20/04/2017 Thursday in Parliament

Hello there and welcome to Thursday in Parliament.

On this programme - as election campaigning gets underway,

questions about election expenses from 2015.

The Commons unites to condemn the detention, torture and

killing of gay men in Chechnya.

There are calls for the Government to act to make sure food prices

don't go up after Brexit.

And, find out what this Conservative has been

doing in the bathroom and why it's going to land him in a whole heap of

trouble when he gets home.

To my horror, I found...

LAUGHTER.

A plastic container of Olay anti-wrinkle,

anti-ageing lotion...

But first, and SNP MP is demanding the Government urgently explain

whether or not the police investigation into Conservative

MPs' election expenses swayed a decision to call an early

general election.

14 police forces have sent files to the Crown Prosecution

Service in relation to allegations of breached spending limits in the

2015 general election.

Pete Wishart wanted to know more before this year's election

campaign got into full swing.

Before we rise, Mr Speaker, we have to have

an urgent statement on the status of all these Conservative Members

of Parliament who are currently under

police investigation for electoral fraud.

It seems that there might be up to two dozen Conservative MPs

facing the possibility of being prosecuted while we are in the

middle of an election campaign.

The public, I believe, deserves to know

what happened under these circumstances and will it be

possible for them to continue as candidates in this general

election if that was to pass?

Now, there are a lot of people who suspect that with the

first charging decision to be made on the 20th of May, that this is

the real reason for the snap election,

and we need to hear from the Government if this played any

feature in its deciding and determining the state

of the election.

I would like to hear from the Leader of the House of Commons

on this issue.

The honourable gentleman made a serious point to me

about the police investigations.

I want to reiterate, Mr Speaker, what

the Prime Minister said yesterday -

that we stand behind all our candidates at the forthcoming

election, who will be out campaigning for a strong and stable

government in the national interest.

A number of police forces have conducted investigations and many

have been dropped.

Now, it's right these matters are investigated

properly, but the battle bus was directed by

the National Party, as was the case with other

political parties, and we are confident

that individual colleagues acted properly.

The Shadow Leader of the Commons turned to the electoral

campaign and the reasons given by Theresa May for calling an

early election.

The Prime Minister wants stability and to strengthen her hand

in the negotiations, but blames the opposition

parties for calling a general election.

But it is her dithering and confusion and watching her back.

Firstly, what an allegedly arrogant statement, that she should

presume to know the outcome of an election.

Secondly, what has her Government been doing for the last

nine months?

Thirdly, can the Leader of the House confirm that if the

Government wins, that we are not entering into a rolling programme of

snap elections during negotiations?

I think all of us in the House, whatever political perspective we

bring to these matters, want to see public services of a kind in which

we can all take pride, in which we think work effectively

for our constituents, who are vulnerable

and in need of help.

It is the belief of this Government and this party that

the foundation for effective public services has to be a strong

and growing economy.

And the plans put forward by the right honourable

gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, would render any

such chaotic Government incapable of funding public services, because

they would have bankrupted the British economy, raised taxes

on ordinary working families and piled yet more public debt

onto the next generation, a betrayal of young people.

A Conservative asked about Government Bills that wouldn't now

become law because of the early election, including a Bill to

bolster security in jails and crack down on the use of drugs and mobile

phones in prisons.

Can the Leader of the House confirm that the Prison and Courts

Bill has now been abandoned for this Parliament and will have to start

its passage again through the House in the next Parliament?

And can he tell us which Bills will be going

through the rather grubby process of the wash up, which is a rather

unsatisfactory way to pass laws?

The Bills that were introduced to this

House quite late in the current Parliamentary session, and which

received carry-over motions, so that they could be debated in what

would have been the third session of the current Parliament,

will fall, including the Prisons and Courts Bill.

I referred in my statement to some of those measures that we will

be addressing during the wash-up period next week.

There are, as my right honourable friend knows,

discussions going on through the usual channels

about how to handle particular pieces of legislation,

and I don't want to prejudice what the outcome of those

discussions will be.

A leading Brexiteer, who is standing down at the election,

reflected on the task ahead for MPs.

The next Parliament has a very difficult task.

The Government has to implement the will of the

people, as expressed on the 23rd of June last year.

The Opposition has to scrutinise the Government in a

constructive, but nevertheless, relentless way, to ensure that we

get the best deal.

But finally, can I just paraphrase Nancy Astor...

I shall miss this House, I shall miss

this House more than the House will miss me.

Gisela Stuart.

Now, Britain must deliver the strongest possible siren message

over the brutal persecution of gay men in Chechnya,

a Foreign Office Minister has said.

Sir Alan Duncan, who was the first openly gay

Conservative MP, said the reported torture and killing was the and

Conservative MP, said the reported torture and killing was beyond

contempt and pledged to raise the issue

with allies in Europe and the Commonwealth.

The arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of over

100 men in Chechnya, because of their sexual orientation,

is of deep concern to the UK.

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 appear

to condone and incite violence against LGBT people are

utterly despicable.

The question had been raised by a Labour MP.

We are talking here about detention, we're

talking about beatings, we are talking about abuse,

electric shock treatments, and I do not say this

lightly, Mr Speaker, but some have described gay

concentration camps.

And, Mr Speaker, the Guardian's Shaun Walker I think expressed

really the horrors that we are seeing.

He described the situation of an individual, at least once a day,

captors attached metal clamps and sent powerful electric

shocks through his body.

If he managed not to scream, 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.

So, if we have any doubts, Mr Speaker,

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 in the Government fully condemn this.

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, Vladimir Titov.

We spoke on general human rights matters, but also Chechnya.

And may I say, Mr Speaker, that I hope this House

will be fully united in giving the strongest possible siren message

to Russia, and to Chechnya in particular, that this kind of

activity is beyond contempt and not

acceptable in the world in which we live.

It is nothing short of officially-sanctioned policy from

the Chechnyan authorities, but the Russian government, who bears

ultimate responsibility for its citizens' safety, appears to be

looking the other way.

And that is scarcely any better.

We do need and we are speaking today with a strong

and unified voice, but it does seem to me

that whilst I applaud, of course, the right honourable

gentleman's raising this matter as the Deputy Foreign

Secretary, I do think that it needs to be escalated,

and as a result of the urgent question today, I hope that we will

get an undertaking from the Government

that it will be raised at a much higher political level.

It seems to me that this is a matter that the Prime Minister really

should take an initiative on and she should call in the

Russian Ambassador and demand some answers.

This reminds us we are phenominally lucky in this

This reminds us we are phenomenally lucky in this

country, those of us who are gay, in particular gay

because I remember meeting in Russia in 2009

a lesbian activist who was 83 years old.

I asked her how she got away with it, and she said, "Well I think

President Putin thinks that women don't have sex after the age of 80!

How wrong can you be?" she said.

But the serious point here is that we

should of course pay tribute to those people

who are standing up and are at risk of their own lives,

and I'm glad that the Government is acting to try and do that.

But isn't this all part of a piece?

President Putin appointed Kadyrov as president in Chechnya.

He then got elected with 98% of the vote, that

doesn't of course seem at all bizarre, does it?

But he and Putin have both repeatedly abused human rights.

They've used violence to excess, they've always resorted to

violence when there is another opportunity of providing a

peaceful means.

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

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

Russian Federation.

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

also about 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,

LGBTI and other rights, in places like Chechnya, to ensuring

that his foreign aid budget doesn't change after the general election?

Well, 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 we hold as we present

ourselves to the electorate.

Sir Alan Duncan.

The Government has a debt of honour to give all elderly

British citizens living abroad an annual rise in their pensions,

according to a long-standing campaigner on the rights of expats.

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

in their state pensions.

In a debate, Sir Roger Gale read from a

letter he'd recently received from a 91-year-old British

citizen living in Canada.

I was brought up to believe that Britain was a fair country.

It's a disgrace. It has to end.

It's terrible to meet pensioners over here who say they

have to come back to Britain because they can't manage.

And Joe Lewis, a 90-year-old, who also lives in

Canada and has recently lost his wife, will be moving back to the

United Kingdom as he can no longer cope with his frozen pension.

The MP said the UK Government had done

deals with certain countries, meaning some expats did receive

rises in their pensions.

So this leads, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the

ludicrous situation where a British pensioner

living on one side of the Niagara Falls in Canada

receives a frozen pension, while another living just a mile

across the Falls in the United States has a pension rate

up-rated every year.

Additionally, some Caribbean islands enjoy up-rated

pensions, while other small countries and overseas territories

do not.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we are now, and I trust that we will

remain, in Government.

And so we should have the opportunity to

finally address and put to rest a debt of honour that must be paid.

The vast majority of frozen pensioners live in the Commonwealth.

Around 250,000 of those affected live in Australia and

almost 150,000 in Canada.

These people are not immune from the effects of inflation,

yet are forced to cope with their rising cost of

living on a static income.

As you can imagine, this has a major impact

upon their lives.

But the reality is that these 550,000 British citizens,

British citizens, the same as every one of us here, the same as all of

our constituents who are UK citizens, they do not have an MP.

They do not have a single person who is directly representing them

and fighting their cause.

We, as a country, have always prided ourselves

on being a caring country.

We are one of the highest net providers of foreign

aid in the world, and rightly so.

We must, however, ask the question as to why we do not

feel the need to adequately support our own pensioners who have

retired abroad?

An increasing number of modern countries operate pensions in

line with inflation to pensioners living overseas, regardless of

where they reside.

Today, we must consider why the UK is not doing the same.

Despite those pleas, the Minister said the cost of giving all UK

pensioners overseas an annual up-rating was too high.

But I think it's reasonable to say that the

decision to move abroad, for most people, is a voluntary one

and remains a personal choice, dependent

on the circumstance of the individual.

It's a voluntary choice to live abroad.

Those who are eligible for a UK state pension can

have their pension paid wherever they choose to live.

The rules governing the uprating of pensions

are straightforward, widely publicised and have been the

same for many years.

The Government's position remains consistent with

that of every Government for the last 70 years,

and the annual cost of changing the long-standing policy

will soon be an extra ?500 million which the Government

believes cannot be justified.

Now it was back in 2015 that the car-maker Volkswagen

was found to have installed what are known

as defeat devices in its diesel models,

so that they would pass emission tests.

The matter has been under investigation by the transport

committee, who have interviewed the company's top UK executive,

Paul Willis, twice.

Compensation for UK customers is a critical issue, and

Mr Willis was full of apologies on behalf of the company

when he first gave evidence to us in 2015.

Since then, as I've said, his tune has

changed dramatically.

In fact, it is now VW's position, stated to us by

Mr Willis to the committee a short time ago, that the company has done

nothing wrong in the UK, or indeed in the rest of Europe,

and he told us that because the company has done nothing

wrong, no compensation is due.

Well, this, Mr Chairman, is treating the

UK with contempt.

Let me remind honourable members of the current

position in other countries in relation to compensation.

In the US, Volkswagen has agreed to provide

each owner with between $5000-10,000.

A deal agreed in Canada will give owners between $4000-6000.

And here, nothing, nothing at all.

Owners who have had their cars fixed have reported problems.

I am receiving, almost daily, numerous communications from

members of the public, who report that their vehicle has been impaired

since they had the fix applied.

Many people have told me of the stress of

suddenly finding their vehicle was not working after the measure

was applied, and there are instances of the vehicle going into limp mode

or a state where the vehicle would not go above a certain speed,

and in one case, this was on a motorway,

the other cars having to swerve to avoid a collision.

In many instances where concerns were raised, the customers

were told it was a coincidence and they were asked to pay hundreds or

even thousands of pounds for the fault created

by the so-called fix to be investigated and put right.

This morning, I got an e-mail from a constituent

on this very subject, who has a diesel vehicle.

Neil says in his e-mail, "For the past two

decades, I've driven a diesel car, on the advice that this type of fuel

was the best environmental choice.

I am now in a position of being considered

the demon of the roads oweing to thepollution, in particular

nitrogen oxide released by these cars.

This is due to the car company's fraud use

of pollution-cheating systems."

He goes on to say, "I would like to be sure that I will

not be the one who ends up footing the bill to change my polluting

diesel," and asks if there are any UK schemes being planned to help

people who are the victims of the scam.

The Government continues to challenge Volkswagen's

unacceptable view that they do not need to compensate British motorists

that have been affected by the manipulation emissions test.

Ruskin said that endurance is nobler than

strength, and my enduring determination to ensure that we not

only closely monitor the progress of Volkswagen's implementation

of technical upgrades,

and overseeing that they appropriately

deal with the issues and complaints related to those changes, that we

will press to for them to do what they should

have done all along.

Admitted their failure, and offered recompense for it.

It is, in the end, as straightforward as that.

The Transport Minister, John Hayes.

You're watching Thursday in Parliament, with me,

Alicia McCarthy.

Labour says food prices are on the rise and is warning

things will get worse if there is a bad Brexit deal.

The accusation came at environment questions, but the

Minister rejected the claim, saying the amount the poorest households

were spending had been stable for a decade.

A Labour MP began by quoting figures from the Office

for National Statistics, or ONS.

The ONS are reporting a surge in food prices that is likely

to continue to rise.

Children are returning to school after the Easter holidays hungry.

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 because they refuse to

measure it, because then they would have to admit some culpability?

Now, the honourable lady is wrong.

We do mention it.

We have a long-standing living cost of food survey

which has run for many, many years, and which include a measure for

household spending among the 20% poorest households.

I can tell her that household spending in those

poorest households has remained steady, at around 16%, for at

least a decade.

Contrary to what the Minister said earlier, recent

inflation figures revealed that food prices are rising at the fastest

pace in three years, adding ?21 to the average household

shopping bill in the last three months alone.

When will the Secretary of State get a

grip on this soaring cost of living affecting millions of families?

Well, as I pointed out earlier, the question

that was raised, we saw the biggest spike in food prices in 2008,

because of energy prices then.

Food prices fell by around 7% between 2014-16.

It is true that they have seen a modest increase over the last

12 months of 1.3%.

It is quite common in food processing plants for

70% of the employees to be EU migrants.

It is not clear where their staff are going to come

from in the future.

Is the Minister committed to defending this sector

in the Brexit negotiations to come, and so avoiding price rises from

this driver as well?

Well, I can reassure the honourable gentleman

that I've had regular meetings with food processors.

Indeed, just two days ago, I had a meeting with the

new president of the Food and Drink Federation

and this is an issue raised by them.

It is the case that around 30%, according to ONS, of

employees in the food processing sector are from other European

Union countries.

But I would simply say this, the Prime Minister has been

very clear that she wants to safeguard and protect the rights of

EU citizens that are here and that she would expect that to be

reciprocated as well, and that could be agreed early

in the negotiations.

Does the Minister recognise that it's absolutely crucial that the

needs of the agricultural sector are placed at the heart of

Brexit negotiations?

Because isn't it clear that if the Government doesn't get

its act together, a bad Brexit deal is going to leave British farmers

and food producers facing the double whammy of cheap food imports and

tariffs on their exports?

I would simply say to the honourable lady

that access to the UK market is incredibly important for European

countries as well.

While we export around ?11 billion of food and drink

to the European Union, we import some ?28 billion worth of food

from the EU.

That is why farming unions across the EU are telling their

governments that they must have a free trade agreement with the UK.

The Environment Minister, George Eustace.

MPs have approved a motion cancelling the Manchester Gorton

by-election which was due to be held on May the 4th.

The seat became vacant following the death of

veteran Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman earlier this year.

The Leader of the Commons said the planned vote had

been overtaken by the decision to hold an early general election on

June the 8th.

The motion therefore requests you, Mr Speaker, to convey

to the clerk of the Crown and the desire of this house,

that he issued a writ of supersedeas to the writ issued on

Tuesday the 28th of March for the by-election.

This will put beyond any doubt the authority of the act

of the returning officer to cancel the by-election process that is

currently underway.

I understand that this approach is supported by

other political parties in the House, as it avoids unnecessary

expense and uncertainties that the candidates involved.

David Lidington.

Finally, a Conservative MP is probably going to be in some

hot water when he arrives home, after a tactless comment about his

wife and her beauty secrets.

During environment questions, Sir Henry Bellingham

attempted to make a point about micro beads, small bits of

plastic found in many bathroom and beauty products which cause

environmental damage when they work their way

into the seas and oceans life.

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...

LAUGHTER.

A plastic, a plastic container of Olay, anti-wrinkle

anti-ageing lotion...

Complete with exfoliating micro beads.

Now obviously neither Secretary of State

nor her Minister would ever have need to use such

a product, but will she get on the telephone to Procter

Gamble and tell him that selling

this sort of product at the moment is completely outrageous and it

should be withdrawn from the market at once?

The pursuits of the honourable gentleman are truly extraordinary!

Minister?

Mr Speaker, what I find extraordinary is that

Lady Bellingham is a flawless picture and would even need these

products, so I'm sure that, I'm sure that my honourable friend will be

buying flowers later today to make up for this!

Therese Coffey suggesting a way for Sir Henry Bellingham to avoid some

marital hot water when he gets home.

And that's it from me for now, but do join me

on Friday night at 11 for a full round-up of what's been

another quite extraordinary week here at Westminster, as campaigning

gets underway for June's surprise general election.

But for now, from me, goodbye.