Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me start by welcoming my hon. Friend to the Chamber. She is absolutely right: we owe it to our constituents—we owe it to the public—to ensure that when we debate these issues we debate them on the basis of the facts, and not on the basis of the sort of fake news that we hear all too often in the Chamber.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Lakeside children’s centre is a lifeline for often struggling kids and their parents in one of the poorest wards in Britain, giving them the best possible start in life, yet it is one of 26 children’s centres that face closure in Birmingham. Does the Prime Minister understand the consequences of her actions? Does she understand that £700 million of cuts in the city council’s budget are having a devastating impact on the provision of children’s centres? Will she act properly to fund those centres, and to reverse a tidal wave of closures that will otherwise have a devastating impact on the life chances of a whole generation of children?

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, decisions on this issue are being taken by the Birmingham local authority, but it ill behoves any Member of the Labour party to stand up in this House and complain about the issues with public spending that we have had to address, because they are the direct result of the failure of a Labour Government to manage our economy.

Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. A range of lessons need to be learnt from this terrible tragedy. As he knows, an expert panel with a range of skills and expertise across a number of areas will be helping the inquiry. Again, he raises an important issue that not only the Government but the inquiry itself will want to consider.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The First Secretary is right that no stone should be left unturned in uncovering the truth behind the horror that was the Grenfell Tower fire. On wider lessons and action in the meantime, Birmingham has 231 tower blocks and the city council has rightly decided that it will retrofit sprinklers in all of them, costing £31 million to a council that has suffered £700 million of cuts to its budget. Will the Government unequivocally commit to funding all the necessary safety measures, pending the outcome of the inquiry?

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that the necessary safety measures recommended by the fire service will be met by the Government. The inquiry is designed to ascertain the causes of the tragedy.

[Jack Dromey]

For clarity, the First Secretary has just made an important statement. Is he saying that the necessary safety measures to protect 10,000 households in 231 blocks will be funded by the Government?

[Damian Green]

For clarity, I will go all the way through this. If the fire service recommends that something needs to be done for safety reasons, the local authority will be the first port of call to pay for it—I am sure all local authorities will want to follow the fire service’s recommendations on this. If a local authority can show that it cannot afford it, central Government will obviously then step in. That is a matter for local authorities and the fire service in the first instance. Clearly, that is the sensible way to proceed.

Grenfell Tower

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A single sentence, and a short one, from Jack Dromey.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Fire sprinklers save lives. May I correct the Prime Minister, because actually the inquest recommended that the Department issue guidance to all providers of high-rise blocks that they should retrofit sprinklers? There are 213 blocks with 10,000 households in Birmingham. Will the Prime Minister agree now to act on the advice given four years ago, retrofit sprinklers and have the Government pay for it?

[The Prime Minister]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that the recommendation was that the Department

“encourage providers of housing in high rise residential buildings containing multiple domestic premises to consider the retro fitting of sprinkler systems.”

London Attack

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I had intended to call another Birmingham Member, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who, sadly, has left the Chamber. In the absence of that hon. Member, let us hear the voice of Jack Dromey.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

May I thank the Prime Minister for her leadership at a bleak moment for our country? As the brave guardian of Parliament, Keith Palmer fought for his life yesterday; the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) fought to save his life. May I say of the hon. Gentleman that he is one of Parliament’s finest?

In backing our police to defeat terrorism, does the Prime Minister believe we should heed their wise words that to demonise and divide is to play right into the hands of the evil that is terrorism?

[The Prime Minister]

We should not be making any attempt to demonise individual communities. We should recognise that it is individuals who are terrorists, that they are adhering to a warped ideology—a warped ideology of evil—and that that is true whatever the origin of the terrorism, because there are different ideologies. This House has been struck before, as we know, and has felt terrorism of a different sort hitting a Member of this House. We must ensure that we do not demonise communities, but work with them to identify and to isolate those who wish to do us harm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I commend the work that is being done by Forward Assist in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It sounds like a valuable project that is doing important work. The Secretary of State for Defence will be happy to meet her.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Schools Minister has been good enough to agree to meet Erdington headteachers tomorrow. The constituency is rich in talent, but it is one of the poorest in the country. Some 96% of Birmingham’s schools will lose a total of £20 million under the Government’s fair funding formula, yet Surrey gains £17 million, Suffolk gains £10 million, and Windsor and Maidenhead gains £300,000. How can that possibly be fair?

[The Prime Minister]

I note that the Schools Minister will be meeting the hon. Gentleman and headteachers to discuss the issue. The fair funding formula is about trying to ensure that the unfair funding that has existed up until now is actually dealt with. There are some very, very stark differences. There are schools in London, for example, that get almost twice the funding of those in other parts of the country. We need to ensure that we address the unfairness in the funding formula but, as I said earlier, there is a consultation exercise and the Department for Education will respond in due course.

EU Council

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I think we should appoint a new Commissioner. We are a full member of this organisation. We pay our dues in full. We should have a UK Commissioner. I discussed this yesterday with the President of the Commission, and we hope to come forward with a nominee shortly.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I am the proud son of Irish immigrants who encountered the signs that said, “No dogs, no Irish”. We once again see fear stalking the streets, with Polish women in Erdington told to go home, a Kashmiri driver told, “We don’t want you Muslims here”, and an aggressive individual telling a train guard, “Don’t you close those doors until I tell you to. We make the rules now.” This is all a consequence of xenophobia being put mainstream in the referendum campaign. Does the Prime Minister agree that it can never be right that someone should fear for their safety because of their accent or the colour of their skin, and that we will never allow this great, dynamic, multicultural Britain to be divided by the evil of racism?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with every word the hon. Gentleman said. I never wanted to see those sentiments appear in our country again. I think the difference between now and the 1950s and 1960s, when these things happened, is that the state of our laws is far stronger, the understanding of our police is far better and the ability of our prosecuting authorities to take action is much stronger. We need to make sure all those things are brought to bear.

European Council

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. I think we get the best of both worlds. It is worth asking what difference it would make if we were not there. I suppose my answer is that I think the European Union would have continued for longer with the rather borderless approach of relocating migrants around different European countries. That approach failed. What was required was an approach that was more about looking upstream, supporting people in the camps, finding the funding for that, hardening the external border and breaking the link between getting in a boat and getting settlement. I think that Britain, including my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who has been to Council meeting after Council meeting, has done a huge amount to drive that agenda forward.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Angela Maher, the proud mother of two disabled sons, rang me to say, “I could cry,” and then she did, saying, “Why is it always people like us?” Can the Prime Minister rule out, as Robert Meadowcroft, the chief executive of Muscular Dystrophy UK, has said today, any further cuts to support for disabled people during this Parliament?

[The Prime Minister]

We are increasing the amount of money going to disabled people, as I have explained many times. My right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will set out our approach in a moment, but we set out in our manifesto the changes we needed to make to get the welfare budget under control. We have made those changes and those are the changes we are pursuing.

UK-EU Renegotiation

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is extremely articulate and always speaks very powerfully, but let me take two of the points that he has made and explain why I think that, actually, he has got this wrong.

First, the principles that will be legally binding in terms of how currencies other than the euro are treated constitute a real advance. They mean, for instance, that never again can the European Union suggest that the clearance of euros is possible only in eurozone countries, which would have been disastrous for our financial services industry. I have secured that. The European Union cannot even promote that again, which is extremely important, because if we were not in the European Union, we would not have that protection at all. The EU could change the rule just like that. I do not think my hon. Friend understands the power of the principles of no discrimination, no disadvantage, and no cost, which mean that we cannot be forced to bail out eurozone countries as we nearly were last summer. Those are powerful principles.

On ever closer union, I encourage my hon. Friend to look at page 9 of section C of one of the documents, which states that

“the references to an ever closer union…do not offer a basis for extending the scope of any provision of the Treaties”.

As I have said, as far as I can remember—I was advising a Minister at the time of the Maastricht debates, and I sat through Lisbon and Nice and Amsterdam and the rest—the principle has never been set out in that way. This means that ever closer union cannot be used to drive a process of integration. If we in the House have the protection that we must have a referendum if any Minister ever suggests that we sign up to another treaty that passes power—protection one—and we have this too, we are well on our way to saying that our different sort of membership of the EU is not only safeguarded but is being extended, because not only are we out of the euro and out of Schengen, but we are out of ever closer union too.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Once the workshop of the world, Birmingham in the west midlands is now the industrial heartland of Britain. Key to that success is inward investment, including investment by Jaguar Land Rover in the 3,000-strong Jaguar factory in my constituency, and key to inward investment is continuing membership of the European Union. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is strongly in the best interests of midlands workers that we remain part of Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

Provided that we secure the agreement that we need, yes, of course I do. We are seeing an industrial renaissance in the west midlands, much of it involving the automotive industry. I have had a number of meetings with car manufacturers in recent days: I saw representatives of Toyota and Ford yesterday, I have had conversations with Jaguar Land Rover and others, and I was with BMW representatives in Germany recently. They have all made the point that Britain is a great centre for the manufacture of cars, and of engines in particular. That is relevant to the issue of the standards set in Europe and our being a rule maker and not a rule taker, which is very important for our auto industry.

National Security and Defence

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, and it is doubtful that I will be able to accommodate everybody. The Prime Minister is giving very pithy answers. Perhaps colleagues could follow suit and pose pithy questions.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

A regional solution involving all means at our disposal underpinned by the United Nations is essential if we are to defeat ISIS in its heartland. So too is the taking of all steps necessary in our homeland to protect the security and safety of British citizens. Will the Prime Minister think again, therefore, before proceeding with major cuts to front-line policing, because neighbourhood policing is the eyes and ears of the counter-terrorism effort?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he says about Syria. It is about bringing together the United Nations, the aid and development efforts that we can make, the political solutions that we want to pursue and diplomatic efforts, together with the military action that we want to pursue. I have said what I said about counter-terrorism policing, and the hon. Gentleman will have to wait for the statement on Wednesday to see the overall settlement, but I am in no doubt that all our police play a role in keeping us safe, and in the last Parliament we demonstrated that, with efficiencies, we can get more for less out of our excellent police force.

G20 and Paris Attacks

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and puts it in the right way. We must not confuse migration and terrorism, but we need to be clear that proper border controls and checks are necessary to make sure that the people who come to our country do not threaten us. That is one reason why we have never joined Schengen: we want to keep our own border controls. Taking Syrian refugees from the camps enables us to carry out the checks before they take off.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is right that greater powers are necessary to thwart terrorist plots on the internet. He is also right to make available additional resources for our security services and special forces. However, does he not agree that this would be the worst possible time to proceed with the biggest cuts to a police service anywhere in Europe, which would have a serious impact on the neighbourhood policing that is vital to intelligence gathering, as it is the eyes and ears of counter-terrorism in local communities?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we protected counter-terrorism policing budgets in the last Parliament and will do the same in this Parliament. The police have shown in the past five years how well they can find efficiencies and increase the number of neighbourhood police officers on our streets.