David Davis
MP for Goole and Pocklington · Conservative · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) on putting a Bill in front of the House that has support from literally everybody in the Chamber?”
“The Post Office Horizon scandal highlighted the institutional instinct to find a convenient scapegoat. Innocent people paid the price, while the institution sought to protect itself. If the Thirlwall inquiry asks too narrow a set of questions, systemic NHS failures will go unexamined.”
“Last month’s sentencing of Nicola Sturgeon’s husband exposed the real reasons behind the Scottish Government’s persecution of Alex Salmond. From 2010 to 2022, Peter Murrell abused his position to embezzle almost £500,000 from the SNP to buy luxury items. He used SNP money to buy a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf.”
“The consultants also reported that in the two months since the change infants have been sick but recovered as expected.” The report highlighted deficiencies in staffing levels, leadership and communication, but, in the trial, it was not shown to the jury—they knew nothing of it.”
“One of the nurses let go later described it as “the decimation of the Nursing and Midwifery service”, adding that “eight registered nurses...were replaced with nursery nurses...unqualified staff are replacing qualified staff”.”
“There was little space, cots and incubators were stored in corridors, and mothers struggled to find somewhere to breastfeed their babies. Susan Gilby, the hospital’s chief executive between 2018 and 2022, later described the unit as “dark, dingy and cramped”, providing a “less than ideal” environment to work in.”
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“Importantly, the fear is not only of professional hacking, but of amateur hacking, which can break into major databases. The problem about the medical database is that someone’s medical data are almost as strong as a fingerprint. If people were looking for me, for example, I have five broken noses on my medical record, which probably reduces the numbers that they are looking at from 60 million to about 100; they could also probably work out my age, if that is removed, from when I had my diphtheria jab and various other early jabs. It is still possible to reverse engineer from so-called anonymised data. In the States, that was done with an anonymised data system—the record of the Governor of Massachusetts was picked out by an academic, to demonstrate how weak such systems are.”
“My hon. Friend is making a fabulously compelling case and I think that I agree with everything that he says except for one presumption: this is being advanced with one, all-singing, all-dancing database, instead of a set of tailored, directed ones.”
“The misery of the current floods is confined to one region of the country, but the fear of flooding extends to all regions of the country, particularly those that have suffered floods before. My right hon. Friend is right to commend and make the most of the emergency services and the help being given by them. It is, however, undoubtedly true that the best way to deal with flooding is prevention, not cure. For example, it will cost £200 million to £300 million to reinstall the Humber defences. That sounds like a lot of money until the day after a storm surge or major flood, so will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the Treasury that, unlike the previous Government, it should not go in for being penny wise and pound foolish?”
“I assure the Minister I have not risen to intervene to ensure he takes an intervention from every other Member in the Chamber. Can he give me an example of a case that would not pass one filter but would pass the other filter, because I cannot think of one?”
“As my right hon. Friend says, the reason this problem arises is that criminal procedure rules are effectively being delegated to a subordinate body, not to this House. Unlike in most areas of the Bill, where I am absolutely behind the Government, this is an area where some of the rules are constitutionally quite important—we have just heard one example. There might be a number of other areas, which have not come up so quickly, where we would not want to undermine our constitutional protections, so will my right hon. Friend rethink clause 47?”
“May I press the Home Secretary on her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) about the Police Federation? On the one hand, Normington made proposals that required legislation, but on the other hand, there are examples of the federation promoting injustice that Normington gave no answer to. Is there not a clear requirement for the Government to act on this matter?”
“If this House cannot depend on the organisation that is supposedly committed to promoting justice in this country to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, what can you do to defend us?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In a named day question on 5 December this year, I asked the Attorney-General how many libel settlements, and of what value, the Crown Prosecution Service had made in each year between 2007 and 2012. I was given the answer that the CPS had made no libel settlements in that period. Unfortunately, in May 2008, in a case adjudicated by Master Eyre between Hardcash Productions and the Director of Public Prosecutions and the chief constable of West Midlands police, there was a settlement of £50,000 between the two defendants. I am certain, because I know him well, that there is nobody less likely to mislead the House than the Attorney-General. Therefore, he must be depending upon information given to him by the Crown Prosecution Service.”
“Ordered, That Mr David Davis, Sir Richard Shepherd, Sir Menzies Campbell, Margaret Hodge, Mr Stephen Dorrell, Ann Clwyd, Mr Dominic Raab, Mr Tom Watson, Dr Sarah Wollaston, and Stephen Barclay present the Bill. Mr David Davis accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 January 2014, and to be printed (Bill 130).”
“In that way, the Bill would extend legal protection to whistleblowers’ disclosures to their MP, but also ensure that any allegations are investigated by a body with relevant knowledge and experience. Whistleblowers often demonstrate great courage, but they should not have to be heroes. Acting in the public interest should not require such huge personal sacrifice, and employers who jeopardise public safety simply to save their reputations should have to explain that choice in court. By shielding these courageous men and women from legal hurdles and vindictive bosses, this proposal would allow Members of this House to protect everyone from waste, corruption and incompetence in business, health care, and more generally in public life. Question put and agreed to.”
“First, it will ensure that a whistleblower’s disclosures to their Member of Parliament will be unconditionally protected for the purposes of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Secondly, it would make it a criminal offence for an employer to try to prevent a worker from blowing the whistle to their MP. There will be some narrowly defined exceptions, particularly over the Official Secrets Act, but even those could be overridden if the disclosure was clearly in the public interest. Third, it would empower Members of Parliament to refer allegations made by a whistleblowing constituent to a prescribed body, and it would enable that Member of Parliament to require from any one of those prescribed bodies a confidential response.”
“Those conversations will be protected only if the whistleblower meets a series of conditions set out in section 43G of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which includes notifying a potentially hostile employer, showing that the wrongdoing is exceptionally serious and demonstrating a reasonable belief that their employer will destroy vital evidence. If they cannot meet those conditions, whistleblowers who contact their MP place themselves at the mercy of employers who may want them to be victimised, sidelined or even sacked. I believe that that is wrong. Whistleblowers should not have to consult a solicitor in order to talk freely to their Member of Parliament. The Bill therefore seeks to do three things.”
“That is why I welcome the Government’s decision to use the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 to strengthen the legal protection for whistleblowers. However, I believe that we should go even further. In February, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published a 22-page document called “Blowing the whistle to a prescribed person—List of prescribed people and bodies”, which lists the bodies that a whistleblower can contact if they do not feel that they can go to their employer. The list includes Revenue and Customs, the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Care Quality Commission, but not the whistleblower’s Member of Parliament. That means that whistleblowers who report wrongdoing to their MP will not automatically be protected by law.”
“Hundreds have been pressured into signing compromise agreements, complete with gagging clauses that buy their silence. In the last four years, 77 NHS trusts have used gagging orders to silence 133 staff at a cost of almost £4 million. The culture of secrecy clearly comes at a financial cost, but more objectionable is the unquantifiable impact on our society and public services: the lives needlessly lost or irreversibly damaged; the unsuitable managers and staff allowed to continue in their posts; the missed opportunities to learn from mistakes—that is the real cost of using public money against the public interest. Every time a whistleblower is dismissed, ignored or bullied into submission, a cover-up is allowed to continue.”
“When that failed, they tried to gag him by offering him a six-figure sum if he left his job, kept his mouth shut and destroyed incriminating documents. He refused to take the money. Last year, he sought an injunction to stop trust bosses sacking him. Halfway through the hearing, the British Medical Association suddenly withdrew its support. Near bankrupt, he had to drop the case. That case is shocking, but it is not remotely unique. In April, a poll showed that, of more than 5,000 nurses who had reported substandard care, a quarter were warned against taking the matter further. Half of all whistleblowers face negative treatment of that sort, with a third of those being sacked. Faced with such treatment or the threat of it, many whistleblowers admit defeat.”
“For every whistleblower who goes public with their concerns, many more never come to light. The decision to expose wrongdoing is a life-changing choice. Whistleblowers find themselves shunned by colleagues, bullied by bosses and hauled before tribunals on trumped-up charges. Ugly rumours are started and careers finished. Whistleblowers’ health, wealth, friendships and marriages are tested to destruction—all casualties of their acting in the public interest. Let me take one example to illustrate the point. The story of Edwin Jesudason is typical. As a paediatric surgeon with more than 20 years’ experience, he raised concerns that children had died unnecessarily at Alder Hey children’s hospital. As a result, colleagues refused to work with him. Trust bosses tried to force him out.”
“In the past five years alone, whistleblowers have exposed pharmaceutical companies that have overcharged the NHS for drugs; alerted the National Audit Office to the tax authorities agreeing sweetheart deals, which let multinational companies reduce their tax bills by billions; filmed the abuse and neglect of elderly people in care homes; and exposed a litany of failings in our health service—some of which we have just heard about—such as the appalling standards of care at Mid Staffordshire, the failing maternity unit at Morecambe Bay and fiddled waiting time figures at Colchester. Thanks to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, whistleblowers have some protection. Employment tribunals have made 3,000 judgments in cases brought under that legislation. However, those cases are just the tip of the iceberg.”
“In the 15 years since the Act was passed, British society has benefited hugely from the bravery of whistleblowers. Those public-spirited men and women have shamed corrupt officials, identified heartless and hopeless hospitals, and exposed the deliberate or reckless misuse of public money.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to provide that disclosures of information about malpractice to a Member of Parliament where the disclosure is in the public interest be included as protected disclosures; and for connected purposes. In the last decade of the last century, one of the most important Bills that was passed by this House was introduced not by the Government, but by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd), with all-party support. His Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 followed a series of accidents that were fatal and entirely preventable, including the capsized car ferry at Zeebrugge, the explosion of the Piper Alpha oil rig and the Clapham junction rail crash, which between them cost 395 lives.”
“If my hon. Friend really is concerned about risks to British security, is he not concerned that UK Government secrets are accessible to hundreds of thousands of US Government employees? Perhaps that is why Mr Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old contract employee of three months’ standing, was able to access GCHQ files from Hawaii.”
“I know of no previous Bill that had ranged against it Christian Aid and the British Humanist Association, Greenpeace and the Countryside Alliance, or the Royal British Legion and the Salvation Army. It is a Bill that has attracted opposition precisely because it goes to the heart of all that those organisations do—not what they stand for, but what they do and how they execute their duty in society.”
“I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) and new clause 4. However, before I speak briefly about that, I want to respond to the comments made by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) at the beginning, because I am afraid to say that I largely agree with him. I do not hold much of a brief for any of this Bill, but part 2 as it stands seems to be a very serious mistake. I am particularly concerned because it used to be a convention, at least when I came into the House, that we did not guillotine constitutional Bills, yet part 2 goes to the heart of our democracy and free speech, as demonstrated by the opponents to the Bill.”
“We had a brilliant report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, as chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which could have provided a basis. That Committee could have been the vehicle for the process. The hon. Gentleman is right: there will be deleterious consequences, most of them unintended, but most of them because of how we have addressed this Bill.”
“That is why I start from my concern about the guillotine, because this is a Bill that in past decades—not past years, sadly—would have spent hours, days and weeks on the Floor of the House. It would have been preceded by a proper consultation, a cross-party agreement, a Green Paper and a White Paper—there was a White Paper, but as far as I could tell, it did not refer to part 2 at all. The Bill has not gone through what in my view would be a proper constitutional process and so will of course be subject to unintended consequences all over the place. I accept that the Government will not have intended many of the consequences—I will come to some that they do intend in a minute. I accept that the deleterious consequences of the Bill were not intentional, but they arise directly from how the Government started the process.”
“It is trying to defy the nature of modern politics and the fact that political decision making now is by web-based campaigners, web-based petitions or 38 Degrees. I get as annoyed as everyone else when I get campaigners from 38 Degrees writing to me—they say that they sometimes get dusty replies—but as Voltaire would have put it, I may disagree with what they say, but I defend to the death their right to say it. What part 2 does—not intentionally, but by accident—is jeopardise that entire tradition of our country. This is the home of free speech and this Chamber is the original defender of free speech, so what are we doing making these changes by accident? That is why I am concerned.”
“This Parliament has created a bureaucracy without the ability to alter, change or amend the rules before—it was known as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. What we are creating in this Bill is—if we want a precursor of how this will play out—an IPSA for elections. Let me turn to new clause 4. When it comes to political campaigns—whether electoral campaigns or other campaigns—the world is changing. Twenty-five years ago, I think only 8% of the population did not feel an affinity to one or other party. That figure is now 25%. All the political parties are declining—there is no party point in this; we are all dying on the vine as organisations. It is the nature of society that people’s interest in something tends to be more piecemeal than it was 25 or 50 years ago. This Bill is trying to swim upstream.”
“Let me pick up that point and develop it a little—we are principally talking about clause 26, but it also relates to later clauses, which will be dealt with later in the day. It is in this context that the comments from the Electoral Commission—the primary executing agency of this Bill—come into play. It uses the words “significant regulatory uncertainty”, saying that parts of the Bill are “impossible to enforce” and pointing out “significant issues of workability”. What are we doing? We are transforming a bureaucratic organisation, with the powers to make rules on policy campaigning, as well as to relax those rules, tighten the rules, amend them retrospectively and then apply them retrospectively to freedom of speech—something that is, by definition, oppressive. By definition, that will chill freedom of speech.”
“Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has been teased about tabling a manuscript amendment, because that is not the way to do it. We should do it properly, with proper legal advice and taking a wide range of contributions from the very people who will be affected. What the Government should have done before the Bill was presented to the House should be done now. If it is not done now, and if what is presented on Report is unacceptable, it will probably still get through, although I shall vote against it.”
“Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) was wrong to claim that it was an attempt to protect the Liberal party from the National Union of Students, but I was told by a member of the Liberal party that that is exactly what it was intended for. The raw truth is that, in our trade, we should be willing to stand by our principles and our aims, and by what we actually do. We should live or die by that, in political terms. I want to make one more point, and I shall make it directly to the Minister on the Front Bench. As I have said, this section of the Bill deals with a constitutional matter and goes to the heart of free speech in our society. Undertakings have been given by those on the Front Bench—entirely in good faith, I imagine. The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, my right hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman invites me to commit political suicide by confessing that I have used 38 Degrees in some of my campaigns. Sometimes I am for, and sometimes I am against. The organisation is part of the modern mechanism, and it is not the only one. It was, after all, based on similar organisations in America and Australia. That is the way politics is going and, frankly, my constituents should judge me on whether I voted for the proposed Syrian war. They should judge me on whether I voted for tuition fees and on how I voted on this, that or the other measure. If I may, I shall disagree with the author of new clause 4, my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, on one point. He said that the hon.”
“I am on almost my last line, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not. The Bill would probably still get through in those circumstances, but it is probable that the House of Lords, whose primary function is to act as a defender of our constitutional rights, would strip out the whole central section of the Bill. That is what it ought to do, and that is what it will do if the Government do not get the next stage right.”
“I welcome unreservedly the Justice Secretary’s response to the House’s concerns about the criminal justice system. What he has done in that regard has been excellent. However, I and other Members still have concerns about some of the proposals that have constitutional implications—judicial review, the residency test and so on. The Joint Committee on Human Rights is reviewing the Justice Secretary’s proposals. Will he wait until it reports before implementing the proposals with constitutional implications?”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He has not mentioned a category of people who suffer a form of injustice greater than anything he has spoken about. Those people cannot defend themselves, either because they have died as a result of a state action—I am thinking of Baha Mousa, in particular, who was beaten to death by British soldiers—or because they are incarcerated by either British or foreign states. Such people, without legal aid, have no recourse whatever. There is no self-representation, because they cannot do that, and no cheap representation, as they cannot do that either.”
“First, let me help the hon. Gentleman with a reminder of some of the things that were proposed. There was a proposal for a levy on the commercial courts in London that would raise large amounts of money. There were proposals that the banks should pay for the fraud cases that make up a large part of what we are discussing. I also want to ask the hon. Gentleman a question. The Law Society has come up with a proposal that maintains choice but still puts in place a bidding system— a rather more thoughtful bidding system, if I may so—a rolling three-year bidding system, which would keep in place some of the smaller specialised companies and so on. Does he think that that is a good route to go down?”
“The hon. Lady has used the phrase “excessive haste” twice in her speech so far, and with respect to part 2, I rather agree with her. Historically, constitutional and democratic measures have not been guillotined in the House. Does the Opposition intend to vote against the guillotine tonight?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The events of last week have created a historic constitutional precedent that future decisions on war and peace will be subject to the decision of the House. That has implications for other constitutional conventions, one such being the tradition that the Government do not reveal their legal advice in those matters. That is normally a very sensible convention, but if the Attorney-General is the adviser to the Government and to the House of Commons, that creates a problem in giving independent advice to the House. Can you, Mr Speaker, use your offices to resolve that problem, either by obtaining independent advice on future occasions, or by approaching the Government to change that convention?”
“There were reports that the Turkish authorities arrested 12 al- Nusra fighters with 2 kg of sarin gas, and other reports that Hezbollah fighters are in Beirut hospitals suffering from the effects of sarin gas. A number of people, most notably my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, have said that we must have clear evidence to show the House that, if there is a casus belli, it is real, not confected or constructed. That may mean more aggressive disclosure of intelligence than we would normally have. Given where we have been before in this House, we must consider that our intelligence as it stands might just be wrong. It was before, and we must test it rigorously.”
“Another possibility is that it could have been done by a rogue or panicky military unit in the Syrian army without Assad’s knowledge—that may be the most likely explanation—or it could have been done by the Syrian rebels with the direct aim of dragging the west into the war. These are the only people who have a clear motive that fits the crime. The JIC discounted that last possibility, but there are many reasons for us to worry about this concern. We do not want to be conned into a war, in effect, by actions designed to do just that. There are plenty of facts around, or at least reported facts. It is reported that the UN representative for human rights for Syria thought there was concrete evidence of rebels having sarin gas.”
“Death by dismemberment, burning, being crushed under falling buildings, gangrene or all the other outcomes of the use of conventional weapons is no better than death by nerve gas—these are monstrosities, however they are delivered. In moral, as against legal, terms many people will rightly, as they have in this debate, ask: why intervene now? To press their case, this Government and the American Government, now supported by the JIC, have asserted, in effect, that the gassing of a large number of Syrian civilians could have been carried out only by the Assad regime. Perhaps. There are three possibilities. The first, and probably the most likely, is that nerve gas was deployed by Assad, but even the JIC says that this is an irrational and incomprehensible act. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) pinned that perfectly.”
“When the Prime Minister wanted to take military action in Libya, most of us supported him because there was a clear moral imperative: if we had not acted, tens of thousands of lives would quickly have been lost. That clear moral imperative does not stand in the action we are countenancing. There is no doubt that the Assad regime is evil, but that is not our casus belli: our casus belli is the monstrous crime of killing hundreds, perhaps more, of civilians with nerve gas. The use of chemical weapons is not the first monstrous crime of this regime: at least 100,000 people have been killed in the civil war, most of whom were civilians.”
“The CIA has recently declassified and published its information on Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, in which the west provided intelligence data in order for the Iraqis to be able to target their activities more effectively, killing 50,000 Iranians. How will our stance now be seen on the Iranian street? What will the pressures be on the Iranian Government when we make our holier-than-thou arguments about chemical warfare now? I do not have time to conclude the arguments that I want to put. I will make one last point. Putin has said that the reason he provided anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrians was, in his words, to balance the war and prevent external intervention. What will his response be if we attack Syria? His response will be to feed this war more weapons, more deaths—”
“If I had 10 minutes to take my hon. Friend through the forensics, I probably could. There is plenty of forensic evidence that will come out of the UN investigation and out of other data that we can obtain by other methods. It is not a question of panic; it is a question of getting the facts right before we act. It is very simple: when we are going to do things which will lead to the death of people, civilians in particular, we should get our facts right first. That brings me to the Deputy Prime Minister on the “Today” programme this morning, talking about chemical weapons and saying—let me quote him exactly—that it is “the first time in close to a century” that we have seen—in Syria, he means— “the ever more frequent use of chemical weapons.” I recommend that he speaks to our American allies.”
“One of the misunderstandings in the mind of the public is that legal aid is a principal cost. In fact, our legal system costs half that of the Swiss and three quarters of the system in the other major European countries, and it delivers better results. Surely we should be proud of that?”
“What we are talking about, therefore, is providing justice to the innocent and to victims.”
“My name is on this motion not because I do not think we need to control the cost of legal aid—we do—but should it be done in this way and at this speed? I think not. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 is barely complete, and has had no assessment. The consultation was extremely brief and we understand that the Government intend to place contracts in the autumn. Frankly, without primary legislation, the likelihood is that this business will be challenged in the courts. We will have more haste and less speed on the delivery of savings. I want to deal with some fundamental points. This is not, as has been intimated, about the protection by silver-tongued lawyers of serial offenders: in the Crown courts in contested cases, half are found not guilty.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point that I will return to later. He is exactly right—this is one of the likely unintended consequences of what is being proposed in the consultation. In their efforts to cut legal costs overall, the Government are overlooking a far bigger cause of waste in the system than legal aid, namely the sheer inefficiency of the Crown Prosecution Service. In 2011-12, more than 123,000 prosecutions failed after charge because either no evidence was presented or the case was eventually dropped. The cost to the service, the courts and aborted defences was measured in tens of millions of pounds, not to mention the stress faced by people who were, presumably, innocent.”
“If we cannot guarantee our own system and our own service, how are we going to guarantee 400 private operators around the country?”
“Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab)—by Government assurances that the quality of legal aid providers will be guaranteed by a state body. This debate comes barely a week after the Care Quality Commission scandal. That demonstrates how difficult it is to guarantee the quality of complex intellectual services, which, of course, justice is. We should notice that even where the state has direct control—namely, the CPS and the Serious Fraud Office—it cannot guarantee quality there either. A judge in a recent murder case described the CPS lawyer as “completely inadequate”. The judge said that the lawyer cited old law, did not understand the current law, fell out with the prosecution team, and then simply did not show up on the following Monday. As a result, the trial had to be held six months later.”
“If the hon. Lady will forgive, I am very tight on time. I will give way if I can a little later. That does not tell the whole story, however. Time and again, we see trials delayed and extended by CPS incompetence. In my part of the world alone, the newspapers are littered with cases of lawyers not turning up, evidence not being presented and cases being adjourned again and again. I suspect we all have constituency cases just like that. This happens right across the country. We should not pretend that the legal aid system is a model of efficiency, but when it comes to finding savings and better, effective justice across the whole system, we should look first at the CPS itself before we let the axe fall again on legal aid. I am yet to be convinced—this addresses the point made by my hon.”
“That brings me to my final point, which is about judicial review. I sympathise with Ministers who find it irksome that we have so many judicial reviews, but the Government are in danger of getting themselves a reputation for wanting to act above the law. Irksome as it is, judicial reviews are what keeps British Governments honest—it does not matter of which party or of which origin, they keep the Government honest. I say to the Government that before they strike down these things at their own convenience, they should think again, come back more slowly and present this House with some primary legislation we can then be proud of.”