Sir Alec Shelbrooke
MP for Wetherby and Easingwold · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She has outlined the will of this House, but she may remember that, during the passage of the last Bill, I asked the then Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions to do what has happened with similar Bills in the past—on homosexuality, on abortion and on the death penalty—which…”
“I am okay, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will struggle on, thank you very much. The Minister has outlined that there is an investment programme for technology and upgrades, but with software upgrades, there is always the concern that the premise of the programmes will keep getting changed, and that can bring in delays or bugs to a system.”
“I will call Alex Mayer to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. As is the convention for for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“With digital television, these days someone can just stick up a Squarial, point it in roughly the right direction and get their television channels—my wife and I have taken holidays in a canal boat and in a camper van, and we have been able to do that.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. Universal accessibility is vital in this debate. I agree with much of what has been said so far, but I am concerned about the switch-off of free-to-air as it stands. In the year I was elected, 2010, there were strong proposals to switch off the FM and AM signals.”
“Most of those DAB radios are now in the bin, because DAB+ was brought out and Classic FM stopped broadcasting on DAB; my previous car did not have DAB+, so I had to go back to FM to listen. I am sure we all have certain digital radio sets that now do not pick up many channels at all.”
The complete record
Every one of 602 lines we hold for Sir Alec Shelbrooke, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 13.
“Order. I will now set a two-minute limit, because I will be calling the Front-Bench speakers at 7 pm and I am keen to get all colleagues in.”
“Defence industry supply chains are desperately in need of the defence investment plan. The Chancellor talks about the money being invested, but why is the Treasury not allowing the DIP to go forward? It is starting to become critical, and we need that infrastructure. The Secretary of State is desperate for that infrastructure. We need to know when it is coming forward. They are the Government’s self-imposed deadlines, nobody else’s.”
“I would get up at half-past 5, and leave WHSmith at half-past 8 to go to school. It was a real experience for me as a 17 to 18-year-old to have to have that discipline and to go to work in the real world. As I have often said, I have never had as much disposable income as I had then—the clubs and pubs of Gravesend were very welcome to it. The experiences that a young person can gain from short-term or Saturday employment, or part-time employment during school holidays, are vital. I fear that looking just at the rises in the minimum wage, and talking about how much people can earn a year, does not take into account the other pressures on business. For all the importance of raising people’s wages, it does not achieve anything if the jobs are not there.”
“There are lots of small businesses in those towns, and although it would be wrong to say that they are not hiring young people, they have stopped hiring as many young people as they used to. It is all well and good to compliment the changes and say that wages are rising for the poorest paid, but that does not take into account the other tax changes that have taken place, such as the changes to rates and employers’ national insurance contributions. All these things, when added together, have resulted in businesses cutting back on the number of young people who work for them. I remember my very first job at WHSmith, when I was still at school. I went for a Saturday job, but I ended up getting a job doing the newspapers and magazines before the shop opened every day of the week.”
“I am genuinely delighted to see the hon. Member for Halifax in her place as the Minister; I congratulate her on her achievement. She has been sent here to speak to a straightforward piece of delegated legislation that raises the minimum wage levels but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs outlined, the situation is becoming more complex. It is worth saying a few words about what we see in the real world. My constituency is Wetherby and Easingwold, and it does what it says on the tin: I represent the two market towns of Wetherby and Easingwold, as well as other towns such as Tadcaster and Boroughbridge, surrounded by lots of villages.”
“They parrot that what they are doing for people is great, because they are raising the minimum wage, but that does not take into account the other tax rises that have put pressure on business, and it does not do anything to move things forward for young people who are missing out on opportunity because they do not have the ways and means to work for free. The Government should take a close look at themselves. They have talked about their Employment Rights Act and have come here today to boast about rises in the minimum wage, but they have not ensured that a whole section of young people actually get paid for a day’s work. My party has always believed that work should pay.”
“One would have thought that a Government who keep talking about paying young people, getting them on the ladder and doing things for them would have included a simple minimum wage—whether the apprenticeship wage or the minimum wage for the youngest, a minimum wage—in that Act for people who are exploited. Anybody who works for a company for four weeks is adding value to the company, no matter what anybody says. Being asked to go and work, perhaps in London, for a year—having to sort out accommodation and bear all the costs—and not getting paid is exploitation. I am afraid that, again, I push back on the Government.”
“I raised this issue on Second Reading of the Employment Rights Act. I do not know how many Members on the Government Benches stood for election before 2024, but Labour party manifestos before 2024—it was not in the 2024 one—said the party would ban unpaid internships. I have fought to ban unpaid internships in every single term I have been in this place, and I have never got anywhere. Every Prime Minister came to the Dispatch Box and said, “I don’t see why we are not doing it,” and then it did not happen. I brought forward an amendment to the Minimum Wage Act 1998 so that it would include unpaid internships.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because she illustrates the point I am making. It is not about the minimum wage; it is about the other taxes that have gone alongside the minimum wage and put huge pressure on businesses. Lots of people say that raising the minimum wage is great, because it puts more money in people’s pockets, but it is the other pressures at the same time that are the issue. I could name five businesses in just one town in my constituency that did hire young people to work on a Saturday but have reduced the number of people they hire because of the other costs. I will move on, because I am sure we were not expecting to be here in the Committee Room for too long. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs mentioned the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne.”
“Will the Prime Minister work closely with all policing authorities to ensure that my Jewish community and other communities can be safe?”
“I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments about working with religious communities and trying to ensure their safety, but I was appalled—not shocked, I am afraid to say—as I am sure the Prime Minister was, to see at the weekend the deputy leader of the Green party once again protesting in support of the ayatollah. I am afraid that the Green party has become a magnet for all the people who the Prime Minister quite rightly kicked out of the Labour party. The hatred and fear that runs through Leeds now, which has been whipped up at times by Councillor Mothin, is a disgrace. West Yorkshire police have begged Leeds city council to put in place a named person for hiring spaces run by the council, so that they can hold somebody responsible. The city council would not do so. My Jewish community are terrified about going into Leeds at the weekend.”
“Order. The word “you” has crept into a couple of speeches today. I am not responsible for any decisions, so please, let us not use it. I give everyone a timely reminder that we do not use the word “you”.”
“I hope the Minister will forgive me for not having read the tome that he has next to him. I want to probe him further on dispute resolution. A lot of hassle—criminality, really—happens in the Gibraltar seas. What co-operation may be in place between the Spanish Government and the Gibraltarian Government if resolutions cannot be found on the laws of the sea for some of the things that happen? The Minister spoke about resolutions in the treaty between Spain and Britain, but what will be the processes if the Gibraltarian Government do not feel that criminality is being acted on with appropriate speed?”
“I have raised concerns about Jew hatred in this country several times in the House. As I have said previously, I give credit to the Prime Minister for driving out the antisemitism in his party, in which, between 2015 and 2019, antisemitism and Jew hatred were given a safe space. May I make reference to another political party in this House, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am sure that you were as shocked as I was to read in a Sunday newspaper that there is effectively Jew hunting taking place in this country. In that context, we must be sure that our Jewish communities and our Jewish constituents can have faith in the authorities and the police. May I ask my right hon. Friend whether she found evidence of antisemitism specifically playing a part in these decisions?”
“Order. I ask Members who wish to speak to remain standing for a moment. They probably know that it is helpful to tell the Clerks before the debate that they wish to speak, because then they will be on the list and will be called before anybody else. This is a long debate; it can go on until 7.30 pm. If Members leave the Chamber, they are expected to be back for the winding-up speeches, and those speeches may come before Members expect. Some Members have approached me and offered apologies for prior commitments, which I have accepted, but I expect everybody else to follow the protocols.”
“To paraphrase Churchill, the cornerstone of a free society is a free press. Whatever the investigation may be looking into, I am afraid that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office has admitted that he set the investigation going because he did not like the report that had been issued about donations. That should not need an independent inquiry; the Prime Minister should sack this Minister now. The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister is here in effect to represent the Prime Minister, so I ask: will the Prime Minister U-turn before or after Prime Minister’s questions this week?”
“I must raise a very important issue with the Secretary of State: there is concern about thermal runaway in batteries, especially those on prime agricultural land. Heavy metals vaporise at 900° and thermal runaway burns at over 1,000°. What research and assessment has been done on the evaporation of these heavy metals, which would poison agricultural land?”
“Further to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), this looks like smoke today. The horse has bolted so far that it is at Wetherby racecourse, and the right hon. Gentleman is not giving the answers that we need to hear. He said that this goes to the heart of who the Prime Minister is, so why did the Prime Minister believe that somebody who took loans that, in today’s money, would be worth more than £1 million, and who was found to be flogging passports, should ever be rewarded?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that focusing on the angle of what Mandelson did as a Minister in releasing secrets and trying to make money from them is still deflecting from the fact that it was felt to be “worth the risk” to send to America as our ambassador a man who was associating with a convicted and, at that time, released paedophile?”
“Does my hon. Friend think that we will now start to understand how Mandelson had such a level of influence that, having had to resign from Government for not declaring six-figure-sum loans, having had to resign from Government for trying to flog passports, and having gone off to the EU and faced all the allegations about that, he was brought back into Government and put into the House of Lords? There must have been something that made people think it was a good idea to bring him back again and again and again.”
“To my right hon. Friend’s question about vetting, can she foresee a circumstance where a professional diplomat would be given clearance if they had sold passports and taken undeclared loans?”
“This debate is about accountability; everything falls into the lap of the Prime Minister. Does my hon. Friend not find it frankly incredible that the Prime Minister has sent—I say this with the greatest of respect—a junior Minister to the House, when he alone has serious questions to answer? Would it not show real leadership if the Prime Minister came to the Dispatch Box to wind up the debate?”
“The Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and said that he knew. The Minister says that documents such as the vetting report will be released, but all that is irrelevant. We are not interested in what the report says, because the Prime Minister said that he knew. The question for the Minister is this: why did the Prime Minister feel that it was appropriate to appoint Peter Mandelson to be one of the most senior ambassadors in the world? That has nothing to do with vetting; it goes to the heart of the Prime Minister’s judgment.”
“I welcome the sale of Government land around HMP Wealstun. Were neighbouring residents given advance notice of the auction details so that they could express an interest?”
“China has no regard for human rights whatsoever, and it is known to be trading with Iran, which is enabling Iran to slaughter its own citizens. What assessment is the Foreign Office making of the details of that trade, and what action is it taking?”
“I have a fantastic Yorkshire brick company in my constituency. Unfortunately it had to go into administration, but it was rescued. As welcome as the supercharger scheme is, the problem was that the company did not qualify because it did not meet the business level test, so it did not get any Government support. Can the Government engage directly with ceramics manufacturers, which are huge users of electricity, gas and various other products, because if we export products to be made elsewhere, the carbon footprint is often much bigger than if we had made them locally?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating opening speech, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. Could I ask him to re-emphasise the point he has just made, which is that such a grouping of an entire religion, race or ethnicity with the actions of a Government is an entirely antisemitic act?”
“Again, my hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he share my horror and disgust that yesterday, a member of the public thought it was entirely appropriate to dress as a prisoner of one of the concentration camps? Surely this is the hatred he is describing.”
“People have a right to protest and to condemn what they see going on in the world, but where are the protests about what is happening in Sudan or against the Iranian regime, which may well have murdered a five-figure number of people?”
“He started off by absolutely laying into me for my support for Israel defending its security and saying what a disgrace of a human being I was, and then he said to me, “You know as well as I do, because you will have seen the video footage, as I have, that Hamas had nothing to do with 7 October. It was the Israelis who murdered their own people so that they could invade Gaza.” He said that to me as a fact, with absolute conviction. That is the level of hatred being generated because the Israelis are Jews. Let us call this out. This is beyond politics; this is Jewish hatred. Huge protests have been taking place.”
“I really have to take issue with that. As we have heard, it is the acceptance of people making these comments that eventually leads to history repeating itself. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) made some very important points. He talked about fake news and how things are twisted. I cannot remember who it was, but another Labour Member said that Ofcom must take a much stronger view with regard to content being put online. We know what is poisoning children’s minds, but that is a different debate. I was knocking on doors and I met a gentleman, who must have been retired.”
“I have said this before in this Chamber and I am going to say it again today. There is a councillor in my city of Leeds, Councillor Mothin Ali—who has now become the deputy leader of the Green party—who put out social media on 7 October 2023 praising Hamas and what they had achieved. He was not a councillor at that point, but he was a candidate. There is a complex issue between what is freedom of speech and what is agitation, but there can be no doubt, frankly, that he agitated a mob that forced the Jewish priest of the University of Leeds, Rabbi Deutsch, into hiding. The leader of the Green party on Leeds city council, Councillor Penny Stables, who is a councillor in my constituency, brushed that aside. She said that it did not matter what he had said before he was elected, as he was not a councillor.”
“They have added hugely to the businesses, community and fabric of society that Leeds has become. I am proud that I have so many friends in the Jewish community, including, I am proud to say, the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Dan Cohen. However, they are frightened. They find it difficult to go into Leeds city centre on Saturdays during protests. They want to stand up to what is being said, but get pursued down the street and have vicious abuse thrown at them. I stand here today not just to remember the Holocaust, but to say that remembrance is not enough. Speeches today, including the opening of my speech, have outlined what happened in the Holocaust; other Members have outlined the causes that led up to the Holocaust. But we are sitting back and not naming and shaming those who are encouraging the root where this started.”
“Germany paid a price for that—not just in terms of the price of the war and what happened, but because it led to an incredible brain drain of academic talent. Albert Einstein is one example. It drove huge intellect—scientists, engineers, doctors—out of Germany, because among those who were murdered, as has been mentioned, were academics and anybody who might challenge the regime. I am afraid that we are now seeing levels of hostility in the United Kingdom that mean that many people are thinking that they might be better off leaving. Beyond the absolute moral outrage of the issues of 80 years ago happening in front of our eyes today in the 21st century, our country will be far poorer for that. Leeds has a large and proud Jewish population. They are strong and resilient. Jews have been in Leeds for more than 150 years.”
“They decided that they must stop the people doing their bidding feeling like that; it was far simpler to herd the Jews into gas chambers and then get Jews themselves to remove the bodies and put them into the furnaces. Dehumanisation happened in order for millions of people to accept what was going on, and I very much doubt that there were a great many people in Germany who did not have an idea of what was going on—none truer than in Bavaria, the region where Nazism had its roots. As has been described, there was a long history of growing antisemitism; with those decades and decades of hatred, when Germany faced tough economic circumstances coming out of the first world war—feeling that it had been punished by the whole of Europe, despite not losing any territory—and Adolf Hitler looked for a scapegoat, one was easy to find.”
“I think it is important that I start with some of the realities as vividly as I can. Six million Jews were murdered in a deliberate attempt at the extermination of European Jews. I think it is shameful that the BBC did not speak about Jews in its opening report about Holocaust Memorial Day. One million of those Jews were children. One million were killed in the forests by bullets. In order for the Nazi regime to save bullets, they would make mothers hold their babies to their heads so they could shoot both at the same time. One of the reasons the gas chambers were put in place was not just to mechanise mass murder, but because the German authorities recognised that there was a large psychological impact on the soldiers who were getting covered in brain matter and blood from murdering children.”
“If we are dealing with a Jewish community, people think, “Let’s whip up a mob. Let’s say what we like. Let’s watch authorities like West Midlands police stand back and think it is easier to just stop the problem happening.” The road to hell is paved with alleged good intentions.”
“There was a speaker called Dr Rehiana Ali—quite frankly a vile individual—at one of those rallies, and she called for the targeting of the Jewish schools in Leeds. That has nothing at all to do with the war in Gaza. Schoolchildren—let alone British citizens or anybody, quite frankly, who is not running the Israeli Government—have nothing to do with the actions of the Israeli Government. That is antisemitism as raw as it gets, but it was difficult to bring her to justice, because it was difficult for West Yorkshire police to be able to prosecute directly. I believe that the Met Police prosecuted in the end. Let me finish on a point about Sudan, Iran and the Russians in Ukraine. The one thing that they all have in common is that they are not Jewish. That shows the level of antisemitism in this country.”
“The protests that take place in Leeds are one thing—the police give permission, and we have powers in place so that when there is hate speech and laws are broken, people can be arrested and prosecuted—but West Yorkshire police has made it clear to Leeds city council that when protesters want to use its land, it should charge them rent. The reason West Yorkshire police wants that is that it attaches an organisation to what is happening. Leeds city council has refused to do that; it is giving permission to bodies to protest, but it is not using the system, which is in place, to charge for the use of land. West Yorkshire police has said that it will be able to crack down on hate speech, violent speech and incitement to violence if it has somebody held accountable. That accountability on its own may temper what is happening.”
“I praise the Prime Minister for the action he took in driving antisemitism out of the Labour party. I look around, and I look at the agitation of the councillor I have named and of the people associating themselves with some political parties, and I say this: it is the responsibility of the leadership of the Green party to follow the example of the Labour party in how it addressed the creeping in of antisemitism into its party. I am not saying that it is the policy of the Green party to be antisemitic—I am not saying that at all—but it must address the issue far more seriously than it has done, because I see a repeat of the years from 2015 to 2019. As I bring my comments to a close, I want to mention the actions of Leeds city council.”
“Let us remember that the fans were not all Israelis; there were plenty of British citizens who are fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv who wanted to go to that football match. Rather than protecting the laws that fans who go to a country should respect, people in authority thought, “It is far easier just to stop them.” How did we get to that point? For an easy laugh, we decided, “The Jewish community is so small, and there are lots of people who hate it, so it is easier just to say, ‘You can’t come’.” That is shameful. I have given notice that I am going to name the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). When he led the Labour party—a great and highly respected political party in our country, with much history —I am afraid that he gave a safe space to antisemitism.”
“There is a lot of evidence to back that up. The phrase passes me by, but there is a sphere of influence that Iran wanted to put in place through Iraq and Syria, with Hamas and Hezbollah as its proxies to run things, and we have debated in this Chamber so many times the malign influence of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the proscription of that body that that is undoubtedly true. We have tolerated things for too long. We tolerated streams of cars along Marylebone Road, many years ago, beeping their horns and claiming that the Jews should be murdered and the women should be raped. That did not get the crackdown that it needed. On the flipside—I will not go over this again, because we know what happened—we see West Midlands police deciding that it was far easier just to ban Israelis.”
“In talking about the events that happened, we have spoken about the dehumanisation. The Holocaust Educational Trust runs visits to Birkenau-Auschwitz, as part of which, at the end, family photographs and things like that are displayed to rehumanise people. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has been able to attend, but I think it is one of the most exceptionally moving things anyone could witness.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the gravestones that mark massacres in Bosnia and elsewhere. They emphasise the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, because millions of people were cremated so that there was no evidence of genocide.”
“Does it not prove my hon. Friend’s point that despite being signatories to the World Trade Organisation, the Chinese continue to steal intellectual property?”
“Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) was exceptionally critical of the golden era of relations with China under David Cameron. The criticisms coming forward are not new; my right hon. Friend warned at the time of the security risks that China posed. The Prime Minister has signed off on the super-embassy, despite all the things we know about, and the things that we have seen in its blueprints, and for what reason? This seems to be almost—”
“Given where a lot of the materials that we need for renewables are, the focus is shifting more towards that hemisphere and away from the Gulf. The geopolitical positioning of the Chagos islands is therefore becoming more and more important. It is absolutely right to say that our Government started negotiations, which went on and on, but that does not mean that there is a victory in ending them overnight by just giving way on the red lines that we would not cross. That is a very important point, because we should recognise the situation that we face, rather than crowing about some diplomatic “victory”. Time and again, we see the Government kowtowing to Beijing, rather than standing up to it. We see that today. Where is the strategic plan? My right hon.”
“There has not been a satisfactory answer on whether nuclear weapons can be stored on Diego Garcia when it is under the authority of the Mauritians. Despite the conversations about what Pete Hegseth said and what other treaties may have been negotiated along the way, we have the commander in chief, who outranks the US Secretary of State for Defence, saying, “I do not want to do this deal.” We have the deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius saying, “You will not be able to hold nuclear weapons there.” What makes Ministers so convinced that those leaders are wrong, and that they are right? That is the greatest and deepest concern. We live in a world that is rapidly changing, not just in its disregard for the rules-based order, but in its energy demands. Those energy demands are shifting the geopolitical situation.”
“It is worth reflecting on the entire geopolitical situation that the world faces. Many treaties simply are not worth the paper that they are written on; if it suits our adversaries to ignore them, they will. Is not the old maxim, “To stop a war, be ready to fight a war”, more true today than it has ever been? If we decide that we are going to rely on pieces of paper, rather than the ability to say, “We will defend, at war if need be”, we weaken our position. Let us consider the whole Indo-Pacific region. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly made a visit to Pacific command back in August. The admiral of the base made it crystal clear that in a very short space of time, the Americans would be outnumbered in the Pacific arena. Limiting what weapons can be used, when those weapons currently can be used, simply will not work.”
“Yes, pathological. There is this belief that the Chinese will always act in good faith, that we can trust them, and that they would not dare invade, because we signed a piece of paper. The world is changing, and there is no shame in pausing negotiations when changes come to light. The Minister should reflect on what is said today about how the situation has changed since his Government came to power, getting on for two years ago. The situation has changed incredibly.”