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Tag: Hilary Benn

  • Hilary Benn – 2024 Speech on the United Kingdom Internal Market

    Hilary Benn – 2024 Speech on the United Kingdom Internal Market

    The speech made by Hilary Benn, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2024.

    I begin by agreeing with the Minister that businesses in Northern Ireland want to make the current and future arrangements work, that they want them to work well and that there is huge potential for the people of Northern Ireland in the economic benefits that its current and future circumstances provide it.

    I have some specific points about the regulations— I see the Minister clearly relishes responding to those. Paragraph 81 of the Command Paper states:

    “We are now changing arrangements…to ensure…that checks are eliminated save for those conducted by UK authorities needed for the protection of the UK’s internal market on a risk and intelligence basis.

    Will the Minister clarify which checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be got rid of? Is he referring to identity checks, checks on paperwork or something else? At the moment, about 10% of goods using what is called the green lane—which will become the UK internal market lane—are subject to some checks on paperwork. Will he clarify what will happen to them?

    I welcome the amendments to the UK Internal Market Act 2020 provided for in regulation 2. Proposed new section 45A would reaffirm Northern Ireland’s unfettered access to the rest of the internal market and ensure that no new NI-GB checks can be introduced. The regulation also makes provision for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to Departments on how they should carry out their duties under section 46 of the 2020 Act—namely, ensuring that they have special regard to, among other things, Northern Ireland’s status in the UK internal market when they formulate policy. Will the Minister confirm that guidance will soon be forthcoming and share any further details he can at this stage about what that will contain?

    I note the changes to the Definition of Qualifying Northern Ireland Goods (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 made by regulation 3, which are intended to prevent Northern Ireland from being used as a back door for EU goods moving into GB and to protect Northern Ireland’s agricultural sector. Ensuring that NI-registered agrifood operators fully benefit from unfettered access is a very positive step and I welcome it. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government envisage any further changes to the definition of qualifying Northern Ireland goods? I also note the Government’s confirmation in the Command Paper that

    “there will be no Border Control Post at Cairnryan.”

    That is greatly to be welcomed, but can the Minister say anything further about how checks and formalities on non-qualifying goods that enter GB from Northern Ireland through Cairnryan will work in practice?

    Let me turn to some of the other commitments set out in the Command Paper. Will the Minister confirm when he expects the new body announced to promote trade within the UK, InterTrade UK, to become operational, and how it will be overseen?

    I welcome the Government’s determination, which has been brought up by a number of Members, to ensure the continued supply of veterinary medicines into Northern Ireland beyond the end of 2025, when the current grace period expires. We all hope that an agreement can be reached with our European partners as soon as possible. I share the view expressed by others in the debate that we had the same problem with human medicines and, in the end, the EU recognised that something had to be done about that. I hope very much that the EU will show the same spirit in approaching this question. The Command Paper, however, says:

    “we will if necessary deploy all available flexibilities to safeguard and sustain the supply of veterinary medicines”.

    Will the Minister tell the House what those flexibilities are and how they will be applied if we get to that point?

    In approving the regulations—which I hope we will do unanimously as we just did with the constitutional set—we will be taking another step closer, in this really important week, to the restoration of power sharing. The people of Northern Ireland, who have been without a Government for so long, may not, in all fairness, be studying the regulations in the way that we are doing today, but they very clearly understand why they are essential to getting their Government back. Once we have done our bit today, it will be over to the politicians of Northern Ireland, and I am sure that every single Member of the House wishes them the very best in the task that lies ahead of them.

  • Hilary Benn – 2023 Speech on the Security and Data Protection Breach in PSNI

    Hilary Benn – 2023 Speech on the Security and Data Protection Breach in PSNI

    The speech made by Hilary Benn, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the House of Commons on 4 September 2023.

    May I say that I look forward to working with the Secretary of State in the interests of peace, prosperity and progress in Northern Ireland?

    The release of the names and workplaces of thousands of PSNI officers and staff was doubtless inadvertent, but its consequences could not be more serious. That has now been recognised by the chief constable, Simon Byrne, who is resigning—I join the Secretary of State in thanking him for his service. Those who serve in the PSNI confront great risks every day in their job to keep the public safe, and we thank them. But they already knew that dissident republicans were targeting them and their families, and now they know that those who would do them harm have this list. The damage to morale and confidence should not be underestimated. They are asking urgently, “What will be done to reassure and protect us?”

    Does the Secretary of State agree that the inquiry needs to be completed as quickly as possible? Can he confirm that he will approve the appointment of the new chief constable in the absence of a Justice Minister in Northern Ireland? Does he intend to review the operation of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and how it functions? Does he recognise that there will be additional costs in protecting staff, as well as responding to potential civil claims? There were already great pressures on the Northern Ireland policing budget, and the cuts it now faces will, in the words of the PSNI, leave the service “smaller…less visible, less accessible and less responsive”.

    Finally, the whole House wants to ensure that the staff get the support, protection and reassurance they need, but to succeed in doing that we need leadership from the Government and the political parties in Northern Ireland, to get the Assembly and the Executive up and running again as quickly as possible.

    Chris Heaton-Harris

    I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place and look forward to working with him. As I mentioned outside the Chamber, I will happily brief him on any aspects and will arrange technical briefings from my officials so that he can be brought up to speed quickly. I would like to put on record my thanks to the former shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who is present, for the way he went about his business and for the very co-operative way we dealt with business. I appreciate it and wish him well as we move forward.

    The right hon. Gentleman asked about the inquiry. Yes, it needs to be expedited. A timetable has been set up by the Policing Board, which is independent, and I believe that it reports in three months’ time. It is quite a fundamental inquiry, and I hope in that time it will be able to bring all the answers required to the table. He asked about the appointment of a future chief constable; if the institutions of the Executive and the Minister for Justice are not present, we will have to pass secondary legislation in this place to allow that to happen. All that depends on the Policing Board going about its business and recruitment—I believe that is very much a rubber stamp of its work.

    The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Policing Board and reform. I spoke to a number of board members before the resignation of the chief constable, and they all know that the spotlight is on them and how they deal with this. I would like to wait and see how they discharge their duties over the course of the next few weeks before I commit to reform, because there are good people there who have the ability to do the job.

    Finally, on the budget, which I mentioned in my answer, the right hon. Gentleman forgot to mention that the Information Commissioner will come out with a decent fine for the data breach. We will have to take a whole host of things into account. As and when they materialise, we will look at them.

  • Hilary Benn – 2023 Speech on Brain Tumour Research Funding

    Hilary Benn – 2023 Speech on Brain Tumour Research Funding

    The speech made by Hilary Benn, the Labour MP for Leeds Central, in the House of Commons on 9 March 2023.

    The reason that I rise to participate in this debate is that just under two years ago a constituent wrote to me. He revealed that he had a brain tumour and asked me to go along to an APPG meeting to discuss ways in which we could try to find a cure. I went along and I must confess that little did I know then that I would end up taking part in the inquiry. We had, I think, six evidence sessions and we heard from a lot of people. The report, which the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) referred to, distils into its recommendations what we heard from those who contributed and who were very patient in answering the many questions that we put to them.

    I pay tribute to the hon. Member, who chairs the APPG and who chaired the inquiry. He has done so brilliantly, cheerfully and in a way that has brought out the best from all of the people who appeared before us, who came along to let us draw on their expertise, to share their frustrations and to offer their ideas and suggestions. It has been an honour and a privilege to work with him and all the other hon. Members here who took part. I also thank the wonderful secretariat from Brain Tumour Research for supporting us in our work and for pulling the report together so skilfully.

    A cancer diagnosis is a terrible thing, although statistics tell us that one in two of us will receive such a diagnosis during our lifetime. I think most of us, if we are honest, would say that we wince when we hear the word “cancer”, because all too often it conjures the idea of a downward path to the end of our lives. Any of us who has been through that experience, either ourselves or, in my case, with those we love, knows exactly how that feels, but death is not always the outcome. Our lives are not preordained, and we have seen real advances in the treatment of certain types of cancer in recent years—breast cancer is a good example—and, overall, I am advised that cancer survival rates in the UK have doubled in the last 40 years.

    But when it comes to brain tumours, the blunt truth is that there has been almost no progress at all. The five-year survival rate for glioblastoma, the most aggressive form, is 6.8%, and the average length of survival is between 12 and 18 months.

    Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)

    My right hon. Friend refers to the average length of survival as being 18 months. Actually, it is nine months. His figure suggests that everybody completes treatment. Nine months is the life expectancy of somebody diagnosed with glioblastoma.

    Hilary Benn

    I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point, which reinforces, in all of us, our awareness of just how awful this diagnosis is, and it is the answer to the question that every person who receives such a diagnosis asks their doctor: “How long have I got?” Eight or nine months is no time at all.

    Dr Matt Williams, a clinical oncologist, is quoted in the report:

    “Every week I have to tell patients that there is nothing more we can offer. I have now been a consultant for 10 years and these conversations are the same now as when I started.”

    That is why a brain tumour is a devastating diagnosis. A patient quoted in the report says:

    “It’s devastating and living with a time bomb in your head.”

    That is a very good description of what it must feel like. In those circumstances, what do patients and loved ones want? What we would all want is to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to try to change that.

    Mr Carmichael

    I speak about this publicly from time to time, and I am always struck by the number of people who say to me, “Thank you for doing that, because this took my father”—or their brother, their neighbour, their friend or whoever—“and I had no idea that this had been their life experience.” When I was growing up, 40 or 50 years ago, a cancer diagnosis really was not talked about—it was almost taboo—and I think we are in the same place with brain cancers. If we are to make the progress we need, we all have to start talking about this much more. The experience has to be shared.

    Hilary Benn

    I agree completely with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. To borrow a phrase, it’s good to talk about brain cancer. That is why we are here in this Chamber today. We are here to raise awareness, because loved ones dying remains, among some people, a great taboo, about which we are fearful of saying anything. When my late first wife died of cancer at the age of 26, I was struck by the fact that my colleagues at work, though wonderful people, found it almost impossible to mention what had happened when I went back to work. I understand why, because before it happened to me I would have been like them. I would have thought I would say the wrong thing or cause someone to break down in tears. When it happens to you, you come to realise that there is nothing special to say; you just have to go up to the person and say, “How are you?” and listen. Yes, they will cry and you will cry, but that is so much better than people hiding it inside, with the suffering that it brings.

    That is what this report is trying to do—it is trying to make sure that we are doing everything we can. There are good reasons why brain cancer is proving so difficult to treat. I learnt about that, as did the other members of the inquiry panel. The brain is a complex organ. I had never heard of the blood-brain barrier before. I am not sure I still understand it, but I heard a lot about it in the evidence we received. We learnt about treatments that had been tried and had failed, and about the desperation of those with brain tumours to get on to trials that might just offer some hope, not of a cure, but of a few more months. For someone who has received a diagnosis of a brain tumour, every second—let alone every minute, week or month—is extremely precious. We heard of the despair of people who are unable to get this for themselves or their loved ones, and it is so particularly poignant when it is children who have a brain tumour.

    So we are calling for a renewed and determined focus on doing every single thing we can to change the situation, not because we are naive about the difficulties, which are many, but because it is the very least we can do for the people who find themselves in this position. So, of course, we have called for greater investment. I thought the hon. Member for St Ives explained well why the funds that have been made available and set aside for brain tumour research—I welcome them enormously—have not all been allocated and spent. It is not for want of willingness; it relates to the point he made about the lack of suitable research proposals coming forward and the frustration, which came across so clearly in that one evidence session in particular, of those who have put their research proposals to the research bodies, have been knocked back and feel, “They did not really understand what we are trying to do.” That is because those who sit on those panels may not have expertise in the field of brain tumour research, which is why we strongly encourage the research councils to look more widely at, and more favourably upon, proposals for brain tumour research.

    We have a funding system that has been built in silos. It needs to be better joined up, from basic science through to clinical trials. At this point, I wish to pay tribute, as we all would, to the clinicians, scientists, doctors and others who work their socks off to try to crack this problem and find a treatment. That is why we have made some very specific recommendations. The example of biobanking and tissue samples seemed so simple when people talked about it. When we are dealing with any disease, but particularly this one, does it not make sense to pool all of the information that we have available about what we have learnt, what we still do not know, what may work and what may not? Clearly, that is not happening, even though it is a simple thing to do so that anyone undertaking research can draw upon all the available material as they apply their mind, scientific skill and determination to finding a cure.

    We are also calling for patients with brain tumours to have equity of access to trials of new anti-cancer drugs that currently may be available only to patients with other types of malignant cancers. There can be a fear that if other people are brought into the trial, it will somehow skew the result. However, if a person is dying, that is not their concern. Their concern is: “Might this possibly work to save my life or the life of the person I love?”

    I hope that this report and the views of all those people who so generously gave their time—we thank all of them—will have an impact as, collectively, we roll up our sleeves, redouble our efforts, and express an even greater determination to find treatments and cures for this cruel disease that shortens the lives of so many people whom we have come to know or know already and love. What keeps us going in difficult times is hope, and I think these recommendations offer exactly that. As one patient said, “If you have hope, you have life.”

  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-11-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many (a) staff of which grades and (b) desk teams were working on Russia in his Department in (i) 2011, (ii) 2012, (iii) 2013, (iv) 2014 and (v) the latest date for which figures are available.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    The FCO’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate has one team working directly on Russia, and a significant proportion of the work across the Directorate is also focused on Russia. In addition, many teams and staff at all grades across the wider FCO and its overseas network have responsibilities which relate directly or indirectly, to Russia.

    The breakdown of staff numbers for the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate in 2013-15 (overseas and at home) is as follows:

    31 March 2013 – 116

    31 March 2014 – 106

    31 March 2015 – 119

    31 October 2015 – 114

    Figures prior to 2013 are not available broken down by by Department. In 2014, following the crisis in Ukraine, we reinforced the FCO’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate by increasing the number of senior staff and deputy directors, as well as expanding the Russia and Ukraine Teams. This included an SMS 2 Director, in addition to an SMS 1 Additional Director. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 the Director position was graded at SMS 1. Other Government Departments have also increased resources on Russia.

  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of Russian airstrikes on (a) ISIL/Daesh targets on (b) non-ISIL/Daesh targets in Syria to date.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    The vast majority of Russian air strikes have been against Syrian opposition forces, not the terrorist organisation ISIL. Despite Russian government claims to the contrary, only a small minority of strikes have targeted locations where ISIL forces are present. Overwhelmingly, Russian air strikes have targeted Homs, Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo – areas where moderate opposition are concentrated. A map of Russian strikes is available on Twitter – @UKAgainstISIL. This is on the basis of reporting from international NGOs and actors on the ground.

  • Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-01-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what planning for post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction in Syria the Government has undertaken.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    The UK has factored the need for post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction into our planning from the beginning of the crisis and committed £1bn towards this. We are now working with international partners to coordinate stabilisation efforts as they develop, and to update our post-conflict planning to reflect the timeline envisaged in the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) process. We are ensuring that an internationally coordinated stabilisation mechanism is ready for a scenario in which transition has taken place, when delivery of stabilisation efforts to support political transition will be necessary. This all rests on an inclusive political settlement, which is why the UK is pushing hard for the ISSG to deliver transition leading to a ceasefire and an inclusive government which represents all Syrians. The Syria Conference in February provides an important opportunity to advance stabilisation and reconstruction planning.

  • Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, when he plans to publish the Human Rights and Democracy Report 2015.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    The FCO plans to publish the 2015 Human Rights and Democracy Report in April 2016.

  • Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-01-28.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, when the Government first received the Final Report of the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    Although this is a leaked document, we are aware of the report and are looking at the conclusions carefully. We recognise the importance of the work of the UN Panel of Experts and we are taking the allegations raised in the report seriously.

  • Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the Government recognises the killing of the Yazidis by Daesh as genocide.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    I condemn the atrocities committed by Daesh against all civilians, including Christians, Mandeans, Yezidis and other minorities, as well as the majority Muslim population in Iraq and Syria who continue to bear the brunt of Daesh’s brutality.

    It is a long-standing policy of successive governments that any judgements on whether genocide has occurred are a matter for the international judicial system rather than governments or other non-judicial bodies.

    Ultimately, the best way of preventing future atrocities is to defeat Daesh and its violent ideology.

  • Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-02-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Bahrainian counterpart on the arrest and sentencing of Ebrahim Sharif by that government.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    We have raised Ibrahim Sharif’s case with the Government of Bahrain. We regularly discuss human rights and reform with the Government of Bahrain, and call on the Bahraini Government to act proportionately in all such cases to protect the universal rights of freedom of expression and assembly. I most recently raised the issue of human rights when I met with the Bahraini Foreign Minister on 4 February.