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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“I am encouraged by the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) because it shows that accountability is not just about supervising organisations, regulators, targets, safeguards, mechanical things and statistics. Accountability is about creatively getting the intelligence into the system about what is happening and reacting to it positively, welcoming it and generating the complaints so that more intelligence comes into the system. That is the kind of accountability we want. As Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, I feel I can add a new dimension to the debate because of what we are thinking about in our inquiry on the future of the civil service.”
“There is a danger, however, that by concentrating on training the work force, this other aspect is neglected. Clearly, this support might not be available from the “Energising Harwich” fund, but funds will have to be found if these relatively small and vulnerable employers are to be able to compete effectively for the contracts on which these jobs will depend. I would be grateful if the Minister acknowledged that, and I look forward to his response, for which I am extremely grateful.”
“I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that he is in favour of using this bid funding to support such training. Finally, working offshore places huge demands on these businesses as employers. This issue arose during conversations between the Colchester Institute and employers. Offshore contractors need ISO 9001 accreditation and to be registered with Achilles or First Point Assessment Ltd, the trade bodies that approve and monitor suppliers on behalf of the utility and offshore oil and gas industries. Without accreditation, businesses cannot bid for contracts. Applying for them takes time and can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, but building the businesses’ capacity to operate and employ counts as much as does the training.”
“The pilot must have the flexibility to address that need, which includes statutory requirements for qualifications in manual handling, first aid and working at heights, and such things as machinery operation that are never, or very rarely, publicly funded. At Friday’s briefing, it was mentioned that even caterers and the food industry need to be trained to deliver support to offshore workers. These are referred to in the bid as “mandatory accreditations” and comprise a group of what are known as “tickets” that allow workers to go offshore. In their own way, they could be seen as legislative accreditations, but the bid explained that workers could not go out to sea without them and that each contractor required a different set.”
“I am concerned, however, that it is too early to say how easy it will be in practice for the bid leader to provide the necessary paper trail to meet audit needs once the project is in progress. This is where I must press my hon. Friend the Minister to support necessary flexibility, or the pilot will fail. There are three other main hurdles for the pilot. One is that employers must provide match funding to the value of 50% of the training fees—a big ask for small companies in the present climate. The second concerns legislative accreditations, which are not covered under this or any other funded programme and yet are essential to the employers’ survival. In most cases, the life of such accreditations is only two years and full retraining is required again thereafter. Maybe some rationalisation of training could be made.”
“Success depends on a breadth and depth of understanding between employers and the Colchester Institute. Employers are having to adjust, because the scheme requires companies, who may well be competitors, to co-operate and to deliver it. They need to understand the constraints attached to public money. Culturally, it is also hard for traditional training providers, such as Colchester Institute, to adjust to allow commercialism to lead the allocation of the funds available, but they must be supported in doing so. I commend the Government for allowing the structure of this funding allocation to be so much more flexible than others before it so that it can fit employer needs. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency should be congratulated.”
“There have been too many Government training initiatives with the aim of simply filling schemes with people who may well finish up with qualifications, but find that they are of little relevance to the requirements of local employers. The challenge for “Energising Harwich” is to ensure that the skills learned equip local people and enable them to apply for jobs that will otherwise go to people from outside the area. Working offshore is a huge challenge. Unlike Teesside, for example, Harwich has had zero involvement with the offshore oil and gas industry. The key to the success of this pilot will be the ability of local employers to train people in the particular skills for the particular jobs they have on offer; otherwise it will prove a waste of time and money.”
“A new social enterprise, the Harwich Mayflower project, aims to build a replica of the Pilgrim Fathers’ vessel, the Mayflower, which sailed from Harwich in 1620. It also aims to re-establish Harwich as a wooden boat and shipbuilding centre, providing training and apprenticeships for future generations. The chairman of the Haven Gateway initiative and the chief executive of Tendring district council were also present at our briefing. Tendring district council is taking a close interest not only in this debate but in the whole project. Essex county council was represented by county councillor Ricky Callender, who represents Harwich. Together, the institute and Tony Woods have appointed Mandy Morris as project manager for “Energising Harwich”. This is a formidable team infused with creativity and determination to succeed.”
“The Harwich scheme is called “Energising Harwich”, and is aimed at being a passport to work for local people across the Haven Gateway low carbon supply chain. The Government are injecting £875,000 into the scheme over two years. It is being led by the Colchester Institute, and I am grateful to Gary Home and Brian Cairns of the institute for arranging a briefing for me on Friday. That was attended by the lead employer, AJ Woods, a leading steel fabrication business that has already been closely involved in the development of the Gunfleet Sands and Greater Gabbard wind array, and part of a concerted attempt to attract wind energy inward investment to Harwich. The aim is to co-ordinate up to 40 other employers—small and medium-sized enterprises—in this scheme.”
“It has deepwater facilities and it is ideally located to take advantage of billions of pounds of investment in the future Thames Array and East Anglia 1 Array in the North sea over the next 10 to 15 years. However, if we do not provide the necessary infrastructure of skills and businesses to serve the tier 1 primary contractors that deliver that investment, there is a real danger that business will be transferred not just elsewhere in the United Kingdom but out of the country altogether, perhaps to Flushing in Holland. I therefore very much welcome the fact that Harwich is to be at the centre of one of the nine employer ownership of skills pilots launched by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is questions about this that I wish my hon. Friend the Minister to address today.”
“However, Harwich desperately needs new jobs and new sources of wealth creation, as well as improved infrastructure, a recognition of the importance of high-speed broadband, and to ensure that the A120 has the appropriate designation at national and European level to attract the funds needed for improvement. The immediate and pressing issue is for Harwich to respond to the exceptional opportunities offered by the offshore wind energy sector, which now employs around 4,000 people in the UK. Harwich is the UK’s largest windport. It has extensive experience with the Gunfleet Sands Array and is currently working on the Greater Gabbard and London Arrays.”
“Such things show up in the unemployment figures: just 5.1% of people are recorded as unemployed in Harwich, but that is well above average for the county as a whole at 2.8%, and above the national average of 3.8%. Harwich is also exceptional. It has an outstanding history and heritage and is surrounded by the stunning Essex and Suffolk countryside and coast. The spirit of the place has not diminished and some industries thrive. Harwich has a specialist oil refinery and a major firework and explosives factory, and I watched on Friday as JCBs arrived at the old Navy yard for export. The railway, and the ferry and cruise liner terminal at Parkestone quay—now known as Harwich International—serve hundreds of thousands of passengers every year.”
“The huge opportunities promoted by Hutchison Ports for a five-berth container terminal at Bathside bay have so far been stymied by an excessively complex planning system and the downturn in world trade. Latterly, the chance of using that vast site for alternative economic development has been frustrated by the EU habitats directive. Over the years, the growth of civil aviation and the channel tunnel have intensified competition for Harwich as a gateway to Europe. As elsewhere, traditional manufacturing businesses have gradually died out and the sea fishing industry has declined to one small commercial boat. Furthermore, Harwich is at the extremity of the commuting distance from London—a fact not made any easier by recent decisions to end the running of direct trains to and from Liverpool Street.”
“I am extremely pleased to have secured this debate on regeneration in Harwich. Harwich is both typical and exceptional. Harwich, Dovercourt and the surrounding area have suffered from the economic dislocation and isolation that have affected so many seaside towns and ports in the past 60 years or so. Throughout the Anglo-Dutch war of the 1670s, when Samuel Pepys was the local MP and secretary to the Navy board, to the Napoleonic wars, when Nelson himself oversaw the construction of the town’s defences, and the two world wars of the 20th century, Harwich was a key naval base. It closed, however, after the second world war. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, the dock labour scheme drove the final nails into the coffin of the traditional ports industry, ensuring that the containerisation of freight was concentrated elsewhere.”
“I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. The first two concerns might be related, because the permanent secretary in his Department, as the chief accounting officer, will need to be satisfied that match funding has been delivered. However, given the way in which time and benefits in kind are costed in a small business, we all know that it is rather unlikely that some hard and fast, actuarially justifiable figure for match funding will be available. I therefore suggest that a little flexibility or generosity of understanding of what has been committed to meet the match funding will be required, and it is the accounting officer in my hon. Friend’s Department who will have to be satisfied.”
“Forgive me, but my other point was that the businesses that are providing the 50% matched funding will account for it from their own resources. Some of these small businesses have their accounts audited, but they probably do not have the sort of comprehensive audit that one would expect of a bank or a major manufacturing business. There will have to be some leeway on that and, not so much a flexibility, but a recognition that everything is being done in good faith, rather than as a means of defrauding the taxpayer and getting away with committing less than 50%.”
“I rise somewhat nervously to draw attention to a widespread concern about the conduct of the Government’s business. I am sure the Leader of the House would join me in congratulating the Backbench Business Committee on providing time to debate an aspect of the Francis report, but when are we going to have a full day’s debate in Government time on the Francis report? The Leveson inquiry gave rise to just such a debate in Government time. Surely our relations with the press are less important than what has happened at Mid Staffordshire hospital and its implications for the health service as a whole. We would not want the House of Commons to give the wrong impression about what we think is important.”
“I thoroughly commend my right hon. Friend for her powerful and moving statement. Will she commend the work of the Global Poverty Project, which has done so much to promote the empowerment of women as one of the five principles that are absolutely essential to rescuing societies from poverty and despair? Can she tell us what support she is giving to the project in order to help it in this important work, which is winning the argument?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I note that he does not rule out any option, and that, according to his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), he does not rule out military intervention. No country is advocating that yet, but if Syria is considered to be part of a primary interest in our national security strategy, are we equipped to deal with this crisis? To what extent should my right hon. Friend be talking to his opposite number, my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary, about what contingency arrangements should be made—and, indeed, what additional expenditure is required—to give us the capacity at least to influence the security aspects of this problem?”
“May I join the many voices of congratulation for my right hon. Friend and say how much I am enjoying this statement? Not only has he brought back a good deal for the British taxpayer, but it was a good day for the British Parliament—this House voted for a cut, and he delivered it.”
“In respect of Parliament being sovereign, it matters not what anybody says in any debate, because Parliament can trump it with a new law. On the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—it is not the first time he has been wrong—I voted for civil partnerships expecting that to be the end of the story. We are now confronted with thousands of people in our country who are in, or want to enter, civil partnerships but would like to be married. That is what the Bill is about.”
“May I commend my right hon. Friend’s statement? Is this not a sharp reminder that we live in a world of ungoverned spaces and terrorist groups that can strike and create violence at any time? Is it not therefore very important that we maintain Whitehall and our agencies on a wartime footing, ready to respond, as my right hon. Friend is now?”
“My hon. Friend has started to talk about 20, 30, 40 years ahead. Would he like to describe the strategic context in which we might be operating a nuclear deterrent in 20, 30, 40 years’ time, or indeed find ourselves operating without one? What is it going to be like then?”
“I challenge anybody to produce any defence expenditure that can produce so much global influence.”
“I respect the view of those who over the years have been proved wrong but nevertheless carry on with their campaign to disarm our nuclear weapons. However, nothing is less honest than the idea that there is some cheaper system that will maintain the deterrent effect of our nuclear weapons or that somehow our current weapons system is vastly overspecified because of the Moscow criterion, to which completely obscure and mad reference has been made. That has nothing to do with the capability that we deploy today. It is totally irrelevant and a means of spreading disinformation about the credibility of our system so that the Liberal Democrats can get rid of our nuclear weapons system. The Liberal Democrats know that there is no cheaper system. Just how cheap is it? It represents 0.1% of GDP over the lifetime of the system.”
“China, which has been mentioned, is increasing its number of warheads pretty dramatically with two new intercontinental ballistic missile systems and a new submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missile system. Russia, with its thousands and thousands of warheads—far more than it could possibly want—is building new nuclear weapons systems and new nuclear submarines for the delivery of those systems. We are not living in a world that is disarming, despite the incredibly generous gestures that our country has made. The next move downwards is not for us, but for others. If others will not make those moves, we must continue to guarantee our security and that of our allies. I end on one fundamental point. Much is being made of the cost of Trident.”
“That is rather a good thing and certainly an argument for our maintaining our inherited role of acting as a major democratic, friendly, benign, positive influence in global affairs, with our international role enhanced by nuclear weapons. The issue is the sort of country that we are and that we want to continue to be. We are a country with global reach, global influence, global interests and the ability to enhance global security—not just for the world as a whole, but for the security of our own people. Were we, irresponsibly, simply to dispose of our nuclear capability, we would be upsetting a balance that we may not even understand. We are down to fewer than 200 nuclear warheads.”
“I commend the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who has just made a powerful contribution to the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) for securing it. I congratulate the Minister on delivering a model speech, which in a short time went through all the key arguments that justify the Government’s spending the money. We need to lay more emphasis not just on how we might imagine the weapons system could be deployed but on the fact that it is in use every single day, shaping the global security environment that we enjoy today. It is no coincidence that the advent of nuclear weapons on the international scene has led to the longest period of peace among the superpowers and major powers of the world that we have ever seen. War between super-states is now unthinkable because of nuclear weapons.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for all that he has tried to do for the under-10 metre fleet. Will he say more about how the “non-sector” will be affected by the settlement, in particular people fishing out of Harwich, Brightlingsea and Wivenhoe, a fleet that he knows well?”
“May I commend my right hon. Friend on his determination not to wreck his Christmas by trying to write a speech on the European Union at the same time? My right hon. Friend said that we had “agreed a new voting system that means that the eurozone cannot impose rules on the countries outside the euro area, such as Britain, without our agreement.” Will he confirm that, in saying that, he did not mean that the treaty had been rewritten, or that the single market article was now subject to a different voting system, so that anything agreed by the banking union could still be put forward by the Commission as a single market proposal to be forced through on a single qualified majority vote?”
“I commend my right hon. Friend for the sensitive way in which she is approaching the issue and welcome her statement and the legislation she is proposing. Does she agree that it is legislation not to change the society in which we live but to recognise how society has already changed, and that we should afford the freedom to marry to every citizen in this country?”
“Does my right hon. Friend recall receiving a visit at No. 10 from the pupils of Market Field special school, which had been nicknamed “shed city” as there were so many demountables on its site? Does he share my delight that Essex county council has allocated £8.4 million to build a new school, and may I thank him for his support for that campaign?”
“I join my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) in commending engagement rather than detachment, but does the Prime Minister agree that this is not about submitting to European demands, but about staking out our own national interest and building alliances around that? Is not that a lesson for the future?”
“I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend’s approach, but may I caution him about the double-edged invocation of the single market? We are threatened not just by the voting rights in the European Banking Authority, but by those in the Council of Ministers. It is equally possible that the member states of the eurozone that are in the banking union will caucus in the Council and use a single-market measure to create a single market in banking services to reflect the policy already adopted by the banking union. How are we to be protected from that?”
“My right hon. Friend made an important point when he said that the British Government would reserve their position on the legality of this new instrument and how it might be used. Will he just expand on that? Would it not be sensible for UKRep to write a letter similar to the one written in the case of the fiscal union treaty, at the very least, in order to make that clear?”
“It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman is trying to have his cake and eat it. Either he is going to be in the room—in the banking union—or not. If he is not going to be in the banking union, the question that he is failing to grapple with is this: what safeguards and protections do we need given that we will not be in the room because we will not be in the banking union? Perhaps he could provide an answer to that question instead of just waffle.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that for us to invoke the single market is doubled-edged, because in the end it will be the Commission that invokes the single market as a pretext for levelling the playing field which has been unlevelled by measures taken by the banking union? We will therefore finish up with measures that we do not want being imposed on us by qualified majority voting.”
“Sadly, the motion represents the Government yet again passing up a substantial opportunity to start laying the foundations of a different relationship and to start leveraging the renegotiation of our terms of membership. That is a matter of great significance.”
“We are not in the room, so we cannot function as a positively engaged member of the EU on our current terms of membership, but we are also not negotiating the alternative terms of membership that would protect us from the effects of the treaties we have already signed. It needs to be pointed out that banking union simply was not envisaged in the Lisbon treaty. We now find ourselves confronted with a new institution and a reform that simply was not regarded as necessary when the Lisbon treaty and its predecessors were signed. The treaty is not fit for purpose for a banking union. The problem is that no arrangements that nibble at those problems will protect the UK’s interests—a wholesale change in our relationship is the only way to protect them.”
“In some respects, this is a modest debate compared with last week’s, although it is worth reflecting that employment in the City, as reported by City AM , has collapsed by more than 100,000 since the peak of 2007. Some of that was self-inflicted, but much of it was inflicted by increased regulation. The Centre for Economic and Business Research reports that employment in the City is set to fall much lower. Most of the jobs are highly paid, high-taxpaying jobs, on which the economy in general and the economy of London and the south-east in particular depend very deeply. I commend the sincerity of my right hon. Friend the Minister’s approach. He is in a difficult position. The difficulties he is confronting are a microcosm of the conundrum of the UK’s place in the EU.”
“Unfortunately, our party’s leadership does not intend to start substantive renegotiation of our relationship until after 2015, long after this particular opportunity will have passed us by. If we attempt to remediate this measure and its effects on our interests, we will not succeed. This is happening in case after case—the fiscal union treaty is another example.”
“The issue, however, is being debated in a mere 90 minutes on a quiet Tuesday afternoon before the Minister is sent—haplessly, perhaps —to the Council of Ministers to either agree or disagree with these momentous changes. Major changes are being made in a more casual manner as the European Union becomes more desperate to shore up its previous mistakes. “Macbeth” comes to mind: the worse a situation gets, the more rash and irrational the actors become in defence of the indefensible. I hope that right hon. and hon. Friends will remember this debate, because the move from legality to illegality is a very big step, yet that is what we are witnessing as the Government approach this particular decision. I hope yet that they will see sense and veto the proposal.”
“Hitherto, the architects of European integration have, like the gods in “The Ring”, attempted to construct their Valhalla on the basis of principles and the rule of law, yet they are now compromising those very principles, on which the legitimacy of this structure depends, and, in doing so, sowing the seeds of their own destruction. If this was being done properly—I invite the House to reflect on this—it would be a treaty change and there would be an intergovernmental conference. There would be a huge amount of debate about what other changes needed to flow from an intergovernmental conference and we would end up with a whole Act of Parliament, which would have to pass through both Houses of Parliament in this great building.”
“I am afraid that my hon. Friend is right that failure to get the maximum leverage out of these opportunities means that they will be forgone for ever. We may well get to 2015 and find that all the major decisions to federate the eurozone will have already been taken and our opportunities to then renegotiate will look slim and incredible. I will close by picking up on the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who is the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee and whose comments add a Götterdämmerung-like quality to this debate.”
“I have no doubt that they have made a volte face on the question of European spending, but for us to accuse them of doing so will cut absolutely no ice with the voters. I would note, however, that the Labour party’s volte face represents a big shift in the politics of this country and in the politics of our relationship with the European Union. Labour is an opposition party that is hungry for power. Even Labour Members can now sense the tide of opinion that is flowing against the European Union among our voters. They are picking up the vibrations from their constituents and from the voters they need in order to get elected, and they have discovered a new principle in order to reflect that: they now want to cut the European budget.”
“We are debating the European multiannual financial framework, but there is something rather familiar about the positions being adopted by those on the two Front Benches. One could almost imagine that, if they were to change places, each would be making the other’s speech. Indeed, in the last Parliament, one felt that that was exactly what was happening. There is something deeply disconnected about the debates that we have been having in the House about our future relationship with the European Union, and about the aspirations of the British people and what they want that relationship to be. I would caution my right hon. and hon. Friends against taunting Labour Members over their volte face on this issue.”
“The speech by the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) sounded more like a speech in favour of an increase in the European budget, albeit disguised as a speech in favour of a cut, because that happens to be what he is being asked to vote for today. I note that passions are high in this debate, not least among my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). Let me assure them both—because I think they come from the same European stable—that the last thing those of us who support the amendment want to do is wreck Europe or to wreck our relationship with our European partners. But something very big is happening in British politics—much bigger than this debate.”
“The British people feel that something has gone wrong with that relationship. This was not the basis on which we were sold membership of the institution, and it was not the basis on which all the assurances were given by successive Governments that each treaty represented no substantial change and was just a “tidying-up exercise”.”
“I believe that the Labour party is picking up the anger of the British people about the idea of spending more money on European policies when we are having to cut back on policies of our own. There is something rather chilling about the exchanges between those on the Front Benches, which tacitly suggest that a veto is a defeat and that it could lead to a worse budgetary outcome for the United Kingdom than could a negotiated settlement. That seemed to be the burden of the argument put by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). I should just like to point out to him what that says about the relationship that we now have with the European institutions. Those institutions are so overpowering and so powerful that even the veto of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom cannot stop the European train on its way to its destination.”
“The problem in this country is that the governing class is now so out of line with our people’s aspirations for the relationship with our European partners that they are putting the United Kingdom in the worst of all possible worlds. It cannot deliver the engagement of the British state with our European partners on the terms set down in the treaties, and it is not trying to deliver the different terms of agreement with our European partners that the British people would prefer, that our country needs, and that are in the national interest. So wide is this gulf that even the Labour party is picking up the vibrations and is beginning to respond.”