Mark Francois MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  Well, 131,000 people do not agree with what the Minister just said, clearly. If he is so confident in the Government’s case, can he say on the record that he would welcome their proposals being debated in Parliament for at least three hours before the summer recess? Presumably he is not frightened of a debate, so could he put that on the record?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful argument. I hope that if time allows, he will also make a speech. The Government themselves acknowledge that the commissioner provides an enhanced, independent route for raising concerns. Our amendments build on that by embedding a clear, accessible and statutorily protected whistleblowing function. That simplicity is vital for ensuring that service personnel, especially those who feel most vulnerable, can come forward without fear. The Government have further argued that whistleblowing lacks a clear legal definition. However, that claim is simply untenable. As Baroness Goldie powerfully highlighted in the other place, the Armed Forces Act 2006—section 340Q is titled “Investigation of concerns raised by whistle-blowers”—and the Police Reform Act 2002 provide clear statutory precedent for the term. Those Acts demonstrate that including whistleblowing adds tangible value to legislation, ensuring protections for those who expose wrongdoing. If whistleblowing is robust enough for the Police Reform Act and the very Act that this Bill is designed to amend, how can the Government argue that it lacks clarity or value in this context? Let me address the Government’s contradictory stance. In Committee in the other place, we proposed a broader amendment to empower the commissioner. In the other place, the Ministry of Defence dismissed it as too wide-ranging. In the spirit of constructive compromise, which has been the general tenor of the Bill throughout, we narrowed our amendment to focus specifically on welfare and service issues. Now the Government claim that this revised amendment is too narrow and does not grant sufficient powers—too broad, then too narrow. That inconsistency displays a reluctance to engage with the substance of our proposal. To illustrate my point, let me offer two theoretical examples to the House. First, let us consider the possibility of a whistleblower being someone who served in the British Army in Northern Ireland. This is an extremely topical issue at present, as the Minister will be aware, given the Government’s appalling remedial order to excise key parts of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. I do not know whether any armed forces personnel who served, or indeed are still serving, in Northern Ireland have privately signed the parliamentary petition entitled, “Protect Northern Ireland Veterans from Prosecutions”, but as of today, over 131,000 people have signed it. We therefore look forward to an early debate in Parliament on these matters. While we are of course in the hands of the Petitions Committee and not you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on this occasion, we are hopeful that the Committee might allow a debate to take place as soon as possible, and certainly prior to the summer recess. I see Labour Members nodding, so I am keen to get that into Hansard . Secondly, let us consider the theoretical example of an officer serving as a military assistant to a Minister on the fifth floor of the Ministry of Defence. What protection in law would that officer have if they became seriously concerned that a Minister they were working for was about to breach the ministerial code? Not that any Minister here today would, of course. How would an officer faced with a moral dilemma of that magnitude be permitted to act as a whistleblower to raise concerns that Ministers had acted inappropriately—something that would certainly impact their general welfare as well as the reputation of the Government they served? We will see if the Minister has anything to add before we conclude. In summary—I know others are keen to speak—the Government have offered assurances about anonymity in the commissioner’s work and promised a communications campaign to raise awareness of the commissioner’s role. These are welcome steps, but, as I hope I have argued, they are not enough. A communications campaign is no substitute for a clear, statutory whistleblowing provision that service personnel can rely on with confidence. The other place recognised that, delivering a significant cross-party defeat to the Government last month when Conservative peers, alongside others, successfully amended the Bill to include a robust, anonymous whistleblowing route. Lords amendments 2 and 3 are not just about process; they are about rebuilding trust. I will listen closely to the Minister’s response, but if the Government cannot move beyond their current position and continue to offer assurances without real statutory weight—I am afraid we find the amendment in lieu unconvincing—we will have no choice but to test the opinion of the House. We owe it to our service personnel to ensure their voices are heard and their concerns are properly investigated.

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  We genuinely get on. Come on, what is the answer?

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Subject to the Court!

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  The most pernicious part of this deal is dynamic alignment, by which we become an automatic rule-taker from the European Union. Labour has been briefing journalists that we have an opt-out from that. I have read the document in detail, and we do not. Besides, the ECJ is the ultimate arbiter in a dispute, so the EU will always win. The British people voted peacefully and democratically to leave the European Union, so why has the Prime Minister surrendered that right and made us a rule-taker from the EU once again?

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  After they have been changed.

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Of course it is European law—

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Subject to the ECJ! [ Interruption. ]

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I regret that in an earlier exchange the Prime Minister, who is still in his place, may have inadvertently misled the House. The point of contention is the arbitration mechanism for an SPS deal and dynamic alignment. The text says: “The SPS Agreement should be subject to a dispute resolution mechanism with an independent arbitration panel that ensures the Court of Justice of the European Union is the ultimate authority for all questions of European Union law”, which, of course, this is. The Prime Minister said that the Court goes back to the arbitration panel; it does that to convey its binding decision, so he is guilty of sophistry at best, and potentially something worse.

• 19 May 2025 · Support for Veterans · Hansard source

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  A group of Army veterans who feel totally let down by this Government have started a parliamentary petition entitled “Protect Northern Ireland Veterans from Prosecutions”, which has so far amassed nearly 87,000 signatures in just over a week. Assuming that they successfully obtain the further 13,000 that are required, may I ask whether we can then debate, in Parliament, the question of why Labour wants, via its proposed remedial order, to make it easier for Gerry Adams to sue the British Government, while legally abandoning our brave veterans and throwing them to the wolves?

• 19 May 2025 · Support for Veterans · Hansard source

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  Labour could have appealed those judgments to the Supreme Court but chose not to. Labour MPs and peers have already voted for this barmy process in the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 26 February. Labour will now be expecting all its MPs to vote for it again this autumn. Given that many of the young soldiers who served on Operation Banner in Northern Ireland were recruited from “red wall” seats—from Barnsley to Blackpool, and from Bolton to Burnley—how on earth do this Government expect any Labour MP to do Gerry Adams a favour at the expense of the veterans who opposed him, and then to go back to their own seats and look their constituents, including veterans and their families, in the eye?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  No. When Labour talked about a “reset” in its general election manifesto, there was absolutely no reference to rule taking as part of any such accommodation. Labour would therefore be giving away our rights, entirely without the consent of the British people. That must be fiercely resisted and, if necessary, overturned. Moreover, there is the prospect of additional concessions over everything from so-called youth mobility schemes—a euphemism for a return to freedom of movement in another guise—to capitulation over net zero mechanisms and, specifically, the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, or CBAM, which would make our remaining industries even more internationally uncompetitive than the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband) has achieved to date. As someone who sat here during the last Parliament—as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) kindly mentioned—and witnessed, night after night and week after week, the then Labour shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, now the Prime Minister, pulling every procedural trick from the depths of Erskine May in order to try to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union at almost any price and despite the referendum, I am in no way surprised that his Government are now attempting this act of capitulation. Our Prime Minister has always been a passionate Europhile; in short, he remains a remainer in his heart of hearts, and he always will. What the Labour Government are up to—and I say again that they will try to use a defence pact in order to hide it—is beginning a process of gradually taking us back towards and even back into the European Union, if they think they can get away with it. They will never risk another referendum, because in 2016, almost up to the last minute, the polls were showing that remain might win, but when it came to it, the British people had the temerity to vote to govern themselves, despite the best efforts of the British Establishment and “Project Fear”. What they will do is try to take us back in very gradually, via a process of grandmother’s footsteps, or, to make another analogy, trying to boil a frog slowly. If they get away with submission next week, despite their manifesto commitments, they will eventually try to take us back into the single market—although, no doubt, under some other name—and if they can get away with that, they will suggest that we might as well rejoin the customs union. They will put the argument to the British people that we are so far back into the blooming thing that we might as well go the whole hog and rejoin it entirely—all without a vote or the consent of the people of the United Kingdom, at any stage, whatsoever.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  The Minister has referred to the Labour manifesto several times in a few minutes. Did it say anything at all about accepting dynamic alignment or becoming a rule taker—yes or no?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  In a moment. This is a yes or no question. Perhaps the Minister, at that time—because he would not answer my right hon. Friend’s question yesterday—will give us an honest answer to an honest question. In fact, if he wants to do it now I will give way to him. A stunning silence! Well, as he has not the guts to get up, I will give way to his Back Bencher.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I think it is fair to say that in the years I have been here generally most people have known what I believed in, but is the reason the hon. Gentleman is so incredibly angry this afternoon because, from his point of view, he lost not only one referendum, but two: on Scottish independence and then on the European Union?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  In a moment. To have left the EU but submit to becoming a passive rule taker would be entirely contrary to the spirit of the 2016 referendum. That is why, time and again today, no Minister will admit that the Government are going to do it next week.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  It has not ended yet. Sir Bill is a sprightly 83, and he has been texting some of us throughout the debate. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that Sir Bill’s great success was the sovereignty clause, which finally said, after years of campaigning, that this Parliament is sovereign? That is on the statute book because of Bill.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I defer to my hon. Friend, who is clearly a subject matter expert. I will conclude, because others want a chance to speak. The Labour Government will go for dynamic alignment. They will sign us up as a passive rule-taker at the behest of the EU, despite the British people voting in 2016 to take back control of their laws. I have absolutely no doubt that if the Labour Government get away with this surrender summit early next week, that is precisely what they will do. It is therefore very important that we alert the British people, and the media that serve them, to exactly what Labour is up to, in an attempt to expose the situation and prevent it getting any worse. In summary, we will not allow our obsessively Europhile Prime Minister—in this context, our “white flag” man—to surrender our right to govern ourselves. This surrender to the EU has absolutely no democratic mandate, and we will oppose it tooth and nail. If necessary, we will eventually overturn it. Remember what the booklet in the referendum said: “This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.” The British people decided to take back control of their own laws. It is not for Labour to give them away.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  It would be far better to do this via a process of mutual enforcement, of which my right hon. Friend has always been a staunch advocate. When the Minister sums up the debate, we will ask him if he will rule out, very clearly, any prospect of dynamic alignment at the summit next week.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  People have made market choices, but under the common fisheries policy, we had the absurdity of so-called discards. Our fishermen had to throw fish, many of which were already dead, back into the sea in order to comply with the absurdities of the CFP. Hopefully, we will never return to that.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to contribute to this important debate on the forthcoming UK-EU summit next Monday. As someone who has, I hope the House will concede, followed these matters reasonably closely for a number of years, I will focus on three broad areas. I will say something about the summit itself, make some points about the very worrying suggestion that we are about to waive a large part of our fishing rights, and raise my concerns and those of many others about the potential for so-called dynamic alignment by which the United Kingdom effectively would become a passive rule taker, despite voting peacefully and democratically to leave the European Union in the first place. Before I do that, I pay a personal tribute to Sir Roy Stone, who has tragically passed away. He was a constituent of mine and lived just a few minutes away from me. I once inadvertently canvassed him some years ago during the local elections. As a highly professional public servant, he was completely inscrutable about his voting intentions. I subsequently worked with him closely for two years in the coalition Whips Office between 2010 and 2012. He was always very patient, especially with me. When I was the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, he always gave well-informed and canny advice. He believed passionately in the institution of Parliament and the principle of representative democracy, which he served so well. Our thoughts and prayers are with his widow, Dawn, and her family. May he rest in peace and always be warmly remembered. A crucial summit will take place between the leaders of the UK and the EU in London next month. I recall being told repeatedly during the referendum campaign that if we left the EU, we would be isolated and friendless. All the meetings that have taken place in London recently, including one with virtually every EU leader at Lancaster House regarding the so-called coalition of the willing, show how absolutely ludicrous that assertion was. However, according to multiple media reports, it seems as if this summit could involve some kind of defence pact between ourselves in the UK and the European Union. As I have Front-Bench responsibility for defence, I shall not dwell at length on those matters, but hopefully we will have a lot more to say on them next week once the details of any such agreement have been made public and, crucially, we have had an opportunity to read the small print. Nevertheless, I am sure that the Government’s tactic will be to try to talk almost exclusively about defence as a form of camouflage to mask likely concessions both on our fishing rights and, potentially, relating to our food. When the British people voted democratically to leave the European Union some nine years ago, they did so in order to decide their destiny for themselves. It would be completely against the spirit of the referendum, under the guise of some kind of reset with the EU, to surrender that principle next week. Moreover, after the absolute chaos of the Labour Government’s proposed Chagos deal, the Spanish Foreign Minister asserted only yesterday that the UK should make concessions over the sovereignty of Gibraltar as part of our reset at the summit. This is despite the fact that the Gibraltarians themselves voted by a majority of 99% to maintain the current position in their own referendum on the subject, a margin so emphatic that even the SNP would have to accept it. On fishing, in early 2020 during Boris Johnson’s premiership, the United Kingdom agreed what was known as the trade and co-operation agreement between the UK and the EU. While there has been much recent talk of trade deals, including with India and now the US, the TCA was in effect a major, comprehensive trade deal with the EU, negotiated in the context of having left the European Union. For the benefit of the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), who is no longer in his place, that agreement was 1,245 pages long—I know, because I read it. In essence, the TCA guaranteed virtually tariff-free trade between the UK and the EU. Moreover, the fact that we had left the EU, including the customs union, meant that we were able to negotiate unilateral trade deals of our own around the world.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady will let me finish this point, I promise I will do so, but I want to enjoy this bit. We now have the delightful visage of our ambassador to the United States, one Lord Mandelson, having to acknowledge through metaphorically gritted teeth that we have been able to negotiate a trade deal with the United States—albeit one that is limited in scope—only because we left his beloved European Union. I think our Peter is struggling with that. I will give way to the hon. Lady, who has been patient.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Yes!

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  The whole House will have noted that the hon. Member clearly failed to rule out a second referendum, because he did not much like the result of the first one. May I ask him this directly? Like the Government, as is obvious from their evasion this afternoon, are the Liberal Democrats prepared to accept a process of dynamic alignment, whereby we effectively become a passive rule-taker from the European Union? Yes or no?