Sir Andrew Mitchell
MP for Sutton Coldfield · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I urge Labour Members to rise up now and say that the historical interest and support of the Labour party have been for international development. People might expect the beastly Tories to cut aid and development, but they do not expect the Labour party to do that. Now is a chance to have a real reset, which should include three things.”
“As we get older, we tend to look back at the past through rose-tinted spectacles, but I acknowledge at the outset that British development policy is at its best by far when it is conducted on an all-party basis. It is not a Labour, Conservative or Liberal policy; it is a British policy. That was one of its great glories in the past.”
“Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale about the importance of saving the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, but we have to accept that we will not get a major boost in public support unless it comes from the top. We had an era of huge support, led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.”
“The Government are the 100% shareholder in BII and are therefore able to set out very clearly what its priorities should be, but they should then leave an organisation like BII to get on with following that mandate. I argue that there have been three great losses from the Johnson and Starmer premierships.”
“I argue that, since the Suez crisis, international development has been the only area of indisputable British international leadership—and we have lost that.”
“I do not really agree with that because, while the hon. Gentleman cites a number of areas where Britain makes a big contribution, there is a big black hole where we have cut off our legs in respect to international development. I will say a word or two about that in a moment.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,936 lines we hold for Sir Andrew Mitchell, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 52 of 99.
“The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), cannot be here today either, for reasons that the Committee will readily understand and accept, but in his absence we are joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, who is double-hatting—of course, a Government Whip is also a Minister. We are extremely grateful to him for, at short notice, taking on this speaking part, which is somewhat unusual for the Government Whips Office or, indeed, any Whips Office. I believe I am right in saying that, before he was a Government Whip, he was a very distinguished vice-chairman of the youth wing of our party. That was my first parliamentary job when I first came into the House at, I think, about the time when my hon.”
“May I first say, on behalf of the whole Committee, what a pleasure it is to serve under your benign chairmanship, Ms McVey, and welcome you to the Chair? May I also express my admiration and gratitude to hon. Members from all parts of the House who have physically made the journey to the Committee today? Under the rules of the House, we all have to be here physically to conduct the Committee stage, and I am immensely grateful to all those who have made the journey, whose names will be recorded in Hansard . I also thank colleagues from both sides of the House for their co-operation in working on the Bill and, in particular, the Opposition for their support. That includes the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), who unfortunately cannot be with us today, but who led for the Opposition on Second Reading.”
“I very much hope it will secure the approval of the Committee.”
“Regulations that amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation must be made according to the affirmative procedure. Regulations that do not amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation are to be made according to the negative procedure. I am sure the Committee will agree that that gets the balance right in this case. Clause 7 covers extent, commencement and short title. Clause 7(1) sets out that clauses 1 to 4 extend to England and Wales only, except as provided in any amendments or repeals set out in the schedule. The remaining clauses extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The clause sets out the coming into force dates and the way in which the Bill may be cited. That is a run-through of the granular details of what the Bill will do.”
“This will negate the need for the Registrar General to hold entries of births and deaths in both paper and electronic form. Subsection (6) outlines the period previously mentioned in subsection (5) as beginning on 1 July 2009 and ending immediately before the day clause 1 comes into force. Clause 5 introduces the schedule, which contains minor and consequential amendments to primary legislation as a consequence of the move from paper registers to the registration of births and deaths in an electronic register. It includes amendments to the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Registration Service Act 1953, and minor amendments to other Acts. Clause 6 delegates to the Secretary of State the power to make further consequential provisions by regulations on any provision of the Bill.”
“Subsection 5(b) provides that where a copy of a register of births or register of deaths was kept otherwise than in a hard copy form during the period of 1 July 2009 until immediately before the day that clause 1 comes into force, the register is to be treated for the purposes of section 25(3) of the Act as being kept in the form in which the copy was kept—for example, in electronic form. Subsection (5)(c) provides that any entry in the register signed by a person before clause 1 comes into force is to continue to be regarded as having been signed by the person for the purposes of the Act. Subsection (5)(d) allows the Registrar General to dispose of any certified copies of births and deaths received under section 27 of the Act, and any information contained in those entries that is kept in electronic form.”
“The Bill removes the requirement for birth and death entries to be held in paper format, removing the duplication in the process. Subsection (5) specifies how copies of birth and death records that have been held in a format other than hard copy paper form, such as electronically, are to be treated on and after the day on which clause 1 of the Bill comes into force. Subsection (5)(a) provides that those copies of birth and death registers held in electronic form are to be treated as the register for the sub-district on and after the day that clause 1 of the Bill comes into force.”
“In the case of stillbirths, subsection (3) of the clause requires all registrars to send any unfilled paper registers of stillbirths in their possession to the Registrar General, who will keep them at the General Register Office in such order and manner as he or she thinks fit. Subsection (4) allows the Registrar General to dispose of any certified copies of stillbirth entries in any register of stillbirths, as the Registrar General will also hold the completed paper registers of stillbirths. Subsection (4) also allows the Registrar General to dispose of any paper stillbirth records that are held in electronic format by virtue of section 27 of the 1953 Act. Since 1 July 2009, registrations of births and deaths have been held in both paper and electronic format.”
“Clause 4(1)(b) specifies that the repeal of section 28 of the Act does not affect the existing requirement under section 28(4) for the Registrar General to continue to keep any certified copies that he has received under section 27 in the possession of the Registrar General, and any registers of stillbirths forwarded to the Registrar General before the coming into force of the repeal. Subsection (2) requires all registrars to send any unfilled paper registers of births and deaths in their possession to the superintendent registrar to be kept with the records of the office.”
“These returns used to be paper-based and completed quarterly, but with the introduction of the electronic register in 2009, these returns are now done electronically within seven days. As we discussed earlier, sections 26, 27 and 28 are repealed by clause 1, as the process of quarterly returns and the custody of paper registers will no longer be required with the move to an electronic system. Clause 4(1)(a) specifies that the repeal of section 28 of the Act does not affect the existing requirement under section 28(2) for every superintendent registrar to continue to keep any registers of live births or deaths in their custody with the records of the office immediately before the repeal comes into force.”
“The register is then kept in perpetuity, with the records of the office. It is from these paper registers that all certified copies, for example birth and death certificates, are issued. This will continue to be the case in the future. When a register of stillbirths is filled, the registrar delivers it to the superintendent registrar, who forwards it to the Registrar General to keep in the General Register Office, from which all requests for certified copies are issued. The registrar provides the superintendent registrar with copies of all the birth and death registrations, known as quarterly returns. The superintendent registrar certifies them as true copies of the entries in the registers and forwards them to the Registrar General. These are kept at the General Register Office to create a national record of all births and deaths.”
“The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. There is no doubt an overwhelming benefit for our constituents to be able to do this online, but there are provisions for checking and following up on fraud. I shall come to some of them during my remarks. I have completed the detailed coverage of clause 3, so I turn to clause 4, which covers the treatment of the existing registers of births, stillbirths and deaths records. Currently, under section 28 of the Act, registrars are required to keep safely all registers of live births, stillbirths and deaths in their custody. When not in use, they must keep the registers securely in the register box provided by the Registrar General. When a registrar fills the register of births or deaths, the registrar must deliver it to the superintendent registrar.”
“In view of what the right hon. Member for Warley has said, it is worth clarifying that issues of fraud when registering births and deaths are different from registering car ownership. The point made about the DVLA is clear and right. On Report and at Third Reading, we may explain to the House the additional steps available to the registrars for combating fraud. It is up to them to determine the steps taken, and if they require secondary legislation, the Minister will look favourably on that.”
“I hope, Ms McVey, that you feel the issues that should have been raised in this Committee have been, and that we can proceed to vote on the various clauses. Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause s 2 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule agreed to. Bill to be reported, without amendment.”
“My right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) is absolutely right to bring to the House this matter and that of the very brave Alexei Navalny, whose rights under the UN convention on human rights have been trampled underfoot and so grievously disrespected by a fellow member of the United Nations Security Council. Will the Minister confirm that she is co-ordinating collective action with our allies on this matter to hold the Russian leadership to account? Will she also confirm that, through the Magnitsky measures and other ways, not just Russia’s leaders but other officials who abuse Alexei Navalny’s human rights can be held to account in a similar way?”
“These values matter, and when regimes such as the Saudis, for example, butcher journalists in foreign consulates or imprison women campaigning for human rights, we should speak out.”
“We have had much focus on money laundering, on dirty money and on money stolen by corrupt dictators from Africa, by business people and by warlords. Shining the light of transparency on this is incredibly important, and this is a good amendment because it underlines our abhorrence of genocide. I have worked with much pleasure with the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on what the UN Committee that visited Burma and Bangladesh referred to as the genocidal activities over the Rohingya, and with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green on the human rights abuses in China. The House is right to take a very strong line on the issue of genocide. If global Britain means anything, it is driven by values.”
“The Bill helps, but new clause 4 would drive the matter further forward in clamping down on the facilitation of economic crime. I hope that the Minister will send a clear message on that when he sums up. I would also say to him that the reforms to Companies House led the world, but the trouble is that Companies House has become a sort of library, rather than an investigator. What it needs is more resources, and I very much hope that he will make the point across Government that Companies House with more resources would be an extremely valuable tool in the fight against economic crime. Amendment 7—the genocide clause, as it were—has been tabled so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). He makes the point that money cannot somehow be divorced from its provenance.”
“Member for Barking and I managed to persuade the Government to introduce open registers of beneficial ownership, both for the overseas territories and now for the Crown dependencies. The Foreign Office was not in favour of that at the time, but it now strongly supports it, so progress can be made. We are building on the excellent G8, where these matters were first championed by David Cameron as Prime Minister, and also on the recent US legislation. The evidence of the Paradise and Panama papers showed without any doubt the sophistication of financial advisers and the fact that there is an inequality of arms in so much of this. They are ahead of the financial enforcement authorities, and we need to be aware of that.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I rise to say just a few words about new clause 4 and amendment 7, both of which I support. New clause 4, on the facilitation of economic crime, has been ably tabled by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who, together with me and many others across the House, has sought to drive forward this agenda. The agenda is driven forward by the Bill, which has been so ably handled by my hon. Friend the Minister. It goes with the grain of Government policy and builds on the changes already achieved. I do not think that the House should be divided on it today, but we should send a signal to the Government about the importance of pursuing this agenda. We have, as I said, achieved considerable change. The right hon.”
“I have a private Member’s Bill that is all ready to go into Committee. The Bill saves a great deal of taxpayers’ money, it is very good for our constituents and it is supported across the House, all the Members from across the House who have generously volunteered to serve on the Committee are ready, and it has gone to the Committee of Selection. If the Committee of Selection were to approve that next Wednesday, would it be possible for the Bill Committee to meet, albeit briefly, on 27 January?”
“What plans he has to improve the evidence base for future debates on the options available for terminally ill people at the end of their life.”
“May I express my gratitude to the NHS in all its many forms in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield for their hard work over Christmas and new year, including giving me a new knee? I thank the Secretary of State for managing to take an interest in this important subject when he is so stretched on so many other fronts. Nearly 10% of suicides are by people who are terminally ill, and the all-party group that I have the privilege of co-chairing will hear from a mother this afternoon whose terminally ill son took his own life by throwing himself under an HGV on the north circular. To add to knowledge, information and understanding, will the Secretary of State and his Department make a point of working with coroners and the Office for National Statistics from across the country, so that we can understand the true extent of these tragedies?”
“My right hon. Friend has made a very well measured and balanced statement. Of course we seek a constructive relationship with China, but it has to be within the rules-based system. As he has so eloquently made clear, global Britain is values-driven or it is nothing. May I add to those who have urged him to keep on the table continuously the Magnitsky provisions, which he, I and others worked so hard to get through the House, to ensure that those provisions are consistently kept under review? On the subject of Jesus College, of which I am also an alumnus, may I make it clear that there are two China centres? My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) was referring to the one run by Peter Nolan.”
“Over the past two decades, Britain has become a development superpower—the ideas of British universities, the actions on the ground of Britain’s international non-governmental organisations, and the policy formation of the thinktanks—which is why I ask the Government to think again on breaking the 0.7% promise, on which every single Member of this House of Commons was elected just one year ago. Remember that the 0.7% has already been reduced.”
“The UK has real leverage on this: our seat in the United Nations; as a leading member of the Commonwealth, that important north-south organisation, which embraces so much of the world; our principled position in NATO; the fact that we are a European power, in or out of the European Union; our relationship with the United States; and, of course, the British language, which, in terms of commerce, trade and law, gives Britain such a pre-eminent position, quite apart from the City of London as an international centre. And as others have mentioned, we have development.”
“Friend said, we await the report, because we have had the money but not yet the report on what global Britain is going to stand for, but it seems to me very important that global Britain should represent values, rather than geographers. This enables us from time to time to agree with China but to disagree with Donald Trump. The UK has been a very bright light in many difficult parts of the world, standing up for the rule of law and human rights against Islamic terror, standing against meddling Russians and Chinese human rights abuse, and standing for of women’s rights and the fight against starvation. When it comes to the how, I think that the international rules-based system is the key.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is right that we should be debating global Britain this week, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, and the House of Commons will want to mark with sadness the passing of Sir Brian Urquhart, one of the principal architects of the UN and a fine British civil servant. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, the power of a passionate, compelling vision for global Britain has the ability to unite the United Kingdom, all four parts of it, in one vision, at a time when that Union is under great pressure. I want to make two specific comments about global Britain. The first is about the what. As my right hon.”
“I urge the Treasury Bench to think again about this £4 billion reduction—just 1% of the borrowing this year. It should not be carried out in this way and it should not be carried out at this time.”
“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course, he is right that trade is the key, but in order to get to a point where countries can trade, we need many of the very important services that DFID has been providing in some of the poorest parts of the world. Remember that the 0.7% has already been reduced, because it is connected with our gross national income, by nearly £3 billion. If this cut goes ahead, the development budget will be reduced by nearly 50%. That is the worst thing we could do in a pandemic, which we know will never be defeated here until it is defeated everywhere. It is the most terrible timing—when we approach the chair of the G7, when this year we will chair the United Nations Security Council and when we have the most important COP in Glasgow in November. It would be a terrible mistake.”
“It will withdraw access to family planning and contraception for more than 7 million women, with all the misery that that will entail; 100,000 children will die from preventable diseases; and 2 million people—mainly children—will suffer much more steeply from malnutrition and starvation as a result of these changes. In spite of what he says about prioritising girls’ education, which is extremely welcome, under the existing plans probably 1 million girls will not be able to go to school. I hope that he will bear in mind that these reductions make little difference to us in the United Kingdom, but they make a massive difference to them.”
“I thank the Foreign Secretary very much for his courtesy over recent months, for his extremely welcome support for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, and for his kind comments about Lady Sugg, who was a brilliant Development Minister. I hope that everyone in the House will read her principled and moving resignation letter, which she released yesterday. My right hon. Friend and I both know that, seen from the Biden White House, this is a dismal start to our G7 chairmanship. As the former Prime Minister said yesterday, the 0.7% is a promise that we as Tories do not need to break. My right hon. Friend knows, does he not, that taking a further 30% out of the development budget will drive a horse and cart through many of the plans that the British Government have so strongly supported for eliminating poverty.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for his courtesy over the weekend, and I assure him of my very strong support for virtually all of his package today. As a result of the pandemic here in the UK, 50,000 people have died and we are rightly moving heaven and earth to prevent more deaths here at home. Is he aware that his proposed breaking of the 0.7% promise and the 30% further reduction in cash will be the cause of 100,000 preventable deaths, mainly among children? This is a choice that I for one am not prepared to make. None of us in this House will be able to look our children in the eye and claim that we did not know what we were voting for.”
“My right hon. Friend has delivered for our armed forces today and he deserves the support of the whole House, particularly as he seeks to improve the procurement mechanisms of the Ministry of Defence. Will he bear in mind the wise words of General Mattis, the former US Defence Secretary, who told Donald Trump, “The more you cut aid, the more I have to spend on ammunition”? Britain’s development leadership—standing by our promise to the poorest by keeping the 0.7%, which was a manifesto commitment—will stand my right hon. Friend in very good stead as he assumes the chairmanship of the G7 on 1 January and promotes the important values of global Britain.”
“My Bill will contribute to that leadership and to the international progress we so badly need. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Mr Andrew Mitchell, Nicola Richards, Bob Stewart, Dame Margaret Hodge, Sir Edward Leigh, Jess Phillips, Caroline Nokes, Hilary Benn, Sir Robert Neill, Harriett Baldwin, Crispin Blunt and Ms Harriet Harman present the Bill. Mr Andrew Mitchell accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 8 January 2021, and to be printed (Bill 213).”
“By replacing twice over the health service professionals who come here from developing countries with which Britain has a close development partnership, Britain can help to meet its own healthcare needs while providing additional healthcare capacity within those countries. On 1 January, the UK takes over the chair of the G7 group of nations. At a time when the new US President-elect is determined to reinvigorate the international rules-based system, when this major pandemic has destroyed lives and livelihoods around the world, and when we know that covid will not be beaten here until it is beaten everywhere, especially in countries with weak public health infrastructure, Britain’s international development leadership and commitment to the 0.7% promise to the poor—Britain’s example—have never been more needed.”
“Nigeria has 64,000 cases, Ghana has 49,000 cases, and Sierra Leone has 2,385 cases. India has an estimated shortage of no fewer than 600,000 doctors and 2 million nurses. India, where Britain actively recruits doctors, has one doctor per 10,189 citizens and has 30% of all the world’s acute child malnutrition. The case we make to Parliament and the Government today is as follows: it is immoral and selfish for Britain, with its wealth and infrastructure, to poach doctors from the developing world. However, by taking the action I have suggested, we can turn that into a win-win for us and for developing countries. It would not be right to fetter freedom of movement for those medical and health personnel who wish to come here and who we as a country wish to admit—and to whom we are truly grateful for bringing their skills to these shores.”
“For every doctor or nurse we poach from a developing nation, we should ensure that that developing country—on losing their trained professional to our advantage—receives from the existing British development budget sufficient resources to train up and replace them, two for one? When we are lucky enough to secure such professionals from the developing world, we should replace them twice over, and expand their public health services accordingly. Remember these figures: in Britain, one doctor for 357 people; in Nigeria, one doctor for 2,753 people; and in Sierra Leone, 1.4 doctors and nurses for every 10,000 people. Ghana—a country with which Britain has a close historic relationship—has in the upper east region, one of its poorest, one doctor for every 26,000 people. All the time, these countries, too, are fighting covid.”
“The House will be as shocked as I was to hear that not long ago there were more doctors trained in Sierra Leone practising medicine in Manchester than were practising medicine back in Sierra Leone—the country that had trained them. We should not restrain their career opportunities by cutting off their ability to come here if they wish and if we want them to do so. So let us work with the grain of human nature, do the right thing, accept our moral obligation to people much less fortunate than ourselves, but also meet the needs of our citizens and ensure that they have the best possible healthcare. Therefore why not do the following?”
“What should we do about this dependence on doctors from overseas, and especially from the developing world, where we are effectively poaching their key public assets? First, we should grow more doctors and nurses here in the UK. The Government have recognised this and increased the number of doctors trained here from 6,000 a year to 7,100 from 2018. It was particularly good to see that universities like Aston in Birmingham now run a foundation course bringing more students from disadvantaged backgrounds into medicine. We recognise also that it would be wrong for us to end the opportunity for those doctors in the developing world who wish to exercise freedom of movement.”
“In this country, we have 215 doctors, nurses, health workers and midwives from Sierra Leone; from Nigeria, 4,099; from Pakistan, 3,394; from Ghana, 1,118; and from India, just short of 20,000. All these countries are developing nations with whom we have, or have had, a significant development partnership. What I am describing—the export to us of their doctors and clinicians—is reverse aid: not from Britain to help developing countries, but from those developing countries to help Britain; and it is clearly wrong. In Britain, we have one doctor for every 357 people—effectively, three doctors per 1,000 people—with some 15% of our nurses coming from overseas and about a quarter of our doctors.”
“Secondly, I want to emphasise how much we rely on those doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers who bring their talents and skills to this country to support our NHS from overseas. We respect them and we are hugely grateful to them. Indeed, if I may use a second world war analogy, much beloved by some of my hon. Friends, the heroes of this war against covid are not, as in the battle of Britain, the men and women of the Royal Air Force but, all too often, workers from overseas working in our hospitals, giving their all in our care homes, putting themselves in harm’s way, and often living on the minimum wage. When we persuade a doctor from the developing world to come here, we do so in the knowledge that our gain will inevitably be their country’s loss.”
“It builds on the past reputation of our country as an international development superpower. We were the first of the major developed countries to honour our promise to the world’s poorest people to spend 0.7% of our gross national income as part of our mission to elevate the lives and social conditions of some of the most desperate people on the planet—people deprived not for any reason of their own, but because of where they were born. One of the proudest moments of my political life was when the coalition Government, in spite of the austerity that our country faced back in 2010, declined to balance the books on the backs of the world’s poor and agreed to honour the 0.7% promise. I am still certain that that chimes with the values and instincts of the vast majority of our fellow citizens, even at such a dreadful time as this for so many.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to report on the merits of a scheme for the United Kingdom to pay to train two doctors or nurses in developing countries for each doctor or nurse recruited to the National Health Service from those countries. I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for granting me this opportunity to make the case today for my Bill—my first ten-minute rule Bill since I was elected to the House 33 years ago. I am supported by a distinguished cross-section of Members from both sides of the House. I believe this Bill to be uncontroversial, but a genuine boost for the reputation of global Britain and the international values that this House supports, particularly ahead of the integrated review.”
“To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on the impact of new coronavirus regulations on the ability of terminally ill adults to travel abroad for an assisted death.”
“I am supporting a very tight reform that would allow someone who is terminally ill, within six months of the end of their life, and who has themselves decided that this is the end of life they want, independently certified by two doctors and confirmed as their independent decision by a High Court judge, to end their life, as is their choice.”
“In the light of the radical shift of the views of the medical profession two weeks ago, the recent legislative change in New Zealand this week and groundbreaking progress in southern Ireland, along with the continuing and massive support for law reform from the British public, will the Government, from their position of neutrality, enable all of us to understand three things—first, the extent of suffering that the blanket ban on assisted dying is causing dying people and their families; secondly, the challenges that the current law is creating for healthcare professionals, police officers and other public servants; and thirdly, what the UK can learn from international evidence on the operation of assisted dying laws, and their safeguards, in the United States, Australia and Canada?”
“That will undoubtedly cause many more Britons to suffer as they die, due to a lack of a safeguarded law here in the UK, although I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for clarifying the precise legal circumstances.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, and I thank my right hon. Friend for responding himself. This is an issue of conscience for us as Members of the House. I respect those who take a different view from me, not least because theirs was previously my view. Colleagues may have seen, over the weekend, the news reports about a woman who this week travelled to Switzerland to end her life in order to avoid travel restrictions. As a frontline NHS worker with terminal breast cancer, she did not want to run the risk of dying in great pain and without dignity. The new regulations that have come into force today could deter anyone else from travelling to Switzerland for an assisted death.”
“I greatly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. The measures he has announced are significant and generous, delivered in a manner that is fast becoming this Chancellor’s hallmark. May I thank him for hearing the powerful arguments advanced by the West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, especially in respect of the hospitality industry, and for addressing the serious business jeopardy that did lie between tiers 2 and 3?”