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?”
The complete record
Every one of 3,898 lines we hold for Mr Toby Perkins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 39 of 78.
“At a recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on pubs, we heard from many tenants who had attempted to avail themselves of the “market rent only” option under the pubs code, but whose attempts had been frustrated. Will the review to which the Minister has referred involve a full and open consultation to which members of the public will be able to contribute, and which we will all be able to read afterwards?”
“T4. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for asking almost exactly the question that I was about to ask, because that gives me the opportunity to expand on the answer he was given. Will the Minister tell us a little more about whether the Government are minded to make Spice and Mamba—drugs that are causing huge problems in Nottingham Prison and many others—class A drugs? What other strategies do we have to reduce the amount of drugs in prisons?”
“The Leader of the House says that the Attorney General answered with candour. Indeed, he did, when he said that “although the House says that I should disclose, I believe that the public interest compels me not to.” —[ Official Report , 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 564.] He made it clear that he was deliberately in contempt of Parliament.”
“I understand what the Minister said a moment ago about not wanting to pre-empt the Home Secretary. Many of us wish that he had in fact pre-empted her and had his White Paper out in time for the meaningful vote. I note that many of the statements in part two were made by the person described as the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, the hon. Member for East Surrey, who resigned from the Government a few days ago. Can the Minister tell us whether he would have been in this Committee today had he not resigned from his post, and what we should read into the fact that he has made a number of statements telling us that we should not be worried, but now has so little confidence in the Government’s approach that he no longer wants to be a part of it?”
“For victims of historical child sexual exploitation to come forward, they have to have confidence that their claims will be not only taken seriously but tackled with due urgency. A constituent of mine tells me that South Yorkshire police have recently merged their historical child sexual exploitation department with their violent crime department. This means that whenever a new violent crime comes in, victims of child sexual exploitation have to wait for their case to be dealt with. What can the Minister do to ensure that specialism and due urgency are brought to these cases?”
“The hon. Lady is very kind. She says that she will speak to her committee of retail representatives about why they feel this is necessary, but should she not have done that before rejecting the amendment? It is clear that they are saying it is necessary, so it is a little late for her to say she will vote against the amendment while saying she will start consulting on it.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a rather curmudgeonly speech about fireworks, if he does not mind me saying so. I understand the point he makes about the huge display here in London, but a great deal of enjoyment is found by many different people in smaller displays in their local communities. My children greatly enjoy going to our back window to see the displays over Chesterfield, such as on fireworks night. Smaller displays can be tremendously enjoyable, but we are all concerned about those people who use them irresponsibly or cause danger. They are the ones we want to clamp down on.”
“The hon. Gentleman is raising an important point about morale. Alongside the difficulties that he raises, does he agree that many people in the air force have very transferrable skills that are worth a huge amount of money in the private sector, and that as they get towards the mid-levels of their careers in the air force, the pressure on family life and the alternatives that are available mean that they move on and we end up with a deskilled air force? We still have top-quality people and top-quality equipment, but we are perhaps not as match-fit as we should be in the current climate.”
“I commend, as many others have, the work the Foreign Secretary has put in place. I agree entirely with what he says about not wanting to legitimise the original actions of the Houthis that started the conflict. His draft resolution rightly criticises the Houthis by name, but by the same token the Saudi Arabians and UAE are only mentioned in terms of the positive steps they have taken. Across the House, we have been critical of many of the ways the Saudis have conducted this conflict. Can he say why there is not more in the draft resolution about the areas on which the Saudis should rightly be criticised?”
“13. What estimate he has made of the number of pubs that closed in 2018; and what assessment he has made of the reasons for those pub closures.”
“That does not really answer the question of why 7,000 pubs have closed since 2010, so I encourage the Minister to address that when she returns to the Dispatch Box. To be more positive, she will have seen that the all-party parliamentary group on pubs is bringing about a parliamentary pub of the year award, so I encourage her to nominate a pub in her constituency and to join us and the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), on 15 January to find out which is Britain’s greatest parliamentary pub.”
“12. What proportion of tribunal appeals for (a) personal independence payment and (b) universal credit have been successful in 2018; and what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of those appeals having been successful.”
“The Minister may be committed to reducing the number of appeals, but the statistics she has just revealed show how awfully the system is working for many of the most vulnerable in our society. As she says, 71% of appeals are successful. That is putting a huge financial strain on the system but, more importantly, some of the most vulnerable are going through incredibly stressful processes. Will the new Secretary of State work with the Minister to improve the system so that the people who come into our surgeries every single week and tell us how awful the system is can stop going through the process as they are currently having to?”
“I would like to reinforce the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Does not the fact that so many police and crime commissioners are writing to us, calling on us to make the very changes that he suggests, reinforce the point that the police will attach a greater priority to these drugs if they are reclassified as class A drugs?”
“If we are going to reclassify Spice ask them to and try to solve the problem, we will need to make sure there is additional resource for policing. We need a real attack—it has been inadequate so far—on homelessness. We need to recognise the link between welfare policy and many social ills. We need to ensure that drug prevention services are sufficiently robust and that we have proper support in our health system for people who want to come off drugs. We need to ensure we have targeted policing and sympathetic sentencing. We all recognise that reclassification is only one part of a much broader solution. Just because that does not solve everything does not mean that we should not try to do something. That is why I support the case made by the hon. Member for Mansfield today.”
“When drugs are so rife in prisons, it is absolutely impossible to do any kind of rehabilitation work. The prison governor told me about a video of one of his inmates who was on Spice. He talked to him and showed him what he was like and the guy simply said, “When I’m away on Spice I just don’t care about anything else in the world.” The drug has a substantial impact on our prisons. The hon. Member for Mansfield was at pains to point out that reclassification is only one part of the solution. None of us has claimed that it will solve the issue. It is a social ill that afflicts us, but the chief cost of it and the comparatively low sentencing are important issues for us to tackle. Alongside that, where do we want to take the debate further? We need further resourcing for policing.”
“The terror that is caused in our communities by behaviour that does not actually hurt people, but certainly frightens them, is much stronger than the phrase “antisocial behaviour” implies. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) talked about the impact on prisons. I recently visited Nottingham prison, which is one of 10 that gets specific direction from the Government on improving standards and reducing suicides. The impact that Spice and Mamba synthetic cannabinoids have on the running of the prison is incredible. People get themselves sent into prison deliberately to bring drugs in. Huge and complicated initiatives are put in place to get drugs into the prison. The prison governor is entirely realistic about the impact that that has and the inability of our Prison Service to address it.”
“Instead, those sentences will go higher up the drug chain to the people at the top, where they really belong. It is up to us as legislators to ensure that our directions for the courts achieve that aim. People may say that changing the classification will criminalise the victims, but it is up to us, when we get into the legislative process following the instruction this debate will give to the Home Secretary, to ensure that the directions to the courts are sufficiently robust for them to understand what we are talking about. The hon. Member for Mansfield referred to antisocial behaviour, but that phrase understates the scale of the issue and its impact. “Antisocial behaviour” makes me think of children riding around on bikes in their local communities being noisy and knocking on people’s doors.”
“Member for Mansfield held, people were worried that a reclassification would end up criminalising users. My sense is that we have widespread agreement that we want to try to reduce the incentive for dealers. It is not about going after those who are victims or vulnerable. Because of the availability of these drugs in prison, prison is no disincentive. I am very much of the view that it is not about criminalising users; it is all about reducing the incentive for dealers. If we increase the classification and sentences rise, police tell me that they will no longer be getting people low down the supply chain. Currently, they are willing to take the rap because sentences are relatively short and they and their families will be looked after while they are in prison.”
“I pay tribute to the work of Hardyal Dhindsa, our excellent police and crime commissioner for Derbyshire. Along with the force, he has put a huge amount of effort into trying to clamp down on these drugs. He introduced Operation Chesnee, which led to 70 arrests and a spate of convictions. At least 40 people have now been charged, and convictions are ongoing. Derbyshire police have put significant resource into cracking down on Spice and Mamba, but while they are class B drugs, there is a limit to the resources they can put in and the returns they can get. There is also the impact on the ambulance service. We have seen a sixfold increase in the past year in the number of ambulance call-outs to people who are on synthetic cannabinoids. At the all-party parliamentary group meeting that the hon.”
“These people are victims and vulnerable people, but their actions impact on a huge number of other people. Many people are frightened to go into the centre of our towns because of the impact of Mamba and Spice users and the alarming state that people get themselves into on these drugs. At times over the past couple of years, we have seen the homeless community coming together in Chesterfield. The availability of such a cheap and powerful drug is a big part of the attraction. That has a big impact on not only the town centre, but our businesses and on retailers. Retailers trying to run their businesses in tough times have contacted me, saying they have people under the spell of these drugs in contorted positions in their shop doorways. It is impossible for them to conduct their business. The issue has a big effect on shoppers and tourists.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) on securing this important debate, and I rise to speak in support of the case he made. His constituency is not that far from mine and not that different from mine. Many people see Mansfield as a slightly less good Chesterfield, but suffice it to say they share many similarities. In Chesterfield, we have experienced many of the issues he will have experienced in his town centre. One reason why the issue is felt so passionately is the scope of its impact, not only on the users, but on people right across the community. These drugs have a huge impact on those who become users. Being able to get hold of them is the only purpose in their lives at times.”
“I think I welcome what the Minister is saying, but I want to clarify something. By saying that he is persuaded that we need to go further, is he saying that he will institute a review or that it will become Government policy that synthetic cannabinoids will be reclassified?”
“13. What assessment he has made of the correlation between the number of professional tennis tournaments played in the UK and the level of domestic participation in that sport.”
“As I was saying, the Secretary of State is absolutely right to talk about our world-class tournaments, but at challenger and future levels, we have far fewer tournaments than the other major European nations. Holding tournaments right across the UK is an important part of the participation strategy, so what more can the Secretary of State tell us about what he is saying to the LTA about getting tournaments held throughout the country at that lower level?”
“The service from the East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust has been a considerable disappointment for many of my constituents in recent months. When I met them about the service, they told me that on a huge number of occasions they have ambulances sat waiting outside accident and emergency departments, rather than getting to the next call. What more can the Government do to make sure we get these A&Es cleared?”
“The Government’s counting within the 2% that we spend on defence things that would never have been counted under previous Governments undermines our voice when it comes to NATO. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to confirm that current spending is simply inadequate if Britain wants to play a global role in the defence of the country?”
“Many of us recognise the important strategic and economic relationship that we have with Saudi Arabia but simultaneously believe that its actions in recent months have simply put them beyond the pale. While of course we will allow the Turks to investigate what happened on their land, will the Foreign Secretary say that there is no credibility whatsoever to the suggestion that a 15-man hit squad came from Saudi Arabia and took part in the things that we have heard about but had no links back to Mohammed bin Salman?”
“The Secretary of State pointedly remarked at the start of her contribution that this is the third time she has had to come to the House just this week. Does that not tell her how badly these reforms are going? We are all receiving hundreds of representations, and few of her own party’s Members are willing to turn up to support her. Is it true that, at the end of the debate, she will not have the confidence to ask her Members of Parliament to vote against the motion, because she knows that many of them agree with it?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you could provide advice. I understand that it is a matter of record whether the Government intend to vote for something. I have asked the Secretary of State specifically whether the Government will vote against the motion. Is it reasonable to ask that question?”
“Is any Conservative Member willing to put their hand up and say that not a single constituent has got in touch to say that universal credit has made their life worse?”
“One of the things that upsets me most about universal credit is that a programme that was designed to get people into work is also making life a misery for people who are a long way from the world of work—those who are never seriously going to be available for work. The system treats those people most brutally. They are the very people we in this place should be defending, but they have done worst out of this system. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care got in trouble this weekend for claiming on television that he had not received a single letter from his constituents on universal credit, which I find hard to believe. He was disproved when one of his constituents wrote to the press.”
“As we approach the end of this debate, the fact that such a huge number of my colleagues are still attempting to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, speaks more powerfully than any speech we will hear today about the full scale of the catastrophe that universal credit is visiting upon some of our most vulnerable constituents. The truth is that every single one of us will be getting emails from our constituents and, heartbreakingly, when we meet those constituents in our surgeries we see how appallingly badly these people have been treated and how far away many of them are from the world of work.”
“I do not have time to take an intervention. Only one Conservative Member claims that not a single constituent has been in touch, so we can take it that every other Conservative Member knows the problems that the Opposition are elucidating. That is the most powerful condemnation of this disgraceful policy.”
“The Prime Minister appears to be heading towards a deal that enjoys the support of almost nobody. She is saying to the Brextremists that they need to vote for her deal otherwise Brexit will collapse, and she is saying to more moderate voices that they need to back her deal otherwise there will be no deal. Is it not the truth that neither of those positions is actually true?”
“There is a legal duty under the International Development Act 2002 to ensure that aid spending is spent on poverty reduction overseas. There is also a responsibility on investors to maximise returns for their pension holders and shareholders. Those are probably contradictory priorities. Does the Secretary of State recognise that, if she is talking about this investment in terms of aid rather than of investment, she is going to have to change that legislation? Alternatively, is she talking about something entirely different from what we currently understand aid spending to be?”
“T4. Anyone who attended the Unison briefing this morning will know how worried local authority workers are about the impact of austerity on the services that they provide. Can the Chancellor reassure them that they will see in his next Budget a level of money that means we do not see many more authorities facing the catastrophe that Northamptonshire has had and that we have all witnessed this year?”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wanted to clarify and correct the record in relation to something I said yesterday. The House will have heard me ask the Education Secretary about Brookfield Community School in Chesterfield, an outstanding local authority school that was forced into being an academy. I said yesterday that it now required improvement and that the governing body was being replaced. I have subsequently been told that I misinformed the House: the school has actually been rated as inadequate, with serious failings. So I wanted to make the House aware, at the earliest possible opportunity, that things are even worse under the Tories’ education policy.”
“A few years ago, Brookfield Community School in Chesterfield was an outstanding local authority-run school. Because of the financial pressure the Government put on the school to become an academy, it has done so, but just a few weeks ago it was rated as “requiring improvement” and the academy arrangements have now been sacked. Will the Secretary of State recognise that outstanding schools can be run by local authorities and academies, drop the ideology, and let schools stay as local authority-run if that is what they want to do? The ideology hurts parents, pupils and teachers.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does she agree that, alongside the financial consequences of their cheaper cost, many voluntary organisations, such as Age Concern, which I saw last week, keep old people well and prevent them from having to use health services by providing services such as the befriending service in Chesterfield?”
“I am probably in the position of largely agreeing with the Minister. I remember that, back in 2010, we had the Derbyshire primary care trust, but then the Lansley reforms came in, broke up the PCT and turned it into five different organisations in North Derbyshire. Can he imagine how galling it is for us to hear that those organisations, which went from a very strong financial position back in 2010, are now in utter financial chaos, so the Government are going to undo the Lansley reforms and to get those economies of scale that we were telling them about back in 2010?”
“May I make a point of clarification, because the Minister is misquoting me? I said that the financial position was strong in 2010, not in 2016.”
“Many small care agencies face bankruptcy in the light of the Treasury advice on the way in which sleep-ins are paid, which has now been changed by the courts. The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), did not seem to know too much about this, but may I urge her to avail herself of the facts urgently, because many small agencies will go bust if we do not get this right?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is a great deal of concern across Parliament about the mysterious disappearance of the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable). He has been missing since last night. This morning, he was texting about being the only person really fighting Brexit. I just wonder if you and the parliamentary authorities could ascertain his whereabouts and whether he is indeed safe, and report back to me and all those people who are so concerned.”
“To underline my hon. Friend’s point, does not the fact that 50% of women in prostitution in the UK are estimated to have started being paid for sex acts before they were 18 years old expose more than anything the vulnerability of people in this trade and how the almost rosy image that is sometimes given to it is very far away from the reality of what faces them?”
“13. For the entire country to benefit from sports-related tourism, it is important that there is a fair distribution of cricket, for example. Half of all the test matches between 2019 and 2023 will be in London, meaning that Trent Bridge will not get an Ashes test in either of the next two series. Will the Minister sit down with the England and Wales Cricket Board, tell it to go back to the drawing board and make sure that we all benefit from world-class cricket, not just London.”
“One of the areas on the high street that is particularly struggling is that of our important pubs. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on the extent to which pub-owning businesses and tenants enjoy confidence in the Pubs Code Adjudicator—and if they do not, what steps the Government are taking to put that right.”
“T2. The Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme is incredibly important for our Army’s capability and for the UK defence industry, so when will we finally get to the production contract stage?”
“Chesterfield Royal Hospital is consulting on setting up a subsidiary company. Does it not seem madness that, to save £3 million that the hospital is paying the Government, it is creating this new organisation, which is being funded by the Government anyway? It is the emperor’s new clothes. The money is going round in circles without doing any good.”
“We have heard from many local Members about their support for the proposal. I have a letter here from the leader of Christchurch Borough Council outlining its view that Bournemouth and Poole could go together but, because 84% of residents voted against it in a referendum, Christchurch should be allowed to stay independent. Could the Minister explain why he came to the conclusion that Christchurch should be forced into it when the people seem to be saying that they are against it?”