Ed Davey
MP for Kingston and Surbiton · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s opening remarks, not least about the 25th anniversary of the horrific terror attacks of 9/11. I welcome the Government finally banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements, something Keir Starmer should have done a long time ago.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. Britain should be the safest country in the world to have a baby. We will keep raising this issue until it is the safest.”
“No mother should have to give birth in such circumstances. Does the Prime Minister agree that Musgrove Park cannot wait until 2033 for work to start on a new maternity unit? Will he offer a meeting to local MPs, so we can move it forward? And will he make fixing the maternity scandal across our country a top priority of his Government?”
“I hope at that summit the Prime Minister will negotiate a good deal for our country, our economy and our defence, and that means rejoining the single market. North Devon’s maternity unit has been closed for three weeks due to staff shortages, so women now have to travel for up to two hours to give birth.”
“The Prime Minister said yesterday that Brexit ushered in “a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration.” —[ Official Report , 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 27.] He is right. Our economy is stuck in this mess thanks to the Conservatives—and the leader of Reform UK—and their terrible Brexit deal.”
“There are so many more problems in our political system: too much power in the hands of social media barons who interfere in our politics and crypto billionaires who use donations to buy influence; and too little power in the hands of our people.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,005 lines we hold for Ed Davey, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 17 of 121.
“There was one major omission from the Prime Minister’s statement: an apology. Will he now apologise for his Government’s gross incompetence over testing, tracing and clear communications, which has led to these latest restrictions on people’s daily lives? As families and businesses look forward, especially to Christmas, how will the Government support the millions of people who are on the brink of losing their jobs, losing their businesses and losing their livelihoods? What is the new plan for them?”
“Research by the Disabled Children’s Partnership shows that three quarters of families with disabled children had their care support stopped during lockdown. The Coronavirus Act 2020 is partly to blame, as it relaxed the duties to assess and meet the needs of disabled people. As the father of a disabled child and a patron of the Disability Law Service, I have seen legal advice that suggests that the Prime Minister’s Government broke international law when the Coronavirus Act reduced the rights of disabled people. So before the House is asked to renew the Coronavirus Act, will he meet me to discuss how we can protect the right to care of disabled people and act lawfully?”
“Churchill will turn in his grave if this Bill passes tonight. Let us remember what we teach our children in every school across this country. We teach them about British values of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. This Bill is against the very values that we teach our children about the importance of obeying the law. For a Government to send this law-breaking signal would be appalling at any time, but we are in the middle of a pandemic, and if we are to beat this dreadful virus, people need to obey the law, even when the emergency covid laws are among the most draconian that the British people have faced for centuries. The rule of law has never been more precious to the health of our nation, and yet the Prime Minister has chosen this moment to trash the rule of law. This House must stop him tonight.”
“If the Government deliberately and intentionally break international law, global Britain’s ability to exercise influence in the world will be weaker than at any time since the first half of the 18th century. As the arch Brexiteer and former Conservative party leader Michael Howard said, what message does this send to China, Russia and Iran? What credibility will Britain have in urging other countries to uphold international law if our great Parliament votes for this Bill? What about the future trade deals that Britain so desperately needs as we leave the world’s largest single market while trying to recover from covid and this deep recession? Our Prime Minister likes to portray himself as a modern-day Churchill, but Churchill said that the rule of law is part of the “title deeds of freedom”.”
“I agree with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell): this Bill breaks the rule of law. It is against the national interests, and my party will oppose it. That might not surprise people. We have argued for Britain to work with our European partners at the heart of Europe, but in our opposition to the Bill, I am determined that we represent the views of leave voters as well as remain voters. From the Prime Minister’s promise that he had an oven-ready deal to his promise that he wanted a global Britain, this Bill breaks promises made to leave voters. If the Government were to carry out their threat and breach the international treaty that the Prime Minister himself signed, it is clear that there would be no deal. The oven would not even be opened.”
“Under this Prime Minister, we have suffered one of the worst death rates in the world and Europe’s worst death rate for health and care workers. Previously, he has refused my demand for an immediate independent inquiry, saying that it is too soon, even though, back in 2003, he voted for an independent inquiry into the Iraq war just months after that conflict had started. If he still rejects an immediate inquiry, will he instead commit himself in principle to a future public inquiry: yes or no?”
“I am grateful for the way that the Minister has produced her statement today. Will she ensure that her Department, the Department for Work and Pensions and the rest of Government know that we will not stop campaigning until full justice is given to these women and their adult children?”
“I thank Baroness Cumberlege profusely for her review’s welcome conclusions on Primodos, and I praise the Sky journalists who have worked on this, and Marie Lyon and all the other campaigners. However, can I tell the Minister that I see this just as the beginning of the end, because we have not yet got justice for the women involved or their adult children? We want to see the conclusions implemented as soon as possible, and we want to see compensation for the women and their adult children. But I also want to see criminal charges brought against the real perpetrators of this scandal for the cover-up, the suppression of the evidence of harm, and the marketing and sale of a drug that Schering and Bayer knew was dangerous and would result in miscarriages and birth defects.”
“I thank the Chancellor for the positive measures that he has announced, but why was there absolutely nothing serious for the self-employed? With unemployment rocketing—perhaps up to 3 million—and the climate emergency already hitting us, why is the Chancellor’s ambition for a green recovery so small? Surely we need far more green jobs, now and in future. Why is he not being as radical as European countries such as Germany and France, with a massive green fiscal stimulus for the technologies and industries of the future? Surely even his own home insulation plan should be three times as big and last five years to get real investment in our homes, to decarbonise, and to get the green jobs for our young people and for every community throughout our country.”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that while it is right that the Bank of England is doing quantitative easing, how the money is spent ought to have more democratic input? That money could be used for the sorts of investment we need now for jobs and tackling climate change.”
“I say to the Ministers on the Treasury Bench that what we wanted above all, for short-term jobs and long-term benefits for the climate and the economy, was a home insulation package that was much bolder. There is a former Prime Minister who used to say, “Education, education, education,” and I say, “Insulation, insulation, insulation.” I want jobs in every village, town and city across our country. That will be the way to really make sure we do not have a blight on our economy and a blight on young people, and really get a grip.”
“I was very proud when I was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change that we really boosted renewables. We nearly quadrupled renewable power. We became the world leader in offshore wind. We saw jobs created in declining economies such as those in Hull, Grimsby and Lowestoft, thanks to the policies we put in place on the basis of green jobs. Where is that ambition here? I do not see it. There is nothing on hydrogen, as has been said, and no real push for renewables, no real push to make sure that we bring in investment in nature and environmental improvements as part of the climate change challenge, and very little more on green transport.”
“We also have the climate change challenge and the global issues caused by the tensions in trade between China and the US. All these things will dampen the global economy and our economy, and I just do not think that the package we have heard about today really amounts to anywhere near enough if we are serious about protecting jobs and getting that green transition. It is difficult to look at the figures and do a proper analysis, given that there is so little data in this plan for jobs, but it looks as though this may be the smallest fiscal stimulus in the whole of the G7. So to put this into context, this is not the massive boost that people are saying it is. If we really want a fiscal stimulus, we should be talking about the longer term and about the new industries.”
“And I do not think that the stamp duty measure is going to be a huge boost to people. For a start, the housing market is already picking up now that people are able to buy again, as demand was already there. Secondly, this tax cut will get capitalised in the price; house prices will just go up, not serving anyone, and that will mainly go to the better off. I would rather have seen help for renters, help for homeless people, and the building of homes—that is the way to tackle the housing problem in our country. When it comes to the medium term, this package is just not up to the moment. We have a serious economic crisis, the like of which we have never seen, and it comes on the back of the threats that will be posed to parts of our economy from Brexit.”
“I give almost two cheers for the short-term measures announced today, but less than one for the medium and long-term measures. The Chancellor will have to produce a much more coherent economic strategy if we are to deal with unemployment in the medium term and with inequality and climate change, which are still massive challenges for our country. In the short term, the job retention bonus looks good, particularly on the back of the furlough scheme. The VAT cut for the hospitality and leisure sector is also good, but there was nothing for the self-employed; they have been left behind—they have been excluded—and that is just not good enough. The kick-start programme for young people looks good, but why only six months of training? If we are really going to help young people come back and retrain, we have to give them far more than that.”
“I saw them trying to undo all the great things—not just zero-carbon homes; they cancelled the carbon capture and storage plans, which they are now trying to put back with the timidity of a mouse. They do not understand how big the challenge is. This is an historic challenge: we have to move our economy from a fossil-fuel based economy to a net zero carbon economy, and we cannot wait for 2050. We now have an opportunity to retrain our young people, and our whole workforce, so that we can deliver this, creating a green industrial base and a regional strategy that brings everybody up. However, I fear that this Prime Minister, this Chancellor and this Government are just not up to the job.”
“The hon. Lady, whom I call my hon. Friend, is absolutely right. I was part of the team that brought in the zero-carbon homes regulation, and two months after we left office the Conservative party got rid of it. It was an outrageous act of climate change vandalism, and nothing has happened on that, so the hon. Lady is absolutely right. The idea that the Conservatives have a good record on climate change is for the birds. All the advantages actually came from things that the Labour Government did before 2010 and things that the Liberal Democrats did when we were in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and they tried to undo almost everything when they had the chance.”
“Can I say how much I support the argument the hon. Lady is making? Does she agree with me that the Government’s digital services tax measure is actually a mouse of a measure compared with the huge profits made by American big tech? Does she also agree with me that the Government need to co-operate very closely with the European Union, which is devising an international tax with much greater teeth, so that these big tech companies do pay their fair share of tax?”
“The right hon. Gentleman may remember that during the coalition Government, we put measures through, agreed at European level, for a directive on transparency on payments made by the extractive industries across the developing world because of concerns about corruption with respect to mining in particular. That created greater transparency. The same approach could be taken on the tax issues that he is raising.”
“Does the hon. Lady not think it would be right for the Minister to say from the Dispatch Box that the UK Government will work closely with the European Union as it develops its digital services tax, and should not the Opposition parties be calling on the Government to make it very clear that European co-operation on this issue is vital?”
“I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has been saying. Would he support the option of the House having a vote tonight on new clause 31, which relates to the loan charge? There are many people watching our deliberations who hope that this House will express a view on the loan charge, and I am told that at the moment that is not likely to happen. Will he confirm from the Front Bench that the Labour party would like a Division on new clause 31?”
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am the second name on new clause 31, and he will note from the amendment paper that 54 hon. and right hon. Members have signed it. That is more than any other amendment before the House today, and the only one that comes close to it is another amendment on the loan charge. Does he not think that that is a signal that the House wants to divide on new clause 31, and that whatever the Front Benchers think, the Back Benchers who have signed new clause 31 want a vote?”
“The hon. Gentleman has heard from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that the way that new clause 31 has been designed has used words already on the statute book, so he cannot make that argument. Moreover, the real precedent that he ought to be worrying about is the loan charge itself and its retrospective nature. I know he is concerned about that, so should he not therefore be voting for new clause 31, which is based on existing tax vocabulary, and opposing the real precedent, which is the appalling way that taxpayers have been treated?”
“I join the Prime Minister in sending our condolences to the family and friends of the victims of the appalling attacks in Reading. The Prime Minister wants to reassure us that lockdown can be safely eased, while rightly warning that there is a danger of a second wave of coronavirus later this year. If he is right and there is breathing space now, surely it is urgent that we learn the lessons. So I ask him this again: will he urgently set up an independent inquiry into the Government’s handling of this pandemic?”
“Due to the covid crisis, tens of thousands of British businesses face bankruptcy and millions of British people face redundancy. In Britain’s hour of need, will the Prime Minister put the practical imperative of saving jobs before his Brexit ideology, rather than risk a bad deal or a no deal due to the deadline set before coronavirus? Why does the Prime Minister not show some good old-fashioned British common sense, give our economy the chance to breathe, and accept the EU’s offer of a delay?”
“May I, like others, pay tribute to and remember our much-missed colleague Jo Cox? Ministers hint that their recovery plan will at last see real climate action. Liberal Democrats advocate a massive green economic recovery plan and I hope the Government will match it. Will the Treasury Minister confirm that the Government are considering reversing their previous opposition to onshore wind farms in England and Wales, tidal power investment, zero-carbon homes regulation and the many other green economic policies advocated by my party and opposed, abolished and voted against by this Prime Minister and the Conservative party?”
“I associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister on the late Jo Cox and the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan). Britain’s international aid should have one overriding purpose—to help the world’s poorest. Confusing that objective for Britain’s aid budget with other foreign and security policy objectives is a massive step backwards. When the world’s poorest are exposed to the worst pandemic for a century, why has the Prime Minister chosen this moment to step back from Britain’s leadership in the fight against global poverty? Is not the Leader of the Opposition right—this is an appalling version of distraction politics?”
“Under suspicionless stop-and-search powers, which this Government are expanding, a black person is 47 times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person—47 times. On too many occasions, stop-and-search seems to mean that being black is enough to be suspected of being a criminal. So will the Prime Minister abolish suspicionless stop-and-search powers and end the pain and injustice they wreak on so many people in Britain’s black and minority communities?”
“If she will hold discussions with the Prime Minister on the suspension of the “no recourse to public funds” condition during the covid-19 outbreak.”
“The Home Secretary does not get it. People who have worked here and paid taxes here for years are being denied support and falling into destitution. People who have lost their jobs or seen their income slashed can be excluded from the very protections that the Home Secretary cites. Given that the rule disproportionately impacts people in our black and minority ethnic communities the hardest, will the Home Secretary suspend the “no recourse to public funds” rule for the duration of the pandemic?”
“The Government should withdraw it, review and proceed in a wholesale—not this piecemeal—way.”
“Therefore, I do not think we can draw the conclusions that he is trying to draw. I am afraid that the evidence, even ahead of this legislation as people were preparing it, expecting it to come in this April, shows that the private sector takes a very different approach. That is why lots of people have ended up going abroad and why the Treasury will lose money as a result of this proposal. That is my final point. The Treasury Minister trots out the idea that there is a lot of tax avoidance and that this measure closes those loopholes. He should think again, because there are benefits that people are forgoing. I think that this will end up costing the taxpayer and the country, and it will mean that there is less money for our public services if the measure goes through. It is the wrong measure at the wrong time.”
“Any review must take place ahead of any legislation, if it is to be done in good faith. I am afraid that the way that the Government are treating the self-employed, breaking their promise at the election and now proposing to have a review after the legislation is in place is a breach of good faith to the 5 million self-employed people in our country. That is just not acceptable. On the details of IR35 in front of us, the Treasury Minister talked about the fact that the measures were trialled in the public sector before the private sector. He seems to think that this can therefore be taken straight across, but that is not real life. The public sector, its HR and payroll look at risks such as tax liabilities in a very different way from the private sector, and I would have thought that he would know that.”
“Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said, creating zero-rights employment —employees without employment rights. That is not acceptable and it is why there needs to be a review before this goes any further. I had expected a review because the former Chancellor of the Exchequer said so during the last general election campaign. On Paul Lewis’s “Money Box” programme on BBC Radio 4, he made it clear, and he tweeted afterwards that there would be a review of IR35, but there has not been a review. The Liberal Democrats argued for one in the election, as did others, but there has been no such review. That is a breach of a promise to people, which has made them very angry. The Minister today is promising a review once the legislation is on the statute book. That is not a review—that is trying to make good once the stable door has closed.”
“I am beginning to fear that this Government do not understand the self-employed. I fear that, yes, because of the IR35 proposals in front of us, but also because of the loan charge and the way that a large group of the self-employed have been kept out of the support programmes during the coronavirus crisis—I am talking about the people who are newly self-employed and the people whose self-employment operates through a limited company, all of whom have had no help. I am afraid that the evidence is mounting up. That is why there should be a review, not just of IR35, but of how self-employment is viewed—the way we tax it and the benefits that people get—so that we can get a proper balance, rather than the piecemeal approach that we have. I am really struck by the Government’s approach, which is, as the right hon.”
“I thank the Government for listening to representations from the Liberal Democrats and others on protecting jobs by extending the scheme yesterday. Will the Government now do the same for the self-employed? People such as cleaners, childminders, taxi drivers and hairdressers have all seen their incomes devastated and are only now able to apply for help for the past three months, but millions of these families now have no help in the future. Surely self-employed people must have their support extended, too.”
“May I give the Chancellor a small birthday present by welcoming the extension of the furlough scheme and the greater flexibility for employees coming off furlough—not least because the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for an almost identical package? But may I urge him yet again to look at those employees and self-employed who have not been helped at all and are in dire straits—people who have moved jobs, and who were not on their employer’s payroll by mid-March? Will he consider the new starter scheme that I proposed in early April? Will he please review his refusal to properly help those self-employed people who operate from limited companies and who have just been cut adrift?”
“Throughout this crisis, many of us have put party politics aside to support the national effort to defeat coronavirus and we want to keep doing that, not least because the British people have sacrificed so much already, but in return, the Government must be clear with the British people and reassure us that Ministers are following the science and the advice of independent experts. So will the Prime Minister confirm new reports that neither the chief medical officer nor the chief scientific adviser signed off yesterday’s shift in the public health message from “Stay at home” to “Stay alert”?”
“I thank the Minister for that answer, but given how care homes have become a tragic focus in this pandemic, with so many staff and residents losing their lives, when will she be able to guarantee that every care home will have all the PPE they need? And why is the Clipper system, which is meant to supply PPE to the care sector, now one month late?”
“I welcome the micro-loans scheme, but may I press the Chancellor to do more for the self-employed—in particular the self-employed who are not in his scheme, many of whom have only modest incomes, such as cleaners, builders, taxi drivers and musicians? Such self-employed people often work through limited companies, relying on dividends for income, and are getting little or no help, with devastating consequences. I know that the Treasury is worried about fraud, but I wrote to the Chancellor on 8 April with a Liberal Democrat proposal to help those self-employed people and protect the taxpayer. Will he please now help self-employed people who are dependent on dividends, before it is too late?”
“This Finance Bill will pass its Second Reading, but the Chancellor must do far more to ensure that Britain’s economy after this crisis is fairer, greener and more outward-looking to the world.”
“We must prevent staff who are furloughed today from becoming staff who are laid off tomorrow. The second is that in the recovery we must achieve a historic and dramatic rise in both private and public investment in green technology and climate-friendly infrastructure. After solving the current international crisis, let us solve the next global crisis—the climate crisis—that we all know is facing us. Finally, over the thorny issue of Brexit and the transition period, I once again urge the Minister to recognise that this crisis and its immediate aftermath is exactly the wrong time to add to the uncertainty, the cost and the loss of markets that businesses are already facing. Surely suspending the Brexit talks and seeking an extension to the transition period is just economic common sense.”
“May I ask the Treasury today to commit to the principle that for councils across the country it will not just fund extra crisis-related spending in full but provide grant funding to cover these dramatic losses in revenue? Just as the Chancellor wrote off the debts of NHS trusts as part of his emergency assistance, will he now look at reducing or writing off councils’ debts? Writing off housing debts could help stimulate a council house building boom in the recovery. Writing off debts linked to spending on special educational needs and disabilities would help our schools recover, too. When it comes to planning the recovery, may I ask Treasury Ministers to consider three key issues? The first is how the furlough scheme is wound down to make sure that we protect jobs.”
“If we do not see businesses getting the cash quickly, we will see more businesses fail. The element of the Government’s emergency package that I would most like to talk about today is the challenge facing local authorities. The Government’s help so far just is not sufficient to help councils on the frontline of this crisis, which are so crucial to helping vulnerable people and businesses. Councils are having to increase spending dramatically just at the time when their income is also being slashed—from a huge loss in income from parking and services such as leisure centres, to real concerns that council tax income will fall significantly too.”
“We must remember how the recovery from the second world war was driven so much by agreements such as Bretton Woods and by growth in international trade. I have already commented widely elsewhere on the Chancellor’s emergency packages. The business loan scheme has just been too slow and although today’s micro-business loan scheme is welcome, it is very late. I urge the Chancellor to go further and look at the Liberal Democrat plan for new online marketplaces for these Government-backed business loans. Using existing platforms such as Funding Xchange, Funding Options and Alternative Business Funding, businesses could fill in just one form and those applications would be sent immediately to lenders whose lending policies show that they are much more likely to say yes, so the businesses could get the cash more quickly.”
“Alongside greater fairness, we must move our economy much faster towards net zero so that we address the climate emergency in the recovery. I am pleased that the Government are talking about this, but we need urgently to debate specific policy proposals to make sure that the new economy that we must build is genuinely low carbon. We are seeing how fast the Government can move in a crisis; well, there is a climate crisis and we need to move just as fast to tackle that, too. We must also work with other countries to ensure that the recovery is as strong as possible, and deepen international co-operation, especially with our closest allies. We cannot allow this crisis to move us back from support for free and fair trade, even where we adapt trade to secure an improvement in our biosecurity.”
“Indeed, whether it is in the immediate solutions, the emergency packages or the preparations for that recovery, Liberal Democrats believe that economic policy must be guided by three key objectives: producing a fairer society; building a more sustainable economy; and restoring our reputation as a country that is outward-looking and internationalist. Economic policy must tackle Britain’s unequal society, so exposed in this crisis, including the poor pay of people in the care sector, the problems with the universal credit system and the low levels of statutory sick pay. All these problems show that we must do far more to increase social justice in our country, and I believe that they show that we should look more seriously at proposals for a universal basic income.”
“Today’s economic crisis is the worst and most alarming of our lifetimes. Never since the second world war has Britain’s economy faced such damage and uncertainty. I recognise just how difficult it is for Treasury Ministers, the Bank of England and other policy makers trying to tackle this crisis, but the Liberal Democrats agree with the Leader of the Opposition that we need a public debate about how the lockdown can be phased out in due course. I would add to that that we need a really mature debate about how economic policy will help in the economic recovery.”
“In an answer to the Leader of the Opposition, the Foreign Secretary mentioned a consultant who died at Kingston Hospital, my local hospital. That consultant’s name was Anton Sebastianpillai. Anton came to the UK after qualifying as a doctor in Sri Lanka in 1967. Anton worked in our NHS for decades, and he was treating coronavirus patients when he caught the disease and, sadly, died. He was the best of us. On behalf of Anton and the other brave NHS and careworkers who made the ultimate sacrifice for others, and so that we learn the lessons urgently ahead of a future pandemic, will the Government commit now to a future independent, judge-led inquiry into how this crisis has been handled?”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor to make a statement on financial support for the self-employed in the light of the covid-19 pandemic.”