29/11/2017 Wednesday in Parliament

Hello, and welcome to the programme.

In the next half-hour:

That Brexit divorce bill,

are the rumours true?

If they've got £60 billion

to spare, it should go

to the National Health

Service and social care.

A new strategy for the railways

is announced, but Labour say

the plans are unambitious.

And fears of an unwelcome

new role for one county.

The county will be a car park.

The issue of how much

the UK is going to have

to pay to leave the EU,

the so-called divorce bill,

has been heavily debated.

And that was before reports that

suggest the Government had

substantially increased its offer

to somewhere between

40-50 billion euros.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury

was called to the House

to explain what was going on.

Can I ask the Chief Secretary,

how do her constituents react

to the idea that they're going to be

lumbered with all these extra costs?

Don't they ask her, what exactly

are we getting for this?

What wondrous new advantages

will we gain by shelling out

these astronomical sums?

Won't to the Chief secretary be

straight with the House?

That we are paying for the privilege

of voting the world's most

efficient free trade,

tariff-free, frictionless

agreement into the bin,

and we're being told to pay

for the privilege of downgrading

to an inferior deal with our

European neighbours?

Why is the Chief Secretary

being so coy about the deal

that is being done?

They've gone from "go whistle"

to "where do we sign?"

The honourable gentleman

knows perfectly well

we are in negotiations as we speak.

If, in this House, we were to talk

about numbers and we were to talk

about the aspects of the deal,

that would cut across our

negotiating position.

What the people of Britain

want to see is us get on with it,

they want to see us take

the advantages of leaving

the European Union, make the most

of those opportunities,

secure the best possible deal.

We're well on the way to doing that,

and I suggest the honourable

gentleman, rather than trying

to re-fight the referendum battle,

which is what he seems to be doing,

he needs to get with the programme,

and start talking about

how he can be helpful.

Those who oppose paying any

money are presumably

wanting a no-deal Brexit,

and that would actually be

catastrophic for this country,

and stop the opportunity my right

honourabel friend,

the Brexit Secretary,

has of negotiating a deal that

retains many benefits for jobs,

investments and the growth

of the economy of this country

as we possibly can in the future.

Could she please remind those

who have raised this question that,

even if we agreed a figure

of something in the order

of 40 billion over 40 years,

because we will not be paying

contributions the European Union,

that means the UK Exchequer will be

better off by £360 million

in the course of that

40 years, a net gain

with a free-trade arrangement.

Will the Chancellor,

given there was a Budget last week

which did not make provision

for this 40-£50 billion,

will he now bring forward

an emergency Budget to expand

on where he is finding the money?

Well, I thought, Mr Speaker,

when the honourable lady stood up,

it was to be to thank the Government

for the £2 billion additional

spending power that we gave

to the Scottish Government

in the Budget, which no doubt,

they will be able to use

to improve their public services.

As I've said before,

and as been pointed out

by the Opposition front bench,

to talk about the money now

would cut across the negotiations

and prevents us from getting

the best possible deal, and that

is not in anyone's interests.

70% of the people that voted

in Bolsover voted to leave.

But can I also say this to you,

those same people in Bolsover,

I believe, would expect me to tell

the honourable lady from the Finance

Department that if they've got

£60 billion to spare,

it should go to the National Health

Service and social care.

For the first time in my

Parliamentary career,

I'm going to agree

with the honourable

member for Bolsover.

He's absolutely right.

The 60%-odd of people

in Wellingborough who voted to leave

would want to know what we were

doing with £60 billion.

Would want it spent on the NHS,

social care and defence.

They would not want it given

to the European Union.

Would the Minister agree such a move

would be betraying the trust

of the British people?

The money that we've been reading

about in the press is speculation.

These negotiations are ongoing.

The discussion is ongoing,

and we want to secure value

for money for the British taxpayer.

Liz Truss.

Well, Prime Minister's

Questions looked a little

different this Wednesday,

no Prime Minister.

Theresa May is on a visit

to the Middle East,

so the First Secretary of State,

Damian Green, was understudy.

And taking on the role of

Jeremy Corbyn was Emily Thornbury,

Shadow Foreign Secretary.

She opened with a few jokes.

See if you can get the references.

And congratulating Prince Harry and

Meghan Markle on their engagement.

That's one Anglo-American couple

we on this side would be delighted

to see holding hands.

I'm sure that Prince Harry,

the patron of Rugby Football League,

will join us all in supporting

England in the World Cup

final on Saturday.

And I, for one, will be

waving my St George's flag.

That was a reference to the tweet

she sent 2014 about a terraced house

flying three England flags,

for which she was

sacked by Ed Miliband.

And the handholding was of course

Donald Trump taking Theresa May's

hand in Washington.

But it was first question

that raised eyebrows.

The First Secretary of State

is currently be investigated

by the Cabinet Office over

allegations about his

past behaviour.

Can I ask the First Secretary

a simple point of principle -

is he happy to be held to the same

standards in Government

that he required of others whilst

he was in Opposition?

Yes, I am, I think all ministers

should respect and obey

the ministerial code.

And I absolutely think that

that's very important part

of confidence in public life.

I merely wondered if he remembered

the question he asked

at Prime Minister's Questions almost

17 years ago, when

John Prescott stood

in for Tony Blair,

and whether he could answer

the same question today.

So, what's the question?

The question was this -

what percentage of new nurses

recruited in the past 12 months

are now working full-time?

I can't remember...

I can't remember asking

the question then, and I'd love

to know what the then

Deputy Prime Minister answered then.

What I'm happy to assure

the right honourable lady

is that we have more nurses,

more midwives, more doctors...

Working in the Health Service now,

the Health Service is performing

more operations now,

certainly than it was 17 years ago.

And in particular, in the Budget

last week, my right honourable

friend the Chancellor was able

to announce more than £6 billion

extra on health spending,

which will make the Health

Service even stronger

in the future than it is now.

We have an NHS in the grip

of a chronic funding

and staffing crisis.

GPs are quitting in record numbers,

junior doctors are running A&Es

without supervision,

our nurses are at breaking point

and all this is before the winter

crisis which is coming.

So, Mr Speaker, let me finally ask

the First Secretary, what does it

say about the Government's

priorities that last week's Budget

could only find £350 million

to help the cash-strapped,

stretched-to-the-limit NHS,

cope with the winter fuel crisis?

JEERING

Keep going, keep going!

Only £350 million to cope

with the winter crisis,

and was able to find 11 times that

amount to spend on a no-deal Brexit?

Isn't that the very definition

of a Government fiddling away

while the rest of the country burns?

The right honourable lady's

determined to talk the NHS down.

It's the Conservative Government

which is increasing funding

on the NHS so it remains the best

health service in the world,

as the Independent Commonwealth Fund

has repeated for the

second year in a row.

It's this party which promised

and delivered more money

for the NHS in 2010,

2015 and in last week's Budget,

when my right honourable friend

the Chancellor promised 6.3 billion

extra for the NHS.

More patients treated,

more operations carried out by more

doctors and more nurses.

And when she says at the end

that the Government is wasting

£3 billion on preparing for Brexit,

we now know that the Labour Party

doesn't think it's worth

preparing for Brexit.

They do, though, think it's

worth preparing for a run

on the pound, that's all you need

to know about Labour.

Damian Green.

Well, at the end of PMQs,

news reached the Commons chamber

that the US president,

Donald Trump, had retweeted

three imflammatory videos

from a British far-right group.

Two Labour MPs for the Home

Secretary should come

to the dispatch box to condemn

the President's actions.

The Speaker though said

he wouldn't expect a Minister

to respond immediately.

Downing Street later said

Donald Trump was wrong to retweet

the anti-Muslim videos.

And you're watching

Wednesday In Parliament

with me, Mandy Baker.

Firms which operate passenger

services would also manage

the tracks their trains run on,

under new Government plans.

And some rail routes lost

under Richard Beeching

in the 1960s could be restored.

The closing of some

4000 miles of tracks,

mainly in the rural areas,

became known as the Beeching Cuts.

Chris Grayling said railway lines

would be reopened if they encouraged

house-building and eased congestion.

His plans also give us the chance

to show you these lovely pictures.

The move is part of a new

Government rail strategy.

I know the party opposite

doesn't believe this,

but privatisation brought

a revelation to our railways.

That's why there's twice

as many passengers as

there were 20 years ago.

But now is the time,

Mr Speaker, for evolution

to build on that success,

joining up track and train,

expanding the network,

modernising the customer experience,

opening the railway

for new innovation.

We have a vision, Mr Speaker,

of a revitalised railway,

used to its full potential

by a partnership between the public

and private sectors.

Supporting people,

communities and the economy.

And we're taking real action to make

that vision a reality.

The Government's proposals

are more window-dressing,

which will solve none

of the rail's urgent problems.

Only Labour has the vision

and courage to deliver the railway

the public deserves.

The public want public ownership

of the railways and the next

Labour Government will deliver it.

Beeching itself was typical

of the Tory policy of knowing

the price of everything

and the value of nothing.

And this attitude continues with

the Secretary of State's ideological

adherence to privatisation.

Now, while he worships the private

sector, what he needs to remember,

already there are four

foreign state-owned

companies operational

in the existing UK franchises.

So if it's good enough for foreign

state-owned companies,

it should be good enough for UK

state-owned companies

to run these franchises.

And hopefully he supports

the Scottish Government's move

to bring a public

sector bid in Scotland.

The SNP have sought to put pressure

on the Government over the plight

of women born in 1950s who've lost

out because of changes

to pension law.

In a rowdy debate, the SNP claimed

the 3.8 million Waspi women have

waited far too long.

It is an absolute outrage that

when the evidence is before us,

of the fact that the women did not

get appropriate notice

and the fact that acceleration has

taken place so quickly,

we have had nothing yet

from this government.

I will give way.

I will give way.

I'm grateful for the honourable

member for giving way.

It's an important debate,

last week I attended

the one in Westminster Hall

because it is a very important issue

but would he accept that it is wrong

to say that the government has

taken no action?

In 2011 they made sure that nobody

waited for an extended

period beyond 18 months?

period beyond 18 months?

That's not true!

I have heard about spinning

but let's deal with

the facts of the matter,

because what the honourable lady

is referring to is the fact

that the government brought

in an act of 2011 that

increased the acceleration,

to talk about the fact

that the government have mitigated

is a distortion of the reality,

and the government benches should

stop spinning the way

that they are doing,

and start telling the truth

to the 3.8 million women affected.

That is that pensionable age

is increasing by three

months per calendar month.

That is the reality.

And for the government to try

and argue against it is something

they should be utterly ashamed of.

But a former Tory minister

said he was prepared

to vote with the SNP.

This is very much a women-focused

injustice.

Of men approaching

retirement expect to rely just on

the state pension

but for women it is as many as 53%,

which is why it is such an important

issue to them and all of us.

Other conservatives intervened

to say that the Scottish Government

could take action.

In section 28 of the Scotland act,

you can create a new benefit,

and you can make that argument

by not reason of old age,

which the DWP have accepted,

that argument, and in section 26

of the act, it allows

the Scottish Government to make

short-term payments to people

who need them to "avoid risks

to the well-being of an individual".

They have the powers

but they choose not to use them.

Ian Blackford insisted

the Scottish Parliament did not

have the ability to introduce

new benefits based on age.

This is a failure of policy

of the UK Government.

Nobody can get away from that.

Are the Conservatives

in Scotland really saying

that the Scottish parliament,

the Scottish Government,

should clear up the mess, again,

which was left by this

Conservative government?

We've already spent £400 million

of the Scottish Government

mitigating the worst effects

of Tory austerity.

I think the government

can find this money.

It's no good blaming

the Scottish parliament.

It is a UK issue, full stop.

And I can assure the

honourable gentleman that

I will be backing him.

We made a manifesto pledge

regarding this issue.

The reason why I am here

as a spokesman of the party today

is because we do support it,

we will go through the lobby on it

and I do think that the Waspi women

will be better served if we had

a debate that was not devisive

or about point-scoring.

It's not a party.

Whether it is the liberal,

Labour or Conservative parties

which has not cause this problem.

But the minister said, the

government wasn't changing track.

We cannot change of policy which has

been implemented over 22 years,

and supported by all three

major political parties.

The government has to ensure

that the costs of an ageing

population are shared out fairly

without placing an unfair financial

burden on future generations.

But MPs voted by 288-0

in support of the SNP demand

that the government improve

transitional arrangements

for the Waspi women.

The vote is not binding

on the government, but the Deputy

Speaker said the Commons

leader promised that

after a result like this,

it would be a ministerial

response within 12 weeks.

Returning to Brexit,

and MPs have heard fresh warnings

that our departure from the EU

could cause gridlock at airports

that our departure from the EU

could cause gridlock at ports

and railway stations.

The home affairs committee heard

concerns raised by representatives

of border and immigration staff.

The 300 additional staff

that the border force

are recruiting at the moment,

do you understand that

that is entirely additional to meet

Brexit preparations,

or will some of that be backfilling

for existing staffing gaps?

My understanding is that it is

entirely backfilled...

Entirely?

It is only intended to bring orders

up to where it should already be.

So if there were changes,

what would be the impact

with that number of staff?

Very long queues.

Not only of people,

but also possibly and more

significantly of freight.

If we had to move to freight

checking on day one,

like Dover, for example,

it would grind to a halt

and we wouldn't be able

to bring the lorries off

the ferry fast enough.

There isn't enough physical

space in that port.

It would be a car

park, in actual fact.

Because at the moment

there is around 4 million units

of freight which come through,

Dover and the Channel

tunnel at the moment,

only 1% of that is non-EU so they go

to the Western docks to be

checked over, and it

normally takes 2-3 hours.

Per lorry.

If you are looking at around

40,000 being checked now,

you need to do 4 million.

You can see the scale

of the problem.

If there were continental checks

in place, if they are agreeable

to that, then that does certainly

take off the pressure of a large

stacking system of lorries

when they arrive at Dover?

It puts the stacking

system somewhere else

but if they are willing to have

those checks in that country,

it would make a huge difference.

I don't know what the benefit

to those countries would be though.

The MPs also heard from

the independent inspector

of borders and immigration.

He was asked about plans

for 700 staff to deal

with applications from EU nationals.

with applications from EU

nationals for settled status,

allowing them to remain in the UK.

3 million people to be registered

in the space of two years,

2.5 years, and then a further

250,000 a year additional.

What would your expectations be

of the level of staffing

needed to deliver that,

given the staffing ratios that

you have got already?

It will essentially be

a different sort of regime

exists at the moment.

Essentially one where the onus

is on the department to grant

settlement in all but most cases

where there are particular

reasons for not doing so.

But that said, 700,

if you do the maths,

that we tried to do the other

day, it did come out

at something like 100 decisions

per day per person.

I may have got the maths wrong

but that is a lot of decisions,

even with a relatively

light touch process.

If that were to be the case,

that would be around...

You would need someone taking

a decision every 3-4 minutes.

Is that remotely realistic on any

kind of casework system

that you have ever seen?

I think the point to be made

is that it isn't intended to be

like any casework system that any

of us have seen.

That's what the minister was saying.

But...

Do you think it is conceivable?

I wouldn't want to be

doing it myself.

David Bolt.

Now, do we need

an Arctic ambassador?

A couple of years ago,

a Lords committee called for just

such a person to be appointed,

peers said Britain could and should

be more active in Arctic affairs.

The SNP's Douglas Chapman agrees,

and he led a debate on the idea

in Westminster Hall.

He pointed out that the North

of Scotland is closer to the Arctic

than it is to London,

and he focused

on shared interests...

Like Iceland, Scotland is the home

of some of the world's most

beautiful scenery and natural

wonders which attracts

millions of visitors

to our shores every year.

We need to make sure that these

valued resources are protected,

so they can continue to be enjoyed

by Scots and tourists alike

for generations to come.

It's very generous.

I too am a Scot and Scotland has

a great deal to offer to the north

and the south but I'm puzzled

as to his logic why Scotland has

nice scenery, and why it should lead

to a leap that there should be

an Arctic ambassador.

After all, that is what

the debate is about?

Well, I think it fits

absolutely perfectly.

The need for an Arctic ambassador,

I will cover other areas

in my speech but it is absolutely

crucial that we make these links

and have these friendships,

and collaborative projects

across the whole of the Arctic.

You know, I hope the honourable

member has a wide range of interests

and am asking him to open his mind

to the possibilities

if we have an Arctic ambassador

fighting for the UK and for Scotland

over a wider range of issues.

The minister said he didn't

think that appointing

an Arctic ambassador,

as some countries have done,

was the right approach for the UK.

Particularly given our wide

diversity of interests

and established engagement

across the Arctic States

and in the Arctic Council,

we do not think that this

would add value.

As Minister for the Polar Regions,

I'm already supported

by a senior Foreign &

Commonwealth Office official.

That official oversees

the development and implementation

of the UK's Arctic Policy framework.

Chairs across government Arctic

network, and ensures that the UK

is appropriate representation

at the Arctic Council and other key

international Arctic events.

The Minister for the Polar Regions.

There is to be an emergency debate

in the Commons on Thursday

on the crisis in Yemen.

The bitter conflict there has been

going on for more than two years.

The Yemeni government,

supported by a coalition

led by Saudi Arabia,

is battling the rebel Houthi

movement, aided by Iran.

The Saudis have recently

lifted their blockade of Yemen's

borders but it is estimated

there are more than 20 million

people in need of humanitarian help.

When Theresa May visits

Saudi Arabia for trade talks,

she is expected to broach

the subject of the growing

humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

The SNP raised the matter

at Prime Minister's Questions.

The UK Government received

£4.6 billion in serving arms

to Saudi Arabia since the war

in Yemen began.

A war that has created a devastating

humanitarian crisis.

Yemen is now on the brink of famine,

and Unicef has said that 150,000

children will die by the end

of this year.

Doesn't the first secretary

agree that the best thing

that the Prime Minister could do

with their meetings today

is to follow the example

of the Netherlands and suspend

licences for arms

sales to Saudi Arabia.

To stop killing children!

after Conservatives secured

an emergency debate.

Today we are witnessing an almighty

catastrophe of biblical

proportions unfolding in Yemen,

in which Britain,

Madam Deputy Speaker,

is dangerously complicit.

Britain is respected throughout

the world for bringing hope

and relief to those caught up

in humanitarian misery

but today, in Yemen,

which I visited earlier this year,

we are in danger of

earning a reputation

for precisely the reverse.

We will have full coverage

on the debate on the programme

at the same time tomorrow.

But for now from me,

Mandy Baker, goodbye.