Results 1-20 of 533 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Robert Marshall-Andrews

Bill Presented: Coroners and Justice Bill (9 Nov 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I will be very brief—briefer than I would otherwise be—one reason being that like many Members of the House, I would like to hear the views of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), if, indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you were minded to call him at any stage. In that hope, I will be as brief as I can be. I am grateful to be able to make a...

Bill Presented: Coroners and Justice Bill (9 Nov 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose—

Bill Presented: Coroners and Justice Bill (9 Nov 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Does my right hon. Friend not understand that it is a question of scale? In any jury system there are always problems with public interest immunity—there always have been—and we get round them by a mixture of evidential routes that has served us extremely well. We now have a problem in one case—just one case in five years—and to rectify that evidential problem the...

Bill Presented: Coroners and Justice Bill (9 Nov 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: This assessment must have been made so will the Secretary of State please tell us how many inquests—shall we say in the last five years—he estimates would have been affected by this Executive intervention?

Government Policy (Torture Overseas) (7 Jul 2009)

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I understand, as well as anybody, the Minister's reticence to deal with any case that is sub judice, whether before the initial court or before the Court of Appeal. What I do not understand, because he has gone on to deal with the general, rather than the particular, is why we cannot address the very simple issue in this case: that this man, who was plainly under investigation as a terrorist,...

Opposition Day — [14th allotted day]: Iraq Inquiry (24 Jun 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: The passage to which I think the right hon. Gentleman is referring is exactly the mandarin passage that I had in mind, when Lord Butler said that, taking everything together, the committee was "surprised" that none of the intelligence being placed before the Government was reflected in the statements being made. The word "surprised" in mandarin does not mean: "Good Lord! Is that the time?" It...

Opposition Day — [14th allotted day]: Iraq Inquiry (24 Jun 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Many art forms thrive as a result of warfare, but none more, as a result of the Iraq war, than the art of sophistry. The ancient art of the sophist took apparently wise and irrefutable statements which, when they are carefully examined in the context in which they are made, turn out to be utterly without reason. There was no better example of that than the words that fell from the Prime...

Opposition Day — [14th allotted day]: Iraq Inquiry (24 Jun 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: My good and hon. Friend shakes his head when I say that, but let us have an inquiry to find out, and then, at least, something that has passed between he and I will be laid to rest. It is we who were misled, if we were misled, and it is to us that the inquiry must answer and it is to us to set the terms of reference of that committee. The terms of reference are not in themselves a matter of...

Oral Answers to Questions — Children, Schools and Families: Iraq (15 Jun 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: In the history of the conflict, two political matters cry out for explanation more than any other. The first is why the House was never informed of the contents of the Downing street minute that revealed knowledge six months before the conflict that the Bush Administration had decided on the inevitability of war, whatever concessions were made. The second matter that requires explanation is...

Employment Retention: Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (3 Mar 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Most hon. Members remember that the legislation was passed immediately before the last general election. Many of us regard that as at least one reason for the Labour party's sustaining a seismic loss in its popular vote in the months that followed. The Government pray in aid the independence of the judiciary for sustaining the legislation, claiming that we can pass such legislation safely...

Employment Retention: Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (3 Mar 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am interested in the example that my right hon. Friend gave about the atrocity that took place in the past 48 hours against Sri Lankan cricketers. That happened in a country that not only has access to control orders, but has access to regular torture of suspects. I should have thought that if ever there was an example of repressive measures not controlling terrorism, it was that one.

Gaza (15 Jan 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I wonder if my hon. Friend can answer the following question, which I also put earlier. If there is systematic use by Hamas of civilians, schools, hospitals and the like in order to shield weaponry, why are journalists not allowed into the Gaza strip so that that can be verified independently?

Gaza (15 Jan 2009) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) would not give way to answer questions, so I wonder whether he will have a shot at answering this one. If there is any truth in the allegation that there is a deliberate and normal use of civilians as human shields—in other words, that they bring the attacks on...

Business of the House: Speaker's Committee on the Search of Offices on the Parliamentary Estate (8 Dec 2008) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Business of the House (8 Dec 2008) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: May I inform you, Mr. Speaker, that one of the reasons why the Labour Benches are so gratifyingly full is that we are on a four-line box—a form of Whip that I have never seen before, but one that is a thinly disguised three-line Whip? It is wholly inappropriate that parliamentary business of this kind should be conducted under a three-line Whip, which I hope that many of my hon. Friends...

Bill Presented: Heathrow (11 Nov 2008) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: The great Paul Theroux begins one of his finest travel books by saying that it is "no coincidence that none of the 650 major languages and dialects contains a sentence, phrase or clause that even approximates to the words, 'as pretty as an airport.'" That is particularly true of urban airports, of which Heathrow might be advanced as an exemplar. They are paradoxes, and they destroy lives, as...

Bill Presented: Heathrow (11 Nov 2008) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Of course. The hon. Gentleman is going to say that it is not George III.

Bill Presented: Heathrow (11 Nov 2008) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Absolutely. Heathrow is, of course, a curse and, in some ways, a blessing for those who live around it. Those who have lived around it—I declare an interest, because I have, to a greater or lesser extent, for 40 years, so I know about it—have come over the years to a sort of melioration, a sort of understanding, with the airport. It is based on certain concessions that have been...

Bill Presented: Heathrow (11 Nov 2008) has video

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I simply offer the hon. Lady another example. As I think she knows, many schools in her constituency plan their curriculum around runway alternation every week.

Bill Presented: Heathrow (11 Nov 2008)

Robert Marshall-Andrews: The Secretary of State talks about not increasing the area in which noise will be a significant blight. Does he not understand that area is only one of the parameters? The other is the extent and the timing of the noise. One of the things that concerns most people about Heathrow is the end of runway alternation. At the moment, at least half of their days are silent. For the other half, of...