The comments made by Sir Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, on 24 June 2022.
Spin them how you like the by- election results in Tiverton & Honiton and in Wakefield are another vote of no-confidence in a Prime Minister that ought to honourably this morning be re-considering his position. Commiserations to Conservative candidates who deserved better. The soul of our Party is at stake.
The comments made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, on Twitter on 24 May 2022.
I believe that the PM has misled the House of Commons from the despatch box. That is a resignation issue. I have made my own position clear. It is now a matter for my Conservative parliamentary colleagues to decide whether or not to instigate a vote of no confidence.
The speech made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, in the House of Commons on 10 May 2022.
May I first add my voice to the many who have expressed their good wishes to Her Majesty the Queen? Our monarch is a truly remarkable and great lady, and I hope that she will be back in rude health in time not only to participate in but to enjoy her platinum jubilee celebrations. May I also say how good it is to see the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan) back in her place? I am sure that we all wish her a full recovery as well.
The Queen’s Speech contains a long-overdue planning Bill, which, we are told, will allow greater local input into development. It is a sad fact that under previous planning regimes the desire to build houses—I accept, of course, that people need houses to live in—seems to have overridden local planning desires. The speech also contains a Bill to promote sustainable and efficient farming and food production. The two issues must be compatible. It is not possible to have sustainable food and farming if we are going to build all over our grade 1 and grade 2 agricultural land, which is what is happening in Thanet at this very moment. That has to stop. I hope that those on the Front Bench will take account of the fact that that circle must be squared, which is incredibly important.
The speech contains many mentions of the increase in the cost of living, and I have full confidence in our Chancellor’s ability to get things right. I understand entirely why he probably wants to wait until the autumn to address fuel price rises, but I say to him that people are hurting now. In constituencies such as North Thanet, families are facing real hardship. These are normal, hard-working families that ordinarily would expect to be able to heat their homes, put food on the table, and maybe have a little bit left over to enjoy themselves. That has practically gone out of the window, so I hope that the Chancellor will take on board the need for urgent action now as well as action at the autumn Budget.
The Queen’s Speech also refers to Brexit freedoms and the fact that we should be allowed to control more of our laws. I was under the impression that one of the advantages of Brexit was that we would be able to take control of much more of the legislation that affects, for example, animal welfare. I was saddened to find that the speech contains virtually no reference to animal welfare. However, upon further inquiry, I am pleased to learn that at least the animals abroad Bill, although not mentioned in the speech, will be introduced and that the ban on the import of body parts—otherwise known as trophies—from hunting will be brought in.
It strikes me as strange, however, that we are allowed to ban, for example, the production of foie gras in the United Kingdom and that we can control the import of fur, but there is a reluctance to ban products produced elsewhere in the world under circumstances that we would not permit in the UK. Such issues must be addressed, and I hope that we shall find time to deal with some of them as we move down this line of legislation.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concerns that bear fur from Canada will still be imported for use in ceremonial caps in the Army?
Sir Roger Gale
The hon. Lady may or may not know that I am one of the patrons of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, which is campaigning for the use of faux fur. In this jubilee year, it strikes me as strange that when Her Majesty the Queen has eschewed the use of real fur in favour of faux fur in all her new garments, and when we now use faux fur skins for bandsmen’s outfits under the big bass drum, as a replacement for tiger skins and leopard skins, we are still using real fur for guardsmen’s caps. I understand the pride with which those caps are worn and the need to make sure that any faux fur replacement is suited to and fit for the purpose, but so far the Ministry of Defence, which has got so many other things right, seems reluctant to go down this road. I hope that if we can demonstrate that there is a viable faux fur alternative, that also will change.
The Queen’s Speech makes reference to “our gallant Armed Forces”, and by God they are gallant. It is vital that we continue to make the maximum affordable possible contribution to the war effort in Ukraine and to continue to give, across the House, our fullest possible support to those who are fighting so bravely for the freedom of their country.
Finally, I come to the issue of Channel 4 privatisation. As a former broadcaster, television producer and director, I am fiercely committed to free speech. As an aside, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Anna Cookson and the team on BBC Radio Kent’s “The Wake Up Call” on, a week ago, winning an ARIA—Audio and Radio Industry Award—in the teeth of competition from, I believe, the “Today” programme, Radio 5 Live and others. That demonstrates two things: the importance of that free speech; and the value of public service broadcasting. I am not philosophically opposed to the privatisation of Channel 4, but I do believe we are in danger of throwing a baby out with the bathwater. I hope very much that if we are going to continue to go down this road, we take great care to seek to secure the future of the independent production industry that Channel 4 has fostered.
The speech made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, in the House of Commons on 2 March 2022.
I thank my friend the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) for both his collegiate tone and the content of his speech. I wish I had the time to touch on a lot of it. However, in the time available to me let me say that I share entirely his view of the stunning bravery of the Ukrainian people under incredible duress. Equally, I share his desire to see Putin and all his commanders in court in The Hague as soon as possible.
This is a European city, a European country, a member state of the Council of Europe that is under siege and under attack. While men are staying to fight, women and children are fleeing across the border. I want to pick up on two points made by the right hon. Gentleman. The first is that the receiving countries, particularly Poland at the moment, need our help with humanitarian aid and all the strength we can afford in support of them. I had a call today from a little town called Zamość, with 15,000 people, 100 km from the border with Ukraine. That town is receiving trainloads of refugees at 800 per train. It is becoming overwhelmed. The people there simply cannot handle the volume of refugees flowing through their villages. We have to get help to them fast.
Secondly, we have to get the refugees we are prepared to take into the United Kingdom. Again, the sooner and more efficiently we can do that, the better. In 1956, we took refugees from Hungary in this country. In 1968, we took refugees from Czechoslovakia. In 1972, West Malling airfield in Kent played host to 28,000 Ugandan Asians fleeing Idi Amin. We have done it before and we can do it again. I have spoken with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, both of whom are now on a fast footing to co-ordinate this relief effort. The British people want to help, and we can.
Manston airport in my constituency is mothballed, but the owners have told me that they are prepared to make it available. The runway can be swept and cleared within half a day. The military hardware that my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces wishes to see sent to Ukraine can be flown from Manston almost immediately. We have the warehouse capacity and the runway capacity to fly it out. With the back-up of Kent fire brigade, Manston can then be used to fly in refugees from Ukraine and from Poland.
Next door to Manston is a Home Office facility that is capable of processing 1,000 people a day. It also has food facilities and accommodation. I urge those on the Front Bench to take on board the fact that those facilities are available. We do not have the time to wait; the people we are trying to assist do not have the time to wait. We can do this now. We can cut the red tape, and we must do it.
The comments made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, on 7 December 2021.
The No.10 party has all the hallmarks of another ‘Barnard Castle’ moment. No.10 clearly has some serious questions to answer. Fast.
The speech made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, in the House of Commons on 18 October 2021.
We have heard magnificent tributes from the Prime Minister, from the Leader of the Opposition, from David’s Essex colleagues and from many Opposition Members. I think we are all grateful for that, and the tone of the House is as it can be at its best.
I want to spend just a couple of minutes speaking on behalf of the remnants of the class of ’83. Of the 100 of us who came in, sadly only two remain with continuous service, along with another three who have come back after leaving the House briefly. We had all hoped and expected that in the fullness of time, once my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) had surrendered his position, by which time David would have been a very old man—[Laughter]—he would have become the Father of the House. He would have made a magnificent successor to my hon. Friend. Sadly and cruelly, that has been denied us.
The many of us on both sides of the House who had the privilege of working with David on his campaigns—on foxhunting, when campaigning on it was unfashionable; on the reunification of Cyprus; on Iran; on pensions for expat UK citizens; and on a whole range of other issues—know just how doughty a campaigner he was. That is clearly why he was so loved in his constituency.
Mr Speaker said at the weekend that David’s death had left a void in this House. He was absolutely right, and there is another void: in David’s family home. I hope that David’s wife Julia and his children will take comfort from the fact that across this House there is clearly nothing but affection for his memory. That must speak volumes for the man whose life we celebrate today.
The speech made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, in the House of Commons on 12 April 2021.
I am very grateful indeed to have the opportunity to place on the record, on behalf of my constituency, the huge appreciation that we all share for the life and service of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. We also place on the record our condolences to Her Majesty the Queen, and to all the Royal family, about which much has already been said. The bottom line is that we are talking about a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, and most of all, a devoted husband.
It is inevitable on these occasions that there will be a degree of repetition, but I wish to return to the award scheme to which the Duke of Edinburgh gave his name. At the weekend I spoke with David Walker who, for 30 years, was chairman of the Thanet award scheme. He received his gold award in 1966 at Holyrood from the Duke of Edinburgh. I also spoke with Stephen Dyke from east Kent. Stephen received his gold award this year by post—inevitably, because of the circumstances we face. I said to Stephen, “Weren’t you disappointed?”, and he said, “No. It didn’t matter who gave it to me; what mattered was the achievement and the fact that I won the award.”
David and Stephen, generations apart, echo the thoughts and sentiments of so many of my young constituents and those represented by colleagues in the House, who have been through the bronze, silver and gold awards. To a man and a woman, they all say, “It has changed my life.” As Stephen said to me, “There is nothing—nothing—that I feel I cannot now achieve.” We in this House owe it to the memory of the Duke of Edinburgh, who gave his name to the scheme, to ensure that it is not allowed to wither on the vine but goes forward, prospers and moves from strength to strength.
It has already been said that the Duke of Edinburgh was way ahead of his time in his concern for wildlife and habitat, and that is absolutely true. Many of us on both sides of the House take a keen interest in those issues now; I only wish we had all been listening to him 50 years ago, because we might not be where we are.
Mr Speaker, you mentioned in your opening remarks the Duke’s interest in ties. My wife reminded me at the weekend that when I was introduced to him, his only comment was, “That’s a very loud tie.” Colleagues who know the tie of the Wooden Spoon Society will understand that he was absolutely right.
I would like to place on record the thanks of the armed forces parliamentary scheme for the very considerable interest that Prince Philip took in its work. You will remember, Mr Speaker, that it was not so very long ago that he found the time to make presentations in your state apartments to graduates of the scheme. With typically robust language, he reminded us that provision for the future defence of the realm lies in our hands.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that he hoped we would think of a fitting commemoration of the Duke’s life. I can think of no finer tribute than naming the new royal yacht The Duke of Edinburgh.
Below is the text of the speech made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.
For reasons that are fairly obvious, Mr. Speaker, I shall be brief. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) for introducing this subject and for her generosity in agreeing to curtail her remarks at the end of the debate to allow some more of us to speak, although she knew that I at least would speak against her.
The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) said that he believed that the machinery of television should not be allowed to influence our decisions. I wish to comment as a television producer and director—I believe the only one in the House—on what the machinery will do to the House. It has been suggested that we could use a micro-camera. Those cameras are being developed, but they do not exist. It is suggested that it will be unnecessary to light the Chamber for television. However, for good colour television, the Chamber will have to be lighted.
As an outside broadcast director, I know that we shall need four cameras. If we cannot hang them under the Gallery—at present, we cannot—we shall have to put them at each end of the Chamber. If we do so, we shall obtain extremely odd shots of those sitting on the Front Benches. If we light the Chamber from above, all the shadows will come down—any television lighting director could tell us this—and those sitting on the Front Benches will look extremely odd—[HON. MEMBERS: “They do already.”] It is tremendous, Mr. Speaker; all one needs to do is feed them a line. That would be even more the case if we appeared on television.
There is no doubt that the technical necessity for television will change the Chamber. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) said, in time, the technological developments may be such that miniaturised cameras may be possible, but at present no automatic remote control camera could respond swiftly enough to an hon. Member intervening in a speech.
Mr. Austin Mitchell
That is just not so.
Mr. Gale
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) has intervened, as he so often does, from a sedentary position. He is wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Mr. Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman’s statement is incorrect. Those cameras already exist and will have been purchased by British broadcasters before we start the new Session next November.
Mr. Gale
I will not ask the hon. Gentleman what the response has been to those remote-controlled cameras, because I do not wish him to intervene again. Allow me to tell the Chamber, as a television director, that they do not react swiftly enough to record an intervention from another hon. Member. That is the technicality of it. The Chamber will have to be changed in structure. Holes for cameras will have to be cut in the back, and for colour contrast, lights will have to be put in. It is simply a technical fact that the Chamber will be hot. Hon. Members may choose to accept or reject that, but it is a fact.
Mr. Holt
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Gale
No, I do not have time.
The only reason advanced for introducing television to the Chamber is that, in some way, it will enhance democracy. How will it do that? All the work of the Chamber will not be transmitted. If we record all the work of the Chamber, edit it and then transmit some of it, that will be phenomenally expensive, because we are talking about many hours of television recording and editing for very little transmission. We have a choice. We either show all of it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said earlier, or we transmit some of it. If only some of it is transmitted then, with great respect to the hon. Members who have said otherwise, the editorial control will not be in the hands of this Chamber.
As a producer and director of television, I am aware of the exact processes involved. At the end of all this, will it be worth it? The hon. Member for Great Grimsby quoted some inaccurate figures about the television viewing of the Lords. I will give the correct figures. Three debates were covered live on Channel 4 on 23 June, 20 March and 15 April. The average audience for those programmes was 439,000 and the maximum audience of 747,000 was for the first debate, and it obviously had curiosity value only. We are therefore talking about a maximum viewing figure at any one time of 747,000. Any producer or director faced with those figures at any reasonable time of day—those programmes were transmitted at peak time and broadcast live—would have his programme taken off. The late-night viewing figures went down to virtually nothing at all.
We are talking about destroying the atmosphere of this Chamber and, if we are going to record it all, it will cost £2·5 million a year. That will be to transmit something and there is no evidence that anybody will watch it. Not one of the hon. Members who spoke in this debate has had a letter from anybody saying that he wished to watch it. There will be a minimal audience and no return. If we wish to introduce more democracy to the Chamber, we have the apparatus to do that in front of us. If we genuinely wish to take the British Parliament to the British people, the microphones are here, and we can dedicate a radio channel to do that. There are also microphones hanging in the other places that need to be heard, the Committee Rooms. We have the means for live broadcasts from this House and from the Committee Rooms.
I will be standing with the chairman of the Back-Bench media committee at the entrance to the “No” Lobby trying to persuade hon. Members who have not heard the debate to go into that Lobby, because we both believe that televising of this House would be profoundly bad.