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“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one?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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“Would it not be much better if—as I thought the Government had already promised—every regulation brought forward was debated at the earliest opportunity, before the Government had a chance to change their mind?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to raise the issue of the inconsistency between quite a few of these remaining orders. Because of the delay in introducing these orders, some of them amend orders that appear earlier on the Order Paper. We know that members of the public find it increasingly difficult to comprehend the changing scene of regulation on criminality and restriction of liberty. Surely if a regulation is amended by a subsequent statutory instrument, there should not be a need for the original statutory instrument to be approved by the House. For example, there are two separate statutory instruments relating to the north of England, one dated 25 August and one dated 2 September, and they are inconsistent with each other. Can you explain the reason for this confusion?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you advise me how I can ensure that the record is corrected in relation to Division No. 94 yesterday? I spoke in support of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill on Second Reading and I voted on all three occasions, but one of my votes has not been recorded. I suspect that the circumstances relate to the fact that there was a Government Whip there who said he could not see whether my vote had been properly recorded, but he did not give me any advice as to what would happen if there was a problem. I falsely, and quite wrongly, relied on the Whips, and I hope you will remind hon. Members that there is no point in relying on the Whips in the Division Lobbies.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you help Back Benchers, please? A number of Back Benchers who wanted to come into the Chamber for this part of tonight’s business were prevented from coming in, and we now have a scenario in which almost the only people in the Chamber are members of the Government and Whips. As I understand it, their plan is to try to distort the votes that may take place on some of the remaining orders, which were originally going to be the subject of deferred Divisions. It seems that, as the business has finished early, the Government are intent on preventing our having a physical Division on some of the remaining orders.”
“I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, there was an attempt physically to stop me coming into the Chamber. When I said that I wished to come into the Chamber to shout “Object”, I was allowed in. You just said, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are spaces in the Chamber, and so there are, but that was not my point. My point is that while Back Benchers were discouraged or have been kept out of the Chamber, I can count the Government Whips—there are one, two, three on this Bench and four, five, six, seven, eight—”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are thousands—in fact, tens of thousands—of people who will be observing these proceedings and will have noticed that the Government have contrived to prevent this House of Commons from being able to have a substantive vote on some of the most repressive legislation we have ever seen in our democracy. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and I are but two among many Members who object to what is going on, and all I can say is that revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, you are absolutely correct in saying that, in normal circumstances, there would have been ways in which we would have been able to ensure that business continued until 7 o’clock, but unfortunately that facility is not available in the call list system unless one is on the call list.”
“In so doing, they are trying to exercise common sense and good will, because they recognise that the EU argument is essentially one of sovereignty. The EU is saying, “We do not want to subordinate our sovereignty to the European convention on human rights.” The argument in the Bill is that if the EU carries out all its threats, it will destroy the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and deprive us of the opportunity to administer for the whole United Kingdom with internal trade arrangements. If one is sympathetic to the idea that we should negotiate things with common sense and good will, that applies to the EU accession to the European convention on human rights, as well as to where we go from here to ensure that we get the full Brexit for which the people voted.”
“Its defence is its own interpretation of an obscure protocol attached to the Lisbon treaty—protocol No. 8. The European Union’s interpretation is not the interpretation that normal people would put on those words, but it got the support of the European Court of Justice—its own tame Court of Justice—to say that it would be incompatible with the European treaties for the European Union to accede to the European convention on human rights, which it had already decided to do during a prolonged negotiation in the preparation for the treaty. Where are we now? We are in a situation where the Council of Europe’s parliamentary committee, the Council of Europe itself, and the European Parliament are trying to negotiate a way round this issue.”
“They are very wise so to do, because of course the European Union has form in all this. As Charles Moore said in a recent article in The Daily Telegraph : “The breaking of international law is a sport at which the EU itself often excels.” I want to remind the House of an episode not referred to in Charles Moore’s article but based on my experience when I was chairman of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Members will recall that the European Union agreed under article 6(2) of the treaty of Lisbon that it would accede to the European convention on human rights. Has it done so? No, it has not. It is in breach of international law. It is showing that it does not respect the rule of law. What is its defence?”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who served with me on the Brexit Committee in the previous Parliament and had great insight into and passion for this cause. He is absolutely right in saying that the Government were warned about the dangers involved in the Irish protocol. Indeed, many members of the Committee pointed that out, but he was foremost among them. Having listened to the Prime Minister’s cogent analysis of where we are, I can see why we have this Bill before us, because what he really said is that the EU is not complying with its duty under EU law of sincere co-operation, which it still has until the end of December. By not sincerely co-operating, it is forcing the Government to anticipate what ghastly things might happen.”
“Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) asked when we could have a debate on it, and he was told that he could apply for a Backbench Business debate. That hardly fits in with the sense of urgency about all this. When my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) then raised the matter with the Secretary of State yesterday, he was told that the Secretary of State would take it away and think about it. That is not satisfactory, as we are talking about the most draconian introduction of new restrictions on our liberty, with criminal sanctions. We need to be aware of what is happening and given the opportunity to debate it.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been looking at today’s Order Paper and particularly at the remaining orders, where I had expected to see the statutory instrument that the Government must lay for the draconian new rules they are bringing in on Monday to be lawful. It does not appear to have been laid, despite the Prime Minister making an announcement about it on Wednesday and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care making a statement yesterday. I am very concerned about the lack of opportunity for the public to see the text of these new regulations and about the Government’s continuing reluctance to give any opportunity to Members to debate this. Yesterday, my right hon.”
“She said in answer to an intervention that the Bill was wide enough to cover the whole co-operative movement, but that is not what it says in the long title of the Bill, which, I remind her, refers to: “A Bill to enable co-operative and community benefit societies to raise external share capital for the purpose of making environmentally sustainable investment”.”
“I suspect that the hon. Lady, because of her passion for environmental issues, has decided that it would be better to work the two ideas together. I suggest to her that the case put at that early stage by the Co-operatives UK policy officer was obviously a very strong case for one thing—she referred earlier to the limit on being able to raise capital of more than £100,000 and the way this was inhibiting the expansion of the co-operative movement—but if the main aim of the Bill is to remedy the problem identified by Mr Wright in the quote I have just used, there is no need for the Bill to go into issues of environmentally sustainable investment. I would ask the hon. Lady to think about why she has narrowed the Bill in such a way.”
“Lady announced her intention of introducing a private Member’s Bill with this subject matter. Speaking for the co-operatives, he said: “When it comes to legal reform, our top priority is for co-operative societies to have the option of legally guaranteeing that their ‘common capital’ will remain ‘indivisible’, over the life of the business and after. Right now, they can’t do this and it’s becoming a problem.” He goes on to say that “having some kind of statutory ‘asset lock’ which commits capital surplus to mutual and social purpose is increasingly a must in many parts of our social economy. So it’s a damaging anomaly that co-operative societies can’t give their common capital statutory status.” Nowhere in those remarks did Mr Wright say anything about limiting this problem to environmentally sustainable investment issues.”
“My recollection is that that Bill was an iterative process: it did not get through in the first Session in which it was tabled because there were difficulties in definition and all the rest of it. The hon. Member for Cardiff North should recognise that, for example, one the most famous private Members’ Bills ever, the Abortion Act 1967, was on its fifth or sixth iteration before it actually got on to the statute book because it was gradually amended and lobbied on so that, when it came to a final decision, everybody felt confident that they were doing the right thing. However, I congratulate the hon. Lady on the Bill and on the way in which she opened the debate. One of the things I looked up in preparation was what James Wright, the policy officer at Co-operatives UK, said in a press release—I think in February—soon after the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies). I lack his knowledge about capital markets, as indeed I lack the knowledge exemplified by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) of financial instruments, of which this might be one. I will nevertheless try to contribute to the debate by encouraging the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) to have another go next Session. The Bill has a lot in it that is worthwhile, but, as many of my hon. Friends have pointed out, it is not there quite yet. I have been a regular attender on Fridays for many years and participated in the debates on the 2014 Act, steered through with a lot of skill by the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas).”
“I will not engage with the hon. Lady on the climate crisis, because I think there is far too much scaremongering going on in relation to that and a lack of realism about the ability of our country, individually, to change the course of the global climate. That is apparent now. We have heard this week that despite the substantial reduction in the global economy, global CO 2 emissions continue to increase and climate change is not being remedied as a result.”
“That is a very serious issue that goes to the root of it. It may be an attractive notion, and we heard that there are precedents for it elsewhere in the world, but because of the importance of the co-operative and community benefit movement, it is absolutely imperative that, if we are to change the rules, we do so in a clear, unambiguous way, and certainly do not allow the spectre of further changes by stealth through Government regulations that are not subject to proper consultation. I fear that, when the hon. Member for Cardiff North responded to an intervention on the fact that the objectives could be changed but already covered all co-operatives, she was showing the lack of—how can I put it?—intellectual rigour applied to these principles.”
“What the hon. Lady really wants is to change the fundamental structure of co-ops so that they can attract investments greater than £100,000, and so that members of those co-ops cannot demutualise. Those are very serious issues. If that is what she thinks the whole of the co-operative movement should be doing, so be it. I suspect that what the hon. Lady really wants to do is enable a different sort of co-op with those objectives to be established. In so doing, however, instead of saying, “From now on you can start a completely new green co-op,” she is enabling existing co-ops to be changed, against the wishes of a minority of their members, into a different vehicle from that in which they made their original investment, thereby preventing them from withdrawing that investment, as they can at present.”
“So why, as soon as the co-op became green in name as well as in substance, should it result in those restrictions on members of the co-op? They might perhaps, by definition, be in a minority in opposing the change in the rules of the co-op, but why should they be penalised by that change in the rules so that a completely different regime applies retrospectively? Is the hon. Lady not concerned about minority rights being ridden over? I suspect that that is one of the problems that have come to light in the co-operative movement and that is why it has turned out to be a lot more controversial than she thought it would be at the beginning. As will be apparent, I have some quite serious issues with the Bill. I would like to see a much more concise Bill, without all this stuff about green shares, which is a distraction from the core.”
“That would mean that people who had invested in a co-operative society in which the normal investment rules applied—where they would be able to withdraw their investment, but not trade it—would find themselves in a completely different regime where the shares would be transferable but not withdrawable; not only that, but they would also find they were prohibited from being able to benefit from the success of that co-op by perhaps wanting to make it into a corporate body, thereby redeeming the additional value which had accrued to their shares as a result of its activities—going back to the point about the 2015 Act in Wales—so that people in the co-op could generate wealth and prosperity, and with it employment opportunities.”
“I do not know, but would the people who were being seduced into supporting that be aware of the fact that by enabling the society to have a green share, it was then triggering proposed new section 29A(1), which requires: “The Treasury must by regulations make provision— enabling the rules of a society with a green share to permanently prohibit the distribution of a capital surplus”?”
“The whole issue about the greenness of this may have been included in order to seduce members of co-ops into signing up to changes in their rules, which they would not otherwise wish to do, were they aware of the full implications of so doing. This echoes one of the points that some of my hon. Friends have made. A non-green co-op—the hon. Lady seems to say that all co-ops are green—can become a green co-op under the Bill, and thereby issue green shares, only if authorised to do so by its rules. It is obviously possible for a co-operative to change its rules. One can see how easy it would be for a co-operative to say to its members, “Look, we are planning to change our rules so we can issue green shares and do all these wonderful environmental things.” Who would be bold enough to cause a problem in that co-operative society.”
“It states that the goals are “to create an innovative, productive and low carbon society which recognises the limits of the global environment and therefore uses resources efficiently and proportionately (including acting on climate change)”. If she looks at the relevant section of the 2015 Act, she will find that it goes on to say, “and which develops a skilled and well-educated population in an economy which generates wealth and provides employment opportunities”. She is nodding, but why is that not included? Why was it excluded? Why did the explanatory notes imply that everything set out in this Bill came word for word from the 2015 Act?”
“Lady ever redrafts the Bill in a way that gets the support of the House on Second Reading, I suggest that she leave out the Henry VIII clause and have the confidence to say, “That’s what I’m putting in the Bill. That’s what we’re going to keep in the Bill, and that’s what it means.” I looked at the explanatory notes. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for producing explanatory notes on the Bill, which often does not happen with private Members’ Bills. She says in those explanatory notes that the environmental goals in the Bill are based upon those in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, to which she referred earlier. In that case, why do the environmental sustainability goals set out in proposed new section 27A(5)(a) not include the whole wording of those in the 2015 Act?”
“It states: “The Treasury may by regulations revise subsections (4) and (5)”, which contain the definitions. Why do we need to do that? Surely, if it is so obvious, it should be in the Bill and we do not need to give the Treasury even more power than it already has. I am sure that when my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary replies, he will say how eagerly he looks forward to being able to exercise these additional powers. I ask that as a slightly rhetorical question. However, sometimes Members are tempted to make their Bills complicated, and whenever they encounter a bit of difficulty with the Government, they say, “We’ll appease the Government by giving them a power to amend the Bill”—thereby, in a sense, negating the whole purpose of the Bill. If the hon.”
“I accept that. Interestingly, proposed new section 27A(5)(b) talks about “the capacity to adapt to change”. That is where I am very much with the hon. Member for Cardiff North, because I think we should be concentrating our resources in this country on adapting to climate change, rather than trying to put our heads in the sand and say, “We’re going to make it go away.” On the issue of the definition, if environmentally sustainable investment is basically the be-all and end-all of everything that the co-operative movement is involved in, why do we need to use language about green shares? Why do we not make it much more general? If the hon. Lady is so confident about her definition of “environmentally sustainable investment”, why has she included a Henry VIII clause in proposed new section 27A(6)?”
“Member for Cardiff North on having excited such interest in her Bill among Government Members, even if relatively few Opposition Members seem to be that interested.”
“Lady will know, normally, unless the Government say otherwise, there can be only one private Member’s Bill in Committee at a time, so a Committee that went on for a very long time would deprive other Bills of the opportunity of being subject to scrutiny. That is another reason why a more tightly worded Bill is the solution, rather than struggling on with this one. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), who is sitting behind the hon. Lady, said that the Bill may not be fit for purpose currently but that it will be after it has come out of Committee. Frankly, Bills need to be fit for purpose before they go into Committee. I will not say much more now, because I have other business on the Order Paper that I hope we will be able to reach. I congratulate the hon.”
“Clearly, the hon. Lady disagrees that there is a lack of intellectual rigour. Although we may disagree, it is incumbent upon Members to ensure that this is subject to rigorous scrutiny. In this extraordinary world in which somebody can have 150 proxy votes in their back pocket, anything could happen if it came to a vote. Perhaps the hon. Lady has a very large number of proxy votes in her back pocket, in which case I congratulate her in advance on her preparedness. Who knows what will happen and whether the Bill will get a Second Reading. It is clear from the debate that, were the Bill to get a Second Reading and go into Committee, it would have to be completely rewritten, taking up hours of valuable and scarce Committee time. As the hon.”
“I will not speak at greater length now because I have a very similar subject on legislative scrutiny for this evening’s Adjournment debate and I would not want to eat into my own time.”
“Friend the Leader of the House, who is generally a great facilitator of parliamentary and legislative scrutiny, will agree that although the motion is likely to go through this evening there will, notwithstanding what is in the motion, be a review in which the Procedure Committee will be able to express its own opinion, so that we can take into account the emerging evidence and the ability to provide us all with tests. If we were all tested and those tests were pretty accurate, we would be able to set a much better example to those people who are going back to schools, the people we are encouraging to go back to factories, the people we are encouraging to get back on to public transport.”
“Now we are talking about having a much longer period of notice before we introduce changes to the way in which we operate in this House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden made an excellent point in saying that we are on the cusp of being able to have a testing regime of the type that was spoken about by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care yesterday. He said that a 90-minute testing regime would soon be in place. If that is in place in the next two or three weeks, which I very much hope it will be, that would negate completely the purpose of the motion before us. I hope that my right hon.”
“I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), and also with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), because this motion is over the top. It was only at the end of July that we agreed to extend the arrangements until the end of September. What has happened since the end of July that has caused us now to feel the need to extend them until the beginning of November? The motion is consistent with the knee-jerk way in which the Government are dealing with many of our constituents. Take, for example, last Saturday when at 24 hours’ notice the Government introduced an extension to the restrictions on evictions of tenants from 20 September until March of next year. That six-month extension was implemented without any impact assessment and without any notice.”
“It remains a mystery to me as to why the Government are so defensive about the whole matter—and have indeed been dodging parliamentary questions that I have put down on the subject.”
“Most fair-minded observers supported the Government’s initial response to the covid-19 pandemic. The Government had no option but to make their priority ensuring that our hospitals were able to treat all those seriously ill as a result of covid-19. Our NHS was not as well-prepared as it would have been if the recommendations of Exercise Cygnus had been implemented. Cygnus was a brilliant initiative to war-game a serious epidemic of respiratory illness in order to identify where investment was needed to fill the gaps and thereby ensure an effective response. Tragically, Public Health England did not learn the lessons identified and failed to put the recommended preparatory work in place. We, the public, have been denied access to the full results.”
“It prevents the inconsistency that arises from knee-jerk reactions and policies being developed on the hoof. It helps to ensure that sudden changes are the exception and are made in response to changes in hard evidence rather than in response to the chorus of a single-issue pressure group—and I think it is probably fair to say that the covid alarmists are the most successful pressure group in British history. If, for the past six months, the Government had been using this toolkit, it would not have been possible for commentators to observe, as one did on Sunday: “Britain has become a paradise for those who like to answer questions with ‘rules is rules’; even when they’re clearly made up on the spot or nonsensical.” Allowing beard and eyebrow trimming for men but not eyebrow treatments for women was but one ridiculous example.”
“I shall start with some quotes from my constituents about the Government: “The most inept and incompetent administration in my lifetime.” “Incoherent and indecisive.” “Authoritarian and arrogant.” “Inconsistent and incomprehensible.” “Socialist in all but name.” As these criticisms become increasingly difficult to rebut, it is indeed essential that the Prime Minister gets a grip. The constructive purpose of this debate is to remind the Government that one key tool to enable them to get a grip is to use regulatory impact assessments as part of the policy-making process. A regulatory impact assessment is a well-established, internationally acclaimed toolkit for good policy making. It facilitates transparency and public accountability, promotes democratic discussion by enabling potential possible policy options to be evaluated and compared.”
“This is primary legislation being amended by subordinate legislation subject only to the negative resolution procedure, and so one might have expected that there would be a regulatory impact assessment or something which would indicate to us, on behalf of our constituents, that the Government have thought this whole process through, but that is not there, and instead there is a little note which says: “A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument due to the temporary nature of the provision.””
“Those regulations have caused a storm of protest from residential landlords in my constituency; they are apoplectic about the fact that they are not going to be able to recover possession of their premises. Notwithstanding the contractual agreements they have entered into with their tenants, they are not going to be able to recover their premises until 31 March 2021. It says in the explanatory notes to the regulations that they amend schedule 29 of the 2020 Act.”
“The trouble is that this is not being done, and I will give just one topical example, to which I referred in my brief comments in the previous debate. Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, there was specific primary legislation saying that residential tenancies should be protected from eviction until 20 September this year. On Friday last week—27 August—regulations were made extending that period from 20 September for another six months. The regulations came into force on 28 August, which was last Saturday, the very same day that they were laid before Parliament. Regulation 1(2) says: “These Regulations come into force on the day after the day on which they are laid”.”
“The Government should revert to following their own “better regulation framework” established under the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, which requires: “A RIA should be prepared for all significant regulatory provisions as a standard of good policy making and where an appropriate RIA is expected by parliament and other stakeholders.” The interim guidance issued in March this year sets out a general threshold for independent scrutiny of regulatory impact assessments and post-implementation reviews, where the annual net direct cost to business is greater than £5 million. It calls on Government Departments to undertake proportionate cost-benefit analyses to inform decision making.”
“It describes it as an “important element of an evidence-based approach to policy-making…that…can underpin the capacity of governments to ensure that regulations are efficient and effective in a changing and complex world.” I will not read from the whole OECD regulatory impact assessment report on best practice principles for regulatory policy, but it extends to about 40 or 50 pages and is extremely well researched and documented. As I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—these principles are supported by the Government; the trouble is that they do not seem to be being implemented by the Government and by Government Departments. I hope that in his response the Minister will tell us what he is doing to try and put that right.”
“This scenario demands a rational evaluation of conflicting risks to the economy and public health, together with a cost-benefit analysis, and now is the time for the Government to reinstate the intellectual rigour of the regulatory impact assessment process. Sooner or later, the incredible economic cost of the Government’s failure to remove lockdown restrictions in a timely and effective manner will become apparent. If that coincides with the Government asking their natural supporters to pay the price for their failure through higher taxes, the political consequences will indeed be dire. It is for that reason that I commend to the Government what the OECD says about regulatory impact analysis.”
“It is incredible that, instead of lockdown continuing to be relaxed, new restrictions on freedom, such as mandatory face coverings, have been introduced. The consequence is that I detect a growing atmosphere of gloom and foreboding as we see winter approaching: no vaccine availability for many months; the economy in a worse state than most of our competitors; and the prospect of the resurgence of the pandemic coinciding with the flu season. I do not like the expression “waves” because it makes it seem as though we are talking about something equivalent to the Atlantic rollers so much enjoyed by our former Prime Minister and colleague, David Cameron. We are not talking about waves. We are talking about the potential resurgence of the pandemic—not everywhere, but in particular hotspots.”
“I said that we would be able to achieve much more consistency in Government advice with regulatory impact assessments. The Leader of the House, however, argued that “if we spend too long doing all this, by the time we have done it we have moved on to the next stage of the lockdown.” He accused me of “calling for bureaucratic folderol”, which would inhibit moving “at a pace to ensure that things happen in a timely manner”. —[ Official Report , 2 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 534.] Would that they were. But I must correct the Leader of the House, because, far from being the worthless trifles described in the expression “folderol”, regulatory impact assessments are fundamental to ensuring that we make the right decisions as legislators.”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not know whether you were listening to the Secretary of State for Health when he made his statement yesterday, but in my view his responses on the issue of NHS waiting lists were the weakest and least convincing parts of what he had to say. Is the continuing economic cost of lockdown now disproportionate to the benefits? Well, let us have an exercise and see. Let us see the data presented, so that we can have a proper debate about it. I raised the importance of regulatory impact assessments in public policy making with the Leader of the House at business questions on 2 July. It was his response on that occasion which caused me to apply for this Adjournment debate, which I am delighted we are having this evening.”
“We introduced a 2 metre or 6 foot rule, but that has now been modified with the 1 metre-plus rule, but at the same time the additional safeguards required for the 1 metre-plus situation are being applied to the 2 metre situation, which is creating all sorts of problems, conflicts and uncertainties for our constituents. Is it protecting the NHS to create a situation where, as was revealed in The Times on 27 August, 15.3 million people are now on the hidden waiting list for treatment? Is it reasonable that we should try to prevent two deaths a day and keep 15.3 million people on waiting lists for treatment, with all the dire consequences that flow from that?”