Oral Answers to Questions

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The EU already, because of its Schengen border-free zone, has its own arrangements with Ukraine, and they have differed for a long time from those of the UK. What we have is a plan to be as generous as we possibly can to the people of Ukraine; the numbers that will come under our family reunion scheme alone could be in the hundreds of thousands, to say nothing of the special new path we are opening up, the humanitarian path, which is also uncapped. That is the right thing to do. What we will not do is simply abandon all checks. We do not think that is sensible, particularly in view of the reasonable security concerns about people coming from that theatre of war.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Q6.   On 28 July last year, every Labour councillor in Bury voted in favour of Andy Burnham’s plan to impose a 493 square mile clean air charging zone on my constituents and the residents of Greater Manchester. The Mayor’s plan is an attack on jobs and opportunity; it is based on flawed data and should be scrapped. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and as somebody who once had to deal with a badly thought out low emission zone, it is totally wrong to impose measures thoughtlessly that damage business and do not do very much to protect clean air. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has done the wrong thing, and I am glad we are delaying it. I congratulate my hon. Friend and other local Conservative MPs in the Manchester area who have shown common sense.