PMQs

Question

Prime Minister, we hear a great deal about the rule of law and justice. Can you tell me what you will do about the injustice my constituents face because of the retrospective loan charge? The hounding by HMRC has managed to mislead Treasury Ministers and appears to lack legal basis or justification. Therefore, will you accept this matter needs further immediate investigation?

Question

Improved connectivity is vital for the UK's unity. Will the Prime Minister support investment in roads like A75, A69, and extend the borders railway? What is the timescale for such investments?

Question

If infections reach 100,000 per day, what will be the expected number of hospitalisations and deaths, and how many people with long covid can we expect?

Question

Given the high infection rates due to letting in the delta variant, will 100,000 daily infections mean greater pressure on the NHS, more people with long COVID, ineffective test and trace, and a higher chance of new variants? Is this plan really comfortable?

Question

How many people does he expect will be asked to isolate if infection rates continue to rise at this rate? The Financial Times estimates around 2 million people per week, while the Daily Mail suggests it could be 3.5 million weekly. This means huge disruption for families and businesses as summer holidays begin.

Question

How many people will be asked to self-isolate if there are 100,000 infections a day? There are already too many stories of people deleting the NHS app because they can see what is coming down the track. What is he going to do to stop people from deleting the NHS app?

Question

Why can the Prime Minister not see that it is common sense to make face masks mandatory on public transport?

Question

Instead of a careful, controlled approach, are we heading for a summer of chaos and confusion?

Question

Does the Prime Minister agree that, besides backing electric vehicle production in the north-west, there is an opportunity to shift towards low-carbon hydrogen by supporting projects such as HyNet North West which will secure thousands of green jobs while reducing emissions?

Question

Why are the Tory Government trying to introduce voter ID laws that will disenfranchise millions of people from voting?

Question

Why is the Prime Minister seeking to make it harder for people to vote, particularly those from working-class and black and minority ethnic communities?

Question

Will he speak to Government Departments to get this issue sorted?

Question

Why are the Government undermining superior domestic diagnostics tests while propping up discredited Chinese imports?

Question

Will the Prime Minister support a motion calling for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics until basic international standards of decency are met?

Question

May I associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister and others on the anniversaries being marked today? This Sunday, 11 July, marks two years since the Government committed to reforming a cruel aspect of the welfare system that forces terminally ill people to prove they have six months or less to live before fast access to benefits. The Motor Neurone Disease Association and Marie Curie estimate that in that time, 7,000 people have died waiting for a decision on their benefits claim. With the pandemic and NHS backlog, the situation will become only more acute. When will the Government publish their review and finally scrap the six-month rule?

Question

While the extension of the grace period for the supply of chilled meat from Great Britain to Northern Ireland is welcome, Lord Frost is entirely right to say that it amounts in truth to no more than a temporary 'sticking plaster', so can my right hon. Friend please confirm that, unless the European Union adopts a more proportionate approach to the application of the Northern Ireland protocol, this country will do whatever is necessary, legislative or otherwise, to fix the problem permanently?

Question

One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Does the Prime Minister agree that parents' grief for this profound loss is not an illness and therefore that parents should receive formal miscarriage leave rather than resorting to sick pay or unpaid leave if their miscarriage occurs before 24 weeks? Will he support my private Member's Bill and introduce paid miscarriage leave for parents?

Question

The Serious Fraud Office achieved a rare success in Southwark Crown court in April with the successful prosecution of GPT Special Project Management Ltd, which resulted in £28 million of penalties for corruption. The key whistleblower in this case was my constituent Ian Foxley, without whom the prosecution would never have happened, yet he has been totally hung out to dry by the Serious Fraud Office, despite 10 years of financial devastation. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, unless we properly compensate whistleblowers, they simply will not come forward, and will he consider making a payment out of the £28 million received by Her Majesty's Treasury to compensate him for his losses?

Question

On Monday, we celebrated the 73rd birthday of the NHS—one of the very best things about our country. Many Opposition Members, and our constituents, remain committed to protecting the fundamental right to universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery, but this Government remain a constant threat to our public health service, with no staff pay rise, a 25% cut in the number of mental health beds, and the widespread sell-off of GP practices, such as the Edith Cavell Surgery in my constituency to American private insurance giant Centene. There is also the Health and Care Bill, which will only open the doors wider for privatisation. Why is the Prime Minister continuing to eviscerate our most essential public services, and why will he not listen to the thousands of essential workers who demonstrated on Saturday to end NHS privatisation, chronic underfunding and understaffing, and to keep the NHS public?

Question

I am sure that the whole House welcomes the fantastic news of Nissan's investment in an electric battery gigafactory in Sunderland, but does the Prime Minister agree that batteries are only part of the solution in pursuit of net zero by 2050, and that zero-carbon hydrogen combustion engines, such as those recently developed by Midlands-based JCB, have an important role to play in our country's decarbonisation plans?

Question

I know that the Prime Minister is aware of the fatal and serious road accidents that have taken place on St Albans Road and Redbourn Road in my constituency. Will he advise the House on what more the Government are doing to improve road safety, not just in the case of fatal accidents but where there are serious accidents or near misses?

Question

To their bitter disappointment, and despite the assurances given during the passage of the Fire Safety Act 2021 that it would do so, the Building Safety Bill, published on Monday, does little to help the hundreds of thousands of leaseholders who right now face financial ruin as a result of the building safety crisis. My question to the Prime Minister is a simple one: why are his Government seemingly intent on failing to honour the commitments given to those leaseholders, and to Members of this House, by refusing to legislate to fully protect all the blameless victims of this scandal?

Question

My right hon. Friend will recognise the huge service done by independent hospices to those at the end of their lives, to their families and to the NHS, because those people would be likely to otherwise be in hospital. He will also understand the huge impact that the covid pandemic has had on the fundraising capacity of those hospice charities, so may I ask him to consider carefully and personally the case that is being made by independent hospices for greater Government support for their clinical costs—costs which, if they were no longer there, would undoubtedly be borne by the taxpayer and by the hard- pressed NHS?

Question

In January, the Prime Minister promised me that he would listen to the calls of those that the Government had excluded from vital support to protect their jobs, businesses and incomes during the coronavirus pandemic, yet over the last six months many of my constituents have still been coming to tell me that they have been shut off and ignored, and millions across the country continue to be excluded. I have to ask the Prime Minister: why did he give those who have been excluded false hope instead of the support they desperately needed?

Question

The River Test is one of the finest chalk streams in the world, but since May, diesel has been spilling into the river. What matters most is that the flow is stopped and that there is an effective clean-up, but there are many agencies involved, which has made a co-ordinated response challenging. Please will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Environment Agency, Natural England, Southern Water, local authorities and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are all involved in solving this environmental catastrophe together?

Question

I am not sure that the Prime Minister actually welcomed my hon. Friend the new Member for Batley and Spen, but perhaps he will want to correct the record after this.<br/>They say that where there's a will there's a way, and the public will clearly welcome the Government's move to introduce emergency legislation tomorrow for pubs and bars to be able to stay open later on Sundays. However, the public will wonder why the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) will be allowed to return to this House tomorrow and not be subject to a recall, despite there being a serious case of sexual harassment. The public do not understand why there should be one rule for Conservative MPs and another for the rest of us. Will the Prime Minister therefore allow time tomorrow for a motion to close this loophole and make the hon. Member for Delyn the subject of a recall?

Question

This year thousands of children will die because of the Government's dramatic cuts in international aid. Top lawyers advise us that this policy is unlawful, and it has never been presented to this House for approval. When previously asked by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister suggested the estimates vote was appropriate but does not allow increasing spending on aid. I ask again: when will we get a binding vote on the Government's aid policy?

Question

When my grandmother was on her deathbed, we were not allowed to comfort her; I could not carry her coffin. My uncle's funeral and my brother-in-law's father's passing in a care home due to covid were also painful experiences under these restrictions. After such sacrifices, it disgusted me when government ministers defended their guidance as 'time to move on'. They should be ashamed for not showing integrity and firing the chief adviser who flouted rules.