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“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one?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.”
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“Is that not a rather complacent response? A lot of the £500 million allocated last year to local authorities in England for highway maintenance was not spent on highway maintenance, so it was effectively a fraud on taxpayers. Will my hon. Friend please ensure that next year, the allocations of money to highway authorities are made contingent upon them showing that last year’s allocation was spent on highways?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that if we had not wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on PPE, we would not have to increase taxes as much as we are doing? What has happened to the £122 million that was spent on 25 million gowns supplied by the company referred to earlier? Those gowns were not fit for purpose and were never used.”
“T6. May I ask the Secretary of State direct how he believes it is either compassionate or conservative to be increasing council tax poverty? What message does he have for thousands of households in Dorset who next year will have to pay more than £90 every week in council tax as a direct result of his failure to reform the grant funding system?”
“Will my hon. Friend explain exactly what discussions took place in Egypt between our Government and Germany on the issue of Germany’s intent to open up lignite mining and use lignite to generate electricity—lignite being the dirtiest form of electricity generation? Is there not something of an issue for us as a country in competing with Germany if it is quite prepared to ignore all the norms and use lignite to generate electricity, while we are reluctant to even open another coalmine?”
“Yes. Considered in Committee . Clauses 1 to 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Bill reported, without amendment. The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair. Bill read the Third time and passed.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I thank everybody for facilitating this? I think it is the first time since 1998 that a private Member’s Bill has gone through all its stages at one sitting.”
“7. What recent discussions she has had with the Chair of Natural England on the (a) efficiency and (b) effectiveness of that body's regulatory work.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that response. When she next meets Natural England, will she tell it to stop exploiting the insufficient information loophole, which prevents it from having to respond within 21 days to planning applications as a statutory consultee? Brocks Pine in my constituency is a development that would be on the heathland and inside the green belt. It took Natural England nine months to respond to that, and when it did, it said it had insufficient information. Is that not wholly unsatisfactory?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that Putin was emboldened to attack Ukraine by the continual appeasement from western democracies over many years? Why does he not think that a similar appeasement of the Chinese dictatorship will not result in a similar disaster?”
“If my right hon. Friend supports self-sufficiency, why is the United Kingdom still importing such vast quantities of liquefied natural gas from the United States, especially when two thirds of all that gas is produced by fracking?”
“T4. When Ministers go to the COP27 conference, will they give the cold shoulder to Germany to show our country’s disapproval and disgust at it continuing a massive expansion in its use of lignite, which is the dirtiest way of generating electricity?”
“Mr Speaker, I am glad that I was present in the Chamber when the hon. Gentleman made that ridiculous allegation. He was not present in Westminster Hall for that debate. I was present and there were many people in the Public Gallery, one or two of whom may have been, as he put it, anti-vaxxers, but most of the people present in the Public Gallery were those who were vaccine injured—people who had suffered as a result of having covid-19 vaccines and who are seeking compensation.”
“Is not the reason why Sweden and Germany do not countenance asylum seekers from Albania the fact that those countries do not have laws against modern slavery that are being abused and exploited by Albanian gangs?”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I will begin by briefly explaining why I did not move the Mobile Homes Act 1983 (Amendment) Bill. The Government have agreed that the Mobile Homes (Pitch Fees) Bill, which will have its Second Reading on Friday 18 November, will have their support. That Bill specifies a change from using the retail prices index to the consumer prices index as a basis for the maximum annual increase in pitch fees, which would change the maximum from 12.5% to 10.1%. On the basis of that good news, I thought it would be better to raise a separate subject.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We cannot count our chickens yet, but let us hope that everything goes smoothly in November. I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for allowing me time to speak today. She could have spoken for the whole half hour; I am sure that she would have had more than enough material. I did not intervene on her, but if I had, I would have referred to the fact that Tony Juniper, a former candidate for the Green party and a director of Friends of the Earth, is apparently on record as saying that he could not support the “right to roam everywhere” because “remote, quiet areas are fewer and fewer”. I am glad that we have time to reflect on not just what the hon. Lady said but what Tony Juniper said.”
“Being falsely accused myself and having that exposed in the media was the worst thing that has happened to me in my entire life. Even though untrue, the stigma is almost impossible to eradicate. Hence the importance of FAIR’s campaign to change the law to provide for anonymity before charge in sexual allegations and hence my continued work with FAIR in the future. Had this proposed change in the law been enacted when the police decided to raid my apartment following the allegations of a fantasist, the BBC would not have been able to film this event, name me, (even though the South Yorkshire Police had decided not to) and so plunge my life and those close to me into fear and misery.””
“Yes, we must pass on to the important subject of the anonymity of suspects. My interest in this subject arose because I attended a meeting of a relatively new organisation called Falsely Accused Individuals for Reform at about the time that I was preparing the private Members’ Bills that I might put forward for this Session. I was impressed by what was said at that gathering because, essentially, it is a campaign by people who have been falsely accused and whose lives have been completely wrecked as a consequence. I will read what Sir Cliff Richard said to the meeting. As hon. Members will recall, he is Britain’s all-time biggest selling male artist with, I think, 22 million singles sold. He said: “I am pleased to support the new pressure group Falsely Accused Individuals for Reform...”
“If somebody makes an accusation anonymously and the police act upon it and tip off the media or brief social media, they destroy the principle that people are innocent until proved guilty and should be able to enjoy anonymity until such time as they might be charged with an offence.”
“Clause 2 would apply to corporations the criminality associated with premature disclosure of somebody being a suspect. Had this Bill been on the statute book when the BBC used helicopters to film Sir Cliff’s residence from above, it would have applied to the controlling forces in the BBC. I think the BBC was ordered to pay Sir Cliff £210,000 in damages for breach of privacy. It was in August 2014 that the police did that, but it took a long time for Sir Cliff to be able to clear his name. It is clear that, even now, he still bears the scars of that ordeal, which should never have happened. This Bill is designed to prevent other people from being similarly afflicted.”
“The Metropolitan police also agreed to apologise for the disclosure of that private information. The trouble with all of that is that it is after the event and it is only those who are most resilient and probably very wealthy who can actually afford to engage in the litigation that might follow such events. That is why I think it is better to have prevention rather than cure, and to deter that type of behaviour.”
“That is an enormous subject and the Online Safety Bill might provide my hon. Friend with an opportunity to raise it. This Bill is confined to the circumstances in which somebody is suspected of being guilty of a criminal offence and people close to the investigation abuse the process by making tip-offs and saying that they have been arrested. Quite often, they are never charged. The Paul Gambaccini case is another example of a really serious situation. He was minding his own business when at 6 o’clock in the morning there was a raid on his house, and the fact that he had been arrested was communicated by the Metropolitan police to journalists. In the end, Paul Gambaccini was paid £250,000 by the Metropolitan police—£65,000 in damages, and the rest in legal costs—for breaches of privacy.”
“He was not in a position on his own to be able to seek redress. I mention his name, because he was not a great star in the media or on television who had resources. Even for Paul Gambaccini, immediately this information came out into the open, he was suspended from being able to do his radio programmes on the BBC. He lost a whole year’s work.”
“It would be useful to be able to discuss with him where we can go with this. There is much public feeling out there that something must be done. We cannot allow heroes in the country to be brought low by these allegations that then turn out to be false. Having the allegations ventilated in public has caused irreparable damage to the people adversely affected. Another person who has been the subject of such false allegations is our former parliamentary Conservative colleague, Harvey Proctor. He has been put through the hoops twice on this, although, in the end, he received a pay-out of £800,000 from the police. But who ends up paying that? Of course, we do. Ultimately, his life has been completely wrecked as a result of the false allegations made against him on two separate occasions. He did not have much in terms of resources.”
“Sadly, though, other organisations are not so compliant. I recognise that there are circumstances in which it is said that, by disclosing the person who is under suspicion, that may lead to other people coming forward. That should not be the case, and it certainly was not in relation to Cliff Richard, Paul Gambaccini and many others. That is why I have set out the exemptions in the Bill. Basically, the main exemption will be where the disclosure is reasonably necessary for the prevention or detection of crime, or for the administration of justice. I am not saying that the Bill is perfect, but, because we do not have much time to discuss it today, I hope that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench will agree to have a meeting to discuss it further, because this is a really serious subject.”
“I have endeavoured to do that in the drafting of this Bill. That is why clause 1, which sets out the offence of disclosing the identity of a suspect, makes clear in subsection (1) that it is subject to the exceptions in subsection (2). My hon. Friend’s intervention is covered by the exceptions set out in subsection (2). This is a balanced Bill. It is not just confined to cases of alleged sexual crimes, but applied to crimes in general, because, depending on the status of the person, the allegation that, for example, they are in hock to the Inland Revenue may be incredibly damaging to them. I know that HMRC is compliant with the principle that details about people’s tax affairs should not be disclosed, and that, it is one of the best organisations in meeting those very high standards.”
“No, I will not, because I am just about to finish. In the case of Cliff Richards, the consequences were that his charities suffered to the tune of more than £100,000 a year in lost income while he was under suspicion. It is with pleasure that I move the Second Reading of this Bill, and hope that, in due course, I will be able to have a meeting with the Minister to discuss its contents.”
“What is the target date for ending this farce? Will my right hon. Friend explain to us that in Manston the conditions, although far from ideal, are a heck of a sight better than the conditions in squatter camps in Calais or on those overcrowded, dangerous boats crossing the channel? So some of the people at Manston should probably be counting their blessings.”
“My hon. Friend has obviously done a lot of preparation for the debate. Did part of that preparation include looking at Oracle Films’ “Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion”, which was produced about a month ago and has already had more than 1 million views online? Most people think it highly persuasive.”
“I wrote to Baroness Hallett, asking her to ensure that the terms of reference specifically covered the safety and impact of vaccines. As a result of representations, not just from me but from others, the terms of reference were amended to make it quite clear that vaccines, their impact and the potential damage done by them are included.”
“I am not anti-vax—I had my first two vaccines—but from all that I have seen and know about this, the increase in boosters is counterproductive for many and dangerous for some. We need to take into account what is happening on the ground. People are becoming increasingly vaccine-hesitant. Large numbers of doctors and health professionals are now calling for a complete halt to the vaccination programme because the risks outweigh the benefits.”
“I have asked parliamentary questions about this, but I have not been able to get a satisfactory answer as to why there are no clinics for those victims of vaccine damage. As a result of the Government’s behaviour, victims are increasingly telling their loved ones, neighbours and friends about their circumstances, which is leading to a much lower rate applications for booster vaccines. That is happening because the Government cannot suppress the information that ordinary people are sharing with one another, even though there is very little on this topic in the mainstream media. Many people now would not touch a booster with a bargepole, and I include myself among them.”
“Those people, if they are disabled to the extent of 60% or more, may be eligible for payments under the vaccine damage payment scheme. They might get £120,000. That scheme, however, is not fit for purpose, because its description of disability does not necessarily apply to autoimmune conditions such as those suffered as a consequence of covid-19 vaccine damage. And what about all of those people who are only 59% disabled? There is no financial help for them and, even more worryingly for many, no specific medical help. The Government refuse to provide specialist help for these vaccine victims. Although they have set up long covid clinics, vaccine victims are being ignored.”
“Unfortunately, the cover letter from the NHS makes no reference to any risks associated with the vaccine, but if one looks at the document included in the envelope, it talks about serious side effects. It says, “Cases of inflammation of the heart (called myocarditis or pericarditis) have been reported very rarely after both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. These cases have been seen mostly in younger men and within several days of vaccination. Most of the people affected have felt better and recovered quickly following rest and simple treatments.” It then states: “You should seek medical advice”. What it does not state is what happens to those people who do not recover. That is what I will concentrate on in the remainder of my remarks.”
“Let us look at the facts and not just be beholden to the MHRA. If this were a debate about the MHRA, I would have masses of material on it. The Government seem to be in denial about the risks of these vaccines. Only this morning, the deputy chief medical officer for England was on the radio saying that the boosters were perfectly safe and effective, but they are not perfectly safe, and there is a question about whether they are effective, but that is for another debate. The fact that they are not perfectly safe has now been admitted by the Government. Indeed, the UK Health Security Agency has issued “A guide to the COVID-19 autumn booster”—you may have seen a copy of it, Sir Roger. It requests that people get another booster from their GP.”
“Is it not interesting that the number of adverse reports referred to the institute is far fewer than the number of adverse reports that led to the 1976 swine flu vaccine being withdrawn? Some hon. Members may recall that, in 1976, the President of the United States, Gerald Ford, was panicked by swine flu into organising a vaccination campaign. When reports emerged of suspected adverse reactions, including heart attacks and Guillain-Barré syndrome, and there were 53 reported deaths, people began to worry about the safety of the vaccine. The Government halted that mass vaccination programme in December of that year. In that case, the Government acted on far fewer adverse events than we have talked about in this debate and decided that, given the balance of risk and reward, it was too risky to continue with the vaccination programme.”
“That also reflected a finding that it published earlier in the year, in which the institute tried to raise the alert that one in 5,000 vaccinated people experienced a serious side effect, such as heart muscle inflammation. It said that, statistically, every 10th person must expect a severe consequence from having a course of three or four vaccines. The institute uses the World Health Organisation definition of a “serious adverse event”, meaning one that results in hospitalisation or is life-threatening or life-changing. After a course of four doses, the risk of a report to its system of a serious adverse effect is one in 1,250. That is serious information coming from the regulator of a country that is highly respected for the quality of its healthcare.”
“Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), in introducing the debate, did not have much to say about the people who we know have suffered death or serious injury as a result of the vaccines. My hon. Friend showed himself to be rather the victim of producer capture—the producer in this case being the MHRA. He does not seem to have allowed his researches to go further than the MHRA. Has he, for example, looked at what has been happening in Germany? The Paul Ehrlich Institute is the German regulator responsible for vaccine safety. On 20 July, the institute confirmed that one in 5,000 people was seriously affected after a vaccination.”
“As well as being chairman of the APPG, I have taken an interest in the subject for about a year, and produced a private Member’s Bill on the subject, and I hope to produce another, which will have its Second Reading next month. Coroners up and down the country have found in their reports that deaths have been caused directly by covid 19 vaccines. I have spoken to some of the bereaved; indeed, I spoke to the gentleman referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden)—the gentleman who attended our meeting on Thursday, and whose wife was a journalist in Newcastle. I have seen with my own eyes the suffering of people who are bereaved or still suffering adverse reactions. I am sorry that my hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am, as was mentioned, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage. The group is now up and running. We had an enormously well-supported meeting in Portcullis House last Thursday. I agree with the legitimate concerns of the 100,000-plus people who signed the petition, and share their belief that the recent data relating to cardiovascular problems, which is increasing in volume, is of enough concern to warrant an inquiry on safety. As I have said, the big Hallett inquiry on covid-19 will cover a lot of this ground, but it will not report for many years. In the meantime, people are being encouraged to have more and more boosters, and they understandably want to know the impact of those boosters on their health and the risks and rewards.”
“Finally, Oracle Films’ film, “Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion”, is available on YouTube—I make no apology for the fact that I participate in that film—and sets out a different view on the safety of these vaccines. I am not saying we should ban all covid-19 vaccines and have a complete halt. What I am saying is that there is an urgent need for the Government to get to grips with this issue before more people are duped into having vaccines that they probably do not need, that will not do them any good and that will present risks to their health.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the United States, they changed the definition of a vaccine. We have always understood a vaccine to mean someone receiving into their system something containing a small element of that which they were being vaccinated against, so that their system could react against it and protect them if they were later exposed to a large amount. But unlike those old vaccines, these vaccines do not use the raw material, so in many senses it is a misnomer to describe them as vaccines at all. That information is not really out there among the public any more than the fact that the booster vaccines have not been tested on humans at all during studies; they were tested only on mice. People are being used as victims for experimentation, and that is why they are getting worried.”
“I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but if the vaccines were so safe, why was it necessary for the vaccine manufacturers to seek an indemnity against liability for negligence from the Government and the taxpayer?”
“What happens if somebody suffers a 50% disability as a result of having the vaccine, through an adverse reaction, or an unusual event? What do the Government do to help that person? They do not provide any compensation, or any special help through the health service, or a clinic, so what do they do?”
“Would the Minister be willing to address the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage in a private meeting, so that she can hear at first hand some of the concerns that members have?”
“On the basis that it is better to try to deal with such issues in bite-size proportions, I have started with the group of people aged over 75 who always thought that when they reached that esteemed age, they would not have to pay the licence fee. Because of some double-dealing on the part of the BBC when it was negotiating with the Government, we ended up in a situation where, contrary to people’s expectations and, apparently, to the Government’s wishes, the BBC insisted on keeping the BBC licence fee for all those aged over 75 who were not in receipt of benefits. We therefore have a situation where that group of people are vulnerable to being prosecuted for TV licence fee non-payment. I will tell hon. Members what is said by some of the experts in this area.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am grateful to all colleagues who enabled a little time at the end of today’s sitting to discuss what continues to be a topical issue. People will have heard a report today that some 8 million people in our country are struggling with their bills. My view is that one bill that they should not be struggling with is the bill for the TV licence fee, which I would like to be abolished. Before we can get to that stage—the licence fee is guaranteed under the BBC charter until the end of 2027—we can try our best to mitigate its impact. This Bill is part of my ongoing campaign to try to persuade my Government to decriminalise the non-payment of the BBC licence fee.”
“Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), when he was at the Conservative party conference and in the days following, found himself on the receiving end of some public criticism, which was featured prominently on the BBC airwaves. The contrast between those two cases is an example of people’s concerns.”
“No, that is not my motivation at all. The coverage of Her late Majesty’s funeral was brilliantly carried out by all the broadcasting media, including the BBC. I have nothing but praise for the way in which the BBC dealt with that. To take a topical example of why a number of people feel that the BBC is not being true to its charter, today we heard the sad news that the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) has been put in a situation where he has been suspended from the House for many weeks and, I understand, has chosen to resign and cause a by-election. Has that been prominently featured on the BBC news channels? I fear not. That is a topical example of the way in which some people feel that the BBC is rather selective in the way it deals with its news. My right hon.”
“These prosecutions were dealt with in the courts, thereby creating public expense through the court hearings and a great deal of distress for the people—92%—who were convicted.”
“They were both Members of Parliament. One of them has been suspended from sitting in this House for a recommended 10 weeks, I think, and one of them has not been suspended—there was no charge against my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West at all. In a sense, the right hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. To return to what TV licensing prosecutions do, Tara Casey of the legal charity APPEAL says: “TV Licensing prosecutions are the perfect example of the criminalisation of poverty. This has got to be wrong, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis.” How many people are being prosecuted for TV licence fee non-payment? The latest figures that I have are that 49,144 people were prosecuted last year, 92% of whom were convicted.”