Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I have no confidence in this Government. The public have no confidence in this Government, and nor do Government Members, 59 of whom put in their own letters to say they had no confidence in this Government. They need to vote with us accordingly tonight.

All political careers end in failure; that is a truism. Unlike past demises, however, this one is based not on policy, but on probity. The degradation and debasement of standards should be about not left and right, but right and wrong. This Government have got all the big calls wrong: we have the highest inflation in 40 years and the biggest tax take in 70, while these leadership contenders who have spent years defending the indefensible now out-vie each other to disown the past 12 years.

The moral is that not every fairy tale has a happy ending. This was not just about ambush by cake; it was about a pattern of behaviour that resulted in the first ever lawbreaker Prime Minister. One misjudgment alone might have been ride-outable, but the cumulative effect of partygate, Paterson, the redecoration of the No. 10 flat, the promotion of an alleged drunken groper to a post that included reporting MPs’ misconduct and the Prime Minister’s saying he had had a memory lapse about that individual’s previous history just proved to be one implausibility too far.

As we have seen today, the PM who as a child wanted to be world king has become King Canute, still defiant and partying to the end, characteristically skipping Cobra meetings—if not quite fiddling while Rome burns, then partying while the country roasts. It brings to mind those suitcases being wheeled down Whitehall on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral. Meanwhile, our fellow citizens face huge challenges: climate change-induced heatwave, looming strikes, inflation, cost of living crisis, energy crisis, record NHS backlog, passports backlog, Home Office backlog, courts backlog—backlog Britain.

If we are trying to define exactly what Johnsonism is, we would have in there the idea that the rules do not apply to those at the top, self-advancement, Government by slogan and, as Dominic Cummings put it, a “shopping trolley” modus operandi. Remember the pro-EU and anti-EU columns, or the one-time fan of an amnesty for illegal immigrants who now wants to ship off asylum seekers to Rwanda? Multiple signs were already there: those costly London Mayoralty vanity projects, the Jennifer Arcuri improprieties, which are still unresolved, with new people appearing out of the woodwork making similar claims, and even indifference to groping and grabbing. It was all part of a pattern. I was in the now PM’s presence in Acton in 2015—there is footage of it out there—and I was grabbed from behind by one of his aides for wanting to speak to him.

If we consider Imran Ahmad Khan, Neil Parish, Charlie Elphicke and Andrew Griffiths, it does not feel as though sexual misconduct is being stamped on, or out. When an entire Government are rotten to their core, all politicians become tainted and tarnished. It is time to call time on the lot. The first step is today’s vote, but the country is crying out for change. There is a democratic deficit if those of us who are not among the small number of Tory party members have no say in our next PM. We need a general election as soon as possible, to have a say on the next, unelected Prime Minister who emerges from that process, and refresh all 650 of us.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

When the hon. Member sees the formal response to the report, he will have no doubt that we are taking note of these recommendations in absolute earnest. The feedback that I get from young women serving in all roles right across defence is that women should really look forward to service life. There are terrific role models that they can be very proud of.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

8. Whether her Department has undertaken an equalities assessment of the exclusion of transgender conversion therapy in the Government’s forthcoming legislative proposals on conversion therapy.

[The Minister for Equalities (Amanda Solloway)]

As we prepare legislation to ban conversion practices, we continue to assess equality impacts in relation to all protected characteristics, including gender reassignment. We intend to introduce a ban that protects everyone who attempts to change their sexual orientation. There are different considerations for transgender conversion practices and the Government remain committed to exploring them.

[Dr Huq]

There is a respectful debate to be had on single-sex spaces and on trans people in sport, but the Government’s failure on their promise of a full ban on conversion therapy, which caused one equalities Minister to resign last week, is not it. Eight royal colleges and the British Medical Association want this. When will the Government act?

[Amanda Solloway]

We want to ensure that everyone is protected from the extensive harm that conversion practices cause. It is not unreasonable to take some extra time to avoid an unintended consequence and to build a consensus, so that, together, we can make our legislation as inclusive as possible.

Functioning of Government

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The Government will continue to function, and I have spoken to the head of the civil service to that effect.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The Independent reports that the PM and Tory Ministers resigning are entitled to £420,000 of severance pay. At the same time we have a Government gripped by paralysis and we have a cost of living crisis. Can the Minister confirm that they will be forfeiting their right to this, because we do not reward failure?

[Michael Ellis]

The matter that the hon. Lady refers to is set in statute, so it is a matter for the law, and that law would have been passed by this House.

Sue Gray Report

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To repeat what I said both earlier and to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), when I have identified the custodians, cleaners and staff in question, I will of course talk to them myself.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

One address, 20 months, 204 questionnaires, 345 documents and 510 photos—including the ones on page 38 onwards of the Prime Minister raising a toast when he should be toast—and as a result 126 fines, mostly given to 83 junior staffers, all while the police were routinely fining people greater amounts than the £50 the Prime Minister was fined, and for far lesser offences. Does this not all point to the conclusion that not everyone is as equal under the law as each other these days?

[The Prime Minister]

I think there is a criticism of the Metropolitan police contained in what the hon. Lady just said, which I do not agree with.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is a part of the solution. It is something that, as I said just now, was advocated in 2004 by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett, a Blairite Home Secretary. It is now attacked in the most ludicrous terms by the current Labour Opposition, who are obviously, as I just said, Corbynistas in Islington suits.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Q14. I wonder what the Prime Minister makes of this quote:“When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons…across the world you can rely on leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate”.His words, Mr Speaker: The Daily Telegraph, 28 February 2011. Does he still agree: yes or no?

[The Prime Minister]

All I can say is that I am delighted that the hon. Lady is a reader of The Daily Telegraph. What she needs to do is keep going to the end of the article. That is my advice to her.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Margot from Acton turns five on Saturday. We were talking at an Easter service over the break, and she wanted me to ask the Prime Minister to come to her party, while her parents, in common with the majority of our nation—look at any opinion poll—think he should signal his intention to step down today. To spare himself the embarrassment of the local election results and further fines to come—he cannot rule out further fines for even more boozy parties that were much worse than being ambushed by a cake—will he do both? That way—he has able deputies—he can have something nice to look forward to at the weekend, somewhere where there will be no illegality.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her kind invitation. I do not know whether Margot herself wants to extend the invitation, but I am afraid I will be busy doing what we are doing: getting on with delivering the priorities of the British people.

Ukraine

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right: one of the risks of Putin’s venture is that there could be a spike in gas and oil prices. We in the Government will do everything we can to mitigate that and to help the people of this country, but it is one of the reasons why the whole of western Europe must end its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

May I ask the Prime Minister to place on record his respect and admiration for those brave men and women, the OSCE monitors who for eight years have been on the border with Ukraine and who now face an impossible position, with a democratic member state under attack from a fellow member state? May I also ask whether he can predict where we will be by July, when we speak as a member of the UK delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly? We will be the host nation at the big jamboree in Birmingham. Two of the Russian delegates are on our sanctions list. If not now, when? The Prime Minister needs to act.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for what she is doing with the OSCE and the monitoring operation. I have met members of the OSCE monitoring unit, and I think they do an amazing job. Sadly, because of the threat and the duty of care that we have to them, we have asked them to step back temporarily. Let us hope we are in a better position by July—let us hope—but at the moment things are not looking good.

Living with Covid-19

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to my constituent, Jamal Edwards, a musical pioneer taken from us way too young yesterday.

The Prime Minister justifies this crowd-pleaser for his own MPs by warning us about damage to the economy. The Office for National Statistics says that 1.3 million of our fellow citizens are suffering from the debilitating condition of long covid, which has rendered 396,000 people economically inactive. It causes dysfunctionality and ages people by 10 years. What is the Prime Minister doing to advance research and treatment into this condition? How does today’s exercise help those people?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention the problem of long covid. We have invested £224 million in expanding NHS treatment of long covid and we are putting another £50 million into researching that syndrome.

Sue Gray Report

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman has proved several times in that question that he has not got the faintest idea what he is talking about, and he should wait for the outcome of the inquiry.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

In the Prime Minister’s apologies up to now, he has explained these things away as one-offs—a work do, ambushed by a cake and all those kinds of things. But this report makes it clear that there was a repeated pattern of behaviour, with the booze-ups after work that nobody else was having—not all our constituents who followed the rules. The report says that there is an investigation of a Downing Street party on 13 November 2020. Why did the Prime Minister tell my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) on 8 December that no such gathering took place? Subsequently, he told my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party that anyone who tells mistruths from that Dispatch Box should resign. Is he a man of his word?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady needs to look at what I said and she needs to look at the outcome of the inquiry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will know that there is the household support fund, the winter fuel payments, the cold weather payments and the increase in the state pension by 2.5% for this year and by 3.1% next year, and that there is everything from the energy price cap to the freeze in fuel duty, which all go to assist anybody affected.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of steps taken by the Government to increase the uptake of covid-19 vaccinations where uptake is lower among certain ethnic groups.

[The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)]

The covid disparities report that I published last year summarised the unprecedented measures we have taken to promote vaccine uptake and includes recommendations to improve vaccination rates further for harder-to-reach groups that the Prime Minister has accepted in full. We have worked with faith leaders and other trusted local voices to overcome vaccine hesitancy and provided more than £23 million in funding to support the community champion scheme, which we have just extended to support the booster campaign.

[Dr Huq]

Behind the boasts of jabs in arms that for a while were distracting from the death figures, until we hit 150,000, are the Government not as worried as I am that the Office for National Statistics is finding vaccine hesitancy among the black British population more than five times higher than among the white population? Among the over-50s, just 44% of Caribbeans and 42% of Pakistanis have been boosted, as opposed to 77% of white British. When are the Government going to admit that their “Take me to your leader” model of community relations just is not working?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I have to say—and I really do not say this lightly—that the hon. Lady has form in pretending that the Government are doing absolutely nothing, when we are doing so much to encourage vaccine take-up in ethnic minority communities. She will know that in her own constituency of Ealing Central and Acton we have spent £485,000 on the community champions scheme. The hon. Lady will not stand up and let her constituents know what we are doing to encourage vaccine uptake. Perhaps she should focus on the positive things that the Government have done, including in her own constituency. There would be less vaccine hesitancy if Opposition Members stopped scaremongering.