John Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who was an admirer of mine in his previous life. I wonder whether that admiration is constant, too.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I tried to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. As far as I can work out, he said that elected people are accountable, but they do daft things sometimes. There is not much evidence to suggest that Members of the House of Lords have been less wise than Members of the House of Commons. There have been wise people here and wise people there. There have been good decisions there and good decisions here—and bad ones, too. The hon. Gentleman is right, of course, that we are directly accountable to our electors, and I treasure and honour that. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke said that she revered her connection with not just her voters, but her constituents, and so do I. I will make some progress because I know that you of all people, Madam Deputy Speaker—note my use of “you” in this context—will not want me to truncate my remarks. Having said that, I know that others, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), are very keen to contribute, and he will not forgive me if I use up all this time. Let us talk a bit about efficacy. The average hereditary peer is younger than the average peer. A higher proportion of hereditary peers are active members of the House of Lords, serving on Committees, on the Front Benches of both parties or as Whips. A much higher proportion of hereditary peers contribute to speeches and amendments than life peers. Purely on the grounds of whether they are doing their job well, there is no real argument for getting rid of this small number of people. There may be a better argument—notwithstanding my resistance to radicalism—for looking again at those Members of the House of Lords who, once appointed, never go. That is the reform that I think I could vote for.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Lady’s immensely accomplished speech. She is absolutely right that politics and Parliament can be a force for good—particularly, to go into the detail of what she said, when people are driven by a shared sense of fairness. I shall speak today about legitimacy, efficacy, dignity and continuity. First, I will deal with legitimacy. Authority is legitimately exercised by those of us here who are elected, but not all those who exercise authority are elected, and not all legitimacy depends on direct reference to the people. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) serves as a Government Minister who is appointed by His Majesty, and was chosen to serve by his Government and his party. He is elected to this place as a Member of Parliament, but he is not elected as a Minister; he is appointed, and exercises all kinds of power on that basis. I do not challenge his legitimacy; I accept it as part of our democratic settlement. Under our separation of powers, many people exercise authority who are not elected at all. Judges are not elected, but are appointed on the basis of their competence, knowledge and experience, and they exercise power using their wisdom. All of us in this Chamber know of authority derived not from election or from the people. A lot of people here will be parents. Mothers and fathers exercise all kinds of authority, but they are not chosen to do so by those over whom they have that authority. We might call that authority by accident of birth, or at least of someone else’s birth. Authority and legitimacy need to be debated in a much more measured way than they have been in the debate so far. I have heard many wise speeches from all parts of the Chamber over the time I have spent here, and I have heard many daft speeches, too. There is nothing dafter than someone saying that they will vote for a provision that they do not believe in because it makes the House of Lords more democratic, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) did, when it does not in fact make the House of Lords more democratic at all. It is not more democratic to be appointed by a party leader or nominated by one’s peers than it is to be born to sit in the House of Lords. Let us have a sensible and mature debate about this and consider legitimacy in the round. Let us also talk about efficacy. The House of Lords plays a vital role in our constitution by ensuring that the Government are held to account, and by providing a creative and, by and large, helpful tension with this House. That has not been convenient for Governments of any colour. When I was a Minister in previous Governments, many times I had to negotiate with Members of the upper House—from all parties, by the way—in the same way that I engaged with colleagues from across this House to get legislation through. That tension is critical, because it allows scrutiny of what is brought before this House and agreed here, and by and large the system works. It is awkward and difficult—it is probably not what we would contrive if we were to design a system from scratch, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) said—but it has proved generally effective over time.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I see that my right hon. Friend is itching to intervene.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  Of course my right hon. Friend is right that change is inevitable and change is constant, in the words of Disraeli, but that change needs to be built on an understanding of what has gone before, exactly as my right hon. Friend says. Evolution in our thinking builds on what we know and adds to it incrementally. For the most part, constitutional change is better when it is incremental and when it is founded on consistent and measured dialogue between people across the House—the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden).

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I know there are students of Proust littered among the saplings on the Labour Benches. If they are truly to become oaks and leave their acorns in the soil, they need to read Proust more. Proust said that “the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace.” It is a prejudice that drives the Bill. It is a prejudice that does the House no credit—or at least, I should say, does the party opposite no credit.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  No, I am going to finish now. A vapid fascination with now—imagine that. Of course, those philosophers on the Labour Benches will know that “now” is an illusion, as now becomes then in an instant, does it not? Yet the politics of now have an extraordinary appeal for faint hearts and weak minds. I know there are not too many of those in the Chamber, although rather more than one might ideally wish. That fascination with modernity leaves me only able to finish by quoting Marcel Proust.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I would be interested to see what amendments come forward, given my right hon. Friend’s remarks. There is a strong argument for having an expectation that if someone is appointed to the Lords, they do their job. That is the kind of amendment that even I, with my deep-rooted conservatism, could be persuaded to support. On the basis of the efficacy argument, the Bill does not do the job. Let us speak of dignity. Bagehot described the House of Lords as one of the “dignified” aspects of our parliamentary democracy. Let us translate that into what we know about it in our age: debate in the House of Lords tends to be measured; its amendments, though sometimes forceful, by and large are withdrawn in the end in deference to the elected House; and the expertise in the House of Lords is undoubted, as peers are drawn from many parts of our communities. That includes the hereditaries. The parody of hereditary peers, which I suppose is rooted in the old days of backwoodsmen, that they are somehow a privileged elite who take no great interest in the affairs of our nation and bring no great skill to the consideration of those affairs, is just that—a prejudiced parody.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister knows that I have a great deal of time for him, even though what he has said so far is nonsense, and what he is about to say is bound to be so too. The truth of the matter is that at the apex of our constitution is, of course, His Majesty the King. He is there because, in the Minister’s words, he belongs to a certain family and therefore derives a certain authority from that antecedence. Is that wrong too?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am mindful of my right hon. Friend’s earlier point about how small businesses can cope with the new requirements. Part of that involves increasing their staff’s awareness and understanding of the threat. The training that the Home Secretary spoke about will be vital in that respect. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way of minimising costs will be for umbrella organisations to co-ordinate some of that training, in organisations big and small, to improve staff understanding of the risk and how it can be countered?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Lady makes two profoundly important points. The first is on the metamorphosis of terrorism and how we need to be persistently clear about how we respond to it in the event of the changes we have seen. The second is about how the whole House comes together on these matters; as the right hon. Lady knows, I have had an interest in this subject for some time and I entirely endorse what she says. The particular point that I want to make is about anticipating events. The right hon. Lady has spoken a great deal about how we deal with events in the moment, as it were—the training of staff is critical, as she said—but of course we could be talking about a timed device that is planted long before a large event takes place. How does she see the legislation having an impact on a plot that is made well in advance, as I am sure the one in Manchester was?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for setting up the inquiry, but those recommendations did not stop with this legislation. While it is important that we welcome this in the spirit that has imbued the debate so far, the recommendations on co-ordination and some of the failures in communication between different agencies—those recommendations were mentioned by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand)—do need to be acted on. Notwithstanding the spirit that I have described, it is important that that scrutiny continues and that we learn the lessons to which she has alluded.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  I will make five points in three minutes—if I can pull that off, I trust I will go up even further in your estimation, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, this Government, like all Governments, need to recognise that the food chain in this country is distorted by the power of a handful of huge corporate retailers. For far too long they have taken the lion’s share of the agricultural cake. It is critical that we rebalance the chain in favour of primary and secondary producers. Previous Governments have done some work on that, with the establishment of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I was in government when that was set up, but it needs more teeth to act on sharp practice by retailers who run ragged over primary producers. Secondly, we need a strategy for food security. That means recognising that food security is as important as energy security; they must not be made competitors one with the other. We saw during covid and after the start of the war in Ukraine just what damage the unforeseen and unexpected can do to international markets and supply lines. It is critical that we grow more of what we consume, and shorten those supply lines to ensure that people will be fed by produce that is made here in the United Kingdom.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend has been a champion of these matters for a considerable period. I have hopes of the Secretary of State. I had a debate just before the recess in which the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs participated. I made the case for food security, and he gave me a fair hearing. I look forward to the meeting to which I know he is about to invite me; I can bring along a group of farmers and growers, to have that ongoing conversation. The core point is that food security matters. It not only helps with economic resilience but assists with traceability, quality, standards—all those things. My third point was stimulated by the Secretary of State’s comments about investment and our need to think big. We do indeed. To maintain productivity and efficiency in farming and growing, we need to look to the future. That means greater automation and changing the way we go about the food production business. It means greater integration, but not at the expense of the small farmers and growers. An efficient system does not necessarily mean exclusively huge farm businesses, as we need an entry point to the industry. If we simply create a handful of very large corporate farmers, we will not allow the kind of fluidity necessary to maintain the health of the industry. My fourth point is on procurement. The Government need to use procurement to support British produce. It is not that difficult, but no Government, of any party, have got it right. We have made some progress over time, as different Governments have launched different initiatives, but we need to use the public purse to support what we do in this country more effectively. My final point is this: we can have a debate about the detail of policy but, as has been said by the shadow Secretary of State and others, we need to take a bigger view than the partisan knockabout that too often prevails in this kind of discussion. This is about the future good of our people through the production of food to feed the nation.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will recall that I have raised in the House the use of crossbows by criminals. These are lethal weapons. The previous Government added to the list of weapons that are banned, and the current Government are implementing those measures. Have you had any notice of a statement being brought to the House by Ministers to respond to the increasingly pressing cries from those who want to see crossbows added to that list of banned weapons?

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

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  That is probably true.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

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  Of course, David Amess was a famous Back Bencher—he spent his career in this place entirely on the Back Benches. During the 19 years that I was on the Front Bench, I tried to do all kinds of things, but I am absolutely certain that David Amess achieved far more than I ever did speaking from the Back Benches. That tells a story of its own: as David illustrated, it is perfectly possible to make a huge difference from all parts of this House, not only to one’s constituents but to this place.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  It is a delight, Madam Deputy Speaker, to serve under your benevolent stewardship. The House may know that I am not an advocate of unbridled, anarchic freedom. I know the harm men can do with unfettered free will. Nevertheless, the ability to speak freely is the mark of a civilised, open society, which is why the last Government introduced a higher education Bill in the light of woke tyranny. I am disappointed that the right hon. Lady, who I know is a diligent servant of this House, would allow such legislation to be rescinded, yet the Government have said that that is exactly what they will do. They are going to reverse the advance we made, so will she allow a debate on free speech? For George Orwell, as she may know, said: “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

• 30 Jul 2024 · Lebanon · Hansard source

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  I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place; he is not technically a right hon. Friend, but he has been a personal friend of mine since my original attempt to stop him being elected in Tottenham many years ago. I thank him for his statement today. The right hon. Gentleman knows well that there are many moderate and measured voices in Lebanon and in the Lebanese diaspora. I am glad that he has emphasised the close relationship between our Government and armed forces and the Lebanese army. Will he agree to meet a small group of people associated with the all-party parliamentary group for Lebanon, which I have chaired? The all-party groups are re-forming as we speak, but a group of parliamentarians have been part of that one, and it would be very useful for us to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss what more can be done across the House to support the efforts that he has described today.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Mill Field Housing Development Proposals in Market Deeping · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on behalf of my constituents, just shy of 2,000 of whom have signed a petition calling on the House of Commons to protect Market Deeping’s much loved Mill Field. Market Deeping has little over 6,300 people living in it, so almost a third of the town has signed. Mill Field is an area of 11 hectares of green field, bordered by mature hedgerows and trees. On one side there is Milford Road, the last rural lane in Market Deeping. The site has been used by the community for a variety purposes over many years, from the 19th century onwards. It should be a designated green space, but, sadly, it has been earmarked for development. This is despite opposition from the local community and from Market Deeping town council. The development is being imposed on a community that does not want it, and it threatens unspoiled grassland used by families for generations. This petition is due to the tireless work of Pamela Steel and the Friends of Mill Field and I present it on their behalf this evening. Following is the full text of the petition. [The petition of residents of South Holland and the Deepings, Declares that South Kesteven District Council should reconsider its plan to develop Mill Field, one of the few remaining green fields within the parish of Market Deeping, given that Lincolnshire County Council, which owns the field, has put it forward as suitable for large housing development; notes that Mill Field is an intrinsic part of the rural character of the local area, and should be protected given its historical use for community events and so it can continue to provide residents with space for informal recreation; further notes that planning policy is clear that local communities should not have unwanted development forced upon them. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges South Kesteven District Council to protect Mill Field from development and removes Mill Field from their draft local plan and designates it as a Local Green Space, so protecting it for future generations in perpetuity. And the petitioners remain, etc ] . [P003004]

• 30 Jul 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. I appreciate that she will not have time today to wax lyrical about her vision of aesthetics or to expand at length on the relationship between truth and beauty. Nevertheless, given the welcome reference in her announcement to proportionality and to the link between the existing built environment and the scale of development, will she also take into account the character and style of development? She may know that I have served on the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission and in the Office for Place. Will she agree to meet the Office for Place to discuss beauty? She will know that the wealthy can always live in beautiful places and in beautiful homes, but people from council houses—from where she and I originate—deserve their chance to know, to sense and to see beauty.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Food Security · Hansard source

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  I anticipate disappointment, but I would not go so far as to say I share it. My hon. Friend has been a resolute champion for his constituents in respect of both food security and resisting developments that they simply do not want. If we believe in the devolution of power and in empowering communities to have a greater say in their futures, we cannot simultaneously snuff them out when they disagree with Government priorities—ignore them and disregard their perfectly proper concerns. That is something that my hon. Friend would never do. Where I disagree with him is that I have hope. There are those who will say that the new Minister is not up to the job, but I do not agree: I have worked with him previously, and I know that he is a diligent and decent man who will take these matters very seriously. I would not want to entirely write off the prospect that we will make an argument that is sufficiently persuasive to affect Government policy, even if we cannot change it entirely.