Mr Toby Perkins
MP for Chesterfield · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is absolutely right to say that what is behind this is the deep unpopularity of President Milei; it is not anything actually that the UK has done.”
“In Chesterfield, there will be unmitigated despair at the statement we have heard today from my right hon. Friend. For the authorities for which she is doing a review—the 14 that thought they had got their decision in July—could she clarify the basis of that review?”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this debate.”
“The report spells out the link between degradation overseas and the impact here. The assessment lays out the consequences: food insecurity, economic insecurity, increased migration and refugees, increased interstate competition, conflict and geopolitical instability, all of which will threaten us here at home.”
“The Government are right to take their time and make sure that they get this right—we saw what happened when the previous Government did not do the work that was needed. This is a delicately balanced decision.”
“Thirdly, will the Minister consider bringing forward the fourth national adaptation programme? NAP3, published by the previous Government in 2023, was deemed ineffective by the Climate Change Committee. NAP4 is not due until 2028, but can we afford to wait two more years before we have an adequate plan?”
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“The future relationship is not sorted, and it is now for the Conservative party and its MPs to decide what that future relationship will be. They may well do it without Parliament having much of a say. Opponents of the new Tory Eurosceptic consensus have been swept away, and the supine, obedient group of Europhobic robots that we see in front of us have taken their place. Like lambs, they will lead us in whichever direction is ordered by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who will receive his orders from Dominic Cummings. We will see what direction they take us in.”
“Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) rightly said, this is only the first part of all this and we will get on to the detail after that vote—I am minded to remember that Vote Leave promised us during the last referendum that “we will negotiate the terms of a new deal before we start any legal process to leave”. That was one of the central promises of the Vote Leave campaign. When we vote tonight, we will be voting against that promise made by Vote Leave—we will be leaving the EU and then deciding on what basis we leave. But let us see if the Government are able to negotiate this much better deal. I confess that I will feel a huge sense of relief when the Bill passes tonight, so that we can move on to the next stage, and we will see whether the Government are able to deliver in any way on the promises that they made.”
“No, I am going to make some progress. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) claimed that it was the uncertainty that we had in the last Parliament that undermined our negotiations. Well, now we will see, because now there are no excuses for Conservative Members. There is no sense that Parliament’s position is unknown. It is clear that we are going to leave the EU, and now they have no one else to blame. It is entirely their responsibility, and the fishermen, the farmers and the car workers up at Nissan will see whether it was this Parliament that was preventing the Government from getting the deal that they promised during the referendum. As we vote on this tonight—as my hon.”
“The Labour party will not win votes in this Parliament, but we can, if we choose, lead the way to a different but still close relationship with our nearest neighbours—one that eschews a mean-spirited approach to the most vulnerable people and seeks still to offer the opportunities to the next generation of young people that so many of our generation enjoyed.”
“Leaving the European Union does not have to mean relinquishing or reducing that global role. It does not have to mean retreating into narrow nationalism, but many who support it want that future for our country. The Conservative party has ceased to be a broad church. Only rampant Europhobia is to be tolerated now. I have never seen a less broad church— [ Interruption. ] Conservative Members are pointing at the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) to describe what a broad church they are; that is how desperate it has got. It is now for my party to become a broad church again and recognise the reasons why communities who voted Labour for decades chose to seek a future outside the EU. We need to seek a co-operative and internationalist path for our country.”
“It has got the Brexit it wants now, and it can decide, but a party that refuses to try to speak to those who voted against it will find itself in an ever diminishing pool. The next leader of the Labour party will also need to learn that lesson. I will not oppose the Bill’s Third Reading today, because the desire to get beyond this stage is powerful and palpable. Businesses and communities wish for the Government to map out the future that we foresee for our country after Brexit, but the Government are foolish to continue to pursue the very narrow Brexit that they have suggested. Our country has a long history of being a global player. We have taken an active interest in global affairs and made a contribution that far outweighs the size of our nation throughout history.”
“The hon. Gentleman has made his point. I have already responded to that, and it does not take us any further to go on now. I voted for the amendments that my colleagues tabled, and we were right to seek to improve the Bill. I regret that the new orthodoxy recognises no value in the Erasmus programme, which enables young people without huge wealth to enjoy some of the opportunities that young people with wealth will continue to enjoy. It was triumphalist and not sensible to remove the assurances from the Bill that the Prime Minister put in place on its Second Reading in the last Parliament. It is ultimately for the victors to decide who they want to appeal to—it is for the Conservative party.”
“The Prime Minister was just saying how his Government back the armed services. He will be aware that our Army is almost 40,000 fewer than it was when the Conservatives came to power. He will be aware that people serving in the armed forces have seen their wages cut in real terms for seven years in a row. What would he do for armed forces he was not backing?”
“People watching this will be amazed. The Minister appears not to be aware of what is being said out there. He is still speaking as though there is a deal to be done, when the Prime Minister and his advisers are making it absolutely clear that the deal is dead. The impacts that we are discussing will fall on businesses, and they are looking at a Government who appear utterly clueless about what to do. All we are getting now is a blame game. Will the Minister come to the Dispatch Box and say something that might help manufacturing businesses in my constituency?”
“T6. There is literally nothing else to say about Conservative welfare policy. The truth is that anyone who has met people who work in a food bank, or people who work with the homeless, will recognise that there is a direct link between welfare policy, the sanctions regime, and the increase in homelessness and poverty. What serious work will the Government do to address that link—or will they at least have the decency and honesty to admit that that increase in homelessness and poverty is an absolutely accepted part of Government policy?”
“Q12. I recently met a victim of domestic violence who continues to live in isolation and terror, even now that the abusive relationship is over. This Parliament has a duty to her, and to every victim of domestic violence, to pass the Domestic Abuse Bill, which is finally having its Second Reading today. Will the Foreign Secretary promise her that this life-saving legislation will not fall due to Prorogation?”
“Given that the UK is continuing to trade weapons with the Saudis, can the Minister tell us a little bit more about what success we have had in terms of getting these investigations into breaches of humanitarian law and what actual influence we are having?”
“What the Minister says about the UK calling on all sides to cease the fighting would be more convincing if he was able to tell us whether the Prime Minister mentioned Yemen in his meeting with President Rouhani. I appreciate that the Minister has stepped into the breach somewhat, but that would have been rather a key piece of information to bring to a statement about this conflict. I expect our Government to have relatively limited power with the Houthis and with the Iranians, but we should expect more from the Minister and from this Government in terms of our relationship with the Saudi Arabians.”
“I wonder if you are able to get a message to the Government to ensure that people who come to the Dispatch Box are in a position to be able to respond on the key factors that they are going to be asked about.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are aware that the Government’s major attention at the moment appears to be a couple of hundred miles to the north of where we are, but I do think that if Parliament is sitting and we are going to have urgent questions on matters as crucial as today’s, it is beholden on the Government to ensure that if the Secretary of State is unable to attend, the Minister is given the relevant information to be able to ensure that the exchanges can be performed in a way that actually provides information to people watching these proceedings and, crucially, to Members of Parliament. I do not blame the Minister himself, but on the key factor about what the UK has done either with the Iranians or with the Saudi Arabians, he has not been in a position to respond, and I do think that that diminishes these proceedings.”
“It is important that the standards are maintained as we head towards 31 October, and many of my constituents will be concerned about not only the maintenance of those standards but also pricing. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s policy on what tariffs the UK would place on EU agricultural goods coming into the UK if, in the event of no deal, the EU placed tariffs on UK agricultural goods?”
“I agree with much of what the Foreign Secretary has said about the appalling role of the Iranians, not just in their own country but across the middle east region. Do not the actions of President Trump and their failure to ensure that the west has influence show that his kind of Twitter diplomacy, far from getting things done, weakens those forces in Iran who want to work with the west and strengthens those forces who want to say the west is the enemy?”
“T5. I have been in communication with the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), about a constituent of mine who is facing an appalling situation with the Legal Aid Agency. The Legal Aid Agency applies a £100,000 disregard to eligibility for legal aid if someone is living in their main dwelling, but because my constituent is fleeing domestic violence and living in a women’s refuge, her property is considered to be her second home and she is being asked for the legal aid back. That cannot be the intention of the policy, but the Minister has not been able to do anything for my constituent. Will he urgently look into this and get us to a situation where people fleeing domestic violence are not penalised as a result of living in a refuge?”
“The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right that the consequences for Northern Ireland of a no-deal Brexit are very serious. I am sure that he will be as astonished as I was that a survey of members of the Conservative and Unionist party found that a majority of his party members were actually willing to see the break-up of the Union and to see what could happen to Northern Ireland if that issue would stop Brexit. If he does not recognise his own party, in some ways he might not be alone. Can he give us any insight into how the Conservative and Unionist party has got to this place?”
“The Minister, along with every other Conservative Member of Parliament who was elected or re-elected in 2015, was elected on a manifesto promise that there would be a standing Army of 82,000. That has never been achieved since 2015, and, indeed, on 1 April the size of the fully trained Army was down to 75,000. The Minister may claim that the Government are meeting their commitments, but one commitment that they are not meeting is the commitment to an Army of the size that they promised in their manifesto. Is that still their policy, and, if not, can the Minister tell us at what point the policy was dropped?”
“T7. For all the warm words from the Armed Forces Minister about Army recruitment moving in the right direction, is the truth not that for every single year we have had a Conservative Government the size of the fully trained Army has been smaller than the year before? Is it not time that he confronted the reality we are facing and stopped trying to kid people that this is moving in the right direction?”
“11. What discussions he has had with the high street banking sector on closures of the last bank in (a) Staveley, Derbyshire and (b) towns throughout the UK.”
“When the Government bailed out the banks, it was partly in recognition of the fact that banks were public services as well as profit-making businesses. I am disturbed—as will be the people of Staveley—by the Minister’s hands-off approach. Do not the Government either need to sit down with the banks and ensure they have a real commitment to having a bank branch in towns such as Staveley or adopt Labour’s proposal for a post bank so that we can have some Government control to make sure we have services where they are desperately needed?”
“We know that areas of greater deprivation have greater health needs than other areas. Will the Secretary of State tell us what more there is in the long-term plan specifically about increasing the resources for GP practices that serve areas of greater deprivation? They have longer waiting times and greater vacancy lists and we need specific action to support those practices.”
“There is considerable potential for trade and for increasing Britain’s soft power in developing our relationship with the Kurdistan region of Iraq. What more can be done to review the Foreign Office security advice on Kurdistan, and can it be viewed differently from the advice relating to wider Iraq?”
“It is clear from the Secretary of State’s answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) that the Government made a promise in their manifesto, but knew at the time that it was not theirs to make. The Secretary of State has said that he is disappointed with the BBC. Will he clarify whether, during those discussions with the BBC, it ever promised the Government that for the foregoing period of that settlement it would retain free TV licences for all pensioners?”
“Many of my constituents feel strongly that stronger action needs to be taken against the rogue elements among breeders, and there will be a lot of support for the measures that are being brought forward. The Minister is absolutely right about the appalling scenes that we have seen. To what extent does he believe that the steps being proposed will not just make things a little better but end this evil trade once and for all?”
“The Minister is absolutely right to publicise and to put on record how many excellent, responsible breeders there are out there. There have been occasions in the past where Governments have legislated for all the right reasons but ended up creating nightmares for some of the smaller organisations, in particular. What representations has he had on this, and how much can he reassure us that the legislation, as well as being robust, is sufficiently well drafted that it will not create unintended consequences for responsible smaller breeders?”
“Q4. Brampton Primary School in Chesterfield has an exemplary record in special needs education. Yet, under the Government’s funding formula, the first £6,000 for every special needs child is not actually funded by the Government. When even the Tory lead member for education in Derbyshire describes a school like Brampton as a victim of its own success, is it not time that the Prime Minister, in her final days, changed the funding formula and started looking after those special needs children?”
“Ordered, That Toby Perkins, Vernon Coaker, Sir Roger Gale, Nigel Mills, Philip Davies, Matt Western, Stephen Pound, Bob Stewart, Ian Austin, Albert Owen, Mr Jonathan Lord and Sir David Amess present the Bill. Toby Perkins accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow , and to be printed (Bill 393 ).”
“The Bill will not address all the issues, but it will at least create one new tool for the police and landowners and will discourage those people who might be tempted to try to raise money through demanding cash to leave premises that they should not be on in the first place. This issue is causing a huge deal of distress, fear and mistrust, and it stands with us as MPs to tackle these issues, at a time when Parliament is passing precious little other legislation. The Bill enjoys cross-party support, and I know it will be popular not just among Members from all parties but, more importantly, among business owners and families across the land. I encourage the Government to find time in their schedule to support the later stages of the Bill. Question put and agreed to.”
“When I asked the Government how many blackmail prosecutions there have been for the offence of demanding money to leave a site that someone is on unlawfully, they confirmed that they did not hold that data. My diligent staff have worked night and day to try to find other examples of convictions for that offence under existing legislation, and they have been unable to find any. It is not enough for us in this place to allow public authorities, whether the police or councils, to expect private landowners to pay thousands of pounds to regain unfettered access to their own land because of the failure of public authorities to provide adequate authorised facilities and our failure as legislators to provide usable legislation and policing resources to support landowners to rid their sites of illegal occupants.”
“The police’s first question to the brewery owners was, “Are you insured?” Let us stop for a moment and ask, as legislators, what kind of law and service we are presiding over when the first question that the police ask a victim of crime is not, “Is an offence being committed?” but, “Are you insured?” In that case, the police eventually—and uniquely, as far as I have been able to establish—prosecuted the Travellers for the offence of blackmail alongside the criminal damage prosecution, although the chief executive of Thwaites brewery, Richard Bailey, told me that he believes the blackmail prosecution was sought only as an addendum to the criminal damage case.”
“Again, he was told that the Travellers would be willing to move 60 yards on to the bank, but that the inconvenience would not come cheap: they would require £10,000 and the return ferry fares to Ireland to move. In doing research for the introduction of my Bill, I learned of the case of Thwaites brewery in Blackburn. An even bigger group of 20 caravans arrived on site, ultimately costing about £350,000 in damage and stolen goods. Again, the Travellers made financial demands, in this case asking for £20,000 to leave the site.”
“Dozens of parents and supporters, plus the 22 children who were due to play in the cup final, arrived only to discover that play was impossible because of a caravan sited on a good length just outside the off stump, with further vehicles pitched up at gully, square leg and extra cover. The chairman of the cricket club approached the Travellers and asked them if they would mind moving 60 yards or so on to the bank—there is large amount of park land just beyond the cricket pitch at Queen’s Park—so that the children’s cup final could take place. He explained that the children had worked hard to get to the cup final and that their parents were all excited about watching them play.”
“It is only fair to acknowledge that the Derbyshire police and crime commissioner, Hardyal Dhindsa, has taken a very proactive approach in attempting to get these offences policed more robustly. Too often, though, the experience of businesses and landowners is that the victims are on the wrong side of the law. The incident I have outlined was not the first time that the strategy of using an illegal encampment to extort money had been used in Chesterfield. Last August, Travellers arrived on the cricket square at the famous Queen’s Park cricket ground in Chesterfield on a Friday night, just an hour before a junior cup cricket final was due to start.”
“Immediately, the Travellers suggested that he pay them £2,500 to leave the site, alongside making threats to him, his wife and his property. They also informed him that it would cost him a lot more than that to employ bailiffs to remove them from the site. To his amazement, the police officer who eventually attended seemed to think that this was an offer worthy of consideration. Coolspirit was not alone in feeling utterly abandoned by the forces of law and order and as though the law was kinder to those who were breaking the law than those who were attempting to uphold their legal rights. Eventually, after my intervention, the police took a more helpful approach.”
“A number of different pieces of legislation already address the issue of trespass and encampments, but my Bill will deal with the specific offence of demanding money to leave a site that people are not entitled to be on in the first place. Three weeks ago, I was contacted by an information technology firm in my constituency called Coolspirit, which is based on the Bridge business park in Dunston in Chesterfield. Coolspirit employs more than 20 people and had been notified that Travellers had moved on to its car park at 7 pm that night. The owner, Damon Robertson, attended and attempted to encourage the Travellers to leave. He explained that their use of his car park would prevent his staff from attending work the following day.”
“Surely other sites that are more remote from other housing estates would make more sense than these collisions being inflicted on a specific estate and community. Having said all that, it is perfectly possible to have every sympathy about the lack of authorised encampments and still be horrified by some of the practices that we have all experienced in respect of unauthorised encampments. In particular, it is clear that, far from simply requiring a place to stay for a few days, many Travellers have seen the disquiet that their visit causes as an opportunity to use fear to earn and, indeed, to demand money.”
“We in this place will make the job of our overstretched police forces a much easier one if we ensure that there are sufficient legitimate sites. I have to confess that some may see my own contribution as a little two-faced: I am happy to call for more sites, but when the recent local plan for the borough of Chesterfield went out for consultation, I considered all six of the potential venues that the council identified for a Traveller site to be inappropriate. I do recognise that if we wait for a resident community that positively demands a site, we will be waiting a long time, but the planning guidance needs looking at, because all the sites identified in Chesterfield were on council estates in built-up communities and were clearly inappropriate and would lead to greater division and unrest in the community.”
“In this case, I had secured the requisite 11 volunteers within a few minutes of emailing round my request for sponsors. Indeed, as many as 41 right hon. and hon. Members have expressed an interest in being supporters of the Bill. The Bill would build on current legislation to make it a specific offence for people to demand money to vacate an authorised encampment, which has happened in my constituency on several occasions that I have been made aware of. It is worth saying that I entirely understand that the Traveller community faces a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. I also think it is lamentable that successive Governments, and perhaps this one in particular, have spoken the language of supporting Traveller communities while failing to take the requisite steps to ensure that there are an adequate number of legitimate sites.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make it a criminal offence to demand money to vacate an unauthorised encampment; and for connected purposes. The relationship between the Traveller community and the resident community is one of the most tense of any in our society. As Members of Parliament, we are often contacted to support those caught up in the unhappy collision between the two groups, and successive Governments have failed to bridge the gap. By the sheer weight of Members who have volunteered to be sponsors of this Bill, I know that I am not the only Member who has faced such issues in my constituency. Usually, getting other Members to be co-sponsors of a Bill is an arduous and time-consuming task that requires the calling in of favours—or at least a good deal of doleful pleading.”
“I invite the Secretary of State to respond specifically to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) about the Government’s response to the call for a judicial review. We cannot blame her for the failures of her predecessor, but we heard that the promise of a response within 60 days was made about 320 days ago. Will she make it clear that she will now put that right and that the House will hear her view on that and let us know when we should expect to hear it?”
“The Minister is speaking as though this issue has landed on him unexpectedly from a clear blue sky, but we are talking about events that happened 40 years ago, and much of it could have been predicted. Although of course we want malicious cases to be dismissed, will he confirm his exact policy on cases that may have some legitimacy but have already been tried and within which we would expect soldiers to be treated fairly?”
“There will be concern in Chesterfield that the East Midlands rail service currently provided by Stagecoach will no longer be in place. In terms of what the Minister is able to tell us about the process, how many fully compliant bids were there? In terms of the process going forward, what benefits will constituents in Chesterfield see when we move to Abellio trains?”
“The Minister described the strategic realignment that Bombardier has spoken about, but he has also no doubt spoken to ADS—on behalf of the aerospace industry—and heard about the huge concern that exists in aerospace manufacturing about the fact that the Government are unable to come up with a permanent customs arrangement or even to get a deal through this Parliament. Given all the discussions he has had, what impact will the Government’s current Brexit position have on the likelihood of these Bombardier jobs being secured and a new buyer found?”
“T2. Millions of people are not registered on the electoral roll, and they are much more likely to be from an ethnic minority, young or from a lower demographic class. Does not it say everything about this Government that at a time when we should be trying to get more people on to the register, they are doing everything they can to keep people off the register?”
“Let me make a point that neatly sums up what my hon. Friend is talking about. In Chesterfield, we have had a reduction of 43.2%. I took the time to look at the reduction in the Minister’s constituency and it is only 12%. That is not a difference of just a couple of per cent. It is three and a half times more in my constituency.”
“I am grateful. One thing that has been missing from the debate so far in terms of social care is that the vast majority of domestic visits are carried out by employees of private sector companies, as opposed to employees of local authorities, because most of these services have been outsourced. Huge numbers of those companies are going bust. It surely shows the Secretary of State that the system is unsustainable when 100 care homes have gone bust in the last couple of years.”
“I am sure the Secretary of State would not want people watching this debate to be misled by what he has just said about police funding. He knows as well as all of us that the reason Labour voted against the spending plans for the police was that we were proposing far greater spending on the police. That is why Labour Members voted against what we saw as his derisory offer to our desperately under-resourced police services.”