The comments made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, on 1 November 2022.
This Islamophobia Awareness Month, Labour stands together against hatred. British Muslims are victims of the highest proportion of religiously motivated hate crime. The soft-on-crime Tories have broken their promises. They’ve failed to tackle its rise on their watch. #IAM2022
The comments made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, on Twitter on 20 October 2022.
Britain now faces a clear and unavoidable choice – stability and strong Government with Labour, or yet more chaos with the Tories.
The closing speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, on 28 September 2022.
Thank you, Conference, and thank you Svetlana.
The sacrifice you have made for your country sets an example to us all.
A woman, a mother who has led a movement, not for personal ambition but to free her country and her people.
The Labour Party stands with you, and a Labour government will too.
Conference, it’s a great honour to make the closing speech before our traditional anthems.
To close the week just as John Prescott did back in the day.
Although I look better in a dress.
I hope to do him proud.
I love the traditions of our movement.
From Durham Miners’ Gala to the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival.
But there is one part of our history that I will never celebrate – losing elections.
Think how it will feel meeting here in this hall in a few years’ time after a term of a Labour government.
Back in power.
Now, this is the Labour Party.
I’ve no doubt we’ll also be discussing how much further we’d like to go.
Once we’ve debated the CAC report for twenty minutes, of course.
But when the Tories deliver 1% of what they promised, they talk endlessly about that 1% and we never hear about the list of broken promises.
When we deliver 99% of what we promised, we talk endlessly about the 1% we didn’t instead.
Just think about the historic Labour Governments and their legacy.
They didn’t please all of our movement all of the time, including me.
But those Labour Governments made history.
The NHS.
Social security.
The welfare state.
Council housing.
Modern higher education.
The Open University.
Decriminalising homosexuality.
Outlawing racial discrimination.
Introducing equal pay.
The National Minimum Wage.
Sure Start.
The Good Friday Agreement.
Civil Partnerships.
The Equality Act.
The Human Rights Act.
The world’s first Climate Change Act.
Conference, if we’re not proud of ourselves, don’t expect anyone else to do it for us.
And just think what that future Party Conference could have to celebrate.
We’ve shown this week how different we’ll be.
Not just in our vision but with our plan for Britain.
Starting with the biggest challenge facing not just our country but the world.
We will tackle the climate crisis head on.
We will protect our people and our planet.
And we will pull out all the stops to build a fairer and greener Britain.
As Keir set out yesterday through our Green Prosperity Plan.
We will unleash a green industrial revolution.
By reaching 100 per cent clean power by 2030, we will save £93 billion off energy bills.
And through Great British Energy we will give British power right back to British people.
I said on Sunday that a moment of choice is upon us.
A moment to show the country that we are ready to govern.
Well, Conference, I know I’m a bit biased, but, boy, do I think that we’ve shown that.
It isn’t just that we have better policies, although we do.
It isn’t just that we will be a more competent government, although we will.
No, it is that our values differ fundamentally.
And our policies are not better despite our values but because of them.
Labour values.
The country’s values too.
Yet too often when it comes to elections, people feel they have a choice of heart versus head.
Values or competence.
I say to those watching at home – this week we have shown it’s a choice you will never have to make again.
And this past week, the Tories have shown it too.
The Conservative Party are no longer pretending to be competent and stable.
Today’s Tories will plunge us into chaos in pursuit of their dogma.
Divide the country to rule it and regards rules as for you, and not for them.
Tough on crime?
They brought crime to Number 10
Defenders of the free market?
The market’s in free fall.
England’s green and pleasant land?
Frack it.
From the party of stability to causing earthquakes.
From the party of business, to a slap down from the IMF.
From the party of serious government to the party of parties.
Liz Truss has even crashed the pork market.
Now…that. Is. A. Disgrace.
You’d think that snouts in the trough was the one thing they could manage.
When interest rates were low and borrowing was cheap, they sacrificed public services for austerity.
Now they’re borrowing just as interest rates are soaring.
To think this was the party that claimed they were for sound money.
That’s WHAT one high-flying new Tory MP certainly thought in 2012.
He wrote a pamphlet demanding a balanced budget every year.
He said “Fiscal prudence is the very least we should expect from a Chancellor.”
And if they failed, they should face a 20% pay cut.
That Tory MP must be absolutely furious with the new Tory Chancellor, except he is the new Tory Chancellor.
I’ve got a funny feeling he won’t be taking that pay cut either.
Pay cuts are for other people.
He won’t even let the budget watchdog tell him just how much of our money he’s handing over to the super rich.
They used to say the Tories knew the value of nothing but the cost of everything.
Now they don’t even know that.
The next election won’t be a choice between a strong economy or a fair society.
We don’t have to choose one or the other.
Because you can’t have one without the other.
An unequal economy is an inefficient one.
It’s perhaps the starkest difference between us and the Tories.
Never again can we let them pretend they are the patriotic party.
I love my country.
That’s why I want so much better for it.
But the Tories now think our biggest economic problem, is you.
The working people of Britain.
And while they think you are our country’s greatest weakness, we know that you are our greatest strength.
It’s why Rachel and I will make the minimum wage, a real living wage.
Because we are not just the party of higher growth but of higher wages.
We know what the Tories think.
The new Prime Minister and her Chancellor have said it out loud.
The problem is that British workers are idlers not grafters.
The irony.
From this lot!!
Liz Truss said she doesn’t like hand-outs.
Then handed £150 billion to the energy giants.
They believe in hand-outs alright.
It’s the same with her other top priority – unlimited bankers’ bonuses.
It’s the same old ideology.
You incentivise the richest by giving them more money.
You incentivise the rest of us by taking it away.
Conference, it hasn’t worked before and it won’t wash now.
I know they’d rather forget it, but we’re now twelve years into Tory government.
Even if we are on our fourth Prime Minister.
Where are they now?
David Cameron.
The privatised Prime Minister, sold to Green-sill.
What was his greatest achievement?
Fooling the Lib Dems?
Not exactly a high bar.
If you just care about power for powers’ sake and have no principles, no policies and no plan, you end up with a pointless premiership.
Remembered only as a pub quiz answer.
Then we had Theresa May.
I remember her telling us that if you were a citizen of the world, you were a citizen of nowhere.
If only we’d known about their green cards and tax loopholes.
Their politicians are becoming like their donors – residents of everywhere, taxpayers of nowhere.
Then there’s Boris Johnson.
I do owe him one apology.
I said he couldn’t organise a booze up in a brewery.
Turns out he could organise a booze up pretty much anywhere.
Just a shame he couldn’t organise anything else.
We’re a party with a serious plan.
He had a plan for a serious party.
I’ll miss one thing though.
As inflation ran out of control, at least his jokes were one thing that got cheaper every week.
But the real problem wasn’t that his jokes were so cheap.
It was that his mistakes were so expensive.
He ended his time claiming he was forced from office by the ‘deep state’.
The only deep state that forced him from office was the one he left our country in.
Sorry Conference, I had to use all my Boris lines now, while we still remember who he is.
Before he becomes a footnote of failure in the history books.
Or at least that’s what the new Prime Minister must be hoping for.
Because I think he’ll be sat on the backbenches plotting his come back, with a glint in his eye, thinking I wasn’t so bad after all…was I!
And what a sorry state of affairs that is.
What does Liz Truss have to say after a decade in government?
Apparently they were wrong all along.
She’s now asking for seven years to fix it.
Yet offering us even more of the ideology that caused the problems in the first place.
She doesn’t just think that we’re lazy.
She must think we’re stupid as well.
And that brings me to this new government.
Openly chosen for loyalty not ability.
A ministry of all the talent-LESS.
Frankly when I looked at the benches opposite last week, I thought the clowns had escaped the circus.
Not so much a flying circus as a lying circus.
My new opposite number.
Her first act was to get to grips with the real crisis in our NHS.
The spread of a new and dangerous contagion.
Not the Omicron variant.
The Oxford comma.
That’s a comma before the word ‘and’, in case you were wondering.
Something like this sentence.
GPs are overwhelmed, ambulances not turning up, beds are full, waiting times are rocketing, the NHS is starved of investment and, it’s all the fault of Tory decisions.
It will take a Labour government to put that right.
So, here’s another sentence that Therese Coffey won’t like.
A Labour government will double the number of district nurses, train 5,000 new health visitors, create 10,000 nursing placements, double the number of medical students, and we will pay for it by reversing your handout to the wealthiest few.
I like every dot and comma of that policy, Conference.
And what a contrast to the government you’ve seen this week, Conference.
Yesterday the country saw the Keir that I know and see every day.
Announcing 100 per cent clean power by 2030, driven by a British energy company owned by the British people for the British people.
He showed the real leadership this country needs.
And on Monday Rachel showed how Labour would govern with competence, class and care.
With her as the UK’s first-ever female Chancellor, setting out our National Wealth Fund to give the British public a share of the wealth they create.
And a genuine living wage that matches the cost of living.
And I thank my own front bench team – Fleur, Rachel, Justin, Imran and Flo – for all that they do.
We have set out our five-point National Procurement Plan to tackle waste, sleaze, and lies.
And unleash the power of public spending.
Our Fair Work Standard to raise working conditions across the economy.
Alongside our New Deal for Working People.
And we haven’t stopped there.
Our whole Shadow Cabinet has shown we are a team with a plan.
70% home ownership, our renters’ charter and a clamp down on buy-to-let.
Council housing, council housing, council housing.
The Hillsborough Law, a domestic abuse register and a new football regulator.
Sewage sanctions, Job Centre reform and a transformational industrial strategy.
Insulation, innovation, inspiration,
All in one.
13,000 more police officers to keep our communities safe.
New Navy ships built by unionised workers in British shipyards.
Closing the tax break for private schools, to fund education for all.
Free school breakfasts for children.
New bus services in public hands.
And as contracts expire, restoring public ownership of the railways.
Conference, our Shadow Cabinet has shown what a Labour Government will be radical, responsible, realistic.
But delivering this message would be impossible without all of you.
Our brilliant activists who campaign through rain and wind.
And that’s just outside this building.
If you ever needed proof that on shore wind can deliver!
I have too many people to thank but I want to mention our brilliant chair, Alice Perry standing down from the NEC.
And Diana Holland who is stepping down as Party Treasurer after 12 years.
We all have a debt of gratitude to you.
Finally, thank you Liverpool for hosting our Conference.
While the Tories dare not show their face here – you’ve shown us the warmth and pride that defines this city.
Conference, this week we have shown how together we will transform this country.
And the depth of talent across our party.
And we have come together to honour our history as only Labour can.
Be in no doubt, the times ahead are going to be tough,
Now, let’s rise to the moment and deliver for the working people of Britain.
Let’s build a Fairer, Greener Future,
With a Labour Government in power once again.
The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, on 25 September 2022.
Conference, it is a pleasure to speak to you today as your Deputy Leader and to be back in Liverpool, together again. After all our country has endured, all those we lost during the pandemic and at a time of national mourning.
The Late Queen stood for unity in the darkest of times and public duty above all else. This is her legacy. For many, this time has been a painful reminder of losing a loved one – as too many of us did during the pandemic. For others, it’s a moment to reflect. For me – I think about a lifetime of public service, and the legacy we all leave.
Our duty to the next generation to shape a future that is brighter than the past. That is our task this week – to set out the future that should face our children. Because I see too much lost potential. Britain deserves better – and I know we can do better.
Just look at this government’s record since we last gathered in Liverpool just four years ago:
Three different leaders, a catalogue of sleaze, waste and lies, Cummings, Paterson and Pincher backed to the hilt.
Chris Grayling. Grant Shapps. And too much Matt Hancock. Far too much Matt Hancock.
Green Cards and Non-Doms, treehouses and even Tractor Porn.
Breaking the law – in a specific and limited way.
Queues at the airports. Chaos at the borders.
Mountains of PPE unfit for use. Billions in fraud written off.
Sewage in the rivers. A Prime Minister hiding in a fridge.
Three sleaze watchdogs out in the cold.
The Barnard Castle eye test.
The Downing Street crime scene.
Broken swings, wine stains, sick on the walls.
126 fines – more than anywhere else in the UK.
Rules made. Rules Broken.
Partygate. Wallpapergate. Too many gates. Too little, too late mate.
And now a Prime Minister who says people don’t work hard enough. Well, enough is enough.
Just as our country was desperate for change in 1997, we need change now. Because Britain is at a crossroads. A moment of decision. About what future we want. About what we can collectively achieve. About who we can be.
And at this moment, what do the Conservatives offer? Lining the pockets of oil and gas executives. Enriching bankers while families are starving. Attacks on our most basic rights. Be in no doubt – they are coming after the most basic things we expect. Decent work, fair pay. The foundations of a family life.
Conference, so long as I have a breath left in my body I will defend those rights. Including the right to strike. And when in power we will repeal all the anti-worker and anti- trade union laws this Conservative Government has enacted. All of it.
The Tories are not on the side of the working people in Britain today. Liz Truss has already made that clearer than it’s ever been. She’s chosen to stand for vested interests. For the oil companies and bankers. For those profiting from this crisis not suffering from it. And it is working families who bear the brunt.
When I was a young mum, I remember the sick feeling in my stomach. All it takes is one break, one accident, one mishap and you can’t get by. If your kids have holes in their shoes, their feet get wet on the way to school. If your fridge breaks, you can’t feed your family. That is not a vision of a modern Britain. It is the result of years of Tory decision. Families up and down the country this winter – many for the first time in their lives – are now living on the edge.
And it’s not just families that are suffering. Years of under investment have shattered the resilience of British businesses. I think of the small business owners, like Pauline in my constituency of Ashton who runs the local pub that doubles as a foodbank and a community support centre. During the pandemic, Pauline had to close her doors – another small business left out in the cold by this government. And now she is sick with worry as she watches her energy bills skyrocket, fearing closure yet again.
Local pubs and businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. But at every twist and turn, the Government poured money into the pockets of cronies, leaving people like Pauline high and dry. They need a government on their side. Instead, they get Liz Truss. Levelling down Liz. Trickle down Liz.
And so, I ask Liz Truss today – whose side are you on? When you boost bankers’ bonuses but force working people to carry the can for the energy crisis, whose side are you on? Using a pandemic to pile billions into the bank accounts of cronies while nurses wore bin bags. Whose side are you on? When you say the working people of this country need more graft then deprive them of fair pay. Whose side are you on?
Conference, I’ll tell you who was on my side when I needed it. A Labour government was on my side when I had my first baby and had nowhere else to turn. A Labour government was on my side when I didn’t have a home – let alone enough money to heat it. A Labour government was on my side when I wanted to be a good mum to my kids and improve their lives. And I promise you now, that when I am Deputy Prime Minister a Labour government will be on your side.
I will make it my mission to spend every penny of public money for the good of the nation. Making Britain work for working people, investing in our local communities and talent and standing up for this country.
The moment of choice is upon us. Our moment. To show our country what we can do together.
The next Labour government will pump money back into the pockets of local communities. The people who built Britain. Consider this. A third of all government spending goes on procurement. More than the NHS. Double the education budget. Labour will unleash the power of procurement to drive up standards.
Today I am announcing our Value for Money Guarantee. Our pledge to ensure that every single penny of taxpayer’s money provides the best possible value to the public. We will turn the Tory procurement racket on its head – so it serves the national interest, not the vested interests.
Our five-point National Procurement Plan will start by rewarding businesses and enterprises who pay their taxes and their workers properly, creating opportunities for new jobs and skills, and helping our high streets thrive again. To unlock opportunity everywhere and reverse the tide of young people forced to leave their home towns. Hand in hand with Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan for green growth across Britain, we will partner with businesses to boost green growth.
Second, we will give small enterprise a level playing field at winning contracts. Where the Tories handed billions of pounds to their cronies with links to tax havens, we will ensure local businesses are no longer shunted to the back of the queue behind giant corporations with more form fillers than they have workers. We will cut red tape and streamline the bidding process, giving small businesses a genuine shot. It will no longer just be the giant corporations with the glossiest leaflet that wins. Everyone will get a fair chance. Those who put into the system and uphold good standards will be rewarded.
Now, the Tories had a VIP lane. Their donors, cronies, firms with Tory MPs on their books or anyone who could WhatsApp Matt Hancock. We will replace that approach entirely. The only fast track lane I will allow is for local businesses and enterprises who create wealth in all our communities and contribute to a fairer society. The VIPs under a Labour government will be all of you: the British public.
Thirdly, we will raise standards across the economy by clawing back the public’s money from those who fail to deliver for taxpayers and plough that money straight back into dynamic, ethical local enterprise. Quality and innovation – not failure – will be rewarded. By striking off failed providers we will help local business thrive.
Never again Conference, can we see a repeat of the scandal that has seen Tory Ministers write off £10 billion on unusable PPE they bought with our money. Defective. Substandard. Unfit for use. We’ll give the Tory sleaze merchants their marching orders. Instead, we will use the power of procurement to boost local businesses that work for Britain. With Labour, they will no longer be locked out of the system.
And fourthly, we will guarantee transparency about how taxpayers’ money is spent through a public dashboard of government contracts. Inspired by Ukraine’s anti-corruption blueprint. Even under attack from Russia they are honest about how they spend public money. What’s the Tories’ excuse? They were at it again this week, refusing to come clean to the British public and allow the spending watchdog to assess the true damage of the Tories’ discredited trickle-down approach. There will be no hiding place for cronies – and no corner for corruption. We will keep the receipts and publish them. And conference, we won’t stop there.
We will back the workers who are creating Britain’s wealth, demanding better for our people. Which brings me to outsourcing.
Conference, the Tories have become too dependent on handing away our public services on the cheap, and now we are paying the price. We will oversee the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation.
Today I can announce that before any service is contracted out, public bodies must show that work could not be better done in-house. And we’ll reinstate and strengthen the Two-Tier Code, created by the last Labour Government and scrapped by the Tories, to end the scandal of outsourced workers getting second class pay and conditions. But we will go further still. Building on our New Deal for Working People, I can today unveil Labour’s Fair Work Standard. Inspired by Labour in power across the country – in Wales, in London, West Yorkshire, the North of Tyne, Greater Manchester and here in Liverpool,
It will underpin a new Fair Work Code for the public sector, guaranteeing fair conditions, job security, wellbeing, proper training, rights at work, and union access. We will also create a Fair Work gold standard to champion the very best of employers. And a Labour government will be on the side of the self-employed too. We will give genuinely self-employed workers the right to a written contract and timely payment by law – so they aren’t left out of pocket and chasing invoices. Because our Fair Work Standard will raise standards for all.
Conference, I say all this to you because Labour doesn’t just have a vision for this country. We have a plan. We have a plan to grow a fairer, greener economy. We have a plan to rebuild trust in public office. And to clean up politics. We have a plan to unleash the potential the Tories have held back for far too long. And our plan for Britain means we’ll rise to the occasion – just as we did in 1997. Because the Conservatives have made their choice. They’ve chosen their side. But we are on yours. And are ready to lead this country to better.
A Labour Government to unite this country through the dark times ahead. A Labour Government to hand power back to the people and the places that once powered Britain. And a Labour Government that will always be on the side of working people.
The Tories have broken Britain – but together we’ll rebuild it again.
And make Britain work for working people once again.
The tribute made by Angela Rayner, the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.
I thank colleagues across the House for their moving words today. Like other Members, I have found the outpouring of affection for our Queen, both from our shores and across the world, deeply heartwarming. I hope the royal family find solace in that over the coming days and weeks.
I have always taken great inspiration from our Queen. She was a woman who found herself in a position of leadership at such a young age; a woman who threw herself into service as not just the most recognisable, but the most admired of global leaders; a woman who steered us through loved times of joy and times of darkness, and who always drew on her own experience and inner strength to help those who most needed it. I am in awe of the way she took on that unimaginable responsibility. She got on with the job, she never stopped, and she has set an example for us all.
One of the proudest moments of my life and for my family was when I was sworn into the Privy Council; these kinds of things do not happen to a girl like me. It was surreal to meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II herself via Zoom. She could put anyone at ease, adapting to the challenges, the circumstances and the change. Most of all, though, she was a loving grandmother. As a grandmother myself, I know and understand the complete love that she had for her family. Her children and her grandchildren were the centre of her life, and I know the whole House shares in both their pain and their pride. To us, she was our Queen, our national figurehead, and the greatest and longest serving monarch in British history. To them, she was also Granny. The loss of such a loving presence will be heartbreaking and my heart goes out to them.
Her Majesty the late Queen was a constant figure of strength, integrity and service throughout our lives. She was an inspiration to women across the world, with complete devotion to her duty, her family and her country. She set an example of leadership for women everywhere; the outpouring of condolences from leaders across the world is testament to that. More recently, we will never forget how she guided us through the despair and loneliness of the pandemic. Her values of public service and dignity never wavered.
It is appropriate today that I speak from the Back Benches, because our Queen was greatly loved and admired by the people of my constituency. She visited Greater Manchester many times and was always welcomed with love by the local community. She was last in Manchester a year ago to visit “Coronation Street”, where the cast greeted her at the Rovers Return pub to celebrate the show’s 60th anniversary. It is just three months since the streets of Ashton, Droylsden and Failsworth were decked with Union Jack flags as we came together to celebrate the platinum jubilee. Our local papers were proud and our local community was proud. She is now gone, but she will be forever missed and always in our hearts. May she rest in peace. God save the King.
The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in the House of Commons on 20 July 2022.
The events of the last few days have been incredibly traumatic for communities across Britain. Individuals and families have had their homes destroyed and, as the Minister said, lives have been lost. As the mother of teenagers, I reiterate that they must not swim in our rivers—it is too dangerous.
Farmers and businesses have seen their livelihoods go up in smoke. We saw horrifying images of the A2 on fire yesterday. I join the Minister in paying tribute to the incredible bravery of our fire services and those whose job it is to head straight into danger as the rest of us escape it. Sadly, four firefighters have been hospitalised in South Yorkshire and over a dozen have been injured in London. I know that the whole House will give them our gratitude and wish them well, but for too long our public servants have been underappreciated and undervalued by this Government. The Minister mentioned our fire services; over the last 10 years, the funding and staffing of fire and rescue services has been cut, and response times have gone up by 8%. Yesterday, no mutual aid was available to services facing literal firestorms.
Mr Speaker, this statement is far too late. The impact of this heatwave was completely predictable, so why the delay in coming to this House? It has literally taken the country going up in flames for the Minister to turn his focus to this emergency. Climate change will cause more and more national emergencies like this, from heatwaves to fires, floods and pandemics, but as we have seen over the past week, the leadership contenders are doing their hardest to outbid each other on how they would cut action on climate change. They will leave us vulnerable to more freak natural disasters.
The caretaker Minister says that it is his job to chair Cobra meetings, but it should be the job of the Prime Minister to lead. Yesterday, the remaining Cabinet gave the Prime Minister the complete volumes of Sir Winston Churchill as a leaving gift—but he is no Churchill. He has been missing in action. Can the Minister tell us where the Prime Minister was as the country burned? Where was he when Cobra was called last weekend? Has he attended any talks with Ministers or senior officials in the days since? Is the truth not that the Prime Minister and his entire Government have gone missing while Britain burns?
We might have cooler temperatures today, but another heatwave is inevitable as our climate heats up. Britain cannot continue to be so unprepared. The Minister tells people to drink water and wear a hat. It is just not good enough. We need a long-term emergency resilience plan for the future, so can the Minister answer these questions? Where is the plan for the delivery of essential services? How will people be kept safe at work, on transport, in hospitals and in care homes? Where is the guidance for safe indoor working temperatures?
The Minister now says that the Government’s national resilience plan will be published in due course, by the new Administration. It is already 10 months overdue. Why should the British people be forced to wait for a whole year? It is the primary duty of any Government to keep the public safe, and Britain deserves much better than this. Labour already has a resilience plan for the long term. We would implement a Department-wide approach and appoint a Minister for Resilience. We would give local government the resources that it needs to plan and prepare for emergencies. Local government has been on the frontline, and I pay tribute to its response to this crisis—and to what it did during the pandemic—but its resilience has been eroded by 12 years of cuts and austerity at the hands of this Government.
Finally, Labour would empower businesses and civil society organisations to strengthen our response. Homes have been destroyed, our brave firefighters have been hospitalised, and lives have been ruined and lost. Enough is enough. If the Minister is not willing to take the action that is needed, we on this side of the House are.
Kit Malthouse
What a shame that—notwithstanding the loss of some homes and some tragic deaths in water-related incidents—the right hon. Lady did not take the opportunity to recognise that by and large the system worked, and that, owing to our planning and the resilience that we built into all the public services and, indeed, public servants whom she lauded, the country got through this particular extreme weather event in pretty good shape. We obviously recognise that there were some unfortunate incidents—as I said, a number of homes were set on fire—but the fact that we kept the damage to a minimum and the vast majority of the population got through this difficulty well was not recognised by the right hon. Lady at all, and I think that that is a real shame.
The right hon. Lady claimed that no mutual aid was available. That is not correct. One fire and rescue service, Norfolk, called for national mutual aid, and mutual aid was provided from other parts of the country. The system that we have for flexing the use of the fire service throughout the country worked extremely well, as the chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council was able to confirm to the Prime Minister last night and, indeed, this morning.
The right hon. Lady seemed to claim that this was the first time I had turned up in the House to discuss this issue. It is not; it is the second time I have done so, and we have been working on this since the weather forecasters notified us that an extreme weather event was likely to occur. It is, however, the first time the right hon. Lady has turned up in the House. [Interruption.] You were doing a radio interview.
Angela Rayner
I was in my office.
Kit Malthouse
Being in your office is not being on the Front Bench. “Present but not involved” is, I believe, the claim from the Labour party. Before the right hon. Lady starts flinging stones and claiming that others are not doing their job, perhaps she should polish the glass in her house.
As for the involvement of the Prime Minister, he has been kept in touch with our work throughout, either through personal briefings from me or, last night and this morning, through briefings from the chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat. As the right hon. Lady will, I am afraid, never know—because, I hope, she will never be in the Government—No. 10 and the Cabinet Office work together very closely when emergencies such as this arise and we need to establish plans and specific co-ordination work to ensure that we all understand what the picture is.
As I have said, the resilience plan is in progress and will be launched as soon as we have a new Administration in No. 10, but the right hon. Lady should not mistake the question of the publication of a national resilience plan for our not having any plans at all. As we saw in all manner of elements of the function of our country, the plans that we had in place worked well, the capacity that we stood up flexed, often brilliantly, to deal with an ever-changing situation, and, as I have said, most of the country got through it in good shape.
As for the appointment of a Minister for Resilience, I am afraid that we already have one: it is me. The job of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is to look after the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, whose purpose is to deal specifically with issues of resilience and ensure that the system works, as it did—largely—yesterday.
The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Today’s debate has been very revealing. We heard a speech from the Prime Minister as delusional as the Transport Secretary’s leadership bid, but sadly not as brief. He claimed that the deep state was plotting against him. Even now, he cannot either take responsibility or face reality—inspired not by Churchill or even Thatcher, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) said, by Trump. The truth is that this Prime Minister is the danger to our democracy and to our national security every day he clings on. I note that he cannot even be bothered to meet the conventions of this House and be here for the wind-ups like other hon. Members. The only deep state relevant tonight is the one he has left the country in. He claimed the two pillars of government were a dynamic economy and strong public services. I don’t think he has been watching the other debates—[Interruption.] Ah, hi! Better late than never, Mr Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister has finally arrived, but I do not think he has been watching the other debates. His Foreign Secretary said that the
“economic strategy that we have at the moment, simply isn’t working”
and that ambulance waiting times were “appalling”. The Trade Policy Minister said that
“we are going to be one of the most uncompetitive nations”
and that
“public services are in a desperate state”.
And they are the ones who are still members of this Government.
The hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch) asked: “Why should the public trust us? We haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory”. I agree. His former Chancellor said that the next Prime Minister would have to
“restore trust, rebuild our economy and reunite our country”.
For all the bluster we heard from Conservative Members today, I think those damning words say it all. And how many of them said the Prime Minister was honest? How many would put him in their own shadow Cabinet? [Interruption.] You will be, don’t worry; that was not a misspeak. How many would put him in their shadow Cabinet, as it is soon to be? It was one less than the number of fingers the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) raised to the public when she was appointed.
That is the standard of the Government he now leads—not exactly a ministry of all the talents. Will the last person in Downing Street please turn out the lightweights? As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, while our country is in crisis, our Government are in chaos. As a national emergency was declared, where was the Prime Minister when Cobra was called? He was preparing for another party—I hope it went well. You couldn’t make it up! He was missing in action while Britain boils. My hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), among others, noted the tidal wave of sleaze and scandal that swamped the Prime Minister and the human impact of ministerial misconduct on its victims. But, as my hon. Friends the Members for West Ham (Ms Brown) and for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) said, this Conservative Government have also been a catastrophe for our whole country. We have had 12 years of Tory failure: 12 years of low growth; 12 years of a stagnating economy; and 12 years of broken promises. And that is just another verdict from his own Foreign Secretary.
What of the crises facing us now? On the cost of living crisis, the Government have no answers. On climate change, they have no answers. On backlog Britain, they have no answers. They are not just asleep at the wheel; they are steering us straight into the eye of the storm. It is no wonder that so many hon. Members have drawn the conclusion that Britain needs a fresh start. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) summed up this Government’s record on tackling Islamophobia.
I agree with one comment that was made from the Government Benches, and that is that the office of Prime Minister is greater than the person who holds it. As so many of my hon. Friends have noted, this Prime Minister is simply not fit to fill that office, but the Conservative party plans to indulge him for the next seven weeks. A caretaker known for no care, every day he is in Downing Street he does more damage. He should be long gone. I say to Members on both sides of the House: let us tell this Prime Minister to go, and to go now. Enough is enough.
The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, in the House of Commons on 11 July 2022.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to say from the outset that I was an agency worker and I continue to be a very proud trade unionist.
I also want to start by welcoming the Minister to her new position. And what a fitting debate for her to start with. Over the last week, dozens of Government Members found themselves forced to work in intolerable conditions, answering to a boss who only cared for himself and not their interests, so they withdrew their labour—and they achieved some change as a result. So, they do understand the right to strike; they just seek to deny that right to others. The Minister now finds herself, much like agency workers under the regulations she proposes, filling in at short notice as a desperate last resort, with no time to prepare, in an organisation reduced to chaos.
It just does not work. The shambles of this Government disproves their own theory. The regulations are not just utterly wrong in principle, but totally impractical. They promised no new policy while the Prime Minister clings to his desk by his fingernails, but it appears that they have made an exception in this case, ripping up decades of national consensus. The proposals are anti-business and anti-worker. They will risk public safety, rip up workers’ rights, and encourage the very worst practices. Above all, they will not prevent strikes; they will provoke them. It is hard not to believe that this is what the Government were after and their whole intention all along.
The proposals are simply “unworkable”—not my conclusion, but the conclusion of the body that represents agency worker businesses, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. It is not hard to see why. We already face severe labour shortages, in part caused by the decisions of this Conservative Government. There simply are not the agency staff to cover industrial action. The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) asked the Minister about the impact. The Government have their own impact assessment, which they rushed out this afternoon. It estimates that only 2% of working hours lost to strikes would be covered. I met the REC last week, and it was very concerned that the Minister’s predecessor was simply not listening. I believe that to be the case. This proposal is anti-business. It threatens good agency worker businesses’ reputations, their relations with their staff, and, as the Government’s own impact assessment found, will cost employers thousands of pounds in familiarisation costs.
But there is also a far more insidious side to the proposals. There is a risk to safety, both to workers themselves and the public. The proposals could see agency workers recruited on the hoof and squeezed in to cover highly skilled roles. Take the recent rail strikes, which the Minister mentioned in her opening speech. They saw skilled workers such as signallers, guards and maintenance staff walk out. In case the Minister did not know, it takes a year to train a signaller. Where are the temps who can operate 25,000 volts at control centres or signal 140 mph high-speed trains? How could the travelling public have any confidence in their safety? The public should absolutely not be put in a position where that could happen.
No one in this House can pretend that they are ignorant on this issue. We saw the consequences when P&O Ferries replaced its experienced workforce with agency crew earlier this year. That decision led to 31 separate safety failings. Vessels were suspended and a ship literally lost power in the middle of the Irish sea due to an inexperienced crew. At the time, the Secretary of State for Transport told the House:
“No British worker should be treated in this way… we will not allow this to happen again”.—[Official Report, 30 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 840.]
The Prime Minister told us that
“we are taking legal action…against the company concerned”.—[Official Report, 23 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 326.]
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Is this not an exploiters’ charter that is deeply anti-British? This is from an anti-British party that has abandoned British workers, reducing their rights in work and allowing either agency workers from abroad to be brought in to undercut staff, as happened with P&O, or agency workers to be exploited when they are forced to cross picket lines. This is anti-British worker, is it not?
Angela Rayner
On the P&O workers, it seems to me like the company broke the law and the Government implied that they were going to do something about it. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how that legal action is getting on. Will the Prime Minister keep the promise that he made before he loses office? Can we assume not, judged by today, because the very practice they condemned, they now want to legalise and encourage? This is an absolute disgrace.
Grahame Morris
My right hon. Friend is making a terrific speech and I agree with what she is saying. She mentions P&O, and I certainly recall the Secretary of State making a statement to the House and being enraged by the actions of P&O. Why are the Government putting through the House a statutory instrument to change the terms and conditions and bring in agency workers? Why are we not having the employment Bill that was promised by the Secretary of State? Why is this being done in an underhanded fashion if it commands the support of the House and the country?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend makes an absolutely crucial point. The Government have been promising jam tomorrow for far too long, saying “employment Bill”, “employment Bill,” but guess what? No employment Bill. That is what it is like with this Government: it is all jam tomorrow and broken promises all the way.
There is another point to make. Under section 12 of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the Government must consult before they change any regulation. However, with all the chaos of the past couple of weeks and days, they are trying to pass a consultation from 2015 that they never even completed. They also thought that it would be acceptable to sneak out an updated impact assessment on the day of the debate. This is government on the back of a fag packet, with no time and no opportunity for scrutiny. It is typical of what we have come to expect from this Government.
Hywel Williams
I pointed out to the Minister that the Government are determined to repeal the Trade Union (Wales) Act. She said she would refer to her position on that later in her speech but, unsurprisingly, she failed to do so. Will the shadow Minister commit a future Labour Westminster Government to reinstate our Senedd’s ability to implement a ban on agency staff in devolved services?
Angela Rayner
I thank the hon. Member for his point. I promise him that the Labour party will always support Welsh devolution and support the Wales Government in what they have been trying to achieve. Actually, as we have seen with the industrial action on the railway, we have avoided that in Wales, where we have a Welsh Labour Government, because Labour Members respect devolution. This Government want to break up the Union with their petty squabbles, sleaze and scandal.
Let me move on to the second motion. I congratulate the Minister’s new team on finding one of the lesser-known industrial regulations. It is funny that the Government are proposing to increase fourfold the damages that could be claimed under a measure that has not even been used. The Conservative party is wasting precious parliamentary time in a week when piles of legislation have had to be postponed due to there being no Minister to deal with them. This is an empty gesture or a threat. Whether the Minister and her party like it or not, everybody has the right to join a trade union in this country and to take strike action. This measure is either pointless or yet another attempt to undermine that right by the back door.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is not open for trade unionists to entertain illegal strike action in this country?
Angela Rayner
We have some of the strictest trade union legislation in Europe. Members have to go through strict balloting. This is the myth that Government Members do not get about trade unionists and industrial action: it is a last resort and it is often when all else has failed. It would be good if the Government got round the table and tried to deal with the disputes rather than stoke them up.
Let us take a step back to examine what this is really about: the Government are set on breaking the strikes that they are causing themselves. We saw it with the RMT strikes last month, when the Government did everything they could to avoid the negotiating table and find the resolution to bring the strikes to an end. Instead, this is a flagrant attempt to do something by a zombie Government that are out of answers, out of options and out of time. They are about a race to the bottom on standards. They are about further eroding British workers’ rights. They are about dividing the country they claim to lead. Undermining strike action will make it harder to find a resolution, resulting in more and longer strikes to the detriment of the public, businesses and workers. This will also empower bad bosses and we will see more cases like P&O Ferries.
We have not just determined that this is bad policy. It is also clear that it is deliberately harmful to workers and their employers, and it is an absolute fault of this Government. I should not be surprised by it. The Conservative party may be trying to get rid of their leader and may want to try and press the refresh button and get a better image, but this Government and that party have shown us time and time again who they are. This is a Government that have no answers to the cost of living crisis. This is a Government that have no answers to backlog Britain and the chaos that it is causing for ordinary working families. This is a Government that have no answers to the spiralling inflation that is on our backs. And this is a Government that have not only failed to prevent the chaos, but have indeed caused the chaos. The party opposite is in disarray and this is no longer good enough. It is the Labour party that is pro-worker and pro-business, and I urge the whole House to be the same.
The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.
I beg to move,
That the following Standing Order be made:
“(1) Following any two month period in which the role of Independent Adviser to the Prime Minister on Ministers’ Interests remains unfilled, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee shall appoint a specialist adviser, entitled the Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, whose role shall be to advise the Committee on the effectiveness of the Ministerial Code and on any potential breaches of that Code.
(2) The Adviser may initiate consideration of a potential breach of the Ministerial Code, and shall consider any such potential breach referred to him by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
(3) When considering potential breaches of the Ministerial Code, the Adviser may advise the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the appropriate use of its powers to send for persons, papers and records in order to secure the information needed to consider any such potential breaches.
(4) The Adviser shall submit a memorandum to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee reporting conclusions relating to a potential breach of the Ministerial Code.
(5) The Adviser shall have leave to publish any memorandum submitted to the Committee under paragraph (4) which has not been published in full and has been in the Committee’s possession for longer than 30 sitting days.”
What a pleasure it is to open this debate, especially as it is with the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. I will call him my right hon. and learned Friend now because I see him more often these days than I see my friends. It is always a pleasure to stand opposite him. Hopefully, he will be able to give us some answers today, so that we can build on that friendship.
The truth is that, to lose one ethics adviser is an embarrassment, but to lose a second, just days after the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption tsar walked, too, means that it has become a pattern—a pattern of degrading the principles of our democracy; a pattern of dodging accountability; and a pattern of demeaning his office. The Prime Minister has now driven both of his own hand-picked ethics advisers to resign in despair—twice in two years. It is a badge of shame for this Government and it should be for the rogue Prime Minister, too. If he was capable of feeling any shame, Lord Geidt has described the resignation as a “last resort” that
“sends a critical signal into the public domain.”
Well, he has certainly sent that signal, Madam Deputy Speaker. In his damning resignation letter, Lord Geidt spoke of the “odious” and “impossible” position that he had been put in. He said that the Prime Minister had made a “mockery” of the “Ministerial Code” and that he would play no further part in this. It was not about steel at all; it was about this Prime Minister’s casual and constant disregard for the rules. Lord Geidt could not stomach it any longer, and I do not blame him. To this Prime Minister, ethics is a county east of London.
The truth is that the Prime Minister behaves as though it is one rule for him and another for the rest of us, because that is what he thinks. Scandal after scandal has hit him and his Government. His previous adviser on ministerial interests, the respected Sir Alex Allan, resigned when the Prime Minister chose to excuse the Home Secretary despite the fact that she had breached the ministerial code by bullying civil servants. Sir Alex could not stand by and condone bullying, and the Prime Minister was more than happy to. After losing his first independent adviser, it took five months to appoint a new one—five months during which ministerial misconduct was left unchecked, creating a huge backlog of sleaze and misconduct by Tory Ministers. Lord Geidt himself complained about this backlog.
This House should not tolerate a repeat performance. We cannot endure another five months with no accountability in Downing Street. We cannot endure another five minutes of it. Since Lord Geidt resigned, the Government have refused to confirm if or how his ongoing investigations will continue. I hope my new right hon. and learned Friend the Minister can tell us today whether the investigation into the shameful allegations of Islamophobia experienced by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) will now be concluded. She was due to meet Lord Geidt on the day that he resigned, but the Government have been silent on the issue and have failed to say anything about what will happen when any further suspected breaches of the ministerial code occur.
Take, for example, reports that the Prime Minister, while Foreign Secretary, tried to make an inappropriate appointment to his own office. He reportedly spoke to his aides about a taxpayer-funded position—just another case of dishing out jobs to those close to him. Lord Geidt has suggested that such allegations are ripe for a new investigation, and I agree. As everyone knows, I love a letter, but who should I write the request to? There is no ethics adviser in place to hold Tory Ministers to the standards the British public expect. We all know that Ministers will not do it themselves. Under this Government, more rule-breaking is simply inevitable, unfortunately. Lord Geidt has already said that his role was “exceptionally busy”.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I happen to agree with the right hon. Lady that there should not be a long gap before the appointment of a new independent adviser, but let me put something else to her. Two weeks ago, when she opened a debate on a similar subject, she prayed in aid extensively the Committee on Standards in Public Life, of which I am a member, as she knows, and she did so rightly, in my view. Does she accept, though, that she cannot do that today, because her motion does not accord with what the Committee on Standards in Public Life has said? We believe that the ministerial code must remain the property of the Prime Minister because that is how it derives its authority, and it therefore makes sense that the adviser should give advice to the Prime Minister and not to any Committee of Parliament, however eminent. How is it that the Committee on Standards in Public Life was so right two weeks ago but wrong now?
Angela Rayner
I commend the work of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and its report, which I absolutely agree should be implemented in full, but that is not what has happened: it was cherry-picked in what the Government have done with the changes to the ministerial code. This is an emergency measure because we cannot carry on for months and months without the adviser being present, as I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman agrees. I hope the Minister comes to the same conclusion. I have written to him and had a response today in a written answer about when the appointment will be made. I understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s position and what he is saying, but I say categorically that I absolutely agree with the report and want to see it implemented in full.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I have sympathy with the thrust of the right hon. Lady’s motion in that we do not want a long delay, and I am sure the Government have sympathy with it, too—I am sure the Prime Minister would like to appoint as soon as possible—but the rest of her motion seeks to create a new Standing Order. Traditionally in this House, the Procedure Committee would advise on Standing Orders, so would she be amenable, should the Opposition motion pass today, for the Procedure Committee to look at this as a matter of priority, given the timelines involved?
Angela Rayner
I thank the hon. Member. The thrust of what I am trying to do today, and hon. Members need to understand this, is just to have some probity, standards and ethics we can all agree on. One of the things I think is very damaging, and this has been very damaging for all hon. Members of this House, is conduct that the public out there see as inappropriate not being scrutinised and dealt with. This does not just affect the Prime Minister; it affects each and every one of us in this place, so I am happy to continue further dialogue to ensure we get to such a point. However, this is about making sure that something happens now, because we have seen conduct and standards from this Prime Minister that, quite frankly, I have never seen before from any Prime Minister of any political persuasion.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), I accept that the Procedure Committee does have a role—and I was a member of the Procedure Committee—but given that Brexit was supposed to be about Parliament taking back control, there is absolutely nothing at all disorderly about the motion on the Order Paper for Parliament to take control and set up its own Standing Order. The right hon. Lady is right: the problem is that the Prime Minister’s behaviour will almost certainly start to be interpreted as a plague on all our houses, and that is why Parliament must support this and must vote for this motion tonight.
Angela Rayner
This is about us trying to make sure that we do take back control, and also that we gain the respect of the public. Quite rightly, when they elect us and bring us into this place, they expect us to have the highest standards. Especially when we create the laws that they have to follow, they expect us to have the highest possible standards.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Of course, the resignation of yet another ethics adviser will do little to quieten public concerns that there is something very rotten at the heart of this Government. Next week, I will be presenting a ten-minute rule Bill that would make lying in politics illegal and give our constituents confidence that we are serious about forcing a change of culture within our political system. Does the right hon. Member agree with me that the present culture is corroding trust in politics and democracy?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with the right hon. Member that trust is being corroded in politics, and I do not like that. I do not like that for any of us hon. Members in this place, because I believe that the vast majority of Members who come to this place do so for great public service. Therefore, when hon. Members do not behave to the standards I think the British public expect of us, that actually makes it difficult for all of us. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) mentions the procedures of this place, and sometimes it is challenging for the public when they see people “inadvertently mislead” the House. The public do not always see it as “inadvertently misleading” the House, and therefore they do not understand exactly why we have such a debate on that matter.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Would my right hon. Friend accept that the debate between an independent appointment and an appointment by the Prime Minister has been cast into a different light by partygate, by the appointment of somebody’s girlfriend for £100,000, by the breach of international law with the Northern Ireland protocol and even by what has happened on steel tariffs? Therefore, there is a compelling case for independence or at least for Parliament to decide on those issues, not the Prime Minister, who people, frankly, do not trust for good reasons.
Angela Rayner
Absolutely. During Lord Geidt’s time as ethics adviser, he was swamped—swamped—with allegations of ministerial misconduct. During his session with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, referring to the ministerial code, Lord Geidt said that
“as you look through the calendar, a great deal of the year has potentially had the Prime Minister in scope.”
It is astonishing that we are in these circumstances, but we are where we are.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson has refused to confirm when the independent adviser will be replaced, or even if the independent adviser will be replaced at all. It is pretty clear that, if the Prime Minister had his way, he would dispense with the nuisance of transparency and the annoyance of accountability altogether.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I agree with the right hon. Lady about the need to appoint a new adviser but I have looked carefully at her motion, which talks about an adviser. What would the status of that adviser to the Committee be? Would they be an employee of this House? If they were an Officer of this House, there would be an obvious conflict between their duty to Parliament and any involvement they might have in Government affairs. Does she not see that that is quite a problem that needs to be addressed by her and the motion?
Angela Rayner
I do not see the wording of the motion creating a conflict or causing problems in that way. It will allow us to have the scrutiny and probity that we need, because the Government at the moment are not forthcoming in giving us the assurances that I have tried outside this place to get on whether we are going to get a new adviser. That is the thrust of what I am trying to do today. I can see that Members are passionate about this issue, and I am happy for them to work with us to try to get there. I am sure that my friend the Paymaster General would be willing to do that as well. We all want to see standards in public life, and Ministers of the Crown in particular need to have that authority when dealing with matters of office so that the public can have confidence in them. That is what this motion is about today.
David Linden
Does the right hon. Lady understand the irony of Conservative Members complaining about a conflict of interest when the Prime Minister’s own chief of staff, whom he appointed, is simultaneously an MP, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the chief of staff—a role that is traditionally undertaken by a civil servant?
Angela Rayner
This is part of the problem. We all need to have confidence that processes are being followed and that there is accountability. Nobody is above the law in this country, but the Prime Minister seems to think that he can be. It is astonishing that we are in those circumstances.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for introducing this debate. I think the point she was making very well earlier in response to questions from Conservative Members who have been good lawyers in their previous life is that the thrust of what she is trying to do today is to suggest that we all in this place want to do better, and that we are willing to look at ways to do better. If the thrust of this motion does not meet that high standard, it is open to Conservative Members who have experience and expertise in this area to suggest other ways of doing this, perhaps by bringing forward amendments, and to work with the Opposition in that way. I think she is saying that that is something she welcomes.
Angela Rayner
The last time the Paymaster General was sent here to defend the indefensible, he claimed that the Prime Minister’s recent changes to the ministerial code represented
“the most substantial strengthening of the role, office and remit of independent adviser since the post was created in 2006.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2022; Vol. 716, c. 429.]
He must think I was born yesterday. Removing any reference to honesty, integrity, accountability and transparency is not strengthening standards; it is cherry-picking parts of the recommendation and watering it down before our very eyes. Within hours of the Paymaster General saying those words at the Dispatch Box, No. 10 was already refusing to repeat his commitment to that system—a system that the Prime Minister himself had put in place just weeks before.
Now the Government do not even deny the plans to abolish the role of the independent adviser entirely. Today, the Minister answered my written question about his plans to fill the post and said that the Government were “taking time” to consider the matter. Just how long does he expect us to give him? Should we expect half a year of sleaze and scandal without accountability? For more than a year, the Prime Minister used Lord Geidt as a human shield, citing his independence and integrity as the Government desperately staggered from one scandal to the next. Now the Culture Secretary takes to the airwaves to mock and belittle him. That is what they do to decent people. Conservative Members who continue to prop up this Prime Minister and keep his self-preservation society afloat would do well to note that. That is where this House must come in.
Labour’s proposal today would put this Prime Minister into special measures, where he needs to be. If he fails to appoint a new independent adviser, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will have the power to appoint one. We will give the Committee the proper powers to launch investigations, to send for papers, persons and records, to report on breaches and to make its judgments public. This Prime Minister has ridden roughshod over the rules. He will not show any regard to ethics, but this House can do that today. The motion before us is a limited, simple measure to address any refusal by the Prime Minister to enforce the ministerial code by allowing Parliament to step in.
Of course, we would like to go much further, which is why we backed the package of recommendations from the CSPL as the first step in our plan to clean up politics. We want to see full independence granted to the adviser to open his or her investigations—without that, it is left to the whim of the Prime Minister. As I said, the Prime Minister cherry-picked the CSPL recommendations and conveniently chose not to introduce this crucial one. While he maintains the power of veto over the independent adviser, there is an inherent risk that he will overrule his own adviser. Today, it is time to show the Prime Minister that he is not above the rules and for this House to draw a line in the sand. If the Prime Minister will not appoint an ethics adviser, we must do so. I commend this motion to the House.
The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in the House of Commons on 7 June 2022.
I beg to move,
That this House recognises the importance of the Ministerial Code for maintaining high standards in public life; endorses the Committee on Standards in Public Life report entitled Upholding Standards in Public Life, Final report of the Standards Matter 2 review; calls on the Government to implement all of the report’s recommendations as a matter of urgency; and further calls on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to make a statement to the House on the progress made in implementing the recommendations by 20 July 2022, and each year subsequently.
It is always a pleasure to stand opposite the Paymaster General. In this House, we are proud of the constituents we represent, and I am no different: from Droylsden school to St Peter’s and St Mary’s, from our town team to Tameside markets, Ashton-under-Lyne did our country proud this weekend. I am proud of our British values and the community that I come from—we all are—but the conduct of this Prime Minister undermines those values: rigging the rules that he himself is under investigation for breaching, downgrading standards and debasing the principles of public life before our very eyes.
There is nothing decent about the way the Prime Minister has acted. What example does he set? This Prime Minister’s example of leadership is illegally proroguing Parliament, breeding a Downing Street culture in which his staff and he himself felt able to break lockdown rules, and putting the very standards that underpin our democracy into the shredder.
The Prime Minister promised a new ministerial code in April of last year. It has taken him 13 months—13 months of sleaze, shame and scandal—and what has he come up with? In the very week that the Sue Gray report laid bare the rotten culture at the heart of Downing Street, the rule breaking on an industrial scale and the demeaning of the pillars of our great democracy, the Prime Minister made his choice—and what did he decide? Not to strengthen standards, but to lower the bar.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that, when faced with a rogue Prime Minister, a mere adviser on the ministerial code is dangerously inadequate? We must have an independent enforcer. So long as this unfit PM retains the ability to override his own adviser on the finding of a breach, the adviser—in the words of the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life—is left “critically undermined”.
Angela Rayner
The hon. Lady makes a crucial point that shows why the Opposition tabled the motion today.
The bar has been lowered. Honesty, integrity, accountability, transparency, leadership in the public interest: these are the values that once cloaked the ministerial code, but to this Prime Minister they are just words. Not only that, but they are disposable words that the Prime Minister has now dispensed with, deleting them from his own contribution and airbrushing them from history—and that is just the foreword. More horrors lurk beyond.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that, when the Prime Minister says that he wants to reset the culture of Downing Street, all he wants to do is reset the rules?
Angela Rayner
Actions speak louder than words, and my hon. Friend hits on the point that the actions of this Prime Minister have debased the rules, have brought shame on Parliament and on the office of the Prime Minister, which is an absolute privilege, and have lost the trust of much of the public. The Prime Minister boasts about his victory in 2019, but he has now squandered all that good will with his behaviour. While people were locked down and unable to see their loved ones, cleaners were having to clean sick off the floor and wine off the walls as others were partying on down in Downing Street.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Has she had the same experience that I had this weekend when I was out meeting constituents celebrating the jubilee? They were absolutely disgusted—particularly those who are not traditional Labour supporters—by the behaviour of the Prime Minister. They feel that he is not only letting them down, but letting our country and its reputation down.
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree. I have heard Ministers talking in the media in the past 24 hours about how we must draw a line and we must move on, but many people in this country cannot draw a line and cannot move on while this Prime Minister is in office, because it triggers what they experienced and the trauma that their families faced during the crisis.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for making such a powerful speech. Does she agree that the Prime Minister’s rule breaking is absolutely despicable and that he should be tendering his resignation instead of weakening the ministerial code?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree. There is an important point here, because I have heard Ministers in the media saying that we have to move on and that there are important issues that we have to face. But while the Labour party has been putting forward proposals for dealing with the cost of living crisis, bringing down NHS waiting lists, as Labour did in government, and looking at the transport chaos in which this Government have left us, the Government have not been dealing with the issues that matter to the people. They have been running around the Prime Minister trying save his neck and justify an unjustifiable example of lawbreaking.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
The right hon. Lady has just suggested—and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) made the same point—that the Prime Minister has weakened the ministerial code. Is she aware of last week’s report from the Institute for Government, which said that the code had not been weakened, that “confected” accusations had been made to that effect, and that Opposition Members should therefore correct the record? Will she do that?
Angela Rayner
I am glad that the hon. Member has mentioned this. I shall say more about it later. What the Prime Minister chose to do—as the Institute for Government has recognised—was cherry-pick parts of the recommendations rather than taking them in their entirety. The chair of the committee said that it was important for the recommendations to be taken as a whole and not cherry-picked, so I respectfully disagree with the hon. Member. I do not think that this strengthened the ministerial code, and I think that what the Prime Minister did constitutes a missed opportunity. What he has tried to do is get away with weakening the ministerial code so that he can say, “I have given an apology, and I think that that is the right way to go about it.”
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady and her colleagues on securing the debate. She has mentioned the unlawful Prorogation of Parliament. This Parliament failed to hold the Prime Minister to account after that unlawful Prorogation, which meant that he was able to continue his cavalier attitude to the law and, now, the ministerial code. Does she agree that it is vital for Parliament to find a way to get rid of the Prime Minister, as his party is clearly unable to do so expeditiously?
Angela Rayner
I entirely agree with the hon. and learned Lady. It is important to note that this Prime Minister has a long history and a long-standing pattern of behaviour that render him unfit for prime ministerial office. Since he had the privilege of becoming Prime Minister, all he has demonstrated is that he was not worthy of that office, and he will never change his behaviour. Conservative Members need to understand that, because he is dragging the Conservative party down. It has been suggested to me many times by the media that that may be a good thing for the Labour party. Well, it is not a good thing for the Labour party, and it is not a good thing for the country to have a Prime Minister who acts in a reckless way and does not believe that the law applies to him.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend has hit on an important point about the status and importance of the Prime Minister’s office. During the time that I have been interested in politics, there have been four Conservative Prime Ministers—Mrs Thatcher, John Major, David Cameron, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—all of whom I disagreed with politically, but none of whom remotely besmirched the position of Prime Minister and denigrated our politics in the way that this one has.
Angela Rayner
That too is an important point. The opposition to the Prime Minister comes from many different walks of political life—from his own Back Benchers, from some of his predecessors, and, obviously, from Members on these Benches. This is not really a political issue; it is more about the question of what our democracy stands for. If we do not draw a line in relation to these standards and ensure that we hold to them, the public will have a mistrust of politicians, and that is damaging for everyone, not just Conservative Members.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend has talked about the ministerial code, but let us also consider just three of the Nolan principles: honesty, integrity and openness. We know that there are people in much lower offices in public service who adhere to those principles without question and without problems. Does my right hon. Friend find it regrettable that the Prime Minister does not?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only does the Prime Minister not adhere to those principles; he deleted them from his own foreword to the ministerial code, which is pretty unbelievable.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One way of moving on would be a public inquiry. Many commitments have been made to such an inquiry, but we have yet to be given a date. Is it not important for everyone who has lost loved ones—the 160,000 people who have died in the United Kingdom, including 4,000 who have died in Northern Ireland—to have an input, to ask questions and receive answers, so that they can move on?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I vividly remember the contributions he made as part of that debate and the way in which he passionately put forward what the public have been through and how they felt about that. That is why I say that the public are not ready to move on. While the Prime Minister remains in office, I do not think the public will ever move on from what they have been through, because it was a very traumatic time. There is not a family in the UK that was not affected by the pandemic, and every time a Minister tells the public to move on, all it does is make them more upset and angry. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Coming back to the ministerial code, this is not just about the foreword. Far from adopting the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in a report that the Prime Minister did not even have the decency to respond to, the truth is that he cherry-picked the recommendations that suited him and discarded those he found inconvenient. Lord Evans, the chair of the committee, has said that the recommendations, which form the basis of this Opposition day debate today, were “designed as a package”. By casting aside cross-party proposals, the Prime Minister is trying to rig the rules and downgrade standards.
Let us take the introduction of tiered sanctions. That proposal is meaningful only if independence is granted to the adviser to open investigations. Without that, it is left to the whim of the Prime Minister. Lord Evans described these two changes as
“part of a mutually dependent package of reforms, designed to be taken together”.
As the Institute for Government says, the Prime Minister’s changes do not increase the adviser’s independence at all. In fact, the net effect of the changes is to weaken standards and concentrate power in his own hands. While the adviser on standards may have been granted a swanky new website and an office, he still fundamentally requires the Prime Minister’s permission to launch any investigation, making the Prime Minister the judge and jury in his very own personal courtroom. It is no wonder his own standards adviser has criticised him for his low ambition on standards.
The adviser was joined last week by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee, who outlined the dangers of cherry-picking changes to the ministerial code. While the Prime Minister maintains the power of veto over the independent adviser, there is an inherent risk that he will overrule his own adviser or tell him, “There’s nothing to see here. Now be a good chap and move on.” Well, we are not moving on when he is dragging our democracy into the gutter. Without having independence baked into the standards system, this new code flatters to deceive.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
It is extraordinary not only that the Prime Minister can refuse permission for an investigation to be undertaken but that there is no obligation on him to explain why. I am sure the right hon. Lady will agree that, in the circumstances, it is no surprise that more and more people are losing faith in the parliamentary system per se, and that we in Wales are therefore truly questioning whether we cannot do this better for ourselves.
Angela Rayner
The hon. Member makes her point, but I think we are better together. The actions of the Prime Minister do not represent the United Kingdom, which is why I am bringing this motion before the House today.
The new code is also utterly silent on the question of what amounts to a major breach of the rules, so what happens to a Minister who engages in bribery, who perpetuates sexual assault or who bullies their staff? It is the Prime Minister who continues to appoint himself as the judge and jury on ministerial misconduct, including his own. It is he who decides the degree of wrongdoing or rule breaking. You could not make it up, but that is exactly what he is proposing to do. This is the same Prime Minister who became the first in history to have broken the law in office. Now, what is to stop him saying that some sort of an apology is enough?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I wonder if my right hon. Friend has had an opportunity to read Lord Geidt’s most recent report on the ministerial code, in which he says:
“I have attempted to avoid the Independent Adviser”—
that is Lord Geidt himself—
“offering advice to a Prime Minister about a Prime Minister’s obligations under his own Ministerial Code. If a Prime Minister’s judgement is that there is nothing to investigate or no case to answer, he would be bound to reject any such advice, thus forcing the resignation of the Independent Adviser”—
rather than that of the Prime Minister, obviously.
“Such a circular process could only risk placing the Ministerial Code in a place of ridicule.”
Is that not basically where we are—a place of ridicule?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We need look no further than the Prime Minister’s response when it was revealed that the Home Secretary has been bullying her staff. He threw a protective ring around her, pardoning bullying in the workplace and forcing the resignation of his widely respected independent adviser.
Another protective ring was assembled for the former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who unlawfully tried to save a Tory donor from a £40 million tax bill on a huge property deal. The former Health Secretary’s sister was handed lucrative NHS contracts while a protective ring was denied to care homes up and down this country, leaving residents and staff locked down and terrified as covid swept through the country. It is one rule for them and another rule for the rest of us.
In fact, the only specified sanction in the new ministerial code is for deliberately misleading Parliament. It is right that the sanction for misleading Parliament remains resignation, which is a long-established principle, yet the Prime Minister is still in his place. He remains in his position, clinging on to office and degrading that principle a little more each day. This Prime Minister should be long gone but, despite the majority of his Back Benchers telling him to get on his bike, he cannot take the hint.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life made numerous recommendations, including a proposal to end the revolving door that allowed the Greensill scandal to occur, but they have all been ignored by the Prime Minister. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments was already a toothless watchdog, but under this Government it has been muzzled and neutered. Forget the revolving door, we have a system in which the door is held wide open for former Ministers who want to line their pockets as soon as they leave office.
ACOBA used to have the power to issue lobbying bans of up to five years for rule breaking, but as the Committee on Standards in Public Life said,
“The lack of any meaningful sanctions for a breach of the rules is no longer sustainable.”
ACOBA should be given meaningful powers, making its decisions directly binding rather than mere recommendations. We must put a stop to the current provision in the governance code for Ministers that enables them to go ahead and appoint candidates who have been deemed inappropriate by an assessment panel.
Urgent reform is required to the process of making appointments in public life, with a stronger guarantee of independence. A number of direct ministerial appointments are entirely unregulated, which must change. Labour supports the proposal of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to create an obligation in primary legislation for the Prime Minister to publish the ministerial code and to grant it a more appropriate constitutional status. I hope the Minister will take note. There is a precedent, as the codes of conduct for the civil service, for special advisers and for the diplomatic service are all on a statutory footing to ensure serious offences are properly investigated. I am sure he would agree it is only right that holders of public office are held to the same standard.
Dame Meg Hillier
In the early days of Nolan, I was an independent assessor of public appointments, which was a role I took very seriously. Has my right hon. Friend noticed the trend in many public appointments to pack the panel with people with a particular political direction? In one case, a sacked special adviser with limited experience was on a panel for an important role.
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She does tremendous work on the Public Accounts Committee, deep diving into some of these issues.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life concluded that the current system of transparency on lobbying is not fit for purpose. There is cross-party agreement that change is needed to update our system and strengthen standards in public life. Those standards are being chipped away day by day. It is time to rebuild, repair and restore public trust in our politics.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has a pre-written, some might say “oven ready,” package of solutions, so let us get it done. After a decade of inaction by this Government, Britain is lagging behind the curve compared with our allies when it comes to ethical standards in government. President Biden has committed to setting up a commission on federal ethics, a single Government agency with the power to oversee and enforce federal anti-corruption laws. The Australian Labour party, which is now in government, has plans for a Commonwealth integrity commission that will have powers to investigate public corruption. In Canada, the ethics commissioner enforces breaches of the law covering public office holders.
Far from keeping up with our global partners, this Government have allowed standards in Britain to wither on the vine. The Government greeted the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life with complete silence back in November. When the Prime Minister finally got around to updating the ministerial code 10 days ago, he cherry-picked the bits he liked from the report, completely undermining its aim.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Is my right hon. Friend as concerned as I am about the refusal of the Prime Minister and other Ministers to allow senior civil servants to come to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee? We have now asked Sue Gray three times to attend our Greensill inquiry, and she has been blocked by the Prime Minister and other Ministers, as have other senior civil servants. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is another form of preventing Parliament from holding the Executive up to scrutiny?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It says a lot about the Prime Minister, as I have outlined in my speech, that he has no regard for transparency. When Labour was last in government, we legislated to clean up politics with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission, the Freedom of Information Act and the ministerial code. The last Labour Government did not hesitate to act decisively to clean up Britain’s public life, and Labour’s independent integrity and ethics commission will bring the current farce to an end and clean up politics.
Three decades ago, a Labour Opposition exposed the sleaze engulfing and decaying a Tory Government, and we legislated for it. Over the past 12 years of this Tory Government, the strong standards we set have been chipped away. Our unwritten constitution is dependent on so-called “good chaps”. We trust our political leaders to do the right thing, but that theory has been ripped to shreds under this Government. No amount of convention or legislation appears capable of stopping this Prime Minister riding roughshod over our democracy.
The next Labour Government will act to stamp out the corruption that has run rife under this Prime Minister. Labour’s ethics commission will bring the existing committees and bodies that oversee standards in government into a single independent body that is removed from politicians. It will have powers to launch investigations without ministerial approval, to collect evidence and to decide sanctions.
Honesty matters, integrity matters and decency matters. We should be ambitious for high standards, and we should all be accountable: no more Ministers breaking the rules and getting away with it; no more revolving door between ministerial office and lobbying jobs; no more corruption and waste of taxpayers’ money; and no more Members of Parliament paid to lobby their own Government.
Labour has a plan to restore standards in public life and to clean up politics, but we have to start somewhere. We have to stop the rot. Labour’s motion would see the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life adopted in full right now, which is a crucial first step. The committee was established by Sir John Major nearly three decades ago to advise the Prime Minister on ethical standards in public life, and it has promoted the seven principles of public life—the Nolan principles.
The mission of the Committee on Standards in Public Life has never been more important than it is today. It is genuinely independent and genuinely cross-party, and it has done all the work. The plans are in place, ready to go. On the Opposition Benches, we back the Committee on Standards in Public Life. All we need now is a nod from the Minister and the Government, which they could do today by passing this motion. I hope the Minister gives in this time.
Chris Bryant
Another Committee—the Committee on Standards, which is also cross-party—has produced a report. It has suggested that because one of the important principles is openness, the rule for Ministers on when and how they register hospitality should not be separate from that for the rest of Members. Will the Labour party be supporting those changes, to make sure that everybody in the House is treated equally when they are brought forward to the House?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: what the Labour party is promoting and what we want to see is transparency. We did that and demonstrated that under the last Labour Government, and we will continue to do that. Under this Government, we have seen time and again an erosion of that transparency, that right to freedom of information and that conduct in terms of how we report how donations are made and so on, with them trying to get around the rules. That is why we have proposed the independent ethics commission, because we think it is an important step in cleaning up some of the problems we face today.
This Prime Minister has tested our unwritten constitution to its limit, but today all Members of this House have their own choice to make. As Sir John Major said of the Committee in his foreword to this latest report,
“The Committee will never be redundant. A minority will evade or misinterpret the rules of proper behaviour. The rules will always need regular updating to meet changing expectations in many areas”.
As Lord Evans said, without reform to the systems that uphold and protect standards in public life, the Prime Minister’s recent changes
“will not restore public trust in ethical standards at the heart of government. Instead, suspicion about the way in which the Ministerial Code is administered will linger”.
Conservative Members must now ask themselves the question: will they back the package of recommendations proposed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life or will they turn their backs to save the skin of a rogue Prime Minister—one who is already haemorrhaging support from his own side? Those who reject these cross- party proposals will be complicit. They will be propping up a Prime Minister intent on dragging everyone and everything down with him. Today, all of us have a choice—we have a chance to draw the line in the sand and say, “Enough is enough!”
We urge Members to vote to defend the principles of public life, to back high standards and to clean up politics. It is time to stop the rot, and I commend this motion to the House.