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.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,591 lines we hold for Sir Bernard Jenkin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 92.
“The hon. Gentleman is giving full solidarity, and the pledge on behalf of the Labour party to continue the Government’s policy in Ukraine is extremely welcome and will be heard around the world. Does that extend to guarantees on funding for defence? I appreciate that this is a loaded question, but will the hon. Gentleman match whatever the Government promise to spend on defence?”
“Like the Prime Minister, as he pointed out earlier on the spending review, I can find no reference to RAAC schools in Hansard relating to any statement, urgent question or debate from 2010 when the Building Schools for the Future programme was cancelled, and cancelled it was for very good reasons. Labour’s motion is retrospectively trying to allocate blame in the past, not explaining what a Labour Government would do now or in future.”
“I rise as the Member of Parliament who, unfortunately, probably has more RAAC schools than any other. That does not take into account nearby secondary schools, three of which are identified on the list of cancelled projects in the Building Schools for the Future programme with RAAC in Colchester, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and which are all likely to be attended by pupils from my constituency. I heave a deep sigh. Opposition day debates are about blaming the Government—I have been in opposition, and we all know that. They are not about what has fundamentally gone wrong and what lessons there are to be learned.”
“That is of no comfort to my constituents, I am afraid, because nearly all the schools concerned are primary schools, and there were no primary schools in the Building Schools for the Future programme because it was a politically driven programme funded by the discredited public finance initiative, which made it extremely expensive. I do not think we should go back there. The Labour party does not actually criticise what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State decided last week to protect the safety of schoolchildren and teachers. That was the subject of my intervention on the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). Does she think that the Secretary of State has done the wrong thing? I will give way to her now if she would like to say that.”
“No, but the point is that this debate arises because the Secretary of State made a brave and courageous decision to act on the advice she was given. The Opposition has nothing whatever to say about that. She did the right thing. [ Interruption. ] If the shadow Secretary of State wants to intervene, by all means she may.”
“Our recommendations to help to address the failings are principally twofold and relate to unresolved conflicts of interest in the building safety management regime of buildings, which are not addressed by the Building Safety Act 2022 or the establishment of the building safety body, which is now a statutory function of the Health and Safety Executive. At present, it is the HSE—”
“We should thank the good Lord that none of the ceilings collapsed on a classroom of pupils, or the Government would by now be announcing a full public inquiry rather like the Grenfell inquiry. There the parallels continue, because like cladding, RAAC is a long-persisting and neglected building safety risk, which successive Governments have failed to address. I and others, including the former fire and housing Minister Nick Raynsford, the former chief investigator of the Air Accident Investigation Branch Dr Keith Conradi, and senior buildings surveyor Kevin Savage, made a submission to the Grenfell inquiry.”
“There we have it: the hon. Lady will not say that the Secretary of State has done the wrong thing. Let the politics play itself out. What we have here is a much more fundamental, wider systemic failure in the management of building safety, which has gone on for decades. Dr John Roberts, the former president of the Institution of Structural Engineers, wrote in The Times earlier this week: “As a chartered structural engineer in active practice from the early 1970s, I never considered using RAAC as it did not “feel’ correct for permanent structures.” So why was it used? One lesson is that perhaps Ministers should encourage their officials to challenge them more with uncomfortable truths—let us agree that. The wider question is why such a critical building safety issue was systemically neglected, decade after decade.”
“No, I will press on, if I may. At present, it is the HSE that decides how a building safety failure should be investigated, unless the Government take over with their own inquiry. There is a need for a truly independent building safety investigation body, equivalent to the accident investigation bodies in aviation, marine, rail and offshore safety. No regulator like the HSE should also investigate safety failures, because it may find itself conflicted if part of the failure arises from a failure of regulation. That is what Lord Cullen found in the Paddington rail crash inquiry and why the Rail Accident Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport was established.”
“The failures also arise from the failure to find the causes of building safety incidents through a proper independent investigation body that possesses permanent, accumulated expertise that a one-off-public inquiry has to attempt to acquire from scratch. I hope that amid the politicking, all political parties will recognise that such reforms are necessary in building safety management, or there will be more systemic failures in building safety arising from things such as the wrong cladding and the wrong concrete in the future. I have 15 seconds, if the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) would like to intervene.”
“I am sorry; I have no time. The second conflict that needs to be resolved concerns the role of local authority building control bodies and their private sector counterparts, known as approved inspectors. The Building Safety Act will regulate the private sector approved inspectors but not local authority building control, which was not only responsible for approving the cladding on Grenfell Tower but, I hazard a guess, probably approved the building control on most of the schools built with RAAC. The main point is that failures such as RAAC and cladding arise because of the failure of the building management safety system, which is endemic to that system.”
“I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman would raise a point relevant to my speech. There has been enough politicking about this issue. I am making more serious comments about the building safety management system of this whole country, which affects a whole lot of other public buildings as well.”
“Mistley Norman in my constituency, for example, was closed in July, and the Secretary of State will know that I had a meeting with Baroness Barran about that in July, which means that we have been working on this long before the issue blew up last week. Will the capital funding be made available to rebuild Mistley Norman School?”
“As the MP with eight identified schools with RAAC issues and two others under investigation, which is more, I think, than in any other constituency, may I thank her for her exemplary statement? It was perfectly rational and demonstrated that she personally has taken on her responsibilities despite the political dangers that she has put herself into. May I just ask about the caseworkers? Is there one caseworker for each school? If not, how many schools is each caseworker having to deal with? It would also be helpful if we could contact the caseworkers, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said. Finally, may I ask about the school buildings that have already closed?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I, through you, apologise for not having been present from the start of these proceedings? I was not expecting this business to be debated this evening; I should have been more alert, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) has been, to the possibility that it would be. I would not consider it appropriate to try to catch your eye to make a contribution to this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker—unless you deemed it appropriate.”
“I am most grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker; I appreciate the courtesy being extended to me. First, I should reiterate that there is support among all the Select Committee Chairs for the inquiry. Secondly, the issue is about the effectiveness of Select Committee scrutiny. Many Select Committees find it difficult to obtain information about long-term challenges facing this country, particularly if they are cross-departmental issues. The Select Committee’s inquiry will be concentrating on that. Thirdly, there is ample precedent for Liaison Committee inquiries into the effectiveness of the Select Committee system. That is what the Liaison Committee exists to do and it is firmly within its remit. We are confining ourselves to that.”
“We do not imagine that we will have a great number of oral evidence sessions, because Select Committee Chairs are so busy. Much of this will be conducted on a desktop basis through written evidence, rather than through oral evidence sessions. I hope that clarifies it for the House, and I am most grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make a contribution under these circumstances.”
“I am most grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who is talking about the context of the inquiry. How can we conduct the inquiry in a vacuum, without reference to what happens in other countries, what other Parliaments are doing to scrutinise long-term strategic thinking, and what other Governments are doing in response? There is a strong public interest in this, and I have held a very close interest in the subject matter, which he generously acknowledges. This is not a threat to Select Committees. The Chairman of the Defence Committee, on which the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) sits, has supported this inquiry, and I hope he will take part.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and congratulate him on contributing to what I think history will prove to have been one of the most significant summits in NATO’s history. Will he clarify what he understands is the intention with regard to Ukraine’s membership of NATO? What would be the purpose of delaying Ukraine’s membership beyond the end of hostilities in Ukraine and the victory for the Ukrainians? Without the article 5 security guarantee, rebuilding Ukraine will be much more difficult, because investors will not have confidence unless we are providing that security guarantee.”
“My right hon. Friend will know that I have long taken an interest in strategic thinking in Government, where there is widely perceived to be a lack of capability and consistency. That is underlined by the ISC report that came out today. It states: “While we sought to examine whether the Government’s strategy for dealing with such a large adversary was up to the task, they”— that is, all the witnesses— “felt very strongly that HMG did not have any strategy on China, let alone an effective one, and that it was singularly failing to deploy a ‘whole-of-government’ approach when countering the threat from China—a damning appraisal indeed.” Will the Minister contribute to the Liaison Committee’s inquiry into the scrutiny of national strategy and strategic thinking of Government, which we are now undertaking?”
“The UK has to step up, or the world will become a far more dangerous place for our own citizens, as well as for everybody else. The post-war era of peace and security was founded on deterrence. When deterrence failed and the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on 24 February last year, the peace and security of Europe was shattered. It must be restored, or democracy around the world will have failed in its resolve and the dictators will have triumphed. The motion before the House this afternoon is not just a declaration of support for the policy of His Majesty’s Government on Ukraine; it is a banner under which we must rally our people and the other democracies of the world, in support of the freedom and security of us all.”
“We were the first to provide military training and lethal weapons, and the first to commit tanks and long-range missiles. It is in the interests of the whole world that the Ukrainian armed forces get what they need, and as fast as possible. The more they have now, the quicker they can achieve victory. It is a simple equation. The longer the war takes, the more expensive it will be for NATO countries and for the rest of the world in the longer term. It will also be more dangerous, because the longer we take to help Ukraine achieve victory, the bigger problem a belligerent Russia will become. The UK does all of this not out of some misplaced notion of national vanity about our role in the world, but to defend our own national interest. The UK plays a vital leadership role in the world.”
“What Ukraine must also have now is more NATO standard weaponry and more training. It still does not have enough and, as its young men die on the battlefields, we should be forgiving of President Zelensky’s constant pleading. I am certain that the Secretary of State for Defence did not want to cause a stir with his slightly unguarded remarks, but they carried an important message that the Ukrainian Government and Ukrainian representatives can be more persuasive of others who are perhaps reluctant to support Ukraine, or reluctant to support it with the necessary weapons and matériel. The UK has been a trailblazer. The Government should be congratulated on the UK being the first nation to give significant military support to Ukraine, while countries such as the United States and Germany were holding back.”
“Why was it necessary to remove the reference to NATO enlargement? Today, the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), supported enlarging it. I am grateful for that late support, but will Labour make clear its support for the text in paragraph 4 of the Vilnius communiqué? That includes the words: “We reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s Open Door policy and to Article 10 of the Washington Treaty. Every nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements.” Does Labour stand by the decision made at the Bucharest summit in 2008, reiterated this week in Vilnius, which says that not just Ukraine but Georgia “will become a member of NATO”? The House will await the shadow Minister’s response to those questions.”
“Friend the Minister would agree that NATO membership for Ukraine is also essential as soon as the war ends. Will the Government commit to that? There will only be a significant flow of investment into a post-war Ukraine if that investment is underpinned by NATO’s article 5 security guarantee. When the Czech Republic was first offered accession talks for NATO membership in 1997, the flow of private foreign investment into the country doubled within a week. I wonder whether the Labour Opposition can expand on their position on the commitment to NATO enlargement. Earlier this week, a slightly different motion was planned for today’s Order Paper, but I was persuaded to remove the reference to continuing NATO enlargement, in the interests of cross-party unity. That is what we are pursuing today, so this is a genuinely well-motivated inquiry.”
“It is problematic to extend the article 5 protection to a nation that is being torn by conflict as we speak. However, we can be pleased to see the words of the Vilnius communiqué: “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” We can also be grateful for President Biden’s support for those words. Furthermore, the Vilnius summit dispensed with the requirement for the usual membership action plan, and also established a new NATO-Ukraine council, formalising a relationship between Ukraine and NATO. All that and, not least, the continuing active and practical support for Ukraine, reinforces the underlying intention of NATO nations, in principle, that we will accept only one outcome from the war: the complete expulsion of Russian armed forces from Ukrainian territory. I wonder whether my right hon.”
“We have had the strange spectacle of the US President’s reluctance to advance Ukraine’s membership of NATO, for fear that, as President Biden said: “If the war is going on, then we’re all in war…with Russia”. That somewhat misses the point. President Putin has himself declared that his war is a war against NATO. The fact is that we are already in the war. Denial of that is denial of the profound and dangerous consequences of this war for our own security. The democratic world cannot afford to stumble in our support for Ukraine. The House heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister confirm earlier that the Vilnius summit was one of the most significant in NATO’s history. Ukraine was not immediately offered NATO membership, as we and others might have hoped, but we should understand why.”
“Our news channels and politics are cluttered with trivia, but also with any number of urgent issues that are also existential threats—not least, climate change and the race to net zero. But we need to convey an ugly truth: war, and the threat of war, displaces every other threat by its immediacy. If the globe, by neglect, cascades into the chaos and waste of increasing state-on-state warfare, with all its death and destruction, and economic and trade disruption, the net zero target will be just another casualty. So our democracy, and democracy around the world, must not fail this test. The question is: how can Ukraine win this war, in the terms set out by the motion? On that, we find that some are more doubtful than others.”
“That would shred what Winston Churchill called the “sinews of peace” in the title of his famous iron curtain speech, which helped to lay the foundations of the global security and stability that we have too readily taken for granted. The democratic powers would gain only short-term respite from further wars of aggression, selling out generations of blood spilt and of patient deterrence, to offer the next generation —well, exactly what? Who can ever forget that “peace in our time” in 1939 turned out to be a false respite? So this motion is an important message. It is also a signal to our own public about how we are inviting our own voters to regard the Russian aggression.”
“Secondly, it would leave Russia, which is already rearming as fast as it can, to resume the war whenever it chose to do so. Neither Ukraine nor the rest of Europe would be safe from Russian aggression. This motion spells out what a Ukrainian victory must mean: nothing less than the wholesale rolling back of Russia’s armed forces out of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, as recognised in international law. I am grateful to His Majesty’s Opposition for agreeing on that clear wording. That is what the free nations of Europe, and of the whole world, must support Ukraine to achieve. If we are to prevent Russia and other autocratic states, such as China, from proving that aggression pays, there can be no halfway house, no split-the-difference deal, that segments a sovereign state.”
“The Russian aggression in Ukraine is state-on-state warfare in our continent, and it represents the greatest existential threat to peace and security in Europe since world war two. Peace in Europe, and the era of peace in most of the world since that time, is the most signal achievement of the post-world war two era. Without victory for Ukraine, lasting peace will not be restored. What does victory mean? We should be clear about what it does not mean. It does not mean just stopping the fighting, by trading sovereign Ukrainian territory for peace, simply because Russia has occupied it. That would not be peace, but a defeat for Ukraine and for the whole of the free world. Any peace after that would be a false peace because, first, Russia would have proved that illegal military aggression rewards the aggressor.”
“It is my privilege to move the motion standing in my name and those of all the other Chairs of Committees who have signed it. I sense that the NATO statement may have sucked a little attention away from this debate, but that is not the point. Why is the Liaison Committee putting this motion forward for debate at all? The answer is simple: the Government have come to the House to make statements, take part in debates and answer questions, but the House itself has never expressed its collective view on the Ukraine war, on behalf of the people we represent. The Liaison Committee believes it important to agree this cross-party motion and to put it to the House, so that the House puts its view clearly on the record.”
“I beg to move, That this House notes the Second Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, The cost of complacency: illicit finance and the war in Ukraine, HC 168, and the other work by Committees of this House on the war in Ukraine; affirms UK support for the government and armed forces of Ukraine in the defence of their country against the illegal and unprovoked invasion by President Putin’s military forces; is deeply concerned at the suppression of democratic freedoms to the detriment of the Russian people and utterly condemns President Putin’s war of aggression; reaffirms the UK’s steadfast support for NATO and the security of the UK’s allies and supports Sweden’s swift accession to the alliance; and therefore urges the Government to continue and accelerate its support for the Ukrainian armed forces through the provision of weaponry and training, and through rallying international opinion and action in support of Ukraine, until the Russian armed forces have been expelled from all Ukrainian sovereign territory as recognised in international law.”
“I believe that, despite this being a quiet little debate, it is quite an important occasion for the House of Commons. Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House notes the Second Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, The cost of complacency: illicit finance and the war in Ukraine, HC 168, and the other work by Committees of this House on the war in Ukraine; affirms UK support for the government and armed forces of Ukraine in the defence of their country against the illegal and unprovoked invasion by President Putin’s military forces; is deeply concerned at the suppression of democratic freedoms to the detriment of the Russian people and utterly condemns President Putin’s war of aggression; reaffirms the UK’s steadfast support for NATO and the security of the UK’s allies and supports Sweden’s swift accession to the alliance; and therefore urges the Government to continue and accelerate its support for the Ukrainian armed forces through the provision of weaponry and training, and through rallying international opinion and action in support of Ukraine, until the Russian armed forces have been expelled from all Ukrainian sovereign territory as recognised in international law.”
“Every day I wake, I thank the Lord that I am not caught up in a war. Each of us should do that. It is the most solemn duty of Government to protect our people from the prospect and threat of war. It has been my honour to put this motion on the Order Paper on behalf of the Liaison Committee, and I thank all members of that Committee for their support. I also thank all those who have participated in the debate. It has not been a debate wracked by dispute and contention; it has been a consensual afternoon. I hope that there is no need to divide the House on the motion and that, by the time I sit down, the House of Commons will have spoken for the people of Ukraine, for the global peace and security that this country can contribute to the world, and for the safety and security of our own people, their prosperity and prospects.”
“Many in the House and elsewhere are commenting on the opportunity provided to the Ukrainian armed forces to press home their advantage while the Russian command chain is in a shambles, but is it not a truism that the more help we can deliver to the Ukrainians now, and the quicker we can do it, the more likely it is that we will end the war quickly with a favourable outcome? What are we doing to press home the advantage by galvanising ourselves and our allies to give more support to the Ukrainian armed forces?”
“Maybe there are truths that people will not want to hear, but—”
“I believe the Minister is going to come back to the issue of the Balkans, and the United States is somewhat disengaged from what is developing there. Apparently—maybe he can confirm this—the USA has vetoed a reinforcement of the NATO headquarters in Kosovo. That is just encouraging the Russians to carry on fomenting instability. I would not be against the UK’s reinforcing EUFOR, or European Union Force Bosnia and Herzegovina, there. We are not against European co-operation in defence, and just because it is an EU force, we should not have some religious doctrine that prevents us from co-operating with it just as we would with a NATO force—albeit we might need to make very clear that it is a bilateral arrangement.”
“Working with our higher education institutions, we must support defence and security-related courses and educate more graduates in the disciplines essential to our collective defence. I will reiterate the point I made in an intervention. We should be prepared to co-operate bilaterally with EU forces in order to carry on the work that we need to do in the Balkans at this particular time. If I could add one further point, we must look after our veterans. I am joining the campaign to get certain documents released from the Ministry of Defence and the National Archives at Kew, concerning the Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram disaster during the Falklands war. It is now 40 years since that conflict. The veterans, the survivors and their families desperately need closure. Why is the issue still being hidden? What is the purpose of hiding the truth?”
“It should spend perhaps substantially more on the ability to expand any capability rapidly, so that we can neutralise new threats quickly, when they arise. The MOD is too reliant on a few defence prime contractors. More of that capability should be brought back in-house, where acquisition risk can be better understood and managed. Nor should we be so dependent on offshore supply chains for crucial capability, which can be choked off at times of crisis. This new defence policy, which I look forward to the Government bringing forward, should be co-ordinated with an effort to bring to our population a greater understanding of defence, security and international affairs.”
“Importantly, we need an acquisition system—everybody talks about defence acquisition these days—that can effectively support the military system in all its aspects, under direct state control to ensure fluid supply chains and protecting itself from espionage. The MOD must develop armed forces that are capable of dealing with threats both immediate and in future. The MOD’s intention is to focus on the need to prepare for wartime effectiveness, but it has become imbued by a peacetime mentality and a lack of urgency, and it is preoccupied with a misplaced notion of cost control, which tends to add to project risk and to cost. The MOD ties up too much of its resource in trying to build and maintain a fixed arsenal of weaponry.”
“Instead, we need to strengthen our intelligence system to give us better warning of impending threats, whether armed, cyber or informational, and there must be a much greater political appetite for challenge and for hearing unwelcome truths from our intelligence services. We also need a civil service that has established defence expertise from the bottom to the very top. The idea that generalists in the civil service can run anything was tackled in the 1960s by the Fulton report, but that culture has become even more prevalent in today’s Whitehall. We need a military that has the ability to adapt to rapid and drastic changes in warfare, and the flexibility to expand and contract rapidly, dependent on our need.”
“There should be a new national body for co-ordinating the use of all forms of power, underpinned by a strategic mindset, as well as a process of implementation and of constant reviewing and learning. Government and Opposition should agree to lead a national conversation about the nature and danger of war in today’s rapidly changing world. This must be supported by a robust intellectual effort to assess how to restructure our forces so that they remain the very best and most effective. This is not about being able to put an overwhelming number of boots on the ground. War is no longer confined to military conflict.”
“Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), but I think it has a price tag on it, and if he ever becomes Defence Secretary, I suspect he would have as much difficulty as have my right hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench in getting money out of the Treasury. Perhaps there should be an honest bipartisan discussion about that problem. There is a very real possibility that war could spread to our NATO allies. The UK cannot wait for that to happen before implementing a different and far more dynamic defence policy. The ability to ensure our own national security and that of our allies demands a transformation of effective cross-Government collaboration.”
“In today’s world, however, defence policy needs to be about delivery and delivery across the whole of Government, and that is lacking at this time. The war in Ukraine has been a wake-up call to the democratic countries of the world. We can no longer take for granted the peace and freedoms we have enjoyed since the end of the cold war. All is threatened by belligerent states, of which Russia is just one. The UK Government’s leadership—admirably supported by the Opposition parties—in providing state-of-the-art military assistance to Ukraine has been exemplary. But this has also exposed the inability of the Government and the MOD to rebuild relevant military and industrial capability. I very much welcome a great deal that was said by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon.”
“I very much welcome this debate on defence, in Government time. That is an exceptional thing these days. Ever since the implementation of the Backbench Business Committee, that has not been the case, so the Government are taking their responsibilities very seriously. I appreciate that it is about global military operations. The debate I asked for was one devoted solely to Ukraine. I hope we will still have a debate about Ukraine. Much of the discussion has actually been about defence policy, which ironically was the original title of the debate. Defence policy tends to be a term that either covers everything in defence, or is treated as theory which the rest of the Government confine to policy wonks and the Ministry of Defence.”
“When are the Government planning to hold another debate on the situation in Ukraine? Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is an important opportunity for the nation’s representatives to state their support for the Government’s policy—also supported by His Majesty’s Opposition—as a clear act of will that we are determined to see the Ukrainians reach a satisfactory outcome to this conflict, which means recovering all their territory? Will she consider having a debate on a motion setting out the Government’s policy for approval by the House?”
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend on putting Ukraine front and centre at the G7 summit. Will he make it clear that that is not just because we believe it is morally right to support Ukraine in her own self-defence, but is because the successful outcome of the war in Ukraine is intrinsically tied up with our own strategic and national interest, and that of the whole western world, upon which our own security and prosperity depend?”
“I apologise to my right hon. Friend and the Minister that I cannot stay, but I will read very carefully what the Minister says. Perhaps she could quantify what she thinks the VAT take from FE colleges is, so that we know what we are discussing. Does my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) agree that we are not discussing a free gift to FE colleges? Like Colchester Institute, which serves my constituency, they are suffering an unparalleled financial squeeze at the moment and are having to inflict redundancies and cost reductions against a background of very low pay for most of the academic staff. Unless the Government can resolve that anomaly, FE colleges will face a crisis.”
“At the Mayflower surgery in Harwich, there is empty space in the building rented by the NHS from a failed Labour private finance initiative project, but the GPs cannot afford to pay the rent, so the space sits empty, although it is still paid for by the taxpayer. What are we going to do about that?”