Name: Prime Minister's Questions: 2 October 2019
Uploaded: 2019-11-28T09:49:17.000Z
Duration: 47 min 24 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

>> Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con): If he will list his official engagements for

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic

Raab) I have been asked to reply. My right hon.

Friend the Prime Minister is in Manchester for the Conservative party conference. He

is making, as we speak, the keynote speech, setting out that we will leave the EU on 31

October, so that we can get on with our dynamic domestic agenda.

>> Julian Sturdy: Askham Bog, a world-renowned nature reserve

in my constituency, has been described as “irreplaceable” by, no less, Sir David

Attenborough; yet it is threatened by proposals to build more than 500 houses on adjoining

land. Will my right hon. Friend put in a good word with the Prime Minister to ask him to

join me in lying down in front of the bulldozers to save that important piece of natural heritage?

>> Dominic Raab: I thank my hon. Friend. I always put in a

good word with the Prime Minister on his behalf, and I share his passion for preserving our

precious natural habitats. Local community views are of course incredibly important to

the local planning process; that is what our revised national planning policy framework

provides. He will understand that I cannot comment on individual planning applications.

>> Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab):

Yesterday marked the start of Black History Month, so I will begin by paying tribute to

a young woman already making history this month. Dina Asher-Smith became the first British

woman in 36 years to win a sprint medal when she won silver at the 100 metres in Doha.

Tonight she aims to go one better in the 200 metres—and I am sure the whole House will

>> Mr Speaker: I think that was a preface to a question.

>> Ms Abbott: If I may continue, uninterrupted!

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) raised the very specific

issue of how many of the hundreds of abusive and violent messages that she receives use

the Prime Minister's own words. The Prime Minister dismissed those concerns as simply

“humbug”. Since that exchange, my hon. Friend has received four further death threats,

some again quoting the Prime Minister's words. Women across this House experience

death threats and abuse. Will the Foreign Secretary take the opportunity to apologise

on behalf of the Prime Minister for his initial dismissive response?

>> Dominic Raab: I thank the right hon. Lady for her question.

My eagerness to rise to the Dispatch Box was because, in Black History Month, as she becomes

the first black MP to take to the Dispatch Box for PMQs, it is only fitting to say that

she has blazed a trail and made it easier for others to follow in her footsteps. That

is something in which I and every hon. Member in this House can take pride in paying tribute.

The right hon. Lady raises the increasing level of online and wider abuse that politicians

from all parts of the House get, and we should come together to be clear that there must

be zero tolerance of any abuse or any threats. May I also say that I have found the level

of abuse that she herself has received online to be totally disgusting and totally unacceptable.

At the same time, I am sure that, as a passionate champion of free speech, she will defend our

right in this House to defend the issues of substance. The remarks that the Prime Minister,

my right hon. Friend, made were aimed at the suggestion that he could not describe the

surrender Act in such terms. It is absolutely clear, given the substance of the legislation,

that it would achieve that and undermine the ability of the Government to go and get a

deal in the EU, which on all sides we want to achieve.

>> Ms Abbott: So, we can take it that there is no apology

from the Foreign Secretary. I raised the very specific point that my hon. Friend the Member

for Dewsbury made about the abuse she gets that uses the Prime Minister's language.

Deliberately disturbing billboards showing unborn foetuses have been put up in the London

borough of Walthamstow. They are upsetting for women walking past, but particularly upsetting

for my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), because these billboards

are targeted at her in response to her work to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland.

Abortion in Northern Ireland should be decriminalised on 21 October. What will the Foreign Secretary

do to ensure that, from later on this month, women in Northern Ireland will have the same

human rights to legal and safe abortion as women in England, Wales and Scotland?

>> Dominic Raab: The right hon. Lady has referred to the hon.

Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and the abuse that she has received, which I and

all Members of this House, I know, believe is totally unacceptable. There is a place

for free speech, but we should never allow that to cross over into abuse, intimidation

or harassment of hon. Members from all parts of the House going about their business. The

most important thing that we can do on the specific issue that the right hon. Lady raises

is get the institutions in Northern Ireland back up and running so that they can exercise

their rights, their prerogatives, on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.

>> Ms Abbott: I notice that the Foreign Secretary has not

said anything about those horrific posters—they are not posters that anyone would want to

see, particularly someone who is pregnant, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow.

Last week, Labour reiterated its call to end the rape clause, which forces women to fill

out a four-page form to prove their child was born of rape in order to get financial

help. Will the Foreign Secretary today back Labour's pledge to remove the abhorrent

>> Dominic Raab: I would say that we have looked at this issue

and we continue to look at it. On the subject of using inflammatory language, it is incumbent

on Members in all parts of the House to be very careful about it. I know that my right

hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions is looking

at this matter and will continue to take questions and scrutinise it very carefully, so that

we get the balance right. I gently say to the right hon. Lady that Labour wants to abolish

universal credit and engage in an open spending spree on handouts. That is the wrong thing

to do—trapping people in the welfare trap. On our side, we want to help those people

from the poorest backgrounds get into work, and our record speaks for itself.

>> Ms Abbott: How much more dismissive can the Foreign Secretary

be of people and families dependent on benefits? We are not talking about a spending spree;

we are talking about a system that is fair and just, and which does not subject people

Last week, the 100-year-old travel company Thomas Cook went out of business. We know

that 72% of its workers are women. We also know that, although Governments around the

world stepped in to save Thomas Cook subsidiary companies in their own countries, the UK Business

Secretary thought that this was not her job. Can the Foreign Secretary explain to those

workers, some of whom are with us today, why their Government sat idly by?

>> Dominic Raab: First, we did not sit idly by. The Government's

efforts, co-ordinated by the Transport Secretary, to ensure that the holidaymakers and travellers

who were caught overseas could be returned back to the UK, have been very effective and

required a huge amount of cross-Government work, including in my own Department. On whether

the Government should have stepped in to bail out Thomas Cook, it is very clear from looking

at the financing that such a step would not have rendered the company more sustainable

and would not have saved jobs in the long run. We are, of course, concerned to ensure

that we have a sound economic base in the long term. We have created 3 million new jobs

in this country since 2010, and will continue with that. What we are not going to do is

routinely bail out companies that are unsustainable. That is not the right way to go about this.

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Prime Minister's Questions: 2 October 2019

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