Bernard Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Bernard Jenkin: It is not a matter of interpretation, because it seems to me that this amendment would create exactly the kind of conflict and disruption to public peace that it is intended to avoid? If somebody kneels ostentatiously to pray in front of someone on their way to an abortion clinic, what is that intended to do? This amendment says that “such communication or prayer shall not, without more, be...
Bernard Jenkin: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), because His Majesty the King was visiting my constituency today, so I arrived back too late to hear him propose the amendment. It is worth pointing out, however, that both Houses have now voted heavily in favour of the principle of buffer zones. We have to understand the passions behind what is proposed, but it is...
Bernard Jenkin: Can we be clear about the fact that, inexplicably, what has been happening has been completely legal? Nothing has changed since the gas and electricity Acts of the 1980s, and, indeed, the Rights of Entry (Gas and Electricity Boards) Act dates from 1954. Can the Minister explain whose decision it was that the courts should start issuing warrants for the forcible fitting of prepayment meters...
Bernard Jenkin: I am on my feet because I have a crustacean industry in my constituency, and I also represent a constituent, Charles Clover, who is director of the Blue Marine Foundation. I have also read Jenni Russell’s commentary about this in The Times, which I find to be compelling. I am disappointed by many of the exchanges that have taken place, and there has clearly been a huge breakdown of trust....
Bernard Jenkin: I thank my hon. and learned Friend and the Government for the exemplary way in which the UK Government have led on all this. They have made a very significant and considerable change in the atmosphere over the past few days. But what about France? What discussions are taking place with it? If we want NATO unity, it is now the odd man out because it is not sending tanks. Does the Minister...
Bernard Jenkin: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement—what a blessing it is to have someone who knows so much about farming at the Dispatch Box—and in particular for his emphasis on food security, which, as we can now see, has been too neglected for too long. It is clear from the current food price inflation and shortages in the shops that we need better food security. Perhaps he would like to...
Bernard Jenkin: I thank everyone who has taken part ably in this debate, and my hon. Friend the Minister for his response. I would point out to the Scottish nationalists that I do not think that President Putin would have attacked Ukraine if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons. But the main point that I wish to make—for all the positive things that my hon. Friend said—is that it is complacent to say that...
Bernard Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Bernard Jenkin: I reflect on the irony that one of the reasons why some of us wanted to leave the European Union was that it was insisting on having its own defence policy and armed forces, ostensibly in order to be independent of the United States, because of course it is NATO that guarantees peace in Europe and the EU would be incapable of doing so on its own. So it is a bit of an irony that Germany is...
Bernard Jenkin: In fact, it is even worse than that. The state-controlled media in Serbia simply broadcasts Russian propaganda and has recently accused Ukraine of killing its own civilians, when in fact those civilians were being killed by Russian missile attacks.
Bernard Jenkin: I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of Russia’s grand strategy. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate again, because I secured a debate last year about the same topic. Then, I outlined Putin’s global policy and I set out how Russia was threatening Ukraine as part of a campaign of blackmail and hybrid warfare directed at the Americans and...
Bernard Jenkin: I think that we are in denial of not just a cold war, but a hot war. The hot war that is being conducted in Ukraine is laced with rhetoric and invective about NATO being the threat and about the United States of America provoking that threat, so NATO and the United States must somehow be defeated in this war. If we do not understand that Putin is now conducting a hybrid and political war...
Bernard Jenkin: I regard the United States as our closest and most important ally and personally I love the United States of America, but on its response to this crisis—it has been voluminous compared with that of the rest of Europe and a lot of money has been devoted to it—its signalling has been very weak. What matters in wartime is not what red lines we set; it is what we actually do. I am afraid our...
Bernard Jenkin: I certainly think that is the case, and I think the constant fear of our escalating the conflict has been misplaced because Putin has escalated the conflict anyway. There is nothing we can do to prevent him from escalating. In fact, the signal we have sent by being too timid and too slow in sending support into Ukraine has encouraged him to escalate. There is no deterrence in timidity, which...
Bernard Jenkin: I entirely agree with that, but in more direct response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), the timidity of the Germans not just to release their own tanks, but to allow the tanks of other nations, such as Poland, to be sent into the conflict to support the Ukrainians sends more than a signal of timidity—it is appeasement. I am sorry to use that...
Bernard Jenkin: I will, but I do want to press on, and I will probably be overrunning my time very shortly.
Bernard Jenkin: We should not trash what the Government have done, which is considerable, but we should point out that the failure to do much more—much more—is going to cost us in the short term, the medium term and the long term. We must also dispense with the false hopes that some kind of regime change would be likely to reverse the Russian urge to control its near abroad, or to use its army as a tool...
Bernard Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
