Tag: 2022

Chris Clarkson – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Chris Clarkson, the Conservative MP for Heywood and Middleton, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

Today’s motion is on whether we have confidence in the Government, and obviously I will be speaking in favour of that. I want to register my exasperation with the way that we arrived at having to table this motion, after the botched stunt by the Labour party last week. By attempting to table a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, Labour Members sought to do away with constitutional precedent and decades of convention. Whatever their personal animus towards the Prime Minister—I have listened to the speeches, and I can tell it runs very deep—the office is bigger than any one person, and the institutions around it, and our constitution, are bigger still. To seek to upend that in a fit of petty spite just shows how irresponsible and deeply unfit the Leader of the Opposition is to lead. He is a man who should know better, and a man who, as a lawyer, does know better, but he simply cannot do better.

This is the mother of Parliaments, not a sixth-form debating society. However, that is not what the debate is about. I appreciate this is a popular debate, so I want to touch briefly on why I will be supporting the Government tonight.

Government Members were elected on an ambitious manifesto, which was not just about Brexit, as some would like to claim. It was also about how we use that opportunity to change the way in which our country is working, because frankly, for a very long time in a great number of places, it simply has not been. Areas like mine were left in abeyance, written off, put in the “too hard” basket and subjected to their own passive form of managed decline, and that is not right. It cannot be the case that all the talent and ability is clustered in one part of the country—we know it is not—so why should all the opportunity be focused in a postage stamp-sized area of the country? Our manifesto promised to address that, and we have already made great strides.

That job has undoubtedly been complicated by the pandemic, which nobody’s manifesto contained. The pandemic has meant that it has been necessary to do extremely difficult things, but it was years of making tough choices since 2010—restoring our public finances—that enabled us to put our arms around the nation at the darkest of times. There will undoubtedly be those who want to talk down the pandemic response, but the simple fact is that this country went further and faster than most to protect, vaccinate and unlock. It was not all that long ago that Opposition Members were demanding that we emulate the EU, New Zealand and a host of other countries, only to then see them grappling with surging infections and repeated lockdown measures.

I have always believed that levelling up—or whatever we want to call it—is about different things in different areas. For me in Heywood and Middleton, it meant improving educational opportunities and transport links—seemingly simple things that will open doors that are currently just out of reach of so many. In my borough alone, about £130 million was injected into the local economy to protect lives and livelihoods at the height of the pandemic, and, after a genuine fight to stop the Labour Rochdale Borough Council siphoning most of that into its reserves, we got the money to the people who needed it. During my first 18 months as an MP, I closed more cases than my Labour predecessor did in her five years. That is the level of intensity that this Government have put into supporting the country, and the amount of disinterest shown by my predecessor and her party.

As we emerge from the pandemic, what next? Rochdale borough has bids in for £40 million of levelling-up funding. Greater Manchester has been allocated £98 million from the shared prosperity fund, in addition to over £1 billion earmarked to improve public transport, which is a game-changer. More than £1 million has been given to cultural recovery in the borough, and the Government have designated us as one of their priority education investment areas, with a share of more than £40 million. Despite everything that has happened in the past few years, we are getting on with the job.

I have been extremely proud to sit on these Benches for the past two and half years, and I genuinely believe that what we have done has been with the best intentions—to make this country a true partnership of people, all of them engaged in a common endeavour, and all of us equally able to achieve if we are willing to put the work in—and that is why I will be voting confidence in the Government tonight.

July 20, 2022
Jess Phillips – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

It is an unusual thing to be in the Chamber listening to all this praising of the Prime Minister from the people who have just got rid of him. I wonder whether they have buyers’ remorse. One reason why our Prime Minister was got rid of, with heartfelt letters from Conservative Members, has been completely forgotten about since the leadership hustings started—it is as if it did not happen. The reason I do not have any confidence in the Government, and the reason I do not have any confidence in the Conservative party, is because of the dreadful record they have overseen on sexual harassment and violence in their own ranks.

Since I was elected to this House, two Conservative Members have gone to prison for perpetrating sexual crimes. In one of those cases, I repeatedly begged various Conservative Members with power, including the Chief Whip, to intervene, to stop and not to give him the Whip back, telling them how serious were the accounts I had heard. Every single time, that was ignored—[Interruption.] If hon. Members would like to intervene on me, I would be more than happy to explain the very fine details.

A victim of child sexual abuse came forward to the Conservative party and said that they had been abused by the candidate in Wakefield, after which the Conservative party lost the complaint, or it went somewhere. That candidate was then elected, and he is now in prison for sexual crimes. This is deeply serious. The hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts)—I have informed all the people I will be mentioning that I will be mentioning them, Madam Deputy Speaker; I imagine there are some Members checking their inboxes right now—was cleared by the Conservative party’s processes. Then the Prime Minister was toppled because he promoted somebody who he knew had undertaken sexually harmful behaviours. While everybody here is now dancing on the head of a pin about how great the Prime Minister was, and how he got all “the big calls right”, they should remember the reason that every one of those Members wrote those letters. Where, from every single one of the candidates—[Interruption.] If the Justice Secretary would like to intervene, I am more than happy to take an intervention.

The Deputy Prime Minister (Dominic Raab)

Total rubbish.

Jess Phillips

The Justice Secretary says it is total rubbish. Would he like to get to his feet and tell me what I have said that is total rubbish? No, he would not. Shall I tell him what’s total rubbish? The rape statistics that he has overseen as Justice Secretary. That is what is total rubbish, and it is not a surprise when his political party turns a blind eye.

Dominic Raab

Does the hon. Lady recognise the fact that in the last year, the volume of rape convictions has increased by two thirds? A simple yes or no.

Jess Phillips

That is the convictions, but how is the charging, Secretary of State? Again, I am happy to take an intervention. Has the charging gone up or down? Currently, 1.3% of rapes that are brought forward result in a charge. That does not surprise me, when the institution that is currently in government constantly turns a blind eye to sexual misdemeanours.

A lot of people have mentioned antisemitism in this debate, because they are all desperate to make it about something wrong with the Labour party. However, when the Labour party was holding a leadership election, every single candidate was asked, “What will you do to stamp out antisemitism?” and rightly so. It is vital that we were held to account. So what did any one of the candidates do when the Member for—I can’t remember where, but Pincher by name, pincher by—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

Order. I have given the hon. Lady quite a lot of leeway. We are discussing matters that are or perhaps will be sub judice, and I think the hon. Lady knows that. Let us guide this in a different direction.

Jess Phillips

I would like to know what the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time did when the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) was given that position. I would like to know what the Foreign Secretary did. Did they all sit back? I wouldn’t have. I would never have sat back. I want to know what every one of the candidates who wants to be Prime Minister did when that happened. I want to know what the Conservative party is going to do about its institutional problem, when it cannot deal appropriately and independently with complaints about sexual harassment. I have absolutely no confidence.

July 20, 2022
Gareth Bacon – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Gareth Bacon, the Conservative MP for Orpington, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

I rise to declare my confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. There are myriad substantial reasons for doing so, but I am going to focus on just three, because of the time allowed to me.

The first, of course, is the ending of the Brexit impasse, which the dead Parliament of 2017 to 2019 showed itself to be incapable of doing. Under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Conservative party won a landslide victory at the 2019 general election, when I had the privilege of being elected for the first time to represent my constituents in Orpington.

It is undeniable that a significant reason for the national result was the mandate to deliver on the largest democratic exercise in this country’s history—an exercise that had hitherto been thwarted by arrogant elites, some of whom I see sitting opposite me this evening. On 31 January 2020, Her Majesty’s Government delivered on the will of the people, and we left the European Union. The Labour party claimed that a Conservative Government would not achieve a Brexit trade deal, and yet Her Majesty’s Government announced on 24 December 2020 that Britain and the EU had agreed a post-Brexit trade deal, ending months of disagreement. A clear manifesto commitment that the previous dead Parliament had failed to deliver had been completed within a few weeks of the election. In the months that followed, the Government announced more than 70 trade agreements with countries all around the world.

That is achievement No. 1, and I will now move to achievement No. 2. Shortly after we left the European Union, the worst pandemic in a century hit the entire world. Her Majesty’s Government put their arms around the people, at great pace and under enormous pressure, and introduced a comprehensive package of support for individuals and businesses. Component parts of the support deal, such as the furlough scheme, saved millions of people from being made redundant when businesses could not trade because of the spread of the virus. Although our economy was on life support, it was kept alive thanks to the actions taken by the Government. As a direct result of decisions taken by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, this country was among the first to begin to emerge from the pandemic.

Her Majesty’s Government made the right call when it came to the vaccine. Thanks to the Government’s quick action to secure the most promising vaccine doses in advance, more than 120 million doses were administered in the first year in the UK alone. It should be noted, however, that the leader of the Labour party wanted Britain to remain in the European Medicines Agency, which would have delayed the roll-out of the vaccine. Countries in the EMA were much slower with vaccine production and roll-out than the UK was. Had Labour remained in power, the vaccine success that we experienced in this country would not have occurred at anything like the speed it did, with potentially dire consequences.

Her Majesty’s Government made the right call when it came to reopening the economy last year—something that, of course, the Labour party disagreed with. Time after time, senior Labour figures called for the maintenance, and even an extension, of restrictions. The Leader of the Opposition even said that he would vote for a circuit-breaker lockdown over Christmas, and then days later pretended he had never backed a Christmas restriction. Had he been in power, it would have been less Captain Hindsight, and more Major Catastrophe.

Finally, this Government and this Prime Minister have led to the west rallying international support for Ukraine. Her Majesty’s Government have kept our country safe. They have led the world in response to the first ground war on the European continent since the second world war, and they have got Brexit done. It is therefore patently obvious that the House should have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government, and I will be supporting the motion.

July 20, 2022
Angela Eagle – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Angela Eagle, the Labour MP for Wallasey, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

We do not currently have a functioning Government; it imploded two weeks ago, when there were over 50 ministerial resignations in 36 hours. The decision of those Ministers to render their Government incapable of governing forced the Prime Minister to concede that the end was nigh, but he did not resign. Shamefully, he was allowed to make over 60 new ministerial appointments to a caretaker Government. Many of those appointees will be Ministers for only three months, in this drift through a national crisis.

The Prime Minister has been told that he must be gone by 5 September. That is 50 days from now—50 days in which the Government will be led by a disgraced Prime Minister, and in which Parliament will be in recess. It is not in the interests of our country or our democracy to allow this discredited Prime Minister to squat in Downing Street one day longer. He is a security risk, having admitted to attending KGB agent Alexander Lebedev’s Italian villa alone, en route home from a NATO summit. He is trying to install more of his cronies in strategic jobs before he goes. He is ending his tenure in Downing Street much as it began—by going AWOL from emergency Cobra meetings; he prefers to party at Chequers instead. Also, there are rumours that he is planning a bumper resignation honours list of 40 Tory peers. Such powers of patronage should not be available to a man driven from office in disgrace by Members on his own side of the House.

If the motion is not carried, it will bring about a general election. It is voters, not Tory Members, who should be given the chance to pass a verdict on this catastrophic Government and their failures of probity and competence. Of course, the Tories do not want to face the voters yet. They are hoping that they can ditch their third leader in a row and crown a new Prime Minister without bothering to ask the country. They prefer to have the next Prime Minister chosen by their tiny and completely unrepresentative party membership—the very same people who chose the disgraced incumbent barely three years ago.

The Tories hope that they can evade any blame for giving a man they knew to be wholly unfit for his great office the keys to No. 10, but they cannot. Tory MPs are as culpable as the Prime Minister for the chaos and catastrophe that he has caused. They gambled with our democracy, and with respect for the law, truth and morality in public life. They lost, and now the voters must judge them. If we are to believe the dangerous pitches of the wannabe Prime Ministers still in the leadership race, the minuscule Tory membership appears to be obsessed with fantasy promises of billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts, and haunted by the fear of so-called wokeness.

It is crystal clear that the Tories are not addressing any of the real problems and challenges facing this country after 12 years of Tory misrule. They have not addressed the cost of living crisis facing millions of our fellow citizens. They have said nothing about soaring levels of child poverty as they vie with each other for who can concoct the biggest fantasy tax cut. They have left the country weaker and more ill prepared for the future. Their neglect has caused chaos in the NHS, the Passport Office and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, at the border, and in our schools and courts.

As the leadership race lumbers on and more of the 2019 manifesto is ditched, the Tories are shredding our constitution, their manifesto and their mandate for government—and now they will not even debate in public. That is why we urgently need a general election. In evidence last week, John Major said of the Cabinet:

“They were silent when they should have spoken out and then spoke out only when their silence became self-damaging.”

The only democratic way to respond to what has happened is to have a general election now.

July 20, 2022
Mike Wood – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

Yes, this House can have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government, because faced with unprecedented challenges over the past three years, it has got far more of the important decisions right than wrong. Have there been mistakes? Of course. I am not aware of any Government, of any nation, even in the most benign times, who could claim to have made none. Of course, these have not been benign times. On the big questions facing the Government, our country is in a better position, with the Prime Minister having been in charge for the past three years, than it would have been in if the Leader of the Opposition had had his way.

On the decision to respect the referendum result, the Prime Minister broke the deadlock over Brexit that threatened to leave the country paralysed with indecision. There are still important issues to resolve, but it is clear that any of the five Conservative candidates to replace him will continue that work, and will secure Brexit, not reverse it. We know what the Leader of the Opposition wanted to do if he became Brexit Secretary in 2019: hold another referendum to overturn the first one. We know what he promised Labour party members in order to become its leader: free movement across the EU. However, he is now telling voters that he would not take us back into the EU internal market. People are bound to ask: who is he telling the truth to? This Government and this Prime Minister called it right.

Going into the global pandemic, the Government recognised that normal procurement and distribution systems would not get personal protective equipment to the people who needed it most urgently. The Leader of Opposition attacked the Prime Minister for putting in place too many checks, being too slow, and not awarding contracts quickly enough. Later, that criticism was reversed; suddenly there were insufficient checks and bureaucracy. Again, the Government called it right and struck the correct balance. They put in place the biggest job and business protection schemes in British peacetime history to make sure that our economy could build back once the need for lockdowns had passed: 9 million workers’ wages were paid; nearly 3 million self-employed workers were helped; and businesses right across our economy were supported. If the Leader of the Opposition had had his way, and the plans of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) had been put in place, bankrupting the nation, we simply would not have been able to borrow the money for that emergency help.

Back when a covid vaccine looked a distant prospect, the Prime Minister and the Government backed a range of potential vaccines, as well as Kate Bingham’s superb taskforce, which the Opposition decried as waste and cronyism. The Opposition were wrong; the Prime Minister was right; and Britain got more vaccines more quickly than any other European country.

Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mike Wood

I really do not have time.

It was the Prime Minister’s personal intervention—he sent back early drafts of the roll-out strategy—that brought together the NHS, the armed forces and the private sector to get vaccines out quicker than other large countries did.

We can be proud that when Russian troops invaded one of our European partners, our Prime Minister did so much to lead international support for Ukraine. It is simply not credible to imagine that Britain would have stood as firmly against Russian aggression if it had been led by a man whose response to an assassination attempt on the streets of Salisbury was to demand that evidence be sent to Moscow.

Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)

Was it the right response to that poisoning to fix a meeting with a former intelligence agent of the KGB—a meeting without officials, minutes, or any report to this House of what the hell happened?

Mike Wood

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what the right response was: it was to co-ordinate the biggest diplomatic response since the end of the cold war. The Prime Minister, then Foreign Secretary, got more diplomatic responses than have been seen in decades. The Prime Minister has many achievements of which he should be proud. His successor will have a strong foundation to build on, thanks to the decisions that he has taken over the past three years.

Mims Davies (Mid Sussex) (Con)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mike Wood

I really should not.

It is for that reason, and many others, that the House should continue to have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

July 20, 2022
Ed Davey – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

Like so many of the British people, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have absolutely no confidence in this whole Conservative Government. This Government have plunged our great country into three serious crises: the cost of living crisis, the healthcare crisis and a political crisis. Before the Prime Minister was forced to resign, there was absolutely no plan to tackle any of these crises, and now the candidates to succeed the Prime Minister are proving comprehensively that they have no idea of the scale of these crises, let alone how to tackle them.

I mention the scale of these crises because it is shockingly evident that the Conservative party is totally out of touch with the financial and healthcare catastrophes facing millions of British families and pensioners later this year. Let us start with the cost of living. Already families and pensioners are struggling to pay their soaring energy, petrol and food bills, and inflation is accelerating away. Energy bills alone were up £700 in April, with an even bigger rise coming in October. So many of our constituents are already asking how they are supposed to pay next month’s bills, and their fear about winter’s heating bills is understandably growing every day. Millions of people are facing a financial catastrophe over the next few months, yet the Conservative party seems blissfully ignorant.

In the so-called debates between the leadership candidates, there is this massive elephant in the room, the energy bill catastrophe, yet they have no serious answer to that. The Liberal Democrats have showed what could be done. For months, we have been calling for an emergency cut in VAT, which would save families £600 a year. Instead, this Government have chosen to raise taxes, to raise national insurance, to freeze income tax thresholds and to hit hard-working families, making the crisis worse, not better.

Then there is the healthcare crisis. Health crises used to occur for a few weeks every winter, but not with this Conservative Government. This Prime Minister has brought healthcare crises for winter, autumn, summer and spring. Just look at the stats: a record 6.5 million people on hospital waiting lists, cancer treatment targets missed by miles, and record long delays in ambulance response times. This Government have ignored the ambulance crisis, hoping it goes away: they have failed to employ the GPs, the NHS dentists and the care staff that the British people need and deserve. Now, leadership candidates argue about how much to slash the NHS budget, which brings me to the political crisis.

It would be easy to blame all the political crisis on the Prime Minister, and he must certainly take a large part of blame—he has debased the high office of the British Prime Minister and he has shattered the public’s trust in our politics—but he did not act alone. For three years, Conservative Members have backed him to the hilt. When he was at the Dispatch Box telling us that there were no parties at No. 10, or claiming that crime had gone down when it had gone up, they were all there behind him, nodding along with every word of it. Conservative MPs defended the indefensible and excused the inexcusable. It is not just the Prime Minister we have no confidence in; it is all of them.

The people of Chesham and Amersham showed that they have no confidence in the Government when they elected my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) last year. The people of North Shropshire showed that they have no confidence in this Government in December, when they voted for another of my hon. Friends, the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). The people of Devon showed they have no confidence in these Conservatives just last month, when they so wisely elected my hon. Friend the new Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord).

We think it is time we gave everyone across the country the chance to have their say and to end this shameful, shambolic Conservative Government through a general election. When Conservative Members decide how to vote today, I urge them to ask themselves these questions. Do they really have confidence in a Government who have raised taxes by more than £1,000 per family in the middle of a cost of living crisis? Do they really have confidence in a Prime Minister who was fined by the police for breaking his own law, who forgot about serious allegations against his Deputy Chief Whip, and who is now under investigation for contempt by a Committee of this House? Do they really have confidence in a Government who are running our NHS into the ground and taking local communities for granted? I believe that the British people have lost confidence in all of them, and if the Conservatives have any decency left, they will back this motion tonight.

July 20, 2022
Bill Wiggin – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Bill Wiggin, the Conservative MP for North Herefordshire, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

I think I can be very confident in predicting that we shall never again hear a Prime Minister describe their phenomenal electoral victory as putting a blue ferret up the trouser leg of the Opposition.

Since this Government entered office in 2019 on the back of the Prime Minister’s historic election victory, the world has been turned on its head. Let us not lose sight of what has been thrown at the Government since March 2020. We have lived through a once-in-a-century pandemic, the first major war in Europe for a generation, and worldwide economic turbulence. Yet at every turn, this Government and the Prime Minister have put their back to the wheel and gone to work for the British public. Of course, by their own admission, mistakes have been made. At every opportunity, the Prime Minister has shown contrition and a desire to get on with a Conservative agenda. However, the mud-slinging and the relentless nature of politics and the media eventually take their toll on even the steeliest character.

The Labour party and some in the media are glad to see the Prime Minister go, as we are losing a political communicator and leader of historic proportions. At the 1997 general election, I stood for Burnley. While I believe I did as good a job as possible in restricting the Labour candidate to a majority of a mere 17,062, I never thought that Burnley would be a Conservative seat. Nevertheless, 22 years later and thanks to this Prime Minister’s leadership, I am proud to see that Burnley has its first Conservative Member of Parliament since 1910—and a very good one at that. The British public put their overwhelming faith in our Prime Minister and his Government to get Brexit done. Finally, we have escaped the grasp of the European Union’s clutches and we have our freedom. Because this Government made the right calls at the right time during the pandemic, we are learning to live with covid. Over 39 million people have received a booster jab across the UK. We had the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe and were the first to unlock and begin our recovery.

On a smaller, no less important scale, some years ago I brought forward a private Member’s Bill to allow motorcycles to use bus lanes. The evidence showed that when motorcyclists were in bus lanes, pedestrians were considerably more careful, and as a result people were no longer hurt or seriously injured. During his tenure as Mayor of London, my right hon. Friend heeded my call and he made it happen, and as a result in London motorcyclists are allowed in bus lanes.

Karl Turner

We know that when he was Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister managed to slip his security detail; we do not know why and there were no officials there. Does the hon. Gentleman have any concerns about what meetings the Prime Minister may have had as Prime Minister without officials or security detail?

Sir Bill Wiggin

I genuinely have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is talking about, probably not for the first time, so I am not going to speculate. I am sure he would agree that motorcycling remains one of the best ways to travel around the capital.

Jim Shannon rose—

Sir Bill Wiggin

I will give way, but that will be it.

Jim Shannon

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he not agree that like most of us here, the Government are not perfect? None of us is, and certainly not me. This motion appears to be a genuine attempt to change that approach. While it is not my form, I remind hon. and right hon. Members that kindness and respect in this place is the responsibility of every individual Member. This debate must have that underlying principle at its very core.

Sir Bill Wiggin

I agree that none of us is perfect—if we were, this would be a very dangerous game to be in, because there would be very quickly someone pointing out that we are not. It is helpful for our constituents to understand that it is absolutely right for the Opposition to be able to call a confidence vote in the Government at any time. If they made a mistake last week and therefore we are having it today, like all of us they are fallible too, and we should be very clear that that right is being defended. The hon. Gentleman is right to insist that kindness and respect are fundamental for this job—after all, it is hard enough anyway.

Another aspect of this Government and its leader that cannot be overshadowed is the reach and the likeability. My right hon. Friend remains one of the rare politicians who is on first-name terms with the public; this reflects a rapport with the public that is frankly astonishing, given the extent of smears from all corners of society. Many will never get their head around the fact that the Prime Minister remains immensely popular across the country. He loves his children, he is caring and he is loyal. My in-laws would agree, because he was their MP in Henley. Despite all the horrible things said about him, he is never rude back. Many people would not have been able to handle the vitriol he has experienced over the past few years, but that is a testament to his character. It is a great shame he is going, when he has done so much for the free people of Ukraine. I hope we will all try to live up to that example of protecting freedom, which is so crucial, and that is why I am proud to have supported him. He is right to leave with his head held high.

July 20, 2022
Margaret Hodge – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP for Barking, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is right that these confidence motions can descend into pointless political attacks, but the reality is that this Government and this Prime Minister, and what they have done, make us oppose today’s motion, which is fundamental for anybody who wants to uphold democracy, defend integrity and restore trust.

It is not just about partygate, dreadful though that was, nor the failed attempt to defend the indefensible behaviour of Owen Paterson, nor the abhorrent culture of tolerating bullying and sexual harassment from political allies; these contribute to a loss of confidence, but they do not stand alone. There is also the endless list of incompetence and waste—taxpayers’ money being tossed around like confetti, with £16 billion fraudulently squandered on covid business support. There are the shameful failures in ambulance waiting times, 6 million citizens waiting for hospital treatment, people unable to travel because of the crippling delays at the Passport Office, and a stream of rail strikes and chaos at the airports.

All that is unforgivable, but it is the creeping culture of corruption and the determination to close down those whose job it is to keep a check on Executive power that makes this Government unfit for office. There is a growing body of evidence of corruption: dodgy Russian money funding MPs and the Tory party; an explosion in illicit finance, with Londongrad now the international capital for dirty money; peerages for pals like Cruddas and Lebedev; jobs for mates, from those like James Wharton to people from the Prime Minister’s City Hall days; and contracts for cronies, with only £0.2 billion of the £17.3 billion in contracts for PPE subject to open competition. This is not the Prime Minister’s money and not the Conservatives’ money. It is our money—taxpayers’ money, earned through hard work—and we expect it to be honestly and efficiently spent.

This Government have no moral compass. Look at their reaction when criticised by institutions that provide a check on their power. When the courts found that the Government had illegally prorogued Parliament, the Government looked to limit judicial review. When international laws prove inconvenient, they break or ignore them. Parliament’s role in holding Government to account has been eroded, with Ministers refusing to appear at Select Committees, the Prime Minister interfering in parliamentary elections, and legislation being rushed through with scant scrutiny. The independence of the civil service has been undermined, with permanent secretaries sacked for speaking truth to power and Ministers appointing their cronies as non-executive directors. Those in the press who dare to criticise the Government get sidelined. The Government tried to keep sections of the press out of No. 10 briefings. Their answer to criticism from Channel 4 is to privatise it, while the BBC’s reward for unbiased public service broadcasting is the licence fee slashed. A free press, a strong Parliament, an independent judiciary and an impartial civil service are essential to a healthy democracy. This Government have undermined these institutions, and it is shameful. This debate is essential to call a halt to the dangerous Trumpian assault on everything we value in our British democracy.

This should not be about Conservatives against Labour. Every MP needs to ask themselves, “Can I have confidence in a Government who mislead with impunity, abuse office to reward friends with jobs and lucrative contracts, put self-interest above the national interest, allow their party to accept cash for access, influence and honours, and whose members indulge in egregious lobbying or sex, bullying and sleaze scandals?” Can any hon. or right hon. Member in good conscience walk through the Lobby and declare their confidence after the litany of bad behaviours that have marked this Government’s time in office? The answer must be no.

July 20, 2022
Edward Leigh – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP for Gainsborough, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

The motion before us on the Order Paper is about confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. Since we face this cost of living crisis, war in Europe and all the other challenges, I was rather hoping when I arrived here that we might have a serious debate about how to deal with those issues. Instead, I heard a speech from the Leader of the Opposition that, in terms of vituperation, insult and sheer nastiness, was like nothing I have ever heard before, certainly about a Prime Minister who will be leaving office in a very few weeks.

Where is any sense of kindness or magnanimity? Why do we need to throw these insults around and claim—

Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Edward Leigh

I am going to proceed, if I may. Why do we need to claim that this is the worst sort of mass murderer and criminal in political history? It is complete rubbish. The fact is that when this Prime Minister took power, Parliament’s reputation was in tatters.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Edward Leigh

No.

Virtually everybody in this Chamber had voted to have a referendum, yet many Members were doing their level best to frustrate it. Had we not had this Prime Minister, and had we not delivered Brexit, I believe we would have had a meltdown in political trust. He got Brexit done, though I agree that personally I would have liked to have done a lot more with it, and we will do, given time. That is the first issue, and that is why the Prime Minister was given a majority of 80.

The second issue is the pandemic. We have had all these insults against a Prime Minister who was working on our behalf and nearly died in office. It is a disgraceful attack. He was working flat out to save lives. Our record on the pandemic is frankly second to none. Again and again the Opposition tried to force us into more and more severe lockdowns, but this Prime Minister, with his vaccine roll-out, got us out of that mess, and thousands of people are now alive because of him.

Speaking for myself, I wholly regret the departure of this Prime Minister and I remain completely loyal to him to the very end, as I remained loyal to Mrs Thatcher. I think we will ask ourselves, “What have we done? What have we done to a man who gave us this 80-seat majority?”

The third point is that, but for this Prime Minister—the first western leader to arm Ukraine—Kyiv would now be in the hands of the Russians. We led Europe and the world in saving that country. That is the record of this Prime Minister, and I am proud as a Back Bencher to have given him all the loyalty I possibly could, as I will give loyalty to the next leader.

Of course there are challenges. Anybody would think that we lived in a vacuum—that despite the fact that we had the pandemic and the fact that we have a war in Europe, somehow the Government are to blame for all our ills. That is complete rubbish. When the next leader of the Conservative party—the next Prime Minister—comes into office, within weeks the Labour party will be calling for another general election, as we have already heard from the Leader of the Opposition. They will say, “This new Prime Minister is unelected, or elected by a fairly small number of people.” They never said that about the previous Prime Minister, because he was elected by the people with an 80-seat majority.

The problems are not going to go away .We all know that if the Labour party had been in power, the outcomes of the pandemic may not have been a great deal different. We do not know what will happen with Ukraine or with the economy, but the Conservative party, as the Prime Minister explained, is turbocharged because we believe in the power of the free economy, in freedom and in low taxation, although of course we cannot deliver that now. I say to my friends who are competing for the leadership: be responsible. I know it is popular to call for tax cuts now, but we have record levels of borrowing, and we do not solve the problem by borrowing more and more. It is said that we can put the covid expense in a particular box and forget about it for 50 years, and it does not matter, but we all know in our private life that we cannot say to NatWest, “I’ve got this debt on my car—I want to put it in a different box and I won’t have to pay for 50 years.” Debt is debt.

The Conservative party’s reputation is built on economic competence. We have to be careful with the economy. I personally was very unhappy about the rise in national insurance contributions. I am not in favour of tax rises. I believe that the reputation of a Conservative Government depends on low tax. We want to cut tax, but I say to the leadership contenders that we must be responsible.

In conclusion—[Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] I am only trying to give a speech loyal to my party, which is surely no bad thing, and to the present leader of my party.

Shaun Bailey rose—

Sir Edward Leigh

No, I had better stop now, because they have had enough of me. Ultimately, the secret weapon of the Tory party is loyalty.

July 20, 2022
Ian Blackford – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

The speech made by Ian Blackford, the SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

I see that the Prime Minister is leaving the Chamber. In this particular case, Prime Minister, leave means leave.

We all know that the Government have spent the past week trying to delay, reword, and, ultimately, avoid this debate, but, as is the way these days, the herd has moved. Today, we finally have a chance to cast our verdict on a failed Prime Minister and a Conservative party that is collapsing before our very eyes. I know the Government want to use this debate as some kind of dignified—although I have not seen any dignity from the Prime Minister this afternoon—obituary for the political legacy of the leader that they buried last week. If the Government are determined to debate the legacy of the Prime Minister, let us allow ourselves the opportunity to be that one thing that he singularly failed to be: let us be very, very honest.

Let us reflect on a man who should never have been put in office in the first place—a man who simply should not be here for a minute longer, because he has demonstrated no dignity in office in the highest office in the land, and he has shown no dignity today in departing. Every single Member of this House needs to ask themselves a very simple question: why on earth does the Prime Minister deserve the dignity of a long goodbye and a seven-week chance to rewrite his own legacy? Apparently, the one and only reason being offered up by Tory MPs to justify keeping him in place is that that is the precedent—that is the way that it works down here. It is the Westminster way. But those citing any kind of precedent have clearly forgotten the exact reason we have been brought to this point, which is that the behaviour of this Prime Minister has no precedent.

Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)

I am relieved that we can hear the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, and that we no longer have the Prime Minister bawling at those who are speaking as he leaves the Chamber. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what we want over this period of change is dignity? We want dignity in the House and dignity in the country, and we did not see that from the Prime Minister in his behaviour on the Front Bench today.

Mr Speaker

Order. I think I make that decision, and I do not need any recommendations. The behaviour on both sides has not been exceptional today. Come on, Ian.

Ian Blackford

Thank you, Mr Speaker, although I have to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. This is important. These are matters that are of interest to the public, and we need to treat each other with a degree of respect and dignity.

Let us come back to the Prime Minister. He broke his own laws in office and he broke international law, but the thing that ultimately brought him down was the fact that he could never, ever be trusted with the truth. That is the record, and that is now the Prime Minister’s legacy. He should not be allowed any room to rewrite that record and that legacy—even for seven weeks. It has not escaped anyone’s notice that this Prime Minister has lived his life thinking that the world owes him a living. He has not had the grace to stay today to hear the opening speeches in this debate. That tells us everything that we need to know.

Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)

The right hon. Member is making an excellent speech. The Prime Minister today spoke for 30 minutes, and not once in what could be his last speech did he make reference to the real fact that because of the political decisions that he has made, children are living in poverty, working families are using food banks and our communities have been devastated. Does the right hon. Member agree that, in his last speech, the Prime Minister should at least have had the dignity to apologise to the children in our country?

Ian Blackford

I agree with the hon. Member, and I commend him for the passion that he brings to this topic. The fact that so many people in this country are struggling, and that so many people will be struggling over the cost of living crisis, should concern us all.

Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)

Will the right hon. Member give way on that point?

Ian Blackford

I will give way one more time.

Jamie Stone

I do thank the right hon. Member for giving way. We talk about food banks and we talk about poverty, but it is a fact that many households—the Prime Minister referred to them as some of the poorest in the land—including those in my constituency, have no alternative but to use fuel oil, because they are off grid. When I asked the Minister of State for Energy in March whether a cap could be placed on the price, he said no, because there had been some survey in 2011. Today is a very hot day, but winter is coming and it will be cold. May I suggest to the right hon. Member that it is the mark of a civilised and caring Government that these people are helped and that a price cap is put on the cost of fuel oil—domestic heating oil?

Ian Blackford

I agree with the hon. Member. We both represent highland constituencies. They are beautiful constituencies, but they are constituencies where the rain falls on a regular basis and the wind howls through the windows and the walls of the houses. Indeed there should be equity and fairness for everyone, regardless of where they live. We talk about the heatwave that people are suffering from today in many parts of the United Kingdom, but when I looked at the weather in my own constituency in the Isle of Skye this morning, the temperature was 14°C. People in parts of Scotland will still have their heating on. The fact is that people are being penalised and not being looked after as they should be, for the very simple reason that they have to rely on off-grid heating oil.

Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Ian Blackford

I will give way one last time, and then I must make progress.

Sir Robert Goodwill

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that the Chancellor provided assistance on electricity bills and not gas bills because people may use fuel oil or other types of fuel, but almost everyone in the country is on the electricity grid.

Ian Blackford

My goodness! The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have respect for him, but there for all to see is the lack of compassion, decency, humanity or recognition that people in highland constituencies are not getting the benefits that other people are getting. That is what happens with this Conservative Government.

Let us come back to the Prime Minister and his sense of entitlement—that he deserved to be Prime Minister, that he deserved to be above the rules and that he deserves the dignity of staying in office over the summer. But this place and the public owe him nothing. Only this weekend, he again showed why he is unfit for office by skipping Cobra meetings to do his favourite thing: attend yet another party. Another party! That is one thing that we might have thought he would learn. After being caught breaking his own laws and being fined by the Metropolitan police—the only Prime Minister in history to be fined in office—he turns his back on his obligations at a time of emergency over the effect of global warming, and he attends parties. That tells us everything that we need to know about the priorities of this Prime Minister. People have suffered enough under this most careless, casual and reckless inhabitant ever to have been entrusted with the office of Prime Minister. He does not deserve another day, never mind another seven weeks.

As well as casting verdict on the Prime Minister, today is also the chance to hold to account those who propped up his Government for so long. With every new candidate and every new campaign video for the Tory leadership, we are bombarded with talk of fresh starts and of hitting the reset button. I hate to break it to those candidates, but it is not lost on any of us that most of that talk is coming from the same people who backed this Prime Minister from day one and sat around his Cabinet table until the very end. Try as they might, they cannot hide the uncomfortable truth that they want us all to magically forget—that their party has been in power for 12 deeply damaging years. Fresh starts, new starts or clean starts simply do not exist after 12 years of the chaos that now defines their time in charge, and definitely not when they have already failed to get rid of the Prime Minister they put in power.

The herd might have moved last week, but it has very quickly fallen back in line and reverted to Tory type, as we have seen this afternoon. The Tories have stayed with this Prime Minister until the bitterest of ends, and today proves that they are staying with him still. Their failure to get rid of him means that we now finally need get rid of the lot of them, because today proves another thing: the only fresh start that will work is a general election—an election that will offer the Scottish people the chance and the choice of an independent future. On these Benches, we relish that campaign and the choice that is coming.

The need to put an end to this Tory Government is underlined by the terrifying spectacle of the leadership race under way throughout this building. No sooner had the race begun than it became clear that it was not just a race to get into Downing Street; it was a race to the toxic right. The policy proposals so far have amounted to tax cuts for the rich at the same time as millions of families are struggling to put food on the table, to watering down our climate targets when we can literally feel temperatures soaring, particularly in this place, and to doubling down on the hostile environment when the Rwanda policy has already gone beyond the point of morality.

The new Tory vision of these candidates is every bit as disturbing as the old one. While they are tearing lumps out of each other in this contest, they are ignoring the very thing that they are all responsible for: the Tory cost of living crisis ripping through every household on these islands. The contest has also exposed that they are completely out of credibility. Never again can those on the Conservative Benches claim economic literacy. During this leadership campaign, the Tory candidates have not just discovered a magic money tree; they have apparently found a magic money forest. The billions in tax breaks for the rich that they are bidding over always come at a price for the poor.

One of the most telling insights of the contest came from the current Chancellor, whose policy is to cut 20% from all public spending. That means 20% cuts to the NHS, to welfare and to our Scottish Parliament. The Tories imposed one decade of devastating austerity, and now it seems the new Tory vision is gearing up to inflict another. If ever there was a reason to vote no confidence today, surely that is it.

Of course, we on the SNP Benches are now well used to our country’s constitutional future being discussed and dictated by Tory politicians and Governments, who Scotland has not voted for or had any confidence in since 1955. The last number of weeks have been no different. It turns out that democracy denial was not just an attitude of the Prime Minister; it is now official Tory policy. The idea of a voluntary union of nations was clearly dead and buried long ago according to the Tory party, because every single candidate for the Tory leadership has fallen over themselves to tell us just how they are going to deny Scottish democracy—and we know why. They have long since run out of ideas and run of road in defending the Union, so now they are running scared of democracy.

I am genuinely sorry to say that the Labour party has now joined in that too. In the space of the last week, the leader of Labour party told us he was ruling out two things. The first was an independence referendum that—let us not forget—the Scottish people have voted for. The second was a return to the European single market and freedom of movement. He did not rule that out for now; he ruled it out forever. So not only will this place and these parties try to deny our right to a democratic vote on our future, but they will forever deny our return to the European Union.

If ever there were two motivating arguments to secure our independence, surely there they are. If that is really the Better Together strategy, it is in worse trouble than I even thought. The crucial point that those reunited Better Together parties need to understand fully is this: not only does Scotland have no confidence in this Tory Government, we have no confidence in Westminster control over our country. The parties here might not like it, they might try to deny it, but that is democracy—and them’s the breaks.

We want a different future—a future where we get Governments we vote for, where our democratically elected Parliament cannot be overridden and undermined, and where we have a secure foundation on which to build the economic and social future that we want. We want a new Scotland at the heart of the European Union. That is the future we can have confidence in. We have lost control in this place; we have lost confidence in Westminster.

July 20, 2022