Graham Stringer
MP for Blackley and Middleton South · Labour · United Kingdom
“I strongly agree with the Government’s policy on devolution and better technical and scientific education, but all that will be for nought if we do not do something about the cost of energy. We cannot grow and compete as an economy when we have higher energy costs than our major industrial competitors.”
“I am fully supportive of Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester. It is the first time I can say that about a chief constable since the 1970s.”
“We cannot call ourselves a civilised society while Shabir Ahmed is walking the streets of this country. I agree with the thrust of the question by the hon.”
“Particle physics and astronomy have had a rough deal since the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council—PPARC—was abolished about 19 years ago.”
“In the ’80s and ’90s in this country, many police officers carried out their duties in a prejudicial and racist way. I am proud of having worked alongside many others to eliminate that racism as much as we could.”
“I remind hon. Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the Member in charge and the Minister. I have received no information that such permission has been given. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
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“I respect my hon. Friend’s optimism and his detailed technical knowledge of this issue. I suspect it is going to be very tough getting the supply lines as secure as he wants them to be, but does he also recognise that there is an absolute magnitude problem? I am sure he has read the book “Material World”, in which the writer, Ed Conway, points out that in the next 22 years we will need an amount of copper equivalent to what has been mined over the last 5,000 years. Is my hon. Friend aware of that and is it part of the strategy?”
“I fully support the Home Secretary and her statement. It is a fundamental duty of Government to protect our borders and to know who is coming into this country—something that we have not known for some time. She has set herself a difficult task. Will she agree to publish targets for all the areas that she outlined in her statement, and particularly for a reduction in the number of undocumented and illegal entrants to the country, so that we can check whether the plan is working? If it is not, she may need to alter some of the policies.”
“I do not think any reasonable person can think that the programme put out by “Panorama” was a mistake. It was clearly manipulation with a purpose, and unfortunately it follows a long line—I will not list all the examples, as other hon. Members have done that, but they include Gaza, anti-women trans issues and Europe. To give an example from my constituency, a programme was put out a few years ago called “People Like Us”, where contributors—young women—had been paid to fight and other contributors had been sent on holiday in order to get them to say particular things. I do not think that the biggest threat to the BBC is some conspiracy. I hope my right hon. Friend agrees that the biggest threat to the BBC is a failure to uphold objectivity and the standards we expect from the BBC.”
“Q12. The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), when he was an official, produced a devastating report on the Home Office. Reading it, it shows a Department characterised by disarray and defeatism. There have been 12 Home Secretaries over the past 30 years. Some were better than others, but none managed to get the Department to deliver the services that people should be able to expect in this country. Will the Prime Minister give the new Home Secretary the necessary resources and policy interventions to ensure that she can be successful?”
“As my right hon. Friend will know from her discussions with the Jewish community—which will have been similar to those that I have had following the dreadful murders at the Heaton Park synagogue just over a fortnight ago—what they want is to be assured by the Government, local authorities and other security authorities that they can live and walk about in this country in complete safety. Whatever the risk assessment in Birmingham was, it would be a disgrace and a shame if this country could not guarantee the security of a group of a group of Jewish fans, coming from Israel, walking down our streets. Can my right hon. Friend give that assurance to this House this afternoon?”
“It is also not okay, although it is not against the law, for artists—if I can use that word—like Bob Vylan to be operating and spreading their hate on campuses like Manchester University. Will the Home Secretary look forward with me to a future not only free of antisemitism but where I do not have to walk or drive past Jewish schools with security guards outside them?”
“They feel that there has developed a hierarchy of racism—that somehow Jew hatred is not as important as other kinds of racism. They feel that not enough has been done to protect them. The extra security that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have announced is welcome, but what the community are looking for is extra action to deal with religious extremists who are involved in illegal activity, to get to the heart of the violent activities against the Jewish community. The final point I will make is that, in one sense, taking action against illegal activities is the easier part. But partly because of what has happened in Gaza, many people now think it is okay in casual dinner party conversation—we have probably all heard it and witnessed it—to make antisemitic comments. It is not okay.”
“The Home Secretary also met the Community Security Trust, the police and the fire brigade, who all played an excellent role in getting to the site of the violence as quickly as they could. I have lived in this community, within a stone’s throw of the synagogue, for most of my adult life, and I have no doubt that the community will remain resilient. It has always been resilient. The film crews who thronged about the area after the violence were amazed that Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and people of no religion were all consoling each other. There was no hostility at all on the street. The final points I want to make are not as heartwarming. There is hurt and anger within the local Jewish community. They had known for some time that an attack like this was coming. Obviously they did not know when or where, but it has arrived.”
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and I am sure that the people of Crumpsall, where this atrocity took place, will welcome it. The only point I would add is that while these acts of antisemitism and violence are un-British, they are also inhuman—I think that is a better way to describe them, rather than “un-British.” I thank the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister for coming to Manchester on the day of the attack, which was much appreciated. The Home Secretary had a chance to meet the heroes, because while there was violence and tragedy, there were certainly heroes, not least the members of the congregation—two of whom lost their lives—who protected other members of the congregation from what would undoubtedly have been more deaths.”
“Before I call Melanie Ward to move the motion, it is self-evident that this debate is well subscribed. At the moment, just based on the numbers who have put in to speak—there are some hon. Members who have turned up who have not put in to speak, which does not mean they cannot be called—it looks as though the speech limit will be around one minute 30 seconds. If there are more interventions, that may have to be reduced.”
“Order. Will Members remain bobbed for a second so that we can calculate the time for speeches? I remind Members to bob after every speech. The speech time will be one minute and 30 seconds.”
“We have caught up on time, so the Minister has a decent amount of time to speak. I ask him, if possible, to find a couple of minutes at the end for the proposer to wind up.”
“Just before I call the Minister to respond, we have done really well on the timings so far. However, if hon. Members are going to make interventions, can they be short and to the point, please?”
“I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I am not going to impose a time limit, but I am going to call the Front-Bench speakers to respond to the debate from 5.10 pm. With half an hour, the four people standing can work out how much time they have.”
“I say to the hon. Gentleman that the motion that we are considering is relatively narrowly drawn; it is about the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway. I am following his speech and chain of logic but ask him to come back to the motion.”
“Order. The hon. Member heard what I said to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer). If he could stick to the motion before us, I would be grateful; sanctioning current rail operators is not directly relevant to the motion.”
“I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend on his new position. I have to say to him that I have never found it a satisfactory basis for arguments or positions in this Chamber to say that those on the other side are doing it. However, I do think it is important that we are consistent. When we were in opposition and the Conservatives were in government, they made the Foreign Secretary a Member of the House of Lords, and we created about it. We shouted about how someone in a senior Cabinet position should be directly accountable to this House. We now have a super-active Attorney General making many controversial decisions. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that we should be making the case that the Attorney General should be in this House, not the other place?”
“We have a good attendance this morning. If hon. Members bob after a speech, whether or not they have put in to speak, that will enable us to do the complicated calculation of how much time we have. Rather than relying on me doing mental arithmetic on the hoof, the Clerk will calculate a reasonable solution. Right—we will start with a three-minute time limit, which might have to be reduced. The actual calculation comes out at two and a half minutes, so I hope hon. Members will bear that in mind.”
“Order. There are three hon. Members left wishing to speak. We have done quite well, but I am going to reduce the time limit to one minute and 30 seconds, which still means taking a bite out of the wind-up speeches.”
“We come now to the Front-Bench contributions. I ask spokespeople to keep their speeches to about eight minutes, which will leave a very short time for the Member in charge to respond to the debate.”
“Order. I will call Sarah Green to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will be no opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.”
“If the Home Secretary’s measures are to be as successful as she wishes them to be, will she look more closely at what Denmark has done to improve the situation?”
“I do not envy the Home Secretary trying to clear up the mess that the last Government left on migration. I doubt, however, that the measures she is currently putting before the House will be as successful as she and I wish them to be. They do not really deal with the fact that many migrants are not coming from war-torn countries; they are coming from France, which is not persecuting them in any recognisable form. The reason is demand pull from this country—migrants believe they will have a better and an easier time, and get through the system more easily, in this country than they would in France or in other European countries. Denmark has been successful in reducing the demand pull.”
“The sooner Avanti is taken out of the system, even before there are capacity increases, I am sure it will benefit all of us who travel on the route.”
“First, the Minister of State in the House of Lords made it clear yesterday that since the cancellation of HS2, there is no plan for capacity. Does my hon. Friend agree that there must soon be a plan to increase capacity, preferably based on something like HS2? Secondly, the point made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about trains being cancelled north of Preston is true, but although I am sure he did not mean to do so, he seemed to be letting Avanti off the hook. We should remember that not only is Avanti taking many millions of pounds out of the public purse, but it has been caught on tape laughing at the public purse and saying how easy it is to rip off the Exchequer.”
“This is the latest national scandal to arise in our attempts to bring in infrastructure schemes on budget and on time, but the taxpayer is not the only victim of the failure of this project so far; there are also the people of the north of England. HS2 was originally a scheme intended to help the economies of the north-west and Yorkshire and those communities on the way, so there is a complete failure there. What we will be left with is an extension to the London underground system, and that will not help people in Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield and elsewhere. Will the Secretary of State consider safeguarding the original routes so that when we get our infrastructure plans in place, we can build something that this country can be proud of?”
“I will call Emma Foody to move the motion and the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. There will be no opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.”
“I welcome the statement today, which is moving towards an energy mix that is less weather dependent. I also welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of investment in nuclear fusion. There is one constant about nuclear fusion, which is that, starting from the original ideas in the 1950s, it has always been 50 years in the future. The International Energy Agency is still predicting that the earliest that nuclear fusion will be providing energy on to the grid will be the second half of this century. Does the Secretary of State agree with that, and if not, why not?”
“When I was building the second runway at Manchester airport, I had similar rants to my hon. Friend’s. I came to hate great crested newts, which were getting in the way of building that second runway. Surely there has to be a solution with balance, one that does not cost a quarter of a billion pounds for looking at the land around the lower Thames crossing, but allows Government and local government to put things such as swift bricks into housing. There has to be balance.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for being generous on this important issue. When she spoke about the contribution that family businesses make, she could have been talking about J. W. Lees, a brewery in my constituency that has a nearly 200-year history of making contributions to the local community and brewing very good beer, or to Joseph Holt, which is on the edge of my constituency. The Confederation of British Industry estimates that the proposed changes to business property relief will lose the Government nearly £1.9 billion. Does the hon. Lady agree that before the Government go through with the changes, they should have a consultation that looks at the impact on tax and local family businesses?”
“T8. The European emissions trading scheme has a carbon price that is 50% higher than the UK’s. What assessment has the Chancellor made of the impact of joining the scheme on inflation in this country?”
“My hon. Friend will be as aware as I am that the air passenger duty, which was introduced by a Conservative Chancellor more than 30 years ago, has been studied intensively. Every study shows that the revenue generated by that tax is much less than the benefit of abolishing it. Will my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State try to talk some sense into the Chancellor of the Exchequer and her officials, to get rid of this tax and benefit both aviation and the economy?”
“We have approximately 39 minutes before I call the Front-Bench spokespeople, and eight Members who wish to speak, so I will impose a five-minute limit on speeches. Could hon. Members speak to the time, or slightly less? If there are interventions, I will have to reduce that limit.”
“Order. I remind hon. Members that I am not part of the debate. Can we revert to normal parliamentary language? I do not like correcting people. We have just been through the previous debate and I did not, but I think it is necessary.”
“Minister, if you can, please leave time for the proposer to wind up. I have no idea if we are going to have a Division, but it might be wise if we can finish before 5.30 pm.”
“I suspect that many in this Chamber will be surprised to hear that when I first supported Manchester United, “United will survive” was on the front of the match programme: the club were bankrupt, because the young men who were killed in the Munich air disaster were not insured, and it took a lot of effort to move on. My right hon. Friend is talking about directors and “right and proper” people. I think I speak for every Manchester United fan when I say that if the Bill does not enable the fans to get rid of the Glazers, who are sucking money out of Manchester United to support shopping centres in Florida, it is defective.”
“May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a victory over the Sentencing Council on the fundamental principle of equality before the law? The independence of the Sentencing Council does not entitle its members to go over its boundaries, into the area of policy and politics into which they have strayed. That is such a fundamental issue that having made those fundamental errors of judgment, those members of the Sentencing Council should no longer be able to carry on in the job, whether it is by their own decision or that of the Secretary of State.”
“I would like to make two points. First, this House can do what it wants. It does not need this Bill to regulate anything. To say that is does simply is not true. Secondly, on the question of whether the Bill will lead to dynamic realignment with the EU, can the Secretary of State explain what clause 2(7)(a) is for? It seems to me that it could be used to dynamically realign with EU regulations.”
“I am interested that my hon. Friend mentions AI. There are three major systems around the world being proposed for artificial intelligence regulation: those in China, the EU and the United States. If we have to make a choice for our own framework, which might be different from those, for the safety of people in industry, why should that not be done on the Floor of this House rather than through delegated regulation? It is one of the most important issues that will face us in the coming years.”
“At the start of this debate, as a fellow scientist, I wondered what the difference was between mensuration and metrology. When I was an undergraduate, we did not use the word “metrology”—it seems to be a new word. Perhaps my hon. Friend can enlighten the Chamber.”
“I have been following the hon. Member’s arguments closely. It is certainly the case that, with or without wisdom, the House is capable of making poor decisions. I have voted for measures and against them on occasion, and the House has made poor decisions. However, it is much more likely that the House will get it right, rather than a delegated legislation Committee dealing with a statutory instrument where a Minister comes along and reads out a brief that she or he often does not understand, as is revealed under questioning—if, indeed, questioning takes place. The argument for the Bill is really to do with speed and capacity. We do not meet to vote on Thursdays, but we often do on Mondays. There is plenty of time for the House to do this.”
“I am not against the Lower Thames crossing, but three quarters of a billion pounds has already been spent on assessing whether it will be any use whatever, and that money would benefit transport in Greater Manchester, and jobs and investment for the whole country, much more than it will the Lower Thames area. [Dr Andrew Murrison in the Chair ] We have suffered, in that we are not getting High Speed 2 at the moment. I think the campaign to get the rail link from Birmingham to Manchester and Manchester airport should continue. It is extraordinary to see the billions of pounds that have been spent on high-speed rail from London to Birmingham, mainly on tunnels.”
“For all of Transport for Greater Manchester’s successes, it has had to fight the Department for Transport to get extra investment for Metrolink and fight Labour and Conservative Ministers to get money for investment. There is great potential in the north-west. In fact, we would get more out of investment in transport links in the north-west than the south-east, because of what we are, in effect, doing when we invest in London and the south-east. All transport investment creates jobs and growth, but in London and the south-east we are then, in effect, subsidising congestion, because we get so much congestion that we need more investment afterwards. That is not the situation in Greater Manchester and the north-west.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McVey. In the few minutes available to me, I would like to put transport in the north-west into perspective. I would not like anything I say to be taken as a criticism of the mayor or of Transport for Greater Manchester. The Bee network, which is an excellent scheme, has put Greater Manchester to the situation London has had for the last 45 years, which we see as progress. As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) has just said, investment in transport is vital for economic growth. However, when we look at the national objectives, and as we have seen forever—since the second world war—more money is going into London and the south-east than the north-west.”
“For the first time for nearly a quarter of a century, we do not have viable plans that we know will happen, and we may have to carry on fighting Ministers and the Department for Transport for the next stage. Obviously, I would like trams to go to Middleton, as I represent part of it, but I agree that trams going to Stockport and other parts of the conurbation—perhaps Leigh as well—would mean transport and economic development. So I think we have to keep campaigning and making the case that bucks spent on transport in Greater Manchester will get us more than money spent in London and the south-east.”
“My hon. Friend is precisely right: the real case for High Speed 2, as I am afraid it will always be called, was capacity. We are not getting that extra capacity between Birmingham and Manchester without HS2. If that capacity were to happen—it should happen—it would lead to the necessity of extra investment in the rail system east, west and internally within Greater Manchester. It would lead to more investment, so we need to campaign for it. All we have at the moment is an extension to the London underground system, which will benefit London and Birmingham. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove mentioned the Metrolink going to Stockport, and I agree with her.”
“In the context of the north-west, we are all friends on this matter. The hon. Member probably does not know, but a few years ago the Transport Committee did a study into north-west trains and found that train schedules in the north-west—not when the trains actually run—were slower when there was a Liberal Prime Minister. Even more surprisingly, it was not Campbell-Bannerman; it was Gladstone.”
“Sorry, Mr Speaker. I was nearly as shocked when you called me as I was when listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Radio 4 talking about economic growth. She said there had not been a new runway built in this country since 1945. Manchester airport would be very surprised to hear that, because its new runway has been operating for nearly 25 years. I was shocked by that but not really surprised, because I think many officials in the Treasury who advise her show a startling ignorance of the English regions, and that leads to a certain prejudice in the formula they use to calculate whether a scheme should go ahead. Can the Minister and the rest of the Treasury team provide coaches to send Treasury officials around the English regions to talk to people who know about growth?”
“I remind hon. and right hon. Members to bob if they wish to speak. I intend to call the Front-Bench spokespeople at half-past 10 so I will impose a four-minute limit on speeches. That gives very little scope for interventions though it is up to hon. Members whether to take them, but I may have to reduce the time limit.”
“We have gained a considerable amount of time because of disciplined interventions and short speeches. I ask the Minister to ensure that there is a small amount of time at the end for the Member in charge to wind up.”