David Davis

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

On a point of order, given that this applies directly to the Minster, I draw the House’s attention to the motion tabled by the now Prime Minister on 4 December 2018 following non-compliance with a previous Humble Address. It starts: “That this House finds Ministers in contempt for their failure to comply with the requirements of the motion for return passed on 13 November 2018”. —[Official Report, 4 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 668.] That motion was passed by this House. We have just debated an a

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

I press the Minister on his lack of answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). When it became apparent that Mandelson posed an obvious and serious security risk to the state, it was said that ongoing mitigations were put in place to control that risk. Will the ISC see those ongoing mitigations? And if not, why not?

Debate on the Address

I think the answer to the question is, “No, it didn’t,” but the hon. Member should be aware that it was only two months ago that a Labour Member described me as the MP who is never knowingly on message, which is a label I espouse—I do not mind that. No Government have got this right. We need a welfare system that looks after the disabled and people who have no choice about what they are suffering, but not one that makes it an even choice to be on the dole or in a job.

Debate on the Address

The Prime Minister quite rightly prioritises the defence of the country. We have depended for decades on the courage, honour and loyalty of our soldiers. However, some of our best units are now losing soldiers, because this Government are undermining them and allowing them, under the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, to be prosecuted and persecuted for alleged crimes—that were not carried out—from decades ago.

Debate on the Address

That is absolutely right. My concern is that the reason we have so many excess deaths is not poor doctors or poor nurses, but poor management. We have really, really poor national health service management. To put it starkly, poor management effectively kills 15,000 people a year. If we improved that number, we could get within range of our comparator nations. That is a huge number of people, and we could do quite a lot about it if we set our mind to it. Experiments within the health service now

Debate on the Address

I will be careful how I answer the right hon. Member because I have an interest to declare here: I have a disabled grandchild, and her mother is one of the people who suffers the stress he talked about. As I say, we need a humane system that deals with people properly. Our current system for supporting disabled people and people looking after disabled people is incredibly bureaucratic, unpleasant and nasty to deal with. That is not the area of welfare that we need to deal with; it is principally

Debate on the Address

It is interesting, because the hon. Member’s Government and his Secretary of State have claimed, “All these green policies are reducing the cost of our energy. Not using oil and gas is reducing the cost of energy.” What is the consequence? The highest energy costs in the world. I will be interested to hear if he can explain that when he makes his speech. The other issue is that growth, or the loss of growth, has a material impact on the public finances. To give the House a measure of that, a 1%

Debate on the Address

No, not for the moment. Neither does it explain the increase in borrowing costs, which are higher than any other G7 country’s and virtually double Japan’s. That is nobody’s fault but the Chancellor’s, and the horrific consequences for our public finances have been laid out already by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). The real brake is Labour’s own policies: high taxes, massively burdensome regulation, high b

Debate on the Address

During the privileges debate, I told the House that I had hoped, a couple of years ago, that the Prime Minister would make a success of his new job. Unfortunately, this House is now debating against the backdrop of a Labour psychodrama, but that psychodrama would not have happened except for the fact that the Government have failed, and failed very clearly. In his now infamous speech, the Prime Minister said that he was going to undertake a reset. I don’t know about the Labour party, but the cou

Debate on the Address

That is pretty obvious.

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

In a debate about misleading the House, it makes me wonder when Members of this House accuse others of not voting on a motion that did not lead to a vote, so I will not take an intervention. I will certainly not take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman. He is a noise maker, not a truth issuer. On the evidence before us today—contradictions, procedural failures and an emerging pattern of conduct—there is plainly a case for referral. Where doubt exists, it should be resolved through proper scr

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. Indeed, it is worse than that, because this post is the nexus of the entire Five Eyes intelligence co-operation. Our service is not like that of the Americans. In the American embassy, the CIA is freestanding; the ambassador does not matter. In our service, the ambassador runs the local secret service element, as it were, so he or she is entirely responsible and has entire access. That is an issue with the Americans in particular, because they are incredibl

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

That is entirely true, and in fact, the current Trump Administration made the same point to the Government before the nomination of Peter Mandelson. That perverse logic led to the most obviously unwise public appointment in modern times, and the implied message, unfortunately, was clear: “Government appointments rest on networks of patronage; great offices of state are perks to be handed out to friends.” It is systemic. They even tried to secure an ambassadorial appointment for Lord Doyle, a man

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Sometimes the wisdom of the House is crystallised in the comments of us ordinary Back Benchers. That was particularly evident today in the brave speech of the hon. Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) and, indeed, the intervention of the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on the Leader of the Opposition. Both Members said, in effect, that what we have lived through in the last several months is a tragedy—not just for the House, not just for the Government, not just for the Labo

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over)

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and, given what I am going to say, to the fact that I was a trustee of the SAS Regimental Association for two decades up until a few years ago. This Bill was sold to the House and the country on the premise that it would deliver human rights and the rule of law. As the House knows, I pay great attention to human rights and the rule of law—so much so that I defeated my own Government in court on exactly

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over)

No, but it is simply the rule that in Northern Ireland, it is easier to get legal aid for these issues. I can see that there was a reason for that in the past, but it has, in effect, perverted the course of justice in a case where soldiers did nothing more than their duty. That is what is going to happen under this Bill, too, because the case went on to appeal. If anything, the judge struck down that appeal in even more robust terms than the previous judge. A brave, patriotic, honourable soldier

Points of Order

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a rather more mundane point of order. Last Thursday, my website, provided by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, was compromised. Malicious links were inserted, redirecting users to south-east Asian gambling websites. I guess it could be worse. We took the site down immediately. It was restored, but then came under a sustained distributed denial of service attack traceable to China. In just 24 hours, the site was hit with 142 mill