David Lidington: I will be the frank with the House: it will be a great wrench to leave this place after 27 years. You know what they say, Madam Deputy Speaker: folks are often kindest when they know you are on your way out, and there have been occasions in the past week since I announced my intention to step down when I have felt that I have been granted the privilege of attending my own funeral oration...
David Lidington: I am delighted to be able to associate myself with and wholeheartedly support the motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I want to say two things about my memories of Rose. First, from those few minutes at the beginning of our parliamentary days when the Speaker’s Chaplain reads a psalm and leads us in a brief session of prayer, I will always remember the sheer...
David Lidington: Is not the flaw in my right hon. Friend’s argument that rather than gifting to the Leader of the Opposition only the choice about whether he might agree to a particular revised programme motion, the Government should instead have given the House as a whole that opportunity? Is it not the Government’s refusal to give the House as a whole that opportunity that is causing the criticisms that...
David Lidington: From you, Mr Speaker, I take that as a compliment. Will my hon. Friend instruct HS2 Ltd that it and its contractors should follow its own construction code and give local residents along phase 1 due and proper advance notice of the enabling works that it intends to carry out, instead of the high-handed, peremptory and arrogant approach that HS2 Ltd is currently taking?
David Lidington: The Bill and the agreement that it seeks to implement represent a compromise. It is a compromise that I believe is acceptable, but I will not conceal the fact that I and many other Members on this side of the House will find elements of it difficult and uncomfortable. My decision to support the Government tonight rests above all on what I and the great majority of Members on both sides of the...
David Lidington: I shall come on to that point, but I want to say a few sentences about the consent mechanism. I understand the disquiet that has been expressed by those on the Unionist Benches about the design of the mechanism. It is nevertheless worth noting that that mechanism gives to Stormont a power that is unique in Europe. No other regional Parliament or Assembly anywhere else in Europe has the...
David Lidington: I recognise the concerns expressed by business, although I also note that the view expressed by business representative organisations in Northern Ireland has generally been that Parliament should go ahead with this deal and enact the legislation, but then address the concerns that the hon. Gentleman rightly identifies that they raised. I therefore ask my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench...
David Lidington: If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, time is limited. I believe that this House also needs to take account of the shift we are seeing in attitudes among other Governments in the European Union. Sometimes I think that colleagues in this House are a little guilty of wishful thinking. Frankly, those Governments are no longer hanging on, hoping somehow that the United Kingdom is going to...
David Lidington: I welcome what my hon. and learned Friend has said about the pilot projects now under way and wish them success. Since up to 30%, by some estimates, of people sleeping rough on the streets have a prison record, does she agree that one of the best ways to secure a reduction in reoffending is to step up these schemes and ensure that when someone has served their time, they have a roof over...
David Lidington: Having had responsibility for a time for judicial appointments, including approving those of the current Lord Chief Justice and the current President of the Supreme Court, may I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to endorse the fact that the track record of the Judicial Appointments Commission shows that it makes its recommendations, having looked at the available candidates, with the...
David Lidington: rose—
David Lidington: While completely supporting the need to engage in rigorous contingency planning, as my right hon. Friend is doing, can I ask him also to confirm that in Northern Ireland, in the absence of an Executive, the civil service there lacks the necessary powers to take the mitigating measures that he is rightly putting in place for England, and will he say what plans the Government have to introduce...
David Lidington: Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. May I—as an elector in the Buckingham constituency, not least—offer an expression of thanks to you for your work as a constituency Member of Parliament over the past 22 years? Talking to neighbours and acquaintances in all parts of the Buckingham constituency over the years that you have represented it, I have been struck by the fact that men...
David Lidington: I welcome my right hon. Friend to his responsibilities. Does he agree that it would be frankly unconscionable for any Government to lead us into a no-deal Brexit in which the Northern Ireland civil service lacked the legal powers and authority to cope with those circumstances? Does this not point to the need for legislation to be introduced and enacted before the end of October?
David Lidington: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the Government’s review of HS2.
David Lidington: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his new responsibilities and welcome the review that the Government have set up. I have three questions for my right hon. Friend. First, in view of this week’s revelation that HS2 is overrunning both its budget and its schedule—something that many of us have been predicting for a long time but that has been systematically...
David Lidington: May I first genuinely thank the right hon. Lady for her kind words at the start of her remarks? I think it is fair to say that when we have tilted lances at each other we have done so in the spirit of mutual respect, even if it has sometimes been no holds barred in terms of the professional combat in which we have been engaged. If I can seek to respond to the questions the right hon. Lady...
David Lidington: I am grateful for my right hon. and learned Friend’s welcome for Sir Adrian’s report and the new principles that the Government have accepted. I was expecting him to express disappointment about our decision with regard to a judge-led inquiry. I do not want to spend too much time going over old ground, but, as I said in response to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury...
David Lidington: I cannot speculate about what an incoming Administration might or might not do. I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for her welcome for the principles, but I disagree with her on this point: I do not see that a revived judge-led inquiry would add anything to the actions that have already been taken. The Government and the agencies have accepted that things were done wrong, for various...
David Lidington: My right hon. Friend has been pursuing these issues for quite a long time now. He has always been absolutely consistent in the position he has taken, and I respect that position even though the Government disagree with his views. Going back to the question about witnesses at the ISC, the offer was always there for agency chiefs, senior officials and Ministers to speak on behalf of officers...