Engagements

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 30 June.

Before we get under way, I point out that a British Sign Language interpretation of Prime Minister’s questions is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.

May I begin, Mr Speaker, by echoing and supporting very much your fine tribute to Ian Davis? I thank him for all his service to this House and wish him all the very best in his retirement.

I know that Members from across the House will want to congratulate Gareth Southgate and his team on their 2-0 win against Germany at Wembley last night—the first time that the men’s team have beaten Germany in a knockout game in 55 years. We wish them all the best for their match against Ukraine on Saturday. We will all be hoping against hope that this time, finally, football is coming home.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

After yesterday’s game, many of our German friends are heading home, but, does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the song goes, if they want to stay here drinking all our beer, they need to join the 5.6 million people who have already successfully applied for the EU settlement scheme forthwith, before today’s deadline?

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. I am thrilled that an astonishing 5.6 million EU nationals have already applied for this wonderful scheme. I encourage anybody who is still eligible to submit their applications today.

May I join your comments and sentiments about Ian Davis, Mr Speaker, and wish him the very best from all of us in this House? I also congratulate the England team on yesterday’s performance. Having been at Wembley for the Euro 96 semi-final and experienced at first hand the agony of that defeat, yesterday’s result was truly incredible. I know that the whole House will wish the team the very best of luck on Saturday—[Interruption.] The whole House will wish them the best of luck on Saturday, I am sure.

Why did the Prime Minister not sack the former Health Secretary on Friday morning?

I read this story in common with you, Mr Speaker, and everybody else on Friday, and we had a new Health Secretary in place by Saturday. Given that we have a pandemic, to move from one Health Secretary to the next with that speed was fast, but it was not as fast as the vaccine roll-out, which is now going so fast that, in this week, half of under-30s have now had their first jab. That is speed.

What a ridiculous answer. The Prime Minister must have been the only person in the country who looked at that photo on Friday morning and thought that the Health Secretary should not be sacked immediately. On Friday, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson said that the Prime Minister “considers the matter closed.” Minister after Minister was then sent out to defend the indefensible. It was briefed that the Prime Minister was “quite happy” for the Health Secretary to stay in his post. Can the Prime Minister clarify, now that he has the chance, did he sack the Health Secretary, or at any point ask him to resign—yes or no?

The right hon. and learned Gentleman will notice that the Health Secretary has changed in the past five days. He complains about the speed with which that happened. This Government moved at positively lightning speed by comparison with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who spent three days trying and failing to sack his Deputy Leader, whom he then promoted. He fires and rehires!

The Deputy Leader is sitting beside me. The former Health Secretary has done a runner.

On Friday, the Prime Minister said that the case was closed. Then on Monday, he tried to take the credit for the Health Secretary resigning. In a minute, he will be telling us that he scored the winner last night. Let me press the Prime Minister a bit more on this. The person with whom the Health Secretary was in a relationship was his non-executive director. Let me remind the House: according to the Government’s own guidance, one of the roles of a non-executive director is to challenge the Secretary of State and the Department, and they receive taxpayers’ money for doing so. From the outset, it was blindingly obvious that there was a conflict of interest here and a whole host of unanswered questions. Why on earth did the Prime Minister judge that this matter was closed on Friday morning?

I hesitate to accuse the right hon. and learned Gentleman of repeating his question. I observe that the non-executive director in question is also no longer with the Department. What that continuity means is that that Department is getting on with the fastest vaccine roll-out of any European country. I am proud to tell this House that, in the past few days, this country has overtaken Israel in the proportion of people that we have vaccinated. I think that he might pay tribute to the Health Department for that achievement.

Let me get this right: the Prime Minister was happy to keep a Health Secretary in place during a pandemic who he not only thought was absolutely “hopeless”, but who he also knew had broken the rules and was in a relationship with somebody he was employing at the taxpayers’ expense. It does not sound like case closed to me.

I know that the Prime Minister is keen to sweep this under the carpet, but let me tell him why it matters: millions of people made huge and very difficult sacrifices to follow the rules that his Health Secretary had introduced. Prime Minister, take the case of Ollie Bibby—[Interruption.] I am sorry; you might want to listen. Ollie died of leukaemia on 5 May, the day before the photo of the former Health Secretary was taken. Ollie died, like so many other people in this pandemic, with his family and friends unable to spend time with him. When he was in hospital, he begged to see his family, but, following the rules, only one member of his family was allowed to see him. His mum said:

“I’m livid. We did everything we were told to do and the man that made the rules didn’t. How can that be right?”

I ask the Prime Minister again: how could he possibly think this matter was closed on Friday morning?

We all share the grief and pain of Ollie and his family, and millions of people up and down the country who have endured the privations that this country has been through in order to get the coronavirus pandemic under control. That is why we had a change of Health Secretary the day after the story appeared. It is why, actually, what we are doing as a Government, instead of focusing on stuff going on within the Westminster bubble, is focusing on rolling out the vaccines at a rate that will ensure that people such as Ollie and his family do not have to suffer in the future. I am proud to say that as a result of the efforts made by the NHS and the Department of Health, we will have vaccinated everybody by 19 July; every adult over 18 will have received one jab and everybody over 40 will have received two jabs. That is the priority of this Government—and quite right too.

I can hardly think that the Prime Minister thinks it is appropriate in response to a question about Ollie to suggest that this is, in his words, the “Westminster bubble”; the “Westminster bubble” in answer to that question, Prime Minister? Before Prime Minister’s questions this morning, I spoke to Ollie’s mum about the awful circumstances that she and her family have been through. She told me that every day she watched the press conferences—every day that they were on—and she hung on to every word that Government Ministers said, so that she would know what her family could and could not do. And then they followed the rules. This is not the Westminster bubble. She told me that for her and her family this case is not closed, and she speaks for millions of people. I ask the Prime Minister to withdraw that phrase when he gets up; it is the wrong response to Ollie’s case.

I cannot help concluding that the Prime Minister did not ask the relevant questions on Friday morning, either because he did not want to know the answers or because he knows full well that there is more to come out. [Interruption.] He says “nonsense”. I ask the Prime Minister, in response to his muttered “nonsense”: when he declared the case closed on Friday morning, had he asked the Health Secretary if he had broken any other rules—yes or no?

Let me be absolutely clear with the right hon. and learned Gentleman: I think the whole House and the whole country can see that we have a new Health Secretary in place and have had one since the day after the stories appeared. That was entirely right; it was the right response to the situation. Of course he is right in what he says about the sacrifice made by families up and down the land, but in my view the best response to their grief and pain, and the sufferings that they have endured, is to get on—with a new Health Secretary, which is what we have, and with all the energy and application that we have—and roll out those vaccines and allow the people of this country to work forwards towards freedom day, which I devoutly hope will come on 19 July. Never let it be forgotten that if we had followed the advice of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that would not be possible because it was under his proposals that we would have stayed in the European Medicines Agency and been unable to deliver the vaccine roll-out at all.

Having failed to sack the former Health Secretary, the Prime Minister is trying to take credit for the fact that we have a new Health Secretary. [Interruption.] Well, he would not be there if the Prime Minister had had his way; the matter was closed.

It is no questions asked by the Prime Minister on Friday, and no questions answered today. There is a pattern here. When Dominic Cummings broke the rules by driving to Barnard Castle, the Prime Minister backed him; when the Housing Secretary unlawfully approved a £1 billion property deal for a Tory donor, the Prime Minister backed him; when the Home Secretary broke the ministerial code, the Prime Minister backed her; and when the Health Secretary broke covid rules, the Prime Minister tried and wanted to back him too. Every time it is the same old story. Is it not the case that while the British people are doing everything asked of them, it is one rule for them and another rule for everybody else?

There was a new Health Secretary the following day, and the whole country can see that. We are getting on with our agenda of vaccinating the population of this country through the energy and application of the new Secretary of State for Health and the Department of Health. I thank them and I congratulate them. It is as a result of that vaccine roll-out—which, as I say, would have been fatally impeded had we followed the policies of the Labour party—that we now have a higher wall of vaccination than virtually any other country in the world and are able to proceed with our cautious but, we hope, irreversible unlocking of the UK economy, with the result that growth is up to levels we have not seen since last July, and jobs are up. The Leader of the Opposition calls for us to act faster in removing Cabinet Ministers. It took him three days, as I say, to give the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne three new jobs—shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow Secretary of State for the future of work. We create jobs; he creates non-jobs. He dithers; we deliver.

The steel industry is an asset of national strategic importance. Those are not just my words but the words of the Prime Minister, and I know he means it because when Greybull went into administration this Government supported British Steel until a new buyer was found. British Steel still employs more than 600 people in Redcar and Cleveland and more than 3,000 people in Scunthorpe. In the light of the Trade Remedies Authority’s recommendations to the International Trade Secretary, how will the Prime Minister ensure that steel remains a national strategic asset?