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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“On the whole, Governments do not do things well, so will my right hon. and learned Friend persuade the new chief of staff to concentrate the Government’s efforts on doing fewer things a bit better?”
“I cycle for 10 hours a week, and on a narrow forest road I always cycle close to the kerb, because I am a driver too and I want to accommodate drivers. The advice in the new code that I should cycle in the centre of the carriageway is bonkers, isn’t it?”
“T5. Were the brilliant bus recovery grant to end, at current passenger number levels, I could lose half of my services. Will the Secretary of State consider extending but tapering it, so that more services have a chance to recover passenger numbers to economic viability?”
“The Secretary of State highlighted that the prices were once too high. Now we have had multiple complaints that the prices are too low. Clearly, the question of valuation is at the heart of the matter, so why did the Government explicitly exclude valuation from the scope of the consultation that preceded the Bill?”
“The hon. Lady is no Stalinist. Given that the underlying principle of part 2 of the Bill is the Stalinist principle that property is theft, will she be opposing it on Second Reading?”
“The hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) intimated that people would want to take their land back as a consequence of the changes. I hope that she has identified that that is not possible. People will not get their land back unless they are going to develop it, and even then, they would have to go to court to get it.”
“Small farms, churches and small sports clubs used to have an income, but it has now crashed and they have all the uncertainty and inconvenience of continuing to host a mast. As I pointed out in an intervention on the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), there is no prospect of getting their land back without court action and development.”
“The Secretary of State presented the matter as if the problem were the landowners—as if we have to find ways of getting landowners to become more reasonable. When I had a meeting with the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure, she reassured me with the alternative dispute resolution process, which we have heard about from the Secretary of State today. The problem with that procedure is that it is not mandatory. The telecom companies know that they do not need to engage with it, because they can afford to go to court and their victims cannot. That is the difficulty—that is the outrage that we have created. It is no wonder that the whole roll-out has stalled and that no one wants to give access for a mast, because the income is not worth it and the consequences are frankly deplorable.”
“Then, when she refused the terms of the mast, she was presented with statutory orders requiring access for both a temporary and a permanent mast. Of course, getting legal advice comes at an enormous cost. Happily, New Forest national park authority has thrown out the applications for both masts, but the battle, the uncertainty and the cost continue. I have a group of constituents in a block who have let their collective roof for an antenna over the past few years and received an income, but have now received a demand with menace for a dramatic reduction in the income. They are having to deal with a demand for a 30-year lease of their entire roof. It is really quite extraordinary how the terms of trade have been rigged against landowners.”
“I have been asked to vote for some pretty awful stuff over the past couple of years, but this has to be the most profoundly un-Conservative measure. It will compound the damage that was done to rights of property in 2017, and the proposal to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 will extend that damage to other walks of our national life, fundamentally undermining our position as a stable and predictable place in which to invest. The digital roll-out has been stymied by changes that have brought about the very reverse of what was originally intended with the changes to the code in 2017. As a consequence, our constituents have been intimidated and bullied. I have a constituent who refused a survey—she did not want a mast, because it would compromise her existing enterprise—but caved in when she was threatened with court action.”
“Of course, and these are the very people—the hearts of our community—who are now identified as the villains whom the Bill creates more power to bring to heel. It is the most monstrous piece of legislation that has been brought before us, and we should deal with it accordingly. We had a functioning market in 2016, and in 2017 we brought in measures. Whitehall has destroyed that market, egged on by rapacious telecom companies, and this Bill will make it even worse.”
“I am only interested in the lobbying of my constituents who have been so harshly affected. We have heard the stories of the 90% and 95% reductions in income. This has made things very much less expensive for the companies concerned. Where has that money gone? It has certainly not been invested in the programme.”
“Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that for many purchasers it will be in their interests to pay a lower purchase price and pay a ground rent, rather than to have to pay a very much higher price at the outset?”
“It accepts that the practice will have to end, but it asks for one tiny concession, namely that, when the provisions of the Bill bite in March 2023, properties that are part-sold can continue to sell the residual remaining flats or properties on the basis of a continued ground rent. Without that, what we will have is some properties within a development being worth significantly more in terms of the purchase price than others, and some properties paying a ground rent and others not. It will be hugely complicated and divisive. Therefore, the amendment merely asks for that to be addressed. At the most, if the provision were to pass, we anticipate that this would account for about 2,000 properties. I ask the Minister to reflect on this, and, even at this late hour, accept the amendment.”
“I understand that the decision to withdraw the exemption was made almost a year earlier, in February 2020, and that discussions about revoking the assurance of exemption had actually begun in August 2019. Throughout all that period, the industry continued to be reassured that the exemption was good and would hold, and it was not. Throughout that period, the industry continued to raise capital on the basis of the model with which they had been told they could continue. The amendment goes one tiny little bit towards trying to remedy the damage that has been done.”
“I draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am deeply embarrassed about the way that the retirement living industry has been treated over the past few years in the progress to this Bill. In recognition of the significantly greater capital costs of building developments that have communal areas, which have traditionally been funded through an income stream of ground rent, the industry was granted an exemption, or an assurance that it would be exempt from the provisions of the Bill, back in June 2019. That exemption was then withdrawn in January 2021.”
“What was the rationale for granting the exemption in the first place? Surely the Minister recognises that, for many people in the retirement sector, it will be in their financial interest to pay a lower purchase price and have a continual ground rent, rather than to pay a significantly greater capital sum upfront. Individual circumstances will of course differ.”
“May I welcome wholeheartedly the announcements that have been made today? I would ask the Prime Minister to review again the need to sack unvaccinated domiciliary workers and NHS workers, and to examine the evidence that suggests that they pose a risk to their patients. Our belief is that they will not do so any more than the vaccinated.”
“Did Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean not teach us that increased efficiency of interception leads to an increased number of attempted crossings? This policy will have the reverse effect of that intended, won’t it?”
“The question of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) was about whether there was a reassessment of the strategy on the basis of what we know now about omicron that we did not when the strategy was set out. Will the Minister answer that, particularly in respect of the policy of sacking NHS staff who are not vaccinated, given that we know that the rationale has disappeared because it does not stop people from catching it or from infecting others?”
“Is it proportionate to test asymptomatic children, and then, when they are negative, to mask them up anyway? Will my right hon. Friend publish the study to which he referred during his statement about those schools that had lower absences during the autumn?”
“Might the worries of those who are concerned about the increase in quotas over the next 15 years be assuaged somewhat by the fact that existing quotas are largely unused?”
“Let hospitality be just collateral damage—let the industry endure the deluge of cancellations at what should be its most productive time. That is the situation that we have delivered. The Government, having administered this Ministry of fear, are absolutely complicit with their officials and organisations who have designed and delivered it. In doing so, they have abandoned any principle of social democracy or liberal democracy, absolutely beyond anything that we have endured in recent living memory, in the history of this pandemic. As a consequence, having abandoned what might have been their ideology, they are rudderless and so much more at risk of the opinions and predictions of the advisers to whom they are in hock.”
“We decide what our risk appetite is and what we are or are not prepared to encounter. Notwithstanding the carnage on our roads, which is certainly killing more people than covid at the moment, some of us still decide to drive. It is a matter of opinion. It comes down to letting loose the dogs of war—getting the fear factor into it and getting the officials, the members of SAGE, Independent SAGE and SPI-M and all those who speak in their private capacity out there twisting the fear lever. What about the Health Protection Agency? What Stalinist minds thought up that nomenclature? Get them out there, twisting the fear button, and by and large you will get the reaction that you want: people will crave more enforcement and fiercer measures to protect them from the great danger that is out there.”
“On a typical winter’s day, between 200 and 350 people will die of flu. Do we hide behind our masks? Do we lurk at home, working from home? Do we demand that people provide their bona fides before going to a venue? Do we require people to be vaccinated as a condition of keeping their jobs? The question whether the measures before the House today are proportionate comes down to a matter of opinion. Do we take seriously some of the extraordinary extrapolations that we have been given, particularly given the previous record? The fact is that those are things that might take place, and we have to balance them against the known costs and damage to enterprise, economy and society. In the end, it comes down to a matter of opinion—a matter of our prejudice. Typically, we are capable of organising our lives and making those decisions for ourselves.”
“Would it be helpful if there were a greater understanding of the fact that No. 10 is not a house but a front door, behind which there is a suite of modern offices and meeting rooms across three floors? It is perfectly possible to be in the rafters above No. 11 completely isolated from what else is happening in the building.”
“But that is no substitute for face-to-face learning. What can the Ministers say to those parents who are exasperated by their children even now being sent home to begin remote learning?”
“The Government take the constitution seriously, so I put it to the Leader of the House that although we are about to have the opportunity to question the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about his report, a debate in Government time would be helpful because of some aspects of the report. For example, the potential extension of the jurisdiction of an official into what happens in the Lobbies and in Select Committees touches on the principle of the Bill of Rights that no proceeding in Parliament be questioned in any place or court other than Parliament itself. Indeed, the principle of democracy is undermined by the proposal that we may be required to subscribe to behaviours to promote certain attitudes. I hope that my constituents never elect a racist or a misogynist, but they have a right to.”
“Will the Minister deprecate those public appointees who, notwithstanding the clear proportionate advice of the chief scientific adviser, have been on the airwaves telling people that they should not socialise, to the huge detriment of people’s wellbeing and of an industry struggling to recover from earlier lockdowns?”
“We are about to have another pingdemic as we approach Christmas, to the huge disadvantage of enterprises across the country. It fundamentally undermines the other main effort of the Government, which is to increase vaccinations. One of the advantages of being vaccinated is not having to self-isolate if in the company of someone who is infected. If that is taken away, one of the incentives—the principal incentive—to get vaccinated is removed.”
“Over the last few months there has been a useful control experiment on face coverings, given the different policies pursued in Scotland and England. What estimate has the Secretary of State made of the result? It is mumbo-jumbo, isn’t it?”
“That prompts the question of what proposals the Minister may have to enable leaseholders to enforce the purchase of freeholds from such companies. Does he have plans for that?”
“As I do! It would be quite unlawful for the capital cost of the communal areas in a retirement living community to be paid for through an administration charge, so we come back to the question whether it is in the interests of the purchaser to pay a ground rent or to pay the up-front cost in the purchase price. For a category of elderly people, it may well be in their interests to pay the former.”
“My proposal seeks to avoid the confusion and difficulty that would arise with two different types of tenures in the same development. That seems a not unreasonable thing to ask Ministers to consider in Committee and on Report.”
“The industry’s estimate is that some 4,000 apartments will remain unsold in part-sold developments. If someone was to complete on one of those properties on 1 April, they would be paying all the capital costs up front, whereas someone who had completed on 31 March would be expecting to pay a ground rent for the remainder of their tenure. That creates a huge legal confusion and a sense of injustice among the tenants in those properties. So I put a solution to the Minister: a technical amendment to the Bill to enable part-sold developments to continue to sell the unsold properties with a ground rent, provided those properties were built when it was lawful to charge a ground rent. That strikes me as proportionate. We are dealing not with a huge problem or a huge number of properties, but with some 4,000.”
“I have had the nub of my argument with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), but it comes down to this: the retirement living industry’s business model funds the capital requirement for the communal areas through a flow of future ground rents from the outset. The Minister said that he has given the industry time to change its business model. My answer to that is: if there was a problem with an escalating ground rent, it would be perfectly appropriate to have dealt in a measure such as this with that specific problem, rather than telling the industry to change its entire model. Nevertheless, this is where we are. The business model must therefore have changed by 1 April 2023. The difficulty is with the time it takes to sell properties in the retirement living sector.”
“The case for an amendment—I thank the Minister for his guidance in that respect—on the retirement sector is that it was clearly given an exemption and was assured throughout last year that that exemption would hold, but that exemption was suddenly withdrawn in January this year. Given the time that it takes to change the model and to sell such properties, this is crying out for amendment.”
“When Geoff Hoon announced an exponential increase in the roles for females in the armed forces, I welcomed it from the Opposition Benches, but praying in aid St Bernard of Clairvaux, I pointed out that there would be an administrative overhead to be paid. For that I was rewarded with an early-day motion concerning the disgraceful behaviour of the Member for New Forest West, but given the way things have turned out, my words were prophetic. I have another prophecy I would like to share with the Minister for the Armed Forces, if he will indulge me with a short meeting.”
“Is there a danger that we raise expectations with the Nationality and Borders Bill unless there is an iron will on the part of Ministers to use the powers once they get them? And can my right hon. Friend not just tell the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) to make his own way to Calais?”
“Notwithstanding the reason that the Minister has just given for the raising of the threat level, both the incidents to which he has referred involved, effectively, lone wolves. Is he in a position to share with us some of the rationale for raising the threat level nationally?”
“If a member of NHS staff has previously had an episode of myocarditis and is anxious about its recurrence, would that be sufficient ground for an exemption from vaccination?”
“That is precisely the case when we serve on a Special Standing Committee for a private Bill: Members are required to be present because it is a quasi-judicial process.”
“May I take the right hon. Gentleman back to those halcyon days when he enjoyed lectures on monetarism and remind him that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon? There is no such thing as cost-push inflation.”
“There are two sides to this coin. The first is the Government broadcasting without first letting us know. The other is the information that they are trying to keep from us. Why was the leaked information on the substantial costs of winter plan B marked “Not for publication”? What are the Government trying to hide? Why are they frightened of our scrutiny?”
“When we are increasingly concerned about mental health, the mask the Minister was wearing only moments ago denies us the fellowship and reassurance of her friendly facial expression, but the material of which it is composed has gaps that are 5,000 times bigger than the virus, does it not?”
“On the hon. Gentleman’s stricture about the mask mandate— the requirement on which he wishes us to follow Scotland—the wearing of masks does not seem to have reduced the rate of infection in Scotland, which is somewhat higher than it is in England, does it?”
“I recall the pervasive disapproval that attached to my family when my children were at school and it became apparent that my wife was refusing to use the powerful chemical solution for the control of nits. When we come to schools being collectively vaccinated, the decision of some parents or children not to be vaccinated will undoubtedly be a matter of common knowledge—there is certainly the danger of that. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that it will be difficult to prevent that general disapproval and all that may flow from it from being attached to parents or children who have decided not to be vaccinated?”
“I am inundated every week by employers who simply cannot get workers. Should we not be seeking to raise the sights of many working people to get another, better-paid job? They are out there.”
“Spending £6 billion handing an uplift to all recipients of universal credit, irrespective of their circumstances, was never a targeted way of affecting those people who are most in need. That is why it was temporary. When the Secretary of State comes to the longer term, will she consider the taper and the way that childcare costs are met?”
“These are all important questions, but, notwithstanding the bravery of 70,000 Afghans who gave their lives over recent years and against the background of the howl of the loss of rights, opportunities and futures for women and everyone, is not the burning question about the failure of strategic policy and how, in the recent conflict, the Taliban walked into Kabul without having to fight for it? We must answer the question of why that happened.”