19/04/2017 Wednesday in Parliament

Hello, and welcome to the programme as MPs back Theresa May's call

for a general election on June 8th.

The ayes to the right, 522.

The noes to the left, 13.

So, the ayes have it, the ayes have it.

Unlock.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Theresa May is challenged over why

she won't take part in televised debates, and on her previous promise

not to call an early election.

She wants us to believe that she is a

woman of her word.

Is it the truth that we cannot believe a single word

she says?

The Prime Minister defends her decision.

I think it is right now to ask the British people to put their

trust in me and the Conservative Party to deliver on their vote last

year, a Brexit plan that will make a success for this country

and deliver a stronger, fairer, global Britain

in the future.

Also on this programme - is it time to ditch diesel cars?

And the Energy Secretary promises muscular action over fuel bills.

But first...

The House of Commons has backed the Prime Minister's call

for a general election on June 8th.

MPs voted by 522 to 13, meaning Theresa May secured well

over the two thirds majority she needed to dissolve Parliament.

Mrs May took Westminster by surprise on Tuesday by announcing she wanted

to go to the country - having previously said

she wouldn't hold an early poll.

She argued the vote was needed to give her a strong hand

in the Brexit negotiations.

At Prime Minister's Questions the Labour leader challenged

Mrs May's record.

We welcome the general election...

HECKLING.

But this...

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

A Prime Minister who cannot be trusted.

She says it is 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...

Yet she can't explain why people's wages are lower today

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

6 million people earning less than 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 out to the right honourable gentleman 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, I will be taking out to the country

in this campaign a proud record of a Conservative government.

A stronger economy, an economy of a deficit nearly two thirds down,

with 30 million people with a tax cut.

4 million people taken out of income tax altogether.

Record levels of employment and ?1250 more a year for pensioners.

That is a record we can be proud of.

Mr Speaker, if she is so proud of her record,

why won't she debate it?

Wages...

Wages are falling, more children are in poverty,

and the last Tory manifesto, page 28, said...

"We will work to eliminate child poverty."

They only eliminated the child poverty targets, not child poverty.

People will have a real choice at this election.

They will have a choice between a Conservative government

that has shown we can build a stronger economy,

and a Labour Party whose economic policy would bankrupt this country.

And what voters know is that under Labour it is ordinary working people

who pay the price of the Labour Party.

They pay it with their taxes, they pay it with their jobs,

and they pay it with their children's futures.

Most people know that the reason we are actually having a general

election is because of the woeful state of the Labour Party.

If the Prime Minister is so confident that her hard

Brexit, pro-austerity immigration case is right, then she should

debate it with opposition leaders during the campaign.

We look forward to the straight fight between

the SNP and the Tories.

Can the Prime Minister tell the people why she is running scared

of a televised debate with Nicola Sturgeon?

I can assure the right honourable gentleman that I will be out

there campaigning in every part of the United Kingdom,

taking out there our proud record of a Conservative government that

has delivered for every part of the United Kingdom.

And I might suggest to the Scottish Nationalists that

actually now is the time for them to put aside...

HECKLING.

Yes.

HECKLING.

Wait for it.

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 they are not putting as much money into the health service

as they have been given from the UK, they are not exercising the powers

they have been given, and Scottish education

is getting worse.

It is time they got back to the day job.

The British public deserve to hear the party leaders

set out their plans and debate them publicly.

But the Prime Minister has refused to take part

in televised leaders debates.

The Prime Minister and I, back in 1992, debated publicly,

forcibly and amicably when we were both

candidates together.

Indeed, Mr Speaker...

Indeed, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister called out

the then incumbent who did not show up for some of those debates.

Why will she not debate those issues publicly now?

What is she scared of?

I can assure the honourable gentleman that I will be debating

these issues publicly across the country,

as will every single member of the Conservative team.

The Prime Minister yesterday said she was calling a general election

because Parliament was blocking Brexit.

But three quarters of MPs and two thirds of the Lords

voted for Article 50.

So that is not true, is it?

And a month ago she told her official spokesman to rule out

an early general election, and that wasn't true either, was it?

She wants us to believe that she is a woman of her word.

Isn't the truth that we cannot believe a single word she says?

HECKLING.

This...

Order.

The House is rather...

Order.

The House is rather overexcited.

The question has been heard.

The answer will be heard.

The Prime Minister...

This House and this Parliament voted to trigger Article 50.

But the Labour Party made it clear they were thinking of voting

against the final deal.

The Scottish Nationalists...

The Scottish...

HECKLING.

The Scottish Nationalists...

The Scottish Nationalists have said that they would vote

against the legislation necessary to leave the European Union.

The Liberal Democrats since they are going to grind

government to a standstill.

And the House of Lords have threatened to stop us

every inch of the way.

I think it is right now to ask the British people

to put their trust in me and the Conservative Party

to deliver on their vote last year a Brexit plan that will make

a success for this country and deliver a stronger, fairer,

global Britain in the future.

A veteran Labour MP raised alleged breaches of election expenses

from the 2015 election which are still being investigated

by some police forces.

Will the Prime Minister give a guarantee that no Tory MP

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 accept that, this is the most squalid election

campaign that has happened in my lifetime.

I stand by all the Conservative MPs who are in this House

and who will be out there standing again, campaigning, campaigning

for a Conservative government that will give a brighter and better

future for this country.

Well, a short time later MPs began their debate on the motion -

with Theresa May returning to the despatch box

to set out her case.

I have set out the divisions that have become clear on this issue.

They can and will be used against us, weakening our hand

in the negotiations to come, and we must not let that happen.

I believe that at this moment of enormous national significance

there should be unity here in Westminster, not division.

And that is why it is the right and responsible thing for all of us

here today to vote for a general election, to make our respective,

to make our respective cases to the country and then to respect

the result and the mandate that provides to give Britain

the strongest possible hand in the negotiations to come.

The question is that there shall be an early

Parliamentary general election.

Mr Jeremy Corbyn.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

LAUGHTER.

We welcome the opportunity of a general election,

because it gives the British people the chance to vote for a Labour

government that would put the interests of the majority first.

Britain is being held back.

Held back by her government.

The Prime Minister talks about a strong economy,

but the truth is most people are worse off than they were

when the Conservatives came to power seven years ago.

The election gives the British people the chance

to change direction.

Jeremy Corbyn.

It was then the turn of the smaller parties

and backbenchers to have their say.

There was strong support from the Prime Minister's own side -

but accusations of opportunism from opposition MPs.

A Conservative began by telling MPs that he'd told his local

newspaper there was no chance of a snap election.

And as I told them, with absolute confidence,

turkeys will not vote for Christmas.

I congratulate my right honourable friend for having achieved

the impossible and secured the fact that today those turkeys

will indeed vote for that.

If this election is, as the Prime Minister says,

about a more 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 be very much 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 or not

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

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

at reject what they stand for in terms of their economic

outlook and all the rest of it.

And the only way to support the union is by rallying behind

the Democratic Unionist Party on the 8th of June.

She has accused others of playing games in this Parliament.

In essence, the Prime Minister's argument 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,

that was about Parliamentary sovereignty, but then

we have a Prime Minister who pronounces she has no

confidence in Parliament.

She doesn't trust parties in the opposition.

She confers on them all sorts of exaggerated powers

to block out to wreck, and then of course she has

complaints about the House of Lords.

Mr Speaker, against the European Union,

for the European Union, then against again.

Against holding a general election, and now determined

to have a general election.

Mr Speaker, the record is about as straight as a legendary

European Union banana.

Brexit for us is a very different and brittle world.

We fully support as Ulster Unionists that we need to find

the right way forward, but it is going to be used

by Sinn Fein to really try and break up the union.

And we need that support.

The justification which is given for having a general election

is quite frankly disingenuous.

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's up to her now

to carry that out.

If she then wishes to have another election at the end of the process,

or to have another referendum, then so be it, but to

justify it now is just, as my honourable colleague

says, purely opportunistic.

I believe this is the sort of thing that gives politics a bad

name in our country, and it's what's leading

to the alienation of many of our citizens from the political process.

There was 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.

It is therefore the most blatant abuse of the democratic procedure

for party political advantage.

And as this campaign goes on, it will be seen as that.

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's on offer

from the other parties who are divided, they are wrangling,

they are scaremongering and they are in Brexit denial.

This Government will give us the best deal

for all of our businesses and all of our constituencies.

And at the end Mrs May comfortably got her way.

THE SPEAKER: Order, order.

The ayes to the right, 522.

The noes to the left, 13.

And that vote means the election will definitely go

ahead on June the 8th.

You're watching Wednesday in Parliament with me, Alicia McCarthy.

A scrappage scheme to encourage people to stop driving their diesel

cars should be carefully targeted, according to the chair of

Parliament's Environment Committee.

Neil Parish said the scheme mustn't become a subsidy for the well-off

motorist living in a rural location.

A decade ago, motorists were happily selling their petrol cars

and replacing them with diesel models - opting for better fuel

efficiency and heeding the advice of politicians at the time,

who believed diesel's lower emission of carbon dioxide

was crucial in curtailing greenhouse gas emissions.

Then came the discovery that environmental advantages

from driving diesel cars were more than outweighed by some

serious disadvantages.

Diesel engines emit a higher level of nitrogen oxides.

These gases cause or worsen health conditions like asthma

and bronchitis, and even risk of heart attacks and strokes.

They are also linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths

in Britain every year.

Would he agree with me that many drivers of diesel cars will feel

that they were encouraged to go and buy these cars, and now

they are staring at the prospect of local authorities seeking

to fleece them for taxes in order to raise money

to plug their own funding gaps, and they will feel that

this is deeply unfair?

Yes, the honourable gentleman does raise a very good point,

and that's very much partly behind the idea of the scrappage scheme.

Not only would it help with air quality, but it is some recompense

for the fact that those who were perhaps moved

towards diesel will get a carrot as well as a stick.

However, I do not want a scrappage scheme becoming a subsidy entirely

for the middle classes.

Households should not just be able to trading multiple

diesels for a cash subsidy.

Instead, the Government should particularly consider targeting

a scrappage scheme at poorer households, or those earning less

than 60% of the median UK household income.

Given that most of the concentration of nitrous oxide and nitrogen

dioxide and particulates is in urban area, does he think that in any

scrappage scheme there should be a priority given to people who live

in urban areas?

It seems slightly generous and pointless to support people

who own diesels in the middle of North Yorkshire, say.

I think the honourable gentleman raised an interesting point,

because I think, yes, priority does need to be

given to the inner city, because that is where

we are particularly trying to get the quality better, in these

hotspots of poor air quality.

But another Labour MP criticised the scrappage idea.

It's all very well to say, yes, we'll give somebody ?1000.

?1000 towards what?

Towards buying a new vehicle?

What does that say to someone who needs his car for going to work,

probably has seen a drop in the value already

of around ?2000 in his asset, for people who are asset poor,

and who need their vehicle for going to work?

We're going to give them ?1000.

Who's going to lend them the money?

Are they buying new vehicles?

Are they buying vehicles from further up in the chain?

There may be answers out of this, but figures came there none

during the course of this debate.

The minister said the Government was consulting on diesel vehicles

and listed what had been done to improve air quality so far.

Since 2011, the Government has invested 2 billion to increase

the uptake of low emission vehicles and support greener transport

schemes as well as pledging 290 million to support electric

vehicles and low emission buses and taxis in the 2016 Autumn Statement.

But more than that, just last week, 109 million of Government funding

was awarded to 38 cutting edge automotive research and development

projects focused on greatly reducing automotive emissions

and their footprint.

So those are the facts.

The honourable member for Tiverton and Honiton proposed to put ultra

low emission vehicles up the heart of the scrappage scheme.

We are already investing a suitable amount of money to support the low

emission vehicle market, because we believe that the switch

to a zero emission economy is both inevitable and desirable.

We want almost every car to be low emission by 2050,

as the honourable gentleman will know because he has

heard me say it before.

The Transport Minister, John Hayes.

Energy companies have been warned that they face "muscular and strong"

action from the Government over "damaging" price rises.

The Business and Energy Secretary, Greg Clark, told MPs that he planned

to take decisive action - although, because of the imminent

election, he couldn't give a date for this move.

Appearing before MPs, he was challenged by the Labour

chair of the Energy Committee.

You say some really good warm words, but there is no action.

And in terms of energy customers facing price rises now,

what action is being taken?

Or do you think that energy prices are justified in increasing?

No, I think it is clear that the market isn't

working for those customers on the default tariffs.

The CMA established that.

It has been my very clear view as expressed to this committee

and expressed to the House of Commons, and when I say

that we have a duty to act, you will see that action.

It will be decisive, and it will address this completely

unacceptable detriment that ordinary working people have been suffering.

But you have not acted, Secretary of State, and one

of the arguments for EDF's price rise, its second, last week,

was that it is pre-empting any Government action.

Your delay is actually putting up energy prices for customers.

So why can't you act now?

There is no delay.

The response that we will make I think will be, you will see

will be muscular and will be strong, and it will apply to all

of the companies that are disadvantages consumers

in this way.

Greg Clark.

It's two years since a policy allowing fathers to take time off

to be with their children came into force.

The policy gives parents the right to split up to 52 weeks

of shared parental leave.

But some campaigners worry it's not being taken up by many families.

A former employment minister appeared in front of a committee

of MPs and was asked what could be done to make the policy work better.

How do you think that it needs to change, in your opinion,

to encourage more employers to be promoting that option?

We know that from our research last year more than seven in ten

employees did say that they thought shared parental leave

was complicated or very complicated, and that is an issue.

So part of that is about communication and leadership.

And I think looking at how it could be simplified,

I know from ministerial experience how it is difficult as a policy

to legislate for every single type of relationship and circumstance.

There is an element to which, just like maternity leave,

the detail of the policy does need to account for all of those.

But in many cases, the ways in which people use it will be

more straightforward, and I think that the working family

videos that Matthew mentioned were a really good example actually

of how by using different case studies you could actually explain

very simply what looks like a context policy and how

it works in real life.

And the other thing that I noticed was that there are four different

forms for notifying employers about shared parental leave,

and a little grid about which forms you need to fill in if both parents

are taking it, or just the mother or just the father.

And it struck me that actually, if you could have just one form,

possibly with different sections, certainly when I was in Government

that was my request, that there be one form that both

parents would sign, and that would actually mean that it

could go to both employers, they would know the score

and you wouldn't need to have this employers having to talk to each

other, which anecdotally I have heard many employers feel

that they do have to have that communication, and it was always

the intention that that wouldn't need to happen.

So I do think the Government needs to look at all of those ways that it

could be made simpler, and there is a review

that is planned which could pick up these issues as well as some

of the issues about paternity allowance or when it actually kicks

in in terms of day one right, and I think that would be a sensible

thing for the Government to do, to tweak and improve the policy.

Former Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson.

And that's it from me for now, but do join me at the same time

tomorrow for another round-up of the best of the day

here at Westminster, including environment questions

and a debate on the lessons to be learned from the EU referendum.

But for now, from me, Alicia McCarthy, goodbye.