Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,444 lines we hold for Sir Christopher Chope, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 19 of 109.
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you please clarify this position for me? As I understand it, our right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) is likely to take the Chair during proceedings later today. Can you confirm that he will not be able to take the Chair until we have disposed of the first Bill on the Order Paper, because he spoke in quite vehement terms in that Bill’s Second Reading debate?”
“Can my hon. Friend confirm that Vernon Booth, a conservationist and wildlife consultant in Zimbabwe, writes in today’s Daily Mail that “Revenue from trophy hunting contributes 25 per cent of the income of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority”?”
“This compromise has great potential to improve relations between our country and those countries in southern Africa, based on a better understanding of the need to protect wildlife in a sustainable way that fits in with local economies. This is an historic day for me, because it looks like the Government will accept one of my amendments. I will not say anything else in case they change their mind.”
“In my view, we need to work much more closely and positively with the Governments of those countries, instead of letting them think that they are alienated or that we view them as subject to colonial control, which is the essence of the complaint that has been made to the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), and the Foreign Secretary. Let us see whether we can work with those countries, listen to them and try to understand them. We might then find it easier to prevent them from falling into the hands of Chinese and Soviet influence, which they seem to be tempted by at the moment because they are being neglected.”
“I will not go into all my other amendments, but I do think that the compromise that is now emerging should be of some help to our friends in the six African countries that have expressed outrage in their letter to the Government about the implications of the Bill for those countries. In this House we make much of the importance of soft power. I think we need to start thinking more about what we can do to engage positively with the countries in Africa that abstained in the recent United Nations General Assembly vote calling for Russia’s immediate withdrawal from Ukraine: Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Uganda.”
“My new clause 3 would therefore require the Government to report on the implications for Northern Ireland of what is happening, so that in due course Parliament will be properly informed as to whether legislative action is needed to address any loopholes or avoidance. I am disappointed that the Government are not prepared to accept the new clause. I put a challenge to the Government. What solution does the Minister have to the Daily Telegraph headline “Brexit loophole allows import of hippo heads and stuffed tigers”? Quite a lot of people will want a clear answer to that question, but I do not think it is forthcoming in the Bill, which applies only to Great Britain and not to Northern Ireland.”
“I ask the Minister to comment specifically on the assertion that France and the Netherlands have used ministerial decrees to ban trophies because single market rules prevented them from legislating. Is that correct? Is it also correct that Belgium and Finland are considering doing the same? Would it be possible for the United Kingdom to do likewise? We try not normally to legislate by decree, although I notice that the President of France is trying to do just that in his own country at the moment. I am a bit sceptical about what can be done to deal with the problem that the legislation does not apply to the whole United Kingdom.”
“He is, however, correct to highlight that under the Northern Ireland protocol and the proposed Windsor framework, the European Union’s single market rules will still apply in Northern Ireland, raising fears that Northern Ireland could become a back door to get the trophies to rich clients in Britain and dodge the ban. He says: “Hunting trophies could be stopped from entering Northern Ireland overnight with the stroke of a pen…The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would need only to issue a Ministerial Decree stating he”— or she— “will no longer sign import permits”. I would be interested to hear from Ministers in the Department what they think about that suggestion. If it is correct, surely it could also apply to the whole United Kingdom, thereby making this legislation totally redundant.”
“Eduardo Goncalves, the founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, has said: “We are aware of trophy hunters from Northern Ireland who are shooting threatened species…and are bringing their heads and bodies back home. This needs to be stopped.” He went on to say: “Exiting the EU made it possible for the UK to introduce world-beating legislation to ban hunting ‘trophies’. It would be a travesty if the Bill were not to apply to the whole of the UK because of unfinished business with Brexit.” Given that Mr Goncalves feels so strongly, it is a pity that he did not criticise the limiting long title of the Bill when it was introduced on 15 June last year.”
“It would deal with the problem that the Bill fails to deliver in full on the Conservative party manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals to the United Kingdom. The Bill’s title makes it clear that it is limited to prohibiting the import of hunting trophies into Great Britain. Northern Ireland is excluded from its scope, which has prevented me from tabling amendments to extend the Bill to the whole of the United Kingdom. That aspect of the debate featured in a report on page 14 of yesterday’s Daily Telegraph and a commentary by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who asked what was the point of election manifestos if MPs do not vote for what is in them.”
“Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 22 February, setting out their concerns for the Bill and the risk of the United Kingdom Government ignoring the scientific evidence and actively harming conservation globally. They said that for the sake of wildlife all over the world, now it is time to listen to quieter, more informed voices. Setting up such an advisory panel will facilitate that. I am delighted that the Government have indicated that they will support that. There is agreement about the objectives but not the means by which those objectives should be achieved. The objective is to protect endangered species and encourage their revival. We have made a lot of progress today, but I draw attention to my new clause 3. I have made it clear that I will force it to a vote.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for supporting new clause 4. The background to that has been explained—there are diametrically opposed expert opinions on what would be a good hunting trophies ban and what would not be. It is important that the debate should be informed by the facts and the science. I hope that by accepting new clause 4, we will give some solace to Dr Dilys Rose, the chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s sustainable use and livelihoods specialist group, and Professor Adam Hart, a member of that specialist group. They wrote to my right hon.”
“Does the Minister accept that, apparently, the Netherlands, despite being within the European Union, has imposed a complete ban on trophy imports? If the Netherlands can do it, why can it not be done in respect of Northern Ireland?”
“Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a bit of light on the horizon in that, this week alone, the Express has had four full pages on the subject?”
“But why has my hon. Friend refused to admit in answer to parliamentary questions that the rapid response unit collected and stored information on sitting MPs? As my subject access request has confirmed that I was one of those MPs, can he explain why the unit was using taxpayers’ money to snoop on me, who authorised this and why?”
“T3. Can my hon. Friend assure me that all branches of the Ministry of Truth, which was exposed in the Big Brother Watch report in January, have now been disbanded, so that we no longer have Government and taxpayer-funded activity discrediting MPs who hold the Government to account? In answer to the earlier point that was made, can my hon. Friend explain why, in answer to parliamentary question 148802, which requested information on whether or not the Government were monitoring MPs, no answer was forthcoming? If it was so innocent, why was no answer forthcoming?”
“The Government’s initiative to emphasise the need to improve health outcomes is fundamental to this. May I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to today’s edition of the Daily Express and its Justice for Jab Victims crusade? A two- page article describes the problems that thousands of people are experiencing as a result of receiving covid-19 vaccines that have not worked out in the way they had hoped.”
“Will the Government learn from this tragic case the lesson that in dealing with Saudi Arabia an energetic junior Minister is an inadequate substitute for the real thing—either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary? Does the history not show that we have made a big mistake in not putting up our top team?”
“Does my right hon. Friend accept that about one third of the activity that takes place in GP surgeries could be transferred to pharmacies? What is he doing to promote that policy and deal with the British Medical Association’s reluctance to co-operate?”
“The Government need to regain control of the process, as it is unacceptable that something that was in our 2015 manifesto has still not been implemented. I am pleased to have the opportunity again today to press the Government to get a grip of the subject, because we are no longer talking about £250 million of public sector exit payments in excess of £95,000. It is now probably getting on for £1 billion, for all I know—we do not have that information. The Government seem to be in denial. They will the end, but they do not seem to will the means. That is why I tabled this Bill, and it now gives the Minister an opportunity to make more promises of good intent and to tell us when these proposals will actually be implemented. Perhaps she can also tell us how much she thinks Sue Gray will be entitled to as her public sector exit payment.”
“The consultation period was expected to expire on 17 October 2022. Have we received a Government response to that consultation? No, we have not. This whole policy is still up in the air. With the news that the second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office, Sue Gray, has just resigned, I ask this question, perhaps rhetorically: to what extent was she involved in trying to ensure that this clear Government policy has been frustrated for so many years? In one of my meetings with one of the Chief Secretaries to the Treasury involved in this matter, I said that it seems as though the policy of restricting public sector exit payments is being sabotaged by Treasury officials and other Government officials because they do not support it. This is a good example of where the civil service seems to be out of control.”
“What will happen next? We were told that the Government are still intent on pursuing this policy, but nothing much has happened since. I received a letter from the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 20 October 2021 saying that he would not be able to support the private Member’s Bill I had tabled in the previous Session, but that “we are continuing to consider and develop new policy initiatives to manage spending on exit payments, including an additional approvals process, and mechanisms for clawing back exit payments where individuals resume employment in the public sector within a particular time frame.” What has happened since then? In August 2022, the Government issued a consultation paper, “Public Sector Exit Payments: a new controls process for high exit payments”, with which came some draft guidance.”
“As you might anticipate, Mr Deputy Speaker, no such consultation was forthcoming, so I then asked another question to find out what was happening. I was told: “To ensure the successful implementation of these changes, a consultation will be brought forward in the next few months.” That takes us to May 2018, when I asked a further question. In June that year, the Chief Secretary said that the Government “remains committed” to this policy, and that the regulations would be brought forward. Indeed, they were already being drafted, but were subject to “further iteration”. We then roll forward a few years, unfortunately, because the Government ultimately introduced the regulations in February 2021, but no sooner had they introduced the regulations than they decided that the regulations were inappropriate, so the regulations were revoked.”
“I had previously been told by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the Government were “delivering our manifesto commitment” to end these big payouts, and that: “These reforms will ensure fairness and value for money across the public sector”. In June 2017, I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the secondary legislation would be introduced, I was told that the Government were “currently in the process of drafting the necessary regulations.” As not much progress seemed to have been made, I asked the question again. On 4 December 2017, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury replied that before laying the necessary regulations, “we will bring forward a consultation in the first quarter of 2018”.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. There is quite a history to this subject, going back far too many years. Back in 2015, the Government resolved that something must be done about obscenely high public sector exit payments in excess of £95,000 each. At that stage it was estimated that they might be costing the taxpayer at least £250 million a year. The Government legislated to make provision for that to be changed and for exit payments in excess of £95,000 to be outlawed, but the consultation was much delayed. In the 2017 Session of Parliament, I introduced a Bill to give a bit of impetus to the Government’s agenda, requiring the necessary regulations to be brought forward.”
“National Highways has a statutory responsibility in many planning applications, but it seems to be very tardy in coming to conclusions, particularly on the Brocks Pine surf reef application, off the A31, which has now been more than 18 months in indecision. What will be done to ensure that National Highways gets on with it and takes a decision, either yes or no?”
“Can we have an early debate in Government time on how this House can continue to hold the Government to account and scrutinise their actions, when we seem to be in an era of government-by-WhatsApp, which is secretive and irrational, and is denying us our opportunity to hold the Government to account on an evidence basis?”
“I remember that when she retired, she was a shoulder upon which many of us could shed a tear when we were in despair at what was happening in this place, and I thank her for those words of consolation during that period. I say to constituents who come here that the best Speakers are the ones who hardly ever speak, and she epitomised that. She used the expressions on her face to keep control in this place, and it is a pity that her immediate successor did not follow that same edict.”
“It is worth paying tribute to all those on the Conservative Benches who decided that that was not to be—that it would not be fair; it would not be right; and, indeed, that they ought to elect somebody who had spent most of her time on the Back Benches rather than in Government. It is a pity that there are not more people here today, but if there comes a time when there is a vacancy in the future, colleagues should remember that they should follow their own instincts and judgment rather than be driven by the pressure from the Whips or the establishment. Betty Boothroyd really rewarded the trust that people put in her. She was an independent Speaker—nobody would ever criticise her for being partisan. It is a pity that her successor did not necessarily live up to the example that she set so well.”
“We all owe a great debt of gratitude to Betty. I was lucky enough to be here during part of her speakership, but unfortunately, as I had lost my seat in 1992, I was not able to participate in her election or her first term as Speaker. I think it worth reinforcing a point that has already been made. In 1992, the Conservative Government, who had been re-elected, sought in a sense to change the system. Instead of having a Speaker elected from the Labour party, which would have been the norm, the powers that be decided that they wanted a former Cabinet Minister, Peter Brooke, as the Speaker.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing his Bill this far. His plea for localism will strike a very strong chord in Christchurch. When Christchurch had its independence taken away from it, a council was created with 76 members, but as Christchurch has only 10 of those members, it effectively has no say at all in what happens in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.”
“Is this excellent Bill going to be supported by the Government? As my hon. Friend puts his arguments to the Government, I draw his attention to the fact that years ago we persuaded the Conservative Government under Margaret Thatcher to abolish the Greater London Council and the Inner London Education Authority, using the very rationale that he has put forward—namely, that we wanted local people to have control over local education and local services.”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not think I have ever heard such an inappropriate comment from a senior Member of this House. He knows jolly well what the rules are. He only printed his Bill on Thursday, there are no explanatory notes in relation to it, and he is expecting his Bill to take priority over all the other Bills just because he thinks a lot of himself and he thinks he has a good cause. Lots of us have good causes, but we do not argue the toss with the rules.”
“Why are there only 421 such sites? People can go wild swimming anywhere in England and other parts of the United Kingdom. Is this whole designation scheme not essentially a rationing scheme? Why do the Government not abandon it and enable people to swim in bathing waters anywhere?”
“Does my right hon. Friend accept that 170,000 tonnes of fresh produce is wasted each year in this country? Does she think the current crisis will encourage consumers to value their fruit and veg, and their five a day, more highly?”
“Leave aside sitting through the night, because so far this week—Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday—this House should have been sitting for 24 hours, but in fact seven hours and 47 minutes of that time was lost. I hope my right hon. Friend shares my concern about this, because so often the Government say we cannot debate things because we have not got any time. Will she ask the Procedure Committee to look again at the issue of second Adjournment debates, which used to be commonplace in this Chamber? That would ensure that this time was not wasted, and if the business was going to go short, it would be possible for people to come forward with a second, third or even, sometimes, a fourth Adjournment debate. We would thereby avoid getting a reputation as a part-time Parliament.”
“I have heard from people who have been in hospital recently that some of the most caring people that they had looking after them were nurses who were not graduates, but people who decided to go into the profession some time ago—obviously they are now in the older age group—to look after their fellow citizens. Why did we have to make nursing a graduate-entry-only profession? Of course, that has enabled the profession to become more of a closed shop and to use some of its increased bargaining power in recent salary and wage negotiations.”
“On the other side of the equation, 53% of people think that the health service often wastes money, only 4% believe that it never wastes any money, and only 33% believe it is generally efficient. We do indeed have a crisis on our hands, and I think it ill behoves the Government not to face up to these realities. Probably like lots of hon. Members, I have received a mass of suggestions from constituents for how things might be improved. One, which came in a long letter from a leading member of the nursing profession, is that we made a mistake in 2009 when we made the nursing profession a fully graduate profession, with the result that someone cannot become a nurse unless they get a degree. They cannot even get a nursing apprenticeship, because that has to be linked to getting a degree.”
“Then we have the consequences of ill health being borne out by information that, of the 3.5 million people in the 50 to 69 age range who were economically inactive in the last quarter of 2022, 1.6 million reported ill health as the main reason for their inactivity, and another 155,000 reported ill health as an additional factor. We are talking not just about the circumstances of people not being able to get the help that they need from the health service at the time that they need it, but about the consequences for our economy of those people not being able to get to work when they would wish so to do. The latest figures that I have are that there are still 406,000 patients who have been waiting over a year to start treatment. Many of them will be either unable to work full time or unable to work at all as a result.”
“That is down from 43% in May last year and 66% in 2012. Only 8% of people believe that Ministers are following the right policies. That view is not confined to people who are not natural Conservatives; only 24% of Conservative voters believe that Ministers are following the right policies. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, when he responds to the debate, will give some hope to those disillusioned Conservative voters that the Government will restore confidence in the health service by introducing the right policies. Similarly, there are concerns about the standard of general practitioner care. Some 47% of people said it was worse than 12 months ago, and only 9% said that it was better. That figure is very low compared with historical records.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) and to congratulate the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), who introduced the debate. She is from the north-east and I represent a constituency in the south of England, but many of the issues that have been raised are common right across England. I will begin by referring to today’s report in The Times of the recent survey by the Health Foundation. The report’s headline is, “Public’s faith in the NHS sinks to lowest level in two decades”. That is obviously a good reason for us to have this debate; we cannot have a situation in which the public’s faith in the national health service is so low and declining. Only 33% of adult respondents to that survey said that they thought the NHS was providing a good service.”
“Again, there is a big contrast between what happens here and what happens in the United States. I am not saying that help with people’s development as they go through university should be conditional on their being forced to work for a particular employer or for the NHS when they graduate, but I do think there should be a system similar to the one in the United States, whereby those who are not going to work for the NHS are expected to pay back some of the costs of their training. There is a great deal of talk in this country about increasing the number of doctors and nurses, and the newspapers today refer to the need to increase the number of graduates, but that is not much use if so many of those graduates do not provide their services to the NHS.”
“I raised that point with the Government, thinking that it was a really good idea and that they should be getting to grips with it, but their answers to my questions suggested that it was not really on their radar and they were not interested in investigating it. Their response was, “We have a graduate-based profession, we have a retention scheme that we are not interested in changing, and the register will stay as it is.” I thought that that was a remarkably complacent response to what I considered to be quite a constructive suggestion from a qualified nurse. Many people have made the point that we are training nurses and doctors at great public expense, and they then leave the profession and the national health service before they have paid back their dues.”
“The hon. Lady makes a very good point, and I am glad that I gave way to her to enable her to make it. We must do everything possible to increase the size and quality of the workforce and enable people who are already in it to improve their qualifications and progress through their chosen profession. Constituents also tell me that there is a problem with retention. When nurses retire, they are expected to continue with continuous professional development; if they do not do that and fill in a lot of bureaucratic forms, they become ineligible to return to nursing later on. One of my constituents contrasted the situation in our country with that in the United States, where there are not so many bureaucratic barriers to someone’s carrying on nursing after they have retired, perhaps temporarily.”
“That, too, is a good point. I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman has necessarily got the right answer, but the Government should be looking at this. I listened with interest to the earlier references to NHS dentistry. In my constituency, there are a fair number of NHS dentists who would like to take on more patients, but the rules require them not to exceed 110% of their quota. Some of them are saying, “I would love to take on more patients,” but they are being told by the local bureaucrats that if they do so, they will suffer financial penalties.”
“In fairness to the Government, they say that they are now looking at it—a bit late in the day, I think; a review should have been instituted much earlier—but the hon. Gentleman is right. It is ridiculous to have a structure in NHS dentistry in which the rewards are linked to the number of specific procedures that have been carried out. Each procedure is given a different rating, and then they are all added up to establish whether the total exceeds the permitted 110% capacity. That is another case of there being plenty of scope for reform and fresh thinking, but it seems to be almost a culture in the NHS not to be receptive to such ideas.”
“The Minister replied: “This report”— the internal NHS England report— “is currently being used by National Audit office and NHS England to inform internal policy for public services. To share this information would inhibit the open, free and frank discussions that are being had on these internal policies.” I think that those “internal policies” should now be discussed openly in this Chamber. My message to the Government is that they need to get their act together in a way that they have not done hitherto, and address these serious issues.”
“Why and how could withholding from us an internal review carried out by NHS England be prejudicial to the conduct of public affairs, and how could it be prejudicial if it had already been seen by the National Audit Office? I tabled another parliamentary question on 9 January, asking in what way the publication would prejudice the conduct of public affairs. One might have assumed that there would be a quick answer to that, because the Department must have thought about it when the first answer was approved by a Minister, but I had to wait until 20 February. In other words, I had to wait for about six weeks, until more than a month after the question should have been answered.”
“Last April, NHS England carried out an internal review of productivity issues, which was referred to by the National Audit Office in its report on the subject in November. I submitted a parliamentary question asking for the NHS England report to be published, and I had to wait weeks for an answer. On 22 December, I was informed by the Minister for Health and Secondary Care, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), that the publication of information about NHS England productivity available to the National Audit Office “could prejudice the conduct of public affairs.” I was amazed to receive such an answer, because surely we are the public. We are speaking on behalf of the public.”
“I do agree with that. I have raised this subject in parliamentary questions, and what have I had in return? Complacency and inactivity, and generalisations such as, “We realise that there is a problem and we must try to do something about it.” As a matter of fact, I do not think that this problem is confined to doctors; I think there is a much bigger problem relating to pensions, but that is a subject for another day. Then there is the issue of productivity—or rather the lack of productivity—in the NHS. As we have heard, although the number of staff is increasing, output is not going up; in fact, it is falling. The Government again seem to be refusing to face up to these problems.”