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  • Michael Heseltine – 2022 Speech at Heseltine Institute’s Inaugural Lecture

    Michael Heseltine – 2022 Speech at Heseltine Institute’s Inaugural Lecture

    The speech made by Michael Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister, in Liverpool on 15 November 2022.

    A short time ago I argued that: ‘If Boris goes Brexit goes’. Johnson was not alone in souring our relationship with Europe. The Atlanticist prejudices of Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black using a power over our media that would never be granted to foreigners in other countries, the populism of Nigel Farage and Paul Dacre’s nationalistic editorship of the Daily Mail all contributed to the propagandist exploitation of the consequences that followed from the implementation of the EU single market.

    The harmonisation of the rules and regulations that governed the European economies was one of Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievements. To introduce one European regulation in place of 28 involved a constant flow of forms. The blame game began. Boris Johnson led the charge to Get Brexit Done.

    Well, not quite. Brexit was never going to get done. Brexit was based on an undeliverable set of promises:

    Get our country back

    New trade deals

    Bonfire of controls

    End of wealth destroying regulations

    Immigration controls

    No border in Ireland

    That was 2016.

    Four Prime Ministers, four Trade Secretaries, five Foreign Secretaries, six Chancellors, six Chief Brexit negotiators and an oven-ready Brexit later, we can see the worthlessness of those promises. I must be fair. The impact of Covid and Ukraine has seriously prejudiced our living standards and those of the Western World. We hope that the worst of Covid is behind us.

    The vaccine developed under the regulatory discipline of the European Medicines Agency was the first to achieve clinical approval. The agency which provided hundreds of jobs in London has now been transferred to Amsterdam because of Brexit Ukraine enjoys the support of the Western World, and to its credit we all appear ready to pay a high price for it.

    However damaging to us now, the effect of covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine may be relatively short term. Brexit is not. It represents a permanent fracture of our relationship with our closest neighbours and our largest market.

    It has led to queues in the hospitals and G.P.s waiting rooms, disruption to supply lines, increased prices and interest rates. It reduces our attraction as a gateway to one of the world’s largest markets and diminishes our ability to influence European decisions over great global challenges.

    I followed every Conservative Prime Minister from Winston Churchill up to and including Theresa May in their support for our membership of Europe. You would expect me to be critical of Brexit but I am not alone. Recently the Daily Telegraph put the past six years into context. Under the headline “After six wasted years”.

    Alistair Heath summarised the situation as follows:-

    “It has been clear for years that our putrefying economy is in desperate need of shock therapy. Yet instead of addressing its many horrific pathologies, our ruling class, well served by the status quo, has stubbornly blocked radical surgery. The result has been catastrophic: Poland and Slovenia are catching up with us in terms of middle-class lifestyles, and our desperate young can’t afford to buy a home.

    I quoted the first four words of the headline. Let me quote the whole headline. After six wasted years Truss is about to deliver a Brexit that actually works. The consequence of Liz Truss’ seven weeks in office has an eloquence
    beyond the finest oratory. Let me set out the reality of Brexit.

    One pound sterling was worth 1.48 US dollars on 23 June 2016, the day of the referendum. The following day that value plummeted to 1.36 dollars. Yesterday a pound was buying 1.18 dollars. That amounts to a loss of over 20% of the pound’s value against the dollar since 2016. The pound has also lost over 12% of its value against the euro, falling from an exchange rate of over 1.30 before the referendum to 1.14 yesterday.

    The London School of Economics has estimated that Brexit alone – before the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are accounted for – is responsible for a 6% rise in food prices. Put starkly, Brexit means that more people are unable to pay their mortgage or rent, are having to turn to food banks, or are unable to heat their homes.

    The Resolution Foundation estimates that average real pay per UK worker will, by the end of the decade, be £470 lower each year – that’s a thousand pounds for an average couple. Normally, lower exchange rates have an important silver lining in that they make UK exports more affordable and increase their volume. But the signs are that – due to Brexit-induced trade barriers and red tape – this did not happen. Post-Brexit.

    UK exports to the EU fell by 14% in 2021. The Centre for European Reform, has estimated that Brexit had, by the end of 2021, reduced trade in goods between the UK and the EU by 13.6% and left UK GDP 5.2% lower than it would have been had the UK stayed in the EU single market. The CER puts the Brexit hit to overall investment in the UK economy at 13.6%.

    The Office for Budget Responsibility concluded that consequent upon the new trading relationship as set out in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement that came into effect on January 1 2021 British imports and exports would eventually be reduced by 15%. They further concluded that new trade deals with non-EU countries will not have a material impact on GDP. Little surprise that the Truss government did not consult them about the consequences of their budget.

    I doubt if the government were consulted about the decision to build a new model of the Land Rover Defender in Slovakia. The queues in the Health service are of alarming proportions. The European doctors and nurses have gone home. The government is left trawling developing countries to replace them.

    No one explained that a consequence of Brexit would be that our country – one of the world’s richest – would have to attract specialists trained by some of the world’s poorest.

    The OECD in June of this year predicted that in 2023 the UK economic growth at nil would be the slowest in the G20 above only Russia. Three months later the dire energy crisis in Germany had a similar effect there. The three major credit rating agencies . crucial to UK’s borrowing costs – Moody’s, Fitch and S&P have this year all downgraded the outlook for the UK from stable to negative.

    These are the judgements of independent organisations and markets and stand in stark contrast to the propaganda of Brexiteers. It was all too easy to promise a bonfire of red tape and demonise Brussels bureaucrats in a cynical exploitation of people’s anxieties and frustrations.

    Only yesterday in the Times, Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a pro Brexit think tank, wrote ‘Nowhere has the failure been so stark as in the strange story of the almost complete absence of a so-called Brexit dividend.’

    The simple truth is that six years on, the only significant example of that bonfire has been to allow unlimited bankers’ bonuses. Regulation is the difference between civilisation and the jungle. We can all enthuse at David Attenborough’s brilliant depiction of life red in tooth and claw where the only law is survival of the fittest.

    Regulations are the codes and standards that hold modern societies together. That is why whenever the government has sought to dilute or lower the standards they uphold, civilised bodies like The National Trust, The Wildlife Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds protest at the legislative processes involved.

    The Brexiteers told us new deals with faster growing markets would more than compensate for lost European trade. Six years’ later all but three of those new deals merely replicate those already negotiated by the EU. A deal with the United States has been scuppered by the government’s attempt to unilaterally override the Northern Ireland protocol.

    India wants us to reverse our immigration controls as the price of a deal. There are new deals with Australia and New Zealand. The consequences for our farmers are so adverse that even a minister who helped negotiate it says the Australian deal is not good for the UK.

    No wonder full implementation is delayed until the late 2030s! I am helped once again by the Sunday Telegraph – Jeremy Warner on October 30th. wrote “Brexit is irreversible, but we must strengthen economic ties with the EU”. I disagree with his irreversible gambit. Public opinion has already moved.

    In October an IPSOS MORI Poll reported that 51% of the people thought that Brexit had damaged the economy whilst only 22% thought the opposite. Listen, however, to what Warner says about Brexit. He refers to Rishi Sunak’s commitment to building an economy that embraces the opportunities of Brexit.

    He needs to get a move on and indeed articulate precisely what those opportunities are – for six years after Britain voted to leave the European Union all we’ve got to show for it so far is political, economic and financial chaos. From an economic perspective there has been zero payback and particularly in the area of international trade and reputation, considerable harm.

    I do not accept that Brexit is irreversible.

    The timescale may be unpredictable. The purpose is not.

    We must start by rebuilding bridges.

    We need a practical compromise over the Irish border that would restore devolved government.

    We need to end the isolation of our scientists and researchers by rejoining the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.

    We should restore the right for our young people to participate in projects abroad under the EU’s Erasmus Plus programme.

    In place of a Department for Exiting the EU we need a Minister with responsibility for Enhancing Relationships with the EU. That rescue operation could start with a veterinary agreement to reduce checks on food products entering the single market which would contribute to reducing tensions in Northern Ireland.

    We should attack the restrictions on musicians and other UK service providers to work for short periods in the EU Each of the steps I have set out is realistic. Every step draws our self interests closer together.

    The EU is still there, next door, with its market of 450 million people. We thrive only by working closely together. The question remains how to improve the governance of this country. Brexiteers said that Europe would disintegrate into its original nations.

    The Euro was seen as the harbinger of civil war. The question today is whether the UK itself can survive. Sinn Fein is now the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Scots Nats use identical arguments to break up the United Kingdom that underlie the Brexit case.

    We need radical change in the way we govern this country. Devolution must be based on a meaningful partnership between London and the rest of England. It calls for a practical sharing of power between Edinburgh and Cardiff and the very different parts of Scotland and Wales. I want to set out what I mean. We must end the misrepresentation of the roles of public and private sector.

    They are interrelated and of crucial support to each other. Some essential services such as education and health are provided by both. Some publicly financed programmes, such as Research grants, lead directly to job creation .Many quangos such as the Arts Council, or the Lottery, are critical to the success of our cultural activities and prowess on the sports field.

    We need to recognise the Civil Service for the hard working, dedicated incorruptible machinery of government that it is. The widespread appointment of political advisers has contributed to public cynicism. Special advisers should bring expertise to public life not party politics. My relationship with this City was, without doubt, the most rewarding political experience of my life.

    It taught me that we are overcentralised and that the baronies of Whitehall are specialist in their responsibilities with inadequate coordination. My time here opened my eyes to the local consequences. On the backbenches after 1986 I gained a fuller understanding of other countries’ more effective models.

    In 1968 the Redcliffe-Maud report on the structure of local government in England looked at the 1300 local authorities that had been created when the only means of travel was by foot or horse. His report recommended their replacement by sixty-two Unitary Authorities.

    It was the right judgement except in the eyes of all those with a stake in the status quo. Peter Walker – I was his deputy – steered an uneasy compromise through the Conservative government to reduce it to some 300 authorities.

    The Greater London Authority and City Councils presided over London and Metropolitan boroughs with a two tier structure, based on counties and districts, elsewhere. This was the ground over which, as SoS for the Department of Environment, I led the Conservatives in the municipal elections of 1978. Labour was in trouble in the Winter of Discontent.

    Operation Cleansweep was intended to drive them from power. Only Durham resisted our advance. I am not proud of my decisions about the local government restructuring when I was first responsible after 1979.

    They are defensible only against the background of the divisive climate of the time. I got rid of the Greater London authority and the Metro counties that I had, only ten years earlier,
    helped to create.

    I am however proud of the serendipitous collection of decisions related to Liverpool.

    I agreed to continue the special partnership that my predecessor, Peter Shore, formed with the City.

    I selected the banks of the Mersey for the site for an Urban Development Corporation.

    I awarded Liverpool the first Garden Festival, to reclaim toxic land and turn it into attractive development opportunities.

    Peter Walker had created a derelict land grant mechanism a decade earlier to eradicate the coal tips and ore extraction blemishes scattered over the countryside. The task largely completed, I used the grant to reclaim toxic urban sites for construction. Significantly I made the grant conditional on private sector partners developing the site.

    Every pound of public money attracted private money.

    The concept of gearing entered the political vocabulary. Human relationships evolved In place of the dialogue of the deaf from opposing mountain tops. Business people and officials became partners, enjoyed a drink together, developed friendships.

    I listed the Albert Dock, an iconic part of Liverpool heritage that was thus saved from demolition. In 1981 several of our inner cities witnessed serious riots. Amongst the worst were here in Toxteth.

    The maintenance of law and order is a fundamental of any Conservative conviction. I backed the police as they restored it. I felt, however, a personal responsibility. The riots happened on my watch. I thought I had begun a serious attempt to bring a new optimism to Liverpool.

    I sought the Prime Minister’s agreement, instantly given, to leave the departmental routine to my very able colleagues Tom King and John Stanley whilst I was here. I held extensive meetings, talked to anyone with something to say, walked the streets, listened, and considered. My relationship with the city lasted until the end of 1982. It can be divided into three distinct phases.

    For three days I listened. People were courteous but sceptical. You only came because of the riot. That was self-evidently true and I chose it as the title for my subsequent report to the Cabinet. There was one other clear impression.

    Everyone had their idea of who was responsible for the riots. It was always someone else. Liverpool The ability to fund and make decisions lay in London and even there, there was no coordination of responsibility. There was no powerful local leadership.

    The mood changed around day four. People began to ask “What are you going to do?” There was only one credible answer to that question however much it made a mockery of the concept of non-intervention associated with Mrs Thatcher’s government.

    I spent the next couple of weeks preparing a list of ideas that, with the right determination, resource, and above all, local support could demonstrate a more optimistic destiny.

    The third phase lasted eighteen months. The list was one thing but who could turn it into action. I am a practical man. Show me a problem. Show me the person in charge. No one was in charge. The answer was to turn a centralist, London based approach on its head.

    I created a task force drawn locally from the public and private sector. Every Thursday the team would report progress. Every Friday I troubleshot the obstacles. We learned how to regenerate places.

    We learnt that there are no short-term fixes. Creating and developing ideas, the processes of planning and consultation, land acquisition and contract negotiation have to happen before boots hit the ground. The joker in the pack, and the Treasury’s strongest card in opposing regeneration, is that it is often impossible to predict and cost its consequences.

    If I had predicted Canary Wharf, Excel, City Airport in London or a major arena and conference centre, and contemporary shopping centre in Liverpool I would have been locked up.

    The Development Corporation on the banks of the Mersey and its equivalent in London were my most important initiative in 1979. To understand why they succeeded it is important to look at their structure. They had a chairman, a chief executive and board-level representative of local stakeholders. They had planning powers, money to restore sites, improve infrastructure and acquire land – all essential characteristics.

    They were thus able to reassure investors considering locating a new office, laboratory or factory that it was not going to be surrounded by sheds and that their staff would be safe and enjoy good communications with their workplace. Such Corporations transformed large parts of inner city Britain over the next fifty years.

    Regeneration is usually led by the public sector. It has the resources to make derelict land competitive with green fields. Partnerships with Quangos, universities, government cultural and sporting programmes have endless potential to work with the private sector to create wealth.

    Levelling up, however, will remain more slogan than policy until the government gives form. resource and structure to its devolution agenda. Examples from my early Liverpool experiences demonstrate the philosophy.

    The preservation of the Albert Dock provided a home for the Tate of the North. The use of Derelict Land Grant persuaded Plessey and British Rail to create Wavertree Industrial Park. The Housing Corporation unlocked the development of the Anglican Cathedral Precinct. The Mersey Basin campaign was a major attack on urban pollution.

    The recent decision by the Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram to complete the job
    can make Liverpool a world leader in an increasing global priority to raise the quality of urban water with huge environmental, leisure, tourist, sporting and the job creation that will flow.

    In the early 1980’s Cantril Farm was the despair of Knowsley Council. The Abbey National Building Society and Barclays Bank created the now thriving Stockbridge Village Trust. The Tate and Lyle site, abandoned by the company, was transferred to English Estates. The Eldonians campaigned to renovate their area. In 1987 the project, incorporating owner occupied housing, won the Times/RIBA award as the most outstanding example of community enterprise in the UK.

    A Merseyside Special Allocation fund to enable this was spread over three years and deducted from the Housing Corporation budget. Pilkingtons in St.Helens were faced with redundancies. Bill Humphries, set
    up an advisory service to help those losing their jobs.

    Step by step, this initiative led to the present Local Enterprise Partnerships of today. The urban fringe is often characterised by rubbish dumped by uncaring citizens. Groundwork UK was conceived in St Helens using volunteers to clean things up.. Today it is a federation of charities mobilising community action on poverty and the environment across the United Kingdom.

    In 1990 I returned to the Department of the Environment for the third time. Ten years before, I had been preoccupied with the need to reclaim derelict land. The conversion of Cantril Farm into Stockbridge Village Trust gave me the confidence to tackle the human tragedy of urban slums.

    City Challenge invited 30 local authorities to compete for one of only 10 packages of £35 million spread over 5 years to help them transform a slum estate. The idea of competition was highly controversial but right. The losers learnt from the winners in the second round. There were conditions.

    The local Authority had to attract private or other public funds to add to the original offer. The project had to have a chief executive and a project team. Most importantly, the stakeholders, such as headteachers, social workers, the police and the tenants, had to be consulted.

    One of the winning sites was here in Liverpool. I am grateful to Max Steinberg for the opportunity to study the historic documents he kept from his involvement at the time. The area covered 144 hectares within the eastern sector of the City Centre.

    It links the centre with Everton, Granby/Toxteth and Cornwallis, with the campuses of the University, Polytechnic (now Liverpool John Moores University ), City Community
    College and the Oxford Street, Myrtle Street and Catherine Street Hospitals.

    Some 4000 people lived in the area, and there was a working population of 18,000. The project was timed for five years and in 1997 the European Institute of Urban Affairs was asked to report on the outcome. I quote its concluding paragraphs.

    ‘Liverpool City Challenge has exceeded its original output projects in 18 of the 19 areas of activity. There was underperformance in the number of dwellings transferred to owner occupation, due to limited progress in the Canning area.

    However, we achieved:

    23% more jobs were created than anticipated

    282% extra business start-ups

    14% more new or improved business and commercial floorspace

    35% more reclaimed land

    20% more apprenticeships

    29% more Housing Association dwellings

    105% more childcare places

    The report concluded and I quote: “The achievements, whilst evidence of the success of the initiative, may also reflect the fact that targets were cautiously set initially, to make them achievable. Nevertheless, taken as a set of indicators for the performance of Liverpool City Challenge, they certainly demonstrate significant success in delivering the plan.”

    In Manchester, another City challenge was awarded. Richard Leese, Leader of the City Council, described Hulme City Challenge as the most important thing that has happened to Manchester over the past forty years. Virtually everything done since was with the skills, knowledge and ideas acquired through the City Challenge process.

    Today it is called Levelling Up. In a sense even that slogan misleads. We are never going to create Mayfair in Middlesbrough. What we can do is to turn the vicious circle of decline, where the young leave, companies close, schools fail, and land lies deserted, into virtuous circles of hope where people stay, companies invest, and the environment attracts.

    We know how to do it. The evidence is irrefutable. What is missing is a government determined to do it. After the 2010 election David Cameron invited me, together with Sir Terry Leahy, one of this City’s most distinguished citizens. to revisit my 1981 report ‘It took a riot’.

    The contrast was stark. Liverpool was full of people with ideas and energy. Our task was to recommend the best and propose a framework within which to turn them into action. Our report – Rebalancing Britain: Policy or Slogan, published in October 2011 set out our recommendations.

    A year later I published another report for the Prime Minister ‘No Stone Unturned in pursuit of Growth’. Uniting both these reports was the theme to give form and substance to devolution by creating powerful Mayors to lead the recovery of our cities.

    George Osborne, as Chancellor, and Greg Clark, as the Minister responsible, began the first serious move in that direction after the Blair Government created a mayoralty in London in 2000. This is not a cry for increased Public Expenditure, although I believe markets would take a more benign view of borrowing if it was for investment and not consumption.

    This is a cry to use existing public capital programmes to attract private expenditure. It is a policy to save public expenditure by replacing over 300 local authorities closer to the 62 designed fifty years ago. Scotland and Wales abolished District Authorities in the 1990s.

    In England unitary counties Wiltshire, Dorset. Shropshire and Buckinghamshire for example, manage perfectly well without the waste, and duplication created by two tiers. We need to extend the local leadership provided by directly elected mayors.

    The government should recreate the central pot of capital expenditure introduced by George Osborne and distribute long term funds, after consultation, to local partnerships depending on the quality of their plans reflecting the opportunities and problems in their very different locations.

    We need to engage the remarkable reservoir of goodwill and cooperation that the Covid crisis revealed to be not far below the surface of our society.

    It was a single honour for me to receive the Freedom of this City in 2012.

    In looking forward then I concluded.

    Liverpool is reasserting its place as a city recognised across a shrinking world as a place of culture, a font of enterprise, proud of itself, ambitious for its future.

    Liverpudlians have done this.

    Liverpudlians will build on this.

    You must be clear.

    Because you did. You can.

    I would not change a word of it.

  • Jonathan Djanogly – 2022 Speech on the Situation in Ukraine

    Jonathan Djanogly – 2022 Speech on the Situation in Ukraine

    The speech made by Jonathan Djanogly, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, in the House of Commons on 14 November 2022.

    As we rejoice at the liberation of Kherson, we need to be mindful that Ukraine is still very much a country at war. As Russian Federation tanks rolled across the border on to sovereign Ukrainian territory on 24 February, the world bore witness to an attack against the post-second world war settlement of a magnitude and kind without precedent.

    I congratulate the Government on the superb and consistent support the UK has provided to Ukraine, but the situation constantly changes and I believe we now need a rethink on sanctions. I frequently hear people, including UK Ministers, say that this is Putin’s war, not that of the Russian people, thereby laying the blame for an entire nation’s aggression at the feet of one man. This aggression, we must not forget, seeks to erase Ukraine from the map, destroy its culture, and turn back the clock to a period when the Russo-centric Soviet Union dominated eastern Europe and its peoples. Having had the opportunity to visit Ukraine, most recently in September, and speak with some of the brave men and women valiantly defending their homeland, the notion that this is solely Putin’s war is one that I reject. Of course, western-induced regime change within the Russian Federation is not a sound basis for the United Kingdom’s foreign policy, but even if it were I do not believe, as is mooted by some, that new leadership in Moscow would necessarily bring the war to an end. In fact, I believe that the opposite is possible: a new leader trying to burnish their nationalistic credentials by taking even greater destructive and indiscriminate military action. No Putin does not necessarily equate to no war.

    Liam Byrne

    I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and it was a pleasure to be with him in Kyiv earlier this year. He is making an incredibly important point, because sometimes we hear our allies say, “We have to make sure that Putin cannot do this again.” Actually, that is the wrong analysis. We have to make sure that Russia cannot do this again.

    Mr Djanogly

    The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I will try to prove that point further.

    Many of those in leadership roles surrounding the current Russian President, such as the Chechnya leader, Kadyrov—who suggested using a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine—espouse rigid nationalist views. They should not, and cannot, be absolved from blame for the invasion, as the term Putin’s war may allow. It is also important to highlight that many towns in reoccupied Ukraine now have unmarked graves resulting from murders perpetrated by members of the Russian armed forces: the Bucha massacre is a poignant example that we all have a duty to remember and reflect on. Reports are also rife of mass rapes, looting, torture, removal of children and confiscation of vital food stuffs—again, all deeds done by soldiers and administrators of the occupying power. It is clear to me that many people of the Russian Federation are up to their necks in heinous crimes committed during the ongoing war against the Ukrainian people, and the individual perpetrators must bear full responsibility and be prosecuted.

    A case against those actively engaged in the invasion is clear, but what about the wider Russian people themselves? The problem is that by using the term Putin’s war, it is possible to excuse, overlook or ignore that the war, in all its gore and injustice, remains very popular among most of the Russian population. It is not just Putin, his cronies and his oligarchs. Some Russians, a small minority, have laudably taken a stand, memorably and notably Marina Ovsyannikova, who staged an on-air protest in March denouncing the war. Such defiance has, however, been more of an exception than the rule. Indeed, polling from within the Russian Federation continues to indicate strong support of over 70% for both the war and Putin among the populace.

    Bob Seely

    My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, as ever. The extent to which the Russians support the war is a complex issue. He is not wrong to say that it is still very popular, but I just wonder if there is a slightly more generous way of putting it. There is a hard core against—very brave people, as he has outlined. There is a hard core for—the military bloggers and the nationalist community, who are becoming increasingly concerned. But in the last 20 years, because of the amount of propaganda in Russian society, most Russians know to avoid politics as an issue; they let the people in power get on with things. Does he accept the point that, rather than the war being popular, the agnosticism towards politics means that it is kept away from as a subject?

    Mr Djanogly

    I accept that it is a subject we could go into in some degree, but I would make the point that of those Russians who have been leaving Russia and going to places like Armenia, Georgia or the more than 250,000 who have gone to Turkey, it is by no means proven that they are anti-Putin. In fact, a lot of research says they are going to those countries because either they want to pursue their business activities, which sanctions prevent, or they do not want to be called up on the reserve list, not because they do not like President Putin.

    What I am suggesting is that at some point citizens and leaders need to take collective responsibility for the actions of the state and the armed forces that operate in their name. For Russians, I would argue that that time has long passed. If we agree that there should be collective responsibility, we can make the moral case for collective sanctions—economic and travel. Travel restrictions, like those implemented by six EU states, are a more practical way of reinforcing the message of collective responsibility than economic sanctions, which mainly apply only to wealthier people.

    As the situation stands, at the end of the war, whenever that may be or indeed before, assets that have been frozen, across the west and other areas of the globe, will be reclaimed by their owners, including here in the United Kingdom. The public, including many constituents in Huntingdon who I have corresponded with about the situation in Ukraine, naturally assume that a frozen superyacht owned by a sanctioned individual will be sold, with the proceeds used for reconstruction. We are talking about some £18 billion of frozen assets, not including real estate, in the UK alone. That is not, alas, currently the case. If the situation is not remedied, an embarrassing political situation, not to mention a morally dubious one, beckons.

    Ministers should be prepared to consider, working with our allies, how frozen assets can be legally seized, sold and the revenue put to work for Ukraine’s rebuilding. The World Bank’s assessment made in September is that Ukraine will need $349 billion for recovery and reconstruction. It is worth saying that it is not just a question of law changes, but adopting a more aggressive attitude within the existing system. For instance, when the FBI boarded Mr Kerimov’s yacht Amadea in Fiji, it looks like the United States used the oligarch’s maintenance of the yacht as a criminal breach of sanctions, thereby allowing confiscation. We could and should be more assertive than we are.

    As for possible law changes to facilitate confiscation, the first is a revisiting of the Trading with the Enemy Act 1939. During the second world war, that Act allowed the Government of the day to confiscate assets owned by residents of enemy countries in British territories. It focuses squarely on the assets of any person or organisation of countries with which the United Kingdom is at war. Thankfully, there has not been much cause to review it since 1945. An amendment to the definition of war, however, could provide a valuable basis for considering how Russian assets could be seized for the benefit of Ukraine and its reconstruction.

    Secondly, Canada’s Budget Implementation Act 2022, which was passed in June, includes amendments that allow for the forfeiture of property that is subject to a seizure or restraint order under the Special Economic Measures Act 1992 and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) 2017. That is done under both regimes using forfeiture orders, allowing the relevant Canadian Government Minister to apply to a court to forfeit assets that have already been seized or frozen. A number of safeguards are rightly built into the legislation. For instance, any person who appears to have an interest in the property may be heard by the relevant court.

    A further possible avenue that I wish to highlight is one proposed by the Washington DC-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, which formulated a multilateral action model on reparations. In the model, the institute draws 13 convincing conclusions that lay the basis for an international, effective and legal reparations and compensation scheme. The model builds on the relatively recent and practical example of the Kuwait compensation fund, which, together with the UN compensation commission, paid some $52 billion in compensation to 1.5 million claimants over 30 years following the Iraqi invasion in 1990. The establishment of the fund and commission was possible only due to the agreement of those nations with a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. Unfortunately, as Russia is an aggressor in the case of Ukraine, that exact road map cannot be followed. The institute therefore makes the argument for working through the UN General Assembly rather than the Security Council.

    The avenues that I have highlighted are but a number that are worthy of wider consideration—there are others. It is crucial, however, that the conversation surrounding compensation and reparations now begins in earnest, because just to continue saying, “This is only Putin’s war” is no longer relevant or morally sustainable.

  • Luke Pollard – 2022 Speech on the Situation in Ukraine

    Luke Pollard – 2022 Speech on the Situation in Ukraine

    The speech made by Luke Pollard, the Shadow Defence Minister, in the House of Commons on 14 November 2022.

    Before I make my remarks, I would like to pay tribute to our armed forces and veterans who came together on Remembrance Day yesterday. I was on Plymouth Hoe yesterday morning, but wherever we were we saw a nation pause, thank those who served and remember those who did not come back and those who were forever changed by war and conflict.

    We are now on day 264 of Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, and with each day it becomes clearer that he is failing in this misguided war. Putin has not achieved his objectives: indeed, he has strengthened the western alliance, and with each of his decisions he further strengthens our resolve.

    The Ukrainian liberation of Kherson, a region Russia had illegally occupied for more than eight months, is a testament to the skill, bravery and fortitude of the Ukrainian military and is a significant blow to the Kremlin. The Ukrainian advance comes only weeks after a ceremony in Moscow in which Putin announced the “forever” annexation of Kherson along with the Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

    Russia’s retreat from Kherson is a significant moment in the war, and the withdrawal shines a light on how badly the invasion is going for Putin. He has already forcibly enlisted more than 200,000 new recruits into the Russian army, and with around 100,000 Russian soldiers having been killed or wounded since the war began in February, the casualty rate of poorly trained, poorly equipped troops with low morale remains catastrophic. Body bags and burnt-out tanks are all Putin can offer his people.

    As the Ukrainians continue to show incredible resilience in defending their homeland, we must continue to do all we can to support Ukraine both now and in the months ahead. The Minister will know that we on this side of the House fully support the help the Government are providing to our friends in Ukraine, and I want to put on record our thanks to the United Kingdom’s armed forces not only for their work supporting Ukraine and co-ordinating supplies of military aid and humanitarian support, but for reinforcing our allies on NATO’s eastern flank and training Ukrainian troops here in Britain through Operation Interflex.

    On Britain’s military help to Ukraine, the Government have had, and will continue to have, our fullest support. We welcome last week’s announcement on the provision of further surface to air missiles to Ukrainian forces and welcome the announcement of support to protect and upgrade Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, but given the parameters of the support we want to provide I wish to press the Minister gently but seriously on some of the uncertainties in that. The UK must support Ukraine for the long term, and I believe that there is cross-party support on that, but that means that we must move beyond the ad hoc announcements made by Ministers about donating weapons to being clear about a long-term strategy for military, economic and diplomatic assistance through 2023 and beyond.

    Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)

    And humanitarian.

    Luke Pollard

    And humanitarian support. In August, the Government announced that the UK and its allies would begin to establish a plan of action to support Ukraine into 2023, but we still have not seen one. Will the Minister say where it is and why there is a delay in producing the plan? We are running out of 2022—will the report and strategy be ready by the end of the year? What state is it in now, and is it a costed plan or just a set of ambitions? We ask those questions not to put the Minister on the hook or in a bad place but to press him, because we want to see the support gotten right, and scrutiny and clarity for the United Kingdom will help our allies to ensure that they are equally as robust in supporting Ukraine.

    Even before the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Labour had been making the case for an updated integrated review. The Defence Secretary previously argued against that, but now argues for it, which is a welcome U-turn from the Government. I know that the Minister has had a similar change of heart, and that is also welcome. However, the Government have given little signal as to what will be in the integrated review refresh and how it will be updated. I would be grateful if the Minister also set out what he believes needs to be updated in the integrated review. Does the review have clear terms of reference that can be scrutinised? Will he tell us which cuts to the armed forces he now wants to reverse and whether further Army cuts will be halted?

    At the last Defence questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) asked a fair question about why the Government are pressing ahead with cuts to our armed forces before the integrated review reports. What happens if the integrated review says that we should have kept the capabilities and equipment that the Ministry of Defence is scrambling to scrap now?

    It is no secret that next-generation light anti-tank weapons have been vital to the defence of Ukraine, but the Secretary of State has yet to adequately explain whether a new contract to replenish UK NLAW stockpiles has been signed, and with whom. NLAW production will require old production lines to be rebuilt and restarted. If an order was placed today, how long would it be before a new NLAW rolled off the production line? Would it really be two years away? If that is true, that delay is dangerous and one that the UK can ill afford.

    I turn to a technical but serious area that has not been addressed: dual-use technology, which is civilian technology that can have a military application. Last month, the United States imposed a set of new sanctions on Russia targeting a network accused of procuring military and dual-use technologies from US manufacturers and illegally supplying them to the Russian war machine. The Royal United Services Institute, the UK defence think-tank, confirmed in August that UK components are appearing in Russian weaponry. That can include oscillators and standard crystals. No UK-produced equipment should end up in the hands of Putin and his generals, but it is especially difficult to be sure of that when it comes to dual-use equipment. The House has already passed sanctions on such equipment, but the concern is that western electronics and technologies are still reaching Russian weapon manufacturers. That will be concerning to colleagues, so we need clarity that British firms are not, in good faith, making materials or contributing to the supply chain of western manufacturers whose end products could end up killing Ukrainian civilians.

    What steps are the Government taking to identify dual-use technologies that could be used by Putin? What steps is the Minister taking to stop those technologies from getting into the hands of Russia or its agents? Does he feel that the current dual-use technology sanctions are sufficient? What steps can he take, working with our allies, to monitor and shut off possible purchasing routes for Russia of western dual-use equipment like gyroscopes, wi-fi technology, ceramic chips, resistors and semiconductors? This is a complex area, and I realise that I have put the Minister on the spot, with his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), replying to the debate, so if he cannot set that out, I would be grateful if he put a letter in the House of Commons Library. It is a difficult area but one that we must ensure that we are getting right.

    Since the war began, Russian troops have been committing atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. Just as in Bucha, Izium and Mariupol, there is now evidence of Russian war crimes in the Kherson region. We will not know for some time how many civilians the Russians have butchered, but we must be unrelenting in our pursuit of those war criminals until each and every one of them has stood trial for their crimes.

    As Ukrainians face the arrival of winter, it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin’s strategy is to target civilian infrastructure, including energy and water plants. The Minister set out some support that the UK Government are providing, but what additional missile defence is the UK providing to its allies to protect Ukrainian infrastructure from missile attacks by Russia? What plans does he have to deal with the potential for an additional flow of cold and hungry refugees this winter? The effect of Russian bombardment of civilian infrastructure is already degrading Ukraine’s ability to provide clean water and power to all of its population, and that will drive a further humanitarian crisis.

    I turn to how we can afford the defence of the UK and our allies in Ukraine. The Government’s disastrous mini-Budget cost £30 billion—the equivalent of 60% of the UK’s current defence budget, which could have been better spent on hospitals, teachers and the cost of living crisis. That sheer amount of money—abused by the Government—is the cost of 23 brand-new Type 26 frigates. The MOD is the only Government Department in the current spending round with a real-terms revenue cut each year. New figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that, adjusted for inflation, that is a £2.7 billion real-terms cut to defence spending. At the Defence Committee, the Secretary of State for Defence said that with additional defence inflation, he has £8 billion of additional costs on his budget. If we are to continue to provide support to Ukraine and ensure that we can afford an enhanced forward presence for our NATO allies and our other NATO commitments, we need certainty that funding will be available as required for our armed forces.

    I have been re-reading the rather good “Shifting the goalposts?” Defence Committee report, which shows that Labour Governments have always spent more on our nation’s defence than Conservative Governments. Does the commitment to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 still exist? Can the Minister see a point where Government defence spending will fall below the NATO 2% of GDP target? Given the Minister’s and Secretary of State’s previous comments on defence spending, can the Minister say whether he and the Secretary of State will still be in their places if Defence funding is cut in the Chancellor’s autumn statement on Thursday?

    Catherine McKinnell

    On defence spending—I do not believe that this has yet come up in the debate—Putin is clearly using propaganda as a serious weapon in this battle, and it is one that we all have an interest in countering. It would be helpful if the Minister, in summing up, could give some reassurance that the UK is committed to the counter-disinformation unit and working in collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to ensure that we play our part so that this propaganda does not win in Ukraine or elsewhere?

    Luke Pollard

    I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is right. Putin has invested heavily in disinformation technologies and resources to spread misinformation and disinformation in social media news feeds right across the world, including here in the United Kingdom. That investment was not made on a whim. It was made against a clear strategy, with the wish being to divide, split and misinform western populations and use our democracy against us. To protect our democracy and our allies, we must be absolutely determined to tackle disinformation, misinformation and those dark cyber-activities online. We are talking about not just state-sponsored hacking and cyber-attacks—that is one end of the spectrum—but all our constituents seeing things on their Facebook news feeds that are deliberately deployed and shared to try to split and degrade public opinion and create the impression that the United Kingdom’s support for our friends in Ukraine is somehow coming from a dark place, when it is not. That means further action to strengthen our work on social media. It means looking at where Russia is investing in disinformation and how we can strengthen our civil society against that in future. I hope the Minister and his colleagues, for instance those looking after the Online Safety Bill, will take that seriously, too. It is not just military grade activity we need to look at; it is everything through to how each of us uses our social media.

    To conclude, let there be no doubt that Labour Members share the Government’s resolve to support Ukraine for as long as is necessary to defeat Putin. As the Ukrainian countryside turns to mud and then freezes over, we are about to enter an incredibly difficult winter, as military doctrine normally suggests, with frontlines frozen and civilian populations suffering further. The Ukrainians are showing incredible resolve in standing up to Russia, but they cannot do it without continued western support. How we use the winter months to prepare for the expected spring offensives—ensuring our supply lines, commitment, resolve and technologies are available to our friends in Ukraine—will be crucial in keeping the pressure firmly on the Kremlin and ensuring that Ukraine wins.

  • James Heappey – 2022 Statement on the Situation in Ukraine

    James Heappey – 2022 Statement on the Situation in Ukraine

    The statement made by James Heappey, the Minister for Armed Forces, in the House of Commons on 14 November 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.

    We are now coming towards the end of day 264 of Putin’s illegal, unprovoked and premeditated war on a sovereign nation, so it is worth taking the opportunity provided by this debate to step back and reflect on the devastation that Russia has wrought on that country. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians are now dead or injured. Thousands of schools, hospitals and businesses have been destroyed, while millions of acres of forest have been wiped out. Some 17.7 million people have been assessed as requiring humanitarian help and Ukraine has 7 million internally displaced people. There are a further 7.7 million refugees in Europe—the largest movement of refugees since world war two—some 90% of whom are women and children.

    Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)

    I thank the Minister for giving way so early in his speech. My constituent offered to host a Ukrainian family under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, so it is unacceptable that, three months later, that Ukrainian family are still in Turkey waiting to have their application processed by the Home Office. Will he speak to his colleagues in the Home Office about looking at that case? I am sure that is not the only one in which the Home Office is taking a long time to process refugees’ applications—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

    Order. That is a very long intervention. If the hon. Lady wants to make a speech, she has every opportunity to do so.

    James Heappey

    In my experience, applications from constituents have been dealt with—after an initial run of concern—reasonably well. The hon. Lady has raised the point, however, and I will make sure to draw the attention of Home Office Ministers to the record of this debate, so that they can get in touch to discuss whatever concerns she has on behalf of her constituents.

    Since the start of the invasion, Russia has shown scant regard for human life, but since 31 October, it has sought to deliberately target civilians. Let us be clear: there is no military purpose in launching missile strikes at hydroelectric dams or in targeting the six-reactor civilian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is the largest of its kind in Europe. Indeed, this latest escalation has only had a minor military effect. The reality is that such attacks are only a further illustration of Russian weakness. We know that its forces are being pushed back, we know it has lost more than 25,000 soldiers, with many more injured, and we know its capability is vanishing fast, with almost 3,000 tanks, 4,000 smaller vehicles and more than 5,500 armed troop carriers wiped out.

    Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)

    I totally agree that, from a military point of view, hitting electricity and water, apart from being incredibly illegal, is rather pointless. Does the Minister, however, accept that this is part of Russia’s two-pronged strategy? On the one hand, it is now trying—Surovikin is trying—to develop a defensible line, hence the withdrawal from Kherson, which is not actually particularly militarily significant, and on the other hand, it is trying to destroy Ukrainian will by effectively interrupting supplies of water and electricity. That is, therefore, an important political strategy that it is trying to develop.

    James Heappey

    I agree very much with my hon. Friend. He thinks deeply about these things and he understands well how to assimilate the intelligence that is reported in the media. He is right: there is little military benefit in that strategy. The withdrawal from Kherson, while significant for the Ukrainians, and I will come back to that later, is a consolidation on to a more defensible position by Surovikin. My hon. Friend is also right to say that there is an attempt, through the targeting of civilian infrastructure, to break the Ukrainian will to fight, but I think the whole House will agree that we have seen nothing to suggest that the Ukrainian will can be broken. No matter what Putin tries, the Ukrainian people will continue to stand behind their armed forces and Europe will continue to stand behind Ukraine.

    Indeed, so disastrous has been the Russian military effort so far that President Putin must now rely on one of his few remaining international friends and call in from the Iranians Shahed drones. That is further proof that Russia’s own defence industrial complex is suffering badly from the sanctions imposed by the international community. Its forces are being attritted to the point where they no longer have the capacity to operate successfully from within their own inventory, so these imports from Iran become necessary. President Putin hopes to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people, but he will fail. Throughout this invasion, the Ukrainian people have shown remarkable resolve.

    Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)

    On the increasing targeting by Putin of civilian infrastructure, including heating systems, when I was recently in Kyiv with other Members, this was talked about by Ukrainian parliamentarians. Could the Minister expand on the effort by the UK to show our support by providing those heating systems, which will be needed because of the targeting of civilian infrastructure?

    James Heappey

    Sometimes interventions take us in a direction we do not want to go, but the hon. Lady could almost see my notes and that is exactly where we go next.

    That is why, in addition to providing Ukraine with vital weapons capabilities, the UK has committed £22 million to support Ukraine’s energy sector. That includes a £10 million fund for emergency infrastructure repairs and to reconnect households to power. It also includes £7 million for more than 850 generators, which is enough to power the equivalent of about 8,000 homes and will support essential services, including relief centres, hospitals, phone masts and water pumping stations. Approximately 320 have been delivered to Ukraine so far, with the rest to be delivered over the coming weeks and months. Finally, that funding provides a further £5 million for civil nuclear safety and security equipment. The attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant continue to be a cause for major concern. We support the calls of the International Atomic Energy Agency for a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant, including its reactors, nuclear waste, spent fuel pools, and energy and cooling systems. The shelling and military activities near the plant must end.

    Of course, there are wider ramifications to Putin’s brutal incursion. His decision to use food as a weapon of war has had a global impact, exacerbating economic fragility and food insecurity. Ukraine was one of the world’s largest exporters of grain, meeting the needs of hundreds of millions of people. At least 25 African countries import a third of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. All this underlines the significance of maintaining the Black sea grain deal initiative. Since 1 August, it has ensured ships laden with grain have safe passage through the maritime corridor to the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi. Several weeks ago, Russia capriciously pulled out of the agreement, citing so-called concerns over the safety of ships in the Black sea. I am glad that Russia has now seen sense and resumed its participation in the joint co-ordination centre. I want, in particular, to applaud Turkey and the United Nations Secretary-General for their efforts in brokering that agreement and ensuring its implementation.

    Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)

    Can the responsibility for the grain getting through actually be put down to Turkey’s efforts? Is Turkey still going to be helping us and standing firm on that very important issue?

    James Heappey

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I believe he may have been on the ground recently to have some of these discussions himself. Turkey is indispensable to the negotiations that need to be conducted to keep grain flowing, and we are very grateful to it for the role it is playing.

    As temperatures drop, Putin apparently believes he can chip away at western resolve by forcing up food and energy prices. Our task is to prove him wrong. There are signs that, far from weakening the mood of the international community, it is hardening. Back in March, 141 states condemned Russia at the UN General Assembly; at last month’s UNGA, that number rose to 143, or three quarters of the entire UN. Russia’s four supporters were Syria, Belarus, Nicaragua and North Korea—with friends like that, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reality for Russians is that they have become pariahs, isolated from the community of nations and unable even to be elected to UN bodies such as the Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations, UN Women and UNICEF boards.

    Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)

    I absolutely agree that, as the winter sets in, there are clearly some additional challenges presented. One of those will inevitably be holding together our western unity in the face of rising inflation and a very challenging energy situation. Will the Government comment on what steps they are taking to ensure that the UK does its part, but we manage to stand side by side with NATO allies and other western allies?

    James Heappey

    There are two answers to the hon. Lady’s intervention. The first is that the UK, like Governments across Europe, is making a significant intervention to help its citizens with the cost of living. But no matter what Governments in the UK and elsewhere are doing, one should not ignore the fact that millions—hundreds of millions—of people across Europe are grudgingly accepting the increase in their cost of living because they know how important it is to do the right thing and to stand up to the Putin, and that to allow our will to collapse at this point would be to betray the Ukrainian people and hand Putin the territorial gains he has made so far. The second answer to her excellent intervention is that Putin himself keeps reinvigorating the western alliance. Every time we would think the cost of living pressures or the threat of a nuclear escalation, for example, might cause people to waver, he does something atrocious or his forces do something atrocious that quickly re-emboldens the western alliance and strengthens western public resolve to keep pushing on.

    Maintaining the international consensus is vital, and that consensus starts with a recognition of what should be a universal truth: Ukraine has the right to robust self-defence when faced with aggression from another state. Russia’s attempts to change Ukraine’s borders by force are unacceptable and an egregious breach of the UN charter. Its offers of renewed negotiations are not made in good faith. Indeed, Putin has made it clear that any negotiations will not include those territories he continues to annex illegally. That is why, when the Prime Minister spoke to President Zelensky on his first day in office, he assured him and his people of our continued diplomatic, military and economic support. Together with our partners, we are determined to provide enduring diplomatic, military and economic support so that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to deliver a sustainable and just peace through a negotiated settlement when the Ukrainian Government choose.

    As we enter the long winter the western alliance must continue to hold its nerve. Ukraine remains in the ascendancy as it continues pressing on two axes of advance. It has been putting pressure on Russian defensive positions in the Luhansk oblast and has increasingly threatened Russia’s supply and communication routes in the area. Further south, in the Kherson oblast, Ukraine has applied continuous pressure to Russian forces and has carried out strikes on logistics hubs and bridges. Last Wednesday in occupied Kherson, Defence Minister Shoigu ordered his troops to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro river in the face of Ukrainian tanks. Kherson city was the only regional capital captured by Russia since the invasion; it is now back in Ukrainian hands. No matter what we may rightly say about the military sense in such a withdrawal, one should not underestimate nor diminish the incredible success of the Ukrainian armed forces in pushing the Russians to need to withdraw in the first place.

    But that success in Kherson is only the start of a very long and hard winter. Cold and wet weather will make fighting harder, but as the going gets tough the UK will continue doing all we can to give the Ukrainians what they need. With temperatures likely to sink as low as minus 20°C, we have responded to Ukrainian requests for more cold weather equipment. Last week the Prime Minister announced that Ukrainian recruits leaving the UK will be kitted out for the extreme cold. We are also providing 25,000 sets of extreme cold weather clothing, 20,000 heavy duty sleeping bags and 150 insulated tents to prevent cold-related injuries and ensure troops can operate effectively and efficiently. Other European allies are doing likewise, and all of that—that care for the Ukrainian armed forces as they face the bleak midwinter—is in stark contrast to what the Russians are providing their troops with. I dread to think what Russian families would think if they were to see inside their son’s, husband’s, boyfriend’s or father’s rucksacks.

    Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)

    The Minister is right that the capture of Kherson is potentially a turning point for the Ukrainian forces, not least because with longer range missiles supplied to them it might be possible to hit Russian navy targets in the Black sea and therefore begin to eliminate the possibility of Russia using its navy to fire Kalibr cruise missiles into Ukraine against the infrastructure the Minister talked about at the beginning of his speech. Is it now time for us to revisit the supply of longer-range missiles, which we ruled out at the beginning of the conflict?

    James Heappey

    We keep all these things under review, and each time President Putin has ordered an escalation within Ukraine we have looked at what we can do to strengthen Ukrainian capabilities. The reality is that the gains Ukraine has made down towards Kherson have brought the ground lines of communication into Crimea into the range of guided multiple launch rocket systems and high mobility artillery rocket systems. Arguably those ground lines of communication are militarily an equally valuable target set to Crimea itself, if perhaps not quite as provocative—although of course the Ukrainians reserve the right to set their targets, and, as we have seen in recent months, they have done as they need on occasion, and very successfully, too.

    We are the largest European provider of military matériel in Ukraine and have to date provided equipment to allow Ukraine to fight back against attacks on sea and land and in the air. The UK has provided a variety of air defence systems including Stormer vehicles fitted with Starstreak launchers and hundreds of missiles. Those are helping to protect Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure, including its power plants. Last week my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary announced the provision of almost 1,000 surface to air missiles to help counter the Russian threat to Ukrainian infrastructure. We continue to engage with partners all over the world, looking to buy up whatever supplies we can find of the weapons systems the Ukrainians need most, principally for air defence.

    We must think of more than just the here and now, however. One day this war will end and Ukraine will need to be rebuilt: its power and roads restored, bridges re-established, and schools, houses and hospitals repaired. The Kyiv School of Economics puts the cost of direct damage to buildings and infrastructure at some $127 billion already, so the UK is also providing support for Ukraine’s early recovery through the partnership fund for a resilient Ukraine, a £37 million multi-donor fund that the UK belongs to. Through this fund the UK, alongside other countries, has already provided extensive support for the repair of buildings as well as other activities in the Kyiv oblast and other parts of Ukraine. UK Export Finance has committed £3.5 billion of cover to Ukraine for priority projects across the infrastructure, healthcare, clean energy and security sectors, and the UK is supporting the HALO Trust, which so far has de-mined over 16,000 square miles of land in Kyiv oblast so that people will be able to return safely to their homes, agricultural land and businesses. Next year the UK will host the 2023 reconstruction conference to accelerate Ukraine’s recovery from the damage caused by Russia’s invasion.

    The war Russia began has now lasted the best part of a year. Despite overwhelming odds, Ukraine has shown remarkable resilience, and I am proud the UK has played a major role in helping Ukrainians push back the invaders. As we prepare for the difficult months to come, our resolve will remain unwavering. President Putin has exacted a terrible toll on Ukraine, but he continues to make the wrong calls: far from being ground down, today Ukrainian forces are better equipped and better trained and have better morale. They will win and Putin will lose, and when he does the UK will be there, as we have been there throughout this conflict, to help Ukraine repair, rebuild and renew.

    I just conclude by reflecting that thousands of men and women from the British armed forces have been involved in the support of Ukraine over the course of the last year. They have been working phenomenally hard, often in roles that do not catch the public eye. We are very grateful for everything they have done and the sacrifices their families have made in supporting them.

  • Steve Barclay – 2022 Speech at NHS Providers Conference

    Steve Barclay – 2022 Speech at NHS Providers Conference

    The speech made by Steve Barclay, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on 16 November 2022.

    Good morning everyone,

    A lot has clearly happened since the last NHS Providers conference took place including, of course, several changes of Secretary of State.

    And I know that might not matter to everyone as ministers change but I wanted to start by assuring you that the challenges that you are facing are uppermost in the thinking of this government.

    And having previously held roles in Number 10, Cabinet Office and the Treasury, one of the things that I can bring to this role, is making sure on your behalf that the very real challenges you face are given the upmost visibility in the department’s discussions with the centre of the government.

    And in contrast to what some of you might have read in the papers last weekend, I have been very clear in setting out the extent of those challenges in shaping the context of the Chancellor’s statement to the House tomorrow.

    I’m really looking forward to working with colleagues here and across the health and social care sector, which is an important part of all of our families’ stories – and I am no exception in that.

    My first memory was when my Mum was doing cleaning work in a caring home and I went along, and one of the things I remember so well is the kindness of the residents who used to treat me to lots of biscuits as a very little child and treated me so well when I was there.

    And that kind and caring environment has always stuck and stayed with me.

    I believe that in explaining how that has manifested itself, it is far better to show and not tell.

    For any that care to look at my record during four years on the Public Accounts Committee, you will see that I was a strong champion for NHS staff who raised issues of patient safety – because I’ve always felt very strongly that listening to and learning from staff is critical to improving outcomes for patients.

    I know that I am speaking against an extremely difficult backdrop.

    We are all conscious of the fiscal statement from the Chancellor and the wider economic challenges caused by two “once in a hundred year” events – happening within the space of three years in the form of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

    And that places constraints on pay and creates the backdrop of industrial action, along with the pressure you face as local leaders.

    In these difficult times, I am extremely keen to work with you on identifying all the practical measures that we can put in place to support the NHS and care workforce.

    If I can make the point more explicitly, when people ask what my priorities are for the NHS then supporting the workforce is first amongst those priorities.

    We know that this will be one of the toughest winters in the 74-year history of the NHS.

    And I fully understand why a survey ahead of this conference by NHS Providers showed that 85% of Trust leaders are more worried about this winter than any in their NHS career.

    We face the twin threats of Covid and flu, huge external pressures around energy and cost of living.

    We enter the colder months without the breathing space that we might usually have had over the summer and that I’m sure colleagues were used to in the earlier stages in their career.

    And due to the Covid pressures, which have remained high, that has continued that pressure.

    So there is a huge amount to do together to steer health and care through this storm and, crucially, make the changes that will make us better prepared for the future.

    I am extremely grateful for everything that you have done so far in these difficult conditions – working hard to get more nurses on the frontline, and to meet those challenges.

    And we in government, through our manifesto commitment to recruit 50,000 more nurses, are recognising the extent of those pressures and working with you.

    We’ll do everything we can to protect the NHS this winter through the booster programme, more staff on the NHS 111 and 999.

    And within the Department of Health and Social Care itself, our focus is very much on what practical measures we can take to support you.

    As an example, when I was minister for the Cabinet Office, I was surprised to discover that we had over 60 strategies across Whitehall – just for science and technology.

    And there may be some here who feel they are often asked to contribute to long-term plans at the expense of time spent on more immediate pressures.

    My focus will be on the areas that matter most to patients and workforce, and working with you on those practical measures of support.

    And so alongside workforce, a second priority will be on our recovery plan.

    With the backlog at 7.1 million, we will relentlessly focus on the elective recovery work that is being led by chief executive of NHS Improvement Sir Jim Mackey and delivered by you as chief executives and chairs.

    Chief executive of NHS England Amanda Pritchard and I want to see the department and NHS England working closely together on these shared priorities.

    As part of this close working, Amanda and I are pleased to announce two important appointments today who will work closely across both the department and NHS England.

    I am pleased that Professor Sir Tim Briggs – who a number of you in this room will know very well, and who is one of this nation’s most highly regarded orthopaedic surgeons – will bring his considerable clinical expertise to a new role as Clinical Lead for the Elective Recovery across that programme, taking on a broader role as well as his leadership of Get It Right First Time and his clinical practice.

    I can also announce that Sarah-Jane Marsh will be taking up the role of Deputy Chief Operating Officer and National Director for Urgent and Emergency Care.

    She will work closely with regional teams and Integrated Care Systems to deliver our transformation of Urgent and Emergency Care and make sure patients get the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

    Sarah-Jane will replace Pauline Philip, who I’d like to thank for her dedicated service in the role since 2015.

    Initiatives like Get It Right First Time and Sarah Jane’s work over the summer on the 100 Day Discharge taskforce sprint have been making good progress in better using data to prioritise and address variations in performance between areas.

    We took together an extremely positive step over the summer, with the two-year waits being virtually eliminated, and – as we focus on the next steps of hitting the 78-week target by April 2023 – we will work with you as Trust leaders to more quickly scale best practice.

    This summer, I saw how problems often manifest themselves in one part of a complex system but are caused elsewhere.

    For instance, I know that the issues that we are seeing around delayed discharge are a symptom of a broader pressure across health and care.

    To support this work, we have launched a £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund to help get people who do not need to be on wards – and where this damages their health – out of hospital and into social care.

    Today I am pleased to announce details of the fund, which will be provided to ICBs and local authorities to free up beds at a time when bed occupancy is at 94%, and to improve capacity for social care.

    The first tranche will be provided by early December, and the second will be distributed at the end of January.
    In line with our devolved and data-driven approach, we will allow local areas to determine how we can speed up the discharge of patients out of hospital.

    This might be through purchasing supportive technology, through boosting domiciliary care capacity or funding physiotherapists or occupational therapists to support recovery at home.

    Meanwhile, we will also be looking closely at the impact of how funding is used and using this data to inform future decisions on funding, including a more compelling evaluation capacity to help those discussion with the centre of government.

    Tackling delayed discharge must be an effort that spans a number of different areas across health and care, with social care, primary care, community services all working together with hospitals.

    I want to move away from blame being attached to particular parts of the system for problems that arise but are the consequences of issues that have arisen elsewhere in that complex system.

    Delayed discharge needs to be much more of a team effort, where everyone plays their part, and where decisions on where risk sits within a local system are best made by those closer to the issue.

    Equally, I am sure you can appreciate that quite often as a Secretary of State being held accountable for individual operational failure, it can feel far removed from the day-to-day decisions made at a local level.

    It is far better that variation in the different needs of demographics and local healthcare systems is reflected in devolving decisions to local leaders, who of course are better placed to assess the trade-offs about where risk sits within those decisions, rather than it being determined in a one-size fits all way within a ministerial office.

    So a key direction of travel will to be empower the ICBs much more to harness advances around population level data, with the role of the centre being geared around supporting areas to address those variations in performance – of which, of course, you all play one of the largest parts.

    We will support Trusts in stopping lower priority spend so they can prioritise areas that matter most to patients – like cancer care.

    And we will also show more transparency from the centre about how our own resource is being deployed, to ensure this spend better aligns with fewer targets and more ICB autonomy.

    We’re again showing not telling, in that regard, and so providing transparency of department spend for DHSC and our central ALBs – which it’s worth remembering accounts for £2.8 billion of spend – and the department along with the vast majority of our Arm’s Length Bodies have now published searchable organograms showing all job titles and the number of people working in each team.

    So you as health leaders can see more clearly where resource is spent at the centre, and we can start a conversation about whether priorities and resource is best aligned with supporting you in meeting the challenges your local health system faces.

    I’d like to touch briefly on pay, which I know is an important issue for your teams.

    As in all sectors, pay is a central issue, particularly given the wider cost of living pressures.

    I am keen to work constructively with trade union colleagues.

    Last week, I met representatives from the Royal College of Nursing and yesterday I held a roundtable with a wide range of trade unions – discussing the issues that they have raised on patient safety, non-pay benefits, and of course pay itself.

    But I do not think it is realistic that increases should be three times the amount paid to those outside the public sector.

    And the £9 billion cost this would entail would impact other important areas of spend, such as buildings and technology, which are also important to staff.

    However, I am grateful for the discussions that we had over the past few weeks and look forward to future discussions, and have made clear my door is open and we want to engage constructively.

    And I can assure you all that this is an issue that I am determined to take forward.

    Turning to GP access, which is another key priority.

    Because when it comes to people’s direct experience of the NHS, over 90% of that experience is through primary care.

    So addressing the 8am morning scramble opening access to appointments is a key area of focus, and indeed was a key component of the Plan for Patients.

    We know that there is no single solution, and we will be looking to ensure that we have a wider workforce for primary care.

    We’ll be looking at the skills mix in primary care, creating more appointments for patients, rolling out the extra phone lines, looking at how we can progress Pharmacy First.

    Exploring ways to do things differently, such as new areas like home testing, and redesigning patient pathways so that all the burden doesn’t fall on GPs.

    Another of my priorities is ensuring a stronger future for health and care in terms of how we use the latest technologies and trends to improve outcomes for patients and make sure that taxpayers’ money is well spent.

    One example of that is on the NHS estate.

    I know that there are huge concerns about issues of the RAAC concrete used in certain hospitals, which needs urgent attention.

    And I want to speak directly to the chief executives of all the hospital trusts that are affected.

    I understand the seriousness of this issue and I am committed to delivering the government’s commitment to eradicating RAAC from the NHS estate.

    Equally, there has been great interest in the wider new hospitals build programme – and Saffron, I know that you have talked a lot about the importance of our capital programme to the longer-term future of the NHS.

    And I couldn’t agree more.

    I want to use the opportunity of this biggest hospital building programme in a generation, to think differently about how we approach the NHS estate.

    It’s important to bear in mind that if you look at the last 10 hospitals, nine of the last 10 hospitals built in England were over time and over budget.

    It interests me that, given where we were four years ago, as Minister of State in the department I visited the Royal Liverpool Hospital, which I was told four years ago was near completion when on my visit to that hospital – and four years later I am now visiting again today with it only opening last month.

    So there is an urgent need to change how all NHS buildings are constructed in the future.

    This means moving away from bespoke designs by local Trusts and instead having national standardised designs built through modern methods of construction, where the construction time on site is much quicker, the operational performance is delivered quicker, and the environmental features are better integrated into the build.

    And the central evaluation process within government, which to date has been a sticking point for many Trusts, can be streamlined because of the greater consistency of design.

    While Covid has left us with many challenges, it has also shown us that there are new ways of working which could apply.

    One of the most important of those opportunities is around better use of the NHS app, which should be much more central to how people access health services.

    I very much welcome that so many GPs are now making their patient records and testing results available on the NHS app, and I think there are significant opportunities to harness the NHS app further – particularly in the context of pressures in primary care, but more widely on preventative medicine.

    And we have some big updates to come, including from the end of this month, allowing people to book their Covid jab through the NHS app.

    But I also want to look at how we can make greater use of patient data in a safe and secure way to power life-changing medical research, and cement our nation’s status as a science superpower.

    I want patients to have more opportunities to share data, on an opt-in basis, to support our great universities, start-ups and scale-ups who are making incredible breakthroughs.

    And through cloud computing, machine learning and the Internet of Things allow for data to be used and interrogated in new ways.

    This can give us a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting tech pioneers and researchers in the future of health but also help us deliver more, effective, personalised care for patients.

    This has to sit of course alongside basic improvements like the Electronic Patient Records being rolled out more quickly, and the poor Wi-Fi coverage that remains too often a frustration for staff.

    No-one here is in any doubt as to the size of the challenge that we collectively face.

    We have to deal with pressures from flu and Covid this winter, substantial backlogs from the pandemic, the wider cost of living challenges faced by our workforce.

    And so as a result, my key areas of focus in the months ahead will be first and foremostly supporting our workforce, focusing forensically on our recovery plans – across electives, urgent and emergency care – including the issue of tackling delayed discharge and primary care access.

    Alongside this, we need to fix the issue in term of the RAACs, and we need to maintain momentum on the new hospital building programme, in particular streamlining the central approval process.

    And invest in tech, so we can make it easier to deliver good patient outcomes and better harness our approach on preventative medicine in a way that incentivises patients to provide data for our scientific community – who in turn, enable those treatments to be personalised, and pathways to be streamlined.

    I will play my part in to try and reduce the number of top-down requests that you face, devolve decision making to a greater degree, and allow those closest to the patient to better balance how risk is addressed – given the complex landscape in which you all work.

    And I will set a much higher bar within government to any new legislation, which so often creates undue distraction.

    Thank you once again for everything that you do.

    I’m very much looking forward in this role to working with you all to build a more resilient, healthier NHS for the long-term, so that collectively we can give the security to the people we represent of knowing it will be there for them when they need it.

    Thank you very much.

  • Rishi Sunak – 2022 Letter to Dominic Raab on his Personal Conduct

    Rishi Sunak – 2022 Letter to Dominic Raab on his Personal Conduct

    The letter written by Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, to Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, on 16 November following allegations about Raab’s personal conduct.

    Text (in .pdf format)

  • Keir Starmer – 2022 Statement Following Attack on Poland

    Keir Starmer – 2022 Statement Following Attack on Poland

    The statement made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 16 November 2022.

    I and the entire Labour Party offer condolences for the loss of life in Poland. Britain stands united with our NATO allies.

  • Andrew Bowie – 2022 Speech on the UK Trade Deals with Australia and New Zealand

    Andrew Bowie – 2022 Speech on the UK Trade Deals with Australia and New Zealand

    The speech made by Andrew Bowie, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, in the House of Commons on 14 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to have had the opportunity to listen to this debate, to contribute to it and, indeed, to close it on behalf of the Government, especially as I am doing so as the first Scottish Conservative Minister outside the Scotland Office for some 25 years, since the noble Lord Lang of Monkton, who served as Secretary of State for Trade in John Major’s Government.

    May I start by thanking all Members for their contributions? It is clear from today’s on the whole positive debate that, on the whole, Members agree that the UK’s trading relationships with Australia and New Zealand are good for this country and for the world. In particular, the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) was right: trade has enabled the development of civilisation and human progress, and we need to make the case for it much more strongly. As the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) said, the trade deals that we are debating will bring positive benefits to our respective countries and economies. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who is a walking example of the positive benefits that antipodean trade can bring to this country.

    The agreements will remove tariffs, make it easier for British businesses to invest in Australia and New Zealand and deliver growth to every part of our country. They will also address trade barriers faced by small and medium-sized enterprises, such as lengthy costs and procedures, and allow our citizens to work more freely in both countries, thanks to new environmental commitments for businesses and travel. In short, the deals provide real benefits to real businesses and our respective countries at large.

    Before I address the points about scrutiny and environmental protections on which most of the contributions have been focused, let me turn to the contribution by my friend on the Scottish National party Benches, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry). Time and again, SNP Members turn up to debates on trade deals and ask questions in the Chamber and elsewhere, professing to be friends of Scotland’s farmers and to be standing up for Scottish agriculture as champions of rural Scotland. There is just one problem: the record shows that, sadly, contrary to the rhetoric, the SNP are no friends of rural Scotland and Scotland’s farmers.

    Drew Hendry

    Is the Minister able to name one single amendment that the Government have accepted from the SNP on any trade deal?

    Andrew Bowie

    I would like, instead, to run through how the SNP are failing Scotland’s farmers, given how strongly the hon. Gentleman professes to be championing them. If they were friends of Scotland’s farmers, they would have voted with us, as the National Farmers Union of Scotland wanted them to do, on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. If they were true friends of Scottish farmers, they would have listened to the National Farmers Union of Scotland, which has accused the SNP Government of operating in an “information void” due to the lack of information and slow progress of Scotland’s post-Brexit agriculture Bill. They say that they are friends of Scottish farmers, but when did the Scottish Government’s own agriculture and rural development board last meet? It was 10 months ago. That is absolutely shameful.

    In only the last two months, the SNP has been criticised by Scotland’s rural bodies for having no plan for rural economic growth and no plan to support Scotland’s pig farmers. Its policies threaten thousands of hectares of good agricultural land. Let us remember, too, that it would take Scotland’s farmers back into the common agricultural policy. I suppose that without Westminster to blame, they would need to join the EU in order to have somebody to point the finger at.

    Drew Hendry

    Will the Minister give way?

    Andrew Bowie

    I will not.

    The SNP are not champions for Scotland’s farmers. They are political opportunists who think that they can still get away with professing one thing in this place and practising another in Scotland, tied as they are to their Luddite partners in Government, the Green party. The SNP is not pro-farming; it is anti-business, anti-growth and, as we know too well, anti-trade.

    Deidre Brock

    Could the Minister explain, in this middle of his diatribe, exactly what he will say to his constituents in his rural constituency about the contribution of the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), which contained startling revelations that will not please them?

    Andrew Bowie

    In my 1,900 square mile rural constituency I have regular interactions with farmers—probably far more than the hon. Lady has in her Edinburgh North and Leith constituency. I will turn to the comments by the former EFRA Secretary in due course, but we will hear no more from the SNP on what is in the best interests of Scotland’s farmers.

    Our trade deals balance open and free trade with protections for our farmers. As I have said, I have immense respect for my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for EFRA. I listened intently to his concerns about the trade deals, but I have to take issue with him and defend officials in the Department for International Trade, all of whom, without exception, are dedicated to bettering the trading relationships for this country. They all, without exception, have this country’s best interests at heart and are working day and night for this country.

    I also point out that Australian and New Zealand beef and lamb suppliers are already working hard to satisfy demand from the booming Asia-Pacific markets on their doorstep. New Zealand already has a significant volume of tariff-free access for lamb to the UK market, but used less than half that quota in 2020. None the less, our deals include a range of protections that collectively allow us to apply higher tariffs to protect UK farmers for up to 20 years.

    George Eustice

    The Minister is absolutely right that, at the moment, New Zealand uses only about half the tariff rate quota available to it. That being the case, why would it have been such a big deal to require an enduring TRQ of Australia and New Zealand that was generous but within a fixed envelope?

    Andrew Bowie

    My right hon. Friend has an incredible amount of experience in this field. I would be happy to take up the issue with him outside the Chamber following the debate.

    Our deals include a range of protections that allow us to apply higher tariffs to protect UK farmers, including tariff rate quotas for a number of sensitive agricultural products; specific additional protective measures for beef and lamb products, which will provide further tariff protections to our farmers; and a general bilateral safeguard mechanism that will allow the UK to increase tariffs or suspend their liberalisation for up to four years in the unlikely situation that the farming industry faces serious loss from increased agricultural imports. On top of all that, there is still the option of global safeguards under the WTO.

    I will now turn to the points raised about environmental, animal welfare and food standards. I stress that we will never compromise on these critical protections—

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle

    You have!

    Andrew Bowie

    No, we have not. That is why our trade deals include specific measures to uphold them.

    Before I go on, I must quickly correct the record. Earlier, the Minister for Trade Policy, who unfortunately has a prior engagement in his constituency, said in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) that the climate change agreement in the deal was Australia’s first. It is not; it is actually Australia’s second. It also has an environmental chapter in its agreement to the CPTPP. In addition, the Trade and Agriculture Commission has separately confirmed that our free trade agreements do not require the UK to change our existing levels of statutory protection in relation to any areas.

    I now briefly turn to scrutiny, which is incredibly important. Contrary to the description of the right hon. Member for Warley of the scrutiny process, and always remembering that CRaG was introduced by Labour, the Government have made extensive commitments to support robust scrutiny of all new free trade agreements. These commitments greatly exceed our statutory requirements and we have met every single one.

    I hear and understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Rochdale and I accept the challenge to go further and do better, but the Australian FTA was examined by Parliament for more than seven months and the scrutiny period featured reports from three Select Committees. I praise the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and it is sad that the Chair of the International Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), is not in attendance today.

    Drew Hendry

    It is important to make it clear that there have been substantial travel disruption and difficulties from Scotland today, so it is unfair to single out an hon. Member who has been hit by that.

    Andrew Bowie

    I thank the hon. Gentleman; I was about to reference the travel requirements. I was not blaming the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar for not coming, but it is sad. I am genuinely disappointed that he is not here to intervene on me at the Dispatch Box today.

    By the end of the New Zealand CRaG period, hon. Members will have had the opportunity to examine the detail of the New Zealand deal for eight months. Of course, His Majesty’s Government also welcome the fact that we have a debate on both trade deals today.

    It has been a privilege to speak in today’s debate. Our free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand are game-changing deals. They demonstrate that the UK is a confident, outward-looking, free-trading country that is ready to grab the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, and that we are a nation that is using the power of free trade to the benefit of great British businesses and the wider world—and as the right hon. Member for Warley said, to the benefit of all our people.

  • Gareth Thomas – 2022 Speech on the UK Trade Deals with Australia and New Zealand

    Gareth Thomas – 2022 Speech on the UK Trade Deals with Australia and New Zealand

    The speech made by Gareth Thomas, the Labour MP for Harrow West, in the House of Commons on 14 November 2022.

    After a decade of economic mismanagement, with the chaos at the top of the Conservative party and the kamikaze Budget backed so enthusiastically by so many Government Members, and with so many entrepreneurs worried for the future of their businesses, millions facing rising energy bills, weekly shops shooting up in price and rocketing mortgage costs, it was striking that there was not one word of apology in the opening speech from the Minister on the Front Bench, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands).

    This has none the less been a fascinating debate, not least for the contribution of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who made a powerful and devastating speech that blew away the bluster and complacency that has characterised Ministers’ descriptions of the benefits of the Australia free trade agreement. He said that it was

    “not actually a very good deal for the UK”,

    and that Ministers had given away

    “far too much for far too little”.

    He underlined those criticisms by going on to point out that unless we recognise the failures of the Department for International Trade, we will not learn the lessons necessary for negotiations with other countries over other free trade agreements, such as, importantly, the CPTPP accession discussions. He rightly noted, as many others did—I will come back to the contributions of others—the weaknesses of the scrutiny process and crucially how it weakens the hand of British negotiators, which is a point we made during the passage of the Trade Bill back in 2020.

    We on the Opposition Benches will table amendments on Report of the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill to reflect some of those concerns and to give the House the opportunity to begin to put right some of the weaknesses in the CRaG process.

    George Eustice

    In my contribution, I also pointed out that article 32.8 was a very strong clause in the agreement. It gives any British Government the unbridled right to terminate and renegotiate this agreement at any future point. Can the hon. Member say whether it is his party’s position to trigger article 32.8 and renegotiate the agreement?

    Gareth Thomas

    We will always want to get a better deal and to seek better trading links between our country and Australia, and I will come on to that point a little further on in my speech.

    Let me reiterate that this debate is happening only because all sides of the House have voiced consistent frustration with the failure to have proper scrutiny of the Australia free trade agreement in particular. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), as well as by the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord).

    Back in 2020, the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham, who is not in his place, effectively said “Watch my lips” in the Trade Bill Committee as he opposed more robust scrutiny rules. His approach was one of effectively saying, “You can trust us to give Parliament proper opportunities for scrutiny.” Not surprisingly, his assurances quickly turned to dust. The previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), ducked scrutiny by the International Trade Committee eight separate times. The Government, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) set out in his opening remarks, triggered the scrutiny period of 21 sitting days for the Australia FTA before the International Trade Committee had even had the chance to publish its assessment, and despite Ministers regularly assuring us that this would not happen.

    We know, too, that the last Secretary of State was not alone in wanting to avoid tough questions. The architect of the deal, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), cancelled meetings with farmers during her leadership campaign to avoid feeling their wrath about the deal she had negotiated. Let me reiterate that we support increasing trade with Australia and New Zealand. With two progressive Labour Governments, who would not want to support stronger ties with both? They are crucial allies and our ties have always been deep. We share security interests, and our culture and values are similar—enhancing our partnerships with both is only to be welcomed.

    As my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley underlined, free trade agreements carefully negotiated can open up new opportunities for British business, creating jobs for our constituents and generating vital tax revenues to fund our public services. Well-negotiated FTAs open new routes for supply chains, create better access to crucial raw materials and encourage innovation, but they are not zero-sum games. Time after time, Minister have failed to be open and honest about which parts of the economy will benefit under their negotiating priorities and which will not.

    Under the previous Labour government, trade grew by 10% and exports almost doubled. After 12 years of the Conservatives, trade has grown by just 3% and growth in UK exports is lagging behind virtually every other major nation. We and, given the widespread concern, the country expected better than Ministers delivered on these FTAs. Ministers do not get a free pass. These deals have gradually exposed a Department for International Trade whose Ministers have lost sight of what is best for Britain.

    Exports are fundamental to delivering economic growth and the good jobs that are crucial to tackling the cost of living crisis, yet Ministers pushed through cuts to business groups that support British exporters and prioritised Instagram photos on trade missions over meeting British businesses. We on the Opposition Benches hear time and again the frustration of British businesses, which note the greater help that other Governments give their businesses to export—a point that the former Exports Minister, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), made this summer. During the recent evidence sessions of the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill Committee, business bodies repeatedly raised their concerns. To underline those concerns, figures for Germany, one of our biggest export markets, from January to September this year, compared with the same period in 2019, show a 27% increase in US exports to Germany, a 23% increase in EU exports, and just a 2% increase in British exports.

    Instead of addressing those concerns and others about the FTAs, Ministers were busy attacking each other. Even for a Conservative party as disunited as this one, it was a new low when the previous Secretary of State for International Trade toured the TV studios accusing the then Minister of State for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), of being lazy and not up to the job. We can only hope that the new ministerial team is willing to learn lessons from how these recent trade deals have been negotiated.

    I have to say, however, that the opening speech was not encouraging. It was a speech that Arthur Daley would have been proud of at his best. Apparently the greatest deal in Britain’s trading history has been secured against all the odds, yet the reality is that the New Zealand FTA will increase our GDP by just 0.03% and the Australian one by just 0.08%. Given the Conservative Government’s disastrous handling of the economy, any help to improve our chances of economic growth is welcome. In particular, progress on digital trade, locking in customs and trade facilitation arrangements that minimise paperwork and the somewhat easier rules of origin for manufacturing goods, notably car parts, are welcome.

    The sad truth, however, is that in the rush to get a deal—any deal—signed with Australia, Ministers did not push crucial British interests. Once again, the interests of the Conservative party took priority over the needs of the British people. The National Farmers Union said that the deal does “little for farmers” and

    “simply opens up UK markets for Australian produce, whether or not produced to the same standards that are legally required of UK farmers”,

    and that

    “the UK government has missed the opportunity to reach a genuinely innovative and world-class FTA with Australia”.

    The huge giveaway to Australian farmers led Australian negotiators to boast of their success. It is as if Ministers have turned their backs on rural communities and decided that farmers did not matter in these negotiations. There is little on labour rights, even less on human rights and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and others have pointed out, little on climate change.

    The Opposition have been struggling to find things to praise the new Prime Minister for. After all, his is far from an impressive record: billions of pounds-worth of fraud on his watch as Chancellor, and huge tax rises and cuts to public services coming. However, his argument that the Australia deal was one-sided might briefly risk some consensus across the House.

    There were other points of detail that Ministers did not bother to prioritise getting right. There is nothing substantive on securing protection for great British brands such as Whitstable oysters, Scotch whisky and Cornish pasties. On steel, the rules of origin that Ministers agreed mean that unlike most modern FTAs, Britain cannot import semi-finished project, roll it in the UK and export it tariff-free to Australia, making it harder for steel made in Britain to be sold to Australia. All the while, there are no similar restrictions on Australian steel entering our markets.

    As we heard from the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth and many other Members across the House, this deal could have been much better and Ministers need to learn the lessons from these FTA negotiations.

  • Richard Foord – 2022 Speech on the UK Trade Deals with Australia and New Zealand

    Richard Foord – 2022 Speech on the UK Trade Deals with Australia and New Zealand

    The speech made by Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and Honiton, in the House of Commons on 14 November 2022.

    Farmers across the UK, but particularly in my part of Devon, are deeply concerned by how the Government have approached these new trade deals. Let us cast our minds back to 2016, when we were told that a veritable land of milk and honey awaited us and that new trade deals would be easy to sign. Since 2016, the Government have signed a number of trade deals, but let us look at the detail of that apparent success. Almost all those deals have been roll-overs aiming to maintain the terms we already had. Only four of the trade deals are new, including the Australia and New Zealand deals that we are discussing today—hardly the boom in export trade we were promised.

    The Government’s approach during negotiations with Australia and New Zealand seems to have been to sell out British farmers left and right—and then some—to try to clinch a deal. These trade deals are more about attempting to garner positive headlines than supporting our world-leading agriculture and fishing industries. Both deals will see farmers across the west country undercut as produce made to lower standards will be allowed to flow into the UK.

    The Government claim they will not water down our food and animal welfare standards—and on paper they may well not—but where does that leave farmers in reality? It will be almost impossible for our farmers to continue to compete on such an unequal playing field, particularly given the increased costs that are making everyone cut back. It is frankly ludicrous to suggest that UK farmers will benefit from these deals when they tie not one, but two hands behind their backs. Add to that the Government’s botched implementation of the payments with the new environmental land management scheme, which is already pushing many farmers to the brink with cuts to the basic payments, and we have a recipe for disaster for our farmers.

    The upside in exchange for all this pain and misery set to be inflicted on rural communities by both these trade deals is a whopping 0.11% increase to our GDP. That is a drop in the ocean compared with the turmoil it will cause here at home. Many farmers across Devon are already struggling to make ends meet, yet with these deals, this Conservative Government have shown that they either do not get it, or simply do not care. More than 64,000 people across the south-west work in agriculture, and many are seeing their future put at risk owing to botched trade deals such as this. The New Zealand free trade agreement gives the opportunity for tariff-free import volumes to rise to 165,000 tonnes by year 15. That, combined with 125,000 tonnes from Australia, is almost the entire volume of lamb consumed annually in Britain. As the chief executive of the National Sheep Association said earlier this year,

    “neither does it win on our aspiration for high standards, climate change targets, or reliable food security.”

    Farmers across my part of the world will never forgive this Government if they continue down this deeply destructive path. As mentioned by Members previously, this debate today is not even a full debate. We are not discussing a substantive motion, as requested by the International Trade Committee, so everything we say here will not prevent the Government barrelling ahead with these plans anyway. We must ensure that this House and its Members have the final say on the trade deals we are discussing, and we must ensure that our aim is always to negotiate deals that protect and support UK farming and fishing, rather than bartering away those arrangements.