I know the whole House will want to join me in wishing Her Majesty the Queen a very happy birthday for tomorrow. 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. I will then be travelling to India to deepen the strategic trade, defence and people-to-people ties between our two countries, building on India’s involvement in the Carbis Bay G7 summit. I will be seeing Prime Minister Modi in Delhi, meeting Indian businesspeople investing in the UK and visiting British investments in India.
Challenges with rural transport remain some of the greatest obstacles facing people in Penrith and The Border. I was pleased last year that, on top of the Government’s £3 billion national bus strategy to help areas such as Cumbria, Cumbria County Council received an additional £1.5 million to enhance provision as part of the rural mobility fund. I am sure my right hon. Friend can imagine my disappointment this month, however, when Cumbria was allocated no funding from the latest tranche of bus funding. Can the Prime Minister reassure my constituents that Cumbria can look forward to future funding schemes to improve our vital rural bus services?
I thank my hon. Friend. He is a great champion for rural Cumbria and for bus services. He is right that Cumbria got another £1.5 million for buses. We want to put more into buses—I believe in them passionately myself—and I will ensure he has a meeting with the relevant Minister.
I bitterly regret Allegra’s resignation. I think it was very sad. She did an outstanding job, particularly since she was the one who coined the expression “Coal, cars, cash and trees”, which enabled the UK to deliver a fantastic COP26 summit last year.
Allegra Stratton laughed at breaking the rules. She resigned. The Prime Minister then claimed he was “furious” at her behaviour and accepted her resignation. Professor Neil Ferguson broke the rules. He also resigned. The Prime Minister said that was the right thing to do. The former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), broke the rules. He too resigned. The Prime Minister tried to claim that he sacked him. Why does the Prime Minister think everybody else’s actions have consequences except his own?
I feel the right hon. and learned Gentleman is in some kind of “Doctor Who” time warp. We had this conversation yesterday, and I explained why I bitterly regret receiving an FPN and I apologised to the House. He asks about the actions for which I take responsibility, and I will tell him: we are going to get on with delivering for the British people, making sure that we power out of the problems that covid has left us, with more people in work than there were before the pandemic, fixing our energy problems, and leading the world in standing up to the aggression of Vladimir Putin. Those are all subjects about which I think he could reasonably ask questions now.
These are strange answers from a man who yesterday claimed to be making a humble apology. Does the Prime Minister actually accept that he broke the law?
Yes, Mr Speaker, I have been absolutely clear that I humbly accept what the police have said. I have paid the fixed penalty notice. What I think the country, and the whole House, would really rather do is get on with the things for which we were elected and deliver on our promises to the British people. [Interruption.]You could not have clearer evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of Labour. [Interruption.]They have no plans for energy, they have no plans for social care—
Order. Prime Minister, sit down. I want to hear what you have got to say, but I cannot hear when you talk in that way. I am here in the Chair: please, if you can help me.
Order. Now then, that is the last time. That Peroni that was just asked about—the hon. Member might have to go and take it. I do not want to hear any more, or else they will be drinking it.
Yesterday’s apology lasted for as long as the Prime Minister thought necessary to be clipped for the news. But once the cameras were off, the Prime Minister went to see his Back Benchers and he was back to blaming everyone else. He even said that the Archbishop of Canterbury had not been critical enough of Putin. In fact, the archbishop called Putin’s war
“an act of great evil”,
and the Church of England has led the way in providing refuge to those fleeing. Would the Prime Minister like to take this opportunity to apologise for slandering the archbishop and the Church of England?