruit and finance themselves through the internet, and so on, will not go away. We need to recognise that we had no viable plan for the aftermath of the combat phase in Iraq and Syria. Thousands of hard-line jihadi fighters, who for months sat behind barbed wire guarded by the SDF, are now able to escape and our counter-Daesh partners are being attacked by a NATO ally.
It is not enough for Britain to deny dual-national fighters any right to return to the UK, while expecting the SDF to process them and their families. We are now seeing orphans caught up in this with nowhere to go. If the United States, to give it its due, can take back youngsters and orphans who are caught up in the mess over there, so can we. Let us get on the front foot and lead by example. Let us show other nations around the world what we can do.
I encourage the Government to show much needed international leadership and help to update international protocols so that all countries can take responsibility for their own nationals and dual nationals, rather than abandoning them to fate, with the very real prospect of allowing them to regroup to fight another day. This is about national security. Please do not say I am making Britain less safe. This is at the forefront of my mind, not just from a personal perspective but because of my interest in Britain’s national security. We need to sort out this problem. It is not an unconditional surrender, as we saw in the past; it is a new phenomenon that we need to get our heads around.
Changing technologies are another critical aspect of the Bill that is affecting the threat picture. Over the next decade, technology will advance to dominate our lives, with machines talking directly to machines, smart city infrastructure, artificial intelligence and automation. Our reliance on the infrastructure supporting this new technological world is critical, so I am pleased that we are investing in this area and that we have leading businesses capable of doing so.
Our ever greater reliance on technology comes with a risk. Cyber and space capabilities are so integral to civilian, commercial and military applications that a total or even partial loss of their use would have an instant and dramatic impact on our lives. Our ability to communicate, share information, conduct transactions, use the internet, fly planes or predict the weather would all be severely affected.
I welcome the 2% commitment, but it will soon be inadequate to meet the wide spectrum of threats that we face, especially our technological vulnerability. Data is now taking over terrain as the arena of choice to disrupt an enemy. Why resort to conventional attacks when greater devastation can be caused to an economy or an electoral outcome simply with a laptop?
We are now also seeing the weaponisation of space. In military terms, space has become the ultimate high ground. We require a space command, so we need to follow the United States and France. We saw the evolution of the Air Force 100 years ago and we now need to do the same for space, because both Russia and China have reorganised their military structures to include space as a fighting domain. We need to recognise the changing parameters of conflict and adapt in that area, too.
We also need to invest in our conventional forces. On a day when we have seen the F-35 land on the aircraft carrier, we can be very proud. In the Gulf War we had 36 fast-jet squadrons, but today we have just six. Our main battle tank is now over 25 years old and is in dire need of an upgrade. Our Navy is getting smaller and smaller, and China is increasing its navy by the size of our Navy every single year. If we want to protect our trading routes after Brexit, we need a surface fleet that is able to do that.
Listening to this debate, I feel that colleagues, in some cases, are not even aware of what is actually happening this week. There is a small possibility that we will strike a deal—not a no deal, as SNP Members spent their entire time talking about—but I stress this is part 1. This is getting us to the transition. Part 2 is the relationship beyond that.
I am pleased that last week we saw some consensus, a sense of compromise, with people being willing to step forward from their original anchored positions to say, “This has gone on long enough. Let’s move forward.” I wish more colleagues were able to think that way, rather than going back to their original position and saying, “I am not willing to discuss this.”
Prime Minister's Update
David Tredinnick Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am not going to comment on anything that was said by any member of the Cabinet during Cabinet; that would be totally wrong because, of course, there is a risk of serious distortion in the reporting. What I can say is that the Government have the utmost respect for the judiciary and, indeed, for the judgment, and that is why we are all here today. I think it has actually been to the advantage of the House to hear a little about the negotiations, but I think the House will also understand that some of the measures that have been passed by the House—or at least one of the measures that has been passed by the House—have not made negotiation any easier. I just say that in all candour and sincerity, and I think hon. Members know that.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Mr Speaker—[Interruption.] My voice is restored. My right hon. Friend has talked about a surrender Act, which is quite accurate. Does he recall, as I do, because I was in the House at the time, the 1989 Act introducing the community charge, which was persistently described as a poll tax by the Opposition deliberately to stoke up anger and opposition in the country?
Mr Speaker
I appreciate the good humour of the hon. Gentleman. I am sorry that he was struggling with his throat, but it was suggested to me that he could usefully take a herbal remedy.
G7 Summit
David Tredinnick Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I have answered this question twice before. We will abide by the law, but I have to say I think it is a quite incredible thing to propose, deleterious to the interests of this country and this Government, and it will make it impossible for us to get the deal this country needs.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend explain in greater detail the steps taken at the G7 to protect endangered species?
The Prime Minister
I can indeed explain. My hon. Friend will recall that under the Kyoto protocol, targets were set for the reduction of greenhouse gases; what the world now wants to see is specific targets—quanta—for the protection of endangered species, whether flora or fauna. It is a tragedy that the number of elephants in the wild is down now to about 300,000 and the number of lions down to perhaps 15,000; we are seeing the tragic reduction of species around the world, and the world needs to work together to prevent that loss of habitat and loss of species, and that is what we agreed to do at G7. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) does not care about it, but, believe me, the people of this country care passionately—they care passionately about what is happening to animals around the world. She is totally indifferent to it, but my constituents certainly are not.
Priorities for Government
David Tredinnick Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I struggle to find a point in the hon. Gentleman’s question. If he has an allegation that he wishes to make, I suggest that he sends it to me in writing, and I will be happy to respond.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I congratulate the Prime Minister on a brilliant start, and particularly his support of the health service. Is he aware that his counterpart in India, Prime Minister Modi, has oversight of two health Ministries: the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of AYUSH, which is for traditional and complementary medicine and has 7,000 hospitals? Will he ensure that the Health Secretary is in contact with AYUSH?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate him on the heroic campaign he has waged to promote alternative medicines and therapies of all kinds. I feel sure that it would be to the benefit of my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary, who is not in his place—he has gone off to solve social care. I think it very important that we have an open mind about Ayurvedic medicine and other such therapies, but we should approach it on the basis of science first.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Tredinnick Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Mr Lidington
The problem with that proposal is that, so far, whenever the idea of a second referendum has been brought before the House there has been a majority against it. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal would actually deliver the outcome he seeks.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I associate myself with the remarks about Sri Lanka. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House whether he thinks it likely that we will leave the European Union by 22 May? Does he agree with me that both the major political parties are likely to suffer at the polls if we do not? What does it say to my Leicestershire constituents about the democratic process if this House cannot get the withdrawal agreement to leave the European Union over the line?
Mr Lidington
I completely understand and share the sense of exasperation that my hon. Friend expresses. It has been made very clear from this Dispatch Box on several occasions that the consequence of the House voting to reject the withdrawal agreement and in favour of an extension is that the Government would need to make preparations, as required by law, for those European elections. The way in which we solve this problem is for Parliament to assemble a majority behind a deal, to vote for it, to get the legislation through and to give effect to our departure from the EU.
European Council
David Tredinnick Excerpts(5 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
No, it is not an impossibility. It is possible for the European Parliament to ratify in advance of the United Kingdom ratifying.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
As a long-term supporter of the deal of my right hon. Friend, I congratulate her on coming back from Europe with an extension that does not have the onerous conditions that we were all told would be imposed. Speaking for the businesses in the midlands, may I say that time is of the essence? They are not getting the bank loans that they need and are going out of business. May I also say, with reference to the Opposition, that it is the Opposition who are being blamed for their intransigence and sheer bloody-mindedness in this matter?
The Prime Minister
In relation to businesses, my hon. Friend is absolutely right: time is of the essence. It is important that we bring the uncertainty that businesses are facing to a conclusion. That is why it is absolutely right that we do everything we can to find a way through to achieving a majority in this House that delivers on Brexit and that does it in an orderly way so that we give certainty to those businesses.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Tredinnick Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
I call Mr David Duguid. No? He previously signalled an interest, and I was trying to accommodate him, but never mind.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
If my right hon. Friend had been elected leader of the Labour party, would she be allowing a free vote this evening?
The Prime Minister
There are passionately held views and differences of opinion on this issue, and I think it would be of benefit to the House if there were a free vote across the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Tredinnick Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady will recognise that I am not able to respond to the individual details of the case at the Dispatch Box, but I will ensure that the Department for Work and Pensions and the relevant Minister look at the case and respond to her.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Improving mental healthcare has rightly become a priority for the Government, but are the Government doing anything to improve the mental health situation of hard-pressed NHS staff who deserve support?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Our dedicated NHS staff, day in and day out, are delivering an unwavering commitment in caring for us all, and obviously it is necessary that we ensure their mental health is looked after. We are setting up a dedicated mental health support service, which will offer NHS staff confidential advice and support 24 hours a day. It will be staffed by qualified professionals who have had training in situations that are unique to the NHS and will ensure that mental health referrals for NHS employees, from either a general practitioner or an occupational health clinician, are fast-tracked. It is right that mental and physical wellbeing is at the forefront of our health service, and it is right that we are taking this action to support our dedicated NHS staff.
Exiting the European Union
David Tredinnick Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As I have explained to Members previously, this question of the backstop, and the concern about the backstop, is one that is not just held by a small number of Members of this House; it is held by a wide range of Members on both the Opposition Benches and the Government Benches. In that circumstance, I believe we are taking exactly the right action.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Could my right hon. Friend please not bring this back to the House before Christmas? That would give Members in an entrenched position the chance to reflect over the recess.
The Prime Minister
I hear what my hon. Friend says. As I said earlier, the timing of this is rather better determined by the nature of the discussions we have with the European Union.