Ms Stella Creasy
MP for Walthamstow · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his clear-sighted commitment not only to talk about a two-state solution, but to actually try to act to achieve it, as the only foundation of a safe Israel and a free Palestine.”
“Could he reassure the House that we will not acquiesce and bend to such pressure, and that the only action that could ever be acceptable to us to make us contemplate reversing this ban would be a halt on the E1 development and a permanent end to settler violence?”
“I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role.”
“I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics.”
“We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon.”
“From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets.”
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“This mess, this uncertainty and all the money that businesses have had to spend over the past couple of years amount to an honest admission—and this is what I hope the Minister will give us later—that trying to set our own regulatory regime in an international global economy when our businesses want to compete and to sell across the world is completely counterproductive to the British interest and to British businesses. A smarter regulatory regime? We all knew that Brexit ultimately was just about more paperwork.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Rees, and to be in this room. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow on the Front Bench was incredibly polite, whereas I shall not be. What a mess! What an absolute mess this is for British business, and what a symbol of the failures of Brexit. Over the past year, while serving on bodies such as the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill Committee, I had the pleasure, shall we call it, of looking at the great powers and freedoms that Brexit offered us to set our own standards on toy safety. But what today tells us is that it is through collaboration that we keep our children safe and our standards high.”
“What will happen if those standards are not met? The Minister will suggest that I am making an argument for remain, but this is not an argument for remain; it is an argument for sanity. That is what the British people deserve, given the damage being done by the hard Tory Brexit that is now being implemented in this country, and it is what this meeting needs.”
“The retained EU law Act gives his Department multiple pieces of legislation to review. Right now, across Parliament, in rooms like this, there are people looking at retained EU law legislation and whether we should have variation, and finding, oddly enough, when we look at it, that we should not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow says, it falls apart on hard contact with reality. It is better for British business to be able to share one set of regulatory regimes. What lessons have the Government learned from that experience, from all those stakeholder meetings and from all the money, effort and time that has been spent trying to come up with our own set of standards, when it was better for British business, toy safety and British consumers to share EU standards and be part of the CE mark?”
“How loud did British business have to shout about the impossibility of trying to run two regulatory regimes at the same time? Why have we not learned the lesson from Northern Ireland on this? The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act was about a bonfire of 4,000 regulations. To date, only a handful have been deleted. There is a good reason why that is the case. That is why it is important that we support this SI today. It is better for British businesses to have stability and to have less paperwork if they want to sell both in the UK and to Europe. It is better to be part of a standards regime that, through this SI, we are saying is a high-standards regime, because we are saying that we want to meet those standards. What else will the Minister admit we have learned?”
“This is an admission that all the time, effort and energy that went into trying to make the Brexit fallacy work in relation to British paperwork has cost them money, so actually, if we do not do this, we can save them money by not implementing the Brexit standards. But the impact assessment says that the total net impact for British business is actually £1.6 billion. Can the Minister clarify what the other £1 billion-worth of impact might be? Is it all that extra paperwork, the time, the cost and the business lost from trying to come up with two different charter marks to meet two different standards? At what point did the Government recognise that this was in the British interest? How many stakeholder meetings were there?”
“Given that the explanatory memorandum says that if EU standards are met, GB standards will have been judged to be met automatically, is that dynamic alignment? Are we saying that if, for example, new toy standards are set by the European Union, we will expect British business to follow them in order to meet the standards set out in this SI? Are we dynamically aligning? If we are not, the Minister needs to tell British business what will happen if British businesses do not meet those standards. Is there a cut-off point? At what point do these standards fall away? Will the Minister be honest? We have talked about a figure of £583 million in terms of the cost. Of course, that is the cost of not implementing a British standards charter, so this is not actually some great benefit to British businesses.”
“The paperwork that came from Brexit shows the fallacy of the idea—the fantasy—that somehow we, a country of 70 million consumers, could set a separate regulatory regime and tell British businesses that they could still trade across the world without incurring additional costs or facing additional barriers, including additional non-tariff barriers, and friction. That is the reality of this SI. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow was being kind about it. It is an admission of failure when it comes to the freedoms that British businesses were promised. In that sense, I have a number of questions for the Minister, because I think British business deserves some honesty about the lessons that can be learned from the mess created over the charter mark in the last couple of years. Will he be honest?”
“The right hon. Member would do well to look at the explanatory memorandum and what it means when it says on page 4: “This EU recognition is implemented in GB legislation”. What it is actually saying is that our standards are lower than the standards that the EU has set, because through this statutory instrument the Minister is admitting that GB standards will already be being met if EU standards are met. The tail is not wagging the dog; the dog is fully in the doghouse, because the reality is that it is better for British business to have one set of regulations to comply with. There is less paperwork, not more.”
“I am not quite sure why the right hon. Member came up with that analysis. I am trying to make the point that we as a country, having left— [Interruption.] I would love to answer his question. I know that he has to chunter from a sedentary position because today is an embarrassment for him as somebody who also promoted the idea that, somehow, if we left the regulatory regime of the European Union, our country’s businesses would benefit. They have not, and this instrument today proves why, because it is about how people can trade together and how regulatory regimes interact with each other. The point about CE marking is one that any business could have told him before we left the European Union. This is not an argument for us to rejoin; it is an argument for some honesty about why having common frameworks and common standards matters.”
“I thank the Minister. I am merely pointing out that the reason why those net benefits exist is about the option of keeping the existing CE mark, as opposed to moving wholly to the UKCE mark that the Government originally put out. The Minister’s own impact assessment suggests that for British business to have done that would have cost them £1.6 billion. That is why this is a fantasy, and that is why the question what happens if businesses diverge from these requirements comes into play. I hope the Minister will answer that, because it would be helpful to understand what the Government think will happen if businesses do, after all that, still want to follow his UKCE mark and pay that cost.”
“We in this place may be inconsistent in our approach to these matters because, following the case of Wayne Couzens, we agreed that anybody from the police accused of serious misconduct should be removed from the parliamentary estate—that is accused, not even arrested. How do we square the circle that what we think is appropriate for the police is not appropriate for ourselves?”
“It is not perfect—it can be amended—but if we vote it down tonight or try to find a way of making it impractical to apply, our staff will not forgive us. Good, talented people will walk away from politics because it is a dangerous environment, and our constituents will simply not understand why we do not hold ourselves to the standards we ask of them as employers and other people. For the sake of all of us, special or not, sausage or not, let us do something finally about this. Let us put safeguarding at the heart of what we do, and let us try and move into the 21st century for once.”
“To get back to what we originally talked about, we should recognise that if someone is arrested for a serious sexual or violent offence, that does mean that there needs to be a risk analysis. If Members do not vote for this, I tell them not to sit in their surgery when someone comes and asks what they should do about their workplace, and not to say to me that they are listening to victims of sexual violence and that they understand why violence against women and girls in this country is still such a problem. We are not such special sausages that we cannot be complicit in that culture. That is the risk tonight if we do not vote for amendment (o) and at least try to get this process rolling.”
“We do not need to have a DBS check. This is a workplace where no one is required to tell HR if they enter into a relationship with somebody, yet in most workplaces that is standard—and, frankly, it protects people because it recognises the difference between a power imbalance and the inevitable love that comes as a result of delivering too many leaflets on too many long weekends. This is not a workplace in the modern world and our staff are suffering as a result. Seven years on, the cases keep coming forward. Seven years on, the cases are being covered up. Seven years on, people are losing faith that we will ever get it. So, yes, this proposal is not perfect, but this proposal is a step forward, and Members should vote for it and vote for amendment (o).”
“We hold ourselves to different standards compared with what we expect in workplaces and our constituencies. Those are standards we should apply as MPs ourselves as employers. That is the issue, if nothing else. We have demanded of the police that in order to keep people safe on this estate, they bar from it anyone accused of a serious violent or sexual offence—not even arrested, which a Member who is no longer in his place said was so easy to get. We have asked for people who have just been accused to be barred to keep us and our staff safe, but we do not ask that of ourselves. It is inconsistent, double standards, contradictory—potentially a word that begins with “h”. Above all, it damages our reputation. This is a workplace where MPs have unparalleled access in our constituencies to people because we are the MP.”
“We must understand that, as the consultation that started this said, gentlemen’s agreements on what should happen are insufficient. Political parties—the elephant in the room in this debate today—are complicit, too. There are cosy wrap-ups with the Whips Office to try and manage situations, when almost every single person who has come forward has lost their job—a job they loved in a career and party they cared about. We do not protect the victims; we protect the perpetrators. Every political party needs to look itself in the eye and ask why seven years on, people are saying that the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme process, which is imperfect in its own right, is still better than our political processes. That is why we have debates like this.”
“We would not be able to justify that to our constituents; why on earth would we justify it when talking about ourselves? It is suggested that people are arrested on a whim, but they are not. It comes down to a central point: the cognitive dissonance in this place. We have constant debates about violence against women—how we are going to tackle it and make it a priority. We must recognise that we too often do not believe victims, but we are saying in this instance that because we are special sausages, this will not be a priority. We have to start believing and acting on those beliefs. The proposal may be an imperfect process, but finally it is a way of saying that we do believe, sadly, that power corrupts. Sadly, there are people who abuse their power dynamics and power relations.”
“The question is whether you can truly look them in the eye and say that this is a safe workplace.” This is a workplace where our young women employees get taken out by each other to be warned about other MPs and, indeed, staff in this place. There is the whisper network, and that would not cut it at an employment tribunal. These policies are about living up to what we expect of other workplaces. They are about addressing situations such as when someone comes into our constituency surgery and says, “The local headteacher has been arrested but they are still teaching children,” or, “There’s a surgeon at the hospital who has been arrested for sexually assaulting a patient, but they are still in there. What are you going to do about it?” Do we say, “Until they’re charged, I don’t think there’s a problem”?”
“Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) is right: it is not about exclusion; it is about risk. What are we doing about the risk—a risk that we tell other workplaces they have to act upon? I will not use the term hypocritical but I do offer the term double standards and say that we are at risk of being called inconsistent, inexcusable and unjustifiable if we do not match the ambitions we set for other workplaces here for ourselves. I say to every MP in this House, “You should want this to be the case, because while we don’t have an employment contract, we sign them for our staff, and therefore the laws that exist about what responsibilities you have as an employer apply to how you treat your staff.”
“Let me start by saying that I actually do agree with the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is on his phone, that this should be a constitutional issue, and I agree with the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir Philip Davies) about the daftness of some of the ways this system works, and with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). This is an imperfect proposal, but it is now over seven years since we started talking about tackling sexual harassment and sexual abuse on the estate, and since we heard that there had been rapes and sexual assaults in this building, involving people who work in politics and our colleagues, and allegations of such. So the question for us all tonight is: do we keep doing nothing or do we take some action and make progress? My hon.”
“The Minister raises concerns about misrepresentation, so let us be clear: those protesting in Israel in support of the hostages were protesting against Netanyahu and his approach in Rafah. That was not the impression that the Minister gave. Those protesters and hostage families recognise, as does this House, that military action in Rafah, the man-made famine, and the displacement of 100,000 people to a place where they are trying to put tents up in rubble, is not going to lead to the release of hostages or to the two-state solution. It will probably lead to further war crimes. The UK cannot sit this out, so will the Minister at least be honest? He will not tell us why he will not suspend arms sales. Will he tell us whether our intelligence shows that to date British-made weapons and technology have been used in Rafah—yes or no?”
“(Urgent Q uestion): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the introduction of checks on goods entering the UK under the border target operating model due to be live on 30 April 2024.”
“With 36 hours to go, we need some straight answers. Our constituents cannot eat the paperwork or afford the price rises these checks will create. Corner shops, delis and restaurants will go bust and our ports will be bunged up. I say to the Minister that there is still time to cancel the Brexit border tax, so will he please listen to concerns from across the House and do so?”
“Medium-risk goods are anything of animal origin that are not alive, but could also be beetroot or sweetcorn. What a mess. Small businesses are going to be clobbered for a fee for a service they will not even get. On top of that, Sevington has not even been declared a border control post to carry out any of the checks. Where will goods coming into Dover be checked on Wednesday, especially if they are high risk? What about the other ports around the UK that can set their own charges? And who is going to enforce any of this? The Government told industry to be prepared, but there will not be any checks after 7 pm, so people can say goodbye to those just-in-time supply chains for perishable goods. People coming back from holiday have no idea what their “personal use” is, so they could be stopped for carrying gorgonzola.”
“We know their numbers are wrong because, while they have confirmed that the common user charge—the direct cost to each lorry—will be about £145 a time, they admit they have not calculated how much the new veterinary checks will cost, with some running to hundreds of pounds. They cannot make those calculations because they told European countries to set their own standards and charges, so how can Ministers tell us we can be confident when we do not know what will be passed to be healthy in Hungary, Germany or here? If food standards matter to people, they will be disappointed because the Minister has just admitted that only “some” checks will happen on medium-risk goods from Wednesday. Will he put a number on how many checks will happen from Wednesday?”
“On top of that, 5 million of them will have to pay a common user charge for the privilege of importing goods deemed medium or high risk, whether or not they are inspected. The costs to business, which we know will be passed on to consumers, are horrendous and chaotic, and the charges were confirmed only on 18 April. The Government have admitted that the checks will cause inflation, but they claim it is only £300 million—0.2%—over three years. Independent analysis shows it will be 10 times that amount, or £8 a month on the average food shop. If the Minister wants to dispute that figure, will he finally publish the modelling that the Government have refused to disclose so we can see how they have come to their numbers?”
“Let us start by saying this is not about Brexit because, whether Members supported or opposed Brexit, nothing proposed here is inevitable or unavoidable. Having left the EU, we need border controls, but what is proposed will not be controlled—it will be chaos. The EU brought in checks in 2021, but this Government have delayed doing that five times. In that time, they could have negotiated a sanitary and phytosanitary deal to avoid the mess that is about to happen. Instead, from Wednesday, for the first time, 2.7 million lorries will need to be stopped at Dover so their contents can be checked, and another 4 million will require a health certificate for the animal products they carry.”
“Ten days ago I went to the Whipps Cross A&E department to see for myself the pressures that the brilliant team there are under—pressures that are heavily exacerbated by the failure to redevelop the hospital. Originally, we were promised that the new hospital would be open by 2026, but we have still not agreed with the Department a plan and timetable to submit to the Treasury for that redevelopment. As a result, the hospital is having to spend huge amounts of money trying to stem the damage as well as being able to treat patients. It is costing us all. For the sake of patient care and NHS budgets, will the Minister meet me to work out where the hold-up is in getting Whipps Cross redeveloped?”
“Will the Minister prove me wrong? Will the Minister commit to publishing the data on the fees that parents of all children under five in nurseries and pre-schools are paying in this country, prior to and post the changes in hours?”
“I start by declaring an interest as a parent of a two-year-old child. What all of us parents are talking about is the cost of childcare, and the Minister did not address the cost. The survey clearly showed that over half of all nurseries and pre-schools say that the funding does not cover the cost of providing the service in the way that the Government are asking them to provide it. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that somebody’s got to pick up the bill—a toddler could do it. The estimate before the Government announced the new hours was that fees would rise by 8.5%. Every single parent of a child in a nursery in my local community who has come to me has said that their fees have gone up as a direct result of this policy, because that is how nurseries are trying to stay open and make ends meet.”
“If the Minister took five minutes to read the story of my constituent, who gave so much of his life to support our forces in Afghanistan, he would understand why it is not sustainable for him to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that there are safe, legal routes for those who are eminently eligible, and why amendment 10F matters.”
“The Minister may have read about my constituent in The Guardian today: a man who was originally an Afghan, has British citizenship and served with our armed forces for 15 years. He and his family were called forward to the Baron hotel but could not get there because of an explosion, and they have been in hell ever since. His young children and wife are unable to join him here in the UK. He is not eligible for ARAP because he is a British citizen. The Government have written to me suggesting that his children might apply to ARAP, but I believe that under-10s will probably not qualify. The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme is in tatters and will not accept them, as the Government are now trying to say that they were invited, rather than instructed, to go to the Baron hotel.”
“The Minister will know that his words are not cutting through. Hamas were wrong to reject the ceasefire, but what Israel does next is not inevitable. Yet the Israeli Minister for Defence on Monday evening said that Israel was waiting for aid to be delivered to Rafah and for civilians to leave, and then it would begin the military operation. He will know that there is nowhere for these people to go and there is no food elsewhere. It is an impossible choice for people. A few pitta breads will not cut it for millions of people at risk of starvation and at risk of harm from a military operation in Rafah. What can the UK do if Israel proceeds with its threat to enter Rafah?”
“The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has warned that Europe is in a “pre-war era” because of the situation in Russia. Our Prime Minister rightly said that these were not mutually exclusive conflicts but interlinked. Therefore, it is important that we co-ordinate, just as we have seen co-ordination at the United Nations. He will be aware of the real concern that the UN’s sanctions regime on both Iran and Russia is being undermined. The UN has combined to support and call for a ceasefire. What more is the Prime Minister doing to make sure that the UN works for sanctions on both Russia and Iran? Does he recognise that waiting until June for the G7 to act may be too long when every day counts in stopping further military action?”
“In practical terms, what will that mean for those young people who are trying to navigate what is happening to them, who need our support and care, not the derision of any political movement?”
“Many of us recognise the value of the Cass report, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) set out, in its call for evidence and a thoughtful approach, and its recognition that the collapse of child and adolescent mental health services has contributed to the difficulties in children accessing services. However, I stand here today with terrified constituents who are part of the backlog. I dare say that thousands of those children have been watching this debate with their families and are frightened to hear the heat, not light. The Secretary of State has a brief in front of her, so can I ask her a practical question for my constituents who do not understand what this will mean for waiting times and delays? She said that she was not putting any new money into the service but funds were being reprioritised.”
“When will we see a report published on the matter of arms sales to Israel?”
“I heard what the Secretary of State said about his pride in the principled position that he feels the Government have taken with a ceasefire, but he will know that we can only defend international law if we uphold it. He has heard across the House concerns that UK-made arms may be being used in Gaza, and he knows full well the details of the strategic licensing export criteria. He knows that man-made famine is a violation of those human rights obligations. That is why many of us are left wondering why the Government have not suspended arms sales to Israel in light of that evidence. I heard what he said earlier about the process; I understand the process he set out. He talked about reviewing licences every quarter. One must presume, as we are coming to the end of March, that this is the end of a quarter.”
“My hon. Friend hits on a blunter truth about the Bill. In six weeks’ time, our constituents, whether they agree or not with the argument made by the hon. Member for Dartford or with arguments on the importance of tackling air pollution, will have the opportunity to express an opinion at the ballot box when choosing who the London Mayor overseeing this policy should be. Is the message of the Bill that Conservative MPs have no confidence in their mayoral candidate winning that argument, or indeed doing anything in support of their policies? They clearly feel the need to intervene and usurp devolution, so should nobody in London even bother with the Conservative campaign, because their candidate’s own colleagues think she is incompetent?”
“My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case for why air quality should be a priority for us all. Ultimately, it is a social justice issue. However rich or poor we are, we all breathe the same air. I suggest to anyone who lives in London that they will see the need to tackle low air quality if they leave London for a couple of days and then blow their nose. They will realise what they have been breathing in. This issue affects everyone. She is right that we must tackle it nationally as well as locally. Does she agree that unless the Conservatives comes up with an alternative plan, they are condemning the poorest in our communities to the worst health outcomes?”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. If he were to persuade the Government to provide additional support for scrappage, as they have done for other clean air zones in the country, to people in the outer boroughs of London, whom he and I represent, he would have my support, but does he understand my concern? Our constituents can have their say on this matter at the London mayoral elections in just six weeks’ time. Why is he seeking to usurp his own candidate and her ability to address this issue? Does he have such little confidence that he feels that national legislation is needed to undermine his own candidate, or is it really a sign that he thinks London recognises that the best option is Sadiq Khan?”
“It cannot just be theoretical. It has to be a practical model, does it not?”
“Given that the evidence shows that ULEZ has cut pollution in central London by almost half, the challenge that the Minister is presenting slightly misreads how people travel around London. As an outer-London MP, I am acutely conscious that people also drive within the borough to work, as well as between outer London boroughs. The idea that we would have the same impact on reducing pollution just by focusing on the centre misses the challenge that we are all trying to address. Nobody is saying that this is easy or that it is not controversial. I have the north circular running through my constituency, and I see the pollution. I see children and adults struggling with the consequences, and I am sure the same is true in south London. We have to consider how people travel around London to understand the best way of tackling these issues.”
“I understand the Minister telling us that he does not want to make policy from the Dispatch Box, but will he tell us whether he has sought explicit legal advice on the question of whether Israel is now committing a war crime in its use of starvation—yes or no?”
“As the Minister will be aware, thousands across Israel have protested in opposition to the approach that Prime Minister Netanyahu is taking, including the hostage families—they know that the situation in Gaza will not help release their family members. People in Israel see what is happening to the Palestinians; they hear the words of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who has said today that what is happening and Israel’s continuing restrictions on aid “may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war”. He is explicit about that and the concerns that it raises.”
“Indeed, the meeting has been cancelled several times, and now my office has been told that we probably need to wait until another Minister is appointed. I wonder whether the Secretary of State or Ministers could help. We all know that Ministers are busy and we understand that these things are complicated, but this is a life-or-death situation for my constituents and I am at a loss as to how to assist them, four months on from the original query. Can Ministers advise on how best to make progress?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your assistance on a matter that many MPs will understand through that bread and butter work that we do on behalf of our constituents. I have informed the Minister’s office of my intention to raise this matter. Last December the Minister for Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey), said that he “would love to sit down with the hon. Lady to talk through the details of the cases.” —[ Official Report , 11 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 636.] Those were the cases of two constituents who are British citizens but whose families are stuck in Pakistan, even though they served in support of our armed forces in Afghanistan. Their families are at high risk of harm. I am yet to have that meeting with the Minister.”
“I understand why, but I hope that Members will join me in demanding better for British business when it comes not just to trade deals, but to our relationship with Europe, because every manager of a small business in this country right now will be looking at all the paperwork, all the complications, all the further regulations and excessive costs and frankly the fact that the Government cannot even tell them what they will charge them on the Brexit border tax, and they will be coming to our constituency surgeries asking for help. We owe them the respect of having an answer.”
“We cannot really tell you.” All the while, global Britain is going-broke Britain—it is gutted Britain, with businesses across the country facing reams and reams of paperwork because of Brexit, with no end in sight, because this Government will not put British business first and renegotiate with Europe for a closer deal. I am sorry that new clause 9 has not been selected for decision.”