Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
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“Sadly, some European countries will feel let off the hook, and it will be harder to galvanise a united European defence effort. What can the UK do? Sadly, even in the UK we are still reacting too slowly. The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee in December that the Ukraine war was “existential for Euro-Atlantic security”, but there is little sign of that understanding in our day-to-day politics. The Defence Secretary has said that the UK defence industry must be put on to a war footing, which means that the whole of Government must be mobilised for that effort, and our voters must understand that the sacrifices to fund victory in Ukraine will be far less than the costs of defeat for Ukraine in the longer term.”
“The temporary stabilisation on the frontline in Ukraine means that western European countries have still not yet had sufficient stimulus to make them appreciate the importance and urgency of going on to a wartime footing themselves and increasing their own defensive capacities. If the US is, in fact, changing its policy, as I indicated it might be, that is a serious game changer and we must encourage it. It gives notice to Putin that eventually he will lose the war; the US can re-establish the credibility of its leadership of the democratic world and of NATO; the Chinese will draw an important lesson about US resolve, which will have significant implications for Taiwan; the Russian model will appear much less attractive to the global south and Russian influence will wane; and the impetus towards nuclear proliferation will lessen.”
“Too many Governments in the west cling to the illusion that the treaty can lead to a world free of nuclear weapons, but even European countries beyond the UK and France may soon have to consider acquiring nuclear capability, or at least accepting US tactical nuclear weapons on their soil once again. Gaza has put western influence in the middle east into freefall, while tying up western political attention and US military supplies and helping the Russian narrative to become dominant in the global south. Russia’s information efforts have played their part in making Gaza a debilitating issue for the west and interventions in other theatres, such as New Caledonia, keep the west on the back foot. The axis of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran is strengthening.”
“Russia will be able to continue to keep up moderate military pressure on Ukraine, to prevent the Ukrainians being able to benefit from an operational pause—in other words, I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), the Russians will have the upper hand. Russia will also step up its information warfare and influence campaign in Europe, employing hybrid and grey zone attacks. Worse, with the US’s failure to call Russia’s nuclear bluff—that is what this policy amounts to—other states, most immediately in the middle east, will increasingly see nuclear weapons as conferring invulnerability. In the last few days it has been reported that Iran is willing to share nuclear technology with neighbouring countries, proving that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is ineffective. We should be more honest about that.”
“It is an unthinkable prospect. A stalemate would be a defeat. A stalemate would be a victory for Putin, who would be holding territory that he has claimed illegally. I thought the Deputy Foreign Secretary was very clear on that, supported by the shadow Foreign Secretary in the same terms. I do not think we should talk about defeat; we should be concentrating on how to ensure that we can expel Russia from all occupied Ukrainian territory. If the Ukrainians’ hands are tied and they cannot use US weapons to strike targets in Russia itself, they will remain vulnerable to further Russian attacks. Russia will appear stronger than it really is, having obscured its growing deficiency in weaponry.”
“I am going to bring my remarks to a close, if that is all right. Even if we do not have enough kit to send to Ukraine, we could help the Ukrainians to make more kit themselves and significantly improve our training effort, which we now know is not providing the Ukrainians with the breadth or depth of training needed to win this war—I hope the Government will respond to that point. We must press the White House to understand that Ukraine must be enabled to win this war, or the war is lost. We must also keep encouraging our European allies to follow suit. We can all learn from the way that countries such as Finland and Poland have moved on to a war footing and are building much increased military capacity at less cost.”
“Would it not also be sensible to emphasise that if we want this war to go on forever, we should allow Russia to stay in control of sovereign Ukrainian territory? If we want to have a clean and clear end to this conflict, the only way to do so is to expel Russia from illegally occupied territory.”
“Nobody ever thinks that they themselves are biased, and the BBC does not think it is biased, but it can unconsciously produce a very one-sided approach to a particular issue such as the European Union—and, in that case, about the single currency.”
“I am afraid that I am one of those who has been distracted, and I will not be able to remain to speak in the debate. I took a very great interest in the report by Lord Wilson of Dinton, not least because it did not denigrate the integrity of people in the BBC. It did uncover, however, an unconscious preconception about what certain views on the European community meant. The report was about the impartiality of the BBC when reporting matters concerning the European Union. It made a lot of people in the BBC extremely angry. People from the BBC told me that it should never have been commissioned, even though it was a totally objective report. When confronted with it, the BBC still gets very angry about it, which suggests that there is a different atmosphere in the BBC about certain issues.”
“My hon. Friend is making a very important speech. I would just draw the House’s attention to when I was new young Back Bencher in the early 1990s, and two or three of us, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), finally got a meeting with the “Today” programme’s editorial team, which I think included Rod Liddle. We started to explain to them why joining a single currency in the European Union might be a rather bad idea and they were very interested, but they were greeted with derision when they went back to the BBC and suggested that our arguments should be taken seriously.”
“Is there not another issue here, which is that the BBC is a successful programme maker and broadcaster, yet it is completely unable to compete with the likes of Amazon Prime and Netflix, because it is not allowed to run subscription services in the same way? Is there not a case for replacing a large proportion of the licence fee income with subscription income for those programmes, albeit that it would still be necessary for the BBC to have some public subvention for its public service broadcasting, which plays such a key role in our national life?”
“I suggest that the Secretary of State brings forward a White Paper very shortly on the lessons learned from this incident and others, to provide the reassurance that not least our service personnel need.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House so speedily with a great deal about the action that is being taken. I am concerned both about the reluctance to name the malign actor and about the tendency for things to get lost in the Cabinet Office, which has become such a morass of activity. Who in the Cabinet Office is charged with this responsibility? Is it the National Security Adviser? Which Cabinet committee is overseeing this? Is it the National Security Council itself? I hope so. Which Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff is responsible for cyber-security? Who will be responsible for making sure that all these elements are working together to conduct this review very thoroughly?”
“It requires the leadership in the Ministry of Defence—the Ministers, the officials and the armed forces leadership—all to be absolutely united behind pursuing the change in attitude and behaviour across the whole MOD, and they must lead by example. The way they prove that is by making sure that nobody gets rewarded or promoted who does not demonstrate that they have adopted the new attitudes and behaviours. Otherwise, the minute the wrong person with the wrong attitudes and the wrong behaviours is promoted, everybody will say, “There you are: it does not matter. You get promoted anyway.” This is a very urgent part of the transformation of defence in this troubling period, and I hope very much that the Government will take up my suggestions.”
“It has to be shown that people who resist cultural change will not prosper. That means that everyone at all levels must be taught and trained in the new procurement system, so that there is no misunderstanding about what it means. Previously I have recommended privately to the Secretary of State, and to the Minister for Defence Procurement, that there should be a defence course at Shrivenham called the integrated procurement model course. It should be like the higher command and staff course. Everybody should go on it and anybody involved in defence procurement should sign up to the new philosophy. Finally, such a change programme requires leadership.”
“Cultural change is very difficult in a large organisation, and previous defence reforms have disappeared into the sand like water in a desert, because there has not been a sufficient emphasis on a cultural shift. Now, there are three kinds of people in any organisation such as the Ministry of Defence. When confronted with a demand for cultural change, there are the few enthusiasts who say, “At last! The leadership get it and are going to do something and change things”; most will have seen change programmes come and go and will want to comply, but may be rather cynical about it; and there will be a few resistors, who feel that it is an attack on their integrity, their way of doing things or their own personality. I am afraid the resistors have to be rooted out. They have to be taken out of the equation.”
“It mimics what we have learned from the successful urgent operational requirements programme and will, I hope, lead to a cultural shift to which my right hon. Friend also addressed himself—a shift in attitude and behaviour, which is what we mean by a change of culture. To achieve that shift in attitude, and to get a sense of urgency, we need to identify the attitudes and behaviours in the Ministry of Defence and in the procurement world that militate against the integrated procurement model, we have to root them out, and we have to identify the right attitudes and the right behaviours, which means changing hearts and minds in the MOD. How do we do that?”
“Secondly, I want to underline the importance of UK leadership in NATO and in the support of Ukraine. We really have led from the front on Ukraine. We have had a delicate relationship with the United States, to encourage them along, but in terms of European NATO we are certainly in the lead. That underlines the importance of the role the United Kingdom plays in the world. We are not just a small country—a little north-Atlantic power—but an opinion-forming country of great influence, which is why we must step up to our responsibilities in defence. The third point I wish to make is about not so much defence policies but the integrated procurement model, which I very much welcome. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said, that is putting us on to a war footing in terms of procurement.”
“There are no boundaries, which we expect of civilised countries, that they will not cross. The democratic world is only just waking up to the threat that presents. I will make three further points that are relevant to this debate. First, there are lessons to be learned from delaying the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent. Defence is not something that can be switched on and off, depending on how we feel about what is going to happen next year. The defence capability of our Trident submarines, which are a very expensive, long-term platform, reflects a failure of judgment by the coalition Government in not making that maingate decision much earlier, as the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) said. This presents a threat to our capability, as we run the life of the submarines longer and longer, and has escalated the cost.”
“10, the Cabinet Office and the National Security Council, to create a national defence plan that must cover, as has been noted by other participants in this debate, a far wider spectrum of policy—not just cyber-security but energy security, food security, border security, technological security, economic security and even climate security. The Liaison Committee, which I chair, is shortly to report on how Select Committees can better scrutinise and promote national strategic thinking and national strategy across all areas of Government policy. I hope the House will be interested in that report. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has proved beyond doubt that we live in a world of hyper-competition between the democratic world and the autocracies that show no sign of self-restraint.”
“The proportion of GDP spent by Government on defence fell and fell, and so did the size of the armed forces, the number of ships, the numbers in the Army and the number of aircraft. There are lots of pots and kettles in this Chamber. I welcome the new consensus—although the Opposition have not quite put flesh on its bones—that we are going to increase money for defence. I respect the aspirations of the shadow Secretary of State, but I fear he may be restrained by the same kind of Treasury mentality that he says afflicts this Government. This shift to a wartime mentality demands a shift in culture, not just in the MOD but across Government, led from the centre by No.”
“I fail to understand how this can be tempered by “as resources allow” or “as conditions allow.” The cyber-attack we discussed earlier underlines that we are already at war, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s attempts to put us more on a war footing, which means being able to rebuild munition stocks and create resilient supply chains, but it also means increasing our pace and creating a sense of urgency across Government. We can no longer look forward to an era of global peace. We must jettison what might be termed the peacetime mentality that led my colleagues in Government to accept the restraint of the Liberal Democrats on renewing our strategic deterrent. I was shadow Defence Secretary opposite Geoff Hoon, and I remember that the sound defence review under George Robertson was never fully funded.”
“I very much welcome this defence debate in Government time but, as we run out of time, I am reminded that we used to have five debates every year on different defence topics. Trying to cover the whole waterfront of defence in one debate is proving very taxing. I will concentrate today on defence policy, which determines how we spend defence money, and indeed how much we decide to spend on defence, so that we are best prepared for whatever may occur—both the threats we can foresee and the events we cannot anticipate—including deterring and containing our adversaries, preferably without conflict. Incidentally, it is far cheaper to use defence money to prevent wars than to save money that then has to be spent on fighting a war. I welcome the Government’s commitment to spending 2.5% of GDP, which clearly sets defence as a higher priority.”
“What about the cost to UK electricity bill payers? Tarchon will cost £5 billion, underwritten by electricity bill payers, and at least £7 billion in returns to the largely foreign investors will be protected. We cannot allow it to proceed. The fact that high-voltage direct current undergrounding has emerged as a viable option means that the Government should pause the great national grid upgrade. In Germany, HVDC is the default option—”
“Tarchon would not proceed without an Ofgem-approved cap and floor agreement. Ofgem’s press release stated: “Interconnectors can make energy supply cleaner, cheaper and more secure”, but none of those three claims applies to Tarchon. The ESO report found that Tarchon will not increase UK electricity security even in the most extreme case and will not help us to achieve net zero. In fact, our exports reduce Germany’s carbon emissions but put ours up, because we continue to rely on fossil fuels to keep the lights on in London. It gets worse: ESO’s analysis of the system constraints concludes that power will be exported even when overall UK prices are high. The constrained northern boundary into London means that Tarchon is expected to export power 80% of the time, regardless of domestic prices.”
“Under all plausible scenarios, interconnectors would export that clean electricity to Europe for 80% of the time at a loss to the UK, in order to avoid making constraint payments to the wind farms. That cannot possibly justify the 60 million pylons across our landscapes. That is the main reason why I oppose the new inter- connector with Germany called Tarchon, which would join a new National Grid East Anglian connection node near Ardleigh in my constituency. Ironically, that connection causes so much of the environmental damage. It requires the Norwich-to-Tilbury project to divert to the east of Colchester by crossing the Dedham Vale special landscape area and then to double back to the west, parallel to the line of the A12. Even undergrounding high-voltage AC cables is hugely disruptive to the landscape and its archaeology.”
“ESO’s modelling still finds that the majority of proposed network designs, including all plausible options, fail to transmit the power from where it is generated to the high-demand areas and in particular to the constrained area of north London. The Government—I have written to the Minister about this—must insist that National Grid ESO conducts further modelling to resolve the northern boundary constraints into London. Option 5b in ESO study’s mentions a possible link between Tilbury and Isle of Grain, which might resolve the problem, but it is the very option that ESO has not yet modelled. Without that, Norwich to Tilbury cannot possibly be justified, and we have the data to prove it.”
“The very fact that we now have a concept called “holistic network design”, however, underlines the shortcomings of the piecemeal approach driven by the old regulatory regime, which has given rise to the proposal. We are delighted that the Government initiated the offshore co-ordination support scheme to fund studies into alternatives to the original National Grid proposal. That resulted in the “ESO East Anglia Network Study”, containing an evaluation of 10 further options for amending or improving Norwich to Tilbury. The shortage of time may preclude going back to the drawing board and starting a new offshore design from scratch, but Norwich to Tilbury is already discredited, and undeliverable without substantial revision.”
“We all want the same: to make the best use of wind power from the North Sea, maximising the use of green electricity in the UK at acceptable cost, by providing new capacity to get offshore wind electricity and onshore solar to consumers in London. The more we have studied the proposals, the clearer it has become that the present Norwich-to-Tilbury plan will not meet those objectives. In fact, they are against the UK national interest and should not be approved by Ofgem. I say that with no sense of blame for anyone involved. I think that the Minister, his predecessors, DESNZ officials, National Grid Electricity Transmission, National Grid ESO—Electricity System Operator—and Ofgem are all doing their best.”
“I chair a group of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk MPs, some 15 of us, known as OffSET, the Offshore Electricity-grid Taskforce. We are campaigning for an offshore electricity transmission system in place of what National Grid now calls Norwich to Tilbury, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) referred. I also join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this debate. We in OffSET share our objective with ESNP—Essex Suffolk Norfolk Pylons, which is the citizens’ campaign against pylons—and we are backed by a petition of 32,000 people and growing, across the three counties.”
“May I, in passing, pay tribute to the late Frank Field? He voted for the renewal of Trident, unlike many on the Labour Front Bench, and he would have understood that deepening our defence capability in the conventional forces is a vital part of the deterrence that NATO provides for the security of Europe. I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for leading the way on this, and setting an example through leadership.”
“May I make a suggestion to my hon. Friend? It is perfectly clear that the MOD wants to increase defence spending, as does the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), if we are to take his criticisms at all seriously. Is the right question to ask whether we are spending enough to prevent a war, not to fight a war? How much more do we need to spend to be an effective deterrent, which we do not appear to be at the moment?”
“Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I flee the Chamber for a 2 o’clock meeting of the Liaison Committee, which I must attend immediately after this question. May I point out to my right hon. Friend the Minister that it was notable how swiftly No. 10 played down President Macron’s suggestion that French or NATO troops might be directly deployed to the conflict in Ukraine? Can that be used to demonstrate how vacillation in Washington will lead to escalation in Europe? Could the European members of NATO perhaps explore some kind of lend-lease arrangement with the United States, as we had in the 1939 to 1940 period?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent statement. What training and professional development will be put in place to underpin the new policy? What he is describing is a wholesale transformation of culture, attitude and behaviour that is required in the Ministry of Defence, particularly around the pace, the people and the leadership of teams. This will not be achieved unless there is a concerted effort to change the culture and to implement a change programme in MOD and the armed forces that will underpin what he is seeking to achieve.”
“May I suggest that the priority of the House should be to command the confidence of our voters? I do not think that they, or indeed a majority in the House, feel that we resolved anything on the question of Gaza and Israel yesterday, so may I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the Government take up the suggestion made by the shadow Leader of the House and hold a debate on the subject in Government time, on a Government motion, so that the motion and every amendment can be considered? That would draw a line under this matter.”
“Can my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to emphasise that the light attendance in the House this afternoon is not an indication of any lack of resolve among Members or any of the political parties to stand up to President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Prime Minister recently described in the Liaison Committee as an “existential” threat to European and transatlantic security? Can the Secretary of State also share with the House whether he believes there is evidence of an emboldening of Russian aggression, particularly towards Moldova, perhaps being threatened from Belarus, which appears to be preparing for an entry into this conflict? Can he shed any light on that?”
“I very much welcome this initiative to encourage our pharmacies to provide more frontline healthcare. People need to know about this, because they often do not think of going to the pharmacy. What work are the Government doing in larger population centres such as Harwich and Dovercourt, which has over 20,000 people but no out-of-hours pharmacy cover? People have to make a round trip of more than 40 miles to collect a prescription on a Sunday, for example. Are the Government doing any work on 24/7 pharmacy coverage for larger population areas?”
“I express my full support for the action that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has approved. Will he extend his strategic objectives, because it seems that this threat will remain so long as the Houthis have a safe haven to operate from? It is a question of how we deal with that part of Yemen, which is effectively an ungoverned space.”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s decision last week to take military action in the Red sea, and the substantial increase in aid for Ukraine. Will he take this opportunity to reiterate and make it absolutely clear that it would be utterly against the national interest, and indeed the security interests of the world, for the British Prime Minister to be hobbled in the decisions that he makes about taking military action by the need to consult in advance? Does he not agree that the responsibility that he bears is intrinsic to his seals of office and should not be given up?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement, which is probably the most significant statement on energy policy for at least a decade. I welcome in particular the intention to streamline planning processes and regulation to reduce unnecessary costs and delays. May I ask for an assurance that if there is to be new nuclear development at Bradwell in Essex, it will be of a type that does not affect the marine protected area of the Blackwater estuary, a historic oyster fishery on which many of my constituents depend?”
“14. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of staff turnover in the civil service on domain knowledge and subject expertise among senior civil servants.”
“Friend to give us a supplementary note for the inquiry, so that we can understand their thinking on this matter more deeply?”
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment—and a very welcome one it is too. Does he acknowledge that although the problem of churn and generalism in the civil service has been around for 50 or 60 years, since the Fulton inquiry in the 1960s under Harold Wilson, it has become worse and worse? I thank him for the evidence that the Government have submitted to the Liaison Committee’s inquiry on strategic thinking in Government and how Select Committees can better scrutinise it, but if the Government do not have in place the experts and the people with domain knowledge, domain expertise and subject experience, there is not likely to be much good strategic thinking going on, given that Ministers often seem to know more about the subjects than the officials they are dealing with. May I invite my right hon.”
“I thank the Government for publishing the report on governance and accountability in the civil service, which my noble Friend Lord Maude was commissioned to produce. May I point out that one of his recommendations in that very well drafted report is about learning from the experience of other civil services, such as those in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, where indeed they retain civil servants in post much longer by paying them better—”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and for the consistency of support the British Government have shown and the way they have led our NATO allies in support of the Ukrainians right from the start. How are we going to maintain that lead in the face of another war in the middle east, a certain amount of disarray in the Congress and indeed some visible wavering among our European allies?”
“I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s clarity about how critical it is for the security of the world and the rules-based international order that there is a successful outcome for Ukraine in this conflict. Will he do everything he can to ensure that the critical longer-range missiles and air defence systems, which are having a very detrimental effect on the Russian armed forces, continue to get through? May I add my voice to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)? We take it as read that extra money will be announced in the autumn statement—at least as much as before, if not more—to help sustain Ukraine in this dreadful conflict.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for his robust and confident statement, and for the significant progress he has been able to report to the House today. Can he also confirm that the hotel on the A12 near Langham in my Harwich and North Essex constituency is one of those that will no longer be used for asylum seekers?”
“May I add my thanks to my right hon. Friend for finally publishing a response to the Select Committee? He will recall that, as Chair of the Liaison Committee, I wrote to him last week—he responded very promptly, for which I am grateful. However, the Government’s response was published only on Friday, more than six months after the Committee published its original report, yet it is de rigueur in the civil service code that responses should be published within two months. Will he explain to the House why it took so long, can he give an assurance that it will not happen again, and will he say what measures are being taken to ensure that such delays will not recur?”
“I have some sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister for wanting to strike the right balance. I very much welcome his recognition that we have come a long way from the ill-fated idea of a golden age with China, which was only eight years ago. Much of what has happened has been predicable and predicted, and we continue to predict what will happen, as he has heard this afternoon. Why are the Government so squeamish not just about talking about threats from China, but about calling China a threat? What is the difference between a challenge and a threat?”
“But I was waiting for him to get on to the bigger strategic picture. It is quite clear that Mr Putin is playing this long in the hope that the patience of our allies—we can think of who they are—will wear thin, our attention will wane and by a process of attrition he will gain something out of this conflict. I congratulate the Government on refusing to accept that that should be the outcome, but what confidence does the Minister have that we will carry all our allies to ensure that we sustain the Ukrainians’ effort so that that they achieve total victory, not some sell-out of half their territory already occupied by the Russians?”