Oral Answers to Questions
Ed Davey Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
First of all, we recognise the concerns that people have about roads, particularly issues such as potholes in their roads, which is precisely why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made more money available to address those issues.
On the question of HS2, it is not just about a high-speed railway; it is about ensuring that we have the capacity that is needed on this particular route, because we are already reaching capacity on the west coast main line. We are already seeing HS2 spreading prosperity. It is encouraging investment and rebalancing our economy, and that is 10 years before the railway even opens. We have seen 7,000 jobs created across the UK, and 2,000 businesses across the UK are delivering HS2. It will bring tens of billions of pounds’-worth of benefits to passengers, suppliers and local communities up and down the route.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
The Prime Minister
First of all, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct: the late Lord Ashdown was deeply respected across this House, across Parliament as a whole and widely across the country. On the question he puts about the review of the loan charge—[Interruption.] I get the point he was trying to make, but may I just make this point? He talked about Opposition and Government MPs uniting. Actually, the Government accepted his review into the loan charge. I think the first stage might be for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sit down with him and a group of cross-party MPs to look at how that review is being taken forward.
Progress on EU Negotiations
Ed Davey Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right: I am sure that is what many people voted for, and that is what this future relationship will deliver. As I have indicated, obviously we have to negotiate the legal text of that future relationship, but there is every commitment and determination to ensure that that is in place by 1 January 2021. This deal will deliver that sovereignty that my hon. Friend looks for.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Will the Prime Minister confirm that the political declaration is not legally binding and is merely the basis of at least one more year of protracted negotiations with our European partners?
The Prime Minister
As I have explained, we still have the legal text to negotiate in relation to this document. [Interruption.] We still have the legal text to negotiate in relation to this document! What we have is a linkage between the withdrawal agreement in article 184 and the work that will go forward in relation to this. But, yes, there is further negotiation on the legal text of this document. I have been very clear about that in answer to a number of questions.
EU Exit Negotiations
Ed Davey Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
When the time comes for Members of this House to vote in the meaningful vote and to consider the deal that is before them, they will indeed, as I said earlier, need not only to recall the duty to deliver on the vote of the British people but to look very closely at the implications of the vote that they cast. It is the jobs and futures of our constituents that should be at the forefront of our minds.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Given how important immigration was for some leave voters, will the Prime Minister guarantee today that her immigration White Paper will be published and debated before the meaningful vote on the deal?
The Prime Minister
The issue of immigration was indeed important for many people during the vote. They wanted free movement to end. What we are negotiating is an end to free movement. We will publish the immigration White Paper in due course.
Leaving the EU: Negotiations
Ed Davey Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Vince Cable
The European Union over many years has developed a sophisticated rules of origin system in order to develop an answer to precisely the problems presented by the complex nature of modern trade. They are quite right to say that in an environment of uncertainty, there is very little merit in pursuing an agreement.
The other major disadvantage of what the Government are proposing is, as several Members pointed out yesterday, the complete neglect of the services sector. It is not just 80% of the British economy, but includes extremely important industries—notably financial services, but also creative industries, the digital sector and entertainment, and of course much manufacturing happens through services exports. Rolls-Royce earns as much from its maintenance contracts as it does from selling its engines. When we send cars to the European Union, we sell them with a package attached to financial services. It is not at all clear how the Government propose to unscramble those very complicated relationships.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend remember that when I was junior Minister to him as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, we spent a long time arguing for more liberalisation of services, because it was in the UK’s interest to widen and deepen the services market in the EU? Is it not therefore ironic that a Conservative Government want to turn their back on service liberalisation and put up barriers? We could not get a more anti-business approach from the Conservative party.
Sir Vince Cable
It is a lot more than ironic, because this goes back a long way. There has been consensus among successive Governments, starting with Mrs Thatcher and Lord Cockburn through the Blair Government and the coalition Government, on accepting that services exports to the European Union were a major objective of British Government policy. I recall being sent to Berlin and elsewhere to denounce the Germans for their failure to open up their market for services trade and the mutual recognition of qualifications. For example, European countries currently decline to accept British ski instructors, as they do not have mutual recognition of qualifications. A great deal has, however, been achieved, and the Government are now inclined to turn their back on it.
The reasons the Prime Minister advanced for doing so yesterday are partly simply foolish and partly bogus. The folly lies in saying that any services transaction that involves people crossing the border, however valuable, is adding to our net immigration target and is therefore unacceptable, regardless of the economic merit. The bogus argument is to say that this is a problem within the European Union, but it is not going to be a problem if we have trade deals with other countries, because we will be able to proceed with services agreements with them.
However, we already know from the two failed attempts so far to negotiate an outline agreement with India that services trade, wherever it is—within the European Union or outside it—involves the free movement of people, and the Indians are insisting that if we are to have a bilateral trade agreement with them, part of the package will be importing Indian services in the form of IT consultants and much else. If we look around the other big emerging markets—Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria—we can see that what they have to export is people. This is going to be an enormous obstacle to the Government reaching any kind of agreement with any country outside the European Union.
Sir Edward Davey
My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way yet again. Does he remember that when he and I served on a Cabinet Committee looking at trade, we pushed just the arguments that he is now making, and the one person getting in the way of those arguments was the then Home Secretary—now the Prime Minister—who stopped a major trade deal that would be in this country’s interests?
Sir Vince Cable
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We could of course have had a trade deal with India already under the auspices of the European Union, as we do with South Korea, Canada and various other countries. The country that blocked the deal was the UK, because increased services trade would involve increasing numbers of people crossing over to the UK.
I was struck by the comment by one of the more strongly pro-Brexit Conservative MPs—the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—when he was being critical of the Government yesterday. If I am correct, he said that he had no objection to cherry-picking, but that the Government are picking “the wrong cherry”. Actually, services are fundamental to our trade, and the Government have put us in a very difficult position.
The question now is: what should be done? The first step is for those on both sides of the House who believe that we should maximise the closeness of the economic relationship through the customs union and the single market—there are people of a similar persuasion in all parties—to try to achieve that. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden says we have a customs union already, which is exaggerating, but we can certainly converge on having a common approach. Of course, the nearer we get, the more the question arises of why on earth Brexit is happening at all. That leads us back to the question we started with about the need for the public to have a say on the final deal.
Chloe Smith
What we should do is trust the people themselves. Is that not the fundamental point? Their decision in 2016 was not made quickly after just a few weeks; it was made in the context of years of debate on the subject. The idea that they were able to take that decision was what governed the ability to have a referendum. To suggest that some people were wrong or misinformed, or made a choice that has to be reversed, does people down, does trust in politics down, does our country down and does our democracy down terribly.
The referendum question was agreed by Parliament and presented to the people with no conditions or caveats, but with a promise from the Government that we would implement what they chose. We should be coming together and getting on with it.
Sir Edward Davey
I am grateful to the Minister for being generous in giving way. What is her estimate of when the Brexit deal will be done? What will be the date?
Chloe Smith
In case anybody in this place is still somehow, miraculously, unclear on the matter, we will be leaving European Union in March 2019—and so will the Liberal Democrats, whether they like it or not.
I turn to a few more points about Parliament. To try to undermine the result of the referendum by saying that it was somehow wrong does down Parliament, because it was Parliament that gave the decision to the people. We have always been committed to keeping Parliament fully involved in the process of leaving the EU and in determining the shape of the future relationship that we want to achieve. We have said consistently, and demonstrated through the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which has just gained Royal Assent, that Parliament will have a vote on the final deal reached with the EU before it is concluded. That is now legally established. Members will have the choice to accept or reject the final agreement. That, and not a second referendum, should be the decisive vote. Let us give Parliament its rightful role.
I turn to the motion, which deserves a little attention. As the Liberal Democrat leader noted in his opening remarks, Liberal Democrat motions do not come along too often, although they are always a pleasure when they do. I am a little perplexed about why the motion calls for a second referendum in light of the record of the Liberal Democrats. We have probably all seen the classic Liberal Democrat leaflets that say one thing to one street and something else to another, but people cannot do that in Parliament. All seven of the Lib Dem MPs then in the House of Commons voted to give the European Union Referendum Bill, which specified one referendum, not two, its Second Reading. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), the Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman, was among their number. Why does he think today that he should change position and say something else in this motion? Maybe that is explained by the behaviour of the Liberal Democrats when article 50 was triggered; let us follow slightly more recent history. I seem to recall that, at the time of that vote, the Liberal Democrats were, frankly, all over the shop—there is no other way to put it.
Let me in passing, however, pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has just left his place. His constituency is near mine and he is a good man. He was the one Liberal Democrat Member who recognised publicly that his party’s position on Brexit was toxic. He feared that the party was not listening to people and was treating them with disdain. I pay tribute to him for his insight and courage in saying so.
Chloe Smith
Before I give way to anyone else, I just want to take the opportunity, given that it has been rather handed to me on a plate, to remind the House that it is the Labour party that is all over the shop on the result of the EU referendum. Labour party politicians and supporters have suggested more than 60 times, I think, that the party is going to support a divisive second referendum. Whether that is or is not its party policy at this precise moment in time is anybody’s guess.
Let me move on to the final point I wanted to make about the Liberal Democrats before drawing my remarks to a close. I want to reflect on what I think is the right thing to say at this moment. It is this:
“The public have voted and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say ‘Sorry guys, you’ve got it wrong, we’re going to try again’.”
Chloe Smith
It would be preferable if those of us who are Unionists, and who feel very strongly that our United Kingdom has made a decision together and should be able to look forward to a good result of that decision together, could unite around that argument. It is really important that we secure a deal that works for the entire United Kingdom. I am very pleased that the motion refers to the “people of the UK”. The hon. Lady and her colleagues are right to put that phrase in the motion, because we are committed to securing a deal that works for the people of the UK.
Sir Edward Davey
On the subject of the deal, one thing that confused us in the Prime Minister’s comments on the Chequers statement was this: if the EU puts forward a new rule and Parliament gets a chance to vote on it—the Prime Minister is very proud of that—what happens if this House votes against it? That has not been made clear. Will the Minister make that clear now?
John Lamont
I have greater faith in the people of this country to make an informed decision—and, as I said earlier, they are entitled to vote in any way and for whatever reason they choose. Our job as parliamentarians is to accept their ultimate decision.
John Lamont
I want to make just a little bit more progress.
I think that trying to unpick the result and the decision-making process of our electorate is a very dangerous thing to do.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I have the great honour of representing St Austell and Newquay in Cornwall, which was a new constituency in 2010. My home is in St Austell, so I previously lived in the Truro and St Austell constituency. I am the first Conservative Member of Parliament for that part of the country for 41 years. In fact, I was seven years old the last time we had a Conservative Member of Parliament. It was the constituency of the late, great David Penhaligon, and others since who may not have been quite so great.
I know what it is like to live under the representation of the Liberal Democrats, and one thing that has always puzzled me is why people in Cornwall, which has always been an incredibly Eurosceptic area, kept voting for the Liberal Democrats for all those years. One reason is that in Cornwall the Liberal Democrats were very shy about their European enthusiasm. They did not tend to talk about it very much, and they tried to shy away from it.
When I started to speak to people on the doorsteps, it came as a surprise to them when I advised that if they wanted to get out of Europe, the last thing they should do is vote for the Liberal Democrats. That is why I have respect for the Liberal Democrats’ position now, because from my point of view in Cornwall, at least they are at last being honest about it. They are being honest in saying they want to exit from Brexit and deny the result that the British people reached in the referendum. They think the British people got it wrong, having been ill-informed, having misunderstood or having been too thick to understand what it meant, so we should try to overturn the decision and try again.
I have a degree of respect for the Liberal Democrats’ honesty at the moment, but I have to say that the message I get from people time and time again is that the British people simply want us to get on with this. I speak to Conservative party members, as well as members of other parties, and I hear that the British people are tired of the debate on the process. They are tired of the Westminster bubble, where we endlessly debate and try to rerun the arguments from 2016. They simply think, “The British people made a decision. Let’s get on and deliver it. Let’s leave the EU and let’s deliver Brexit the best we possibly can.” I believe that is the attitude and view of the vast majority of the British people.
Sir Edward Davey
I met people in my constituency during the 2017 election who had that view—people who had voted to remain but said that now we should get on with it. However, I had local elections in my constituency in May, so I was knocking on a lot of doors, and I detect that opinion is shifting on the ground and in the polls. People are seeing the disarray of this botched Brexit, which is why they are changing their mind. May I ask the hon. Gentleman: has he ever changed his mind?
Steve Double
I have changed my mind, but I suspect that now is not the time to go into that. I have changed my mind on a number of things over the years, but I do not detect what the right hon. Gentleman says he is finding. I do not find it in my constituency from the people I speak to on the doorstep and meet around the place, or from the people who come to my surgeries. The clear message I get is, “We made a decision. Let’s get on with it.” A lot of people just cannot understand why we have not left already. They are frustrated because—[Interruption.] I would say it is because of Members on both sides of the House who have sought to delay the process—perhaps we will come on to discuss that.
I will not support the motion, and I wish to set out three reasons why it is a bad idea. First, I believe it would be bad for our democracy. We gave the decision to the British people. We are absolutely clear in the lead-up to the referendum two years ago that this decision was in the hands of the British people and that they would be making the decision. If we tried to rerun the referendum, in whatever form we want to put it, be it a second referendum or a referendum on the final deal, I do not think the British people would buy it. They would just see it as trying to change the decision. It would simply be saying to them, “Your view and your vote did not count.” As I said when I intervened earlier, I believe that one reason why many people voted leave was to give a clear message to the establishment saying, “We are fed up of being ignored. We want our voice heard. We want our opinion to count.”
It is a miracle that people voted leave, because the overwhelming movement of the establishment—of the Government, big business and so much of our society—was telling them “This is the wrong decision. This is a stupid decision to make. This is a detrimental decision to make.” The majority of people chose to ignore that and vote leave, and we should respect that.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Sometimes in politics, parties and individual politicians must ensure that they are standing up for the right thing, given the evidence before them. One of the reasons why I am proud to be a Liberal Democrat is that we have done that on a number of issues of significant importance in the life of the country in recent years. Let me give House three examples.
The first example is the Iraq war. When the Labour party was pushing for the Iraq war, it had the support of the Conservative party, bar the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and of the papers and the people, and it prosecuted that war. The Liberal Democrats were the sole voice, against public opinion, in warning that it courted disaster—for this country and for the middle east. We were right, and we were proven right.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) was warning against the financial crash—the banking crash—in 2007-08 three or four years before it happened. As a former very distinguished economist, he could see the signs, and as the Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, he warned that it was coming. People did not like his saying that—I remember Labour Treasury Ministers and Conservative spokespeople saying, “Oh, the voice of doom”—but my right hon. Friend was right. I wish more people had listened to him, as a lot of people’s lives and businesses would not have been wasted by an appalling economic recession.
So it is with Brexit. The evidence is clear that it is going to be a disaster for our country. Those of us who have the values of internationalists and believe that working with other countries is in our interests are not going to be silenced on this issue of huge importance. We are going to make the case. Just as on Iraq and the banking crisis, people’s views changed. I think that people’s views on Brexit and on a people’s vote are changing. I urge Members across the House to recognise that fact and get behind something that people will be joining.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2015, the right hon. Gentleman’s party manifesto said it wanted a referendum on whether we should stay in or get out of Europe. Was that a mistake or was it just that you were so out of touch with the people that you thought you would win that referendum? I can tell you that our party did not think that.
Sir Edward Davey
The hon. Gentleman, of course, is wrong. The manifesto was in 2005, when—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman really must not use the word “you”, and let us not carry on with this sort of exchange.
Sir Edward Davey
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know what was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. In 2005, like all parties, we argued for a referendum on the European constitution. In 2015, we said that if there was a big change affecting sovereignty and powers, we would have a referendum. What happened afterwards was completely different, and the hon. Gentleman ought to know that.
I was saying that I detect that the demand for a people’s vote—a final say on the deal—is growing louder and louder. There are many reasons why I think that; it is not just evidence from the polls and from people talking to me around the country. I think it is a reaction to the chaos of this Conservative Government. If I were a Conservative MP, I would be embarrassed by the Government; I do not think we have been so badly governed since the second world war—probably before.
The Government simply cannot make up their mind about how to deal with the biggest issue of the day. They are totally split. The chaos of the past 48 hours beggars belief. It is pretty clear that the Chequers statement will not stand the test of time. The European Research Group, the hard-line Brexiteers, and some Tory remainers reject it and Brussels is saying that it is unacceptable. It is pretty clear that, after two years of effort, this chaotic Government cannot manage it. That is why we tabled this motion.
As one of my colleagues said earlier, people are sick and tired of Conservative Ministers, and indeed MPs, putting their personal or party interests above the nation’s. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) said, when we talk to some colleagues outside the Chamber, they admit that Brexit is a disaster.
Gareth Snell
Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify a point I asked about in my speech? What question would the Liberal Democrats put on the ballot paper in a referendum? There are people who would not want to support a final deal but who would not countenance staying in the European Union.
Sir Edward Davey
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question as it enables me to explain that in detail. We are arguing for a people’s vote. People should have the final say when the deal is done, not before, so that they have the details of the question. One of the problems with the 2016 referendum was that no one knew what Brexit meant; in fact, we still do not. When we do eventually know—when there is a deal for people to look at, touch and feel—we suggest that the people should have the final say about whether that is what they want or whether they would prefer to stay in the European Union.
We need to look at what the Government have achieved so far. The process has been far longer than people were told. People were told it would be easy and that it would be quick, but after two years we still do not have a policy or a White Paper. We were told that Brexit would be very good value for money. We were not told that it would be so costly. No one said that Brexit would cost £41 billion—and that divorce bill is going to go even higher. It is costing far more than people were told, but it is also far more complex than people were promised. People were sold simple truths: it would be easy to extricate ourselves from our friends and neighbours who we have worked with for so long for over four decades. It is clear that that is not the case. There still is no deal. Frankly, given the performance and shocking chaos of the past 48 hours, that deal looks a long way away.
Sir Edward Davey
I will give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me when the deal will be done.
Steve Double
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has just said that we do not know what Brexit is going to be. I agree: we do not know what the final agreement is going to be. We do not know the detail, so how is he so sure that it will be disaster?
Sir Edward Davey
As my hon. Friends have already said, we have the best deal now. It is pretty clear that we were prospering over 40 years. We have moved from being the sick man of Europe and the dirty man of Europe to one that was leading on the environment and leading on the economy. That happened during our time as a member of the European Union. The deal we have at the moment is the best possible deal. Anything different is going to be far worse.
I want to take on an argument put forward by those on the Conservative Benches that somehow having a people’s vote would undermine our negotiating position. Madam Deputy Speaker, does anyone in this House seriously believe that what we have seen from the Government is strengthening our negotiating position? What a disaster! I wonder whether Conservative Members ever talk to anyone from France, Germany, Italy or any of the other 27 member countries. They see us as a laughing stock. Our stock as a country has fallen. We used to be highly regarded for our diplomatic skills, for our leadership and for our stability. In a short time, this discredited Conservative Government have made us the laughing stock not just of Europe but of the developed world.
As a Minister in the coalition Government, I attended five European Councils, first as a junior Business Minister and then as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Over five years, I was involved in a whole set of negotiations in Europe: on the economy delivering a growth package, which was very much written here in London; and on an energy and climate change package, which was very much written here in London. My experience was that we could always win for Britain, completely contrary to the nonsense we hear from so many Brexiteers. Moreover, people listened to us. When we engaged in proper negotiations and proper politics, we could always win the day. I have been disappointed, angered and distressed by the appalling inability of the Government to negotiate—with themselves, frankly, let alone the European Union. Their attempt to try to build those relationships, which are critical in a successful negotiation, has failed lamentably.
I want to end with one problem that I have with the Chequers statement. The Minister was unable to answer it and the Prime Minister was unable to answer it during her statement on Monday. It is important in relation to the negotiations with Europe and to what this Parliament eventually decides. If there is a new rule produced by our EU colleagues relating to the single market for goods, this House will have the freedom to vote on it. That sounds very enticing to a Brexiteer: we will have the freedom to do that, we have taken back control and so on. What has not been spelled out is what happens if this House votes to reject such a new rule. It is absolutely clear that were the House to do that, the whole agreement that we negotiate with Brussels will collapse. This is going to be one of the key questions during the negotiations and during deliberations in this House. I think it is one of the questions on which the Chequers statement will fail.
This country and this House need better leadership. We have not got it and I fear we are not going to get it. That is the reason why this House needs to give the people the final say.
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes his point powerfully, but we need to ensure that we allow ourselves to take the right approach and the constructive approach to the negotiations. Many Members on both sides of the House have identified the damage that would be done to the negotiating process by signalling to the European Union that, if it were to take a tough stance and allow the talks to break down, the British people would simply decide to pay in and still send vast sums of money. The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) confirmed that it was the position of the Liberal Democrats to ask the question at the end of the process: “Do you like the deal that is on offer, or do you simply want to stay in the European Union?” If we set out that question right now to ask at the end of the process, there would be no incentive for the European Union to engage constructively with the negotiations over the coming months. It is naive in the extreme to think that the EU would continue to negotiate in good faith on that basis.
Sir Edward Davey
Will the Minister answer a question that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), failed to answer? In the Chequers statement, the Prime Minister stated that a new rule for the EU rulebook would be considered by this House and that we would have a chance to vote on it. Will he explain what would happen if the House were to reject a proposed new rule to add to the EU rulebook?
Mr Walker
I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we want to bring to the House an agreement between the UK and the EU that the whole House will want to support. There will be more detail on the precise measures in the White Paper that we are bringing forward at the end of this week—
Mr Walker
I say to the right hon. Gentleman, and to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who spoke about the results of the 2017 election in her own constituency, that they should pay attention to the fact that more than 80% of the people who voted in that general election voted for parties that had made it clear that they would respect the result of the referendum. The 8% who voted for the Liberal Democrat party do not represent a majority in the country or a significant shift of opinion on this issue. We are at a critical point in our negotiations, and we simply could not afford the distraction of this debate about a second referendum. What we need to do now is to progress our negotiations with the European Union in order to achieve the right outcome. The approach agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers is a constructive way forward. We are seeking to get the best deal for the UK as a whole, and we intend to negotiate under the best possible conditions. To do otherwise would be irresponsible in the extreme.
EU Referendum: Electoral Law
Ed Davey Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Tom Brake
Many Members on the Opposition Benches, and possibly some on the Government Benches, will have seen a comprehensive dossier of ways in which Vote Leave and BeLeave allegedly broke the law. If the hon. Gentleman wants to bring to the House, or present to the Electoral Commission and the police, a similar dossier of allegations against Britain Stronger in Europe, of course he should do that, and Members on both sides of the House would welcome it, but the fact is that all we have is the dossier that the Electoral Commission and the police are now considering in relation to Vote Leave’s and BeLeave’s activities. He should not, then, try to muddy the waters in the way I am afraid he is seeking to do.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Many of us in the House were around during the Iraq war debates, when we were given a dossier. Many of us were not convinced, having read that dossier in detail, but others were, and the House voted to go to war, even though the facts on which that decision was based proved not to be true. This dossier is far more convincing than the previous dossier. [Laughter.] Does he not therefore agree that it should be investigated and taken seriously by everybody in this House?
Tom Brake
Yes, and I am sorry that there was laughter from the Government Benches. Members of Parliament, whether they supported remain or leave, should be interested in finding out whether the law has been broken. It should not be a subject of hilarity in the way that it seems to be for some Members on the Government Benches.
Mr Speaker
Order. I should say to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) that I am not in receipt of an application from him to speak in the debate, whereas others have applied. I know that he is a figure of considerable celebrity in his constituency and, although it is a divisible proposition, arguably within the House. I am sure that I will be happy to hear him, but he has a habit of looking at me astonished that he has not been called immediately, so in case he wonders why I am not calling him immediately, I say very gently to him that other people, also busy with many commitments and very full diaries, actually got around to applying to speak, so he had better wait. We can look forward to his eloquence and erudition.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I am most grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye without a written application to the Chair. If I may say so, in humbly apologising to you, I had thought that Conservative Members would make speeches in the period of up to two hours that you had allocated to this debate, but we have not had a single speech from the Conservative Benches. I had not written to you, Sir, because I did not think an extra speech would be needed. However, I think it is important that Conservative Members hear the allegations that are made, because they are very deep allegations.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I would have liked to speak in this debate had I not had other matters to participate in. Is it not astounding that the only contributions we have heard from Conservative Members thus far have been what-aboutery and trying to draw equivalence with other matters? On the critical issue that we are addressing today, we have heard nothing. Not one Conservative Member has found it in themselves to address this issue, which is at the heart of our democracy.
Sir Edward Davey
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is astounding, because this debate is about more than Brexit and the issues being raised in this debate are bigger than Brexit. They are about how our democracy works, parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law. I thought that Conservative Members, particularly the Brexit Conservatives, had wanted to pull us out of the EU in order to defend parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law as they describe it. But they are not here to defend that rule of law today, which is what is so shocking about their failure to make speeches in this debate.
Mrs Moon
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if we ignore this issue—if we do not take it apart and examine it in full—we are allowing a criminalisation of our democracy? We must acknowledge that that is what is at risk here. No matter how inconvenient a truth it is, we must absolutely get to the bottom of it.
Sir Edward Davey
Of course, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. If the law has been broken in the serious way that is alleged, it will be a criminal offence. If that is the case, that criminal offence would have been committed in relation to a massive vote that will result in huge constitutional changes. As this is such a serious matter, I would have thought that right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House would surely want not just to listen, but to participate.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
During the referendum campaign the Government were in favour of us remaining in the European Union—a position that I shared—and the Conservative party took a corporate stance to be neutral in that campaign. As the leave campaign and the remain campaign have ceased to exist as legal entities, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that any allegations made against either campaigning organisation in the referendum is best dealt with by the Electoral Commission, not by Parliament? This is not for the Government to answer, because this is not about a Government policy.
Sir Edward Davey
I find the hon. Gentleman’s intervention rather odd. First, it is in the tradition that we are seeing from the Conservative Benches in this debate—a “what-aboutery” statement. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would want the House to hear and debate these allegations, which are in the public domain. They are in the press and the public are talking about them, and it is vital that the elected Members of this House get a chance to debate them. I am so grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) for securing this debate, and I am proud of the Liberal Democrats for calling for it.
Sir Edward Davey
My right hon. Friend anticipates a line of argument that I wish to come to in due course. He is absolutely right, though, that the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs were closely involved in the Vote Leave campaign, and we need to know whether these allegations go to the very top table.
Mr Bradshaw
I should not be doing the Conservative Members’ job for them but, in the interests of fairness, the hon. Member who has probably done more than most on this—certainly more than me—and who knows more than most about this subject is the Chair of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). He could not take part in the debate because he was hearing this vital evidence from Chris Wylie. I am sure that he will also be doing his job very adequately in front of the Prime Minister later this afternoon. We need to approach this issue as consensually as we can because it is about not party politics, but the integrity and security of our electoral system.
Sir Edward Davey
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the efforts and expertise that the Chair of the Select Committee is bringing to that inquiry, which is important to the whole debate. I also agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the need for us to try to cross party divisions, and the divisions that we saw both during and after the referendum campaign.
I have been contacted by leave voters who are disturbed by these allegations. Many leave voters are very patriotic people who believe that one of the key traditions and values of this country is that we respect the rule of law and do not allow cheats to prosper. This issue can bring Parliament and both sides of the debate together. Whoever cheated during the referendum—if anyone cheated—needs to be held to account.
Sir Edward Leigh
With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not answered the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). Of course he is entitled to give his speech, and Parliament is entitled to debate this, but the question we want him to answer is: who should decide whether to take action? Is it the Government, who were parti pris and took one side of the debate in the referendum, or should it be an independent body, namely the Electoral Commission? Who should make the final decision?
Sir Edward Davey
A number of bodies could ultimately look at the different accusations. We have a live investigation by the Electoral Commission, and we await the result of that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington spoke very much about the Electoral Commission in his speech. We also have the investigations by the Information Commissioner’s Office into the related allegations with respect to Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ. Many of us feel that the evidence so far suggests that the police should be investigating these organisations, because there could be a criminal act. Let me absolutely clear: I certainly am not suggesting that Ministers are responsible for any investigation. That would not meet my requirements for an inquiry.
Wera Hobhouse
Does my right hon. Friend agree that while an independent body should investigate, we perhaps need to update the law and do something here in Parliament in order to adequately respond to these things in the future?
Sir Edward Davey
Indeed. I have written to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), to ask whether her Committee could hold a parliamentary inquiry into the different aspects that are not covered by the inquiry of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. I seriously think that the House needs to augment and support the investigations by those independent bodies. We have powers in the House to bring people to the bar to discuss and to give evidence, and that is the right and proper thing to do.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is an irony that the same Government who were so keen on the lobbying Act—to such a degree that small charities around the country were frightened of intervening near elections—and who are introducing voter identification and all sorts of ID, simply so that they catch the 29 people or however many it was who committed electoral fraud last time, seem remarkably lacking in concern over this?
Sir Edward Davey
The hon. Lady makes a good point. The fundamental issue here is: did people in the leave campaign cheat? Did they break the law? That is what we need to focus on. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) made an analogy with athletes and sport. If athletes dope, we expect that to be investigated and then punished, whether or not that cheating affected the result of a race or any competition. It is the cheating and the breach of the law that needs to be followed through, whether or not it relates to the outcome of the referendum.
Geraint Davies
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if Ministers—I am thinking specifically of the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary—are implicated in any illegal activities and are the dopers in the analogy he is using, they should not be above the law, and that when the police are doing the investigation, they should not be intimidated or deterred from putting forward a legal case against Ministers, irrespective of their position in this place?
Sir Edward Davey
In responding to the hon. Gentleman, I want to be clear that these are all allegations. We need proper authorities to investigate, but of course, if those investigations go to the door of any Member of this House, be they Minister or not, the full weight of the law should go against that individual. No Member of this House should be above the law in those investigations.
I want to be a little clearer than the debate has been so far about how the Electoral Commission, which is key to this, thinks about whether there has been cheating. The Electoral Commission’s guidelines about whether a campaign has colluded are quite clear. It sets out three criteria for whether campaigns are highly likely to be working together.
The first is whether the campaigns spend money on joint advertising campaigns, leaflets or events. The evidence brought forward by Fair Vote, which can be seen by anyone at www.fairvote.uk, suggests that Vote Leave and BeLeave co-ordinated with the same digital strategy vendor, Aggregate IQ, so there does seem to have been co-ordination between their advertising campaigns.
The second test the Electoral Commission has set out is whether campaigns have co-ordinated their spending with another campaigner. The evidence produced by FairVote is very clear: it shows that BeLeave appears to have been assigned specific responsibility for the youth audience by Vote Leave. That is co-ordination and collusion.
The third test on cheating set out by the Electoral Commission is whether a campaign can approve or has significant influence over the spending of another campaigner. Again, the dossier shows that BeLeave was based at Vote Leave HQ, as we have heard, and appears to have reported to Vote Leave directors and shared all its information with their staff.
In other words, the three tests put forward by the Electoral Commission on whether illegal collusion has occurred appear to have been met, according to the evidence in this dossier. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read and think about it before they tweet in the way that was done by the Foreign Secretary, who at the weekend dismissed these allegations as ludicrous.
The Foreign Secretary may well have tried to dismiss these allegations, because if they prove to be true, the investigations and inquiries that we all want to follow this debate and public discussion may well want to ask him questions. Ultimately, he was in charge of and a key player in the Vote Leave campaign, and people will want to know whether he knew about this collusion. Did he know that moneys were going from Vote Leave to BeLeave? Did he know that the staff of both campaigns were colluding and working together? Did he know that Aggregate IQ was being used by both campaigns in a very similar way? These are very serious allegations, and we need to have independent inquiries. The same questions could of course be applied to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether she has asked her Foreign Secretary and her Environment Secretary about what they knew. If she is in charge of her Government, she ought to be asking her Ministers what they knew, given the severity and gravity of the allegations now in the public domain. If she is not getting good enough answers from the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary, she should be taking action. There is another issue with regard to the Prime Minister’s responsibilities, which is that she has key members of staff in No. 10 who were staffers in these campaigns and appear to be part of the alleged collusion. At the very least, she should be asking them questions and getting assurances from them, and if those assurances are not good enough, she should take the appropriate action.
I want to ask the Minister whether the Foreign Secretary was speaking for the Government when he pushed aside these allegations as nonsense. Is that what she will say at the Dispatch Box in a few minutes’ time? Does she, speaking on behalf of her Majesty’s Government, agree with the Foreign Secretary that these allegations are all complete nonsense—before they have been investigated? That would be a quite extraordinary position for Her Majesty’s Government to take, and particularly for the Foreign Secretary to take, given that he is supposed to speak for this country about the rule of law in other countries—and one wonders, doesn’t one?
Mr Bradshaw
Does not the right hon. Gentleman also think it is telling that the Foreign Secretary put out his statement as soon as the news broke on Friday evening? He cannot possibly have read the three huge files of documentation that have been presented to the Electoral Commission and the ICO, can he?
Sir Edward Davey
One does wonder about the people connected to the Vote Leave campaign who have tried to get in their rebuttals and answers rather rapidly. The head of the staff side of the Vote Leave campaign, Mr Dominic Cummings, put out a pre-rebuttal before the allegations were in the public domain. It sounds as though he knew quite a lot about what the allegations would be, but perhaps he knew the truth. I am afraid that his pre-rebuttal did not convince anybody. Now that we have the allegations, with detailed evidence of emails and photo grabs of things that have since been deleted, we know why Mr Cummings was desperate to get in his rebuttal. I cannot know whether the Foreign Secretary was in the same position, but one has to have one’s suspicions raised.
It is because the allegations are so grave, affecting the most momentous decision this country has taken since the second world war, that the Liberal Democrats, supported by all colleagues on the Opposition Benches, are absolutely right to ask these questions of the Government. Just because there is no Division after this debate does not make these questions and this debate something the Government can push aside. I say to the Minister that we will be coming back and back again to this until we have answers. When the Electoral Commission reports, the Information Commissioner reports and, hopefully, the police report, those reports need to be published and debated here in this House. We will not let this lie. Why? Because we want to defend British democracy. We want to defend parliamentary sovereignty. We want to defend the rule of law. I hope the Minister will say from the Dispatch Box that that is what she is going to do, too.
Mr Speaker
The short answer is no. The hon. Lady highlights an extremely important and sensitive matter, and I appreciate that she does so not least in her capacity as a constituency Member of Parliament. It will be a matter of considerable concern, not just to Members in affected constituencies, but right across the House. I have received no such notification but, knowing the perspicacity and ingenuity of the hon. Lady, I feel sure that she will find a way of highlighting the matter in the Chamber sooner rather than later.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister mentioned the role of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission in these types of discussions and inquiries. My understanding is that your Committee’s statutory duties are focused on matters such as the estimate and the resources available to the Electoral Commission. That has been raised as a matter of debate, so I wonder whether you could enlighten the House on what role your Committee might take in this regard.
Mr Speaker
The short answer is that the right hon. Gentleman is right; the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission preoccupies itself with the estimate, and scrutiny thereof. That is a narrow albeit important remit. We are concerned with resources. There have been occasions when a particular issue appertaining to the Electoral Commission has arisen that has caused the Committee to meet to hear from its officers. However, so far as investigations are concerned—to be fair, the Minister did not suggest otherwise—those are not matters in which my Committee would in any way become involved. There is a model for this in relation to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority—the model of a Committee scrutinising an estimate—and Members should have that in the forefront of their minds. We do not get involved in investigations. In so far as the right hon. Gentleman’s point of order and my response to it has made that even clearer, I welcome that.
National Security and Russia
Ed Davey Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Tom Tugendhat
My hon. Friend will not be at all surprised to hear that I am not only very glad that we have maintained our nuclear deterrent but that I voted in favour of renewing it. I was very glad that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister used the words she did at the Dispatch Box when she was asked if she would use that terrible weapon. The answer has to be yes, not because she wishes to, but because the point of the nuclear deterrent is that, yes, it should never be used, but it will only deter if it might be. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
This is a debate on security and we have focused, more than I would have perhaps chosen, on the military aspect. I would like to turn to the diplomatic aspect and pay tribute again to the Government for their success. Indeed, I pay tribute to Members from all parts of the House who have used the past two weeks to speak to friends and allies across these islands, across the continent and around the world, and to speak up and remind people why it is that we have called for aid at this moment, why it is that we have cited the attack in Salisbury as particularly important, and why now is the time for them to stand up.
I remember very clearly a conversation I had only a few days ago with a Minister in the French Government when the Select Committee was in France. I pointed out to her that she must be under no illusion, as she talks about European defence co-operation, that as far as we see it this is a moment for that defence to be shown real and for that alliance to be proved true, so that we can move forward and build on it. I am delighted to say that there was no divergence in the Committee, which is made up of Members from Labour, my party and the Scottish National party. There was complete unity. I was very pleased with the message we were able to convey: that the British people are united as one. Whatever our divisions on other issues, we are united on this being an attack on the British people and not just an attack on two people in a park in Salisbury.
This matter is not just about diplomacy either. Too often our intelligence services are overlooked. In the security service, the secret intelligence services and the Government communications headquarters, there are people who are working even now in secret and in silence to keep us safe, and to ensure we are prepared and ready—indeed to ensure that we never know about the next attack because it will not happen. That is so hard to measure, but it is the most essential element of our defence. Without it, we are blind. Without it, we are deaf. Without it, we cannot speak. Like the three wise monkeys, we would be left merely as an ornament and not as an actor.
Britain is nothing if not an actor on the world scene. We have been so because we have played our part in the last 70 years in building the international order that has kept us safe. In the post-war era we have been instrumental in building the United Nations, an organisation with many flaws but without which we cannot imagine modern life. We have been instrumental in building NATO, another organisation that asks for many improvements but still guarantees that we can sleep safely in our bed. We have been absolutely fundamental in writing some of the rules that underpin it, including—I know that on this I do not have the universal support of my hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches—the European convention on human rights, which has reflected British law around the continent.
The tragedy is that throughout that journey—well, most of it—we have been partnered by the Russians. In the 1940s, the Russians were part of building that new world order. They were a part of writing the universal declaration on human rights. The Soviet diplomats at the UN were not our friends—they were already rivals—but they understood that the rules-based international order was something for all of us. In it was the guarantee that we could all have a future and that we could all have a safe idea of where we were going. They challenged us on what that future would be—their view of the future was actually Soviet despotism—but they still understood that there were rules that had to be applied.
What we see today is the reverse. What we see today is a Russia that does not believe in the rules. In fact, it actively believes in no rules. What it is doing is seeking out every tie that binds, every alliance—everything that we hold dear and true—and trying to break them. That is why the repetition of lies by useful idiots, the propagandising of untruths by adjuncts, is not just a foolish thing to do and not just unwise but is actually and actively harmful. That is why we stay away from Russia Today and Sputnik: not because they show an alternative vision, but because they deliberately undermine the truth.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech with which I fully agree. When we were putting sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea, I was privy to information on discussions with the European Commission about how the octopus arms of the Russian state were all over the energy sector across the European Union and how it was using devious means to get its way. May I therefore invite him to take on the logic of his speech that we use not just military but diplomatic means, so that we can use energy policy to take the money away that is fuelling Mr Putin’s military and intelligence?
Tom Tugendhat
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I of course agree with him. Energy policy is essential to playing our hand properly. From this House, I urge my German friends, as I have done face to face, to not bow to the Russian idea of a pipeline straight to Germany. That would effectively remove the diplomatic and political leverage that countries to the east otherwise have. It would weaken Germany and it would weaken all of us, because we are stronger when we stand together and weaker when we are divided. We must look at eastern Europe not as a sphere of influence, and not, as some do, as an area in which the west has provoked Russia, as though the Ukrainian people are some sort of slave adjunct to the Russian empire. That is not true. They are free people, as we are free and as any country is free, and they have the right to determine their own future. Energy policy is being used as a weapon against them.
I must make some progress. I hope the House will forgive me as I speed through and point to a few of the violations and the lies that have been used. We have heard Crimea cited—the first time a border has been changed by force since the second world war. We have heard about the occupation of Georgia—I wish that Her Majesty’s Government would refer to it as such, because it is one—and we have heard time and again about the attacks in Montenegro, the lies in Berlin and the fraudulent electioneering in France and possibly even in the United States. We have heard again and again about these deceptions, and we must now hear much more actively about the response. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out some good starts and very strong ideas and I welcome them, but I now want to see them being used.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said the other day in the Committee that he was looking forward to seeing the Magnitsky Act being used, but that it was not a political tool. Technically, he is right: it is a legal tool and therefore for the police, but it will demand that our embassy staff, our intelligence officers and others put forward the cases, so that the police know who the human rights abusers are and who the people are who should be caught up in this. It will also require the tools of our diplomats and intelligence officers, so that we know who the oligarchs are who are part of the Russian/Kremlin/mafia-controlled kleptocracy. We need to know them and identify them, and by doing so, we need to act against them.
If I may, I will ask for one last thing: that we look at Russian sovereign debt being traded here in London even now. We hear again and again about the importance of London’s capital markets, and they will find few greater supporters than me, but through the London clearing house—an absolutely essential element of world trade that underpins in so many ways the debt markets that allow us all to prosper—we have links around the world. One of them is to Russian sovereign debt. The Russian Government, unlike other Governments, do not use Russian sovereign debt merely to finance themselves; they are now using it to sanctions bust. They are using their sovereign debt to refinance and capitalise organisations that have otherwise been banned. One of them is VTB Bank, which we heard about a little while ago—it has been reported on and I must pay tribute to Emile Simpson, who has done extraordinarily well to expose so many of these issues. We can use sovereign debt here too, as a tool and a weapon, because we are being fought on every single level in a cross-spectrum battle by an organisation that does not work for the Russian people, but feeds off them. It does not work for prosperity, but feeds off it, and it does not work for stability, but destroys it.
I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set out, and I look forward to supporting her as she enacts those policies.
Salisbury Incident
Ed Davey Excerpts(8 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do not believe I have received any such statement from the Communist party of Great Britain, although I noticed just one or two weeks ago it said it would not stand candidates against the Labour party and that it now felt more comfortable working with it.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I strongly welcome the Prime Minister’s statement but urge her to go further and, as others have said, use energy policy as a new way of tackling this Russian threat. We all acknowledge the significant British energy interests in Russia, but will she confirm that Putin’s military and intelligence assets are primarily funded by the sale of Russian fossil fuels, and can I commend to her the EU’s energy security strategy, which was largely written in London and is reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point—one that others across the House have made—about the extent to which Russia uses its energy and the finance it provides to influence and have an impact on countries in receipt of it. I assure him that we will continue to discuss with the EU not just our energy security but the wider energy security issue.
Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry
Ed Davey Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Damian Green
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has huge experience and expertise in this area. I assure him that the expert panel is considering whether any advice needs to be given urgently to the Secretary of State to act on.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
The First Secretary is right that there should be a consultation on the remit to try to help to rebuild the local community’s trust in the inquiry, but is he prepared to go further? Should not there be an advisory panel made up of genuine and diverse community members?
Damian Green
The right hon. Gentleman may know that a similar group, namely Grenfell United, has already brought together many other groups. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), had a long and extensive meeting with the group last night. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the views of those most affected are being fed to Sir Martin directly, and they are also in direct communication with the Secretary of State.
In terms of the potential appointment of panel members, the priority at this stage is for consultation on the terms of reference, which once agreed will allow the inquiry to start work. The chair will then want to consider what other expert assistance might be required and how that should be provided to the inquiry, including the process of consultation.
I assure the House that Government work is already in hand to address issues highlighted by this terrible tragedy. The Department for Communities and Local Government and the Cabinet Office are working together across the piece and on the wider building safety programme, about which I know hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned. DCLG has written to local councils and housing associations, calling for checks to social housing. A survey of the public sector estate began on 28 June, with a request for Government Departments and arm’s length bodies to review all public buildings in line with provided guidance and to submit samples for testing from priority buildings with aluminium composite material cladding.
Sir Edward Davey
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. He and the House might like to know that when I was a junior Business Minister, people from No. 10 and the Cabinet Office asked me whether we should get rid of fire safety regulations for girls’ and ladies’ nightdresses and furniture. I said no. We did not get rid of them, nor should we have done. He is absolutely right that we have to change the culture.
John Healey
I am grateful for that unexpected support from the Liberal Democrat Benches. The right hon. Gentleman’s very important and specific point supports my general argument.
The second area is social housing. For decades after the second world war, there was a national cross-party consensus about the value of social housing to help to meet the housing needs and aspirations of many ordinary families. There is a recognition that there has been only one year since the second world war in which this country has built more than 200,000 new homes without the public sector doing at least a third of them. This is the first Government since the second world war to provide no funding to help to build new social-rented housing, and they have also ended all funding through the Homes and Communities Agency programme for decent homes, which is investment to bring social housing up to scratch. If the First Secretary of State and the Prime Minister were serious about social housing, they would lift the cap on councils borrowing to build and maintain their homes, restore central Government investment to help to build new social housing, guarantee “first dibs” on new homes for local people, and strengthen the hand of councils to get better deals from big developers for their residents.
Finally, we hear that the Prime Minister wants us to “contribute” rather than just “criticise”. I have to ask this: has she asked her Cabinet to contribute? What does the Secretary of State have to contribute to solving the country’s housing crisis; to doing more on social housing; to reversing the plunging rate of home ownership, especially for young people; to giving 11 million private renters basic consumer rights; and to preventing the rapidly rising numbers of homeless people sleeping on our streets? Where is the plan? Where is the hope? Where is the leadership? If the Prime Minister wants a domestic policy programme, and if she wants to find common cause and to make fundamental changes to Government policy, we stand ready to contribute—we offer our Labour housing manifesto, published last month, as a starter.
If the Government want our support for a plan to tackle the country’s housing crisis, they must raise their sights. If Ministers want our support for their recovery programme post-Grenfell, they must raise their game.
Cost of Living: Energy and Housing
Ed Davey Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
Yesterday’s Gracious Speech marks another step in this coalition’s work to secure Britain’s economic recovery. With the infrastructure Bill, the small business Bill and the Childcare Payments Bill, this Queen’s Speech continues the central purpose of this coalition—not just to rebuild the shattered economy we inherited, but to promote a new economy with sustainable growth and employment for all, so the British people can enjoy a stronger economy and a fairer society.
The coalition’s long-term economic plan is all about raising living standards for everyone in our country, but to do that we have to tackle the country’s economic problems head-on. We cannot duck the difficult decisions even when they come at a political price. To do the right thing for our country in the appalling circumstances in which we found ourselves in 2010 was always going to take courage and I am genuinely proud to serve a Deputy Prime Minister and a Prime Minister who have both had that courage even though both have experienced difficulties in our respective parties as a result. Let us look at where their courage has taken our country.
Our economy is growing again; indeed, no other major economy grew faster in the last year. Our deficit is falling steadily, responsibly—not as fast as some people argued for, but at a pace that has kept interest rates low and enabled employment to rise. There is nothing of which my colleagues and I are more proud than this coalition’s record on jobs: unemployment down in the last year alone by over 300,000 and employment up at record levels, increasing by over 720,000 last year alone.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in what sounded like his peroration. Will he comment on the UK’s decline in stature in terms of the renewables industry, which has come out in recent reports, and also on the speculation that numerous applications for onshore wind energy have been declined by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government? Can the Energy Secretary tell us how many have been declined against official advice?
Mr Davey
Renewable electricity has more than doubled under this Government. The situation we inherited from the last Government was that we were at the bottom of the European league—no, I should correct the record: we were above Malta and Luxembourg—but now our position has improved significantly. I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would have welcomed that. We have put in place an excellent regime for investment in renewables and all low-carbons. The Ernst and Young report he refers to shows us to be the best place in the world to invest in offshore wind and tidal energy, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Secretary and I are very proud of the fact that we have increased onshore wind so substantially and that there is such a healthy pipeline of future investment in it.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Malta: does he agree that his economic policy has led to a situation where child mortality below the age of five in Britain is now the highest in any western country other than Malta? One in 200 children is now dying under the age of five because of the brutality against the poorest. The university of Washington has related that to food banks, austerity and welfare. Does the Energy Secretary have anything to say about that? I doubt it.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
When the right hon. Gentleman said that some people said that they wanted to go a little bit faster in paying down the deficit, was he referring to the Chancellor, who had promised that it would be got rid of in this Parliament?
Mr Davey
Many commentators thought we should cut the deficit faster, but we have taken a very responsible approach, to ensure not only that interest rates were kept low—that has been so vital for many families and the hon. Lady’s constituents—but that employment has risen so well. I would have thought she would be welcoming that.
The problem is that the Opposition used to criticise the coalition on unemployment—they used to say that unemployment was going to go up—but when the facts showed they were wrong and that unemployment has gone down they have had to change their economic argument. The Opposition keep changing the economic argument because they keep losing the economic argument. Let us examine their recent economic argument on the cost of living. I presume that everyone in this House accepts that the key measure of the cost of living remains the inflation figures. So if the cost of living is the measure by which to judge this coalition, let us see what has been happening to inflation. Inflation is lower than when the previous Government left office and it is falling.
I have to confess to the House that the Bank of England’s inflation target is not being hit—inflation is lower than the target. In March, inflation had slowed to just 1.6%. Of course for our constituents it is real incomes and real wages that actually matter: what people have to spend after tax and after inflation. Looking at things in that way, it is true that after the 2008 recession many people saw living standards fall. But let us remind ourselves what happened: a huge £113 billion was wiped off our economy in the great financial crash of 2008, and there was a £3,000 cost to every household in the United Kingdom. To put that right, and to keep employment rising, it was arithmetically inevitable that living standards could not rise in the turnaround period for our economy, but now we really are in recovery. Now it is not just employment that is rising—it is living standards too. How has that happened? Of course, it has been because of the coalition’s long-term economic plan.
Key aspects of that plan are really beginning to help, above all the implementation of the Liberal Democrat manifesto policy to increase the tax-free allowance to £10,000 a year. Our record not just of implementing this fairest of tax cuts, but doing more than we promised is helping more than 26 million people. It has taken 3.2 million low paid out of income tax and it has cut the income tax bill of a double-earning couple on average earnings by £1,600 a year. This Liberal-Democrat-turned-coalition policy has cut the number of low-income people paying income tax more in five years than any other Government have achieved in the same period since records began.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
Before the Secretary of State diverts on to a partisan frolic, may I ask whether he welcomes the British Retail Consortium’s data out this week showing that competition between supermarkets has led to a decline in non-food prices of 2.8%? Does he also welcome the fact that food inflation is at 0.7%, its lowest level since 2006?
Sheila Gilmore
Before the Secretary of State leaves the issue of tax allowances, does he not accept that for many of the lowest-paid workers the reduction in tax was more than outweighed by the reduction in tax credits? Moreover, the cost of this policy benefited higher earners disproportionately. That does not sound to me to be a very Liberal Democrat policy.
Mr Davey
I am afraid that the hon. Lady is completely wrong. Higher rate taxpayers did not get the allowance increase. This is one of the fairest tax cuts, because it is focused on the low-paid and people on moderate incomes. I must say that she does not understand how the tax system works.
Jeremy Corbyn
As the Secretary of State is talking about living standards, is he proud of the fact that many people living in the private rented sector in central London and other big cities are being socially cleansed out of their homes by a combination of high rents and benefit caps? Does he not think that that is a disgrace, that those communities are being damaged and that those children’s life chances are also being damaged? Should he not do something about it?
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman has been a champion in the debate on housing in London for many years. I do not think that he can point to any halcyon days over the past 30 years. The cost of housing was the biggest issue when I became an MP in 1997, and for many of my constituents it remains the biggest issue. There have been changes, but many of the housing benefit changes that we have made have actually hit the landlords, not the tenants. I think that he ought to welcome that.
I am very proud of our record of helping people on low incomes, and not only the personal tax allowance increases, but the rest of our help with the cost of living—fuel duty freezes, council tax freezes, free school meals and help with child care. The coalition has listened and is helping. Of course, all those measures take time to feed through. Everyone knows that in some parts of the country people are yet to feel the turnaround, and that was always inevitable. Many people are only now beginning to experience the end of the post-recession squeeze.
I think that what is worrying the Labour party is that in 10 months’ time many more people will be feeling the benefits of the recovery and Labour’s latest economic argument on the cost of living will look ever hollower. Of course, last summer the Opposition already began to switch their economic argument again. It was not the general cost of living or general inflation that they were talking about, or the full basket of goods that people buy; it was a few specific ones. That is why we have today’s debate on energy and housing costs. They are very important issues, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will, I am sure, take on the housing costs debate. I am sure that he will cover not only our record of low mortgage rates, but our record and our plans to build more houses to reduce housing costs.
However, I want to deal with energy costs, because, unlike the previous Government, we have acted on energy bills. We have taken on the energy companies, unlike the Leader of the Opposition when he was doing my job, when he could have acted but did not. It is interesting to look at the record on energy bills. In almost every year under Labour, energy bills rose: in 2005 they went up by 12%; in 2006 they went up by 20%; and in 2008 they went up by 16%. In the previous Parliament, under Labour, energy bills rose by a whopping 63%, and Labour did nothing. Yet they lecture us. Of course, bills have also risen in this Parliament, but by 8% a year, compared with 11% a year in the previous Parliament.
Labour did act to reform the energy markets; they managed the great feat of reducing the number of energy market firms and creating the big six. In other words, they made it worse and created another mess for us to clear up. This coalition is really reforming the energy market and taking on the energy companies. From day one, we began reforming the market to create real competition, with new competitors. Twelve new independent suppliers have entered the market since 2010, and independents are topping the best-buy tables, increasing their market share from less than 1% to 5% and rising, giving people a real chance not only to freeze their bills, but to cut them.
Just look at what has been done to help people with their energy bills: Ofgem’s reforms are making bills simpler and forcing firms to put consumers on the cheapest tariffs; switching rates are increasing, with switching speeds getting faster; and Government action is taking £50 off the average energy bill. Where the Opposition wanted to legislate for a freeze, with all the impact such regulatory intervention would have on investor confidence, the coalition has worked to ensure that the Government and competition are delivering something better than a freeze. Scottish and Southern Energy, British Gas, npower, Scottish Power and EDF have all announced that they will not increase energy prices this year unless network costs go up or wholesale energy costs rise, and of course they are not.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Given that we have just read this week that SSE will be raising its prices by 8%, that two of its directors have salaries of £1.4 million and that the price of gas is falling, it is absolutely extraordinary that the Secretary of State still thinks that the consumer should pay. What will he do to ensure that consumer prices come down in line with the proper price of gas? The ridiculous profits that these people are making should be stopped now.
Mr Davey
SSE has committed itself to a price freeze. The hon. Lady is right that the recent falls in wholesale gas prices suggest that consumers should benefit too. Unlike the previous Government, we have supported the regulator Ofgem in its proposal for the first ever referral of the energy markets to the independent competition authorities. The Leader of the Opposition talks about energy markets, but when he had the power to act, when he could have taken on the big six, and when he was doing my job, he did nothing. He refused three times to back an independent investigation of the energy markets, even though energy bills were rising faster than they are now. He let the energy companies off the hook and the party knows it.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friends may well be in Newark, but I have the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), here with me. It is interesting that that is the only point that the Opposition can make. I give way to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). He may well have a point of substance.
Barry Gardiner
The Secretary of State talked about the benefits to the consumer from competition in the energy market. He says that the Labour Government did not act properly in this way, but does he recall that of the 14 suppliers that existed when Labour came to power, there was no possibility for any customer to transfer their account from one to the other? What Labour did in creating new electricity trading arrangements and then the British electricity trading and transmission arrangements was to reform the market twice so that competition benefited the consumer.
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman is mixing up two things. The reforms to which he referred created the big six. There was a consolidation in the markets as a result of those reforms. What is helping competition is the ability to switch. What we have been doing is making that easier, simpler and faster, and that is the right thing to do. I am proud that we now have—or will shortly have when it is confirmed by Ofgem—a full-scale market investigation. The large energy companies will need to think very carefully about their pricing decisions. If they do not pass on falling wholesale costs, the competition authorities and, more importantly, their competitors will be very interested.
This autumn, I intend to ensure that British people know that if their energy supplier hikes up their prices, they will have a real choice to switch firms and cut their bills. The switching choices will be simpler, easier and quicker than ever before.
In this Session’s legislative programme, my Department will be putting forward a number of measures in the infrastructure Bill. First, I draw the House’s attention to our plans to introduce a community electricity right. Communities will be offered the chance to buy a stake in a new commercial renewable electricity scheme in their area. Community energy can play an increasingly important role in our energy mix, not least as we increase renewable energy in the UK.
When I published Britain’s first ever community energy strategy earlier this year, we showed how greater involvement by communities could significantly support our goals of decarbonising the power sector, increasing energy security, reducing bills and helping the fuel poor. One of the key aims of the strategy is to see greater community involvement and ownership of local renewable energy projects. We hope and believe that that will come about through voluntary agreement. A taskforce of industry and community energy specialists is already working out how a win-win can be achieved, with investors gaining greater public support and additional capital investment, and with communities receiving greater benefits and a greater stake.
Since we are pursuing a voluntary approach, the power in the Bill is a back-stop. The community energy sector was clear that the voluntary approach should be given a chance to succeed, and I agree. By legislating as proposed, we can send the strongest signal that Government and Parliament want to see both community energy and local shared ownership of renewable energy succeed. I hope that the measure will receive support from all parties.
Other key energy measures in the infrastructure Bill involve the implementation of the review that I commissioned into the future of Britain’s North sea assets, conducted so brilliantly by Sir Ian Wood. Given recent events in Crimea and Ukraine, we know more than ever that secure supplies of gas are vital to our economy, but cannot be taken for granted. As we cut our carbon emissions, with our dramatic shift out of coal over the next decade, we know that the replacement electricity must involve low-carbon electricity from renewables and nuclear and lower carbon electricity from gas. Our energy security and climate change objectives require gas, so we must conclude that our North sea oil and gas assets are at least as important now as they have always been.
In spite of rising and indeed record levels of investment in the North sea under the coalition, figures show declining production and exploration, which should worry us all. Gas imports have been rising for some time already and if we do not act to improve conditions in the North sea, our dependency on imported gas could reach worrying levels. As we implement the Wood recommendations, specifically to enable a new arm’s length regulator, I hope that we will get support from all parts of the House.
In order to ensure that the UK can benefit even more from its home-grown energy, we will introduce a final set of measures, subject to consultation, so that Britain can be more secure and reduce our reliance on imports and on coal. The measures are to support the development of the shale gas and geothermal industries. Although both industries are still in their infancy, they are both concerned that the existing legal situation could delay or even stop their ability to drill horizontally deep underground to recover gas or heat. Ironically, given the urgency of climate change and unlike the situation for dirty coal—a landowner or property owner high above a coal seam cannot object and delay work—for cleaner gas and clean heat, landowners and property owners can object.
To assist the shale gas and geothermal industries, we are consulting on how to address those access issues. We published our consultation paper on 23 May, and the consultation will run for the full 12 weeks. Members of the House may respond to that consultation, as may all interested parties. We want feedback and input, because that will help us to refine our proposals, to develop alternative ones or even to convince us that the existing system is fit for purpose. We will listen during the consultation and, subject to its outcome, we will introduce proposals when parliamentary time allows.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
This is of great interest to my constituents, because we envisage drilling to explore the possibilities for shale gas in our area in the coming months. Will the Secretary of State repeat the assurance that the Prime Minister gave in response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) yesterday, that there will be no circumstances in which someone may legally drill under people’s property without their consent and agreement?
Mr Davey
I am not sure whether the Prime Minister said that in those terms. There will be local community engagement in issues about fracking, not least through the planning process. There will be local involvement, because a company has to get a series of permits and regulatory permissions before it may even start an exploratory drill, which should give the hon. Lady’s constituents and other people the reassurances that they need.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I do not know whether the Secretary of State read the comments of Sir Merrick Cockell, the chair of the Local Government Association. Speaking on a cross-party basis, he said that he thought that the benefits or payments to the community promised to areas in which fracking takes place are simply not large enough, considering the enormous amount of revenue to be gained by the companies from fracking activities, in particular given the tax breaks. Will the Government think again about that to ensure that local communities get a lot more benefit from such activities?
Mr Davey
We have already put in place a package of attractive community benefits and as we proceed with the consultation, the hon. Gentleman might want to respond to it. There is talk of further community benefits, but let us be clear what we are talking about. We are talking about drilling at least 300 metres under a piece of land or property, far more than for the underground, the channel tunnel and all those other major pieces of infrastructure. Most shale and geothermals are at least one mile below the service and I think that landowners will be quite pleased to get compensation for that, because it will not affect their land or properties.
Geraint Davies
I want to ask about the concerns about waste water. There are examples in America of millions of tonnes of water being moved, destroying roads and the environment, and of its becoming contaminated and even radioactive and toxic in some cases, and there were issues with cleaning it, which contaminated the water table. I have heard of companies in Britain that want to do water treatment being turned away by prospective developers who seem to think that decontaminating the water is not a big issue.
Mr Davey
First, we have a strong regulatory regime for water, overseen by the Environment Agency. Before people can take water from water courses or put things beneath the ground, they have to get a permit. More than that, if we consider what is happening within industry processes and with some of the research and development that is going on in this area, we can see that the push for what are called “green completions” in the fracking industry is very strong. We are seeing companies minimise their use of water compared with the early years in the United States because it is in their interests and will reduce the amount of vehicle movement. This is a serious issue and I take it seriously. As I hope the hon. Gentleman can see, I have looked into it in some detail and we will continue to monitor that carefully.
Time has not allowed me to update the House on many aspects of our work that feed into the Bill and the Gracious Speech, most notably on our massive work on the international climate change debate. As the Gracious Speech says, Ministers will
“champion efforts to secure a global agreement on climate change.”
I can report to the House that Britain is leading in Europe, persuading European colleagues to go further and to adopt more ambitious climate change targets, just as this Parliament has done, and persuading European colleagues to agree to radical reforms of Europe’s carbon market, which is so crucial in encouraging investment in renewables, energy efficiency, nuclear and carbon capture and storage. The green growth group that I established in Europe 16 months ago has helped to lead that critical debate and a key task for the next five months up to the October European Council is to secure the deal Britain has helped to create. If we achieve that deal in October, Europe can then help to lead the rest of the world as we prepare for the critical climate change summit in Paris in December 2015, working with the United States of America after President Obama’s magnificent announcement this week on regulating coal plants.
The Government are delivering on growth and on green growth, on jobs and on green jobs. We have pulled our economy from the abyss and towards a sustainable, affordable future.