Post Office Horizon Scandal

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I will extend the time. It was so important to get all of that on the record. I believe that the Minister wanted to make a statement but was overruled. At least we have certainly had that statement now.

[Sir David Davis]

As the Minister said, earlier this week many of us across the Chamber called for this appalling injustice to be solved in months, not years. It looks as though the Government have responded correctly to that call, ensuring swift justice. But there are undoubtedly difficult constitutional and legal issues involved, as he laid out in detail.

Some of the victims that I have spoken to say they need an individual exoneration rather than a grand pardon because they are understandably concerned about being bracketed with the very small number of people who will actually not be innocent. Will the Minister undertake to continue looking into this matter and address the quite proper concerns of the legitimate victims?

I would also welcome further elaboration on compensation. Fujitsu, which has played a central role in the scandal, is still at the heart of Government IT systems. Will Fujitsu will be required to meet some of the costs of the undoubtedly enormously expensive compensation that we are paying out? Finally, will the Government accelerate the investigations to convict those who are really guilty of causing the scandal by perverting the course of justice?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the urgent question and for his collaboration with us on these matters. We have looked carefully at the issue of individual exonerations and did not see any way possible to do that without an exhaustive and time-consuming administrative process, which would add further burdens to those that people have already suffered.

The other issue is getting people to come forward again, which has been one of the major problems in getting people to appeal their convictions. We see the solution that we have adopted as very much the lesser of two evils. Nevertheless, we are keen to discuss mitigations and safeguards with other Members of the House. I set out one earlier on—the requirement to sign a statement of innocence—and I am keen to work with him to look at other mechanisms that we can use to ensure that those people who get their convictions overturned and access compensation are actually innocent of the charges.

My right hon. Friend made the important point about Fujitsu, which has been raised many times. As he knows, part of what the Government did was to put in place a statutory inquiry, chaired by Sir Wyn Williams. It is due to complete by the end of the year, and, hopefully, it will report soon after. At that point in time, we will be able to assess more clearly who is actually responsible. Many people may have already formed a view on that, but we think it right that we follow a process to identify individuals or organisations who are responsible for the scandal. Of course, we would expect those organisations to financially contribute. There are financial and legal measures that we can take.

As regards individuals, it may be that there is sufficient evidence for the authorities to take forward individual prosecutions, and I think many in the House would welcome that.

Points of Order

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Obviously you need a reply, but you cannot make a speech.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. I have had no notice of such a statement being made. She will know that ministerial responses are a matter for Ministers, not the Chair. If the Prime Minister accepts that a mistake has been made, it is open to him to correct the record. In any event, the hon. Member has certainly put the matter in perspective for the House.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance on two issues of potential contempt. Last Friday, The Daily Telegraph published the headline, “Johnson allies vow to oust MPs who vote for his censure”. In accordance with paragraphs 15.14 and 15.16 of “Erskine May”, these attempts to influence Members voting on a quasi-judicial finding of this House seem to me to be a prima facie issue of contempt. May I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker, on whether I am correct on this point? Perhaps even more importantly, would any attempt to carry out such a threat to deselect a Member based on their votes in today’s debate in itself be a contempt of this House?

[Mr Speaker]

First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for notice of his point of order. The proper course for raising a matter of privilege is to write to me privately, but I note that the Committee has indicated that it will report further on the pressures placed on its members. As I have said before, the House referred this matter to the Committee and its members, and that should always be respected.

Bill Presented

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Michael Gove, supported by the Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, Robert Jenrick, Robert Halfon, Stuart Andrew and Felicity Buchan, presented a Bill to make provision to prevent public bodies from being influenced by political or moral disapproval of foreign states when taking certain economic decisions, subject to certain exceptions; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the first time; to be read a second time tomorrow and to be printed (Bill 325) with explanatory notes (Bill 325-EN).

Saudi Arabia’s Execution of Hussein Abo al-Kheir

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Is the point of order relevant to this question?

[Mr Davis]

It is, Mr Speaker.

I am sure that, inadvertently, the Minister has not quite led the House properly. The agreement on drug offences was on all drug offences, not simply taking drugs.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure the Minister will want to respond.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

T5. In 2020 we have evidence that the Cabinet Office monitored the journalist Peter Hitchens’ social media posts in relation to the pandemic. In an internal email the Cabinet Office accused him of pursuing an anti- lockdown agenda. He then appears to have been shadow- banned on social media. Will the Minister confirm that his Department did nothing to interfere with Hitchens’ communications, either through discussion with social media platforms or by any other mechanism? If he cannot confirm that today, will he write to me immediately in the future to do so?

[Mr Speaker]

Who wants that one?

Points of Order

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Unless the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) can get a question, he may not be able to get in as easily, so it may be appropriate for the Second Church Estates Commissioner to come forward with a statement rather than waiting for Church Commissioners’ questions. It would be helpful to have that statement on Monday; I would encourage that, because it is a topic that the House will wish to know about. I will leave that with the Second Church Estates Commissioner.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope you will forgive me for a boring, but important, administrative point of order—nothing new, do I hear you say?

Yesterday, we asked the Vote Office and the House of Commons Library for a copy of a Government report by Ben Goldacre for a meeting today. It is a very important report. We were told that it was too long for the Vote Office to print, so it was sent off-site to Waterloo. We were also told that the House of Commons Library does not keep copies of Government reports, which rather astonished me. When we received the report from the off-site printers, it arrived in random order—page 1, page 7, page 3, page 15 and so on—so it was a little difficult to use. When we called them, they said that that was because the Government had provided the document in the wrong format. It is important in this House that we have access to printed copies of Government documents, so can the House do anything to ensure that that happens in future?

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

First of all, printing the letter, and only half the letter, is not integrity; in fact, it is far from it. It misled the people of this country, and it certainly put me in a bad light with the people of this country, and I do not expect that to happen, as an impartial Speaker. If that was an apology, I do not think it was very good.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Further to that, hon. Members of this House have certain strict duties on them. First, there is a duty to uphold the institutions of this House. Clearly, in breaching the confidentiality of the Speaker’s private correspondence, the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) has knowingly broken that rule. If that was an apology, it was not sufficient for that alone, frankly.

We also have a duty to tell the truth. In the hon. Gentleman’s public pronouncements, he implicitly criticised you, Mr Speaker, for not referring the Secretary of State to the Privileges Committee, but you were simply following the convention of agreeing with the Select Committee, of which he is a member. When the Committee decided not to refer, there was no minority report from him. There was not even a vote against from him; it was a unanimous vote. What he was trying to do was blame you, through his partial release of the letter, and lead the public to believe that somehow you made this decision against the wishes of the Committee.

The rules of this House do not allow me to assert whether I view the misleading of the public as deliberate, so the House can make its own judgment on that, but this miserable half-apology was completely inadequate for this breach.

[Mr Speaker]

I am going to leave it there for today, and I hope the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire will consider the way he has put his own part.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Minister, sit down.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The announcement today is clearly a good thing, but is the Home Secretary entirely confident that she will have sufficient aerial surveillance assets in place so that we can do our half of the job properly?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This also goes for the Government side of the House: we have to get Back Benchers in; it is not just a show for Ministers and their shadows.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s much overdue return to the Front Bench. His return is to the Government’s advantage but also to the advantage of millions of men, women and children who rely on Britain’s leadership in aid, which he has been singularly forthright in pursuing.

May I bring my hon. Friend back to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) about the resources available for aid? Yesterday, the front page of The Times told us that millions if not billions of British money is being diverted from aid, saving the lives of children in north-east Africa, to the Home Office—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is not just about shadow Ministers and Ministers; it is also about ex-Ministers. [Laughter.]

Points of Order

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am not responsible for the Minister’s answers, nor would I wish to be. I thank him for letting me know that he was going to ask the question. I have had no notice of any statement coming forward on the subject he mentions but, as I say, he has certainly put it on record and I know that people will be listening on the Government side. I am sure that, in future, those points can be corrected if the hon. Gentleman is right. He has put forward the stats and he has put forward his case. I am sure they will be checked and the House will ensure that we have the right record of statistics going forward.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We now have a caretaker Government who have given themselves a self-denying ordinance not to do anything controversial or change policy in any way. Today we have before us, with Report just coming up, an extraordinarily controversial piece of legislation that really should wait for the new, appropriate Government to deal with it in the future. Is there any mechanism whereby this House can delay the Report stage before us today until later in the year, when it can be dealt with properly?

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is in breach of the House’s regulations for somebody to call someone else a criminal in this Chamber.

[Mr Speaker]

A particular Member was not referred to, as you know—[Interruption.] Just a minute—I do not think I need any help. What I would say is that we want moderate and tolerant language that does not bring the House into disrepute or expect those outside to copy the behaviour. I want good behaviour and moderate language. I want people to think before they speak. I call Ian Blackford.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Including rugby league.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Some of the most rapid progress in the world is being made by schools in all countries that use information technology and artificial intelligence to support classroom tuition. Is the Department investigating how we could use that?

Ukraine

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I want to get everyone in, so let us help each other because this is a very important statement. Please hold your fire until it is your question, and then make sure that you put the question. Let us work to help each other.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s response to the calls for generosity from many of us, which is what I expected. This is a much more generous system, but, quite properly, she has taken time to make it work practically. However, I want to raise a practical issue. As she said, the numbers are not clear. Some have forecast a total of 4 million will come out of Ukraine, and it may be 5 million or 6 million, so our share of that burden would probably be about half a million people. A significant number of them—perhaps a majority—will be women and children, not whole-family units, so the burdens on housing, education and social support will be bigger than anything we have seen before. Has she had discussions yet, or will she have discussions, with our European colleagues to ensure that that burden is shared across the whole continent? That is the only way in which we can look after these people properly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Like many on the Government Benches, I have spent weeks and months defending the Prime Minister against often angry constituents. I have reminded them of his success in delivering Brexit and the vaccines, and many other things. But I expect my leaders to shoulder the responsibility for the actions they take. Yesterday the Prime Minister did the opposite of that, so I will remind him of a quotation that will be altogether too familiar to him. Leo Amery said to Neville Chamberlain:

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing… In the name of God, go.”—[Official Report, 7 May 1940; Vol. 360, c. 1150.]—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

It will have to come at the end of the questions session.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Davis]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have no wish to embarrass the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who is an old friend of mine. As he says, we are both ex-Brexit Secretaries, but I am also an ex-Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. I know a cost-effectiveness argument when I see it, and I know when it falls down. The questions I cited to him were tabled so as to avoid the Department’s cost restrictions. As a result, the Department has used arguments of policy involvement in the statistics, and those arguments have been written off as bogus by the Information Commissioner. The Department is not obeying the spirit of the law. In the light of that, this cover-up has gone on long enough. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answers I have been given, I give notice that I intend to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

[Mr Speaker]

Noted.

International Aid: Treasury Update

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is right. The prioritising of this cut makes it even more morally reprehensible. Indeed, at the same time, as I think the spokesman for the SNP, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), said, we are increasing spending on defence. I happen to agree with increasing spending on defence, but I do not agree with cutting spending on things that will lead to the need for more defence because of migration, civil wars and the rest of it.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the Leader of the Opposition have pointed out, the Government’s proposed double lock on returning to 0.7% is deceptive. It is designed to look reasonable. However, in fact, none of the people who have spoken so far has actually stated the full case. Although we say that the condition has been met only once since 1990, under a Conservative Government, and has never been met, really—well, it was once, just about—since the 0.7% policy was put in place, it has actually never been met since 1970, because the wording is not “a current budget surplus” but

“a sustainable current budget surplus”.

All the current budget surpluses we have been talking about so far have been for one year—and frankly, the one under us in 2018 lasted about 10 nanoseconds; it was a very tiny surplus. In practice, we have not had a sustainable current surplus since the 1970s, so I am afraid that, under the actual wording in the statement, we are not looking at 0.7% for a very long time indeed. We heard the Leader of the Opposition say it would be years, possibly decades, possibly never, and I think he is right about that.

Even if the conditions were to be met, the proposal will do nothing to deal with the crises that are caused by the policy already, right now. The Government argue that the cuts are temporary, but death is never temporary—and this will cause deaths.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Hilary Benn.

Business of the House

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think we might just get a passage from “Erskine May” now—I call David Davis.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend recommended reading “Erskine May”. I happen to have the 25th edition of “Erskine May” with me. Of course, what it makes clear is quite how difficult it is to amend an estimate, so much so that the last time that one was successfully amended was one century ago; he may remember—it was 1921. It makes it very clear that the Crown’s prerogative on the monopoly of financial initiative means that the only thing we can do in this House, unless the Crown acts differently, is to cut the bill, not increase it.

My right hon. Friend’s argument to the House is that we should do away with all the aid in order to get more aid. I am not quite sure that the public—or, indeed, the ambassadors, with their redundancy notices—would have quite understood that. It is rather sad that the Government are playing such games with this very, very important issue.

My right hon. Friend is a kindly man and he will know that, unlike most of the debates he is asked for, every day that goes by without this debate means that more people go without aid, particularly in places such as Yemen, where there is a famine right now. In the words of the United Nations Secretary-General, the ex-Prime Minister of Portugal, António Guterres, under famine conditions

“cutting aid is a death sentence.”

Can we please have this debate as soon as possible, so that we can change the Government’s policy for the better?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Report stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. and learned Lady has a point.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just to say I really am up against the time. I want to hear a lot more free speech.

[Mr Davis]

I take your point, Mr Speaker. I will be finished in less than a minute.

I was the person who brought in the 10-minute rule Bill, the precursor to the Government’s Bill, but there is a balancing issue and the House must be precise about that balance.

Given Mr Speaker’s injunction, I will bring my comments to an end. The Bill does some important things, but it needs to get some things very much closer to right than they are now.

[Mr Speaker]

Before I bring in the SNP spokesperson, I must warn people that it is looking like speeches will have to be three minutes or a maximum of four minutes.

Point of Order

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Thursday 29th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As a further letter of complaint, I want to raise with you the problem of Government Departments not meeting the guidelines for named day questions. To put it in context, this Government spend more money on polling and focus groups than any Government in history. There may be good reason for that, but for the past year, they have adamantly resisted all freedom of information requests about that subject. I put in five named day questions on specific elements of it. Not one of them was answered on time; indeed, not one of them has been answered yet. This is not unusual: other Departments also resist answering named day questions, and this is an instrument that is critical for holding Governments to account. This was the Cabinet Office, but other Departments do the same. Mr Speaker, May I ask you to get the House authorities to speak to the Government about meeting these guidelines, so that our attempts to hold them to account are more effective?

[Mr Speaker]

I totally agree with everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said. It is not acceptable. Unfortunately we do not have business questions today, because I know that the Leader of the House, like both of us, is also concerned that questions need to be answered. We have a procedure and a process that Secretaries of State and Ministers have to take seriously. It is totally unacceptable. We are elected by our constituents, our constituents expect a service, and that service is being denied by Minister’s Departments. It is not acceptable. We will continue to take it up, but I also say to Secretaries of State that I would not like to cross the right hon. Gentleman, because I know that this will not be the end of it. I am sure that he is already on to the Procedure Committee to let it know of his dissatisfaction. However, I am also dissatisfied. The message needs to go to the heart of Government: take MPs seriously from all sides. They deserve the service; so do their constituents. It is not acceptable; let us keep in touch on it.

I am suspending the sitting. Shortly before it resumes, I shall call for the Division bells to be sounded.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I know that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) is very good at whistling, but I am sure that shadow Ministers do not respond to whistles, and that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) wanted to give way to him anyway.

[Mr Davis]

I was not intending to be discourteous, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The hon. and learned Gentleman said that it was not possible to screen out the correspondence of the various privileged groups he described. The issue arose at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in respect of one of the Wilson doctrine cases, and that was the assertion made by the Government barrister at the time. However, I consulted a number of experts, including Ross Anderson at Cambridge, and they said that it was perfectly possible. A great deal of screening is already done to take out dross—issues such as pornography—and it is perfectly possible to screen out targeted groups as well.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Davis

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. There are 11 speakers to come, and there are no time limits, but to ensure that everybody gets in, may I ask Members to exercise some self-restraint?

[Mr Davis]

That was the last intervention I was going to take, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The simple truth is that we must be wary of doing something we do not intend to do, under political pressure. More generally, in our approach to difficult economic decisions in the next year or two, I hope that this Government, of all Governments, will work hard to balance the fairness against the difficult decisions. We are going to make hard decisions, which will lead to huge opprobrium from Labour Members for all sorts of reasons. That does not bother me, but what does bother me is that we get the balance of fairness right.