10/07/2017 Monday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Monday in Parliament.

The main news from Westminster: After the G20 summit,

the Prime Minister is confident about the UK's position in the world

- but dismayed at America's position on climate change.

I spoke personally to President Trump to encourage them to rejoin

the Paris Agreement and I continue to hope that is exactly what he will

do. Theresa May is reaching out to other

parties on big policy issues - Labour says her Government has run

out of steam. If the Prime Minister would like it

I am very happy to furnish her with a copy of our election manifesto, or

better still an early election so that the people of this country can

decide. Also on the programme:

The Falkland Islander who travelled 8,000 miles to raise

concerns about Brexit. We may well lose the support of the

rest of Europe and may well see Spain and possibly other members of

Europe giving greater support to Argentina over its mistaken and a

legal claim to the Falkland islands. When the leaders of

the G20 countries - the world's leading economies -

descended on Hamburg, in Germany, last week -

there was a lot to talk about. Terrorism, internet security,

international trade These events are also interesting

for what they reveal about the dynamics between

the world's most powerful politicians and the

countries they lead. When Theresa May reported back

to Parliament she expressed confidence about the UK's place

in the world, saying that it made "leading

contributions" on many issues - At this summit we set the agenda

again calling on our G20 Calling on our G20

partners to squeeze the lifeblood out of terrorist networks

by making the global financial system an entirely hostile

environment for terrorists. And we secured agreement

on all our proposals. She was upbeat about the UK's

prospects after Brexit. As we leave the

European Union we will negotiate a new comprehensive,

bold and ambitious free trade But we will also seize the exciting

opportunities to strike deals with old friends

and new partners. And at the summit I held a number

of meetings with other world leaders all of whom made clear

that there are strong desires to forge ambitious new bilateral

trading relationships with the UK This included America,

Japan, China and India. And this morning

I welcomed Australian Prime Minister Turnbull

to Downing Street where he also reiterated his desire for a bold

new trading The US President Donald Trump

has pulled the US out of the international Paris Agreement

on climate change. At the end of the summit,

19 countries reaffirmed Theresa May raised the issue

with the President. I and my counterparts

in the G20 are dismayed at America's withdrawal

from this Agreement. I spoke personally to

President Trump to encourage him to rejoin the Paris Agreement and I

continue to hope that is exactly Theresa May is on a mission to reach

out to opposition parties, saying she is amenable to ideas

about the big issues of the day - Her appeal was dismissed

by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who demanded

a general election instead. This Government is apparently now

asking other parties If the Prime Minister

would like it I am very happy to furnish her with a copy

of our election manifesto. Or better still an early

election in order for the Let's face it, the Government

has run out of steam, in our country and the

world amid uncertainty the Gulf states, nuclear sabre

rattling over North Korea, refugees continuing to flee war

and destruction, ongoing pandemics, cross-border terrorism, poverty,

inequality, and the impact of climate change, are the core global

challenges of our time. Just when we need

strong Government we This Government is

the architect of these failed austerity policies

and now threatens to use Brexit to turn

Britain into a low wage, deregulated, tax haven

on the shores of Europe. A narrow and hopeless version

of the potential of this country which would only

serve the few, one that would ruin industry,

destroy innovation and ruin people's The SNP leader said the UK

was floundering around on the world alliance formed with

the American President on trade. Goodness knows what a trade deal

with America right now would mean for public services,

food quality or worker's rights. Indeed talk about UK-US trade

deal was dealt a blow by the Prime Minister's

own Justice Secretary who just hours after

the summit ended said it wouldn't

be enough on its own. The Prime Minister

must now come to her A United Kingdom outside the single

market would be ruinous. Our EU friends and

partners are moving on without us, just this year alone

finalising trade deals with Japan and Canada while the UK

readily turns in on itself. There are only two weeks

to go before Parliament It is one of the last chances MPs

will get to quiz the Prime Minister. Several MPs are concerned

about the UK withdrawing from the European nuclear safety

and research watchdog. The Prime Minister

will no doubt be aware about the growing concern

across the House about her proposal to withdraw the UK from the Euratom

treaty despite the concerns

there are about the implications for the movement of scientists,

nuclear materials and Can she explain to

the House what the UK nuclear industry gains

from such a policy? I am sure the right honourable

gentleman will be aware, he is chairing the Select Committee,

that membership of Euratom is inextricably

linked with membership But what we are doing, as we

signalled in the Queen's speech, with reference to a future bill

on this issue, is wanting to ensure relationships, that cooperation

with Euratom, which enables the exchange of scientists,

the exchange of There are countries around

the world that have that relationship with Euratom

which are not members of the European Union,

but we need to put that Bill in place and I look forward

to his support for the Bill. When journalists have

been murdered in Putin's Russia does the Prime

Minister share my anger at the chilling sight of Presidents

Trump and Putin joking And will she commit to stressing

the importance of the independence of the media to both

leaders when she meets them next? About this new love fest

with the benches opposite, given the record of the Leader

of the Opposition on the counterterrorism and security

act, does she possess a very long Well, yes, I can say to my right

honourable friend that I have in the past as Home Secretary

welcomed the cooperation which I have had from the Labour benches,

not from the right honourable gentleman who is currently

Leader of the Opposition, but from others on his benches,

who have seen the need to ensure that agencies have

appropriate powers to deal with the Those calls for cooperation

were also seized on by She wondered if Defence Ministers

would agree to a pay rise After losing her

majority at the general election the Prime Minister has now

signalled that she is prepared to work across the House with other

parties in areas of agreement. In that spirit I

would like to make a The Government has just

introduced an Armed Forces If they agree to amend that

Bill to include a real terms pay rise for our

Armed Forces personnel then they can count

on Will the Government agree

to work with us to give our Armed Forces the pay

award they deserve? We all want to see our

Armed Forces being properly remunerated for the service

that they give us. But it is also incumbent

on the honourable lady to make it very clear how any increase

that she is favouring would be And that is something

she hasn't done, her party hasn't done, and they certainly

didn't do it the last election. The pay review system

we have is beyond It's an independent pay

review body that looks at comparability with the civilian

sector, looks at the issue of retention and recruitment,

and makes its recommendation. On the contrary we had

our manifesto fully They know how to raise

taxes if they need them. The fact of the matter is that

the Armed Forces pay review body is severely constrained

by the overall cap of 1% on public sector pay

the If the Government will not

legislate for a pay rise will the Secretary

of State at least allow the pay review body

to carry out a review and report

on what our Armed Forces should be receiving if the cap

were not in place? On the first point I

am staggered to hear the honourable lady thinks

that her manifesto was fully costed

or indeed fully funded. There were billions

and that manifesto that were due to be borrowed and paid

for by future generations. So far as we have implemented

the recommendation in full by the review body for this

financial year, so far as next year is concerned evidence

is ready being acquired I will give my own evidence later

in the year and we will see what recommendation

they come up with. The Defence Secretary,

Sir Michael Fallon. You're watching Monday In Parliament

with me, Kristiina Cooper. Coming up: fears that

Brexit means piracy. There are voices that think that

Brexit means Britain can hoist the Jolly Roger.

The High Court has ruled that UK arms sales to

The court rejected campaigners' claims that ministers were acting

illegally by failing to suspend weapon sales to the kingdom,

Some of the evidence was heard in secret.

When the International Trade Secretary came to the Commons

to brief MPs on the ruling, he faced some hostile questioning.

The Government relied upon material which was brought forward

evidence which was not able to be seen or heard by

the Campaign Against the Arms Trade or their lawyers.

As such, the court ruling that the Government's decision

was a rational one given the procedures and evidence it

considered was based on secret evidence,

which it was impossible to challenge.

Does the Secretary of State accept that the court judgment

makes specific reference to the substantial body of evidence

presented in open session that in fact suggests a clear risk does

exist that British arms might be used in violation

of international humanitarian law, will he agree to make the evidence

that was available only in closed session available to members of this

House on Privy Council terms, or indeed, make it available

to the intelligence and security select committee?

I do take exception, Mr Speaker, with the final point that he made.

Because this idea that somehow, if we have closed sessions,

that makes the judgment less valid, I simply don't accept.

Because I don't accept this idea that we cannot have closed sessions

that protect our national security, for the personnel involved

in our national security, sources need be protected.

I will listen to the argument that he makes, but I simply

Medecins Sans Frontieres report today that Yemenis are afraid to go

and to stay in the cholera treatment centre in Abs,

since it was bombed by Saudi Arabia last August, killing 19 people.

This atrocity was declared an unintentional mistake, along with

facilities in Hayden, Razeh and Saada, among others,

How many hospitals, protected by international humanitarian law,

will the Secretary of State allow to be hit by Saudi Arabia before

Mr Speaker, the Honourable lady talks as though there is only one

party in this particular dispute in that part of the world,

And as I say, we take the absolute, the clear risk criteria

But I'm afraid that making the sort of rather uninformed points

that she does for propaganda purposes doesn't actually help

While the Secretary of State and the Government may have won

this legal skirmish, they certainly haven't won the moral

case and there are still many unanswered questions

about the relationship here and the terrible situation

The Secretary of State said that on one hand, he was confident,

but on the other hand, the court judgment makes it clear

that he was anxious, and in fact, as he knows,

he wrote to the Foreign Secretary saying, "I am concerned

that the issue continues to be finely balanced.

I ask that you commission a further detailed assessment

and send me updated advice, and that you seek advice

from senior Government lawyers before making a recommendation."

It is my job to be anxious about these things.

It is my job to give the nth degree of scrutiny,

because lives are potentially being lost if we make

And it is the judgment of myself, the Foreign Secretary and other

senior ministers that gives us such anxiety.

Were we to be cavalier, the honourable gentleman

would be absolutely right to command criticise us.

When we take the nth degree of care about the judgments we make,

as previous governments before have done, then he ought to be very

grateful we are doing so in the country's interests.

Eight British Overseas Territories have sent representatives to give

evidence to a Lords Committee investigating the long-term

Roger Edwards, a Member of the Legislative Assembly

of the Falkland Islands, told peers about the potential

With the UK a full member of the European Union

and a signatory to the Treaty of Rome, all the rest of

Europe is obliged to recognise and accept that the UK OTs

Once the UK is no longer a member state, nor a signatory to

the Treaty of Rome, the same obligations do not apply and we may

well lose the support of the rest of Europe,

and may well see Spain and possibly other members of Europe

giving greater support to Argentina over its mistaken and illegal claim

There are concerns, too, in Pitcairns -

the UK's smallest overseas territory.

We would, ideally, likely be in a position where we are no worse

off than we would have been had we stayed in the EU.

We have one of the purest honeys in the world,

Europe is one of our biggest markets.

And what will be the impact, it has to be tested each year

for us to be on the EU list, will we be still be allowed to do that?

It's not significant in terms of quantum,

it's only 25,000 units a year, which is the maximum we can put

But not being able to ship that to Europe would certainly have

The wider concern, he said, was that Pitcairns would become isolated.

Now, MPs are to hold an emergency debate on the infections of NHS

patients by contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.

The request for the debate was made by Labour's Diana Johnson, who said

the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, had used his

final speech as an MP to present a dossier.

In his valedictory speech to this House on the 25th of April 2017,

the then right honourable member for Leigh outlined a dossier

amounting to criminal conduct on the part of individuals involved

He said that if the Government did not commit to a public enquiry

before the summer recess, he would refer this

The then Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Health

asked him to submit his dossier of evidence to the Health

She assured the House that this would be given the highest priority.

However, we have heard nothing since then.

And we now have further unanswered questions which underline the need

And she referred to recent newspaper reports.

the Daily Mail set out evidence that as early as 1980, officials

knew that 50 people with haemophilia a year

were being infected with hepatitis C.

Nothing was done about this for five years.

Secondly, as reported in the Sunday Times,

on Friday the 7th of July, the Westminster leaders of all six

non-government parties in the House of Commons,

including the Democratic Unionist Party, wrote a joint letter

to the Prime Minister urging her to commit

the right honourable Andy Burnham reaffirmed his commitment to refer

cases of alleged criminality to the police and confirmed he has

an appointment with the police on the 26th of July.

The Speaker granted the debate - it willl take place on Tuesday.

The former head of MI5 has described the scale of the terrorist threat as

unprecedented. She told the Lords that the threat has grown since the

attacks in July 2007. This year, on four dates over

the course of three months, our country has been

attacked by terrorists. Westminster, Manchester Arena,

London Bridge and Borough 36 dead and over 150 injured

in these atrocious attacks. Terrorists mean to sow fear

and division, but ours is a community of many faiths

and many nationalities and all have come together in the face

of these senseless acts. And if these attacks

have shown us anything, it is that attack on one part

of our community is This Government is committed

to ensuring there is no safe space My right honourable friend

the Home Secretary continues to lead efforts with technology companies

to remove terrorist material. We continue to work closely

with social media companies, to progress an industry led forum

that will look to take a new, global approach to tackling

terrorist use of the internet. Lord Harris was commissioned

by London's Mayor Sadiq Khan to look at how prepared London would be

for a terrorist attack. My lords, I remain disturbed that

even now, not enough is being done We benefit from the fact that

firearms are more difficult to acquire in this country

than elsewhere in the world. However, there is almost

a complacency about this, with an assumption that the sort

of attacks that occurred in Paris But London and other cities

are by no means firearms free. During July and August in my review,

the Metropolitan Police recorded 202 firearms discharges,

compared to 800... Compared to 87 in the same months

of the previous year. I think the scale of the problem

is genuinely unprecedented. But when we are told that MI5 has

500 active investigations involving 3000 subjects of interest and also

has a vast pool of some 20,000 people who they can't

focus on at the moment, about whom there have been concerns

and who they would like to go back to look at if time and resources

allow, this is pretty serious. One of the things which I guess

pains us most about recent incidents is the way these

terrorists are home-grown. And it gives me no pleasure to say,

in the diocese where I serve, which covers five east London

boroughs and the whole of the county of Essex, in the work I do,

visiting communities, often visiting young people,

many young people do feel disenfranchised,

overlooked, do not have the opportunities

that we would wish them to have. Lady Lane-Fox, a high

profile internet pioneer, said those writing laws

about the internet first How will we ensure we make the right

decisions if our parliamentarians do not have the experience

from which to understand I find it hard and I have devoted my

life to the technology sector. I believe the gap between

innovations driving the pace of change in citizens'

lives and the ability of policymakers to keep up is one

of the most pressing Lady Lane-Fox suggested

parliamentary education programmes. She said understanding the issues

around cyber-secuirty was vital. Over a year ago, an anti-corruption

summit was held in London. The Government promised a strategy

to tackle corruption But along came Brexit,

and then the general election. A Liberal Democrat in the House

of Lords is worried that, in a Brexit world, the issue has

fallen down the agenda. There are voices around that suggest

that Brexit is an opportunity for Britain to hoist the Jolly Roger and

to book a year its way around the world with scant regard to things

like bribery or money laundering. So isn't it time the Government sent

out a clear message that it's a beacon of integrity in these matters

by bringing forward this strategy, by giving a vote of confidence in

the Serious Fraud Office, and by finding a new anti-corruption

campaign to succeed the one that has now departed the other place? Those

are the challenges that would make us a beacon of integrity rather than

the other way. There are a number of questions. Firstly, he is right, the

deadline has been missed. We hope to publish the updated strategy by

December last year. There was some turbulence in Whitehall following

the outcome of the referendum... LAUGHTER

And then in March, when the ministerial group met to consider

the draft strategy, there was further discontinuity with the

general election. However, a near final draft of the document is being

prepared and we hope to publish it shortly. On the anti-corruption

campaign, there have been a series of these, there was Hilary Benn,

Jack Straw, Ken Clarke, Eric pickles was the last. But with the election,

Sir Eric is no longer a member of Parliament. We helped appoint a new

champion discourse. On the point about the Jolly Roger, I prefer the

union Jack. But he is right, this country has a reputation for

integrity and fairness. Throughout the world. And that helped us win

export orders are helps us win investment, in a recent analysis of

integrity, the UK was ranked joint tenth out of 176 on the transparency

International corruption perceptions index. He's quite right, we value

our reputation we are determined to maintain it and enhance after

Brexit. Alicia McCarthy will be

here for the rest of the week. But from me, Kristiina

Cooper, goodbye!