Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to speak in what must be one of the most momentous occasions in the House’s recent history, because one of the most fundamental principles of any democracy is at stake today: does honesty and integrity in public office matter and are our leaders accountable to the people who put them there? The answer from Members on both sides of the House must be a loud and resounding, “Yes”.

Throughout this whole sorry saga, the Prime Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box time and again to deny breaking the lockdown rules that he set. He has happily dispatched political advisers, civil servants and Cabinet colleagues who confessed to breaking lockdown restrictions, all while thinking that he is above them. Even when he was challenged with photographic evidence of him partying away while millions were stuck at home, he absurdly pleaded his innocence.

Not even the stories of the families who were torn apart or of the parents, spouses and children who died alone could stir in him the decency to come forward and tell the truth. We are today forced to face the fact that our Prime Minister, the most powerful man in our country, thought that he was above the law. We now know the truth: the parties happened and the Prime Minister was there. He will forever be judged by history as the first holder of his office to be found guilty of breaking the law while serving in No. 10.

We are here to decide whether the Prime Minister’s conduct in this place should be referred to the Privileges Committee to examine whether he is guilty of contempt of Parliament. I believe that the argument for doing so is overwhelming. The time has come for Conservative Members to decide where their loyalties lie: to the Prime Minister or to the constituents who put them here.

For two long years, we have been subjected to the tawdry spectacle of Conservative Members scrambling to defend the Government as they lurched from scandal to scandal, whether that was the billions handed out to Ministers’ friends for dodgy covid contracts, the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal or the Chancellor’s questionable tax affairs. Although we pledge allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and not to our constituents when we first enter this place, it is our constituents to whom we are ultimately responsible and by whom we are ultimately held to account. It is time to put the national interest first.

My constituents can count on me to do the right thing by them today. I ask Conservative Members: can yours?

Easter Recess: Government Update

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is very important that the people in this country should understand that, although the country is faced with massive issues that we have to deal with, in the aftershocks of covid and the war in Ukraine, I in no way minimise the importance of the fine I have received and I apologise wholeheartedly.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

People across the House will agree that the situation in Ukraine is serious, and there is no doubt that we fully support what we are trying to do. However, setting that aside for a minute, the Prime Minister stands before us today as the first resident of No. 10 to be found guilty of breaking the law while serving in public office. While he has finally apologised today, it has been accompanied by the absurd caveat that the man who set the rules could not understand them. Will the Prime Minister concede that remaining in office deals a grievous blow to the rule of law in this country and, for the first time in his career, will he put the national interest before his personal ambition and resign?

[The Prime Minister]

I repeat my apology and direct the hon. Gentleman to what I said earlier. The people of this country need us to focus on their issues and their priorities, and that is what the Government are going to do.

Sue Gray Report

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I direct the hon. Gentleman to what I have said earlier.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

No one has said in the House this afternoon that 155,000 people died of covid. That is why we introduced the rules. This is simply not the comprehensive report that the British public were promised for so long, but at least it is clear in its findings that there was

“a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of Government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population”

at the height of the pandemic. Does the Prime Minister accept responsibility for his failure to live up to the standards that the rest of us were expected to uphold?

[The Prime Minister]

I take responsibility for everything that happened in No. 10 and that the Government did throughout the pandemic.

Covid-19 Update

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with that. I think that across Whitehall we need to show a lead and make sure that we get back to work—that everybody gets back to work. It is safe to do so, provided everybody exercises the due caution that I have set out today. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

We are, mercifully, in a much better position today than we were this time a year ago, and that is thanks to the heroic efforts of the NHS in the roll-out of vaccinations, but just 9% of people living in Africa have been vaccinated against covid-19 to date. Does the Prime Minister agree that the UK is failing to honour its humanitarian obligations to the poorest countries in the world, and will he commit this Government to support a waiver of intellectual property rights on covid-19 vaccines?

Oral Answers to Questions

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 8 September.

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Mick Whitley]

In the run-up to the last election, the Prime Minister said that “clearly it is wrong” that hundreds of thousands of people are forced to rely on food banks to survive. Research released by the Trussell Trust today shows that one in six people fear that they will almost certainly have to use a food bank in just four weeks’ time as a result of the Government’s decision to axe the £20 uplift to universal credit. That is more than 500 families and 1,000 children being forced into food poverty in my constituency of Birkenhead alone. Will the Prime Minister concede that the cut to universal credit is wrong, and will he change course?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course I am very grateful to everybody who helps with food banks, and they do a fantastic job. What this Government have done throughout the pandemic is to put the most protection for those who need it most across society, and I am proud of what we have done by uplifting the living wage, and proud of the arm that we put around the whole of the British people.

Armed Forces Bill

Mick Whitley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

Today’s debate provides us with a welcome opportunity to pay tribute to our nation’s armed forces and their families for the immense sacrifices they make. I would like to echo the sentiments of previous speakers in expressing my wholehearted appreciation for everything that Britain’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen do to keep our country safe both at home and abroad.

During the pandemic—undoubtedly our darkest hour since the second world war—our armed forces have once again stepped up to protect our communities and keep us safe from covid-19. Service personnel have played a leading role in supporting our health service to deliver mass testing and vaccine deployment. This is the largest peacetime resilience operation in history, and without it, we would undoubtedly be in a much darker place today.

In return, we owe it to our service communities that their hard work and tireless self-sacrifice do not go unrecognised. That means going beyond lofty rhetoric and taking meaningful action to ensure that our armed forces and their families are treated with the dignity and respect they rightly deserve. The Bill provides the Government with the chance to do just that. It represents a historic opportunity to step up support for our armed forces, veterans and their families and to correct some of the profound injustices that they continue to face.

While I applaud everything that local authorities and third sector organisations are doing to support service personnel and veterans, too many are simply not getting the support they need in the critical fields of housing, employment and mental health. Just last week, the National Audit Office found that the Ministry of Defence is failing in its duty to provide service personnel with high-quality subsidised accommodation. Nearly 80,000 people are living in single person accommodation, with less than half satisfied with the quality of their housing—a significant decline on recent years. Whatever happened to homes for heroes?

That is why I am so emphatic in my support for the armed forces covenant. The covenant reflects the immense depth of gratitude that is owed by us all to our armed forces, and it is a matter of deep regret that the Bill fails to implement its promises in full. In fact, on a number of points, the Bill simply does not go far enough. While it would oblige councils and other public bodies to deliver on the principles of the covenant, it fails to address the all-important issue of underfunding. It also does nothing to establish binding national standards that would end once and for all the postcode lottery faced by many veterans and service personnel. I therefore urge the Defence Secretary to go further and ensure that the Bill makes good on the principles of the armed forces covenant and on our country’s commitments to serving members of the armed forces, veterans and their families.

External Private Contractors: Government Use and Employment

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am delighted that my first contribution in Westminster Hall is to a debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) on an issue that I care about deeply.

I declare an interest: for decades, I have been active in the Labour movement and it was my great privilege to have served for four years as regional secretary of Unite the union in the north-west. In that role, I represented thousands of outsourced workers right across the north-west, in sectors as diverse as manufacturing, care and catering. I saw at first hand how outsourcing has fostered a culture of low pay and insecure employment. Successive Governments have justified the race to the bottom on workers’ rights as a price worth paying for greater efficiency, flexibility and value for money for the taxpayer.

The Institute for Government reported last year, however, that a string of high-profile outsourcing failures had wasted millions of pounds, delivered poor services and undermined public trust. The collapse of Carillion in 2018 left the Royal Liverpool Hospital building years behind schedule, while the Government continued to award £660 million in public contracts to Interserve just months before it went into administration. In both cases, it was the taxpayer who was left footing the bill, and workers and service users suffered.

This devastating pandemic has truly laid bare the deep failings of outsourcing. This week, we learned that the Government’s outsourced Serco test and trace system has failed to track almost a quarter of a million people who have been in close contact with someone infected with covid-19. On the Wirral, just under 59% of people who have potentially been exposed to this terrible virus have been contacted in the last week. Instead of the world-beating system that the Prime Minister promised us, we have absolute chaos.

It is not just Serco test and trace that has made private companies an absolute fortune at a time when everyone else is making enormous sacrifices to win the war on this terrible disease. External providers have profited at every level of the Government’s response to covid-19. In fact, the British Medical Association has this month reported that the Government’s focus on external providers has left public facilities often underused and ignored. A vast range of companies have been paid to produce, store and distribute personal protective equipment, manage the logistics of drive-in testing and onboard returning healthcare workers into the NHS. That is despite the evidence showing that local public health teams are best placed to respond to this deadly virus.

The Government continue to shell out millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to their friends in the private sector who simply cannot do the job. Meanwhile, the Chancellor has the audacity to say that the Government can afford to pay furloughed workers in my constituency only a measly two thirds of their wages, while quibbling over the expense of providing free school meals to vulnerable children during the holidays.

The Prime Minister has said that there are lessons to be learned from his handling of the covid-19 crisis. That is unusual for him and is quite an understatement. One of the clearest lessons of all the outsourcing is that it has been a failed project. As we face the worst economic crisis in recent history, we need more than ever to put social value at the heart of national and local procurement strategies. That means creating secure and well-paid jobs, improving employment rights and promoting ecologically sustainable developments. It means creating economic growth that feeds back into our communities, rather than just lining the pockets of a handful of shareholders. We can do all of this and more, but only if we stop handing millions to private companies and invest in the public sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right in his support for the midlands engine. That is why we are investing another £200 million from the getting building fund into the midlands engine region. I will be happy to write to him in the next few days about what we are doing for levelling up in the midlands.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Last week, the Chancellor made the political choice to write off 1 million jobs as unviable. There are more than 1,000 jobs at risk in my constituency of Birkenhead, and 141,000 jobs at risk in the north-east. This would be unemployment on a scale even worse than under Thatcher. Why do the Prime Minister and the Chancellor think that that is a price worth paying?

[The Prime Minister]

That is completely to misrepresent what the Chancellor is trying to do. As I have just told the House, we have already put £190 billion into supporting livelihoods, people and families. We are going to continue to put our arms around the people of this country. The most important thing is to get the economy moving and get people into work, and, at the same time, to keep kids in school, but the only way we can do that is if we suppress the virus in the way that the Government have set out, with the local lockdown measures that we have announced and the national measures that, I hope, are the subject of cross-party support.