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  • Michael Gove – 2022 Statement on Homes for Ukraine Update

    Michael Gove – 2022 Statement on Homes for Ukraine Update

    The statement made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in the House of Commons on 22 June 2022.

    The Homes for Ukraine scheme will allow eligible children and minors under the age of 18 who have already applied through the Homes for Ukraine Scheme to come to the UK without a parent or guardian, the Government announced today, 22 June 2022.

    This policy will initially apply to the 1,000 children who have already applied to the Home Office but are unable to travel as they are not travelling or reuniting with a parent or guardian.

    After working closely with the Ukrainian Government, the changes will enable a child to apply for a visa if they have proof of parental consent. This must be certified by an authority approved by the Ukrainian Government such as notary authorities or Ukrainian consul abroad.

    Extensive sponsor checks will also be carried out by local authorities ahead of any visa being granted, with councils able to veto any sponsor arrangements they deem unsuitable.

    The sponsor should also, except in exceptional circumstances, be someone who is personally known to the parents.

    The Government are working with the Ukrainian Government, devolved Administrations, local authorities and charities and voluntary groups.

  • Lucy Frazer – 2022 Speech on VAT on Defibrillators

    Lucy Frazer – 2022 Speech on VAT on Defibrillators

    The speech made by Lucy Frazer, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in the House of Commons on 22 June 2022.

    It is a privilege to respond to this Adjournment debate on behalf of the Government. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) on securing this evening’s debate. As we have heard, this follows last year’s tragic death of her constituent, Dylan Rich, at the age of just 17. It is also terrible to hear of the tragic death of Danny, the son of Bill and Pam Shurmer.

    I commend my hon. Friends for the energy with which they are campaigning for a change in policy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe mentioned, she and I met the Prime Minister and the representatives from the West Bridgford Colts Football Club in March to discuss this issue. What she has said has touched all of us, and I wish to express again my condolences to Dylan’s family, who themselves have campaigned extremely hard on this issue, as well as to Pam and to Bill.

    I have heard my hon. Friend’s argument and those of others here this evening. In answering the debate, I will briefly outline the Government’s thinking and approach. Let me begin by saying that we appreciate the importance of this issue. Automated external defibrillators—or AEDs—save lives. Understanding that, we have sought to boost their provision in many different ways. The Government encourage organisations across England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of their first aid equipment.

    Many community defibrillators have been provided in public locations, including in shopping centres, through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or charities. The Government have also previously provided significant direct funding for the purchase of AEDs. In the 2015 Budget, the Government announced a £l million grant to support the purchase of public access AEDs. This was followed up by a further £1 million at the 2016 Budget. These schemes were operated by the British Heart Foundation. After the first round of funding in 2015, the foundation announced that more than 700 additional AEDs had been installed across the UK.

    In addition, from May 2020, the Government have required all contractors refurbishing schools, or building new ones, through centrally delivered programmes to provide at least one AED. As things stand, there are already more than 43,000 registered AEDs in England.

    The Government have also worked with the British Heart Foundation to develop “the circuit”, a national defibrillator network, which records information on unregistered AEDs, such as those in shops and restaurants. The circuit is now live in 13 of the 14 ambulance services across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This information is available in a centralised network for easy access in emergencies, meaning that ambulance services can find AEDs when they are most needed. The system also sends out reminders to make sure that AEDs are maintained and emergency-ready.

    Meanwhile, the NHS Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, includes a section on cardiovascular disease and AEDs. The NHS has committed to developing a national network of first responders and access to AEDs, which will save roughly 4,000 lives a year by 2028.

    Tax relief also has a part to play. VAT is not charged on AEDs donated, for example, to the NHS, rescue and first aid charities, and charities caring for disabled people. Local authorities and taxable businesses can also recover VAT on AEDs. The point of all of this is to say that there are existing reliefs, as well as historical funding and other initiatives, which are significantly improving access to AEDs up and down the country.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe made a point about extending VAT relief. As she said, we have examined the specific merits of zero-rating AEDs. We are conscious that pass-through of a VAT relief on AEDs to consumer prices is likely to be low. Evidence on pass-through of VAT reliefs generally suggests that where markets are concentrated—as they are for AEDs—pass-through tends to be significantly less than 50%. In other words, a new zero rate would not necessarily lead to a reduction in prices. Instead, businesses might choose to absorb the tax relief as profit. If we are to take this step, we need to be sure that zero-rating AEDs would represent genuine value for money and make a real difference in expanding public access to AEDs.

    As my hon. Friend recognised, we also have a wider responsibility, at a time of economic challenge, to minimise pressure on the public finances. However, I am grateful to her for all the work she has done, and continues to do, to bring this issue to public attention. I also recognise the campaigning work done by Pam and Bill, who are grieving the sad loss of their son, Danny. Therefore, notwithstanding the point I have made about VAT, I want to be clear to Members here today that, as we remember Dylan and Danny, we will continue to look at what more the Government can do to expand access to AEDs. The Prime Minister has therefore asked the Department of Health and Social Care to examine whether there are ways to further expand public access to defibrillators, and I have spoken to the Minister responsible—the Minister for patient safety—about this very issue. Like my hon. Friends the Members for Rushcliffe and for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer), we know that AEDs save lives.

  • Ruth Edwards – 2022 Speech on VAT on Defibrillators

    Ruth Edwards – 2022 Speech on VAT on Defibrillators

    The speech made by Ruth Edwards, the Conservative MP for Rushcliffe, in the House of Commons on 22 June 2022.

    It must be every parent’s worst nightmare. Last September, Dylan Rich—a talented 17-year-old footballer from Rushcliffe—was playing in a FA youth cup game between his club, West Bridgford Colts, and Boston United at the Colts’ ground in Regatta Way. Out of nowhere a couple of minutes into the match, he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed. His brave mother Anna performed CPR on her own son. Dylan was treated with a defibrillator at the scene and an ambulance arrived within 10 minutes. He regained cardiac output and was stabilised in intensive care, but tragically he died three days later in hospital.

    Words cannot express the depth of sorrow that his death has caused—to his family, his friends, and the community at West Bridgford Colts. In their tribute to him, the Colts said:

    “Dylan was one of those players that team mates love for his commitment, coaches for his attitude and adaptability, and supporters for his reliability. A fantastic club player.”

    Tributes followed from Nottingham Forest and Notts County. Ahead of their World cup qualifier against Poland, the England players held up a shirt with “For Dylan” printed on it.

    But the tribute that his family and his club most want is to increase the number of defibrillators across the UK, to make them cheaper for communities to buy, and to increase people’s awareness and confidence in using them. Until Dylan’s death, I had never looked at the figures for the scale of cardiac arrests. Sudden cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death in young people, and almost never has any prior symptoms. Officially, about 32,000 sudden cardiac arrests occur in England every year. When combined with figures from across the UK, it is estimated that the true number is as high as 60,000. There is an important caveat to this figure: it only includes incidents where resuscitation was attempted. In the UK, only 8% of people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

    Cardiac arrest can happen to anyone. This was brought home to us again in Nottinghamshire last month, when 13-year-old Samuel Akwasi collapsed from a cardiac arrest during a Young Elizabethan football league game and tragically later died in Queen’s Medical Centre. In fact, only yesterday, as I was writing this speech, I read of an assistant referee, Andrew Jarvis, who suffered a cardiac arrest while officiating at a game in Mansfield last August. Mercifully, he survived. He says he was saved by good-quality CPR, the football club’s defibrillator, and the quick arrival of the air ambulance team.

    On average, as I said, a person in the UK has an 8% chance of surviving a cardiac arrest if it happens out of hospital, but this is vastly increased to as high as 70% if a defibrillator is used within the first three to five minutes of the cardiac arrest occurring. Conversely, survival rates drop by 10% for every minute of delay after this time. This further highlights why it is essential to have a defibrillator on every sports pitch and street corner possible—because these machines save lives. Average survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests vary across the country, ranging from 0.6% to 25%. The Government are doing so much to address regional inequality across the country, but we must also address regional inequality in defibrillator access and survival rates.

    The main barriers to accessing defibrillators have been shown to be cost and awareness. In a survey by Vitreous World, 42% of people said that cost was the main barrier to owning a defibrillator, while 62% of people do not know how to use one and 27% are worried about how to do so. Defibrillators vary in cost, but the average unit is about £1,250. This is a considerable expense to many community groups, charities and sports clubs, especially considering that a sizeable portion of it, 20%, is VAT. Clearly, £1,250 is a lot of money for organisations raising funds through cake sales, individual donations and raffles. Some charities are exempt from paying VAT on defibrillators: not-for-profit hospitals, charitable institutions that provide care or medical or surgical treatment for disabled people, and rescue or first aid services. However, most sports clubs and community groups do not qualify.

    There are several options for reducing the cost of defibrillators. The first is to apply a zero rate of VAT to all defibrillators in line with that already applied to a range of medicines and medical products, including prescription medicines and drugs. A blanket rate would be a simple and straightforward solution to cover anyone and any organisation wanting to buy a defibrillator.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I declare an interest, as I presented the Automated External Defibrillators (Public Access) Bill on Monday, when you were in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it will be heard on 9 September. I encourage the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) to come along to support the Bill, if at all possible.

    I understand that children’s car seats, children’s travel systems and other safety protections have a reduced 5% rate of VAT. Should not this reduction, at least, be replicated for lifesaving defibrillators? As I know from my constituency, this would save lives.

    Ruth Edwards

    I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill, and I would be delighted to join him on 9 September. He has come up with an excellent option that is not on my list.

    I accept there are many good candidates for zero-rate or reduced-rate VAT, one of which the hon. Gentleman has just outlined, and I am sure the Minister will say that the Government have received £50 billion-worth of requests for VAT relief since the EU referendum, which is a valid point. Our tax base funds the public services on which we all rely, including NHS treatment for victims of cardiac arrest, but surely these lifesaving devices should be a higher priority than, say, e-books, of which I am a great fan but they cannot save a life in the event of cardiac arrest.

    There is a good argument that, as paper books already have a zero rate of VAT, extending it to e-books is a necessary tidying up of the system to avoid any legal challenges. That is not 100 miles away from the situation with defibrillators, where some charities benefit from zero-rate VAT but others do not. Surely, whatever the purpose of the charity, the purpose of using a defibrillator is the same.

    Another option is to widen the scope of organisations that can purchase a defibrillator without paying VAT. Instead of just covering charities with care, medical, rescue or first-aid missions, could not all charities, not-for-profits and community groups be allowed to purchase a defibrillator without paying VAT? After all, businesses can currently claim back VAT on defibrillators as part of their VAT return forms. Such an approach would direct savings to the people who need them most, while not setting a precedent for the blanket removal of VAT on a specific item. It also simplifies what is currently a confusing landscape in which people are not sure whether they are eligible for this VAT exemption.

    Or perhaps we can set up a fund for charities and community groups, either to claim back their VAT or to aid them in buying defibrillators. Maybe a pot of money could be announced in the Budget—I am getting my bid in early. I am sure the creative and clever minds at the Treasury can come up with all sorts of options, and I place on record my huge thanks to the Minister, who I know has asked her team to do just that.

    Whatever model we go for, the end we need to achieve is making community defibrillators more affordable, especially at a time when people’s finances are increasingly stretched. Whatever route we choose, we need to publicise it and use the opportunity to address the lack of knowledge and confidence in defibrillator use. I identify with this, as I did not know how to use one until Trent District Community First Responders and Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service kindly offered to train me and my team. In fact they are training all sorts of groups across Rushcliffe, and it would be great if we could offer defibrillator and CPR training to Members and staff here in Parliament. When I asked, I was told there was no course I could do.

    Parliament provides many other courses. We have media training, diversity and inclusion training and courses on how to use the Library, and I am told I can be tutored in any foreign language that might be useful for my work. All these are important, but none would teach me how to resuscitate a constituent at my surgery whose life is hanging in the balance.

    Any of the proposed options I have discussed would be most effective alongside a big push to increase defibrillator training and a publicity campaign to raise awareness. Many people want to learn how to use a defibrillator and save a life, and many more can already use one and want to share this knowledge with others, so why do we not help to bring them together?

    I have one final thought on how to maximise the impact of such a campaign. At present, it is a legal requirement to have firefighting equipment in places of work, residences and public buildings—everywhere really. What people need to have depends on the type of premises, but fire alarms, extinguishers and exit signs are all pretty universal. However, there is no legal requirement to have a defibrillator kept at a place of work. Why not? Some 80% of people believe that defibrillators should be mandated in workplaces, but only 30% of people have a defibrillator in their workplace.

    Increasing access to defibrillators is not just the right thing to do; it also makes financial sense. Patients who have had early defibrillation have a significantly reduced stay in hospital and are far less likely to need treatment in intensive care. The average hospital stay is significantly less for survivors when a defibrillator is applied within the three-to-five-minute window and they spend less, if any, time in intensive care. Figures may differ from hospital to hospital, but on average an intensive care unit bed is about £2,300 more expensive per night.

    In addition, patients who have a defibrillator used on them quickly have fewer ongoing health problems due to lack of blood and oxygen circulation to vital organs such as the brain. This means they require far less ongoing treatment. In short, we estimate that reducing the cost of defibrillators and increasing the number available for people to use in the community will save the NHS tens of millions of pounds, which is much needed to reinvest as it deals with the elective backlogs brought on by the pandemic.

    In conclusion, I first raised this issue in Parliament at Prime Minister’s questions back in March, and I would like to thank both the Minister and the Prime Minister for the priority they have given to this issue since. They both met my constituents Peter Stanbury and Paul Wilson, who are respectively the chairman and the coach of West Bridgford Colts, and I know the Treasury has been working on a number of options to take this forward. I would also like to thank Peter and Paul for coming to see me in my surgery and making me aware of this issue, and for the incredible work the Colts have done to raise money to buy more defibrillators for their training ground.

    I would also like to thank Dylan’s family—his mum Anna, his dad Mike and his sister Lucy—for allowing us to tell Dylan’s story and for backing the Colts’ campaign at what must be the darkest time of their lives. Sudden cardiac arrest can tear through the life of any family with devastating results. I am delighted by the energy and commitment the Government have shown to working on this issue, and I hope we can now agree on the best way forward and give it the green light, so that we can get on with delivering these life-saving changes.

    I would just like to leave the House with a message from Dylan’s mum Anna, who wrote to me this morning to say:

    “I think it helps to emphasise the importance of community defibrillators, in the sense that we did get an output back on Dylan. Sadly, it was ultimately the time he was without adequately oxygenated blood to his brain that led to his death. Without the defibrillator, I don’t think we would have left the football pitch.”

  • Ben Wallace – 2022 Speech at Permanent Joint Headquarters

    Ben Wallace – 2022 Speech at Permanent Joint Headquarters

    The speech made by Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State for Defence, at Permanent Joint Headquarters in London on 22 June 2022.

    Today we mark your amazing achievement in Op PITTING. We should also be grateful to some of the people who aren’t here or who have moved on in their posting, for example Admiral Ben Key. I had the privilege of working with him here when he was CJO. And General Charlie, who was back-up in Main Building.

    I think what we saw in Op PITTING last year made me incredibly proud as your Secretary of State. I also think the whole of the Armed Forces were incredibly proud of your effort.

    You went halfway around the world into a situation that no one knew how it was going to develop, day by day. The intelligence was patchy, to say the least, and friendly forces that many of you over the years had worked with had disappeared, dissipated, and some of them had tragically lost their lives in the previous months.

    Many of you would have been inundated with WhatsApps and emails. I spoke to the ops officer for one of the parachute regiments yesterday who, as he was doing his job, his emails were filling up with former colleagues asking: “Can you help get my friend out?”

    It’s not easy when you’ve got to be focused on another job, which is protecting the people you’ve deployed with, and indeed, getting people out. The achievement was significant.

    The amazing control that many of you showed outside the gate, recognising you can’t just hide behind the walls, but you have to get out there amongst it. The tolerance that you showed towards people who many of you knew weren’t coming back.

    But I think you did a tremendous job, something to be very, very proud of. I’m immensely proud as Defence Secretary that you are part of the team that I get to lead. And I think Britain’s reputation was stronger after the fact.

    I’m also immensely proud that from time to time, I meet some of the Afghans that we brought back and we’re still bringing back – over 2,000 since Op PITTING. And that number is continually growing every week, from countries who help us either publicly or privately, to get these people to safety, and back to this country.

    I think our next duty is to make sure that the links with these people are not broken, and that we continue to help them with their jobs and their future and becoming fully paid-up members of British society.

    You helped close the circle for many of our veteran communities who were scarred by their experiences, by bringing back and then standing by those Afghans. You helped some of them deal with the very difficult position of leaving Afghanistan after all those years. And for that, I’m truly grateful. Thanks very much.

  • Michael Ellis – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Michael Ellis – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Michael Ellis, the Paymaster General, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    With the leave of the House, I would like to close this debate.

    As set out by the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) in her opening remarks, and for the reasons I explained to the House in my opening remarks, the Government will not be supporting the motion. The Labour party has called the debate to throw mud, but I would caution that those who throw mud often find that some of it sticks to themselves. I would also caution and place on record that the Government remain absolutely steadfast in their commitment to upholding the standards in public life that we all respect, to the critical role that the ministerial code plays in standards in public life and to supporting those standards. On account of that commitment, the Government cannot support today’s motion, which would, counterintuitively perhaps, by proxy, weaken the ministerial code. As I said earlier, it would at the same time change the British constitution by the back door, without consultation and without consideration.

    On the appointment of a new adviser, can I answer with this word: yes. The Prime Minister intends to appoint a new ethics adviser and we will announce how that is to be done and who is to do it in due course. But it does have to be done properly and in a way that will ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence in it. I think that I may be asked what “in due course” or “in good time” means. It means doing it right, and getting the right people to come forward, to be interviewed and to go through the process. It means actually getting it right, not just responding to the latest headline. It means making a process that might actually work in the longer term.

    David Linden

    Will the Minister give way?

    Michael Ellis

    I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but he knows exactly what is meant by this.

    David Linden

    I am very grateful to the Paymaster General for putting on record that the Government do intend to appoint an adviser, but can I just push him a little further and ask him to say whether that appointment will take place before, say, the conference recess?

    Michael Ellis

    The answer is a very simple one: the process will be done properly. It will be done in a way that will give confidence to the system; it will be done in a way that the House, Ministers and everyone concerned will be confident in. So it is not possible to give a particular date for it. After all, it is only a matter of days since this situation came about. What is meant is clear: we are still considering this carefully, and we remain fully committed to making sure that all Ministers, including the Prime Minister, whose code it is, are held to account for maintaining high standards of behaviour and behaving in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety, as the public rightly expect.

    Karin Smyth

    I think that what the Minister is trying to say is that what has gone wrong is either the process of appointing the last two advisers, or indeed the last two advisers—both of which seem to me to be dishonourable things to say, if I may say so—rather than the fact that both have resigned because of the behaviour, as they have admitted, of a Minister and the Prime Minister.

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order. I do not think the hon. Lady was implying that something dishonourable had been said. If she was, I would want her to withdraw that.

    Karin Smyth

    I withdraw it.

    Michael Ellis

    I think the hon. Lady misunderstands the position, which I have made perfectly clear and will repeat. This is about getting the process henceforth right—a process that will have the confidence of this House, the Prime Minister, Ministers and everyone else. It is right to consider these things carefully and take time to reflect on them before taking a decision on how best to fulfil the Prime Minister’s commitment. It is the Prime Minister who has made a commitment to ensuring rigorous oversight and close scrutiny of ministerial interests. As I have said, we are looking at the best way to carry out this function, given some of the issues raised recently and set out in our plans. But I could not be clearer when I have given the single-word answer “yes” on the Prime Minister’s intention to appoint a new ethics adviser. We will announce how that will be done and who is to do it in due course. We will make sure it is done properly to ensure that Parliament and the public have confidence.

    In the meantime, the Labour party, when its rail strike is in progress, has chosen today of all days to discuss this matter. I suppose half its Members are on the picket lines at the moment, blocking hard-working people from going about their daily business. They debate this matter for the umpteenth time and the umpteenth hour—so much so that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) says that she sees more of me than of her friends. The feeling is mutual, although I think she has far more friends than me, except on the Government Benches, where I have a lot more friends, of course, because the Prime Minister wins elections. He does not talk about personalities; he talks about policies. On policies, this party and this Government win.

    Mr Carmichael

    I am grateful to the Minister for giving way eventually. I am sure that we all share his aspiration to have a process in future that commands public confidence, but he has not yet mentioned what it was about the previous system that did not command public confidence. What was it?

    Michael Ellis

    I will leave that to the right hon. Gentleman’s already active imagination, but I would say that not everything is a conspiracy. He should bear in mind the responsibility that he and his party have for ensuring that this country’s railway system is working correctly and is not subject to industrial action. Why not support the people of this country in doing that? The red herring that he focuses on is symptomatic of where we are with this debate.

    I have made it clear that Labour’s motion seeks to confuse the constitutional position of this country; it confuses the powers of the Executive with those of the legislature. We propose to move on and appoint an ethics adviser, as I have said. We will ensure that an announcement is made as to how it will be done and who will do it in due course, but I emphasise that it must be done properly. In the meantime, I respectfully caution the Opposition to get their Members off the picket lines and to support the people of this country, which is what this Conservative Government will continue to do.

  • Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Fleur Anderson – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    This could have been a very quick debate. The Paymaster General could have stood up at the beginning and just given us a date for when it would all happen—when the adviser would be reappointed, with a lovely timetable attached—and we would all have been happy and could have left it at that. However, I am now, to be honest, more concerned about what is going to happen than I was at the beginning of the debate.

    Labour has called this very important debate today because the whole of our ministerial standards system is unravelling before our eyes. Corruption does not arrive in any country unannounced or with a big bang; it creeps and corrodes, and honour and trust, once lost, are very hard to win back. That is what is at the heart of this debate. This Labour motion would put the Government into special measures and ensure that the ethics adviser is recruited as soon as possible and the post is not ditched. We are concerned about the Paymaster General’s comments about pausing and reflecting, and about having a review instead of appointing. We want to know that a very clear decision will be made about this adviser position, because otherwise ethics and integrity will slip away.

    The Prime Minister is leading the way in being unethical and breaking the rules, and that is why the person whose role it is to hold Ministers to account, to investigate breaches and to stop the rot felt that he had no choice but to resign. The motion calls for urgent action to appoint an ethics adviser because otherwise, quite simply, we do not trust the Government to appoint at speed. We do not trust what Ministers will do without this oversight. We have heard that a review will be conducted before the appointment “in due course”. That is very concerning. We know that for this Government it is one rule for them and another for us.

    I thank all Members for their excellent contributions, including agreement on both sides of the House that we need this urgent appointment. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who is a member of PACAC, the Committee focused very much on today, outlined the evidence given to it by Lord Geidt on issues from wallpaper to the Northern Ireland protocol to leaks by Ministers under investigation, and the need to bring decency back into our politics. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), also a member of PACAC, said that it is quite simple: the Prime Minister has lost the trust of the people and of his own MPs as well. He highlighted the circularity of the process by which the Prime Minister appoints the adviser, and then has to look into evidence given by himself about himself and to be the judge of it. The system does not work; it needs to change.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about how difficult Lord Geidt’s position has been and the fact that he said six months ago that there had been insufficient respect for the role of the adviser. Then there were the fixed penalty notice warnings from the adviser, setting alarm bells ringing, as is still the case, that bit by bit probity is being ignored and it is a dark path we are heading down. That is the dark path we want to stop with our motion today. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed out that Aristotle said:

    “We are what we repeatedly do.”

    He talked about the Prime Minister’s corroding of our rules and ethics, the weakening of internal laws, and the attack on international law as well.

    We have a cost of living crisis. My constituents and the British public are worried about how they are going to pay the bills, feed their children and get to work. They have to know that Government Ministers are acting in the public’s best interests and not in their own interests. They have to know that Government Ministers are not acting in the interests of their families or friends, or party donors, or pub landlords, or their own wives. They have to know that they are acting with impartiality, with no fear or favour.

    I realise that the position of the independent adviser will not be an easy position to recruit for, as many hon. Members have said. It will be a tough job description to put together and a tough job advert to write. Last time it took five months to appoint a replacement ethics adviser, and now Downing Street has been hinting at not reappointing one at all. That is why we have tabled the motion today. The outcome of the review could be not to appoint and that will be unacceptable.

    Labour’s motion puts an essential backstop in place, so that if the Prime Minister cannot get his act together in two months’ time, the cross-party Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will appoint that adviser. That adviser will be given the powers and information that they need to investigate potential breaches of the code by Ministers, and that adviser will report to the Committee, so that there is transparency, honesty and integrity.

    Without anyone in post, with the ethical vacuum that we currently have, there will be no one for Ministers to give their full list of interests to that may be thought to give rise to a conflict. There will be no one to investigate possible breaches of the ministerial code—and there could be many. There will be no one to advise the Prime Minister on the code, which is particularly worrying, given the Prime Minister’s seeming lack of literacy in the code, and no one to complete investigations that have been started, such as the allegations of Islamophobia by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani).

    Senior civil servants are also worried. Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the senior civil servants’ union, said,

    “confidence in the process has been severely damaged. If the prime minister does not intend to replace Lord Geidt, then he must immediately put in place measures to ensure a civil servant can, with confidence, raise a complaint about ministerial misconduct.”

    We cannot just leave a vacuum at the top—it is far too worrying.

    Labour would introduce a stronger standards system. We would appoint at speed, but we would go further. We have called for the expansion of the scope of the statutory register of lobbyists, a ban on MPs taking up lobbying jobs for five years after leaving office, and the establishment of an independent integrity and ethics commission with actual powers, not in hock to the Prime Minister.

    The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that voters “don’t give a fig”. They do give a fig. A recent poll showed that 74% of the public think that the Prime Minister is untrustworthy. That is up by 30% in the past two years. Another survey, conducted on the day Lord Geidt resigned, found that nearly 70% of the public believe that the Prime Minister behaves in an unethical way, with 46% thinking he behaves “very unethically”. This is unacceptable. I would counsel the Minister and his colleagues not to insult the British electorate. They do give a fig about honesty; they do give a fig about integrity.

    I want to end by asking several hugely important questions that the Minister failed to answer in his opening speech, but I am sure he will come to now. First, can he confirm whether ongoing investigations launched by Lord Geidt will now be completed? Can he confirm whether there would be an interim position or role holder for the ethics adviser if the recruitment process is not completed within two months? When will the replacement be appointed? Can the Minister assure us that there will not be another five-month gap? When is “due course”? Is it September or October? Is it Christmas? Is it next year? And who is holding Ministers to account in the interim? “Wait and see” is not an acceptable answer. With no ethics adviser in place and no obvious backstop, Ministers are free to do as they please without consequence. It is a blank cheque for bad behaviour. While the cat’s away, the mice will play. This may be an attractive position for the Government, who have always found the rules to be incredibly inconvenient, but it is not attractive and not acceptable to the British public.

    I commend the motion to the House.

  • Geraint Davies – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Geraint Davies – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Geraint Davies, the Labour MP for Swansea West, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    Two ethics advisers gone, two months gone—and all the Paymaster General can offer us is a review. No one needs an ethics adviser more than the current Prime Minister. I studied maths, philosophy and economics at university and am therefore intrigued by how many times the Prime Minister is economical with the truth. Ethics is about right and wrong. It is about truth and falsehood. We heard in partygate about a Prime Minister who made the rules and broke the rules. He said that he did not understand the rules and that he did not know how they applied. We do not know whether he was guilty, innocent or drunk.

    The situation is that we simply cannot trust the Prime Minister. That is the view of the great majority of MPs. Only 211 Tories voted with confidence in him, so more than two thirds of the nation’s MPs have no confidence in the current Prime Minister for what he has done.

    Talking of ethics and philosophy, Kant’s categorical imperative—I know Members will be thinking of this—states

    “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can… will that it become a universal law.”

    In other words, if you are going to have a party, everyone should party, and if they should not, you should not. It is not that complicated. According to Aristotle,

    “We are what we repeatedly do.”

    So what does that make the Prime Minister? At virtually every Prime Minister’s Question Time, he gets up and says that there are half a million more people in jobs than there were before the pandemic—although the Office for National Statistics says that there are 512,000 fewer people in jobs—because he inadvertently forgets to include the self-employed. Was that, in fact, an inadvertent mistake, or was it a piece of choreographed rhetoric to lead people up the garden path? There is a long list of things of this kind which undermine our democracy, this place, and politics in Britain.

    Of course, ethics is about outcomes as well. People say, “Haven’t we done well on covid?”, but 170,000 people are dead thanks to the policies here, which led to the highest death rate in Europe. People say that the economy is all right, although ours was the worst recovery in the G7, and about 8 million people are hungry and in food insecurity. There is not really any accountability, other than the democratic process. We have just seen the Government provoke an unnecessary rail strike by demanding cuts in wages and jobs. There are alternatives to this. Germany, for instance, is saying that it will give everyone a public transport ticket for a month for €9 to boost the economy and jobs, rather than picking fights.

    We have parliamentary privilege here, which means that there are limitations on what the courts can do when we breach the rules. The dampening and watering down of the rules here is therefore problematic, as is, of course, the attack on the judiciary itself. The all-party parliamentary group for democracy and the constitution published a report commissioned by the Rowntree Foundation and prepared by the Institute for Constitutional and Democratic Research. We found that there had been a sustained attack on the courts by Ministers through the media. That is undermining and chilling even the Supreme Court, which has reversed seven of its decisions in the last two years. This was, of course, getting back at the judges, because they had made various decisions about giving us the right to vote on the Brexit deal. They made the Prime Minister return when he tried to abandon democracy.

    What we are seeing is the weakening of internal laws governing the behaviour of politicians here, and, at the same time, an attack on the courts themselves. Meanwhile, there is an attack on international law. The withdrawal from the Northern Ireland protocol undermines our reputation abroad: it means that people such as the Americans do not want to have trade agreements with us. There is an attack on our democratic values and rights, such as the right to peaceful protest. There is an attack on human rights, as we are seeing in Rwanda, and an attempt to pick a fight with the European Court of Human Rights itself, a forerunner to withdrawal from the European convention on human rights—which, of course, was set up by Winston Churchill.

    In the round, what we are seeing is a Prime Minister corroding and eroding the rules that govern our behaviour and our ethics, alongside an attempt to disengage from controls that may be applied and to which all countries and all people elsewhere are subject. So we cannot be trusted. “Values” of this sort feed into the hands of people such as Putin, who hate the democracy, human rights and rule of law that we are now undermining.

    Lord Geidt has said that the Prime Minister has made a mockery of the ministerial code. He has said that we have broken international laws in the form of World Trade Organisation rules. We urgently need a replacement. No doubt some people will suggest that Lord Ashcroft might be the person whom we need. After all, he revealed David Cameron’s relationship with a pig, did he not, and indeed revealed the current Prime Minister’s relationship with the lover whom he offered a £100,000 job. [Laughter.] People may find these things funny, but they are of course true.

    We do need to uphold higher standards here, and, in particular, the Prime Minister should and does not. It is imperative that we get a replacement, and it is imperative that in the interim, at least, we introduce some sort of system. That is what this motion aims to do, and I fully support it.

  • Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Justin Madders, the Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    The origins of this debate are more than six months old and lie in the farce that was the investigation into the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat. I call it a farce not because I want to undermine Lord Geidt—I cannot hold a candle to the Prime Minister in doing that—but because it is clear that he was led a merry dance by the Prime Minister in the first place, when the Prime Minister failed to disclose a series of crucial WhatsApp message between himself and Lord Brownlow.

    The accidental omission of those messages in the “dog ate my homework” style that must have been forged in the gilded halls of Eton made sure that Lord Geidt was pretty embarrassed that he had been taken for a fool in that way. He said as much in the second letter he wrote to the Prime Minister about the investigation:

    “It is plainly unsatisfactory that my earlier advice was unable to rely on the fullest possible disclosure of relevant information.”

    That is a very polite way of putting it. The nub of it is when he wrote that

    “this episode demonstrated insufficient regard or respect for the role of Independent Adviser.”

    That was a very clear warning sign about where this was all heading. What did we get then? The Prime Minister, without a hint of irony, wrote back to Lord Geidt and said:

    “I very much value your work as my Independent Adviser. The role is critical for the effective government of this country.”

    That strikes me as quite a contrast to the position six months later.

    It is still not entirely clear, despite what the Minister said, whether the Government believe an ethics adviser is necessary. Even worse, the Culture Secretary said this week that nobody gave “a fig” about him resigning. Well, I certainly disagree with that view most profoundly. Where I find more common ground with the Culture Secretary is when she said that Lord Geidt was always complaining that he had too much work to do. I can well believe that with this Government and this Prime Minister, anyone concerned with ethics would certainly have a heavy workload. Perhaps we need two ethics advisers in future. We find ourselves in a position where six months ago the ethics adviser effectively put the Government on notice that he was very unhappy with the way he was being treated.

    Last month we had the annual report from Lord Geidt in which he states:

    “It may be especially difficult to inspire that trust in the Ministerial Code if any Prime Minister, whose code it is, declines to refer to it. In the case of the Fixed Penalty Notice recently issued to and paid by the Prime Minister, a legitimate question has arisen as to whether those facts alone might have constituted a breach of the overarching duty within the Ministerial Code of complying with the law.”

    There is a pattern here. As with the missing WhatsApp messages, anything inconvenient is ignored in the hope that it will eventually go away. But of course the Prime Minister could not ignore such a clear signal in the report. We need not have worried, because he wrote back to Lord Geidt and said he did not think he had broken the ministerial code and how silly it was for any of us to think that actually breaking the law might also be a breach of the ministerial code. All of us can see the benefits of being judge and jury, and why robust checks and balances need to be in place.

    On the resignation letter, Lord Geidt said that an intention to breach the ministerial code deliberately in advance

    “would be to suspend the provisions of the code to suit a political end”

    and that would make a mockery of the code. I agree with him, but I think we reached the point of mockery of the code when the previous adviser resigned after his recommendations were also ignored. We cannot pretend that what Lord Geidt said there is anything other than a damning statement. For the Prime Minister’s own ethics adviser, appointed by the Prime Minister, to walk away after having his patience tested repeatedly, having warned repeatedly that trust was being eroded, is a state of affairs that should send a shiver down all our spines. Every single one of us in this place who is concerned about the probity of Government, who thinks that it is our job to uphold the law, not to break it, should see that statement as the ringing of the loudest of loud alarm bells.

    The ethics adviser is not there to provide cover for the Prime Minister who wants to bend the rules. The ethics adviser is not there to be ignored when the advice proves inconvenient, and the ethics adviser is not there to be made a fool of. They are there as a safeguard for the wider responsibility, which we all have, for the way that politics is done. None of us is here for ever, but while we are here, we need to remember that we are the guardians of democracy. What we say and where we set the limits of adherence to the rules while we are here matter because they become the starting point for the next generation to work from.

    If we do end up in a position where the Government of the day decide that an ethics adviser is no longer needed, or we never get to a point where one is appointed, even though, six months ago, it was said to be a critical position, where does the conversation go after that—to a further erosion of the safeguards that any mature democracy needs? Let us be clear: we do need those safeguards, because democracy is fragile and it cannot be taken for granted; it has to be cherished and defended by us as its guardians. Every watering down of the rules, every reduction in transparency, every erosion of accountability have to be fought against because many Governments want—to coin a phrase—to take back control. Most Governments, however, also have a respect for the rules, understand their place in history and know that having clear rules to which everyone is accountable is the glue that holds our democracy together.

    When we have a Government with a track record like this one, it really is up to us to push back against that. Whether it be breaking the law in a specific and limited way, trying to wriggle out of treaties signed, changing the way that the standard rules operate, or excusing breaches of the “Ministerial Code”, this Government have shown, time and again, that they do not think that they need to abide by the rules. However, rules do matter. The rules about how our politics is conducted should be there long after we have all gone and they should not be jettisoned because it is convenient for the Government of the day to do so.

    Parliament should be the beacon of fair play. It should be an example for others, both in this country and abroad, to look at and say that, yes, democracy is a good thing, and that it can change people’s lives for the better. Not all politicians are self-serving, but when we see a bending of the rules, the ignoring of them, or the changing of them to suit a short-term political agenda, those looking in on this place can rightly say, “Who are you to lecture us about responsibility? Who are you to tell us about showing leadership?”

    Leadership is what this is all about. Those at the top need to behave with honour, to respect conventions and to recognise their wider responsibility to the body politic. That is all put at risk when those in power do not see the importance of that, and the weaknesses in our unwritten constitution become all too apparent. That is when our democracy is diluted, and with a Government who, because of the size of their majority, grow contemptuous of the need for probity and bit by bit dismantle the safeguards that we need, we enter this dystopian world where newspaper stories mysteriously disappear and the Prime Minister tells the world that no rules were broken when they clearly were.

    This motion tonight will not reverse the dark path down which we are already heading, but it will slow it a little, and with persistence and, dare I say it, a little more courage from the Conservative Benches, we might begin to reverse it. We owe it to ourselves and to the democratic ideals in which we must all at one time have believed to do just that.

  • Jamie Stone – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Jamie Stone – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Jamie Stone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    May I say at the outset that Lord Geidt is a personal friend of my family? I do not wish to go any further than that, other than to say that I should like, along with everyone else here, to express my thanks for all that he has done.

    What is at stake here, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) admirably hinted, is the issue of trust, and I want to give an example of how this works in practice. My predecessor bar two was Robert Maclennan. Bob was first elected in 1966 with a majority of 64 votes. After that, as the elections went by, he increased his majority and stayed as the Member for Caithness and Sutherland and latterly for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross until he retired. What is interesting about Bob’s career is that he changed party twice. He was elected as a Labour Member in 1966. He was then a founding member of the Social Democratic party and was one of the few SDP Members to hold his seat in 1983. He subsequently joined the Liberal Democrats, and that was what he was when he retired. That is most unusual for a politician, but the reason he held his seat was that he was trusted. He was known to be a man of integrity, decency, kindness and diligence. So, trust is crucial in what we are talking about this evening.

    We describe ourselves with pride as the mother of Parliaments, but when I have talked to people in my constituency in the last few weeks, they have said, “Can you trust anything that is said in that place? How do you feel about it?” That saddens me greatly, because if we are to be the mother of Parliaments, and if we are to stand up for democracy across the world, we need to know that we do things absolutely by the book and with absolute integrity. If there is any hint that we do not, that damages the reputation of this place, and I regret that massively. I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who is no longer in his place. He also came to the nub of the issue when he said that this is about trust and about being seen to do things properly.

    If I were to find myself in deep trouble and in a court of law, I would have no hesitation in hiring the services of either the Minister or the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), because I am certain that those august gentlemen would provide me with a most eloquent defence and probably get me off. But we are being looked at by the general public, and the general public are not fools. They are more than capable of coming to conclusions about people. Is this person—he or she—telling the truth? Is this person to be trusted or not? Let me give the House one good Conservative example of somebody who I believe was trusted: John Major. He was seen to be a straight guy and a straight Prime Minister. So trust is there. What I say to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is this: be careful. Be careful about clever arguments. Be careful about the use of words that can have all sorts of different meanings, because the British public has no time for that whatsoever.

    I agree with other Members. I very much hope and expect that the Minister will clarify exactly what he means about the appointment of a new ethics adviser. That is essential. It sounds a bit apocalyptic but let me say it: I believe the nation is watching right now and at stake is the reputation of this place. If we take it seriously then it matters absolutely not just how we do things or how we are seen by our electorate or the country, but across the world. I await and I hope.

  • Jackie Doyle-Price – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    Jackie Doyle-Price – 2022 Speech on the Resignation of Lord Geidt

    The speech made by Jackie Doyle-Price, the Conservative MP for Thurrock, in the House of Commons on 21 June 2022.

    I shall endeavour to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have quite a lot to say on this, because I am so disappointed. The ministerial code really does matter, and it says everything about the leadership and culture of our style of Government that some of the responses to Lord Geidt’s resignation from some quarters of the Government have been rather disappointing. It is really important that everyone in public service abides by the rules of the game. That is what maintains respect and honour in all our institutions.

    There are a few messages that I would like to land. The end does not justify the means, and, taking back control does not mean pleasing yourself, must be clear principles. Those two principles need to be looked at in the context of Lord Geidt’s resignation, because he has been clear that he was, in effect, being asked to give the Government a bye to wilfully break their international obligations under law. That is not acceptable, and, frankly, that should not be acceptable for any self-respecting Conservative Member of Parliament, because if there is one thing that we do believe in, it is constitutional propriety. It is about upholding the law, and that is central to the ministerial code. It is really important that we sustain that.

    We are the Conservative party, the party of Margaret Thatcher and Churchill, not the party of Donald Trump. That is exactly what we are talking about. If such law breaches are sanctioned—even if there are the best of motives, such as to save our steel industry—I am afraid that sets a precedent for people to use law breaches for much more malevolent intentions. It should be in the DNA of Conservative Members, for whom constitutional propriety is so important, to ensure that we play by the rules of the game, however politically inconvenient, because there is always more than one route to achieve an outcome.

    This is fundamentally not British behaviour. If there is one thing in the British DNA, it is a belief in fair play and upholding the rules. Our global reputation is built on our respect for the rule of law and how we have exported that around the world. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that we uphold the most important standards.

    I remind Conservative colleagues that also central to the British brand is belief in free trade, but Lord Geidt felt compelled to resign—he was being asked to turn a blind eye to waiving our obligations in respect of the WTO—on an issue that seems to be the complete antithesis of the ethos underlying why we left the European Union in the first place. The world expected us to be free traders, yet our actions fly in the face of that.

    It is essential that the Government, in taking the matter forward, look at who should be the next ministerial adviser—although anybody would be taking a massive reputational risk in taking the job without being offered some very clear guarantees. Perhaps the biggest question mark facing our credibility in government right now is not about policy but about our behaviours. We have had two years of one story after another, with perhaps the most notorious being partygate, and that has led the public substantially to conclude—the jury were already out on us anyway—that we do not live in the real world and, “It is one rule for them and another for the rest of us”. We need to reboot public confidence by actually respecting our obligations under the law and maintaining that the ministerial code is important. Central to that is upholding the law.

    My request to the Government is really to take stock. We have seen not just the recent resignation of Lord Geidt —actually, we have lost two advisers on ethics—but the Greensill scandal, which also raised issues about how the ministerial code applies to outgoing Ministers, who are still obliged to abide by it even though there is no sanction to deal with them. We have heard evidence in PACAC from Lord Pickles, as chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, that the volume of inquiries that he is getting is rather more than the small honorarium that his members are asked to deal with.

    Essentially, we have got a regime that relies on everybody behaving appropriately. When everybody knows what represents good behaviour, and everybody is prepared to behave and to do the right thing, we can get by with a light-touch regulatory regime. The romantic in me thinks that we still can, but, day by day, that confidence is being diminished. I do not want to see any kind of statutory regulation of Ministers under the ministerial code, but if we are going to avoid that, it is incumbent on the Government to seize and recognise the difficulty that our current standards regime is in. I ask the Government in all sincerity to properly reboot this and have a proper look at the ministerial code.

    By way of illustration, when I became a Minister, the ministerial code was given to me as a flimsy photocopy at the bottom of my first box. No importance was set on it, yet the code should come from the top. We expect the principles of the code to be in the DNA of all our Ministers when they are delivering their obligations and undertaking their duties. This is not just a little bit of PR to say, “Aren’t we all doing terribly well?” This is fundamental to how we should operate our Government, and we need to really articulate that message and have a proper regime for overseeing that.

    The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will always be here, and we will still shine some light on those issues that we are not very happy about. In fact, we have probably spent more time looking at these things than we ever intended to, being rather more interested in constitutionally nerdy positions than in ferreting out scandals, but I would much prefer that we had far less material in that regard. Institutions such as PACAC and the Committee on Standards are still here. We do not need to go down the road of statutory regulation, but we do need the Prime Minister and all Government Ministers to recognise that the rule of law and upholding the law are not just optional extras; they are essential.