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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“If the House remembers, at the tail end of that particular period in our political history, the notion was brought in of a cannabis warning, and then a cannabis penalty of 90 quid for police to hand out for pure possession. What happened was that we saw a bit of a bump in numbers, and then it tailed off, because the police realised there was little effect and it was not cost-effective to do it. The numbers diminished over the years. As the Minister will know, a White Paper last year looked at a different set of consequences for possession, but in the absence of a response to that White Paper, I am keen to hear from him what the plan will be once the SI is in place, because as he and I both know, the policy is not the product; the product is what happens out there on the street.”
“The estimate is that we will put, I think, a total of 500-odd people in prison for possession of this substance. As far as I can see, that is small against a background number that is running into the hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, that will have an impact on the prison system. The thousands who will be going through the magistrates courts will obviously have an impact there. The police cost per capita of an arrest, charge and disposal of any kind by my calculation comes in at about £880, which seems light to me. Can the Minister reassure us about the cost, the capacity in the system and the ability for police forces to do this properly? When this SI lands, will we see some action out there on the street? I am concerned we will see broadly what happened after the Blair-Brown reforms to cannabis possession.”
“If we are to have a deterrent effect, there has to be a sense in people’s minds that there is a very high probability of their being caught and that when they are caught, there will be a swift and certain consequence. Can he reassure us that the police are gearing up to deal with the numbers—even the relatively low numbers in the impact assessment—and that he has an ambition to go beyond those numbers? I know he does not want to do something that is merely performative, but that he wants to have an impact on this issue. We want to see fewer and fewer of these ampoules on the street and, indeed, fewer and fewer young people in particular using this substance. If the Minister hits his ambition, what impact will that have on the criminal justice system overall?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for laying out the reasons for this SI. I recognise the impact on communities up and down the land of this particular substance, not least in littering and antisocial behaviour. I am anxious, as I am sure is the Minister, that if we are going to introduce this new measure, we do it properly. I have a couple of questions for the Minister about the impact of this instrument, particularly on the criminal justice system. Looking at the impact assessment, I am surprised by the relatively low number of individuals it is envisaged will be put through the system. As the Minister will know, if we are to have an impact, there has to be a significant deterrent effect.”
“I know the Secretary of State takes a more than purely transactional view of higher education, and I am with the Father of the House in hoping that in her reforms there will be protections for degrees that do not offer an immediate commercial advantage, such as theology, philosophy or the study of poetry. I also hope that within her reforms there will be protections to allow universities to innovate and introduce new courses. Our university sector has obviously been at the forefront of driving forward British intellectualism and thinking, and not allowing universities to experiment with courses that may not immediately fulfil the criteria that she is proposing, or indeed forbidding or deterring them from doing so, would set us back in world terms. Will she reassure us that innovation will still be encouraged?”
“Q12. Will the Deputy Prime Minister let us know when we can expect allocations from round 3 of the levelling-up fund? When it comes, will it be true to the Prime Minister’s pledge that all parts of the country will benefit, including the south-east and, most particularly, the very deserving town of Andover?”
“Using bricks would give other species opportunities and would protect swifts from being evicted by more aggressive species.”
“As the planning Minister at the time, I had a hand in the changes to the national planning policy framework that encouraged the uptake of swift bricks, so I am pleased that this debate is taking place. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are two further advantages to the brick over the box? First, although the brick is primarily aimed at swifts, it can also offer a home to another species that is in decline, and which was the music of my childhood—the house sparrow. We do not see them as much as we used to in urban areas. Secondly, particularly in the south-east of England, the brick protects swifts from being evicted by the parakeet. The six swift boxes on my house have been overtaken by parakeets, which are able to widen the opening because it is wooden, rather than brick.”
“There is another reason to commend swifts, which is that they are not actually here for very long. As my hon. Friend may know, they broadly arrive in the first week of May and certainly leave, like clockwork, in the first week or so of August. They are not here for terribly long, which is why we should give them a nice home to live in.”
“I just wanted to be clear about what hopefully we are collectively asking for. We are asking the Government to mandate the use of swift bricks—and the plural is important. As anybody will know, swifts are gregarious birds that like to nest in colonies, so putting in the odd brick here and there is unlikely to be fruitful. What we actually need is groups of four to six bricks, possibly more. As the hon. Lady said, in Bristol houses have got seriously more than that number. However, just putting in a brick—singular—is not much use to anybody, least of all the swifts themselves.”
“I am sure the hon. Gentleman would recognise that the Government mandate an awful lot on housing, not least to do with human occupation—whether we should have a front doorstep, the dimensions of windows and, in London, even the height of ceilings. It seems odd that the Government would not mandate on something as simple as this.”
“I am pleased to hear the Minister’s enthusiasm. The point is this: when the last revision of the NPPF came in, introduced this guidance towards biodiversity net gain and indicated things like swift bricks and hedgehog highways, there was a hope that developers would take it up. They have had several years to do so, and they have not. In many developments, the box is ticked by putting up some wooden boxes here and there that will deteriorate over three or four years and then be gone. The point about the swift brick is that it is permanent. It cannot go. It does not weather or deteriorate. After seven or eight years, my wooden boxes are already looking a bit ropey after the predations of the parakeets and will need to be replaced. A brick would not. That is why we are all so keen to see them mandated.”
“If she said yes, we would all be happy to call it the Davison brick, and she would be able to gaze at the swifts with some joy in the future and see the part that she had played in their success.”
“Before the Minister finishes, could she confirm to us that she is not saying no to introducing mandatory swift bricks? I understand that she is a Minister in a Department and that collective decision making has to be gone through, but will she go away and have a think about it? In doing so, will she consider two things? First, she should have a look at the wooden boxes that developers may have put up three or four years ago, get a sense of whether they are all still there and consider their permanence. Secondly, I understand that she has given notice that she will not be standing at the next general election but, in a small way, she may be able to leave her mark for the future.”
“I ask colleagues to be under no illusion: this seemingly innocuous bit of paper is actually conferring significant powers on trading standards and we should not underestimate that.”
“Friend the Member for East Yorkshire said, an awful lot of corner shop owners will be affected by this legislation, many of whom live above the shop, as my great-grandparents did in Harrogate. The question of who decides whether that premise—that corner shop—is largely or wholly residential will be an interesting one for the enforcement authorities to consider. I can see situations where they may well smash their way into a corner shop and there is a perfectly innocent family sleeping upstairs who will be traumatised by their entry. This is a draconian set of powers. Similarly, there is the ability to demand documentation without any suspicion or recourse to law whatsoever. Much of it can be suspicionless, as far as I can tell from the Act.”
“Unfortunately, through the schedule, the powers have been spread to other organisations, such as district councils and the Competition and Markets Authority, and we are now giving those powers to trading standards. For example, schedule 5 includes the power for an enforcement or investigation organisation to enter premises without a warrant. There is no requirement to go to a judge and offer any evidence as to why the organisation needs to enter those premises; it can just enter. The only restriction is that those premises, as I try to remind myself from the Act, cannot be wholly or largely residential, but I am not sure who makes that decision. As my right hon.”
“With that came a culture in the then Customs and Excise of a slightly brutal approach towards their customer base. They were well used to smashing their way into warehouses without a warrant and could demand all sorts of documentation without any cause for suspicion. I am afraid that the amalgamation of Customs and Excise with the Revenue meant that that culture, which was a little bit like Japanese knotweed, infected the whole of what is now HMRC, to the extent that we do not now see a professional organisation that sits down with other professionals in the accountancy or legal profession and decides what is due. Instead, we see more of a brutal, demanding and aggressive organisation.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you in command, Ms McVey. This is a seemingly innocuous and small slip of paper, but I want to raise a number of issues about which the Committee needs to be aware. First, anybody who is familiar with schedule 5 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 will know that the implications of entering trading standards into the schedule can and will be profound. The schedule contains some draconian powers—powers that are now to be bestowed on trading standards—which have caused alarm pretty much ever since Gordon Brown amalgamated Customs and Excise with the Inland Revenue. As a scholar of Daphne du Maurier, Ms McVey, you will know that the excise men, as they used to be known, have historically, since 300 or 400 years ago, had significant powers to deal with smuggling.”
“We cannot just expect trading standards to expend ever more activity for the same number of heads and bodies and hours worked. If the Government really want this to be effective—and I have to say, I have my doubts—where will the extra capacity come from?”
“It is hard enough for consumers to get the attention of trading standards on anything these days. All our postbags will have been filled with letters from people who are frustrated by the fact that trading standards is not addressing their issue. The explanatory memorandum says that there will be no impact on local government, stating: “There is no, or no significant, impact on the public sector.” If this measure is going to be effective, and if we are going to have all these inspections and regulation, surely this must fall within the additional burdens doctrine. Greater capacity must be given to trading standards to deal with this issue. If not, what part of its work is going to give? Where will the activity come from that the Minister now expects to be expended on illegal tobacco?”
“If we did that year after year, in time, only the over-60s or over-70s would be able to buy cigarettes, and we would have effectively phased them out in a generation. I do not understand why successive Governments have not been brave enough to do that, given the appalling statistics that the Minister mentioned. I speak as somebody who lost two grandparents and my grandmother’s twin sister to smoking-related cancer; both twins died of smoking-related cancer. I have seen the effects for myself, and I wish we could be braver about it and do something sensible, rather than running this phoney skirmish war that drags in so many innocent, struggling businesses. The final point I want to raise is about the impact on local government. As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, trading standards is not what it was.”
“If we were really serious about stopping this trade, we would concentrate on the most vulnerable point, which is this funnel at the border where we could detect a lot of it. Thirdly, this is yet another step in the phoney war against smoking that is taking place in this country. We never take what strikes me as the brave step of doing something imaginative to phase out smoking. We nip, we tuck, we chisel away, and we try to scratch the surface. We make life difficult for often marginal businesses such as corner shops, which are almost regulated out of existence now—they all have to have sliding doors in front of cigarettes and cannot display them in certain places—and yet we are not brave enough to do what other countries have done, which is to progressively raise the age at which people can buy cigarettes.”
“We are seeing large amounts of illicit tobacco coming through the post, for example. It is mailed in packages from overseas through fast parcel delivery, often through the Royal Mail warehouse at Langley, near Heathrow. I do not know whether colleagues know this, but that warehouse takes in 100% of overseas mail coming by Royal Mail route, and the ability to scan parcels quickly there is very restricted. We have never invested in proper parcel scanning at that facility, and those who would smuggle these goods—which, of course, can now be bought online and shipped from overseas—recognise the weakness in that route. I would love to see some of the £10 billion we are raising from tobacco every year invested in enforcement at the border, rather than it all being hived off to subsidise other activity.”
“They certainly could be. This bit of legislation will go through today and I hope the Government will take those things into account. The explanatory memorandum states that respondents to the consultation were in favour, but I am not sure about the wider group. For example, I would be interested to know the view of the Association of Convenience Stores on the wider acquisition of the powers and the fact that they are being given to trading standards. My right hon. Friend is quite right; that could be addressed in the guidance. As I say, I want nobody to be under any illusions about what we are doing here. Secondly, while this is an attack on the sale of illicit tobacco at the front end, I would be interested to know what the Minister is doing at the most vulnerable point for the smuggling of illicit tobacco: the border.”
“There is an unproven statement that much of the trade is organised crime, but I know from my time at the Home Office that this is a low-margin business. I am not convinced that the volume is coming through via organised crime; I think it is coming through in fast parcels—small packages from overseas. That is why I am so keen to see some kind of intervention at the border, and I worry slightly that the more we talk about organised crime and gangs, the more the effort gets put in that direction, whereas a huge volume is coming through orders on the internet.”
“I am no lawyer, and maybe I am reading this wrong. I acknowledge that schedule 5 already includes local weights and measures authorities. That is not necessarily the full extent of the powers of trading standards. I accept that, in legislation, it has the powers to smash its way into premises in pursuit of weights and measures issues, but it do not have those powers in anything else. My reading of the legislation is that it expands that power beyond weights and measures and into the regulation of tobacco. Its current ability to demand documents and enter without a warrant is being expanded so as to include enforcement of tobacco regulations. I do not think that that part of its work is currently included. If it were, why is the measure necessary?”
“I recall that Border Force ran a competition looking for fast scanning technology. It awarded some money to a series of companies and there was some prize—I have in mind £1.5 million—for whoever could come up with this ability to whizz parcels through and scan them at speed. When I visited Langley, there were just two standard airport scanners, one of which was on the blink, for something like 1 million parcels a day, which is nuts. When he writes to us, will the Minister also update us on where that competition has got to?”
“The hon. Lady talked about pensions, and there is an additional point. Whatever people may think of BDS or of an investment strategy that is ethical or otherwise, the money that sits in the local government pension scheme—and I am a member of the local government pension scheme—is the members’ money, my money. It is not the Government’s money to direct in one way or another; it belongs to the pension holders, and it is surely for them and those to whom they delegate its management to decide how it should be deployed. As she rightly says, if the Government are getting into the business of managing my pension money and I lose money because of decisions made by the Government, presumably I should be compensated.”
“Given what is unfolding in Israel and Palestine today, given the toll of deaths that we have seen so far this year on all sides and given the international concern about the escalating violence in that part of the world, the introduction of this Bill at a time when many countries in that region are extremely concerned about what is going on will be seen by Arab countries in particular—although Members may not feel this themselves—as being partial, and as privileging one country over the others. I think that that will be detrimental not just to our interests in the United Kingdom, which are a primary concern. but to the interests of Israel, Palestine and the wider region.”
“For that freedom now to be restricted. particularly for those in leadership positions in universities, strikes me as perverse. It should come as no surprise that the Union of Jewish Students is flatly opposed to the Bill, which is apposite given that its members are often the people most exposed to antisemitism in this form. Finally, I want to raise the issue of timing. The right hon. Member for Barking said that this was the worst Bill at the worst time; I think that it is a defective Bill at a dreadful time.”
“There is no doubt that the Bill will send a chill through debate about a series of conflicts across the world. Whether we are talking about the Uyghur Muslims in China, the fate of Hong Kong Chinese or, indeed, those in Israel and Palestine, the fact is that everyone who is engaged in democracy, locally or on a devolved-nation basis, will have to be extremely careful about what they say. They will have to think twice and three times before they discuss these issues, lest that should prejudice, or be seen to prejudice, an investment or other decision that they may make in the future. This is especially problematic in the context of academic freedom. As we heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), we have just passed a law to guarantee academic freedom: freedom on campus.”
“I have never before seen legislation that outlaws disagreement with the law, and I think that breaching that right to free speech is a very problematic step. The second of these issues was mentioned by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). A law granting powers greater than those granted to the police to the investigatory or enforcement authorities identified in the Bill—the Secretary of State, the Office for Students, and one or two others—and allowing them, in particular, to breach legal privilege so that organisations can effectively go on a fishing trip looking at the legal advice that individuals have taken as they contemplate investment decisions is a Rubicon that I believe it would be wrong to cross. The fourth area that concerns me relates to our tradition of pluralism in this country.”
“There are groups out there who represent other countries, such as China and Myanmar, who will seek constantly to push councils in their direction, and not just in terms of Israel or Palestine. As a result, a huge amount of money and effort, and KCs at dawn, will be expended in pursuit of this legislation, and the impact will be enormous. Thirdly, two key fundamental issues that are intrinsic to the way we live in the United Kingdom are challenged by the Bill. The first is, obviously, the free-speech challenge to which a number of Members have already referred, and which is represented in clause 4(2). It appears that I cannot even criticise this law, whether I am a council leader, a university vice-chancellor, or the chief executive of a company that is performing public services.”
“There are those who would do its members harm—we all know that in this House, and I have seen it for myself—and we cannot give them succour by falling into that trap. My second concern is the practical impact of the Bill on many organisations across the country. As we heard from the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), this is a lawyers’ charter. There will be challenges to and fro, involving universities, pension funds and councils. Every decision that is taken will be scrutinised, and, moreover, councillors who have strong convictions in either direction will seek to find ways that are oblique to fulfil their own sense of moral or ethical obligation.”
“Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) that this Bill, should it go through in its current form, is likely to damage and worsen their safety rather than improve it. In that I am with Jonathan Freedland, who wrote in the Jewish Chronicle just last week: “What is the favourite refrain of the antisemites? That Israel is the one country you’re not ‘allowed’ to criticise. This bill takes a canard and, in the case of boycotts, turns it into the law of the land.” The inclusions of clause 3(7) and, indeed, parts of clause 4 send a chill through that sense of debate, and will feed some of the disgusting conspiracy theories about the status of Israel and the influence that that country has around the globe. I have to say that I fear for the safety of the Jewish community should the measures be passed in that form.”
“I rise with a heavy heart to agree with many comments from across the House on the nature of this defective Bill. I agree with Richard Hermer KC, who in a very compelling interview published in today’s Jewish News talks about the problems that this Bill presents not just for the UK as a whole but for British Jewry in general. Taking things in order, my primary concern is the safety of that community. As somebody who has worked very closely with the Jewish community, particularly in the capital over the years, and who has a strong affection for the Haredi community in north London, whom I know well both in policing and crime terms and having dealt with their housing issues as Housing Minister, I am afraid that I agree with the right hon.”
“I just want to take the hon. Gentleman back, if I may, to the point he made on pensions. Can he not see the difficulty of having a specific regime for NHS doctors? For example, if he were to bring in a specific regime, would it apply to doctors who also work in the private sector? What would happen if an NHS doctor changed career and became an accountant? There are other areas where we have difficulty securing the services of public servants beyond a certain point, for example judges, prison governors or senior police officers. Is he proposing that each of those areas should have their own specific scheme and that therefore we should build a sort of rats’ nest of complexity around pensions?”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful point, but does she accept that complexity can lead to gaming of the system? It often feels as if the accountancy profession and tax planners are streets ahead of the Revenue, to the extent that we now have to have a general anti-avoidance measure so that, if they find something we do not like, they are not allowed to do it, even though it may be within the rules. That is a direct product of this complexity, which is creating a whole other industry around finding loopholes.”
“Given that the settlement is retrospective to 2012, and that the change took place in 2015, it is likely, given the demographic and the actuarial calculations, that a small number of judges will have died between the judgment and settlement. It is very important that their partners are given the same opportunities that they would have been given had their partners been alive.”
“My second question is whether the settlement for the judiciary is particularly different from, or more generous than, any of the other settlements that have been agreed with parts of the public sector. Are we likely to get any kick-back from people who feel that the judiciary have been privileged? Finally, I have a question about partners or spouses of judges who sadly died between the judgment and the settlement. Will they be given the same options as living judges? I am not on top of the detail of the judicial pensions scheme, but I imagine that there is a death-in-service payment, and that a residual pension will fall to those spouses and partners. Will they be given the opportunity, retrospectively, to make the same choices that they would have been afforded if their spouse or partner was still alive?”
“I congratulate him on getting something over the line for the judiciary, but there are a relatively small number of them and a much larger number of police officers, so it would be great to see movement on that as well. On the settlement, I am quite surprised to hear that only 10 responses to the consultation were received. Was one of those responses from whatever collective body the judges have to represent their views? Knowing them as I do after many years of involvement with them, I feel that it is unlikely that only 10 of them would respond. If that is the case, there may have been a communication problem. They are normally pretty voluble on these issues.”
“Given the complexity of the regulations, and the fact that part of them amends previous legislation, I am fairly confident that we will be back at some stage to amend this SI because of technical problems with it. Obviously, the regulations seek to remedy McCloud/Sargeant, which affected all the public sector. When I was a Minister at the Home Office, I spent a fair amount of my time dealing with the police’s issue with that judgment. There was a consultation on a remedy for the police on the same matter earlier this year. Can the Minister tell us when he expects the whole of McCloud/Sargeant to be resolved? The longer it drags on, the more uncertainty there might be.”
“I have a couple of questions—they are a bit of a protest. Obviously, the regulations are of much bigger size and much more complicated than a normal statutory instrument. Given that parts of it are effectively amendments to Acts that were introduced only 12 months ago, it seems to me that these provisions could have been an Act of Parliament, and I am not quite sure why they are regulations. There are endless complaints about the shoddy scrutiny of legislation in this place, not least from the other place. Given the technical nature of the SI, the fact that we were given only a few days’ notice of our being on the Committee, and the fact that we do not have the opportunity to take any expert advice about what is in this very complicated document, this strikes me as a pretty poor show.”
“Let me give the Minister a little time to read his note. I guess the question I am asking is: if I am the husband of a judge who died between the judgment and the remedy, will I be given the opportunity to make the same choices that my spouse would have made if they were alive? I would obviously have a dependant’s pension, and I would have had a death-in-service payment as well.”
“Q5. Crime is down significantly and falling, and police officer numbers are at an all-time high, but the police funding formula remains elderly and out of date. It penalises counties such as mine, Hampshire, to the tune of many millions of pounds. Previous Administrations made the commitment that a new police funding formula would have been in place by the general election. May I invite the Prime Minister to make the same commitment, please?”
“My hon. Friend is making a very strong point. Does he agree that part of the disconnect on this between the Labour party and the rest of the country is that with these protests, the disruption is the objective, not the message? That is what makes the British people feel so aggrieved. Here in Westminster, more than anywhere, we understand that disruption can be a by-product of protest, but that is a by-product, not the primary objective.”
“Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that it is not just Northern Ireland that has regulation of protest? He will be aware that in Scotland it is a criminal offence not to notify the police within 28 days of an organised moving protest, and that people may face criminal sanctions if they do not do so. What is the difference between the legislation we are currently discussing and the law under which his constituents operate, where they may go to prison if they do not tell the police about a protest that is coming?”
“I ask the Minister in his summing up, because he is a thoughtful and independently minded man, to depart from the Government line hitherto and think again about this notion. We have imposed an awful lot on universities, given their new freedoms and the fact that they have often become big businesses. We have an Office for Students to guarantee the quality of courses, and we have just imposed legislation on them to guarantee free speech. Why would we not impose something on them to try to guarantee the safety and lives of our children?”
“They feel that their kids are not disposable and should not be forgotten, and that there should be some change to prevent anybody else from going through what they have gone through. There has been much talk about mental health support in the debate and more widely. To be fair, universities have done a lot, and the Government have spent a lot and have given money to universities specifically for mental health support and care. The NUS has done some work, as have others. I hope the Minister will agree that the best and most basic mental health support that people can get is a loving family. The idea that families should be excluded from the process, particularly when their child is exhibiting distressing, alarming or even unusual behaviour in a university seems inhumane and immoral.”