Results 1-20 of 258 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Geoffrey Cox

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: New Clause 8 — MCZs: duty to manage and mitigate impacts upon existing activities (26 Oct 2009) has video

Geoffrey Cox: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the equal application of the law is fundamental to its respect? The situation that he is powerfully and rightly describing is likely to bring the law that the Minister is introducing into disrepute. For example, if Belgian beam trawlers are hoovering up fish on the edge of the 6-mile limit in an area that is a marine conservation zone, that will cause...

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department: New Clause 8 — MCZs: duty to manage and mitigate impacts upon existing activities (26 Oct 2009) has video

Geoffrey Cox: Does my hon. Friend agree that the demonisation of the fishing industry by some of those to whom I have been listening this evening is unhelpful and unfair? In my constituency, the fishing industry has co-operated in maintaining the pioneering no-take zone around the island of Lundy, with which Labour Members may be familiar, for many years. The no-take zone has resulted in much greater...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Olner, and to have secured this debate on a subject of increasing importance throughout the country. I should say that I speak with a degree of personal interest because I have relatives in sheltered housing who have experienced the benefit of that form of care for a number of years. It is an amazing fact, when one first reads it,...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I would agree with the hon. Gentleman on the general principle, although it is difficult to know about the individual circumstances. Although this is sometimes difficult in the House, I want to avoid the tit-for-tat mudslinging that the debate could descend into. I want to invite hon. Members to embark on a real review and analysis of the changes taking place throughout the country. The...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: Yes. I agree also that vacancies have driven change; the hon. Gentleman might suggest—I would not necessarily demur if he did—that they are often manipulated and engineered to produce a situation in which the home or the development is essentially changed in nature. Today, however, I wish to place the spotlight firmly on the changes going forward under the aegis of the Supporting...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is no doubt that the kind of environment that a warden can create will prevent the decline among elderly people that can often lead to knock-on and consequential costs of a much higher order. However, I can see the other side of the argument, which has been expressed to me by the county council in my area. It is that floating support allows the release...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I do not, because if it is done at the expense of the insecurity of mind of a single elderly person—the House will recall that even as I speak I am reflecting upon the faces of loved ones—if it is done at the expense of a single trace of anxiety in them, I deplore it. If they and others like them have to go to the High Court of England and Wales to seek consultation and democratic...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I accept that. It is the burden of my submission to the Chamber this morning. There are cases when nothing but a resident warden will do. If we are to make residents feel that they have been consulted, there are times when, if the majority of residents in a particular housing development vote or express the clear wish that they do not want their resident warden to go, it would be wrong to...

[Mr. Bill Olner in the Chair] — Wardens (Sheltered Housing) (20 Oct 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I still do not accept the point. In the sheltered housing schemes that I have seen, the wardens may not be around all day, but they are known to be somewhere they can easily be reached. That sense of permanent presence conveys confidence and security to the frail and vulnerable. I was speaking about a situation where individuals have made important decisions to their detriment, based on the...

Opposition Day — [16th Allotted Day]: Caring for the Elderly (15 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I shall try to confine my remarks, to make them relatively short and, in the spirit of my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), to avoid the partisan rhetoric in which it is too tempting to engage on the eve of a by-election. I was, if I may say so, struck by the sincerity and dignity with which the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) addressed the House, and...

Opposition Day — [16th Allotted Day]: Caring for the Elderly (15 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: Plainly, the detail needs to be examined. I can think of solutions through the insurance system that would not necessarily mean that the money was lost if one did not subsequently have to call on the insurance fund, and other techniques could be used. The danger is that there would be no incentive to engage in it. However, it would be retrograde and unfortunate simply to have a tax on those...

Opposition Day — [16th Allotted Day]: Caring for the Elderly (15 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I do not know whether the Minister has had a chance to read the report of the Select Committee, on which her party's representatives predominate. One of its criticisms of the winter fuel allowance is that it is extremely poorly targeted and goes to those who pay higher rates of tax. The Select Committee has made a recommendation that money could be saved by withdrawing the allowance from the...

Bill Presented: New Clause 1 — Entitlement to British citizenship by certain citizens of the Republic of Ireland (14 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case on an issue I was not aware of before he brought it to the attention of the House, and I am by no means unsympathetic to it. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman can help me, however: what is to stop a person in the position he is delineating from applying for British citizenship in the usual way?

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: The Secretary of State, almost certainly for reasons of forensic and rhetorical flourish, is misrepresenting and mischaracterising the policy of the party to which I belong. As he knows very well, our policy is to replace the schedule to the Human Rights Act with a new Bill of Rights based on British rights, devised and drafted here. There is nothing wrong with that, and many eminent people...

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: You need a Fisherman's Friend.

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I should understand that, were it a reason for preventing somebody from voting, but the argument is that a British citizen has a sufficiently substantive connection with what is going on in this country to be allowed to vote and to stand in an election, but not to donate. The suggestion that there is somehow a moral or rational justification for the measure, based on the fact that somebody...

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not stray down that particular avenue. I am trying to engage with the hon. Member for Cambridge, who gave a thoughtful and impressive speech. He deliberated carefully and pieced his way through with careful fidelity to principle, and it is in that spirit that I want to try to answer.

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: My right hon. Friend may well be right. I want to concentrate on the question of whether the proposed measure would have an impact within the context of the Human Rights Act and article 10, which is about freedom of expression. Unlike the hon. Member for Cambridge, I think that that is a real issue. The European Court of Human Rights has plainly considered that the right to donate, to put...

Political Parties and Elections Bill (Extension of Carry-over): Clause 8 — Declaration as to source of donation (13 Jul 2009)

Geoffrey Cox: I am going to steer away from partisan rhetoric, because there are some fundamental points that must be considered. I have in mind, particularly, the gauntlet that the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) so thoughtfully threw down to me, regarding what might be the legitimate objective of the Government's amendments. It has caused me a degree of reflection, because what was striking in...