Sir Desmond Swayne
MP for New Forest West · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Just how confident is the Minister that this was not a cyber-attack? How confident is he of the resilience of the system in the event of such an attack, and how confident is he in the willingness and ability of the Government to retaliate in the event of such an attack, as the best form of deterrence?”
“I join that long list of UK Ministers who have raised, at the very highest level in Israel, the most egregious practices in the west bank, designed specifically to prevent a two-state solution, only for Israeli policy to double down. Accordingly, I congratulate the Secretary of State.”
“I am delighted by the reprieve—the New Forest was to be split, and part of it swallowed by Southampton. Will the Secretary of State accept my representation that we want the integrity of the New Forest to remain, and the last thing we want is for it all to be swallowed by Southampton?”
“To address one of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, that takes account of the fact that there may be different levels of need in different areas.”
“Yes, essentially today we are putting these services on a statutory footing. Of course subsequent Governments can change statutes, but this Bill makes it an explicit decision of this House and Parliament, rather than a fiat by Government decision.”
“I will address exactly that point shortly. If a child is not developing properly and is not sleeping, feeding or communicating, parents need to know that they have somewhere to turn.”
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“It is no good to say, “Well, every other jurisdiction in the world is following basically the same policy”. That would strike me as herd stupidity. Speaking of herds, I understand that a number of Ministers have questioned the existence of herd immunity, which is odd, given that a successful vaccine programme relies on herd immunity and that is the basket in which the Government have placed all their eggs. We can throw into this mix the fact that we appear determined to claim every possible death as a covid death, as though we were in some sort of international league and competition; the failure to be absolutely up front on the limitations of the PCR—polymerase chain reaction—test as a means of tracking the disease; and the way we use large numbers to terrify people.”
“If we were to ask a scientist, “How do you stop a virus that spreads through human contact?”, we should not be surprised if he answered by telling us that we must stop human contact as far as is possible. It falls to us, however, to decide whether the price is worth paying in terms of the misery and unemployment it generates. We are talking about a generation marred in their life chances; and mind-boggling borrowing that we will have to pay off over years, which will diminish proper investment in public services and industry. All that, and for what? The Secretary of State has told us this week that the average number of deaths is consistent with the long-term average for this time of year. Some 1,600 people die every day, but covid is by no means chief among their killers.”
“Can we have a debate on censorship? Then we would be able to discuss the sinister disappearance of the link from Google to the Great Barrington declaration, wouldn’t we?”
“What advantage is there to be had from accommodating non-intubated covid cases in Nightingale hospitals, and if there is an advantage what additional facilities would need to be provided?”
“What does the Prime Minister make of the special envoy’s statement that “We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus”?”
“On Tuesday, instead of Ministers filling the time with newspeak designed to obscure the blindingly obvious, will the Leader of the House ensure that they focus rigorously on the key question—namely, if lockdown measures are the answer, why are they not working?”
“Given that the Minister has pleaded simplicity for the rule of six, is it any less simple that the six should exclude children than that it should include them, or do we imagine that our constituents are stupid?”
“The question was asked and the answer was that it was for simplicity. It was not a question of evidence: the answer was that it was simpler to include children. Given that there is no evidence, will the hon. Gentleman reassess his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker)?”
“If the effort against covid is a war, then the first principles are the selection and maintenance of the aim. In March, the aim was to flatten the curve and protect the NHS. Has it changed?”
“A national curfew in the New Forest is rather unfair, given our very low infection rate. Restaurateurs and landlords have invested a great deal in covid-secure measures and reduced capacity, and the loss of the extra hour reduces throughput, particularly for those that want a second sitting for dinner to come through, because it makes it very uneconomic. Will the Secretary of State consider the possibility of devolving the power to impose curfew locally, even to particular establishments, which would provide landlords with a powerful incentive to ensure that their patrons behave sensibly and properly?”
“Does the Leader of the House agree that, were the Prime Minister minded to answer the letter sent to him on 21 September by Professor Gupta and other eminent scientists, questioning the selection and maintenance of the aim regarding the Government’s policy in respect of covid-19, he should do so by making a written statement to the House?”
“I am glad that the consensus in the scientific community is broken and the critics are speaking out. I do not underestimate for one moment the horrible nature of this disease and its post-viral syndrome, but in terms of the United Kingdom’s killers, it is 24th in the league, accounting for only 1.4% of deaths. As a consequence, I believe the Government’s policy has been disproportionate. By decree, they have interfered in our private and family lives, telling us whom we may meet, when we may meet them and what we must wear when we meet them. We have the cruelty of elderly people in care homes being disoriented, unable to see the faces of their loved ones or to receive a hug. We have the tsunami of deaths that we may experience shortly as a consequence of undiagnosed cancers and heart disease, and the discontinuation of clinical trials.”
“Not on one day since March have there been infections on a day that were double that of the same day of the week preceding—not once. Where did this doubling come from? What was their purpose in presenting such a graph? It was the purpose of the fat boy in “The Pickwick Papers”: “I wants to make your flesh creep.” It was “project fear”. It was an attempt to terrify the British people, as if they had not been terrified enough. I have been banging on about this since March, and with every criticism I have made, I have been told that the Government were relying on the best possible science. So I was delighted by the letter send one week ago today and containing the nuanced criticism of Professors Heneghan, Gupta and Sikora. I believe that the Government now have to answer that criticism.”
“Less than a year ago, I celebrated what I thought was the election of a sceptical and liberal Conservative Administration. Now, I am left wondering if the Prime Minister has not been abducted by Dr Strangelove and reprogrammed by SAGE over to the dark side. The purpose of politicians is to impose a sense of proportion on science and not to be in thrall to it. I will make myself very unpopular, but I believe that the appearance of the chiefs last week should have been a sacking offence. When they presented that graph, it was with the caveat that it was not a prediction, but nevertheless it was clear that they presented it as a plausible scenario, with its 50,000 cases per day by mid-October based on the doubling of infections by the week.”
“I say most gently to the Minister that the last time an Administration sought to restrain celebrations at Christmas was during the Commonwealth, when the Lord Protector was left musing in public whether, if he were to arm one in 10, that would be enough. How many marshals will be required? I conclude by saying that the policy of the Government has been disproportionate in response to this threat. There may be a virus one day that threatens our very way of life, but this is not it, even if we are behaving as if it were.”
“I deduce that it was much more proportionate. All sorts of criticisms are levelled against the Swedish Government that, on examination of the data and comparing like for like, are without foundation. I certainly hold up the Swedish model as an alternative. We have seen the eye-watering costs that we must now all face for a generation, having closed down our economy for all those months as a consequence of the Government’s policy. We face the crushing of enterprises, the destruction of livelihoods, and unemployment among young people, all as a consequence of an overreaction. I understand that there is now some question as to whether students will be allowed to return from university at Christmas.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Some of the orders that we are about to deal with are quite dated, but I assume that they have been debated in a Committee upstairs. They touch on very intimate parts of our liberty and our choice. Is there any protocol on the circumstances in which they could be debated on the Floor of the House, rather than upstairs in a Committee stitched up by the Committee of Selection?”
“Some 1.4% of those 275,000 people who travelled and queued were positive. Will not even a modest number of false positives mislead us? Is the Office for National Statistics survey any less prone to false positives?”
“I hope my right hon. and learned Friend keeps his balance, but will he address eye-watering costs such as the £456,000 clocked up by Andrew Harper’s killers? That cannot be right, can it?”
“To what extent is there a possibility that it is the exponential increase in testing itself, in identifying genuine new cases, and the very significant possibility of false positives, that is giving a distorted impression of the trajectory of the disease?”
“Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance as to how those of us who sought to record our opposition to this motion as a matter of public record—because of the large number of people who have made representations to us—might actually record the fact that we opposed this motion?”
“It has seen its infractions of the World Trade Organisation. It has seen what it has done over the European convention on human rights, and it knows what is going on. There are those who have said that there is somehow a comparison to be made between the powers that we envisage in this Bill and what China is doing in Hong Kong. That is such a grotesque comparison as to undermine any argument that they might have.”
“I put it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that breaking up the economic integrity of the United Kingdom is just such a circumstance. This Bill is a precaution. It is a deterrent. The best way to prevent ourselves from being in the position of needing these powers is to arm ourselves with them. There is a principle in international law, which is that no country can be bound by an obligation that it made when that obligation is interpreted in such a way as to undermine the very integrity of that country. That is a principle of international law, and there is only one court that can arbitrate in those circumstances. That is the court of international opinion, and the world can see exactly what is going on. The world has had its own dealings with the European Union and its negotiations.”
“The Prime Minister has warned us that a threat has been made to interpret the agreement in such a way as to exclude the possibility of the people of Northern Ireland having access to goods from the rest of the United Kingdom—a threat that clearly shows that those who have made it have abandoned any notion of their binding obligation to negotiate in good faith and make best endeavours to secure an agreement. The Government would be utterly negligent if they were not to take precautions to prevent that from arising; it would be outrageous. The Chairman of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), has said that the powers that the Government envisage arming themselves with should be used in only the most extreme circumstances.”
“Notwithstanding the statement that will follow, may we have a debate on the Government’s orders, which will marshal us in our streets and have a profound impact on family and social life? Will the Minister hang his head in shame that such orders can be made in a democracy without even a debate in a free Parliament?”
“Is there no scintilla of doubt in my right hon. Friend’s mind, occasioned by the growing body of scientific opinion that questions the interpretation of the data and concludes that the policies of Governments—I use the plural—are having an impact worse than the disease itself?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Had the Secretary of State for Health given notice of the Government’s intention to further restrict our liberty to meet one another in his statement yesterday, at least some of us would have been able to question him about it. What remedy is there for those of us who enthusiastically support the Prime Minister, but nevertheless want to restrain the Government’s ability to govern by order without debate?”
“For the avoidance of any doubt, is it the case that if the EU negotiators, including those on the Joint Committee, are prepared to move forward to implement the existing agreement in a workable way, these provisions will not be necessary?”
“Aid is all about jobs, so will the Secretary of State maintain a rigorous focus on economic development in the world’s poorest countries? Otherwise, there will be ever more small boats crossing the channel.”
“I apologise for contributing from the Opposition Benches, but there is no room anywhere else. Does my hon. Friend believe that the measures we are taking are proportionate, given that in the last two weeks of July five times more people died of seasonal flu, outside the season, than of covid-19? When we had Hong Kong flu, it carried off 80,000 people. Did we behave in this ridiculous way?”
“With the greatest respect, that is an argument against the effectiveness of testing in any form, anywhere. Either we are going to accept the testing regime and live accordingly, or we are completely lost.”
“Nothing would make me less likely to go shopping than the thought of having to mask up. Was there consultation with the police force, and particularly the chief constable of Hampshire? For it is she who will have to enforce this monstrous imposition against me and a number of outraged and reluctant constituents.”
“After that package and that performance, the only reasonable thing I can say to my right hon. Friend is, “Remember, O Caesar, you are mortal.” However, it would be a great shame if the effectiveness of his measures were to be undermined in the New Forest, with the loss of at least £16 million to local traders, by the company to whom the Forestry Commission handed a monopoly refusing to open its campsites. Will he summon Forestry England, threaten it with the rough end of a pineapple and instruct it to use its position on the board and its substantial shareholding to get those campsites open?”
“Has the Minister listened to “The Archers” recently? It is suicidal. Will she reflect on the fact that the majority of us are more likely to die by our own hand than we are from the virus?”
“You would think that nothing had changed since the fall of Thomas Cromwell. Has my right hon. Friend read Hilary Mantel’s “The Mirror and the Light”? It is not really like that, is it?”
“I used to enjoy a hymn sandwich before this interdict, but I have broken the habit. How is my hon. Friend going to lure us back if we are not allowed to sing? May I suggest, as a minimum, shorter services, even shorter sermons, some comfortable words from the Book of Common Prayer and an end to prating prelates?”
“I would have sung a “Te Deum” after the Prime Minister’s statement on Wednesday, but for the fact that singing remains forbidden. Now that we have seen the full extent of the exemptions list and some of the guidance, will the Leader of the House allow us to get some of the frustration off our chests by debating it next week?”
“Will the Prime Minister cause his experts to be worked night and day until they find the fix and, when they have got it, to straight away allow spas and nail bars to reopen? And when there are flare-ups, will he eschew the temptation to return to collective punishment?”
“That is very reassuring. Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that of those scandals that have driven the readers of the Daily Mail into a state of apoplexy over the past decade, 99% of them, I will wager, were administered not by the Department for International Development, but by other Departments? Will he ensure that this reorganisation is a genuine merger and not a hostile takeover?”
“Nevertheless, that is the agenda the Minister must be so careful about, because it undermines, so entirely unfortunately and unjustifiably, the whole international development pitch. We are doing a great job. It is something about which we should be proud. We should not let it be undermined by those niggles.”
“However, I chaired a committee that met monthly where we discussed things and there would be requests for them not to be published. Overwhelmingly, those requests came from ambassadors in Africa who did not want relatively small amounts of money, which had been rather embarrassingly misspent, to be revealed. That was the cashpoint in the sky. As I say, they were relatively small amounts of money, but nevertheless that is where the danger lies. We all understand realpolitik. There will be times when we want to oil the wheels of diplomacy by perhaps pushing money towards some pet project—although I will never understand how or why we sponsored a one-armed juggler in the Lebanon.”
“This brief, concentrating on economic development, and particularly infrastructure that promotes the ability of African countries to trade with one another and so generate livelihoods, has to be our focus when the world is in desperate need of jobs to address the growing generation of unemployed and underemployed peoples in sub-Saharan Africa. We know that if we do not provide those livelihoods for them, they will be seeking livelihoods elsewhere, driving this wave of migration. It is the most important brief. If I may caution the Minister, he may not recall it but I chaired a committee that met monthly. He will know that DFID has an international reputation for transparency. Everything it spends is arrayed for view and scrutiny on its website.”
“I find that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) has eaten my sandwiches, so I shall be more brief than I intended. I am greatly reassured that my hon. Friend the Minister is in charge of this brief. He will recall that we worked on it together when he was Minister for Africa and I was responsible for the economic development portfolio in DFID. In those halcyon days when travel was permitted, we would cross paths at airports in Africa. As a fellow former regime loyalist, I congratulate him on his survival skills and, indeed, his resurrection. He will recall that I was not so fortunate, but then, to coin a phrase, one might say that I had it coming. This is the most important agenda.”
“From the very beginning, clinicians in every developed country in the world have thrown the entire contents of the medical cabinet at this disease in the hope of finding something that works. To what does the Health Secretary attribute the success that he has reported today?”
“So long as the kingdom and this House resemble a stunt by the “Nineteen Eighty-Four” junior anti-sex league, the recovery necessary to sustain the Prime Minister’s global ambition, and indeed the £15 billion of international development aid, will evade us; surely a yard is more than enough?”
“Will the Leader of the House introduce a measure next week which will efface all remaining trace that there was a Roman civilisation on this island?”
“The difficulty I have is this: by making divorce more straightforward and easier, it becomes the first resort, rather than the last. It becomes the easy and quicker way out, vastly reducing the potential for counselling and reconciliation. We should remember that divorce is the swiftest route to poverty. Of the people who might come through the door during one of my morning surgeries, if you scratch the surface of their problem—whether the problem presents as debt, housing, education or access to children—nine times out of 10, divorce and family breakdown are the root cause. And the easier we make divorce, the more we shall have of it.”
“The law should have majesty; it should be awesome. May I ask the Secretary of State to resist this fetish for translating everything into newspeak? There is fault in divorce. We all know that. It is a question not just of unreasonable behaviour, but of abominable, disgraceful and outrageous behaviour. But I accept the principle of the Bill—namely, that by trying to attribute fault, we vastly magnify the bitterness and unpleasantness of the conflict that divorce creates. We have all experienced in our surgeries those parents who continue to use their children as weapons in prosecuting a continuing war against their former partners. The removal of fault will not remove that entirely, but I am confident that it will certainly diminish it. My problem with the Bill is with respect to the streamlining and potential shortening of the process.”
“The regional dental hubs offer little more than extractions —but I want to keep my teeth. When will dentists be able to treat their own patients?”
“Again, I am not qualified to judge its robustness. What I can say as a layman, however, is that he has form. In the past, he has predicted the most blood-curdling of death tolls, which never materialised. There is no question but that the lockdown has inflicted significant additional damage to that which the pandemic has done to our economy. It will be costly and lasting. Whether or not it was done on the best advice, there is no question but that it was done for the best of motives—the motive of saving life—but the diminution of economic activity and employment itself takes a very heavy toll on life.”