Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, including the importance of the proper training of youth workers. We are absolutely committed to a properly qualified and trained youth sector. Subject to a business case, we have committed to renewing funding for these qualifications and reviewing the youth work curriculum. I know that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is in very close contact with the National Youth Agency, is aware of the timing issues and hopes to make an announcement in the near future.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks about reservists?

I am happy to be sporting a badge today in support of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I hope that in the days that the Prime Minister has left in office, she will do what she can to secure Nazanin’s release from jail in Iran.

I hope the Prime Minister will join many of us outside Parliament today in support of the climate justice activists. I have to say to the Leader of the Opposition that the Scottish Government were the first Government in the UK to declare a climate emergency; I hope that the UK responds to the leadership that Scotland is giving on this issue.

“Do or die, come what may”—those are the words of the Prime Minister’s likely successor. The truth behind the Brexit chaos in the Tory party is encompassed in those words. The Tory dream is to drag us out of the European Union, no matter what the cost. Prime Minister, before you exit office, will you pledge never to vote for a successor willing to impose a devastating no-deal Brexit on all of us?

[The Prime Minister]

I have to remind the right hon. Gentleman—yet again—that he is due to ask me questions about my responsibilities as Prime Minister. I remind him—yet again-that as Prime Minister I voted three times in this House to ensure that we could take the UK out of the European Union with a deal that was good for the whole of the United Kingdom, and he voted effectively for no deal.

[Ian Blackford]

My goodness, it is no wonder she is leaving. That was no answer to the question. The Prime Minister is showing gross cowardice. On the one hand, the Tories are asking people to put their faith in the most incompetent Foreign Secretary in a century—a man who has made a career out of lying, and who has spent the week avoiding the media, staging photos and playing to the extreme delusions of the Tory shires. On the other hand, we have the most incompetent Health Secretary in our history, a man who writes books on privatising our NHS. [Interruption.] The Conservatives clearly do not like the truth. Someone so desperate for a chance at his 30-year Downing Street fantasy that he—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the right hon. Gentleman has concluded his inquiry. [Interruption.] Order. If he has not, he needs to do so in a single sentence. [Interruption.] Order! Mr Cowan, I am sure you are a well-intentioned fellow, but I require no counsel from you. One sentence—we have a lot of questions to get through.

[Ian Blackford]

In the Prime Minister’s last days in office, will she finally act in the best interests of these islands, not of the Conservative party, and admit that neither of the candidates for office should ever be elected Prime Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that either of the candidates for this high office would do a darned sight better job than anybody sitting on the Opposition Benches.