Results 1-20 of 1,040 for speaker:Michael Mates

Oral Answers to Questions — Defence: Equipment Renewal (13 Jul 2009) has video

Michael Mates: Does the Secretary of State share my disappointment at the fact that we seem to be losing the argument about Trident purely because of the financial bill? Would it not be better if, rather than his giving us holding replies as he did today and referring back to 2006, we started an open debate about the strategy and the options—as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest,...

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

Michael Mates: I am not following the right hon. Lady in her criticisms, but if memory serves me correctly, there were 44 meetings of the Cabinet between September and when we went to war. The Attorney-General attended only two of them. Did the right hon. Lady, who was there, find it strange that in that legal morass, the Government's legal adviser was never there?

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

Michael Mates: I was not trying to argue either for or against regime change. What I was saying, and what I think the Chilcot committee needs to consider, is that it is illegal in international law. That is a fact. The question is, was it driving the policy, or was the policy driven by something else?

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

Michael Mates: I am not going to follow the line of public versus private, oath versus no oath. Those foxes have been comprehensively shot by the strength of opinion that has been expressed on both sides of the House. I am perfectly certain that if the Government wish to survive, they will have to listen to what has been said and do something about it. I have had the privilege of being part of two inquiries...

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

Michael Mates: That is not what I was saying. I was saying that there was not a comprehensive plan as to how to handle Iraq once the war was over. That was largely in the hands of the United States, which was taking the lead in all this, and I know that some of our Ministers tried manfully to get the US to focus on the matter. All of that needs to be examined in the Chilcot inquiry. Our inquiry saw quite a...

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

Michael Mates: I will leave the interpreter of mandarin to draw his own conclusions. The whole UK-US relationship must obviously be examined too. There are reams of papers that explain and reveal how the two were interacting in that relationship and how that led to certain decisions being taken that, if they had been presented differently, might have been taken differently. There were crucial reports of the...

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

Michael Mates: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Let me finish by saying that it is rather an insult to us as professional politicians to be told by a Prime Minister that we would be partisan if we took part in such an inquiry. I had the pleasure of chairing the Select Committee on Defence for six years—I was a member of it for 12 years—and I chaired the Northern Ireland Committee for four...

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

Michael Mates: I hope, but I obviously cannot predict, that the inquiry will work in the same way as Committees of the House. I had the honour of chairing the Defence Committee when we were holding some very sensitive inquiries into the Trident programme. It was more or less up to the witness to say, "That is a question I cannot answer in public, but I will answer in private." We would go into private...

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: So does this.

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: Ten shillings a week.

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: Natural causes.

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: The Minister is dealing with the Bill fairly, but it is very hard to explain these anomalies to certain people who are suffering from them. The scheme he talked about would clearly be unaffordable, so that is a pragmatic reason for not implementing it. But providing for this particular group of people is not unaffordable—or is it? We do not know because he has not yet given us any figures.

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure he needs to get off his feet for a minute in the middle of this marathon. The figure of £30 million that he quotes is the same figure as we were quoted last year, and it was quoted eight years ago. It must have varied because there are fewer widows. Where does he get it from? How many widows are there? How much would the proposed change cost per...

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: The Minister destroys his own argument. If the figure is based on the course of nature, and we know that there are far fewer widows—they are all in their 80s—how has it remained at £30 million for the past six years? It has been plucked out of the air by an official who thinks that he will get his Minister to quote it and get away with it, but it is not satisfactory, is it?

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: I am almost sure that there were no pension provisions for reserve forces before 1973, so there cannot be any reserve forces widows who have pensions. However, I am not absolutely certain.

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As we come to the end of today's debate, may I make a serious point of order to you about the way in which we do our business in private Members' time? I do this because we now have a short window of opportunity during the interregnum between Speakers when you and all the other candidates are advocating the need to change some of the ways in which we...

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not want to put you in that position. I wanted to say to all of you that I hope that this matter is really going to be looked at.

Prayers: Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The past three hours have seen the House of Commons at its very best. All parties have been striving to improve the condition of a minority whose conditions need improving. I wonder whether it is too much to ask that that spirit continues for the next hour or so and that the minority whom my Bill addresses will be treated in the same...

Prayers: Autism Bill (19 Jun 2009) has video

Michael Mates: May I congratulate the hon. Lady unreservedly on the way in which she has been dealing with her speech on this Bill for one hour now, largely uninterrupted, on a subject that she has admitted is not hers? May I remind her, too, that another of her colleagues is equally eager to show that he cares about a small minority whose needs are just as great as those of the minority we have been...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Michael Mates: No, it does not—it has nine.