Kit Malthouse
MP for North West Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today.”
“I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon.”
“The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death.”
“One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end.”
“I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s expertise in this matter, but, as he has already heard on the Floor of the House, it is perfectly possible for this House to suggest amendments, negotiate them with the promoters of the Bill, place them against the legislation in the House of Lords and then have them come back to this House for…”
“As co-sponsor of the Bill once again, I am acutely conscious that there is more at stake today than merely the fate of those who are facing their end, because the conduct of the other place means that our democracy is also on trial today.”
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“First, I propose that anybody caught speeding between 20 mph and 30 mph does not receive penalty points, rather they would be required to attend a speed awareness course. Repeat offences would require repeat attendance at speed awareness courses. I should declare an interest, having been at a speed awareness course recently after I was caught unwittingly doing 24 mph on the Embankment, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury—not at the same time or in the same vehicle, but he was also done for a similar offence. The roll-out of 20 mph speed limits across the country has brought benefits in terms of road safety, but it has left many thousands of drivers disproportionately punished for straying over the limit.”
“Despite the enormous benefits that cars bring to our constituents’ families up and down the land and, indeed, to people across the world, for many motorists, the world seems to be filled with councillors and officials who are dedicated to making their lives more difficult. Driving is becoming a minefield of potential traps and penalties, such that drivers are becoming paranoid and resentful about the entire system. When that happens, order tends to break down, and the time has come for a rebalancing. In the Bill, I propose three modest measures that would achieve a better balance and would hopefully see better results generally for motorists and members of our communities across the board.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about speeding offences on roads to which a 20mph limit applies; to make provision about the enforcement of moving traffic offences; to require 24 hour staffing of works on specified public roads; and for connected purposes. As I am sure you are aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, life as a motorist has changed significantly over the past two decades. Cars have become safer, more efficient, greener and quieter, and yet despite the fact that the motor car is possibly one of the greatest contributors to human wealth, happiness and freedom, it has become seen by many as the root of all evil.”
“The expansion of childcare is extremely welcome, and I have every confidence that the Minister and the excellent team at the Department for Education will deliver this current expansion on time and that the funding will reach all the families who need it. To be fair, however, the Minister is dealing with a system that has become remarkably complicated over the last 15 or 20 years. Would he be interested in discussing with the Chancellor the notion of rolling up all the various funding streams that we provide for childcare, and indeed for family support, and instead of taking money from people in taxes, losing some of the administration and returning it to them in the form of mandated childcare, thus giving every family with children a generous tax break to allow them to make choices for themselves?”
“Subjecting them all to this enormous burden seems to me disproportionate to the problem that the Government are trying to address. Finally, my greatest concern is for the impact on British Jewry. As the Secretary of State has said, he is trying to bring this Bill in to deal with the growth in antisemitism in the United Kingdom, but my view is that the Bill will play entirely into the hands of the antisemites. I imagine that this Bill will be manna to those rotten social media groups and WhatsApp groups that espouse conspiracy theories about Israel and the Jewish community. They will see this, as Jonathan Freedland—”
“It is not just the local government pension fund, of which I am a member, but also every university in the land and private sector companies that perform a public service of some kind and are contractors to the Government that will be drawn in. That is important because, as the Secretary of State will know, this subject is very litigious. There are lawyers sympathetic to Israel and those sympathetic to Palestine. From the Secretary of State’s speech, it seems that the Bill is aimed squarely at that particular conflict in this world. Lawyers on both sides will gear up, and an industry will arise to attack, defend, analyse and scrutinise every decision, and all these bodies will have to take significant internal legal advice to deal with it as well.”
“Again as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, it seems to me incredible that we are putting elected officials and others in a position where if they just stand up in certain circumstances and say they disagree with the law, they will be committing a criminal act. It seems to me an incredibly illiberal and backward step that we would strike a blow against pluralism in that way. The Bill could stand without those restrictions on free speech, and as the Secretary of State will know, we attempted to amend it to remove them, but that attempt was rebuffed. The third area is the sheer scale of the Bill’s impact and the number of organisations that will be drawn into it.”
“The first area is, as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, the separate identification in the Bill of Israel, and its conflation with the occupied territories and the Golan Heights. We believe that contravenes our undertakings at the United Nations and, indeed, in international law, which of course means that the Bill will spend a lot of time in the courts, if it eventually sees the light of day. At the same time, that is a cause of great dismay to our allies in the Arab world, who of course we need at the moment more than ever to join us in seeking peace in the dreadful conflict taking place in the middle east. That we should undermine our own status as fair dealers, as it were, in that part of the world seems to me an unforced error. The second area of serious concern is obviously the impact on free speech.”
“Again, as I said on Second Reading and on Report, I speak with a heavy heart and in some dismay, but I tell those on my Front Bench that I will be voting against the Bill this evening. This Bill obviously comes at a dreadful time, as we mourn the deaths of so many Israelis in heinous circumstances on 7 October and the deaths of so many Palestinians subsequently, many of whom still lie under the rubble. The fact that we in this House would seek to legislate against non-violent protest in such an illiberal and draconian way seems to me tragic at this particular point in time. As the Secretary of State knows, there are broadly three areas in which I and other colleagues attempted to amend the Bill and have concerns.”
“Members of the Israeli Government have expressed their desire that settlers should return to Gaza at some point after the conflict. Away from the terrible massacre taking place in that awful conflict zone, the situation in the west bank continues to deteriorate. In a very welcome move, the UK Government announced that they would bring in travel bans on violent settlers, but does the Minister agree that in order to deter this activity, which is worsening by the day, something more draconian may be needed? Would he please look at instituting immediate bans on trade with settlements?”
“The Minister did say that too many Palestinians have died in pursuit of a solution to the Hamas problem, but I wondered: does he genuinely believe, and is it the Government’s position, that a military solution—a military defeat of Hamas—is possible?”
“They would see that as a better trade than like for like.”
“As my right hon. and learned Friend knows, I support this move, and I said so when he made the previous statement to the House. However, he will have picked up, as I have, a sense that this is a diminution of the retribution element of sentencing. I wonder whether he would consider during the passage of the Bill looking at whether the alternative disposals to prison could be made in many ways much tougher to satisfy that requirement from so many victims that there needs to be a sense of punishment. For example: extending the time that people are on home detention and curfew; extending the time that they are on a sobriety tag from a maximum, I think, of 120 days to a year or 18 months. Many people would see a trade there—okay, he is not going to prison for three months, but he will be on a curfew for 18 months.”
“As he moves towards this presumption, will he reassure Members on all sides of the House that that certainty of detection of breach will be reinforced as much as possible by the use of this technology?”
“My right hon. and learned Friend is being so generous—it is kind of him. Given what he has said about technology, does he share the view that for the first time in offender management, whether post-sentence or during sentencing, we are able to insert certainty of detection of breach through technology? Thus far, detection has been uncertain, and offenders have been able to gamble with their freedom. With sobriety tags they cannot gamble, and we have seen that faced with the certainty of detection and the knowledge that if they breach, incarceration is certain, they make the right choice. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, they comply 97% of the time.”
“If the RAF can fly surveillance planes over the Gaza strip in the much-needed search for hostages and to help their release, what is to stop us from flying cargo planes over and parachuting food and medicines to a starving population?”
“I share my right hon. Friend’s slight misgivings about that clause; it will be interesting to hear the argument that the Minister makes. Obviously, there are already circumstances in law where, if the police have reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a crime, they are able to enter that person’s premises in pursuit of them or the goods they have supposedly stolen. As such, I am unsure what more the clause will add; it will be interesting to see where the Government take it. I share my right hon. Friend’s nervousness about breaching a long-standing settlement with the British people about their privacy and the ability of the police to invade it.”
“As the Minister knows, there has been no pause in violence in the west bank, whose largely defenceless population has been subjected over a number of months now to a campaign of what the Americans and French have referred to as “terror”. The Minister says he is asking tough questions and delivering tough messages to both sides, but when will those tough messages turn into tough action? The Americans have already said they will institute visa bans against those settlers who are perpetrating violence, but we have been talking about this for years to little or no effect. Given the centrality of achieving a two-state solution, is there not a strong case for us to take firm action against settlers, those who arm them and those who support them?”
“Also, one of the arguments that is put—I have had this with other issues of maintenance of stock in my constituency, where Aster is a large landlord—is a purely mathematical one: the housing association says, “You’re right, we haven’t really maintained this for 20 years, but we also haven’t charged you for it for 20 years so all we are doing is catching up on the charges,” and it fails to reflect on the economic hit to residents when an accumulation of charges is levied in one big blow.”
“It is great to see my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box for the first time and I congratulate him. I am grateful to my constituency neighbour my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for raising this issue and I have the same issue in the village of Hatherden in my constituency and want to make two points about what my hon. Friend the Minister was saying. What was of course lost in the transfer he was talking about was councillors and the sensitivity that local councils would have to their residents in the way we are trying to give effect to this evening; that has been the biggest disconnection in housing.”
“Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and having worked at DWP, I am also concerned by the devolution of what is quite a complicated and difficult administrative task to the Scottish Government—not necessarily the SNP—who have not covered themselves in glory with the administration of various schemes and various ideas they have had over the last couple of years. Given the delay and the failure to institute a new system—it has been on the cards for some years— [Interruption.]”
“It is a pleasure to appear before you, Mrs Harris. I have some questions for the Minister on the operation of the scheme. First, however, it is worth reflecting on the fact that we are dealing with quite a complex set of regulations that arises entirely from devolution. I suppose it illustrates to the people of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom the significant complexity that is being introduced into our legal system and benefit system by devolution. I was surprised that the Minister said he was pleased to see the order arrive because, to me, it represents an unnecessary complexity in the United Kingdom, which we could all do without. Like the hon.”
“If I do receive a payment on moving to lovely Scotland, will it be backdated to the date of my arrival, or will England persist in paying me beyond my arrival until the Scottish Government cover the gap? None of those issues, which might only affect a small number of people but will nevertheless be critical to their welfare and survival, seem to be addressed in this SI. I should be grateful if the Minister would answer those questions.”
“If I am ordinarily resident in Northumberland but care for somebody over the border, who will support me and how will I be supported in that care? On the same theme, what happens if I am a family unit of a carer plus a disabled individual who move from Scotland to England or vice versa? How seamless will the transition be? Will there be a gap in payment? Will I have to apply before I move to have my domicile for the carer’s payment moved, or will I have to apply when I arrive? Do I have to be ordinarily resident before I apply and if so, how long do I have to wait until that kicks in? Will it be six, 12 or nine months before I receive a payment?”
“If there is a dispute between two carers about who gets the allowance the Secretary of State is given the discretion to make a decision, but what will be the process of appeal? How will carer B make a claim over carer A? What if there is carer C, who is not referred to in the legislation? In my experience, people with significant disabilities often have multiple carers who may work together as a team to support them. How will that be dealt with? Finally, on the effect on the border, I am sure we will have a small number of cross-border carers—those resident in England who care for those resident in Scotland and vice versa. Who will pay them and where will the care be claimed? There is no reference to that in the legislation. Someone claiming carer support payment in Scotland will have to ordinarily be resident in Scotland.”
“On reading the statutory instrument, there seems to be an unnecessarily complicated administrative task in the case where there are effectively two people caring for one individual. Could the Minister confirm that they will have to make daily elections—the SI talks about elections in a prescribed form—as to who is to receive the carer’s allowance on that day? What form is that election to take? Is it a letter, a phone call or a text? Who will decide? The SI then says that in the situation where both carers claim, it will effectively be for the Secretary of State to decide who gets the allowance. Will the Secretary of State be showered with thousands of competing claims for carer’s allowance on an almost daily basis? If there is an election, how long will that endure?”
“I am the patron of Andover Young Carers, an organisation that supports young people who are in full-time education and who look after an adult in their family living with a disability. Although I know that carer’s allowance is constrained for those who are under 16 or in full-time education, I have never quite understood why we do not look at the particular case of a young person who might be caring for a parent with a severe disability where there is no other carer available. They do so with a burden that no other adult carer broadly shares, yet we exclude them from such schemes. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that. My second point is about the operation of the scheme.”
“What confidence does the Minister have that the Scottish Government will be able to administer benefits to the extent that they get to the people who need them and the system will not collapse, as so many other things seem to have done? I wonder whether the Minister has any sense of the deadweight cost of having a separate organisation called Social Security Scotland on the budget. Obviously, it has to maintain its own back office, its own personnel and its own administrative burden, and there must be an extra cost, which is therefore being denied to the recipients of welfare payments because it is going into the hands of unnecessary administrators. I also had a question about age limits.”
“On a point of order, Mrs Harris. This is legislation being presented to the UK Parliament. We are Members of Parliament; our job is to scrutinise and ask questions of the legislation. I understand that it is common practice in Delegated Legislation Committees for people not to bother to read the legislation before coming into the room, but I happen to think that it is my duty, if I am presented with something that I am approving, to examine and ask what I believe are perfectly reasonable and relevant questions. If there is an answer, fine, but the fact that I am an English, not a Scottish, MP should have no bearing on the matter. This is UK legislation to enable the Scottish Government to do something.”
“I wonder how much the Minister is willing to wager that he will not be back at some point in the future to correct anomalies in this legislation. If, as he is saying, the approach is, “Well, we’ll try it and see, and we’ll talk about the problems that may emerge and try and tease them out,” is he saying that the legislation is likely to change, and therefore is not comprehensive for some of the anomalies that may occur? I know that I raised a number of questions about the operation of the scheme, but could the Minister just answer the question about cross-border carers? There will be a number of cross-border carers who, as we speak, will be wondering where they sit and would be grateful to have some clarity on that pretty quickly.”
“Away from the horror of Israel and Gaza, there is an unfolding tragedy on the west bank, with the killing of well over 100, getting on for 200, Palestinians by settlers and the Israel Defence Forces. In his statement, my right hon. Friend rightly urged Israel to provide protection from them. If the state of Israel declines to do so and the killings continue, would he consider the intervention of a UN peacekeeping force to keep the peace in that part of the world?”
“When I am told that in seeking to improve this legislation, or in expressing doubts about its impact, I am somehow picking a side, with the implication that I am not standing with that community, I find it both insulting and offensive, particularly coming from Members of this House who, while accepting unquestioningly this legislation, have not done so with other legislation coming from the Government. We all have a duty at this point in time, as the Prime Minister and others have said, to choose our words carefully. On Monday, he said it was a time for “care and caution”, and he was exactly right.”
“Some years ago, an elderly Jewish constituent came to see me in my surgery concerned about her own safety following a rise in violence in Israel and Palestine, and the resulting antisemitism here in the UK. I said to her then that, if the mob ever came for her, before they got to her they would find me standing in her driveway with my baseball bat in hand. I have stood with the Jewish community across the UK, particularly in London, over the last nearly 25 years of my political career.”
“Amendment 6 proposes that if the Government declare that a country or situation is in breach of international law, other organisations can immediately respond by issuing their own sanctions or disinvestments. I honestly believe that the amendments I have tabled—I understand that only amendment 7, which is probably the most important, will go to a Division this evening—represent an attempt to improve the legislation, rather than necessarily picking a side. Although this debate has, I am afraid, been positioned as a pro-Israel or pro-Palestine debate, I am primarily pro-Britain. I want to get the legislation right for this country, for the Jewish community and for every community in this country so that we can live with the consequences for years to come.”
“I know that the Secretary of State, like every member of the Government, is extremely keen on international law and wants to ensure it is followed in all circumstances, and particularly in this current horrific conflict in Israel and Gaza. One of the great benefits of our more flexible system is that, as the Government called for boycotts of Russian businesses and Russian individuals following the invasion of Ukraine, other parts of civic society were able to move extremely quickly to comply, whereas under this legislation they would have to wait for the Government to issue some kind of regulation, which would have to go through this House and be debated. That could possibly take weeks, if not longer, particularly if the House is in recess.”
“I outlined my objection on Second Reading, not least because we had just appointed a free speech tsar and legislated for free speech on university campuses, but here we are busily curtailing free speech through this Bill. The technical issue is about universities being classified as public bodies. As the Secretary of State will know, there has been a flurry of activity in the Treasury because further education colleges have been classified as public bodies, which means all their debt comes on to the public balance sheet. This is another step towards universities, with their even greater levels of debt, coming on to the balance sheet, about which the Treasury ought to have a say. I hope and believe that, when the Bill goes to the House of Lords, the Treasury will want to have a look. Finally, amendment 6 is about international law.”
“On amendment 4, I declare my interest as a member of the local government pension fund, which I understand is the only pension fund affected by the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, it is unfortunate that, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, my accumulated savings are being put under the control of the Secretary of State. If, in pursuit of this control, my pension diminishes in value because I am forced to follow the decisions made by the Secretary of State, what will be my compensation in retirement? Amendment 5 is about exempting universities as public bodies. There is a technical reason, as well as a principled reason, for this amendment.”
“My hon. Friend speaks with experience, and he puts it extremely well. To assume that councillors are merely elected on the basis of their attitude towards potholes and refuse collection is completely erroneous; they are elected for all sorts of reasons. Many councillors and Members of the devolved Administrations who campaign on social, moral, ethical and, indeed, foreign policy issues would say that they have a mandate, and not even to be able to express opposition to the law while still complying with it seems very un-British, extremely illiberal and unnecessarily draconian. We have lots of laws in this country to which councillors and, indeed, other elected officials of opposing political persuasions can express opposition. To have an exception on this basis seems faintly ridiculous.”
“As the Secretary of State knows, my constituency is chalk stream central, with the headwaters of the celebrated River Test, the Bourne rivulet and the River Anton, which runs through Andover. What can the Government tell me to reassure my constituents that the unique ecology of chalk streams is uppermost in their mind as they work to enhance our rivers across the country?”
“Modern media have brought the full horror of the profoundly evil crimes committed against state of Israel into our homes, and they are now bringing the unfolding horror of the human catastrophe taking place in Gaza into our sitting rooms as well. In his statement, the Prime Minister indicated that Israel and Egypt are denying access for humanitarian aid into Gaza. What possible reason could there be for that?”
“May I say what a pleasure it was to hear the Lord Chancellor’s statement, which represents a big step forward for our criminal justice system? He and I have long shared the view that we do not lock up the violent for long enough and there are smarter ways of dealing with the non-violent. On that note, I applaud his expansion of the tagging programme. I have two questions. First, on GPS tags, does he intend to expand the acquisitive crime pilot? Currently, in 19 police force areas every burglar and robber released from prison is GPS tagged to reduce reoffending. Secondly, while we are not short of sobriety tags, which he will know I am extremely keen on, the problem is that judges are just not using them, so what steps will he take to expand judicial enthusiasm, given how much alcohol drives low-level crime?”
“Q8. When the Prime Minster was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he put the full might of the Treasury behind the 10-year drug strategy, which, with its Adder Project, is now turning lives around across England and Wales. A key part of that strategy was developing a new approach to possession. He will know from his own constituency that in towns such as Andover in mine, possession is a huge concern, particularly to the parents of young people who spend time in the town centre. The Home Office issued a White Paper on this over a year ago, and the consultation closed in October last year. Will the Prime Minister commit in the forthcoming King’s Speech to legislation that will deal finally with this pernicious problem?”
“Friends really think that senior barristers, whose turnover and assets will be more than the threshold, should be taking and showing procedural steps to avoid conducting fraud—do not forget that they are sole practitioners—then I am afraid we have gone through the looking glass of what Conservative Members think is appropriate.”
“Added to those general difficulties are the specific ones presented by the Heath Robinson-type calculation that every business will have to undertake every month: adding together how many employees there are and how many are employed in each month in year P, then taking away the number you first thought of and dividing it by the number of months. We are all going to have to do this every single month to work out whether we are above the threshold or not. Should we have the steps? Should we not have the steps? It all seems particularly nonsensical. We know that a vast amount of this fraud takes place in larger companies, and they have the capacity and the wherewithal to deal with it. If my hon.”
“All of this distracts us from what we should be doing, which is trying to create employment and wealth and paying tax to the rest of the country. The other issue is that this misunderstands the dynamic of businesses of this size. If a business of this size is going to engage in fraud, it is very possible—more than likely, actually—that the principal will be the instigator of that fraud. The idea that, alongside all the other offences, they should take steps to prevent themselves from perpetrating fraud seems ridiculous.”
“It is worrying that I am perhaps the only small-business voice here and that there are not enough small-business people in the House to point out the problems with this issue. As the Minister has said, hundreds of thousands of businesses will be drawn into the net. This is not necessarily about the compliance cost. The kind of regulation that comes with the prospect of a criminal offence has a chilling effect on small businesses. I speak as somebody who has owned one for nearly 30 years. When the Revenue, health and safety or trading standards show up with some new regulation, a whole industry cranks into place to terrify the owners of small businesses into some kind of compliance. Then along come the consultants, the accountants, the webinars and the newsletters telling us what we do and do not have to do.”
“I am afraid that I am going to disappoint the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and speak very strongly against Lords amendments 151B and 151C, and I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. I am surprised at Lord Garnier’s lack of any conception of what it is like to run a small business and the cumulative impact of Government regulation thereupon. The limits that are drawn here will draw in all manner of businesses, not least some eminent barristers who will fall foul of some of the numbers. Indeed, the average town-centre or city-centre pub will be covered by these regulations, such is their level of turnover and employees.”
“Lines matter. At a point in a business’s evolution, as my hon. Friend will know from building his own business, it crosses a line. It is perfectly possible, under the definitions in Lords amendment 151C, that a company that satisfies the financial criterion will decide to go from nine employees to 10 or 11, and suddenly it crosses into this world of pain—the compliance people show up, and the company needs a whole new process and procedure that comes with employing that single extra person, on top of all the other employment and safety regulation it is having to deal with. Setting these thresholds at a level at which companies can absorb the step up in responsibility, and without a disproportionate amount of cost, seems critical. Does he agree?”
“Could we have a little clarity on those two SIs? Does that mean that there is going to be a period in which otherwise legitimate uses will be illegitimate until the new SI is in place, and is that new SI needed because people came forward and said, “Whoops, you’ve missed this use”? I am not quite sure how the two SIs are going to interact.”
“We are holding out a promise to our communities up and down the land that they will see fewer of these ampoules and less antisocial behaviour as a consequence. I hope there is an action plan. My second point is to ask about unintended consequences. One of the characteristics of my youth in Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s was the groups of young people gathering together to sniff glue. It was a horrible thing to do and obviously had a serious impact on their brains. The chemicals are even more noxious than this particular substance, so how will the Minister ensure that there is not a diversion towards those kinds of substances and the resumption of glue-sniffing in parks and playgrounds instead of taking this gas? If he can reassure me on both those points, I will be happy to support the SI.”