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.”
The complete record
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“I rise with great sadness to oppose this Bill for four very specific reasons, on behalf of many Members of this House who believe, like the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), that there is much agreement on the fact that there is a problem that needs to be resolved, but fear that this approach may end up making things worse. I start by recognising and respecting the work of the right hon. Lady. I have been proud to stand with her on this issue on many different occasions over the years. None the less, our fear is that the Bill fails to solve the issue, and possibly makes it worse, by normalising the biggest problem of all. That is why we have not received any representations in support of this approach from those working on these issues.”
“I feel I am letting people down when it comes to drama. Mr Speaker, have you had any notice from the Government of any intended statements, either written or spoken, about the future of the regulation of “buy now, pay later” lenders? Some 8 million people in this country are struggling to pay a “buy now, pay later” bill because they are borrowing to fund the effects of inflation and the cost of living crisis. They have no protection from the financial ombudsman. In 2020, the Government agreed to legislate on the matter and we have been waiting since then for regulations. Yet now there are press reports—not reports to this House—suggesting that the whole thing is going to be scrapped and rethought, leaving millions of people open to harm from illegal loan sharks. What notice have you had of the matter, Mr Speaker?”
“Like my hon. Friend, I have been horrified to see custard, banana, bubble gum and doughnut-flavoured vapes, clearly targeted at younger palates. They are clearly not about helping people cease smoking. One of the challenges is that we know children are increasingly moving from vaping to actual cigarettes. Does he agree that there is no case for any further delay in the Government’s work to look at how we take vapes out of the hands of young people all together? Our generation all fought so hard against Nick O’Teen; now, we have Mr Vape to deal with. Does he agree that it must be an urgent public health priority?”
“I know that the Minister is committed to closing that loophole that allows vaping companies to give children free samples, but, as we have all discussed, this is about the direct gateway effect between people vaping and then smoking. Parents in Walthamstow they are convinced that more children will end up smoking as a result of being able to access vaping in any form at all. So why are the Government consulting on limiting access to vaping for under-18s, rather than just stopping it altogether?”
“Putting trading standards officers on the frontline of tackling that trade is a bold move owing to the nature of the people with whom they might be interacting. What conversations has the Minister had with the National Crime Agency?”
“My colleagues in trading standards do a fantastic job trying to tackle the crimes that, after all, are the crimes that most of our constituents come to us about most of the time, and they would want to see more investment in trading standards. A £16 billion cut in the core revenues of trading standards means that there will not be the officers to use these powers, and certainly not officers trained to use the powers sensitively, unless there is investment. There is a final point on which I would like to hear more from the Minister, which is the trade we are trying to tackle. We know that 21% of cigarettes sold in the UK are illicit. This is an international trade—gangs, funding and all sorts of criminal activities in our communities.”
“Liverpool Council, for example, no longer has a trading standards department because something had to give considering how little money the Government have given the council to run services. Most local authorities have just one qualified trading standards officer, but if we are to give people stronger powers than the police, we want them to be qualified people who understand the remit and understand why they are being given the powers. Again, I ask the Minister to say something about whether additional funding is going to be given. If this measure generates the impact that we want it to generate in tackling the illegal cigarette trade, revenue will be raised that could go into trading standards.”
“There might be good reasons for that owing to the nature of the trade that trading standards is trying to tackle, and I want to come to that subject, but the Minister did not say anything about, for example, what has been done to monitor the use of the powers over the past eight years. Will he say what we know about when there have been raids, what happened and how the use of the powers is monitored? The difference between market-wide powers and locally applied powers could be very strong. The next point I want to follow up is the capacity of trading standards to make good on this measure. It is one thing to confer powers, but quite another to have the people to implement them. We know that spending on trading standards fell by 52% between 2009 and 2019. In some areas of the country, there are no trading standards officers at all.”
“Gentleman was talking about, and I agree with him that there was a good reason for not including trading standards on the list of bodies that were to have powers under that legislation. At the time, we felt that the powers were quite strong, and we recognised that the comparator bodies—the others that had the powers, such as the Competition and Markets Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority—were about whole markets. This statutory instrument is very much about a local power and local trading standards. Indeed, it now looks as though trading standards will have stronger powers than local police forces to do searches.”
“It is a pleasure belatedly to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms McVey. I am possibly going to shock the Committee in many ways by saying that I agree with much of what the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire has said. He and I might come from different ends of the political spectrum, but we share an interest in local regulation and in doing that in a proportionate fashion, because we have seen at first hand what happens when it does not work. I am possibly the only person here who served on the Committee that considered the Consumer Rights Act 2015, in that halcyon era in which we in this place were looking at good regulation, rather than having no regulation at all. I want to ask the Minister a set of questions that follow up what the right hon.”
“If we are to ask trading standards officers to take on this serious trade—packages might be one piece of investigation work—to enter properties and to take on organised crime, they need support. Will the Minister say more about the conversations that he has had with the National Crime Agency or Border Force about how to keep trading standards officers safe? Everybody agrees that we want to tackle this trade and everybody wants more investment in trading standards. We will all support the draft order, but I hope that the Minister understands that those of us who wrote the original legislation have some concerns about what we are asking of a service that has been stripped bare over the last 13 years.”
“We were so close to having unanimity in this place about the nature of the challenge. I think it is both. The right hon. Gentleman says that there are small packages—I was going to ask the Minister to say a bit more about what conversations he has had with Border Force—but the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee investigation into the matter set out that international gangs were involved. One German-Russian gang made £50 million over several years by importing cigarettes into the UK. We are therefore potentially asking trading standards officers to interact with very serious and dangerous people, and it is important that this House does not ask trading standards to be the blue line in our local communities.”
“We are losing brilliant staff and wasting billions of pounds, and we will have a delay before our constituents see the benefit of any workforce plan unless that changes. I have listened to him and looked at the statement that does not make a single mention of childcare, although he did refer to it in passing. What will he actually do not just for retirees but for doctors with families to get them back into the NHS so that we can all benefit?”
“The Secretary of State could do something now—not in eight years’ time—to relieve the pressure on our NHS, and it has nothing to do with pension funds. Figures from the Royal College of General Practitioners show that 53% of GPs think they cannot work in a flexible way to balance family and work commitments. It is little wonder that GPs aged 35 to 44 are the biggest group on the retention scheme who are leaving the profession—it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that it is the mums. When I asked the Secretary of State’s Department what he was doing to monitor flexible working and whether we are getting roles that people can do—not just sitting with their 16 hours but finding ways to work and balance family—it said that it did not monitor the situation. It was not even looking at it.”
“Those of us who have communities that are desperately concerned about the Uyghurs, the Rohingyas or what happened in Sri Lanka recognise that this legislation could stop our speaking out for them. Will he work with us—those of us who want to tackle antisemitism and to stand up for human rights—and rethink his proposals?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. I hope he will recognise that many of us in this House have stood up to the BDS movement. Therefore, his rather intemperate suggestion that only if we support this legislation are we against antisemitism does not pass muster. Does he recognise that those of us who would like to see local authorities challenged—perhaps through the Equality Act 2010—can find troublesome elements in this Bill? It is almost as if his myopia about the BDS movement has blinded him to the consequences of this and what it could do. The Secretary of State boasted earlier that there were exemptions around labour rights and environmental laws, but is it not ironic that the Bill does not include an exemption around genocide?”
“Will she be honest with the British public about how much money she has allocated to continue on this folly to save her blushes in the run- up to the general election? It could go towards processing cases and getting the backlog down.”
“Contrary to what the Home Secretary has just told the House, the vast majority of those in the boats are Iranians and Afghans—just 1% are Albanians. Iranians and Afghans have an asylum grant rate of 98%, because—surprise, surprise, given what is happening in those countries—they are refugees fleeing persecution. The only phoney thing here is the Home Secretary’s attempt to avoid responsibility for spending so much taxpayers’ money on a policy on which—going by the judgment, and yes, I have read it—she clearly did not do her due diligence. The Home Secretary will have had to put forward a budget. She says that the Government will do whatever it takes to make this policy work. Are they going to spend whatever it takes?”
“The people watching this who have too much month at the end of their money need better and straight answers from the Chancellor. He has ducked the question about whether he thinks the Government will reach their own target to halve inflation, and he needs to be honest about what he thinks the consequences will be of only reaching an inflation target of 5%. I join colleagues across the House who have raised concerns about the fact that the vast majority of mortgages are fixed. People facing the possibility of eviction even in a year’s time will be sick with worry. What assessment has he made of the impact if inflation only gets down to 5%? When will he learn the lessons from the energy companies, and not wait to hold the banks responsible for their role in all this?”
“Let us be honest: in a week when the reputation of Parliament could not get much lower, any attempt to restore the ability of a Member of Parliament to represent their constituents, propose amendments or participate in scrutiny—not just shout at Ministers about something that they will pass without challenge—cannot be a bad thing. I welcome their lordships having stood up for the role we could play. We have seen a week in which some MPs would rather have gone to watch the cricket than come to Westminster to do their job, but some of us still think that there is a job worth turning up for and that we should do that job.”
“He wants to say, “Well, we had a referendum, so this piece of legislation, as it is currently written, must go through this place unamended.” Well, I would quite like all the money that we were promised for the NHS also to go through this place, but we cannot always get what we want. My constituents are concerned about democracy; that is why people writing to us; that is why there is a concern about the process that the Bill would set up. The powers that it gives, that continue way beyond any sunset date at the end of this year, are over consumer rights, environmental standards and employment rights.”
“It is seven years since we were told that Brexit was all about taking back control; seven years that we have been waiting for any kind of benefit at all; and seven years in which our constituents have certainly seen the damage that has been done. The only benefit that the Bill will bring is to Downing Street. It takes back power not to the people, but to the Prime Minister. That is why thousands of people have been writing to their MPs, begging and pleading them to look at the damage that the Bill would do to the powers in this place and to their voice in that process. Following the logic of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), we could call anything Brexit.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). I have much sympathy for him and his attempts to speak to deaf ears. We are back dealing with the renegade masters of this Government and their ill behaviour—the arrogance they have yet again expressed towards the concept of parliamentary scrutiny. People watching these proceedings —few, I am sure, on a lovely Wednesday sunny afternoon—will understand what is being said: “Our way, or no way at all.” The amendments are a reasonable way of trying to address the loss of parliamentary scrutiny—the ministerial power grab—that this Bill represents.”
“This Bill is a complete break-up of our parliamentary system, because it gives Ministers powers over 4,000 areas of legislation, using statutory instrument Committees with hand-picked groups of MPs to wave through any changes that Ministers want to make. And what has the hon. Gentleman got out of the process? He has got a list of the things that are not going to be deleted that he would like to see deleted. What a glorious victory that is. Little wonder the Earl of Cardigan would be looking at him—”
“In fairness to the hon. Member for Stone, I recognise that he was here on Monday and is here today. On the powers of this Bill, he is like the Earl of Lucan—leading his cavalry into the charge of the Light Brigade—because he has already seen the arrogance of Ministers in responding to his concerns. I will never understand why he is giving away the power that he has as a Back-Bench MP to challenge for things—things that I might disagree with, but that, in a democracy, I would stand up for his right to argue for—but he is doing that today and he has done so consistently because he thinks this Bill is Brexit. It is not.”
“The Minister might dismiss people such as me, still looking for those elusive benefits of Brexit seven years on, but he cannot dismiss the concerns of thousands of constituents. I hope he will finally engage in a serious process with the Members of the House of Lords and stop dismissing them, because they come with the very best of intentions. If we are absent at work and not doing our job of defending democracy, somebody else must do so. I hope that this House will support Lords amendments 15D and 42D, because our environment and our parliamentary democracy deserve better.”
“Of course they will be sensitive to the electorate.” I am not sure the electorate think that that is the case. If the only opportunity for challenge and scrutiny is at a referendum or election, our capacity to make good laws—the whole point of this place—is gone. I am sure, based on what he just said, that the hon. Member for Stone will now be leading the campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords—or at least for an elected House of Lords. Certainly I presume he will not take up a seat in the other place when he leaves the Commons. But that is the point, is it not? Our time here might be fleeting but, if we start unpicking the strands of parliamentary scrutiny, the processes that exist and our capacity to speak up for our constituents when their rights are affected, the damage will be everlasting.”
“It would certainly give my constituents concerns about somebody seeking to develop the Walthamstow wetlands, for example. The proposals before us today reflect the Lords listening and trying to find a way forward. They are talking about a non-binding form of legislative scrutiny, whereby the Commons could suggest amendments to a statutory instrument. The Government could even refuse to accept those amendments, but it would be a process of scrutiny and accountability—the mildest form we have seen—and yet, still, computer says no. The Minister might think it is acceptable to be this arrogant about the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. Conservative Members might shake their heads and say, “The good chaps and chapesses of this Government could not possibly do anything wrong.”
“We shall see, for example, people trying to develop Holton Heath, which I am sure the Minister is well aware of, a site of protected heathland in his own constituency. Development was refused for that site on the basis of the special protection areas and special areas of conservation—both regulations that will be abolished under the Bill, unless the Government write them back in. That development attempt was rebuffed, but the Minister’s constituents can have no confidence that development will not be proposed on that site again if we lose those pieces of legislation. The fact that Ministers will not write in the Bill that that absolutely will not happen, and the fact that we have not had that clarity over those pieces of legislation, should give his constituents pause.”
““Computer says no” speaks to the real truth behind Brexit and behind this legislation, which is that the Government never intended to listen to the British people at all, because they never intended to give powers to the people who represent them. That is why it is an insult to democracy to see all this. Constituents across the country will be deeply concerned about a Bill that will allow the Government to revoke or water down legislation without any scrutiny at all, beyond possibly waving it through a five-minute Committee sitting. People are concerned about environmental standards, which Lord Krebs is trying so hard to protect, and which the Government say they will protect—yet they will not write that down. That should be very telling, because we shall see that that becomes a developers’ charter.”
“Yet, all along, the Minister wants to claim that the Government have listened, while the Government have failed to table a single alternative proposal or to make a single suggestion to reassure those of us concerned that, if we give up 4,000 areas of legislation to Ministers to use SI Committees, we may as well all go home, because we will be bystanders to the parliamentary process. It is sheer arrogance to suggest that scrutiny is additional friction; it is called asking questions. Even Back-Bench Conservative MPs would think that that is a good idea, because it is a mistake to think any Government get it right all the time. That is why we have scrutiny and a process of trying and testing legislation.”
“Gentleman matches the arrogance of the Minister, who first of all challenged the proposals put forward by the Lords on the basis that they were a novel process—they were not; they were based and rooted in parliamentary expertise from a former parliamentary Clerk, who had plenty of experience of the different mechanisms of scrutiny that can be brought to bear—and now complains that the Lords, having listened to the debate in this place and tried to find a compromise, have come forward with another proposal. That is not good enough for him either.”
“With the greatest respect, I have listened at length to the hon. Gentleman and I am conscious of time. I simply recognise the parallel with the charge of the Light Brigade in that, at first, the cavalry was lauded, and only later did we see the damage and destruction and only then did the British people hold them accountable. It will be the same when he argues against the very principle of ping-pong, which is about scrutiny. The hon.”
“If the Home Secretary cares about these young people, as she says she does, she should invest in their future. Under her Government, investment in youth services has plummeted from £158 per head to just £37. I asked the Prime Minister to make this issue one of his national priorities, but he ignored the question. Will the Home Secretary do something different and put her budget into correcting that deficit?”
“Frankly, I hope that my residents in Walthamstow are not listening to this statement, because it is just plain offensive to those of us at the heart of this challenge. Just a few weeks ago, I got up to ask the Prime Minister about a 16-year-old boy murdered in my community outside his school, and another 16-year-old in court charged with that murder. This weekend, last night, I was sat with residents, having an emergency residents’ meeting because we had had a serious shooting in my community—another young man, critical but stable in hospital. None of my residents would dispute the role that stop and search can play, but we are all arguing—begging, pleading—for this Government to recognise the epidemic of youth violence in our country.”
“The situation is completely different in Northern Ireland, where this House voted to implement a human rights approach and give women in Northern Ireland a human right—something the Minister himself did not oppose when it came before this House. Has he had any legal advice on the inequality in the ability of women within the UK to exercise their human right to choose what happens to their bodies?”
“I start by joining the Minister in expressing our condolences to the people of Nottingham. I had the honour of meeting Grace O’Malley-Kumar when she and her father were part of the vaccination effort in my local community. She was a wonderful young woman who clearly had a very bright future ahead of her. The 67 prosecutions in the last 10 years under this legislation and the conviction that we have seen in England and Wales show that it is not a theoretical issue to consider whether women in England and Wales have a legal right to an abortion. They do not have a situation where they are exempted from prosecution.”
“When Ministers were in front of the European Scrutiny Committee, they seemed to think that it was an impertinence for MPs to have concerns and questions about what might be on the list of measures to be deleted. Is this another name for what we are calling parliamentary sovereignty?”
“I hope that the Solicitor General will speak to his colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade, who made it clear in Committee on, I believe, 22 November that they were intending to abolish the Bauer and Hampshire judgments. Perhaps he will ask his colleagues to amend that, rather than suggest that I was misleading the House. I also note—and it is welcome—that the Solicitor General now accepts that there is a parliamentary precedent for amendable statutory instruments. He talks about “friction”. Another way of describing that would be Members of Parliament holding the Government to account if they come up with proposals that their constituents do not like.”
“168-69.] If Ministers are changing their minds now about using the powers in this Bill to revoke these protections for the pensions of our constituents, it is only because they have been caught out doing it and using the powers in this Bill. Does this not make the case—”
“Does the debate about the Bauer and Hampshire judgments not make the case that my hon. Friend is making? I hope Mr Speaker will forgive me here, but the Minister said that I was wrong and that is perhaps unparliamentary. Let me read into the record what the shadow Minister and I heard in Committee. The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) said: “the Department for Work and Pensions does not intend to implement the Bauer judgment through the benefits system…The Hampshire judgment is a clear example of where an EU judgment conflicts with the United Kingdom Government’s policies. Removing the effects of the judgment will help to restore the system to the way it was intended to be.” –– [ Official Report, Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2022; c.”
“And I thank the hon. Gentleman for it. I note his comments, although I also note that the legislation already provides for a Committee to look at the statutory instruments generated by the Bill. That is not a novel procedure. He says that it will be this House that determines matters, but it will only be this House reflecting what Ministers bring to us in a Delegated Legislation Committee, will it not? Unless Lords amendment 42B is passed, MPs will not be able to influence the content of an SI. The hon. Gentleman says that he did not like that in the European Parliament, so why does he want to take back control to Downing Street rather than to this Chamber with a process whereby, when changes are substantial, MPs have influence over them?”
“1263.] Nothing has changed since last week, so we still do not know what legal judgments the Government intend to delete—legal judgments that cover multiple rights including employment rights and environmental standards.”
“Getting any detail out of this Government about what they intend to use the powers in the Bill for has been like pulling hens’ teeth. Even now, with the Bill before us today, about to be passed imminently, we still do not know the full effect it will have. I will make a few brief comments. The right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) talked about the Government’s recognition that we need to know not just the regulations but the direct effect cases that are being deleted. In the other place last week, the Government said they “will add Section 4 rights to the dashboard as identified at least as frequently as every six months, as per the reporting requirement clause that is already in the Bill.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 6 June 2023; Vol. 830, c.”
“Of course I withdraw that; I meant to say “open”. I want the hon. Member for Stone to be open, but he has not even bothered to have the courtesy to read Lords amendment 42B. If he had, his objection to the idea of a Statutory Instrument Committee looking at these amendments— [Interruption.] Well, I am sure he has made complaints to the Government, who have already written to the other European statutory instruments scrutiny Committee to say they will be doing exactly that. He opposes the idea of a report about what impact a statutory instrument might have. In any other language that is called an impact assessment; we get them on all sorts of pieces of legislation, but not on this.”
“Conservative Members will vote down these amendments yet again, and they will go back to their constituents and tell them not to worry, but the truth is that they should be worried because we do not know what rights will be affected. As far as I can see, given that Ministers committed to abolishing them, the only reason why the Bauer and Hampshire judgments are now being kept is because they have been caught red-handed using a Bill to override something they know our constituents would want us as MPs to speak up about. We must never let anybody on the Conservative Benches or who said they were speaking up for democracy through Brexit tell us ever again that Brexit was about taking back control. It is taking back control to Downing Street, not this place, and our constituents deserve to know that truth.”
“He would recognise that our constituents deserve better than a simple email saying, “We have no idea what’s being deleted and we could not stop it anyway,” because that is the point about SI Committees. I am done with being lectured that this is somehow about Brexit and that those of us who have concerns about parliamentary democracy in 2023 should look at the 1972 Act, because I can see what could happen in 2024 and 2025, and my constituents deserve better than this. We cannot have a legislative process that simply says we have to trust the chaps and chapesses who are Ministers and in Downing Street to do the decent thing. If the hon. Gentleman had sat in his own Committee and listened to Ministers dismiss his own concerns, he would know the folly of such a position.”
“I have listened to the hon. Gentleman. I listened to him tell us at length about the European Union, but he has failed to tell us why he is opposing an amendment that gives this Chamber primacy over what happens when legislation changes. As the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon says, it matters. The hon. Member for Stone opposes the Lords being able to come back with SI amendments. Actually, this House would be able to override them under Lords amendment 42B. If he had bothered to have the courtesy to look at what the Lords had said, and bothered to listen to a former parliamentary Clerk of the House who helped draft it—not a great remainer by any means, but somebody who cares passionately about parliamentary democracy—he would recognise that this is about trying to make the process better.”
“The hon. Gentleman has just said that somebody can be charged but still be found not guilty, in the same way that somebody could be arrested and not charged. It is about the evidence that is presented. As he said at the start of his speech, we have a duty of care. We are talking about a risk-based exclusion process. It is not actually about the perpetrator, alleged or otherwise. It is about the evidence presented at that time of risk to those who remain. Can he say a little about what he proposes to do to tackle that risk if he wants to wait until charge, based on the evidence presented to the House by the police at that moment?”
“By the hon. Gentleman’s logic, there is no evidence of risk that could be presented by the police to this place on which we could act. Is he really saying that, or do we need a process that could assess the evidence being presented? Is he that specific about it: there is nothing that he could be told about the risk posed by somebody to people in this place that would cause him to act?”