UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Speeches

  • Alex Burghart – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Alex Burghart – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Alex Burghart, the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to respond to this Opposition day debate, 10 days into the job though I am; this is a very important subject. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I should say at the outset that I can answer one of her questions: the Prime Minister will appoint an independent adviser in the very near future. I am sure that the House will hear about that in due course.

    We have had a far-ranging debate. At times it ranged slightly further than you might have liked, Madam Deputy Speaker, from some very interesting insights into the thoughts of constituents in Guildford and Aberconwy to a minor digression on sausage making from the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). Central to the motion, despite the digressions, is a serious issue that affects the very real business of government and how it is conducted: the question whether advice given to Ministers and Prime Ministers in private, in confidence, should be made public. Conservative Members are clear that it should not.

    These are very serious matters that the Government take seriously. It is because we are taking them seriously that we cannot agree to the disclosure of the information set out in the motion. The thrust of this debate is that the Opposition seek to see inside the internal processes of ministerial appointments and to make public the discussions that may form part of any appointment. As my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General said, there are compelling and common-sense reasons why that desire should be resisted.

    Lee Anderson

    I am very confused. I have sat through this debate for three hours now. Can my hon. Friend explain why the Opposition are hearing from people in their droves asking to see these documents, yet nobody is asking Conservative MPs? Are the Opposition just playing politics?

    Alex Burghart

    I am shocked and surprised to hear that my hon. Friend has views. It is the first time that he has ever shared them with me. The Opposition have not entirely turned out to take part in this Opposition day debate, it is true.

    Hon. Members will know that it is essential to the functioning of government that conversations that occur around appointments can take place in confidence, as my hon. Friends the Members for Devizes (Danny Kruger), for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) and for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) mentioned.

    Stuart C. McDonald

    Let us say that we accept that the Government do not want to release these papers. As a compromise, will the Minister undertake to ensure that the new independent ethics adviser looks retrospectively at the appointment? Then everybody could be happy.

    Alex Burghart

    That is a matter for the last Administration. Also, as hon. Members across the House know, it is a very long-standing practice observed by Governments of all types that they do not give over advice given in confidence. It is a practice that respects the confidentiality of the advice given and the confidentiality owed to the adviser. To place all advice in a position in which it might subsequently be published and made public would have an absolutely deadening effect on the business of government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) says.

    What this really amounts to is gameplay by the Opposition. It is Labour Whips’ trick No. 666: ask the Government for information that they know but that Governments never release, and then feign horror and surprise when they do not release it. The fact is that a Labour Government would never publish such information. If the Opposition commit tonight to releasing such information should they be in power in future, the next Labour Government—may they never come—will bitterly regret that decision.

    The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), can say that it is a simple matter of showing us what happened, but as a highly experienced legislator, Minister and Select Committee Chair she knows that this is not a simple matter. It was not a simple matter for the Labour party when it was asked to reveal the legal advice on Iraq, but in opposition it suddenly decided that it was a simple matter to get the Government to display their legal advice on Brexit. Several Members have noted that it is the case that Governments of all stripes do not release such information, and those on the Opposition Front Bench know it to be the case as well.

    There is, as we have said, a very long-established process for the appointment of Ministers. It is the Prime Minister who decides who sits on the Front Bench. The Labour party knows as well as we do that Ministers hold office for as long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister, that it is for the Prime Minister to decide who sits in the Cabinet, and that it is for the Prime Minister to pick the best team to solve the problems that the country faces. If the Opposition do not like his choices, it is normally a sign that he has picked the right team. On immigration, the Prime Minister has picked my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) because he knows that she has the talent and knowledge that are necessary to help him to solve the small boats crisis in the channel. It is pretty clear tonight that the Labour party knows that too, and that is why it is seeking to undermine her. As we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for Ashfield, Labour is doing that because it is scared that she will get the job done.

    As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) and a number of others have said, many important issues could have been debated tonight other than a motion asking for the release of papers that the Opposition know will not be released. The shadow Home Secretary said that “bit by bit” trust was being undermined. I will tell the Opposition what causes trust to be undermined: political games which call for the release of papers that cannot be released and which report rumours as facts, double standards which call for the release of papers that Labour would not have released when it was in power, and double standards which say that Ministers cannot be rehabilitated. I remember the very great Peter Mandelson being brought back on two occasions, but Labour will not forgive this Home Secretary once.

    The truth is that this is a motion tabled with the aim of playing political games to try to tie up Ministers in process and reporting, to try to hurt the Government by asking them to deviate from long-standing practice that has previously been respected on both sides, and to try to distract attention from the fact that while the Government are busting a gut to solve the problems in the channel, the Opposition have no solutions. There is a reason why they want to talk about personnel, process and appointments: it is because they do not want to talk about policy.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    I am extremely pleased to close this debate on an important motion. It is important to my constituents in Putney, Southfields and Roehampton, who have stopped me on the tube recently and said, “What is going on?” They are perplexed about what is being allowed to happen and especially about the issues around the recent reshuffle and its returns.

    Lee Anderson rose—

    Fleur Anderson

    I am just starting off.

    The public look to the Home Office to keep them, their families and their communities safe, but the Prime Minister’s decision to reappoint the Home Secretary against advice just six days after she broke the ministerial code and had to resign, and in the light of the further reports about security and code breaches, is shockingly irresponsible. We have heard a full, detailed list of questions that we still do not have answers to. I hope to hear answers to them in the Minister’s closing speech.

    We heard powerful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), who listed several serious questions that need to answered, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), who outlined the serious concerns raised by her constituents that need to be addressed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who raised the questionable decisions made by the Home Secretary—that is what is underneath this whole debate today—and the need to appoint an ethics adviser. Perhaps we will hear about that from the Minister later.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) gave a forensic analysis of the current Home Secretary’s history of leaking being investigated, and the discrepancies in the timeline: when she reported the mistaken email, the selective information given in the letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), and the deficiencies in those letters. That letter and the deficiencies in it are one of the reasons why the Opposition called for this debate and for the documents to be made public.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) underlined the importance of trust and the need to rebuild the trust of our constituents in the Government after recent months—years even—of the Conservative Government. We need to rebuild trust and that is why we need to see the documents. The judgment of the Prime Minister is being called into question, as my hon. Friend outlined, and the country deserves high standards.

    Let me be clear: these are serious questions for the Prime Minister. This month’s Prime Minister promised

    “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”,

    but the unravelling of the Home Secretary’s story throws all three of those into doubt. There are serious discrepancies in the letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, which I think releasing the documents would help to show. The written ministerial statement leaked by the Home Secretary, which is central to these allegations and issues, was sent on purpose to a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and, by mistake, to someone else. That surely throws up lots of questions about what else the Home Secretary is sending out and to whom.

    Did the Prime Minister know that the Home Secretary had previously used her personal email on six other occasions when he made this appointment? Did the Prime Minister know about the review into her use of personal and Government IT, and was he presented with the findings before he reappointed her? Did he know about the very serious allegations that the Home Secretary was repeatedly leaking sensitive information when she was Attorney General? Did he know of any other breaches that are not currently in the public domain? Has he seen the contents of the Cabinet Office leak inquiry report? Has he been advised of any further breaches of the ministerial code over the handling of events at Manston? Why has the Prime Minister appointed someone with such a cavalier approach to the security of documents and such a history of leaking, to such an important position for national security? All those questions could be answered right now by the Minister without making any personal information about appointments public. They could just be answered right now and I think that would go a long way to restoring trust. The Prime Minister has an opportunity today to definitively prove he has nothing to hide, or he can Whip those on the Government Benches to vote against this motion. We would then have to assume that there is something to hide.

    This is a narrow debate, as has been said many times, and specifically so. It asks only that certain papers be laid before the House within 10 sitting days, so that the decision to reappoint the Home Secretary just six days after resigning can be made fully transparent. We are asking to see only the risk assessment, the documents about security breaches and any leak inquiries, submissions made or advice relating to the appointment, and that if redactions need to be made, understandably so, any unredacted materials are made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

    In his opening remarks, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) said that sharing appointment documents would undermine the appointment system. We are not asking for all documents in all cases to be shared. This is a very exceptional and unusual appointment just six days after a ministerial resignation, so the process is already undermined. The allegations will continue to dog the Home Secretary unless we can fully find out what has been going on. I hope that those documents would restore the trust that has been lost.

    It is not just the Opposition who are asking serious questions. The Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), also wrote to the Cabinet Secretary on 3 November to ask many questions about the reappointment of the Home Secretary and about many procedural issues. He has written a list of six serious questions that I hope will be answered soon.

    Amid all the chaos, it is timely to remind ourselves that there is still no ethics adviser in post. The Prime Minister said that one of the first things that he would do was to appoint a new ethics adviser. The previous Prime Minister said that she did not even need one, but no one believed that. A Cabinet Office Minister also promised me in a Westminster Hall debate on Monday 17 October that an ethics adviser would be appointed very shortly. The Prime Minister has so far not appointed one, but has instead appointed a Home Secretary who resigned over security breaches and an Immigration Minister who admitted acting unlawfully in office. The Minister at the centre of all these allegations remains on the Government Front Bench—it is just “Carry on Conservatives”. Where is the promised new ethics adviser? Why the delay when we are again seeing breaches of the ministerial code left, right and centre? Has the position been offered to anyone or to a succession of people who have said, “No, the work load is too much. We can’t take this on”? Will the Minister update the House today?

    The Conservative Government have instead relegated national security to an afterthought, at times an inconvenience and something to be worked around. The Opposition have secured this debate not only because the allegations are very serious in their own right and we need to know more, but because the Home Secretary’s actions and appointment indicate a pattern of behaviour by the Prime Minister in the way that he is making decisions.

    There have been allegations that the former Prime Minister used her personal phone for Government business. There are now revelations about the actions of the Cabinet Minister—the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson)—and that is relevant to this motion, because that pattern of behaviour cannot become normal. We have to draw a line.

    Robin Millar

    Have we not just heard the real reason for this motion? It is nothing to do with the Home Secretary or even immigration; it is all to do with trying to establish a pattern of behaviour in the Prime Minister, because the Labour party is playing political games.

    Fleur Anderson

    I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, because we are absolutely seeking to establish whether there is a pattern of behaviour by the Prime Minister in appointing people to the Cabinet who should not be there because of their history of leaks and misbehaviour. That cannot be acceptable. It undermines integrity, which the Prime Minister was talking about. Let me remind colleagues, including the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), that the Prime Minister has reappointed to Cabinet the man who, in 2019, was sacked as Secretary of State for Defence after a leak investigation. That pattern of behaviour cannot be allowed to continue.

    What does this pattern of behaviour show? It appears to indicate that there is no sin too serious, no leak too large and no text too ill-tempered for a Tory to find their way back to the Cabinet table. That is no way to run a country. Is there just a chronic shortage of talent in the Conservative party? Do those who seem to find their way back know where the skeletons are buried? The public will ask those questions unless the documents are made public, and we need to hear them. Unless we see the papers and have reassurance about national security concerns, the public will be left fearing the worst. It is time for the truth. I challenge Government Members to vote for the motion, make the documents public and prove that the Prime Minister has nothing to hide.

  • Mark Eastwood – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Mark Eastwood – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Mark Eastwood, the Conservative MP for Dewsbury, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    This is quite a narrow motion, and I will try not to veer away from the subject at hand, but I need to address some points that have been made. My hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Angela Richardson), for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) talked about the amount of correspondence they have received regarding papers. Along with my hon. Friends on the Government Benches, I have not received a single email on papers, the Home Secretary or the behaviour of the Home Secretary. What I have received is hundreds of emails from people who are really concerned about the small boats issue. That is really getting under the skin of my constituents. Not only that: they want to see more police on the street. That is what they are writing to me about, not papers and the hearsay of Opposition Members.

    The contributions to the debate from Government Members will be quite short, because ultimately the papers that Opposition Members are referring to are confidential and therefore, based on legal advice, we cannot publish them. So we will keep the debate narrow, but what I find astonishing is that the Opposition talk about national security when we have the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on the Opposition Benches. We can talk about Chinese money—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order. Did the hon. Member notify the hon. Member for Brent North that he would refer to him?

    Mark Eastwood

    No.

    Madam Deputy Speaker

    In that case, he will not refer to him.

    Mark Eastwood

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

    Ultimately, it is not appropriate for the Government to publish information relating to confidential advice. Despite what the Opposition say, the documents in question did not contain any information relating to national security, the intelligence agencies, cyber-security or law enforcement. In the Home Secretary’s letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she clarified:

    “The draft WMS did not contain any information relating to national security, the intelligence agencies, cyber security or law enforcement. It did not contain details of any particular case work.”

    The data in question was already in the public domain.

    Stuart C. McDonald

    If it was already in the public domain and there is nothing to hide, does the hon. Member agree that we should at least get to see that ministerial statement?

    Mark Eastwood

    As I said, my constituents are just concerned about the subject at hand, which is illegal immigration and the small boats and dinghies coming over. So no, I do not think that that is correct.

    In the Home Secretary’s letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she clarified:

    “It did not contain any market-sensitive data as all the data contained in the document was already in the public domain.”

    That concludes my speech.

  • Matt Western – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Matt Western – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Matt Western, the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar).

    Trust is a really important value, and it something that I fear people listening and watching outside, and perhaps even people in here, feel is deserting this place, particularly after the last three years of what could be described as virtual mayhem, a certain amount of lawbreaking and a certain scandal. The new Prime Minister promised

    “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”,

    and I think all of us wanted to take him at his word—the country certainly did after the complete and utter chaos of the previous six or seven weeks. We know that as Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) was guilty of six separate breaches of security in six weeks. Previously, as Attorney General, her record showed Cabinet leak inquiries on three occasions in the past year. How many breaches would there have been during the 133 weeks that she was Attorney General?

    The Prime Minister should have done due diligence. He has an investment background, and we would have expected that in who he appointed to the top three or four roles in Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, there is evidence of insider trading, and if we were talking about a football manager, they would have been sacked a long time ago. We know the Home Secretary has broken the ministerial code at least twice. These are not one-off mistakes, so why was she reappointed after just six days? That calls into question the judgment and credibility of the Prime Minister, after three years of a Prime Minister trashing the office of No. 10.

    Indeed, we know that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) restricted the access of the then Foreign Secretary to papers while he was in that position, and she did the same for the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson). We then had six weeks of chaos, with the Prime Minister and Chancellor trashing the economy. The country demands integrity, but it is not getting it in the shape of this Home Secretary. Businesses, public sector workers, and in this case civil servants expect professionalism. They expect decency, integrity and standards in public life.

    The hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) asked for common sense to be applied, and whether we had visited Ashfield. I have visited Ashfield recently, as he will know. He accused us of being a bunch of bullies. I have never been accused of being a bully in my entire life, yet he asserts that. On behalf of the public we are seeking to understand the degree of breaking of the ministerial code that is going on, and the sense of judgment of the Home Secretary and, by extension, the Prime Minister. I speak to ordinary people on the street, to businesses and others, and a director of a business would have been struck off for this pattern of behaviour. A doctor would have been struck off. This kind of behaviour does not meet the test of being fit and proper to practise.

    The motion before us asks whether the Prime Minister undertook a risk assessment. That is critical to understanding what he understood at the moment when he appointed the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham to her position, and back into the Home Office after six days. His leadership has to be understood. Judgment is critical to that, and I am afraid that he failed in that not just once, with his appointment of the right hon. and learned Lady, but a second time with the appointment of the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire. Once upon a time, when Ministers broke the ministerial code or were found to be enmeshed in scandal, they would walk. The Prime Minister talks about integrity, professionalism and accountability, but I am afraid the Home Secretary fails on all three.

  • Robin Millar – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Robin Millar – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Robin Millar, the Conservative MP for Aberconwy, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I congratulate him and my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), who is not in his place, on sticking closely to the script and looking at the issue of papers in some detail. This is indeed a narrow debate, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), whose comment about it being a thin debate made me think of thin gruel. I must, though, commend my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) for managing to work the word “louche” into the debate. He has a skill that I can only aspire to.

    This is a serious issue, though, so with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will set out some of the context. I would first point with pride to the UK’s history of aiding those in genuine distress. In the last two years, we have opened our doors to an unprecedented 350,000 people fleeing conflict around the world, in Ukraine and in Afghanistan, or persecution in Hong Kong. It is the disposition of the people of these islands to be welcoming. It is also their expectation that laws be upheld and the character of our country preserved.

    It is the work of Government to balance these desires, but this is an Opposition day debate, and regrettably they have turned instead to the study of the smallest part. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, lessons are there to be learned, and I am grateful for their concern for the speck in our eye, but it is the responsibility of Government to keep sight of the big picture and real-world context, so let me briefly set this debate in the real-world context of what is happening in communities up and down the country.

    Last Sunday evening, I received a wave of concerned messages and phone calls from constituents of mine living in the community of Dolgarrog, and they were not about papers. I must explain that Dolgarrog is a rural Snowdonia village of around 400 residents. It is a tight-knit, deeply hospitable and Welsh-speaking community. It has its own rich history, woven with aspiration and with tragedy, and it has been my privilege to get to know this during my time as MP. By way of setting this in context, residents there address each other by name and children walk to their school. It came as a shock to them, and this is the reason for the calls to me on Sunday evening, when they discovered that the local hotel had been procured as overflow accommodation for asylum seekers. Overnight, the community found that its population had increased—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order. I fear that although the hon. Gentleman keeps saying he is setting this in context, he seems to be taking it to a whole different area from what is in the motion, frankly. So could he return very quickly to the motion? I think we have got the gist of what he is saying about what happened the other night, and it is quite important that he addresses the motion.

    Robin Millar

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful for your guidance and your indulgence.

    When I spoke to residents last night, they did not vest their complaints in questions about papers. They did not hold ideological positions, they did not speak with hatred in their hearts and they did not question the process of ministerial appointments. They did not even question the individual appointments themselves, and they did not ask to see any classified papers. They did not concern themselves with petty party political point scoring. Instead, the overwhelming sentiments and questions were: “How long will this last, should we walk our children to school, can I walk my dog, are my windows and doors secure, and will my son get his job back?” There was no mention of papers. These are the concerns of a community whose future hinges on debates and decisions here in this House, and any of us in the same position would feel the same way.

    However, the Opposition have sought to detain the Home Secretary. They want to waste finite time and resources for the sake of pursuing political point scoring. They want to look at papers. They want to remove the speck in our eye, but they have forgotten the beam in their own. Labour has, after all, no plan to reduce the number of dangerous small boat crossings in the channel, and it voted against our Nationality and Borders Act 2022, siding with people smuggling networks and blocking the removal of those with no rights to be in the UK. While serving as shadow Immigration Minister, the Leader of the Opposition said he wanted any migrant who said they were scared to return home to stay in the UK—

    Madam Deputy Speaker

    Order. The hon. Gentleman is whizzing off again in a completely different direction. I really think he needs to come back to the motion in front of us.

    Robin Millar

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I may, I am simply drawing attention to the things the Opposition could have chosen to discuss in the House, but did not choose. They have chosen instead to discuss papers.

    It is clear that Labour Members are detached from the priorities of residents in their homes and of this country at large. They fail to understand both the magnitude of the crisis and the moral duty towards the estimated 80 million people on the move around the globe. Instead, they wish to talk about papers. It is imperative that the Home Secretary receives the support of this House in the execution of her duties, so I end my speech with a plea that Labour Members take a step back from party politics, debate serious matters and work with us to deliver the protections this country and communities such as Dolgarrog demand.

  • Andy Slaughter – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Andy Slaughter – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP for Hammersmith, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    I am going to branch out in a different direction and speak to the motion. It is very precise and quite narrowly drawn, but it goes to the conduct and character of the Home Secretary, which is an important matter for us to discuss, and that is possibly why so many, if not all, Government Members have found it difficult to speak to the motion. They can talk to the Home Secretary’s policies—failed as they are, they are ones that appeal to them—but they find it difficult, perhaps, to defend her behaviour.

    The serious issue here is not the course of conduct that led to the Home Secretary’s sacking; we know about that. It is the way the Home Secretary has conducted herself since that sacking; it is her refusal to answer questions. That is why these documents and reports need to be asked for. As always, it is the cover-up that is the problem as much as, if not more so than, the offence itself.

    The Home Secretary has form on this issue. She was Attorney General on and off for well over a year. I had the chance to observe her behaviour then, and I am afraid to say that there were regular reports of her being investigated for leaking sensitive Government information. On 22 January, The Daily Telegraph reported that the Attorney General would be seeking an injunction against the BBC over a case involving the Security Service. I asked her about that at Attorney General’s questions. It was reported on 26 October in the Daily Mail that the Attorney General had been investigated as part of a leak investigation, and it was reported on 29 October in The Sun that she had been subject to official Cabinet leak inquiries three times in one year.

    I have tabled questions, including as recently as today, to try to get to the bottom of this. I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office

    “whether the Government Security Group conducted an investigation into release of information relating to Government plans to seek an injunction against the BBC over concerns of national security.”

    The Minister replied that it is their policy

    “not to comment on leak investigations.”

    That is just not good enough in this case. That is why this information is being requested. It should not have to be, because it should have been put in the public domain already by the Government.

    Let us come on to the more recent conduct and the resignation. I have tried several times over the past week and a half to get answers from the several statements we have had from the Home Secretary and others, usually in response to urgent questions in the House. The first point is that there are stark contradictions in the versions that the Home Secretary herself has given—for example, between her resignation letter and the much more detailed letter that she then voluntarily sent to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). She said in her resignation letter:

    “As soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary.”

    However, when she wrote with a detailed timeline to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she revealed that she actually waited several hours before making any such report. She revealed that she was confronted by other members of the Conservative party outside this Chamber and that matters were put to her; it was not that she volunteered them. When, after that, she finally decided to report her breach of security, for which she was sacked, she did not go to the Cabinet Secretary; she went to her own special adviser. The question is, why did events unfold in that way and why was her account so different in her letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and her political grandstanding resignation letter?

    The second point is that the Home Secretary is very selective in the denials she makes in her letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. She says that 19 October was the only time she used her personal email to send Home Office documents to people outside Government. She talks only about email; she does not talk about other non-secure networks, such as messaging services. She talks about insecure communication outside Government, but what about insecure communication inside Government, which would equally be a breach of procedure? She talks about insecure communication inside Government, but she does not relate that to anything other than her tenure at the Home Office; she does not relate it to her much longer tenure as Attorney General, when, as we have heard, she was accused several times of leaking.

    Then we come to the matter that was raised in the urgent question yesterday, which has been raised on several other occasions as well, which is the Home Secretary’s statement—again, I think it is very carefully worded—that,

    “I have never ignored legal advice.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2022; Vol. 721, c. 639.]

    My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) asked about that yesterday, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and there has been some debate as to what the Home Secretary means by it. As I pointed out in an intervention earlier, she does not say—this would be much more straightforward—“I followed legal advice.” There was clear legal advice as to whether detention at Manston over 24 hours was legal, and it clearly was not. She could have said, “At all times I complied with legal advice,” but she said, “I didn’t ignore legal advice,” which could cover a multitude of circumstances. It could mean that she considered that advice and then rejected it, notwithstanding the fact that it was sound and solid legal advice. It could mean that she took another course of action, and I think we are getting near to what actually happened there.

    Indeed, I think the Minister who answered the urgent question yesterday got close to what actually happened when he said:

    “There are competing legal duties on Ministers. Another legal duty that we need to pay heed to is our duty not to leave individuals destitute. It would be wrong for the Home Office to allow individuals…in a condition of some destitution, to be released on to the rural lanes of Kent without great care. That is why the Home Secretary has balanced her duties”.—[Official Report, 7 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 30.]

    Leaving aside the fact that, on at least one occasion, individuals in a state of destitution were released on to the streets—the streets of Victoria rather than Kent—it does appear that, in the majority of cases, the Home Secretary decided to allow Manston to fill up to two or three times its capacity and to allow people to be contained there not for hours or days but for weeks and, in doing so, knew she was breaking the law. She decided that she would break the law in that way rather than in another way. Again, that is not good enough. She had the option of not breaking the law; she had the option of finding hotel or other accommodation for the people who were stacking up at Manston in appalling conditions—we have seen the reports and the photographic evidence—so they could have been placed elsewhere.

    What it comes down to is that, throughout this process, since she was reappointed, the Home Secretary has dodged questions again and again. Whether that has been by using weasel words, contradicting herself or using a bit of legal sophistry, the fact of the matter is that she will not answer these questions. I have asked her again and again, including in written questions, to specifically address the deficiencies in the letter she sent to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and the same reply comes back. Indeed, I received a reply to another question yesterday which said:

    “I refer the Hon. member to that letter”—

    that is, the letter of 31 October. It is just not good enough. Of course, we are not naive enough to expect to always get answers to questions we ask here. It is the job of Government to try to evade answering questions, but not on matters as serious as this, and not when specific and direct questions of fact are asked and not responded to.

    I think we know enough, without having those questions answered, about where the Home Secretary has been coming from in these events. We have to have, in the terms of the motion, these inquiries made and these documents released, because we have a right to know. That is the reason why my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has tabled today’s motion. However, I do not think the jury is out any more on the judgment or conduct of the Home Secretary. What this points to more is the judgment and conduct of the Prime Minister, who, knowing all this and knowing who he was reappointing, went ahead and did just that, in the same way that he appointed the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) to a Cabinet position. Incidentally, when questioned about the breach of security for which the right hon. Gentleman was previously sacked, the Prime Minister said that that was “four years ago.” If being four years ago is an excuse, what is being six days ago?

    Let us look in more forensic detail at the conduct of the Home Secretary, but let us not let the Prime Minister off the hook either. He must take responsibility for those appointments that he has made. Even the Business Secretary, the man of a thousand name badges, could not defend the Home Secretary in the comments that he made. The Prime Minister should not be doing that either.

  • Jeremy Miles – 2022 Statement on Student Loan Interest Rates in Wales

    Jeremy Miles – 2022 Statement on Student Loan Interest Rates in Wales

    The statement made by Jeremy Miles, the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language, in the Welsh Assembly on 9 November 2022.

    I made a statement on 5 September 2022 to confirm the intention to cap the interest rate charged to Welsh students on certain loans from September 2022 at 6.3% for a period of three months. This cap was also announced by the UK Government for English students.

    I can now announce that the interest rate will be capped from 1 December 2022 for a further three months. The rate for these three months will be 6.5%.

    The rate of inflation, which determines the interest charged on certain student loans, has risen significantly. Interest rates on these loans would have risen to up to 12% without the September cap. The Welsh Government must ensure that rates do not exceed the prevailing market rate and took action three times in 2021 to cap the rate on loans and protect students.

    As prevailing market rates remain high, the rate on loans taken out by undergraduate students since 2012, and by postgraduate students, will be capped at 6.5% between 1 December 2022 and 28 February 2023. Further rate caps may be applied if the prevailing market rate continues to be below student loan interest rates after that date.

    Changes to interest rates do not affect monthly student loan repayments, which are charged as a fixed proportion of income. Loan repayments are income contingent. Students repay their loan only if they earn above a threshold, and remaining debts are written off after thirty years.

    Living costs should never be a barrier to studying at university, which is why the Welsh Government provides the most generous living costs grants in the UK. Welsh students have less to repay on average than their English peers. The Welsh Government also provides a debt write-off of up to £1,500 for each borrower entering repayment, a scheme unique in the UK.

  • Julie James – 2022 Statement on Responses to the Consultation for the Coal Tip Safety (Wales) White Paper

    Julie James – 2022 Statement on Responses to the Consultation for the Coal Tip Safety (Wales) White Paper

    The statement made by Julie James, the Welsh Minister for Climate Change, in the Welsh Assembly on 9 November 2022.

    Earlier this year I announced a consultation on the Coal Tip Safety (Wales) White Paper[1] which set out our proposals for a new tip safety regime in Wales. The aim of our proposals is to protect communities, critical infrastructure and the environment by introducing new rules on the appropriate management of tips to help reduce the likelihood of landslides.

    The White Paper built on the recommendations made by the Law Commission in their report Regulating Coal Tip Safety in Wales[2] which was published on 24 March. The White Paper also included further analysis undertaken by the Welsh Government on areas not addressed in the Law Commission’s report or where it had recommended were for the Welsh Government to consider.  The White Paper set out legislative proposals for the introduction of a new statutory management framework, which would provide a new consistent approach to the management, monitoring and oversight of disused tip and help mitigate the potential impacts from climate change.

    The consultation closed on 4 August and I am pleased to publish a summary of responses today.  I would like to extend my thanks for the valuable contributions provided by a wide range of individual stakeholders, companies, and organisations who responded to this consultation, and for the continued support and advice from our Task Force partners – the Coal Authority, Natural Resources Wales, local authorities and the Welsh Local Government Association.

    I was pleased to see the significant support for the proposals set out in the White Paper with broad recognition of the need for an effective management regime to help ensure the safety of tips and address the risks they pose to communities and the environment.

    Turning to the specific White Paper proposals, there was general agreement for an overarching framework suitable for both disused coal and non-coal tips, although the initial focus for the new regime will be on disused coal tips. This will allow incorporation of other disused spoil tips into the regime when appropriate through a phased transitional approach.

    There was strong support for the proposal to establish a supervisory authority to oversee the new regime, ensure management arrangements are in place for the highest category tips and to compile and maintain a new national asset register. Respondents supported the proposal for the supervisory authority to be established as an arms-length Executive Welsh Government Sponsored Body. This will ensure the appropriate independence and focus on securing the safety of tips.

    A new management framework must, of course, be premised on up-to-date data. There was broad support for the proposal to introduce a centralised national asset register comprised of uniform, and coherent and reliable data. I take on board the feedback from respondents to not underestimate the complexities and challenges associated with this work. This central register will build upon the data collection work already undertaken by the Coal Tip Safety Task Force.  We will continue to engage with stakeholders to learn from others experience and look to utilise best practice where appropriate from existing comparable systems.

    The White Paper set out proposals for a new national approach to the categorisation of tips which will be underpinned by a tailored hazard assessment for each site. The hazard assessment would account for the hazards a tip might pose to communities, property, infrastructure or the environment.  There was broad support for these proposals, although I acknowledge the comments received on the recruitment shortages for suitable qualified or experienced assessors, and also the need to ensure appropriate training and guidance. We will continue to work with partners and key stakeholders on how we address these capability gaps.  I am grateful to our Task Force partners for the ongoing close collaboration and engagement as we continue to trial hazard assessments and categorisations, and refine proposals for inspections, appraisals, management plans and maintenance agreements.

    A key theme to emerge consistently in responses to the White Paper is the significant funding and resource requirements to establish and implement the new regime.  There are also separate concerns around ensuring a disproportionate burden is not placed on tip owners.  I acknowledge these points and commit to ensure transparency around costings as the legislation is developed. It is also worth reiterating there are many economic, social and environmental opportunities that might be gained from investing in disused tips, many of which are located in some of the most deprived areas of Wales.

    Finally, there was broad support for the proposals for a two-tier monitoring approach with a proportionate approach to tip management based on the category of each tip. Respondents also recognised the need for appropriate powers of access to private land to enable inspections, maintenance works and spot checks to be undertaken.   It was also accepted that civil sanctions would need to be an essential part of the regime with many views provided on how these could be developed. It was recognised the regime will only work effectively if there are appropriate measures in place to ensure compliance.

    The responses to the consultation represent a valuable source of evidence and ideas which will help inform the development of our legislative proposals. Over the coming months, my officials will continue to engage with stakeholders as proposals for new legislation are fully developed.

    In relation to the wider coal tip safety programme, the fifth round of inspections of the higher rated tips commenced in October and will run throughout the winter months.  Despite the challenges in relation to evidence gathering, the coal tip data collation and analysis exercise is progressing and I remain committed to publishing the locations of disused coal tips in Wales.  I will continue to keep Members updated.

    [1] Coal Tip Safety (Wales) White Paper | GOV.WALES

    [2] Law Com 406, 24 March 2022, Regulating-Coal-Tip-Safety-in-Wales-Report.pdf

  • Kate Green – 2022 Statement on Leaving the House of Commons

    Kate Green – 2022 Statement on Leaving the House of Commons

    The statement made by Kate Green, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, on 9 November 2022.

    Personal news:

    Many apologies for the suddenness of this news, but it has been announced this morning that Andy Burnham intends to nominate me to become deputy mayor of Greater Manchester responsible for police, crime and fire, in succession to my great friend Beverley Hughes. There are some formal confirmatory steps to go through, but I hope to take up post by the new year. This means I will be standing down from parliament in the next few days, and a byelection will be held very shortly.

    It has been an enormous privilege to represent my wonderful constituents in Stretford and Urmston over the past 12 years, and I am very sad that I will no longer be your MP. But we have a great candidate in Cllr Andrew Western, and I look forward to campaigning to get him elected to parliament. I am also very pleased that I will have the opportunity to continue to serve people in Stretford and Urmston, and across Greater Manchester, in my new role.

    I want to pay tribute to all Bev has achieved in the role – she has always been a huge source of support to me. I am very much looking forward to working closely with her to secure a smooth transition in the coming weeks.

    Meantime, may I thank you for all your support and friendship, and I very much look forward to staying in close touch.

    Best wishes and speak soon

    Kate

  • Lee Anderson – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Lee Anderson – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP for Ashfield, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    We all know in this House that it is not appropriate for the Government to publish information relating to confidential advice, so why are we here today, again wasting parliamentary time when we could be talking about real issues? I am just looking at the Labour Benches opposite, and seven Labour MPs have turned up for this debate that they asked for. They cannot even be bothered to turn up to a debate.

    Why are we actually here? It is nothing to do with security. It is nothing to do with standards. It is nothing to do with wanting to do the right thing. This is a bullying campaign to get rid of the Home Secretary. That is all it is—it is a relentless bullying campaign to get rid of our brilliant Home Secretary. I can tell you now, she is going nowhere. In the real world where I live and where I represent, I have not had one single email. If you are talking about releasing documents, how about you lot over there—[Interruption.] Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. How about Opposition Members releasing their emails to show how many emails they have actually had on this subject? I suspect it is not very many at all. They do not live in the real world.

    Like I say, it is a relentless horrible bullying campaign to get rid of the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary needs to have the backing of this place. She needs the backing of Parliament. She needs the backing of the whole country. She needs people to get behind her so that we can sort out the migrant problem, crime on the streets and these silly protests that we have outside, but that will not happen unless the Opposition get behind her and unless we all get behind her. They are just playing politics—that is all they are doing. I used the word “bullying”. That is all they are—a bunch of bullies. I have been bullied before by the Labour party. I was bullied out of the Labour party, but thanks to them, I am stood here now, sticking up for my residents in Ashfield and Eastwood.

    The British people get it; they understand. Like I said, I have not had one single email on this subject. Why are we here today, wasting taxpayers’ money, when we could be talking about the boat crossings, crime on the streets or saving lives? We could be talking about the important stuff. You can sit there with glazed expressions on your faces again like you normally do, looking at me as though I have just landed from a different planet.

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    No, I am not looking at all glazed. Please follow proper parliamentary procedure.

    Lee Anderson

    I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. You may be aware that Opposition Members are looking at me like I have landed from a different planet, but I have not—I have landed from planet Ashfield, and this is where real people talk common sense. This lot on the Opposition Benches need to visit my constituency, if they ever get the chance. At the next election, I challenge them to come up, knock on some doors and speak to some real people in the real world of Ashfield, and they will go away knowing that that seat of Ashfield is going to stop blue for a long time. I cannot talk any more, because this is a very narrow debate, but what I will say is that they are nothing but a bunch of bullies, and they should be ashamed of themselves.