Keir Starmer averts row with union leaders as Labour reiterates ‘full commitment’ to new deal for working people – as it happened

During the urgent question on the WHO pandemic preparedness treaty, the shadow health minister Andrew Gwynne said Labour would not support anything that would “leave our population unprotected in the face of a novel disease”. He asked for an assurance that the government “will not sign up to anything that would compromise the UK’s ability to take domestic decisions on national public health measures”.

Andrew Stephenson, the health minister, said the WHO would have to “fully respect national sovereignty” for a treaty to be acceptable.

The Conservative MP Danny Kruger, co-chair of the New Conservatives, a group representing rightwing Tories, welcomed what Andrew Stephenson said in his opening statement about the WHO treaty. (See 2pm.) But, in a follow-up to his urgent question, he asked Stephenson to set out what the government’s red lines were. He said that the latest draft of the treaty was concerning, and that it would still give the WHO considerable powers to direct how national governments should respond to a pandemic.

In response, Stephenson, a health minister, said that the current draft of the treaty was not acceptable to the government.

UPDATE: Kruger said:

We know from the drafts that have been submitted in recent months what the real agenda of the WHO is. They want to have binding powers over national governments to introduce all sorts of restrictive measures on our citizens …

Will the government oppose any texts that abides this or a future government in how it responds to health threats? And finally, crucially, will the government comply with CRaG [Constitutional Reform and Governance Act], the requirements to put the treaty to a ratification vote in parliament?

And Stephenson replied:

The current text is not acceptable to us, therefore unless the current text is changed and refined we will not be signing up.

The UK treaty-making process means the accord is, of course, negotiated and agreed by the government. Parliament plays an important part in scrutinising treaties under the CRaG process and determining how international obligations should be reflected domestically.

It’s important to remember that because the exact form of the board has not yet been agreed, the parliamentary and the adoption process will depend on which article of the WHO constitution the accord is adopted under.

Andrew Stephenson, a health minister, has urged MPs to dismiss “myths” being spread about a World Health Organisation pandemic preparedness treaty that the UK is considering supporting.

He was responding to an urgent question tabled by the Tory MP Danny Kruger. But the issue is one that has been highlighted aggressively by Nigel Farage, the Reform UK honorary president, on rightwing broadcasting channels. Yesterday Farage told Talk TV:

In two weeks’ time in Geneva, the World Health Organisation are meeting and they plan a pandemic treaty, and that’ll be binding on us, under international law.

It would give the World Health Organisation the ability, number one, to take away 20% of our PPE and vaccines to give to other parts of the world.

Number two, give them the power to dictate behaviour, such as mask mandates, such as not being able to travel without being jabbed goodness knows how many times and, the really big one, they would be able to say to us, this is now a global pandemic, you must lock down. Which of course, would take away from us the ability to do what Florida did, or to do what Sweden did, which we now learn a few years on, has led to far less long term harm in that country and that state.

In his opening statement, withour referring to Farage, Stephenson said he wanted to dispel “myths” about the proposed WHO treaty.

He said member states were negotiating the treaty, not the WHO. And he said that it was “simply not true” to claim it would require countries to give away 20% of their vaccines. Instead, there was talk about a voluntary mechanism that would involve firms agreeing to give away vaccines in return for information that would help them develop their products, he said.

He said the government would only sign up to a deal that respected UK national sovereignty and that there was no prospect of the UK allowing the WHO to mandate lockdowns.

Under no circumstances will we allow the WHO to have the power to mandate lockdowns, this would be unthinkable and has never been proposed. Protecting our sovereignty is a British red line.

Stephenson also stressed that, as yet, there is no treaty to sign up to.

The government will only accept the accord and targeted amendments to the international health regulations if they are firmly in the United Kingdom’s national interest, and no text has yet been agreed.

Jim Shannon (DUP) asked for an assurance that the court ruling would not stop asylum seekers being removed from Northern Ireland to Britain.

Pursglove said he would write to Shannon about this. But he said the Rwanda policy was being implemented on a UK-wide basis.

Christopher Chope (Con) told Pursglove his position was “manifestly absurd”. Echoing what the DUP’s Carla Lockhart said, he urged the government to legislate to exempt Northern Ireland from EU law.

Pursglove said the government was still taking legal advice.

The DUP’s Carla Lockhart said, instead of appealing, the government should legislate to ensure that EU law now longer has supremacy in Northern Ireland. She said appealing against the decision just amounted to stringing the people of Northern Ireland along.

Pursglove said the government would take all steps to resolve this, including appealing.

Joanna Cherry (SNP), chair of the joint committee on human rights, said yesterday’s judgment confirmed her committee’s assessment that the Rwanda policy does not comply with human rights law.

Pursglove said the government was operationalising the Rwanda policy on the basis of the Nationality and Borders Act. He claimed the yesterday’s judgment was not relevant because it applied to the Illegal Migration Act.

Gregory Campbell (DUP) asked Pursglove to explain why the government did not accept the DUP amendment to the Illegal Migraton Act that might have closed this loophole.

Pursglove said he was not minister at the time. But the record of the debate would speak for itself, he said.

Mark Francois, the Tory chair of the European Research Group, said with regard to the Windsor framework, “we told you so”. And he said the Tories should now commit to renegotiate the European convention on human rights, with a view to leaving if other countries did not agree.

Theresa Villiers, a former Northern Ireland secrtary, asked what the government was doing to stop asylum seekers going to Northern Ireland to avoid deportation to Rwanda.

In reponse, Pursglove repeated the point about the Rwanda scheme being operationalised on a UK-wide basis. He claimed there would be no benefit for asylum seekers in going to Nothern Ireland.