Karl Turner
MP for Kingston upon Hull East · Independent · United Kingdom
“I will call Tom Hayes to move the motion; I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for a 30-minute debate, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“From 1997, the Prime Minister campaigned to scrap single-judge trials in Northern Ireland, yet when I opposed his Government’s plan to bring in single-judge trials in England and Wales, I received hostile briefings and smears about my mental health from the lads in No. 10 Downing Street.”
“It must be absolutely exhausting for the Justice Secretary to hold on to an idea that only he still pretends is a good one. The Mayor of London is opposed to these changes and has tried to persuade the Justice Secretary to bin them. The Mayor of Greater Manchester is opposed to this ludicrous idea.”
“Richard Foord will move the motion. I will then call the Minster to respond. I remind Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for a 30-minute debate.”
“Where I think the Prime Minister went wrong was in the shenanigans between those two points: looking around for an excuse for why it had gone wrong. “Just take it on the chin—deal with it!” That is the advice I would have given him, and that is why I am particularly disappointed.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis). He and I rarely agree politically, but we do work together constructively in our constituencies for the betterment of the region.”
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“10. What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the state pension in tackling pensioner poverty; and if she will make a statement.”
“Fred from east Hull was left without any income whatsoever for several months earlier this year because the Department for Work and Pensions failed to pay him his state pension, to which he was rightfully entitled. When my office intervened, he eventually got paid, but it took us several weeks to sort it out. When people such as Fred in areas like mine are already facing a cost of living crisis, fuel poverty and the effects of the pandemic, does the Minister feel that he should apologise to Fred and many others?”
“My constituent Sarah Sak, Anthony’s mother, was on holiday in Turkey when the Metropolitan police contacted her to say that her son had been found dead. From that very second, when speaking to me, Sarah has accused the Met of prejudice and throughout all these proceedings she has constantly made the point that there was discrimination. Sadly, the coroner chose not to look at that. I make no criticism of the coroner, but when I spoke to Sarah last night, she asked me, “What can the Home Secretary do to persuade me that this can never, ever happen again?””
“As someone who was born and bred in Hull, it is a source of immense pride, every year, that hundreds of people brave the January wind and cold on the banks of the Humber to attend the service to the lost trawlermen—that is how much it means to the people of our city.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for providing me with the opportunity to speak on this subject, which is incredibly close to my heart, and means a great deal to the people of Hull and many others across the country. For the past 32 years, Hull has come together, with a date now fixed—the last Sunday in January—to remember and commemorate the more than 6,000 trawlermen of our city who lost their lives at sea. Although the covid-19 pandemic may have moved the annual service online last year, I have no doubt that Lost Trawlermen’s Day will, as soon as possible, return to its rightful place in the city and our civic life.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Lady. She and I were elected together in 2010 and I remember that terrible event. She paid tribute to me, but may I pay tribute to her for what she has just said in this important debate? People come together in the city. They do that because, at one time, Hull was the largest and most successful fishing port in the world and the city’s development was closely tied to the industry. That success came at a terrible human cost. The price of fish at market may have gone up and down but, at least until recent years, it was always high in terms of lives lost at sea. I think I am right in saying that it was Walter Scott who wrote, over two centuries ago: “It’s not fish you’re buying, it’s men’s lives.” Sadly, that was very true.”
“I do agree, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, because I know he is incredibly proud of the industry in his area and campaigns tirelessly for the interests of those who earn their living fishing at sea. Fishing was and is a hard, tough and unimaginably dangerous job. In the mid-20th century, workers in the fishing industry were four times as likely to be killed as those in the UK’s next most lethal profession, underground coalmining.”
“The contribution of fishing communities to the wider conflict has been woefully under-recognised, in my respectful view, and that must be addressed.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman; the fact that he speaks as he does adds incredibly strong support to the argument. I think I am right in saying, having spoken briefly with the Minister prior to the debate, that to some extent we are pushing at an open door. Fishing in Hull and the rest of the UK was not only deadly during peacetime. Trawlermen were on the frontline of both world wars, not only braving enemy action to keep those at home supplied with vital food when rationing tightened belts, but playing an active role in minesweeping, U-boat detection and saving lives at sea. At the height of the first world war, fishing trawlers on active service were lost at the rate of one every other week, with an average of half of all crew lost in every single incident.”
“However, January 1968 marked one of the darkest periods in our city’s history, the triple trawler tragedy, when the St Romanus, the Kingston Peridot and the Ross Cleveland all sank within weeks of each other, with the loss of 58 lives. Only one man survived. The devastating blow dealt to Hull’s tight-knit fishing community was a call to arms, and the headscarf revolutionaries, led by Lillian “Big Lil” Bilocca, achieved more for safety at sea in a few days than others had achieved in many decades. Dr Brian Lavery paid tribute to her in his book.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes the point better than me, I suspect, and very passionately; I spotted the Minister listening intently while she spoke. While fishermen are among those commemorated on the Tower Hill memorial in London, their relative absence from the wider story of this country’s war effort should be further evidence of the need for a National Lost Trawlermen’s Memorial Day. We mark Lost Trawlermen’s Day in Hull on the last Sunday in January, deliberately and for a significant reason: with high winds and stormy seas, it was always a perilous time for Hull’s fishing fleet, with many losses occurring at that time of year.”
“The hon. Gentleman is of course right that he and I and colleagues from across the Humber do not always agree, but I am grateful that we do on this point.”
“I thank and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on this issue over the past couple of years as shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He is right, of course, and we should extend the scheme further not just to those most at risk but across the industry and to all fishers, because these relatively cost-effective, inexpensive things can save lives.”
“Both the Arctic Corsair and the Spurn lightship have recently undergone dry-dock repairs to preserve them for generations to come, which I am delighted to see. It has chiefly been led by Hull City Council and its leader Daren Hale, and they have ensured that the “Hull: Yorkshire’s Maritime City” project undertakes the vital work needed to preserve and promote Hull’s 800 years of seafaring history.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right that the industry was never safe. Fishermen in Hull and across the country were referred to as “three-day millionaires” because they were paid well, relatively speaking, but when we think about it, they were not paid well enough. The risk of going out to sea on those vessels often meant they did not come home. He makes a good point. If I may, I am keen to get back to “Big Lil” Bilocca. She is remembered with folk-hero status in Hull, and her legacy is the cornerstone of our respect for this once dominant industry. The cultural institutions marking the contribution of trawlermen and the wider industry to the city of Hull have gone from strength to strength in recent years.”
“My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is no secret that she is a powerful voice for the industry in her constituency. Indeed, she has often discussed the issue with me and other colleagues who are keen to ensure that it is raised.”
“Hull’s history as a city built around the fishing industry and off the backs of hard-working fishermen is mirrored in many towns and cities across the country. Fishing is an essential part of our identity as an island nation. For all the difficult arguments around national identity, I think that fish and chips is high on the list of those on all sides of the political divide. The building of the railways in the mid-19th century at a stroke expanded the potential market for fresh fish, creating a direct route to supply the growing industrial working classes with affordable protein. Somewhere along the way, some bright soul paired the fried white fish with chips. It was a fabulous idea, for which I am sure Members across the House are entirely thankful. I am—although I am not sure that my waistline is very pleased.”
“I pay tribute in particular to the founders and organisers of Lost Trawlermen’s Day, the St Andrews Dock Heritage Park Action Group—also known as STAND—in Hull, as well as my constituent Ian Bowes and his fellow tour guides on the Arctic Corsair, who are keeping the history alive for younger generations. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), who is just as passionate about the subject as I am. She would have been incredibly keen to be involved in the debate, but unfortunately she could not be here. Most of all, credit must go to all the family and loved ones of trawlermen lost at sea, who have worked tirelessly to ensure that they were not forgotten.”
“I am grateful once more to the hon. Lady. She reminds me of how merchant seamen always remark of the bravery of fishermen. I think merchant ships used to be referred to as big boats, and seamen went out on big boats that had some protection, so they were safer, even all those years ago. Fishermen often went out on tiny vessels in perilous conditions, risking their lives on every occasion—no matter the weather—to put food on the table. It is very much a team effort to mark the contribution of the fishing industry—not just to our city—and to commemorate those who lost their lives, and I am pleased to see that it has cross-party support in the Chamber.”
“We could establish a formal ceremony on the last Sunday in January with the Government’s backing. Exactly what form this should take is not for me or indeed for the Minister to decide, but I would respectfully suggest a public consultation to enable organisations working with current and ex-fishermen and families who have lost loved ones to have their say on this important issue. However, if the Government are willing to put some effort in and give fishing communities the respect they deserve, recognising the historic role they have played, they could do no worse than follow Hull’s lead.”
“I am happy for any national day to have a different title reflecting these very important facts. It is the principle of remembrance for those who risked, and frequently lost, their lives to put the national dish on the table that I am advocating tonight. Although I am happy to be corrected, my understanding is that, in the absence of a formal mechanism by which the day would be instituted, the Minister could commit the Government today, from the Dispatch Box, to recognising Lost Trawlermen’s Day as a national day of remembrance, and I hope that he will. If the Government truly want to recognise the contribution of fishing communities to our national life, especially the sacrifice of those who never came back, they could perhaps commit some money as well.”
“That is an excellent point, and I have to confess that it is a point I had not intended to remark upon in my notes. I believe the moment is long overdue for formal nationwide recognition of the contribution of trawlermen to our shared national story, and I urge the Government to take Hull’s lead and officially recognise the last Sunday in January, if at all possible, as the UK’s Lost Trawlermen’s Day. I should make it clear, because I think it is an extremely important point, that the reference to trawlermen in the title of this debate is drawn directly from its use in Hull’s Lost Trawlermen’s Day. It is not in any way intended to exclude those who have lost their lives at sea fishing by means other than trawl—other methods are dominant in many regional industries—or, indeed, to exclude women at sea.”
“T6. The Chancellor was evasive when interviewed by the media last week, but we need a clear answer on this very important point because many people across the country made great personal sacrifices during the lockdown. So will he categorically deny in the House that he or any of his officials or Spads attended any of the Downing Street Christmas parties on 27 November or 18 December last year?”
“I pay tribute to the school leaders, teachers and support staff teaching the kids in east Hull. The truth is that kids in Yorkshire and the Humber are 12 times more likely to be attending an underperforming school than their counterparts in the south of England. If the Government are serious about levelling up, is it not time they started looking at primary schools in the north of England?”
“Is this not about Northern Powergrid investing nothing in the network while stuffing its investors’ pockets with profits, and the Government allowing it to put profits before people?”
“The most important job the state must have is to protect vulnerable children, but social care faces a mounting crisis. I know the Secretary of State, and I trust entirely that he will do everything in his power to get to the bottom of what led to this terrible tragedy, but will he please at least acknowledge that the 60% cuts to local authorities in the past decade are potentially having a dramatic impact on these services?”
“Not all, but most Members of this House and the general public would support the Secretary of State when he says that he has to impose further curbs on people’s freedoms, but does he not accept that people would perhaps be a bit more enthusiastic if when he comes back to the Dispatch Box, he fesses up, accepts that there was a knees-up in No. 10 last year when people were dying without family members there present with them, and apologises on behalf of the Prime Minister?”
“I know that my hon. Friend is an expert in this area, not least because of all of the years that she worked with the CAB. Would she say something about the importance of the holistic approach to advice? This is very often not just about debt, but other issues, including domestic violence. In my experience as a criminal lawyer, people often get into all sorts of difficulties as a result of other factors. Indeed, the problem is often that people have not been pointed in the right direction on issues such as the benefits that they are entitled to, but do not actually claim.”
“I pray in aid for his support in this: we need to pause, because we do not know—we cannot possibly know—what the result of the pandemic is in reality. I think the Minister has the power to say to MaPS, “Let’s pause now. Let’s not do something that we will potentially regret later on.” I ask the Minister to pause the change, because it is obvious from the hon. Members who have spoken today that it is essential to stop it. I am not suggesting it is finished forever; it might be, but after a period of time and proper, decent consultation, we can revisit this idea. For now, I say to the Minister, “You have the power. Use it rightly and pause this now.””
“An array of people came to that clinic, but they were not what one might expect—somebody on the bones of their backside. The people varied. Some were in good, well-paid employment, often coming up against it and getting into real difficulty. As my hon. Friend said, it is true what people say that we are only two pay cheques away from such incredible difficulty ourselves. I am incredibly proud to represent the constituency of Kingston upon Hull East, not least because I was born and bred there, but we have real difficulties in Hull. I think I am right in saying that insolvency in Hull is double the national average. In 2019-20, before the pandemic, I understand that the CAB saw 6,000 people for debt, 89% of them face to face. I did not intend to detain the House for very long, but I just want to make this one plea to the Minister.”
“It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). Persistence pays off, because my hon. Friend has been incredibly persistent in securing this very important debate. I thank her very much indeed for that. I want to begin by paying tribute to Unite the union. It is my trade union and I am very proud of its constructive campaign on this issue. I also want to thank Citizens Advice, a crucial organisation that is important to me and my constituents. For many years I hosted a citizens advice bureau clinic from my constituency office. It was incredibly busy. It was probably then that I recognised how crucial the service was.”
“I thank the Minister for his incredibly constructive approach to the debate—we have all seen that. I do not expect an answer, but would he please, at least, consider asking MaPS to pause the process? We are all worried that we do not know the effects of the pandemic.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She has been given a terribly tough gig, but she does not seem to be answering the point made a little earlier. Arco in Hull had existed for 135 years and had supplied the NHS with top-quality products since its very inception. It was blocked from the VIP lane—why?”
“I know that the Minister has not managed to answer the question that I posed earlier, but Arco, in the city of Hull, had existed for 135 years, had provided top-quality products to the NHS since its very inception, and could not get on the VIP lane. Why was it blocked?”
“Would the Minister like to comment on the fact that 750,000 testing kits that were put into care homes were no good at all? What has she to say about that?”
“The reality is that Arco went directly to various NHS branches to offer its services to supply. It was blocked from any formal route. It was not on the VIP list. That is the reality.”
“He welcomed members of the parliamentary Labour party engaging with him in these discussions, because he takes this very seriously. I am happy to say that I am a fan of banning second jobs across the board. I signed early-day motion 627, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). I accept that there are complexities. I do not think that my constituents in east Hull—or anyone in the country, in fact—would begrudge a Member of Parliament’s being a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a paramedic; those are people undertaking incredibly important public service, doing jobs for the public good. However, I think there must be limits on times, or perhaps on earnings.”
“It is a pleasure to be called in what I think is an extremely important debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker). Let me begin by thanking my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition. I think Members on both sides of the House would say, if they were being honest, that without his leadership on this issue nothing would be happening, and I think members of the public can see that as well. I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition personally, because I have inundated him in the last few weeks and days. I have barracked him constantly with my opinion of the issue and what I think needs to happen for us to see change. I have contacted him so much that at one point I feared he might seek injunctive relief to try and stop me, but thank goodness, he did not.”
“I admit that I am a fan of banning second jobs, but I accept that there are complexities. We have to work together to find the solution to this issue, but for the Government to try to hide behind the pretence they have been running recently that it is necessary to bring experience to this place is just a defence people simply cannot believe or trust.”
“To those who use the defence that we need experience from outside this House and a rich tapestry of people to represent the interests of the country, I say that it strikes me that we do not see Members going off and doing a 10-hour shift at Maccy D’s in their constituencies. We do not see them going off and doing the other jobs that are done by real people in the real world. Cranswick Country Foods plc, for example, is desperate for workers right now, but I am not going to queue up, frankly speaking, to pluck chickens or turkeys ready for Christmas. That is the point that the electorate worry about: these MPs’ jobs are paying staggering amounts of money, but they are not the jobs that people recognise as second jobs for them—second jobs working to try to earn an extra few quid because they are desperate to feed their families.”
“The nub of the issue for me is that, speaking for my constituents, they think it incredible that Members of Parliament are earning, I think, £81,932 a year, three times the average wage and nearly four times the average wage of the constituency I represent. They think it unbelievable—contemptible even—that a Member of Parliament needs to earn from a second job. Some of those second jobs, the consultancies and directorships, pay eye-watering amounts of money. The idea that a Member of this House can spend time being an MP while earning almost a million quid a year on the side is utterly contemptible, in my humble opinion.”
“When I was elected in 2010, I was a junior in the law—I was towards the latter end of a second six pupillage—but it was right that I had clients where I was instructed in their cases and there was potentially pay for those cases that happened a little after being elected. Lawyers who are elected but who have instructions have professional responsibilities to their client. If they were elected to Parliament, but they were acting for a client, either a lay client or the professional client who instructed them, they would be expected to wind that down and eventually pass it on. There are complexities around that.”
“I accept that point. I think that there are complexities involving Members who run family businesses. Perhaps they ought to think about winding them down. I know that some Conservative Members have done just that: they have been elected and come here, and then run their businesses down or passed them to other family members. There are also complexities around those hon. Members who want to write books, for example. It is incredibly important for people to be able to express themselves. When we get into the arguments about freedom of expression and so forth, we get into real legal complexities and difficulties. I am bound to say that it is complex for lawyers who come into the House.”
“The Government need to get back to the table and negotiate constructively, with a view to dealing with this incredibly dangerous issue. Having served in the shadow Justice team with the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), I know how seriously she takes the issue. We regularly discussed the matter in shadow meetings while I was on the team, and I know full well that this party—the Opposition—will deal with it as soon as we get the opportunity, if the Government fail to do so.”
“It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) on securing this incredibly important debate. Hull Prison is in my constituency, and I want to thank the prison officers and other staff who serve our community there, as well as the prison governor, Shaun Mycroft. This issue is a major concern. In my previous job as a criminal lawyer, I was instructed on numerous occasions to represent prisoners for adjudications, and I was always struck by the serious nature of the allegations against prisoners and the degree of serious harm caused to prison officers. To me, the idea of a 68-year-old man or woman wrestling with a prisoner in order to contain a situation is utterly ridiculous. I will not speak for much longer, but I want to say two things.”
“It need not be said, but it became apparent to me that both the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip were struggling to look at the right hon. Member for Maidenhead or my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire).”
“I had not intended to speak in the debate, but I was prompted by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), because it became incredibly apparent to me and, I suspect, to Members from all parts of the House that had she been in charge, this chaos would never have happened. This chaos is the making entirely of one person: the Prime Minister. When the Leader of the House comes to the Dispatch Box and says, “The reason we made this mistake was because we had sympathy for Mr Paterson,” it is not credible, because what happened the very next day is that Cabinet Ministers were instructed by the Chief Whip or the Prime Minister to go out on the TV and defend it. It would never have happened under the previous Prime Minister.”
“It has been said already, but rugby league fanatics like you and I, Mr Speaker, have long been inspired by the brilliance of Rob Burrow on the field, but I think we have been blown away by his tireless determination off the pitch to campaign to raise awareness of motor neurone disease. Does the Secretary of State agree with Rob and Scotland’s rugby union star Doddie Weir, who are both watching us, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) said? We need to act now, Secretary of State—now—to increase research funding into this devastating, debilitating and life- limiting disease.”
“I rarely congratulate the Justice Secretary, but I do on this issue because he has eventually agreed with Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition about making pet theft a specific offence. On a serious note, I congratulate all the campaigners on the issue, particularly John Cooper, QC, who has done an awful lot of work on it. The Justice Secretary knows that when the shadow Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), tabled his amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Tories rejected the idea of a specific offence time and again; I think I am right in saying that the Justice Secretary’s argument was that the Theft Act 1968 was sufficient. The taskforce has now reported, but I am not clear on when we expect the legislation to take effect.”
“Time and again, the Government have promised investment into areas such as east Hull, but the Minister knows full well that this savage cut to universal credit will pull £35 million from our local economy and leave families worrying about putting food on the table to feed their kids. Is it not time that the Government matched their rhetoric with actions and cancelled the cut for decent, hard-working people?”