21/04/2017 The Week in Parliament

Hello and welcome to the Week In Parliament,

when Theresa May went public with the best kept

I have just chaired a meeting with the Cabinet where we agreed

that the government should call a general election, to be

Opposition parties say they welcome the fight, but...

This is a Prime Minister who promised there wouldn't be one.

A Prime Minister who cannot be trusted.

Meanwhile in Holyrood, the SNP and the Conservatives square

But it wasn't all about the general election.

In the Commons, there was concern over the nuclear

And condemnation of the alleged death, detention and torture

Others would join in beating him with sticks or metal rods and

demanding to know the names of other gay men that he knew in Chechnya.

But first: On paper, it had looked like MPs were set

for a gentle return after Easter with just a little light

legislating to keep them busy in the the chamber.

Peers, meanwhile, had not yet even returned from their break,

with another week of their recess to run.

So it was to a hastily assembled and unsuspecting press pack that

Theresa May unleashed the best kept secret in Westminster

Mrs May explained why she'd changed her mind

The country is coming together, but Westminster is not.

In recent weeks, Labour have threatened to vote

against the final agreement we reach with the European Union.

The Liberal Democrats have said they want to grind the business

The Scottish National Party say they will vote against

the legislation that formally repeals Britain's membership

And unelected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us

Our opponents believe, because the government's

majority is so small, that our resolve will weaken

and that they can force us to change course.

If we do not hold a general election now, their political gameplaying

will continue and the negotiations with the European Union

will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up

Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make

a success of Brexit, and it will cause

damaging uncertainty and instability to the country.

So we need a general election and we need one now.

Because we have at this moment a one-off chance to get this done

while the European Union agrees its negotiating position,

Theresa May no longer has the power to call an election

exactly when she wants - under the Fixed Term Parliaments

Act, two thirds of MPs must support of the idea.

So it was announced that the next afternoon there'd be a 90-minute

But first, there was the small matter of Prime Minister's

We welcome the general election, but...

But this... But this is a Prime Minister who run this there wouldn't

be one. -- who promised there wouldn't be one. A Prime Minister

who cannot be trusted. She says it's about leadership, yet is refusing to

defend her record in television debates.

And it is not hard to see why. The Prime Minister says we have a

stronger economy. Yet she can't explain why people's wages are lower

today than they were ten years ago, all why more households are in debt,

6 million people earning less than the minimum wage, -- the living

wage, child poverty is up, pensioner poverty is up, so why are so many

people getting poorer? Well, I can assure The Right

Honourable gentleman, first of all, I would point... I would point out

to him that I have been answering his questions and debating these

matters every Wednesday that Parliament has been sitting since I

became Prime Minister, and I will be taking out to the country in this

campaign a proud record of a Conservative government. A stronger

economy, an economy with a deficit nearly two thirds down, with 30

million people with a tax cut, 4 million people taking out of income

tax altogether, record levels of employment, and ?1250 more a year

for pensioners. That's a record we can be proud of.

If the Prime Minister is so confident that a hard Brexit,

pro-austerity, and the immigration case is right, she should debate it

with leaders during the campaign. Theresa May said

she'd be out campaigning in every part of the UK -

and she had this advice for the SNP. Now is the time for them to put

aside their tunnel vision on independence and actually explain to

the Scottish people why under the SNP, there are not putting as much

money into the health service as they have been given from the UK,

there are not exercising the powers they've been given, and Scottish

education is getting worse. It's time they got back to the day job.

The British public deserve to hear party leaders set out their plans

and debate them publicly, but the and debate them publicly, but the

Prime Minister has refused to take part in televised leaders' debates.

Why will she not debate these issues? What is she scared of?

I can assure the honourable gentleman that I will be debating

these issues publicly across the country, as well every single member

of the Conservative team. A veteran Labour MP raised alleged

breaches of election expenses from the 2015 election

which are still being investigated Will the Prime Minister give a

guarantee that no Tory MPs who is under investigation by the police

and the legal authorities over election expenses in the last

general election be a candidate in this election? Because if she won't

accent that, this is a most squalid election campaign that has happened

in my lifetime. -- the most squalid. I stand by all the Conservative MPs

who are in this house, and who will be out there standing again,

campaigning for a Conservative government that will give a brighter

and better future for this country. A short time later, MPs

had their chance to debate and vote on Mrs May's call

for an early election. If this election is, as the Prime

Minister says, about Hay Mills secure future for this country, if

it is an election of such national significance, we should have an

urgent change in the law to give Britain's 1.5 million 16 and

17-year-olds a say in what will very much be their future on the 8th of

June. The people of Northern Ireland will

have a clear choice. They will have a clear choice as to whether they

will want to rally round and say very, very firmly that they want

Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, or whether they

want to go down the route presented by Sinn Fein, which is this Marxist

Leninist concept of a republic which has been rejected even by most

people who accept their nationalism, but reject what they stand for in

terms of their economic outlook and all the rest of it.

In essence, the Prime Ministersargument is that she has no

confidence in parliament. So we have this bizarre situation where we had

a referendum that was about taking back control and parliamentary

sovereignty, but a Prime Minister who pronounces that she has no

confidence in parliament. Against the EU, for the EU, then

against again. Against holding a general election, and now determined

to have a general election. The record is about as straight as the

legendary European Union banana. To suggest that she needs a mandate

to negotiate Brexit is just ridiculous. She was given that

mandate on the 24th of June, by a majority of the British people, and

it is up to her now to carry that out.

There is only one reason why the Prime Minister wants a general

election on the 8th of June, and that is, she figures she has a

better chance of winning it now than she does in the future.

I know that this government, which has delivered so much already and

has so much more to deliver, will have a resonance with the British

public when they look at what is on offer from the other parties, who I

divided, they are wrangling, their scaremongering, and they aren't

Brexit denial. And at the end, Mrs me comfortably

got her way. Order, order. -- Mrs May.

The ayes to the right, 422. The noes to the left, 13.

And that meant to reason they hadn't well over the two thirds majority

she needed to dissolve Parliament for an early election and the 8th of

June. -- Theresa May had well over the two thirds majority.

The SNP won all but three of the 59 Scottish seats at Westminster,

but they abstained on that Commons vote.

At Holyrood, where they form the government, they were rather

At First Minister's questions on Thursday,

Nicola Sturgeon said the question was who would stand up for Scotland

We have seen the damage that Tories do with a small majority.

I know they don't want to hear it, but with a small majority,

the Tories have cut Scotland's budget, they've imposed the bedroom

tax, the rape clause, cuts in disabled support,

robbed women of their pension entitlement.

Let's think about the damage a Tory Government could do

She focused on what the SNP are calling the rape clause,

a benefits change which limits payments to two children,

unless a woman can show a third child resulted

women to prove that they have been raped before they get access

I'll give Ruth Davidson the chance to do today what she has shamefully

Stand up here today and tell this chamber, tell Scotland straight,

do you support the rape clause in principle or do you, like me

I'll answer the question the same way I answered it

If the First Minister doesn't like the two child tax

The truth is this First Minister is always happier, always happier,

complaining about the UK Government than she is about doing

And the fact is that the way the SNP is readying itself to pour

negativity on this country at this election is shameful.

And she might not like it, she might not like it,

but Scotland is part of this United Kingdom.

And if the First Minister really wants to set out her stall at this

election isn't a practical vision of how she is governing

Scotland the very least that we should all expect?

Given the way that education and the economy are going,

is she just banking on the fact that Scots just won't buy it?

The First Minister has said that she wants an honest debate.

It suits the SNP for the Tories to stay in power.

That's why they refused to vote Theresa May out of office yesterday.

And every day that the Tories remain in power 430,000 Scots go

Waspi women go without the pension they have

And young people have their housing benefit stripped away from them.

It suits the SNP for the Tories to stay in power because the only

thing the SNP has ever cared about is independence.

So tell us, First Minister, on the 8th of June,

Kicking the Tories out of office or having another

Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable and will leave Labour

Because that's what Kezia Dugdale said about Jeremy Corbyn.

I agree with Kezia Dugdale about how awful and how damaging

That's why I think it is so utterly shameful and disgraceful that Labour

have allowed itself to get in the position that this lot are 20

points ahead of them in the opinion polls UK wide,

and even ahead of them in Scotland as well.

That is Labour's failure and it is an utter disgrace.

Away from the election MPs turned their eyes to the wider world

and united in condemnation of the treatment of gay men

Answering an urgent question the Foreign Office minister,

Sir Alan Duncan, who was the first openly gay Conservative MP,

said the reported torture and killing was beyond contempt.

The arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of over 100 men

in Chechnya because of their sexual orientation is of deep

Credible reports suggesting that at least four people have been

killed and many have been tortured are particularly shocking.

Statements by the regional government in Chechnya

which appeared to condone and incite violence against LGBT people

The question had been raised by a Labour MP.

We are talking about beatings, abuse, electric shock treatments.

I do not say this lightly but some have described gay

And the Guardian's Shaun Walker, express the horrors

He described a situation where an individual at least once a day,

captors attached metal clamps, and sent powerful electric

If he managed not to scream others joined in beating him with sticks

or metal rods and demanding to know the names of other gay men

So if we have any doubts of the brutality of this regime

towards the LGBT community we need not have them.

So he asked, what had the British Government done to put

pressure on the Russian or Chechen governments?

We do use all engagement with Russia to make our voice clear.

I did so personally with the deputy Foreign Minister

of Russia when I met him two or three weeks ago.

We spoke on general human rights matters and also Chechnya.

And may I say that I hope this House will be fully united in giving

as strong as possible a message to Russia, and to Chechnya

in particular, that this kind of activity is beyond contempt

and is not acceptable in the world in which we live.

Whether we like it or not, Kadyrov actually has the fundamental

support in some terms, of his nation, as a region

So how do we undermine that is also about investment and also

about our foreign aid in tackling human rights across the world.

So will the deputy Foreign Minister commit now here on the floor

of the House in fighting for human rights, LGBT and other rights

in places like Chechnya, to ensure that his foreign aid

budget doesn't change after the general election?

I think we should all commit to fighting prejudice wherever

we find it and I hope that when we stand in the election

on June 8th that will be part of all of the views that we hold

as we present ourselves to the electorate.

The Foreign Secretary came to the Commons to update MPs

on the situation in North Korea following a failed missile test.

North Korea's vice-foreign minister told the BBC Pyongyang

would continue to test missiles and would launch a pre-emptive

nuclear strike if it thought the US was planning an attack.

In the Commons Boris Johnson called on China to use

The regime is now developing intercontinental ballistic missiles

which would be capable of delivering a nuclear strike on the

These weapons have not yet been fully tested but no-one can be

complacent about the potential threat they pose.

Yesterday I spoke to my Chinese counterpart and I urged him to use

Beijing's unique influence to restrain North Korea

and to allow a peaceful resolution of this crisis.

This crisis can only be resolved through coordinated

international action, through the de-escalation

of tensions, and ultimately through negotiations.

So can he assure us that Britain will argue against any unilateral

military action taken by the United States and instead

urgently back China's call for the resumption

When it comes to North Korea the world needs statesmanship

Labour says food prices are on the rise and is warning

things will get worse if there's a bad Brexit deal.

But the Environment Minister argued the proportion of income spent

by the poorest households on food hadn't gone up.

Children are returning to school after the Easter holidays hungry.

The elderly are being admitted to hospital for malnourishment.

And still this Government refuse to properly measure the levels

of hunger and food poverty in our country.

Isn't it true that they refuse to measure it because then

they would have to admit some culpability?

We do mention it and we have a long standing living cost of food survey

which has run for many many years and which includes a measure

for household spending among the 20% poorest households.

And I can tell her that household spending in those poorest households

has remained steady at around 16% for at least a decade.

Fashion industry leaders have told MPs that the UK's departure

from the EU could put their haute couture designs at

It's currently possible to get protection across the whole EU.

I have got my trademarks registered under EU trademarking.

I don't know what that means now we are out of it.

So you're going to have a lot of companies have registered

trademarks on this EU trade intellectual property

But with every situation like this there are opportunities and so it

requires fresh thinking, innovation from the side

of Government, to really think about how you are going to deal

with it and that requires investment.

Around one million UK pensioners are now resident

in overseas locations, many in sunny retirement

destinations such as Spain, France and the Caribbean.

More than half of them don't receive yearly increases

A Conservative argued that wasn't fair.

This leads to the ludicrous situation where a British pensioner

living on one side of Niagara Falls in Canada receives a frozen pension,

while another living just a mile across the Falls,

in the United States, has their pension uprated every year.

These people are not immune from the effects of inflation,

yet are forced to cope with the rising costs

As you can imagine this has a major impact upon their lives.

But the Minister said the cost of giving all UK pensioners overseas

Those who are eligible for UK state pension can have their pension paid

The rules governing the uprating of pensions are straightforward,

widely publicised, and have been the same from many years.

The Government's position remains consistent with that of every

Government for the last 70 years and the annual costs of changing

it is a long-standing policy and will be an extra half a billion

half a billion pounds, which the Government believes

Finally, a Conservative MP got into some some hot water

after a tactless comment about his wife and her

During Environment questions, Sir Henry Bellingham attempted

bits of plastic found in many bathroom products,

which cause environmental damage when they work their way

Sir Henry explained he'd been doing some investigating of his own.

I was recently rummaging through my wife's collection of shampoos and to

my horror I found a plastic container of Olay anti-wrinkle,

Complete with exfoliating micro beads.

Obviously neither the Secretary of State nor the Minister

will have need to use this sort of product

but will she get on the

telephone to the chief Executive of Procter

Gamble and tell him that

selling this sort of product is completely outrageous and

it should be withdrawn from the market at once?

Mr Speaker, what I find extraordinary is that

Lady Bellingham is a flawless picture and wouldn't even

I'm sure that my honourable friend will be buying flowers later today

I think it might take just a little more than that.

Finally, let's go back to Theresa May's surprise election.

Here's Gary Connor with five things we learned this week.

The general election is on but Manchester Gorton is off.

MPs cancelled the by-election to replace Sir Gerald Kaufman.

His successor will now be chosen on the 8th of June.

The much promised reduction in the number of constituencies

hasn't been finished so this election will be fought under

George Osborne, Gisela Stuart, and Alan Johnson were some

of the first to say they won't be standing again.

73-year-old Lib Dem Sir Vince Cable has declared he wants to come back.

The Conservative grandee Ken Clarke has cancelled his retirement.

We won't know who will be sitting on these green benches for a little

while yet but the occupant of the big green chair

Speaker John Bercow has already said he'll be coming back -

Gary Connor, and that's it from us for now, but do join me on Monday

night at 11 for another round up of the day here at Westminster.

The House of Lords is back from its Easter break and both MPs

and peers will be busy as the government decides

which bills it wants to push through before Parliament dissolves