Debate on the Address

Debate between Ed Davey and Gregory Campbell

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Davey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The majority of people in Scotland voted for parties who want to preserve the Union. I get a sense that right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches should also note that the majority of people voted for parties who wanted to give the people a final say on the European Union.

We needed a Queen’s Speech that would truly keep our country together, heal the divides and tackle the challenges of inequality, lack of opportunity and climate change. However, I fear the Prime Minister’s Queen’s Speech will only undermine our united country’s great traditions. I fear that, with this Government’s programme, we will become a more inward-looking, more illiberal and less compassionate country. The one nation rhetoric of the Prime Minister is not matched by his actions. Let me start with Brexit.

Let us be clear that the Prime Minister and the Conservative party now own Brexit. It is their total and complete responsibility. They cannot blame anyone else any more. They have become the Brexit party from top to bottom. The question, of course, is this: will the Prime Minister get Brexit done? More precisely, will he get it done by the end of the year, so we can avoid the disaster of a no-deal Brexit? Well, we shall see.

The Prime Minister’s biggest weapon in his Brexit deal endeavour is surely his unmatched flexibility with the truth. His so-called triumph of achieving a deal for Brexit phase one was possible only because he betrayed his big promise to the Democratic Unionist party, his erstwhile big supporters. His willingness to jump unashamedly over every red line he had previously been willing to die in a ditch for will have been noted in Brussels by Europe’s rather more skilful negotiators.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a fairly accurate assessment of the communication between the Conservative party, its leader and my party, but does he agree that there is still the opportunity and time for redemption?

[Sir Edward Davey]

There is always time for redemption, but if the hon. Gentleman is hoping for it in this case from this Prime Minister, I wish him well.

Some of us have led successful negotiations, pan-Europe, in Brussels—difficult negotiations that I won for Britain—on everything from economic reform of the single market to climate change. I did not succeed by adopting this Prime Minister’s tactics of bulldog bluster combined with the record of a turncoat. I do not believe that that is the right approach, and I do not believe that he will succeed without reneging on all, or most, of his previous promises to leave voters. My parliamentary interest in this is whether or not, in the dark Conservative forests of the Brexit Spartans, his erstwhile friends have yet smelt betrayal. We shall see, but as we oppose Brexit and continue to point out the extra costs, economic damage and loss of influence, we will also remind Government colleagues of the previously unthinkable concessions that now need to be made for any chance of a deal next year.

I turn to the NHS, which the Prime Minister has made so much of. Every Member of the House was elected on a manifesto committed to increasing spending on the NHS in real terms—maybe there is a little political consensus there. I, for one, am relaxed about putting a spending commitment for the health service into law, but that prompts one question: is the spending enough? I do not want to repeat the election debate, where the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats were arguing for higher health spending than the Government. Instead, let me approach it in a rather different way, in terms of what our medium-term NHS spending target should be.

Most health analysts tend to talk, not as the Prime Minister does, in the abstract—in total spending, which is bound to go up with an ageing population and economic growth—but in comparisons between similar countries: on spending per person, on the percentage of the national income. If we compare the UK’s health spending in these ways—even with the Prime Minister’s rises—against the world’s other largest developed countries, the UK fares badly. In the G7, our health spending per person is the second lowest—lower than Germany and France. As a share of national income, in the G7, the UK again performs badly, with Italy the only country that is spending less.

I readily admit that the NHS is far more efficient as a health service than, say, the health system of the United States, but surely we should be really ambitious for the NHS, and the factual evidence shows that this Government and this Queen’s Speech are not. As we legislate for future NHS spending targets, why do we not take the opportunity to be really ambitious? Why do we not aim to spend 10% of our national income on the NHS, as a minimum? That would bring us up to G7 comparators, and I think that the British people would back a policy where £1 in every £10 of the national cake was spent on the nation’s health. I accept that the Government may be nervous about spending targets based on national income because their economic policies look set to fail so badly and national income will grow very slowly.

Petrol Prices

Debate between Ed Davey and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. He is right that the Government are legislating to ensure that, when Ofgem finds misdemeanours by companies, fines go to the consumer and not to the Consolidated Fund. That is an extra tooth for the independent regulator, and puts consumers’ rights ahead, where they should be. He asks me to make representations to the European Commission to see whether European law can be amended to mirror the change we have just made. Clearly, there is a case for that, but I may need to speak to my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills before I make unilateral representations.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The general public will have two things in mind: open competition and cheaper prices at the pump. Beyond the European Commission ruling—the Secretary of State has said that we do not know the timing of it—what steps will the Government and the OFT take to ensure that prices come down, that people see openness and transparency, and that the Government reduce fuel duty rather than put increases on hold?

[Mr Davey]

Like every right hon. and hon. Member, the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the price of fuel and the impact that that has on household budgets. I know from speaking to right hon. and hon. Members who represent rural constituencies how the price of fuel impacts on them. That is one reason why my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has paid such attention to the matter since he entered Her Majesty’s Treasury. The Government’s record on bearing down on fuel duty, which is one thing we can directly influence, is exemplary. We have had the longest freeze in fuel duty for 20 years—that is us playing our part.