Results 1-20 of 2,588 for in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates' speaker:Stewart Jackson

Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister: Petrol Prices (15 May 2013)

Stewart Jackson: This is an issue of parliamentary sovereignty as much as anything else. One thing people say, and one of the most pernicious opinions in the wider electorate, is that the Government only look after big business and not ordinary working families, and—most importantly—that quangos are non-accountable. When will the Secretary of State look hard at the efficacy and accountability of...

Health and Social Care (13 May 2013)

Stewart Jackson: My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that we should take the blandishments of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) in respect of Romania and Bulgaria with a pinch of salt, given that the Labour Government predicted that between 13,000 and 15,000 eastern European citizens would come to the UK, yet over 1.2 million have come here since 2004? Labour got the...

Prime Minister: Abu Qatada (24 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: The framers of the European convention on human rights never intended that it should usurp the autonomy of UK jurisdiction or the sovereignty of Parliament. The Home Secretary needs to be bold and look at the example of other countries with regards to the efficacy of suspension from the European Court of Human Rights. Apart from the wilder shores of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour left,...

[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair] — Backbench business — Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania) (22 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: May I just set the record straight? I represent a constituency which has had, in no particular order, Irish, Italian, Polish and Pakistani immigrants, and I do not have a problem with the essential integral concept of immigration. It is just the speed and the scale that is the issue.

[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair] — Backbench business — Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania) (22 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: Thank you, Mr Howarth, for allowing me to speak. I apologise for not being present for the whole debate: I have been on other House duties. It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute to this very important debate. I thank a number of people, but principally my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for his courage in taking forward this issue, which has sometimes proved...

[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair] — Backbench business — Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania) (22 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent and sensible point—that is exactly the case. We have worked with local authorities, such as Westminster, Telford and Wrekin, the London borough of Barking and Dagenham and others, and argued for some time that the measurement of population is too prescriptive, too opaque and does not take into account the speed of change in housing tenure and primary...

[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair] — Backbench business — Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania) (22 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: My hon. Friend tempts me down a path that might get me into trouble with the Chairman, but he has put that important and pertinent point on the record. We do not need to speculate and look into the crystal ball; we know what happened. In 2004, the London School of Economics put together a research paper, which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) tells us was 85 pages long. The...

[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair] — Backbench business — Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania) (22 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: I pay tribute to the excellent work that my hon. Friend has done on this issue over the past few years. Is not the problem that some of our policy makers do not understand the impact of these large demographic changes on a small number of geographical areas? My hon. Friend knows that in my constituency 34,000 national insurance numbers were issued in eight years, in a city of 150,000 people....

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: The hon. Lady anticipates my next point. By any respectable indicators over the past few years, the cash reserves that British business has for investment are enormous. The issue is business confidence. To develop that point, parts of the economy are doing significantly better than others and have not been affected by this cyclical change, which has lasted since the onset of the Northern Rock...

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: The hon. Gentleman might say that, but it is incumbent on Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to specify the amounts and where the cuts would be made in other ways. It is not acceptable to dodge the issue, and that goes even for the simple question of what is “strong growth”. At what stage would that be measured? How would we quantify “strong growth”? It is rather...

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: Exactly. We could argue at length about the progressiveness of various taxes—no doubt others would want to—but my right hon. Friend makes an astute point. The final example is council tax. That depends on the local authority, but in general, most councils have frozen council tax. Therefore, the suite or portfolio of the Government’s fiscal changes that have helped working...

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). I am not sure that it is necessarily a pleasure for the Whips, because the Committee will know that in the last Budget I was not exactly that supportive of my party on VAT, having opposed VAT on caravans and, by virtue of my being the Member of Parliament for Peterborough, on ecclesiastical buildings. I would...

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: I am following the hon. Lady’s speech with interest and read the new clause with greater interest. She really has not addressed the issue raised by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). The new clause represents a spending commitment. Given that she is not able to specify what “strong growth” means, how will she fill the fiscal gap? Will she increase another tax,...

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: rose—

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: rose—

Finance (No. 2) Bill: New Clause 2 — Rate of VAT (18 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: The hon. Lady is being most generous in giving way. Surely it is churlish of her not to concede that most independent specialists, such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, have said that as a result of the fiscal changes since 2010 the biggest impact has been felt among the richest 10% of earners in the country. Is it not fair to put that on the record, too?

[1st Allocated Day]: New Clause 1 — Government housing market support (second homes) (17 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: rose—

[1st Allocated Day]: New Clause 1 — Government housing market support (second homes) (17 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. We would take his critique a little more seriously, had not his Government’s regional spatial strategy delivered the lowest number of homes since 1923, doubled the number of homeless families and built 117,000 homes on flood plains between 1997 and 2005. Is that not the reality of the Government he supported between 1997 and 2010?

[1st Allocated Day]: New Clause 1 — Government housing market support (second homes) (17 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: I pay tribute to the Minister, who does indeed know what he is talking about, having been, like me, a member of the board of management of the New Local Government Network. If there is a Labour Government within the next year or so, will the hon. Gentleman abolish the affordable rent model and put funding directly back into social rent—yes or no?

Business without Debate: Development orders: development within the curtilage of a dwelling house (16 April 2013)

Stewart Jackson: Does my hon. Friend not agree with me, however, that it would have been easier to persuade the House of the merits of these proposals if the indicative costs of, say, the enforcement action likely under the new regime, and indeed the indicative economic benefit referred to by the Secretary of State, had been made more explicit in the course of the debate?