Dame Harriett Baldwin
MP for West Worcestershire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Chancellor to his new role. I paid close attention yesterday to the long speech he made to reset the narrative and drive growth Britain. In paying tribute to his predecessor, will he recognise that she left the highest tax burden on record? Instead of postponing the words he could utter to my hon.”
“I welcome the new Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box. I note that in his statement he referred to the biggest issues facing the country as being “the economy and the cost of living crisis”. Will he accept that one of the things that has damaged our economy and caused prices to be higher is the tax-and-spend Budget in November 2024?”
“Could the Leader of the House make a commitment that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will come to the House on the first day we are back from recess?”
“With a stroke of his Whitehall pen, the Secretary of State has just abolished Malvern Hills district council, Worcester city council, wonderful Wychavon district council and Worcestershire county council. He said in his statement that this is about making “real improvements to people’s lives and…communities”.”
“In recent weeks in West Worcestershire, I have met local police and the police and crime commissioner; the police and crime commissioner is being abolished, and the police are being reorganised. I have met the local health commissioners; they are being reorganised, and Healthwatch is being abolished.”
“Will the Leader of the House confirm that, given that the other place is sitting next week, there is nothing to stop him tabling a business statement to enable this House to sit next week? Given the enormity of the events happening in the Government next week, does he not think that would be a good idea?”
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“I will repeat it, as I find it so shocking: an eighth of the seats in the upper House of this Parliament are reserved for men only, through the system of reserving 92 seats for hereditary peers. Whatever our views are of the other place or of hereditary peerages more generally—I know that there will be a wide range of views—I hope we can all agree that in the 21st century, that embedded sex discrimination is simply not acceptable. Women are treated unfairly for no reason other than that they are women. That is unacceptable and indefensible, and it has terrible real-world consequences. For example, only 13% of land in the UK is owned by women—in other words, 87% is owned by men—and boys are twice as likely as girls to inherit family businesses.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the succession of female heirs to hereditary titles; and for connected purposes. On this day, when we join in wishing Her Majesty a very happy birthday, we can note that we have been blessed to live in a new Elizabethan era in which Her Majesty has long reigned over us. We celebrate her platinum jubilee with true devotion. The Succession to the Crown Act was given Royal Assent in 2013, meaning that henceforth the firstborn child of Prince George will be in line to succeed him. The Act ended male primogeniture for the Crown, but we left undone any wider reform to primogeniture in the United Kingdom. As a result, in this very Parliament, an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only. Can you believe that, Mr Speaker?”
“I commend the Minister and the Foreign Secretaries over the past decade on their international leadership on this important issue. Should Vlad Putin the invader decide to travel overseas to the G20 later this year, will she confirm that he will be arrested on the spot as a war criminal?”
“I wonder whether that is something that could easily be done.”
“Last week, at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly, the UK delegation was able to meet our Polish parliamentary counterparts to thank them for everything their country has been doing to welcome such an enormous influx of refugees from Ukraine, and to ask them what more the UK could do to make the process work better for those who want to come here. They made two constructive suggestions, which I will feed in. The first is that they are using the twinning network between communities across Europe; I urge the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to look at that network and establish links such as those with Malvern, where 200 families want to welcome refugees but do not necessarily know where they can locate them. Secondly, they wanted to see the application form written in Ukrainian.”
“Q7. The eyes of the world are rightly focused on Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine, but there is still a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. I welcome the fact that, later this month, the UK Government are hosting a pledging conference for that crisis. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that we also keep education for those poor children on the agenda?”
“With council tax being one of the biggest items in household budgets, could the Chancellor remind the House which party tends to be the best, in a local council, for setting council tax?”
“I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement. May I make a further suggestion—a practical one, I hope—that could alleviate the situation? According to the House of Commons Library, there are 35,000 Ukrainian citizens in the UK, and I know that they are sick with worry—worried to death—about their elderly mothers, their babies, their grandchildren and so on. Would it not be possible for us to have a hub for them here in the UK, so that everything could be done from here and they could be given provisional visas to come into the country, and we could then check the biometrics here?”
“On International Women’s Day, does the Foreign Secretary agree that one way to amplify the message we are sending to Russia through sanctions would be to call on every woman in Russia—the mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and friends of those in the Russian army who are attacking a neighbouring state and causing such misery and suffering—to send a message to those soldiers to stop it and return home?”
“T5. I warmly welcome the new trade deals that are being announced. Not all of them include financial services, which is our biggest export sector. Working closely with the Treasury, can the Secretary of State update the House on where the strategic focus is in increasing access for financial services firms and financial services exports?”
“With everything that is going on in the world, I wonder if the Leader of the House could still find time for a debate on Malvern Hills College. It was taken over by Warwickshire College Group in 2016. There is an education covenant on the site. It was closed during the pandemic and it has not reopened. It appears that Warwickshire College Group is trying to flog the site to the highest bidder and is refusing mediation. Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on this matter, which matters so much to my constituents?”
“Q9. Wednesday 9 February. It is wonderful news that the first in-person Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting for four years will take place during Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee year. Will the Prime Minister ensure that the global learning crisis is high on the agenda? Will he ask his amazing diplomats to ensure that every leader in the Commonwealth signs up to the Kenyatta declaration on education?”
“I visited the citizens advice bureau in Malvern and people there were sharing with me the fact that they still have tens of thousands of pounds in household support grants that they can give away between now and the end of March. Will the Chancellor join me in encouraging families who are struggling with the cost of living to apply for the help available?”
“Before omicron arrived there had been over 10 million positive cases in this country of covid-19, of which 14 in every 1,000 appeared to have been fatal. Since omicron arrived there have been a further 5 million cases, and it looks as though the fatality rate is about 10 times lower. Will the Secretary of State tell the House how important the “Get Boosted Now” programme has been in reducing hospitalisations and fatalities?”
“It is a development issue; it has never been so obvious to everyone in this country that by helping others around the world, we help ourselves. Let us do it. Please read the motion that we all agreed.”
“It implores parliamentarians to work with their national Governments to exert a global, collective influence on the World Trade Organisation to eliminate all export restrictions and other trade barriers on covid-19 vaccines and the inputs involved in their production. This issue is so important because, as we heard in the opening remarks, we will not be safe until everyone in the world has been vaccinated. The more parts of the world lag behind us on vaccination rates, the more the virus will be able to mutate. Extensive covid-19 immunisation is a global public good. Although the Government are doing much good work in this area, I call on them to do even more, because it is so important to our health.”
“Lady raised in her opening remarks that would make it difficult for me or perhaps even the Government to support everything that she asked for. If Members look up on the internet the Inter-Parliamentary Union minutes of the meeting, they will find links to the motion. I call upon colleagues to look at that because I do not have enough time to go through all of it. The motion’s crucial wording is around the issue of the World Trade Organisation. There were German parliamentarians at the IPU who would not have been able to support the TRIPS waiver wording, but parliamentarians did work together and came up with some wording that everyone was happy to endorse.”
“I will try to be as quick as possible, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this debate. I want to report to the House from my privileged position as chair of the British group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. When we had our first in-person gathering of the Parliaments of the world in Madrid in November, one motion came out top of all of the motions put forward from all the Parliaments in the world. Over several days we were able to come up with a form of words that every single politician from every single Parliament that attended was able to sign up to. I want to share it with the House because it demonstrates the value of the work across Parliaments, and also addresses some of the points that the hon.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this incredibly important urgent question. We have heard rightly from the Minister about the urgency of the humanitarian crisis, but there is also a learning crisis in Afghanistan, and all the progress made in getting children into education has gone back to the beginning. What can the Minister tell us about the Government’s efforts to ensure that teachers are getting paid, to sustain education for the generations to come in Afghanistan?”
“I welcome the update that the Minister is outlining, but will the amendments cover the situation that I discovered in my constituency during the pandemic when pubs were closed? I found that it was the pub-chain owner that was pocketing all the grants that were very generously provided by the Chancellor, whereas the tenant was suffering from absolute lack of business.”
“Does the hon. Lady accept, however, that cutting VAT on household energy bills would give a disproportionate tax break to those with the biggest houses and the deepest pockets?”
“I warmly welcome the boost that the Prime Minister gave to the “Get Boosted Now” programme. Over the recess, almost 1 million boosters a day were given to people and I thank everyone involved. I also welcome the leadership that he showed on the COVAX facility and in making sure that vaccinations have been spread around the world. Given the risk of variants emerging in places where vaccination rates are not as high as in the UK, is there more that we can do to boost vaccination rates around the world?”
“T3. On behalf of the small cider producers in West Worcestershire, may I thank the Secretary of State for the representations that he has made to the Chancellor about the taxation regime? Is he also making representations on behalf of the larger, more traditional cider makers with the stronger ciders who may be adversely affected by the tax changes?”
“I welcome the emphasis that the Secretary of State has put on vaccinations and boosters—not on locking down the economy—in his statement today. As a fellow Worcestershire MP, I wonder whether he is aware that in very rural parts of Worcestershire—for example, Tenbury Wells in west Worcestershire—it is on occasion a long way to travel to get a booster jab, and that home visits for people who have care at home can also be difficult to access. Will he suggest to the system that we put more emphasis on the rural delivery of booster jabs?”
“The community has put in place a covenant on the site, which is that it should be used for educational purposes only. I urge the Minister, in his response, to see whether he can use the powers in the Bill to examine that very unfortunate decision and push back on Warwickshire College Group’s plans to close an institution that for nearly 100 years has been enhancing the skills, the lifetime learning and the life chances of people in Malvern. There will be a demonstration to show support for the college, and 5,000 signatures have already been added to the petition.”
“One local high school has written to me to emphasise that its students value taking courses in sport, business, travel and tourism, sound engineering and IT. This is, therefore, a very positive Bill. I want to use my time to raise a local case, which the Minister was kind enough to discuss with me recently, where the direction of travel is completely wrong: the case of Malvern Hills College. It is a wonderful college, which has been in the town of Malvern for nearly 100 years. About five years ago, it was acquired by Warwickshire College Group. Warwick, of course, is quite a long way from Malvern. The group, which has a lot of disparate sites, took the unfortunate decision to close the college. The college has been going for nearly 100 years and is very valued by the local community.”
“I, too, warmly welcome the Bill, with the emphasis it places on lifelong learning. Although 50% of people go to university, all of us will be working for something like 40 to 50 years, so it is very important that people have the opportunity to acquire new skills during their lifetime. I therefore join voices from across the House in wholeheartedly welcoming the direction of travel in the Bill. I particularly welcome the Bill’s emphasis on place and local economic links, with links to local employers and a greater emphasis on local governance. My local schools with sixth forms will also welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement this evening of the extension of funding for certain courses to 2025.”
“T3. I recently held an event for leading Worcestershire businesses on the journey to COP26 and net zero, and was impressed with their plans for investment. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that now that one in six cars purchased in this country are electric, the grid will be strengthened in rural areas to ensure the widespread adoption of this new technology?”
“Our very popular rail Minister is aware of the excellent work being done by the North Cotswold Line Task Force. Could he update colleagues and councils along the North Cotswold line on his conversations with the Treasury about doing more business casework on redoubling a stretch of the North Cotswold line?”
“Female Afghan MPs are particularly at risk. Many have decided, very sadly, to leave their own country. As a public service announcement, I want to say that the Inter-Parliamentary Union is working with other Parliaments to put together the complete list of those individuals. I thank the Minister’s noble Friend for offering me a meeting. I know that many colleagues will have heard from female Afghan MPs. If they could ensure that they reach out to me, as chair of the British group, to make sure we have sight of all the names, we will work with other Parliaments to ensure that when they are able to get out of the country there will be a range of different countries that will give them refuge.”
“I hope that the Leader of the House shares my concern and that of so many colleagues across this House that in the other place an eighth of the seats are effectively reserved for men, because of male primogeniture and the hereditary peerages. I wonder whether he would timetable a statement in Government time about what the Government are planning to do to end this anachronism?”
“I wonder if the Chief Secretary has had the opportunity to read a recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that says: “Material living standards held up surprisingly well through the pandemic…This is an astonishing outcome given the scale of economic disruption”.”
“As the president-designate says, it is not just world leaders and Governments who are needed to make COP26 a success, but parliamentarians from around the world. As chair of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, we will be hosting events for parliamentarians around the world, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will encourage his officials to accredit as many parliamentarians from international delegations as possible.”
“The Lord President is making a magnificent speech, as one would expect, but how would he feel if hypothetically, the outcome that was depicted back in 2015—with Alex Salmond having the shadow Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), in his suit pocket—had come to pass, and the Lord President’s constituents in North East Somerset faced a situation in which they were having laws made for them without there being a majority view in Parliament in England?”
“The hon. Lady is rather digressing from the subject at hand in the 60 minutes that we have available. Will she accept that both the 2010 and the 2015 Conservative manifestos pledged to address English votes for English laws and that we are able to implement that because we won a majority in 2015? She talks about respecting democracy. She should respect that.”
“I think that we can all see the mood of the House this evening—we can all see that the motion is going to carry—but we must recognise that this was a pledge in the Conservative party manifesto in 2010 and 2015. It was a pledge that was there for a reason: because, at the time, our constituents were raising this on the doorstep as something they were very concerned about. A solution was put in place through the Standing Orders. As the Lord President said, it has not necessarily been needed in the interim, but it is not impossible to envisage a scenario in which its absence really would cause constitutional problems in this country. I regret very much that these Standing Orders are being abolished without a proposal for any kind of replacement to deal with that.”
“It is good to be one of only two representatives of middle England objecting to the proposals to abolish these Standing Orders. My 2011 private Member’s Bill, the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill, put pressure on the coalition Government to set up the commission that put forward the EVEL proposals, and I well remember the Lord President of the Council—in those days he was merely the Member for North East Somerset—making his speech. He is noted not only for being a great historian but now for being a seer and someone who can foretell the future, because he said that one day, a Government would be able to come in and simply abolish these Standing Orders. I very much regret that it is he who is doing it.”
“I know that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues are all passionate feminists, and I am sure that he would agree that it is difficult to justify the fact that an eighth of the seats in the upper House are reserved effectively for men, because of the laws of primogeniture and the hereditary peers. Does he have plans to reform that anomaly?”
“I welcome the defence memorandum of implementation signed between the UK and Ukraine, which will see our two countries working together on new Ukrainian naval bases and eight fast missile warships. Can the Secretary of State confirm that we will not be deterred, and the Royal Navy will not be deterred, by Russia’s recent attempts at intimidation in the Black sea?”
“Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) was saying about polling—no doubt the Minister may also allude to this—the fact is that this policy does not poll badly in the United Kingdom, because those affected are not themselves being polled and those being polled are not themselves affected.”
“The law does state that 0.7% is what we should be aiming to achieve, apart from when there is an inadvertent inability to meet that due to economic circumstances. I feel very passionately that those of us who are expressing concerns this afternoon are really expressing the concerns of those who are most affected, who are unable to voice their opposition. Of course, when a party breaks a manifesto pledge, it is usually voters at the next general election who are affected by it who will vote them out, but in this case, those who are most affected will, according to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), very likely be dead by the time of the next election and not able to lobby a UK Member of Parliament. As my right hon.”
“A zero-based budget exercise, looking at every line item of expenditure, which is effectively what the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has just gone through, is something that any prudent Government should do from time to time. However, where I begin to depart from agreeing with what my hon. Friend is likely to say at the conclusion of the debate is around the change to 0.5%—going into a financial year and deliberately changing that percentage—without testing the will of Parliament to agree to it. That is where I think we are getting on to rather difficult legal and constitutional ground, because we all went into the last general election with a pledge to meet 0.7%. It was something that 100% of MPs were elected on.”
“I can also understand the defence, which the Minister will no doubt put up, that there is a clause in the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 that says that, under extreme circumstances, the Government can come to Parliament and outline an explanation for why they did not meet 0.7% in a particular year. I anticipate that the Minister will also point to the fact that the UK continues to spend £10 billion this year in overseas development assistance. Any one of us would accept that that is a very large amount of money, and when we are spending a large amount of money, it is always important to review it and see whether we are spending it wisely.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing this afternoon’s debate. Let me start by anticipating some of the things that my hon. Friend the Minister may choose to say at the end of the debate. I have no doubt that, as my excellent successor, he is extremely well briefed on some of the points that he will choose to make in response to the points that have been raised by so many colleagues this afternoon. I first want to say, in my most understanding mode, that I understand that when we have the sharpest economic contraction for 300 years, it is necessary to review aid spending that is linked to the size of the economy. The £2.9 billion that had to be removed from the budget as a result of that economic contraction is something that I can understand. It is unfortunate, but I can understand it.”
“Indeed, that is an excellent point. People are very strongly in favour of vaccinating the world, and that is why I very much welcome the pledge made at the G7, which I understand will be in addition to the 0.5%. No doubt the Minister will confirm that.”
“Let us have a poll in this place on this issue. Tonight’s vote is not the vote on that. Let us have a separate one.”
“I think that would be a really positive way of saying, “If you’ll put in more money, we’ll put in more money here in the UK.” I would like to see a reversal of the 85% reduction to the United Nations Population Fund for family planning. I want every girl in the world to be able to access the same choices in family planning as we were all able to access in our lives. Of the countries around the world, one of the most alarming anecdotes I have heard about the impact of this reduction in aid spending is that in South Sudan the World Food Programme is saying it is now having to choose between feeding hungry children and feeding starving children. I would urge the Minister to put that very much at the top of his shopping list for his budget increase next year. In conclusion, let us not argue about which poll says what.”
“I very much welcome the £430 million that the Prime Minister announced at the recent G7 towards global education. It is the single best investment we can make in the future of our planet in terms of making sure that every child gets 12 years of quality education. We all know how much that unlocks in terms of economic prosperity, a better climate and a healthier society, so that is an incredibly important thing to be doing. Can I suggest to the Minister that, in encouraging a successful replenishment of the $5 billion that the Global Partnership for Education is seeking, we offer, as our economy grows, to match fund contributions from other donor countries around the world?”
“That is why I am perfectly happy to support today’s estimates, but I would like to see a separate, stand-alone vote on whether we should go from 0.7% to 0.5%. If this House agrees that, I do not have any problems with the constitutional situation. I think that would override what is in the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015. We need to see a test through a poll of the Members of this House. I am delighted to see that the economy is recovering very fast at the moment here in the UK, which I hope will mean that next year’s budget for overseas development assistance can start to increase once again. I am also delighted that the UK and Kenya are jointly co-hosting the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education at the end of July.”
“What I would say is that there is one poll I would like to take—it is the one that Mr Speaker has asked us to take in this House—and that is a vote on whether the 0.7% should be changed to 0.5% on a forward-planning basis. That is the poll I would like to take. Last week in Prime Minister’s questions, in response to a question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), the Prime Minister indicated that today’s debate on the estimates was that vote. I have looked into the matter, and I understand that if we voted down today’s estimates, not only would all diplomats stop being paid immediately, but a vote against estimates can only be done to reduce a budget, rather than to increase a budget.”