19/01/2017 Thursday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Thursday in Parliament.

Coming up on this programme: The Lords warn the Government

needs to be on its guard against an increase in hate crime.

There has been a 40% increase. This is not a spike, this is a trend.

A Ukip peer explains why he wants curbs on migration.

And a Conservative peer bids goodbye to Barack Obama.

Tomorrow we will be read of the most useless American President I have

ever seen in my lifetime. Labour has called on the Government

to head off a potential wave of hate crime, when the Supreme Court

makes its expected judgment An earlier ruling in

the High Court led to a backlash The latest crime figures

reveal a 40% increase in hate crimes in the month

after the referendum vote in England and Wales,

compared with the same month The leader of the Labour Peers

raised her fears about All of us want to maintain good

relations with our EU neighbours as we move forward on Brexit and we do

not want another spike in hate crimes that we saw

following the referendum, or the attacks on judges

following the court's decision. This week the Prime Minister said

every stray word and every hyped up media report is going to make it

harder for us to get the right deal Did the Foreign Secretary

Boris Johnson not get the And can the noble lady confirm

whether the Prime Minister has conveyed to the governments

concerned, to those sections of the media that she was alluding to,

that all agree that such histrionic reports can

damage the interests and the reputation of

the We all have a duty to behave

in a responsible way but it is in society being tolerant,

not just tolerant, but welcoming of the various communities

that live in our country that we will make progress, and the media

is part and parcel of that. Can she think of a single precedent

where we have been asked to ask a hypothetical question

in connection with a hypothetical Is it not extraordinary

that there is an order to ask a It is hypothetical

but I hope that I can reassure my noble friend

that in fact what this Government is is prepared,

and learnt the lessons from what we have seen

in the last year. The latest crime figures show

an increase of about 200 hate times per week, 2015-2016,

compared with the year before. There has been a 40%

increase in hate crimes This is not a spike,

this is a trend. Police action is

simply addressing the What assessment has the Government

made of the causes of these Does the Government believe

as we do that the increase in populism and nationalism is

behind the significant and worrying I heard various tales

post-referendum of the various Yes, and I will get

to the point about pre-referendum, because in fact

the numbers of hate crimes being reported

are now The reasons behind some

of the hate crimes What motivates people

to provoke hatred It is generally based on certain

characteristics of those people and of those communities

and it has gone down to pre-referendum levels

since As someone, and I declare an

interest in my work as chairman of Kick It Out, where we monitor and

have been monitoring for the last 23 years, hate incidents,

which are at the lower That is nothing new about the level

of hatred that exists within our society and we have got to tackle

the issue of prejudice which we are To blame Brexit as a

consequence of what we saw on June the 24th and since,

is actually delusional. abuse that we are witnessing,

disabled people who are being abused, you cannot blame that

specifically on Brexit in the So I ask you to consider

how we are taking action to effectively

tackle prejudice which Over in the Commons at Business

questions an SNP MP was also looking ahead to the Supreme Court

judgement due next week The court will give a final ruling

on whether or not Parliament should have a say on triggering Article

50 - the formal start Now we know now it is almost

certain that a vote will be required in order to

trigger Article 50. So will he confirm that this bill

will be subject to the maximum scrutiny, thoroughly amendable,

and properly debated, in this House? Can we have a debate about how

to win friends and influence people? Because the Foreign Secretary's

starting to look like a dodgy character out of Allo Allo,

doing his utmost to upset the very people that global Britain needs

to negotiate with to get a good deal We now know that this Government's

predominant obsession, everything that underpins its approach

to leaving the European Union, is immigration and freedom

of movement. The Government plans

a great repeal bill to move EU rules and regulations

into UK law. At Prime Minister's Questions an SNP

MP had asked whether the bill would be subject to a process known

as English Votes for English Laws or Evel -

where Scottish MPs are excluded from voting on legislation that

applies only to England. Will the Leader of the House

do what the Prime Minister failed to do yesterday

and that is to confirm that the Engslish Votes

for English Laws procedure will not be applied

to the great repeal bill? This bill will cut across many

devolved competencies. There is going to be so many

jurisdictions involved when it comes So will he do what the Prime

Minister failed to do The leader of the House turned first

to whether there would need to be a bill in Parliament to trigger

Article 50 beginning Until the Supreme Court has ruled

we don't know whether any bill But any bill if it is

to become law it to go through the full

parliamentary process through the full parliamentary

process in this chamber and the For any matter to be subject

to the Evel arrangement it It must refer to a matter

which is devolved The legislation here must refer

only to England or to And third, there must be

certification from Mr Speaker, that the clause or the

Bill, or the statutory instrument, Those tests would continue to be

the ones that would have to be met I think it is very clear to me

that if for example we look at a measure that is repealing

the European Communities Act 1972, clearly that has UK-wide

implications and is not just confined to one part

of the United Kingdom. Back in the Lords, a Conservative

peer has lambasted Barack Obama as the most useless American

president in my lifetime. Lord Blencathra was taking part

in a debate titled "the challenges to the liberal international order

posed by the development of populism Donald Trump is due to officially

take over as US President on Friday. Lord Blencathra made clear

he would be glad to see the end Tomorrow, my Lords, we will be rid

of the most useless American President I have ever seen in my

entire lifetime, whose only legacy He has withdrawn America

from the world stage and left a disastrous vacuum that's been

filled by Putin and China. He withdrew troops prematurely

from Iraq and allowed Isil He laid down red lines on Syria

on the use of gas in Syria and did nothing to enforce

them when they were breached. He turned a blind eye

to Russian hacking for seven years and nine months

but suddenly became concerned, about Next time I visit the United States

I will be able to use transgender I would say to the noble

Lord his time is over, it is No one can accuse the

Labour Party of not been I would never dream of doing

that because they are And the Independent of December

reported, the Labour Party is ramping up preparations to relaunch

Jeremy Corbyn as a left-wing Senior party officials

believe his unpolished authenticity could gather support from the same

anti-establishment that has heralded the popularity of Donald

Trump and Nigel Farage. So, my lords, I conclude

there you have it. Populism is a wicked

and evil thing if it is a right wing President Trump, but

a good thing if it is a socialist Nobody can do hypocrisy better

than the left liberal elite. But his world view was challenged

by a former Liberal Democrat leader who urged politicians

to leave their "tribes" and work together to counter the "dangerous"

rise of populism and nationalism. He compared the situation

today with the 1930s. The motto of the age you will recall

was if you are going to lie, lie big Stick it on the side of a bus

perhaps and send it around Our age bears horrible

comparisons with that. Nor do I say that this

was not a rational reaction I am not interested

in who to blame but what Spare a thought for the lost tribes

of Labour and the Tory party, If you are part of a Tory

tradition of internationalism you find yourself in a party that

has completely abandoned it? What do you do if you're

one of those Labour members of Parliament who believes

in the free market not as a master but as our servant and find your

party has extensively rejected it? It's extraordinary in

the last year how much politics has spun away

to the to build that central

consensus, that moderate liberal consensus,

on which I believe the only chance lies

of altering a very dangerous You're watching Thursday in

Parliament with me Alicia McCarthy. The best way forward

for the troubled region of Kashmir is a referendum,

some MPs have suggested, so the people can

determine their own future. The problems in Kashmir go

back to the late 1940s when the area was divided

between India and Pakistan. Both countries, which

are now nuclear powers, The dispute has led to two wars

and frequent conflicts and there has been an escalation of

violence in recent months. After 70 years of inaction

since the original resolutions were passed, requiring the conflict

to be resolved by peaceful democratic means, it is

easy to see why so many in the Kashmiri community think

the United Nations has lost He said he appreciated

the British Government had We wish to be friends

with both India and Pakistan, but a candid and true friend is one

who sometimes says things that the other friend

may find unpalatable. I support my honourable

friend's motion. This is not a question of supporting

either the Indian Government or the Pakistani Government -

it is about supporting Just as he and I campaigned for many

years for a referendum to decide whether our country should be part

of and governed by the European Union, surely the people

of Kashmir should be afforded the same liberty of deciding

how they want to be David Nuttall agreed that the people

of Kashmir should have the right A right so historically exercised

by the people of this country on 23rd of June last year

when a majority voted No-one believes that there

is an easy answer, but anything has to be better than having

a military-controlled line of partition between the two

neighbouring countries. Khalid Mahmood, the first MP

of Kashmiri heritage, When a man goes out of a house,

whether he be a father, a husband or a son, there is no

guarantee that he will come back We have seen videos on YouTube,

Facebook and other social media of people being summarily

beaten up in the streets. by a disproportionate number

of military personnel and beaten They are tortured and taken

away, people go missing. In some instances, when they go

missing, they do not come back. Another MP, whose parents came

to the UK from Kashmir, talked about the use of pellet guns

by Indian forces. They spray and maim

through a six-foot circle. It is impossible to limit

the number of casualties These are not precision weapons

or defensive weapons, and their use in open public

places must constitute That is why we see images

of soldiers across Kashmir. They are there to protect

citizens of all stripes. People who want to go to work,

school, or university are allowed to do so only under the protection

of the Indian army. Without the protection of Indian

troops, we can see all too The National Human Rights Commission

of India has freely criticised and called for punishments

when the rule of law has not been That is not a level of freedom

allowed to those residents in Pakistan, which is recognised

as the world s leading The Foreign Office Minister Alok

Sharma said he was very concerned" about violence

in Indian-administered Kashmir and that pellet guns had been

replaced by chilli powder shells. But he said the UK could not

prescribe a solution to the situation in Kashmir

or act as a mediator. MPs have been holding

their annual debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day,

which falls on Friday Conservative former Cabinet minister

Sir Eric Pickles recalled a visit to the Nazi extermination camp

Treblinka in Poland - and criticised sinister deniers

for continuing to say the Holocaust The best estimate is that somewhere

between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews and around 2000 Roma were killed

in Treblinka's gas chambers. More Jews were killed at Treblinka

than at any other Nazi extermination There is a dignified

monument and carefully laid stones remembering

the different communities. I laid a wreath at the site and,

following the visit, as most politicians do,

I tweeted my observations. Within minutes, I received

a tweet that said, "No one died at Treblinka,

it was a transit camp. There were no gas chambers,

no crematoria, no mass graves." I have no idea whether the person

who sent me that tweet believed it or not, and it is too easy

to dismiss this as yet another example of our post-truth world's

fake news, which is all too prevalent on social media,

but I think there is something To forget or belittle

continues the holocaust. This month sees the release

of the film Denial, which depicts one of the most

infamous libel trials of the past 20 years involving

the American historian, If one looks at the trailer,

and at the comments made beneath it, there are thousands

of abusive comments claiming Only a few days ago,

David Irving claimed a new generation of

holocaust sceptics - a fancy way of dressing

up holocaust denial. Lord Pearson, has told the House

of Lords that, "We don't want to go on letting in Bulgarian

and Romanian gangsters He was speaking during a question

about housing provision where a minister had been asked how

many new homes would be needed to accommodate

people coming to the UK. The higher migration

scenario of the department's household projections shows

that there are projected to be an average of 243,000

new households forming each year Net migration accounts

for an estimated 45% of this growth. In the main scenario,

there are projected to be an average of 210,000 households forming

per year, of which 37% A crossbench peer put

the figure differently. It would mean building a home every

five minutes, night and day, for new arrivals until such time

as we get those numbers down. I know there is a strong view

in the house that there is a lot All I'm pointing out is that it also

calls. -- costs. It's a two-year cycle. We will next review it at the

end of this year when some of the scenarios may well change because of

the impact of the period of Brexit. The noble lord is absolutely right

about the challenge of building more houses. That is certainly true. Most

of that, as I said, is not to do with migration.

My Lords, do the Government believe our National Health Service

and our social care arrangements can survive...?

That heckle coming from Labour's Lord Foulkes.

My Lords, I have never denied that we need migrants, it is just

that we do not want to go on letting in Bulgarian and Romanian

Does the Government believe our NHS and social care can survive this

sort of increase with their present funding arrangements,

or do we have to consider something more radical for the longer term?

My Lords, if I may try to address the joint

question asked by the noble lords, Lord Pearson and Lord Foulkes,

it is certainly the case that, across broad sections of public

life, certainly including the NHS, we are heavily dependent on people

Net migration will probably fall as a result of Brexit,

but it will be some time before that happens.

Still, we face all sorts of challenges in seeking

Does the coming to power of Donald Trump in the US mean

we could end up eating inferior food in the UK?

That was suggestion at the start of the day

The Commons was looking at how Britain's departure from the EU

will impact on food, farming and the rural

President-elect Trump spoke last week of the UK securing a very quick

trade deal with the US once it has left the EU, which has led to fears

that that could mean harsh compromises on issues such

as the environment, animal welfare laws and food safety.

Will the Secretary of State today reassure the house and people

across the United Kingdom that any trade deal with the US will not

involve such compromises, which would jeopardise our food

Will she reassure us that she understands that a very

quick deal is not necessarily the same as a very good deal

The party on this side of the house is the only party that made a

commitment to reflect animal welfare standards

in trade negotiations, and that remains a commitment

of the Government. There are opportunities for our

agricultural sector in the US, particularly in sectors such

as dairy, and possibly in sectors My colleagues in the Department

for International Trade will obviously lead on these matters

once we leave the European Union, but there will be potential

opportunities for UK 90% of our beef and lamb export in

this country are to the EU. So, the Prime Minister's threat to walk away

from the single market with no deal for them would not be bad, it could

leave them facing tariffs of up to 20% and that could be catastrophic.

What assurances will there be to the farmers and crofters that the

Government will not leave them exposed in this way? Well, I think

the Prime Minister gave the assurance that we are seeking a good

deal and no deal is better than a bad deal, which I then think anyone

can disagree with. As the free ourselves from the Common

agricultural problem that has added so many your graphic burdens to our

farmers, what assessment has my honourable friend made of the

financial burden that our farmers are facing as a result of the common

agricultural policy and what extra freedom will this mean for our

farmers any future? Unnecessary rules cost farmers millions of

pounds and up to 3 million -- 300,000 man hours. I will be paying

very close attention to these in the coming months as they look to better

solutions for us rather than 28 EU states. Full Andrea Leadsom.

And that's it from me for now, but do join me on Friday night at 11

for a round up of the week here at Westminster -

including a lively debate between Conservative,

Sir Bill Cash and the Lib Dems Lady Ludford