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Category: Speeches

  • Dominic Raab – 2021 Statement on the Sino-British Joint Declaration

    Dominic Raab – 2021 Statement on the Sino-British Joint Declaration

    The statement made by Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, on 13 March 2021.

    Beijing’s decision to impose radical changes to restrict participation in Hong Kong’s electoral system constitutes a further clear breach of the legally binding Sino-British Joint Declaration.

    This is part of a pattern designed to harass and stifle all voices critical of China’s policies and is the third breach of the Joint Declaration in less than nine months.

    The Chinese authorities’ continued action means I must now report that the UK considers Beijing to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the Joint Declaration – a demonstration of the growing gulf between Beijing’s promises and its actions.

    The UK will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong. China must act in accordance with its legal obligations and respect fundamental rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.

  • Robert Jenrick – 2021 Statement on Building Safety

    Robert Jenrick – 2021 Statement on Building Safety

    The statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 11 March 2021.

    I have undertaken to provide the House with a monthly building safety update.

    On 10 February I announced my five-point plan to bring an end to unsafe cladding:

    1. The Government will pay for the removal of unsafe cladding for leaseholders in all residential buildings 18 metres and over (six storeys) in England

    2. Generous finance scheme to provide reassurance for leaseholders in buildings between 11 and 18 metres (four to six storeys), ensuring they never pay more than £50 a month for cladding removal

    3. An industry levy and tax to ensure developers play their part

    4. A world-class new safety regime to ensure a tragedy like Grenfell never happens again

    5. Providing confidence to this part of the housing market including lenders and surveyors

    We have committed an unprecedented £5 billion investment in building safety. This will ensure taxpayer funding is targeted at the highest-risk buildings in line with long-standing independent expert advice.

    Remediation statistics

    Today we have published the February 2021 data release on the remediation of unsafe cladding and the monthly building safety fund registration statistics.

    These data releases show we are continuing to make good progress on the remediation of unsafe cladding, with around 95% of all high-rise buildings with unsafe ACM cladding identified by the beginning of last year now either remediated or started on site. Also, 100% of social sector buildings and 84% of private sector buildings have now started or completed remediation. Overall, 74% of all identified buildings have removed their ACM cladding, an increase of 17 since the end of January.

    Our expectation is that unsafe ACM remediation should be completed as soon as possible and by the end of 2021 at the latest. Full details of our progress with cladding remediation can be found in the Department’s monthly building safety data release, which can be accessed here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-safety-programme-monthly-data-release-february-2021.

    As at 11 March 2021, the building safety fund registration statistics show that 978 decisions have been made on the basis that sufficient supporting information has now been received. Of these, 624 registered buildings are proceeding with a full application and 354 have been shown to be ineligible. The total amount of funding allocated is £226.8 million (including social sector) correct at 05/03/2021. Full details can be accessed here:

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registration-statistics.

    Enforcement

    I am also today informing the House of a change to the contingent liability for the provision of an indemnity for the joint inspection team (JIT), as was previously set out in my Department’s statements and associated departmental minutes, Official Report, 11 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 9-10WS. and Official Report, 25 June 2019; Vol. 662, c. 28-29WS.

    The purpose of the JIT has been to provide support to local authorities in making hazard assessments of high-rise residential buildings with unsafe aluminium composite material cladding and then to provide advice to local authorities on enforcement action. The change extends the cover provided by the indemnity to advice to local authorities on high-rise residential buildings with all other types of unsafe cladding too.

    I am laying a departmental minute providing further detail of the change to the contingent liability.

  • Michael Gove – 2021 Statement on EU-Great Britain Import Controls

    Michael Gove – 2021 Statement on EU-Great Britain Import Controls

    The statement made by Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the House of Commons on 11 March 2021.

    On 31 December last year, the UK left the EU’s single market and customs union. This was the biggest change in the UK’s trading relationships for decades. The Government have always been clear that this meant change for business and for citizens, including new processes and requirements.

    The first phase of such changes came in on 1 January. The Government have put in place the staffing, infrastructure, and IT to deal with the situation. Thanks to the hard work of traders and hauliers, we have not seen anything like the generalised disruption at our ports which many predicted, and supply chains have shown themselves to be robust.

    However, the Government recognise the scale and significance of the challenges businesses have been facing in adjusting to the new requirements, at the same time as dealing with the impacts of covid-19.

    Last June, we announced a timetable for the phased introduction of controls on imports from the EU into Great Britain, to ensure businesses could prepare in a phased way. This timetable was based on the impacts of the first wave of covid-19. We know now that the disruption caused by covid-19 has lasted longer and has been deeper than we anticipated. Accordingly, the Government have reviewed these timeframes.

    Although we recognise that many in the border industry and many businesses have been investing time and energy to be ready on time, and indeed we in Government were confident of being ready on time, we have listened to businesses that have made a strong case that they need more time to prepare. In reviewing the timeframes, we have given strong weight to the disruption which has been caused, and is still being caused, by covid-19, and the need to ensure that the economy can recover fully.

    We are therefore announcing today a clear revised timetable for the introduction of controls, as follows:

    Pre-notification requirements for products of animal origin (POAO), certain animal by-products (ABP), and high-risk food not of animal origin (HRFNAO) will not be required until 1 October 2021. Export health certificate requirements for POAO and certain ABP will come into force on the same date.

    Customs import declarations will still be required, but the option to use the deferred declaration scheme, including submitting supplementary declarations up to six months after the goods have been imported, has been extended to 1 January 2022.

    Safety and security declarations for imports will not be required until 1 January 2022.

    Physical sanitary and phytosanitary checks for POAO, certain ABP, and HRFNAO will not be required until 1 January 2022. At that point they will take place at border control posts.

    Physical SPS checks on high-risk plants will take place at border control posts, rather than at the place of destination as now, from 1 January 2022.

    Pre-notification requirements and documentary checks, including phytosanitary certificates will be required for low-risk plants and plant products, and will be introduced from 1 January 2022.

    From March 2022, checks at border control posts will take place on live animals and low-risk plants and plant products.

    Traders moving controlled goods into Great Britain will continue to be ineligible for the deferred customs declaration approach. They will therefore be required to complete a full customs declaration when the goods enter Great Britain.

    Controls and checks on sanitary and phytosanitary goods are of course a devolved matter and we continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations on their implementation, in particular with the Welsh Government on their timetable for completing supporting border control post infrastructure in Wales.

    We will continue to engage extensively with businesses to support them to adjust to the new requirements already in place and to prepare for the new requirements set out above so that they can continue to trade successfully under the new arrangements.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2021 Comments on Deforestation

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2021 Comments on Deforestation

    The comments made by Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the Energy Minister, on 12 March 2021.

    The impact of deforestation is devastating – on those vulnerable rainforest communities, and on global efforts to combat climate change. And the health of the earth’s tropical forests is critical to the health of our planet – we need to do all we can to protect and preserve this vital ecosystem.

    Today’s new fund will ramp up investment in projects on the frontline of this effort, while also giving financial institutions the confidence they need to invest, which could attract and secure as much as £850 million from the private sector.

  • Anneliese Dodds – 2021 Comments on January ONS Figures

    Anneliese Dodds – 2021 Comments on January ONS Figures

    The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 12 March 2021.

    Today’s figures confirm that under the Conservatives we’ve had the worst economic crisis of any major economy.

    Rather than securing the recovery, Rishi Sunak’s budget last week risked weakening it through a combination of pay cuts and tax rises, and a looming cut to social security just as unemployment is set to spike.

    The Chancellor’s mask has slipped. He’s making irresponsible choices now and has no long-term plan for the future. The people of Britain deserve better.

  • Rachel Reeves – 2021 Comments on UK Exports to EU Down 40% in January

    Rachel Reeves – 2021 Comments on UK Exports to EU Down 40% in January

    The comments made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on 12 March 2021.

    These figures make it clear just how many British businesses have been struggling with the new reams of costly red tape and bureaucracy this Government has wrapped them in.

    Businesses have been appealing to the government to start listening to the problems they’ve been facing, but they’ve been left out in the cold.

    The Government must up their ambition here, and take practical action, hand in hand with businesses, to build on the limited deal they negotiated with the EU.

  • Jess Phillips – 2021 Speech on International Women’s Day

    Jess Phillips – 2021 Speech on International Women’s Day

    The speech made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, in the House of Commons on 11 March 2021.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you to all in the Speaker’s Office for their consideration. It shows that Parliament is very committed to this issue.

    In this place, we count what we care about—we count the vaccines done; we count the number of people on benefits. We rule or oppose based on a count, and we obsessively track that data. We love to count data about our own popularity. However, we do not currently count dead women. No Government study is done into the patterns every year of the data on victims of domestic abuse who are killed, die by suicide or die suddenly. Dead women is a thing we have all just accepted as part of our daily lives. Dead women are just one of those things.

    Killed women are not vanishingly rare; killed women are common. Dead women do count, and thanks to the brilliant work of Karen Ingala Smith and the Counting Dead Women project, and the academics and charities working on the femicide census, these women’s lives and the scale of male violence against women can be known.

    Since last year on this day, these are the women killed in the UK where a man has been convicted or charged as the primary perpetrator in the case: Vanita Nowell; Tracey Kidd; Nelly Moustafa; Zahida Bi; Josephine Kaye; Shadika Mohsin Patel; Maureen Kidd; Wendy Morse; Nageeba Alariqy; Elsie Smith; Kelly Stewart; Gwendoline Bound; Ruth Williams; Victoria Woodhall; Kelly Fitzgibbons, who was killed alongside her two daughters; Caroline Walker; Katie Walker; Zobaidah Salangy; Betty Dobbin; Sonia Calvi; Maryan Ismail; Daniela Espirito Santo; Ruth Brown, Denise Keane-Barnett-Simmons; Jadwiga Szczygielska; Emma Jane McParland; Louise Aitchison; Silke Hartshorne-Jones; Hyacinth Morris; Louise Smith; Claire Parry; Aya Hachem; Melissa Belshaw; Yvonne Lawson McCann; Lyndsey Alcock; Aneta Zdun; Nikoleta Zdun; Mandy Houghton; Amy-Leanne Stringfellow; Bibaa Henry; Nicole Smallman; Dawn Bennett; Gemma Marjoram; Karolina Zinkeviciene; Rosemary Hill; Jackie Hoadley; Khloemae Loy; Kerry Woolley; Shelly Clark; Bernadette Walker; Stella Frew; Dawn Fletcher; Deborah Jones; Patrycja Wyrebek; Therasia Gordon; Esther Egbon; Susan Baird; Balvinder Gahir; Lynda Cooper; Lorraine Cox; Suzanne Winnister; Maria Howarth; Abida Karim; Saman Mir Sacharvi; Vian Mangrio; Poorna Kaameshwari Sivaraj, who was killed alongside her three-year-old son; Louise Rump; Julie Williams; Rhonda Humphreys; Nicole McGregor; Angela Webber; Carole Wright; Sarah Smith; Ildiko Bettison; Kimberley Deakin; Marie Gladders; Paula Leather; Caroline Kayll; Lauren Mae Bloomer; Hansa Patel; Helen Bannister; Marta Vento; Andreia Rodriguez Guilherme; Joanna Borucka; Azaria Williams; Catherine Granger; Eileen Dean; Sue Addis; Carol Hart; Jacqueline Price; Mary Wells; Tiprat Argatu; Christie Frewin; Souad Bellaha; Ann Turner; N’Taya Elliott-Cleverley; Rose Marie Tinton; Ranjit Gill; Helen Joy; Emma Robertson; Nicole Anderson; Linda Maggs; Carol Smith; Sophie Moss; Christina Rowe; Susan Hannaby; Michelle Lizanec; Wieslawa Mierzejewska; Judith Rhead; Anna Ovsyannikova; Tina Eyre; Katie Simpson; Bennylyn Burke and her two-year-old daughter; Samantha Heap; Geetika Goyal; Imogen Bohajczuk; and Wenjing Xu.

    There has been much debate over what I would say at the end of the list. Her name rings out across all our media—we have all prayed that the name of Sarah Everard would never be on any list. Let us pray every day and work every day to make sure that nobody’s name ends up on this list again.

  • Peter Bottomley – 2021 Speech on International Women’s Day

    Peter Bottomley – 2021 Speech on International Women’s Day

    The speech made by Peter Bottomley, the Conservative MP for Worthing West and the Father of the House, in the House of Commons on 11 March 2021.

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

    We now go to the Father of the House, who, I recollect, has taken part in this International Women’s Day debate on every occasion I have observed over the last 25 years—long before it was fashionable.

    Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)

    That is probably because my mother thought she would have been a better MP than I have been, and my wife, daughters and granddaughters are probably certain that they could be, too.

    I want to recognise that there has been progress, but I also want to join the right hon. and hon. Ladies—colleagues—who have spoken so far. We will listen in silence to the next speaker, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), giving the roll call of those who been killed by men.

    I echo the remarks that have been and will be made about the fact that cuts in our target for UN overseas aid will predominantly hit women—the women whom I have been dedicated to since I was a trustee of Christian Aid, and since I served on the Select Committee on overseas aid in the 1970s. I hope that the House will have the opportunity to say that the Government should stick to the promise that was proudly in the Conservative manifesto at the last election.

    Domestically, it is not a question of, “Most men behave well most of the time, and no one can claim to be perfect,” or a question of, “Why are most women in a worse position?” The fact is that we all need to change. I hope that we can get to the stage where I do not have to carry a whistle on my keyring, and neither do my daughters and granddaughters.

    People need to feel safe at work, when travelling and in their domestic circumstances. For that to happen, we need to find a way to ensure that people have the patience and courage to challenge behaviours in themselves and others that result in people feeling threatened and suffering violence, whether physical, mental or economic. I would like people to be able to be people. I recognise that we may be men, we may be women, we may be female, we may be male, we may be mixed, we may have other orientations or we may feel differently. That is not the point; the point is that we should be safe and secure, and we should be able to talk. For that, we need to encourage each other.

    I hope that the elements of this debate will be reported in the newspapers, along with practical suggestions about what we can see in ourselves and around us. As Dr Richard Stone—one of the assessors, along with Sir William Macpherson, on the Stephen Lawrence inquiry—said in relation to housing, too often we ask the victims to put things right. He said that it is normally white, middle-class men in full-time jobs who have the power. It is our responsibility to join with others to make life better. Whatever our age, stage, race, background or religion, people need to be safe, and at the moment women do not feel safe. I am glad to have contributed, and I hope to learn from what I will hear in a moment.

  • Chris Heaton-Harris – 2021 Comments on the Hope Valley Line

    Chris Heaton-Harris – 2021 Comments on the Hope Valley Line

    The comments made by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Rail Minister, on 11 March 2021.

    I am delighted to confirm £137 million for this scheme to remove bottlenecks on the Hope Valley line, transforming journeys between Sheffield and Manchester – 2 dynamic Northern Powerhouse cities.

    We are committed to levelling up infrastructure across the North, and these important upgrades will make a huge difference to passengers, providing the punctual, reliable services they deserve, as we build back better from COVID-19.

  • Matt Warman – 2021 Comments on the Shared Rural Network

    Matt Warman – 2021 Comments on the Shared Rural Network

    The comments made by Matt Warman, the Minister for Digital Infrastructure, on 11 March 2021.

    The Shared Rural Network is a key part of the government’s infrastructure revolution to level up and unlock new economic opportunities in every corner of the UK.

    Mobile firms are making great progress boosting 4G services in countryside communities as part of their side of this landmark agreement.

    With the publication of this notice, we shall now push on with making patchy or poor coverage a thing of the past as we build back better from the pandemic.