Nick Timothy
MP for West Suffolk · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I was nine years old at the time of the Hillsborough tragedy, and I remember listening to the news of the terrible events on the radio, sitting behind my parents in the car.”
“I think the hon. Lady, whether it is by design or by mistake, misunderstands my point. Of course, there should be accountability and transparency, and there are many ways in which we can do that, but there are ways of doing it that do not jeopardise the operations of the most sensitive organisations in the country by revealing their sourc…”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Prime Minister said this was going to be one of his first acts as Prime Minister; it turns out it is going to be his final act as Prime Minister.”
“They have known grief and suffering none of us would ever wish to experience. This is not a debate about the need for transparency. I am proud to have played a modest part in bringing that about when I worked in the Home Office. Nor is this a debate about the need for accountability.”
“I am confused by that intervention from the hon. Lady, who was the Minister in charge of this Bill. The argument I am making is consistent with the position she brought to the House in January, only to back down when it became controversial.”
“I am tempted to say that the hon. Lady should have a conversation with the Attorney General, who used to prosecute British soldiers and was still appointed to one of the highest offices in the land.”
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“I am entertained by the idea that special advisers are so important that they might be able to control outcomes such as this. If the hon. Member thinks that is the case, he might ask the Minister to invite one of the Home Office’s special advisers to take part in parliamentary debates.”
“Anyway, the questions related not to overall levels of net migration from particular countries and so on, but to things such as the nationality and immigration status of criminals and imprisoned criminals, or people living in social housing or in receipt of benefits. We do not have any information on that, and if we are compared to some European countries such as Denmark or the Netherlands, a study from which shows that the average asylum migrant costs something like £400,000 net over their lifetimes, we are nowhere. Can the Minister give us a quick answer on that?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way and I appreciate that she has been given a hospital pass by the immigration Minister, who really ought to be the person here, but last time she was, she did not give a very good account of herself, and has been avoiding writing letters or giving any of the numbers that the Opposition have been asking for. The statement—which was obviously pre-prepared, and I understand how these things work—does not address any of the questions that I raised in my speech. It is not true that we are world leaders in the collection of statistics that relate to immigration.”
“On schools’ ability to deliver, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater asked the hon. Gentleman a moment ago to acknowledge the significant rise in the performance of English schools in the PISA rankings and other international comparative studies. Will he clearly say whether he acknowledges or denies that rise?”
“Does the hon. Lady accept that it is not just the PISA rankings that show great advances in achievement in English schools, but the TIMSS—trends in international mathematics and science study—report published last week? That report said exactly the same thing: English schools are ahead of any comparable western country.”
“I will avoid the temptation to start to read out the PISA statistics. It is important that the Bill that is published today is seen alongside this Bill, because together they chip away quite substantially at the academy freedoms that have been behind school reform. It would be good to hear the Minister acknowledge that fact.”
“So the amendment is all about seeking to protect the academy freedoms behind the success of the school reforms of which the Conservatives are rightly proud. According to the programme for international student assessment—or PISA—rankings, English primary school- children are the best readers in the west. On 15-year- olds, they say that schools in England are 11th in the world in maths, up from 27th in 2009; 13th in science, up from 16th; and 13th in reading, up from 25th. That is an unqualified success story. Yet I am afraid the Education Secretary and Ministers in the current Government repeatedly claimed that standards fell under the Conservatives.”
“I should warn the Committee that I have a frog in my throat and a bit of a cough, but I think it is known that I used to work for the former Prime Minister, Baroness May, and I have seen how to get through a speech with a cough. The amendment is important because it seeks to protect one of the academy freedoms that have made English schools the best in the west. I say English and not British schools advisedly, because education is devolved and, in Scotland and Wales, standards have gone not forward but backward. In Wales, the average pupil reaches about the same level of attainment as the average disadvantaged pupil in England, yet it is the Welsh model that the Government seem to be intent to follow.”
“The reason that school reform has worked over this time is not just because of particular measures about things such as the promotion of a knowledge-rich curriculum, or didactic teacher-led instruction, or anything like that. Those are the means by which lots of schools have chosen to use their academy freedoms in order to improve standards—”
“If we look at the list of academy freedoms—whether in respect of the terms and conditions that schools are able to employ staff on, the relationship with councils and how admissions are decided, or the policy of having to respond to school failure through academisation—we see that they are all being picked away at, partly through this Bill and partly through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which we discussed briefly earlier and is being introduced today. While that Bill has not been published, as the Minister corrected me earlier, there is a description on gov.uk of the measures in that Bill, and it is quite clearly a reversal of policy when it comes to academisation.”
“I am doing my best to remain in scope, Ms Vaz. If I may say so, the hon. Member asks a characteristically precise and intelligent question. I suggest that members of the Labour party who want to move away from academy freedoms look first at what Labour figures such as Tony Blair and Lord Adonis say about why those freedoms matter. It is a bit like with the Bill overall: just because some employers choose to hit certain standards, that does not necessarily mean that those standards must then be imposed in a uniform manner through legislation. The point about academy freedoms is that, a little like labour market flexibilities, they are cumulative.”
“I am very disappointed as well that, through measures such as this, the Government are watering down the academy freedoms that have done so much to make our schools the best in the world.”
“It is also the case that the progress data that the Government have published demonstrates that the best schools in the country have benefited from exactly those kinds of freedoms. The best school in the country, looking at performance data, is Michaela, which is a free school. Free schools and academies far outperform normal maintained schools when it comes to that data, and that is because of the freedoms that we are talking about trying to defend through our amendment. I know that this is a debate for another time, but I am very disappointed that the Government have cancelled the next wave of free schools, that they have weakened things such as Ofsted and its inspection framework, and that they want to water down discipline policies and so on.”
“It is the case that free school and academy founders have been in the vanguard of reform, precisely because they have been able to use their freedoms from local council control—freedoms to develop the curriculum in their own way, to set things such as the school day and term dates, and to decide the pay and conditions for their staff themselves. We can see that in the data that is published: it is not just about things such the PISA rankings; it is also about things such as the trends in international mathematics and science study, an international comparative study, which was published a couple of weeks ago and showed that, despite the pandemic, English schools have actually improved and have outperformed almost all western countries.”
“Perhaps we could, but I am trying to make the argument that, in the end, when we are talking about employment in the public sector—when we are talking about terms and conditions and things like that—yes, these things are obviously of huge importance to the employees themselves, but they are also important regarding the way in which employers set themselves up. The purpose of a school is obviously to educate our children, and the ultimate objective is to drive up those academic standards. That is the context in which we are discussing these particular academy freedoms and what this Bill therefore does.”
“I reassure my hon. Friend that the danger he is talking about is not just hypothetical. Special advisers in the Department for Education have briefed the newspapers, calling free schools a “Tory vanity project”. I find that absolutely appalling, as somebody who believes—”
“Yes, and free schools have the academy freedoms that we are talking about undermining with this and other legislation. I just wanted to draw that example to my hon. Friend’s attention.”
“Thirdly, new infrastructure should arrive in advance of expansion; residents should not have to wait years for the benefit. Fourthly, we need to build communities, not just “units”, which is the dreadful word used too often by council offices. We need communities that build a neighbourly spirit and encourage trust—not antisocial behaviour and crime. The quality of the housing needs to be much better than some of what has been thrown up in recent years. There should be no more building on floodplains, and we need proper accountability, so that when developers do not do what they promise, there are proper consequences for them.”
“There are similar issues in communities such as Kentford and Red Lodge, where residents are worried about the growing volume of traffic because of the number of houses that have been built nearby in recent years. In Haverhill, residents have felt let down because the relief road that was promised with the large development that was constructed over the past few years is still not open to use. I will quickly make a few points in principle. First, we need new homes in this country. My points are not about nimbyism, but about ensuring that homes are sensible and in the right places. We should be building for families, not just transient tenants. Secondly, developers should be required to contribute more to the communities that they profit from building in.”
“Most of the residents I speak to support the need for new, attractive family homes in the right places. Recently, I had a very constructive meeting with small developers in West Suffolk who are keen to grow their market share, and who often provide homes that are more attractive and sensitive to the community than some of the bigger companies. That is part of a new approach that I would like to see, but a new approach should go wider than that. I want to cite some examples of the experience in my constituency. In Mildenhall there is a proposed development of more than 1,000 new homes to the west of the town. We are going to need a relief road there to help manage the extra traffic that will inevitably follow the development.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) on securing this debate. I echo his comments, especially on early consultation and problems with maintenance companies. In West Suffolk the population has increased by 5.3% over the last decade. The population of Haverhill, the biggest town, has nearly doubled over the past three decades, and the size of Newmarket has grown by 50%. Some of the developments have been contentious but, on the whole, people are not opposed to new house building in West Suffolk. We have had around 3,000 new homes built in just the last five years, and one of the things that our whole area has in common is the relationship with the economic geography of Cambridge, which is obviously only going to develop in the decades ahead.”
“We are sent here not to consider anecdotes and individual case studies, but to consider legal frameworks and systems. If the hon. Gentleman wants to remove some of the systemic barriers to house building, which regulations—particularly pertaining to the environment and biodiversity—might he be interested in seeing removed?”
“The Home Secretary has not answered very many questions today, so can she answer this very clear question: which metric should we use, and by which date, to allow us to judge whether the Government have succeeded in smashing the gangs?”
“Gareth Roberts, who sometimes writes for The Spectator , was writing about a third party who had, in turn, written about issues relating to gender, and referred to them as “a man who claims to be a woman”. That person then complained to IPSO, which ruled that it was not wrong as a statement of fact, but still upheld the complaint on account of its being a prejudicial or pejorative reference to that person. I do not think that that is the kind of thing that was ever intended when IPSO was created, but it is the type of example that we may be talking about right now. I would love to know what my hon. Friend thinks about that.”
“I should probably make reference to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am an unpaid trustee at the Index on Censorship, which may be relevant to this debate. I do not think anybody here is a free speech absolutist. My hon. Friend is trying to test scenarios, but he is in no way talking about issues such as incitement of hatred, which are already criminal matters. We are talking about the codification of things that may be subjective in the light of the law of unintended consequences. To bring some colour to the conversation, I thought I would make reference to a recent Independent Press Standards Organisation ruling. I cannot imagine that that was ever the kind of ruling that was intended at the time that IPSO was created.”
“It has just been drawn to my attention that the Health Secretary is the subject of an official complaint to the Labour party for his jokes about the former Transport Secretary at The Spectator party last week because his comments were considered “bullying and uncomradely” according to the complaint. That may be another example of this kind of subjective test.”
“I have absolutely no intention of correcting the record, because the record will be correct. I think the hon. Member misunderstands my point, which was not to say that in that case the conduct was an example of harassment; I am fully aware that the IPSO ruling said that it was not harassment. My point was about the laws of unintended consequences. When IPSO was established, I do not think anybody thought that there would be cases such as this, where a journalist would be penalised by IPSO for saying something that IPSO acknowledges was a statement of fact on the grounds that it may be offensive.”
“T8. One in 50 Albanians in Britain is in jail, and foreign nationals such as Jamaicans, Iraqis and Somalis are also disproportionately likely to be criminals. We need better data to inform immigration, asylum and criminal justice policies. Will the Government publish the nationality, visa and asylum status of all offenders in prison—if yes, can we have a timeline, and if not, can we have a good reason why not?”
“I assure the Education Secretary that we are very positive about schooling in this country. I am sure that she will want to thank all school leaders for their work to help English schools to soar up the rankings for the programme for international student assessment and programme for international student assessment rankings—PISA and TIMMS—but will she join me in sending personal congratulations to Katharine Birbalsingh, whose approach to discipline, the curriculum and teacher-led instruction makes her school Michaela the best in the country?”
“What has been striking about the debate so far is the extent of cross-party consensus on this matter. My worry is that the Bill contains a set of proposals that we might be supporting because they are something that we deem possible to do, whereas we may be neglecting some things that are harder to do. In the inquiry into the bombing, several aspects of the story were very concerning, from the way the asylum system worked through to the Prevent programme. While 90% of MI5’s counter-terrorism casework is Islamist, the latest data shows that the number of Prevent referrals for young people suspected of Islamist radicalisation has fallen from 3,706 in 2016-17 to only 781 in 2022-23. As a former police officer, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we have to do something to ensure that Prevent is properly targeted at the real threats we face?”
“Given the number of people who come here illegally and across the channel, whom we have no ability to investigate and on whom we cannot make checks, how does the hon. Gentleman think we might reform the asylum system to prevent such things from happening again?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent speech about the “protect” element of the counter-terrorism strategy. It is clear from the Manchester attack inquiry report that the asylum system is a big part of the story. Salman Abedi and his brother Hashem—who planned the attack and prepared the explosives, and was as guilty of the attack as Salman—were born in Britain to Libyan asylum seeker parents. Their father, Ramadan Abedi, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamist militia. He was granted asylum in this country, but travelled back and forth between Britain and Libya throughout that time, which is a story that we often hear about people who are granted asylum here.”
“On the point about process: at the point at which the Bill came before the House for a Second Reading, how many of its clauses were already subject to revision within the Department?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for the universalism, or near-universalism, of employment rights and presumably, within that, trade union rights. The power to withdraw one’s labour is a very important part of modern employment practice. We are talking about the three security and intelligence agencies listed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, but I want to give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to give his view about the universalism of these rights, including the right of the police, for example, to join a union and to strike.”
“I would be grateful if the Minister could explain what conversations she has had with MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to understand whether, given their unusual, specific, specialist operations, there are any circumstances that might go beyond those already set out.”
“I think the answer to the question must be no. That may be fair enough, but can the Minister tell us whether she has had any conversations with her opposite numbers in the Home Office, which sponsors MI5, or the Foreign Office, which sponsors GCHQ and MI6?”
“On the cumulative effect of the pressures that are building on business, during our evidence sessions last week with various witnesses, the compelling point was made that we should not look at the Bill in isolation. The impact assessment states that the costs are a minimum £5 billion a year for business. Some witnesses thought that that was actually an underestimate, and that the true figure will be higher and will grow when more details emerge as we go through this process. We should also look at the Bill alongside decisions such as the equalisation of the national living wage for young people, the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions and other business taxes that were in the Budget. I thought my hon. Friend might want to say something about the cumulative effects of all those decisions.”
“I want to add a couple of thoughts, not so much about the principle of the amendments, but about what they say about the process. I note what the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield said about the history and about the Law Commission having made its proposals in 2020. That rather adds to our confusion about why the amendments are being introduced in Committee and why they were not part of the Bill on Second Reading. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us a little about the preparation of the Bill and what his officials said at the time of Second Reading about how many more amendments would be necessary in Committee and about its readiness. Will he also tell us more about the precise impact of the amendments, and what they mean for the Bill’s impact assessment?”
“I am sorry to test everyone’s patience. We have heard at different points during the proceedings that “Good employers do this already.” Undoubtedly, that is true, and where employers want to be able to offer certainty, they will. The full quote the Minister just read was “by and large”, because employers cannot do that in all circumstances, even those that set themselves up to be that thoughtful. Does the Minister recognise that where businesses do not do the things in the Bill, it is not necessarily because they are bad employers? Obviously, some employers may be bad. If he recognises that, does he therefore recognise that through standardisation and an increase in things such as compliance costs, the Bill is, in a cumulative sense, adding costs to businesses that are not bad employers?”
“Last week, the Chancellor told the CBI conference that she would not come back “with more borrowing or more taxes”. Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister hung her out to dry and refused to repeat those words. Will she repeat them today and rule out any more borrowing or any more taxes—yes or no?”
“I would have to leave that to them. Michael Lorimer: I did think, Nick, that we could have met in the endangered species part of the Natural History Museum, as business leaders.”
“Take time and do not rush it through for the sake of meeting a timescale. Take time and speak to business. Go out to the country and speak to small and medium-sized businesses and employer groups. A lot of this stuff is not controversial. It is tick-box and—to go back to the first question—it is reinforcing a lot of stuff we do in the business anyway. We have 600 employees; at the minute I think we have three people in total on long-term sick, so we do not have a lot of problems. We have an engaged workforce and we are delighted to pay people well, at above the national living wage. All that stuff is about us trying not only to help our people to prosper, but to help our customers and the Banbury community to prosper. All this feels quite counterproductive and could have a lot of unforeseen consequences.”
“They need to get real about how prosperous economies are actually created. Michael Lorimer: If I were speaking to him, I would say, “Listen well to those who matter most.” To go back to the White Paper, you simply cannot create jobs without the private sector on board. You can listen to all sorts of people who will give you incredibly important stakeholder advice, but if you want to create jobs and grow the economy, the business community has to be on board. If we want to create prosperity, the private sector is where it is going to happen. I would say, “Listen well to those who matter most.” Secondly, I would say, “Take your time and consult widely on this.” I feel that at the minute the consultation is not wide enough. We are here today: there are two of us speaking, broadly on the same message.”
“We have large amounts of debt, certainly at Government levels. We have public spending projected to take, I think, 45% of GDP—a very high level compared with 10 years ago—and that crowds out the private sector. Interest rates, especially if you have to borrow from the bank, are pretty punitive. As for the idea that we can continue to occupy the role in the world that we used to occupy decades ago, it is a dramatically more competitive place. There are dozens and dozens more countries where money can be invested, factories can be sited and jobs can be created. Many of them are much lower-cost than we are. They might argue that they have a hungrier workforce, or whatever it may be. No country has ever taxed and regulated its way to a higher standard of living. It feels as if that is what this Government are about.”
“Q Indeed. With not just the Bill, but the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions and things like the equalisation of the national living wage for young people—you also mentioned energy prices, Mr Johnson, which are a particular concern of mine—you sound very worried about the future of innovation, investment and ultimately jobs in this country. You have a platform today to send a message to the Prime Minister and all the Ministers who are involved in this legislation. What would that message be? Luke Johnson: I think there is a complacency about our current prosperity. There is this belief that jobs will always appear, that businesses will always invest and that living standards will naturally rise. It sometimes feels as if Britain is a nation running on fumes at the moment.”
“Q Do you personally want to see increased unionisation in Britain, and do you hope and/or expect that the Bill will deliver it? Justin Madders: I think that is actually a challenge for the trade union movement. I think that they would accept that this is really up to them. Personally, as a trade union member and someone who has been actively involved in the trade union movement for many years, I see the absolute advantages and benefits of being a trade union member, but it is really up to them to get into the workplaces, explain their advantages to the workforce and then engage on a tripartite basis with Government, business and workers to improve everyone’s working lives.”
“Q Thank you. Can you name a CEO of a real business—not a representative body—employing more than, say, 100 people who would say that this Bill is unambiguously good for the economy? How many of them do you think there are? Justin Madders: I would imagine that there are quite a few.”
“Can you name some? Justin Madders: I cannot name individual CEOs. Octopus has been very positive, Sainsbury’s has been very positive and, as we heard today, the Co-op has been very positive. I think the CBI welcomed the Bill and welcomed the engagement as well, and Make UK too. There are quite a lot of organisations on the employer side that are generally welcoming of the intentions of the Bill, and I think that has been reflected in the evidence.”
“Q But the only real businesspeople who have been here have been unambiguously against it. Justin Madders: I think you will find that the Co-op is a real business, and it employs an awful lot of people.”
“Mr Speaker, I am not sure if it is in order to raise the travesty of the refereeing decision last night in the Aston Villa-Juventus match, but I thought I would give it a try. The Secretary of State has been warm about the horseracing industry, and I am grateful for that; it is a vital part of the economy in West Suffolk and nationwide. I have previously raised with her and her ministerial team the need to reform the betting levy and affordability checks. I would be grateful for an update on the timeline for any action on that.”