I will, if I may, start by adding my very warm thanks to, and recognition of, our magnificent Clerk, Tom Goldsmith. Mr Speaker has already been indelicate enough to mention Tom’s extraordinary skill at the jazz piano, but as someone who eats very much at the opposite end of the jazz food chain, may I just say that our loss of him as a Clerk will be more than made up for by his forthcoming history of British jazz? I hope the House will join me in welcoming that, because it will not write itself.
Let me start by recognising, on behalf of the whole House, all those men and women from our country and our allies who are engaged in the conflict in and around Iran. We thank them for their bravery and their service. Let us not also forget that our great ally, Ukraine, is fighting for her life in the face of an attempted and unprovoked Russian war of conquest. NATO and this country must not allow themselves to be distracted now from giving Ukraine all the support that we can.
As we approach International Women’s Day this Saturday, I note that this week marks the anniversary of Nancy Astor taking her seat in 1919 as the first woman Member of Parliament—a milestone in the long journey towards wider political representation in this House.
This was a week in which three current or former members of the Labour party were arrested on charges of spying for China. The Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a spring statement that explicitly reserved any policy substance for her forthcoming Mais lecture, not for Parliament, and badly misrepresented the economic position that this country is in. We would never know from what she said that we have the highest unemployment in this country since the pandemic and that youth unemployment is in a state of crisis.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor failed to mention, let alone publish, the defence investment plan, which her Department, the Treasury, has held up for nine months. The House will note the irony that a Government who have never been willing to acknowledge the economic cost of the pandemic and the energy spike resulting from the war in Ukraine will now have to explain the economic effects of rapidly rising oil and gas prices due to the present conflict in the Gulf.
Let me start by joining you, Mr Speaker, and the shadow Leader of the House in thanking Tom Goldsmith for his service to this House. As you said, he gave 30 dedicated years of service and work to Parliament and is an exemplary public servant. When Tom told me his news, I said that I was pleased for him personally but disappointed for the House. He has provided exceptional leadership during challenging times, and he has always provided a steady and thoughtful approach to the procedural and constitutional issues of recent years. I want to pass on to him my and the Government’s thanks for his dedication to parliamentary service and wish him well in the future.
I turn now to the comments of the shadow Leader of the House on events in the middle east. I am very grateful for his opening comments and agree with him that, whatever is happening in that part of the world, we must not take our eyes off Ukraine. The Government are absolutely determined that that is not going to happen. The events, however, are deeply concerning, and our thoughts are, as the shadow Leader of the House said, with British citizens and our brave servicemen and women in the region.
There are an estimated 300,000 British citizens across the region, and their safety and security is the Government’s top priority. We are deploying rapid response teams to support British nationals, and we are in close contact with our partners, including the UAE. While the UK Government’s charter flight was not able to depart Oman yesterday as planned due to technical issues, the flight is now expected to depart later today. We will continue to explore all options for helping our citizens return home as swiftly and safely as possible.
We urge British nationals in Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Palestine, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to use the “register your presence” service to receive direct updates from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The FCDO phonelines are open 24/7 to provide consular support to affected British nationals. The FCDO MP hotline is also open, and Ministers are available to meet Members to discuss individual cases. Yesterday, the Minister for the Middle East held a drop-in briefing for MPs to provide details of the support to British nationals currently in the region, and FCDO officials are currently providing a further drop-in session for all MPs in the Members’ hub in Portcullis House, which is taking place as I speak.
Thank you, Mr Speaker; I am delighted to take up this place. People in West Lancashire are concerned about the potential relocation of the children’s accident and emergency department at Ormskirk following the joint integrated care board committee’s “Shaping Care Together” consultation. Folk, and I, want a co-located children and adult’s A&E in Ormskirk. What can my constituents do to ensure that their voice is listened to in the process?
First, I thank my hon. Friend for her commitment and contribution to the Government. I am sorry that she has left government, but I wish her well in every sense. Her work on the national cancer plan will save lives and transform care—and not every Minister can say that their work has had a lasting effect. I know that she will continue to be a powerful voice on behalf of her constituents. I reassure her that the final business case on A&E services in West Lancashire will take into account the results of the local consultation.
I join you, Mr Speaker, in thanking Tom Goldsmith for his immense service. I also wish those celebrating this weekend a happy Holi. There are three events in my constituency this weekend, and I intend to get covered in colour.
Moving on to the spring statement that we had this week, there were no policy announcements. That has left many young people feeling cut adrift. Youth unemployment is now almost a million. That is the highest rate that we have had in a decade and it is now higher than the EU average; it has become a specifically British problem that has accelerated under this Government. Why? It is not down to any one thing, but an accumulation, yet many of those things are under the Government’s control. Businesses are citing the living wage, national insurance and business rates all as reasons why it is more difficult to hire young people. The Government may want to defend each of those in exclusivity—I, for one, defend the rise in the living wage—but if we pile costs on businesses all at once, there comes a point when they baulk.
We are lectured on these Benches sometimes for not supporting every Labour tax rise, as if it is the only way to get revenue for public services. Yet economics is not mere accounting. We cannot simply shift numbers from one column to another; every action has an effect. If businesses are raided for multiple taxes all at once and their response is to cut hours, cut jobs and possibly close altogether, that tax revenue does not come in. That is why business confidence is at an all-time low, growth is flatlining and we now have almost a million young unemployed. Given that youth unemployment was not addressed in the spring statement, will the Leader of the House organise for a Treasury Minister to come to the House and make a statement on youth employment so that we can hold this Government to account?
Before I go on to agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has said, let me begin by disagreeing with the position his party takes on discussions around tax, particularly business tax. It is quite simple: we cannot wish for the end without also supporting the means. That is simple and straightforward, as far as I am concerned.
As the hon. Gentleman says, youth unemployment is too high, but youth employment is also at a record high. I join him, however, in what he says about every young person deserving a chance to succeed. We are introducing a range of reforms to help young people take that vital step into the workplace. The fact is that young people were forgotten by the previous Government, and we are clearing up their mess.
The youth guarantee will help young people get into work, with 50,000 new training and workplace opportunities in sectors that include construction, health and social care, and hospitality provided to young people on universal credit to help them develop their job skills and employer networks, along with a CV and interview coach. Fifty-five thousand young people will gain from a Government-backed guaranteed job, which will roll out this spring, and we are also expanding Youth Hub centres, where young people can receive vital help to get them back on track. That will be in every area of the country, bringing the total to over 360.
Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust today came out of special measures for the first time since 2018. The community, the staff, the leadership of the trust and I know that there is far more to do, but this is a vital step and the hard work required should not be underestimated. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking the frontline NHS staff for their hard work? A lot has been done, but there is more to come.
I certainly join my hon. Friend in thanking the staff at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust, which has come out of special measures. That is testament to their dedication and hard work. Our plan for change is getting the NHS back on its feet, but we recognise that there is further to go. NHS staff are a vital part of that.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business. I also thank you, Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers, for enabling yesterday’s estimates day debates to go smoothly given the circumstances.
I note that the Leader of the House has not announced the business for Thursday 19 March. If we are given that date, there will be a debate on progress in tackling climate change, followed by a debate on online harms. Both are well-subscribed. In Westminster Hall next week, on Tuesday, there will be a debate on the import and sale of fur and fur-related products. On Thursday 12 March, there will be a debate on modernising marriage regulations, followed by a debate on Government support for carnivals. On Tuesday 17 March, there will be a debate on productivity and economic growth in the east midlands. On Thursday 19, there will be a debate on accessibility of banking services, and we await confirmation from the Liaison Committee on whether it will take up its option. On Tuesday 24 March, there will be a debate on sudden unexplained death in childhood. On Thursday 26th, there will be a debate on outcomes for patients with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and craniocervical instability.
As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) mentioned, this week is Holi. My strong advice to anyone attending a Holi event is to wear old clothes because they will get covered in different types of paint and will probably have to be thrown away, rather than cleaning them afterwards.
On Tuesday, we had the annual celebration of Holi on the old Harrow civic centre car park site. This event has been run for many years. It is a joyful occasion, and more than a thousand people attended. However, thugs from the Central mosque left the mosque and then decided to disrupt proceedings by pulling over the speakers and disconnecting the audio system. They were then chased away by stewards. That was bad enough. They then came back with 20 more thugs and attempted to attack the people celebrating. This is in Harrow where we have excellent community relations, and I hope this will not happen anywhere else or again. But the sad reality is community tensions are rising because of various different things across the world, and it is our responsibility as politicians to cool things down. Can we therefore have a statement next week on what will be done to cool community tensions and ensure that people can celebrate in peace and harmony, as they should be able to?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his Committee’s work, including in the run-up to estimates day. They were good debates; they perhaps had slightly less time than had been anticipated, but it was right that the Security Minister came to this House to update Members on a very important security matter. I join the hon. Gentleman and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean), in wishing everyone involved a happy Holi.
I am sad to hear of the disruption that happened at celebrations in Harrow. I will not comment on the incident because it would not be right for me to do so—there is a police investigation taking place. However, any form of religious hatred is abhorrent and has no place in our society, wherever it happens. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on the importance of the language we use as politicians inside and outside this House. I will consider his request about social cohesion and see what we can do in the next few weeks to address his very real concern.
I welcome what the Leader of the House said about youth unemployment—it is essential that we tackle this problem. Unlike the Conservative party, which was happy to have 3 million people out of work under Mrs Thatcher, Labour must tackle unemployment. There is also the problem of graduate unemployment. Yesterday we had a 27-year-old constituent who came from a working-class family in an isolated pit village and who managed to get a degree. They were landed with large amounts of debt and have now spent more than a year trying to find a job. Having researched that problem, I find that it looks as though the number of graduate jobs available in our country has fallen by 45% in the last few months. I am sure the whole House feels uncomfortable about that. Can we have a debate about graduate employment, particularly in rural areas?
I agree with my hon. Friend that these matters are of concern. For graduates in particular, the lack of graduate jobs is a concern, as are other matters around jobs in the economy. I suggest that he seeks an Adjournment debate on these matters. They will not be resolved in the short term, and parties across this House will have to put their thinking caps on about the job situation for graduates going forward, not least because of the impact of AI and technology on the economy. It is essential that we engage with and adopt AI and technology, but they have implications for the kind of jobs that are out there going forward.
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We can only hope against hope that recent events will cause the Energy Secretary—a man with the worst judgment in politics, whom the Prime Minister wanted to sack in the last reshuffle but was too weak to do so—to rethink his dangerously inadequate energy policy and refusal to develop North sea oil and gas. Perhaps we will hear a U-turn in his statement later today.
Unlike the Energy Secretary, the Leader of the House is a serious man, and I want to ask him a serious question. The Government’s official story, set out by the Prime Minister at the Dispatch Box yesterday, is that they have been preparing for a US attack for several weeks. These preparations include pre-locating missile and other weapons systems in the middle east, though not sending a Type 45 frigate, which remains in dock at Portsmouth and will not depart for more than a week after the start of the conflict. It is little wonder that our allies have been so critical of the UK response.
The Prime Minister has also offered us a pre-prepared line on the legal position, which is that the present Government regard defensive operations as legal, but that it is against international law for the UK, and so presumably in his judgment for the United States and Israel, to take pre-emptive action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, when it is the avowed policy of that state to use those weapons to destroy another sovereign state—Israel.
This is, of course, the second time in a year that the US and Israel have acted against Iran, so all these issues have already been widely discussed across Government. Yet it is now reported with some authority, across the newspapers, that the Prime Minister was actually minded to support the US attack on Friday evening but was forced to back down by a group of Ministers including the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and, yes, the Energy Secretary.
It is hard to see how these things could all be true, and they raise a host of questions. If the Government have been preparing for an attack by the US and Israel for weeks, how can it be true that their policy was still undecided on Friday night? If the Prime Minister’s view was that he was minded to support the attack, where does that leave the legal position? Legal experts, including the noble Lord Pannick, have criticised the Government’s position as not legally “rational”—that is a quote—but my concern is more basic: whether the Government are making the legal position up as they go along, just as the Blair Government did with the Iraq war in 2003.
Finally, it now looks like the Cabinet has taken a decision with which the Prime Minister fundamentally does not agree. How can he exercise leadership under such circumstances? I do not expect the Leader of the House to comment on Cabinet discussions in any detail, of course, but I am sure that the whole House will be grateful for any explanation he can give.
One of the lessons from previous crisis situations like this is that sometimes the support that is set up does not work in the way that was planned, so I make an offer to Members. Should they face issues and find that they are unable to get the support that their constituents expect, I invite them to speak to my officials to see if we can help to sort it out.
It is of course important that the House is kept informed of any developments, and the Prime Minister did so at the earliest opportunity this week. There will be a further statement today, and the Government will continue to keep the House updated as the situation evolves.
I turn to security concerns, which the shadow Leader of the House touched on. Hon. Members will be aware that Counter Terrorism Policing released a statement yesterday, and the Security Minister set out the actions that the Government are taking to safeguard our democracy in this place. We will continue to take all necessary measures to protect our national interests, our citizens and our democratic way of life. I encourage any MP who experiences any suspicions or out-of-the-ordinary interactions to report them to the House authorities. The Government will continue to work in collaboration with the Parliamentary Security Department to set up a range of more tailored, bespoke briefings for those at greatest risk.
Let turn to the shadow Leader of the House’s specific comments. He touched on the question of arrests. I will not speculate about any of that, because there is a live police investigation going on and it is not right that I—or anyone else—should comment. On the defence investment plan, the Secretary of State is working flat out to deliver that and will announce its findings shortly.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about energy, MPs will get an opportunity to question the Energy Department in a statement later today. We can also draw the opposite conclusions to those he drew, because what is happening underlines the importance of our own energy independence and security of supplies.
On actions in the Gulf and the reaction of our allies, we have a strong military presence across the region, which, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we have strengthened in recent weeks, including by sending additional Typhoons, F-35s, radar systems and helicopters. We are taking action to reduce the threat. Planes have been in the sky across the region intercepting incoming strikes. We are also deploying more capability to Cyprus. On that matter, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence met his Cypriot counterpart this morning to discuss further support for our shared security in that region.
As the Government have set out, the legal judgment is the basis for the position that the Prime Minister set out earlier this week. As he made clear, our actions are fully in line with the national interest of our country. I discourage people from speculating about some of the things that might be read in newspapers; it is far better to read or remember what the Prime Minister said in a very long statement on Monday, when in over two and a half hours of questioning he set out exactly what the Government’s position is. That is how it remains.