Tag: Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson – 2022 Answers at Liaison Committee (Tax Cuts)

The answers given by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Liaison Committee held in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

Darren Jones: Prime Minister, how is your week going?

The Prime Minister: Terrific, like many others.

Q99 Darren Jones: Did Michael Gove come and tell you to resign today?

The Prime Minister: I think I said earlier that I am here to talk about what the Government is doing. I am not going to give a running commentary on political events.

Q100 Darren Jones: Okay. Let’s talk about what the Government is doing. You have just said today that the Government is giving the biggest tax cut in a decade, but it is a tax cut to your own tax rise, isn’t it?

The Prime Minister: No, what it does is it gives 30 million people—by lifting the threshold, it gives them, on average, a tax cut of £330.

Q101 Darren Jones: Against the tax rise that you previously announced. In fact, freezing tax allowances for average income tax payers means that they are going to pay £46.8 billion more over the next four years. Tax is going up, not down, isn’t it?

The Prime Minister: It is certainly true that what we have had to do is make sure we deal with the fiscal impacts of covid. The Committee will remember that we had a colossal fall in output. We had the biggest pandemic for 100 years, and we had to look after people and businesses to the tune of £408 billion. That money doesn’t grow on trees. In order to protect our schools and hospitals, we of course have had to—

Darren Jones: Increase the tax levels.

The Prime Minister: We have had the health and care levy. What we are doing now is helping people with, on average, a £330 tax cut.

Q102 Darren Jones: Prime Minister, I asked about the tax cut that was announced today, but I will move on. Let’s look at the economy before the pandemic. You mentioned the pandemic—an event that was very difficult for the Government. Before the pandemic—between 2010, when the Conservative party came into office, and the pandemic—national debt increased by £640 billion. It is now at 100% of national wealth, and you keep announcing tax cuts and spending plans at the same time. Are you just going to keep putting more and more debt on to the nation’s credit card?

The Prime Minister: Sorry, you were just complaining about taxes going up.

Darren Jones: I am asking about what you are doing in government, Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: You need to get your story straight.

Darren Jones: My facts are from the Treasury, Prime Minister. Debt is up.

The Prime Minister: We have to be sensible and we have to be responsible. We are making sure we manage the public finances in a prudent way, and I think that there will be scope for further tax cuts in due time.

Q103 Darren Jones: Maybe imminently. Prime Minister, can I move on to economic growth? You said yesterday that you welcomed your new Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, because he would grow the economy, presumably in a way that Rishi Sunak couldn’t.

The Prime Minister: I don’t think I said that. Anyway, go on.

Q104 Darren Jones: We are more likely to end up in a recession this winter, aren’t we?

The Prime Minister: As I was saying to Stephen, the economy and people are going to be under a lot of pressure, but I think we will get through it.

Q105 Darren Jones: Do you think there will be a recession in the winter?

The Prime Minister: I think there will be a lot of pressure caused by the price spike. We are going to do everything we can to shield people and deal with the underlying causes of inflation, whether that is through the energy markets, the labour markets or whatever. There is a lot that we can do, and I think we will emerge stronger on the other side.

Q106 Darren Jones: You and your supporters have often said that you have got all the big calls right as Prime Minister, but actually on tax, debt, growth and pay, things have been getting worse, not better. I understand that 14 million people voted for you in 2019; you have let them down, haven’t you?

The Prime Minister: No, I think that what they can see is a Government that gets on relentlessly with a programme of uniting and levelling up. We have the biggest investment in infrastructure for a century—£650 billion going in on all the things that Huw was talking about: roads, rail, transport of all kinds and housing. It is a colossally ambitious programme that we are still doing. At the same time, because, as you put it, Darren, we got the big calls right—

Darren Jones: I didn’t agree with that, by the way.

The Prime Minister: Well, I’m going to agree with it even if you don’t. We got the big calls right on covid. We came out of lockdown faster, and we got it right with the vaccine. That has put us in a position to look after people, and that is what we are doing.

Q107 Darren Jones: Thank you. I’m going to move on to my next question. I would like to read something out to you: “When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons—I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate.” Who authored that quote?

The Prime Minister: You are trying me. Was it Cicero? Was it Aristotle? Let me think—was it Plato? Was it Montesquieu?

Q108 Darren Jones: Maybe Nero. Just to break it to you, it was you, Prime Minister. Perhaps it was foresight. I will finish, because I am about to run out of time. I made a joke there, but in all sincerity—I know this must be difficult for you personally—this isn’t funny. This is not a game. People are struggling across the country. It is not brave for you to carry on doing this. I think, in my view, you are hurting the country, Prime Minister. On a very human level, surely you must know that it is in the country’s interests for you to leave now.

The Prime Minister: I think the country is going through tough times. You are making a point about duty, right? I look at the issues this country faces, I look at the pressures that people are under and the need for Government to focus on their priorities—which is what we are doing—and I look at the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, and I cannot for the life of me see how it is responsible just to walk away from that, as I said earlier on in PMQs, particularly not when you have a mandate of the kind we won two or three years ago.

July 11, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Answers at Liaison Committee (Fuel Duty)

The answers given by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Liaison Committee held in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

Huw Merriman: Turning to another area of policy that perhaps needs to change, at the moment 4% of the Exchequer’s revenues come from motoring taxes. Those will plummet to zero when we all drive electric vehicles. Are you serious about getting a new form of road pricing policy in place to fill that hole? If not, how will it be filled?

The Prime Minister: Road pricing is something that we will eventually have to consider. I’m not attracted to it. I seem to remember that I successfully campaigned to remove the western extension of the congestion charge in London.

Q89 Huw Merriman: I am not talking about road charging in that way; I am talking about—as we do at the moment—charging people per mile they drive, because that is what fuel duty does. You will have to replace that.

The Prime Minister: I see what you mean—for electric vehicles as well, so that you charge a mileage.

Q90 Huw Merriman: Yes, something along those lines.

The Prime Minister: It is certainly the case that we will need a substitute for fuel duty.

Huw Merriman: This comes back to my point about policy delivery, because—

Chair: I am astonished. This is imminent. We are introducing electric cars.

Q91 Huw Merriman: May I finish, Sir Bernard? For three months, Prime Minister, No. 10 has had a recommendation for a working body just to look at this, because something has to fill the 4%. The Treasury signed off on it, and for three months it has been sat in No. 10. One week, I am told somebody has signed it off; the next week, someone else has looked at it and stopped it, and it is stuck. My question is: the inertia inside No. 10—perhaps because of the events that we will go on to talk about—

The Prime Minister: Nonsense.

Q92 Huw Merriman: You say it’s nonsense, but it is a nonsense that we have been waiting three months just for someone to sign off on something that fills 4% of the Exchequer—that is the nonsense. Do you not agree that something should be done? If you can’t do it, do you think that perhaps someone else could come in and run it properly?

The Prime Minister: This No. 10 was actually the first Government in Europe to set a timetable for moving away from internal combustion engine cars by 2030.

Q93 Huw Merriman: I know. That is why you should follow through on the consequences of it.

The Prime Minister: We have been moving at blistering speed. We are looking at all fiscal proposals to replace fuel duty, and I am happy to come back.

Q94 Huw Merriman: You’re not. You are actually currently sitting on all proposals.

The Prime Minister: I cannot believe that the Treasury is showing the slightest hesitation or reluctance to find a new way of taxing motorists.

Q95 Huw Merriman: That is my point. The Treasury signed off on it. No. 10 then insisted on looking at it and has sat on it for three months. I think Andrew Griffith is currently the one who has now said, “No, I don’t like this.” We are therefore stuck, having thought we had cleared all the hurdles.

The Prime Minister: I will take it up with Andrew.

Q96 Chair: I was shadow Transport Secretary in 2000, and road charging was seen as the future then. Successive Governments have dodged it, but why is your Government dodging it when you are already abandoning the revenue stream from hydrocarbons?

The Prime Minister: Sir Bernard, why do you think we necessarily are? We have got to find a way of filling the gap left by fuel duty.

Q97 Chair: You have actually got a target for eliminating fossil-fuel cars, but you have not got any plan in place to replace the revenue.

The Prime Minister: I think it highly unlikely that the Treasury will let any opportunity go to substitute revenue from motoring. What we want to do is, for the purposes of the environment, to encourage the take-up of low-carbon vehicles, and that is why the fiscal strategy is framed as it currently is. That is what we are doing for the time being.

July 11, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Answers at Liaison Committee (Airport Delays)

The answers given by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Liaison Committee held in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

Huw Merriman: In the six minutes I have, Prime Minister, I want to talk to you about transport policy delivery—if you’re focused. I want to talk about rail, air and also road. Starting with rail, do you have all of the policy, and legal interventions and levers, that you need to end this rail strike?

The Prime Minister: Thanks very much, Huw. I call on the union barons and the railway companies to sort this out. I think that they should be able to do it. And I think that, yes, we probably do need a few more tools.

Q80 Huw Merriman: Specifically, what would they be?

The Prime Minister: I think that you could have minimum service levels; you could have ballot thresholds. And as you know, we are bringing in—I think we have already brought in—the provision for agency workers where that is necessary.

Now, that is not going to fix problems like train drivers; you are not going to get agency workers to drive a train. But the argument that I would make is that you need to modernise.

Q81 Huw Merriman: Let me again just focus on the levers, because I think that in the Conservative manifesto there was a line that said, “Only the Conservatives could get Brexit done”, a few more things, “and stop passengers being held hostage by the unions.” And that was with the introduction of that policy of minimum service levels. Yet that hasn’t been introduced.

The Prime Minister: It has not, but—

Q82 Huw Merriman: And people are being held hostage, which might be your view. Why did you not bring, with an 80-seat majority, that legislation through before the strikes started?

The Prime Minister: That is a very good question. And—

Q83 Huw Merriman: And the answer is?

The Prime Minister: And the answer is: we should have done it. The trouble was that we had a lot of covid stuff to deal with and I’m afraid it got pushed to the right, and I regret—

Q84 Huw Merriman: I thought you might say that, although there have been other things we have been able to do, notwithstanding covid. Okay, let me move on to airports. There has been massive disruption to the airports—people having their holidays cancelled at the last minute. Why wasn’t more done to stop airlines from putting more flights in place than they had the bandwidth of staff to deal with?

The Prime Minister: Well, the airlines should not be abusing passengers in the way that they have been, and I think there should be greater protections. But I think the—

Q85 Huw Merriman: But again, this is all, “There should be”. My question is: why hasn’t there been?

The Prime Minister: Because basically, we were trying to get any airlines flying at all. I mean, Diana has asked a very good question about passports, where we’re putting huge numbers of people to try and speed up the delivery of passports. We had a situation in which no airlines were moving at all. And we had to put £8 billion—as you will remember, Huw—into supporting the airline industry.

Q86 Huw Merriman: Indeed. But Gatwick, for example, has controlled the number of flights that will be able to fly out during July and August, because they can see the airlines are trying to fly at 2018 levels. They could see the number of staff coming on, so they have taken action. Other airports haven’t necessarily. The regulator—the Civil Aviation Authority—doesn’t have the power, up front, to implement these types of policies. Shouldn’t it have that power?

The Prime Minister: I am willing to be persuaded that it should.

Q87 Huw Merriman: Because when we put a report on that basis, the recommendation was rejected by Government on the basis that there wouldn’t be a proposal to give the regulator up-front powers to take action, including to help with compensation. Perhaps we can push him a bit more on that, if you are behind it—

The Prime Minister: Huw, I am going to have to look into what more powers we might need to take to get the airlines to behave responsibly towards their passengers. But I think the experience of the public is pretty wretched at the moment for all sorts of reasons, and they need to do much, much better.

July 11, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Answers at Liaison Committee (Meeting with Alexander Lebedev)

The answers given by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Liaison Committee held in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

Dame Diana Johnson: My final question. Could you confirm—I would appreciate a yes or a no—that you met former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev without officials when you were Foreign Secretary on 28 April 2018?

The Prime Minister: I would have to check.

Q42 Dame Diana Johnson: Are you having a lapse of memory again?

The Prime Minister: No. You are asking me a very specific question about a very specific date. I would have to get back to you. I certainly have met the gentleman in question—

Q43 Dame Diana Johnson: Without officials?

The Prime Minister: He was the proprietor of the London Evening Standard when I was Mayor of London. I am certainly not going to deny having met Alexander Lebedev. I certainly have. As far as I remember, he used to own the London Evening Standard.

Q44 Dame Diana Johnson: Yes, but with officials when you were Foreign Secretary. Did you meet him with officials or without?

The Prime Minister: Look, I have certainly met him without officials. As I say, he is a proprietor of a newspaper.

Q45 Chair: Perhaps you could write to us with a specific answer to that very specific question.

The Prime Minister: Very happy to.

Q46 Dame Meg Hillier: Can I just follow that up, Prime Minister? You said you met him without officials. Presumably that was when you were Mayor of London. When you were Foreign Secretary, did you meet Alexander Lebedev without officials?

The Prime Minister: I think I probably did, but—

Q47 Dame Meg Hillier: Probably did?

The Prime Minister: As I say, I would need to check.

Q48 Dame Meg Hillier: You are used to regularly meeting him? “Probably” because you meet him often or “probably” because you can’t remember?

The Prime Minister: I have met him on a very few occasions—

Q49 Dame Meg Hillier: As Foreign Secretary?

The Prime Minister: On the occasion you mention, if that was when I was Foreign Secretary, then yes.

Q50 Dame Meg Hillier: Without officials?

The Prime Minister: Yes. That makes sense, yes.

Q51 Dame Meg Hillier: Did you report to your officials that you had met him?

The Prime Minister: I think I did mention it, yes.

Q52 Chair: And where did you meet him?

The Prime Minister: I met him in Italy, as it happens, but I really, you know—

Chair: Perhaps you will write to us.

Dame Meg Hillier: Was it a personal engagement?

Chair: We will move on.

July 11, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Answers at Liaison Committee (Visa System For Ukrainian Refugees)

The answers given by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Liaison Committee held in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

Dame Diana Johnson: Thank you. Good afternoon, Prime Minister. A few weeks ago, I met a group of Ukrainian MPs who had travelled to the UK via the Republic of Ireland. Like every other country, the Republic of Ireland, for Europe, doesn’t require a visa. They then travelled up through the common travel area. They didn’t have anything checked. They were raising with me whether it was a sensible decision to allow such a bureaucratic visa system for Ukrainians fleeing Ukraine—if it was a sensible use of resources. As we know, it has compromised the capacity of the Home Office. What do you say to that?

The Prime Minister: I hear you loud and clear, Diana. I think that the argument that has been put me is—well, two things. First of all, we have got to be careful that we are able to screen people properly and—

Dame Diana Johnson: Yes, but these people are coming up through the common travel area; there’s no screening.

The Prime Minister: I accept that, and I accept the limitations of screening, but on the other hand, you’ve got to look at what we have done so far: 135,000 visas have been issued, and I think that the record is getting better and better. The UK is hosting a lot of Ukrainians, and I think we should be very proud of that.

Q32 Dame Diana Johnson: Okay. Perhaps I will come on to the problems with the Home Office and, as I have just alluded to, the capacity issues of the Home Office when they designed a whole new visa system. Why is it that British people are waiting so long to get their passports when we all knew there was going to be a surge in passport applications after covid, with people wanting to travel, have family holidays, get married abroad, and all of those things? Why is it that we’ve ended up with people waiting so long and having to spend so much time and money to get a passport?

The Prime Minister: It is very frustrating, and I share everybody’s frustration. I think the answer is that the demand has been very big because people are very keen to go on holiday—

Q33 Dame Diana Johnson: But this isn’t rocket science; you knew this.

The Prime Minister—and we’ve rushed people into the Passport Office—

Q34 Dame Diana Johnson: But why are we having to do that? We knew this was happening.

The Prime Minister—and the numbers are starting to improve. I think, from memory, 91% get their passport within four to six weeks.

Q35 Dame Diana Johnson: Well, the standard that the Home Office is supposed to operate on is three weeks. It is now 10 weeks. When will it go back down to three weeks?

The Prime Minister: Well, I don’t know when it goes back down to three weeks, but I think that what I have in my head is that 91% get their passport within four to six weeks. I would urge everybody who is thinking of going away four to six weeks from now and hasn’t got a passport to get a passport.

Q36 Dame Diana Johnson: Okay, so the bread-and-butter issues just aren’t being looked at by the Home Office and dealt with in a very good way. Why is it that your Government now have a backlog of 89,000 asylum claims that they have not decided? Why has that happened?

The Prime Minister: Well, the UK has historically had very large numbers of asylum claims—

Dame Diana Johnson: They’re stable.

The Prime Minister—and I seem to remember that there were many, many thousands of asylum claims left un—

Dame Diana Johnson: It is incorrect, Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister—undecided when the last Labour Government left office.

Q37 Dame Diana Johnson: No, Prime Minister. The asylum claims in this country have remained fairly steady in the last few years, so your Home Office has built up a backlog of nearly 90,000 claims they’ve not decided. Can I just ask you, then, why is your Government so bad at actually sending back failed asylum seekers? In 2010, we sent back 10,663; last year, we sent back 806 failed asylum seekers. Why?

The Prime Minister: Diana, I don’t think that it’s the fault of the officials; I think they do their level best. I don’t think it’s that they’re so bad; I think it’s that our brilliant legal profession is so good at finding reasons why they should not be returned.

Q38 Dame Diana Johnson: That’s your answer? It is not to do with the fact that you have not been able to enter into agreements with other countries and you have not got a replacement for the Dublin agreement?

The Prime Minister: My—

Dame Diana Johnson: No? Okay.

The Prime Minister: If you look at what happened with the Dublin agreement, that broke down across the board. Returns agreements have been extremely hard to strike.

Q39 Dame Diana Johnson: Well, let’s put it this way. You said about 20 people came across in small boats across the channel last year—20—and there were 28,000 who came. On the civil service cuts that you talk about—the 20%, 30% or 40% cuts—will that help the Home Office get to grips with some of these problems, or will it make the situation worse?

The Prime Minister: I think that certainly what you need when you talk about the asylum seekers crossing the channel illegally and in very frail vessels—

Dame Diana Johnson: No, your cuts.

The Prime Minister: The way to fix that is not just by having more civil servants, but to have a proper deterrent for the people traffickers—

Q40 Dame Diana Johnson: I don’t think we are talking about having more, Prime Minister. We are talking about cuts.

The Prime Minister—and to reduce the numbers of people who are being made to risk their lives.

July 11, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Answers at Liaison Committee (Ukraine)

The answers given by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Liaison Committee held in the House of Commons on 6 July 2022.

Tom Tugendhat: Prime Minister, good afternoon. The alliance that has been brought together to dissuade Russia from further actions, and indeed to push Russia out of Donetsk and Luhansk, has clearly got a window of opportunity before the winter starts to bite and the coalition starts to fracture as energy prices in Europe rise and homes across our country start to suffer. Are you able to concentrate on building that alliance at the moment?

The Prime Minister: Yes, and thanks, Tom. If you look at what the UK has done over the last couple of weeks, I think that the efforts of UK diplomacy, strategists, security and our armed forces have been very considerable. The G7 outcomes were at the upper end of expectations; NATO, again, probably exceeded expectations, both in the level of unity and in virtually every country around the table in NATO being determined to help President Zelensky in that window of opportunity you described.

Q2 Tom Tugendhat: And you are seeing, of course, food prices rise around the world as the ports of Odesa are closed and Mariupol and so on are occupied. What are you doing to make sure the food is getting out from the Black sea—that such wheat as is available is able to get out? How are you supporting the United Nations, and what are you doing to prepare those states, including in the middle east and, of course, Africa, that are facing enormous food poverty, with the possibility of migration and the pressures that that will cause?

The Prime Minister: First of all, on the grain that is being held hostage in Odesa, we are working with the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, who is leading the negotiations. The Turks are clearly crucial: they hold the waters. What the UK is offering is both demining capabilities, including remote demining capabilities—which we are good at—and the insurance of the vessels that might be used to ferry the grain out through the Bosphorus.

We are looking at other routes in addition to convoys through the Bosphorus. We are also doing what we can to help smaller packets of grain go through land routes, or indeed up the River Danube and out that way, and we are spending some money on upgrading the railways to that end. We are starting to see some growing quantities of grain coming out, not via the Black sea but overland and on the rivers.

Q3 Tom Tugendhat: As you know, we are seeing enormous pressure on the weaponry that goes into Ukraine. We are seeing a lot of promises but, sadly, fewer deliveries than promised from many countries. What are you doing to increase production and co‑operation between armaments companies around Europe, and in the United States and Canada, to increase the supply?

The Prime Minister: The UK led the way in inaugurating the Ramstein conferences, which have brought countries together to supply weaponry to Ukraine, though the Americans and I are very much in the lead on that and are certainly providing the bulk of what is going in. We will be doing more in August at the Copenhagen conference, as I am sure you know—another military donor conference.

The supplies continue to go in. The Ukrainians are steadily getting the kind of kit that they need if they are going to expel the Russians from where they are, but it is also very important that they are trained to use the multiple launch rocket systems effectively, so that very expensive weaponry is put to good use.

Q4 Tom Tugendhat: Your Foreign Secretary has explained that victory in Ukraine means taking back every single square inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea. What is your view of victory?

The Prime Minister: We cannot be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians. That is for them to decide. President Zelensky has set out his ambitions; it will ultimately be for him to decide what are the terms that he wants, but he has been very clear that he would like to return at least to the status quo ante 24 February.

Q5 Tom Tugendhat: What is your view of what victory for us should look like?

The Prime Minister: I think that victory for the Ukrainians would be a result that the Ukrainian people feel is the right one, and at the moment I think I am right in saying that 90% or more of Ukrainians believe passionately that there should be no deal that involves land for peace. They want the Russians expelled from every part of the territory that Putin has invaded.

Q6 Tom Tugendhat: Are you confident of holding the NATO agreement—or, rather, the European and American agreement—together in making sure that that coalition sustains the Ukrainians, even when the winter prices start to bite?

The Prime Minister: I think what was notable at Madrid was how anxieties about the friability of the coalition were proved to be unfounded. That is because the logic of the situation simply demands international unity. There is no other solution; there is no deal on offer. Even if the Ukrainians wanted to do a deal of land for peace, Putin isn’t offering any such deal. He remains utterly maximalist in his objectives. That is why we have to continue to support Zelensky in the way that we are. That’s accepted around the table.

Q7 Tom Tugendhat: Part of your commitment to sustaining Ukrainian operations, and indeed wider British military operations, was your increase to 2.5%. Given that the various international organisations, and indeed our own statistical agencies, do not foresee any growth in the UK economy in the coming years, who are you going to take the money off in order to increase the defence budget?

The Prime Minister: Well, I’m not certain I agree with your premise about the growth of the UK economy in the coming years. I am sure we will come to this in later sections, but both the IMF and the OECD see us going back to being at or near the top of the growth league.

Tom Tugendhat: It’s still a percentage, rather than an absolute.

The Prime Minister: Sure. The 2.5 is just a prediction. It is based on the—I think—reasonable assumption that we are going to have to continue with the investments we are making in the future combat aircraft system and the AUKUS agreements with the Australians and the Americans. Those are very big projects. They will be expensive, but they are the right things for the country.

Q8 Tom Tugendhat: The last question from me will be on Sweden and Finland. Clearly, their membership of NATO is an extremely important event—not just for them, but for all of us. What are the implications for the guarding of the High North and particularly the integrity of the United Kingdom and Scotland as part of that in the Alliance? What commitments is the UK willing to make to increase co-operation with Sweden and Finland—not just in military supplies, but in training?

Chair: As briefly as you can, please.

The Prime Minister: We already do a lot of co-operating with the joint expeditionary force—the JEF—as you know, which is up there in the High North. The addition of Finland and Sweden is a great moment for the Alliance. I think it will strengthen the Alliance. It tells you all you need to know about Putin and his aggression that countries as peaceable as Sweden and Finland have decided to join NATO.

Chair: Tobias Ellwood.

Q9 Mr Ellwood: Prime Minister, it is good to see you again. We are establishing that the world is getting more dangerous; the next decade is going to be very bumpy indeed. I want to focus on UK defence capabilities. Despite the injection of £24 billion, the integrated review has seen a tilt towards cyber and space, which is welcome, but it has come at the expense of cuts to all three conventional services.

At your last appearance before the Committee, prior to the Russian invasion, you boldly stated that tanks are not the answer to the defence of Ukraine and that “the old concepts of…tank battles on the European landmass…are over”. Prime Minister, do you now recognise the value of tanks as part of our land warfare mix? Do plans to reduce our tank numbers now need to be reviewed?

The Prime Minister: Thank you very much, Tobias. It is certainly important for the UK to have tanks. However, what were even more valuable, for the Ukrainian purposes, were anti-tank weapons. If you look at what really changed the course of the first few weeks of the war, it was the Javelins and the NLAWs in particular that were used to destroy the tanks and make Russia’s tank warfare extremely difficult. You will have seen exactly what happened.

July 11, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Resignation Statement

The statement made by Boris Johnson, the outgoing Prime Minister, in Downing Street, London, on 7 July 2022.

Good afternoon everybody,

It is now clearly the will of the parliamentary conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party

and therefore a new Prime Minister

and I have agreed with Sir Graham Brady

the chairman of our backbench MPs

that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now

and the timetable will be announced next week

and I have today appointed a cabinet to serve – as I will – until a new leader is in place

so I want to say to the millions of people who voted for us in 2019 – many of them voting Conservative for the first time

thank you for that incredible mandate

the biggest Conservative majority since 1987

the biggest share of the vote since 1979

and the reason I have fought so hard for the last few days to continue to deliver that mandate in person

was not just because I wanted to do so

but because I felt it was my job, my duty, my obligation to you to continue to do what we promised in 2019

and of course I am immensely proud of the achievements of this government

from getting Brexit done and settling our relations with the continent after half a century

reclaiming the power for this country to make its own laws in parliament

getting us all through the pandemic

delivering the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe

the fastest exit from lockdown

and in the last few months leading the west in standing up to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine

and let me say now to the people of Ukraine that I know that we in the UK will continue to back your fight for freedom for as long as it takes

and at the same time in this country we have at the same time been pushing forward a vast programme of investment in infrastructure, skills and technology

the biggest for a century

because if I have one insight into human beings

it is that genius and talent and enthusiasm and imagination are evenly distributed throughout the population

but opportunity is not

and that is why we need to keep levelling up

keep unleashing the potential of every part of the United Kingdom

and if we can do that in this country, we will be the most prosperous in Europe

and in the last few days I have tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments

when we are delivering so much

and when we have such a vast mandate and when we are actually only a handful of points behind in the polls

even in mid term after quite a few months of pretty unrelenting sledging

and when the economic scene is so difficult domestically and internationally

and I regret not to have been successful in those arguments

and of course it is painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself

but as we’ve seen at Westminster, the herd is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves and

and my friends in politics no one is remotely indispensable

And our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader equally committed to taking this country forward through tough times

not just helping families to get through it but changing and improving our systems, cutting burdens on businesses and families

and – yes – cutting taxes

because that is the way to generate the growth and the income we need to pay for great public services

and to that new leader I say, whoever he or she may be, I will give you as much support as I can

and to you the British people I know that there will be many who are relieved

but perhaps quite a few who will be disappointed and I want you to know how sad I am to give up the best job in the world but them’s the breaks.

I want to thank Carrie and our children, to all the members of my family who have had to put up with so much for so long

I want to thank the peerless British civil service for all the help and support that you have given

our police, our emergency services and of course our NHS who at a critical moment helped to extend my own period in office

as well as our armed services and our agencies that are so admired around the world and

I want to thank the wonderful staff here at Number Ten and of course at chequers and our fantastic protection force detectives – the one group, by the way, who never leak

and above all I want to thank you the British public for the immense privilege you have given me

and I want you to know that from now until the new Prime Minister is in place, your interests will be served and the government of the country will be carried on

Being Prime Minister is an education in itself

I have travelled to every part of the United Kingdom and in addition to the beauty of our natural world

I have found so many people possessed of such boundless British originality and so willing to tackle old problems in new ways that I know that even if things can sometimes seem dark now, our future together is golden.

Thank you all very much.

July 7, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Statement on the CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

The statement made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 4 July 2022.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about the NATO, G7 and Commonwealth summits, held in Madrid, Schloss Elmau and Kigali respectively.

In the space of seven days, I had the opportunity to work alongside more than 80 Governments—nearly half the entire membership of the United Nations—and to hold bilateral talks with more than 25 leaders, ranging from the new Presidents of South Korea and Zambia to the Prime Ministers of Japan and Jamaica, demonstrating the global reach of British diplomacy and the value of our presence at the world’s top tables.

Our immediate priority is to join with our allies to ensure that Ukraine prevails in her brave struggle against Putin’s aggression. At the Madrid summit, NATO exceeded all expectations in the unity and single-minded resolve of the alliance to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, and to explode the myth that western democracies lack the staying power for a prolonged crisis.

All of us understand that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, he will find new targets for his revanchist attacks. We are defending not some abstract ideal but the first principle of a peaceful world, which is that large and powerful countries cannot be allowed to dismember their neighbours, and if this was ever permitted, no nation anywhere would be safe. Therefore our goal must be for our Ukrainian friends to win, by which I mean that Ukraine must have the strength to finish this war on the terms that President Zelensky has described.

When Putin claimed that by invading his neighbour he would force NATO away from Russia, he could not have been proved more spectacularly wrong, because the single most welcome outcome of the Madrid summit was the alliance’s agreement to admit Finland and Sweden. I hope I speak for the whole House when I say that Britain will be proud to stand alongside these fellow democracies and reaffirm our unshakeable pledge to come to their aid and defend them if ever necessary, just as they would for us. We were glad to smooth their path into NATO by giving both nations the security assurances they needed to apply for membership, and when I met Prime Minister Andersson of Sweden and President Niinistö of Finland last Wednesday, I told them I was certain that NATO would be stronger and safer for their accession.

Before Putin’s onslaught, both countries had prized their neutrality, even through all the crises of the cold war, and it is a measure of how seriously they take today’s threat that opinion in Sweden and Finland has been transformed. It speaks volumes about Putin’s folly that one permanent consequence of his attack on Ukraine will be a doubling of the length of NATO’s border with Russia. If anyone needed proof that NATO is purely defensive, the fact that two quintessentially peaceable countries have chosen to join it demonstrates the true nature of our alliance.

Now is the time to intensify our help for Ukraine, because Putin’s Donbas offensive is slowing down and his overstretched army is suffering heavy casualties. Ukraine’s success in forcing the Russians off Snake Island by sheer weight of firepower shows how difficult the invader will find it to hold the territory he has overrun. We need to equip our friends now to take advantage of the moment when Putin will have to pause and regroup, so Britain will supply Ukraine with another £1 billion of military aid, including air defences, drones and electronic warfare equipment, bringing our total military, humanitarian and economic support since 24 February to nearly £4 billion.

To guarantee the security of our allies on the eastern flank, NATO agreed in Madrid to bolster its high readiness forces, and we in the UK will offer even more British forces to the alliance, including almost all of our surface fleet. We have already doubled our deployment in Estonia, and we will upgrade our national headquarters to be led by a brigadier and help our Estonian friends to establish their own divisional headquarters. If you follow the trajectory of our programmes to modernise our armed forces, Mr Speaker, you will draw the logical conclusion that the UK will likely be spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of this decade.

Earlier, at the G7 summit, the first full day of talks coincided with a Russian missile destroying a Ukrainian shopping centre, killing at least 18 people. This barbaric attack on an obviously civilian target strengthened the resolve of my fellow leaders to provide Ukraine with more financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic backing for, and I quote the communiqué,

“as long as it takes”.

That is exactly the term later echoed by NATO. The G7 has pledged nearly $30 billion of financial support for Ukraine this year, and we will tighten our sanctions on Russia. The UK will join America, Japan and Canada to ban the import of Russian gold, which previously raised more export revenues than anything else except hydrocarbons.

The G7 will devise more options for ensuring that nearly 25 million tonnes of grain, trapped inside Ukraine by Putin’s blockade, reaches the countries that rely on these supplies. Just as the world economy was recovering from the pandemic, Putin’s war has caused a surge in global food and energy prices, raising the cost of living everywhere, including here at home. The G7 agreed to

“take immediate action to secure energy supply and reduce price surges…including by exploring additional measures such as price caps.”

We will help our partners in the developing world to meet their climate targets and transform millions of lives by constructing new infrastructure according to the highest standards of transparency and environmental protection. Through our Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, an idea launched by the UK at the Carbis Bay summit last year, we will mobilise up to $600 billion of public and private investment over the next five years.

Many beneficiary nations will be members of the Commonwealth, and I was very pleased to attend the Kigali summit of this unique association of 56 states, encompassing a third of humanity. More countries are eager to join, and we were pleased to welcome two new members, Gabon and Togo.

It is an amazing fact that our familiar legal and administrative systems, combined with the English language, knock 21% off the cost of trade between Commonwealth members. It is because the Commonwealth unites that advantage with some of the fastest-growing markets in the world that we are using the sovereignty that the UK has regained to sign free trade or economic partnership agreements with as many Commonwealth countries as possible. We have done 33 so far, including with Australia and New Zealand, and we are aiming for one with India by Diwali in October.

It is true that not every member of the Commonwealth sees Putin’s aggression as we do, or exactly as we do, so it was vital to have the opportunity to counter the myths and to point out that food prices are rising because Putin has blockaded one of the world’s biggest food producers. If large countries were free to destroy their neighbours, no Commonwealth member, however distant from Ukraine, would be genuinely secure.

The fact that, in a week, the UK was able to deal on friendly terms with scores of countries in three organisations shows the extraordinary diplomatic assets our country possesses. As we stand up for what is right in Ukraine and advance the values and interests of the British people, I commend this statement to the House.

July 5, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Comments at CHOGM in Rwanda

The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 24 June 2022.

It is an extraordinary and moving experience to be here in Rwanda today. A country that experienced some of the worst horrors of the 20th century in recent memory, and now finds itself with a thriving social and economic life and near-universal primary education.

Today, Rwanda is hosting leaders representing two-thirds of the world’s population, stretching from the remotest islands of the Pacific to the southern tip of Africa.

Rwanda was never a British colony – it joined the Commonwealth of its own volition in 2009, recognising the benefits that come from being part of a progressive alliance representing two thirds of the world’s population and some of its fastest-growing economies.

As many British Prime Ministers before me – and of course both her Majesty the Queen and the Prince of Wales – have recognised, there are few forums more quietly important for our nation’s peace, prosperity and global influence.

We benefit from the incredible Commonwealth advantage – the ‘fertilizer’ I talked about yesterday – of shared language and institutions, which opens doors and cuts the costs of doing business.

We want to seize those opportunities, and that’s why I announced this week major new British investments in green infrastructure projects, as well as trade schemes designed to break down the barriers to doing business.

This is where the UK is positioning ourselves post-Brexit, in close alliance with our European neighbours but also deepening our ties with old friends in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

More trade, more commerce brings prosperity and stability to other countries, but it also cuts costs for British consumers and opens opportunities for UK businesses – jobs and growth at home.

Unfortunately, that global prosperity and stability is being threatened by Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine.

Many of the countries represented here in Kigali today find themselves bearing the brunt of Putin’s folly, their populations brought closer to poverty by spiralling food and energy costs.

I know of course, and deeply appreciate, that many families and businesses in the UK have been hit hard as well by the rising cost of living.

That is why in our country the Chancellor has introduced an unprecedented package of financial support to support the most vulnerable households.

But we should also recognise the challenges around the world.

The UN estimates that an additional 48 million people will be pushed into acute hunger this year – that is, to the point of starvation – caused by climate change and post-pandemic supply shortages but also by the war in Ukraine.

I spoke to President Zelenskyy last week in Kyiv last week about how we can unblock Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s grain exports.

But today we are also announcing a new £372 million package of UK aid.

That funding will support the UN’s emergency response in the hardest-hit countries, as well as providing cutting-edge science partnerships to look at drought-resistant crops and new agricultural techniques.

And as I go tomorrow night to the G7 in Germany we will also commit to looking at what more richer countries can do to bring down global commodity prices and increase food supplies to get the world economy back on track and stick up for the freedoms in which we all believe.

Thank you very much.

June 25, 2022
Boris Johnson – 2022 Comments on Food Security

The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 24 June 2022.

While Vladimir Putin continues his futile and unprovoked war in Ukraine and cravenly blockades millions of tonnes of grain, the world’s poorest people are inching closer to starvation.

The Government has put in place an unprecedented package of support to help the most vulnerable households in the UK deal with the rising cost of living.

But it is also right that we step up to support countries on the frontlines of conflict and climate change, where an increase in the price of bread can mean the difference between a child living or dying. From emergency food aid to reviewing our own biofuel use, the UK is playing its part to address this pernicious global crisis.

June 24, 2022