18/01/2016 Monday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Monday in Parliament, our look

Asleep at the wheel - Labour's verdict as over a thousand

They have been losing ?1 million a day as a result of this slump in

steel prices. All that the industry has asked for, including the unions,

is a level playing field and that is what we are achieving.

Recriminations on Trident at Defence Questions -

including from a former shadow defence minister.

Despite ill informed comments from my own party at the weekend, which

he also agree with me that simply you cannot turn on and off like a

tap when you need them? And an unusual thought

on what motivates people It would be popular to inflict pain

or submit pain by green policies. 50 shades of green, you might say.

But first - news of over a thousand jobs lost in the steel industry

was delivered to MPs by the business minister Anna Soubry.

The cuts have been announced by Tata, with the majority

Labour has accused the government of "warm words but very

This morning, Tata Steel announced plans to make over 1,000

redundancies across its UK strip business as part

of its continuing restructuring plans.

The proposals involve 750 job losses at Port Talbot,

200 redundancies in support functions at Llanwern,

and 100 redundancies at steel mills in Trostre,

This will be a difficult time for all the workers

and their families, and our thoughts must be with them.

Our immediate focus will be on helping any workers

who lose their jobs back into employment

It is important to remember the fundamental problems facing our

steel industry are the fall and the world price caused by the

overproduction and under consumption of steel and we know for example

that the prices have almost have it in the last 12 months and we also

know that Tata have been losing ?1 million a day as a result of this

slump in steel prices. All the industry has asked for and that

includes the unions is a level playing field and that is what we

are achieving. I can inform the House that the Government have been

closely working with Tata to a singable future.

Tata's announcement of 1,050 job losses across Port Talbot,

Llanwern, Trostre, Corby and Hartlepool is devastating news

for all the workers, their families and the close-knit

This latest bombshell comes on top of job losses at Tata's Newport

plant last year, along with thousands of job losses

across the sector in the UK, including the complete

At this time of crisis for the UK steel industry,

all we seem to get from this Government is warm words but very

The Government have been asleep at the wheel. They have not been tough

enough with the Chinese are active and of what the European Union. They

have made no concessions on the business rate system, which actively

penalises those who invest in expensive infrastructure to improve

productivity and there is no sign that their technical change to

procurement rules as making any difference in the awarding of

Government contracts to help our domestic industry. When are we going

to get effective action from this Government and not just one words?

-- warm. The Government need to ensure that

every penny of public money spent, directly or indirectly,

on steel procurement should be spent Is she now saying she has secured

such changes in European law and rules that she can actually

specify that all railway and construction steel paid

for by Britain will be British? I'm amazed at the honourable

gentleman taking such a view. We are good friends and we agree on many

things. I think the most important point is that we have change these

procurement rules and we're the first of any country in the EU. I

can assure the minister that the people of my constituency

are listening carefully constituency to what is being said today.

I also assure her that there is palpable anger and frustration

The claimed action on energy has still not been implemented.

The claimed action on procurement amounts to so-called open

advertising, while Hinkley Point has no British steel.

The Government use the EU as an excuse for delay,

while being China's chief cheerleader in Europe.

This is all about all those men and women who work at Tata

I pay tribute to some of the work that the hon Gentleman has done.

I met the leader of Port Talbot port and I hope that we can continue that

discussion, because there is much that can be done.

I say to the hon Gentleman that it would really help if we all worked

together on this, because we all agree.

It was the box office event of the day -

should Donald Trump be banned from entering the UK?

Ahead of the debate, there was a lot of publicity -

The debate was triggered by a petition signed by over half

a million people condemning Mr Trump's proposal that Muslims

MPs united to condemn the remarks made by Mr Trump,

who wants to be the next US President.

But there was strong disagreement over the imposition of a ban.

There was a large turnout of Mps for the debate and the public

It was held in the normally low-key surroundings of Westminster Hall.

The Labour MP Paul Flynn kicked off proceedings.

instances gone attention is that Mr Trump mocked a man for his

disability in a cruel way and said to the people of Mexico that he

would bundle them up as people who were rapists and drug abusers. He

made degrading remarks about women and one is to suggest that Muslims

should not be allowed into his country, which is an extraordinary

and extremely dangerous thing to say.

For all that, he didn't think Mr Trump should be banned.

But a Labour colleague took a very different view.

This online petition shows that when we feel we need to stop a poisonous

man from entering our society, they will act in good conscience. This is

a man who is extremely high profile, involved in the American show

business industry for years, a man who is interviewing for the most

important job in the world. I have heard large number

of my constituents make similar Her views and those of Donald Trump,

who thinks that Muslims are all the same,

are strikingly similar. Does she think they should be

expelled from the country for their views? It's not the same as as

making a decision not to let people into the country whose views are

falling short of Home Office guidance.

But another Muslim MP said she would welcome Mr Trump

I stand here as a proud British Muslim woman,

and he would like me to be banned from America.

I would not get a visa but my Islam and, as I understand it,

Surah 41, verse 34 teaches me - this is not word for word,

but what I take from my Koran - that goodness is better than evil.

If someone does bad, you do good in return.

Victoria Atkins didn't think Mr Trump should be banned

His comments about Muslims are wrong.

His policy to close borders, if he is elected as President,

If he met one or two of my constituents in one

of the many excellent pubs in my constituency,

they may well tell him that he is a wazzock for dealing

This is a man who seeks to be President of the United States

of America, and we think we need to educate him.

We should be very worried if a man lacking such education seeks

Here is a buffoon and that should not be met with a bang but with the

classic British response of ridicule. I thank the member for his

intervention and it is within the gift of the British state, about

which he speaks, to deal with Mr Trump in the same manner as we have

dealt with other people and I accept you have referred to Mr Trump's

buffoonery but I have to say that his remarks are condemning an entire

religion of faith, which I practice. We have heard a lot of talk about

buffoonery, blunt, direct. If I was a Muslim. I'm not, I'm an atheist. I

would find repulsive, the thought that I should be its coded from the

United States of America for no other reason that I was a Muslim.

The renewal of Trident - unsurprisingly - dominated questions

Since the last question time for that department,

Labour's front bench has been reshuffled -

with Maria Eagle replaced by Emily Thornberry,

Maria Eagle's departure prompted another Labour minister,

Kevan Jones - to quit - and he was one of a number of Labour

MPs who used the occasion to signal their support for Trident.

I hope you will allow me, Mr Speaker, to formally welcome

the new Shadow Secretary of State and her team,

and to regret the removal of their mainstream moderate

predecessors, the hon Members for Garston and Halewood

I thank the Secretary of State and the hon Member for Argyll

The Secretary of State has the honour of having perhaps

Hopefully we will change roles fairly soon.

He can be assured that difficult questions will be asked

and that we hope to work with the Government where we can

for the sake of the security of people in Britain.

Senior military personnel have repeatedly warned that the RAF has

been at full stretch, and that was even before the air

A squadron of F-35s has only just been ordered,

but will not come into service for several years.

In the meantime, the air campaign against Daesh will be dependent

Can the Secretary of State tell us how long he believes the air

I thank the hon Lady for her initial remarks.

I note her ambition to move from the Opposition side

of the House to the Government side, which was presumably shared

by the two previous shadow Defence Secretaries that I have

Let me just say to her gently that a defence policy of nuclear

submarines with no nuclear weapons, that regards Daesh as having "strong

points", and that wants to end the Falkland Islanders' right

to self-determination, may be Labour's defence policy,

The former Defence Minister - and until recently Shadow Defence

Minister - Kevan Jones criticised his own party.

Does the Minister agree that the issue is about not just

the number of jobs involved in the Successor programme,

but the high-skill nature of those jobs?

Despite ill-informed comments from my own party at the weekend

with regard to those jobs, does he also agree that we cannot

simply turn them on and off like a tap when we need them?

I would like to add my tribute to the hon Gentleman's stalwart

work, both on the Government Benches when he was a Defence Minister

and on the Opposition Benches when he was a shadow; it is a sorry

state of affairs to see him sitting right at the back

The hon Gentleman is, of course, quite right to point out that this

is a long-term endeavour: to design and build a nuclear-enabled

This is a 35-year project from initial conception

The replacement of the nuclear deterrent is, of course,

a sovereign decision of the United Kingdom

However, deciding not to proceed would have

Will the Minister tell us what he feels the repercussions

would be for Nato, and for Britain's standing in Nato, should we decide

Our deterrent is a Nato asset, so the Nato alliance depends in part

on our ability to make that asset available should the need arise.

Our Nato allies are taking a very intense interest

in the deliberations of this House and the hon Lady is right

In what circumstances does the Minister intend to use

I think this gets to the heart of the confusion that lies

at the centre of Scottish Nationalist party policy.

The deterrent has been in use every single day - and night -

If the UK were to go down the route of decommissioning its warheads,

in the so-called Japanese style, and then were to decide it needed

to recommission them at some future point,

is it the Government's assessment that it could do so and remain

compatible with the nonproliferation treaty?

First, let me make it clear that Japan does not have nuclear-powered

submarines and does not have nuclear weapons,

so talk of some Japanese option is entirely farcical.

Gentleman's question is concerned, we have no

The Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon.

You're watching Monday in Parliament.

Still to come - one Muslim peer says people of her faith

Isn't the question of celebrating all religions have in common and not

choosing some as terrorists and The head of the NHS in England has

claimed that "rip off" fees charged for agency staff are responsible

for almost the whole of the record deficit expected to be run up

by Hospital Trusts this year. Simon Stevens was giving evidence

with senior colleagues to parliament's public spending

watchdog the Public Accounts Committee following a report

by the National Audit Office which showed, in the words

of the committee chairman, that acute hospital trusts

were at crisis point: the report paints an alarming

picture, one of the most stark reports but my vice chair is not

here. This 4% of efficiencies over the last five years and proceeding

is now unsustainable. The report shows getting by on cash hand-outs

and the planned to get budgets back on track smacks to us really the bad

and we are concerned that it could be it was set out in the autumn 2014

report, I do not think anyone predicted this scale of exploitation

to be frank. This is what we have experienced from these temporary

agencies and the impact that that had to the problems individual

trusts different elements, I will. How much of the 1.8 billion deficit

since you have raised it do you think is down to the? I have not got

a precise figure but I do think a significant impact on it is hard to

say specifically, but the agency spent this year will probably get to

around ?4 billion. If you're able to stop that, you will no longer have a

problem, is that your analysis? That will be a big part of the solution

for next year, there are other things and the to what is needed

here. I think we have had a collective action problems

individual agencies to play one part of the health service of against

another. There is a desire to the same time as supply has been

constrained. It is a perfect storm in terms you use I previously said

rip-off. But Mr Stevens' suggested solution,

for hospitals to band together and collectively exert a downward

pressure on agency prices, You and to broadly, that is full is

in some environments, in some countries, that you are unable, but

it using to a very serious impact on the market that doctors and nurses

work in. You may well be comfortable with that, that gives them the

option of going abroad, as though that is the answer you it is legal

to do what we are planning to do, it is material, it is not the only

explanation for the deficit but it is a. In agency workforce, they are

doing their extra time through an agency. It feels to me absolutely

wrong, it is toxic for the staff they leave behind, it is toxic for

the staff they work alongside and it is hugely inflationary. However it

has happened, there has been a huge growth in that regard and I think it

our job is our job

It was a distorted market, he said, and had to change.

Now, the Prime Minister has said he wants to help women learn English

David Cameron also suggested failing to learn English could affect people

on spousal visas who wanted to settle in the UK.

He's announced a ?20m fund to provide English lessons in homes,

But in the Lords, one peer suggested that Muslims were being branded

to talk of celebrating differences while at the same time, Muslims in

particular are being demonised at is it a question of what all religions

have in common and not using some as terrorists and others I think the

noble lady has a very good points, we can celebrate differences while

Lady Williams of Trafford. particularly faith that unite

Now - the Government's confirmed it will push ahead with plans to scrap

subsidies for new onshore wind farms in England.

The Government's original Energy Bill set out provisions

to get rid of the subsidies from April of this year -

That was blocked in the House of Lords.

But as MPs began their consideration of the legislation,

the Energy Secretary, Amber Rudd, said that measure would be

there is no ambiguity on this. This is a manifesto commitment. We

signalled our thinking before the last election and we put before the

British people in black and white to attend new public subsidies for

onshore wind. There commitments that are well understood and we will

stand onshore wind has deployed successfully to date and is

projected to meet by 2020, without action there is a risk of deploying

beyond this range, potentially adding more cost to consumer bills

and squeezing out opportunities for the renewables like offshore wind to

mature and bring down the course. Could the Secretary of State

explained if she wants to promote a more expensive form of renewable

energy or missing the target and Coogee confirm that the estimate of

the annual savings of what, the lowest range of savings is just the

honourable gentleman asked me a false question. We have to deliver

on our that is the subsidies, but we will still be making our target

which we put in 2012 to do 11 to 13 gigawatts by 2020 and that is

consistent with our progress. In terms of the amount taking these

actions, our lowest estimate is about 20 million per year and

highest is 200 million per year, so these are significant sums and I

would urge them not to discount them as trivial. There is one area where

we do agree with government on this and that is that wind farms should

not be imposed on communities that do not want them. That is why we

support the proposals to put local authorities in charge of approvals

for these projects, but the reality is are using this bill to try and

strong local support and they are taking such powers away from local

authorities in relation to other areas. Fuel poverty, it exists in

actual, onshore wind is cheap in the closure is set to save the bill

to an to an

But one Conservative MP felt increasingly uncomfortable...

there is a book which sucked the surprising popularity demonstrated

that sadomasochism, and submission to pain are far more widespread

taste than it seems to me that in the political sphere, there is a

similar belief that it would be popular to inflict pain why green

And that's all from me for now. policies. 50 shades of green,

Keith Macdougall's here for the rest of the week -