Covid-19
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Wales is actually at the forefront of our thoughts and continues to be. We are anxious to continue to support the people of Wales in any way that we can. The salient point that I take from today is that there is £1 billion that the Welsh Labour Government have failed to spend in the way that they could, and I urge them to get on and do that, but the UK Government will continue to support Wales, as we support the people of the whole United Kingdom.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]
In Norfolk, those most at risk from covid have already received 27,000 vaccination first injections since 9 December, which are now available in our hospitals and 11 primary care networks, including the excellent Fakenham Medical Practice in my constituency. From Monday, those sites will be joined by many others. We are ready to do whatever it takes to keep up with vaccine supply, so what are the chances of securing more than 2 million doses of vaccine per week?
Covid-19 Update
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think the hon. Lady may have missed what I said. We are putting up to another £1 billion into supporting local authorities and £500 million into supporting local test and trace and enforcement.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
While rightly moving to simplify the message, does my right hon. Friend agree that flexible local approaches are the best way to tackle outbreaks in order to prevent a total lockdown and minimise the wider economic impact, particularly on low-incidence-level areas such as Broadland?
The Prime Minister
That is exactly right. That is the strategy that we have been pursuing for some time now, and that is why it is necessary to intensify the restrictions in some areas.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We have changed the law to ask landlords to provide tenants with at least six months’ notice before eviction. We are not going to have evictions in lockdown areas, there will not be any enforcement of evictions over Christmas and we are putting £180 million into discretionary payments for local authorities to help hardship cases. We are also embarking on a huge programme to build hundreds of thousands more homes, particularly affordable homes, which I hope the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will want to buy and to part-buy.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I appreciate the temporary disappointment that my hon. Friend is experiencing, but this Government are immensely ambitious for the improvement of our transport infrastructure, and active consideration is now being undertaken of that project again. I understand that parliamentary colleagues are meeting Baroness Vere, the roads Minister, this week to discuss the options for additional schemes from 2025 onwards.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Pete Wishart
That is exactly the essence of what this is all about—this idea that somehow they know better for Scotland, better than the directly elected representatives of the people in the Scottish Parliament. It is an absurd suggestion. There is no evidence that they know better than the Scottish Parliament, and we will not accept that. I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughts.
The Government have suggested today that we are complaining about extra funding. First, is there any extra funding? Secondly, where does it come from? Thirdly, how much is it going to be? We could have a debate about extra funding if they could answer all those questions. I am looking at the Minister; maybe she could tell us. We have the devolved powers for a particular reason. It is because we want democratic control over the decision makers on everything from education to health to infrastructure to water—all the things that they now want to exercise responsibility over.
Pete Wishart
I do not have time. I am conscious that other people want to come in.
Before devolution, there was a Scotland Office. It exercised responsibility, authority and powers over all the areas that are now controlled by the Scottish Parliament. The reason devolution came across was to directly express democratic control over those responsibilities. The Government now want to go back to the dark days of the 1980s, under the regime of Michael Forsyth and Malcolm Rifkind. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] They are going “Hear, hear”! I am hearing a “Hear, hear” from the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). May I just say that the rest of Scotland does not share that ambition? I am pretty certain that when he stands next year for the Scottish Parliament he will find that out.
So that is what the Government are doing—they are attempting to take us back to those days. Extra money is great if there is any; I am just wondering how much it is, and whatever it is, how it will be distributed. But it should be under the democratic control of the Scottish Parliament when it comes to the devolved powers, because that is what it is there to do.
Why are the Government really doing this? Here is my theory; tell me if I am on the right tracks. They can never win an election in Scotland—the Scottish Conservatives have absolutely no chance of winning an election in Scotland. The new ever-cheerful hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) and his belligerent baroness partner are actually taking the Scottish Conservatives further down. They are sinking below 20% in the polls. So they are thinking, “We’re never, ever going to get legislative responsibility and control of the Scottish Government, so we’ll just go round it—we’ll just circumvent it.” That is actually easier for the Scottish Conservatives than winning an election. So that is why they are doing it.
Another thing that they are doing is what I call “slap a jack on it”—the idea that somehow, the Scottish people will learn to love the Conservatives if they see a whole load of projects with Union Jacks on, given by the largesse and generosity of the Great Britain and United Kingdom Parliament. Nothing will irritate the Scottish people more than seeing all that rubbish splattered about our country.
I will just finish with this. Aggressive Unionism is not working for them. I know that they have all these new figures in the Scotland Office. They have the new constitution unit. Surely, with all these great thinkers on the Union, someone must be able to turn round to the Government and say to them, “We’ve tried this. We tried undermining the powers of the Scottish Parliament. We tried ‘slap a jack on it.’ We tried all these things to curtail Scottish democracy, and all that is happening is that support for independence is going up and up and up.” Now, it might just be me, but if you are doing the same thing again and again and it is not working for you, surely you should change it and do something different, to try and ensure that the Union case prevails. It is almost to our benefit that they are continuing with this type of aggressive Unionism, because what we have seen is a rise in support for independence. I give them this advice only because I know that they will never take it: what they are doing is ensuring the Union’s demise.
The day of Scotland being subject to rubbish like this rogue state UK Bill, with the stripping of our powers and the diminishing of our democracy, is a day too long. This issue will be critical in the next Scottish parliamentary election. They are going to get gubbed. There will be a demand from Scotland for independence, and it will be goodbye Westminster—and it cannot come soon enough.
Patricia Gibson
No, I will not. I was trying to educate the hon. Gentleman a wee bit. I am always happy to clear up confusion about what devolution means, because there is a clear lack of knowledge about it.
What we are seeing in this legislation is an underhand, sleekit, sleight of hand whereby Scots, who for decades have rejected the Tories, are being put in their box, with powers stripped from their Parliament—a Parliament for which the case was hard fought, and won in the teeth of vociferous Tory opposition—and taken back to Westminster. We all know that the Scottish Parliament was established for Scots to have some say in their own affairs; to allow Scotland to do things differently, instead of every single aspect of our lives being governed by a Tory Government who have won the support of few Scots and the hearts of even fewer.
After 21 years, the Tories have run out of patience with us pesky Scots and they are using legislative procedures, hellbent on bringing to heel the nation that continues to reject them. In the Bill, Scotland will now be denied the choice to use her Parliament to do things differently—to do things according to our values, according to our beliefs. The very essence of devolution is being undermined, diluted and constrained, and in the process opposition to this arrogant madness has united whole swathes of Scottish society—our people, civic society, our educational institutions, our farming communities and our trade unions.
We in Scotland rejected these measures in the Scottish Parliament last month, overwhelmingly. Tory Members do not seem to understand that for Scotland’s Parliament not to have control over its own spending priorities is an affront to the democratic will of the sovereign people of Scotland.
The fact that the plans are set out in these clauses means that democratically elected MSPs and members of the Scottish Government can be overlooked, bypassed and marginalised when it comes to spending decisions, and the Bill will jeopardise the current Barnett funding formula. For the Tories, though, it will certainly solve the problem identified by Labour’s Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, who—I paraphrase—said, “Scotland is doing things better than in England” and
“they are doing it deliberately.”
This mean-spirited, grubby, underhand, squalid, sweaty-handed power grab is an attempt to stop just that—Scotland doing things better, and doing them better deliberately. In short, the Bill grabs power from the Scottish Parliament.
In answer to the question of what powers will be lost, the Bill could even allow Westminster to interfere on devolved taxation powers, threatening schemes such as the small business bonus.
The Sewel convention says that the UK Parliament would “not normally” legislate in respect of devolved matters without the consent of the devolved Parliaments, and the devolution settlement is clear: what is not reserved is devolved. For this Tory Government to undermine the devolution settlement by refusing to recognise the correct vehicle for delivery for such programmes designed to replace EU funding, is to ride a coach and horses through it. Spending decisions on key infrastructure projects, such as social objectives, will be taken out of the hands of the Scottish Parliament and could be completely out of step with the social and public policy of Scotland’s elected Government, excluding important players in Scotland’s civic society.
What if the UK Government impose on Scotland a project that goes against the democratic wishes or priorities of the Scottish Parliament? What will happen? How will such disputes be resolved? I think we know where the power grab takes us, in answer to that question. I can barely believe the blatant insult of this UK Government trying to portray the dismantling of the powers of the Scottish Parliament as a power surge. They should get a grip of themselves. Who on earth do they think that they are fooling? Scots are not daft. We can see the bluff and the bluster and the grubby way that this Government do politics. We have waited too long for our own Parliament to see it dismantled by a party that has been rejected by Scotland again and again and, for the record, has been rejected because it simply does not understand Scotland.
Jerome Mayhew
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way—it shows that perseverance is rewarded eventually. She has made reference to the devolution settlement, so I draw her attention to Donald Dewar’s 1997 White Paper, “Scotland’s Parliament”, where it says:
“Westminster will continue to be responsible for those areas of policy best run on a United Kingdom basis.”
It goes on:
“By preserving the integrity of the United Kingdom, the Union secures for its people participation in an economic unit, which benefits business, provides access to wider markets and investment and increases prosperity to all.”
What is wrong with that?
Patricia Gibson
What the hon. Gentleman does again, as, to be fair to him, many of his colleagues have done, is demonstrate that he does not understand devolution. There is nothing to prevent common frameworks. The SNP Government have never objected to that, but what the Government are doing with this Bill is deliberately removing powers from the Scottish Parliament, preventing the Scottish Government from setting their own priorities, so common frameworks are not the issue.
There is a dawning realisation that up with this we in Scotland need not put. This Government know that they will never get legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament for this Bill. If the Tories want to win Scotland, if they want to run Scotland, then they really should try winning an election. The grubby tactics being used in this Bill to emasculate our national Parliament will simply not work. The more they try to constrain Scotland’s democratic rights, the more the ties that bind us to the rest of the UK loosen, so keep talking. The Scottish people are sovereign. Clauses 46 and 47 are merely footnotes on the journey to Scotland’s independence. All this Government are doing with their incompetence and bluster is moving us along our way to independence. They are overplaying their hand and putting the final nails in the Unionist coffin. For that at least, Scotland can be grateful.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins) [V]
The hon. Lady knows that we already protect the rights of victims of domestic abuse and other survivors through a range of measures, not just those in the Domestic Abuse Bill, but I am delighted that she raises the Bill, which is a groundbreaking piece of legislation. Alongside it, we will this year launch a pilot project to understand and measure the need of migrant women who have no recourse to public funds, because the Government are clear that they must be treated as victims first and foremost.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Elizabeth Truss)
The Prime Minister has set out his vision to level up and spread opportunity across the country, and the Equality Hub will play an important part in realising that vision by rigorously analysing where the real inequality in Britain is today. It will focus in particular on areas such as geography and social background.
Jerome Mayhew
Rural poverty is easy to overlook in picturesque areas that other people associate with holidays and a slower pace of life, but it is every bit as hard and destructive for those affected. Can my right hon. Friend advise the House on what action the Government are taking to address rural deprivation?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We want everybody across the country to benefit from our levelling-up agenda of investing more in transport infrastructure and dealing with educational inequality. We recognise that deprived rural areas can face additional barriers to opportunity. The Equality Hub will analyse the data and look at where that inequality of opportunity is, so that Departments can take measures to address them.
Civil Service Appointments
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Michael Gove
I am sorry if I failed to provide the clarity required, but I am sure that for all Select Committees, including the very important ISC, David Frost will make himself and his colleagues available so that he can answer questions.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The civil service review into the effectiveness of the National Security Council concluded:
“The NSC demonstrates the potential benefits of a ‘strong grip’ at the centre and the ‘halo effect’ of consistent prime ministerial investment of time and effort in committee work.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that this strong grip will only be increased by the appointment of David Frost as National Security Adviser, a person who works effectively with the Prime Minister, has his full support and has demonstrated impressive ability during the trade negotiations with the European Union and during his long diplomatic career?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is important that someone in that role commands the confidence of the Prime Minister and is capable of working effectively with him. I should say—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) makes a comment from a sedentary position. The Labour Government between 1997 and 2010 were responsible for many good things, but the idea that they were entirely free of any political appointees will, for most students of contemporary history, seem to be a form of selective amnesia.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He clearly shares my concern that this is an economic crisis as well as a humanitarian and health crisis. The private sector and the African Development Bank play a critical role alongside supply chains, but particularly the ADB in relation to protecting livelihoods. I look forward to working as an alternate governor to the Secretary of State for that great organisation in Abidjan.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Development (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
Development policy and foreign policy are remarkably intertwined, which is why the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office already work together in 32 bilateral posts, nine multilateral missions and eight FCO-DFID joint units. To deal with coronavirus as effectively as possible and to co-ordinate our international efforts, we established a superb joint conflict, security and governance covid-19 hub, so the UK has a stronger presence in the world when speaking as one Government, rather than as only individual Departments.
Jerome Mayhew
Beyond the immediate covid response, the past 30 years have shown us that trade, not aid, lifts developing nations out of poverty. With this in mind, does the Secretary of State agree that the considerable soft power that her Department wields should be used to encourage and expand trading opportunities with developing nations?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The UK Government are firmly committed to ensuring that developing countries can reduce poverty through trading opportunities. Indeed, that is one of the critical outcomes, and we will have to work very hard to help those countries get back on their feet. DFID has a joint team with the Department for International Trade, which is working to enhance market access for developing countries, ensuring that they can take advantage of this access through trade-related assistance and using our influence in organisations such as the World Trade Organisation.
The Prime Minister
Yes, I can tell the hon. Lady that we certainly will be doing as much as we can in the near future to ensure shielded people get guidance about how they can come out of their shielded environment safely, in a way that is covid secure. Her point about furlough is a very important one, and clearly newly shielded people may be asking themselves whether they will be entitled to furlough funds. I have been made aware of the issue very recently. I can assure her that we will be addressing it forthwith.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The Prime Minister
Perhaps it would be helpful in advance of any consultation paper if I just set out my own broad position, and stress that I am a Sinophile. I believe that we must continue to work with this great and rising power on climate change or trade or whatever it happens to be, but when we have serious concerns as a country—whether it is over the origins of covid or the protection of our critical national infrastructure or, indeed, what is happening in Hong Kong—we must feel absolutely free to raise those issues loud and clear with Beijing, and that is what we will continue to do.
Public Services
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. On the subject of communication between the Government and parties, in nearly all of the 30 meetings that my ministerial implementation group has held, there have been representatives of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. I have had the opportunity to discuss how we can co-ordinate our response with Scottish Government Ministers including Mike Russell, Aileen Campbell and John Swinney, and it has been a pleasure to do so. They have operated in a collaborative fashion, as have the Labour members of the Welsh Government, and the Democratic Unionist party, Sinn Féin, Ulster Unionist party, Alliance, and Social Democratic and Labour party Ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive.
Indeed, I noted that on Radio 4’s “Westminster Hour” just the other night, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), the deputy leader of the SNP group in Westminster, paid tribute to the extent of collaborative work. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) does not agree with the deputy leader of his parliamentary delegation and has such little faith in Scottish Government Ministers making sure that priorities are addressed in the daily meetings we have.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the stockpile of personal protective equipment. The stockpile that we had before this pandemic was explicitly designed in accordance with advice from the Government’s scientific advisers on the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group, and of course it was explicitly for a flu pandemic. The nature of coronavirus is different from that of a flu pandemic, as we all know, and we, like every Government across the world, have had to respond to this new virus by ensuring, not just with personal protective equipment but in every respect, that we are in a position to retool, refit and upgrade our response.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the support that the UK Government are giving to Scotland. I am pleased to confirm that the UK pandemic stockpile has been responsible for transferring millions of items to the NHS in Scotland. It is also the case that the new testing centres in Scotland have been set up with the assistance of the British Army, and that our RAF has been responsible for supporting the Scottish national health service in making sure that individuals in remote island communities can receive the care they need. And, of course, it is the strength of the UK Exchequer that has allowed business support to be provided to Scottish businesses.
One of the truly impressive things about the response across these islands has been the way in which people have put aside their ideological and political differences to work in the interests of one United Kingdom. Even at a time of test and trial for our nations, we should take pride in the efforts of the Northern Ireland, Scottish, Welsh and English people.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]
May I wholeheartedly join my right hon. Friend in the tribute he paid to NHS staff and all the key workers throughout the four nations of our kingdom? As we draw close to the summer, the agricultural sector’s need for labour is increasing. With reduced access to foreign labour, what steps are the Government taking to support the agricultural sector?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the steps that the Environment Secretary has taken, which I referred to briefly in my statement, is to work with the farming industry in order to ensure that more UK workers can support our farmers to produce the food we need. Whether it is picking asparagus or soft fruit or helping in other ways, thousands of people have stepped up to help our farming sector. It is vital work, and I commend all those who are doing it.
European Union: Future Relationship
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Gove
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. Throughout his time in the House, he has been a strong, consistent and powerful voice for the rights of workers. He is absolutely right that those who work in our automotive sector deserve the best possible future, and it is for that reason that we will seek to avoid any tariffs on cars or automotive products.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
British farmers are proud to produce food to the highest standards, and the British consumer benefits from that. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the farmers and consumers of my constituency that those high standards will be maintained in any free trade agreement?
Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access
Jerome Mayhew Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chloe Smith
I have already explained that this particular briefing was arranged to provide further specialist briefing. It was not in itself a matter for the kind of questioning that the hon. and learned Lady is putting about around whether it should be for Scotland or the United Kingdom. That question is rightly subject to a far greater debate on which, I gently point out, she is on the wrong side. The point is that the British people have asked for a clear resolution of our relationship with the European Union. We got Brexit done last weekend and we now move on to the next stage of the negotiation. We all want the lobby to be able to benefit from a good understanding of the negotiating objectives of the UK Government. The UK Government speak for all parts of the UK in that, so such matters are not really the subject of the kind of questioning the hon. and learned Lady is asking after.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Given that the Labour party called for the resignation of BBC journalists who had the courage to report on antisemitism, does the Minister agree that it is the Conservative party that stands up for a healthy, vibrant and independent press?
Chloe Smith
I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution. He is absolutely right that what we are talking about here today is how the Government are, ought to be and will be, committed to being open in their dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom. That is something that we stick by firmly as a matter of principle and of practice.