Iran

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I wish to say a few brief words about the workers’ movement in Iran.

I was particularly moved, as were others, by the description by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) of the plight of the family she is dealing with. I have 2,000 asylum seekers in hotels in my constituency, and several are from Iran. Listening to their stories is equally moving. When we have debates about asylum seekers in this House, it is sometimes worth recording where those people have come from, and what they endured before they—hopefully—reached safety in this country.

I fully agree with the proscription of the revolutionary guard, which is long overdue, and with the implementation of Magnitsky sanctions. I am surprised—well, shocked really—about the threats to the BBC Persian service, and I agree with other Members about the need to continue its funding. We in this House are committed to diplomacy as much as we possibly can be, but there does come a time when diplomacy is no longer working and when, in some ways, the diplomats who are located here are working against the best interests of our country and our citizens, as well as of their own. I therefore agree with the closure of the Iranian embassy and the expulsion of the diplomats. I believe that is now overdue.

To move on to the workers’ movement in Iran, the interesting thing about this uprising, or potential revolution, is that it cuts across all social and economic classes and has brought people together. For those who were engaged at the time, it is worth recalling that when the Shah fell in 1979, it was largely as a result of mass strikes throughout 1978. The workers’ movement became the tipping point for the removal of the Shah. It is also important to note that no Iranian I have spoken to so far is calling for the return of a monarchist Government. They are calling for a democratic Government, even though the Iranian regime is seeking to promote the myth of some form of retrieval of a Shah-type regime. That is not what this is; it is a democratic struggle.

The mass strikes that took place in 1978 toppled the Shah. The ayatollahs learned from that and sought to eradicate the trade union movement in Iran. Instead, they imposed state sanctioned organisations, supposedly to represent the workers, although they never did. In addition, they introduced policies of privatisation—almost the creation of a gig economy—to prevent workers from working together in an organised movement. Those who were in the House way back in 2004 will recall that Members across the House—I believe across all parties—strongly supported the heroic struggle of the Tehran bus workers’ union when it came out on strike. That was met with repression and the imprisonment of many of those trade unionists, some of whom disappeared.

Nevertheless, the heroic struggle of workers in Iran continued. Some Members will remember that in 2015, we raised what was happening with the teachers’ union in Iran, and at that time the general secretary of the trade union, Esmail Abdi was arrested. There was a hunger strike, and the House—again on a cross-party basis—supported that workers’ struggle.

What has been interesting about the recent uprisings is the engagement across all social classes, and also the courage demonstrated in the strikes now being organised. In December before Christmas, there was a three-day strike during which the shops, markets and businesses were closed down in opposition to what was happening under the existing regime. In addition, oil workers demonstrated outside their employers’ headquarters, thanks to a combination of support for the struggles that have taken place for democracy and a reaction to what is happening to the living standards of workers under the regime, with high inflation, wages suppressed and the inability even to represent each other in negotiations with employers. This is more than just an uprising; this goes way across society, with workers and others coming together in all the social forums they can to demand change.

We in this House have a role in making noise, exposing what is taking place and expressing our condemnation, but we also have a responsibility to show solidarity. In December, a group of Iranian men and women who have a history of trade union and other struggles in Iran, and who currently live in this country as refugees, came together with trade unionists in this country and formed the committee of solidarity with the workers’ movement of Iran. The intention of that committee is to engage with trade unions in this country, and with the TUC, to see what solidarity work can be undertaken for the workers’ struggles in Iran. Yes, these are expressions of solidarity, but possibly using the international organisations of the trade union movement to express that solidarity more effectively. That committee is now linking up with trade unionists across Europe in particular, and in America, to see what joint actions can be taken.

I simply and briefly ask the House to welcome the formation of that committee for workers’ solidarity, to support the work it will be doing to expose what is going on, to support those expressions of support for workers taking action in Iran, and to consider what other practical actions could be taken. I believe that could be one element of supporting the significant breakthrough that is potentially available to Iranians at the moment.

Bhopal Gas Explosion Investigations

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) on securing this debate. Bhopal has been described as an environmental disaster; I think it is actually the most appalling environmental crime in modern history. As has been said, tens of thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands have been affected. Lives were lost, and others were curtailed by terrible consequences—ill health, disability and congenital disabilities.

I remember when the first reports were coming into this country on Bhopal in 1984. It took time for us to become fully aware of the scale of what happened, but I remember the shock, and then the horror, ripping through my local community. As the figures began to be reported, we learned of the initial 10,000 deaths. The other facts that then came through were particularly shocking: half the pregnant women in the area aborting, and the wells and streams that more than 100,000 people depended on for drinking water contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals. As has been said, the figure bandied about recently is that the range is anything between 350,000 people to maybe 500,000.

For me, it soon became obvious that there was no doubt about how and why the event happened. Union Carbide, now owned by Dow, has, I think, been exposed for what it did, because it was about the pursuit of profit despite the consequences for the lives of its workers and local community. Despite all the warnings that we now know about from its own staff, despite all the individual accidents that took place where there was loss of life on site, and—most damningly—despite the knowledge of its own experts, the company pressed ahead with operations, using appalling and unsafe systems, until the inevitable happened and the disaster occurred. When lives are knowingly put at extreme risk, and lost as a consequence, the description for that is social murder. I believe that is what happened in this case.

What has compounded this criminal act is the way in which the company—Dow Chemical, as it now is—has evaded all legal and moral responsibility. It has failed to take the necessary remedial action to compensate the victims, restore the safe environment—as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport recommended—and provide the care and health treatment that those victims desperately needed to address the trauma that they suffered. I find it disgraceful that Dow, having committed this corporate criminal act, has been allowed to walk away with virtual impunity. As has been said, the compensation that has been provided is trivial to the extent of being an insult to the victims of this crime, particularly for those who have lost relatives. We need a new strategy to bring this corporate mass murderer to justice.

For too long, Dow has used its influence to evade justice and to buy its way into respectability in many circles. The sponsorship, or the wraparound, of the Olympics was one of those exercises. I spoke at the demonstrations in 2012 when constituents and others came together to appeal to the Government not to allow Dow to buy its way into that form of respectability. Unfortunately, we were not listened to. I hope that we will be now, because I think we need a new, determined strategy for justice. We know that the company will be in the Supreme Court in January next year, but we cannot rely on the Court to exercise the full extent of recompense that is needed.

I follow the line taken by my hon. Friend: we need compensation that is realistic to match the damage and the suffering caused. We need funding for the ongoing medical and social care needed by the victims, and, unfortunately because of the congenital impact of the poisoning, by many of their children as well. We also need to undertake economic and social rehabilitation of the area; there should be proper funding so that people can have a decent quality of life, and the local economy needs to be restored so that they have jobs. Above all, local people are calling for the environmental remediation of their community—restoring the environment from the effects of the pollution that occurred so that the area will be environmentally safe for generations to come.

We must say to Dow that unless it accepts its responsibility, and works with the Indian Government and representatives of the Bhopal victims to develop and fund this strategy for justice, it should be totally isolated. Part of that means that the Government in this country should ensure that the company will not receive any benefits by way of contracts, tax reliefs or Government grants. The UK Government have a role in calling out this perpetrator: it should be named and shamed, but action needs to take place to ensure that it fulfils its responsibilities.

Finally, I pay tribute to Rajkumar Keswani. There is a wonderful programme on BBC iPlayer at the moment, and I hope that others watching the debate will listen to it. It demonstrates the courage of the investigative journalism that exposed the truth of what happened on that fateful day 38 years ago. It was a heartbreaking tragedy, and we should not allow it to be ignored. We certainly should not allow Dow to walk away from its responsibilities to the people it has so brutally injured and murdered.

Sri Lanka

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elliot Colburn]

The hon. Member has taken my next words out of my mouth, so I am grateful for that intervention. For Sri Lanka to meet those requirements, it needs to re-engage with the UNHRC and address human rights abuses past and present. Sri Lanka is seeking its third IMF bail-out since the end of the war in 2009. Bail-out conditions set by the IMF in the past have focused on economic reform alone, and have not prevented Sri Lanka from sliding into yet another balance of payments crisis. To elevate the country out of the cyclical crisis it finds itself in, it is vital that the measures taken this time around are comprehensive and address some of the root causes of the issues that it faces.

As a key stakeholder at the IMF, the UK Government should propose conditions on any IMF financial assistance for Sri Lanka during the current economic crisis, including that Sri Lanka should carry out a strategic defence and security review to reduce its military spending, remove the military from engaging in commercial activities, meet the criteria for GSP+, and re-engage with the UNHRC process. I appreciate that the IMF does not have powers to impose such conditions on its own, but the UK, as penholder, can have significant influence in the discussions before any bail-out is agreed.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

One issue that we consistently raise, in addition to human rights abuses, is the level of corruption in Sri Lanka. One way we have been able to expose and tackle that corruption is through elements of the excellent media in Sri Lanka, but over the past 12 months—over a longer period too, but intensively over the past 12 months—we have seen harassment of journalists and the closure of the free media that exists. One condition that should be attached to any form of aid that goes into Sri Lanka—or any relationship that we have in the future—is that corruption is tackled as a result of a free media unharassed by Government.

[Elliot Colburn]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Member’s point about the importance of a free press. What he describes is having an effect beyond the borders of the island. A prominent Tamil news outlet, the Tamil Guardian, has been repeatedly engaged in battles with social media companies about its content. Because of the investigations that have been taking place, the Sri Lankan Government are actively trying to force action by social media companies worldwide. In the UK, the Tamil Guardian has had its content taken offline because of complaints from the Sri Lankan state. That cannot be right.

I am conscious that I have been speaking for quite a while, so I will bring my remarks to a close so that we can hear from other Back Benchers—

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I thank colleagues from the APPG for Tamils for securing this incredibly important debate. For 13 long years since the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, the road to truth, justice and accountability has presented the Tamil community with so many challenges, so little progress and so much pain. No one who saw the images of the final days of the civil war could possibly forget them. The mass violation of human rights leaves a stain of injustice on Sri Lanka. The world looked away, but today we will not.

The ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka is having a devastating effect, with skyrocketing inflation and shortages of basic essentials such as food and medicine. Close to half the population now live below the poverty line. The UN warns that approximately one third of the population is experiencing food insecurity. This is a crisis in democracy decades in the making.

The world turned away when the Rajapaksa Government cluster-bombed their own people, committed genocide, murdered their journalists and enriched a small group led by one family. Their malign dynastic control stripped the economy bare, leaving behind a broken nation on the brink of economic collapse. The International Crisis Group points to Gotabaya’s authoritarian centralised and non-transparent decision making, describing the Administration as

“surrounded by cronies and oblivious to criticism”

and saying that they

“rejected repeated calls for a course correction as the crisis deepened.”

What should happen now? First, the country agreed a preliminary deal with the IMF in September for a loan of $2.9 billion. An IMF bailout is essential, but does the Minister agree that any financial assistance must go hand in hand with democratic and human rights reforms, in particular for the Tamil community?

Meanwhile, during the current crisis, the Sri Lankan Government have once more shown their brutal face, by aggressively cracking down, under draconian anti-terror legislation, on protesters such as Wasantha Mudalige, convener of the Inter University Students’ Federation, who was arrested at a peaceful protest in August. They agreed with the UN and the EU that they would either change or abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Instead, they are using it in full force, creating unsafe conditions for all political activists, and defenders of human rights and democratic rights.

We should be extremely concerned by the findings of the UN high commissioner on the office on missing persons, which stated that it

“seems to be aimed at reducing the caseload and closing files rather than a comprehensive approach to establish the truth and ensure justice and redress to families.”

[John McDonnell]

There is a tragic irony that some of our constituents have gone out to Sri Lanka to look for the disappeared, and have been disappeared themselves. That is the failure of the whole system to have accountability and to investigate in an effective way.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. For years and years, families have searched for their loved ones. Women have sought their husbands, sons and brothers, and nothing happens. Irrespective of the international community and its demands, nothing happens. Every Tamil family knows someone who is missing. What steps have been taken to address that judgment?

In the most recent UN resolution, to which the UK was a penholder, why was there no recommendation to pursue criminal accountability by referral to the International Criminal Court? I could barely believe my eyes when reading the Government’s reasoning, which cited “insufficient…Security Council support.” Who are we to cast a veto for China or Russia before they have done so themselves? Our role on the international stage must be to send the loudest message that impunity will not be tolerated, not to pre-empt the inaction of other nations.

Finally, why has Britain failed to impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on any Sri Lankan official implicated in human rights abuses or corruption? The Opposition firmly believe that those who have been involved in such crimes should be brought to justice. I hope the Minister will see the strength of cross-party feeling on the issues raised today. I know that the Tamil community in my constituency will be listening carefully to the answers given. Let me finish by thanking them all for their contribution to Mitcham and Morden, and by saying loud and clear that, however long the road to reconciliation may still be, we will keep fighting for justice and human rights until they are achieved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing the debate, together with the vice-chairs of the APPG, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. The significant Tamil and Sri Lankan communities of Leicester East are watching the debate with interest. Many have experienced the atrocities at first hand. They are deeply troubled by the appalling human rights abuses and worsening economic situation in Sri Lanka.

It is worth repeating that Sri Lanka is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a lifetime, with food inflation running at over 90% and a large majority of people receiving reduced incomes. There is significant hunger, with 8.7 million people inadequately fed, including millions of children. Access to healthcare is severely limited, with even basic drugs in desperately short supply.

[John McDonnell]

It is important in this debate to try to get across an understanding of Sri Lanka’s economy. It has natural resources on a scale any other country would wish for and dream of, including natural mineral resources, and agriculture resources. The problem is that a political and military complex now controls the economy for its own interests. As a result, we have extremes of wealth and poverty through not just mismanagement but calculated management by the military who dominate the economy.

[Claudia Webbe]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. I thank him for reminding us of that situation; it is absolutely clear.

Sri Lanka has defaulted on $55 billion-worth of debt and declared bankruptcy, causing widespread misery for its citizens. It does not even have enough foreign exchange reserves to buy essentials for its citizens. After months of delay, the International Monetary Fund has reached a staff-level agreement on an extended fund facility arrangement, but behind closed doors—no one actually knows what has been agreed.

The Sri Lankan people are experiencing the deepest austerity in a country that is already on its knees, with its people starving and dying from lack of food, medicines and fuel, despite the natural resources and wealth of the country. Protesters took to the streets to demand their voices be heard in three popular uprisings to end the Rajapaksa dynasty and to demand a new democracy when the new president was sworn in this year. The state responded brutally, despite the protests being non-violent and peaceful. Remarkably, it has brought demonstrators from different communities together, with protests spreading out, rather than being focused on Colombo alone.

However, there is an enormous wave of state repression taking place in Sri Lanka at present. The entrenchment of all Executive power in the presidency has caused the politicisation of all arms of the state, leading to corruption, mismanagement, impunity and the brutal denial of human rights. The new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, launched a brutal attack on the protesters and started a new wave of repression.

Human rights organisations, including the UNHRC, have said that the Executive presidency, which has entrenched an exceedingly authoritarian rule, must end the use of terror laws against protesters. The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act 1978 was used on Tamils for over 30 years, and on Muslims after the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks, on a massive and barbaric scale. The state has again begun to use its atrocities against peaceful protesters. Despite criticism from the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, the Sri Lankan Government have also recently planned to introduce a Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill, which will essentially see the building of mass internment camps where protesters fighting for democracy would be sent to rot.

We must never forget the large-scale corruption of the Rajapaksa regime, including the stealing of funds from the bilateral private credit lines the country procured. As we know, information has come to light that there could be $10 billion of foreign reserves hiding in overseas accounts, including in tax havens in UK territories such as the Cayman Islands. Along with other nations in the global south that suffer at the hands of a global economy that favours the global north, we must call on multilateral institutions to cancel debt collection at this critical time, as we did for Ukraine.

The UK Government must take a stand against the current repression and mass arrests of peaceful protesters. We must push the Sri Lankan Government to end the use of terror laws on protesters and stop the cruel Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill from passing, and assist the country in relation to repatriation funds that could be easily hiding in the UK and in our overseas territories. It is worth noting that Amnesty International’s recent report on the crisis points out the importance of the opportunity to offer a debt amnesty to Sri Lanka and a package of international aid tied to action from the Government to resolve their human rights issues, bring justice for war crimes and abuses, and implement a universal approach to social protections. Any response from the UK to the crisis that does not involve a cast-iron commitment to take a role in those solutions will inevitably be inadequate. It is vital that the Government put Amnesty International’s proposed solutions at the heart of their actions.

Draft Inter-American Investment Corporation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2022

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 General Committees

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Just briefly, although I know how hon. Members like to spend long periods of time in SI Committees, I want to ask the Minister a question, and I am happy if he writes to me in response. On this occasion, and as we have asked on other occasions, it would be useful to know exactly the specific immunities and privileges that are being afforded. What are the extent of those immunities? I raise that because the IDB has not been an uncontroversial body. Its recent president, a Trump nominee, was ousted as a result of allegations of malpractice, and we will be electing a new president on 20 November. We will be affording it, as the Minister said, privileges and immunities in the normal run of business, but with this body I think there are some exceptional concerns that we must have in monitoring and making sure that the immunities and privileges and their parameters are properly set and open to public scrutiny in some detail. I do not expect the Minister to reply today, but if he could write, that would be really helpful.

Global Vaccine Disparities

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Welcome to the coolest place in the building on this very hot day.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered disparities in the global distribution of vaccines.

I submitted a request for this morning’s debate because I want to draw attention to the grotesque inequalities in the distribution of vaccines to tackle the covid crisis. When we convene for these debates, often it is to seek more information from the Government or to make a request for changes in policy. Now that there will be a change of Prime Minister and potentially a rearrangement of the Government, including of Ministers responsible for this area in particular, this is a particularly opportune moment to place all the issues on the agenda and hopefully see some change. It is also worth using these debates to record one’s position, because when our children and grandchildren look back in decades to come on the Government’s performance, I think they will ask why we did so little to intervene effectively when there was such a huge scale of human suffering across the globe.

The global vaccine story is one of gross inequality. I heard the Prime Minister when he made the statement that it was greed that brought us the vaccine. It was not greed; it was public money. Very significant public resources went into all the vaccines. However, greed was certainly responsible for the obscene inequality that followed.

Over the last year, the richer an economy was, the more likely that country was to have vaccines. At the top end, it would likely have had far more than it needed, and at the bottom of the scale, many countries had almost none at all. Still today, just under 20% of people across the African continent as a whole are fully vaccinated, and only 16% of people in low-income and poor countries are vaccinated. The Prime Minister has talked about vaccine hesitancy being the main factor accounting for that. That is simply untrue. Studies have shown that there is far more vaccine hesitancy in the United States than in most African countries. However, the way that the giant pharmaceutical corporations—big pharma—and richer countries have behaved has certainly fuelled that scepticism, which should worry us all.

The problem is not simply a lack of solidarity or generosity, although that is shocking in itself. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), the shadow Minister for international development, recently uncovered, a year ago the Prime Minister promised to share 100 million surplus vaccines with the world’s poorest countries. That is a very small amount, but at least it is something; yet a year later, barely a third have been delivered.

Those are the doses that we had already bought and were otherwise going spare. They would have been thrown away if they had not been distributed, yet they counted against the aid budget. In fact, it gets worse: we charged the aid budget double what the UK was widely reported to have paid for those doses. The Government had charged around £4.50 per dose versus the £2.30 per dose that they paid, as reported by The British Medical Journal. Yesterday, we discovered that over 1 billion doses are believed to have been wasted around the world. That would have been sufficient to vaccinate everyone in the poorer countries.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Member for securing a debate on this issue, which has concerned me as well; indeed, it concerns us all across this House. Is he aware that Eswatini, a little country that borders Mozambique and South Africa and one of our Commonwealth family members, was hit hard by coronavirus? I have to say that whenever I raised this matter with the Government, and with the Minister in particular, they did respond. It is a country that I have a particular interest in because of the churches and the missionary groups there, and the Government deserve our thanks.

Does the right hon. Member agree that one of the difficulties—he has already outlined some of them—is that smaller countries have no one to advocate for them internationally? We need to be more proactive in our responsibilities, first to Commonwealth countries and then to those that have no one to advocate for them. I think he is also saying that we need someone to advocate for them and ensure they get the vaccines that are available. We should be doing that.

[John McDonnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for his dogged pursuit of the issue in Parliament and with Ministers. There is an issue about the strength of the voices of individual Commonwealth countries, and a real concern about some not being listened to. As a result of that, interventions are not taking place effectively in those countries, but it is invaluable that the hon. Gentleman has consistently raised individual issues with regard to particular countries in which he has an interest through the Christian movement. That adds to the pressure on Government for more effective action, and I am grateful for that.

The situation is worse than just failure to donate at scale. We did not donate as we promised on the scale that we promised, but we also worked to stop others producing the vaccines in their own countries. Around the world, factories offered to produce the vaccines, and one factory in Bangladesh said at the start of the pandemic that it could turn out 600 million doses a year. Compare that to the 35 million doses that the British Government have donated. More than 100 factories around the world could have been safely producing mRNA—messenger ribonucleic acid—vaccines, but were unable to do so because the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS, agreement locks that knowledge, which is often publicly produced, behind a wall.

The TRIPS agreement allows huge corporations and their shareholders to profit while preventing us from taking the action that we need to take to protect our own society, as well as people around the world. It is good for the big pharmaceutical companies, and Pfizer predicts $50 billion revenue for its covid vaccine—an anti-viral pill—in 2022 alone. These are the most lucrative drugs in history, and more than one Moderna executive has become a billionaire off its publicly funded and publicly created vaccines, but this situation is bad for us because it has not only created massive inequality, but allowed the virus to go unchecked in many parts of the world, mutating in a way that risks undermining the medicines we already have.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I know how passionate the right hon. Gentleman is about the subject as he supported my Westminster Hall debate on global vaccine access. He is talking powerfully about coronavirus vaccines, but does he agree that there has been a loss of progress on vaccines more generally? A good example is the polio vaccine budget, which the Government have pretty much obliterated. As a result, we are beginning to see wild poliovirus circulating again in some developing parts of the world. It is not just coronavirus; we are failing in our responsibilities on other fronts.

[John McDonnell]

There is a lesson I thought we had learned decades ago, which is that when we have viruses such as this, whether it is polio, covid or others, unless we treat the world, eventually we will become vulnerable again. That is exactly the experience we are going through now. Even with covid, we are going through it again. As we know from information from the past month, a new covid variant has arisen, and from what we hear, that variant is more transmissible than anything we have experienced. On all those issues, unless we have a global strategy to vaccinate the world, unfortunately we will not be able to isolate ourselves from future infections and future tragedies.

Let me return to the issue of the TRIPS waiver, which a number of hon. Members present have raised in various debates. It is worth reminding the House that there was a call from most countries to waive the rules during the pandemic. The tragedy for us was that the British Government were implacably opposed to the waiver. Britain was one of the last countries standing, and only on the last day did Britain sign up to the World Trade Organisation’s very poor compromise on the waiver. I will be frank: I think that is disgraceful. It is disgraceful for a Government of a country that had all the vaccines we needed. The onus was on us to do everything we could to prevent this infection from spreading, and to do all we could to assist poorer countries.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his important contribution to the debate. On the one hand, the Government are currently negotiating a free trade agreement with India. On the other hand, they blocked the proposal from India and South Africa for a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organisation. Does my right hon. Friend think that is the right approach to take to the issue of fair distribution of vaccines, and to our relationship with India?

[John McDonnell]

The issue that my hon. Friend raises is something that we have raised before. I commend India and South Africa for the work they did in lobbying so hard to try to get international agreement on the TRIPS waiver. We need to learn some lessons from this period, and one of them is that when the Government act unilaterally in this way, they contaminate future relationships—whether they are over trade or other matters of co-operation. I think that is the anxiety that many of us have. It is a disgrace that we actually sought to prevent others from making the drugs that they needed.

Many countries around the world are shocked at the way they have been treated by this country, and they want to start to do things differently. South Africa has set up an mRNA hub to try to crack this revolutionary technology, which we think can be used not just to prevent severe cases of covid, but potentially to create treatments for a wide range of diseases, such as HIV, malaria and certain types of cancer. The big corporations still refuse to share their know-how, but South Africa has worked out how to make mRNA vaccines and—even better—is sharing this know-how with other countries patent-free. A couple of weeks ago, President Biden’s Administration announced that they would work with the hub to help it. Many European Governments have offered funds, but Britain has done nothing. The Government must support those efforts and protect them from the pressure that will come from the industry. This is a new model of how medicines can be developed, and it deserves our support.

It is not just about covid. I believe that the way we produce medicines is broken. I ask the Minister to talk to Lord Jim O’Neill, who has been trying to get the pharmaceutical corporations to produce the antibiotics that our medical establishment has depended on for many years. He has been trying to engage in a dialogue to change practices within the pharmaceutical industry, but the corporations have done nearly nothing. Look at HIV/AIDs. We now have the means to wipe out HIV through pills that stop transmission. New injectables have just come online. Again, the countries that most need them are being overcharged or shut out of the market altogether. It goes on and on.

We have an industry committed to making huge amounts of money, but not to making and sharing the medicines that humanity needs. We have to change that, and conversations are happening across the world about how to do it—except here, where the Government’s commitment to shareholder return appears sacrosanct and is prioritised above saving lives and reducing human suffering. My warning is this: it is not only ethically obscene; it is bad for us, too. It means that the British taxpayer is getting a terrible return on their investment in new medicines, that the NHS is overpaying for medicines such as covid vaccines, and that we are not developing the medicines we need to prevent the next health epidemic.

There are huge healthcare disparities, because many people still lack adequate public, universal healthcare systems. Sadly, however, the UK Government, like the World Bank, is still pushing a deeply inadequate private, market-based healthcare model in many countries. It is telling that some of the hospitals that were supported with British development funds refused to treat covid-19 patients in the first wave of the pandemic. Many died, and many were left destitute by this model. It is time for the Government to stop pushing that failed model and start helping to build national health services for all.

Let me come to the specific requests for the Government. A coalition of different organisations, which includes Just Treatment, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, STOPAIDS and many others, is calling on the Government to demonstrate support for the World Health Organisation’s mRNA technology hub initiatives. The hubs will help to end the covid-19 pandemic for all by increasing manufacturing capacity for treatments and technologies.

More broadly, the hubs will support self-reliance, independence and health equity in lower income countries. They will ensure that we are adequately prepared for the next pandemic. The UK Government must provide financial support to the hubs and ensure that pharmaceutical companies share their manufacturing know-how and refrain from undermining the success of the hubs with intellectual property barriers.

As the new Administration is formed under a new Prime Minister, will the Minister, first, now back the coalition’s request that the Government use their influence to encourage Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech to share their technology and know-how, and urge companies to remove intellectual property barriers to the production of mRNA products and related technologies? Specifically, the UK Government should call on Moderna to revoke the patents they hold in South Africa and prevent other pharmaceutical companies from similarly undermining the work of the new mRNA hubs.

Secondly, will the Government make a public commitment to support and finance the €92 million that mRNA hubs need to fund the initiative over the next five years? Some 59% has been raised so far from other countries, but not this country.

Thirdly, will the UK stop blocking the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights waiver at the World Trade Organisation? Will the Government ensure that the TRIPS waiver has a minimal duration of five years and includes all forms of intellectual property, including medical tools beyond vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics?

I hope that, with a change of Prime Minister and Administration, there is a window of opportunity for the Government to think again on the vital issue of how to prevent the loss of life and human suffering that has taken place on a global scale, which we have done so little to assist in tackling.

I expect the Minister will repeat the Government’s response to the petition that was lodged on this issue by many members of the general public, restate the various contributions and donations that have been made and compare us to others. The reality is that the financial contributions do not go anywhere near what is necessary. More importantly, the issue that must be addressed is the blocking of the local production in lower income countries of the means by which we can tackle the pandemic. If it is not, that will be a stain on this Administration.

[The Minister for Asia and the Middle East (Amanda Milling)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for securing this debate and to all hon. Members who have contributed. I will try to respond to some of the right hon. Gentleman’s points.

According to recent research by Imperial College London, the global roll-out of covid vaccines has averted up to 20 million deaths, but progress has been uneven. Hon. Members are absolutely right to want the global roll-out to go further and faster, because too many people remain unvaccinated, particularly in lower income countries and marginalised communities and among those in the grip of humanitarian crises.

The Government’s priority is to end the acute phase of the pandemic by ensuring that those most at risk are fully vaccinated and enabling societies to live with covid. Everyone in this House and throughout the country can be proud of the role the UK has played in developing and rolling out covid vaccinations. UK scientific excellence and co-operation has made a huge contribution to collective knowledge about the virus, including how to treat it and vaccinate against it. Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert and her team created and developed the game-changing Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, backed by the UK Government. The Government also backed research into several other successful vaccines that were produced at unprecedented speed, including through our £250 million support to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, otherwise known as CEPI.

We have also played a big role in the global vaccine roll-out, which has been the fastest ever against a single disease. Furthermore, we are a founder and one of the largest donors to COVAX, with our commitment of £548 million to its advance market commitment. That has helped COVAX to deliver more than 1.5 billion vaccine doses to 146 countries and territories worldwide, including 87 low and middle-income countries.

To help to address the supply shortages last year, we used our presidency of the G7 to make a collective commitment to provide 870 million doses to poorer countries by the end of 2022. Collectively, the G7 has exceeded that commitment by making more than 1 billion doses available. Nationally, we have donated more than 85 million doses to nearly 40 countries and made a further 15 million available. We have done all we can to meet our commitment to share 100 million doses. In 2021, the UK donated 30.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, all of which were charged at cost. The OECD Development Assistance Committee will issue guidelines on the reporting of vaccine donations in 2022 later this year.

Through this immense collaborative effort, the world now has enough vaccine supply to enable countries to meet their immunisation goals; indeed, global vaccine supply now far outstrips demand. The key challenge is ensuring that developing countries can effectively administer the vaccines they have. We are working with the covid-19 vaccine delivery partnership and other international partners to tackle delivery bottlenecks and improve vaccine uptake to ensure that covid-19 vaccines reach the most vulnerable. Since January, the vaccine delivery partnership has accelerated progress towards national vaccination targets in more than half of the 34 countries with the lowest vaccination rates, with a strong focus on priority groups.

Community confidence and easy access are critical to successful roll-outs. We are using our development budget to encourage uptake and improve delivery. For example, our Nigeria health programme is supporting delivery and using evidence to build vaccine confidence in five of the poorest states. We have also provided £20 million to the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition, which builds vaccine confidence through community engagement, working with health workers, religious leaders and other influential and trusted voices.

Just as the UK’s scientists and Government made a huge contribution to the first wave of vaccines, we are now working with partners such as COVAX and CEPI to ensure affordable and effective second-generation vaccines and make them available to low and middle-income countries, so that the world can respond rapidly to any new variant of concern. As part of this work, CEPI is supporting the Cambridge-based company DIOSynVax to develop a new pan-coronavirus vaccine to offer broader protection.

This year, we hosted the global pandemic preparedness summit, which raised more than £1.2 billion for CEPI’s work, including a UK Government pledge of £160 million. That money will fund the development of vaccines against new health threats—including possible new covid variants—in 100 days from any outbreak.

Rolling out covid vaccines puts huge pressure on weak and overstretched systems, so we are working with COVAX, the WHO, UNICEF and other partners to support countries in developing sustainable approaches to managing covid and other diseases. For the long-term control of the virus, it is critical to integrate covid-19 vaccination tests and treatments into primary healthcare systems, supported by strong and resilient health systems. The UK Government use our development budget to support countries to strengthen their health systems and work towards universal health coverage. We are also a leading supporter of Gavi’s work on restoring and strengthening immunisation and health systems for the 2.7 million children in the poorest countries who missed out on vaccinations in 2020 because the pandemic prevented them from getting their jabs.

Covid-19 has caused more than 6.3 million reported deaths, and the WHO estimates that there have been up to 15 million excess deaths in total around the world. It has had hard, far-reaching economic, social and health consequences, so stopping the next potential pandemic is vital. That will require a concerted and co-ordinated international effort. In addition to our investment in CEPI, the UK Government have pledged £25 million to a new World Bank-hosted fund for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. That will help to ensure more equitable access to vaccines, tests and treatments when a future threat to global health emerges.

On TRIPS, the UK Government continue to recognise the importance of the intellectual property system in incentivising innovation, research and the development of new medicines, vaccines and medical technologies. We welcome the consensus-based outcome on the TRIPS agreement reached at the WTO ministerial conference. We believe that decision will make it easier for developed countries to choose to export life-saving covid vaccines while preserving the incentive that intellectual property rights provide to invest in innovation.

[John McDonnell]

The Minister will soon run out of time, so will she address the issue of support for the WHO’s strategy of rolling out hubs? Will the Government think again?

[Amanda Milling]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting his case forward, but I have been clear about the UK’s position.

The global vaccine roll-out is pivotal to ending the acute phase of the pandemic and transitioning to living with covid. The points that have been made about delivery and distribution are live issues, and we are working hard with our international partners to resolve them. The Government are also investing in the development of second-generation vaccines, pandemic preparedness and the strengthening of global health systems. That comprehensive approach is the only way to strengthen global resilience to covid and other future health threats.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered disparities in the global distribution of vaccines.

Shireen Abu Aqla

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend is right about justice: justice is really important. We absolutely condemn this killing and will continue to stress the need for the investigation to be fair, impartial, thorough and prompt.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group and we have raised these issues before, but, with regard to this killing, let us put it in the context of the systematic abuse of Palestinian journalists. The International Federation of Journalists already a month ago referred these incidents to the International Criminal Court. May I therefore, in that context, and in view of the happenings subsequent to the killing, which were disgraceful, repeat the question for the third time? The minimal action any Government can take is to call the ambassador in to express the concerns of the Government about the Israeli state’s behaviour, so can we ask for the third time: have the Government invited, or do they intend to invite, the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for that discussion?

[Vicky Ford]

I have been very clear about the actions the Government have taken to date. We continue to condemn this, we have called for an investigation, we have, through our ambassadors and the British consul in Israel and in Jerusalem, made very clear our position supporting the leaders to restore calm, the need to protect holy sites and the need for dialogue to move towards peace, and of course we always take any future measures into consideration.

Elections Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 27th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

rose—

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Follow that!

[Beth Winter]

How do you follow that?

In the week in which the Government intend to prorogue the House, they have voted to carry over three Bills, and this is the fifth Bill they seek to force through following repeated Government defeats in the Lords. The Government really are losing their grip, and I regret that, in response, they are seeking to grab democracy by the throat.

I wish to confine my comments to Lords amendments 22, 23 and 86, which I support. First, let me highlight the extraordinary developments regarding the clauses that affect the work of the Electoral Commission. I express my support for Lords amendments 22 and 23, which removed what were clauses 15 and 16. As others have said, those clauses gave the Government the power to establish a Government strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission, and to place a duty on it to have regard to guidance issued by the Government relating to any of its functions.

3.30 pm

The Bill’s erosion of the commission’s independence gave rise to the letter signed by its chair and all but one of its board members on 21 February this year, which said:

“It is our firm and shared view that the introduction of a Strategy and Policy Statement—enabling the Government to guide the work of the Commission—is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democracy. This independence is fundamental to maintaining confidence and legitimacy in our electoral system.”

The letter went on:

“The Commission’s accountability is direct to the UK’s parliaments and should remain so, rather than being subject to government influence.”

For that reason, I urge the Government to think again about the measures.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee also wrote to the Minister only last week to strongly urge the Government to accept the amendments tabled in the House of Lords by Lord Judge that removed clauses 15 and 16, as the Committee recommended in its report. Furthermore, in lieu of any Government support for the amendments, the Committee urged the Government to consider amending the Bill

“to provide that the Electoral Commission is able to depart from the guidance set out in the Statement if it has a statutory duty to do so or if it reasonably believes it is justified in specific circumstances”.

Regrettably, the Government have not done so, which is why I support Lords amendments 22 and 23.

Let me turn to Lords amendment 86, on voter ID, in respect of which I wish to draw some parallels with the Welsh experience. Initially, the Welsh Government withheld legislative consent for the Bill because it affects Welsh elections, because there was an issue with consulting the Welsh Government and because it negatively affected devolved powers. However, the Government have since conceded on some of those concerns and it is welcome that their voter ID proposals will not now apply to Senedd or Welsh council elections.

Although the Senedd has now granted legislative consent, there are still concerns about the Bill in all sorts of respects, but specifically with regard to voter ID. The Welsh Government say that the UK Government plans for voter ID risk making voting harder. Although I welcome the fact that the provisions do not apply to Wales, the inconsistencies between UK parliamentary elections and Welsh elections will cause all sorts of confusion for electors in Wales.

I support Lords amendment 86, which was tabled by Lord Willets and adds an additional list of documents that would be accepted as a form of identification for electors, for the reasons already given. The relevant part of the Bill is discriminatory and will disenfranchise millions of people. We already have extremely low turnouts for elections—the evidence is there—which is why in Wales we are doing the opposite and looking into different methods to encourage people to turn out to vote.

I will conclude with a quote from our Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, because the Welsh Government remain opposed to the Bill, which they believe—Opposition Members share these views—

“is more about voter suppression and enabling foreign funding than enhancing electoral democracy and integrity.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the cause of European democracy and alignment. The simple answer is that Scotland has one of the widest, most open and transparent franchises that has ever existed in western democracies. It includes 16 and 17-year-olds, asylum seekers—people who have made their home here—and people who are serving certain types of prison sentence, because we want to rehabilitate everyone and bring them back into the democratic fold. That is the franchise that will deliver independence for Scotland. Unlike the UK-wide franchise—[Interruption.] Conservative Members seem to find this highly amusing. They can laugh all they want once Scotland has voted for independence in the next couple of years, because that is the reality; it is not far away now, and it will be achieved on that wide and open franchise, whereas the UK-wide electoral system will be weakened and undermined by this Bill and by the Government’s refusal to accept the Lords amendments before us.

[John McDonnell]

I apologise to the Minister for being a few minutes late and therefore missing her introduction; I received a green card asking me to visit a constituent who was lobbying me.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I knew he was here before, out for a very short time, and here for the majority of the Minister’s opening speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

The constituent was lobbying on the abolition of imprisonment for public protection, and I am visiting one of her sons in prison, so I felt the need to see her.

I want to make three very simple points. When we get to this stage in the parliamentary Session, people start to become a bit light-headed, so let us try to concentrate on three issues. I am a member of PACAC, whose Chair, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), is here. Every time he makes a parliamentary intervention, he increases my respect for him. Electoral officers were looking for a Bill that was much more comprehensive and wrapped up a whole range of issues; they were looking to bring together existing practices in one piece of legislation, and to look at new challenges that they faced. Those challenges are not reflected in the Bill.

On the amendments, one of the main concerns about the operation of the Electoral Commission that the Government seem to identify is that it needs more direction by way of a Government ministerial statement. That was not part of any of the evidence that we heard from electoral administrators. This goes to the heart of the independence of the electoral administration of this country. That is why people are fearful. I have ranted on this before, and do not want to go into the arguments again about our being on a slippery slope to something that could be quite dangerous. However, if there is to be a statement from the Secretary of State, which I think is completely wrong, there needs to be at least some acknowledgement by the Government that there should be more of a role for Parliament in drafting it.

I want to ask the Minister a question, and I will give way if she can respond. Did I hear correctly that the statement will be dealt with by the affirmative procedure, but not the super-affirmative procedure? Can she clarify that by way of intervention?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Yes, I am happy to confirm it is the affirmative procedure.

[John McDonnell]

We introduced the super-affirmative procedure about a decade ago, I think, and it enables the House to amend the statement. What happens under the super-affirmative procedure is that the Minister publishes the statement, there is consultation, the Parliament comments on that, and then the Minister brings back the statement in the light of those comments. Actually, it works. If we look at past practice, what has happened is that even when there has been considerable dispute, the Government and the Secretary of State have usually been able to amend the statement and we have reached consensus. I urge the Government to follow that procedure, rather than the “take it or leave it” of the affirmative procedure.

We raised this issue in the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee with the Secretary of State. With the Government majority as it is, “take it or leave it” means that the Secretary of State is dictating terms to the Electoral Commission and therefore undermining the independence of the commission, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) said in quoting the letter from the commissioners themselves.

In another debate on another matter some years ago, people on the Government Benches—I thought it was interesting and constructive—said, “When you legislate for this, you have to legislate for your worst scenario.” Someone stood up and said, “Just think if John McDonnell was in power.” I therefore just say this: what we legislate for today might well be done in good faith by Government Members, but we have to guarantee in legislation for the future at least some form of level of practice that we can all support. I disagree with the whole concept of the statement, which undermines the commission’s independence. If we are to have one, at least give us the opportunity to have a proper debate and amend the statement before it is formally agreed.

My second point is about ID. On PACAC, we could not find evidence of large-scale electoral fraud. To address the point that the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) was making time and time again very eloquently, and at times with some amusement, the issue around it is that if we cannot find the evidence, it might still be happening. We therefore have to make a judgment when legislating as to whether the remedy we are introducing will cause more harm than the problem we are addressing. That is a subjective judgment.

A number of us have come to the view that, no matter how many times we have trawled for evidence of large-scale electoral fraud, we could not find the evidence that there were not sufficient powers to deal with the issue. The only time there was a real problem was Tower Hamlets. There was a special investigation, and special measures were taken, and I hope and believe the problem has been properly addressed. My worry is that the remedy we are introducing will suppress votes, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and will do greater harm than the harm we see at the moment, which is relatively minuscule, but there we are—that is a judgment.

[Tom Randall]

I enjoy serving with the right hon. Gentleman on PACAC. As a footnote to what he is saying, one of the concerns I have, which is shared by many—I know we divided on this in the Committee, and I found myself in a minority of one—is that allegations of offences are not properly investigated by the police. He might consider that to be a separate issue. As another footnote, he mentioned Tower Hamlets. Next week, we find ourselves in the horrible situation that Lutfur Rahman, who was the man who perpetrated all that electoral fraud, is on the ballot paper in Tower Hamlets. It is a fact that these problems have only been investigated to an extent, it seems.

[John McDonnell]

That is a valid point. Rather than change legislation, which could introduce a remedy that does more harm than good, it is a matter of looking at how the existing system is working to ensure proper resources for investigation. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the individual—I will not name them—is about whether the sanctions were severe enough to prevent such a return. That is the way forward on all that.

The other aspect is about the list of alternative provisions that the Lords have come up with. If the Government had looked at them and said, “Okay, we’ll accept some and not others,” that would have been a better approach, because it would have demonstrated an open mind to work towards something that I think could operate effectively, even though I oppose the whole concept of the use of ID as a result of this legislation. The Government did not even do that, however. To reject the list wholesale demonstrates that they have dug themselves into a hole. I think that we will have to come back to a new piece of electoral legislation in due course that does exactly what the returning officers wanted and consolidates our electoral registration and also remedies some of the unfortunately difficult parts of this legislation.

Those difficult parts could be quite dangerous. I caution about the issue around suppression. I stood for election in my constituency in ’92 when poll tax had been introduced and 5,000 people dropped off the register there—by the sound of it, most of them were Labour voters because I lost by 54 votes. That demonstrates that, if necessary, people will drop out of the system, which worries me. It is not so much that the votes go missing but that those people become distant from the democratic process. They do not engage and, if they do not engage once or twice, it is very difficult for them to re-engage. That is why what seems like relatively minor procedural legislation could have a dramatic effect, particularly in certain constituencies, and could be quite dangerous in the hands of future Governments. I urge the Government to think again on that.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument with great interest. A constituent of mine wrote from a church to say that a number of her colleagues in the church are too old so they do not have passports or driving licences. I looked on the Government website and it would seem that local government can issue photo ID cards. Does he not think that to achieve the democracy that he and I want, it is incumbent on local government—although I hate to throw things at it—to ensure that such people get voter ID cards and to publicise that they are available?

[John McDonnell]

Two things on that: first, the hon. Gentleman is right to make us wary of putting even more responsibility on local government given its financial situation; and secondly, those cards have to be applied for, which is another process to go through that becomes costly. The hon. Member for Gedling intervened; it looks as though only 70% of people will actually do that, so we are still looking at a number of people dropping out of the system altogether.

That is why, with other colleagues, we are looking at what else people will have that they could use and why I thought that the list in Lords amendment 86 was constructive. There might be elements of that about which the Government think, “Well, that’s a bit iffy,” but I would rather that they had come back and said, “Well, let’s rule these ones out but accept the others.” They did not, which for me undermines their argument that they are trying to construct a legislation that will work effectively to ensure maximum democratic participation.

I am trying to be ultra-reasonable here, because people can lose their temper about this sort of legislation. My view is that whatever ping-pong takes place now, the two elements that we are talking about could be easily remedied. I want them to be dropped altogether, but if the Government will not drop them, then on the statement we should use a super-affirmative resolution process, and on the voter ID stuff they should at least look at some of the mechanisms and the list that the House of Lords has put forward, because several of the items are perfectly valid for their use. I will leave it at that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate. I wish to speak to Lords amendments 106 to 109, as they pertain to local elections in Northern Ireland and elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I totally agree with what the Minister said earlier, in particular about photographic ID. We have had that in Northern Ireland for a number of years, and it has proven to be successful. I understand exactly the principles of why it is important. All a polling card confirms is the name and address on it; it does not confirm anything else. That is why I believe photo ID is critical.

In Northern Ireland, someone can use a passport, a driving licence, a SmartPass or a war disablement pass, because they all contain someone’s name and address and also their photograph. The Minister is absolutely right that those are methods of doing this. We also have another method—it goes back to what the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) mentioned in his intervention on the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell)—and that is electoral identification. Because we have an election coming up in Northern Ireland, people are coming in almost every day of the week to be registered so that they can use that electoral ID, with a photograph, which is recognised and issued by the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland. It is done not by local government but centrally, by the Electoral Commission. Those are examples of why voter ID is important—because it works.

Elections Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call John McDonnell. There will be no time limit, but he must resume his seat no later than 8.55.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) on the work she has done, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) on his eloquent presentation. I serve on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and we have urged the House to pause the Bill and not go forward. I too am offended by the limited amount of time that we have been given this evening. The reason we said that is that with constitutional changes such as these, we need to build confidence. The way to do that in the parliamentary process is to have a draft Bill, a Joint Committee and adequate debate before bringing the legislation back here. We took evidence from a whole range of people, and we found no one who supported the Bill being developed at this pace. Helen Mountfield QC said that we risked the allegation that this was being done for political advantage. I regret that.

I want to deal briefly with the voter ID issue. Personation was the issue that was presented to us, but we found limited evidence of that. Also, the pilots were limited. We had one big pilot, though, and it was in Northern Ireland, where 2.3% of the electorate dropped out. If we extrapolate that to our electorate here, that would mean over 1 million people dropping out. Who would that be, most of all? It would be elderly and disabled people, those in residential homes, and members of the BAME and LGBTQ communities.

The reality is that this Bill is being pushed through. Unfortunately, I believe that it is part of a process of voter suppression and that the Conservatives are learning lessons from America. What I fear most of all is the interference in the Electoral Commission, because that presages the Government coming back with more that will undermine our democracy. I believe that would be a stain on this House.

[Kemi Badenoch]

With the leave of the House, I would like to address some of the points that were raised during the debate. I am afraid that I will not be able to speak to all the amendments. I have to say that I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the Opposition remain unable to see the necessity of this simple and proportionate protection for the integrity of our ballot. The fact is that voter ID is supported by the Electoral Commission. It is backed by international election observers who have repeatedly called for the introduction, saying that its absence is a security risk. It is long-established in liberal democracies across the world and is already in place in Northern Ireland.

The Opposition have suggested that specific groups, such as young people or ethnic minorities, would automatically be unwilling or unable to access the freely available voter card. These suggestions are based solely on assumptions about implementation—assumptions that are incorrect and harmful. I will be unambiguous in setting this out. Anyone who is eligible to vote will continue to have the opportunity to do so. The voter identification policy proposals have been informed by a significant amount of research. I reject the points made by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). That is not the research that has been carried out by the Cabinet Office, which is quite robust. A significant amount of work has been done with civil society organisations and other key stakeholders.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for her point about the length of election campaigns. She will know that I have looked into this issue, but I am afraid that I have not been able to find the perfect solution for her within the Bill. I acknowledge many of the points that she has made about lengthy campaigns, but I draw her attention to the argument made by the Association of Electoral Administrators in its written evidence to the Joint Committee about the risk of disenfranchising potential electors were the period to be shortened.

I shall also respond to some of the questions from the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) on joint campaigning. The measures are simply intended to strengthen the principle of spending limits already in law. They protect the level playing field by ensuring that groups cannot unfairly expand their spending limits when they are conducting a joint campaign. It is logical to extend this principle to political parties and third-party campaigners who work together. All registered political parties and third-party campaigners will be able to continue to campaign as they do now, but they will have to account for any spending that is part of a joint campaign in which they are involved. She also asked specifically about groups such as Operation Black Vote, which is simply campaigning to encourage people to vote. It will not be caught by those new rules as it would not qualify as regulated election campaign expenditure.

There were several issues raised by hon. Members on candidates’ home addresses. I have noted the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) raised about the current provisions. However, any further amendments in this space, although they may seem straightforward at first sight, would entail challenges for consistency in the rules that need to apply equally across differing areas of the country and that require careful and comprehensive consideration. The drafting of the proposed amendment, if accepted, would work well for candidates in rural areas, but it may lead to a less consistent approach for those in cities or remote locations. However, I am grateful that he says this is a probing amendment. I will ask my officials to explore these important issues and remain open to further conversations about how we can improve the current system.

I turn now to new clause 15, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), which deals with dual registration. I thank him very much for the points that he raised. He is right that voting twice in an election to the same body is a violation of the principle of one person, one vote. It is an offence that already carries a considerable penalty. I share the desire to take action to reduce the risk of this happening, but I do not think that the new clause would achieve that aim. It would be costly and impractical to implement at this time. I am sympathetic to the broad intention of the new clause, which is in line with the Government’s commitment to strengthening security and reducing the opportunity for fraud. This is also similar to new clause 10, tabled by the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier). I understand the points that she raised. We do not think that the amendment is appropriate, for similar reasons, but I am open to further conversations.

I recognise many good points raised by my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), saying that we could have gone further. I am sure that this is not the end of looking at electoral integrity. We will continue to see how the franchise can be strengthened. I urge Members not to support the Opposition amendments. I hope the Government amendments will be supported.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 11 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 12

Purposes referred to in section 39

“(1) This section sets out the purposes referred to in section 39.

(2) The first purpose is influencing the public, or any section of the public, to give support to or withhold support from—

(a) a registered party,

(b) registered parties who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of such parties, or

(c) candidates or future candidates who hold (or do not hold) particular opinions or who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of candidates or future candidates.

(3) For the purposes of determining whether electronic material can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve the purpose mentioned in subsection (2), it is immaterial that it does not expressly mention the name of any party, candidate or future candidate.

(4) The second purpose is influencing the public, or any section of the public, to give support to or withhold support from a particular candidate or particular future candidate.

(5) For the purposes of determining whether electronic material can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve the purpose mentioned in subsection (4), it is immaterial that it does not expressly mention the name of any candidate or future candidate.

(6) The third purpose is influencing the public, or any section of the public, to give support to or withhold support from an elected office-holder.

(7) The fourth purpose is influencing the public, or any section of the public, to give support to or withhold support from elected office-holders who hold (or do not hold) particular opinions or who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of elected office-holders.

(8) For the purposes of determining whether electronic material can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve the purpose mentioned in subsection (6) or (7), it is immaterial that it does not expressly mention the name of any elected office-holder.

(9) The fifth purpose is influencing the public, or any section of the public, to give support to or withhold support from—

(a) the holding of a referendum in the United Kingdom or any area in the United Kingdom, or

(b) a particular outcome of such a referendum.

(10) For the purposes of determining whether electronic material can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve the purpose mentioned in subsection (9)(b), it is immaterial that it does not expressly mention a particular outcome of a referendum.

(11) In this section “referendum” does not include a poll held under section 64 of the Government of Wales Act 2006.”—(Kemi Badenoch.)

This new clause and Amendments 22 and 23 replace the purposes set out in clause 39(3) as the purposes intended to be achieved by paid-for electronic material in order for Part 6 to apply to the material. In particular the New Clause makes it clear that this covers material in support of categories of parties, candidates and elected office-holders and applies whether or not the material expressly names the party etc.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Global Vaccine Access

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mrs Murray. Last month, the former Prime Minister and World Health Organisation global health ambassador Gordon Brown said that the global vaccine roll-out was a

“stain on our global soul”.

The numbers are stark: three quarters of health workers in Africa remain unvaccinated; less than 5% of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated. Companies such as Pfizer have made huge profits from their vaccines, but just 1% of its global supply has been delivered to COVAX.

Corporate philanthropy is not going to solve this crisis. We cannot sit back and hope that the pharmaceutical giants will do the right thing; to do so is a death sentence for millions of our fellow human beings. I have to say, in terms of the Government’s performance, that the UK has disgraced itself by voting to block the temporary TRIPS waiver that would put human life above private profit.

As has been said time and again, we live in a global world and we will not be safe from the virus until we are all safe. We know that the more there is transmission anywhere in world, the more likely that new variants will emerge; some will be more virulent, and others may be more lethal than omicron, although hopefully most will be mild.

As campaigning group Global Justice Now has said:

“Until we allow low and middle-income countries to access covid-19 vaccines, we will be trapped in an endless cycle of variants”.

If we want this pandemic to end, we have to stop its global spread—that means vaccinating everybody. The first way to achieve that is for the UK to stop blocking the TRIPS waiver at the WTO; secondly, to encourage UK pharmaceutical companies to share their technology with the World Health Organisation covid technology access pool and the mRNA technology transfer hub in South Africa.

A lot has been said about windfall taxes in recent days. Pharmaceutical companies have made windfall profits, largely derived from public funding. If they do not start sharing their vaccines and technology and start saving lives, I can think of no better circumstance for a windfall tax, with every penny used to fund vaccines around the world. If any Conservative Members are anxious about that, let me just say that it was Rab Butler who introduced a windfall tax 70 years ago this March.

I believe the time to act is now. The Government can do the right thing—they can save lives. If they do not act, their inaction will be, as Gordon Brown said, a stain on our global soul.

Colombia

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]]

I am the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, and I want to raise again, as I have done in previous debates on Colombia, the plight of journalists—the abuse of their human rights and the violations of press freedom. The International Federation of Journalists has recently published another report highlighting the targeting of journalists by the Colombian authorities, in particular the killings, physical attacks and obstruction of their work, as well as the undermining of basic press freedoms. This is coming from the national police, public officials and reactionary elements associated with the current Government.

I want to leave the debate with at least some of the words of practitioners in the field in Colombia. Adriana Hurtado Cortés is the president the Colombian Federation of Journalists. Let me quote her directly and briefly:

“There’s an evident regression in the causes of violence against journalists; they are spied on in the traditional way and they’re harassed on social media.”

She says that politicians stigmatise them through messages on social media and accuse journalists of

“spreading misinformation, damaging democracy and polarizing society.”

Aggression against journalists has again increased. There are threats, physical attacks, killings, smear campaigns, legal actions aimed at censoring their work, illegal espionage, and many journalists forced into exile. There is a lack of labour protection for journalists. As a result of the pandemic, they are in a particularly weak economic situation, but their main concern is the loss of the rule of law, the Government acting with impunity and the slowness of justice when crimes against journalists are investigated.

I repeat what others have said: we now need an extremely strong statement from the Government, which links up with European and other international parties, to condemn the human rights abuses of the Colombian Government. I would like inserted in those condemnations the demand for a free press and the protection of journalists, which is essential for any democratic society.

In the past, we have not had the use of other powers in this country. I would therefore like the Government to start mentioning to Colombian Government officials that we now have the Magnitsky clause and, if necessary, we will use that to target human rights abusers through our own legislative system.

[Mrs Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

We now move to Front-Bench speeches. I ask everybody to keep to about 10 minutes to allow the proposer of the motion a couple of minutes to wind up.