Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)
The Law Commission published its comprehensive review of hate crime laws on 7 December. Recognising the complex issues that the Law Commission has identified, the Government will carefully consider those recommendations and provide a further response as quickly as possible.
Rachel Maclean
I can reassure the hon. Lady and the whole House that the Prime Minister takes all forms of sexual harassment against women and girls extremely seriously. That is why we are focusing on the Law Commission’s recommendations, which involve a number of complex issues, as she will understand. If there are gaps in the specific laws that tackle this appalling crime, the Government will act.
Jess Phillips
To follow up on the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), a kite was flown in The Telegraph saying that the Government were absolutely going to put in place a public sexual harassment law, as has been called for, as has been suggested by the Law Commission and as was talked about in the violence against women and girls strategy that was published six months ago. Now the Minister is standing in front of us and saying, “We are still looking at it.” Was what the Home Office official told The Telegraph right, or is what the Minister is saying right? The Government committed to this law six months ago, so when can we expect it?
Rachel Maclean
I am happy to put on record the official position, regardless of what has or has not been reported in The Telegraph, which unfortunately I have not read. We are responding to the Law Commission’s review as quickly as possible, as I already said to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Right, well let us just have a little less. It is important.
Committee on Standards: Decision of the House
Jess Phillips Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I shall start with an apology to you, Mr Speaker. As I have already mentioned to you, I have to leave the debate straight after my comments because I am due in Westminster Hall to talk about people spiking drinks, which I am sure concerns the whole House. After I have made that apology—I am aware that this might sound slightly backward—let me say that I tell my children when they apologise that “sorry” is just a word, and changing our behaviour is the way that we prove that we are sorry. I ask my children not to say sorry to me very often, although they are called on to do it quite a lot; I wish to see changed behaviour.
It is an absolute pleasure, actually, to follow the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter). He is not a Member who I have had much interaction with, but I can see that he is going to be an interesting and independent voice on the issue of standards in this House. He might not recognise some of the fanfare that we have had today, because there are normally only about 10 or 15 people in debates about how we are going to look at the code of conduct, but this one seems to have piqued considerably more interest.
There are changes that might need to be made; I do not think that the system is perfect by any stretch of the imagination. On appeals, the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) was insistent about the ICGS and how it works. I hope that Members are aware that such a system means that both parties can appeal a decision, so if that system were in place and on one occasion it went the way of a Member, that would mean that the complainant, who may very well be vexatious, could keep on appealing. A system like that of the ICGS is not necessarily a perfect one.
Alberto Costa
The point is that the former member of the judiciary, Sir Stephen Irwin, has created a set of appeal rules that are very clear in outlining when a complainant or an MP can appeal from the sub-panel to his own panel, and they are broadly the same grounds that we might use in judicial review, where the matter is either being dealt with improperly or unlawfully, or it is manifestly unreasonable.
Jess Phillips
I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman defending judicial review. I absolutely love a bit of judicial review. I have taken the Government to court on a number of occasions—for example, when they sort of stopped victims of domestic violence being able to move across councils. I have always welcomed a judicial review.
I very much welcome the considerable efforts that people here are now going to make, as they advocate for themselves, to advocate for the kind of people in my constituency who have no legal representation in any way, whether as domestic violence victims in the family court, or in employment tribunals. I am also interested to hear that Members really want us to have employment rights in this place. I remember when disabled Members in this building were saying that it would be against the Equality Act 2010 for them to come in during covid, and we were told that the Equality Act does not apply to us because we are not employees. It is an interesting turn of events that we have seen in the last few days.
I care deeply about the standards in this building, not because I am actually that interested in Standing Orders—I know that some hon. Gentlemen here love them, but I am not all that bothered by getting bogged down in the numbers, and this and that—but because I am interested in politics mattering to people in this country and those people feeling they can change it. If I could thank the Ministers on the Treasury Bench for anything, it would be that this week the people in our country felt they could change something that they did not like, when the Government had to undo their deeply unpopular decision.
The more that we degrade this place—for some of us, that is considerably more dangerous than it is for others. For some of us, it every day screams in our faces that democracy has been undermined. It is dangerous if we do not get the standards in this place right and if we do not do it together collegiately, through the proper process, which has, up until last week, largely been my experience. It is a shame that on this occasion, that was not the case.
I have to go and talk about other things in another part of the House, but I will finish by mentioning one more issue. On the point about there being one rule for the people outside this building and different rules for the people inside this building, it has been phenomenal for me this week to see the different contracts that organisations such as Randox have been given without a tender process. I speak as somebody who has spent hours and hours of my time working in charities, filling in tender process after tender process for amounts of money like £25,000 for a children’s sexual exploitation service that would last for a whole year. I had to include information on what sort of locks were going to be on the doors in the office and how we would lock the filing cabinets.
Hour by hour is accounted for. I have worked on Home Office contracts where the staffing hour is literally given out in 15-minute blocks, and I am monitored on that and it is accounted for—and I find that what I needed was hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay somebody in here to make that a little bit simpler. We can blame covid all we like, but I sat and filled in the Government paperwork for grants for organisations that were offering refuge accommodation during the covid-19 pandemic, and there were pages and pages where they had to reply to multiple different organisations and Departments. I helped lots of charities to do it and I did not charge anyone a single bean.
I will finish by saying that there is one rule for the people in our country, and seemingly another for enormous, friendly companies who are willing to pay the people in here.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I can certainly give my hon. Friend an assurance on his second point. The only way to deliver a great Brexit is to vote for the Conservative party and this Government. I can make him happier still by pointing out that those 153 police are just the first wave for Ribble Valley, as part of the 20,000 more police who we will be putting on the streets of this country.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
Order. Both representatives at the Dispatch Box spoke with force and fully. The hon. Lady is not going to be cut off by people ranting at her. She will be heard. If there are people who do not want to hear it, they are welcome to leave; I do not think she will care, and neither will I. Her question will be heard, and that is the end of it.
Jess Phillips
I do not want to hear the Prime Minister’s campaign-ad answer, because my son will not be able to go to school on Friday, and his campaign-ad answer does nothing for me as a parent. [Interruption.] I am so glad that they think it is really funny that children cannot go to school five days a week. The Prime Minister is responsible for the children in this country, and while he might struggle with that personally, will he today give a commitment that there will be a maximum number of children in every class post the election and that every single child will be able to go to school for five days a week?
The Prime Minister
May I first of all wish a very happy birthday to Danny? I can reassure the hon. Lady that I believe that under this Government—under this Conservative Government—he will have the best possible chance not only of having the funding for his school that he needs, because we are investing in every primary and every secondary school in the country, but of having, as I say, the £14 billion to level up funding both in primary and in secondary schools. I believe that Danny will have a better chance of a great job under this Government—and look at what we have achieved already: record employment under this Government—and a better chance of being able to find, eventually, his own home. So Danny has a great future under this Government, and I hope she will reassure him on that point.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Jess Phillips ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is now a week since Parliament voted to delay Brexit yet again. It is a week since this Parliament voted yet again to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1 billion a month. In the days since then, the Government have tried to be reasonable and to ascribe the best possible motives to our friends and colleagues around the House. [Interruption.] I have twice offered more time for debate. I offered more time last week and I made the same offer last night. I said that we were prepared to debate this Bill—[Interruption.] I said we were prepared to debate the withdrawal Bill around the clock to allow Parliament time to scrutinise it, to the point of intellectual exhaustion. We must bear in mind that not only has this House been considering this issue for three and a half years, but last week when this Bill was being debated there was not a single new idea and not a single new suggestion. All they wanted was more time, more weeks, more months, when they could not even provide the speakers to fill the time allotted.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Prime Minister for eventually giving way. [Interruption.] We can all go, “Ooh”, like children but we are actually trying to get something through. Let me go back to the comments he made when he opened his speech. Either this House voted for the Second Reading or it delayed it—he cannot have it both ways, which is what he seems to want. Would the Prime Minister like to go back over his first comments and address whether he thinks they were entirely correct, because almost everything he said seemed to me as though he might be misleading the House and the country?
The Prime Minister
I am astonished to hear that the hon. Lady thinks that she voted for the programme motion last week—that is the logic of what she said. As far as I understand it, she voted for delay. She voted to delay Brexit indefinitely. Let us be absolutely clear: the whole country can see what is really going on. Does she want to deliver Brexit? No, she doesn’t. She does not want to deliver Brexit. People can see that Opposition Members do not want to deliver Brexit. All they want to do is procrastinate. They do not want to deliver Brexit on 31 October, 31 November or even on 31 January.
Mr Seely
Again, my right hon. Friend makes a perceptive point. It is not from lack of trying. We have had two withdrawal Bills. We have almost got to the point of a “take your pick” withdrawal Bill. We had one this summer, which Labour Members relentlessly voted against. Now many of them wish that they had not done so, because, funnily enough, they like the new withdrawal Bill even less.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I agree. I plan to say a number of things, but I want to follow up on some of the things that have been said during the debate. There has been a huge amount of talk about being honest with the public, political expediency and turning the referendum into a party political thing. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) seemed very concerned that the referendum and how we vote on Bills has been used for political expediency. I would like to gently remind everybody of the time that the Prime Minister got a camera crew to come and take a picture of him as he signed his little resignation letter to Theresa May—sorry, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). Some might say that it had been politically expedient and, lo and behold, he is now the Prime Minister. Gosh forbid that anybody should use things for political expediency or that Conservative Members have always voted for the Bill.
The trouble with the arguments we are having is that the Government have continued to behave like a Government who have a majority, regardless of the fact that they do not. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead suffered exactly the same problem after the referendum, which was not won decisively by one side—it was a marginal win—and after the 2017 election, when again the country was split, and the idea of bringing forward a Bill that we could all sit down and work on was literally never ever taken forward.
I have listened to Conservative Members saying today, “Well, you shouldn’t be allowed to amend the Bill”, or “You only want time to amend it”. Er, yes—that is absolutely right, because that is the job of this House. Different people come here from different backgrounds and make laws that are not just for one sort of person, but that represent this country. I seem to be in a twilight zone where the Government and the Executive seem to think that they just write a line and then go, “Er, well, it’s my way or the highway”. Welcome to parliamentary democracy!
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is even worse than that because Parliament was excluded from this process for two years and eight months while the Conservative party had an internal debate about what type of Brexit they could get through, and it was only then that this House was let in to the arguments?
Jess Phillips
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is ridiculous.
I represent a leave seat, and, as we enter this general election, I may face the fate for my beliefs that the hon. Member for St Albans fears that she will face—and that is okay. She thinks it is okay, and I think it is okay that I may have done something different from what the majority of my constituents did, regardless of the fact that 10,000 extra of them voted for me post the referendum.
The reality is that the Government have only ever wanted obedience. They have looked on people like me and said, “Do as we say, little girl. We’re not going to let you do anything to our precious Bill.” But that is not the meaning of this place. What nobody in this place can answer is how will it end if what is returned is another hung Parliament. We did not think we were going to be here before, yet here we are. I believe the right hon. Member for Maidenhead thought that she would be having a considerably nicer time when she was next to Lord Buckethead on the evening of the general election, yet here we are.
What has happened since then is like a Rorschach test. The hon. Member for St Albans can look at the exact same result as the one I can look at, and we can say, “In this piece of toast, I can see the Virgin Mary”. We say that the voters think exactly what we think, regardless of what they actually said, because the question is fudged. We did not do so when we asked them in a general election, and we are not going to get a decisive answer on the issue of Brexit.
I spoke to the Prime Minister in the Lobby the other day. He was loitering around outside the private Members’ Bills ballot, which I invited him to enter as it seems he would struggle to change the law otherwise. He asked, “What will it take for you, Jess, to support this Bill?” Am I allowed to say my own name? Is that allowed? He asked, “What will it take for you, the honourable— the incredibly honourable—Member for Birmingham, Yardley?” I said, “What it will take for me is that you ask the people where I live if they are happy with the deal”. It is as simple as that. He looked at me as if this was brand new information—“This is the first time I’ve heard such a revelation”—which I thought was odd, but, you know, he is an unusual man.
Then the Prime Minister said to me, “Don’t you think another referendum will be dangerous for this country?” To that, I said, “I’m not entirely sure why you think it would be any different from a general election”. We are all sitting in here talking about this general election, but pretty much no one has actually talked about general elections, apart from a few party political broadcasts about people’s museums in their constituencies and how beautiful the islands are. The reality is that we have all talked about the referendum. This is going to be a Brexit referendum whether we like it or not, except that we will not be being clear and we will not be being honest—none of us will be—and in what we get back we will be able to see whatever we want to see.
I have heard people in here say that I as a Labour voter voted to deliver Brexit based on the last general election, and that is simply not true. I did not do that. As a Labour voter, I voted for many, many things that I believe in about Labour values. My vote had nothing to do with the Brexit position of my political party and I would say the same if I was not a representative of it. We are going to dishonestly use a general election. It will not be about the fact that people in my constituency cannot send their kids to school five days a week, or about whether the NHS is serving them properly, or about whether they are happy with something that the Conservative party might say. We are going to use the general election for political expediency. Can we all stop pretending that it is about anything else?
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for making a passionate and amusing speech. I believe that she is making the argument for a further referendum. How long would it take this place to legislate for that and how long has the EU given us in the current extension?
Jess Phillips
The honest answer—I have truck with honesty—is that I am not entirely sure, but does the hon. Lady understand that we tried to get the biggest piece of legislation through this House in three days? I am certain that the wit of the people in this Chamber could organise a referendum, even to be on the same day as a general election.
I do not particularly like the idea of a general election in December for all the reasons people have mentioned. The main thing I do not like is exactly what I have said: it will be used by people afterwards to say that it meant what they wanted it to mean. That applies not just to the Government side, but to the Opposition. No one can answer the question of what happens when we return a hung Parliament to this place and we are stuck once again in Brexit paralysis. What will we do then? No one is answering that question because everybody is acting completely arrogantly and doing that thing we all do on the stump when we say, “Here’s the next Prime Minister” even if we are in a minority party with about four people in it. It is totally ridiculous. It does not answer the question of what we do if we return a hung Parliament that, just like in 2017, is split exactly down the middle and we cannot get anything through.
Jess Phillips
I do not speak for the Labour Front Bench or those who make policy, but the Act seems to have caused paralysis. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing ideal about the situations that any of us have found ourselves in since 2016. None of this is ideal. Frankly, it needed people who could put most things aside and try to do what was best, and I am afraid that this House has largely failed in that endeavour to try to find consensus.
And so we face the future. After the next general election, will we all agree to try to build a consensus, if it returns a hung Parliament with no clear line? Will we all put that in our manifestos? I do not know the answer to that. “Make it end” could just carry on in perpetuity. Nobody wants that.
I want to build consensus. A man was arrested and charged for trying to break into my office, calling me a fascist because I would not vote for the deal. I asked for him to be shown leniency in court, and I asked for us to be able to sit down and talk to each other because I do not believe that I cannot find something in common with this man who is the same age as me and grew up streets away from me. I believe we can find consensus, but I am not sure a general election campaign is where we will find it.
I can guarantee to all hon. Members that an onslaught of money will come from who knows where to fund propaganda in our election: when our electoral laws in this country are currently not fit for purpose; when we are about to enter into a battle where foreign funding can flood into our system; where the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who led a campaign that has been found to have broken the law, is going to be in charge of some of that propaganda machine; and when the Prime Minister himself refuses to answer direct questions on exactly his role in the decision-making and when he found out.
In the recent European Parliament election, a man stood on a platform, completely legitimately, when the thing that made him most famous was whether he would or would not rape me. Our electoral laws are not fit for purpose. So what are we all going to do—all of us sitting here pretending that what we want is honesty and that we do not just want to win? What are we all going to do during the election campaign to make sure it is fair, to make sure it is legal and to make sure that it is not trying to say from the other side that people like me are a danger to the country or from my side that people like you are, so that people who hear that turn up and try to break into my office, scream in face and send me death threats? What are we going to do? It might be much easier for everybody to get a one-line Bill through, but a one-line Bill on an election does not answer a single one of the questions that every single person in this place has been asking for a very long time.
I shall finish my remarks by saying that I will gladly go back and sleep in my own bed for a solid six weeks, see my children every day and join the camaraderie of the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers who will join me in my seat as they do every time we have an election, but what happens next is the question that nobody can answer. Until that is the case, the one-line Bill is useless.
Oliver Dowden
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I do not know exactly where the Prime Minister will go on his election tour, but I am sure he will go to Northern Ireland. He will take the message to Northern Ireland that the deal that he has negotiated will allow the entire United Kingdom to leave the customs union as one and that that deal we based on a mechanism of consent.
The challenge that we have in getting such a deal through this House is that whenever Parliament has had the opportunity to get Brexit done, it has not taken it, even though 80% of us in this House stood on a mandate to honour the referendum result. Let us look at the record. Parliament voted to extend and delay in March, and to extend and delay in April. Through the Benn Act, Parliament forced the Prime Minister to extend beyond 31 October. Most recently, it voted against a timetable that would have allowed us to leave in an orderly manner, on time on 31 October, as we have promised. So I really fear that if Parliament has the choice of another delay or an extension beyond 31 January, it will surely once again take the opportunity to delay and to extend. The risk that we face is that, as we tick through to 2020, we once again find ourselves back in this Chamber discussing Brexit more and more, and that is completely contrary to what the public want. The public want us to get on with it and get Brexit done.
Jess Phillips
I wonder whether the Minister can tell me how we will stop the paralysis if what is returned to the House is exactly what we have now.
Oliver Dowden
I heard the hon. Lady make that point repeatedly throughout the debate. The very simple answer is that the people should vote Conservative and vote for a party that will get the deal through and ensure that we finally leave the European Union, as people want us to do.
Oliver Dowden
I think that I have dealt with the hon. Lady’s point.
Thanks to the Prime Minister’s efforts, we have a deal that we will be putting to the British people at the general election, and we will then seek to deliver the deal through the House on the back of a stable and sustainable parliamentary majority that will finally allow us to leave the European Union, as most of us have promised to achieve.
Prime Minister's Role in Creating a Safe Environment
Jess Phillips Excerpts(4 years, 7 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
Mr Speaker
I referred earlier to events in the Chamber yesterday, and what I am about to say I say as much for the benefit of those observing our proceedings as for Members of the House, as I think it extremely important that our proceedings are accessible to the people who are interested in them. In the light of the appalling atmosphere in the Chamber yesterday, and the toxicity that that can spawn or exacerbate in the country at large, I have granted an urgent question to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), which treats of this matter. In my book, it is manifestly urgent.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): I had wanted to ask the Prime Minister, but I shall ask the Minister if he will ask the Prime Minister to reflect on his language and role as Prime Minister to create a safe environment both in our country and our country’s Parliament.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Kevin Foster)
British democracy has always been robust and vibrant, and healthy respectful debate is vital to it. Freedom of speech is a fundamental British liberty, but it is not an excuse to threaten or abuse anyone whose views we do not agree with. That liberty is compromised when a culture of intimidation forces people out of public life or discourages citizens from engaging in the political process. Let me make clear and say with no equivocation that such behaviour is wrong, unacceptable and must be addressed.
The Government recognise that this is an ongoing challenge that does not stop after each election. It is important that we tackle this issue and ensure that everyone, no matter their background, can participate in our democracy, free from hatred and intimidation. That is why we are taking action to confront it. The Government have committed to legislating for a new electoral offence on intimidation of candidates and campaigners in the run-up to an election. We have already made secondary legislation that removes the requirement for candidates standing at local and mayoral elections to have their home addresses published on the ballot paper and we will do the same for the Greater London Assembly elections.
Members across the House have faced threats of violence, attacks on their constituency offices and staff, and abuse aimed at family members. This is abhorrent. I know that right hon. and hon. Members from across the House raised this concern yesterday. We want to ensure that people from across the political spectrum can stand for office free from the fear of intimidation and abuse. We want to tackle this extremely serious issue and protect voters. The security arrangements for Members of Parliament have been kept under constant review by the Palace of Westminster authorities and the Metropolitan police’s parliamentary liaison and investigation team. Local forces engage with their MPs and other political figures to meet their security needs. Each force has a single point of contact who has contact with the PLAIT through regular updates and meetings as required.
The Government are also considering what further steps are necessary to ensure the safety of parliamentarians and their staff. Crucially, this applies not only to the vicinities of Parliament, but also in constituencies and online. We are working with social media companies to address threats online and abuse of MPs, candidates and others in public life to create a safe environment for debate.
Jess Phillips
I did ask a question, and that was whether the Prime Minister would reflect or could be asked to reflect.
Let me start by saying that I am not—and nobody is in this House—a traitor. They are not ignoring their constituents; they are all acting in good faith. I was raised thinking that we on these Benches were the goodies and over there were the baddies, but what I found when I got here was that everybody pretty much wanted to get to the same conclusion, just in a different way. I will wager that, more so than the Prime Minister, I spend time in my constituency office, loving and laughing with my constituents, no matter what they voted.
I do not just want to probe the idea that we all get abuse—not doubt we will hear a lot of that today—because we all get abuse. I had a death threat this week that literally quoted the Prime Minister. It used his name and words in a death threat that was delivered to my staff. So we know that it gets out. What I want to look at today—and what I want answers to today—is when there is a clear strategy to divide. The use of language yesterday and over the past few weeks, such as “surrender Bill”, invoking the war, and talking about betrayal and treachery, has clearly been tested, workshopped and worked up, and is entirely designed to inflame hatred and division.
I get it: it works; it is working. We are all ambitious. I am not going to pretend that I am not ambitious, but I also have a soul. It is not sincere; it is totally planned; it is completely and utterly part of a strategy designed by somebody to harm and cause hatred in our country. When I hear of my friend’s murder, and the way that it has made me and my colleagues feel scared, described as “humbug”, I actually do not feel anger towards the Prime Minister; I feel pity for those who still have to toe his line. Government Members know how appalling it was to describe the murder of my friend as mere humbug. [Interruption.] Can I ask everybody to act with calm and dignity in this moment?
I want to ask the Prime Minister to apologise and to tell him that the bravest, strongest thing to say is sorry. It will make him look good. It will not upset the people who want Brexit in this country if he acts for once like a statesman. Calling me names and putting words in my mouth and in the mouth of my dead friend makes me cross and angry, scared even, but I will not react. The Prime Minister wants me to react and join in the chaos that keeps this hatred and fear on our streets. I simply ask the Minister to ask the Prime Minister, who is notable by his bravery today, to meet me in private, with his advisers and with some of my colleagues and my friends from Jo’s family, so that we can explain our grief and try to make him understand why it is so abhorrent that he has chosen a strategy to divide rather than to lead.
Prime Minister's Update
Jess Phillips Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I know that the Prime Minister wants to appear as a strong man, but the strongest thing he could do that would look the best to this country at the moment is to act with some humility and contrition. The difference between the Prime Minister and me—there are many differences—is that if the Labour party had done this, I would be ashamed. I would be sorry that the Labour party had been found to do this. I say to the Prime Minister that this looks horrendous to the public. He thinks he speaks for the people, but it will look much better if he rises to his feet now and says, “I am sorry. I got this wrong.” Let’s try honesty.
The Prime Minister
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. As I have said many times this afternoon, I accept the judgment of the Supreme Court. However, I also say to the hon. Lady in all candour that the humblest and most responsible thing we could all do as parliamentarians is show that we respect the judgment of the people and take this country out on 31 October.
Points of Order
Jess Phillips Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The hon. Lady has said what she thought; it is on the record and people can make their own assessment of it. Let me just say that I do regard the portfolio as a matter of the utmost importance, and one of the encouraging phenomena of recent years has been the emergence of an apparent consensus across the House as to the importance of this set of issues. That is precious, and it should be cherished. It would be perilous if it were lost or put at risk. I very much hope that in the very difficult circumstances that we now face, there will be a replacement Minister soon. This is not a matter for me, but I feel very confident that an appointment will be made before very long.
These issues have to be focused on with a relentless tenacity. You cannot just take them for granted or think, “Job done.” Sadly, all too often, we observe people in very, very, very senior positions around the world who do not appear to be adequately conscious—if conscious at all—of the scale of their responsibilities. With power comes responsibility. For example, we do not want to hear and we utterly deprecate the use of language such as “Go back” as a political tool. The Government rightly criticised this; it is unacceptable and it should not be ignored. It has to be called out. We need a focus for these issues, and the existence of a Minister is a part of that focus, mirrored by the Select Committee that scrutinises the Minister’s work. We have an excellent Women and Equalities Committee—it is to the great credit of the Government that they established it—and it is important that it should have a Minister to scrutinise.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am thankful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) on our Front Bench for slightly changing the tone, because I have an actual point of order. I too wish to associate myself with all the comments that have been made. I have been called over the years to criticise you and also to defend you. Had I known what I have found out today about HS2, the latter would have been harder to do. I had no idea that you were against HS2, which will obviously revolutionise the place where I live. Anyway, that is not my point of order.
Mr Speaker, I know because of everything that has been said today that you encourage people like me to stand up and say when we think things are wrong and when we think things can be improved in parliament. I love Parliament just as you do, and I wish for it to be in its healthiest form so that people can once again trust us, because there is a lack of trust in the country of this place at the moment. I wonder if you could help me to understand, in cases where Members of this House are found, and proven, to have committed what I would call, in certain cases, violence against women and girls —regardless of whether they do it on parliamentary time or not—or where a Member of this House is in court for crimes that are violent or abusive, what protections we put in place for the vulnerable people who go to see them in their surgeries? When I worked in the voluntary sector, or if I was a teacher, a doctor or a police officer, I would not have been allowed to see the public during a period in which an investigation was ongoing into me and the potential abuse of vulnerable people. I have deep concerns about the safeguarding of the people of our country and about how the laws around vulnerable people do not apply to this place.
Mr Speaker
I take very seriously what the hon. Lady has said, which bears solemn reflection. Rather than giving some ill-judged response on the hoof, I would prefer to discuss the matter privately with the hon. Lady, which I make the genuine offer in the near future to do.
We do a lot of things much better than we did, but as the leader of the Liberal Democrats pointed out—I nodded vigorously as she made the observation—there is still a lot more to do. I like to view—I say this not least to those who are observing our proceedings—the cup as half full, rather than half empty, but there is a fine line between being proud of what has been achieved and being satisfied. Being proud of what has been achieved is very often justified, and we should not rubbish ourselves. Being satisfied is usually a very, very bad idea, because it is the shortest possible route to complacency, for which there is no justification. We need to do better.
I have come to know the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) over the past four years, and I have learned a lot from her. She is one of the most authentic politicians and best communicators that one could hope to meet. Apart from anything else—I hope I carry my colleagues with me in making this observation—she has got guts and character to burn.
Early Parliamentary General Election
Jess Phillips Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I very much wish to talk about a general election—the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) has criticised others for not doing so—and to speak plainly. Tonight I will absolutely vote against a general election. I would vote against pretty much anything the current Prime Minister put in front of me.
I warn you, Mr Speaker, that I am not cracking on the parliamentary protocols and everything, but I fear I may say some things that are unparliamentary. If I do, please feel free to alert me. I have absolutely no faith in anything the current Prime Minister says—literally none. I would not trust him—am I allowed to say that? Well, there is literally no distance I could trust him. [Interruption.] Conservative Members say, “So stand in an election”. I have no fear—none whatsoever—that I would hold my seat in an election, but the Prime Minister is playing some bully-boy game from some bully-boy public school that I probably would never understand any more than I understand parliamentary procedures.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady says she does not understand parliamentary procedure, but on the whole she does not shriek from a sedentary position. The hon. Gentleman has been in the House for 14 years. If he wishes to contribute, he can seek to catch my eye. He should not chunter from a sedentary position in evident disregard for the procedures of the House.
Jess Phillips
The reality is that what we have here is a game, and we are not being told what the rules are. The Prime Minister could bring a deal to the House. He could tell us what his plans are for Northern Ireland, and he could tell us what his plans are for trade. Yesterday, I watched Conservative colleagues begging him to tell them what he wanted—[Interruption.] Yeah, ta-ra a bit, bab. I saw colleagues, begging him, saying “Give us a deal to vote for.”
The Prime Minister has stood up and said, “I don’t want an election.” This is some game that three men in No. 10 Downing Street have come up with: they are trying to game the system so that they will win.
My democratic responsibility is to try to do my absolute best for the people in my constituency. At the moment things are not all that clear and we are all a little bit confused, but I am absolutely not going to use those people as a chitty in a game to enable the Prime Minister to achieve the ambition that he has only ever had for himself, and never for the country. I am not going to use my constituents as collateral damage.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
One of the things that people watching the debate should be aware of, and what we all know in here, is that the Government want a cut-and-run election. The election that they do not want is one that would take place on 14 or 21 November; that is the election in which we would take them out.
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree. Personally, I will not vote for any election that would fall before 31 October.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I, too, will not vote for a general election tonight. I do not want no deal, because it will harm not only my constituents but the 22,000 EU nationals who are living in my constituency. The Home Secretary has said that freedom of movement will end at midnight on 31 October.
Jess Phillips
I could not agree more. There are thousands of EU migrants in my constituency, and lots of them have absolutely no idea what their situation will be. I have to represent those people as much as I represent the people who would be allowed to vote in a general election or a referendum.
Maria Caulfield
Is not the truth that the hon. Lady and many of her colleagues do not want a general election because they are as scared as we are of the Leader of the Opposition becoming Prime Minister?
Jess Phillips
Let us make no bones about the suggestion that I am not able to be completely critical when I think that things are wrong, both in my party and in the governing party. It is just a shame that quite a lot of the people sitting in front of me know that what has happened over the last two days is wrong, but are too cowardly to say in the House, in public, what they are all saying in the Tea Room. They know what has happened here. It is as if we were kicking out my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). That is what it feels like. I say to those people: the way your party has behaved is an abomination. You have all crowed and given sympathy to me about the problems that we have in the Labour party, but you have just sat by silently while your colleagues have been marched out.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I agree with my hon. Friend about the way in which the Conservative party has treated loyal Members of Parliament. Whatever else night be said, I think it is unheard of in parliamentary history for the whip to be suspended from an MP who has voted against his party. That is a bully-boy tactic.
Jess Phillips
I entirely agree.
I am going to speak for Brenda in Bristol, although there are plenty of Brendas in Birmingham. I do not think that we should have a general election, and I will not vote for one. I also think that we should not have a conference recess and we should not prorogue Parliament. We are currently involved in a national crisis. This is not a game. This is not some toy that we can play with.
Jess Phillips
I am not going to give way any more. I apologise, but I have given way plenty of times already.
If we were to go out into the street and ask them, the British public would say that they think we should be in here doing our job. They think that we are away from here too often anyway. I am appalled by the Prorogation—and from now on let us call it the shutting down of Parliament, because I literally hate the word “Prorogation” and the people outside probably do not understand what we are talking about half the time. The shutting down of Parliament has essentially killed a Bill that I have worked on for two and a half years; it is something that people in this House have deeply held feelings on, and I am meant to believe that the Prime Minister is really doing this because he has a vision for the people in this country. He has a vision that comes to him every night, and it is his own face. I will vote against an election until the end of October—until this is sorted—because the British public want me here working for them, and that is what I will do.
G7 Summit
Jess Phillips Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I can certainly confirm that we will be out of the common fisheries policy by 2020. We will take back control of our fisheries—unlike the Scottish National party, which, in a supine and invertebrate way, would hand them back to Brussels.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I beg the Prime Minister to answer the question that I am going to ask, rather than just saying “No comment” as if this were a magazine interview.
Along with others, I have filed papers for a legal case against the Prorogation of Parliament, because I do not want the Domestic Abuse Bill—for which so many people in this House have worked so hard—to fall. I signed my witness statements yesterday. I had to go to my mother-in-law’s to print them, because I do not have a printer, but I think that they probably have one at No. 10.
Is it true that senior civil servants have refused to sign witness statements for ongoing legal proceedings relating to the Prorogation? Were the director of legislative affairs and the Cabinet Secretary asked to do so, and did they agree? I signed mine; did they?