PMQs

Question

A decade ago, GlaxoSmithKline announced a £350 million investment in my constituency, which would have led to 1,000 jobs. In 2017, it reneged on that, and a few weeks ago it announced that it is closing its business altogether. We have gone from the very real prospect of having 1,000 high-paying, high-skilled pharma jobs in my constituency to the risk of having none by 2025. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meet me and throw the weight of the Government behind efforts to ensure that GSK does the right thing by my constituents and delivers for some very worried people?

Question

My thoughts, and I am sure those across the whole House, are with the family and friends of Sarah Everard, who will be suffering unspeakable grief. There are five words that will stick with us for a very long time: she was just walking home. Sometimes, a tragedy is so shocking that it demands both justice and change... First, does the Prime Minister agree that this must be a turning point in how we tackle violence against women and girls?

Question

I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. In that spirit, can I turn to the practical challenges we face if we are collectively to rise to this moment? The first challenge is that many, many women and girls feel unsafe on our streets, particularly at night. What is needed is legal protection... So can the Prime Minister commit to taking both of those measures forward?

Question

I will come to last night's Bill later, but it did say a lot more about protecting statues than it did about protecting women... The next practical challenge is that many, many women and girls who are subjected to sexual violence do not feel confident to come forward and report what has happened to them. Nine out of 10 do not do so... So will the Prime Minister commit now not just to the idea of a victims' law, which I think he supports, but to a tight timetable, of ideally six months or so, to actually implement such a law?

Question

I agree with the Prime Minister on that last point. Can I gently remind him that for 10 years this Government have been promising a victims' law? It still has not materialised. We do not need more reviews, consultations, strategies. The conversations our shadow Minister is having with Government—constructive conversations—are exactly the same conversations that I had five years ago: constructive conversations. We just need now to get on with it. Let me press on with the practical challenges. For many, many women and girls who do come forward to report sexual violence, no criminal charges are brought. Only 1.5% of rapes reported to the police lead to a prosecution. Put the other way, 98.5% of reported rapes do not lead to a prosecution. That is a shocking statistic.

Question

I was Director of Public Prosecutions for five years and spent every day prosecuting serious crime, including terrorism, sexual violence and rape, so I really do not need lectures about how to enforce the criminal law. The next challenge is the point that the Prime Minister just referenced—the sentences for rape and sexual violence, because they need to be toughened.

Question

This week, Labour published a 10-point plan. We published a victims' law. In coming days, we are going to publish amendments in relation to the criminal justice system to make it work better. I do not expect the Prime Minister to agree with all of this and, frankly, I do not care if this becomes a Government Bill or Conservative legislation. All I care about is whether we make progress, so will the Prime Minister meet me, the shadow Home Secretary—my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds)—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and victims' groups, who have spent many years campaigning on this, so that we can really and truly make this a turning point?

Question

I thank the Prime Minister for bringing the G7 leaders' summit to Cornwall this summer. This will put Cornwall front and centre on the world stage as we emerge from the pandemic and give us a great opportunity to showcase all that Cornwall has to offer. It is a great place to visit not just for its amazing food and drink sector, but for the technologies of the future in space and in renewable energy. I know the Prime Minister shares my ambition for the G7 to leave a lasting economic legacy for the people of Cornwall, so to that end, and in the light of the recent progress on lithium extraction, will he work with me to secure a gigafactory for Cornwall so that we can produce the batteries, leave that lasting economic legacy and provide the well-paid jobs for the future that Cornwall needs?

Question

May I wish everyone a happy St Patrick's day? Across Scotland this week, a tale of two Governments with two very different sets of values has again been exposed. Yesterday, the Scottish National party Government passed landmark legislation that will put the UN convention on the rights of the child into Scots law, putting children at the vanguard of children's rights. In contrast, we have a UK Government who have to be shamed into providing free school meals, who will clap for nurses but will not give them a fair wage, and who plough billions into a nuclear arsenal that sits redundant on the Clyde. Does the Prime Minister understand that the Scottish people are best served by a Government who live up to their values—a Government who prioritise bairns not bombs?

Question

Of course, this is Prime Minister's questions, and maybe the Prime Minister might, just once, try to answer the question that is put to him. We are talking about a Tory plan to impose a 40% increase in nuclear warheads. Our children have the right to a future that no longer lives under the shadow of these weapons of mass destruction. As the Irish President said on this St Patrick's day, we need to find ways to make peace, not war. Every single one of those weapons will be based on the Clyde, so can the Prime Minister tell us exactly when the Scottish people gave him the moral or democratic authority to impose those weapons of mass destruction on our soil in Scotland?

Question

Back in July last year, I informed the Prime Minister of the need for a new hospital in Doncaster. Sadly, Doncaster was not mentioned among the first 40 hospitals promised in the manifesto, but the building of a further eight specialist hospitals was. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a new hospital will prove to the people of Doncaster that this Government are committed to building back better and levelling up their town?

Question

The creation of a no-protest zone around Parliament, a 266% increase from a maximum of three months to 11 months' imprisonment for protest organisers, a direct attack on the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, up to 10 years in prison for any offence committed by destroying or damaging a memorial, and criminalising people for taking part in protests where they ought to have known police conditions were in place. Does the Prime Minister agree that if the UK is to be a force for good in a world where democracy is “in retreat”, as the Foreign Secretary is saying today, it needs to start at home with the protection of the long-standing, precious and fundamental right to peaceful protest, which is a cornerstone of liberal democracy?

Question

I want to see the fundamental right to protest protected, so that events such as the powerful vigil last Saturday on Clapham Common can proceed safely, including covid safely, but I also want to see measures so that people can go about their lives, get to work and get to hospital without being hindered. Can the Prime Minister reassure me that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which we have been discussing today and which was before the House yesterday, strikes that balance while also taking action against the perpetrators of some of the worst crimes?

Question

With the Government's end-to-end rape review remaining unpublished, rape conviction rates having fallen to their lowest point on record and almost 90% of sexual harassment complaints not even reported to the police, women are increasingly being left without legal recourse against sexual violence. I have parliamentary privilege and can name the men who have hurt me, but millions of women in this country do not have that. Women are stuck between a criminal justice system in which only 1.4% of reported offences result in charges being laid and too many survivors who speak out being pursued through the civil courts by their abusers to silence them. Can the Prime Minister advise how they are meant to get justice?

Question

Two years ago, the Bishop of Truro produced an interim report outlining the global phenomenon of the persecution of Christians. As we make progress on our manifesto commitment fully to implement the Truro review recommendations, will the Prime Minister join me in looking forward to our hosting the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief next year, and to the UK demonstrating its global leadership in defending and promoting this universal right for all?

Question

The Prime Minister refused point blank to answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), so I will ask him again: what gives any British Prime Minister the moral and democratic right to impose the obscenity of an even bigger arsenal of weapons of mass murder on the people of Scotland, against their express will?

Question

From gloom to joy, with news from Winchester for the Prime Minister that the vaccination programme is going really, really well. There are now fewer than 200,000 people in the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight left to do in cohorts 1 to 9, and we have the plan, plus the supply to cover them comfortably by the end of March. Will my right hon. Friend please thank the NHS and its volunteers here for this amazing effort? As he does that, will he share his view on what led to the disinformation and the apparent abandonment of scientific evidence in certain EU member states around the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab?

Question

There have now been more than 600 cases of coronavirus infection at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea since September, yet Ministers still refuse to meet the Public and Commercial Services Union to discuss ways in which more workers could work from home in safety before they are vaccinated. Workers have now resorted to voting for strike action, as a last resort, to protect their families and communities. I ask the Prime Minister again: will he now instruct Ministers to engage in talks with the union to help shield vulnerable workers before vaccination, or will he force a needless strike?

Question

My Kensington constituents and I have been deeply troubled by what is coming out of the Grenfell inquiry with regard to the building products industry. Does my right hon. Friend agree that contractors who have behaved improperly should not be used, going forward, for Government contracts? Will my right hon. Friend consider imposing a tax on the building products industry, in the same way as we have done on the residential property sector, as a way of partly paying for cladding remediation?

Question

Exactly one year ago today we were told that 20,000 coronavirus deaths would be a “good outcome”. Yet our death toll is now six times higher: over 100,000 more people have lost their lives than that initial estimate. In March last year, the Prime Minister pontificated about taking it “on the chin”. Others acted decisively with lockdowns, but the Prime Minister dithered and delayed, with deadly consequences. With the worst hopefully now behind us, is it not time for the Prime Minister to hold up his hands and come clean with the British public and say, “Those deaths are on me, and for that I apologise”?

Question

Five years on from Storm Desmond and a year on from Storm Ciara, sadly Penrith and The Border and Cumbria remain in the frontline for severe flooding events. With climate change, these catastrophes are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, and the effects on communities are serious and long term. Can my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents that at-risk communities will be supported by Government in terms of both flood protection and longer-term support, including in the important area of help for the mental health impacts of flooding?

Question

Prime Minister, in December 2019's election campaign you visited Samantha Parker at her home in Darlington. Samantha has the rare genetic condition PKU—phenylketonuria. You vowed to do your utmost to get her access to the life-changing drug Kuvan on the NHS.

Question

Has my right hon. Friend noted that the integrated review has been widely and rightly welcomed as a bold British vision for our role in the world, but not in Scotland, of course, where the nationalist Administration think that it is more important to put indyref2 on the ballot paper at the Scottish elections? Does he realise that they are rejecting the jobs and security that the review guarantees for Scotland, because they hate the UK more than they want jobs for their own people?

Question

Throughout the past year, NHS staff have been working tirelessly to keep our communities healthy and safe during the pandemic. I would like to ask the Prime Minister why he has been economical with the truth, when he says that a 1% pay increase is all that the Government can afford.

Question

Recent horrific events have brought the important debate on women's and girls' rights into the spotlight, specifically their right to be safe and feel safe as they go about their daily lives. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such issues need to be treated sensitively, and false claims made by the Labour party last night on social media about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill are misleading and certainly not helpful?

Question

Today the Welsh Labour Government have announced a special bonus payment for NHS and social care staff in Wales, with the Government covering the basic tax and national insurance so that most people will receive around £500. Will the Prime Minister join me in welcoming that payment in recognition of the dedication and commitment of our NHS and social care staff?