Tom Tugendhat
MP for Tonbridge · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), rejecting this very policy as the economies of Palestine and Israel are too interconnected—innocent Palestinians and Israelis will suffer. Still this Government are pressing on in haste, despite warnings from the Labour Benches from the hon.”
“First, on the coherence of the policy, can he confirm that the advice from his Department on the practicality of sanctions has changed so dramatically that these sanctions will in reality be targeted, not area as previously stated?”
“Fifthly, what instructions has he given to the enforcement bodies to ensure that Parkinson’s, myeloma and multiple sclerosis patients will still get the drugs that keep them alive?”
“I place on record my and my party’s deep sadness at the violence we have seen in recent months and years, our commitment to the right of Palestinians and Israelis to live in dignity and peace, and our recognition of those who have been victims over generations.”
“In the week before Rosh Hashanah and the high holy days, the Government are acting without prudence, introducing sanctions that are both light and serious.”
“When they recognised the state of Palestine, only recently, they did so against the laws we ourselves have defended since 1933, in contravention of the Montevideo convention and of the principles we have set out.”
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“The hon. Lady will be aware, because I have been on the record on this, that I was entirely critical of the beginning of those negotiations when I was in government.”
“As my right hon. Friend knows, the noble Lord, a former Labour Security Minister—and, of course, a former First Sea Lord—knows well that those bases occupy a crucial part not just in our airbases, with strategic reach into the middle east and south-east Asia, but in the intelligence collection business that sadly we need to engage in to keep our people safe. The idea that we should hand over those bases in order somehow to satisfy an advisory ruling is, I am afraid, wrong.”
“The point that my hon. Friend makes correctly is that this is a political judgment. It is a rational and reasonable political judgment for Moscow and Beijing to make; the problem is that it is being made in Westminster. This is an error. It is an error for which we will pay for generations; an error that will haunt us and cost us. On that basis, I urge the Government to do what they know is right, and not to continue with the argument that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) made in pointing out that the Conservatives should never have started the talks. If that is true, why is Labour finishing them? Drop these talks and end this argument.”
“5. If he will have discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the potential merits of removing taxation from death-in-service payments.”
“First of all, I place on record my full congratulations to the hon. and gallant Member for his recent award in the new year’s honours. That is a fantastic achievement for somebody for whom I have the greatest admiration, and with whom I have served in numerous fields. May I raise the problem with his answer, however? Retention in the armed forces is already suffering; numbers are already coming down and people are struggling to make the maths add up between serving today and having a future tomorrow. The problem with these arguments and the lack of clarity from the Government is that too many people are making decisions on which we all need them to think again. We need people to serve and stay, and it is his responsibility to keep them there.”
“Is it not essential that we look at this in a proper review of the whole of the airspace across southern England and not just exert greater pressure on communities like Cowden in my constituency and no doubt others in the constituency of the hon. Member for Horsham? All we are doing is building a motorway in the sky above people’s homes but without the same protections people would get if a real motorway were to be built alongside them. There will be no compensation, planning or oversight. Is this not the real problem we are facing?”
“The hon. Member is making a very powerful point, and completely correctly. This is something that has been going on for many years. We have been speaking about the Noise Management Board at Gatwick for a very long time. It has completely failed to be anything other than a talking shop in order to placate Bo Redeborn’s complaints at the last review. What we are actually dealing with here is a snake’s wedding above our airspace. It is particularly bad over southern England, but the truth is that it extends all the way to Manchester. This is something I have been fighting for a number of years, so I certainly do not blame the current Minister. Until the Civil Aviation Authority, NATS and the Department for Transport are willing to address this, we are simply not going to be able to progress.”
“I appreciate the tone with which the Minister is approaching this issue, which he knows has been a matter of great frustration for the past few years that I have been in Parliament. The key to the FASI programme is surely making the efficiency work. I will not comment on the Minister’s understanding of aerodynamics, given his comment about the TARDIS flying, which is a slightly different question—”
“I appreciate that noise management has changed in the years since the Minister was growing up near Manchester airport, and I appreciate his points about efficiency—we all welcome efficiency in aircraft routes and, I hope, the greater profit for aircraft users and the resultant cheaper tickets—but will he also recognise that that efficiency needs to be shared with compensation on the ground? If we were to build a motorway next to somebody’s house, we would compensate them, or it would at least require various permissions. This should be no different. It is a motorway in the air.”
“Exactly—it is not quite aerodynamics, and not exactly a flight route. But this debate does involve flight routes, and there is extra pressure on communities. The Department’s policy, certainly until now—the Minister may have changed it—was to reduce the number of people significantly affected by aircraft noise. Yet going from a flight every 20 minutes to a flight every 100 seconds will apply enormous pressure in a community like Cowden, right next to where I live in west Kent. That is clearly a major change.”
“I do not want to go over the readiness of FIRS again and again. I will leave it at this: I was assured by the same officials who sit in the Box advising the Minister that it would be ready to go by the end of the year. Clearly the advice has changed. Only one thing in the Department has changed, which is the party leading it, so I can only assume that there has been a change of intent, but I am delighted that it will be ready to go by the summer—better late than never. The real question, of course, is whether it will be worth having. The advice from MI5 was very clear: if China is not in the enhanced tier, it will not be worth having. Will China be in that tier?”
“I welcome the intention to reorganise local government that the Government have set out. Clearly, this has been in play for a while, but the Minister will know that the independent and sovereign kingdom of Kent has had an identity of its own for about 2,000 years. The exact borders of that identity are open to some debate even today—quite extraordinarily, but they are. Will he please tell us what priorities he will use in the devolution priority plan? Will he be championing size—the 500,000-plus—the transport infrastructure or the historical affiliations? How is he going to understand this, and how will he prioritise for the priority plan?”
“I first pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall), whose focus on Georgia—not just on free elections in Georgia, but on the spread of Putin’s evil influence across Europe—has been incredibly important. What actions is the Minister taking to push back on Russia’s influence in the region and to push back in Russia itself using his budget for the BBC World Service to broadcast in sub-national languages inside Russia, so that the people of Russia know what is being done in their name and can understand what Putin is doing to them?”
“I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement condemning China’s actions, but can he make a commitment here, now and completely clearly that, before any Minister meets any Chinese official, they will meet with the family of Jimmy Lai, or indeed any of the other many Hongkongers who are here and whose families have now been detained. We know—we can brief the Prime Minister on this—that there are Hongkongers who are threatened by the Chinese state here in the UK today, and it is his job to defend the people of this country, not to bow to the people in Beijing.”
“I am delighted that the Minister is setting out that the report promises an extra £40 billion of investment a year in the energy sector and, presumably, the taxes to go with it, which will of course come from the businesses that are paying for everything else in the Budget that has just gone by. Is there anything at all in his proposals that will actually bring down the cost of energy and not be replaced by taxpayer funding? It appears at the moment that there is nothing, and energy prices are already going up.”
“First, may I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who has just taken on the role of shadow Secretary of State for Wales? It is a fantastic opportunity for her to champion a vital part of our Union. Secondly, may I ask the Secretary of State, who is newly in her post, what she will do to ensure that the power that brings our Union together comes out of Ynys Môn—that is Anglesey to her—so that she can ensure that the nuclear projects that keep us safe are properly invested in and not dropped, as they have been by this Labour Government? Labour Governments control both sides of the M4 now, and it is about time they delivered.”
“They have shortened the time horizon and assumed that people—all our citizens—are not investors in the future, but employees of today. That fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to grow an economy is why this Budget is so bad.”
“We all know that the first job of government is national defence and national security. But the second thing, often overlooked, is the ability to extend time horizons. It is very difficult for individuals to have time horizons beyond a certain point. In early human existence, the horizon was a harvest or a season; in the Anglo-Saxon period, people may have got it to a generation or possibly even a reign. But the genius of the industrial age and our democratic age has been to extend that time horizon over generations. We have done that through the rule of law and through understanding taxation and the predictability of an economy. We have done it because we have understood that if parents invest, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can reap the rewards. What the Government have done, I am afraid, is to reverse that.”
“The story that the Budget tells is about a Government who do not understand what a family, generation or business is and do not understand why businesses investing today need the ability to plan long-term and not just be taxed halfway through. The point is seen most obviously in the tax on farming and on the inheritability of farming property. The truth is that farms are unlike many businesses; they cannot simply be salami-sliced in the hope that they will survive. That just does not work. Individuals end up being forced to decide not just to pay the 20% that the Government ask for but to sell the 100% to liquidate the assets required. That is injecting a dangerous short-termism into the economy. The truth is that the Government can really only do two things. The first, really important thing is to keep us safe.”
“But we are not just speaking about the product, the outcome—the output of those doctors, that money or those services. We are also speaking about the input, because we simply cannot have the one without the other. That is what I want to address. What we have seen in this Budget is not just the largest tax rise in decades, the highest tax take since the war and greater indebtedness, effectively burdening our children with what we are spending today. When it comes to the fundamental challenge, the Budget is failing to understand how an economy works and why the relationship between generations matters so much.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles), who gave a very full description of the constituency that she is privileged to represent. Her predecessor, Suzanne Webb, was a great friend of mine. The hon. Lady has taken over from a fine individual, who is now contributing in many other ways to our national life. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), who has the great good fortune of representing my godson, a farmer in his constituency, who will no doubt be contacting the hon. Gentleman shortly about some of the issues that have arisen in recent days. I myself want to speak about those issues. Today, we are rightly speaking about public services—the NHS, on which we all rely, and those important elements in our lives that keep us together, underpin our economy and really hold us strong.”
“We just need to look at the predictions by various financial bodies over the last few days, which have been talking about our running out of the money raised in the Budget in the next two or three years. We know why that is going to happen. This Budget is not investing—worse than that, it is not encouraging investing. It is trying to exploit.”
“It is a pleasure to hear the hon. Gentleman, who has come off the fence and now has a seat; he can express his views freely. What fills me with sorrow is when I look at the future—when I look at the businesses that have invested so hard in places such as Tonbridge and now cannot pass that on over generations and over time. The investment timeline is being reduced and so is the growth. Do not just take my word for it—the Office for Budget Responsibility, the National Farmers Union and every business in this country have been clear on the point. The Government are not just taking the eggs from the golden goose; they are slaughtering the goose by trying to get the eggs out quicker. That simply does not work. We all know what is going to happen next: the Government are going to have to come back for more.”
“The hon. Lady can play politics if she likes; I am trying to think about the future of the country. Dyson, who was not in any Government, is pointing out the problems being raised. Minette Batters, who was not in any Government, is pointing out the problems being raised.”
“The truth is that the 20% plus business rates—I think the extra cost that will now fall on private schools comes to about 40%—means that every single kid in my constituency will have to pay for the VAT in some way. Either they will have to pay for it because fees go up, or they will pay for it because class sizes are larger. I am afraid that the schools will not be able to swallow the costs, so we will see pressure all the way through.”
“No, not just now. The truth is that what we are seeing is a level of short-termism. That is completely clear in agriculture and industry, but the tragedy is that it is also clear in education. A great privilege of being the MP for Tonbridge is that I represent some of the finest schools in this country—others may claim that title, but I know that I speak the truth when I say that. Many of those schools are grant-maintained in different ways; others are private. They are, in many ways, a web of education that works extremely well together in our community. Some, such as Hillview School for Girls—a fantastic school at which I was privileged to be on the governing board—are state schools, while others, such as the Judd school, are grammar schools, and one, Tonbridge school, is private.”
“I will not, because I have been asked to be quick. That is not just a burden on those kids, but a rejection of the relationship between family members in their willingness and desire to invest in the future. I know that the Labour Government claim that the only way for investment to be done is by the state, that the only thing that really matters is when that is done by a bureaucrat and a civil servant, that the only thing that really counts is when the Government pay for it. But we know that is simply not true. We know that business and the freedom to invest, plan and forecast are what make an economy grow. Sadly, the Government have tried to nationalise the future, shorten the time horizon and make us all pay for it. That is why growth is falling, taxes are rising and the future is made worse again and again under Labour.”
“It is the various jihadi extremist organisations that make this country less safe, and different aspects of other political parties also make it more dangerous. We must be absolutely clear that responsibility for the actions we are talking about actually falls not on the businesses but on those who encourage, tolerate and perpetrate terrorism. Let us be absolutely clear today that one of the principal vectors for this violence comes straight out of Tehran and through various organisations that are still operating in this country despite many attempts to close them down.”
“Given that this is the last time I will speak on this Bill Committee, I want to pay tribute to Figen and Brendan for the work they have done. There is always a danger with such Bills that we put the blame not on the perpetrator but on those who are actually victims. I say that because the businesses that must make provision, pay the cost and bear the burden are also victims of the perpetrators. Let us be absolutely clear: for all that this law lays out the responsibilities on businesses, the true responsibility falls on those perpetrating these attacks. Today, as Ken McCallum would tell us, the Iranian state is a prime originator, and the Muslim Brotherhood is a feeder, of the evil we see perpetrated.”
“I beg to move amendment 22, in clause 2, page 2, line 11, leave out “200” and insert “300”. This amendment sets the threshold for qualifying premises at 300 individuals.”
“That is why I have tabled some of the amendments before us, which change some of the fines and request a change from simply issuing an instruction to introducing a statutory instrument—a very specific moment when the Minister actually has to make a decision and bring the issue back to Parliament. We can belittle the hours, but trustees and volunteers at village halls make their own time available—I speak from personal experience, and others will have seen this as well—so if the burden is too great, plenty of village halls will simply close because we are asking people to take on more than they are willing to give. That is why we have tabled the amendments, but as they all speak to the same point, which is not overburdening people, my remarks can be taken to apply to them as a whole.”
“I tabled the amendments for the simple reason that a burden will fall on businesses and on individuals; we can belittle it and say that complying will take only an hour or two, but for many small businesses that is a significant burden. As was made clear in the evidence session only the other day, the burden on local authorities, including at parish level for parish halls, can change the way in which trustees approach this issue, which is why we looked to make the changes that I recognise the Minister has indeed made. It is important to ensure that the burdens do not grow.”
“Given the very obvious numbers on the Committee, there is no point in pushing the amendment to a vote, but I still believe that the burden on small businesses is too great. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule 1 Specified uses of premises”
“I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 6, page 5, line 1, leave out paragraph (a). This amendment prevents the Secretary of State from creating further requirements for enhanced duty premises by regulations.”
“This very simple amendment is in line with the others that I have already spoken about. It would limit the Government’s power to exert extra burdens on small businesses.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 7 Enhanced duty premises and qualifying events: documenting compliance Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“I tabled the new clause on the SIA for the simple reason that its reputation goes before it. Work that was done in the Department under a previous regime demonstrated that there were alternatives, which we felt would offer not only better value for money but greater ministerial oversight and better accountability to those who are forced to use its services. But clearly, with the Government’s majority, it is for the Minister to decide. Question put and agreed to. Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule 3 agreed to . Clause 13 Compliance notices Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“Amendment 6, in clause 18, page 13, line 11, after “if” insert “, in a case to which paragraph (za) does not apply,” This amendment is consequential on amendment 5. Amendment 7, in clause 18, page 13, line 13, after “if” insert “, in a case to which paragraph (za) does not apply,” This amendment is consequential on amendment 5. Amendment 8, in clause 18, page 14, line 1, at end insert— “(za) subsection (1)(za),”— (Dan Jarvis.) This amendment is consequential on amendment 5. Clause 18, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 19 to 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 24 Offences of failing to comply with compliance notice or restriction notice Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“Simply to say that, although there needs to be a maximum sum to levy as a penalty, £18 million strikes any reasonable person as extremely high. Although we completely agree with compliance, the fines strike me as a little out of proportion. Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Amendments made: 5, in clause 18, page 13, line 10, at end insert— “(za) in the case of a contravention of a requirement imposed by a notice under paragraph 3(1)(b) of Schedule 3 (requirement to attend and answer questions), £5,000; paragraph 3(1)(b)” This amendment sets at £5,000 the maximum monetary penalty that an individual may be given for failure to comply with a requirement imposed under paragraph 3(1)(b) of Schedule 3.”
“I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 32, page 22, line 20, leave out from “for” to “in” in line 21 and insert “enhanced duty premises to be standard duty premises.” This amendment prevents standard duty premises from becoming enhanced duty premises at the discretion of the Secretary of State.”
“This is a simple repetition of the amendments we have made throughout the Bill to alleviate the burden on small businesses and ensure that the balance is appropriate.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 33 Interpretation of this Part Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“I beg to move amendment 18, in clause 37, page 25, line 5, after “force” insert “for enhanced duty premises and qualifying events requirements”. See explanatory statement to NC1.”
“It’s your chairmanship! I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“On a point of order, Sir Edward. I will comment on it very happily, and merely repeat that the SIA is a regulator that has faced significant challenges over recent years and, again, I raise the question as to whether it is the appropriate regulator. As usual, however, the Minister would have the numbers in a vote.”
“It would be churlish of me not to thank you, Sir Edward, for the speed and efficiency with which you have guided us through this. This is also an opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the Minister, who has been a friend for many years—nearly 20 years, actually. It is a wonderful symmetry that, on my last day on the Front Bench for my party, I am doing what I did when we first met, which is scrutinising him.”
“The old principle that we used to apply was the Wilson principle—the principle of self-determination—which the Foreign Secretary may remember is the defence of the Falkland Islands and the defence of Gibraltar. He has now just violated that principle by undermining the rights of the Chagossian people in favour of a claim that was abandoned in 1965—it was never really made because it was only administrative, and the islands were never properly governed from Mauritius anyway—and by being in favour of a Court judgment that was advisory, he has sold out the sovereignty of the British people. Truly, nobody apart from a boy called Jack has ever made a worse deal on the way to market, and he has come back with a handful of beans that he is trying to sell as a prize.”
“May I start by extending my support to the Home Secretary for whatever incident is going on in Southport, and to Merseyside police, given the incidents we are sadly seeing in Merseyside today? Earlier this month, the right hon. Lady refused to rule out the UK accepting migrants from European countries in exchange for a returns deal with Europe. Does she accept that under any deal she does, some of those sent to the United Kingdom from the European Union could harbour extremist ideologies or pose a security threat? Will she commit to ensuring strong safeguards, including a right of refusal on a case-by-case basis, to stop anyone who could put Britain’s security at risk from entering this country?”
“No doubt she has already read the advice of her frontline officers, because the National Crime Agency was extremely clear. It has been tasked by that Government to tackle criminal gangs, but it has already said that we need an effective deterrence agreement, and since it has publicly pointed out that no country has ever stopped people trafficking upstream in foreign countries without a deportation scheme, I am certain that it will not have minced its words in private.”
“After all, Barbara Roche, one of her predecessors, wrote that she was “appalled” to be appointed Immigration Minister in the Blair Government. One of Barbara’s contemporaries, David Blunkett, famously said that there was “no obvious limit” to the number of migrants who could settle in the United Kingdom. I suspect we will not get such frank honesty from this Prime Minister or this Home Secretary. However, in their hearts I suspect that neither of them truly believes in controlling legal and illegal migration. The hon. Member for Wallasey has my sympathy. It cannot be easy to defend a Government who have already scrapped the deterrents that worked, lost the commander of the border strategy unit and now all but offered an amnesty. Oh dear, these days are difficult, are they not?”