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.”
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“Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) a few moments ago. It makes those two objectives more difficult to achieve, but they are the objectives that I hope the Minister will take away with him, and the whole House will wish him all success in achieving them. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the current situation in Yemen.”
“I will not take up much of the House’s time, Mr Deputy Speaker. This has been a most useful debate. I think that there is agreement across the House on two key things. First, the British Government must do everything they can to ensure that the blockade is lifted, because it is a breach of international humanitarian law. It is a collective punishment beating for the 27 million people who live in Yemen, and it must be lifted. Secondly—and here the British Government have a most important role to play—a political process that is inclusive must get going. Those are the two key messages that I hope the Minister will take back to the Foreign Office today. In different ways, nearly every speaker on both sides of the House drew attention to the fault line in the Government’s current policy, and it was set out with exemplary clarity by the hon.”
“If you grant this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe that the House will see clearly that current policy will result in a huge strategic failure both for Saudi Arabia and, by extension, for the UK. It is important that the voice of this House is heard urgently, along with the Prime Minister’s on her current visit to the Gulf. Above all, it is a moral failure that confronts us. Famine is a phenomenon that we were close to eradicating from the human condition. The last 20 years has seen only two famines throughout the world. When I was responsible in 2011 for co-ordinating the UK’s efforts to address one of those famines, in Somalia, I saw for myself emaciated children and starving mothers. Today in Yemen we are witnessing a totally preventable mass humanitarian catastrophe, the likes of which we have not seen in decades.”
“Fuel for generators, which are essential for hospitals and water-pumping stations, will run out shortly. Yesterday’s announcement by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, while arguably slowing the trajectory, will not in any way curtail this escalating disaster. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said last week that, unless the blockade is lifted, famine throughout Yemen is a very real threat, including on the southern borders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, wilfully impeding humanitarian access may constitute a violation of international humanitarian law. It is increasingly clear that this blockade imposed on Yemen constitutes the collective and illegal punishment of an entire population.”
“I seek leave to propose that the House should debate a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely Britain’s engagement with Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Today we are witnessing an almighty catastrophe of Biblical proportions unfolding in Yemen, in which Britain is dangerously complicit. Britain is respected throughout the world for bringing hope and relief to those caught up in humanitarian misery, but today in Yemen, which I visited earlier this year, we are in danger of earning a reputation for precisely the reverse, for the UK is part of the coalition that is imposing a blockade by land, sea and air on 27 million Yemenis. In recent weeks, fuel prices have risen by up to 160%, and rice and basic foods by nearly 70%.”
“I express my gratitude to the Government for the announcement that resources will be made available for the children’s emergency medicine and paediatric care centre at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Many of us have campaigned for that, and the news is excellent.”
“We very much welcome that support, more of which I think is to be announced later this week. The £200 million that we receive for cleaning up brownfield land is now being spent, thanks to the vigour and effort of Andy Street, our Mayor. He is doing a very good job. I hope the Treasury will consider providing more funding when that £200 million has been used. The importance of spending money on cleaning up brownfield land is immense, because it means that we do not have to build on the green belt. We should only ever do that as a last resort. We in the west midlands are delighted that we are to be part of a national pilot of Housing First, which is a particular priority of our Mayor, Andy Street. The pilot will allow us decisively to address rough sleeping across the west midlands, and we are determined to do so.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), although I fear that my speech will take a slightly different view. I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register. The Chancellor faced a pretty difficult task today—he was said to be between a rock and a hard place—but this is a sensible and pragmatic Budget. I think he will be well content with that analysis. I want to start with the midlands, because I represent part of that area. We are very pleased that we now have the second devolution deal. The support for the automobile industry—for driverless and electric cars—is enormously important. You will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, how much that matters in the west midlands. The midlands is at the centre of this industry. We are leaders in technology, design and production internationally.”
“The scale of that inequality, which is vastly greater than it was, gives capitalism a bad name. At a time when inequality more generally has fallen, with income inequality at its lowest rate for 30 years, this is something that the Government need to address through regulation.”
“The Government are absolutely right to pursue that, because the current monopolistic situation works against the interests of consumers. The right way to deal with it is by regulation rather than by nationalisation, which is entirely unnecessary because of the regulatory regime. Other Members have mentioned the third area in which regulation is required, but I will make the point again. A recent study of the annual reports of FTSE 100 companies shows that average pay for chief executives rose from £5 million a head in 2014 to £5.5 million in 2015. I find it offensive and totally unjustifiable that that is 140 times the average salary of their employees. It is noteworthy that only a quarter of FTSE 100 companies pay the voluntary living wage to their employees.”
“I want to point briefly to three areas in which I think such regulation of capitalism is of the greatest importance. The first, which we have debated in the House, concerns open ownership registers, particularly for the British overseas territories. That was an initiative of the Cameron Government. We in Britain have imposed such transparency on ourselves, and we need to do so for the overseas territories. Many in this House care deeply about the matter, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), and the right hon. Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). It is important that the Treasury recognises that point in the Finance Bill, and I very much hope that it will do so. Energy prices are the second area in which regulation is important.”
“My right hon. Friend makes his point exceedingly eloquently. I want to underline to the House the fact that free enterprise and open markets have been, and continue to be, the greatest engines of social and economic advancement known to man. We need to stand up for those things more than we have done recently, against the opposing views espoused by the shadow Chancellor and, indeed, by large numbers of young people who were not around to learn some of the pretty basic economic truths that many of us learned in the 1970s and ’80s. Having said that, capitalism has always required Governments and regulators to set boundaries to human activity and, inevitably, human greed, and that point chimes in very well with the activist views that our Prime Minister has expressed since she took up the job.”
“In making more of such work, the Government will note that it is very strongly supported by people from across our country who are under 35—a cohort conspicuously absent among Tory voters at the last election. I want to end by saying how pleased I am to see that the Government have given £1.3 million from the LIBOR fines to ZANE—Zimbabwe a National Emergency—a body that does hugely good work for elderly people in Zimbabwe. On behalf of all those involved with ZANE, I express my gratitude to the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for making that very wise decision.”
“My final point on intergenerational fairness is that one of the best investments in future generations is Britain’s contribution to international development. The work Britain is doing, with the commitment made across the House to the 0.7% target, is driving real change in the world—it does a huge amount to help some of the poorest in our world—and contributes directly to making the world a safer and more prosperous place for future generations. It tackles directly the international dangers from climate change, migration, terror, pandemics and protectionism, and the Government should make more of this work. The Government, of which I was proud to be a part some five years ago, have done an immense amount, and such work is very important in addressing intergenerational inequity.”
“We must build in the right places—progress will become ever more bogged down if we start to attack the green belt, and in my view, it is very important that the Government do not do that—but such building should be the top priority. When it comes to intergenerational fairness, which everyone agrees is vital, we must not forget that excessive borrowing makes it worse. In the past six months, Germany had a public spending surplus of £8 billion, but we had a deficit of about £26 billion. This will have to be repaid, and it is a cruel and unfair deception on the next generation if we do not make it clear that if our generation does not repay it, theirs will have to do so. Austerity is not optional. It is not a Tory vice; it is fiscal responsibility, and we have to return to living within our means.”
“It is also absolutely right to be creative in building new communities, but we need far more imagination. I would like the Government to commit to 1 million new housing starts over the next three years, which is slightly further than they have gone today. We need to recognise that building new communities and focusing on infrastructure are absolutely at the top of everyone’s agenda. We should look at garden cities, and many people will be delighted at what the Government have said today. In the midlands, we want the Black Country garden city to be developed; so far, it is an idea without much flesh on the bones, and we need far more flesh to be added to those bones.”
“I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s last point. I will rest on the recently published statistics showing that income inequality is now at a 30-year low in Britain. My final point, which has already been raised today, is about intergenerational fairness. It is of course absolutely right that housing inequality should be right at the top of the list. We want future generations to have the opportunities that our generation had in terms of not only ownership, but part-ownership and rental. The importance of the decisions announced in the Budget is that they will give a real boost to the creative use of space. There is real encouragement for using brownfield land, which I spoke about earlier, and it is quite right to attack the misuse of land banks.”
“Does my right hon. Friend not think that the Opposition have a brass neck to intervene on her in that way? They criticise the Government for not cutting the deficit faster, yet on every single occasion when they have been invited to support the deficit-cutting strategy they have voted against it.”
“Are we not on the brink of witnessing in Yemen a totally preventable, massive humanitarian catastrophe the likes of which we have not seen in decades?”
“My right hon. Friend has been most helpful in coming to the House today. I thank him and the Opposition spokesman for their comments about my old regiment, which will be celebrating and commemorating the events of 100 years ago in Cambrai next weekend. On Yemen, are not three features of our engagement absolutely clear? First, the current policy on Yemen is doomed to strategic failure both for Saudi Arabia and, by extension, for the UK. Secondly, Saudi policy violates international law, as clearly set out in the United Nations Secretary-General’s letter of last Friday. Thirdly, we are dangerously complicit in a policy that is directly promoting a famine and the collective punishment of an entire population.”
“On this Government’s record, let us be clear that they have been taking action and have raised an immense amount of extra tax as a result. However, the time has come—this is my third debate on this issue—to insist on the same levels of openness and transparency for the overseas territories as we have in this country. The territories gain hugely from their relationship with the United Kingdom and, as the Government made clear in 2012, “As a matter of constitutional law the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the Territories.””
“They have not done so in respect of the overseas territories because, obviously, we would rather those havens took action themselves—to be fair, to some extent they have already started to do so. On the actions taken by the Government, David Cameron and George Osborne led the international effort at the G8 to clamp down on such matters, particularly tax avoidance and evasion. The UK introduced publicly accessible registers of people with significant control, abolished bearer or anonymous shares and, importantly, introduced unexplained wealth orders. The anti-bribery law, work on which first started under John Major in Paris in 1995, was finally introduced in this country by David Cameron in 2011, after 13 years of Labour government.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) on securing this debate. She brings great expertise and authority on these matters, not least from her time on the Public Accounts Committee. The most important point for the House to focus on this afternoon is that this is absolutely not a party political issue. Although the right hon. Lady raised some criticisms of this Government, she also raised criticisms of the Government of which she was a member. In my judgment, the only plausible criticism that can be made of the current Government is that they need to speed up some of the initiatives they have already implemented.”
“The second argument—in a way, this is the one we have to address head-on—is that the territories’ private registers are already available to lawmakers and regulators, such as HMRC. The territories proudly say that they will turn round inquiries from HMRC within a matter of hours, which is good, but it completely misses the point, as the recent release of information shows. Registers must be open to the media, to journalists, to non-governmental organisations and to those who can join up the dots. The regulatory authorities, with the best will in the world, are not in that business. Narrow questions, drawn from regulatory authorities, simply do not begin to suffice.”
“I am coming on to precisely that point. Like many Members, I have been visited by senior Ministers of almost all the overseas territories, and the position of the territories is best summed up by the prayer of St Augustine: “Oh Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.” The territories put two specific arguments. I call the first the Dutch Antilles argument, which is that if the territories have open registers, the hot money will head off to the Dutch Antilles. There is momentum around the world, thanks to David Cameron and George Osborne, to attack such ills and unfairnesses. Havens that embrace an open register will get an advantage from being at the front of opening up to billions of pounds of legitimate business.”
“That is at the heart of what we are talking about today.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. I specifically exclude Gibraltar from what I am saying because it is not an example of what we are talking about. Time is short. My final point is that the United Kingdom led on the 0.7% target. Around the world, the United Kingdom is looked to for leadership on international development. International development is part of this Parliament’s identity, it is who we are and it is part of global Britain. We have an obligation, not least to our own taxpayers, to champion transparency and openness and to have zero tolerance towards corruption. When we first came into government in 2010, the Department for International Development led the way with its transparency guarantee. We openly published all expenditure above £500 on the internet. It may be a cliché, but sunlight really is the best disinfectant.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The first of my two points was about trying to tackle head-on the counter-arguments that are sometimes made by some territories. On tackling and having zero tolerance towards corruption, in 2010, when I had responsibility for international development, we targeted funding specifically at the City of London police, which has expertise on pursuing and recovering stolen funds. We should do as much of that as possible.”
“My hon. Friend makes a fair point in view of the humanitarian crisis that is afflicting the BVI, which are of course one of the most transparent of these havens. What I hope will be a temporary crisis in the BVI following the hurricane damage should not in any way detract from my argument that, in a defined, perhaps short, period of time, these open registers are essential.”
“The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with such a narrow, partisan comment. Britain was the first G8 country to stand by its commitment to the poorest people in the world, and we are very proud that it was this Government who did it. The highly respected Africa Progress Panel, in a recent study on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, made it clear that stolen funds and stolen taxes cost that country £1.5 billion, which is more than it spends on health and education. It is a deep irony that some of the world’s poorest people live on top of some of the richest real estate, as is clear in the DRC. Credible World Bank studies make it clear that the money stolen from the people of Africa through unpaid taxes or concealment dwarfs all the foreign direct investment and international development money that flows into Africa each year.”
“My right hon. Friend makes a good point; the key point on all of this is transparency and openness. Let all these matters be published in the way they are published through the open register in Britain. That is the way in which we make progress. We look to the Government to advance this agenda, probably in the Finance Bill. We hope that those on the Treasury Bench will hear clearly the will of the House on this matter today and that progress will indeed now be made.”
“May I offer my hon. Friend very warm congratulations on his promotion to Minister for the armed forces? As a distinguished and senior officer in the reserve, is he not perfectly placed to make decisions on reserve centre closures?”
“May I very strongly endorse what the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said? The Minister, who has great experience of these issues, is here from the Foreign Office. If Britain is able to take action at the United Nations, not only will that hopefully avert the catastrophe of a famine in this day and age, but it will get the Saudi Arabian kingdom off a terrible hook. It is not going to win this war; it will be humiliated in the longer term. For a cessation of violence, led by the British at the United Nations, to take place now would be advantageous on many different levels.”
“The hon. Lady is right to zero in on the humanitarian situation and to pay tribute to those that are on the ground, such as Oxfam. I had the pleasure and privilege to see it doing quite remarkable work earlier this year. Does she share my concern about the situation we have with the port at Hodeidah where the cranes have been disabled? The Americans have supplied new cranes, but they cannot be erected. One part of the coalition we support is destroying the cranes and stopping access to this vital port at Hodeidah, while another part of the British Government is trying to get food, medicines and urgent supplies into that very port. Does she not think that is one of the key issues that needs to be resolved? I hope the Minister will have some suggestions on how progress could be made.”
“I sometimes think that, when it comes to Europe, my party is the victim of a biblical curse. I hear the arguments eloquently put, by friends and colleagues I greatly respect, in favour of both a soft and a hard Brexit, but what virtually all my constituents want is the best possible deal. They care deeply not only about their living standards and quality of life but about those of their children and grandchildren. They want the best possible deal for Britain.”
“The whole House will also condemn the dreadful anti-Muslim hate crime that surged after the appalling atrocities in Manchester and London. Getting the balance right between collective security and individual liberty will not be easy, but many of us in the House are wary of tampering with ancient liberties and of giving additional power to the state unless it is absolutely necessary. If the terrorists alter our way of life, they win. I am glad that the ill-advised idea of leaving the ECHR has been dropped. It would never have got through the House anyway. It might be possible to improve the Human Rights Act 1998, but we should not seek to repeal it just because it was drafted by Tony Blair. That brings me to the central issue in British politics today: our departure from the EU.”
“There is some concern in the development community about the apparent double-hatting of Foreign Office Ministers to cover the Department for International Development. If I may use a swashbuckling analogy that might appeal to the Foreign Secretary, there is some fear that his eye has alighted on a plump galleon loaded with bullion and that he wishes to board that galleon and plunder her cargo. The rules governing the spending of British aid are clearly laid down by the OECD development assistance committee. I think that those rules can be improved, but I do not believe that this House would agree to their being unilaterally abandoned by the United Kingdom. Similarly, the Government have a duty to address the terrorist acts that horrified us all during the election.”
“We are the fourth largest military power, and one of the very few countries that can undertake expeditionary military activity. We have one of only three diplomatic services that span the world, and it is deeply respected, not least at the United Nations. Our international development work is saving millions of lives and transforms the way in which millions of the world’s poorest live. This British leadership is respected throughout the world, if not in certain quarters of the British press. I urge Ministers to stand up for the brilliant work being done by Britain, and not to cower under the table in the face of the onslaught of the Daily Mail . Of course Britain does not give bilateral money to North Korea, but as part of the United Nations we do try to stop North Korean children starving to death.”
“We were co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on Syria. Syria remains the defining catastrophe of our age, with 11 million Syrians—half the population—displaced from their homes. I am glad that the Gracious Speech supports an intensification of Britain’s efforts in the middle east. There is international consensus on the need to defeat and destroy ISIL, and this should be prosecuted with much greater vigour. However, defeating ISIL militarily is just a small part of our task. The much greater part is to defeat a nihilist death cult that has attracted young people to its cause. We need to address Britain’s role in the world after Brexit. Britain stands for certain values—not so much British values as international values.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who always speaks a good deal of sense on these occasions. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I should like to thank my constituents for so generously returning me to represent them in this place for a fifth time. This is clearly going to be an unusual Parliament, as the Gracious Speech demonstrates. In a hung Parliament, political power tends to pass from the Cabinet Room to the Floor of this House, and I hope that there are issues on which we can work together across the House. I hope that we can lift our eyes from the obvious party political domestic preoccupations. We did so over Syria in the last Parliament, when I had the great good fortune to work closely with Jo Cox.”
“This nettle must be grasped, and if the concept had not been so discredited by the television programme “Yes, Minister”, I would have thought that some sort of royal commission structure would be appropriate. Some mechanism for inclusive national debate about the way forward must be found. We cannot continue to coax a quart out of a pint pot. Staff morale has been stretched to its limits. We all know that that is true and we must therefore do something about it. I am particularly pleased to see the announcement of a consultation on mental health services in the Gracious Speech.”
“We need to explain once again how sky-high tax levels bring in less revenue and how raising corporation tax costs jobs, deters business and drives investment away. We heard precious little about the economy during the election, yet unemployment in Britain is lower today than at any time since I was at school. We need to engage with and revisit these vital arguments. There are other issues on which we can work together across the parties. The issue of how we fund and organise the NHS and social care is urgently in need of a full-scale review. My personal view is that the extent of the problems in the NHS has been marked by the extremely skilful handling of this matter by the Health Secretary. However, we simply cannot go on with this sticking plaster approach.”
“In Britain today, we have a serious intergenerational problem. Far from helping young people, failure to address the deficit would be a betrayal of the young because they will have to pay in due course for the overspending of their parents’ generation. As it happens, I do not think I know any young people who voted Conservative at this election, although my own two daughters assured me that they would have done so, had they voted in Sutton Coldfield. This message of fiscal discipline—fiscal reality, as it seems to me—needs to be explained and amplified once again. Our generation cannot go on spending money we do not have and have not earned. We can resile from hard spending decisions but it is our children and grandchildren who will pay.”
“If it goes wrong and is seen to be an economic cost to Britain, the eyes of the electorate will narrow, regardless of how our constituents voted in the referendum, and the revenge that will be wrought on our party at the subsequent polls will be hideous to behold. Finally, I want to make a party political point. I suspect that I was not alone in being deeply dismayed, during the election campaign, by the almost total failure to contest Labour’s assertion that austerity was somehow a voluntary measure and the infliction by the Conservative Government of some sort of Tory vice. It is a myth that we can abandon austerity and indefinitely run a significant annual deficit and ballooning debt. We have been able to maintain the deficit only because the markets have trusted Conservative Ministers to deliver fiscal discipline.”
“My hon. Friend has got that absolutely right. Indeed, that is very much the point I am trying to make. My suggestion to my right hon. and hon. Friends is that we let our negotiator get on with this task without undue noises off. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union clearly has the skills and experience to deliver the best deal. I am sure that we should try to work across the political parties on this and perhaps also widen the scope for business to contribute its expertise more broadly as part of the negotiations, but let us let my right hon. Friend get on with it. I want to warn my right hon. Friends that we as a party own this process.”
“This is a good Queen’s Speech and I look forward to supporting it in the Lobby.”
“My hon. Friend is making, with great eloquence, the point I am trying to make: we need to have a national debate. We cannot continue with this sticking plaster approach on all these matters. Let me conclude my remarks, so that others can get in, by ending on a consensual note. It would be churlish of this House not to recognise the effective election campaign waged by the Leader of the Opposition, with whom I have had many dealings during our long period together in this House. The whole House will want to pay a special tribute to him in this respect: we salute his extraordinary qualities of mercy and forgiveness as those in his party who have bad-mouthed him in public and in private over the two years since he became leader now flock back to his standard and slink back into his shadow Administration.”
“The coalition has put the cranes out of action when they are vital for unloading the ships that one part of the British Government is trying to get into the port. Britain is seeking to help to de-mine ordnance—the British de-mining group up in Sa’dah, which has been heavily bombed, is led by a former British Army officer. We can see the inconsistencies in our position. Britain is supporting a malnutrition ward in a major hospital, from which Médecins sans Frontières has withdrawn, in Sa’dah, yet it is seen as part of the coalition that is causing the problems.”
“We need to move towards neutrality, we need to try to engineer a ceasefire and we need to update UN resolution 2216. Because of the deep respect with which Britain is held in that part of the world, and particularly in Yemen, the adversaries, and particularly the Houthis, would be willing to accept British mediation. In my view, it is essential that we engage with all parties inside the structure of the United Nations to secure the ceasefire and Yemeni-Saudi Arabian talks. The British Government’s policy needs tweaking because it is internally inconsistent. One part of the British Government is seeking to get development aid and vital supplies in through the port of Hudaydah, while another part is supporting the coalition that has been bombing the port.”
“The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), with his customary eloquence, has put the case extremely well. The last time the House debated Yemen, I was in Yemen, visiting Sana’a and Sa’dah, so I have an opportunity to update the House on what is happening there. I pay tribute to the extraordinary work that the United Nations and its leader there, Jamie McGoldrick, are doing in Yemen, and to Oxfam, which, in the highest traditions of British international non-governmental organisations, is performing extraordinarily well and doing magnificent work. It is good to see the Minister in his place. My submission to him is that the Government’s policy needs tweaking. We are supporting a coalition that is not going to succeed.”