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Tag: Tom Tugendhat

  • Tom Tugendhat – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

    Tom Tugendhat – 2021 Speech on Foreign Aid Cuts

    The speech made by Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2021.

    I am delighted to be called, and I pay enormous tribute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is sitting on the Front Bench today. The Chancellor demonstrated during his career before reaching this place that we can do well by doing good. In working for the Children’s Investment Fund Management, he proved that finance and capitalism can support the world’s poorest and change lives, but he will also recognise that even an impressive fund such as that is built on a stable platform created by Governments and guaranteed by organisations, international bodies and others. I am very sorry but for that reason I will not be able to support him today, because that platform is so important. That confidence and ability to rely on a stable platform for the future is essential. Instead of that continuity and that guarantee of an enduring future, we are sadly going back towards the yo-yo policy. That is not just bad because of the variability; it is bad because it costs more and delivers less. Frankly, it is inefficient, it is an error and it undermines our capability.

    Nobody in this House is more passionate about global Britain or Britain’s place in the world than me. Nobody believes more that we should have a place at every table and a voice in every room. But we need to know that we are no longer buying that with gunboats; we are buying it with the aid and the effectiveness that we bring.

    Anthony Mangnall

    My hon. and gallant Friend is making an impressive speech. He talks about global Britain; the point of global Britain is diplomacy, trade, aid and defence. Those four things are interconnected with one another: if we reduce one, that has an impact on all. That will be detrimental to everything from the integrated review to our outside approach.

    Tom Tugendhat

    My hon. Friend is completely correct. Of course, the reality is that we are not living in a vacuum—we are not taking these decisions with nobody watching. Our friends are watching and our rivals are watching. As we make this decision, as we change our policy on Afghanistan, and as we buy different seats at various UN tables through our diplomacy in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and South America, we know that we are changing the rules by which we live. We are literally changing the standards of our modern world through how we buy support, develop allies and partner around the world.

    As Members have said, this debate is of course about the world’s poorest, but it is not just about the world’s poorest. Fundamentally, it is about Britain and how we protect ourselves. How do we shape this world? How do we get the standards that make sure that British businesses succeed, British finance shapes the world and British rules are those that the world lives by? We do that by making sure that we win the votes at the UN by making sure that we have the voices around the table—the voices of the Foreign Ministers of countries around the world. We can do it; I know that because we have done it. For 20 years we have won debates, shaped arguments and defended our position. We have done it by doing well and by doing good—exactly as the Chancellor demonstrated in his pre-political career.

    I can understand why the Government might say that these targets—these ambitions—are too high and that they wish to set a different spending limit, but that is not the argument they are making. The argument that the Government are making is the Augustinian argument: “Lord, make me chaste—but not just yet.” If you wish to be holy, choose sanctity; if you wish not to be, be frank with what you are choosing.

  • Tom Tugendhat – 2021 Comments on Clapham Common Clashes

    Tom Tugendhat – 2021 Comments on Clapham Common Clashes

    The comments made by Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, on 13 March 2021.

    Today’s protests were legitimate expressions of outrage about violence against women by free citizens in a free country. The powers used against them echoed something different. We have been vaccinating to liberate and to use judgment at just such a moment. #WomensLivesMatter.

  • Tom Tugendhat – 2018 Commons Speech on Brexit

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, in the House of Commons on 6 December 2018.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) for his dulcet tones and helping us get through the afternoon.

    We find ourselves here because of a series of events. We must remember that the day after the referendum, the campaigns disappeared. When we got to the leadership competition, many of the competitors disappeared. When we got to the election, sadly many of our seats disappeared, and we found ourselves without a majority. Despite that, we have a Prime Minister who, thank God, has shown fortitude, devotion and duty, when so many others have, sadly, disappeared.

    I have plenty of criticism to make of the way these negotiations have been conducted, and I am sure I am not alone in doing so. I think we started the wrong way round. Rather than negotiating our way down, as it were, from our existing membership, we should have admitted the truth, which is that we have left the European Union—we left when the votes came in—and we should be negotiating our way up towards the relationship we want to see in the long term. Sadly, that is not what happened.

    We find ourselves now looking towards a transition. After 45 years’ membership—about the same time that Elizabeth I was on the throne or the German empire existed—it is hardly surprising that the transition to a new relationship is important. We must use this opportunity to focus on not only what the interim stage looks like, but what the future looks like. That is why I would welcome much more effort going into the future agreement. It is true that the political declaration sets out some aspects of interest, and the backstop supposedly is used as a building block, but we need to see much more than either of those.

    So what are we looking at today? We are looking at a stage. We are looking at—let us be frank—the only deal on the table. We are looking at a temporary, imperfect compromise, and an uncomfortable one at that—one that, were we to ever enter the backstop, splits the four freedoms of goods, capital, services and people.

    The option we have is pretty simple. It is threefold: either we agree with this compromise; or we push for a second referendum, which I think is a terrible idea, as it will simply lead to more uncertainty and more indecision; or we walk away. As I represent a community—I am blessed to represent one of the most beautiful communities in the country—that, sadly, is surrounded by motorways entirely reliant on the port of Dover, there is a danger for us that those motorways will become parking lots, as many hon. Members will have heard me say when I raised this with the Transport Secretary. I am afraid that I cannot go for the referendum and I cannot go for walking away, so I am left really with only one choice. I do not say this with any joy. However, it is not our role to shirk responsibility or to avoid decisions; it is our role to take decisions. When I have excluded the impossible, I am left with only one—and that I have to say with a very heavy heart.

    The backstop is not, however, as final as many have said, and here I quote from Policy Exchange’s work by Professor Verdirame, Sir Stephen Laws and Professor Ekins, about what the best endeavours obligation in the withdrawal agreement puts on the EU. They say:​

    “EU conduct in breach of such an obligation and indefinitely prolonging the application of the Protocol could thus amount to a material breach of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol. Faced with this situation, the UK would be entitled to invoke this material breach as a ground for the suspension or termination of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol.”

    So there is a legal way out, and the legal way out is if the EU does not negotiate with best intent. I am confident that it will, because this is as bad for the EU as it is for us, though, frankly, it is not good for anyone.

    I will end simply with a word about the referendum. It was legitimate. It did not go my way, but democracies do not always reflect the way we choose. When we get through this period, the next few years of this country’s history will be truly glorious. We are on the cusp of massive investment. We have companies sitting on cash and ready to throw it into the economy. We have a huge opportunity before us, and I look forward to our grasping it.