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  • Jack Lopresti – 2016 Speech on Gibraltar and the EU Referendum

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jack Lopresti, the Conservative MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke, in Westminster Hall on 20 July 2016.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the effect of the EU referendum on Gibraltar.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I declare an interest: I am the chairman of the all-party group on Gibraltar. I have visited Gibraltar several times, funded by the Gibraltar Government, and I hope to visit again in September for Gibraltar’s national day. I also declare that I was the parliamentary lead for the Brexit campaign for a large part of the south-west of England, so, naturally, I was delighted by the result a month ago. Once again, we will be a free, sovereign and independent people, and that includes Gibraltar.

    I welcome and congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), on his new position and I am sure that his father would have been very proud to see him occupying it. This is an historic occasion, as it is the first time that a Minister from the Department for Exiting the European Union, or the “Brexit Department”, has responded to a debate in this House.

    Of the 23,000 members of the electorate in Gibraltar who were entitled to vote in the EU referendum, 96% voted to remain; there were 19,322 votes to remain as opposed to 823 votes to leave. Admittedly, that is slightly less than the 98% of the electorate who voted to remain British, but it is very impressive all the same. For perspective, however, that result in Gibraltar has to be seen in the context of the whole UK, where there were 17.4 million votes to leave, and as the Prime Minister has said, “Brexit means Brexit”.

    Of course we recognise and understand the uneasiness, nervousness and fear that many people—including a large number of people in Gibraltar—are feeling at the moment. When the Chief Minister of Gibraltar spoke to the all-party group a couple of weeks ago, he described grown men being reduced to tears by the referendum result. However, I am told that the report in the Financial Times that Gibraltarians would like another referendum on their membership of the EU was not accurate.

    Those feelings are obviously due to both the historic and very difficult relations with Spain—for example, Franco closed the border in 1969 and it remained closed until 1985—and to the ongoing and ridiculous posturing by Spain. Spain has attempted to bully Gibraltar with totally unnecessary and antagonistic border delays. Also, as I have said in this Chamber on several occasions, I am sure that Spain’s ongoing war of attrition against Gibraltar, including the foolish and dangerous games that its security forces play by entering British Gibraltarian territorial waters and airspace without permission, is deliberately provocative and I fear that one day it could result in a terrible and tragic accident.

    Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)

    I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he does on Anglo-Gibraltarian relations. Does he agree that the confrontational approach towards Gibraltar that Spain adopts is rather ironic, bearing in mind that Spain has numerous territories in Morocco? I thought that it had only Ceuta and Melilla, but upon closer inspection of the atlas, I see that Spain actually has more enclaves in Morocco.

    Jack Lopresti

    I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I would put it more strongly than that. “Ironic” is too polite a word; the fact that Spain harasses Gibraltar and constantly seeks to undermine its status when, as he says, it has overseas enclaves of its own is tantamount to hypocrisy.

    Gibraltar is the only British overseas territory that has a land border with mainland Europe. Given Spanish politicians’ continued use of Gibraltar to distract from their own failed policies and the dire economic situation in their own country, Gibraltar has a right to feel nervous about leaving the EU and Spain’s potential response.

    Gibraltar is a fantastic economic success story. It has impressive economic growth, with GDP for 2014-15 having increased by more than 10.6% in real terms on the previous year, and I understand that the forecast for 2015-16 is for a further 7.5% increase. Gibraltar has a higher GDP per capita than the UK and Spain as a whole, and one that is greatly higher per head than in the neighbouring Spanish region of Andalucia. GDP per capita for Gibraltar is forecast to be £54,979 in 2015-16, which is a long way above that of Andalucia, whose GDP per capita was £12,700 in 2015, and even above that of Madrid, which was £23,400 in 2015. Therefore, it is unsurprising that up to 10,000 Spaniards a day cross the border to work in Gibraltar.

    There is a feeling in Gibraltar, however, that leaving the EU will risk the current economic model and expose Gibraltar to new threats from Spain. Gibraltar faces a clear time imperative, as established businesses consider what to do next if they require access to the single market on an ongoing basis. The Gibraltarians’ large vote to stay in the EU is seen as a reflection of the fact that the EU provided a legal framework that drew red lines on how far Spain could go in imposing heavy-handed border controls and other sanctions before being called to order for breaching the law. However, international law and the UN also arbitrate on these issues, and as Spain’s NATO ally, we may actually have more strength in direct negotiations than we would otherwise.

    Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this great and very appropriate debate. He referred to NATO. Spain is our NATO ally, and as a NATO ally, it is utterly disgraceful that it does not allow our Royal Air Force aeroplanes to overfly its territory, while allowing Russian warships to rebunker at Ceuta. It is about time that our Foreign Office got a grip on this issue and explained very harshly to Spain that that approach is unacceptable, and I hope that message will also go out from this debate to the Spanish authorities.

    Jack Lopresti

    I thank my hon. Friend for his customarily robust intervention, and of course he is absolutely right. As he says, it is astonishing that a NATO ally should do that. It costs the British taxpayer several thousand pounds extra every time there is an RAF flight to Gibraltar, because the RAF does not have overfly rights with Spain, so its planes have to take a slightly longer route. It is also astonishing, given what is happening in the world with Russian aggression, that the Spanish are not only content to receive Russian warships but encourage them to refuel in their Moroccan territories. Those of us on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly are working towards getting that message—loud and clear—up the chain of command, because the current situation is appalling.

    The people of Gibraltar should be reassured that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) said on his last day as Prime Minister that there would be no talks on sovereignty—joint or otherwise—against the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. I was extremely pleased to see that the new Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), said last weekend:

    “I was delighted to meet Chief Minister Picardo. I reassured him of both our steadfast commitment to Gibraltar, and our intention to fully involve Gibraltar in discussions on our future relationship with the EU.

    The people of Gibraltar have repeatedly and overwhelmingly expressed their wish to remain under British sovereignty and we will respect their wishes.”

    Importantly, he went on to say:

    “We will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against their wishes. Furthermore, the UK will not enter into any process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content. We will continue to take whatever action is necessary to safeguard Gibraltar, its people and its economy”—

    and crucially he concluded:

    “including maintaining a well-functioning Gibraltar-Spain border.”

    Not only does Gibraltar wish to remain British—that is a right that we will always fight for—but it is a vital strategic military asset for the United Kingdom. It is one of our key forward operating bases in the Mediterranean and commands the straits. I look forward to the day when one of our new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers visits Gibraltar.

    There are two key issues for Gibraltar: the freedom to provide services, and a free-flowing frontier. Therefore, when the Minister sums up, I would like him to assure us that Gibraltar will not be a side-discussion that is left to the end of the negotiations on Brexit and therefore allowed to be bargained away, but that it is a red line that any bilateral treaty must include. Britain will need to be robust in the EU and the UN and in its lobbying of other countries to counter the consistent lobbying of them by Spain, as it presses its own sovereignty claim on Gibraltar. Importantly, the EU must not be allowed to take sides against the UK and Gibraltar on this issue in any way. We should increase our efforts in the UN to remove Gibraltar from its list of non-self-governing territories, as Gibraltar is clearly self-governing.

    To reassure Gibraltar and its business community, I ask the Minister to act immediately and take one initial and hugely supportive step: establish a common single market between Gibraltar and the UK. It is within the British Government’s remit to do so. It is an entirely domestic matter that can be agreed by Her Majesty’s Government and the Government of Gibraltar bilaterally at any time without any EU involvement. It will give our Government some of the tools they need to stand ready to robustly defend Gibraltar if Spain exerts pressure, such as introducing heavy-handed frontier controls, during the future negotiations with the EU.

    We must seek and promote the opportunities that Brexit presents to the people of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is building its own world trade centre, and unshackled from the EU, it will be able to maximise its ability to trade globally and to seek and secure bilateral deals with its nearest neighbours and worldwide. As part of the Great British family, Gibraltar and the UK will thrive and prosper out of the EU. The United Kingdom is the fifth largest economy in the world. We trade globally. We are the biggest defence spender in Europe—the fourth biggest in the world—with the world’s best armed forces. We are one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. We have one of the best diplomatic services across the world. We have a unique relationship with the United States and the Commonwealth.

    Unshackled from the European Union, we will thrive and prosper as a nation even more. We will be free to make trade deals all over the world without the increasingly restrictive practices of the European Union. Gibraltar, as part of the Great British family, will also gain great advantages from being unshackled from the European Union and being free to trade with the world. The fact is that Gibraltar is British and will stay British as long as it wishes.

    Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    Jack Lopresti

    I was on my last sentence, but please go ahead.

    Mr Dodds

    I thank the hon. Gentleman. I apologise for interrupting his peroration. I congratulate him on securing the debate and on his re-election as chair of the all-party group. On what more we can do to reassure Gibraltar, one of the issues that came up at the last all-party group meeting was a desire not only to frame things in the negative, where we talk about having no discussions and no ceding of sovereignty unless the people of Gibraltar agree, but to adopt a more positive attitude, with the British Government saying, “We cherish Gibraltar. We value it, and we want it to remain British.” In all our discussions, we need to emphasise that we look positively on Gibraltar’s Britishness.

    Jack Lopresti

    Absolutely. A lot of us have been fighting almost a rear guard action, initially in the days following the referendum, against all the negativity. There seemed to be a grey cloud over people who were on the wrong side of the debate, so far as the referendum went. We all know that optimism is a great driver of business and opportunity. We have a responsibility to re-emphasise and reinforce—I hope the Minister will do so—the fantastic period that can come after Gibraltar is free to trade with the whole world in its own right. Gibraltar is in the hearts of everyone here in Parliament.

  • Andy Burnham – 2016 Speech on Orgreave

    andyburnham

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andy Burnham, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 20 July 2016.

    I promised the Hillsborough families the full truth about the 20-year cover-up. They will not have it until we also know what happened after Orgreave. A year ago the IPCC found senior officers gave untrue statements exaggerating violence from miners to distract from their own use of force, some would say brutality. So the force that would wrongly blame Liverpool supporters tried to do the same against the miners five years before. In response, the then Home Secretary promised to consider a public inquiry. That was welcome because the miners’ strike caused deep scars when, in the words of a former chief constable, the police were used as an “army of occupation”. The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign has, as the Home Secretary said, submitted an application, but there was a somewhat unexpected announcement in another place last week that it would now be substantially delayed. The Advocate General’s exact words were:

    “The IPCC told Home Office officials that if it announced any action to set up an inquiry or other investigation relating to Orgreave, it would have an impact on the Hillsborough investigation.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 July 2016; Vol. 744, c. 216.]

    However, the deputy chair of the IPCC says:

    “I would like to clarify that the IPCC has not taken or offered any position on whether there should be a public inquiry…That is a decision that is entirely a matter for the Home Secretary.”

    That is why we have brought the Home Secretary here today.

    I welcome the Home Secretary’s offer to meet me, but might it not help to build the right climate if she today corrects the misleading impression given to Parliament that the IPCC had advised against the establishment of an inquiry at this time? Does she accept that there is no reason why ongoing investigations should delay an Orgreave inquiry, and that in similar situations it is commonplace for protections to be put in place to manage any risks? Can she see why the Government’s actions look like a Home Office manoeuvre to shunt a controversial issue into the long grass?

    This, one of the final decisions of the former Home Secretary, was announced as she stood on the steps of Downing street promising to “fight injustice”. People may remember another Tory Prime Minister quoting St Francis of Assisi outside No. 10 and the subsequent gap that emerged between her fine words and her deeds. To ensure that history does not repeat itself, will the Home Secretary do the right thing? Will she restore the trust that has been damaged among people who have already waited more than 30 years for the truth and, today order a full public inquiry into Orgreave?

  • Amber Rudd – 2016 Statement on Orgreave

    amberrudd

    Below is the text of the statement made in the House of Commons by Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, on 20 July 2016.

    Last week my noble friend the Advocate General for Scotland answered an oral question asked by Lord Balfe of Dulwich on whether the Government had yet decided whether there would be an inquiry into police actions during the Orgreave miners’ clash in 1984. He explained that the previous Home Secretary had been considering the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign’s submission, and that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is working with the Crown Prosecution Service to assess whether material related to the policing of Orgreave is relevant to the Hillsborough criminal investigations with decisions yet to be made by them on whether any criminal proceedings will be brought as a result.

    The Government take all allegations of police misconduct very seriously and the then Home Secretary considered the campaign’s analysis in detail. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that I have today written to the campaign secretary, Barbara Jackson, to say that I would be very happy to meet her and the campaign immediately after the summer recess. I would also be happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss this case as I know this is something that he feels very strongly about. This is one of the most important issues in my in-tray as a new Home Secretary, and I can assure him that I will be considering the facts very carefully over the summer. I hope to come to a decision as quickly as possible following that.

  • Lord Freud – 2016 Speech on Benefits Payments System

    lordfreud

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lord Freud, the Minister of State for Welfare Reform, on 18 July 2016.

    Thank you Maurice and Gerard for inviting me here this evening.

    Despite all the changes we have seen in recent weeks, it is important that our work goes on, and that we continue to deliver change in the payments system.

    Government is looking at this work very closely, on a unified basis. We are preparing a coherent position paper that sets out how we can improve our service to citizens, based on proposed changes to the payments system. And we are aiming to publish this shortly.

    Despite a few personnel changes – although, I am pleased to report that I am the longest serving minister since 2010 – do not underestimate that this is right at the top of the government’s agenda.

    That is why I am glad to be here tonight, following on from the Payments Innovation Conference and the developments that have been happening in this sphere.

    Payment Strategy Forum consultation

    Last week the Payments Strategy Forum (PSF) published their draft strategy for consultation. I have heard that this has been received positively by those in the payments community.

    I congratulate Ruth Evans, those at the Payments System Regulator and all those involved in the forum – I know some of you are here this evening – on producing such a clear draft strategy.

    My department, the Department for Work and Pensions, is the biggest single user of the payments system. Every year we distribute around £167 billion to 22 million people.

    Representing payments on this scale, I welcome the document’s overall approach of being responsive to user needs, and basing the solutions on the available evidence. I also welcome that a wide range of stakeholders, including government, had input into this document.

    I particularly welcome the PSF’s conclusion that – at the heart of many of the improvements that can be made to payments systems – sits the enhancement of data, that can be associated with transactions as and when they are made.

    The government’s needs

    While the forum has been producing this work, my own and other departments have also been looking at how we could make use of enhanced data capability – to improve the way we provide services, and to make the lives of our citizens better.

    This work has identified a number of processes involving our use of financial data that could be significantly improved, if we had data in real time which was verified by the payments system.

    Many of these situations not only align very closely with the solutions set out in the forum’s document, but also match cases for individual and business users of the payments system.

    To take an example, when insurance companies have to pay back overpaid health charges, currently they have to make a single payment. But separately they also have to submit a schedule of all the individuals to whom the payment relates.

    Then we, of course, have to do the reverse, allocating proportions of the payments to the relevant individuals and their claims.

    I want to see a system where there is the ability to send payments and schedules together. This will make reconciliation at both ends easier. And it would have clear efficiency and cost saving benefits.

    Looking at examples across government, businesses, and the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector, I believe the possibilities of enhanced payment data have the potential to bring about very significant reductions in cost.

    Delivery

    While the work the PSF and the government have been doing has focused on improvements that could and should be made, there is still a lot of work to be done – which I am sure the forum would be the first to acknowledge.

    Strategies and identifiable user cases are all very well, but none of them means much without there being a clear plan for how they will be delivered.

    The consultation questions posed in the PSF draft strategy ask for contributions from the industry on just that point. And I would, as I did at the Payments Innovation Conference last week, urge all of you to respond as constructively and comprehensively as you can.

    I understand the consultation period is relatively short, but we are not starting from scratch.

    I know a lot of work has been going on across the payments landscape. For example:

    Payments UK’s work on the World Class Payments System
    work to comply with the Competition and Market Authority’s requirements on APIs on Open Banking Data

    As the PSF have set out in its document, all this activity and the government’s needs are, in principle, capable of being aligned and built into a strategic framework.

    I would like to see you – the payments industry – take advantage of this alignment and this framework. So that we can move smoothly after the strategy is finalised to planning and delivery.

    That would enable all users of the payments industry to build changes and improvements in the UK’s payments systems into their longer term plans.

    Data security

    I have been involved in work with payments systems for some 5 years. It is worth reminding ourselves of the reasons that my department and my ministerial colleagues have been interested in this.

    The UK’s payments system is not just the financial lifeblood of our country. It is also a secure, reliable, resilient and ubiquitous data carriage network. Currently the data carried by that system performs one specific task.

    Throughout the 5 years I have been involved, our driver has been to see what else this system could do with an enhancement of its essential data carriage function.

    For my part, I am committed to improving the experience of welfare for those who rely on welfare payments – especially for those who are the most vulnerable in our society.

    Any changes that are made to the payments system must ensure that security and privacy are paramount. And that we protect our core national infrastructure, which has the potential to transform functions across all sectors.

    Conclusion

    As I said last week, the work that we in government – and you the industry – have been doing, has brought a large degree of alignment and consensus.

    I would like to think that with the regulators working to align their position, the identification of user situations, and investment by the industry – we are set to ensure real change in the UK’s payment system, to the benefit of citizens, businesses and government.

    I look forward to a constructive consultation period, a quick transition into planning and delivery phase, and real change soon.

  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2016 Speech on Nuclear Deterrent

    jeremycorbyn

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2016.

    May I start by welcoming the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and congratulating her on her appointment as Prime Minister? I wish her well in that position, and I am glad that her election was quick and short.

    I commend the remarks the Prime Minister made about the horrific events in Nice. What happened was absolutely horrific: the innocent people who lost their lives. One hopes it will not be repeated elsewhere. I was pleased she mentioned the situation in Turkey, and I support her call for calm and restraint on all sides in Turkey. After the attempted coup, I called friends in Istanbul and Ankara and asked what was going on. The older ones felt it was like a repeat of the 1980 coup and were horrified that bombs were falling close to the Turkish Parliament. Can we please not return to a Europe of military coups and dictatorships? I endorse the Prime Minister’s comments in that respect, and I pay tribute to the Foreign Office staff who helped British citizens caught up in the recent events in France and Turkey.

    The motion today is one of enormous importance to this country and indeed the wider world. There is nothing particularly new in it—the principle of nuclear weapons was debated in 2007—but this is an opportunity to scrutinise the Government. The funds involved in Trident renewal are massive. We must also consider the complex moral and strategic issues of our country possessing weapons of mass destruction. There is also the question of its utility. Do these weapons of mass destruction—for that is what they are—act as a deterrent to the threats we face, and is that deterrent credible?

    The motion says nothing about the ever-ballooning costs. In 2006, the MOD estimated that construction costs would be £20 billion, but by last year that had risen by 50% to £31 billion, with another £10 billion added as a contingency fund. The very respected hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) has estimated the cost at £167 billion, though it is understood that delays might have since added to those credible figures—I have seen estimates as high as over £200 billion for the replacement and the running costs.

    James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)

    Is not the true cost the one we remember every Remembrance Sunday—the millions of lives we lost in two world wars? Would the right hon. Gentleman care to estimate the millions of lives that would have been lost in the third conventional war that was avoided before 1989 because of the nuclear deterrent?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    We all remember, on Remembrance Sunday and at other times, those who lost their lives. That is the price of war. My question is: does our possession of nuclear weapons make us and the world more secure? [Hon. Members: “Yes!”] Of course, there is a debate about that, and that is what a democratic Parliament does—it debates the issues. I am putting forward a point of view. The hon. Gentleman might not agree with it, but I am sure he will listen with great respect, as he always does.

    Ian Paisley

    In the past, the Labour leader’s solution to a domestic security threat was to parley with the Provisional IRA. What would his tactics be in dealing with a threat to all the peoples of this nation?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    Towards the end of her speech, the Prime Minister mentioned the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and multilateral disarmament. I was interested in that. Surely we should start from the basis that we want, and are determined to bring about, a nuclear-free world. Six-party talks are going on with North Korea. China is a major economic provider to North Korea. I would have thought that the relationship with China and North Korea was the key to finding a way forward.

    James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)

    How would the right hon. Gentleman persuade my thousands of Korean constituents that it is a good idea to disarm unilaterally while their families and friends living in our ally South Korea face a constant nuclear threat from a belligerent regime over their northern border?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I, too, have Korean constituents, as do many others, and we welcome their work and participation in our society. I was making the point that the six-party talks are an important way forward in bringing about a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula, which is surely in everybody’s interests. It will not be easy—I fully understand that—but nevertheless it is something we should be trying to do.

    I would be grateful if the Prime Minister, or the Defence Secretary when he replies, could let us know the Government’s estimate of the total lifetime cost of what we are being asked to endorse today.

    Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    No.

    It is hardly surprising that in May 2009, an intense debate went on in the shadow Cabinet about going for a less expensive upgrade by converting to air-launched missiles. The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said at the time that

    “the arguments have not yet been had in public in nearly an adequate enough way to warrant the spending of this nation’s treasure on the scale that will be required.”—[Official Report, 20 April 2009; Vol. 491, c. 84.]

    Seven years later, we are perhaps in the same situation.

    The motion proposes an open-ended commitment to maintain Britain’s current nuclear capability for as long as the global security situation demands. We on the Opposition Benches, despite our differences on some issues, have always argued for the aim of a nuclear-free world. We might differ on how to achieve it, but we are united in our commitment to that end.

    In 2007, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) embarked on a meaningful attempt to build consensus for multilateral disarmament. Will the Government address where these successor submarines are going to be based? The people of Scotland have rejected Trident’s being based in Faslane naval base on the Clyde—the SNP Government are opposed to it, as is the Scottish Labour party.

    We are debating not a nuclear deterrent but our continued possession of weapons of mass destruction. We are discussing eight missiles and 40 warheads, with each warhead believed to be eight times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima in 1945. We are talking about 40 warheads, each one with a capacity to kill more than 1 million people.

    What, then, is the threat that we face that will be deterred by the death of more than 1 million people? It is not the threat from so-called Islamic State, with its poisonous death-cult that glories in killing as many people as possible, as we have seen brutally from Syria to east Africa and from France to Turkey. It has not deterred our allies Saudi Arabia from committing dreadful acts in Yemen. It did not stop Saddam Hussein’s atrocities in the 1980s or the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It did not deter the war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s, nor the genocide in Rwanda. I make it clear today that I would not take a decision that killed millions of innocent people. I do not believe that the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with international relations.

    Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)

    As Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend will be privy to briefings from the National Security Council. Will he explain when he last sought and received such a briefing and what is his assessment of the new Russian military nuclear protocols that permit first strike using nuclear weapons and that say that they can be used to de-escalate conventional military conflicts?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    Britain, too, currently retains the right to first strike, so I would have thought that the best way forward would be to develop the nuclear non-proliferation treaty into a no first strike situation. That would be a good way forward. I respect my hon. Friend’s wish to live in a nuclear-free world. I know he believes that very strongly.

    I think we should take our commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty very seriously. In 1968, the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson inaugurated and signed the non-proliferation treaty. In 2007, the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South rightly said that

    “we must strengthen the NPT in all its aspects”

    and referred to the judgment made 40 years ago

    “that the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons was in all of our interests.”

    The then Labour Government committed to reduce our stocks of operationally available warheads by a further 20%. I congratulate our Government on doing that. Indeed, I attended an NPT review conference when those congratulations were spoken. Can the Government say what the Labour Foreign Secretary said in 2007 when she said that her

    “commitment to the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons is undimmed”?

    Is this Government’s vision of a nuclear-free world undimmed? My right hon. Friend also spoke as Foreign Secretary of the

    “international community’s clear commitment to a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone”.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I will not give way.

    Indeed, at the last two nuclear non-proliferation treaty five-yearly review conferences there was unanimous support for a weapons of mass destruction-free zone across the middle east, which is surely something that we can sign up to and support. I look forward to the Defence Secretary’s support for that position when he responds to the debate.

    Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)

    My right hon. Friend is speaking about previous party policy. At the shadow Cabinet meeting last Tuesday, it was agreed that current party policy would be conveyed by Front Benchers. When will we hear it?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I thank my hon. Friend for his view. As he well knows, the party decided that it wanted to support the retention of nuclear weapons. We also decided that we would have a policy review, which is currently being undertaken by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis).

    My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) is as well aware as I am of the existing policy. He is also as well aware as I am of the views on nuclear weapons that I expressed very clearly at the time of the leadership election last year, hence the fact that Labour Members will have a free vote this evening.

    Other countries have made serious efforts—

    Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)

    Will my right hon. Friend give way?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I will come to my hon. Friend in a moment.

    Other countries have made serious efforts to bring about nuclear disarmament within the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. South Africa abandoned all its nuclear programmes after the end of apartheid, and thus brought about a nuclear weapons-free zone throughout the continent. After negotiation, Libya ended all research on nuclear weapons. At the end of the cold war, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, although they were under the control of the former Soviet Union and, latterly, of Russia. Kazakhstan did the same, which helped to bring about a central Asia nuclear weapons-free zone, and in Latin America, Argentina and Brazil both gave up their nuclear programmes.

    I commend the Government, and other Governments around the world who negotiated with Iran, seriously, with great patience and at great length. That helped to encourage Iran to give up its nuclear programme, and I think we should pay tribute to President Obama for his achievements in that regard.

    The former Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Portillo said:

    “To say we need nuclear weapons in this situation would imply that Germany and Italy are trembling in their boots because they don’t have a nuclear deterrent, which I think is clearly not the case.”

    Is it not time for us to step up to the plate and promote—rapidly—nuclear disarmament?

    Mr Kevan Jones

    Like me, my right hon. Friend stood in May 2015 on the basis of a party policy which had been agreed at our conference, through our mechanisms in the party, and which supported the renewal of our continuous at-sea deterrent. He now has a shadow Front Bench and a shadow Cabinet in his own image, who, I understand, agreed last week to present that policy from the Front Bench. Is he going to do it, or will it be done by the Member who winds up the debate?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    My hon. Friend is well aware of what the policy was. He is also well aware that a policy review is being undertaken, and he is also well aware of the case that I am making for nuclear disarmament.

    Caroline Lucas

    As the right hon. Gentleman will know, a multilateral process is currently taking place at the United Nations. More than 130 countries are negotiating, in good faith, for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government’s refusal even to attend, let alone take part in, that process raises serious questions about their commitment to a world without nuclear weapons?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I think it is a great shame that the Government do not attend those negotiations, and I wish they would. I thank them for attending the 2014 conference on the humanitarian effects of war, and I thank them for their participation in the non-proliferation treaty, but I think they should go and support the idea of a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons. No one in the House actually wants nuclear weapons. The debate is about how one gets rid of them, and the way in which one does it.

    There are questions, too, about the operational utility of nuclear armed submarines. [Interruption.] I ask the Prime Minister again—or perhaps the Secretary of State for Defence can answer this question in his response—what assessment the Government have made of the impact of underwater drones, the surveillance of wave patterns and other advanced detection techniques that could make the submarine technology—[Interruption.]

    Mr Speaker

    Order. Mr Shelbrooke, I want you to aspire to the apogee of statesmanship, but shrieking from a sedentary position, despite your magnificent suit, is not the way to achieve it. Calm yourself, man; I am trying to help you, even if you don’t know it.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    Thank you, Mr Speaker.

    Can the Prime Minister confirm whether the UK will back the proposed nuclear weapons ban treaty, which I understand will be put before the UN General Assembly in September—probably before we return to the House after the summer recess? That is an important point.

    Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)

    We can all agree that nuclear weapons are truly the most repugnant weapons that have ever been invented by man, but the key is the word “invented”; we cannot disinvent them, but we can control them, and that is what this is all about—controlling nuclear weapons.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    If this is all about controlling them, perhaps we should think for a moment about the obligations we have signed up to as a nation by signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, article VI of which says that the declared nuclear weapons states—of which we are one—must take steps towards disarmament, and others must not acquire nuclear weapons. It has not been easy, but the NPT has helped to reduce the level of nuclear weapons around the world.

    Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)

    I am stunned to hear the argument that has just been made from the Tory Benches that we cannot disinvent nuclear weapons. That argument could be employed for chemical and biological weapons.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have achieved the chemical weapons convention, a ban on cluster weapons and other things around the world through serious long-term negotiation.

    Angela Smith

    My right hon. Friend is fond of telling us all that the party conference is sovereign when it comes to party policy. Last year the party conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of maintaining the nuclear deterrent, so why are we not hearing a defence of the Government’s motion?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    Party policy is also to review our policies. That is why we have reviews.

    We also have to look at the issues of employment and investment. We need Government intervention through a defence diversification agency, as we had under the previous Labour Government, to support industries that have become over-reliant on defence contracts and wish to move into other contracts and other work.

    The Prime Minister mentioned the Unite policy conference last week, which I attended. Unite, like other unions, has members working in all sectors of high-tech manufacturing, including the defence sector. That, of course, includes the development of both the submarines and the warheads and nuclear reactors that go into them. Unite’s policy conference endorsed its previous position of opposing Trident but wanting a Government who will put in place a proper diversification agency. The union has been thinking these things through and wants to maintain the highly skilled jobs in the sector.

    Our defence review is being undertaken by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for her excellent work on the review. [Interruption.] Whatever people’s views—

    Caroline Flint rose—

    Jeremy Corbyn

    Alright, I will give way—[Interruption.]

    Mr Speaker

    Order. I think the right hon. Gentleman has signalled an intention to take an intervention, but before he does—[Interruption.] Order. I just make the point that there is a lot of noise, but at the last reckoning—[Interruption.]

    Order. I will tell the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) what the position is, and he will take it whether he likes it or not. Fifty-three Members wish to speak in this debate, and I want to accommodate them. I ask Members to take account of that to help each other.

    Caroline Flint

    Under the last Labour Government, because of our stand on supporting non-proliferation, as a nuclear deterrent country we were able to influence a large reduction in the number of nuclear warheads around the world. Does my right hon. Friend really think that if we abandoned our position as one of the countries that holds nuclear weapons, we would have as much influence without them as with them?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    We did indeed help to reduce the number of nuclear warheads. Indeed, I attended a number of conferences where there were British Government representatives, and the point was made that the number of UK warheads had been reduced and other countries had been encouraged to do the same. I talked about the nuclear weapons-free zones that had been achieved around the world, which are a good thing. However, there is now a step change, because we are considering saying that we are prepared to spend a very large sum on the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to article VI of the NPT—I am sure she is aware of it—which requires us to “take steps towards disarmament”. That is what it actually says.

    Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I am not going to give way any more, because I am up against the clock.

    In case it is not obvious to the House, let me say that I will be voting against the motion tonight. I am sure that will be an enormous surprise to the whole House. I will do that because of my own views and because of the way—

    Mr Jamie Reed

    On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

    Mr Speaker

    I apologise for having to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but we have a point of order.

    Mr Reed

    I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker, on the accuracy of the language used by the Leader of the Opposition. We are not voting tonight on new nuclear warheads; we are voting simply on the submarines used to deploy those missiles. That is fundamentally different from new missiles.

    Mr Speaker

    The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that it is up to each right hon. and hon. Member to read the motion, interpret it as he or she thinks fit, and make a judgment accordingly. It is not a matter for the Chair.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    The issue of course is the submarines, but it is also the new weapons that will have to go into those submarines as and when they have been built—if they are built.

    We should pause for a moment to think about the indiscriminate nature of what nuclear weapons do and the catastrophic effects of their use anywhere. As I said, I have attended NPT conferences and preparatory conferences at various times over many years, with representatives of all parties in the House. I was very pleased when the coalition Government finally, if slightly reluctantly, accepted the invitation to take part in the humanitarian effects of war conference in Vienna in 2014. Anyone who attended that conference and heard from British nuclear test veterans, Pacific islanders or civilians in Russia or the United States who have suffered the effects of nuclear explosions cannot be totally dispassionate about the effects of the use of nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapon is an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction.

    Many colleagues throughout the House will vote for weapons tonight because they believe they serve a useful military purpose. But to those who believe in multilateral disarmament, I ask this: is this not an unwise motion from the Government, giving no answers on costs and no answers on disarmament? For those of us who believe in aiming for a nuclear-free world, and for those who are deeply concerned about the spiralling costs, this motion has huge questions to answer, and they have failed to be addressed in this debate. If we want a nuclear weapons-free world, this is an opportunity to start down that road and try to bring others with us, as has been achieved to some extent over the past few decades. Surely we should make that effort rather than go down the road the Government are suggesting for us this evening.

  • Theresa May – 2016 Speech on Nuclear Deterrent

    theresamay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2016.

    I beg to move,

    That this House supports the Government’s assessment in the 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review that the UK’s independent minimum credible nuclear deterrent, based on a Continuous at Sea Deterrence posture, will remain essential to the UK’s security today as it has for over 60 years, and for as long as the global security situation demands, to deter the most extreme threats to the UK’s national security and way of life and that of the UK’s allies; supports the decision to take the necessary steps required to maintain the current posture by replacing the current Vanguard Class submarines with four Successor submarines; recognises the importance of this programme to the UK’s defence industrial base and in supporting thousands of highly skilled engineering jobs; notes that the Government will continue to provide annual reports to Parliament on the programme; recognises that the UK remains committed to reducing its overall nuclear weapon stockpile by the mid-2020s; and supports the Government’s commitment to continue work towards a safer and more stable world, pressing for key steps towards multilateral disarmament.

    Obviously, the Home Secretary has just made a statement about the attack in Nice, and I am sure the whole House will join me in sending our deepest condolences to the families and friends of all those killed and injured in last Thursday’s utterly horrifying attack in Nice—innocent victims brutally murdered by terrorists who resent the freedoms that we treasure and want nothing more than to destroy our way of life.

    This latest attack in France, compounding the tragedies of the Paris attacks in January and November last year, is another grave reminder of the growing threats that Britain and all our allies face from terrorism. On Friday I spoke to President Hollande and assured him that we will stand shoulder to shoulder with the French people, as we have done so often in the past. We will never be cowed by terror. Though the battle against terrorism may be long, these terrorists will be defeated, and the values of liberté, égalité and fraternité will prevail.

    I should also note the serious events over the weekend in Turkey. We have firmly condemned the attempted coup by certain members of the Turkish military, which began on Friday evening. Britain stands firmly in support of Turkey’s democratically elected Government and institutions. We call for the full observance of Turkey’s constitutional order and stress the importance of the rule of law prevailing in the wake of this failed coup. Everything must be done to avoid further violence, to protect lives and to restore calm. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has worked around the clock to provide help and advice to the many thousands of British nationals on holiday or working in Turkey at this time. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has spoken to the Turkish Foreign Minister, and I expect to speak to President Erdogan shortly.

    Before I turn to our nuclear deterrent, I am sure the House will welcome the news that Japan’s SoftBank Group intends to acquire UK tech firm ARM Holdings. I have spoken to SoftBank directly. It has confirmed its commitment to keep the company in Cambridge and to invest further to double the number of UK jobs over five years. This £24 billion investment would be the largest ever Asian investment in the UK. It is a clear demonstration that Britain is open for business—as attractive to international investment as ever.

    There is no greater responsibility as Prime Minister than ensuring the safety and security of our people. That is why I have made it my first duty in this House to move today’s motion so that we can get on with the job of renewing an essential part of our national security for generations to come.

    For almost half a century, every hour of every day, our Royal Navy nuclear submarines have been patrolling the oceans, unseen and undetected, fully armed and fully ready—our ultimate insurance against nuclear attack. Our submariners endure months away from their families, often without any contact with their loved ones, training relentlessly for a duty they hope never to carry out. I hope that, whatever our views on the deterrent, we can today agree on one thing: that our country owes an enormous debt of gratitude to all our submariners and their families for the sacrifices they make in keeping us safe. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

    As a former Home Secretary, I am familiar with the threats facing our country. In my last post, I was responsible for counter-terrorism for over six years. I received daily operational intelligence briefings about the threats to our national security, I chaired a weekly security meeting with representatives of all the country’s security and intelligence agencies, military and police, and I received personal briefings from the director-general of MI5. Over those six years as Home Secretary I focused on the decisions needed to keep our people safe, and that remains my first priority as Prime Minister.

    The threats that we face are serious, and it is vital for our national interest that we have the full spectrum of our defences at full strength to meet them. That is why, under my leadership, this Government will continue to meet our NATO obligation to spend 2% of our GDP on defence. We will maintain the most significant security and military capability in Europe, and we will continue to invest in all the capabilities set out in the strategic defence and security review last year. We will meet the growing terrorist threat coming from Daesh in Syria and Iraq, from Boko Haram in Nigeria, from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, from al-Shabaab in east Africa, and from other terrorist groups planning attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We will continue to invest in new capabilities to counter threats that do not recognise national borders, including by remaining a world leader in cyber-security.

    Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)

    Does my right hon. Friend agree that Ukraine would have been less likely to have lost a sizeable portion of its territory to Russia had it kept its nuclear weapons, and that there are lessons in that for us?

    The Prime Minister

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are lessons. Some people suggest to us that we should actually be removing our nuclear deterrent. This has been a vital part of our national security and defence for nearly half a century now, and it would be quite wrong for us to go down that particular path.

    John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)

    I offer the Prime Minister many congratulations on her election. Will she be reassured that whatever she is about to hear from our Front Benchers, it remains steadfastly Labour party policy to renew the deterrent while other countries have the capacity to threaten the United Kingdom, and that many of my colleagues will do the right thing for the long-term security of our nation and vote to complete the programme that we ourselves started in government?

    The Prime Minister

    I commend the hon. Gentleman for the words that he has just spoken. He is absolutely right. The national interest is clear. The manifesto on which Labour Members of Parliament stood for the general election last year said that Britain must remain

    “committed to a minimum, credible, independent nuclear capability, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent.”

    I welcome the commitment that he and, I am sure, many of his colleagues will be giving tonight to that nuclear deterrent by joining Government Members of Parliament in voting for this motion.

    Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

    I add my congratulations to the right hon. Lady in her new role. If keeping and renewing our nuclear weapons is so vital to our national security and our safety, then does she accept that the logic of that position must be that every single other country must seek to acquire nuclear weapons, and does she really think that the world would be a safer place if it did? Our nuclear weapons are driving proliferation, not the opposite.

    The Prime Minister

    No, I do not accept that at all. I have to say to the hon. Lady that, sadly, she and some Labour Members seem to be the first to defend the country’s enemies and the last to accept these capabilities when we need them.

    None of this means that there will be no threat from nuclear states in the coming decades. As I will set out for the House today, the threats from countries such as Russia and North Korea remain very real. As our strategic defence and security review made clear, there is a continuing risk of further proliferation of nuclear weapons. We must continually convince any potential aggressors that the benefits of an attack on Britain are far outweighed by their consequences; and we cannot afford to relax our guard or rule out further shifts that would put our country in grave danger. We need to be prepared to deter threats to our lives and our livelihoods, and those of generations who are yet to be born.

    Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)

    Of course, when SNP Members go through the Lobby tonight, 58 of Scotland’s 59 MPs will be voting against this. What message is the Prime Minister sending to the people of Scotland, who are demonstrating, through their elected representatives, that we do not want Trident on our soil?

    The Prime Minister

    I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that that means that 58 of the 59 Scottish Members of Parliament will be voting against jobs in Scotland that are supported by the nuclear deterrent.

    Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)

    I thank the Prime Minister for giving way and congratulate her on her appointment. She mentioned the security threat that the country faces from terrorism. What does she say to those who say that it is a choice between renewing the Trident programme and confronting the terrorist threat?

    The Prime Minister

    I say that it is not a choice. This country needs to recognise that it faces a variety of threats and ensure that we have the capabilities that are necessary and appropriate to deal with each of them. As the Home Secretary has just made clear in response to questions on her statement, the Government are committed to extra funding and extra resource going to, for example, counter-terrorism policing and the security and intelligence agencies as they face the terrorist threat, but what we are talking about today is the necessity for us to have a nuclear deterrent, which has been an insurance policy for this country for nearly 50 years and I believe that it should remain so.

    Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I would like to make a little progress before I take more interventions.

    I know that there are a number of serious and very important questions at the heart of this debate, and I want to address them all this afternoon. First, in the light of the evolving nature of the threats that we face, is a nuclear deterrent really still necessary and essential? Secondly, is the cost of our deterrent too great? Thirdly, is building four submarines the right way of maintaining our deterrent? Fourthly, could we not rely on our nuclear-armed allies, such as America and France, to provide our deterrent instead? Fifthly, do we not have a moral duty to lead the world in nuclear disarmament, rather than maintaining our own deterrent? I will take each of those questions in turn.

    Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)

    May I congratulate the Prime Minister on her surefootedness in bringing this motion before the House and at last allowing Parliament to make a decision in this Session? We will proudly stand behind the Government on this issue tonight. I encourage her to tell the Scots Nats that if they do not want those jobs in Scotland, they will be happily taken in Northern Ireland?

    The Prime Minister

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for the support that he and his colleagues will show tonight.

    Mike Gapes

    I congratulate the right hon. Lady on becoming Prime Minister. Will she confirm that, when the Labour Government of Clement Attlee took the decision to have nuclear weapons, they had to do so in a very dangerous world, and that successive Labour Governments kept those nuclear weapons because there was a dangerous world? Is it not the case that now is also a dangerous time?

    The Prime Minister

    The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course, the last Labour Government held votes in this House on the retention of the nuclear deterrent. It is a great pity that there are Members on the Labour Front Bench who fail to see the necessity of the nuclear deterrent, given that in the past the Labour party has put the British national interest first when looking at the issue.

    I want to set out for the House why our nuclear deterrent remains as necessary and essential today as it was when we first established it. The nuclear threat has not gone away; if anything, it has increased.

    First, there is the threat from existing nuclear states such as Russia. We know that President Putin is upgrading his nuclear forces. In the past two years, there has been a disturbing increase in both Russian rhetoric about the use of nuclear weapons and the frequency of snap nuclear exercises. As we have seen with the illegal annexation of Crimea, there is no doubt about President Putin’s willingness to undermine the rules-based international system in order to advance his own interests. He has already threatened to base nuclear forces in Crimea and in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic sea that neighbours Poland and Lithuania.

    Secondly, there is the threat from countries that wish to acquire nuclear capabilities illegally. North Korea has stated a clear intent to develop and deploy a nuclear weapon, and it continues to work towards that goal, in flagrant violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

    Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I am going to make some progress. North Korea is the only country in the world to have tested nuclear weapons this century, carrying out its fourth test this year, as well as a space launch that used ballistic missile technology. It also claims to be attempting to develop a submarine-launch capability and to have withdrawn from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

    Based on the advice I have received, we believe that North Korea could already have enough fissile material to produce more than a dozen nuclear weapons. It also has a long-range ballistic missile, which it claims can reach America, and which is potentially intended for nuclear delivery. There is, of course, the danger that North Korea might share its technology or its weapons with other countries or organisations that wish to do us harm.

    Thirdly, there is the question of future nuclear threats that we cannot even anticipate today. Let me be clear why this matters. Once nuclear weapons have been given up, it is almost impossible to get them back, and the process of creating a new deterrent takes many decades. We could not redevelop a deterrent fast enough to respond to a new and unforeseen nuclear threat, so the decision on whether to renew our nuclear deterrent hinges not just on the threats we face today, but on an assessment of what the world will be like over the coming decades.

    It is impossible to say for certain that no such extreme threats will emerge in the next 30 or 40 years to threaten our security and way of life, and it would be an act of gross irresponsibility to lose the ability to meet such threats by discarding the ultimate insurance against those risks in the future. With the existing fleet of Vanguard submarines beginning to leave service by the early 2030s, and with the time it takes to build and test new submarines, we need to take the decision to replace them now.

    Maintaining our nuclear deterrent is not just essential for our own national security; it is vital for the future security of our NATO allies.

    Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)

    Last year, the then Minister for Defence Procurement, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), said that the cost of the replacement programme was

    “being withheld as it relates to the formulation of Government policy and release would prejudice commercial interests.”

    Given the scale of the decision that we are being asked to make, will the Prime Minister tell us the answer to that question—the through-life cost?

    The Prime Minister

    I am happy to do so. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish this section of my speech, I will come on to the cost in a minute. Britain is going to leave the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe, and we will not leave our European and NATO allies behind. Being recognised as one of the five nuclear weapons states under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty confers on us unique responsibilities, because many of the nations that signed the treaty in the 1960s did so on the understanding that they were protected by NATO’s nuclear umbrella, including the UK deterrent. Abandoning our deterrent would undermine not only our own future security, but that of our allies. That is not something that I am prepared to do.

    Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)

    I wonder whether the Prime Minister, with her very busy schedule, caught the interview on Radio 5 Live this morning with the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), who stated that he was a member of CND as a teenager, but then he grew up. Is not the mature and adult view that in a world in which we have a nuclear North Korea and an expansionist Russia, we must keep our at-sea independent nuclear deterrent?

    The Prime Minister

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I think he is right to point out that there are Opposition Members who support that view. Sadly, not many of them seem to be on the Front Bench, but perhaps my speech will change the views of some of the Front Benchers; we will see.

    I said to the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) that I would come on to the question of cost, and I want to do that now. Of course, no credible deterrent is cheap, and it is estimated that the four new submarines will cost £31 billion to build, with an additional contingency of £10 billion. With the acquisition costs spread over 35 years, this is effectively an insurance premium of 0.2% of total annual Government spending. That is 20p in every £100 for a capability that will protect our people through to the 2060s and beyond. I am very clear that our national security is worth every penny.

    Angus Robertson

    I am grateful to the Prime Minister for taking a second intervention. I asked her a simple question the first time around. I think that she has concluded her confirmation of the through-life cost for Trident’s replacement, but she did not say what that number was. Would she be so kind as to say what the total figure is for Trident replacement, including its through-life cost?

    The Prime Minister

    I have given the figures for the cost of building the submarines. I am also clear that the in-service cost is about 6% of the defence budget, or about 13p in every £100 of Government spending. There is also a significant economic benefit to the renewal of our nuclear deterrent, which might be of interest to members of the Scottish National party.

    Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)

    The Prime Minister quite rightly paid tribute to our submariners. Will she also pay tribute to the men and women working in our defence industries who will work on Successor? They are highly skilled individuals who are well paid, but such skills cannot just be turned on and off like a tap when we need them. Does she agree that it is vital for the national interest to keep these people employed?

    The Prime Minister

    The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. Our nuclear defence industry makes a major contribution to our defence industrial base. It supports more than 30,000 jobs across the United Kingdom, and benefits hundreds of suppliers across more than 350 constituencies. The skills required in this industry, whether in engineering or design, will keep our nation at the cutting edge for years to come. Along with the hon. Gentleman, I pay tribute to all those who are working in the industry and, by their contribution, helping to keep us safe.

    David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)

    I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place as Prime Minister. Does she agree with me that, like the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), I have quite a lot of people in my constituency who are working in the defence industry, the nuclear power industry and the science sector? Will it not be a kick in the teeth for my constituents if we do not agree to this deterrent today?

    The Prime Minister

    My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Some constituencies—obviously, Morecambe and Lunesdale, and Barrow and Furness—are particularly affected by this, but as I have just said, there are jobs across about 350 constituencies in this country that are related to this industry. If we were not going to renew our nuclear deterrent, those people would of course be at risk of losing their jobs as a result.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I will give way to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and then I will make some progress.

    Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)

    I hope that the Prime Minister will come on to explain how a like-for-like replacement for Trident complies with article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

    The Prime Minister

    I will come on to the whole question of nuclear proliferation a little later, if the right hon. Gentleman will just hold his fire.

    Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)

    Will the Prime Minister confirm for me and the House that the vast majority of the cost involved will be invested in jobs, skills and businesses in this country over many decades? This is an investment in our own security. It is not about outsourcing, but about keeping things safe at home.

    The Prime Minister

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about jobs here in the United Kingdom, and it is also about the development of skills here in the United Kingdom that will be of benefit to our engineering and design base for many years to come.

    The decision will also specifically increase the number of jobs in Scotland. HM Naval Base Clyde is already one of the largest employment sites in Scotland, sustaining around 6,800 military and civilian jobs, as well as having a wider impact on the local economy. As the base becomes home to all Royal Navy submarines, the number of people employed there is set to increase to 8,200 by 2022. If hon. Members vote against today’s motion, they will be voting against those jobs. That is why the Unite union has said that defending and securing the jobs of the tens of thousands of defence workers involved in the Successor submarine programme is its priority.

    Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)

    On the issue of jobs, there is a lot of steel in Successor submarines, so will the Prime Minister commit to using UK steel for these developments?

    The Prime Minister

    The hon. Gentleman might have noticed that the Government have looked at the Government procurement arrangements in relation to steel. Obviously, where British steel is good value, we would want it to be used. For the hon. Gentleman’s confirmation, I have been in Wales this morning and one of the issues I discussed with the First Minister of Wales was the future of Tata and the work that the Government have done with the Welsh Government on that.

    I will now turn to the specific question of whether building four submarines is the right approach, or whether there are cheaper and more effective ways of providing a similar effect to the Trident system. I think the facts are very clear. A review of alternatives to Trident, undertaken in 2013, found that no alternative system is as capable, resilient or cost-effective as a Trident-based deterrent. Submarines are less vulnerable to attack than aircraft, ships or silos, and they can maintain a continuous, round-the-clock cover in a way that aircraft cannot, while alternative delivery systems such as cruise missiles do not have the same reach or capability.

    Furthermore, we do not believe that submarines will be rendered obsolete by unmanned underwater vehicles or cyber-techniques, as some have suggested. Indeed, Admiral Lord Boyce, the former First Sea Lord and submarine commander, has said that we are more likely to put a man on Mars within six months than make the seas transparent within 30 years. With submarines operating in isolation when deployed, it is hard to think of a system less susceptible to cyber-attack. Other nations think the same. That is why America, Russia, China and France all continue to spend tens of billions on their own submarine-based weapons.

    Delivering Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrence means that we need all four submarines to ensure that one is always on patrol, taking account of the cycle of deployment, training, and routine and unplanned maintenance. Three submarines cannot provide resilience against unplanned refits or breaks in serviceability, and neither can they deliver the cost savings that some suggest they would, since large fixed costs for infrastructure, training and maintenance are not reduced by any attempt to cut from four submarines to three. It is therefore right to replace our current four Vanguard submarines with four Successors. I will not seek false economies with the security of the nation, and I am not prepared to settle for something that does not do the job.

    Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)

    I was listening carefully to the question from the leader of the Scottish National party about cost. Is it not clear that whatever the cost, he and his party are against our nuclear deterrent? Scottish public opinion is clear that people in Scotland want the nuclear deterrent. When my right hon. Friend the Scottish Secretary votes to retain the nuclear deterrent tonight, he will be speaking for the people of Scotland, not the SNP.

    The Prime Minister

    I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend; he put that very well indeed.

    Let me turn to the issue of whether we could simply rely on other nuclear armed allies such as America and France to provide our deterrent. The first question is how would America and France react if we suddenly announced that we were abandoning our nuclear capabilities but still expected them to put their cities at risk to protect us in a nuclear crisis. That is hardly standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies.

    At last month’s NATO summit in Warsaw, our allies made clear that by maintaining our independent nuclear deterrent alongside America and France, we provide NATO with three separate centres of decision making. That complicates the calculations of potential adversaries, and prevents them from threatening the UK or our allies with impunity. Withdrawing from that arrangement would weaken us now and in future, undermine NATO, and embolden our adversaries. It might also allow potential adversaries to gamble that one day the US or France might not put itself at risk to deter an attack on the UK.

    Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)

    It is all very well looking at the cost of building and running the submarines, but the cost of instability in the world if there is no counterbalance reduces our ability to trade and reduces GDP. This is not just about what it costs; it is about what would happen if we did not have this system and there was more instability in the world.

    The Prime Minister

    My hon. Friend makes a valid and important point, and this issue must be looked at in the round, not just as one set of figures.

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

    I congratulate the Prime Minister on her appointment. I shall be voting for the motion this evening because I believe that the historical role of the Labour party and Labour Governments has been on the right side of this issue. I love the fact that she is showing strong support for NATO, but there is a niggle: have we the capacity and resources to maintain conventional forces to the level that will match our other forces?

    The Prime Minister

    The answer to that is yes—we are very clear that we face different threats and need different capabilities to face them. We have now committed to 2% of GDP being spent on defence, and we have increased the defence budget and the money that we spend on more conventional forces.

    George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)

    I congratulate the Prime Minister on her new role, but let us cut to the chase: is she personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that could kill 100,000 innocent men, women and children?

    The Prime Minister

    Yes. The whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it, unlike the suggestion that we could have a nuclear deterrent but not actually be willing to use it, which seemed to come from the Labour Front Bench.

    Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)

    I am sure the Prime Minister is aware that Russia has 10 times the amount of tactical nuclear weapons than the whole of the rest of NATO. On a recent Defence Committee visit to Russia, we were told by senior military leaders that they reserved the right to use nuclear weapons as a first strike. Is that not something that should make us very afraid if we ever thought of giving up our nuclear weapons?

    The Prime Minister

    The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As I pointed out earlier, Russia is also modernising its nuclear capability. It would be a dereliction of our duty, in terms of our responsibility for the safety and security of the British people, if we were to give up our nuclear deterrent.

    We must send an unequivocal message to any adversary that the cost of an attack on our United Kingdom or our allies will always be far greater than anything it might hope to gain through such an attack. Only the retention of our own independent deterrent can do this. This Government will never endanger the security of our people and we will never hide behind the protection provided by others, while claiming the mistaken virtue of unilateral disarmament.

    Let me turn to the question of our moral duty to lead nuclear disarmament. Stopping nuclear weapons being used globally is not achieved by giving them up unilaterally. It is achieved by working towards a multilateral process. That process is important and Britain could not be doing more to support this vital work. Britain is committed to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in line with our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

    Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)

    Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister

    I am going to make some more progress.

    We play a leading role on disarmament verification, together with Norway and America. We will continue to press for key steps towards multilateral disarmament, including the entry into force of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and for successful negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty. Furthermore, we are committed to retaining the minimum amount of destructive power needed to deter any aggressor. We have cut our nuclear stockpiles by over half since their cold war peak in the late 1970s. Last year, we delivered on our commitment to reduce the number of deployed warheads on each submarine from 48 to 40. We will retain no more than 120 operationally available warheads and we will further reduce our stockpile of nuclear weapons to no more than 180 warheads by the middle of the next decade.

    Britain has approximately 1% of the 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world. For us to disarm unilaterally would not significantly change the calculations of other nuclear states, nor those seeking to acquire such weapons. To disarm unilaterally would not make us safer. Nor would it make the use of nuclear weapons less likely. In fact, it would have the opposite effect, because it would remove the deterrent that for 60 years has helped to stop others using nuclear weapons against us.

    Our national interest is clear. Britain’s nuclear deterrent is an insurance policy we simply cannot do without. We cannot compromise on our national security. We cannot outsource the grave responsibility we shoulder for keeping our people safe and we cannot abandon our ultimate safeguard out of misplaced idealism. That would be a reckless gamble: a gamble that would enfeeble our allies and embolden our enemies; a gamble with the safety and security of families in Britain that we must never be prepared to take.

    We have waited long enough. It is time to get on with building the next generation of our nuclear deterrent. It is time to take this essential decision to deter the most extreme threats to our society and preserve our way of life for generations to come. I commend this motion to the House.

  • Lilian Greenwood – 2016 Statement on Resignation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lilian Greenwood, the Labour MP for Nottingham South, on 14 July 2016.

    Thank you Chair and thank you all for coming to this evening’s meeting.

    I want to talk tonight about the Referendum, and what followed.

    But before I turn to the events of the last few weeks or months, I’d like to begin by looking at what we’ve achieved together.

    8 years ago I stood in front of the members of Nottingham South CLP and asked them to select me as their candidate for the next General Election.

    A number of the people here in this room tonight were there.

    Some of them weren’t sure that I was the right person for the job. They campaigned and voted for other candidates.

    But when the contest was over, they put those doubts to one side and we all got on with working together.

    Together we held Nottingham South for Labour in 2010.

    Together we won council seats from the Tories and the Lib Dems in 2011.

    Together we won by-election after by-election, even in the wards we hadn’t held since the late 1990s.

    Some of those people who didn’t vote for me are now, not just as my most valued Labour comrades, but amongst my most valued friends. We put our trust in each other and we have made a difference for our Party and our city.

    Of course some of you have just moved into Nottingham South, or joined the party more recently, and the increase in our membership has been outstanding.

    Many of you have also joined the dedicated band who spend their free time walking miles to deliver leaflets for me and our councillors

    Or give up their weekends to come out knocking on doors in all weathers.

    I know that not everyone is able to do that and that you support our Party in whatever ways you are able, but we work together because we are proud of our Labour Party, because we want the best for our movement and because we want to see a fairer, better society.

    And some of you have joined the Party in the last year, specifically because of Jeremy Corbyn: inspired by his values and principles and because he cares about fighting poverty and inequality, about offering hope for the future.

    I share those values and principles. I always have, and I hope you have always felt welcome in Labour.

    We’re here in the brand new Hopecentre. I supported Hope Church when this centre was just an idea. And I’ve seen this community turn an idea into a reality.

    If you know Clifton, you’ll know how it has been transformed over the past 8 years. The A453, the tram and the solid wall insulation. Fuel poverty in Clifton South has more than halved as a result of Labour action. Down from from 20.2% in 2010 to 9.4% last year.

    We did that by working together and campaigning together, working with the people in this community. We offered hope that things could be better and they are.

    There’s a long way to go.

    There are still huge problems and challenges to address in Clifton, in Nottingham South and across the country. But Labour in power makes a real difference to people facing inequality and poverty – and we could do so much more if we weren’t just in power locally but nationally too.

    Now let me turn specifically to recent events.

    It’s hard to imagine a more turbulent or disturbing 4 weeks in politics.

    Just 4 weeks ago, in the midst of a divisive and frankly xenophobic Referendum campaign, my friend and colleague Jo Cox was brutally murdered in the street on the way to her advice surgery. Murdered for standing up for her beliefs and speaking up for what is right.

    3 weeks ago, although Nottingham South voted to remain, people in our city, and especially in this community, voted to leave the EU. To turn their backs on our friends and neighbours in Europe.

    20 days ago, David Cameron announced that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister and we faced the prospect of a General Election, against a Party led by some of the most right wing Tories ever, and with UKIP buoyed by huge Leave votes in our Labour heartlands, including in places like Clifton.

    And 18 days ago, after 9 months serving in Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet, I resigned.

    You all know that last summer I didn’t nominate Jeremy, and I didn’t vote for him.

    I know that Nottingham South did nominate him and that overwhelmingly members across the country did vote for him.

    So when he asked me to serve I said yes.

    I wanted to make it work and I promise you, I tried to make it work.

    In the 9 months I spent in the Shadow Cabinet I never briefed against Jeremy.

    I never tweeted what was happening in Shadow Cabinet meetings or spoke to journalists about our private discussions

    Whenever challenged, I defended our Party Leader.

    I hope you all know that I work hard for my constituents in Nottingham South

    I worked just as diligently in the Shadow Cabinet.

    Leading the Labour Transport team

    Co-Chairing Labour’sTransport Policy Commission.

    Holding the Government to account at the dispatch box.

    Going on national and local media to speak for Labour, even when it was difficult.

    Being a part of the collective decision making in Shadow Cabinet, setting a direction for the PLP in Parliament on challenging issues.

    Many of you will know that I’m passionate about transport.

    I’ve been in the Labour Transport Team for almost 5 years.

    Becoming Shadow Transport Secretary was my dream job, a huge privilege and I’m extremely proud of the work our team did.

    It was fantastic to address our Party Conference last September and be able to pledge that a Labour Government would bring the railways back into public ownership.

    That was a policy that would make a real difference to passengers, and I believe in it wholeheartedly.

    It was brilliant when we forced the Government to u-turn on their plans to cancel the electrification of the Midland Main Line

    And I was looking forward to speaking in the Bus Services Bill, in favour of re-regulating bus services and standing up for outstanding Municipal bus companies like NCT.

    So I’d like you to imagine how I felt when, even though I was trying my hardest, it became impossible for me to do my job in the Shadow Cabinet.

    Some people have asked me for examples of why that was the case, and I wanted to explain tonight what’s happened over the last nine months as fully as I can.

    Rail fares go up once a year on 2 January.

    It’s the perfect opportunity to show that this Tory Government aren’t on the side of working people.

    Commuters who’ve seen their season tickets go up by more than 26% since 2010. Some of whom are paying more for their rail fares than their mortgage. Four, five even six thousand pounds a year.

    People who live in Essex and on the Kent coast, in suburbs and small towns, in marginal seats. Many of them are not Labour voters, but they are the people we need to win over.

    It is a huge date in the political calendar every year.

    We had the opportunity not just to criticise the Government, but to show we had a real Labour alternative. Our flagship policy. One that unites our party.

    My staff spent weeks preparing briefing materials for MPs and constituency parties across the country. Trawling through mountains of rail fare information to provide examples of the season tickets that had risen the most and that cost the most. Examples for every MP and CLP.

    Like Nottingham to Derby – where the cost of an annual season ticket has risen by almost 30% since 2010.

    And over the Christmas period we were listening in to Network Rail conference calls, monitoring the engineering works. Several calls every day including Christmas Day and Boxing Day, even New Years Eve.

    On 4 January – a cold dark Monday morning – I was at Kings Cross at 7am doing Radio 5 and BBC TV.

    Standing with Jeremy and the Rail Union General Secretaries for the media photocall. It was a crucial day in the Party’s media grid.

    And all across the country local party activists were outside railway stations in the cold and the dark, leafleting commuters with the materials we’d prepared. Armed with the briefings and statistics.

    Incredibly, Jeremy launched a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle on the same day.

    This was the reshuffle that had been talked about since the Syria vote a month earlier. A vote where I supported Jeremy’s position.

    The reshuffle that meant all our staff spent Christmas not knowing whether they’d have a job by the New Year.

    By mid-afternoon the press were camped outside the Leader’s office. They were there for the next 3 days.

    It knocked all the coverage of the rail fare rise and our public ownership policy off every news channel and every front page.

    I respect completely Jeremy’s right to reshuffle his top team. But why then?

    It was unnecessary and it was incompetent.

    It let me down, it let my staff down but most of all it let down the Labour campaigners and trade union members, people like you, who had given up their time to go out campaigning for us that morning.

    Now I’d ask you to imagine how you would you feel if you agreed something with your boss but he then did something completely different.

    Something that undermined you.

    Something they hadn’t even had the courtesy to tell you about.

    HS2 has always been controversial, including in our Party, but it is something that I believe is vital for the future of our country.

    It has the support of all the rail unions. It has the support of Labour leaders in the great cities like Birmingham and Manchester and Leeds and Nottingham. It is important for jobs and skills in Derby and Doncaster and across the country and it is our official policy to support it, as agreed by the Shadow Cabinet and our National Policy Forum.

    I’ve been one of HS2’s strongest supporters so I when I took up the job in Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet I wanted to be absolutely sure we were on the same page.

    I met his Director of Policy to talk it through. We talked about the most difficult parts of the project, the impact at Euston in London. I’d been working with Councillor Sarah Hayward and her colleagues at Camden for more than 2 years to try and help them get what they wanted for their local residents.

    It had been very difficult. I’d been to visit several times, meeting residents and businesses and dealing with some hostile media. But we secured real concessions – changes that will make a difference to local residents. It didn’t matter that it was in a nominally safe seat. It was the right thing to do.

    Despite our agreed policy, despite Jeremy’s Director of Policy and I agreeing our position, without saying anything to me, Jeremy gave a press interview in which he suggested he could drop Labour’s support for HS2 altogether. He told a journalist on a local Camden newspaper that perhaps the HS2 line shouldn’t go to Euston at all but stop at Old Oak Common in West London – but he never discussed any of this with the Shadow Cabinet, or me, beforehand.

    I felt totally undermined on a really difficult issue.

    And when 2 frontbenchers voted against the 3 line whip at 3rd Reading in March he did nothing.

    Telling one of them “well I’ve done it enough times myself”.

    Breaking the principles of collective responsibility and discipline without which effective Parliamentary opposition is not possible.

    When I raised my concerns it was simply shrugged off.

    It undermined me in front of colleagues and made me look weak.

    It made me feel like I was wasting my time.

    That my opinion didn’t matter.

    And it made me miserable.

    I’d discuss it with my political adviser, a Labour Party member of staff and activist from Nottingham who has also lost his job in all this, and we’d agree to go on because the policy mattered. Because we wanted to keep holding the Government to account. Because we love the Labour Party.

    This didn’t happen once or twice.

    It happened time and time again.

    The EU 4th Rail Package is a bit complex to explain here and now, but it had the potential to make it difficult to implement our new rail policy.

    I’d been working with MEPs to ensure it was amended or blocked for the last 3 years. We felt we could live with the final draft issued in April but it was a very sensitive issue. ASLEF and the RMT were on the Leave side in the referendum because of their concerns.

    So when Jeremy talked about it in a speech, in very Euro-sceptic terms, without giving me any warning let alone discussing it with me, I was concerned and asked to meet him.

    Our frontbenchers were being challenged on the issue in the media, but there was no common position.

    I asked and asked. After my staff chasing virtually every day for a month, we got a meeting.

    We put together a briefing paper in advance.

    We drafted some lines to take in any press interviews for us to give to all Labour MPs.

    We discussed the lines with his Policy staff and made some changes in response to comments.

    We agreed a final version. We sat down together and discussed what was in the 4th Rail Package, how we were ensuring it didn’t stop our policy, how we’d been working with our MEPs and the Socialist Group and we agreed the lines to take.

    The lines were circulated to all frontbenchers, to all MPs, to ensure they knew what our policy was and how to deal with difficult questions.

    But Jeremy went on SkyNews and took a completely different, eurosceptic line.

    Not what we’d agreed.

    With the potential to make us look divided.

    It undermined me, my staff and his staff.

    I wondered why I was bothering to put in the hard work.

    You’ve all heard stories about pro-European speeches being downgraded, events, being cancelled, and Jeremy and his staff privately subscribing to Eurosceptic views.

    And I felt that I was watching my leader deliberately sabotage the campaign on an issue on which he and I had a personal agreement.

    How would you feel if your boss undermined your work and when you complained he listened and then did nothing different?

    How would you feel if you were part of a team and you knew that not only was your boss undermining you but that this was happening to other colleagues?

    You can agree or disagree about whether Jeremy was half hearted about the Labour In campaign.

    You can agree or disagree about whether it’s Ok to take 5 days holiday 3 weeks before the most important vote in my lifetime.

    But I sat at the Regional Count with Glenis Willmott the Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, my friend, a fellow trade unionist from the East Midlands doing media duty for our Party.

    And as we left at 5am, defeated and in despair, we finally got sent lines to take from the Leader’s office. Acknowledging Kate Hoey and Gisela Stuart for their work in the Leave campaign. Their work in direct opposition to Labour Party policy.

    And shortly after we heard Jeremy calling for the immediate triggering of Article 50. Without any discussion with the Shadow Cabinet or the Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.

    Think about that. The country had just voted to leave the EU after more than 40 years and Jeremy made a major announcement on the Party’s position without waiting to discuss it with the Shadow Cabinet, without even consulting the leader of our MEPs in Europe.

    How can that be right?

    At 6.30am I was interviewed by Radio Nottingham. I was tired and I was gutted and I tried to use the lines I’d been sent, even though they were so inadequate, but when I was asked the question “Is Jeremy the man to lead the Labour Party in these challenging times?” I found it hard to say an enthusiastic yes. Because I didn’t believe it. Because I’d worked with him and I’d tried hard but in my mind, it simply wasn’t true.

    And when I saw that Cameron had resigned, I felt like I was looking into the abyss. Towards a General Election in which dozens of my colleagues would lose their seats.

    And I already know what that is like and I was in despair.

    But at that moment I knew that I didn’t have to put up with it.

    I could leave the Shadow Cabinet and return to the backbenches and focus on Nottingham South.

    But I was tired and emotional, so I wasn’t going to do anything hasty.

    So I talked to some of my closest colleagues.

    I discussed it with my staff.

    And I told Ravi.

    And decided to raise my concerns at Shadow Cabinet on the Monday.

    I arranged to meet my agent and several CLP officers on the Sunday afternoon to explain what I had decided to do.

    But it didn’t go as planned.

    On Sunday morning Ravi woke me and passed me my phone.

    Hilary Benn, who I’d been with on the campaign bus with in Derby and Peterborough only 3 days earlier, had been sacked.

    And Heidi Alexander, one of my closest friends in the Shadow Cabinet, one of the best and most talented and loyal colleagues I know, had resigned.

    So I rang Brian, my agent, and my adviser, Laurence, to tell them. I wrote my resignation letter and I rang Jeremy to explain. And I texted asking him to call me. And I rang Katy Clark in his office and asked her to ask him to ring me.

    After an hour or so he did ring me. And we had an amicable discussion and I explained that I has lost confidence in him.

    He didn’t even ask me why.

    Or what was wrong , or how he could fix it.

    I wasn’t part of any coup.

    I didn’t plan it.

    I didn’t co-ordinate the timing of my resignation with anyone else.

    I just knew that I could not go on.

    Things were, and are, falling apart.

    Jeremy has always treated me politely, and with kindness.

    I know that he has strong principles.

    I remain proud of our policies on transport, especially rail. And Jeremy is right to set out an alternative to the economics of austerity, to focus on affordable housing, to defending a public NHS and to tackling poverty and inequality.

    But through my own personal direct experience I know that Jeremy operates in a way that means progress towards these goals is impossible. He is not a team player let alone a team leader.

    Jeremy has a new Shadow Cabinet but it’s clear to me that he doesn’t understand collective responsibility and that he can’t lead a team, so I’m afraid the same problems will eventually emerge in the new front bench. This is not about policy or ideology, it is about competence.

    I can’t describe how sad I have felt this last 4 weeks.

    I remain very proud to be your MP and to serve my Party and my city.

    I will always support Labour as best as I can in Parliament.

    I am sorry that many of you feel very angry and let down, but I know that I have done what was right, that I have behaved with integrity and that I had no option but to resign from Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet. It’s clear that he cannot command the support of his colleagues in Parliament and under those circumstances I cannot see how he can lead our Party to the election victory people in our city so desperately need.

    8 years ago I asked Nottingham South members to put their trust in me.

    Tonight I’m asking you to do the same again.

    I don’t ask you to agree with me, but I hope you will understand and respect my decision. I have tried to be completely honest with you tonight. And I will try to answer your questions.

  • Andy Burnham – 2016 Speech on Nice Terror Attack

    andyburnham

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andy Burnham, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2016.

    I start by welcoming the Home Secretary to her new position and welcoming her well-judged and heartfelt words to the House today. She spoke for us all in condemning this nauseating attack, and in sending our sympathy and solidarity to the families affected and to the French people. From the very outset of the right hon. Lady’s tenure, let me assure her of my ongoing support in presenting a united front from this House to those who plan and perpetrate these brutal acts.

    It is a sad reflection of the dark times in which we live that this is the third time in the last nine months that we have gathered to discuss a major terrorist incident in mainland Europe. Each new incident brings new factors and changes perceptions on the nature of the threat posed by modern terrorism—and this one was no different. This was an act of indiscriminate and sickening brutality, made all the more abhorrent by the targeting of families and children. Ten children and babies were killed, 50 are still being treated, and many more have been orphaned and left with lasting psychological scars. Unlike other attacks, this was not planned by a cell with sophisticated tactics and weapons. A similar attack could be launched anywhere at any time, and that is what makes it so frightening and so difficult to predict and prevent.

    Let me start with the question of whether there are any immediate implications for the United Kingdom. On Friday, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said that UK police were “reviewing” security plans for “large public events” taking place this week. What conclusions were reached as part of that review, and were any changes made in the light of it? Will the Home Secretary be issuing any updated security advice to the organisers of the numerous large public gatherings and festivals that will take place throughout the country over the rest of the summer? We welcome the Mayor of London’s confirmation that the Metropolitan police were reviewing safety measures in the capital. Can the Home Secretary confirm that similar reviews are taking place in large cities throughout the United Kingdom?

    After the attacks in Paris, the Home Secretary’s predecessor committed herself to an urgent review of our response to firearms attacks. It has been suggested in the French media that if armed officers had been on the scene more quickly in Nice, they could have prevented the lorry from travelling as far as it did. Has the review that was commissioned been completed, and if so, what changes in firearms capability are proposed as a result? In the wake of Paris, the Home Secretary’s predecessor also promised to protect police budgets, but that has not been honoured, and there are real-terms cuts this year. Will the new Home Secretary pledge today to protect police budgets in real terms?

    The Home Secretary mentioned the Prevent programme. I have to say that I do not share her complacent view of what it is achieving. In fact, some would say that it is counter-productive, creating a climate of suspicion and mistrust and, far from tackling extremism, creating the very conditions for it to flourish. The Government’s own Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has said that the whole programme

    “could benefit from independent review.”

    Will the Home Secretary accept Labour’s call for a cross-party review of how the statutory Prevent duty is working?

    Immediately after the attack, it was described in the media as an act of Islamic terrorism, but it is now clear that the lifestyle of the individual had absolutely nothing to do with the Islamic faith, and the French authorities have cast doubt on whether there was any link between him and Daesh. Does the Home Secretary agree that promptly labelling this attack Islamic terrorism hands a propaganda coup to the terrorists, whose whole purpose is to deepen the rift between the Muslim community and the rest of society? Does she agree that more care should be taken with how such atrocities are labelled in future?

    This was, of course, the first attack in Europe since the European Union referendum. Can the Home Secretary assure the House that, in these times, she and the wider Government are making every effort to maintain strong collaboration with the French and the European authorities, and to send them the clear message that, whatever our differences, Britain will always be by their side and ready to help?

  • Lord Freud – 2016 Speech on Welfare Reform

    lordfreud

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lord Freud, the Minister of State for Welfare Reform, in Birmingham on 11 July 2016.

    It is a pleasure to be here in Birmingham for the annual IntoWork Convention.

    Your aim at the Learning and Work Institute is that everyone has the opportunity to realise their ambitions and potential – in learning, work and throughout life.

    Through the welfare reforms my department has been driving over the last 6 years we have sought to do exactly this.

    Whether that’s been through changing the role of jobcentres, transforming the benefits system with Universal Credit, introducing new employment programmes, or testing innovations to constantly improve – we have endeavoured to get people into sustainable work, and to give them the support to stay in and progress in work.

    What we are now seeing is an enormous cultural change – a change in the way that welfare is viewed, organised and delivered.

    And I believe these changes are behind the labour market figures we are now seeing – with unemployment at its lowest rate for a decade, and the number of workless households down by over three quarters of a million since 2010.

    Today I want to talk about the changes we have introduced – and about the innovations we are trailing to support people with complex and multiple barriers in to work.

    So that we can continue to drive down the unemployment rate, and make sure that everyone has the opportunity to enter work and realise their potential.

    Changing role of jobcentres

    One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is taking people to jobcentres who have not been there for a number of years.

    They still think of it as depicted in the Full Monty – with counters, job cards in windows, and long dole queues.

    The welfare system we inherited discouraged work. Instead of giving people the tools and encouragement to look for employment, it wrote off large numbers of people as incapable of work.

    Jobcentres were full of barriers – physical barriers with screens separating staff and claimants; technological barriers which made it difficult for people to search for up-to- date vacancies; and a routine of getting people to sign on instead of search for work.

    When I take people to jobcentres now, they are amazed by the transformation that has taken place.

    The system we have now is very different. It is more personal, it is digital, and it is more dynamic.

    We have transformed the role of jobcentre staff. They now coach people into work by tailoring support to the needs of individuals and their local circumstances.

    Through jobcentres people can get advice on finding a job, get help with retraining, and access thousands of new job vacancies every day.

    This has also been made possible by digitally updating jobcentres so that people can access wifi and computers for their job search activities. And by up-skilling our own staff to assist people with their digital capability.

    The new work coach approach means that jobcentre staff can work with claimants to create a personalised job search journey, concentrating on the person not on the benefits they receive.

    It means that claimants can build up trust in their work coach, and that work coaches can get a better understanding of the claimants’ individual circumstances – so they can more effectively help them into sustainable employment.

    I regularly visit jobcentres across the country, and when I make these visits what strikes me is the genuine enthusiasm, motivation and dedication of work coaches.

    Because of our welfare reforms they feel that the system is unified – and that they can help people to lead independent, fulfilling lives through the tools we have put in place.

    Universal Credit

    There are a number of causes driving the labour market figures we are seeing. And I believe an important factor is the change in the relationship between jobcentre staff and claimants – driven by the introduction of Universal Credit.

    We have shown that we can deliver real change by introducing Universal Credit – the biggest transformational change in the history of the welfare system.

    Universal Credit is now live in all 712 jobcentres around the country. And by the time it is fully rolled out, it will affect 7 million people’s lives.

    It is already making a real difference – with people moving into work faster and staying in work longer.

    When we compare those who are receiving Universal Credit to a similar cohort of people receiving one of its legacy benefits, Jobseeker’s Allowance, we can see that people on Universal Credit:

    – are spending around 50% more time looking for work

    – they are 8 percentage points more likely to be in work

    – and they are more actively looking to increase their earnings when they are in work

    Universal Credit better reflects the world of work, to help people make the transition into employment more easily. With personalised support work coaches, monthly payments direct to people’s bank accounts, and support in and out of work.

    It is also designed to be digital to respond to the technological changes in the way we live now.

    Instead of having to go to a jobcentre to make an application, or phone multiple agencies to report a change in circumstances, people can now manage their claims online through a single account.

    Data we have had from claimants receiving the Universal Credit full service shows that 99.6% of applicants for Universal Credit submitted a claim online. And 88% of changes of circumstances were reported online.

    Universal Credit is transforming welfare, and it is central to our vision of a society where everyone can succeed and break free of dependency.

    Work Programme

    Together with the changes to jobcentres and the benefits system, our employment programmes have also played major roles in getting people back into work.

    Key to this is the Work Programme, which we introduced in 2011 to support those at risk of long term unemployment back into work.

    I believe the Work Programme has been a significant part of the growing economy, by supporting over half a million people to move into sustained employment and helping nearly 1.3 million people spend time off benefits.

    Here in the Greater Birmingham area, nearly 35,000 people have moved into employment through the Work Programme.

    The Work Programme has succeeded in transforming the lives of those furthest from the labour market. Participants are not just finding work, they are keeping it.

    Throughout the country, in areas like Birmingham, providers are delivering innovative services to support participants back into work. Services such as budgeting advice, and support to overcome addictions and manage health conditions.

    The Work Programme was designed and built for a different labour market when unemployment was higher.

    The labour market we have now is one with a record employment rate. What remains is not cyclical unemployment but structural unemployment.

    And it is only right that we adapt the support we provide to focus on this group.

    This is what is driving our new Work and Health programme. It is being designed to tackle the remaining barriers.

    Our new programme will test different approaches, and design and commission tailored programmes across the country.

    We want to see a cross sector approach and encourage more collaboration and integrated services.

    That means bringing together the health service, the welfare system, local authorities, the third sector, employers and disabled people themselves.

    By working more closely together, we can become more effective at supporting more people back into work.

    In designing this new programme we are taking the most successful aspects of the Work Programme and Work Choice.

    We want to build on the success of everyone who went through these programmes, so that more people have the opportunity to enter work and change their lives.

    Universal Support

    To be successful in pushing employment up and unemployment down, we must become better at supporting the most vulnerable and excluded in society in to work.

    Our aim is to support the needs of anyone whose conditions are stopping them from finding and staying in work.

    It is not just the Work and Health programme which is focusing on tackling people’s barriers.

    There are a number of other areas where we are working in partnership with local authorities and other organisations to do this.

    For many people who are moving to Universal Credit, the transition will be straightforward.

    However, we know that for some people, managing their Universal Credit claim online and budgeting their award effectively may be difficult.

    That is why we have developed Universal Support to help people by improving their financial and digital capability.

    We have been trialling this through our Universal Support delivered locally initiative. This tested the most effective way to deliver budgeting support and assistance with digital services in different areas of the country.

    From the evidence we published last week we can see that there is a strong need for this service.

    It has also shown us that claimants who need this support often also have a range of barriers such as literacy issues, a fear of technology, and difficulties accessing computers and broadband.

    We aim to build on this work by looking at how Universal Support can be expanded – by encouraging joined-up services – to cover a wide range of complex barriers. The barriers that entrench worklessness and damage people’s life chances – for example, homelessness, addictions and debt problems.

    An example of this working is the Welfare Partnership Hub located in Ashford jobcentre in Kent. This hub brings together a range of partners – local authority housing officers, the homeless charity Porchlight, Turning Point, a volunteer’s centre, Citizens Advice, and other local organisations.

    Work coaches ensure that problems they identify in the claimants they see are tackled immediately by referring them directly to the relevant service in the hub.

    Through such locally designed and integrated services, we can better meet the needs of people with complex and multiple barriers. And help them into sustained employment.

    Localism and co-location

    Indeed, this fits in with the wider government localism agenda of shifting power away from Whitehall – and giving local communities the power to shape local services to meet local needs.

    As part of our Universal Support trials we modelled 4 different ways of integrating services to support people.

    In some cases jobcentre and local authority staff were fully integrated into a single team, with support services co-located.

    More commonly, all services were co-located into a single building, typically in a local authority building.

    In the third model, jobcentre staff triaged claimants and referred them to services.

    Finally, in some rural trials services were dispersed or delivered through networks of partner organisations.

    What the Universal Support trials showed was the importance of the location of support services in determining whether or not claimants chose to engage with them.

    The trials showed us that the co-location of services – where jobcentre services and local organisations are integrated within a local authority building – often led to a better service for claimants.

    Access to support was more streamlined, there was better communication, and a more effective resolution of issues.

    We currently have around 40 co-location arrangements in place and the benefits are clear – for claimants, our staff and for the tax payer.

    Examples of this include Islington’s local authority Customer Centre. This hosts all 3 digital, financial and employment services.

    Having these services in one place minimises the handover time between services and provides claimants with a “one-stop shop” for support services.

    In Islington we found that bringing work coaches into the Customer Centre significantly increased the numbers of hard to reach claimants, whom they had previously had difficulty engaging.

    The informative and helpful manner of staff and volunteers, combined with engagement in the home, was highly valued and claimants reported that it made them feel more comfortable to disclose information.

    In more rural areas, where local geography limited the scope for co-locating services, we trialled a “hub and spoke” approach – for example in South Staffordshire and in West Lincolnshire.

    This ensured that vulnerable and isolated claimants had a greater chance of benefiting from support services.

    The trials have shown us that integrating support through co-location and joint working has greatly increased the variety of services available for claimants.

    And that using this approach we can deal with a greater range of needs and treat barriers to work holistically.

    Progression in work

    Our reforms have not just been focused on getting people into work, but also on getting people to stay in and progress in work.

    That is why – alongside the budgeting and digital support we are developing – we are trialling support looking at how people can progress in work.

    This is the first time that any country has made a significant commitment to support people through the welfare system – to try and increase their earnings and progression at work. And to become independent of the welfare state.

    We have developed a substantial programme of work to form the evidence base about what will be most effective in delivering this.

    Part of this is the in-work progression trial run by jobcentres. This large-scale randomised control trial is being rolled out nationally across jobcentres, and will test different ways of supporting people in work and conditionality.

    But it is clear that others outside of jobcentres have a key role in supporting progression. So, we are testing different approaches with a range of externally led trails.

    These include:

    – work with Goals UK, looking at motivational techniques to change individual attitudes to progression

    – work with Timewise, who are testing ways of supporting progression through the design of job roles and workplace flexibility

    – and projects my department is co-ordinating with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES)

    The UKCES projects involve 7 trials in the retail and hospitality sectors – sectors which have some of the lowest pay rates in the country.

    Employers running these trials are testing strategies that demonstrate both clear business benefits – such as higher staff retention and productivity – and increased earnings for low paid employees.

    These are crucial in helping us to develop the business case to support progression, and are vital if we are to address the wider issue of productivity.

    These trials include a wide range of initiatives, such as:

    – innovative work to develop a smartphone app with online learning, career coaching, and support for up-skilling

    – redesigning job roles to enable progression for part time workers

    – developing pathways for progression at work across the retail sector

    – delivering tailored master-classes in the tourism sector
    and supporting employers to improve people management and productivity

    Across all the trials over 100 organisations are working in partnership to find innovative ways of designing jobs, delivering training, and ultimately raising the take home pay of workers on low wages.

    All 7 of these trials have reported that they have made progress towards the aim of improving pay and progression for low paid employees – and that there is the potential to further enhance these opportunities over the next 12 months.

    Indeed several of these projects are in discussion with other employers and stakeholders within their sectors to expand the reach of their trial beyond their funded period.

    Implications of Universal Credit

    To return to Universal Credit, it one of the biggest change programmes in government. The scale of it is driving innovation in other areas of my department’s work.

    For example, it has implications for how funding for supported housing is best delivered in the future.

    And it is a driver for innovation in the payments industry. There are a number of advantages to enhancing the payments system to enrich Universal Credit. From being able to reimburse childcare payments in real time, to minimising the opportunities for fraud and error to take place.

    In my own opinion, in order for Universal Credit to be truly successful, it cannot just focus on getting people into work.

    We have had a work first approach but we must focus, in equal measure, on ensuring that people stay in work and progress in their careers.

    To me, this is fundamentally about pulling together the skills agenda alongside this work first approach.

    Conclusion

    What we are now seeing – in the development of the new Work and Health programme, in the expansion of Universal Support, and in our trials around progression in work – is a focus on partnerships and integrated services to help people overcome multiple barriers and move into employment.

    Over the last 6 years we have introduced structural and meaningful changes in the welfare system.

    This has transformed the welfare system into one that is focused on individuals and their personal journeys into employment.

    We have achieved an enormous cultural change – and this is borne out by the strong labour market figures we are now seeing.

    Our ambition has been to transform people’s lives by giving them the tools, incentives and support they need, to move into work and out of poverty.

    I believe that this is what we are seeing now, and that the policies I have talked about today will continue to achieve this.

  • Amber Rudd – 2016 Speech on Nice Terror Attack

    amberrudd

    Below is the text of the speech made by Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2016.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the terrorist attack in Nice and the threat we face from terrorism in the UK.

    The full horror of last Thursday night’s attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice defies all comprehension. At least 84 people were killed when a heavy goods lorry was driven deliberately into crowds enjoying Bastille day celebrations. Ten of the dead are believed to have been children and teenagers. More than 200 people were injured and a number are in a critical condition. Consular staff on the ground are in touch with local authorities and assisting British nationals caught up in the attack, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is providing support to anyone concerned about friends or loved ones.

    Over the weekend, the French police made a number of arrests, and in the coming weeks we will learn more about the circumstances behind the attack. These were innocent people enjoying national celebrations—they were families, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, friends, and many of them were children. They were attacked in the most brutal and cowardly way possible, as they simply went about their lives. Our thoughts and prayers must be with the families who have lost loved ones, the survivors fighting for their lives, the victims facing appalling injuries and all those mentally scarred by the events of that night.

    I have spoken to my counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, to offer him the sympathy of the British people and to make it clear that we stand ready to help in any way we can. We have offered investigative assistance to the French authorities and security support to the French diplomatic and wider community in London. This is the third terrorist attack in France in the last 18 months with a high number of deaths, and we cannot underestimate its devastating impact. We have also seen attacks in many other countries, and those killed and maimed by these murderers include people of many nationalities and faiths. Recently, we have seen attacks in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey and America, as well as the ongoing conflict in Syria, and last month we marked a year since 38 people—30 of them British—were murdered at a beach resort in Tunisia.

    In the UK, the threat from international terrorism, which is determined by the independent joint terrorism analysis centre, remains at “severe”, meaning that an attack is “highly likely”. The public should be vigilant but not alarmed. On Friday, following the attack in Nice, the police and security and intelligence agencies took steps to review our security measures and ensure we had robust procedures in place, and I receive regular updates. All police forces have reviewed upcoming events taking place in their regions to ensure that security measures are appropriate and proportionate.

    The UK has considerable experience in managing and policing major events. Extra security measures are used at particularly high-profile events, including—when the police assess there to be a risk of vehicle attacks—the deployment of the national barrier asset. This is made up of a range of temporary equipment, including security fences and gates, that enables the physical protection of sites. Since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, we have also taken steps to improve the response of police firearms teams and other emergency services to a marauding gun attack. We have protected and increased counter-terrorism police funding for 2016-17 in real terms, and over the next five years, we are providing £143 million for the police to boost their firearms capability further.

    We continue to test our response to terrorist attacks, including by learning the lessons from attacks such as those in France and through national exercises involving the Government, the military, the police, the ambulance and fire and rescue services and other agencies.

    The threat from terrorism, however, is serious and growing. Our security and intelligence services are first rate, and they work tirelessly around the clock to keep the people of this country safe. Over the next five years, we will make an extra £2.5 billion available to those agencies, and that will include funding for an additional 1,900 staff at MI5, MI6 and GCHC, as well as strengthening our network of counter-terrorism experts in the middle east, north Africa, south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

    We have also taken steps to deal with foreign fighters and to prevent radicalisation by providing new powers through the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, and we continue to take forward the Investigatory Powers Bill, which will ensure that the police, the security and the intelligence agencies have the powers they need to keep people safe in the digital age.

    The UK has in place strong measures to respond to terrorist attacks and since coming to office in 2010, the Government have taken significant steps to bolster that response, but Daesh and other terrorist organisations seek to poison people’s minds and they peddle sickening hate and lies to encourage people to plot acts of terrorism or leave their families to join terrorists. That is not just in France or this country, but in countries all around the world. We must confront that hateful propaganda and expose it for what it is.

    In this country, that means working to expose the emptiness of extremism and safeguard vulnerable people from becoming radicalised. Our Prevent programme works in partnership with families, communities and civil society groups to challenge the poisonous ideology that supports terrorism. This includes supporting civil society groups to build their own capacity, and since January 2014, its counter-narrative products have had widespread engagement with communities. In addition, more than 1,000 people have received support since 2012 through Channel, the voluntary and confidential support programme for those at risk of radicalisation.

    This is an international problem that requires an international solution, so we are working closely with our European partners, allies in the counter-Daesh coalition and those most affected by the threat that Daesh poses to share information, build counter-terrorism capability and exchange best practice.

    As the Prime Minister has said, we must work with France and our partners around the world to stand up for our values and for our freedom. Nice was attacked on Bastille day, itself a French symbol of liberation and national unity. Those who attack seek to divide us and spread hatred, so our resounding response must be one of ever-greater unity between different nations but also between ourselves. This weekend we saw unity in action as people came together to support each other. People sent messages of condolence, and Muslims in this country and around the world have said that those who carry out such attacks do not represent the true Islam.

    I want to end by sending a message to our French friends and neighbours. What happened in Nice last Thursday was cruel and incomprehensible. The horror and devastation is something many people will live with for the rest of their lives. We know you are hurting; we know this will cause lasting pain. Let me be quite clear: we will stand with you; we will support you in this fight, and together with our partners around the world, we will defeat those who seek to attack our way of life.